THE 
 
 RELIGIOUS & SOCIAL QUESTION, 
 
 BY 
 
 ISAAC PEREIRE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 MISS TWEMLOW. 
 
 The aim of all social institutions should be the amelioration of the moral, intel* 
 lectual, and physical condition of the poorest and moBt numerous class. 
 
 Everything by labour; everything for labour. 
 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 Price Two Shillings . 
 
UNWIN BROTHERS, THF. GRESHAM PRESS, CHILWORTH AND LONDON. 
 
 \e~ie f/vhv 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH . 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PAPACY DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY ... ... 7 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FAULTS OF CIVIL SOCIETY ... ... ... 14 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 SOCIETY WITHOUT RELIGION. 23 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE CAUSES OF IRRELIGION. . 28 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SOCIAL MORALITY . 34 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE THREE ECONOMICAL PHASES 
 
 40 
 
IV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII; 
 
 PAGR 
 
 CHARITY AND CREDIT. 47 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 god’s reign on earth . 57 
 
 Chapter x. 
 
 THE PACIFIC REORGANISATION OF EUROPE... ... ... 65 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY ... ... ... 75 
 
 APPENDIX. . ... ... 93 
 
THE 
 
 .licliijious anti Snnal (Question. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 In 1825, Saint Simon, a man whose doctrines have 
 exercised considerable influence upon the events and 
 ideas of our age—addressing himself to the head of 
 Christianity — gave the following definition of the 
 mission incumbent on the Pope and the Church. 
 
 “ Your predecessors have sufficiently perfected and 
 propagated the theory of Christianity. The applica¬ 
 tion of its doctrines should now be your chief aim. 
 Christianity in its true practical sense ought to render 
 mankind happy, not only in heaven, but on earth. It 
 is not enough to teach and profess that the poor are 
 God’s privileged children. Every effort should be 
 made, every available means should be used, by the 
 Church militant to improve the moral and physical 
 condition of the most numerous class of human 
 beings. You should boldly proclaim to all monarchs 
 2 
 
2 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 that the only true way in which royalty can he 
 rendered lawful is to consider it as an institution 
 founded for the purpose of protecting the poor from 
 the oppression of the rich and powerful. 
 
 “ The clergy up to the present time have exhorted 
 the faithful to employ their lives in the attainment 
 of a metaphysical guerdon—heaven. All Christians 
 aspire incontestably after eternal life. The surest 
 means of securing it is to strive to better the con¬ 
 ditions of our fellow-creatures in this present life. 
 Most Holy Father, humanity is now undergoing a 
 great intellectual crisis. Three new elements have 
 arisen: a revival of the fine arts; the development 
 of science, ever adding to the superstructure of our 
 already acquired knowledge; and those great indus¬ 
 trial enterprises which tend more immediately to 
 ameliorate the fate of the poorer classes than any 
 measures as yet taken by either spiritual or temporal 
 powers. Thege three elements belong to the pacific 
 order, and consequently it would be to your interest 
 and to the interest of the clergy to enter into compact 
 with them.” 
 
 We could not withstand the desire to quote at 
 length this fine exhortation, so admirably suited to the 
 present situation, that one might imagine it was of 
 yesterday. 
 
 The social and moral crisis, anticipated and de¬ 
 fined by Saint Simon more than half a century ago, 
 has developed itself with irresistible power. A new 
 order of things has sprung up, and uncontrollable 
 events have compelled statesmen and men of belief, 
 as well as men of science, to recognise the immense 
 
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 3 
 
 evolutions of our time, and endeavour to satisfy its 
 just aspirations and necessities. 
 
 Let us examine what is the new existing order. It 
 is the advancement—unthought of heretofore—of those 
 great popular masses who, having achieved the rights 
 of liberty and equality, now impose on modern society 
 the obligation of solving the two difficult problems of 
 labour and pauperism. 
 
 Secular power, seconded by science and industry, 
 has undertaken this arduous task. 
 
 The Church remains inactive. This sudden eman¬ 
 cipation of the people has struck her with a feeling of 
 awe and terror, similar to that provoked in Luther’s 
 time by the emancipation of thought. She opposes 
 resistance to the wonderful impulse propelling the 
 whole human family on towards the future; she 
 wages open war with the social revolution, just as, 
 in former ages, she combated religious reform. 
 
 How strangely blind must she be not to recognise 
 in the transformation taking place in the world, not 
 an unholy work subversive of Christianity, but, on 
 the contrary, a providential fact, the realisation of 
 the Christian idea in its purest and highest sense ! 
 
 What tendencies are manifest in this modern 
 theory ? The alleviation of the sufferings of the poor • 
 the improvement of the condition of the majority- 
 the dissemination of education which raises the moral 
 standard; the multiplying of charitable and provident 
 institutions for the benefit of the suffering and labour¬ 
 ing classes. 
 
 There is an universal endeavour to reduce the scale 
 of misery; to enlarge the limits of comfort and ease; 
 
4 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 to end the revolutionary era by the earnest application 
 of just ideas, and by giving due satisfaction to all 
 lawful claims. 
 
 We have incessantly called upon governments to 
 direct all their endeavours to this fundamental ques¬ 
 tion, instead of allowing themselves to be absorbed by 
 the barren quibbles of party spirit. 
 
 And to the Church we affirm that never was there 
 a religious work more worthy of her solicitude, or 
 more in accordance "with the teaching of her Divine 
 Master. Is it not one of her first principles to be a 
 mother to the lowly, to console the afflicted, and to 
 protect the oppressed ? And now that it is high time 
 to seek some efficacious remedy for the crying hard¬ 
 ships endured by the lower orders, is it possible for 
 her to refuse her concurrence in an undertaking of 
 such real civilisation and true piety ? 
 
 Let her recall her history and traditions. Did 
 she not uproot Paganism, civilise savages, give free¬ 
 dom to slaves, and proclaim the holy bond of fra¬ 
 ternity and unity of the human family ? And who 
 affranchised the peasant and protected the serf against 
 feudal despotism in the Middle Ages ? 
 
 At the present day, in the shadowy depths of societv, 
 and in the rugged paths of labour, there are crowds of 
 human beings in whom this modern era has created 
 fresh wants which must be satisfied, and new rights to 
 which we cannot close our eyes. To secure to them 
 a certain amount of well-being by strengthening their 
 moral principles is henceforth the highest duty of 
 those who govern nations, and of those whose voca¬ 
 tion it is to enlighten and guide the human con¬ 
 science. It devolves on the Church, which destroyed 
 
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 5 
 
 slavery and feudal service of old, to take the lead 
 now in improving the fate of the labouring classes. 
 And in this she will be fulfilling the work of universal 
 redemption defined by her Divine founder in the fol¬ 
 lowing maxims : — “ Suffer the lowly to come unto 
 me; ” “ Love one another,” and “ Love thy neighbour 
 as thyself.” 
 
 Modern society furnishes the Church with the power 
 needed to accomplish so great and glorious a mission. 
 Science, industry, and liberty are at her command. 
 Liberty, the boon which has realised in our social 
 laws the Christian doctrine of the unity of the whole 
 human race. Science, which, through its marvellous 
 discoveries and inventions, is continually improving 
 the moral and physical condition of life, and spreading 
 civilisation by bringing different races in contact with 
 each other. Industry, which, by its extensive develop¬ 
 ment, furnishes work and food to millions of families. 
 
 Now where could religion find more powerful auxi¬ 
 liaries, if willing to devote itself to the vast and noble 
 apostolate which the wants of the present day assign 
 to it — if, as heretofore, it would declare itself the 
 champion of the feeble, the unhappy, and the dis¬ 
 inherited ? 
 
 It seems incredible that, instead of turning to 
 account these great social levers, the Church has 
 denounced them as inimical to the general welfare 
 of men, and has struggled vehemently against them; 
 instead of using them to secure the triumph of the 
 high principles of human and Divine justice, of which 
 she is the interpreter, science is stigmatized as lead¬ 
 ing to unbelief, and liberty condemned by her as 
 dangerous. 
 
6 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 This question is too vital to be treated super¬ 
 ficially. We propose to examine it in the following 
 chapters, and shall endeavour to signalise the causes 
 which have induced this lamentable antagonism. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PAPACY DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Until the sixteenth century, the Papacy and the 
 Church were the true incarnation of social progress, 
 the very soul of civilisation. They courageously 
 unfurled the banner of peace, propelled moral and 
 material progress, and preached the Gospel law of 
 love and goodwill among men. And at that epoch 
 their power was as great as their aim was exalted. 
 Popes at that day exercised a noble sway. They 
 were the protectors of the weak against the powerful ; 
 advocated the cause of peoples oppressed by their 
 monarchs; converted and civilised barbarians; strove 
 to reform abuses and check the excesses of power; dic¬ 
 tating authoritatively to nations, as, for example, to 
 Spain and Portugal, the sphere of their influence on 
 civilisation, intervening as umpires in the strife of 
 empires, and imposing God’s truce on all. 
 
 The course of civilisation cannot be stopped. It 
 is ever advancing. The ascending movement of 
 humanity is everlasting. To guide it, as to follow 
 it, it is requisite to go onwards, step by step, but ever 
 on and on. Unhappily, at the close of the fifteenth 
 century, the Church made a halt. Though all was 
 
8 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 moving in advance, she remained stationary. Not con¬ 
 tent with endeavouring to cheek social progress, she 
 sought to confiscate some of the benefits acquired. 
 From this moment dates the terrible conflict still rife 
 between faith and science, between Borne and the 
 rest of the world. 
 
 To which of the antagonists belongs the responsi¬ 
 bility of this fatal strife ? 
 
 To the Papacy, evidently. 
 
 Society followed its natural course of progress and 
 development. The Church, on the contrary, sud¬ 
 denly veered round, and ignored the immense revo¬ 
 lution, both in facts and ideas, which was then being 
 effected. The continent of America had just been 
 discovered. Printing invented, arts, science, and 
 literature attained a wonderful degree of develop¬ 
 ment. Commerce and industry found fresh channels 
 for their activity in the New World. The human 
 mind, aroused from its long torpor, emitted rays that 
 illuminated the universe. A general renovation 
 marked the close of the Middle Ages and the dawn of 
 modern times. 
 
 If the Papacy had taken the lead of this irresistible 
 tendency and transformation, how great had been its 
 influence! But, so far from considering it a provi¬ 
 dential fact destined to raise and perfect humanity 
 by an inexplicable aberration it was regarded with 
 enmity, and stigmatized as the destroyer of the pre¬ 
 vious system, a revolution that would engender ruin 
 to the pre-existing social system, and, abdicating the 
 right to guide it took up arms to combat, the new- 
 oin ideas. This lamentable error is attributable to 
 
THE PAPACY DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 9 
 
 the radical change wrought in the constitution of the 
 Roman pontificate towards the end of the middle ages. 
 
 The Papacy was no longer an essentially spiritual 
 and religious power, such as it had been during the 
 first six centuries of its existence; it had gradually 
 waxed into an absolute monarchy, and was deeply 
 imbued with the spirit of domination appertaining to 
 earthly kingdomship. 
 
 That fatal gift of the Carlovingian princes, endow¬ 
 ing the Papal see with St. Peter’s patrimony, did not 
 fail to estrange it from the purpose and principles of 
 its institution. Once established as a political power, 
 it endorsed the conditions of existence of temporal 
 governments. The Church of Rome was converted 
 into the Court of Rome. The Vicars of Jesus Christ 
 had faithful believers, the Sovereign Pontiff had liege 
 subjects. For six centuries he had reigned over souls 
 by mere spiritual influence. He now reigned by all 
 the paraphernalia and mechanism of secular power, 
 the chief preoccupation of which was to dominate. 
 To civilise was no longer the bent of the Head of the 
 Church. 
 
 The inevitable and fatal consequence of this situ¬ 
 ation was that Rome, instead of shielding the subject 
 from the tyranny of the monarch, became the abettor 
 of these in enslaving and oppressing the people. 
 Leo X. and Charles V. consummated the alliance be¬ 
 tween the throne and the altar, which had been skil¬ 
 fully prepared by their predecessors since the time of 
 Hildebrand—a disastrous alliance, binding them to 
 an obstinate opposition to modem society, and which 
 must end in the overthrow of both. Princes engaged 
 

 10 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 in the service of the Church the whole strength of 
 temporal power, the popes placed at the service of 
 princes the whole army of spiritual weapons, and 
 with one common accord both declared implacable 
 war against the spirit of progress and liberty. 
 
 At this crisis the formidable society of the Jesuits 
 was founded as a reactionary army. The fathers of 
 this order were styled the Janissaries of his Holi¬ 
 ness, and with reason. It may be said of them that 
 they are as a sword, the hilt of which is at Home, and 
 the point everywhere. 
 
 Then was the cruel tribunal of the inquisition 
 invested with power to purge the Christian com¬ 
 munity of all heretics and all under suspicion of 
 rebellion to or dissidence with the Catholic profession 
 of faith; executions and tortures were multiplied, and 
 the masses were terror - struck at the spectacle of 
 numberless auto-cla-fes. 
 
 Then it was that the ignorance, superstition, and 
 fanaticism of the people were exploited and speculated 
 on in order to create funds for the luxurious appa¬ 
 nage of cardinals and prelates elevated to the rank 
 of princes of the Church, and to meet the exigencies 
 of the war organised against the march of mind. 
 The resources which could not be obtained from mere 
 piety were exacted by a system of venality unparal¬ 
 leled in history. To coin money everything became 
 saleable, this world and the next, benefices, dispen¬ 
 sations, exemptions, all ecclesiastical posts, college- 
 stalls, places in purgatory, and places in paradise; 
 but more lively and lucrative than all was the traffic 
 in indulgences, i.e., the remission of sins, and abso- 
 
THE PAPACY DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 11 
 
 lution, i.e.y amnesty granted to crimes and crimi¬ 
 nals. 
 
 In the midst of this corruption and decay Luther 
 appeared. 
 
 The Papacy was as unintelligent touching this re¬ 
 ligious insurrection, headed by the fiery monk of 
 Wittenburg, as it had shown itself towards the social 
 transformation of the preceding age. It refused to 
 look facts boldly in the face, and acknowledge that 
 Luther’s revolt was a protestation of reason and con¬ 
 science, and that the might with which he hurled it 
 against the Church was rendered tenfold greater by 
 the strength of opinions of which he was the incar¬ 
 nation. Had the Church taken the initiative of a 
 salutary and radical reformation, the threatened 
 danger might have been avoided. She decided in 
 favour of battle, and let loose the scourges of reli¬ 
 gious wars in Europe. And what did she gain in this 
 struggle, which left Protestantism triumphant and the 
 Catholic Church vanquished, inasmuch as more than 
 two hundred millions of souls, over which she hereto¬ 
 fore held sway, escaped from within her pale ? Eng¬ 
 land, Germany, Sweden, and the Low Countries 
 irretrievably separated from Catholicism. The laity, 
 as the logical result of Luther’s doctrines, shook off 
 the trammels of theocratical tuition. Freed from 
 these leading - strings, a laic state was constituted 
 even in Catholic countries, and the ancient prestige of 
 Papacy on kings and peoples declined perceptibly 
 more and more. 
 
 From this period civil and political society has 
 invariably kept itself distinct from religious society. 
 
12 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 Science has pursued its luminous course, upsetting 
 . the mystical dogmatism of the dark ages by its ad¬ 
 mirable discoveries. 
 
 Philosophy has cast aside the narrow swathings 
 of theology, and plunged unshackled into the depths 
 of metaphysical and moral problems. 
 
 Democracy, developed by the emancipation of man¬ 
 kind, conscious of its strength, depending solely on 
 itself for the eventual triumph of its aspirations, 
 deserts the Church, anon its protectress, but now 
 leagued against it with the feudal aristocracy. 
 
 And this gigantic movement of events and ideas, 
 which for three centuries fills the world’s history^ 
 terminated with the thunderbolt of ’89—the comple¬ 
 tion of Luther’s work—and in the appalling experience 
 of ’93, in which the Catholic Church was all but 
 wrecked. 
 
 Now what does this rapid sketch of papal grandeur 
 during the Middle Ages, and of its decadence in 
 modern times, prove ? 
 
 Just this : when the Boman pontificate adapted 
 itself to the wishes and wants of society; when it 
 resolutely took the lead of civilisation, its power and 
 greatness were as profitable to the well-being and 
 morality of the world, as to the influence and autho¬ 
 rity of religion. But so soon as it wrestled with the 
 providential law of social progress, lessened, weakened, 
 and discredited, it lost all hold on the destinies of 
 humanity. 
 
 At the close of the eighteenth, just as at the end of 
 the fifteenth century, a new order of things was in¬ 
 augurated, modifying considerably the conditions of 
 
THE PAPACY DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 13 
 
 life; the principles and institutions of modern society; 
 and once again, in spite of past lessons and past 
 experience, the Church beholds the transformation 
 effected, but persists in the faults and errors we have 
 summarily pointed out, obstinately resisting the 
 political and social revolution with the selfsame arms 
 employed against the religious revolution, though she 
 risks splitting on the same rocks. 
 
 We will examine her hearing in the late struggle, in 
 which she stakes her existence, and, it may be, the 
 destinies of the modern world, and strive to show how 
 she may yet avert the danger which threatens us as 
 well as herself. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FAULTS OF CIVIL SOCIETY. 
 
 Above all, we wish to avoid misapprehension of the 
 feelings which inspire this study of the causes which 
 have separated, since the sixteenth century, the Papacy 
 from modern society : in our review of this unhappy 
 division we have exercised impartial judgment and 
 independent opinions. 
 
 It is foreign to our purpose to irritate public 
 passions by the picture of faults committed, or to 
 become the echo of the enemies and calumniators of 
 the Church. Our aim is to deduce higher lessons 
 from historical facts. 
 
 This antagonism between religion and society we 
 consider as a great calamity for the sacred cause of 
 civilisation and progress. The important movement 
 of ’89 will, in our opinion, be complete when it is 
 verified, perfected, and modulated by religion, and not 
 until then. On the other hand, the Church can only 
 regain the influence which escaped her through an 
 imprudent line of policy touching the development of 
 facts and ideas, by unreservedly accepting all that is 
 right and true in the religious revolution of the six¬ 
 teenth century, and in the social revolution of the 
 nineteenth. 
 
THE FAULTS OF CIVIL SOCIETY. 
 
 15 
 
 We would fain point out in its just light tlie grave 
 error made by the Church in her struggle against the 
 irresistible course of modern ideas, combating instead 
 of guiding and purifying them; and at the same time 
 demonstrate to the social order the enormous fault it 
 would commit were it to deprive its work of civilisa¬ 
 tion of the co-operation of religion. 
 
 We have frankly stated the mistakes committed 
 by the court of Rome during the last three centuries. 
 We shall not he more reticent in treating of the 
 blame to be attached to the laity in its dealings 
 with the Church in the eighteenth and nineteenth 
 centuries. 
 
 There are faults on both sides, and the evil passions 
 excited by this warfare have brought to an acute crisis 
 a conflict which might have been averted at its dawn, 
 if the two contending parties had calmly reflected on 
 the state of the present and the wants of the future. 
 
 Although in 1789 the Church was vanquished by 
 science and philosophy in the order of ideas and 
 thoughts, she was nevertheless omnipotent in the 
 order of facts. Leaning on political power, she con¬ 
 verted it into a formidable weapon against her enemies. 
 The bond between throne and altar was closer than 
 ever. Both were equally threatened by the march of 
 ideas. Royalty and Papacy fought with unrelenting 
 energy against the current which was impelling the 
 world to Liberty, the power and grandeur of which 
 they alike ignored. 
 
 When democracy appeared on the stage of action, 
 political and religious theocracy was defeated. 
 “Divine right,” covering with its mystical prestige 
 
16 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 both kings and popes, was superseded by “ human 
 right.” Liberty of conscience, the fundamental prin¬ 
 ciple of Protestantism, spread from the ranks of 
 theological and philosophical controversy into those 
 of positive legislation; whilst the sovereignty of the 
 monarch was translated to the nation amidst the 
 ruins of feudality. 
 
 But, as in all great social revolutions, the fiends 
 of passion were let loose, and the bounds and aim of 
 the movement were violently transgressed. During 
 the whole of the eighteenth century the Encyclo¬ 
 paedists had raised the cry of “Destruction to the 
 Infamous ! ” and designated the Church to the hatred 
 of the human race. Consequently the first effort of 
 the victorious party was to execute vengeance on that 
 Catholicism which they had been taught to regard as 
 their implacable enemy. 
 
 Theocracy, which had previously persecuted its ad¬ 
 versaries, was in its turn persecuted by the Bevolu- 
 tion. The arms it had used were now turned against 
 itself, and the warfare between the two antagonistic 
 principles assumed the brutal character imparted by 
 demagogical passions to all popular revolt. 
 
 The undeniable wrongs of civil liberty towards 
 religion began by this outburst of political violence 
 and cruelty. 
 
 We do not merely allude to the appalling crimes 
 to which the clergy fell victims during the reign of 
 terror—they inspire every honest heart with horror— 
 we take a higher point of view, and judge the Devolu¬ 
 tion in its attitude towards the Church. 
 
 The men of that day, impregnated with the doc- 
 
THE FAULTS OF CIVIL SOCIETY. 
 
 17 
 
 trines of the theorists of the eighteenth century, were 
 guilty of precisely the same error towards the Church 
 which the Church made in her conduct to the Be- 
 formation. 
 
 It was deemed possible to destroy by brute force 
 Luther’s revolutionary mission. His doctrines were 
 anathematised, his disciples burnt at the stake—vain 
 illusion to suppose that the sword or flames can 
 conquer or annihilate ideas ! 
 
 In like manner the Bevolution sought to crush the 
 Church by closing all places of worship, and by the 
 massacre of priests, hoping in this wise to stamp out 
 the soul of religion. It seemed ignorant or heedless 
 of the fact that the whole power of religion is con¬ 
 tained in its moral principles and in its influence on 
 the soul—an influence which defies and takes pre¬ 
 cedence of all the assaults of powers. 
 
 The question was not better understood by the more 
 moderate section of the revolutionary party, when, 
 following Joseph the Second’s example, they wished 
 to endow the clergy with a civil constitution. The 
 pretension to render the Church subservient to the 
 State is just as absurd as was that of the Papacy to 
 subject the State to the absolute dominion of the 
 Church. How can civil power decide on theological 
 questions ? It is incompetent to give judgment on 
 dogmas, and with what right can it interfere with in¬ 
 ternal ecclesiastical discipline ? So long as a dogma 
 does not endanger public peace, or give rise to de¬ 
 linquencies, it should remain unmolested. The most 
 opprobrious of all tyrannies is that which scrutinises 
 the mystery of conscience. 
 
 3 
 
18 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 Dogmas undergo transformations adapted to the 
 growth of human reason and to the necessities of 
 society. An eminent philosopher of the present time, 
 M. Jouffroy, has told us how they become super¬ 
 annuated, and how they die out. Then if the sap of 
 life be exhausted in them, suffer them to die a 
 natural death. Cling more firmly to morality, the 
 basis of all healthy societies, the chief generator of 
 what is beautiful, what is true, and what is useful. 
 It was a monstrous contradiction to claim the power 
 of imposing on the Church the doctrines she should 
 teach, after having asserted for ages the individual 
 right of thought and belief. 
 
 Nevertheless such was the spirit that inspired the 
 Concordat of 1802. Religion was to be subjected to 
 the views of the State; it was to he placed under 
 restraint by the Gallican doctrines against which the 
 Church of Rome constantly protested. By this means 
 it was hoped Gallicanism would gain strength; on 
 the contrary, it was the enfeebling element, and from 
 that moment Ultramontanism became alarmingly 
 powerful. 
 
 The major fault committed by philosophers of the 
 last century, by the Revolution, and by the laity, is not 
 having understood that if theocracy was a social and 
 moral tyranny, the errors and excesses of which must 
 be purged, religion is a salutary and saving power, 
 which ought to have been recognised and courted as 
 auxiliary in the revolution. 
 
 Nothing could possibly be more dangerous and 
 fatal than to destroy the traditional faith of the 
 masses, and have nothing to offer in its stead. 
 
THE FAULTS OF CIVIL SOCIETY. 
 
 19 
 
 Neither the vague deism of the Encyclopaedists, 
 nor the pagan festivals of the goddess Reason, could 
 be substitutes for the mystic influence exercised by 
 the Christian faith on the minds and morals of the 
 people. 
 
 It became incumbent on the leaders of the social 
 evolution since 1789 to seek the concurrence of the 
 Church in the development of the new state, and to 
 end the strife of ages by investing religion with the 
 authority, the respect, and the guarantees requisite 
 to ensure the accomplishment of her mission of peace 
 and civilisation. 
 
 It will be objected that this noble position was 
 offered to and rejected by the Church which persisted 
 in its stubborn resistance to modem ideas. 
 
 Unfortunately the Church in the nineteenth century 
 has been as intolerant and implacable as in preceding 
 ages. The inflexible non possuvius has been her 
 answer to the overtures and claims made by the 
 laity. But we must not deceive ourselves: the laity 
 have not laid down their arms more than the Church. 
 Its acts, its combinations, its manifestations all bear 
 the stamp of a spirit of mistrust and hostility, which 
 was but too apparent to the court of Rome. Liberal¬ 
 ism would have been under suspicion had it not 
 affected to be anti-religious. It has exerted every 
 effort to trammel and domineer over Catholic teach¬ 
 ing; and nothing has been done to counteract the 
 religious indifference which characterises our epoch 
 and which ends fatally and infallibly in atheism, 
 egotism, and a spirit of individualism, destructive 
 to all societies. Nothing has been done to replenish 
 
20 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 the void caused by the negation of God, to remedy the 
 absence of all guidance—the moral anarchy, the rapid 
 strides of which threatened the essential foundations 
 of social order even more than it did those of religion. 
 
 A spirit of concord and conciliation cannot reason¬ 
 ably he expected from the Church so long as her 
 opponents give no sign of a sincere desire to be 
 reconciled. 
 
 The Church remains to the revolutionists of to¬ 
 day the enemy that must he overthrown, the “ In¬ 
 famous ” that must be annihilated. 
 
 Incessant endeavours in divers directions have been 
 made to carry out this work of destruction. The 
 property and wealth bestowed in former times on the 
 clergy have been wrenched from them, under pretext 
 that they were misappropriated, in a way contrary to 
 the interest of the social community; and in this wise 
 they have evaded the influence of the Vatican, con¬ 
 stituting National and Independent Churches, and 
 have destroyed the temporal power of the Pontiff in 
 Ptome itself. 
 
 That this abolition of the temporal power is less 
 prejudicial to the Church than is supposed, we are 
 convinced, provided that sufficient compensation be 
 made her. 
 
 As yet the Church has not recovered from the 
 violence of the blow dealt her. Who shall stigma¬ 
 tise as a crime her wrath at the spoliation made on 
 her ? 
 
 To facilitate the requisite reconciliation, modern 
 society should not haggle on the score of just com¬ 
 pensation. The present Head of the Church might 
 
THE FAULTS OF CIVIL SOCIETY. 
 
 21 
 
 conscientiously accept such terms, for lie recognised 
 in one of his pastoral letters, when Archbishop of 
 Perugia, (f that Catholics had never considered as a 
 dogma the temporal power of the Popes.” * 
 
 It will be allowed that we observe strict and loyal 
 impartiality in this study of the religious question. 
 We point out the faults of civil society without weak¬ 
 ness or vehemence, and in the same spirit we signalise 
 those of religious society. 
 
 We attempt to convince unbiassed minds, be they 
 partisans of the Papacy or disciples of the Revolu¬ 
 tion, that on both sides wrong paths have been chosen. 
 The Church was wrong in upholding the despotism 
 of theocracy in opposition to the providential ad¬ 
 vancement of humanity. The Revolution was wrong 
 in its effort to uproot the dogmas of the Catholic 
 faith, and to render the Church subservient to State 
 despotism. 
 
 There must be mutual concessions, a loyal truce 
 made to this contention, in which the unconquerable 
 force of modern events will undoubtedly paralyse the 
 action of the Church, and the moral force of the 
 Church will inevitably impede the march of the 
 Revolution, whereas an alliance between religious 
 authority and civil power could only conduce to the 
 definitive triumph of the great civilising principles of 
 our age. 
 
 It is to be deplored that this work of peace and 
 good will is constantly checked by misapprehen¬ 
 sions and adverse passions, which threaten to sub¬ 
 merge it irretrievably. To be just, the obstacles it 
 
 * Pastoral letter on tlie Temporal Power. 1860. 
 
22 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 encounters come more from the Church than from 
 the laity. It remains for us to examine these im¬ 
 pediments, in order to complete this analysis of the 
 present situation. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SOCIETY WITHOUT RELIGION. 
 
 We must confess that, as a rule, the modern policy 
 of the Roman court has been systematically hostile 
 to the development of science and liberty, and that it 
 has made use of the whole arsenal of spiritual and 
 temporal arms in order to combat and check the spirit 
 of the present age. 
 
 On the other hand, it is no less certain that secular 
 society has armed itself cap-a-pie against religion, 
 and done its utmost to stifle and subjugate it. 
 
 Some believers, priests even, and, what is more, 
 popes, have valiantly proclaimed the urgency of a 
 sincere consonance between reason and faith, be¬ 
 tween religious ideas and social facts. The Church 
 possesses among its members both liberal and learned 
 men. 
 
 Who but remembers the bold initiative taken by 
 Pius IX. at the commencement of his pontificate ? 
 Who but has read the admirable letters in which 
 the present Pope Leo XIII., when Archbishop of 
 Perugia, pays solemn homage to science and industry, 
 acknowledging the eminent services the world owe.' 
 to Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Linnaeus, anc. 
 citing the life of Jesus and the apostles as the con- 
 
24 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 secration of the honour clue to labour the source of 
 all wealth ? * But these are, alas ! only isolated facts, 
 which have worked no change in the stolid resistance 
 of the Boman Curia. There the Society of Jesuits 
 rules supreme. Gallicanism has been suppressed, 
 and the exclusive preponderance of Ultramontanism 
 established by it throughout the globe; its congre¬ 
 gations are established, acting as an army, to which 
 the regular parish clergy are held subordinate owing 
 to its influence; the whole Catholic community is 
 condemned to a system of excessive centralisation; 
 and, finally, it retains the Pope a prisoner in the 
 Vatican, the better to guard him from all contact 
 with the outer modern world. 
 
 Some laws have also manifested a sincerely reli¬ 
 gious spirit, and a strong desire to effect a salutary 
 combination between the moral power of the Church 
 and the social power of the State; hut their efforts 
 have been nullified by the violent revolutionary 
 passion of enmity towards Catholicism. 
 
 Thus the helm of guidance has remained in the 
 hands of fanatics, violence and hatred have insti¬ 
 gated their mutual proceedings, and the gulf of sepa¬ 
 ration yawns wider and wider than ever between the 
 two camps. 
 
 The main effort of each has been to dominate, not 
 to civilise. The heads of the Church have striven to 
 seize their waning power over kings and peoples, 
 the heads of democracy to enslave and oppress the 
 Church. The first have yoked their cause to the old 
 
 * Sermon on the Church and Civilisation, Feb. 6, 1877. See 
 Appendix. 
 
SOCIETY WITHOUT RELIGION. 
 
 25 
 
 decaying regimes —systems withering under modern 
 ideas — which render them absolute ; they range 
 themselves under the banners of absolute right to 
 combat the defenders of popular right; they have 
 promoted every reactionary movement to stem the 
 irresistible torrent hearing nations on to freedom, 
 and in doing so have kindled into flames the violence 
 of political passions against religion. 
 
 The other party, having recourse to all possible 
 revolutionary means, has persecuted religion in its 
 ministers, in its rights, in its teaching, and in all its 
 ostensible manifestations. We have witnessed scenes 
 of violence against the Church in France, and if an 
 ear were lent to the suggestions of those who are 
 constantly haranguing the populace that this is the 
 enemy to he crushed, we should still he liable to 
 see a renewal of these deplorable persecutions. In 
 Switzerland and Germany this system is rife. The 
 so-called Kulturkampf has unscrupulously attacked 
 both Catholic prelates and Catholic institutions. 
 
 The result of this fatal strife is not only a general 
 weakening of those creeds and persuasions which sus¬ 
 tained the spirit of man and strengthened his morality 
 in filling his heart with courage, hope, and consolation, 
 but it has a consequent tendency to spread confusion 
 in the principles on which society is based, to shake 
 the foundations of it. 
 
 The Catholic Church, it must be recognised, is the 
 only one strong enough to exercise a powerful social 
 influence. 
 
 Protestantism has undoubtedly done humanity 
 good service, emancipating thought and claiming 
 
26 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 liberty of conscience; but it has not been its privi¬ 
 lege to create that strength of religious belief which 
 binds and excites mankind in one common transport 
 of unified faith. On the contrary, Luther sowed the 
 seeds of that most dangerous of all elements to faith, 
 viz., individualism. Creeds are crumbled into atoms 
 by the right of individual investigation and rejection. 
 From the exercise of this attribute have sprung up 
 the numberless sects to be found in every Protestant 
 country. The collective bond is wanting in social 
 as well as religious action, and so far from pacifying 
 and civilising the world, Protestantism has rather 
 disseminated war between all ideas, creeds, passions, 
 and interests. 
 
 Hostility prevails universally in our day. 
 
 War between the Church and State. War between 
 the revolution, as it is understood by Jacobinism, and 
 religion, as it is represented by Jesuit fanatics. War 
 on every side. In the ranks of the laity Socialism 
 intent on the overthrow of the actual order of society; 
 the rulers of nations everywhere in danger of the 
 assassin’s dagger; all public powers shaken and 
 tottering; the artizan always in hostility with his 
 master; the poor at enmity with the rich; those 
 who possess anything in constant peril from the 
 numberless cohorts of those who possess nothing, 
 but live on from day to day, with no certain prospect 
 for the morrow; trade a prey to unlicensed competi¬ 
 tion ; science devoid of all co-ordination and concord; 
 instruction without religious principles, reduced to 
 mere technical teaching, converting men into blind 
 machines; and nations separating from one another, 
 
SOCIETY WITHOUT RELIGION. 
 
 27 
 
 reviving the barbarous doctrine of Might versus 
 Eight, and perpetually on the alert to encroach on 
 and exterminate each other. 
 
 Such is the fatal direction which a divorce be¬ 
 tween religion and civilisation gives to human pro¬ 
 gress. Law, it is true, still remains as a restraint 
 on this Pandemonium; but legal power can never 
 replace moral power. Law may punish evil, but it 
 can never create good; it holds the sword that 
 strikes, but not the torch that enlightens. It may 
 be the executioner, but never the teacher or apostle. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE CAUSES OF IRRELIGION. 
 
 Every critical epoch in the world’s history hears the 
 fatal stamp of irreligion. They are for nations, in the 
 pangs of childbirth, as dim twilight hours, when every 
 one wanders about in darkness, uncertain what road 
 to take and the end at which to aim, not knowing 
 exactly whether it is even or morning tide, whether 
 night will follow or day dawn. Reason falters, and 
 conscience is troubled. Truths accustomed to be 
 believed and trusted in during past ages are swept 
 away, and with them the institutions which were the 
 social interpretation of them. The new-born truths 
 are yet without a definite form; ruin is around. 
 The future is doubtful; doubt is the order of the 
 day; doubt even of the existence of God and of His 
 Providence, for, in the midst of chaotic disorder and 
 confusion, it would seem that He has suddenly with¬ 
 drawn from the government of the universe. For 
 the last three hundred years we have been passing 
 through one of these momentous crises. Every nerve 
 is strained to overthrow the old social and religious 
 institutions. This critical period has not yet at¬ 
 tained the organic phase in which society, recon¬ 
 stituted on a practical basis, can assimilate every 
 
THE CAUSES OF IRRELIGION. 
 
 29 
 
 element at its command to the great cause of civili¬ 
 sation and morality. 
 
 In this travail of decomposition, how could religion 
 remain erect? It is the more gravely stricken be¬ 
 cause the present revolution, begun by Luther’s 
 theory—the freedom of belief—developed by the revo¬ 
 lution of ’89, which declared the freedom of action, 
 attacks both Church and State. 
 
 Neither Church nor State was alive to the sublime 
 mission devolving on it when this violent tran¬ 
 sition from the past to the present order of things 
 took place. So far from placing their glory in the 
 realisation of the lawful aspirations of the age, 
 instead of taking the initiative of all necessary re¬ 
 forms, they had recourse to armed force to shelter 
 and shield their authority. 
 
 M. de Maistre, the implacable theorist of “ Divine 
 right,” in his doctrinal pages, declares the execu¬ 
 tioner to he the pivot of social order. 
 
 “ All greatness, power, and subordination repose 
 on the executioner. He is at once the dread and the 
 bond of human association. Efface this incompre¬ 
 hensible agent, and instantaneously chaos will sup¬ 
 plant order, thrones will be engulfed, and society 
 disappear.” 
 
 In effect, this fierce doctrine prevailed with princes. 
 They imagined that repression and compression were 
 all that was required to stifle the revolutionary move¬ 
 ment and save themselves. The same system is still 
 in force. The sword of justice and the headsman’s 
 axe are the arms used to arrest the current of ideas. 
 
 Germany gives us the twofold spectacle of her 
 
30 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 strife against Catholicism and Socialism, forgetful of 
 Luther’s noble maxim, “ Mind is not vanquished 
 by the sword, and error can only he conquered by 
 truth.” 
 
 Unmindful of the remarkable words of Ballanche, 
 “The sacred blood which flowed on the summit of 
 Golgotha abolished the law of expiation and protec¬ 
 tion by the shedding of blood. The promulgation of 
 the law of clemency and pardon forbids us to say, 
 with M. de Maistre, the apostle of the past, that the 
 scaffold is an altar erected in public places.” 
 
 When political power violated this law of mercy 
 and pardon in order to secure its exclusive authority, 
 then religious power should have insisted on its 
 vigour, and have exacted the respect and honour due 
 to it as the essential principle of universal pacifi¬ 
 cation. 
 
 But we have shown that, far from enforcing the 
 Divine precepts of the gospel, far from embracing as 
 heretofore the glorious apostolate and championship 
 of protecting the weak against the excesses of the 
 strong, the Church imprudently espoused the cause 
 of royalty, and joined with kings in an implacable 
 war against liberty and progress. In the grievous 
 conflict both Church and royalty received the same 
 death-thrusts. 
 
 It was the evident duty of the supreme head of 
 Christianity to withdraw from this dangerous soli¬ 
 darity, and, in lieu of struggling against the work of 
 renovation, the Papacy should have directed and con¬ 
 summated it by the vivifying element of religion* 
 without which every social revolution must he incom- 
 
THE CAUSES OF IRRELIGION. 
 
 31 
 
 plete and defective. Tlie safeguarding of temporal 
 power was the principal aim of Eome. Spiritual 
 interests were neglected in favour of material in¬ 
 terests ; the government of souls was supplanted by 
 zeal for worldly possessions, which have never ceased 
 to be a stumbling - block and impediment to the 
 Papacy, the aptitude and destiny of which are incom¬ 
 patible with state administration. 
 
 To preserve the speck of earth over which the 
 popes exercised political rule, that spiritual rule 
 which they exercised over the universe has been com¬ 
 promised. 
 
 Society is left to its spontaneous impulses. The 
 deep-rooted faith which attached it to the Church has 
 rapidly dwindled away with the respect for a power 
 by which it is abandoned. 
 
 Nay, more. Whilst royalty was crushing liberty 
 under law - consecrated despotism, the Church was 
 endeavouring to repress reason under dogmatical 
 despotism. 
 
 At a time when mankind recognised their right to 
 liberty of conscience and free examination, thirsting 
 after truth and light, the Church assumed a mys¬ 
 ticism requiring from her followers a greater degree 
 of blind faith than even in the middle ages, and 
 arrogating a supernatural gift which bids defiance to 
 both science and philosophy. Instead of adopting 
 and instilling fresh life into the conquests of human 
 intelligence, and converting them into a lever whereby 
 to act on modern society, she has anathematised 
 them, and has challenged her followers to set science 
 at nought and cleave to faith. 
 
32 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 Science was never destined to be at enmity with 
 religion. Does not every new discovery tend to give 
 man a higher notion of the Divinity ? By the study 
 of the wonders of creation and of the laws of Nature, 
 are we not led to glorify the great First Cause in the 
 manifestations of His power? The most illustrious 
 men of our modern scientific era were all believers. 
 
 Newton praised and revered God, whose might and 
 power were revealed to him in the law of gravitation. 
 He believed in His providence and designs on the 
 world.* Kepler, in a hymn of lofty inspiration, 
 thanks God for the marvellous simplicity of the plan 
 of universal organisation. Liebnitz declared that 
 the only value he attributed to the labours of science 
 was that it authorised his right to speak of God. 
 Bacon affirmed that a little science drifts man away 
 from God, but deep science draws him nearer to the 
 Deity. And again, that religion is the aroma which 
 purifies science. All agree to prove that the highest 
 expression of scientific inspiration blends itself inva¬ 
 riably with religious inspiration. 
 
 This struggle of faith against science has divided 
 two powers which ought, on the contrary, to repose 
 one on the other. The Church has driven away from 
 her the learned men whose discoveries annulled her 
 ancient dogmas. They naturally separated them¬ 
 selves from a religion which persecuted and pro¬ 
 scribed them. 
 
 It would be bold to say that science has become 
 atheistical, but it has certainly ceased to be religious. 
 
 * “ Deus, sine dominio, providentis et causis finalibus, nihil aliud 
 cst quam fatum et natura.”— Newton. 
 
THE CAUSES OF IRRELIGION. 
 
 38 
 
 It has been developed without the pale and, for the 
 most part, against the Church, denying (in the dis¬ 
 cussions on cosmogony and its mysteries) its mira¬ 
 cles, contesting its revelations, and scattering a 
 general incredulity in matters of faith. And this 
 state will last and daily increase so long as the 
 clergy refuses to assimilate itself with scientific pro¬ 
 gress, and gathers into its hands the whole group 
 of torches of the human intellect. Even M. de 
 Maistre vouchsafed to own that the antagonism exist¬ 
 ing between science and religion was fatal, and he 
 ends by prophesying their unavoidable reconciliation. 
 
 “ Wait until the natural affinity between religion 
 and science unite them in the praise of a single man 
 of genius. That man will be justly celebrated, and 
 will close the reign of the eighteenth century, which 
 is not yet closed.” 
 
 Is it not possible that Leo XIII. is that man ? It 
 would be a desideratum worthy of the liberal spirit of 
 the Archbishop of Perugia, who so brilliantly set 
 forth the intimate connection between faith and 
 science, to cement their union on the wide arena of 
 morality and social prescience. 
 
 4 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SOCIAL MORALITY. 
 
 It is important that those who do us the honour 
 of perusing these pages should be persuaded of the 
 practical aim we have in view. In analysing, with 
 an impartiality which all will admit, the regrettable 
 causes of the conflict which separates the Church 
 from modern society, our purpose is of a higher 
 nature than would he the mere exposition of the 
 reciprocal faults which have brought about this 
 antagonism. 
 
 We are the unflinching champions of a broad social 
 doctrine, which we have set forth in all its bearings 
 in a previous publication. A doctrine resumed in an 
 expressive form, which we again repeat, as it contains 
 the sum total of our programme, viz.—“The amelio¬ 
 ration of the lot of the majority; the appeasement 
 of men’s minds; internal order; the prosperity of 
 nations; the liberty of the people; the stability of 
 governments, depend on the right application of this 
 great principle of justice and prudence.” To achieve 
 this vast undertaking, every element of social strength 
 should be enlisted; none should be neglected, none 
 rejected. 
 
 Party spirit, political exclusiveness, the narrow in- 
 
SOCIAL MORALITY. 
 
 35 
 
 dividuality of science, the egoism of industry, must 
 all be set aside, or converge in one common effort, to 
 accomplish the constant development of the welfare, 
 intelligence, and morality of the masses deprived of 
 fortune’s favours. Influenced by the same feeling, we 
 exhort the representatives of religion to give up the 
 struggle against civilisation, to become reconciled to 
 science and industry, to join in promoting salutary 
 reforms in favour of the suffering labouring classes, 
 demoralised by misery and privations. 
 
 The system, to the triumph of which we devote our 
 whole energies, is compact, undivided, integral, a 
 series of connecting links. Our strongest hopes for 
 its success are based on the decisive concurrence of 
 religion. 
 
 Of all social powers, the Church is not only the 
 most important, by the influence which she exercises 
 over souls, she is so in a yet greater degree by the 
 strength of her organisation and by the passionate 
 zeal which animates her ministers. The day the 
 clergy take the lead in the social movement to further 
 the noblejcause of civilisation and progress, that day 
 victory will be secured. 
 
 In the present crisis, existing as it does, not only 
 in the national institutions and morals, but also in 
 ideas and in creeds, law is not sufficient; science and 
 industry are powerless. The austere but pacific voice 
 cf religion should be raised, and, in the name of those 
 high truths of which she is the Divine expression, 
 should resolve the social problem, which, without it, 
 will assuredly terminate by a convulsive solution. 
 We need apostles with or, rather, over legislators, 
 
36 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 philosophers, and manufacturers, to accomplish this 
 work of love and harmony. 
 
 And in such troublous times as the present, to 
 whom look, if not to the Church, to furnish apostles 
 capable of guiding and enlightening men’s minds ? 
 Where else shall we find missionaries ready to devote, 
 and, if needs be, sacrifice themselves for the salva¬ 
 tion of mankind ? Where else meet with men coura¬ 
 geous enough to preach right and justice, independent 
 enough to boldly speak the truth to the great men 
 of this world, to protest against the abuse of power, 
 to denounce the vices of social organisation, and to 
 defend the sacred interests of the humble and lowly ? 
 
 What a noble spectacle would offer, a Pope champion 
 of peace and civilisation, declaring a crusade for 
 concord vivified by liberty, glorified by science, and 
 sanctified by religion! 
 
 Let us for a moment imagine a Church represented, 
 not by the tortuous casuistry of the Jesuits, nor yet 
 by the fanatics of the Syllabus, but by a Peter the 
 Hermit of the nineteenth century, preaching in all 
 lands that the day for solving the great problem of 
 our age has dawned ! What bursts of enthusiasm 
 would acclaim the declaration that the law of might 
 and the right of conquest are for ever blotted out 
 from the code of nations; that no power will here¬ 
 after be lawful unless it use its authority to enrol 
 all institutions and all classes in the service of the 
 moral, intellectual, and material amelioration of the 
 masses ; that all peoples and parties have laid down 
 their weapons of warfare, henceforth to consecrate 
 their energies to the boundless work of true civilisa¬ 
 tion and true liberty! 
 
SOCIAL MORALITY. 
 
 37 
 
 On this vast stage we would fain place the Church, 
 in order that she regenerate herself at the Divine 
 sources of the gospel, and regenerate society at the 
 same time. 
 
 Instead of confining herself in worn-out dogmatical 
 forms, which are too easily upset by science and free 
 examination; instead of attaching herself exclu¬ 
 sively to the exercise of practices, the meaning of 
 which has become a dead letter even to the greater 
 number of the faithful, let her preach sound morality. 
 It ought to he understood and developed in all its 
 social applications. 
 
 Nothing is more just than that the Church should 
 have its creeds, its articles of faith, its dogmas, disci¬ 
 pline, and hierarchy. Let her liberty of conscience 
 and her supreme and absolute power in matters of 
 faith be respected. Dogmas are, alas ! apples of dis¬ 
 cord amongst mankind. They have lighted the 
 flames of religious wars, which, of all others, are 
 the most cruel and implacable. 
 
 The duty of the present day is to aim at union, to 
 efface disunion. The Church ought to draw near to 
 the people in attracting them to herself by the teach¬ 
 ing of simple, lucid, universal truth, and so enlighten 
 men’s consciences. She must regain the standing 
 that she took fifteen centuries ago, and as she then 
 transformed Eoman heathenism and civilised bar¬ 
 barians, so should she now, adapting herself to the 
 spirit of modern times, assume the lead in moral 
 instruction. 
 
 To succeed in this it will be requisite to enlarge the 
 margin of the primitive limits of the Christian teach- 
 
38 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 ing. Her first maxim was, “All men are brethren ;” 
 “ Love thy neighbour as thyself.” Herein lies the 
 holy law of individual morality, the manifestation of 
 which is charity. 
 
 And, indeed, Christianity is one immense effort of 
 universal charity. The Church found it impossible to 
 do away with the domination of the strong over the 
 feeble, so by inculcating the merit of good works she 
 sought to attenuate the rigour of unequal fate; and 
 no better remedy could have been devised to mitigate 
 the disparity of condition and the vices of the distribu¬ 
 tion of wealth. 
 
 All the many charitable foundations—the creation 
 and honour of the clergy—bear the stamp of this 
 generous inspiration. 
 
 Did the Church suppose this the crowning work of 
 her mission, convinced that so long as the world en¬ 
 dures there would be rich and poor ? 
 
 Charitable deeds were esteemed necessary to warm 
 the hearts of the rich towards their poorer brethren. 
 But there yet remains a field open to complete the 
 Christian apostolate. 
 
 To the maxim, “All men are brethren,” in which 
 there is more sentiment than practical organisation, 
 should be substituted a socially moral maxim, 
 broader in its principles and in its practices, viz., 
 
 All religions, all political and economical institu¬ 
 tions, should tend to the moral, intellectual, and phy¬ 
 sical amelioration of the poor labouring classes.” 
 
 To this great work of real civilisation, we un¬ 
 ceasingly convoke priests, statesmen, and philosophers 
 for its ultimate success. The reconciliation between 
 
SOCIAL MORALITY. 
 
 39 
 
 the Church and society at large is indispensable. By 
 the united efforts of religion, science, and politics can 
 this grand progress he achieved. 
 
 The Church is the natural head of this enterprise. 
 No other body possesses, in the same degree, the 
 genius which moralises and attracts men towards 
 what is good and noble, and towards a faith capable 
 of transporting mountains. We ardently hope that 
 she will he brought to understand the sublime task 
 devolving on her in modern times. If instead of 
 remaining in the sombre fortress of temporal power, 
 the Vatican were to become the focus of civilisa¬ 
 tion in this nineteenth century; if it appropriated 
 and animated with the breath of religion all progress, 
 whether of science or industry, the Papacy, placed at 
 the summit of the human pyramid, would at once re¬ 
 cover the full powers of her ancient influence. She 
 would thus be avenged on Luther—for Protestant 
 individuality would be swept away in the really 
 Christian principle of universal solidarity. 
 
CHAPTEB VII. 
 
 THE THREE ECONOMICAL PHASES. 
 
 We have already proved that, for Christian morality 
 to fulfil its high mission in the development of modern 
 society, it must of necessity enlarge and extend its 
 principles and its aims. Hitherto its fundamental 
 law has been the bond of fraternity between man and 
 man. At present it should adopt as a first principle 
 the universal solidarity which a vast system of social 
 forethought produces, in which all institutions should 
 tend to the increased well-being of the poorer classes. 
 
 This form can alone fulfil the Christian principle in 
 the actual state of society. The moral of charity and 
 the moral of forethought are the natural fruits of 
 fraternity, which sufficed in the former, but cannot 
 satisfy the wants of the present state of society. 
 
 The world has already undergone two important 
 evolutions, and has passed from pagan to Christian 
 civilisation. We are now in the midst of a third 
 as great and as radical as the others. Doctrines of 
 social economy have of necessity been transformed by 
 each to render them suitable to the political, material, 
 and moral state of society. 
 
 Paganism divided humanity into two distinct races, 
 masters and slaves. Even philosophers professed 
 
THE THREE ECONOMICAL PHASES. 
 
 41 
 
 the existence of two natures : one freeborn, to com¬ 
 mand ; the other servile, created to obey.* 
 
 Servitude and bondage were the basis of the ancient 
 social system—to traffic on the many for the interest 
 of the few—and this was accounted just and natural 
 to philosophers, even to that greatest of all, Aristotle. 
 
 The principle of brotherhood introduced by Chris¬ 
 tianity was wanting. Slavery was a fatal necessity; 
 a sine qua non of the then existing order of society ; 
 for, as Aristotle observes, “ Shuttles cannot weave with¬ 
 out hands.” So human machines were enrolled. 
 They were to fabricate every object necessary to the 
 pleasures, caprices, or wants of the idle, and to fashion 
 the engines of destruction needful to warriors.t 
 
 * Aristotle says, “ One is a natural born slave, when there exists 
 a distinct inferiority to one’s fellows—a difference as great as between 
 soul and body, brute beasts and man—and this is the condition of 
 all those incapable of anything but manual labour ; the best thing 
 for such men is to passively submit the authority of a master. . . . 
 Domestic animals and slaves are much on a par of usefulness ; 
 both contribute their physical strength to the necessities of life. 
 This is indicated by Nature herself—the corporeal organisation of the 
 free man is different to that of the slave. The slave has the muscular 
 strength required for hard labour, whereas the free man cannot bow 
 his erect stature for such onerous work—he is capacitated for civil 
 
 life, the functions of which are warlike and peaceable avocations. . .. 
 
 It is evident that some are naturally free and others as naturally 
 slaves—and for these slavery is as useful as it is just.”— Aristotle on 
 Politics, p. 18. 
 
 + “ Some instruments are inanimate, others animate. For example, 
 for the captain of a ship the helm is an inanimate, for the sailor who 
 watches at the prow an animate, instrument. A workman not gifted 
 with art is considered as a simple instrument. On the same prin¬ 
 ciple it can be said that property is an instrument of existence, 
 riches a multiplication of instruments, and slaves a living possession ; 
 but the labourer is considered the first among instruments. If every 
 instrument could, on an order given or guessed at even, work spon- 
 
42 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 But it is true, if the master asserted right of life 
 and death over the slave, considered merely as an 
 instrument that he could break when no longer of 
 use, the poor, wretched slave was at least exempted 
 from the care of his daily bread. He was cared for 
 as a beast of burden, in order to obtain the largest 
 amount of profit possible from him. 
 
 Christianity abolished this monstrous duality of 
 the human race, and declared iniquitous and contrary 
 to the Divine law that man should be the slave of 
 man. 
 
 It has taken eighteen hundred years to work out 
 this emancipation, and, indeed, it is barely accom¬ 
 plished yet; but in the interval religion has endea¬ 
 voured to attenuate the different degrees of servitude 
 to which nations have been subjected. It has gene¬ 
 rously espoused the cause of the slave, and protected 
 him against his oppressors. Lessons of charity and 
 resignation have been taught, and with them has 
 been planted a fertile principle of most decisive bear¬ 
 ing, sooner or later, viz., the perfect equality of 
 master and slave within the Church and before God’s 
 judgment-seat. St. Paul says, “You are the free-born 
 sons of God;” to slave-masters, “ There is a God in 
 heaven who has no regard to the condition of men.” 
 
 taneously, like the statues of Daidalus or the tripods of Vulcan, which, 
 according to the poet, went of their own accord to the assemblies of 
 the gods; if the shuttle wove without hands, or the bow, unaided, 
 awoke the soft sounds of the dulcimer, then slaves would be super¬ 
 fluous. Thus instruments, in their strict sense, are objects of produce; 
 property, on the contrary, is for use. And thus the shuttle pro¬ 
 duces more than the simple use to which we apply it; whereas a gar¬ 
 ment or a bed has but its exclusive use .”—Aristotle on Politics, p. 12. 
 
THE THREE ECONOMICAL PHASES. 
 
 43 
 
 Throughout the Middle Ages the Church, with 
 touching solicitude, organised a system of bene¬ 
 ficence and succour, destined to lessen the evils 
 arising from inequality of rank and repartition of 
 riches. Unable to effect more in the midst of a 
 social organisation where the pagan principle of 
 might still reigned supreme, she taught patience and 
 resignation to the poor and wretched, and showed 
 them that holiness was in the detachment from and 
 scorn of earthly goods.* She made of poverty a 
 virtue, and said to the poor, Be patient in your 
 poverty; you are in good company. Our Lord, the 
 holy Virgin His mother, the apostles, and many 
 more saints were poor. She sought to raise and 
 comfort them by showing that happiness is not 
 of this world, hut that they might inherit it in 
 heaven, where the last will be first, and where it 
 is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
 needle than for a rich man to enter. 
 
 The Church studied no means of abolishing poverty, 
 considering it inherent to social organisation. Her 
 whole endeavour was to attenuate its effects. 
 
 Such, during eighteen centuries, has been the work¬ 
 ing of Christian economy; such it is in our own time 
 —ever active and ingenious in charitable combina¬ 
 tions for the help and relief of suffering humanity, 
 exhorting men to look forward beyond the tomb to 
 the heavenly abode as a reward and reparation of 
 earthly misery. 
 
 The social mission of Christianity is already an 
 accomplished fact. 
 
 * “ The best and surest path to holiness is to fly from all that the 
 world seeks and esteems .’’—Saint Ignatius Loyola. 
 
44 THE HELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 Slavery is abolished. The French Eevolution con¬ 
 summated the redeeming purport of the gospel by 
 the destruction of feudality and servitude on the memo¬ 
 rable night of the 4th of August, and by establishing 
 the rights of man proclaimed the equality of man¬ 
 kind. 
 
 Hand in hand with the moral work of Christianity, 
 science and industry have accomplished the emancipa¬ 
 tion of the labouring classes. Shuttles weave ivithout 
 hands , and the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of 
 Vulcan, might now, de facto, go alone to the assemblies 
 of the gods, borne along on the wings of steam. 
 
 But the political conquests of ’89 have not sensibly 
 bettered the condition of the lower order, nor yet 
 mechanical progress. If there no longer be two dis¬ 
 tinct races, in the brutal acceptation of the term, 
 there are still masters and operatives, rich and poor. 
 
 Labour, in its present form, is a species of servitude, 
 and the free artisan, left entirely to his own resources, 
 is not unfrequently more miserable than was the 
 slave of old. 
 
 Social economy, therefore, as it existed in the two 
 preceding periods, is inapplicable to the wants of the 
 new phase. In the pagan world the solicitude of the 
 master for the slave might suffice ; Christian charity 
 sufficed to the wants of the feudal system; but with 
 liberty and equality society ought to provide, by an 
 unanimous effort and forethought, for the necessities 
 of those who labour and suffer. 
 
 Inequality of position cannot be remedied or at¬ 
 tenuated by charitable donations. The only effectual 
 means of diminishing distress and enlarging the field 
 
THE THREE ECONOMICAL PHASES. 
 
 45 
 
 of human activity would be the foundation of organic 
 institutions acting conjointly with one another. 
 
 The necessary evolution has been thus defined by a 
 master mind: “ The beginning of all social education 
 has hitherto been the violent direction imposed on 
 the weak by the powerful. Human society began by 
 struggle and conflicts : it will end in universal asso¬ 
 ciation.” 
 
 The very principle of human activity even must 
 undergo transformation. 
 
 Paganism deified matter, and unrestrained sen¬ 
 suality was the supreme law of life for peoples as for 
 individuals. Christianity caused a violent reaction 
 in the inverse sense, and erred by excessive mysti¬ 
 cism. The flesh was declared the chief stumbling- 
 block, the fountain-head of all the vices and evils that 
 mar the world, and perfection and high virtue were 
 taught to consist in the renunciation of its pomps and 
 vanities. 
 
 Now this antagonism between the mind, or soul, 
 and body is unnatural, and ought to cease under the 
 enforcement of a new social economy. The body is 
 of Divine origin as well as the mind. Man lives in 
 time and space as well as for eternity and the in¬ 
 finite. If the kingdom of God be out of this world, 
 it is also of it. The gospel tells us so. What higher 
 authority than this ? “ Thy ivill he clone cn earth as it 
 is in heaven .” 
 
 The present age must consecrate these great truths. 
 Let the manifestations of matter be acclaimed and 
 developed with equal honour as the manifestations of 
 the intellect; let both be adopted and enlisted in the 
 promotion of the welfare and progress of all classes. 
 
46 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 Society possesses human and mechanical force. 
 Nature abounds in physical power capable of dis¬ 
 pelling misery, if these resources were but judiciously 
 applied. 
 
 The sure means to this end are the more careful 
 instruction of the young, the better organisation of 
 labour for adults, and rest assured to the aged by the 
 generalisation of a system of retreat. In its social 
 consequences this problem is gigantic, but in its 
 terms it is most simple. 
 
 Every one lives, more or less, on the meagre pro¬ 
 ducts of industry. The masses live badly, and this, 
 owing to defective organisation, which impedes the 
 elements at command being employed for the good of 
 the majority. 
 
 Modern social economy ought to apply itself un¬ 
 sparingly to the development of these dormant 
 powers. In them means would be found to supply 
 the relative wants of men and the judicious employ- 
 ment of their activity. To attain this its efforts must 
 necessarily be animated and vivified by a great moral 
 principle. That principle, we repeat, is, “ That all 
 religious, political, and economical institutions should 
 tend to the amelioration of the fate of the masses.” 
 
 This undertaking is pre-eminently a religious work. 
 Its purport is to do away with pauperism, and by 
 rendering men happier, make them better. There¬ 
 fore it becomes us to appeal to the Church to espouse 
 his holy cause, m which the peace, happiness, and 
 uture prospects of the human family are bound up. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CHARITY AND CREDIT. 
 
 Nothing can act more immediately or powerfully on 
 the improvement of individuals and societies than 
 religion. In the moral principle lies its chief and 
 essential action. Dogmas and forms of worship are 
 but accessories. Dogma is at once the reason and 
 symbol of religious morality. The form of worship 
 is its outward manifestation ; it is the communion of 
 believers with God, the proof of union in one common 
 creed and thought; it is the living teaching, solemn 
 or jubilant, simple or brilliant, in Catholic pomps. 
 The fine arts especially enhance the splendour of 
 religious ceremonies. 
 
 Dogma and worship may assume endless variations. 
 Morality alone is unchangeable, remains the same, 
 and governs all diversities of dogma and every 
 expression of worship of whatever denomination. 
 Morality lays down the law of conduct to each in¬ 
 dividual and to society as a whole. Jesus Christ 
 Himself, in changing Jewish worship and dogma, 
 retained the moral principle contained in them, de¬ 
 claring it as a supreme law which He came to fulfil, 
 and not to abolish.* 
 
 * Father Gratry affirms that Christianity was never intended to 
 destroy, but, on the contrary, to ripen philosophical ideas. 
 
48 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 “ All men are brethren; ” “ Love thy neighbour as 
 thyself.” On these two commandments hang all the 
 law and the prophets. The successors of Christ 
 made it their chief object to perfect individual 
 morality abstracted from society, the constitution 
 of which they recoiled from. In relation to this 
 theirs was a twofold action. On the one hand, they 
 weighed on the imagination of the great and the 
 wealthy, holding forth the promise of eternal hap¬ 
 piness or threatening them with eternal punishment. 
 On the other hand, they encouraged the weak and 
 the oppressed — by far the greatest class, numeri¬ 
 cally speaking — with the hope of a better world 
 beyond the tomb. 
 
 The earth was pictured to the latter as a valley of 
 tears, in which they were liable to injustice of every 
 kind, where they would be constantly brought in 
 contact with the most arbitrary contrast and in¬ 
 equality of position. This was the narrow but un¬ 
 avoidable path which led to the heavenly city, where 
 they would enter into possession of the most perfect 
 equality and eternal blessedness, from which the rich 
 of this world would be excluded. Such was the teach¬ 
 ing of the apostles, who declared, as has already 
 been cited, that it was easier for a camel to pass 
 through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to 
 enter the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Can this theory of abnegation and renouncement 
 subsist, when the law recognises the general equality 
 of men and their rights, the virtuality of which 
 may any day be asserted, in spite of the numerous 
 obstacles raised to impede such an issue ? Was not 
 
CHARITY AND CREDIT. 
 
 49 
 
 M. de Falloux, a Christian philosopher belonging 
 to the Montalembert and Lacordaire school, and 
 thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the times, right 
 to raise his voice against the reactionary tendencies 
 of the Church and her stubborn antagonism to the 
 situation brought about by the French Revolution ? 
 
 That Revolution may be judged with impartiality 
 in our day, as an interval of almost a century dims 
 the memory of its excesses. 
 
 Why refuse to acknowledge the good we owe to it ? 
 Did it not realise, politically, the Christian thesis of 
 man’s confraternity, the indispensable state to ensure 
 God’s reign on earth ? The words of Jesus are, “My 
 kingdom is not yet of this world.” 
 
 An enlightened exposition of this text demands the 
 re-insertion of its most significant word, suppressed 
 by religious fanaticism. 
 
 No; Jesus did not place the world under the ban of 
 an eternal anathema. He condemned it at the time, 
 but merely postponed the coming of His reign. 
 
 Can the Church, whose guiding principle is charity 
 in every form, hesitate to follow the path open before 
 her? Can she refuse to stamp misery out for ever 
 and to include the poor in the material comforts and 
 enjoyments which are now the exclusive privileges of 
 a favoured few ? 
 
 Is it really possible to render men better, more 
 enlightened, happier, to organise society upon such a 
 basis that every one may naturally aspire to the free 
 development, use, and enjoyment of his faculties, 
 and, after a life of activity, taste the fruits of his 
 labours ? 
 
 5 
 
50 
 
 THE KELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 Is it possible for man to assume such sway over 
 nature, and so to profit by the assemblage of social 
 power, as to augment the sum of wealth produced in 
 proportion to the wants of all ? 
 
 Is it, in a word, possible that the distribution of 
 this wealth be justly administered, and that it be 
 diffused throughout the social body like generous 
 blood, vivifying its members, and endowing them with 
 health and strength, to concur in the general aim ? 
 
 We have no hesitation in saying that this ought 
 and will be accomplished. It is a task worthy of the 
 ambition of the present Pontiff. In order to realise, 
 the Church must urge the development of the great 
 features of social morality without neglecting the 
 teaching of individual morality. She must cast aside 
 the notion that science and industry are profane. 
 She should rather endorse the resolute direction of 
 them, in order to ameliorate the fate of the majority 
 of human beings. 
 
 Modern economists have given their attention 
 merely to cheap produce and reduced wages; they 
 have never taken into consideration the faulty distri¬ 
 bution of wealth, nor yet the sufferings of those who 
 create it by the sweat of their brow. 
 
 This fatal indifference annihilates the effects of the 
 desired economy, and limits production by restricting 
 consumption. Thus commerce is subjected to and at 
 the mercy of every crisis. 
 
 Unmindful of the providential plan for social deve¬ 
 lopment, and clinging to Aristotle’s theories on slavery, 
 the miserable condition of the working classes is 
 deemed a natural though a fatal law. 
 
CHARITY AND CREDIT. 
 
 51 
 
 They go further. They seek to prove in impious 
 theories, like Malthus, that war, epidemics, famine, 
 and the moral swathes, are necessary to maintain 
 the population in accordance with the means of 
 subsistence; or, like Ricardo, that the most fertile 
 soil having been appropriated by the first occu¬ 
 pants, the cultivation of the least productive land 
 inevitably compels the owner to increase the rent, 
 and aggravate the condition of the farmer and 
 labourer. 
 
 Their fallacious science is but the consecration of 
 misery into a system. 
 
 The clergy ought to take another and different 
 view. Its natural preoccupation should be the well¬ 
 being of the masses—the motive and aim of all labour 
 in the world. 
 
 It is easy to foresee the almost unlimited extension 
 which general consumption would cause in produc¬ 
 tion. Industry would acquire stable security from 
 the moment it could repose on the satisfied wants 
 of the operative, prices would necessarily diminish 
 with the diminution of general outlay. On such a 
 basis industry would be secure against all convulsive 
 crises. 
 
 The great philosophers of the last century proved 
 that society should be treated as the individual, and 
 should be subjected to the same development, with 
 this sole difference, that the individual dies, whereas 
 society merely transforms itself, in the passage from 
 an exhausted, worn - out organic epoch to a higher 
 phase. 
 
 Society, passing through the crucible of time, is 
 
52 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 continually perfecting itself. Each succeeding gene¬ 
 ration bequeaths to the next a legacy of art, science, 
 and industry; and the benefit of this inheritance is 
 necessarily diffused amongst all its members, among 
 that long series of human beings, forming an unbroken 
 link and successively occupying the appointed place 
 in its centre. 
 
 After a re-perusal of Eousseau’s “ Discourse on the 
 Inequalities of Position,” spite of the fine language 
 with which he drapes his sophisms, we are fain to 
 ask, Why vaunt the savage state, for what would be 
 man without society ? 
 
 Locke, Price, Priestley, Turgot, and above all Con- 
 dorcet, in his “ Sketch of the Progress of the Human 
 Mind,” indicate the laws of development of the social 
 body, and foresee the grand effects to be attained by 
 human perfectibility. 
 
 The present Pontiff, agreeing with these philo¬ 
 sophers, unhesitatingly recognises the wonderful re¬ 
 sults of this perfectibility."' 
 
 Political economy is, so to say, the physiology of 
 the social body; its object being to demonstrate the 
 regular working of its divers organs, and point out 
 wherein improvement is desirable or possible in their 
 functions. 
 
 Unfortunately, men who have made this science 
 their special study have confined themselves within 
 the narrow boundaries of the present. They have not 
 looked forward to the beneficent modifications which, 
 from the sheer force of events, society is destined to 
 receive. 
 
 * Pastoral Letters on the Church and Civilisation. See Appendix. 
 
CHARITY AND CREDIT. 
 
 53 
 
 Their science is rather descriptive anatomy than 
 physiology. The living being, in the regular play of 
 its functions, has entirely escaped their observation. 
 
 Even Smith, the first economist of the modern 
 school, only takes the most limited acceptation of the 
 division of labour. He describes it in the manufacture 
 of a pin, for which, in his day, several workmen were 
 required, whose intelligence was condemned to be 
 dwarfed and stagnated by the incessant repetition of 
 the same occupation. 
 
 It is on this example of a stupifying division of 
 labour that he grounds his system. 
 
 This barbarous mode of manufacture is abolished 
 at the present time; steam mechanism has replaced 
 the manual task. 
 
 To produce some thousands of pins it was heretofore 
 necessary to employ twenty pair of hands. Now a 
 single pair, with the aid of a machine, can produce 
 millions, and the intellect has full scope for develop¬ 
 ment in the accomplishment of the man’s work. 
 
 Our notion of the division of labour is infinitely 
 higher. This division should be classed according to 
 personal aptitude—aptitude which can only be tested 
 by the general and gratuitous application of an educa¬ 
 tional system, including every grade, by which alone a 
 just notion of capacity can be formed, and a just appli¬ 
 cation of it made. Thu3 the best use and the best 
 direction of intelligence, having one common purpose, 
 would be obtained. 
 
 Education and instruction are the fundamental basis 
 of all social improvement. There is no doubt that the 
 discovery of the power of steam, of all looms and 
 
54 
 
 the religious and social question. 
 
 machinery, is due to scientific progress, but can be 
 attributed chiefly to chance or individual inspiration. 
 
 Then what magnificent results might be expected 
 from a society organised with a view to progress, in 
 which intellect, cultivated, formed, and moulded by 
 education, would receive in divers degrees a compre¬ 
 hensive notion of all branches of science. 
 
 We observe in divers degrees, for intelligence and 
 aptitudes are unequally distributed among mankind, 
 and without this inequality of talent and intelligence 
 the division of labour, and society itself, would be 
 rendered impossible. 
 
 The question arises, how provide the funds requi¬ 
 site for this universal tide of instruction ? and how 
 provide continuous work for the mass of individuals 
 prepared by education, such as we describe, and ensure 
 rest to them in their old age, without falling into the 
 snare of communism ? 
 
 Amongst the elements of strength which characterise 
 and constitute modern organisation, there exists one 
 the extent of which has never been sufficiently 
 calculated, and the application of which is still in 
 its infancy, viz., Credit. 
 
 If w r e may be allowed a trivial comparison, credit 
 is to charity what steam is to tepid water. 
 
 Charity may determine the rich to abandon a part 
 of their superfluity to relieve the wants of the poor; 
 but this superfluity cannot assuage all suffering, and 
 is absolutely powerless to eradicate poverty. 
 
 To ameliorate the social condition efficaciously, 
 capital, and not superfluity, must furnish the necessary 
 resources. 
 
CHARITY AND CREDIT. 
 
 55 
 
 Man has been endowed with a faculty of production 
 superior to his wants, the overplus which he obtains 
 is the basis of all progress; it permits him to en¬ 
 courage the culture of the fine arts, promote science, 
 and contribute to public expenditure. Moreover, he 
 thus furnishes credit, with ample means for the exer¬ 
 cise of its action in favour of industrial development. 
 
 Were credit properly directed, the annual surplus 
 of yearly produce—all that economists designate as 
 accumulated capital—all acquired wealth, all mecha¬ 
 nical and mental powers, could through its canal 
 concur to the development of public instruction, the 
 association of labour, and the organisation of possible 
 rest to the aged. 
 
 Whereas now the direction of capital surpassing 
 what is necessary to the maintenance of the laborious, 
 is given up to the risks of arbitrary investments, in 
 the choice of which the mediator in general consults 
 his own interests rather than those of his client. 
 
 The moral or immoral use of such funds is to them 
 a matter of indifference. The main point is the 
 highest possible interest, the greatest profit, to be 
 derived from them. 
 
 In Turkey millions have been swamped from this 
 very impetus, and the result has no redeeming feature, 
 for Turkey has thus been furnished with the means of 
 resisting the wise advice given her by the other great 
 powers, and of embarking in the hazards of a war 
 disastrous to all European interests. Oar savings 
 have served to liquidata the civil list of Turkish, 
 Egyptian, Tunisian, and Morocco satraps; with them 
 they have restocked their harems, and have been en- 
 
56 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 abled to continue the perpetration of their exactions 
 and cruelty on their unhappy subjects. 
 
 How many fortunes have been swallowed up in 
 similar abysses, “ and pure gold changed into vile 
 dross! ” 
 
 However honourable the negotiators of these loans 
 may personally be, they are nevertheless responsible 
 before God for the scandalous treatment by which 
 millions of human beings are reduced to a state worse 
 than that of slavery of old, in order to contribute to 
 the licentious debts contracted by them superiors or 
 masters. 
 
 Should this picture be deemed exaggerated, we 
 recommend the perusal of Mr. Cave’s report on the 
 mode of levying abusive taxes in Egypt. 
 
 What would the generous souls of Wilberforce or 
 Cobden have thought or said of these financial opera¬ 
 tions founded on the exploitation of man by man ? 
 
 We confine ourselves to a mere allusion to the loans 
 made to maintain the armies of European states, as 
 to the shortcomings of the budgets of the South 
 American central republics, such as Peru and 
 Honduras. 
 
 Happily a considerable portion of Eurojiean savings 
 for the last thirty years has been affected to an enter¬ 
 prise conducive to civilisation, viz., the making of 
 railways. 
 
 The immense results obtained are the best evidence 
 of the usefulness of this undertaking, and it is allow¬ 
 able to conjecture what might have been achieved by 
 the funds subscribed to foreign loans, had they been 
 consecrated to the development of education and 
 industry. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 god’s reign on earth. 
 
 Some fervent Catholics protest, but in vain, against 
 the existence of the word note in the celebrated speech 
 of Christ before Pilate, recorded in the eighteenth 
 chapter of St. John, verse 36, in which the emphatic 
 monosyllable has been erased, suppressed, and ren¬ 
 dered, both in Catholic and Protestant translations, 
 as “ My kingdom is not of this world.” 
 
 To establish the urgency of a restitution which 
 ought incontestably to be made, we must enter at 
 some length into the motives ; the importance of the 
 question authorises our doing so. 
 
 The word now is to be found in all editions of the 
 gospel, in Catholic use, approved by the episcopacy 
 or the Sorbonne, from the year 1487 up to 1667. 
 
 It is irrelevant to our purpose to examine under 
 what Jansenistic or Gallican influence the elimina¬ 
 tion was made from that date, it is sufficient to prove 
 the fact, the importance of which is self-evident. 
 
 M. de Lamennais says, “ No words uttered by 
 Jesus Christ have been more seriously warped from 
 their original intrinsic meaning. The conclusion is 
 that the kingdom of Jesus Christ is not of this world. 
 This is simply affirming that justice and charity are 
 not, and never can be, of this world, that it is for ever 
 
58 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 given over to the powers of evil—in a word, to pro¬ 
 claim the reign of Satan in the name of God. 
 
 “It is impossible to doubt that the doctrine of Jesus 
 is the very opposite of this doctrine; and indeed this 
 is so clear, that it is a matter of astonishment how it 
 could be so generally perverted and obscured. Jesus 
 declares Himself king, and at the same time declares 
 His kingdom not of this world. Now what is the 
 world according to the thoughts and language of 
 Christ Jesus? In teaching His disciples and the 
 people He incessantly speaks of the world as the 
 assembly of the children of Satan, of men of iniquity, 
 as the society of corrupted men, to which He came 
 to substitute another, founded on entirely opposite 
 maxims. 
 
 “To establish this, after having said, ‘My kingdom 
 is not of this world,’ He adds, ‘My kingdom is not noiv 
 of this world.’ Were it never to be here, humanity 
 might live without hope or aim on earth, destined to 
 hear the awful burden of an inexorable curse. All 
 bonds would he broken asunder, for each one would 
 fly from fellowship with pre-condemned society, and 
 far from its fatal influence, would endeavour to secure 
 his individual salvation, and under the semblance of 
 holiness, and the garb of fallacious virtue, would 
 spring up a monstrous spirit of egoism, an inert 
 placidity, engendered by the total solitude of a soul 
 that has fled from and forgotten all that does not 
 concern itself. No, God never crowned sin king of 
 the earth; the world will be purified from it, and the 
 reign of Jesus prevail." 
 
 * Lamennais, “ Les Evangiles.’’ 
 
god’s reign on earth. 
 
 59 
 
 The re-insertion of the word now, in the declaration 
 made by Jesus, ought to be considered a revelation by 
 the Catholic world; it would guide them on the new 
 path which they ought to follow, now that the pro¬ 
 mised time has come to pass. 
 
 The day has dawned when the Church should cease 
 to lament over Luther and Calvin, who robbed her of 
 her German and Swiss, over Henry VIII. who took 
 her English, and over Gallicanism which perverted 
 her French children; or over English America, which 
 has founded a heretical New World ; or Russia, which 
 imposes desertion on the Poles ; or over the advocates 
 of the new order established in France, which dis¬ 
 putes her right to direct public instruction, and denies 
 her all participation in conferring university grades. 
 
 She is now driven into her last entrenchments, 
 and will be forced to take a decision. The rapid 
 march of events at the present day will oblige her to 
 abdicate all influence on temporal affairs; to give her 
 attention exclusively to spiritual matters, or to bring 
 them nearer to the earth ; to draw nearer to the laity, 
 recognising the advanced state of civilisation. 
 
 To effect this reconciliation with success, she must 
 eschew the tortuous institutions of the Jesuits, assi¬ 
 milate herself frankly with existing progress, and take 
 in hand the direction of scientific and industrial under¬ 
 takings, henceforth sanctified, before God. Let her fit 
 herself in this wise to establish an encyclopaedical 
 link between isolated branches of science; to regulate 
 the march of industry, abandoned at this moment to 
 a blind and immoderate competition, and with the aid 
 of credit establish a bond of harmony between the 
 different species. 
 
60 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 By drawing nearer to and mingling with the world, 
 as all seems to prescribe to her to do, she would vivify 
 and renew the world by her ardent faith. She would 
 re-model society, and transform this agglomeration of 
 individuals at enmity with one another, amongst 
 whom we are sentenced to live, to the utter confusion 
 of all principles, into a family, the law of which would 
 be peace and good will. 
 
 She would impose her pacific arbitration on nations 
 perpetually at war with each other, since the end of 
 the fifteenth century, the epoch from which dates the 
 political decline of the Papacy. 
 
 It is remarkable, and merits serious meditation, 
 that the organisation of standing armies, the main¬ 
 tenance of which falls so heavily on nations, and 
 forms one of the greatest obstacles to the moral and 
 material improvement of European society, corre¬ 
 sponds with this epoch. 
 
 It is far from our intention to attempt opportunism, 
 or to suggest that the fulfilment of the ideas of 
 eternal justice which we have exposed should be 
 rendered subordinate to the expedience of the Church. 
 Such ideas are beyond the caprices of men, and rise 
 above the spirit of procrastination. 
 
 We appreciate the useful concurrence which the 
 clergy, and the souls and zeal at its command, could 
 give to the triumph of these ideas, and we could not 
 neglect or overlook it, without derogating from the 
 feelings of fraternity and conciliation with which we 
 are animated, and without incurring the reproach of 
 intolerance addressed to the Church, with regard to 
 those who do not share in her convictions. 
 
god’s reign on earth. 
 
 61 
 
 What we desire is pre-eminently charitable; it is 
 impossible that the Christian community should 
 remain a stranger or an alien to it. 
 
 No progress can be durable, no improvement really 
 efficacious, if not sanctioned by religion. 
 
 In accordance with its etymology ( religare ) religion 
 is the connecting link between God, man, and nature 
 —it binds them one with another. So it ought to be 
 mingled with every action of life, in order that each 
 may contribute to the sum of general happiness.* 
 
 The Church, by adopting the ideas of the Old 
 Testament, may have erred on the origin of man and 
 mechanism of the universe. She may have adopted 
 false notions of the motion and respective positions of 
 the planets forming the solar system. The knowledge 
 of these facts is not a matter of revelation, it is the 
 result of observation and calculation. The clergy can 
 no longer dispute the discoveries of Copernicus, 
 Galileo, Kepler, and Newton. 
 
 Christopher Columbus was convinced that the earth 
 upset the biblical tradition, when he realised his dis¬ 
 covery, and gave a continent, a world, to Isabella the 
 Catholic, in exchange for the vessel with which she 
 furnished him. But in Divine science, in morality, 
 this cannot be the case. On its application the 
 happiness of humanity depends, and the Church can¬ 
 not recede from the sacred route traced out for her. 
 
 The dogma of original sin loses its importance in 
 the eyes of the Christian through the sacrifice of re- 
 
 * Religion —quod ligat —is the link between the finite and the in¬ 
 finite, according to St. Augustine ; or, according to Fenelon, the bond 
 of union between men. 
 
62 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 demption. What matter the regrets and memories 
 of a golden age, which tradition transmits to us, un¬ 
 less these memories and regrets express a hope and 
 desire of a better future ? 
 
 Man’s happiest age is not when he is but a babe and 
 a suckling, knowing neither good nor evil; and so it 
 is with society in its infant state, its moral notions 
 are confused and barbarous. The best estate is that 
 of the adult in the full possession of his faculties. 
 And so it is for humanity, conscious of its incessant 
 progress in what is good—for good and evil are not 
 absolute but relative in the indefinite work of per¬ 
 fectibility. 
 
 Paradise lost may once more be realised on earth, 
 predestined to transform itself, by the efforts of suc¬ 
 cessive generations, into another garden of Eden, in 
 the midst of which men whose hearts overflow with 
 love and gratitude may raise their eyes to the heavens, 
 which, according to the inspired words of the poet- 
 king and crowned prophet, declare the glory of God. 
 
 The golden age can no longer consist in the ignor¬ 
 ance of good and evil, but in the perfection of the 
 social order. Our forefathers did not possess it. Our 
 descendants will enjoy it as the recompense due to 
 the travail of successive generations, of which they will 
 be not merely the representatives, but the personi¬ 
 fication. “ Man’s sequence,” to use the fine image of 
 Pascal, “may be considered as though one and the 
 same man were living on and continually learning.” 
 
 We have ourselves a foretaste of the future as¬ 
 suredly reserved to the species to which we belong, 
 and in which we are perpetuated. 
 
god’s reign on earth. 
 
 63 
 
 “ March forward confidently,” says Lamennais;* * * § 
 “ doubt not in the long journey, when generations 
 succeed one another; when day declines and sleep is 
 nigh, thou wilt say, ‘ Children, God stays me here. 
 The sterile desert is becoming fertile. To-morrow 
 your pilgrimage will bring you under more clement 
 skies, and lead you through more beautiful paths.’ ” 
 
 To fulfil this destiny, let us cling to the new moral 
 principle, which is but the transformation of the 
 ancient principle, and which it would be well were all 
 to adopt with the same degree of faith wuth which the 
 Jews believed in the unity of the Godhead.t They 
 carried this declaration about them in their raiment, J 
 placed it over the doors of their habitations, on the 
 frontispiece of tbeir monuments,§ and repeated on 
 their deathbeds this great principle of unity, on which 
 their religious and political constitution was founded. 
 
 The new moral principle, which we recommend to 
 be adopted by the Christian world, is resumed in 
 the following words— 
 
 The aim of all social institutions ought to be the 
 amelioration of the moral, intellectual, ancl physical state 
 of the most numerous ancl poorest class. 
 
 On this new precept hang all modern law and 
 prophets. Nothing which concerns or interests us but 
 is contained in it. 
 
 This declaration will explain our reply to our old 
 friend, M. Emile de Girardin, when he tried to perplex 
 
 * Lamennais, “Discussions critiques.” 
 
 f The schleman —declaration of God’s unity. 
 
 + The teplulim and the tsit-tsit. 
 
 § The mezouza —reed in which the schleman was enclosed. 
 
64 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 ns. He begged for a categorical explanation of our 
 political credo, and to tell him if we were Legitimist, 
 Bonapartist, or Republican. 
 
 We candidly replied that we were pre-devoted to 
 any government which would best realise the foregoing 
 programme. 
 
 M. de Maistre, whose authority the Catholic 
 Church will not question, expresses himself in almost 
 the same terms in his correspondence. 
 
 He writes : “ I vote for the best governments; that 
 is to say, for governments which secure the greatest 
 possible happiness to the greatest possible number 
 of men.” 
 
 In this there is no preference for any determined 
 form of government—a principle which must be agree¬ 
 able to papal impartiality. 
 
 In a political programme which we published in 
 1876, after laying down the question of rich and poor, 
 paraphrasing M. Thiers’s celebrated words, “ The 
 Republic will be conservative, or will not be at all,” 
 we added: “ The Republic will be an organisator, or 
 will not be at all.” 
 
 It now devolves upon us to explain what we under¬ 
 stand by this organisation, and the means by which 
 we propose to eradicate the leprosy of pauperism and 
 misery from society. 
 
 But in order to arrive at a just idea of this, we 
 must first cast a general glance at the reorganisation 
 of the political state of Europe, and at the influence 
 which the Papacy is called to exercise to appease the 
 conflicts which rend asunder different states, and 
 unite them in one common action for good. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PACIFIC REORGANISATION OF EUROPE. 
 
 Before examining the basis on which the Church 
 should endeavour to found the work of social economy, 
 destined to ameliorate the fate of the poorest and most 
 numerous class, it is necessary to resume what we 
 have already said on the action which the Papacy 
 exercises on the world, and to indicate the influence 
 of which it is capable for the pacific reorganisation of 
 Europe. 
 
 The powerful civilising mission accomplished by the 
 Pontificate and the Catholic priesthood, from the in¬ 
 vasion of the barbarians to the close of the Middle 
 Ages, has been historically demonstrated in the pre¬ 
 ceding chapters. They were the founders of general and 
 individual morality; the principle of public morality 
 which they inculcated established a connecting link 
 between nations and between all the representatives 
 of temporal power, which at that time was the right 
 of the strongest over the weak; and owing to their 
 salutary influence, warfare was less frequent, and God’s 
 truce accepted and respected. They did even more. 
 The assemblage of the united strength of Europe in the 
 unanimous action for the Crusades was inspired by a 
 6 
 
66 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 great moral thought: it was to glorify the God-Man 
 who came to spread peace and charity among men. 
 
 It has also been shown that individual morality— 
 the means of enforcing the constituent principles of 
 domestic and social life—was their work; that they 
 incessantly proclaimed the rights of the bondsmen and 
 slaves, and by gradual mitigation of the condition of 
 servitude in its divers stages, they finally obtained 
 the emancipation of the labouring classes, and thus 
 restored to man his birthright of freedom and 
 dignity. 
 
 To the all-powerful action of the Pontificate and 
 the clergy is also due the superiority of the European 
 race over all others during the mediaeval period. The 
 importance of this fact has been overlooked or dimin¬ 
 ished by criticising philosophers in their zealous at¬ 
 tacks upon Papacy. 
 
 The spiritual edifice was definitively completed in 
 Europe in the fourteenth century — the pontifical 
 power had then reached its apogee. From that date 
 it has continually declined, infatuated by temporal 
 power and the worldly pomps of which that is the 
 source. 
 
 The clergy, too, suffered itself to be surpassed by 
 the laity in scientific studies, in the cultivation of the 
 fine arts, and in the direction of agricultural and 
 individual labours. Little by little a laxness of 
 morality and discipline invaded the ranks ; it was no 
 longer the most learned, the most useful, the most 
 moral body of society, and so society and governments 
 escaped from its grasp and direction. The loss of its 
 moral authority was followed by the abusive exercise 
 
THE PACIFIC REORGANISATION OF EUROPE. 67 
 
 of its power in the excesses of the inquisition and 
 divers other persecutions. 
 
 It would he useless to recapitulate the practices 
 which caused Luther’s revolt—the sale of indulgences 
 carried to so scandalous a degree that Leo X., son of 
 a house saturated by wealth and luxury, set apart a 
 considerable sum produced by the sale of indulgences 
 for the toilet of his sister. 
 
 We have pointed out the fatal consequences of these 
 abuses of spiritual power and the deplorable ob¬ 
 livion of the high mission conferred on it by the 
 founder of Christianity. We have also proved the 
 divorce effected between the clergy and society, a 
 divorce which has persisted throughout the last three 
 centuries. 
 
 And in this manner nations, deprived of a whole¬ 
 some direction, went adrift; the flames of war burst 
 out amongst them—war everywhere, war always. 
 
 Every well-constituted society requires a spiritual 
 head. This supremacy can only be maintained by 
 the highest example of morality, by pre-eminent in¬ 
 telligence and experience, and by men of the greatest 
 value and authority. 
 
 The same rule is applicable to temporal govern¬ 
 ments ; and the frequent changes of the French 
 government ought to be a warning to all those who 
 would risk taking the supreme guidance and direction 
 of affairs without a premeditated plan and aim. 
 
 The historical views of the following passage, written 
 by the prophetic pen of one of the greatest philoso¬ 
 phers of this century, will characterise more ably 
 than we could do the dangerous and precarious state 
 
G3 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 of European society since the period of its disorgani¬ 
 sation, which dates from the close of the fifteenth 
 century— 
 
 “ Special considerations, the coalition of opposing 
 interests, will again plunge Europe into the wretched 
 state of warfare to appease which every effort has 
 been made. Events will corroborate our previsions. 
 Neither good sense, nor wisdom, nor the wish for 
 peace, can avert the struggle. Summon congress 
 after congress, multiply treaties, conventions, ar¬ 
 rangements, do what you will, war will be the result. 
 You cannot prevent it. The only thing possible is to 
 change the field of battle. 
 
 “ No one seems to profit by the unsuccess of the 
 abovenamed means. No one dares venture to leave 
 the political groove, though the voice of experience 
 cries aloud for a change of method. Blame is at¬ 
 tributed to the strength of the growing evil rather 
 than to the inefficiency of the remedies used. Nations 
 are taxed, men drilled, and engines of destruction in¬ 
 vented, for intercarnage. No certain hope when it 
 will cease—if ever ! 
 
 “Europe is in a state of violent crisis. Every one 
 sees it, owns it ; and what is it really ? What causes 
 it ? Was it always so in past times ? Will it ever 
 cease ? These questions yet remain to be answered. 
 
 “Political and social ties are pretty much the same, 
 both gain solidity and stability by similar means. 
 Nations as well as families require certain laws, dis¬ 
 cipline, organisation, for the benefit of each member: 
 without this injustice and violence reign.” 
 
 To pretend to a peaceful Europe by treaties and 
 
THE PACIFIC REORGANISATION OF EUROPE. 69 
 
 congresses is to suppose that a social body can exist 
 by mere contract and stipulation. There must exist 
 on both sides a co-active force, to make both of the 
 same mind, to concert all simultaneous movements, 
 amalgamate general interests, and render agreements 
 durable and binding. 
 
 We are accustomed to treat the ages known as 
 mediaeval with supreme contempt — as barbarous, 
 stupid times, full of gross ignorance and revolting 
 superstitions; and we overlook the fact that this was 
 the only period when the political system of Europe 
 was founded on its genuine basis — on universal or¬ 
 ganisation. 
 
 Scarcely was the political power of the clergy upset 
 by Luther’s revolution, when Charles V. conceived the 
 plan of universal domination. Philip II., Louis XIV., 
 Napoleon, and England, tried for it afterwards, and 
 religious wars broke out, to end in the Thirty Years’ 
 War—the longest on record since the days of Troy. 
 
 Notwithstanding these numerous and striking ex¬ 
 amples, prejudice is still so strong that men of talent 
 have vainly striven to conquer it. The political 
 system of Europe is dated from the sixteenth century. 
 The Treaty of Westphalia is regarded as the founda¬ 
 tion-stone of this system. 
 
 A conscientious examination of events since that 
 period will suffice to prove that the equilibrium of 
 Europe is the most fallacious of all combinations. 
 Peace is its avowed object; yet it has produced nothing 
 but war—and what wars ? 
 
 There are but two men who recognised the evil and 
 devised the necessary remedy—Henry IV. and the 
 
70 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 Abbe de St. Pierre; but one died before be had ac¬ 
 complished his project, forgotten immediately after¬ 
 wards. The other promised more than he could 
 perform, and was treated as a visionary. 
 
 No idle vision surely—the idea of uniting all Euro¬ 
 pean states and peoples by a conformity of political 
 institutions. For six centuries this uniformity existed, 
 and during those six hundred years, war -was less fre¬ 
 quent and less terrible. 
 
 The Abbe de St. Pierre’s plan was simply this, when 
 disencumbered of the gigantic draperies which made 
 it ridiculous. He wished to arrive at a pact of peis 
 petual peace by an unification of all European states 
 through confederative government. 
 
 Though chimerical in its results, imperfect and 
 faulty in its nature, this is, nevertheless, the best 
 conception produced since the fifteenth century. 
 
 To realise any valuable idea difficulties must be 
 braved, attempts renewed, and trials repeated, even 
 though they bring forth no fruit. It is seldom that the 
 originator of an idea bestows on it the precision and 
 lucidity which are to be acquired by time and use. 
 
 Supposing the Abbe de St. Pierre’s constitution a 
 practical one, its first effect was to perpetuate the 
 state of things in Europe which existed at the moment 
 it came into force. So feudality, or the relics of it, 
 then extant, were rendered indestructible, everlasting, 
 and, what was worse, it favoured the abuse of power 
 by making the sovereign more dreaded by the people, 
 whom he deprived of any means of redress against 
 tyranny. 
 
 In short, this federative organisation was neither 
 
THE PACIFIC REORGANISATION OF EUROPE. 71 
 
 more nor less than a mutual guarantee between 
 princes for the purpose of preserving intact arbi¬ 
 trary power. 
 
 As levers were used before any one was capable of 
 rightly explaining what a lever was, just in the same 
 way there were national organisations and political 
 organisations before any one was aware what an organ¬ 
 isation meant. In politics, as in every other science, 
 what was requisite came to pass before the why and 
 wherefore of it were understood, and when, after the 
 practice followed the theory, the conception was fre¬ 
 quently found inferior to what was accomplished. 
 
 So it happened in this case. The organisation of 
 Europe in the fourteenth century is far superior to 
 the plan laid down by the Abbe de St. Pierre. 
 
 All political as well as social organisation has 
 fundamental principles forming its essence, and with¬ 
 out which it can neither exist nor work the effects 
 expected from it. 
 
 The principles on which the papal organisation was 
 based were omitted or forgotten by the Abbe de St. 
 Pierre. They may be reduced to four. 
 
 1. Every political organisation instituted for the 
 purpose of leaguing together several nations, while 
 preserving to each its independence, must be system¬ 
 atically homogeneous; or, in other words, its insti¬ 
 tutions must be the result of unanimous conception, 
 and, consequently, there ought to be exact uniformity 
 in every branch of government. 
 
 2. Universal government should be entirely dis¬ 
 tinct from, and independent of, national government. 
 
 3. The members or body of universal government 
 
72 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 should be selected from a position calculated to inspire 
 them with broad universal views, and make universal 
 interests their special aim. 
 
 4. They should he invested with an intrinsic power 
 totally exempt from any foreign pressure. This power 
 is public opinion. 
 
 Does not the preceding quotation point out to the 
 Pontificate the place it might fill—the void of which 
 is immense, but which, sagaciously occupied, would 
 restore peace to Europe. 
 
 No one could be more apt than the Pope to exercise 
 a salutary arbitration between conflicting nations— 
 nations which absorb the comfort, gold, and noblest 
 blood of their offspring in fratricidal warfare. 
 
 Alexander III., who cannot certainly be cited as 
 a model of personal morality, was, notwithstanding, 
 the means of preventing cruel wars. He it was who 
 marked out the limits of the discoveries pursued by 
 Spaniards and Portuguese, following in the wake of 
 Christopher Columbus, Yasca di Gama, and all those 
 great explorers who merit to be counted among the 
 benefactors of humanity. 
 
 Is there not an analogous mission open for the 
 Church at the present day ? But to fulfil it the head 
 of the Church must cease to grudge the loss of a 
 principality, a mere speck on the face of the globe, 
 and by renewing the current of universal morality 
 assume the part of arbitrator, or at least of disin¬ 
 terested counsellor, between the rival powers that 
 dispute political preponderance. 
 
 The events that are actually taking place offer an 
 opportunity for tracing out limits in Asia, between 
 
THE PACIFIC REORGANISATION OF EUROPE. 
 
 73 
 
 England and Russia; in Europe between Germany 
 and Austria, Germany and France, and Austria and 
 Italy. 
 
 Would not such ambition be far higher, greater, 
 and more worthy of a Pontiff than imprisoning him¬ 
 self in the Vatican as in a living tomb, wasting his 
 energies in barren regrets for the loss of his temporal 
 power, the abusive exercise of which is the secret of 
 papal decadence. 
 
 There would be no place for the Society of the 
 Jesuits in this new mission ; no need of its intrigues 
 in temporal matters; and its efforts to plunge man¬ 
 kind into the depths of ignorance and servitude, the 
 better to secure its own domination, would prove as 
 useless as abortive. 
 
 The sublime effect of the pacific intervention of the 
 Pontificate in the general affairs of Europe it is im¬ 
 possible to calculate. Its result would be the disarma¬ 
 ment, the co-ordination of the scientific labours of the 
 several European nations, in the regulation of their 
 commercial intercourse, that is, in the development 
 and expansion of the productive faculties peculiar to 
 each through free trade, in such wise that to the 
 special national mart would be added the mart of the 
 universe, contributing to the wants and happiness of 
 the whole human family. 
 
 The Church could achieve this for the reorgani¬ 
 sation of European society. 
 
 The Holy Alliance, founded in 1815, inspired by a 
 great religious idea, secured or obtained forty years 
 of peace and prosperity to Europe. Now, were the 
 Head of Christianity to place himself resolutely at 
 
74 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 the head of a universal peace movement, the Abbe de 
 St. Pierre’s dream might almost be realised. 
 
 In the following chapter it will be seen how the 
 Church ought to bear on the inward social reorgan¬ 
 isation, by promoting the application of the new 
 principle of social and individual morality, as has 
 been already defined. 
 
 A great step would be made towards the association 
 of nations were the Papacy to centralise the political, 
 scientific, and commercial interests of Europe. 
 
 M. de Maistre, whose prophetical lights merit re¬ 
 spectful attention, asks why nations have never been 
 educated or brought up to a social state like indi¬ 
 viduals ? Why Europe had never made an attempt of 
 this kind ? Why God, the author of society composed 
 of individuals, does not allow man, His favourite 
 creature, endowed with the divine faculty of perfecti¬ 
 bility, to raise himself by the association of nations ? 
 
 What is applicable to the association of nations, the 
 realisation of which would put a stop to the scourge 
 of war, and to the fatal conflicts of commerce, is 
 equally applicable to society composed of individuals. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY. 
 
 Are religion and politics incompatible one with the 
 other ? Has each a totally distinct purpose ? Ought 
 they to be completely separated one from the other, 
 according to the ojnnion of many contemporary 
 statesmen ? 
 
 Such is not our view. 
 
 A nation once existed amongst which political and 
 religious identity was solemnly recognised. We 
 allude to the Jewish nation. Their religion was at 
 one and the same time their code of laws, and on 
 this score their political institution is superior to that 
 of Christianity. 
 
 The civil constitution of the Jews; their rights of 
 property; its division among tribes and families; the 
 remission of debts; the prohibition of interest to be 
 paid on loans made to members of the Judaic com¬ 
 munity ; the condition of servitude and that of slavery 
 restricted to strangers and exceptionally tolerated; 
 the levying of taxes ; the oblations and first-fruits to 
 be distributed among the priests, the poor, widows, 
 orphans, and strangers, every act indeed of social life, 
 was the object of minute prescription in the sacred 
 books. 
 
76 
 
 THE KELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 The Pentateuch is full of the most touching exhor¬ 
 tations of the manner in which Hebrew servants and 
 foreign slaves ought to he treated. Both are invari¬ 
 ably included in the family joys and festivals. Under 
 no circumstance is the first to be treated as a slave, 
 and gentleness is to be used toward the latter; for 
 “ Israel must remember that he too was once a 
 bondsman in Egypt.” 
 
 Land was inalienable, for the Lord said, “ The 
 earth is mine.” 
 
 Thus it was, so to say, held in veneration. God 
 was the Lord paramount thereof, and enfeoffed it for 
 the wages of labour. 
 
 “It is evident,” wrote a great intelligence and a 
 dear friend and companion of early years, with whom 
 study and thought were intimately shared, but who 
 was prematurely snatched from us—Eugene Bodri- 
 gues wrote, “it is evident that, relative to its popu¬ 
 lation, geographical position, and poverty of soil, 
 Israelitish territory was better cultivated than any 
 other in antiquity, and that the commerce and trade 
 of its people were superior to that of other nations, 
 not excepting Tyrians and Carthaginians.”* 
 
 The immense riches of the two temples at Jeru¬ 
 salem, David’s and Solomon’s treasures, the exten¬ 
 sive commerce of the last with the East, all go to 
 prove the exact truth of the assertion. 
 
 Judaism is the religious social system applied to 
 one race. In both its spiritual and temporal spheres, 
 it worked miracles. Christianity is the social prin- 
 
 * The learned work of Michaclis, and Prideaux’s “History of the 
 Jews,” bear the same testimony. 
 
77 
 
 OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY. 
 
 ciple essentially applicable to all mankind, though 
 merely in its spiritual sense. 
 
 After attaining immense power in the Catholic 
 form, it stood aloof from the civil life of nations, 
 confining itself for many ages to the teaching of fra¬ 
 ternity, breaking the chains of slavery, giving to 
 Caesar what belonged to Caesar, and to God what 
 belonged to God. 
 
 From the fifteenth century the Church completely 
 lost sight of this aim in her mission. Infatuated by 
 the enjoyment of temporal power, she allowed Pro¬ 
 testants and laics to outstrip her in secular knowledge 
 and civilisation, and by the most abusive and oppres¬ 
 sive governmental experiments, has endeavoured to 
 regain her hold on society. 
 
 In Spain and Italy, the two most clerical countries 
 in the world, Catholicism has been an instrument of 
 ruin and decay. 
 
 Whilst Campana laid down a plan of universal 
 domination for Philip II., and Catholicism hoped to 
 reign supreme with him, in order to subjugate the 
 world, what was the fate of Spain? Agriculture 
 perished, the land became barren, commerce and 
 trade were annihilated. 
 
 The Church and the clergy alone during this period 
 accumulated prodigious wealth ; convents were sur¬ 
 rounded by crowds of famished poor; labour was 
 despised; energy, the ancient Castilian virtue, was 
 replaced’ by unlimited indolence. The inquisition 
 spread terror everywhere ; in every department privi¬ 
 leges, restrictions, and prohibitions were the ruling 
 principle; the colonies were drained to enrich the 
 
78 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 settlers, who, in their turn, were pillaged for the 
 benefit of their mother-country; slavery, which had 
 been abolished at the beginning of that century, was 
 again established on a huge scale; the slave-trade 
 was appointed a lawful and regular institution. Such 
 are the principal features of this sombre epoch, 
 the reign of Philip II., which may appropriately 
 be termed the reign of torture and death. 
 
 The perversion of the gospel spirit was not less 
 patent in Italy. 
 
 Mystical egoism, engendered by the exclusive con¬ 
 templation of the world to come, universal indolence, 
 the total absence of commercial and manufacturing 
 activity, drove a crowd of unoccupied men—men cast 
 out of their natal sphere, who were neither rich 
 nor noble—to flee the world, its careers and its trials, 
 and take refuge in monasteries and abbeys. 
 
 Convents, undeniably, rendered eminent social ser¬ 
 vice during the earlier mediaeval period. To them we 
 are indebted for the preservation of numerous valu¬ 
 able manuscripts, and to them w r e owe the first tillage 
 of a large portion of European soil. It is, however, 
 an astonishing fact that at the very time when their 
 mission seemed fulfilled, they took an alarming in¬ 
 crease and extension. 
 
 Italy, up to the close of the last century, was little 
 else but one vast monastic congregation. Even in 
 the present day there existed in 1862 eighty-two dif¬ 
 ferent religious orders and 2882 monasteries, just 
 twice the number of convents in France in 1789. 
 The joint revenues of bishoprics, corporations, fabrics, 
 and prebendaries amounted to 75,266,216 francs 
 
OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY. 
 
 79 
 
 Thus organised and thus armed with power, what 
 did the clergy do for the amelioration of social life ? 
 In the very heart of its rule, the Pontifical States, all 
 trade, all commerce had disappeared. There were 
 no high-roads nor by-roads to facilitate and assure 
 communication and intercourse, which became al¬ 
 most impracticable; privileges, monopolies, and abuses 
 abounded ; heavy taxations on comestibles (the taxes 
 were higher than in the largest cities of Europe); 
 small landlords were burdened with charges; agri¬ 
 culture neglected; notwithstanding the edicts and 
 wishes of several Popes, such as Pius YI. and Pius 
 VII., desolation and barrenness reigned around the 
 Eternal City, and the malaria kept watch, like the 
 angel of death, at the gates of L’Agro Romano. 
 
 In France we pass over the St. Bartholomew and 
 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and limit our¬ 
 selves to the statement that in 1789 the power of the 
 clergy had become so abusive, that in tithes alone its 
 revenues amounted to 133 millions of francs, and the 
 sum total of them to one quarter of the national 
 revenues. 
 
 This is not our ideal of the temporal power of the 
 Church; it was iniquitous, and we' repudiate it, as 
 does the modern clergy, purified as it has been by 
 cruel trials. Not thus can God’s reign be realised 
 on earth. 
 
 God’s reign on earth consists in the natural fellow¬ 
 ship of man with man and with the external world. 
 Montesquieu describes it in the following terms: 
 “ Laws, in their broadest signification, are the indis¬ 
 pensable relationships proceeding from the nature of 
 
80 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 things, and in this sense all created beings have laws, 
 the Divinity has its laws, the material world has its 
 laws ; intellect superior to man’s intellect has its laws, 
 beasts have their laws, and man has his laws. . . . 
 God is still in communication with the universe as its 
 creator and preserver. The laws by which it was 
 created are the same as those by which it is preserved. 
 God acts upon these rules, for He knows them. He 
 knows them, for He made them. He made them 
 because they are in harmony with His wisdom and His 
 power.” 
 
 To discover what these laws are should be the main 
 object of man. 
 
 The Church ought, unrelentingly, to strive to render % 
 society more perfect by instilling into all human 
 institutions a spirit of truth and justice. 
 
 Re-establish peace in Europe ; draw nations nearer 
 together; promote progress and the diffusion of science; 
 develope labour; arrive at a more equable distribution 
 of wealth. Such are the chief points worthy of ab¬ 
 sorbing the attention of the Church, if she mean to 
 place herself on a level with existing circumstances. 
 
 We hail with joy the attempts made by Leo XIII. 
 to establish concordats with heretical nations, though 
 he do so merely to serve the interests of the Catholic 
 population living in the midst of them. 
 
 An universal concordat would be a still greater 
 boon worthy of his intelligence — a concordat with 
 Catholics, Protestants, and Greeks, based on liberal 
 politics appropriate to present necessities. 
 
 We have already shown what the Pontificate could 
 accomplish as a disinterested arbitrator in the dis- 
 
OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY. 
 
 81 
 
 putes amongst European nations, crushed under the 
 heavy expenditure for the maintenance of an armed 
 force, and constantly on the alert and pre-occupied 
 in self-defence. 
 
 It is impossible not to recognise the immense bene¬ 
 ficial results the diminution, if not the entire abo¬ 
 lition, of these charges would effect for the people, 
 obtained by a pacific arbitration, emanating from a 
 great religious effort. 
 
 Other and not less important duties would devolve 
 on the Pontiff from the moment he found himself 
 placed in the position of protector of the general 
 welfare of Europe. 
 
 # He would thenceforward regulate the intercourse of 
 the learned and commercial bodies in every nation, 
 and would thus facilitate the free exchange of thought, 
 ideas, and produce. Whereas isolation and anarchy 
 are now the reigning elements in these relations, more 
 especially in those of commerce and trade; the most 
 fallacious arguments, the most extraordinary sophisms 
 are used by industrial heads in all countries to main¬ 
 tain monopoly with regard to the most numerous 
 classes. This monopoly is a daily increasing burden, 
 and excites feelings of hatred and resentment pant¬ 
 ing to be quenched. 
 
 Is it matter of surprise that the lower orders, left 
 to their own devices, without guides or advocates, 
 should throw themselves into the arms of the first 
 ambitious demagogue, the first vulgar impostor, cater¬ 
 ing to their passions, to sever them from the estab¬ 
 lished authority, in order to net them in the worse 
 thraldom of their self-created power ? 
 
 7 
 
82 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 Hence it is that Socialism has become the spectre 
 that appals Europe. It has its apostles, its tribunes, 
 jealous of all superiority, announcing the advent of 
 the new social stratum of a fourth order, composed 
 exclusively of workmen, and aspiring after a general 
 overthrow and the reconstitution of society on arbi¬ 
 trary and Utopic bases. 
 
 It has enrolled, under the title of International, 
 an important number of European artisans. It is 
 Socialism which envenoms the strife between capital 
 and labour, between masters and men, fomenting 
 strikes, the effect of which is to check the regular 
 march of trade and increase the poverty and misery 
 of the workman. » 
 
 Were the wild schemes of this savage Socialism 
 realised, a hideous chaotic state would ensue. Society 
 would be like an army without generals, a body with¬ 
 out a head. Its natural leaders would be suppressed. 
 With them the fine arts, all that embellishes and 
 elevates life, would be excluded from the world; that 
 which constitutes its glory and its strength would be 
 extinguished; imagination, intellect, the genius of 
 discovery and of great study, would be subordinate 
 to manual labour; and an equality in contradiction 
 with the laws of nature, would destroy all emulation 
 and annihilate all progress. 
 
 Now we ask, What would society be, deprived of 
 men of genius to enlighten the march of ages and 
 enlarge the sphere of human activity ? Such men 
 irrefutably give more than they receive, whatever be 
 the recompense of their labours. 
 
 How reward men who have given us the mariner’s 
 
OF POLITICAL AND EELIGIOUS IDENTITY. 83 
 
 compass, printing, steam, electricity, looms, and other 
 machines, which help to satisfy our wants on the 
 largest scale. 
 
 The best reward for these human benefactors is that 
 they are immortal. 
 
 To these false and subversive notions, so widely 
 disseminated, and which are the more dangerous as 
 being addressed to the suffering and unenlightened 
 portion of society, invested by universal suffrage with 
 an indirect legislative power, it is urgent to oppose 
 doctrines in accordance with the natural order of 
 things, deduced from observation of the march of 
 society, and with all speed convert them into facts, and 
 place our institutions in harmony with them. 
 
 It is urgent to awake from indifference to this 
 seething of the masses, and to consider the prompt 
 amelioration of their fate as the surest and most 
 efficacious means of safety. 
 
 This improvement of the lower classes would, we 
 repeat, ensure that of the higher; for God is a father 
 to all, to the poor and to the rich, on condition that 
 the rich do not content themselves with mere indi¬ 
 vidual satisfaction, but that they consider themselves 
 as God’s stewards, and their responsibilities by so 
 much the greater that their position is higher. 
 
 The chief merit of the reforms which might be 
 salutary in checking Socialism consists in their abso¬ 
 lute simplicity. 
 
 There would be no need to demolish the old forms 
 in order to construct an entirely new social code. It 
 would suffice to adopt the numerous existing elements 
 of progress, the many powerful means at our command, 
 
84 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 which have not yet been adequately appreciated or 
 employed. 
 
 Those means are as follows :— 
 
 The reformation of our budgets with the help of 
 credit; the simplification of our taxes, and the dimi¬ 
 nution of those which weigh the heaviest on the people; 
 the gradual abatement of custom and excise duties, 
 the widest possible development of public instruction, 
 of public works ; the reorganisation of banks, as inter¬ 
 mediaries between capital and labour, and commis¬ 
 sioned to give the lowest possible rate of credit, and 
 through a system of mutuality (a system which has 
 already produced so much good in Germany) gua¬ 
 ranteed by special corporations on the most liberal 
 bases, bring their help within the reach of the social 
 workshop, and even to the workman in his home; 
 the amelioration of the repartition of comestibles by 
 the diminution of intermediary parasites, and the de¬ 
 velopment of the co-operative system ; the generalisa¬ 
 tion of rest to the aged, for all classes without ex¬ 
 ception, by means of a contribution exacted from the 
 heads of all industrial enterprises, and by the appli¬ 
 cation of rules analogous to those in vigour in life 
 and other insurance companies. 
 
 Railway companies have given the salutary example 
 of the two last-named provisions, of a truly philan¬ 
 thropic character, and which it would be well to 
 imitate. 
 
 Man is not made for the social state merely, but 
 also, and more especially, for a state of association. 
 
 Christianity has done all to develops a feeling of 
 sociability among men, and it has done so to prepare 
 
OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY. 
 
 85 
 
 tlie way to an organisation of things in which there 
 shall be neither masters nor slaves, neither masters 
 nor workmen, but associates of divers degrees and 
 titles, united for the accomplishment of one work, 
 from which each would reap a reward in proportion to 
 the importance of the work done. A few generous 
 men have made experiments of this system; wages 
 are abolished, and the artisan becomes an asso¬ 
 ciate interested in the produce of his labour. These 
 trials have given the most satisfactory results; it is 
 to be regretted that the system is not more generally 
 adopted. 
 
 Society represents three different stages of life. It 
 is essential to provide for each, and this might easily 
 be done by the accumulation of existing capital, in¬ 
 creasing as it does daily, and that in no inconsiderable 
 proportion. 
 
 The three stages of human life are childhood, 
 virility, and old age. 
 
 The first stage has a claim to gratuitous instruction 
 in all its branches, in every degree; for the proper 
 cultivation of the young guarantees the social 
 edifice, of which youth, well taught and directed, 
 becomes, so to say, the foundation-stone. Capital 
 employed in this manner would prove as fruitful as 
 that consecrated to improve machinery : the material 
 results to be obtained from the improvement of human 
 powers and faculties are incalculable. 
 
 The budget of public instruction in France is fifty- 
 seven millions of francs, whereas the ordinary expenses 
 of the Admiralty and War Office amount to seven 
 hundred and forty-nine millions of francs. In America 
 
86 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 the budget of public instruction is ten times this sum, 
 while that of the fleet and army is hut two hundred 
 and fifty-two millions for the whole confederation. 
 
 Credit, were it properly directed, would furnish, in 
 the present state of public wealth, all necessary re¬ 
 sources for the realisation of this programme.* 
 
 It will now be understood why we waged war with¬ 
 out party spirit, and without personality, against 
 financial measures, under the form of mortgage, re¬ 
 deemable loans which have a tendency to narrow the 
 limits of credit, that incomparably powerful lever, by 
 means of which society might he pacifically raised 
 and transformed; why we recommended peace loans, 
 loans conducive to civilisation, loans replacing loans 
 for war; and why we steadfastly condemned those 
 which served to aliment the rapacity and vices of 
 Eastern despots; why we pleaded in favour of rail¬ 
 way companies, in order to employ the credit they 
 possess, to finish as rapidly as possible the net¬ 
 work required : the government should not be made 
 liable for too heavy expenditure, and the savings 
 of the nation could not be more usefully employed 
 than in the direction of public interest; why we dis¬ 
 claimed the participation of the Banque de France in 
 aiding the reformation of taxes and the execution of 
 public works, the expenses of which devolve on the 
 state, for it is essential to strain every sinew of social 
 strength to insure the redemption, before God and 
 man, of the higher classes, now under threat of 
 dangers similar to those which struck the nobility in 
 
 * Vide Isaac Pereirc, “ Questions finances, ” 1876 ; “ Industrial 
 and Commercial Politics,” 1877. Paris: Guillaumin and Dentu. 
 
OF POLITICAL AND P.ELIGIOUS IDENTITY. 
 
 87 
 
 ’93; why we persevered in the modification of the 
 banking system, in order to protect industry from the 
 possibility of usurious tendencies; why we have un¬ 
 ceasingly invoked moderation and justice in favour 
 of depositors, and the conversion of consols, in order 
 to place the impositions on revenue on a more har¬ 
 monious footing with the reduced interest provoked 
 by the abundant influx of capital. 
 
 The rate of interest is continually lowered in virtue 
 of the law by which the labouring classes gradually 
 rise, and the drones retreat and descend. 
 
 As the share of the latter decreases, so that of the 
 former increases in a corresponding degree. 
 
 This law is the condemnation of modern economical 
 science, which is one long argument in favour of 
 landed and monied proprietors, representing this class 
 as the generous dispensers of funds, and in return 
 for so great a service acquiring a right to largely in¬ 
 creased revenues, compared with the augmentation 
 of returns to the labouring class, asserting that 
 public gratitude is due to it for the activity which its 
 consumption gives to trade, while it produces nothing 
 itself. 
 
 The inverse of this theory prevails in reality; for 
 commercial prosperity is a direct consequence of the 
 ■weal of the people, the lawful consumption of which 
 is of much greater importance than that of the 
 privileged few. 
 
 “ Man must work or circumscribe his wants such 
 was the opinion pronounced by M. Thiers upon 
 those who live unoccupied on ancestral inheritance. 
 
 “He who works prays ” is a religious axiom ; and, 
 
88 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 indeed, the artisan, so to say, is the Divine work of 
 the creation. Rest is however necessary to recruit 
 exhausted strength; but this should not be imposed 
 to the very letter of the law. Jesus, whose disciples 
 were reproached by the Pharisees for plucking ears of 
 corn on the Sabbath, said, “ The Sabbath was made 
 for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” 
 
 Too much encouragement cannot be given to labour 
 —labour which is worthy of our highest and most 
 earnest respect. 
 
 The Bible proclaims, “ Man is born to work as is 
 the bird to fly.”* 
 
 A great philosopher remarks that the happiest 
 man is the man most occupied; the happiest family 
 that of which every member is usefully employed ; the 
 happiest nation that in which there are the fewest 
 drones. 
 
 “ The greatest degree of profitable earthly happi¬ 
 ness would be attained were every one usefully 
 occupied.” 
 
 “ Mankind,” says Lamennais, is a vast hive, of 
 which men are the bees.” 
 
 This implies the dual social and individual action 
 blending harmoniously for the same purpose. 
 
 Thus we picture the social body as a collective 
 being, living, like individuals with its intrinsic life, the 
 full power of its faculties, its perfect health consisting 
 in the normal action of its respective members. 
 
 Society, like individuals, possesses a heart, a brain, 
 and active members, corresponding to passionate 
 
 * Homo nascitur ad laborem, ut avis ad volatum.—Book of 
 Job, ebap. v. 
 
OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY. 
 
 89 
 
 artistic genius, to the luminous intelligence of scien¬ 
 tific men, to the workers of every class who contribute 
 the sap which aliments and invigorates the whole body. 
 
 The misery of the majority represents atrophy of 
 the inferior members of this collective body, which 
 suffers from it identically as individuals suffer from 
 paralysis of the limbs. 
 
 The fable recounted by Menenius Agrippa* to the 
 people who had withdrawn to the Mount Aventine is 
 full of truth, although its interpretation has always 
 been limited to the stomach : the want of equal distri¬ 
 bution of nourishment to every part of the body 
 evidently disturbs that organ in its appointed 
 functions. 
 
 On the same principle, by the effect of irrefutable 
 social solidarity, distress is as fatal to the rich as it 
 is to the immediate sufferers, the poor. This solid¬ 
 arity can be proved inherent in every society, and 
 evinces itself in every manifestation of the general life 
 of mankind; it is but too evident in its effects during 
 a visitation, such as the plague and other epidemics, 
 against which there are no national frontiers, no dis¬ 
 tinction of races, no continents, no rank—rich and 
 poor are mown down promiscuously by them. 
 
 It is in our power to remedy the existing evils; 
 immense resources are available for this end. They 
 would abound still more were they wisely employed. 
 It suffices to take a just estimate of the funds squan¬ 
 dered away in foreign loans, without calculating those 
 swamped in the fatal war of 1870, to be convinced of 
 the fact. 
 
 * Titus Livius and La Fontaine. 
 
90 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 What a feeling of calm, what a sense of security 
 would ensue were the system, of which we have traced 
 the outline, put into force—if instruction were insured 
 to the young and rest to the aged, as the fulfilment 
 of a social debt and duty ! Every one would find the 
 largest and most complete sphere of exercise for his 
 faculties during the season of virility and maturity, 
 in the manifold branches of human activity, the 
 amount of enjoyment increasing ever in the same 
 ratio as the unlimited development of produce ! The 
 result would be overwhelming success ; tho right of 
 labour would become a competition of excellence. 
 Utopists claim this right in vain; it is an illusion, 
 and will always be contested in an imperfect social 
 organisation. 
 
 The only remaining sources of suffering and distress 
 would he those ills that the flesh is heir to—public or 
 private charity would succour and alleviate them; 
 indeed it is probable that a considerable diminution 
 of such cases would accrue from the extension of com¬ 
 fort, the improvements in the sanitary condition of 
 towns, where light and air would circulate freely, and 
 from the organisation of a vast system of hygiene to 
 guard the public health from the deleterious elements 
 to which it is exposed. Human life would be pro¬ 
 longed and numbers preserved who scarcely taste of 
 the banquet of life, and whose short passage on earth 
 leaves no trace, save the sorrow of those who at every 
 cost have struggled to snatch them from the grasp of 
 death. 
 
 The prophetic dream of the illustrious and un¬ 
 fortunate Condorcet would thus be realised. 
 
OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY. 
 
 91 
 
 How is it possible for the clergy to stand aloof from 
 this pre-eminently holy work ? How is it possible for 
 it to refrain from seeking to calm the effervescence of 
 the misled, and to disarm the regicide excited to mad¬ 
 ness and to the monomania of murder ? 
 
 Were it to use its influence to procure an increase 
 of social welfare for the poor, and valiantly to proclaim 
 from the pulpit new and modern truths, it would then 
 most assuredly attain the apogee of spiritual and tem¬ 
 poral power. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 pastoral letters of If Ions terror ^.Ictri, 
 
 Archbishop of Perugia. 
 
 ON THE 
 
 CHURCH AND CIVILISATION. 
 
PART FIRST. 
 
 The everlasting duty of proclaiming the truth, imposed 
 upon us in our ministry, dearly beloved diocesans, is ren¬ 
 dered more than ever urgent at the present day by the 
 increasing and pressing wants of the age. 
 
 We are constrained to enlighten your consciences, which 
 some seek to darken by false and seductive doctrines, and 
 to warn you agaiust maxims, freely propagated and emi¬ 
 nently dangerous. It is above all requisite to address 
 you, to dissipate the confusion which some endeavour to 
 throw into general notions, until it is difficult to discern 
 what to reject as evil and what to accept as good and just ; 
 for, dearly beloved diocesans, the war waged against God 
 and His Holy Church is so much the more formidable 
 that it is often devoid of loyalty and conducted by strata¬ 
 gem and hypocrisy. If the irreligious men who live 
 amongst us frankly exposed their aim, our task would be 
 facilitated, and the faithful, alarmed at the enormity of 
 the enterprise, would turn a deaf ear to their beguilers. 
 But they do not act thus, they use expressions which 
 deceive, words of twofold interpretation, vague and unde¬ 
 fined ; and without any clue to explanation, they launch 
 their ideas, a prey to public curiosity, and thereon erect 
 so many fortresses, from which they fire on the Church, 
 its ministers, and its teachings. 
 
 More than one patent example of this artifice could be 
 cited. We will mention only one expression of which 
 
96 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 unbelievers make sad abuse. Who but has heard with 
 what delight the word “ civilisation” is repeated every¬ 
 where, and with the understanding that there exists irre¬ 
 concilable antagonism between it and the Church ? Now, 
 this word, in itself vague, the definition of which is 
 studiously avoided, is converted into the scourge with 
 which to lash us, the arm with which to overthrow our 
 most holy institutions, the means of opening the floodgates 
 of the most deplorable excesses. 
 
 If God and His representative on earth are laughed to 
 scorn, civilisation requires it, they say. 
 
 Civilisation necessitates the restriction of the number 
 of churches and priests, and the multiplication of dens of 
 iniquity. 
 
 Civilisation clamours for theatres, where modesty and 
 decency are set at nought. Civilisation spurs on to the 
 most shameless usury, to the most unlawful gains. In 
 the name of civilisation, a polluted press perverts men’s 
 minds; and art, turned prostitute, sullies the eyes with 
 revolting pictures, and prepares the corruption of the 
 heart. Sheltered by this mendacious word, displayed as 
 a venerable banner, the venomous produce is freely dis¬ 
 seminated, and in the midst of dizzying rumours and 
 ideas run wild, it strives to show that ours is the blame if 
 civilisation is impeded from making more rapid strides 
 and attaining a higher destiny. 
 
 Such is the origin of what is styled, “ the struggle in 
 favour of civilisation,” but which ought rather to be named, 
 “ the violent oppression of the Church.” 
 
 It will not surprise you, dearly beloved diocesans, if at 
 the approach of Lent, addressing you according to custom 
 in our pastoral letter, w T e have chosen to treat this question 
 at length and in preference to any other subject. 
 
 We are anxious to prove to you, by the evidence of facts, 
 that for the good contained in this word civilisation, and in 
 its signification, we are indebted to the Church; and by 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 97 
 
 its maternal solicitude alone can its benefits be guaranteed 
 to us in future. 
 
 ii. 
 
 In beginning to treat of this important subject, we wish 
 to avoid the reproach we made to our adversaries of using 
 words the sense of which is undetermined, and which are 
 consequently liable to engender confusion. Truth can 
 never gain by such a system, and you, dearly beloved 
 brethren, who have so often listened to the voice of your 
 pastor, you are witness of our constant efforts to ensure 
 the triumph of truth over error. We will endeavour, in 
 the first place, to define the sense of this often-repeated 
 word, and we are convinced that the time so spent will 
 not be ill employed, if in explaining the distinct meaning 
 of this word, our address gain in lucidity and method. 
 
 iii. 
 
 It is a recognised truth, and the least reflection will 
 suffice to convince us of it, that man was created by 
 God to live sociably, and that he is so constituted that 
 without society he could in no way be preserved. The 
 child, left to itself, would perish more rapidly than flowers 
 destined to live but a few hours. The adolescent, without 
 experience and judgment, would be often led astray to his 
 detriment, were he deprived of counsel and guide to teach 
 him to conduct himself honourably in the world, and to 
 consider the interchange of services a duty — to do unto 
 others as he would they should do unto him. The man 
 would be wrecked without the provident guardianship of 
 the society to which he belongs. A celebrated French 
 economist (Frederic Bastiat) describes the manifold bene¬ 
 fits which man reaps from society; and this sketch pre¬ 
 sents a wonderful picture, worthy of admiration. 
 
 “ The very poorest man, the meanest artisan, has always 
 
 8 
 
98 THE religious and social question. 
 
 wherewitli to clothe himself, ill or well. Now, how many 
 persons have found active employment to prepare him a 
 coat or a pair of shoes ? Each day he has a share of 
 bread ; and here again, how many hands are necessary to 
 arrive’at this result, from the labourer who follows the 
 plough, or sows the seed, to the baker who converts the 
 flour into bread! This man is heir to certain rights. 
 Society furnishes him with lawyers to defend them, with 
 magistrates to consecrate them by their verdicts, and with 
 constables to enforce respect to them. Is he ignorant ? 
 Schools are not wanting. There are men who compose 
 books, and others who print them for his use. To satisfy 
 liis religious instincts, his aspirations to God, he can apply 
 to his brethren, who, abandoning every other occupation, 
 dedicate themselves to the study of Holy Writ, turning 
 aside from the joys of this world, from family life and 
 commerce, better to acquit themselves of the task of re¬ 
 plying to this s uperior want. ’ 
 
 It would be superfluous to dwell longer on the evident 
 necessity of living in society in order to satisfy wants as 
 numerous as they are imperious. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Society, composed of men whose nature is essentially 
 perfectible, cannot remain stationary; it progresses and 
 improves. One century is heir to the inventions, dis¬ 
 coveries, and ameliorations realised in the preceding age; 
 and the sum of physical, moral, and political advantages 
 is thus admirably increased. 
 
 Who could compare the wretched huts of primitive 
 races, their clumsy utensils, their imperfect instruments, 
 with those of the nineteenth century ? Can there be any 
 comparisons between the work executed by ingeniously 
 constructed machinery and that due to manual labour ? 
 No doubt can exist that roads are better traced, bridges 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 99 
 
 stronger and safer, that journeys are simplified and 
 abridged by progress ; railways and steam lend us wings, 
 and in some sort have lessened the globe by making 
 nations more accessible to one another. 
 
 Our public morality and the urbanity of our manners* 
 are they not superior to the rude and uncultivated deal¬ 
 ings of barbarism ? Keciprocal intercourse is now of a 
 polite nature. 
 
 The political system, under the influence of time and 
 experience, has on some heads been modified and improved. 
 Private vengeance is no longer tolerated. The ordeal by 
 fire, the lex poena talionis , are abolished. Petty feudal 
 tyrants, querulous commonalties, wandering troops of un¬ 
 disciplined soldiers, have they not all disappeared ? It is 
 incontestable that man, in society, goes on improving in a 
 threefold view—in material welfare, moral intercourse with 
 his fellow men, and in political institutions. Now, the 
 different degrees of this progressive development which 
 men, brought in contact with each other by society or 
 association, attain, constitute civilisation. It is in its 
 cradle and rudimentary when the conditions of man’s im¬ 
 provement on these three heads have a narrow, limited 
 sphere of action ; it becomes adult when it enjoys a broader 
 field of manifestation ; it would be complete if all these 
 conditions could be completely developed. 
 
 v. 
 
 The above is the true notion of civilisation. To avoid 
 the accusation of giving blind thrusts and battling with the 
 air, we will now attack the vital question which at present 
 holds the world in suspense. 
 
 Is it true that civilisation can bear no fruit in a society 
 imbued with the spirit of Jesus Christ, and in the midst of 
 which the Catholic Church exercises maternal and sove¬ 
 reign authority ? Is man necessarily deprived of all tlje 
 
100 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AMD SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 advantages which he has a right to expect from the phy¬ 
 sical order of society, unless he rebel against and repudiate 
 the Church ? We should affirm it, if we looked no further 
 than the current ideas and facts which occur before our 
 eyes. It would behove us to say so, if real incompatibility 
 existed between Christianity, the Church, and civilisation, 
 were we persuaded that all hope of improvement is vain 
 until the Church is done away with. This is, dear diocesans, 
 the great, the capital question. Were it solved to the detri¬ 
 ment of the Church, it were impossible to prevent the 
 apostasy of her sons; they would disdain and disown an 
 institution obliging them to remain without the pale of 
 civilisation. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The question, grave in itself and in its consequences, is, 
 however, one which turns entirely to the glory of the 
 Church. Calm reflection and an impartial study of facts 
 will suffice to prove this. And it is thus, after calm reflec¬ 
 tion and with the help of historical light, that we propose 
 discussing it, in order that not one of you, dear diocesans, be 
 led astray by the cunning and malicious, nor tempted to 
 indulge in false suspicions against the Church. The 
 subject is, however, too vast to be fully treated in the 
 restrained limits of a pastoral letter ; it is better to divide it, 
 and, for the present, merely consider civilisation and how 
 it realises the improvement of men in society, under the 
 physical and material head. And it is not unadvisedly 
 that we make this our starting-point; for it is not only the 
 first of which account is taken in development, the first 
 that attracts attention, it is in fact the most important, 
 not for its intrinsic value, but owing to the disordinate 
 inclinations of our period, chiefly absorbed by sensual en¬ 
 joyments and well-being in this present life. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 101 
 
 VII. 
 
 It is surely incredible, dear diocesans, that in the Church 
 and with its teachings, man cannot attain, even in physical 
 well-being, the same degree of civilisation which he could 
 acquire where he freed from all dependence on and all 
 union with her ? Our best answer to this we find in the 
 well-known words of an author, who cannot be suspected of 
 partiality towards the Church : “ What an admirable ordi¬ 
 nation ! The Christian religion, which seems anxious for 
 our happiness in the next life, constitutes our happiness 
 in the present state.” * 
 
 Now I pray you to remark, dear diocesans, that the first 
 source of prosperity is labour; from it flow streams of 
 public and private wealth, the perfecting of matter, and a 
 host of ingenious discoveries. Now labour, considered in 
 its most humble form, which is manual labour, or in its 
 most noble, which is the study of nature, to fathom its 
 powers and apply them to the uses of life, who, I ask, ever 
 encouraged it more than the pure and unalterable religion 
 of Jesus Christ ? 
 
 Work was, and still is, treated with contumely where the 
 benign influence of Christianity has not been felt. Aris¬ 
 totle pronounced it unworthy of a freeborn man. I Plato 
 gave the same verdict.^; Artisans, who have ever been the 
 object of tender solicitude on the part of the Church, were 
 not admitted into citizenship in Greece; they were con¬ 
 sidered all but slaves.§ The free-born man, in possession 
 of his full rights, does not work; he disdains even the fine 
 arts ; he must make a display of this in the amphitheatre, 
 among his associates ; and in public assemblies he boasts of 
 his eloquence and his indolence. Eoman customs differed 
 but little in this respect from those of Greece. Cicero, that 
 grave philosopher and illustrious orator, entertained a 
 
 * Montesquieu, “Esprit des Lois,” xxiv. iii. 
 
 f Politic, iii. il; viii. 2. J De Kep. ii. § Politic, ii. 1. 
 
102 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 great contempt for labour ; artisans were barbarians, mere 
 nothings and nobodies, with liim. ::: Terence, whose testi¬ 
 mony is valuable on the ideas current at his time in Rome, 
 gives it to be understood that, to be honoured and esteemed, 
 a man must lead an inactive, idle life, not be compelled 
 to work for his subsistence.! Juvenal shows us what was 
 the favourite occupation of free Romans : “to cringe or to 
 be insolent to the rich in order to receive bread and enjoy 
 sanguinary amusements at their expense.”! 
 
 Such was labour, brethren, with the two most civilised 
 people of antiquity; and with others it was not held in 
 better esteem, and indeed has but a small share of honour 
 in the present time. Tacitus tells us the abhorrence the 
 ancient Germans had for work, and we see the same 
 antipathy to labour perpetuated amongst people deprived 
 of Gospel light. In India, a Brahmin, that is, a member 
 of the highest caste, would consider himself polluted by the 
 simple touch of a pariah. The wild Indians of North 
 America abstain from all labour, which they leave to the 
 women, treated as slaves by them ; and if we give credence 
 to a celebrated review, § even amongst ourselves, we who 
 are so highly civilised, pay only verbal homage to labour, 
 and though we bow down before the rich, we give but 
 chary welcome to the man whose hands are callous from 
 contact with his implements of labour. 
 
 The breath of religion changed this order of things. 
 Labour was considered as a supernatural dignity; for 
 Jesus Christ, the Son of the true God, was in obedience 
 to a poor artisan of Galilee, and did not blush to work 
 with His blessed hands in the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth. 
 The apostles sent by Jesus Christ gained their daily bread 
 by the work of their hands, in order not to be a burden to 
 their brethren, and indeed to enable them to succour the 
 indigent. 
 
 * Qusest. Pub. v. 36. f Eun. ii. 3. + Satires, x. 81. 
 
 § “ Revue ties Deux Mondes.’* 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 103 
 
 In after years the fathers of the Church can scarcely 
 find adequate terms to express their admiration and esteem 
 for labour. St. Ambrose and St. Augustine extol its 
 usefulness. Saint John Chrysostom upholds that, apart 
 from its being imposed on us as an expiation, it is an 
 exercise which strengthens our moral nature. In short, 
 labour allows man not only to maintain himself, but gives 
 him the means of helping others. 
 
 Every sound and true thought on labour is of Christian 
 origin ; all have emanated from the bosom of the Church, 
 whose powerful influence has been used to convert these 
 panegyrics into facts and institutions. 
 
 Monastic life was especially consecrated to labour, and 
 agriculture followed in its wake, took its place in society, 
 and brought a glorious and powerful help to the general 
 well-being. Thirteen centuries separate us from the 
 origin of this great institution. In the pride of our in¬ 
 dustry and progress, we are too apt to forget the times 
 which gave birth to them, the efforts that were made, and 
 all for which civilisation is indebted to them. Praise be 
 to those poor monks who gave so strong an impulse to 
 what renders life agreeable and easy ! 
 
 Labour is now in honour. He who has capital does not 
 scruple to increase it by labour; he who has none en¬ 
 deavours, through its helj>, to amass the wealth he covets ; 
 but these venerable men, united under the discipline of 
 the Church, lived in barbarous, turbulent times, in which 
 labour was attractive to none, when a man with robust 
 arms deemed he could make no better use of them than to 
 place them at the service of some rapacious freebooter, 
 seeking only pillage and murder; and nevertheless, even 
 under such contrary conditions, they spread themselves 
 throughout Europe, which was barren and devastated, and, 
 thanks to their indefatigable labour, changed its aspect 
 and covered it with flourishing cultivation and consequent 
 fertility. 
 
104 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 Let us cast a retrospective glance at tliose times and 
 reflect, dearly beloved diocesans, on the useful example set 
 by men, contented to be ill clad and worse fed, who only 
 interrupted their prayers to plough the rugged earth and 
 sow the seed, which at harvest time was to yield where¬ 
 with to furnish bread to the poor, to pilgrims, and to the 
 whole surrounding country. Moreover, they used every 
 effort to facilitate communications between different 
 nations, and to establish sure and easy means of com¬ 
 mercial intercourse by making roads and constructing 
 bridges. Society undeniably has reaped immense ad¬ 
 vantages from the experience of these men, who were in¬ 
 defatigable in renewing and multiplying their laborious 
 attempts, and clubbing together their strength and their 
 intelligence to achieve the drainage of morasses, damming 
 of rivers, establishing of reservoirs to irrigate the land, 
 and these so ingeniously contrived that, according to a 
 celebrated historian, 5 " our very contemporaries have still 
 something to learn from these old monks, spite of the 
 progress of natural science since their time ! 
 
 Primitive art and science, strictly necessary to agricul¬ 
 tural pursuits, are by no means all that owe their existence 
 and their development to the labour of monks, inspired 
 and directed by the Church. Mechanical art and the fine 
 arts had not a more favourable field for culture than in 
 churches, episcopal residences, and monasteries, where 
 the former was fined down and modified, and the early 
 rays of the latter shot forth until they acquired finally the 
 maximum of their astonishing splendour. 
 
 If, then, labour be the source of riches, if public wealth 
 be the sign of civilisation and human perfectiveness, in so 
 far as physical and external well-being are concerned—no 
 doubt can be entertained of the right (historically incon¬ 
 trovertible) which the Church has to public gratitude, and 
 
 Cortes, “ Histoire des Italiens.” 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 105 
 
 thus it would be unjust and unreasonable to take up arms 
 against lier in the name and in the interests of civilisation. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 This wild injustice becomes still more manifest if we 
 consult our civil records—records which the enemies of 
 the Church, prejudiced and full of party spirit as they are, 
 either do not read or too easily forget when read. 
 
 What! the Church is to he abandoned, dearly beloved 
 brethren, because she is reproached with incapacity to 
 further civilisation and the progress thirsted after ! It 
 must he owned, unless the historical documents of our 
 country are reduced to ashes, that in Italy society never 
 soared higher in its flight towards civilisation than when 
 animated by the Christian spirit and enveloped by a 
 Catholic atmosphere. Notwithstanding our vanity and 
 our boasting, I cannot suppose that some men would have 
 the courage to maintain that, in political and industrial 
 greatness, w e moderns are about to distance our Catholic 
 forefathers, whose faith is attested not only by their words 
 but in their deeds. 
 
 Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Lucca, Florence, and many other 
 Italian cities or provinces, so long as they respected the 
 authority of the Church, interpreted the fulness of their 
 belief in magnificent basilicas and in pious foundations; 
 and so long their power, if we take into consideration the 
 epoch and the imperfect means at their command, sur¬ 
 passed all that modern nations can boast of, be they never 
 so prosperous. 
 
 Ionia, the Black Sea, Africa, and Asia were the sphere 
 of our commercial transactions and of the warlike expe¬ 
 ditions of our ancestors. Their conquests were important 
 and fertile; and while their flag, wafted by foreign breezes, 
 inspired respect and fear, they did not lack activity in 
 their native land. 
 
106 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 The arts were cultivated and commerce developed by 
 every royal means, public and private wealth. Woollen 
 and silk manufactures, goldsmiths’ ware, painted glass, 
 and paper-mills, supplied work to myriads of hands in 
 Florence, Pisa, Bologna, Milan, Venice, and Naples, and 
 attracted to our marts foreign gold and competitors. 
 
 Hence sprang the luxury so energetically blamed by 
 Alighieri, Villani, Vachi, and almost all our old chroni¬ 
 clers. It was born of the wealth proceeding from our 
 commerce. Hence likewise the progress and splendours 
 of the fine arts—the aestlietical charm of an unoccupied 
 luxurious life. The immortal names of Giotto, Arnolfo, 
 Brunelleschi, and those of Perugino, Baphael, Titian, 
 Vignola, Palladio, and many others, form, as it were, a 
 frame for the picture which represents the marvellous 
 development of a social state, the which to walk freely in 
 the paths of progress and cultivation neither was incredu¬ 
 lous nor compelled to sever the bonds which united it to 
 the Church. 
 
 IX. 
 
 To the Church belongs not only the undeniable merit 
 of ennobling and sanctifying labour, of having stimulated 
 the rapid march of civilisation in a society which she 
 formed and guided; a still higher honour and purer 
 glory are hers—that of restricting human activity to wise 
 limits, and so preventing labour from becoming a source 
 of tyranny and oppression, but on the contrary converting 
 it into a means of procuring desirable advantages and 
 loyal prosperity. 
 
 Modern schools of political economy, infected with 
 incredulity, consider labour the supreme aim of man. 
 Man himself is treated as a machine, the value of which 
 depends on his greater or less productive capacity. Hence 
 the light esteem in which the moral attributes of man are 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 107 
 
 held; lienee the shameful abuse of indigence and weak¬ 
 ness by those who exploit them to their own profit. 
 What grave representations, what sad complaints are 
 made on the overtaxed time of the man who earns his 
 bread by the sweat of his brow ! and this too in a country 
 reputed the most civilised on the face of the globe. 
 
 The myriads of poor children, too, occupied in factories, 
 where they dwindle away from want of air and movement, 
 as well as from premature fatigue. Can a Christian 
 contemplate this and not grieve over it ? Would not words 
 of fire escape from every generous soul to compel govern¬ 
 ments and parliaments to pass laws to prevent this 
 lamentable human traffic ? 
 
 What, indeed, would become of those wretched little 
 beings abandoned by their x>arents, condemned to the 
 fever of labour, had not Catholic charity, ever indefatigable 
 in its efforts to do good, provided baby homes and chil¬ 
 dren’s asylums. Ah ! dear diocesans, when we look on 
 these things, or hear them told by persons beyond suspicion 
 of exaggeration, we are overwhelmed with indignation 
 against those who would confide the fate of civilisation 
 into the hands of these barbarians—its pretended bene¬ 
 factors and well-wishers. 
 
 Still worse, this excessive toil, which enervates and 
 wears the body out, ruins the soul also, and effaces in it, 
 little by little, the Divine similitude. By dint of chaining 
 men down to mere matter, plunging and drowning them 
 in it, spiritual life is benumbed in them, and the unfortu¬ 
 nate victims of labour are driven back by it to a pagan 
 state. Everything which elevates man—making him the 
 being according to the Creator’s will—the king of crea¬ 
 tion, the Lord’s adopted son, the heir of the kingdom of 
 heaven—all this is obliterated from their sight, forgotten, 
 and they are left a prey to the unbridled brutal passions 
 and coarse instincts of men. 
 
 At the sight of these misfortunes, engendered by the 
 
108 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 rapacity and pride of inhuman men, one is led to ask if 
 these upholders of civilisation, separated from God and 
 the Church, instead of causing the world to progress, are 
 not, in fact, thrusting it several centuries back—to the 
 times when half the world was bound in slavery to the 
 other half, and as the poet Juvenal states, the majority 
 lived merely to cater to the amusement of the few. Can 
 this impetuosity which carries us away at the present day 
 be better checked and corrected than by the Catholic 
 Church ? 
 
 If this tender mother on the one hand exhorts all men 
 to work, on the other she uses all suitable means to avoid 
 the abuse of labour. Without dwelling on the fact that 
 for her humanity and charity are not words devoid of 
 meaning, we ask, who but recognises the salutary effect 
 of Sabbath rest, and that of feast days also, attenuating 
 the rigour and interrupting the painful tension of con¬ 
 stant work, coming as they do from time to time to diffuse 
 the light of holy joys in the household of believers ? 
 
 As the traveller, weary of his long journey across the 
 desert beneath the scorching rays of the sun, rejoices to 
 meet with an oasis where he can rest under the cool 
 shadow of trees and extend his limbs on a soft verdant 
 carpet, so the Christian hails the beloved days which 
 dawn at stated intervals to re-invigorate his body and 
 inundate his soul with suave consolations. On such days 
 the poor labourer shakes off the dust of the fields and the 
 workshop, he dons his festive suit, and life appears brighter 
 and lighter to him. He is reminded that God did not 
 create him to be eternally yoked to the chariot of matter, 
 but that he might become its master; for him the sun 
 sends forth its vivifying beams ; for him the hills exhale 
 their exquisite fragrance ; for him the meadows spread out 
 their flowery wealth, where he delights to take his wife and 
 children; for him God allows tli3 daily frugal board to 
 offer a choice repast in honour of the festival. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 109 
 
 The voice of Religion summons him to church. There 
 he finds delights unknown to him without its sacred 
 precincts : his ears are charmed by its sacred harmony, 
 his eyes rest with pleasure on its precious marbles, its 
 rich gilding, its graceful ornaments, or the pure lines of 
 its architectural beauty ; but above all, his heart is touched 
 and purified by the teaching of God’s minister, who re¬ 
 calls to him his redemption, his duty, his hope of immor¬ 
 tality. On such days sweet family joys are no longer mere 
 desires, they become realities. 
 
 His wife seated beside him, his children around him, 
 he exercises the noblest and best of sovereignties. He 
 knows his subjects—they are engrafted in his heart; they 
 too know him. He inquires about and learns their 
 wants, and the love of labour and economy expands in him 
 at the thought of providing them with all they need. 
 This festival day has been one of real rest to him ; he 
 is physically and morally the better for it. And this 
 relaxation, which is now styled blamable idleness, is on 
 the contrary a fertile truce, after which he goes back to 
 his task with renewed ardour, and without that repug¬ 
 nance which labour, considered as a punishment and 
 condemnation, inspires. Ah ! brethren, how much remains 
 to be said on the sad custom, prevalent now-a-days even 
 in Italy, of profaning days which are really God’s days, 
 but which may with equal truth be termed man’s days. 
 How grievous to see shops open, workmen at their labour, 
 machinery busy, commerce going on, on Sundays and 
 solemn feast days, instead of halting in these worldly 
 occupations to meditate on the more important business 
 of the soul, instead of devoting them to the study of the 
 everlasting truths which will guide us in the right path 
 on earth and insure to us eternal rest hereafter. 
 
 The work accomplished to the detriment of God’s glory 
 and our most sacred duties, dearly beloved diocesans, will 
 never contribute to either public or private wealth ; on 
 
110 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 the contrary, a celebrated unbeliever of the last century 
 says, “ Tlie people must not only have time to earn, but 
 also time to eat their bread, and that too, to their own 
 satisfaction, without which they will soon tire of earning 
 it.” A feast day revives man’s exhausted strength; he 
 goes back to his work, after it, with fresh zeal and 
 pleasure. 
 
 The rapid sketch we have made will, dearly beloved 
 diocesans, give you an idea how unfounded and unjust is 
 the war declared against the Church in the name of civi¬ 
 lisation, considered as the realisation of the means by 
 which men perfect themselves physically and materially. 
 On the contrary, it is clear that civilisation cannot exist 
 amongst men whose passions, emancipated from the 
 maternal discipline of the Church, deteriorate and corrupt 
 what in itself is good and salutary. 
 
 But to arrive at a still better comprehension it is neces¬ 
 sary to fathom the subject further—its ideas and prejudices 
 are so widely received and disseminated that, as we have 
 already said, it becomes one of immense importance—and 
 to penetrate you still more w T ith the conviction that civili¬ 
 sation has nothing to fear from the Church, but has all to 
 hope from her concurrence. 
 
 It would be madness to deny a self-evident fact, namely, 
 that by dint of constant study and skilful experiments, 
 science has obtained the mastery over many of nature’s 
 powers, which were either not known or had escaped man's 
 domination in bygone centuries. These powers, intelli¬ 
 gently used and with the aid of cunning machinery, have 
 rendered produce more rapid, the objects produced less 
 costly, consequently wants more easily satisfied, and the 
 existence of those of limited means less arduous. 
 
 Nothing can be better than these discoveries, but unbe¬ 
 lievers make use of these fortunate and pacific scientific 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Ill 
 
 conquests over nature to attack and strike the Cliurck, as 
 though she had opposed them. The given pretext for 
 propagating this odious calumny is that the Church is 
 exclusively occupied with the sanctification of souls, and 
 instils a repugnance to the things of this life into the 
 human heart: hence the conclusion that if any good has 
 or will result from this progress, it is due to the revolt of 
 modern ideas against ecclesiastical influence. 
 
 Now, can there he a more foolish or unfounded accu¬ 
 sation ? The Church does not and cannot cease to utter 
 aloud, that all may hear, the maxims of her Divine Spouse, 
 that the soul and its eternal salvation are the greatest 
 and most important affairs for us ; for what would it profit 
 a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? a 
 single night suffices to sweep away riches which have taken 
 years to amass. 
 
 It is well that such teachings should be heard of men; 
 hut that is no reason why the Church should be inimical 
 to the study of Nature, to the research for its powers, and 
 the application of them to the production of the utilities of 
 life. I go farther, and recognise that the Church is favour¬ 
 able to these studies and discoveries, and cannot be their 
 enemy. 
 
 Examine and judge for yourselves. Can the Church 
 wish for anything more ardently than for God’s glory, and 
 a more intimate knowledge of the Supreme Artisan, to be 
 acquired by the study of His works ? If the universe is 
 a book, on every page of which are inscribed the name and 
 wisdom of the Lord, it is unquestionable that he who has 
 read and understood the most, and loves the book the best, 
 will be filled with admiration and adoration for its sublime 
 author. 
 
 If our eyes suffice to reveal to us that the heavens 
 declare the glory of God; if our ears suffice to hear the 
 praise that day telletli unto day, and the secrets of Divine 
 science which night telletli to night, how much more the 
 
112 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 power and wisdom of the Divinity will be manifest to him 
 who scrutinises the heavens and the depths of the earth ; 
 who observes the course of the stars and the source of 
 atoms, who classifies plants and shrubs, and who in his 
 studies constantly meets proofs that the Supreme Being 
 has poised all with infallible weights and measure. 
 
 Yet the Church is accused of being systematically 
 hostile, or of remaining cold and indifferent, to research 
 and study which attain such precious results. She is 
 accused of pertinaciously and obstinately sealing the book, 
 that no one may read more in it. Oh ! to believe in such 
 outrageous notions, one must be totally ignorant of the 
 ardent zeal which inflames the heart of this Spouse of 
 Jesus. 
 
 But another love than that for the glory of God kindles 
 in the Church a love not less ardent; it is the love of 
 man, and the earnest desire to see him re-installed in all 
 the rights bestowed on him by his Creator. God gave this 
 earth to man as a temporal inheritance ; his life was to be 
 spent on it, and he was proclaimed its lord. The word 
 which resounded at the dawn of creation, “ Bring the earth 
 to submission and rule over it,” has never been cancelled. 
 Had man persevered in a state of grace and innocence, 
 his empire would have required no effort, no struggle; all 
 creatures would have been subject to him spontaneously ; 
 whereas now government of it is difficult, and the crea¬ 
 tures thereof are only brought into submission by violence. 
 But be this as it may, the domination still exists, and the 
 Church, as a tender mother, can desire nothing more than 
 to see it in force, and man, fulfilling the purpose of the 
 Almighty, really lord of the creation. Now his right is 
 fully exercised when, without resting satisfied merely with 
 what his eyes see and his hands touch, he rends the veil 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 113 
 
 ■which conceals a part of his possessions, penetrates into 
 the very heart of Nature, amasses the fecund treasures 
 which it contains, and makes them subservient to his own 
 profit and to that of others. 
 
 Is it not a grand and majestic thing, brethren, for man to 
 command the thunderbolt and bring it powerless to his 
 feet ? for him to subject electricity to his will, and send it 
 forth as a messenger through the depths of the ocean, over 
 mountain heights, and across interminable plains ? Is 
 it not to his glory to adapt steam to his service, lending 
 him wings wherewith to devour space and conduct him 
 with the rapidity of lightning across land and sea ? And 
 what a triumph for him, when his genius subjugates this 
 power, to substitute the labour of man and diminish his 
 toil! 
 
 Is it not, brethren, as though he were gifted with a spark 
 •of the Creator’s power when he converts matter into light, 
 and so illumines our cities, chasing darkness from their 
 streets and flooding our halls and palaces with its efful¬ 
 gent splendours ? 
 
 And the Church, so far from opposing the progress of 
 her sons, follows them with tender solicitude, and rejoices 
 with exceeding joy as she witnesses these scientific con¬ 
 quests. 
 
 What motive could the Church have to be jealous of the 
 marvellous improvements realised by the study and dis¬ 
 coveries of our epoch ? Can they ever injure her interest 
 in any degree, or damage the faith of which she is the 
 guardian and infallible mistress ? 
 
 Bacon de Verulam says, “a little science draws us from 
 God, but much science brings us to Him again.” This golden 
 maxim has lost none of its truth, and if the Church takes 
 alarm at the ruins which vain men, who imagine they 
 9 
 
114 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 know every thing because they have a smattering of science, 
 are capable of making, she confides in those who employ 
 their genius in a deep and earnest study of nature, know¬ 
 ing that they will find God in all their researches, God 
 who manifests Himself in His works with the irrefutable 
 attributes of His wisdom, His power, and His goodness. 
 
 If perchance a celebrated genius denies God in studying 
 nature, it is a sign the poison of incredulity had already 
 entered his heart through the gateway of guilty passions. 
 He does not become an atheist because he has cultivated 
 science, but in spite of science, which ought always to 
 lead to the most noble results; and indeed those who have 
 acquired the most lasting and greatest renown in natural 
 science have been constrained by it to draw nearer to and 
 glorify God. 
 
 The great astronomer Copernicus was a thoroughly 
 religious man. Kepler, a modern astronomer, thanks 
 God for the extasies and serene emotions he has had in 
 the contemplation of His handiworks.* Galileo, to whom 
 experimental philosophy owes a vigorous impulsion, comes 
 to the conclusion that Holy Writ and nature both proceed 
 from the Deity: one dictated by the Holy Ghost, the other 
 the faithful executrix of His laws.t Linnaeus became so 
 enthusiastic by the study of nature that his admiration 
 inspires him with a hymn. “ Eternal God!” he exclaims, 
 “ God infinite, omniscient, almighty, who hast deigned to 
 reveal Thyself to me in the works of Thy creation, transfix¬ 
 ing me with admiration. In all, even in the least of the 
 works of Thy hands, what power, what wisdom, what per¬ 
 fection ! Their usefulness to our service manifests the Divine 
 goodness which made them ; their beauty and harmony 
 prove Thy infinite wisdom ; their preservation and their in¬ 
 exhaustible fecundity proclaim Thy power.” X Fontenelle, 
 
 * Mystcr. Cosmogr. f Galileo, Opere, tom. xxix. 
 
 \ Syst. Nat. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 115 
 
 the incarnation of the Encyclopaedia, which spread the 
 venom of incredulity throughout France in the eighteenth 
 century, could not refrain from owning: “The importance 
 of the study of physical science is not that it satisfies our 
 curiosity, but rather that it serves to give us less imper¬ 
 fect notions of the Creator aind Author of the universe, and 
 awakes in our minds the feelings of admiration which are 
 due to Him.” 
 
 Alexander Yolta, the immortal inventor of the electric 
 pile, was a devout Catholic, and, in days unfavourable to 
 religion, rejoiced that he was a Catholic, and did not blush 
 to reverence the gospel. Faraday, the illustrious chemist, 
 found science a path leading to God—atheists and un¬ 
 believers were odious to him. Many other names might 
 be cited of scientific genius unanimous in religious feeling; 
 but to mention all is useless, and would carry us beyond 
 our limits. 
 
 We have said enough to prove what science induces iu 
 great souls—that true and solid science whence so many 
 useful discoveries are drawn for the furtherance of arts 
 and industry; and therefore no reflecting persons will be 
 led away by the accusations made against the Church, 
 which neither mistrusts the study of nature nor contemns 
 and rejects the happy results arising from it for the public 
 well-being. 
 
 This well-being is not certainly the most important part 
 of civilisation; it is nevertheless a detail not to be over¬ 
 looked. 
 
 It is then evident, brethren, that so far from being re¬ 
 quisite to make war on the Church in order to forward the 
 interests of civilisation, civilisation would on the contrary 
 make happier progress were it not constantly torn away 
 from its tender, loving mother, to fall into the hands of 
 misguided men, who warp it so wofully that every honest 
 heart is filled with just indignation. 
 
116 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 We have not yet fathomed all the motives to be urged 
 in defence of the Church against her unjust accusers. 
 There still remains an incontestable merit to adduce in 
 her favour, one which cannot be denied by her most pre¬ 
 judiced enemies. 
 
 It is not sufficient, brethren, to encourage, ennoble, and 
 sanctify labour, to enlarge and extend man’s empire over 
 the intrinsic forces of nature, we must, at the same time, 
 remember that numbers of our fellow creatures, either by 
 birth or accident, are incapable of earning their daily 
 bread. What a terrible spectacle were it if all these un¬ 
 fortunate beings were excluded from the progress of civili¬ 
 sation, in so far as it realises the perfectiveness of man’s 
 physical estate in society! In vain is it to strain imagi¬ 
 nation in picturing a world whence sorrow and sickness 
 and infirmities are banished; a world in which life would 
 be a perpetual banquet! reality quickly dissipates such 
 illusions, and stands, like a giant spectre, in the midst of 
 us. 
 
 Sickness which destroys strength, physical defects, want 
 of intelligence, wars, commercial disasters, are they not 
 so many sources of misfortune and want ? And how 
 numerous the victims! how many left without shelter! 
 What multitudes of orphans ! what appalling distress I 
 Paganism was heedless of all such woe ; to a few freemen 
 —noisy and quarrelsome—bread and brutal sports were 
 furnished, but children, if they became too numerous for 
 the wants of the family, or if they were sickly, or too weakly 
 constituted to be of use to the State, were strangled at 
 their birth. The aged, infirm, and impotent were cast 
 into some valley, or on some island, to die of starvation. 
 Ah! why do not the advocates of pagan civilisation recall 
 these facts to themselves and to others ? 
 
 On this head, Christianity—the Catholic Church in which 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 117 
 
 alone Christianity preserves its primitive purity—gave an 
 entirely new impulse to civilisation, and the heights it 
 reached neither tongue can relate nor pen describe. The 
 precepts of charity inculcated by our Divine Redeemer 
 were acclaimed with holy transports of joy, and its 
 examples followed with incomparable zeal and fidelity from 
 the beginning. The rich were exhorted to give of their 
 superfluity, and those who lived by the sweat of their brow 
 were encouraged to be untiring, that they might gain 
 wherewith to succour the infirm, and thus participate in 
 the blessings reserved to those who prefer giving to 
 receiving alms.* 
 
 It would be a long and useless undertaking to go through 
 a history, the pages of which are well known, to prove that 
 from the earliest ages the Church was peculiarly careful to 
 alleviate the fate of the unfortunate : a recital of these 
 efforts appeared but recently.! An illustrious apologist 
 affirms, unhesitatingly, that he who should undertake to 
 record the history of charity would write the history of the 
 Church, i 
 
 Not satisfied with founding asylums, hospitals, and 
 houses of refuge, far more was done—the Divine virtue of 
 sacrifice was instilled into the souls of her children. The 
 Church in her homilies, in the magnificence of her out¬ 
 ward worship—above all in the mass—and at the com¬ 
 munion, to which she invites us, has this lesson in view. 
 Until the day when we were told of the crumbs which fell 
 from the rich man’s table, to appease the hunger of a poor 
 Lazarus full of sores, it is possible that such bounty might 
 be bestowed by virtue of natural kindness of heart, by the 
 refinement of ideas, and even by civil law; but never by 
 such means, or without the direction of the Holy Catholic 
 
 * Acts of the Apostles, xx. 35. 
 
 t V. E. de Champagny, “ La Charite chretienne dansles premiers 
 Siecles de l’Eglise.” 
 
 _ * F. Hettingere, Apol. del Carest. vol. ii. lib. xxii. 
 
118 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 Church, should we have witnessed the sacrifice of self, of 
 liberty, pleasure, riches, health, and often too of life, to 
 administer to the wants of the poor and the wretched. 
 Christianity alone inspires this, and without the pale of 
 the Catholic Church such examples do not exist. 
 
 There is no corner of the earth, no country, however 
 small, where some chosen spirits are not found ready to 
 give up ease, comfort, every earthly seduction, consecrat¬ 
 ing themselves to the painful task of nursing the sick, the 
 care of orphans, and the destitute of whatever kind, visit¬ 
 ing the poor in their humble dwellings, and even the 
 criminal in the prison to which society has condemned 
 him. But even now—when faith waxes faint, when 
 Christian truths are dimmed to so many by continual 
 contradictions, when the highest and most important 
 affair seems to amass wealth, no matter how, and dissipate 
 it in procuring Sybarite pleasures, in a word, everything 
 which can deaden the spirit of sacrifice—we have but to 
 look around to convince ourselves that charity flourishes, 
 that grace is not quenched, that the vivifying spirit of 
 God is still active in the Church, to quicken the power of 
 sacrifice and the will to succour the unfortunate. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Ah! my brethren, when after contemplating with rapt 
 satisfaction this sublime proof of the divinity and bene¬ 
 ficent influence of the Church, we hear of the conflict 
 raised against her in the name of civilisation, it is impos¬ 
 sible not to be seized with profound regret, and we are un¬ 
 able to chase the sad presentiments of the scourges which 
 this impious and wild contempt of benefits received may 
 draw down on us. 
 
 Struggle against the Church! Oh! brethren, why ? 
 What is the purport of this strife ? Is it to plunge men 
 into the feverish grasp of consuming labour, considered as 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 119 
 
 the supreme aim of life, adopted as a means of riding 
 rough-sliod over the humiliated heads of their neigh¬ 
 bours ? Struggle against the Church ! Again, why ? For 
 humanity to be confided to the charge of an uncertain and 
 weak philosophy, and to sever it from the bosom of that 
 religion which inspires and vivifies prodigies of Divine 
 charity ? Struggle against the Church ! once more, why ? 
 To blot out the glorious history of Christian civilisation, 
 the brilliant splendours of which have revealed the deep 
 wounds in men’s hearts ? 
 
 The Catholic Church declares, through its head, “ that 
 there can be no reconciliation between her and the civili¬ 
 sation of our day.” Herein lies the substance of the 
 accusation launched against us, and the motive of the 
 declaration of war. 
 
 But let us inquire what is this civilisation condemned 
 by the Church and declared by her august head, the infalli¬ 
 ble master of believers, to be incompatible with her? 
 Assuredly it is not the civilisation by which men perfect 
 themselves in the threefold manner we have indicated ; no, 
 it is not that, but a civilisation seeking to supplant Chris¬ 
 tianity and to rob us of all the good with which its action 
 has enriched us. 
 
 If those who use the Syllabus as a scare-crow to intimi¬ 
 date the world, had reflected that skill is not everything, 
 that uprightness is still better, they would not have 
 selected this sentence and offered it to excite the anger and 
 hatred of mankind ; they would have sought to determine 
 its real sense by the whole of the document from which it 
 was taken—a meaning clearly pointed out—and thus they 
 would easily have been convinced that it is not true 
 civilisation, produced as flowers and fruit from the root of 
 Christianity, which the Pontiff reprobates, but that bastard 
 
120 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 offspring, which has but the name of civilisation, and 
 which is, in fact, the implacable enemy of lawful civilisa¬ 
 tion. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Those who pretend that the Church is averse to arts and 
 science, or to the study of nature and its laws, are equally 
 calumnious. Were they open to conviction, their doubts- 
 would be dissipated by the proofs we have given, that the 
 highest intelligence, the most illustrious learned men, have 
 almost always been fervent Christians and devout sons of 
 the Church. 
 
 The fathers of the Vatican Council pronounced on this 
 head words which our adversaries would do well to read, 
 and meditate on. After having shown that no opposition 
 can exist between reason and faith, that on the contrary 
 one is ordained to succour the other, they add, “ In this 
 wise, far from injuring the culture of arts and science, she 
 is their abettor and patroness. She is aware of the ad¬ 
 vantages accruing from them to mankind, and confesses,, 
 on the contrary, that all science proceeds from God, and 
 when properly studied must lead to God.”* 
 
 So the vaunted pretexts have neither foundation nor 
 worth ; they are merely the expressions of hatred to the 
 Church and the desire to sully her purity. 
 
 Still if science, so far from being anathematised, is en¬ 
 couraged by the Church, there is at least one description 
 of it reprobated by her, viz., science springing from 
 philosophy and declaring with Satanic pride, “ that human 
 reason—God being wholly set aside—is the only judge of 
 what is true and what is false, the only arbitrator of what 
 is good and what is evil, that it has in itself the guiding 
 law, and by its natural innate strength is able to procure 
 the happiness of nations and of men.f 
 
 Science absorbed in matter, proclaiming nature ever- 
 
 * Cone. Vatican, cap. vi., De Fid. et Rat. f Syll. prop. iii. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 121 
 
 lasting ; soaring towards heaven and descending into the 
 bowels of the earth, in the absurd hope of finding a 
 rational argument against the cosmogony of Moses; 
 science which lowers man to the rank of animals, and 
 threatens to destroy the ground-work -of conscience, family, 
 and society. No ; scientific genius, instead of complaining, 
 should on the contrary thank God for having established 
 this infallible mastership on earth, which invokes present 
 and future blessings on it, and which safeguards it by 
 preserving it from the criminal hands anxious to wrench 
 it from us. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 God forbid that any of you, dearly beloved diocesans, 
 should be led away by flattering words to become prose¬ 
 lytes. If, as becomes lofty and generous minds, honest 
 progress and the development of civilisation are dear to 
 you, be convinced that your surest way of contributing to 
 the perfectiveness of civilisation is by remaining faithful 
 in heart and mind to the doctrines and observances of the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 The truth is partially laid before you, and we would fain 
 throw further light upon the moral and political ameliora¬ 
 tion of mankind were we writing an essay and not a 
 pastoral letter, and if it were not our purpose, God willing, 
 to recur again to this subject. 
 
 Facts are there to prove to all where this insane 
 struggle is leading us. From the highest to the lowest 
 grades of society, I challenge any one to assert that he 
 has gained anything but bitterness and deception in the 
 conflict. 
 
 And if we cast an anticipating glance on what will be 
 the probable results of these ungodly attempts, we must 
 shudder with dread if we have either heart or judgment. 
 
 On the one hand, a crowd deprived of belief in a future life 
 and of the solace of faith under trials—a crowd incapable of 
 
122 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 finding compensation in tlie pleasures and enjoyments of 
 this world, too poor in reason of their covetousness, and 
 over rich in contrasts and misery ; on the other hand, a 
 few men favoured by fortune’s smiles, but who have not 
 one spark of charity in their composition, occupied in 
 accumulating and enjoying wealth. On one side, the thrill 
 of despair which will end in deeds of brutal violence ; on 
 the other, obscene pleasures, feasting and dancing, which 
 irritate and exasperate the forgotten destitute, and provoke 
 chastisement from on high. 
 
 We have gained this. This is what is promised us by 
 the war made against the Church in the name of civilisa¬ 
 tion, and which threatens to thrust its back to the 
 barbarity of the dark ages. 
 
 Then, if it still be time to stop present an*d future perils, 
 that salvation will only be obtained by fidelity to God’s 
 laws and to the Church, courageously observed in the 
 bright examples of Christian life, what better season than 
 Lent for commencing this reparatory work? The pre¬ 
 tended representatives of the age, who strive after civi¬ 
 lisation without God and against God, will not succeed. 
 But for you, dearly beloved diocesans, you ought to prove 
 by word and deed that the means of preserving and in¬ 
 creasing the welfare bequeathed to us by our forefathers 
 is to remain dependent on the Almighty and faithful to 
 His Church. 
 
 It is through God’s grace and under the guidance of 
 His Church that mankind will become really and glori¬ 
 ously civilised. 
 
 When sad and discouraged at the spectacle of this vast 
 revolt of men, of governments, and of science against God 
 and against His Christ, remember that you possess an 
 invincible arm for your self-defence—prayer. Use it in 
 public and in private; let your cries of supplication be 
 raised to the throne of the Almighty—the shield and 
 buckler of all those who put their trust in Him. Pray for 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 123 
 
 our city, for yourselves, for your families; pray also for 
 tlie Church. 
 
 In the meantime we give you our pastoral benediction ; 
 praying that Divine grace may be showered on you abund¬ 
 antly, and with it all other heavenly gifts and consolations. 
 
 + G. Cardinal Pecci, bishop of Perugia. 
 
 Perugia—from our Episcopal Palace, 
 
 6th Feb. 1877. 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 Dearly beloved brethren, united to you for years by the 
 holy bonds of the pastoral ministry and by affectionate 
 intercourse, we are oppressed by the weight of sorrow 
 caused by an inevitable separation, imposed on us by the 
 force of the gravest motives. You will easily imagine, 
 under such circumstances, how joyfully we hail the ap¬ 
 proach of Lent, when the duty of our episcopal office is to 
 break silence and to address you as your pastor. And 
 though we are prevented from returning in person to you, 
 our pen will transmit to you our thought of you, and we 
 can thus speak of and console ourselves mutually. By 
 faith God has reserved such consolation to bishops to 
 compensate them for many cares and much bitterness. 
 And indeed what can be more agreeable to us than to hold, 
 converse with the flock, our crown and our delight; ta 
 speak to it of God, of His Christ, of Holy Church, of our 
 immortal hopes, and to repeat to it the words of the 
 Apostle, “ Hold fast to your faith in the Lord.” It is 
 the best manner of counteracting the conflicting ideas, 
 the ruinous tumult of vain and guilty desires, of the sterile 
 and powerless efforts with which our epoch is tormented 
 and weary. Even this respite is not allowed us, obliged 
 as we are in this corrupt and corrupting time to go be¬ 
 yond the limits of an exchange of peaceable and pious- 
 sentiments. 
 
 In addressing you, to recall and to quicken in your souls 
 the maxims of faith and the duties it involves, we dare 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 125 
 
 not lose sight of the attack made against faith, and that 
 men, enemies of God and His Church, are doing their 
 utmost to uproot it in your hearts. Hence it is incumbent 
 on us to put you on your guard that we may not merit the 
 reproach made in the Scriptures to shepherds who neglect 
 to keep watch over their fold when wolves draw near to 
 invade it. 
 
 ii. 
 
 This consideration it was which last year led us to 
 address you on Civilisation —the specious pretext used by 
 the enemies of the Church—in order to convince you that 
 to further its progress there is no need to take up arms 
 against us, who “ cannot befriend or take part in civili¬ 
 sation.” The subject was too vast to allow us to develope 
 it; we treated it superficially, and, if you remember, 
 merely considered civilisation as it regards the physical 
 well-being of men living in society. We left for a more 
 favourable opportunity the study of another of the two phases 
 of civilisation which remain to be discussed ;—one phase 
 only, for the same reason which limited us in our pastoral 
 letter, which we would not render too long. Now of 
 these two remaining aspects, the first which logically 
 presents itself is that which relates to the progressive im¬ 
 provement of man as an intelligent being. To adhere to 
 the natural order, we ought first to consider this point, 
 but we will waive that order and examine what civilisation 
 is as concerns the improvement in the relations of man 
 with man as a moral being. 
 
 The reason which induces us to proceed thus is that a 
 bishop addressing his flock is not called on to write a book 
 or to write a treatise, but to strike directly at the error 
 which seems the nearest and most dangerous to the 
 community. We began by treating of civilisation in its 
 dealings with material well-being, because it is the phase 
 
1‘26 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 which is most generally interesting in an age of sensuality ; 
 to-day we adopt the subject of civilisation in so far as it 
 affects the moral man. It is the highest and most im¬ 
 portant view, one which is of daily application. 
 
 iii. 
 
 None will be tempted to deny that the improvement of 
 morals, the ennobling and purification of souls, the 
 amenity of character, generosity in private, political, and 
 civil relationship, ought to be the result of true civilisa¬ 
 tion, unless, indeed, it is denied that man is perfectible 
 and inclined to perfect himself, and that he who denies 
 this denies at the same time the march of progress in this 
 direction. On this head at least every one is agreed. 
 Divergence arises from the idea that progressive improve¬ 
 ment is reputed incompatible with Christianity, or to what 
 is equivalent to the mastership and influence of the 
 Church, and hence the antagonism towards the Church in 
 the desire to abolish her influence as an obstacle and a 
 danger to the desired progress. In this, my brethren, it is 
 impossible not to recognise the lamentable result of blind 
 hatred. Those who indulge in it cannot see light, and 
 are ready to deny the most evident facts. 
 
 Gracious God, the Holy Church is attacked in her doc¬ 
 trines, in her visible head, in her hierarchy, in her associa¬ 
 tions, in her institutions, because all have become impotent 
 in favouring moral progress, because all have become detri¬ 
 mental and fatal to the j)rogressive refinement of morals ! 
 Can it be possible, brethren ? Was it not by the preaching 
 of the gospel, by the constant working of the Catholic 
 hierarchy, that was founded that civilisation which is 
 known as Christian civilisation ? A name which is so 
 firmly affixed to it that all the efforts now made to sepa¬ 
 rate the words are fruitless: so much so that in speaking 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 127 
 
 of civilisation tlie epithet of Christian is understood.* 
 Now, if it be incontestable that the Church created the 
 magnificent civilisation which will soon be able to reckon 
 nineteen centuries of glory, what has suddenly befallen 
 her to incapacitate her from following up the groundwork, 
 and why should she be accused of opposing the develop¬ 
 ment of conditions indispensable to the improvement of 
 the moral order of man ? Has the task become too 
 onerous, or perchance in these ill-fated times some ob¬ 
 stacle has arisen which the Church either will not or 
 cannot surmount? We shall not be reproached with a 
 weakness for this century, on which we have more than 
 once passed severe verdicts, nevertheless, what a distance 
 between our morals and those of the pagan world! We 
 abstain from describing the often portrayed pagan world ; 
 we will merely point out in the negative a few of the most 
 notable distinctions between the ancient and modern state 
 of things. 
 
 That plague-spot, slavery, which condemned two- 
 thirds of mankind to a life of suffering and cruel outrages, 
 has been abolished, cured by the admirable and constant 
 solicitude of the Church. 
 
 The sanguinary games in which hundreds of wretched 
 beings killed each other, or fought with wild beasts to 
 amuse the few unoccupied heads of society and increase 
 their thirst for bloodshed—revolting page of history!— 
 were for ever sealed by the blood of a Christian martyr. 
 
 The fierce repugnance for the poor no longer exists ; 
 religion has clad them with the compassion of Jesus. The 
 cruel right of war, annihilating whole races and nations 
 —uncalculated massacre—is done away with ; and though 
 we may reach those depraved times by our voluptuousness 
 and obscenity, we call vice by its proper name, and abstain 
 
 * Donoso Cortes says, “ The history of civilisation is the history of 
 Christianity: to write one is to write the other.” 
 
128 THE BELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 from populating Olympus with complacent gods who con¬ 
 secrate evil by their example and envelope it with their 
 mantles. 
 
 Easy divorce, the tyranny of the husband and the legal 
 degradation of the wife, no longer exists. 
 
 We cannot even picture to ourselves the monstrous 
 figures of the Caesars, whose good pleasure was law. The 
 •Church has effaced and blotted out all; and though we 
 have cause to regret the apostasy of governments re¬ 
 presenting social power, we are bound to acknowledge 
 that behind the godless official ranks is another world, in 
 which abound generous hearts, noble characters, and pure 
 -and elevated souls. 
 
 And from this cause the Church encounters fewer 
 obstacles now than heretofore, for it is easier to improve 
 what exists than to create. 
 
 Then why suppose that she has forfeited her right of 
 pervading the work of civilisation with her spirit, and 
 pretend that she is no longer fit to conduct souls in the 
 ways of moral progress and in the different relationships 
 with society ? Has the Church perchance lost a part of 
 her strength and that abundant juvenility and vitality 
 which she poured forth in civil life, in advantages which 
 history records and which we can contemplate even now ? 
 
 It cannot surprise you if I stop to examine the question 
 more closely. 
 
 There are two sources of this continual progress: we do 
 not here speak of inward grace. First, the practical doctrine 
 contained in Holy Writ, and entrusted to the keeping and 
 interpretation of the Church. Secondly, the Divine Ex¬ 
 emplar, and in this endowed with the marvellous attrac¬ 
 tion which is in Christ Jesus, dwelling in the Church, 
 announced by her, and manifested in every variety of 
 her ceremonies. Now doctrine and exemplar are neither 
 lost nor denied by the Church, and so far from being 
 impotent to produce good effect in the divers branches of 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 129 
 
 civilisation, they both remain ready to render fresh services 
 to the friends of true and wholesome progress. 
 
 IV. 
 
 My brethren, a picture too vast to be retraced in a letter 
 displays itself to our view. We will merely sketch its 
 great outlines in order to demonstrate the exceeding folly 
 of those who pretend that the Church can no longer hold 
 the office of guide and director of the men of the present 
 day. 
 
 No aspect under which mankind can be viewed, be it as 
 the individual or as a collective body, has been neglected 
 for every possible situation in life. The teaching°of the 
 Chuich contains the precious germ of incessant moral 
 amelioration. 
 
 St. John the Apostle remarks that the wickedness of 
 this world consists in the lust of the flesh and the lust of 
 the eye, the pride of life. This cannot be denied by those 
 who wish to emancipate civilisation from the influence of 
 Christianity: personal experience gives the most striking 
 commentary of the Divine revelation. 
 
 Now what means does the Church adopt to restore the 
 moral order of man according to the moral taught by 
 Jesus Christ? Open Scripture where you will, or the 
 sublime abridgment of it, our catechism, and you will 
 meet with precepts which, if men practised them, would 
 insure temporal happiness to society. St. Matthew tells 
 us that the light of the body is the eye; |if that be single 
 the whole body shall be full of light; but if it be evil the 
 whole body shall be fall of darkness. In other words 
 keep watch over your looks and your thoughts, ye who are’ 
 carried away by sensual instincts, and then depraved 
 morality, enfeebled bodies, the mere tenements of polluted 
 souls, will disappear from among us, and in their stead 
 we shall possess a healthy and flourishing generation, the 
 10 
 
130 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 bulwark of cities—men purified and delivered from carnal 
 illusions, having espoused the truth, screened from temp¬ 
 tation by it, and enveloped with its refulgence, who shine 
 living lights amid their fellow men. 
 
 The man craving for wealth is told that avarice is bond¬ 
 age, that it is not possible to serve God and mammon. 
 St. Matthew shows us the terrible consequence of an un¬ 
 bridled greed for gold. Were his admonitions to fall on 
 hearts prepared to receive the truth, the world would be 
 freed from the pitiless egoist who centres all in self ; there 
 would be no more rapine, nor fraud, nor theft, nor fraudu¬ 
 lent bankruptcy, nor ruin. 
 
 The proud man is exhorted to put off his boasting and 
 vainglory and to put on childish simplicity and ingenuous¬ 
 ness in order to become heir to the kingdom of heaven ; “for 
 except ye be converted/’said our Saviour, “and become as 
 little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven. Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as a 
 child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” 
 
 Golden maxims these, which, if men would listen to and 
 put them into practice, vain arguments which end in 
 nothing, quarrels, undue attachment to ridiculous or in¬ 
 sane ideas, rife with bitter deceptions and lamentable 
 catastrophes, would be done away with and vanish. 
 
 Can the enemies of the Church propose more efficacious 
 remedies for innate evil, for that evil which is the eternal 
 obstacle to the progress of true civilisation ? 
 
 v. 
 
 Dearly beloved diocesans, allow us to pursue this study: 
 we shall soon too soon, alas!—come to the enumeration 
 of the glories and wise discoveries made by modern civili¬ 
 sation. 
 
 The first care of the Church is individual culture. The 
 disorderly and wicked passions of man are the source of a 11 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 131 
 
 evil. They must he daunted and eradicated. The Church 
 next establishes the rules of mutual or social intercourse, 
 and this in strict accordance with the teachings of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Let us study the solid foundations laid to render this 
 intercourse durable and efficacious in promoting civilisa¬ 
 tion. 
 
 Charity —a word unknown without the precincts of 
 Christianity, or if used, perverted from its original mean¬ 
 ing — charity is the corner-stone of the Christian social 
 •edifice. 
 
 No society ever can or ever has subsisted without a 
 bond of concord uniting its members and causing them to 
 follow one and the same path. But this sentiment in 
 pagan societies is altogether different from that inspired 
 by Christian charity—the bond of fraternity, which at¬ 
 taches man to man through God’s grace. 
 
 "Without the pale of Christianity the noblest feeling of 
 brotherly love is always tainted by self-interest; its sphere 
 is extremely limited, and with but rare exceptions, it 
 abhors the spirit of self-sacrifice. Friendship was due to 
 the intrinsic merits, talents, wisdom, knowledge, riches or 
 personal charms, or wit and gaiety, of the chosen friend ; 
 but the immense gulfs which yawned between the different 
 social grades impeded and forbade all affectionate inter¬ 
 course, and in general a secret hatred and savage wish to 
 subjugate all who did not belong to the exclusive city or 
 tribe was the dominating passion. 
 
 It is needless to describe the change wrought by Chris¬ 
 tian morality in this theory of mutual intercourse. Men 
 began to love each other according to the Divine law of 
 Jesus. 
 
 A new law was given to them — that they love one 
 another. Them reciprocal dealings were no longer marked 
 w 7 ith jealousy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. 
 
 There is no distinction of persons in the manifest love 
 
132 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 of God to His creatures; He cares for all, from the highest 
 to the lowest; their preservation and their direction is 
 regulated by His wise laws. Man, the highest and most 
 intelligent of His creatures, is the object of His peculiar 
 love, to redeem him He gave His only Son. 
 
 He not only loves those who adore and obey Him, but 
 even those who rebel and trample His laws under foot. 
 God, the sovereign Lord of all, the Creator of all things, 
 can reap nothing from the love He bears us. He has done 
 more; not content with this outpouring of universal and 
 generous love, He added that of redemption, purifying us 
 from sin and rendering us a people acceptable to Him, 
 purchasing us by the sacrifice of His Son, our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Such is the basis of human intercourse as it is laid 
 down and enjoined by the spouse of Jesus Christ. Judge 
 for yourselves, dearly beloved diocesans, the wonderful 
 advantages, the admirable and ever renewed improve¬ 
 ments, which daily results from this basis to public 
 morality. What the world has gained and still gains from 
 this ineffable love, we know : respect for one’s fellow man, 
 whatever be his estate in life; the sincere and willing for¬ 
 giveness of even the bitterest offences; revenge suppressed 
 or rendered impossible, condemned by our own conscience 
 as by the opinions of others; equity mitigating the rigours 
 of stern right; fatigue and privation endured joyfully in the 
 service of the poor, the honest labourer, the orphan, and 
 the aged. These are palpable facts evident to all, and 
 which spring from the moral proclaimed by Jesus Christ 
 and taught by His Church. 
 
 No civilisation withdrawn from the action and succour 
 of the Church, such as is the dream of men led astray by 
 vain ideas, can ever attain the heights to which Christian 
 charity has reached. Draw the distinction, dearly beloved 
 diocesans, between words and writings, which cost nothing 
 or little, and actions which are everything, and you will 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 133 
 
 soon see tliat civilisation is rapidly retrograding and 
 losing, under the baneful influence of modern morality, 
 what she had gained, step by step, under the aegis of the 
 Church. 
 
 Ah ! dearly beloved diocesans, are the envy and hatred 
 of the poor towards the rich symptoms of improving 
 morality ? Are these threats of arson and murder, tlieso 
 savage cries which we hear, signs of the spirit of brotherly 
 love ? Are duels, which have become so frequent of late, 
 provoked by futile or criminal motives, where the repara¬ 
 tion of real or imaginary wrongs is entrusted not to the 
 ministration of public justice, but to more or less cold¬ 
 bloodedness, skill, agility, or chance ? Does it not seem 
 to you a proof of our return to barbarism, though armed 
 -cap a pie in honour of civilisation ? 
 
 Let us turn aside from these sad signs of the times and 
 contemplate—Heaven grant for the welfare of your souls!— 
 the salutary influence of Christian morality for the sancti¬ 
 fication and prosperity of the divers groups of human 
 associations. 
 
 The first and most important of these is conjugal 
 association; from it proceeds the tie of family affection, 
 which extends itself afterwards to civil intercourse. No 
 doubt can be entertained that conjugal union, deprived of 
 the beneficent light of Jesus Christ and his Church, was 
 fertile in sorrow and in sin; in the Church it is blessed 
 and prosperous. 
 
 By the gospel, marriage was reinstated in its first 
 principles—the union God established in the garden of 
 Bden; it has been raised to the dignity of a sacrament, and 
 presented as the living symbol of the union between Christ 
 and His Church. After a long series of ignominy and 
 indignities, marriage revived, crowned with a diadem. 
 Marriage thus transformed became the source of eminent 
 advantages to’civilisation; raised to this degree of honour, 
 it necessarily tends to reproduce the benefits which shine 
 
184 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 forth in the mystical union between the Son of God and 
 His Church. 
 
 We cannot refrain from enumerating these advantages, 
 dearly beloved diocesans, they are full of attraction and 
 suavity. 
 
 Jesus Christ did not give Himself up to the Gentiles 
 with an inconsiderate impulse, but with the purpose of 
 raising them and ameliorating their condition, and en¬ 
 dowing them with the happiness proceeding from the 
 practice of virtue. So men should not be carried away by 
 the ephemeral charms of beauty, nor by the deceitful 
 lustre of gold, but in their union with another being they 
 should rather seek the charm of life in common, in the 
 qualities of the heart and in the stability of virtuous 
 principles. 
 
 The Gentiles, summoned by the voice of the Spouse, 
 gave themselves unreservedly to Him ; they cast aside their 
 old affections, their domestic follies, to cling solely to Him; 
 and so the Christian wife should reject all affections 
 foreign to her home, embrace the conjugal association 
 with single-hearted earnestness, and consecrate her treasure 
 of womanly gracefulness and charm entirely to it. In the 
 endeavour to imitate the Divine example, you will easily 
 understand the tender fidelity which will bless the nuptial 
 couch, and banish from it guilty discord and treason, 
 which sullies pure blood and kindles implacable wrath! 
 
 During the course of ages intervening since the founda¬ 
 tion of the Church, cunning tempters have often sought to 
 induce her to betray the fidelity she swore to keep with her 
 Divme Spouse ; but while she was under the fire of seduc¬ 
 tion, Christ murmured ineffable words to her, recalling the 
 sanctity of her oaths; the abundance of the blessings 
 p 1 , an e , c ’ revea } e ^ the malice of her seducers; and the 
 uic , moved by such tender solicitude, turned aside 
 Cluns m0re closel y to her Spouse, lending 
 
 malnffi f ° n \° HiS V ° ice ’ and addiD S fr esh and more 
 magnificent gems to the diadem on her virgin brow. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 135 
 
 Were human spouses to imitate this solicitude to help 
 each other in the hour of peril, and for mutual encourage¬ 
 ment in well-doing, what a blessing, dearly beloved 
 diocesans, would it be for civilisation. We deplore the dis¬ 
 honour brought on marriage by vices which pass through 
 the family to the city, whereas were men to emulate the 
 example given by Jesus Christ and His Church, such regrets 
 would not exist; we should, on the contrary, be rejoiced by 
 the spectacle of moral renovation. 
 
 Jesus Christ espoused the Church that she might give 
 birth to whole generations, which should recall their 
 paternity and revive its image in their words and deeds— 
 “rooted and grounded in love, Christ dwelling in their 
 hearts by faith.”* The Church welcomed to her arms, as 
 a sacred deposit, the offspring of this union ; she puri¬ 
 fies and sustains them; watching over them from the 
 dawn of life, she instructs them in the tenets of her faith, 
 and upholds them in the path of duty; she exhorts and re¬ 
 proves, that none may forget their noble origin, nor fail to 
 render to God their Father the homage due to Him. 
 
 Oh you who tremble for the fate of civilisation, and are 
 full of anxiety as the torrent swells and becomes more 
 impetuous, do you not understand that were the marriage 
 type recommended and desired by the Church, realised, 
 you would have no cause for fear, your lawful alarms 
 would be replaced by the joys of hope. 
 
 Let married people be careful to imitate the example 
 given by Jesus Christ, and to practise the maternal con¬ 
 duct of the Church, and the cause of civilisation will be 
 saved. 
 
 Children will have the maxims of justice, the pivot of 
 civil life, deeply engraved on their hearts, and when they 
 leave the home of their childhood, will carry them away to 
 other centres, and transmit them unblemished to generations 
 to come; by a wise education they will be submissive to 
 * Eph. iii. 17. 
 
136 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 discipline, respect authority, and observe just laws. Such 
 parents will mould the minds of their children, render 
 them robust and steadfast of purpose, neither to be shaken 
 nor blown about by the winds of strange doctrines. 
 
 Brought up in homes sanctified by faith, sons will inherit 
 the paternal example, and go forth into the world animated 
 with feelings of humanity, loyalty in their affairs, and faith¬ 
 ful to their given word. Moral renovation would be effected 
 without tumult, and in the surest and best manner. 
 
 Imagine, dearly beloved diocesans, there are many who 
 wish to reduce the conjugal tie to a miserable civil contract; 
 who cry aloud against the Syllabus because it condemns 
 this reprobate scheme, and cannot tolerate the idea that 
 Jesus Christ endowed marriage with the dignity of a 
 sacrament. Such men commit an outrage not only on 
 religion but on civilisation. Is it not an attack on civili¬ 
 sation to facilitate divorce, the inevitable result of profane 
 marriages ? 
 
 Is it not a corruption of civilisation to rob marriage of 
 its religious solemnity and majesty, to abandon it to 
 obscene wretches who, on the plea of human inconstancy 
 and human freedom, dare to propose temporary ties ; nay, 
 more, casting aside all euphemisms, plan a libertine com¬ 
 munity of the vilest kind? Were such sinful dreams 
 realised, children, deprived of a mother’s tender care, would 
 wither prematurely away like flowers, or would grow up 
 without the softening influence of home affections and 
 patriotic ties. 
 
 Is it to give us the sweets of such civilisation that the 
 enemies of the Church have taken up arms against her ? 
 
 VI. 
 
 Let us continue, dearly beloved diocesans, our con¬ 
 siderations to their close. You have seen how wisely the 
 Church provides for the necessities of civilisation by 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 137 
 
 conjugal association. We liave yet a more magnificent 
 spectacle to offer you, by contemplating the advantages 
 accruing to civilisation from the doctrines by which the 
 Church regulates human intercourse in the greater as¬ 
 sociation, which is civil society. We have first to consider 
 the subjects—in other words the matter to be instituted — 
 and secondly, the power which is the regulating principle, 
 controlling the subjects and guiding them to their destined 
 end. Now on this double purpose the Church, faithfully 
 interpreting Holy Writ, teaches what -would excite a strong 
 impression on civilisation and render it really fecund were 
 it put into practice. 
 
 All power comes from God; * such is her precept. Now, 
 if all power come from God it ought to reflect His Divine 
 majesty in order to be venerable, and His goodness in 
 order to make it acceptable to those subject to it. Con¬ 
 sequently, whoever holds the sceptre of power, be it who 
 it may, promoted to office by election, or inheriting it by 
 birth in a democratic or monarchical form, instead of 
 seeking food for ambition and the vain pleasure of exalting 
 himself above his fellows, should rather study how he can 
 best serve them, and, like the Son of God, should say, “I 
 came not to be served, but to serve.” In these few words 
 we find the most satisfactory and best transformation of 
 power which can possibly be wished for. 
 
 The kings of the earth made a strange abuse of their 
 power. Their covetousness was unlimited, and they satis¬ 
 fied it by devouring the substance earned by the toil of 
 others. Their will was law —woe to him who ventured to 
 disobey! They arrogated titles to themselves which, as 
 concerned facts, became solemn and cruel irony. 
 
 How different is the power which proceeds from Chris¬ 
 tian teaching ! It is modest, laborious, zealous in good 
 works, awed by the thought of the chastisements reserved 
 for those -who govern badly. It is impossible not to com- 
 * Rom. xiii. et seq. 
 
138 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 prebend this, dearly beloved diocesans. Tbe lieart must 
 expand before so noble an image of authority j tbe obedience 
 to which it lays claim, and which is indispensable to tbe 
 regular march of society, loses all bitterness of compulsion, 
 and becomes easy and sweet. 
 
 Tbe teaching addressed to power corresponds with that 
 applied to those under it. If power come from God, from 
 God also it receives its majesty, its solicitude in tbe 
 pursuit of what is good; so rebellion against it cannot be 
 authorised, inasmuch as it would be rebellion against God 
 Himself, Obedience in tbe subject should be sincere, 
 loyal, and tbe result of conviction, and not that of a 
 servile dread of punishment. It should be an obedience 
 proved by acts, and which readily accepts the sacrifice 
 demanded by the ruler for the accomplishment of his 
 mission. 
 
 You have doubtless frequently heard the Church violently 
 accused of antagonism to liberty and being the humble 
 servant of crowned heads. I leave you to appreciate the 
 justice of these complaints. Evidently the Church dis¬ 
 countenances the leaders of disorderly rebellion, the sys¬ 
 tematic enemies of authority ; but the obedience which, 
 she inculcates finds a just compensation in the transforma¬ 
 tion of power, which, if it were Christian and free from the 
 old and evil propensities of ambition and tyranny, would 
 assume the character and habits of paternal ministry and 
 limit itself to just commands. If it overlook them and 
 invade the domain of conscience, man is authorised to 
 reply with the apostles, “ I render to Caisar ichat is Ccesar's, 
 and to God xeliat is God's” 
 
 Ah, dearly beloved diocesans, subjects who tremble with 
 craven fear are not children of the Church ; they are born 
 without her pale, in the midst of society where brutal 
 force is the only recognised right. So early as Tertullian 
 the first Christians paid the taxes as faithfully as they 
 kept the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal;” but 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 139 
 
 these noble men courageously withstood the unjust will 
 of the Caesars ; they trembled not before those who made 
 kings tremble; they stood erect when others knelt, and 
 gave up their lives rather than renounce the inviolable 
 rights of conscience. 
 
 It is painful, dearly beloved diocesans, to hear certain 
 accusations repeated, whilst honest liberty expands like a, 
 flower which blossoms spontaneously in a society animated 
 by the spirit of the Catholic Church. When the arm of 
 power weighs heavily on a people, when public liberty is 
 in extreme peril, when man’s free action is fettered, when 
 victorious ungodliness snaps asunder the sacred bonds of 
 religion, when conscience is perverted and passion usurps 
 its sway, when evil deeds are multiplied, then power be¬ 
 comes suspicious, and, no longer guaranteed by the virtue 
 of those it governs, has recourse to military guardians, to 
 arms, and to an Argus-eyed police. We call you to witness 
 the truth of our assertions by comparing the present state 
 of the world with a past which is not so far distant from 
 us as to be forgotten by the majority among you, but we 
 persist in wishing to ameliorate the moral conditions and 
 civil intercourse of society by a rupture with the Church. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, at the close of a long public career, 
 rich with experience, wrote from Philadelphia, “If a 
 nation be not virtuous it cannot be free ; the greater the 
 depravity and corruption of the people, the greater its need 
 of a master.”* The following words escaped another 
 writer, whose name is beloved and revered by the partisans 
 of the struggle for civilisation: “ Religion must not be de¬ 
 stroyed, for a nation devoid of religion soon falls a prey to 
 military absolutism.” He was right; he perceived behind 
 the atrocities of the French Republic a government sub¬ 
 mitting all the men revolted against God to the law of 
 the sword, and intent on arranging and directing all: 
 letters, art, the universities, and even conscience if its 
 
 * Letters to the Abbe Thalut et Amaud. 
 
140 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 audacity had not been checked by the constancy of the 
 Christian priesthood. 
 
 We will pause awhile here, dearly beloved diocesans, and 
 from the altitude we have reached, cast a glance on the 
 territory we have passed over. 
 
 Witness of the obstinate war carried on in the name of 
 civilisation against the Church, we were intent on ex¬ 
 amining if perchance the Church, through any loss 
 sustained, was powerless to contribute to the moral 
 perfectiveness of man, and to the development of civilisa¬ 
 tion, viewed in this light, and so disabled from again 
 producing effects analogous to those of her past history. 
 And now, after considering man as an individual man in 
 social, domestic, and civil capacities, we have been able to 
 prove, in the narrow limits of a pastoral address, that the 
 doctrines professed by the Church contain the germ of a 
 most precious civilisation, and that, put into practice, 
 would infallibly lead to the highest degree of moral per¬ 
 fection attainable on earth. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Holy doctrines, such as those the Church offers to her 
 children, would produce but half a result were they con¬ 
 fined to the domains of mere theory. These doctrines, to 
 obtain a complete result, must become, so to say, incarnate 
 iu a living exemplar, to whom men’s eyes are attracted in 
 order to convince themselves that they are not ideas 
 simply to be admired with complacency, as one admires a 
 fine painting or a superb panorama, but practical truths 
 to be resolutely performed. Pagans even understood this 
 much, that wise maxims and wholesome lessons would 
 remain dead letters, null and void of all efficacy to change 
 le world and make it better, so long as they were without 
 torm and personality in a living exemplar. 
 
 Plato, who discovered so many high truths, or through 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 141 
 
 the perspicacity of his genius, or through his persevering 
 researches in ancient traditions, ardently wished that 
 sovereign truths would take a bodily form, visible to the 
 eyes of all, so persuaded was he that written or spoken 
 words would ensure nothing stable or conclusive.* 
 
 Cicero, who was not only a great orator but a great 
 philosopher, and the worthy representative of Latin wisdom 
 among the Gentiles, for the same reason expresses the 
 same wish.f Seneca, notwithstanding the objections to 
 be made to his private life, often wrote sentiments worthy 
 of a Christian, and he, too, in a letter to Lucilius, expresses 
 the want of having a great and noble exemplar as a model 
 and guide of life; and because no such model existed, the 
 best advice he could give was to choose the least imperfect, 
 for example, Cato.J 
 
 Now, this living perfect model, which the finest intellects 
 of ancient times longed for and anticipated, the Christian 
 possesses. 
 
 The Exemplar they had vainly wished for, the Church 
 offers to us in the life of Jesus Christ our Lord, the Word 
 proceeding from the Father, the substantial image of in¬ 
 finite goodness, made man for our sakes. How beautiful, 
 how perfect is this Exemplar, given to us by the Church, 
 protected by her from the insults of the Gnostics, the 
 Arians, and all heretics and Protestants, from those of 
 modern incredulity, and from all that seek to extinguish 
 the Divine light which illumines His noble brow! Jesus 
 is God-man, He is consequently incarnate virtue, un¬ 
 limited and absolute perfection. For more than nineteen 
 centuries whole nations and social groups have endeavoured 
 to copy Him, and yet mankind has always new lessons to 
 learn from His example, always to strive after perfection, 
 as though it had begun to imitate the perfection of Jesus 
 yesterday. 
 
 Jesus is more than the Divine and supremely perfect 
 * De Repub. ix. f De Fin. i. 24. J Epit. iv. 9. 
 
142 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 exemplar. He is the most complete model, for He is our 
 Master in every possible condition of life. 
 
 The majority of the human family is composed of the 
 poorer classes, who gain their scanty pittance of daily 
 bread by the sweat of their brow. For their sakes Jesus 
 came into the world poor ; He lived with His parents in 
 humble circumstances, and worked with His father as a 
 carpenter. 
 
 0 my dear helpers and assistants, you who in your 
 charitable exertions daily witness the anguish and pri¬ 
 vations unknown to the world in general, or against which 
 it closes its eyes in order'not to disturb its profane joys by 
 such sad spectacles; you who share your meagre sub¬ 
 stance with the poor, and would fain do more and better 
 for them, recall to them as often as you can the example 
 of our Divine Saviour, which is our highest consolation. 
 Heed not the criticisms of those who prefer other means 
 of furthering civilisation. Continue to pour the healing 
 balm of religion on the suffering hearts of the poor, and 
 be assured you will at the same time render eminent 
 service to the cause of civilisation. 
 
 You will appease this convulsive savage indignation 
 which threatens at no distant day to degenerate into atro¬ 
 cious barbarous deeds. You will raise the souls of those 
 humiliated byjiheir poverty and despised by others ; but in 
 the teachings of Jesus they will learn rightly to esteem 
 themselves; recognising the royal dignity He confers on 
 them, they will endeavour to preserve it by honesty and 
 the practice of all other virtues. Jesus Christ, the perfect 
 exemplar of the poor, is at the same time a no less perfect 
 model for kings and the great of this world. Jesus Christ 
 is Himself King, and His sovereignty is manifest in the 
 absolute empire He exercises on universal nature and the 
 souls of reasonable beings. Nature submits herself to His 
 slightest will; she changes or suspends the invariable 
 laws by which she is governed on a sign from Him. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 143 
 
 Winds are lmslied, waves calmed, aliments multiplied, 
 souls are subjugated by His word; even the most obdu¬ 
 rate and corrupted are converted by the all-powerful 
 charm which His presence exercises. 
 
 Now, this royal power, which He possesses to its fullest 
 extent, He uses it to save mankind, to satisfy their wants, 
 to cure the numberless infirmities which are its affliction, 
 to free them from the yoke of Satan, and to deliver them 
 from the dangerous tyranny of guilty lusts which lead to 
 vice and corruption. 
 
 Ah, dearly beloved diocesans, when shall we see the 
 heads of society, those who hold the sceptre and reins of 
 government in their hands; when, I ask, shall we be 
 blessed by seeing them draw nearer to the Divine Ex¬ 
 emplar, and do their utmost to reflect His image and 
 remodel their lives on His ? When that day comes, if 
 ever, we shall see society renewed, and from it will spring 
 not only saints, but kings illustrious by their political 
 enterprises, as were'Henry of Bavaria, Stephen of Hungary, 
 and Louis IX. of France. 
 
 Jesus is also a father, not in the carnal acceptation of 
 the word, but in the far higher signification—that of 
 generation which gives birth to spiritual life. It is im¬ 
 possible to conceive a greater or more sublime office than 
 that of transforming rude, uncultivated men into men 
 renewed by the Spirit. Remark with what ineffable 
 solicitude Jesus endeavours to change into men of intellect, 
 imbued with a new spirit, those simple, rough men which 
 He calls to be His disciples, and whom He appoints to 
 continue His apostolate. He is indulgent towards their 
 defects, He supports them when their strength waxes 
 faint, and when their faith staggers He upholds it with 
 tender care. And when He is on the point of leaving 
 them in the body, and returning to heaven whence He 
 c%me, with what earnest, touching words He recommends 
 them to His and their Father which is in heaven. 
 
144 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 If a spark of this heaven-born zeal, manifested in the 
 ■words of Jesus and recorded by St. John, kindled in the 
 breast of parents, what would not their children gain in 
 moral progress, and through them the whole of society ! 
 
 Jesus was dependent on no one, for he was God; never¬ 
 theless He lived in obedience to His real mother according 
 to the flesh, and to His adopted father, in order to teach 
 children affectionate submission towards their parents, 
 who hold the lights of paternity and the name of father 
 from God Himself, the Father of all. If young people 
 studied and imitated this Exemplar carefully, would it not 
 remedy one of the most flagrant evils of our epoch, viz., 
 impatience of all control and all authority ? Children who 
 imitate the docility of Jesus towards paternal authority 
 would, on leaving their homes, be accustomed to obey 
 family law and inclined to respect the orders of those in 
 power who represent God in the direction of public 
 affairs. 
 
 We have a peculiar pleasure, dearly beloved diocesans, 
 in meditating on the beauties of this sovereign model, and 
 we should willingly expatiate on the treasures concealed 
 in it, and the incontestable connection there is between 
 them and the progress of civilisation, but we have already 
 dwelt at length on the subject and must now use sobriety 
 of words. 
 
 Besides, you can enlarge on our demonstration by con¬ 
 sidering Jesus Christ as a friend, the strength of the 
 feeble, the firm defender of the truth, though it provoke 
 animosity, the man of generous sacrifices. In pursuing 
 this theme, Jesus Christ reveals himself as a fountain of 
 life to all those who draw near to Him and put in practice 
 the noble and salutary doctrines which He taught. 
 
 St. Athanasius, the illustrious and valiant defender of 
 the divinity of the Word made flesh, writes, “ Jesus Christ, 
 who is eternally immutable, came down among us that 
 men might find in the unchangeable justice of the Word a 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 145 
 
 model whereby to live and a principle of stable justice.” * 
 Saint Augustine expresses the same thought clothed in 
 other words, when he proclaims that supreme moral 
 law is contained in the life of Jesus Christ on earth 
 among men, whose nature He took and whose example He 
 ought to be. 
 
 It is not surprising that the fathers of the Church held 
 and expressed these opinions when we hear their judgment 
 repeated almost textually by those misguided men who 
 deny the divinity of Christ. Suffice it to cite a passage 
 from one of the boldest of these^ unbelievers, constrained 
 by the halo of light which encompasses the Saviour to 
 recognise Him, as follows : “ He whose personal determina¬ 
 tion was most stable, such as no other human being ever 
 had, and who still directs the destinies of men.”! Further 
 on he chants a hymn in His honour as he exclaims, 
 “Thou wilt contemplate from the heart of Divine Grace 
 the incalculable results of Thy own deeds. For thousands 
 of years the world will look up to Thee as the model of 
 its life. Banner of our contradictions, the most ardent 
 battle will be fought around Thee, a hundred-fold more 
 vivifying, a hundred-fold more loved, than during Thy 
 passage on earth. Thou wilt become the corner-stone 
 of humanity. To blot out Thy name from the world 
 would be to shake it to its foundations.” 
 
 VIII. 
 
 To resume in a few words what it has been our task to 
 develope in this letter. If the Church possess a doctrine 
 which, if practised and observed as the rule of life, would 
 infallibly lead her children to a marvellous degree of moral 
 perfection, render them benevolent, pure in mind, cordial 
 and courteous in their intercourse with one another: if 
 she possess what the wise men of paganism so earnestly 
 
 * Contre les Ariens, iii. 23. f Kenan, “ Life of Jesue.” 
 
 11 
 
146 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 desired, a supremely perfect Exemplar, of absolute virtue 
 and generous sentiments ; if she have never allowed her 
 doctrines to be changed, or suffered the Divine Exemplar 
 to be dishonoured by blasphemous negations and the blind 
 attacks of its enemies; if, in a word, the doctrine which 
 she teaches and the Exemplar she proposes for our imita¬ 
 tion have produced such admirable effects in past ages, 
 effects utterly beyond the power of humanity, it seems 
 clear that there can be no good reason to upset the world, 
 to withdraw civilisation from the beneficent influence of 
 the Church and to entrust it to sacrilegious hands, which 
 will draw it on until it end in awful massacre. 
 
 IX. 
 
 What fruits indeed have public morals gathered, what 
 advantages has mutual intercourse reaped from this fatal 
 conflict, established under pretext of leading civilisation 
 to other and higher destinies ? We have only to point out 
 the ruins, the unquenched flames lighted by these criminal 
 apostles, to appreciate accordingly their merits. 
 
 Morality severed from the Church, deprived of its reli¬ 
 gious basis, floats in space ; it ceases to be the authorised 
 rule of our actions ; it is converted into the instrument and 
 toy of all criminal appetites. There is a code of morality 
 invented for every age, for every climate. Every one is 
 free to transform and modify it according to his caprice. 
 A contemporary atheist has dared to say, “ Man sanctifies 
 all he looks on, and he beautifies with the flowers of im¬ 
 agination all he loves.”* Partisans of such theories have 
 already given us proof how easy it is to glide down this 
 slope, until what is eyil is praised as good, sensual 
 pleasure is deified, the laws of decency violated, under 
 pretext of the love of beauty, beauty which passeth as a 
 shadow, but which, in any case, is destined to raise our 
 
 * Renan, “Revue des Deux Mondes,” Oct. 1862. 
 
APPENDIX. 147 
 
 souls to God, the sovereign source of all beauty and all 
 loveliness. 
 
 Such are the fruits of the rebellion which has been 
 raised in the world; it is not possible to hope for the 
 desired progress of civilisation from them. They make us 
 shudder, as would the approach of the worst description of 
 barbarism, viz., that born of corrupted civilisation. Ought 
 not the fatal effects of it to warn the imprudent followers 
 of these perverse masters, and bring them closer to and 
 make them more resolute to remain united with the 
 Church ? Unhappily it is not so; the beguilers are, alas ! 
 successful. 
 
 When we inquire, as in the interest of your souls we are 
 bound to do, how such things come to pass, the answer 
 seems to be partly owing to the efforts and Satanic cunning 
 employed to pervert men’s souls, partly from the universal 
 attention given to the subject which they pretend to 
 patronise. Civilisation is a fair sounding word; many are 
 satisfied with the bare name, and do not even ask what 
 kind of civilisation they struggle for, or what it will lead 
 to ; thus they mistake pinchbeck for pure gold. 
 
 It belongs to you, my respected fellow-workers, to open 
 the eyes of your spiritual children and prove to them that 
 a loyal and lawful civilisation, so far from being repulsed 
 by the Pope, the bishops, and all those who are faithful 
 adherents of the Church, finds in them its most valiant 
 and active instruments of progress ; and as our adversaries, 
 for want of real arguments, have recourse to falsehood, 
 you should follow them step by step, and combat their 
 fables and patent hypocrisy with the light of reason and 
 the evidence of irrefutable facts. 
 
 God’s blessing will crown your efforts, and once you 
 succeed in winning back souls and emancipating them 
 from prejudice, it will be easier to sow the seed of grace in 
 them, that seed which will produce the sweetest fruits unto 
 life. On every side efforts are multiplied to seduce the 
 
148 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL QUESTION. 
 
 minds of men; your efforts should increase in the same 
 measure, to rescue from certain destruction souls redeemed 
 by the blood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 As we were writing the above lines, dearly beloved 
 diocesans, a great grief overtook us, sorrow and mourning 
 have fallen on the whole Catholic world, and the embar¬ 
 rassments of the Church will he greater from this cruel 
 loss. When we began this letter we little thought that 
 the glorious Pontiff, our well-beloved father, would so soon 
 be taken from us; we hoped on the contrary he would 
 recover, that we could claim his apostolical benison for 
 you, and ask you in exchange to offer up filial supplica¬ 
 tions to God for the head of His Church. Divine 
 providence has willed it otherwise, and has summoned our 
 loved Pontiff to receive the reward of the long and precious 
 services he has rendered to our common mother the 
 Church, of his immortal deeds and the sufferings he has 
 so patiently endured with a truly apostolic dignity and 
 resolution. 
 
 0 reverend co-operators, we recommend you to remem¬ 
 ber in the holy sacrifice of Mass this soul on which God 
 has stamped His image ; relate his merits to your flock; 
 tell them all that the great Pontiff Pius the Ninth has 
 done, not only for the Church and the spiritual good of its 
 members, but also to extend the reign of Christian civilisa¬ 
 tion. Pray also, dearly beloved diocesans, pray God that 
 He may deign in His mercy to speedily grant us a new 
 head for his Church, blessed with strength to steer the 
 mysterious vessel through the tempestuous elements to the 
 hoped for haven. 
 
 And grant us likewise a mention in your prayers. We 
 send you from the depths of our heart our pastoral 
 benediction. 
 
 G. Cardinal Bishop Pecci. 
 
 Rome, without the Flaminian Gate, 
 
 10th Feb. 1878.