which that law forbids. The essential condition of all civil freedom is, then, the assertion and maintenance of the independence and supremacy of the spiritual in face of the temporal. The Protestant, when he is not opposing us, asserts this supremacy as boldly as we do; for he then stoutly maintains that the word of God, as contained in the Scriptures, is the supreme law for both governments. and subjects, and that neither have the right to do anything which they forbid. In the Protestant mind, if sincere, a legislative enactment repugnant to the law of God as recorded in the Scriptures would be null and void from the beginning. If the state should command him to become a Papist he would resist it, on the ground that it exceeded its competency. He asserts and must assert a higher law than the state, if he believes in God and the Divine sovereignty. If he asserts no higher law than the state, he leaves the state supreme in spirituals as well as temporals, which is civil despotism; if he does assert it, and leaves it to each individual to determine for himself when the higher law applies, he denies the independence and supremacy of the civil power even in its own order, and falls into individualism, which is anarchy. Here is the inconvenience of Protestantism in relation to civil liberty. If the Protestant does not assert a higher law, he favors civil despotism; if he does, since the Bible does not explain itself, and he has no divinely constituted court for declaring that higher law, he must allow each individual to interpret it for himself, and thus favor anarchy, which is only another name for barbarism. Moreover, if there is no difficulty in ascertaining what the higher law forbids, that is, what the spiritual order forbids, the spiritual power under Protestantism, having no organization, no organs, and no representation, is and must be practically null, and hence it is that every Protestant community always vacillates between despotism and anarchy. The remedy is to be found only in the Papal supremacy, which embodies, so to speak, the Divine authority, and represents God in the government of the world.

If we recur to history, we shall find civil society orderly and free just in proportion as the Papal authority has been recognized and respected. Nations have always, since the origin of Christian nations, had to cast off or explain away the Papacy before they could enslave their subjects. We have yet to find the first free state founded by Prot

estantism, for our country holds what freedom it has, not from Protestantism, but in spite of it, and Protestantism is doing its utmost to destroy the freedom we have, pushing us on the one hand to social despotism, and on the other to anarchy.

We do not pretend that Catholicity is republican in the American sense, for in fact she is neither republican nor monarchical, and commands us to obey the legally constituted government in all things not repugnant to the law of God, whatever its form. Within the limits of the law of God, the people are free, if they have no government existing, or if the actual rulers have forfeited their trusts, to institute government in such form and with such powers and limitations as seem to them good, whether republican or monarchical. She enjoins on us for conscience' sake to be loyal to the existing legal order, and commands the government, whatever its form, to govern justly, for the common good. She teaches the doctrine which forms the basis of the argument of the American Declaration of Independence, that the tyranny of the prince absolves the subject from his allegiance, and thus condemns tyranny and consecrates freedom. This is all that any friend of freedom can ask. Protestantism, having no loyalty or respect for law, and being in its very origin and nature a rebellion —justifiable or not is not now the question-against the established order, is unquestionably more deeply imbued with the revolutionary spirit than Catholicity, and no doubt will be more ready to overthrow an existing government for the sake of introducing a republican government, if you will; but for that very reason it must be less ready and able to sustain republican institutions where they already legally exist. This, if an advantage, we willingly concede to Protestantism. Catholicity is never good at making revolutions. That loyalty which under a monarchy is given to the prince, under a republic she transfers to the constitution, and this, let us tell our republican friends, is a still greater advantage. Revolutions are violent remedies, and are never proper in the normal state of things. Civil freedom by no means consists in the freedom to make revolutions when one pleases. Governments are not established to be overthrown, but to be preserved and administered for the good of the people. We have had our revolution, we have instituted our government, and our business is now to preserve it, and to secure

its wholesome operation. Our republican friends must permit us to tell them that this can never be done by cherishing the revolutionary spirit, nor without that loyalty to the constitution which Protestantism cannot inspire, and which Catholicity enjoins as a religious duty. In vain will they seek support in selfishness, or in what the French call intérêt bien entendu, or enlightened self-interest; in vain will they seek it in constitutional checks and balances, or in attempting to play off conflicting interests and passions against each other. There is no firm basis for civil government outside of morality, and those lofty disinterested principles which are to be found only in religion. The constitution must be engraved on the heart of your people, and they must feel it a moral obligation, a religious duty, to love it, to live and die for it, or it will prove only so much useless parchment. The experience of our country is daily proving to all understandings, that, whatever may be the willingness and ability of Protestantism to make a revolution in favor of republicanism, it lacks the capacity to sustain republican government when introduced.

This is simple enough. The revolutionary spirit is the antagonist of the spirit that is required to sustain an established order. The former is the spirit of destruction, the latter the spirit of conservation. If the object of society were to be always making revolutions and trying experiments, Protestantism would be decidedly the best; but if the object is for society to preserve and develop itself in a fixed and stable order, according to a law of continuity, no man of ordinary capacity can for a moment doubt the superiority of Catholicity. Protestantism has no fixed point of departure, no uniform rule of procedure, and no determinate goal. It is hostile to whatever is fixed and immovable, and demands always freedom to make new experiments. It is always experimenting. It experiments on authority, on doctrine, on discipline, on the state, on society, and never arrives at anything certain and durable. With this spirit, it can be relied on only where there is a work of destruction to be done. It can make a revolution, but it cannot preserve the state. Catholicity, on the contrary, takes its point of departure in what is, and its fixed. purpose is to preserve what is good, and secure an end which it foresees, and which for it is clear and determinate. It will amend what it finds that is faulty, but it will do it

always in accordance with the principle and genius of the existing constitution, and always with a view to its preservation and freer and more healthy action. It cannot make a revolution for the sake of introducing a republican government, but it has precisely that conservative spirit and influence needed to save such a government and secure its beneficial operation wherever it exists.

But we own that Catholicity does not lay great stress on mere forms of any sort. She looks to realities, not empty forms. She teaches the great principles of civil liberty, and inspires her children with the wisdom, the courage, and the self-denial necessary to assert them. No Catholic people ever have or ever can be enslaved; they never are, and never can become, servile and sycophantic in their disposition or manners. They may be humble, free from pride, but true humility is compatible with the greatest magnanimity. No Catholic, if really such, can ever lose sight of the true dignity of human nature assumed by God himself, or of the true nobility of the human soul for which Christ has died. Hence under all forms of government true freedom is possible, and Catholicity therefore turns her attention, not to constitution-making, not to changing the form of the government, but to securing its wise and just administration. She weds herself to no form, but makes all forms tolerable.

These remarks on topics which we have discussed in our pages almost to weariness must suffice for the present. We shall endeavor to devote one or two more articles hereafter to the remaining subjects introduced by the author, not for his sake, for we regard him as past help, nor for the sake of our Catholic readers, but for the sake of that large class of our non-Catholic countrymen who love truth and feel the insufficiency of Protestantism. We will not believe that all who sail under the Protestant flag, because they know not under what other flag to sail, are like the author of the book before us, or the common herd of vulgar declaimers against Catholicity. They are too enlightened, too cultivated, too serious and earnest-minded men to be satisfied with any form of Protestantism. Their understandings demand something more logical, more coherent, more complete, and more solid, and their hearts cry out for something more beautiful, more living and loving. They are sick of what Carlyle calls shams, and that Protestantism is a sham they are thoroughly persuaded. The misfortune

with them is, that they suspect that Catholicity is also a sham, a simulacrum, and no more solid at bottom than Protestantism. It is of no use for us to tell them that they are mistaken, for they are far enough from being prepared to believe us. We must show them that they are mistaken, by showing them that we have always something solid and real and living to substitute for the dead formulas of effete Protestantism. Our religion at least is not all a mere negation. We have something positive, affirmative, a credo to offer to those who come to us.

Protestantism, though dead, has for the moment by means of Know-Nothingism been galvanized into a sort of spasmodic life; but speaking in general terms it is dead, and only waits for its friends to give it a decent burial. The movements we witness really console us. They prove to us that the American mind is beginning to open to something better and nobler than it has hitherto had, and that the shrine-makers for the Ephesian goddess are beginning to be alarmed for their craft. Let none of our friends be disturbed by the crying from morning till night, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" More than one heathen god or goddess, more than one idolatry, more than one superstition, has fallen with a crash before the onward march of Catholic truth, and the day of deliverance for our countrymen, we firmly believe, is not far off. Do not let the clamors raised against us make us timid, or lead us to explain away the features of Catholicity most objected to by a Know-Nothing fanaticism. These are no times for trimming or timeserving. It is precisely in these times, when all the non-Catholic world is raising a hue-and-cry against the Church for her alleged Mariolatry, that she defines the immaculate conception of Mary to be a Catholic dogma. It is when the mystery of the Incarnation is denied, that she renders new honors to the Mother of God. Now, when the Papal character of our Church is so rudely assailed, let us hold fast to it, and forbear to abuse our Holy Father even hypothetically.