Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 BURNING QUESTIONS.
 
 ROEHA.MPTON : 
 PRINTED BY JAMES STANLEY.
 
 BURNING QUESTIONS. 
 
 WILLIAM MOLITOR. 
 
 tUrritao liberabit toe, 
 
 LONDON : 
 BURNS AND DATES, PORTMAN STREET, 
 
 AND PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1876.
 
 WITH DEVOTED GRATITUDE, 
 
 TO 
 
 PRESIDENT 
 ARNOLD VON MOHL, 
 
 DOCTOR OF CIVIL AND CANON LAW.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 "Ax LAST!" you will exclaim when these pages 
 meet your eye. But your pleasure in this book 
 can scarcely exceed my anxiety about it. I find 
 myself, to my sorrow, placed between two fires. 
 On the one side are raised voices of weight 
 and authority, like your own, voices which un- 
 fortunately rate my powers far too highly, calling 
 on me to put on paper, once for all, the thoughts 
 on Church and State which have so often been 
 exchanged by word of mouth. On the other 
 side I hear the dissuading voices of many 
 friends, whose kindness I value as highly as 
 I respect your talents, and acknowledge your 
 eminence. 
 
 You, my honoured friend, maintain that now 
 at last is the time to come out boldly into broad 
 daylight with the truth, and that indeed there 
 cannot be a time when one may not proclaim 
 the great principles of truth. On the opposite
 
 viii Preface. 
 
 side I am reminded of the disciplina arcani 
 in the primitive times of the Church, and plainly 
 told that it is inopportune, dangerous even, to 
 bring forward stern principles at a moment when 
 men's minds are so unprepared and indisposed 
 to listen to a free discussion and to be taught. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the latter opinion 
 appears to be furnished with weighty reasons. 
 From principles which may be true and lofty 
 in and by themselves, nay, just because they 
 are so, it is easy to fall into theories and to 
 become regularly entangled in them. And if 
 what people say about " stern principles " cannot 
 be wholly justified, since there is hardly any 
 truth which has not presented its stern, repel- 
 lent side to error and convenience, the case 
 is different with regard to theories. Theories, 
 however sure may be the principles on which 
 they rest, are more or less subjective creations, 
 which often look very startling from another 
 person's subjective stand-point, and instead of 
 winning people to the principles, often excite 
 suspicion against them. Moreover, the more 
 ideal their tendency, the more painful and irre- 
 concileable is the opposition in which they stand 
 to reality.
 
 Preface. ix 
 
 Neither can it further be denied that we 
 find ourselves, unhappily, in a situation in which 
 the calm discussion of great questions, which 
 trench so closely upon the present and its dis- 
 turbances, has become well-nigh an impossibility. 
 What is really wanting and this can never be 
 sufficiently deplored is the comprehension of 
 the grand points at issue in these questions. 
 Modern science has made so complete a clear- 
 ance of true philosophical cultivation, and 
 wrought such ravages in natural and political 
 laws, that we are scarcely able any longer to 
 get possession of a stand-point where we can 
 take up a position against our adversaries and 
 fight and be fought with honourably and with 
 visor down. Even when two combatants are 
 in thorough opposition, and can agree on no 
 single point, they must, even against their will, 
 agree where they are to fight : they have the 
 field of battle in common. Unfortunately this 
 last point of agreement is no longer to be dis- 
 covered for us and our opponents. And then 
 the conflict is so fiery, minds are so inflamed, 
 and the adversaries of the Church so thirst for 
 the complete victory which they fancy they will 
 shortly gain, that we, pen in hand for quiet
 
 x Preface. 
 
 discussion, look like negotiators of a truce 
 waving the white flag whilst the conquering 
 foe is only thinking of making good the old 
 cry of the arrogant Celt over humbled Rome : 
 V<z metis! 
 
 But we are not writing for our opponents 
 only, however much we desire to be heard and 
 understood by them. We wish still more to 
 be understood by our friends, and by all who 
 belong to the same camp as we do, and who 
 own the same banner, which can only be our 
 Lord's world-conquering Cross. No unpre- 
 judiced observer can fail to perceive what a 
 Avant of clearness there is in the ideas, what 
 a confusion in the principles of many persons 
 even who are otherwise excellently disposed 
 and ready to stand up for the cause of truth, 
 not with words only, but with their whole soul. 
 The Vatican Council has already effected much 
 in this respect, and thus proved itself to be not 
 a work of man, but an act of the Holy Ghost. 
 But how many errors are yet to be removed, 
 how many distorted impressions to be corrected, 
 what prejudices to be got rid of! If, then, in 
 our human impatience and shortsightedness, we 
 are too violently anxious for the continuation of
 
 Preface. xi 
 
 the OEcumenical Synod, we ought not to be 
 discouraged if, as seems probable, we do not 
 see that event in the near future. We shall do 
 well to remember that the uncomfortable in- 
 terval is just the time that ought not to be one 
 of leisurely idleness. Rather, our office seems 
 to be to labour beforehand, as far as we can, 
 for the further development and establishment 
 of Catholic truth, to prepare men's minds for it, 
 to make them ready to receive it ; or it may be, 
 and we must not forget this, by our own errors 
 and by the wrong paths into which we may 
 have been led in our search after the hidden 
 truth, to give the infallible teaching of the 
 Church the opportunity of setting us right, and 
 by that very means of placing the truth in a 
 clearer light. It must be enough for us to have 
 had a pure intention, and to have held firm the 
 immovable resolution of submitting ourselves 
 in all things, as faithful and obedient sons, to 
 the infallibly teaching Church. 
 
 What, however, after long delay, has decided 
 us on giving and making good our opinion on 
 the great questions which seem to be turning 
 the world out of its course, is the position, 
 clearer and more unmistakable every hour,
 
 xii Preface. 
 
 which our opponents have taken up in the 
 so-called culture-struggle. 
 
 What is the State ? What is the Church ? 
 And what relation do they bear to each other ? 
 How are apparent contradictions to be recon- 
 ciled ? These are the questions which are 
 stirring to their inmost centre even nations 
 which once formed the Christian common- 
 wealth, questions which have brought about a 
 state of things which all of us, friends and foes, 
 must consider deplorable and ruinous. In this 
 war, which has burst into flames between the 
 secular and spiritual order, and which, it seems, 
 is to be fanned into a regular war of annihilation 
 from the Professor's chair, it becomes clearer 
 every hour that the campaign against the Church 
 is to be carried on according to a plan which has 
 been long since carefully drawn up. We might, 
 indeed, have found this out long ago, for the 
 operations were not begun yesterday. But a 
 good deal, on our side, was owing to the line 
 of ignoring the truth, by which it was thought 
 the shock of the onslaught might best be 
 eluded ; we imagined that a little policy was 
 allowable in Church matters, that diplomatic 
 chess-playing did no harm ; we flattered our-
 
 Preface. xiii 
 
 selves with the hope that the less opposition 
 our adversaries met with, the more pliant they 
 would become, and that by delaying open 
 hostilities we did but secure the future triumph 
 of our holy cause. 
 
 And whilst we were yielding, sometimes with 
 great self-satisfaction to these delusions, listen- 
 ing with pleasure to carefully-chosen words of 
 caution, and consoling ourselves with the con- 
 sciousness of a desire to keep the peace; all 
 this time there was ceaseless activity and 
 industry in the enemy's camp. Preparations 
 went on eagerly, no discouragement was felt 
 at passing defeats : they knew that their main 
 strength lay in public opinion, and in instruc- 
 tion and education ; and therefore energetically 
 and prudently they made themselves masters 
 of the Press and the professorial chair. Often, 
 indeed, in the midst of this vigorous labour, 
 arrangement, and organization, the mask of 
 conciliation was assumed, and again, principles 
 and systems would be apparently given up. 
 But it was mere mummery ; and it was only 
 externally, from force of circumstances, that 
 they were, in isolated instances, false to their 
 system. When the appointed hour struck, the
 
 xiv Preface. 
 
 mask was thrown off. German professors, 
 Liberal newspapers, Freemason speeches tell 
 us plainly enough, if we had no other means 
 of knowing it, what their plans against 
 us are. 
 
 All this has opened the eyes of many of us 
 full late ! But at all events no reasonable man 
 will think now of denying that we Catholics 
 have to do with a party which aims at putting 
 an end to our existence as Catholics. Even if 
 they were less outspoken on the subject in their 
 papers and pamphlets, their public speeches 
 and after-dinner toasts, it would not need much 
 logic to infer it from their chance expressions, 
 of which they are more liberal and less ashamed 
 than formerly. The party which is opposed 
 to us in Germany and other parts of Europe, 
 which is not the nation, nor necessarily to be 
 identified with the government, but which forms 
 here and there a parliamentary majority none 
 the less audacious because it is small, one that 
 leads the Press, and constitutes public opinion 
 this party declares boldly that it holds the 
 State to be an absolute power to which all 
 organs and organizations, all possible powers 
 and developments of life which may appear
 
 Preface. xv 
 
 in and influence society, above all, the Church, 
 must bow and submit. It is clear that such 
 principles are utterly destructive to that Church, 
 her rights, and her liberties. She cannot co- 
 exist with an absolute State, in this sense : 
 there is no room for her. 
 
 The object, therefore, of the party hostile to 
 the Church is quite clear ; and it is a great gain 
 for our time that it is so, that there is no pos- 
 sibility of ignoring the truth. What these 
 champions of modern paganism want is a 
 regular war of annihilation against the Church, 
 because they see clearly that the State, not as 
 it is in reality, but such as they imagine and 
 infallibly define it, is no longer compatible with 
 that Church. And what they want they are 
 beginning to accomplish. They are not resting 
 in the theory, but, so far as is possible, reducing 
 it to practice. It is, indeed, but a beginning, 
 and often the end does not correspond with 
 the beginning. Still, it is a beginning, a hard, 
 bitter, distracted beginning, even though it 
 reminds us of the attempt of the Titans to take 
 heaven by storm ! 
 
 And are we to go on fancying that such an 
 attack is to be repelled by sham fights ? Are
 
 xvi Preface. 
 
 we to go on using diplomatic weapons, when 
 they mean cold, deadly earnest in the other 
 camp ? When false principles are flung boldly 
 in our faces shall we not hold up against them 
 the true and eternal principles, and strive to 
 make them recognized and triumphant ? Is it 
 not the will of Providence, Who forces us by 
 means of our enemies to declare our principles 
 too boldly before all men ? Yes, and let us 
 say it to our shame, is not a higher hand 
 almost palpably forcing our opponents to rush 
 forward to this open fight, in order that we 
 may at length begin to make ourselves ac- 
 quainted with these great principles ? 
 
 This last reason has made us resolve on 
 taking pen in hand, and doing our part accord- 
 ing to our poor ability, in aid of the truth under 
 the motto Veritas liberabit vos ! " 
 
 Yes, from the pressure which weighs on us 
 so heavily ; from the distress into which we 
 have fallen, from the confusion which weakens 
 men's minds, from want of clearness and its 
 necessary, immediate consequences, uncertainty, 
 half-measures, and irresolution ; from all this 
 one thing only can completely free us ; the 
 truth, the whole, full truth. " The truth shall
 
 Preface. xvii 
 
 make you free." It is the promise of the 
 Eternal Truth. 
 
 How you will like my choice of the outward 
 form of these pages, I do not know. There is 
 much to be said for and against it, and after all 
 it will be uncertain which scale is the heaviest. 
 Do you, then, put your kindness and indul- 
 gence into that of the form I have chosen. 
 
 Feast of St. Teresa, 1874.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 i. 
 
 The State. Its origin, nature, and office. Connection and order 
 of the immediate, and of various subordinate ends of the 
 State, with regard to its ultimate and highest end . . I 
 
 II. 
 
 The Church. Her visibility, her spiritual aspect. Our Lord's 
 
 similitudes of the Church. The Church a perfect Society . 29 
 
 III. 
 
 Relation of the State to the Church. Possibility of their subsisting 
 together, and in each other. Conclusions from the essential 
 properties of the Church as a perfect Society. Jus gladii. 
 Highest idea of the Church. The Church militant, suffering, 
 triumphant, the mystical body of Christ . . . -57 
 
 IV. 
 
 Church and State, two sovereign powers. Subordination of the 
 State to the Church according to its nature and office. The 
 State, human society in the natural order ; the Church, 
 human society in the supernatural order. The Christian 
 State alone stands in this subordinate relation to the Church. 
 Three false theories of the relation between Church and State 80
 
 xx Contents. 
 
 v. 
 
 Mediaeval theory of the "two swords," and modern system of the 
 "indirect power" of the Church over the State. The so-called 
 "directive power " of the Church. Relation of the mediaeval 
 to the post-Tridentine doctrine of the position of the Church 
 towards the State. Their agreement. Ideal tendencies of 
 the middle ages, and stand-point of modern times . . 108 
 
 VI. 
 
 Danger of the State from the Church. Groundlessness and 
 intrinsic contradiction of such a charge. Not a new, but 
 only a renewed regulation of the relations between Church 
 and State conceivable. Reasons for this. Incompetence of 
 the State in religious affairs. Concern of the State with the 
 educational question 142 
 
 VII. 
 
 Glance at the future. Glorious prospects of the Church. Summary 
 
 and Review 175
 
 I. 
 
 IT was a glorious evening by the Lake of Como. 
 The sun was gilding the mountains with a magical 
 light, while the cool breath of the night passed 
 lightly over the blue waves, without ruffling their 
 clear mirror. 
 
 In one of the most beautiful villas adorning these 
 lovely shores a distinguished party of men from 
 various countries was assembled : even America was 
 represented. They were sitting in the verandah, 
 which commanded a view of rare beauty. But the 
 charms of nature seemed to make little impression 
 on these gentlemen, who were nearly all provided 
 with cigars. They were completely taken up by a 
 very earnest conversation, and the more earnest it 
 became, the thicker became the clouds of fragrant 
 Havannah which enveloped them. 
 
 "State! State!" cried the English nobleman; 
 " what, pray, is the meaning of this State ? " 
 
 "The State," replied the German diplomatist, "is 
 regulated human society : its opposite is the con- 
 dition of nomadic families, uncivilized savages, and 
 uncultivated barbarians." 
 B
 
 2 Burning Questions. 
 
 "We are, then, to put down the State as the 
 same thing as the culture-State, then ? " inquired 
 the professor of astronomy with an ironical smile. 
 
 " If you like," answered the diplomatist. 
 
 "The State is a nonentity," said the Breton 
 Vicomte, with sharp emphasis. "Three centuries 
 back people talked of kingdoms, of republics, of 
 temporal and spiritual power, of the empire ; but 
 nobody knew anything about the State. The name 
 is modern, and, like everything modern, ambiguous." 
 
 "Don't let us pour away the child along with 
 the bath-water," returned the North American. 
 " We, across the water, live in free States, and we 
 see nothing to find fault with or to be afraid of in 
 the name. Neither would we exchange what the 
 thing signified by it gives us for the condition of 
 your old Europe." 
 
 " And we," eagerly cried the Spanish naval officer, 
 "decline your republics of the most recent date, 
 however desperate our own condition may be. After 
 all, we must never forget that the State is a divine 
 institution, unless we mean to contradict the teaching 
 of our holy Faith." 
 
 " Agreed ! " said the Englishman. " But all this 
 time we have not settled what is the meaning of this 
 State, on which our newspapers live, one may say. 
 Every second word in them is always 'the State.' 
 It seems as if no regular newspaper article could get 
 turned off without 'the good of the State,' 'con-
 
 Burning Questions. 3 
 
 siderations of State/ 'requirements of the State,' 
 'State rights,' 'State reasons.' Now, what I see in 
 every State you must forgive me for using the 
 inevitable word myself ! is a society of men in their 
 mutual relations, over which is a power which may 
 rule ill or well. But the State which is so much 
 talked about, from which so much is required, and 
 about which such fine things are said, I cannot find 
 anywhere, at least I cannot lay my hands upon it. 
 Here, the State is said to demand this or that but 
 it is in reality the Prince or the Minister ; there, the 
 State forbids something else but it is simply the 
 head of the police who does so ; in another instance 
 the good of the State requires a law, a tax but it is 
 a majority in the Chambers or a party that wants it ; 
 lastly, the good of the State urgently demands the 
 making of a railway, or the establishment of a 
 National Bank, and, when we look at it in the right 
 light, we find that it is a mere question of the interest 
 and the gigantic gains of a handful of merchants or 
 monarchs of the exchange. ' L'etat c'est moi ' one 
 can stand that, especially when it is said by a 
 sovereign who is, as our Shakespeare says, 'every 
 inch a king.' But I dread a state of things in which 
 a party in Parliament that has obtained a majority 
 by all sorts of means, or a club of professors, or the 
 brethren of the lodges, or a company of stockbrokers 
 and millionaires can say: 'L'etat c'est nous'!" 
 
 " No doubt," said, after a short pause, a young
 
 4 Burning Questions. 
 
 man with pale clear-cut features, the son of a dis- 
 tinguished Roman house; "no doubt, the word State 
 has become a convenient garment, in whose folds a 
 good many hide themselves, and which everyone can 
 at last feel at home in. The great German poet 
 my favourite in spite of all his errors who had little 
 liking for politics, has said the right thing on the 
 subject, when he makes the spirit of scepticism say 
 to his eager scholar : 
 
 Mit Worten lasst sich trefflich streiten, 
 Mit Worten ein System bereiten." 1 
 
 "Systems! yes, indeed," said the Englishman, if 
 ever a word has been used in this system-making, it 
 is the word State." 
 
 " Come, now, what is the State ? " cried an old 
 country gentleman from Switzerland, with some 
 impatience. " Here is my son, who has just been 
 made doctor of civil and canon law, 'summa cum 
 laude,' at a famous German university. It would 
 be a disgrace to him and to the boasted German 
 science if he could not give us the answer to the 
 question." 
 
 "The State," said the young Doctor, "is the 
 present god, as revealed in the sphere of the objective 
 mind." And, as he saw the faces of astonishment 
 around him, he added, with a smile of apology : "At 
 least, so said my Professor from his chair. Of course 
 
 1 Words answer famously as swords 
 Men can make systems out of words.
 
 Burning Questions. 5 
 
 I don't swear fealty to the words of a disciple of 
 Hegel:" 
 
 "A remark which was made just now is very true. 
 The word State has been used for the purpose of 
 system-making, and by the help of that word results 
 have been obtained, which would perhaps scarcely 
 have been so successful without it." 
 
 These words were spoken by a dignified old man, 
 whose abundant white hair gave a singularly venerable 
 expression to his thoughtful head and clear piercing 
 blue eyes. Everyone looked at him, and the silence 
 which had fallen seemed to invite him to proceed. 
 
 " It is really remarkable," he began, when it was 
 evident that he was expected to speak, "how men 
 do cling to words, and how easily they 'make a 
 system out of words,' as the devil in the professor's 
 mask informs the simple student. I think I may 
 venture to say that many of the great questions 
 concerning the State, especially that of the relation 
 of the State to the Church, would not have been 
 so distorted and falsified, if there had not been the 
 word 'State' itself, to make use of. If only such 
 expressions as society, civil society, community, 
 public power, spiritual and ecclesiastical power, had 
 been ready to hand we should not have seen so 
 much success attend the dialectic manipulation. 
 But it seems to me that at the outset there is some- 
 thing exclusive 1 , and absolute in the word State 
 status, etat. Beside the State, which has literally
 
 6 Burning Questions. 
 
 grown into, what Hegel calls it, the embodied god 
 Moloch, it is impossible for any other claimant of 
 right to come forward and to claim authority to exist 
 independently of it, whether it be an institution, 
 such as the Church, or the individual, who, according 
 to this system is quite correctly designated as 
 ' belonging to the State ' rather than a ' citizen.' To 
 'belong' is the correct word for designating the 
 member of a society which maintains that all its 
 members are merely to subserve its end, their highest 
 duty being to be in the State." 
 
 " And what is this end ? " a voice was heard to 
 ask. 
 
 "As to that," replied the old gentleman, "there 
 has been much dispute in recent times. That is a 
 matter of course : for now-a-days every one manu- 
 factures a philosophy of his own, and considers that 
 it is his business not to investigate principles, but 
 to make them. So, for example, we have the 
 ' maximisation ' of the general good, and the ' mini- 
 misation' of evil set forth as the end of the State, 
 that is to say of course," he continued with a smile, 
 "if, instead of the trumpet-pipes, we may use softer 
 and more soothing stops, the end of the State is 
 the general good. And there is not really so much 
 objection to be made to it, if we take this definition 
 of the end of the State as set forth by our old school. 
 But this general good, as it is variously understood 
 in our day, is to be attained and realized by the
 
 Burning Questions. 7 
 
 State, not in the interests of its members, but in 
 the interest of the State itself. The end of the 
 State, according to the modern theory, is not the 
 well-being of the individual in the State, but the 
 well-being of the State as such. If, however, it is 
 asked in what the 'felicity' of this 'present god' 
 as the State is called by the followers of Hegel 
 consists, since it has to concern itself neither with 
 religion nor morality, and to trouble itself with no 
 law, and possesses, as they express it, no 'organ 
 for ideality/ the answer is exceedingly difficult, 
 at least to the material-liberal school of modern 
 times. For surely the ' present god ' cannot find his 
 gratification in railway companies and banking 
 concerns, in the revel and riot of material enjoyment, 
 nor even in a strength necessarily, and always pro- 
 blematically, ensured by ironclads, Krupp cannon, 
 and a well-filled exchequer. And so the question 
 as to the end of the State remains unanswered, and 
 the high-sounding formula is uttered with much self- 
 satisfaction, that the State has its end in itself, that 
 it exists for its own sake, that it is absolute. This 
 is modern philosophy, a wretched plagiarism of the 
 ancient one, which even in this respect deserves a 
 milder sentence than its modern plagiarists this 
 is the State without God, which is far beneath the 
 State of a Plato and an Aristotle." 
 
 " Let us observe," the old man continued, " that 
 here too it is the retrograde movement towards
 
 8 Burning Questions. 
 
 paganism which has almost wantonly involved in 
 a well-nigh inextricable tangle, questions which are 
 not so very hard to solve in the light of Christianity. 
 It was Christianity that combated and did away 
 with the absolutistic idea of the State by getting 
 the truth recognized, that man is not for the sake 
 of the State, but the State for the sake of man. For 
 all collective personalities among mankind, as a 
 modern teacher of the philosophy of law has said, 
 are after all but temporal relations, and are even 
 when they long out-last human life, subject to many 
 alterations : but the personality of every single man 
 is an immortal individuality, deriving its existence, 
 its life, and its rights immediately from God, and 
 so must always be considered according to these 
 original rights." 
 
 "That seems to be just," said the young Swiss 
 lawyer, " though I never heard it propounded at the 
 German universities." 
 
 " Certainly it is just," returned the old man, "and 
 it is a fundamental truth of the law of the State which 
 is often misunderstood even by honest men on our 
 own side it is the palladium of personal rights and 
 of civil freedom. The right of individual personality 
 the right of each single citizen in the State has its 
 source, not in the family, not in the community, nor 
 in the State, not even in humanity, but in God : it is 
 a natural, inborn right. The personality of the 
 individual, therefore, may indeed be restricted in its
 
 Burning Questions. 9 
 
 rights by a social combination ; or, rather, these rights 
 may be defined with regard to the community, but 
 they can never be wholly taken away. Now the 
 systematic annihilation of the individual personal 
 right of each man in the State is the necessary 
 consequence of every pantheistic, sensualistic, and 
 materialistic system, in which the human mind is 
 only regarded as a transient apparition of the ' soul of 
 the universe,' or as the mere product of matter. And 
 so modern times, having again lost faith, hail the 
 attempt not only to renew the old absolutism of the 
 State in its tyrannical harshness and recklessness, but 
 to make it more unmeasured and despotic than 
 ever." 
 
 "That," exclaimed the Spaniard, "is what they 
 call the age of the empire of mind, and of victory over 
 the prejudices of the past ! " 
 
 " It is a delusion," returned the old gentleman, 
 " which will demand a terrible retribution and from 
 us too, who are all the more guilty if we allow our- 
 selves to be caught by it in any way." 
 
 " It will not be difficult," he continued, " to come 
 to an understanding, in the main, as to the nature and 
 end of the State, if we lay aside all prejudice, and 
 give up the discovery of new theories with that same 
 self-denial which properly makes us abandon the 
 inquiry as to the existence of a second moon for the 
 earth. If we keep, as we ought, to the unadulterated 
 tradition of true knowledge, which is like a stream
 
 io Burning Questions. 
 
 that gradually becomes clearer and sweeter in its 
 course, our labours and research will not have been 
 in vain. 
 
 "Plato says, the cause of the origin of the State 
 is our necessity. He means by this the need of 
 beings, who by their nature are mutually dependent 
 on each other for the attainment of their end. And 
 here, how superior the heathen is to the English 
 Hobbes, who makes civilized human society spring 
 from the necessity of putting an end to the original 
 war of everybody against everybody else ! And how 
 again, is Rousseau, too, put to shame by Plato ! The 
 latter conceives human society to be intended as the 
 copy of that primal ideal state where Chronos and 
 Uranus reigned. The Genevese philosopher, on the 
 contrary, would fain have us believe a worse than 
 foolish fable of our first ancestors, living, something 
 like animals, in the wilderness, and extols this lawless 
 condition as the state of true innocence, freedom, and 
 happiness. 
 
 "The need of our nature, which, as Plato says, 
 contains within itself the reason of the rise of the 
 State, is simply the need of creatures who have been 
 so formed by their Creator that they live in common, 
 and are intended to find the end of their being in 
 common. Man is by nature a social being, animal 
 sociale, the ancients said, and they proved it from the 
 fact that the last end of men is one and common to 
 all, and from the necessity which exists for indivi-
 
 Burning Questions. n 
 
 duals to join others, and to act in union with them 
 for the providing of means for that end. In like 
 manner does history so far as we are able to trace it 
 in the darkness of a dim antiquity teach us, that the 
 war of all against all, or the savage state of the 
 human race in primeval forests never existed save in 
 the diseased speculations of a Hobbes, and in the 
 excited imagination of a Rousseau. So far as we 
 are able to lift the veil which hangs over the 
 historical beginnings of the human race, we nowhere 
 see men in a lawless state, though social life, as is 
 self-evident, existed in a primitive and rude form, 
 which certainly can just as well pass on to a further 
 stage of civilization and culture, as remain at a dead 
 standstill, or become altogether savage. 
 
 " The sacred records give us nothing but the most 
 general sketch of the period before the flood ; and 
 yet the conclusion seems justified that the social 
 relations of antediluvian times had risen to a very 
 considerable degree of culture, one, it may be, which 
 has never since been attained. The principles of 
 order and of law, which had been directly taught 
 by that original revelation of the Creator were borne 
 with him by the father of our race through the gates 
 of Paradise, which shut behind him for ever. Though, 
 therefore, the state of primitive society, as developed 
 under the guidance of the head of the human family, 
 was, as we say, a state of nature, and one destitute of 
 refined cultivation, the need of which did not exist ;
 
 12 Burning Questions. 
 
 still there was not lacking in this social grade that 
 vigorous germ of true civilization, whose very essence 
 it is to guard and secure moral order by means of 
 corresponding practical institutions, and to make their 
 growing prosperity possible, as society becomes more 
 and more developed. 
 
 " How utterly wild, therefore, from the stand-point 
 of belief in revelation, on which the authority of holy 
 Scripture is unassailably founded, is the notion that 
 the primitive period of the human race after the loss 
 of Paradise was a stage of savage, independent rude- 
 ness! The old Greek myth stated the truth more 
 nearly when it told of the ages of the world, begin- 
 ning with those of gold and silver, and ending with 
 that of iron. 
 
 " Let us, then, again trace the human race after it 
 was led by its second progenitor out of the Ark, and 
 before the beginning of its dispersion over the world 
 consequent on the Divine judgment at Babel. The 
 family of Noe, which most certainly have preserved 
 the tradition of primeval civilization and culture, had 
 to develope into races and tribes, but, at first, there 
 was a continuance of social unity even in that widely- 
 divided family, for we have the witness of the Mosaic 
 records, that these different races and tribes possessed 
 the most effectual bond of unity in one common 
 language, and surely in one common worship also- 
 Together with these, must have been preserved at 
 least a remnant of the civilization which had des-
 
 Burning Questions. 13 
 
 cended by tradition from primeval times. After the 
 dispersion of Noe's descendents, we always find 
 accordingly, in consulting history, a social condition 
 everywhere among men, although not everywhere 
 progress in civilization and culture, but very often a 
 standing still, and sometimes a tendency to the 
 savage state. 
 
 " On the laws of that primeval State, China, the 
 idea of family union is so deeply impressed, that 
 that gigantic empire might be regarded as one single 
 household of which the "Son of Heaven" is the 
 father. In India, this tenacious clinging to the 
 natural family tie has issued in the existence of 
 caste, which is directed by the wisdom of the 
 Brahmins. Assyrians, Persians, Medes, have their 
 Magi, who give laws to the people, and rule their 
 rulers. Egypt, too, presents itself to us, even in 
 the remotest antiquity, as already a well-regulated 
 State, in which, again, the priesthood guides the 
 national destinies, even though the warlike spirit, 
 and the trade in full activity with Palestine and 
 the West is hostile to this priestly authority. In the 
 north of Europe the descendants of Noe are in a 
 barbarous state, but still they are peoples possessing 
 laws and worship ; races and nations kept together 
 by community of language, till the over-peopled 
 illimitable regions of Central Asia pour themselves 
 forth, and send out the German tribes to the West, 
 whither they bring their princes and their laws,
 
 14 Burning Questions. 
 
 their mode of warfare, and their form of constitution. 
 Whilst in the south of Europe the ruling hand of 
 Providence, stretching through the centuries, ordains 
 that from the fertile germs of an early civilization 
 shall be developed State-constitutions like those of 
 Greece, to be followed, at their completion, by the 
 magnificent Roman Commonwealth, which we un- 
 hesitatingly call the most perfect social and political 
 manifestation in the sphere of natural existence. 
 When the New World was discovered, the Spaniards 
 came upon a remarkable state of culture among the 
 Aztecs of Mexico; and the numerous antiquities 
 which come to light in North and South America 
 tell of primeval nations in a state of culture. In 
 like manner the courageous travellers, who venture 
 into the heart of Africa, find everywhere a more 
 or less regularly ordered Commonwealth, bearing 
 a character either patriarchal or despotic. The 
 Australian negroes, now gradually dying out, whose 
 hope is to rise again as white men, have indeed proved 
 incapable of cultivation, but still they live in families, 
 tribes, and hordes. While, among the inhabitants 
 of the continent of Oceanica, we have monarchical 
 constitutions, separate ranks, something like a feudal 
 system, and fixed traditions of religion and worship. 
 " It cannot, then, be disputed that a social state 
 is something which is founded on and required by 
 human nature, and that a life in union and inter- 
 course with others is something necessary for man.
 
 Burning Questions. 15 
 
 The human race without social union is an inconceiv- 
 able idea. But, if this social union is a law of nature, 
 it must be referred, as its final cause, to Him Who 
 gave that law to the Creator. God has created 
 man as a being requiring and seeking society ; there- 
 fore this society is a divine institution : its ordinance 
 is, like that of its type and foundation, the family, 
 a divine ordinance, which can neither be altered nor 
 overthrown by men. 
 
 " That which we are in the habit of calling the 
 State in our time is, then, in its nature, nothing but 
 the more or less perfect form of that law of nature 
 under which is placed the human race which is 
 created and formed for social life. We shall not go 
 wrong if we set before us, as the ideal of this union, 
 the cosmopolitan society, and describe each separate 
 united organization, each individual State, as the 
 partial, incomplete realization of that ideal. 
 
 " But, what was the design of the Creator Himself 
 in the foundation of Society? Here, evidently, 
 comes into play the eternal inventive Love, whose 
 will is to send its creatures into the school of love 
 by making one dependent on the other. Man is 
 to help man in the fulfilling of his task ; the example 
 of the one is to animate the other, the necessity of 
 living together is to become a voluntary bond of 
 union, cold duty is to lead to hearty goodwill and 
 loving sacrifice. But as, in society, every one is to 
 serve his neighbour, and so assist him in his calling,
 
 1 6 Burning Questions. 
 
 so it is the office of society itself to facilitate the 
 attainment of their final end by its members. For, 
 let us ever bear in mind, civil society exists for the 
 citizens not vice versa the State is for man, not 
 man for the State. 
 
 " But what is the object which is here set before 
 man on earth ? We know, even by the light of 
 reason, that his work can only be this : to strive, in a 
 well-ordered way, for the possession of the infinite 
 good. And so, in purely human society, the notion 
 of the true social good necessarily follows from the 
 idea of the last end of man. All other ends which 
 are usually put forward as the highest and last of the 
 State, must be looked upon as insufficient." 
 
 "But," remarked the Swiss lawyer, "you are 
 exposing yourself to the reproach of bringing the 
 Catechism into the philosophy of law, and of 
 turning a scientific discussion into a sermon." 
 
 "And would you make science independent of 
 God ? " asked the Breton with some sharpness. 
 " Would you seek truth without concerning yourself 
 about its source ? " 
 
 " Of course not ! " said the young doctor of laws, 
 in some confusion. 
 
 "We are quite aware," returned the old man 
 gravely, "that in thus laying down the last end of 
 man, and the great end of the State as the same, 
 even according to the order of nature, we are making 
 head against specious and widespread errors and
 
 Burning Questions. 17 
 
 prejudices. But we must not be dissuaded from 
 bearing witness to the truth against godlessness by 
 this nineteenth century, which is able to discuss the 
 ' Kosmos ' without making any mention of God." 
 
 "To give direction and scope to the efforts of 
 a creature," he continued, " is clearly the work of its 
 Creator. The artificer decides on the use to which 
 his work is to be applied ; much more the Eternal 
 Omnipotent Maker of the universe with regard to the 
 work of His hands. Every creature has received 
 from the creating Hand of Omnipotence an impulse 
 and tendency towards its end, in the disposition with 
 which it is endowed, and which is as inseparable from 
 it as its being which constitutes the fundamental 
 principle of its activity, and is called by us Nature. 
 
 " A stone follows its nature by seeking its centre 
 of gravity ; a plant, by involuntarily receiving 
 nourishment from the earth and the air, growing,, 
 blossoming, and bearing fruit. It is the nature of." 
 the brute voluntarily to decide the direction of its- 
 natural inclinations, and for that purpose it is pro- 
 vided with sensual apprehension ; not, however, that 
 that faculty of the brute which is called out by the 
 sensual apprehension so determines its activity that 
 no opposition is possible, for this sensual appre- 
 hension is wholly confined within the narrow bounds 
 of time and space. It is only the activity of reason, 
 which is peculiar to man, which breaks through, 
 these barriers : his thoughts penetrate, by free 
 C
 
 1 8 Burning Questions. 
 
 reflection, into the regions of the Infinite, and thereby 
 make his knowledge like infinite knowledge ; his will, 
 which is accountable to itself, has no need to follow 
 the inclination of the senses ; he rises above all that 
 is sensual, and contemplates that transcendent illi- 
 mitable Good, which presents itself to him in the 
 light of reason, as its own proper object 
 
 " How infinitely short-sighted, therefore, are those 
 who, calling themselves thinkers, imagine that a 
 good is to be found on earth or in the mind of 
 man, the possession of which is able to make him 
 entirely happy ! 
 
 " Impossible ! Neither riches, which, when not 
 used, are dead treasures, nor sensual gratification, 
 that low, transitory, and pernicious pleasure, nor 
 honour and consideration, the possession of which 
 does not depend on ourselves, nor virtue, in and 
 for itself, which here below is never met with pure 
 and lasting, nor art, which is always an imperfect 
 striving, nor knowledge, which can never be satisfied, 
 none of all these can really be the end of our rational 
 endeavours : for none of all these things can fill 
 the heart, and none of them deserves to be called 
 a pure, eternal, unbounded good. 
 
 " Our true end can be God only, in Whom, incom- 
 prehensible Himself, is comprehended all that is 
 true and good and beautiful. To know Him, and, 
 so far as is permitted to a creature, to attain and 
 enjoy Him this must be the sublime vocation of
 
 Burning Questions. 19 
 
 man, which can never in any case be fulfilled in 
 this passing state. Man's perfection, therefore, his 
 true happiness and his whole peace, so long as he 
 is in the world, must consist in this : that all his 
 actions are, mediately or immediately, directed to 
 the attainment of the Infinite Good, as his last and 
 highest end. 
 
 " This, then, being the work and the end of man, 
 even in the natural order of things, it must also 
 be the proper work and end of civil society. For 
 we cling firmly to the principle established by 
 Christianity, that the State exists for its citizens, 
 not the individual for the State. St. Augustine long 
 ago clearly affirmed that the good of the State is 
 nothing distinctive in itself, but that it must be 
 drawn from the same source as the good of the 
 individual man, since the civil commonwealth is 
 nothing else than the multitude joined by a bond 
 of unity. In the same way, St. Thomas Aquinas 
 teaches that we should judge of the end of civil 
 society exactly as we do of that of the individual 
 man who is a member of it. The State, according 
 to this Christian idea, cannot be an end to itself; 
 it is a means a very important one too for aiding 
 each of its individual members in the performance 
 of his task. Therefore, to support human indi- 
 viduals in the attainment of their eternal end 
 by means of the developed strength of their col- 
 lective body in the natural order of things : this is
 
 2O Burning Questions. 
 
 the highest aim of social union, the great end of 
 the State. 
 
 "We must not be misunderstood when we say 
 that the State exists for its citizens, that civil 
 society is only to be regarded as a means for the 
 easier attainment of their highest end by individuals, 
 but that it has no end of its own, to which all the 
 individual strivings of its members are to be entirely 
 subordinate. It is certainly undoubted that the good 
 of the individual must give way to the good of the 
 community. Only, by the expression, common or 
 public good, must not be understood the welfare of 
 the State, as of a power standing by itself, beside 
 and above the body of citizens. If what is under- 
 stood by it is the good of all the rest in opposition 
 to the separate good of an individual, the latter must 
 of course be subordinate to the former ; for evidently 
 social good must in general be measured by the 
 prosperity accruing to the whole body of society or 
 to the large majority of its members. It is in this 
 sense that the common or public welfare, which the 
 older school pronounced to be the end of the State 
 is to be understood ; in this sense, and in no other, 
 do we assent to the proposition, Salus publica 
 suprcma lex. If the common good is differently 
 understood, we shall have a revival of the errors of 
 the ancients and shall turn the State into an idol 
 which devours its worshippers. People talk of the good 
 of the State while they are sacrificing the true good
 
 Burning Questions. 21 
 
 of the people. The State is then an incomprehen- 
 sible abstraction, and its fancied good is another 
 name for the pleasure of a despot, or the despotism 
 of a party. 
 
 " This chief and final end of all order in the State 
 does not in any way, however, involve the destruc- 
 tion of the other ends which are means to it, especially 
 the first of these, which decidedly takes precedence 
 of all others, and seems absolutely indispensable. In 
 this matter the position of the State is subject to the 
 same conditions as everything else. The architect, 
 in order to carry out his plan, finds himself, from 
 the first stroke of his design to the completion of 
 the interior decoration of the house, compelled to 
 perform the most various tasks, which are all merely 
 so many means, nearer or more remote, to his final 
 end, the erection of the building. Or, to use an 
 image of St. Thomas Aquinas, the final object of 
 the seaman is the reaching the harbour which is 
 the appointed end of the voyage. But in order to 
 do so he requires a well equipped vessel and all 
 kinds of labour and attention on his way. In order 
 to reach his destination the sailor must first perform 
 a number of other tasks which are set before him as 
 subordinate ends. 
 
 " Accordingly, it is perfectly just to designate the 
 'end of law' as the proximate immediate end of the 
 State; but it is not its last and highest end. The 
 order and peace which are attained by the internal
 
 22 Burning Questions. 
 
 and external authority of law are indispensably 
 necessary for the continuance of human society, and 
 inseparable from the nature of the State. Not to 
 maintain them would be to abandon society to 
 annihilate it. And so the State must certainly pro- 
 vide for the defence of law. 
 
 "But the theory of the so-called 'Law-State' 
 goes further; its advocates, partly perhaps for the 
 sake of attacking the 'police-state,' exclude every 
 other end of the State. To keep to St. Thomas' 
 figure, they are like the sailor who declared that 
 the sole end of his voyage was the good order 
 and management of his vessel. But that in point 
 of fact the defence of law and the interior peace 
 which is gained by it is the proximate and imme- 
 diate end of the State, we find maintained by the 
 same Doctor of the Church. In the very passage 
 where he employs that figure of the sailor he 
 describes, as the chief business of the master of the 
 ship, the maintenance of peace in civil society, which 
 is mainly and essentially obtained by the adminis- 
 tration and the defence of law. 
 
 " While, however, we speak of law, we are far from 
 doing homage to that modern idea of law which 
 might more properly be termed a barbaric idea. 
 According to it, the State alone is the source of 
 law, and there can be no question of law apart 
 from the State. It is self-evident that such a 
 notion denies every natural and divine law which
 
 Burning Questions. 23 
 
 may stand above it, and, by reason of its origin, 
 precede it. 
 
 "So pernicious a doctrine can only be approved 
 by those who presume with audacious hand to 
 sever human society from Him Who is its Founder 
 and Ruler from the Personal God. It is impossible 
 for any one who is not a despiser of God, and who 
 admits that the whole system of the world proceeds 
 from the everlasting Lawgiver, to exclude from it 
 so spiritual a portion of it as the order of law, without 
 involving himself in inextricable contradictions to his 
 reason. The highest and final Source of all law is 
 God, and the order of law is but a part of the 
 universal and moral order of the world. But law 
 and morals cannot be really separated from each 
 other. As they have one and the same eternal 
 source in the sanctity of God, so too are they con- 
 nected interiorly and essentially. 
 
 " It is the endeavour of the State, so far as it 
 is possible, and so far as its means permit, to realize 
 the moral order of the world. By doing this it pre- 
 pares, as it were, a wider path for the free moral 
 activity of its citizens, by which they have to strive 
 to reach their highest end. And surely that is the 
 true idea of civilization. The department of the 
 activity of the State in this sense, is precisely the 
 department of law, the boundaries of which are 
 fixed, partly by the position of the State in the 
 natural order of things, partly by the fact that it 
 cannot bring men's consciences to trial.
 
 24 Burning Questions. 
 
 " So long as the State remains true to this mission, 
 and provides for the maintenance of the moral order 
 of the world in its own sphere, that is to say, the 
 sphere of law in which it has authority and juris- 
 diction, it will flourish ; and its progress will not be 
 an empty phrase. But if it abandons this path, by 
 substituting arbitrary will for principles of law, or 
 if it repudiates these principles by making law take 
 its rise, not from the Eternal Wisdom and Its moral 
 decrees, but from motives of convenience or utility 
 for the time being, then it endangers, not only the 
 welfare of its citizens, but its own existence : and 
 its future if it has any is a state of barbarism. 
 
 " Accordingly, the defence of law, which the State 
 affords, has again, as we have just heard, for its 
 immediate end, the true liberty of the citizen, that 
 is, the clearly and firmly defined legal sphere of the 
 individual, in which he is free to act so as to fulfil 
 his earthly vocation in the most perfect possible way, 
 and by means of it make himself worthy of his 
 everlasting one. St. Thomas Aquinas expressed this 
 in the proposition, that the end of civil society is 
 the virtuous life of the individual. St. Paul said the 
 same thing before him, when he admonished his son 
 Timothy to pray for those in high station : ' that 
 we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety 
 and chastity.' 
 
 "And just as the work of man on earth is the 
 fulfilment of the moral law, in order by its means
 
 Burning Questions. 25 
 
 to attain his eternal end, so is it the end of the State, 
 which has established and maintains the order of law, 
 to make the path of virtue easier to its citizens while 
 leaving them in the enjoyment of their liberty, and 
 by these means to cooperate for the attainment of 
 their final and highest end. 
 
 " We see here, that in the ' end of law,' which in 
 a certain sense is rightly ascribed to the State, is 
 contained, at any rate substantially, that other State 
 end which is called now-a-days, but in a different 
 sense from the above, ' well-being.' If the authority 
 in the State is present as guardian and interpreter 
 of the law, in -the full sense of the word, it has 
 already done the utmost that it can do for the well- 
 being of its citizens. For order, quiet, peace, true 
 liberty, which are preliminary conditions for the 
 material and moral prosperity of individuals in civil 
 society, follow necessarily from good legislation and 
 well-ordered, administration. But the imaginary duty 
 of the State, by which it would have, as it were, 
 forcibly to coerce the individual for his own welfare, 
 belongs certainly to the region of romance. It 
 appears to be a still more distorted idea to make the 
 ' end of law ' subordinate to the ' end of well- 
 being,' or, we had better say at once, to the end of 
 temporary utility, and to require the former to give 
 place to the latter, when it so happens that both 
 cannot be attained at once. Such a theory is, of 
 course, very convenient in the materialistic Liberal
 
 26 Burning Questions. 
 
 idea of the State. But when brought to the light, 
 what is it but to set about building a house without 
 walls or foundation ? It is an idle and absurd under- 
 taking. 
 
 " It may, however, be granted that the State can 
 propose to itself certain other tasks, which lie outside 
 the end of law, and may be comprised in that end 
 of well-being of which we have been speaking. We 
 need not deny the right of the State in this matter, 
 so long as it does not lose sight of two things. On 
 the one hand, it must always remember that it is 
 only a means to an end, which, as we have seen, 
 consists in facilitating the perfect fulfilment of each 
 member's duty, and thereby the attainment of his 
 highest end. On the other hand, it must bear in 
 mind that it has to do with reasonable beings, whose 
 freedom of action it can unduly check and interfere 
 with only at the risk of becoming unfaithful to its 
 mission, and, at length, incapable of fulfilling it. The 
 true liberty of the citizen must be sacred to the State. 
 
 "What tasks the State can thus lawfully appro- 
 priate together with the especial ' end of law,' 
 which is at the same time, in an important manner, 
 the 'end of well-being' also, can only be decided 
 in general terms. The main characteristic of such 
 subordinate ends will always be that they can also 
 be attained by means of inferior and private 
 societies, and that, under some circumstances, the 
 State may or must commit them to such societies.
 
 Burning Questions. 27 
 
 But the maintenance of the order of law cannot 
 be committed by the State to another, without itself 
 ceasing to exist. To administer law and justice is 
 the innate function of the State, and of the authority 
 which is appointed in it. 
 
 " The State, which is human society brought into 
 an order conformable to nature, and furnished with 
 a suitable organization, has for its last and highest 
 end that which is the end of individuals. Its imme- 
 diate end is the ' end of law ' for the maintenance 
 of interior and exterior peace, without which the 
 individual cannot attain true prosperity either in a 
 material or moral point of view. It cannot abandon 
 the latter without exposing its own existence to be 
 called in question, nor neglect the former without 
 prejudice to true civilization. Between both these 
 ends lie other duties which the State may undertake 
 according to circumstances, always provided that it 
 does not trench too closely on the right of the indi- 
 didual, nor intrude into the province of the family ; 
 and that it grants due liberty to other lawfully 
 existing social bodies." 
 
 The company had followed the speaker with great 
 attention, and when he paused, there was perfect 
 silence. 
 
 " I am afraid of wearying you," said the old 
 gentleman who had given this explanation, "but I 
 am quite ready to take up the subject again one of 
 these next days."
 
 28 Burning Questions. 
 
 " Only one more question for to-day ! " cried the 
 Englishman, who had been one of the most attentive 
 listeners. " If it is certain and I have no reason 
 for doubting it that the State serves the great final 
 end of the individual, if the great Doctor St. Thomas 
 seeks a secondary end of the State in the rendering 
 the citizens virtuous : then, certainly, the State must 
 be bound, above all things, to take in hand the 
 affairs of religion, to take divine doctrine and worship 
 under its protection ? " 
 
 The old man smiled. " It would lead us too far 
 to answer that question to-day," he said. "I will 
 only remind you of just one thing. Plato, according 
 to his State theory, did full homage to the absolutism 
 of the State. The individual exists, after all, in his 
 opinion, only for the State. But, nevertheless, the 
 great thinker teaches that the exercises and affairs 
 of religion lie outside the mission of the State. To 
 appoint and regulate these belongs, he maintains, 
 to the Deity, to the Apollo of Delphi only."
 
 Burning Questions, 29 
 
 II. 
 
 NEXT morning the younger and more vigorous of 
 the party went out hunting, an occupation which has 
 many attractions in that splendid mountain scenery. 
 The old gentleman with the clear blue eyes and 
 silvery hair was one of those who stayed at the villa, 
 and were breakfasting that lovely morning on the 
 terrace overlooking the lake. In spite of his stately 
 bearing, the old man did not seem ever to have been 
 given to horsemanship, and such exercises as the 
 noble pleasure of the chase were evidently quite out 
 of his line. Later in the day two young men made 
 their appearance, one of whom was a German, the 
 other a Dutchman, who had paid a visit that morning 
 to a church of our Lady, which looked down, from a 
 neighbouring cliff, upon the blue waters of the lake. 
 They invited the old man to join them in a morning 
 walk on the shady bank, and he agreed to their wish 
 with friendly willingness. 
 
 " This reminds me of the Lake of Albano," said 
 the young Dutchman, as they strolled along the shore, 
 "when we took leave after the Campo d'Annibale, 
 and refreshed our tired limbs in the cool water."
 
 3O Burning Questions. 
 
 "Well, we Zouaves had had cold water enough 
 before," replied the German. "The rain during the 
 Papal military Mass was almost a deluge." 
 
 The Dutchman laughed : " Yes ; some of us were 
 in a desperate plight then, particularly those who 
 were on duty at the altar-tent itself. I am sure if 
 Lot's inquisitive wife was turned into a pillar of 
 salt, they were turned into fountains. The meta 
 sudans at the Coliseum must have been just like 
 them." 
 
 The old man smiled. " You were both at Rome 
 on the 2Oth of September ? " he asked. 
 
 The Papal Zouaves nodded silently. 
 
 " Where were you posted ? " 
 
 " I was at the Porta Pia," said the German ; and 
 he sighed deeply. 
 
 " My post," said the Dutchman, " was one never 
 to be forgotten the Porta San Giovanni. To the 
 right rose the Lateran, the mother church of the 
 whole world ; to the left the Scala Santa, on the 
 steps of which our Lord endured even more shameful 
 outrage than Pius IX. And in the distance Santa 
 Croce in Gerusalemme seemed to beckon to us." 
 
 " In hoc signo vinces ! " said the old man. 
 
 " I was there under Charette," the Dutchman con- 
 tinued, "and I saw him cry like a child when the 
 order came to stop firing. I think we all cried with 
 him." 
 
 " Evviva Pio Nona ! " shouted the German in a
 
 Burning Questions. 31 
 
 loud ringing voice, and the echo from the ravine 
 across the lake answered clearly back. 
 
 A boy of about ten came running up. On hearing 
 the shout he had hastily left his boat, in which he 
 was rocking on the waves. 
 
 " Do you wish to cross, gentlemen ? here is the 
 boat." 
 
 " Yes ; but where's the boatman ? " asked the 
 Dutchman. 
 
 " I am the boatman," answered the boy, drawing 
 himself up proudly. 
 
 " You are not big enough to row," said the 
 German. 
 
 " Would you like to see ? Come ! " and the boy 
 ran towards his boat. 
 
 The old gentleman called him back. 
 
 " We do not want to cross," he said. " And we 
 don't doubt your skill any longer. You are quick 
 and strong, though you are very young." 
 
 " I should think so," cried the young sailor, 
 sturdily. 
 
 " But how does school get on, my little friend ? " 
 asked the old man. 
 
 " School ? All right ! " replied the child, lifting up 
 his roguish eyes to the questioner. 
 
 " Can you read ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And write ? " 
 
 " Well, I can row better," returned the boy,
 
 32 Burning Questions. 
 
 stretching out his arm and hand, which was already 
 getting hard and horny. 
 
 " And the Catechism ? " 
 
 The boy stared at his examiner ; then he said, 
 " Mother taught it me." 
 
 " Can you say the Credo ? " asked the German. 
 
 " I am a Christian, sir," replied the boy in an 
 offended voice. 
 
 " Well, then, let us hear." 
 
 The child might not have consented to this im- 
 promptu examination, had not the young Dutchman 
 taken a silver coin out of his pocket and allowed 
 it to peep through his fingers. 
 
 The boy paused for a minute, and then recited 
 the Apostles' Creed, readily, in Italian. 
 
 " Can you say it in Latin, too ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," replied the little boatman, with rather 
 a self-satisfied air. " Our priest is very particular 
 about it." And immediately he started off in Latin, 
 and went on fluently to the \vords Sanctam Ecclesiam 
 Catholicam ; then he hesitated a little. 
 
 " Ecclesia ! What does that mean ? " asked the 
 old gentleman. 
 
 " The Church," replied the boy. 
 
 "Well, what is the Church?" asked the Dutch- 
 man, holding up the half lira before his eyes. 
 
 " The Church ! " cried the child with dancing 
 eyes : " The Church is my true country, so mother 
 always says." And with these words he took the
 
 Burning Questions. 33 
 
 coin, gave a flourish with his ragged straw hat, and 
 disappeared in a moment among the bushes. 
 
 The gentlemen looked after him with a good- 
 natured laugh. "No doubt there are a good many 
 gaps in education hereabouts," said the old man ; 
 "but there is no such state of barbarism as people 
 try to make the world believe in the Roman States. 
 And school-plans do not make good schools, nor a 
 learned education good teachers." 
 
 "The child's answer to my comrade's question," 
 said the German, " reminds me vividly of my youth. 
 I had the honour of being born in a German model 
 State, where a paean is daily sung in all the news- 
 papers, periodicals, Government reports, and school 
 regulations, over the incomparable excellence of out':? 
 school system, which is always concluded to b(b sa:,..r 
 undisputed fact, fully justifying us in looking down: 
 with a certain pride upon other people and nations." 
 
 " Pride goes before a fall," said the old man. 
 
 "But I must confess," the German contmued 7 /, 
 " that if, when I was that boy's age, I had been asked ' 
 what the Church was, I should hardly have given his 
 answer, which he did not spell out from the dead 
 letter of the Catechism, but heard from the living lips - 
 of his mother." 
 
 "What use are all the schools of the State and 
 the Church," exclaimed the Dutchman, "without the. 
 school of the family ?" 
 
 "I can remember quite well," said the German^ 
 D
 
 34 Burning Questions. 
 
 " what strange ideas I used to have about the Church 
 while I was learning my Catechism. I could perfectly 
 well bring it before me, with its walls and towers, 
 altar and confessional, pulpit and organ, its banners 
 and pictures of saints ; but beyond this my notions 
 of the Church were a heap of confusion. And yet 
 I was fortunate in having an excellent schoolmaster, 
 and our zealous young chaplain never missed a reli- 
 gious instruction." 
 
 " I expect a good many people, at least in old 
 days, had much the same ideas about the Church 
 that you had as a boy in the primer at school," 
 exclaimed the Dutchman. 
 
 "How can it be otherwise?" returned the old 
 man. " The Church is two things at the same time 
 a historical fact and a great secret of the faith !" 
 
 Just then the hunting party came up from the 
 valley, and the conversation broke off. At the 
 evening gathering on the verandah, the two Zouaves 
 related the adventure with the little boatman, and 
 after some eager talk, the point at which the morning's 
 conversation broke off was reached. 
 
 " The Church is a historical fact and a great secret 
 of the faith," said the German Zouave to the old man 
 with clear eyes and white hair. " That was what you 
 said this morning, and your words have been in my 
 mind ever since." 
 
 " And surely that is a truth," replied the old man, 
 "with which we can never sufficiently concern our-
 
 Burning Questions. 35 
 
 selves, and yet which we often treat indifferently or 
 superficially. The Church ! it was almost touching 
 to hear the boy remind us that it is our true country. 
 If patriotism has so much influence in the world, that 
 everybody feels insulted if he is not considered a 
 good patriot, what ought to be our patriotism as 
 natives of that kingdom which has no earthly origin, 
 and yet is founded in this world that kingdom which 
 preserves for us a richer heritage than that of our 
 earthly fathers, and which makes us citizens, not of 
 transitory States, but of heaven. But how is it 
 possible for us to love and esteem that as we ought, 
 the worth of which we have either not recognized at 
 all, or very insufficiently ? This reproach, however, 
 cannot attach to any of the company in which I am 
 speaking. You see that even in an old heart feeling 
 often overflows in the wrong place. You must forgive 
 an unworthy, but true son of the Church." 
 
 " We will not forgive you," returned the American 
 with a smile, " till you have told us all that is in your 
 heart on this grand subject." 
 
 " Then you will all be asleep long before the end," 
 said the old man in the same joking manner. 
 
 "Just try !" cried voices from all sides. 
 
 And soon the request became so general that the 
 old man, as he said, yielded to the unanimity of a 
 legitimate plebiscite. 
 
 "When I speak of the Church," he said, "I like, 
 in order to contemplate her in her living character,
 
 36 Burning Questions. 
 
 to use the image of our glorious mediaeval cathedral ; 
 and the Church herself justifies me in doing this, for 
 in one of her grand offices, that for the dedication of 
 a new temple, she compares herself in her eternal 
 completeness to the church built of stone, which con- 
 tains the ' Secret of the Faith.' 
 
 " A solemn peacefulness possesses us as we enter 
 the venerable building : we feel taken out of the 
 world. ' Sursiim corda /' say the slender up-springing 
 pillars, as they meet and part, up in the dizzy height 
 of the roof in the crossing lines of the arches as they 
 rise and fall. Everything, the altars with the crucifix, 
 the statues and pictures of the heroes of faith, love, 
 and suffering, the glow of the unearthly everlasting 
 morning breaking through the painted glory of the 
 lofty windows, even the monuments of the dead, 
 which admonish us gravely from the walls, or 
 cover the pavement under our feet everything 
 snatches us away with an irresistible force from the 
 earthly and finite, and draws us up into the sphere 
 of the Infinite. And the exterior of the mysterious 
 and marvellous edifice, like the interior, is the embodi- 
 ment of a heavenward longing. All the delicate, airy 
 gables, every turret, every finial, reaches upward. 
 And only in the crowning cross of the gigantic tower- 
 pyramid does this longing tendency upward, this 
 sacred impulse to be freed from earth's weight and 
 darkness, find its rest ; and our mind, meanwhile, 
 which, bound as it were by the holy spell of this
 
 Burning Questions. 37 
 
 spectacle, has, even against its will, followed these 
 soaring masses in their flight, rises higher and higher 
 till it loses itself in the thought of Infinity. 
 
 "And, nevertheless, this cathedral stands on the 
 earth, to which, as it were, it does not belong. In solemn 
 silence it rises, grave and vast, above the noisy, daily 
 market of this life which surrounds it. The low self- 
 interest of the world, buried in the dust of this life, 
 has even dared many a time to rear its miserable huts 
 and booths against the noble walls of the majestic 
 building, and to degrade and disfigure it. But all 
 the same the cathedral rises heavenward ; and within, 
 where the eternal light burns before the tabernacle 
 on which man has exhausted his pious art, it remains 
 the undesecrated sanctuary. Alas ! that the jaundiced 
 eye of the man who is passing by the lofty gates 
 outside, takes offence at all the ugly adjuncts there, 
 and disdains, with contemptuous injustice, to enter 
 the interior, the holy supernatural beauty and glory 
 of which he never dreams of." 
 
 " Ignorance of the Church," said the Englishman, 
 "is certainly the most widely spread reason for dislike 
 of her." 
 
 " And also, in the present day," added the German 
 diplomatist, " the true source of a persecution which 
 bears the character of internal impotence." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said the old man; "how the 
 Church has been misunderstood for eighteen centuries, 
 and that not only by her enemies, but by her own
 
 38 Burning Questions. 
 
 children too ! First, the Romans regarded her as 
 a foolish sect of turbulent Jews ; then, in the eyes of 
 the Emperors on the Palatine, she was a conspiracy 
 against the majesty and the existence of the Roman 
 world-empire. Then, again, it was Islamism which 
 considered its mission to be to sweep from the earth 
 the despiser of the Koran and its prophet. Next rose 
 up deluded sons of her own, fain to teach their vener- 
 able Mother, and to give lessons to her, who has her 
 constitution not from men, but from God, how to put 
 her system on a better footing in the world. Then 
 this spirit went so far at the Reformation, that 
 obedience to her was wholly repudiated, and it was 
 openly declared that she was no longer the true 
 Bride of Christ, but only the degenerate and disfigured 
 copy of the holy community of the first Christians. 
 Where, then, lies the true cause of the conflicts which 
 have broken out afresh within the Church, if not in 
 a distorted idea of her nature and constitution ?" 
 
 "An idea, however," said the Spanish naval 
 officer, "to which the Vatican Council has given 
 its death-blow." 
 
 " I willingly grant that," returned the old man. 
 " But the consequences of those wide-spread errors 
 are far from ended. The Church is indeed like 
 a victorious hero ; but the wounds she received in 
 battle are still fresh and bleeding. It will be a long 
 time before they are quite healed and scarred 
 over."
 
 Burning Questions. 39 
 
 " The phoenix soars quickly from its ashes," 
 remarked the Breton. 
 
 " Yes, when God works miracles ! " was the 
 answer : " and in your country that seems really to 
 be the case. But it is not so certain that so sudden 
 a revolution will be accomplished everywhere. The 
 sins of France were great, but her penitence seems 
 greater still. It is a grand spectacle. Would that 
 all nations might take example by it! " 
 
 " This much seems certain," he continued, " that 
 the true regeneration of Society, which it was too 
 easily believed would be brought about at the 
 Congress of Vienna, will be realized in exact pro- 
 portion as men rid themselves of prejudices against 
 the Church, understand her, and do her justice. 
 
 " It is hardly half a century since men, with great 
 self-complacency, and with ogling glances at the 
 shallow rationalism of the day, defined the Church 
 to be a ' union for the maintenance and propagation 
 of Christianity,' a 'society of men who had made 
 it their aim to introduce true religion into life. 
 Many were, however, startled by the emptiness of 
 this definition, and so they allowed themselves to 
 speak of an ' institution ; ' nay, they even ventured 
 to call it a ' salutary institution,' which was founded 
 for the human race. But, in general, they soared no 
 higher than to regard the question more or less from 
 the stand-point of a ' free association : ' and in the 
 institution of the Church, if I may use such an
 
 4O Burning Questions. 
 
 expression, they saw a kind of 'eternal life assur- 
 ance company,' which, of course, required the lofty 
 -approbation and most gracious protection of the 
 State, and left it free to every individual member, 
 in accordance with the demands of the age of freedom, 
 to withdraw from it, and become a shareholder in 
 any other lucrative company of the same sort 
 
 " How Josephinism, which certainly is not confined 
 to Austria, dealt, when it had reached maturity, with 
 the idea of the Church is matter of history. Where 
 this system was in full vigour, the Apostolic jurisdic- 
 tion was entrusted to the police, and the only occu- 
 pation which was really left to the Bishops was to 
 prepare, despatch, or themselves use the holy oils 
 for Baptism and Extreme Unction, Confirmation, and 
 the consecration of priests. On the other hand, in 
 consequence of Protestant lectures and constant 
 intercourse with persons of other creeds, people had, 
 without perhaps suspecting it, grown into the notion 
 that the 'Word' is after all the main thing in the 
 Church, and that she is in reality only a teacher, as 
 Christ was the wisest teacher among the people of 
 Israel 
 
 " And it cannot be denied that we yes, all of 
 us, without exception took it quite easily on a 
 thousand occasions, when people chose to deny 
 more or less openly the visibility of the Church, 
 her existence on earth in the flesh and blood of 
 the descendants of Adam ; and did not see that
 
 Burning Questions. 41 
 
 we were obliged to object to these views, so long 
 as we were not attacked in plain words on the point. 
 I know that we should all of us have bristled up if 
 our Catholic faith had been impugned in this respect; 
 but we must confess with shame, that such a notion 
 would not have been unjustified ; so much had we, 
 without knowing it, become children of our time, and 
 slaves of its pernicious errors. 
 
 " Doubtless the Church has her intellectual aspect. 
 It must be a source of real depression to us to have 
 to prove that now for the first time to her opponents. 
 For, that the Church we mean the Catholic Church, 
 as she has existed for nearly two thousand years is 
 an intellectual power, and has performed the most 
 sublime and glorious things in the sphere of the 
 intellect, any unprejudiced person could see proved 
 in every page of history. But they have repeatedly 
 laid waste this region of history by colouring and 
 falsifying it to suit their views, in order to have sham 
 proofs for their untrue principles and their delusions 
 ready to hand. One regularly shrinks from the work 
 which would have to be undertaken in order to 
 restore all that the so-called architects of history 
 have, not built, but destroyed, and made a confused 
 heap of ruins, on which they light up the fireworks 
 of their fairy palaces and diamond castles. There 
 is a question that has stirred up a tolerable amount 
 of dust, which throws a strong light on this way of 
 dealing with history. I mean the question as to
 
 42 Burning Questions. 
 
 Shakespeare's creed, one which cannot certainly be 
 indifferent to us Catholics. In other cases people 
 are ready to explain an author by his own works, 
 and this is an art which is considered to be of 
 inestimable value, and one which has only been 
 rightly appreciated in our times. But the dramatic 
 works of the great Englishman are, so to speak, an 
 anthology of sentences, which bear the stamp of 
 the true Christian and Catholic view, with the 
 exception of a single act of one of the historical 
 plays, which, moreover, has long ago, even in 
 England, been acknowledged to be an interpolation. 
 By the Catholic view, we mean, of course, not 
 what is represented as such by hatred or ignorance, 
 but what really is so. This subject, however, it is not 
 necessary for us to pursue : but it is too ridiculous 
 to see the way in which English history, and 
 especially the progress of the English Reformation, 
 has been coloured and distorted. One would really 
 suppose, to hear people talk who want to make out 
 Shakespeare a good Anglican High Churchman, that 
 the Catholic Faith had been completely rooted out 
 of England by the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, and had no longer any adherents there. 
 With such historians, the fact of William Shakespeare 
 belonging to a family of recusants, which suffered the 
 severest and most painful persecutions for the sake 
 of the Faith, weighs as nothing in the scales : it is 
 passed over as an insignificant secondary incident. 
 And when Richard Davies, an Anglican minister,
 
 Burning Questions. 43 
 
 says of Shakespeare, on the ground of historical 
 tradition, in plain words, "he dyed a Papist," this 
 fact, too, is ignored, and passed over in dignified 
 silence. We may well ask, with Augustus Reichens- 
 perger in his capital sketch of the greatest of English 
 poets, is it conceivable that a Protestant preacher 
 would have given up that great man, the pride of his 
 countrymen, to the Popery so hated at that time in 
 England, if he had not been convinced of the trust- 
 worthiness of that tradition which has in itself so 
 much weight, or if he had been able to bring forward 
 any valid reasons against it ? But all I wished to 
 do was to show, by means of a very characteristic 
 example, how people try, either of set purpose, or 
 instinctively, to put the Catholic Church in the 
 pillory as wholly destitute of intellect, and a foe to 
 intellectual action. One of the best ways of doing 
 this is to dispute her claim to the greatest of her sons. 
 The same thing has been tried with less success, but 
 still greater audacity than in Shakespeare's case, with 
 Dante and Michael Angelo. 
 
 "But just as the Church has, in a very high 
 sense of the word, her intellectual sphere, and has 
 maintained it grandly, not only in the high pro- 
 vince of morals, but also in the domains of art 
 and science, so is she also in very truth a teacher ; 
 nay, she is appointed by the words of her Divine 
 Founder Himself to be the teacher of all nations. 
 
 " How she has fulfilled, and continues to fulfil, her
 
 44 Burning Questions. 
 
 holy and blessed mission as preacher of the truth 
 to all nations of the world, is also shown by history 
 true history, not history cooked for party purposes 
 and every day of the present time confirms this fact 
 with fresh glorious proofs. Neither does this mission 
 exhaust the charter and meaning of the Church, 
 any more than the mysterious Altar-rite performed 
 by her priesthood does so, although that priestly 
 office is an essential one in the Church, which would 
 not be the Church without Sacrifice and Sacraments. 
 
 " For, when we penetrate more deeply into the 
 nature of the Church, we cannot fail to see that it 
 is a real Society. As, in old days, the herald sum- 
 moned the citizens of the free States to the assembly 
 of the people, JxxX7j<r/a ecclesia so does the Divine 
 Herald of liberty, in the Sonship of God, gather 
 together the elect citizens of His heavenly, everlast- 
 ing community. But it is only when we take this 
 word in its most exalted and perfect signification, 
 as the community of all people, only when by that 
 Society we understand a perfect Society, which bears 
 and contains in itself its end and all the means 
 towards it then only are these names fitting and 
 worthy designations of the Church. 
 
 " But it is with her, if I may return to the simile, 
 as with the mighty structure of our grand cathedrals. 
 The human eye is too limited in its vision to take 
 in all its magnificence at a glance. And therefore 
 we must be satisfied with separate views, which
 
 Burning Questions. 45 
 
 permit us to admire and enjoy the gigantic work 
 without and within, in pictures which are again and 
 again taking us by surprize. Then, too, dry know- 
 ledge helps us in its way, giving us the ground plan 
 and the elevations and intersections of the different 
 parts, and making us thoroughly acquainted with the 
 interesting detail. 
 
 " Our Lord Himself acted in the same way. To 
 His eternal eye the Church was present in its won- 
 derful completeness, before its realization in the 
 fulness of time nay, before time was. The Divine 
 Artificer saw His beautiful and glorious work better 
 and more clearly than the earthly artist is able to 
 do in the highest flight of his creative mind. But 
 in the utterances of His teaching He condescends 
 to the weakness and narrowness of our knowledge. 
 He not only clothes His lessons concerning the 
 kingdom of God, of heaven by which is to be 
 understood nothing but the Church in the widest 
 sense in the form of a parable, but He also chooses 
 different similitudes, to throw light from different 
 sides on the great secret of the Church, and to 
 initiate us into its meaning. 
 
 "When He would speak of the secret growth of 
 His Church, it is the labourer casting his seed into 
 the earth, which then germinates and sprouts with- 
 out any help from him. If it is the wonderful spread 
 of the Church, and her mission to all the nations of 
 the earth that He would explain, then it is the little
 
 46 Burning Questions. 
 
 mustard-seed, which becomes a beautiful and stately 
 tree, and the net which draws into itself every kind 
 of fish. When He would point out the incomparable 
 worth and the glorious splendour of the Church, then 
 it is the treasure, the pearl, for which the finder or 
 buyer parts with all He has. When He wants us 
 to take notice that the Church on earth is a school 
 and a battle-field, where good and bad elements are 
 found together, then He shows us, now the sower 
 whose scattered seed prospers so variously, and again 
 the sower amongst whose seed Satan's envious hand 
 has sown the cockle, which grows up together with 
 the wheat. Again, when He shows the recompense 
 which grace awards with lavish generosity to the 
 soldiers of the Church militant, it is the vineyard in 
 which the labourers all receive the penny. But when 
 He would point out to His disciples and to the Jewish 
 people the superabundance of the gifts of grace in 
 the Church, and how terrible it is to lose them, when 
 He means to let an idea of the blissful enjoyment 
 which awaits the Church in her final triumph stream 
 in upon our hope, and at the same time to preserve 
 in us a wholesome fear, then it is the great supper 
 of the master of the house, or the wedding feast of 
 the King, to which the invited guests in their in- 
 gratitude do not come, and at which the unhappy 
 intruder without the wedding garment is punished ; 
 or it is the closed door of the Bridegroom's house, 
 at which the foolish virgins knock in vain, only to
 
 Burning Questions. 47 
 
 hear the word of rejection, ' I know you not,' from 
 the lips of the Bridegroom. 
 
 "Then, again, He borrows the image of the Church 
 from the peaceful shepherd. It is the flock, the one 
 flock, to which all the sheep must belong, and He 
 Himself is their Good Shepherd. Or He says to His 
 disciples, ' I am the Vine, you are the branches/ 
 to show them how the Church is a great living whole, 
 in which the power of life is distributed from root 
 and stem into the branches, and enables them to bear 
 abundant fruit, while the worthless branch is lopped 
 off from the communion of life and is cast, dry and 
 withered, into the fire. 
 
 " So speaks our Saviour in figures. But if we wish 
 to describe the Church according to her essence, we 
 can, first of all, simply abide by the words of Scrip- 
 ture. The Church is the kingdom of God, which 
 begins on earth ; the kingdom of Christ, which He 
 Himself has founded. This kingdom, as its Divine 
 Founder and King has said, is not of this world ; 
 for the might which formed it, the powers which have 
 been lodged in it, are not of this world. But none 
 the less, as St. Augustine teaches, is this kingdom 
 of Christ in this world, placed in the centre of its 
 history, in the midst of the nations of the earth. 
 
 "But, as Christ's kingdom, the Church is a perfect 
 social organization, a well-ordered constitution, pos- 
 sessing living members and all requisite powers I 
 would fain say a complete, nay, the most complete
 
 48 Burning Questions. 
 
 state, if I were not afraid of being misunderstood. 
 For our age thoroughly understands how to consign 
 the Church to the sacristy, and, following the pre- 
 cedent of Julian the apostate, to cut away, as it were, 
 the ground under her feet, so as to leave her hovering 
 between heaven and earth. And if we are bold 
 enough to demand for the Church the necessary, in- 
 dispensable conditions for her existence in this earthly 
 state, immediately there is raised, and a thousand 
 times repeated, a chorus against the usurpations of 
 priestly rule, the introduction of worldliness into the 
 Church, the degradation of the Faith, and the external 
 show of religion, with all the rest of the usual clap- 
 trap. Every day we see more clearly what confusion 
 this error has produced in people's minds, and how 
 necessary it is to get rid of it. Providence, itself, if 
 I may venture on such a comparison, has, at the 
 present time, occupied the chair of the world's history 
 to deliver a lecture to us on this subject, and to illus- 
 trate it with suitable examples. God grant that we 
 be docile students in this school of wisdom ! 
 
 " It cannot, however, be denied that the idea of 
 the State, as it is currently understood at the present 
 day, that is to say, as the perfectly constituted order 
 of human society, is precisely the idea which would 
 be of most use in elucidating the correct notion of 
 the perfect, self-subsisting, and independent consti- 
 tution of the Church. 
 
 " Let us, however, content ourselves with the scho-
 
 Burning Questions. 49 
 
 lastic expression of Catholic doctrine, and call the 
 Church, in order to describe her as she is, entirely 
 independent and self-subsisting, a true and perfect 
 Society. Now by this we understand a Society which 
 is complete in itself, and which in consequence pos- 
 sesses in abundant sufficiency within itself the means 
 requisite for the attainment of its end. Or we may 
 say, with St. Thomas Aquinas, the great thinker of 
 the middle ages, that a society is to be called perfect 
 when it does not form part of another, and when 
 its end is not subordinate to the end of another, that 
 is to say, in the same sphere. Thus, adds the holy 
 Doctor, it becomes independent of its kind, and com- 
 plete and self-contained, and, as a consequence, must 
 necessarily have within itself the means for its sup- 
 port and for its peculiar end. 
 
 " It seems self-evident that the kingdom of Christ 
 upon earth, if it is founded at all, must be such a 
 perfect society. If any possible association in which 
 men have united for the protection of their greatest 
 interests, whether they regard social, political, or 
 other intellectual advantages, has, by its nature, a 
 legitimate claim to existence, most assuredly the 
 empire which the Son of God Himself came from 
 heaven to found on earth has such a claim. 
 
 "Its end is not only a high one, but the very 
 highest which can possibly be imagined, the attain- 
 ment of infinite beatitude. This end is not 
 subordinated to any other : nay, it could not be 
 E
 
 50 Burning Questions. 
 
 so without destroying itself. Therefore this society 
 must be self-contained and independent, and not 
 seek the means for the attainment of its end from 
 without, but bear them within itself: and this is 
 precisely what is required of a perfect society. 
 
 " But it is not only the nature of a thing which 
 determines its peculiar mode of being and signifi- 
 cance ; but also the will and intention of its author, 
 which has prescribed to it its mission and desti- 
 nation. 
 
 "Now, is it possible that the Founder of the 
 Church should not have had the intention of securing 
 her independence and self-subsistence ? Her mission 
 far transcends all the objects which men are wont to 
 propose for themselves, and can it be believed that 
 the Church is left at the mercy of the short-sighted- 
 ness and perversity of men who are free to act in 
 her according to their pleasure and caprice ? How 
 near to the Heart of our Lord were the unity and 
 the union of His Church ! How fervently did He, 
 for this end, pray that High Priest's prayer before 
 He went up to the Altar of the Cross to consummate 
 His Sacrifice ! And could He have willed the unity 
 of His Church, and yet have left her under the 
 dominion of a thousand worldly rulers on earth, so 
 that she must of necessity be rent and hacked to 
 pieces ? Could Christ have willed to found His 
 kingdom on earth, and at the same time have left 
 the great ones of the world free to govern her, those
 
 Burning Questions. 51 
 
 great ones who so often use their temporal power 
 (a fact not confined to the first three centuries), as 
 enemies of the Church, to persecute, and if it were 
 possible, to destroy her? No, Christ must have 
 furnished His Church with the freedom and inde- 
 pendence necessary for the attainment of her end 
 by her own right : that is to say, in other words, 
 He must have conceived and decreed her as a perfect 
 society. 
 
 "But He also declared that this was His will. 
 And He did so at the most solemn moment and 
 in the most solemn words. The Prince of His 
 Apostles had in his own name and that of his fellow- 
 Apostles made a confession of faith in Him : did our 
 Lord reply that He was satisfied with the answer of 
 His Apostle, and that now He was in a position to 
 rely upon their suitable progress in theological 
 science ; that, consequently, He would think of 
 spreading His great work more widely, and would 
 send messengers of the truth into all the kingdoms 
 of the world to set up pulpits for preaching the 
 Gospel, when they had first invoked the assistance 
 of the Emperor at Rome or of his pro-consuls and 
 procurators in the provinces, for the protection and 
 security of the apostolic labours ? In this way, 
 perhaps, the foundation of the Church may be con- 
 ceived by those who have adopted the shallow ideas 
 on the subject which possess men's minds in our day, 
 with various modifications indeed, and which are
 
 52 Burning Questions. 
 
 sometimes diluted, sometimes strengthened by this 
 or that secondary consideration. 
 
 "But far otherwise spoke the Divine Founder when 
 He pointed out the higher source of the faithful con- 
 fession of Peter, and at the same time declared that 
 the great community into which all the nations of 
 the world were to enter is not founded on the sand 
 of human opinion and speculation, but that, resting, 
 self-supported, on its own foundation, it has no need 
 to lean against the clay wall of human power, in 
 order to wage victoriously the gigantic conflict with 
 error and falsehood. 
 
 " ' Thou art the rock,' says the Incarnate God to 
 His disciples, 'and upon this rock I will build My 
 Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
 it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom 
 of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon 
 earth it shall be bound also in heaven ; and whatso- 
 ever thou shalt loose on earth it shall be loosed 
 also in Heaven.' 
 
 " He who has the keys of the house or the city 
 is the master of the house, and the ruler of the city, 
 and so is Peter, who received the keys of the kingdom 
 of heaven from no human power, but from Him to 
 Whom all power is given in the Church, in heaven, 
 and on earth. He who is entrusted with unlimited 
 authority to use, and if need be, to bind more closely, 
 the fetters of power when false liberty forgets mode- 
 ration, when crime breaks down the barriers of order,
 
 Burning Questions. 53 
 
 in short, whenever the common good requires it : he 
 who has been invested with unconditional power to 
 unloose, and if necessary, to cut through the entangle- 
 ments made by human weakness or sin, or the 
 difficult knots tied by circumstances ; he, evidently, 
 must have received the highest power of legislation 
 and of judgment. Peter receives it, independent of 
 every worldly ruler, from the King of kings Himself, 
 Who promises to him beforehand the recognition of 
 his decrees as legislator and judge in the Court of 
 Eternal Justice, so that the earthly laws which the 
 Church shall promulgate, and the judgment which 
 men shall pronounce in the Church, are ennobled 
 and consecrated, and placed, as it were, by the side 
 of Divine law and justice. 
 
 "Who does not perceive that these are powers 
 and authority such as were never granted either on 
 the Palatine at Rome by the Caesars, nor bestowed 
 by the patent of a mighty autocrat, nor can be drawn 
 up in the Cabinets of modern State-wisdom ? Who 
 does not acknowledge that when Christ founded His 
 kingdom on earth, and at the same time endowed it 
 with such supernatural fulness of power, He also 
 called it into existence, self-subsisting and inde- 
 pendent of every earthly power, as the realized 
 ideal of a perfect commonwealth ? 
 
 " Lastly, can any one doubt that the Church has 
 been in all ages penetrated with the consciousness of 
 this her entire freedom and unconditional indepen-
 
 54 Burning Questions. 
 
 \J* o - ' 
 
 dence, and has always acted in conformity with it ? 
 The last of the Popes, Pius IX., declares very plainly 
 by his apostolic career, in which he has surely not 
 been unfaithful to the tradition of his two hundred 
 and fifty predecessors, that he thoroughly understands 
 the freedom, the sovereignty which has been bestowed 
 directly by God upon the Church, and that he will 
 defend it with his last breath. The other great Popes 
 of our century have done the same in their own way : 
 Pius VI. by his Apostolic Jubilee during the fierce 
 storm of the French Revolution. The Popes of the 
 eighteenth and seventeenth centuries did constant 
 battle on this point with Jansenism and Gallicanism. 
 This was the stand-point occupied at the period of the 
 Reformation by St. Pius V., among others. In the 
 fourteenth century John XXII. upheld this truth 
 against the perverted doctrines of Marsilius of Padua. 
 And it is needless to mention Boniface VIII., 
 Innocent III., and St. Gregory VII. They are, 
 indeed, put down by old and recent makers of 
 history as the boldest champions of the ambitious 
 domination of the priesthood, when they were only 
 the undaunted defenders of the Church's liberty, 
 which her Lord purchased on the Cross with His 
 Blood. 
 
 " But there are many who seem to find a pleasure 
 in saying that, at all events, the so-called mediaeval 
 ideas were unknown in the times of the Fathers of 
 the Church, and that these latter manifestly held an
 
 Burning Questions. 55 
 
 essentially different view as to the external position 
 of the Church. 
 
 "This assertion is just as unfounded with regard 
 to the doctrine of the Church now under discussion, 
 as it is with regard to all the rest The real substance 
 of the thing is confused with the way in which it is 
 accidentally mentioned, and a Father of the Church 
 is supposed to be treating fully and exhaustively of 
 a subject, for which he had neither the calling nor the 
 occasion. 
 
 "Still, they spoke clearly enough, for all that. 
 'Venture not, O Emperor,' so St. John Damascene 
 addresses Leo the Iconoclast, 'to meddle with the 
 Church's order. The Apostle says that God has set 
 some in the Church as apostles, others as prophets, 
 others as evangelists, shepherds, and teachers ; but 
 he says nothing of kings being set there.' And 
 St. Gregory Nazianzen says, in other words, the same 
 thing in substance, which we expressed by calling the 
 Church a 'perfect State;' for he thus addresses the 
 great men of the world : 
 
 " ' The law of Christ subjects you, too, to my rule 
 and to my throne ; for we bishops also are rulers : I 
 will add, higher and more perfect rulers ; for other- 
 wise, it would be fitting for the spirit to be subject 
 to the flesh, and for heavenly things to be second to 
 earthly things.' 
 
 "Doubtless, to the saintly speaker, that was an 
 undoubted truth which, a thousand years later, was
 
 56 Burning Questions. 
 
 meant by the teachers of the Church when they said 
 that the Church was a perfect society." 
 
 Up to this point the listeners had followed the 
 speaker attentively. But now some objections and 
 exceptions seemed on the point of being started. 
 
 " We will leave all that till to-morrow, gentlemen," 
 said the old man. " Instead of disputing, let us pray 
 together now." 
 
 The Angelus was ringing from the neighbouring 
 chapel, and the greeting to the Queen of Heaven was 
 borne far over the calm lake, in whose waters the first 
 stars were beginning to be mirrored.
 
 Burning Questions. 57 
 
 III. 
 
 NEXT morning the party at the breakfast-table, 
 which was dimly seen through clouds of Havannah, 
 were very animated, and seemed in some danger of 
 turning into a Parliament. It was a most beautiful 
 autumn day, and the sun shone down from a cloud- 
 less sky on the lake, whose picturesque banks seemed 
 inclined to disclose all their charms. But neither 
 the beauties of nature nor the fragrant mocha had 
 much attraction for the breakfast party, who had 
 been so excited by the conversation of the preceding 
 evening that the subject of the perfect society formed 
 by the Church was entered upon directly after the 
 first greetings had been exchanged. The most eager 
 in the discussion were those gentlemen (and they 
 formed the majority) who were not yet quite at home 
 in the questions that were being handled. Their 
 observations were made almost irritably, and they 
 attacked the subject with some heat. Those whose 
 studies had made them better acquainted with the 
 matter showed more reserve, and were cooler and 
 more careful in their remarks, although it was easy 
 to perceive that they were not disposed to abandon
 
 58 Burning Questions. 
 
 principles to which they clung the more closely from 
 the labour it had cost to acquire and establish them. 
 
 And so a Parliament was soon formed at the 
 round table in the verandah, so far, at least, that 
 it was easy to distinguish the different parties, even 
 in their gradations, the extreme right and left, the 
 right and left centre, and the centre itself, in all its 
 repose of mediation. 
 
 When, therefore, the party re-assembled in the 
 evening, the debate was at once begun ; and the 
 American guest took the lead, without waiting for 
 an invitation, in order to bring forward what he 
 called very weighty doubts of his against the extra- 
 ordinary theory which he had heard last evening. 
 
 "People talk," he said, "if I may so express 
 myself, of a social and political organization of the 
 Church, which is just as finished, as many-sided, 
 and as self-subsisting, and to speak plainly, just as 
 sovereign as the State itself. Indeed, I do not think 
 I am going too far in assuming that the Church is 
 considered a more perfect State even than the 
 political State." 
 
 " Granted to the full ! " exclaimed the Spaniard ; 
 " with this proviso, that the State and its organization 
 be regarded as a commonwealth, and considered 
 entirely apart from its origin and its end." 
 
 "That was expressed in much the same way 
 yesterday evening," said the English nobleman, look- 
 ing across to the old man, who nodded consent.
 
 Burning Questions. 59 
 
 "Very good," replied the son of the United 
 States. "Then it must be granted, I think, that 
 the position of these two great societies, the civil 
 and the ecclesiastical, which have to co-exist, cannot 
 but be a very uncomfortable, indeed an intolerable 
 one. Conflict, strife, are evidently unavoidable." 
 
 " And therefore so independent a position cannot 
 belong to the Church ? " interrupted the Spaniard, 
 inquiringly. "Or must she be forced to give up 
 her rights ? " 
 
 "Certainly she would have to do so," said the 
 American, "if it were possible for her to be consti- 
 tuted as is pretended." 
 
 "But why," the Spaniard went on to ask, "sup- 
 posing this conflict to be intolerable, and not to 
 be settled in any other way, why should the Church 
 give up her rights, which for the time we will take for 
 granted, why the Church, and not the State ? " 
 
 The American was evidently unprepared for this 
 question. 
 
 " I will myself answer for you," said the naval 
 officer. "We do not hesitate a moment to demand 
 this from the Church, because modern apostates have 
 known quite as well as Julian how to dwarf and stunt 
 the idea of the Church, till at last, as experience 
 teaches, she will not have even a free pulpit left to 
 her from which she can preach her truth unmolested. 
 They call this confining the Church to the spiritual 
 sphere ; but even in this they would put her on the
 
 60 Burning Questions. 
 
 one hand under the surveillance of the police, and 
 on the other expose her mercilessly to ' free science,' 
 as it is called." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! " added the German diplomatist ; 
 " it is wonderful how multiform and pervading is the 
 influence which modern sham philosophy has been, 
 and still is, able to exercise by its false principles 
 of Church and State on the way of thinking of the 
 masses. There are thousands among us who, although 
 in theory they may detest State absolutism, have 
 so imbibed its miasma, from living in it, that they 
 involuntarily acknowledge the false conclusions which 
 are deduced from it. And so it seems to pass for 
 an admitted fact that in the companionship of 
 Church and State the latter is to play the lion's 
 part, and the former is always required to yield. 
 The rights of the State, however extraordinary, very 
 often may be its pretensions, need no proof in the 
 eyes of many people ; the rights of the Church are 
 always regarded with suspicion, or rather, she has 
 no rights, but exists merely by the favour of 
 the State, which may at any moment be with- 
 drawn." 
 
 " And here, perhaps," remarked the Roman, " as 
 indeed the attitude of the Church shows, might be 
 brought in the teaching of her Master as to giving 
 the coat also to the oppressor who demands the 
 cloak. We have the feeling that the Church does 
 not belong to the world, and regards its goods as
 
 Burning Questions. 61 
 
 means, not as an end. But it is not the less certain, 
 when regarded in the right light, that if two so 
 peculiarly constituted societies as Church and State 
 could not possibly co-exist, if each mutually excluded 
 the other, and only one of them could be retained, 
 it must be the Church, whose weight would turn the 
 scale. Of this there can be no doubt for the believing 
 Christian, to doubt it he must have renounced the 
 simplest rules of right reason. The Church's end 
 is the highest ; the State, if it were pursuing one less 
 high, could not advance further against it. But the 
 case is far from standing so." 
 
 " That it is ! " replied the Spaniard. " But let us 
 admit these inevitable, ever-recurring conflicts between 
 Church and State, only with certain limitations. In 
 the first place, we dispute the assertion that they 
 are the rule, and not the exception. Then let us 
 take into consideration that it seems inadmissible 
 to lay to the charge of the thing itself what is really 
 owing to the weakness and faultiness of the men who 
 have to do with the thing. And let us see whether 
 in studying the pages of history it does not appear 
 that it is a disgraceful calumny invariably to ascribe 
 this conflict between the two powers to the so-called 
 encroachments of hierarchical ambition, and whether 
 unfalsificd history does not verify the saying of 
 St. Ambrose, that emperors have coveted the priestly, 
 more than priests have coveted the Imperial power. 
 But that from these conflicts there must necessarily
 
 62 Burning Questions. 
 
 and continually arise an intolerable disturbance of 
 public affairs, a hideous confusion, I take leave abso- 
 lutely to deny. Such a confusion could only arise 
 where there existed no principles of order to serve as 
 guides : it would only be possible if the two great 
 bodies in question, Church and State, were not only 
 different from each other, but found themselves placed 
 either in hostile or undesigned opposition to each 
 other. And this, as we shall all of us grant, is not at 
 all the case : Church and State are, by their essential 
 conditions, placed in the closest mutual relations, and 
 the way in which they are, or at least should be con- 
 nected, may and must be regulated by the natural 
 law if I may be allowed the expression of Church 
 and State. By natural law, I here understand, 
 speaking generally, those principles of justice which 
 can be inferred from the essential and intrinsic position 
 and relations of the subject of the law." 
 
 "But who would venture to speak of a law of 
 nature in these days ?" exclaimed the Swiss Doctor 
 of laws, with a laugh. " Science gave the death-blow 
 to the law of nature long ago. That is law which is 
 determined by the power of the State, whether that 
 be a tyrannical autocrat, or a Parliamentary majority ; 
 and the law so made is the ' conscience of the people/ 
 as that famous Minister of Baden said." 
 
 "Even Revolution once found it necessary to 
 decree the existence of God," said the Vicomte. And 
 in time the nations which Providence has scourged
 
 Burning Questions. 63 
 
 to blood with the rod of correction will see the truth 
 of things, and once more recognize the Divine law 
 to which the law of nature belongs in all its fulness. 
 
 "Till then, unhappily," added the Professor of 
 Astronomy, " these nations need many lessons ; for 
 their errors are great, and the night which hangs over 
 the minds of deluded men is all the darker because 
 they mistake it for the dawn of a new light." 
 
 "Yes, indeed !" exclaimed the old Swiss in answer. 
 " For my part, I believe that you will find it easier to 
 calculate the paths of the stars in the Milky Way 
 than the time when this return of the nations will 
 take place, the time when repentance and penance 
 will lead them back to their Father's house." 
 
 " You come from Switzerland," said the Vicomte, 
 " and take too dark a view of things. Look at France 
 she prays. Do you think that the mercy of God 
 can resist a praying people ?" 
 
 "And does not v Rome, does not Italy pray?" 
 asked the Roman with great earnestness. 
 
 "A change for the better is to be seen nearly 
 everywhere," said the German diplomatist, "and 
 Providence has ways all its own of bringing about 
 what we call conversion. But the Augean stable of 
 errors you will scarcely think the expression too 
 strong still requires great exertion, gigantic besoms, 
 iron rods. In the fourth century the Catholic world 
 suddenly perceived that it had become Arian, and 
 that was the critical moment. When will our age
 
 64 Burning Questions. 
 
 awake to the terrible consciousness that it is governed 
 by falsehood ? " 
 
 " Let us only think of keeping to our subject," 
 put in the English lord ; " the mischief that has been 
 wrought by the shallow axiom that the Church 
 assumes the attitude of a State, and that a ' State 
 within a State ' cannot exist, and cannot be endured." 
 
 "And I must confess," exclaimed the American, 
 " that I am not yet convinced of the inaccuracy of the 
 statement. You will excuse me, for I am willing to 
 be taught." 
 
 " Will you allow me," said the Professor of Astro- 
 nomy good-humouredly, " to come to your assistance 
 with the logic of mathematics ? Let us first settle 
 what is the meaning of the phrase, ' a State within a 
 State.' It can refer only to the case when two 
 societies, each of which is a perfect one, are made up 
 of the same members. Now, without doubt, we all 
 of us admit that such a State within a State would 
 be a contradiction and an impossibility, if both these 
 perfect societies pursued the same immediate end 
 with the same means. But if means and end are 
 different, then, clearly, we must distinguish. Sup- 
 posing these to be opposed in a hostile manner, or 
 even to run in a completely divergent course, then, 
 indeed, there can be no question of such a combina- 
 tion of these perfect societies. But if the ends of each 
 are in a well-regulated relation with regard to the 
 highest end which they have in common, then, clearly,
 
 Burning Questions. 65 
 
 it is quite a different thing. Surely, then, the two 
 societies can perfectly well exist one within the other ; 
 and we can, if we choose, speak of a State within a 
 State as a possible thing. And this is how the case 
 stands with the Church and civil society. The imme- 
 diate ends of the two are indeed different, but both 
 these and the means are so far from being opposed 
 in a hostile manner, that they rather support each 
 other in a wonderful way, and are, when looked at 
 in the right light, clearly and decidedly directed 
 towards the eternal end. Therefore " 
 
 " Therefore," interrupted the American, " the State 
 within the State, speaking of Church and State, is not 
 a nonentity and an impossibility. I am compelled 
 to grant your conclusion ; but, as a free Republican, 
 I mean to examine your premisses a little." 
 
 "You are quite welcome to do so," said the astro- 
 nomer. " I have the satisfaction of knowing before- 
 hand that you will only be the more firmly convinced 
 of their irrefragable character." 
 
 The conversation had evidently fully engaged the 
 attention of the members of the party : surprize or 
 thoughtfulness was written on several faces, especially 
 on that of the young Swiss Doctor of laws, who had 
 for some time been a silent listener. Now he came 
 out suddenly with this question : 
 
 " But do you really make out the Church to be 
 a regular State ; that is to say, would you regard her 
 so-called perfect society, as you describe the Church 
 F
 
 66 Burning Questions. 
 
 to be, as a regular kingdom, or republic, whichever 
 you please ?" 
 
 "Do you think," asked the German diplomatist, 
 "that your Confederation, which is doing such in- 
 credible things in our days in the way of persecuting 
 the Church, has more pretensions to the name of 
 republic than the empire of Christ has to that of 
 kingdom ? If three Swiss were able to establish 
 Helvetic freedom on the Griitli, how can it be impos- 
 sible for the King of kings, if He so pleases, to have 
 founded in the world a perfect society with a monar- 
 chical constitution ? I really can see no reason why 
 this should be denied or doubted." 
 
 "But still," persisted the Swiss lawyer, "you 
 would not make God's Church, which the' Apostle 
 calls 'the pillar and ground of the truth,' into a 
 monarchy with majesty, and territory, with frontier 
 posts, and customs, and police, with court-offices, and 
 ministers, and public functionaries, standing army and 
 militia ?" 
 
 "Do let us just get rid of everything that does 
 not belong to the essence of the matter," said the 
 Englishman. " It is perfectly possible for the perfect 
 society of the State to exist without police or a host 
 of officials, in the bad sense of the word, and, as 
 history proves, it has often so existed, and in a 
 nourishing and powerful condition. It is just the 
 same with regard to the perfect society of the Church. 
 But, if by majesty we understand, not the pomp of
 
 Burning Questions. 67 
 
 a despot, but, as the word really means, the full power 
 of the sovereign authority, and by territory, the range 
 of this supreme power, then I reply that most certainly 
 the Church does and must claim her rights of majesty 
 and territory. For both of these things are insepar- 
 able from the idea of a perfect society. And how 
 sublime they both are in the Church ! That fulness 
 of power was committed by the Saviour of the world 
 Himself to the Prince of the Apostles and his 
 successors, and the territory is the entire globe." 
 
 " But," objected the young doctor, " how do you 
 reconcile this with the undeniable fact that the Divine 
 Ruler of the Church taught and impressed upon His 
 disciples and Apostles, to serve, not to rule, to con- 
 sider themselves, not as the first, but the last and 
 lowest, to be the teachers, not the princes of all 
 nations ?" 
 
 "You forget," returned the Englishman, "that 
 this same Christ not only commissioned the Apostles 
 to teach, but gave them power. What is that power of 
 binding and loosing which was given, at first together 
 with the power of the keys, to Peter alone, and then 
 to all the Apostles with him, what but the power of 
 giving, interpreting, administering, and abrogating 
 laws ? Can there be a higher right of majesty ? And 
 what is all the might residing in earthly majesty com- 
 pared with that power of forgiving or not forgiving 
 sins, with which the Apostles were invested ? Is there 
 a loftier exercise of authority than this which is here
 
 68 Biirning Questions. 
 
 committed to men ? It was the will of the Founder 
 of the Church that in her there should be no tyran- 
 nical sway as on earthly thrones ; but not the less 
 must power and authority be established in the 
 Church, since without the guiding power, without the 
 force of authority, there can be neither order nor 
 discipline. That which is fitting in the State was to 
 be realized more perfectly in the Church : namely, 
 that the individual right of the ruler shall give way 
 before the duty of caring for the welfare of all ; for 
 in the Church the kingly office must, according to 
 our Lord's own words, bear the character of the meek, 
 peaceful, lowly calling of the shepherd. But this does 
 not prevent its still remaining a kingly office, in which 
 dwells, in the true and full sense of the word, the 
 right and the dignity of the ruling power." 
 
 " But how," cried the American, with some heat, 
 " how can all this be reconciled with the Jiberty of the 
 Gospel ? You must not set me down as a Quaker," 
 he added more calmly, " because of this expression." 
 
 There was a laugh; and then the astronomer, 
 turning to the speaker, said : 
 
 "Liberty! What mischief has been made by 
 means of that word, ever since the father of lies 
 promised poor humanity that it should be like to 
 God if it would misuse its liberty ! Who has come 
 forward more boldly than the Church on behalf of 
 both moral and political liberty ? She certainly could 
 not understand the latter in the sense which the
 
 Burning Questions. 69 
 
 peasants wanted to enforce under the banner of the 
 ' Bundschuh/ when the reformer of Wittenberg posi- 
 tively denied the former. But just as man's moral 
 liberty presupposes the moral law, so does the true 
 political liberty of each member of human society 
 presuppose order, the principle of which is authority. 
 It is not possible for any community, any society, to 
 dispense with the supreme ordering, guiding, judging, 
 and punishing power ; for without this authority there 
 can be no social union amongst men. But the force 
 of authority is not in itself prejudicial to the liberty 
 of the individual, but only under certain conditions, 
 or rather confusions. Now the more perfectly the 
 great commonwealth of the Church is organized, the 
 stronger and more powerful will be the authority and 
 power which keep it together. And nowhere is there 
 less of that confusion of power than in the Church." 
 
 "And no one more than the Church," added the 
 nobleman, "grants her subjects that true, highest, 
 evangelical freedom nay, it is her chief care. But 
 the more the Christian claims for himself that true 
 evangelical freedom which consists in freedom from 
 sin, the more perfectly will he render obedience to 
 established authority, whether secular or ecclesiastical. 
 The Saints of the Church have always been the most 
 perfect subjects of the State." 
 
 " A kindred error," said the Roman, " lies in the 
 oft-repeated assertion that the Church is a spiritual 
 society, and therefore can only make use of spiritual
 
 70 Burning Questions. 
 
 means. The society of the Church is spiritual, inas- 
 much as the Spirit reigns in her, and inasmuch as 
 she has for her object a spiritual, or rather, a super- 
 natural end. But the Church on earth is composed 
 not of angels, but of men who are formed of soul 
 and body. Therefore, the means which the Church 
 makes use of for the attainment of her exalted end 
 must all work in the spiritual sphere so far, that they 
 must be in due relation to that spiritual end. But 
 this is not the same thing as to say that she can and 
 may make use of such means only as are purely 
 spiritual in themselves, and according to their 
 nature." 
 
 " How absurd it is," exclaimed the Spaniard, " to 
 require the Church to employ none but purely 
 spiritual means! A telescope is a very material 
 instrument certainly, but what would our friend, the 
 professor of astronomy here, say, if he were required, 
 in the interests of the spiritual aspect of his science, 
 to give it up ? " 
 
 " And how the enlightened nineteenth century 
 would stare," returned the astronomer, "if it were 
 seriously required to dispense with the very pon- 
 derous means of the printing-press, and the far from 
 ideal one of printers' ink, in the achievement of its 
 much-vaunted intellectual triumphs." 
 
 " The more one thinks upon the subject," said the 
 old Swiss, " the more ashamed one is of the juggling 
 tricks that have been played with words like this."
 
 Burning Questions. 71 
 
 " And the sham," said the diplomatist, " has been 
 gazed at and extolled as a reality by whole gene- 
 rations." 
 
 "But there is one thing you will not deny, 
 gentlemen," exclaimed the doctor of laws ; " and you 
 must forgive my obstinacy, which is in reality only a 
 mask for my willingness to learn. Does not the 
 Church herself go before us with the principle 
 that she disclaims earthly power and temporal 
 display of force ? Is it not a fact, a received propo- 
 sition among all the doctors of the Church, that the 
 extreme power of punishment, the power of the 
 sword, does not belong to the Church ? " 
 
 " Ecclesia non sitit sanguinem" added the Roman. 
 
 There was a little pause in the conversation, 
 which had been carried on so briskly. Evidently 
 not many of the party were at home in this new 
 subject, and those who were so were more or less 
 aware of the difficulty of handling it. 
 
 Then all eyes turned by common consent towards 
 the white-haired old man, who had not yet spoken 
 once all the evening, though he had followed the 
 debate with visible interest. Everybody appeared to 
 take it for granted that he would speak now ; and 
 without waiting for further invitation, he did so. 
 
 " You say quite truly, my young friend," he said, 
 turning to the lawyer, "that the Church disclaims 
 earthly power, only you should add, for earthly ends 
 and worldly advantage. This, speaking broadly, she
 
 72 Burning Questions. 
 
 has always done ; and the Church can no more be 
 made answerable for the misdeeds of individuals in 
 this respect than to take a very obvious example 
 the body of the Apostles for the treason of one of 
 their number. But never has this same Church 
 disclaimed the use of all those means which, though 
 not purely spiritual, are nevertheless suitable, and 
 which are necessary for the attainment of her ends, 
 and especially of her last and highest end. She 
 can no more disclaim them than she can disclaim 
 her own nature and existence. She requires worldly 
 wealth for the dignity and propriety of her sacred 
 offices, for the support of her servants and her poor ; 
 she requires laws and the power of administering 
 them in order to obtain justice in her widespread, 
 manifold society ; she cannot dispense with her 
 executive power if she is to preserve order and 
 discipline. So much, I think, has been made suffi- 
 ciently clear by the discussion of this evening. But, 
 as regards the so-called jus gladii, it is by no means 
 correct to say that the universal teaching of the 
 Church tends to show that this is a right which does 
 not belong to the ecclesiastical power. On the 
 contrary, teachers are not wanting who severely 
 censure those who would deny this right to the Head 
 of the Church and to a general council. 
 
 " This much is certain, that the positive law of the 
 Church refuses the immediate exercise of a jurisdic- 
 tion involving life and limb to inferior ecclesiastical
 
 Burning Questions. 73 
 
 tribunals ; and that such a right has never yet been 
 exercised by the highest power in the Church, the 
 Pope and a Council. To go deeper into the question 
 would easily lead us into a barren land of doctrinal 
 distinctions. Perhaps, if we pursue the general ques- 
 tion further, we may find an opportunity of returning 
 to this point, and throwing some light upon it. 
 Meanwhile, let us, as we must do in these days with 
 regard to many other truths, abide simply by the 
 direction of the much-calumniated Syllabus. This 
 piece of Apostolic teaching stands like a lighthouse in 
 the stormy night of our times, so that poor seafarers 
 may steer their boats by it, and that stately vessels 
 may not founder on the rocks. And here we find 
 this proposition noted as an error : 'That the Church 
 has no power to exercise coercion or any kind of 
 temporal power, direct or indirect.' 
 
 " If," continued the old man, " we wish to see 
 clearly how far the confusion of men's minds has 
 gone in our day, we have only to examine the degree 
 to which ignorance with regard to the Church, and 
 misapprehensions as to her nature, her mission, and 
 its accomplishment, have risen. No doubt there are 
 other phenomena in the present day which lead us to 
 draw conclusions as to this modern Babel- like con- 
 fusion of tongues, but none that appears to me so 
 marked as this. This thought has presented itself, 
 more or less vividly, to the minds of all of you this 
 evening.
 
 74 Burning Questions. 
 
 " The Church, who, in accordance with her origin, 
 her work in time, and her end in eternity, ought to be 
 the object of admiring reverence and grateful love to 
 all the nations of the world, the centre round which 
 all earthly life moves, this very Church has become 
 the object of mockery, calumny, hatred, and perse- 
 cution to those very nations which were for centuries 
 loaded by her with countless benefits and blessings. 
 The false enlightenment of the nineteenth century 
 passes her by contemptuously, and declares that she 
 has no longer a right to exist. Europe was educated 
 by the Church, she received her culture and civili- 
 zation from her, and her only ; and now the unspeak- 
 ably ungrateful sons, in the intoxication of their 
 fancied glory, show their aged venerable mother the 
 door, and blush to be called her children. 
 
 " Painful as it is, we cannot conceal it from our- 
 selves ; the Church is, in the present day, in a 
 position of the deepest humiliation ; persecuted and 
 Insulted by her enemies, and, alas ! forsaken and 
 given up by so many of her children, to whom she 
 has been a faithful mother. But even in her dis- 
 honour how great and sublime she is ! Abused and 
 disfigured, as was once her scourged and thorn- 
 crowned Lord in the purple robe of scorn, what 
 dignity, what supernatural beauty is seen in her still ! 
 Surely this beauty and grandeur of the persecuted 
 Church should fill her children's hearts with the most 
 fervent love, and vanquishing her enemies and
 
 Burning Questions. 75 
 
 oppressors, lead them, full of admiration and repent- 
 ance, to her feet ! 
 
 "Men try to break the bond of unity which 
 surrounds the Church ; but never was this bond, 
 which extends all over the globe, more firmly and 
 closely tied than now. They seek for the race of 
 Judas among the followers of the Apostles, but 
 they do not find it. They reckon on the dread 
 of power* among the people, and they do not see 
 that they are rearing a race of martyrs. They 
 snatch the shepherds from the flock ; and in every 
 family the father becomes the bishop and priest, 
 and the mother becomes the deacon. They take 
 the old worn-out weapons of suspicion and calumny 
 from the chaotic arsenals of falsehood and hatred ; 
 and behold, the rage of her opponents is shamed by 
 the all-conquering love of ever freshly blooming 
 Christian charity ; the monastic life bears new and 
 glorious flowers, and Catholic science gains victory 
 after victory over party-mutilations of history, and 
 miserable attacks on pure doctrine. The old lies, 
 the idle tales and venomous charges against the 
 Papacy are repeated with increased brutality and 
 shamelessness ; and a Pope, endowed with gifts of 
 heart and mind equalled by few of his predecessors, 
 becomes the admiration of the world. They would 
 fain make the name of the Father of Christendom 
 an empty, meaningless title, but such attempts do 
 but make the faith of millions of his children in
 
 76 Burning Questions. 
 
 the Supremacy deeper, more living and energetic. 
 They deprive the supreme guardian of the treasures 
 of grace of all earthly means ; and behold, what a 
 spectacle ! Peter lives on the alms of Christendom. 
 He is robbed of the temporal dominion which is as 
 sacred and legitimate and venerable as any monarch's 
 crown ; and the Vicar of Christ reigns throughout 
 the world in the hearts of men. 
 
 " Such now is the Church Militant on earth. But 
 although the battle may rage in our day more hotly 
 than formerly, still the Church has always been 
 militant, and so she will be to the end. Her 
 Founder bequeathed to her no banner save that 
 of His blood-stained Cross, and promised her 
 nothing in this world but strife and suffering. 
 Permanent victory, eternal peace, are in heaven 
 with that Church Triumphant which, with the one 
 suffering in the land of spiritual purification, forms 
 those realms of the Church beyond the earth, 
 invisible to mortal sight, upward and downward 
 to which we turn our eyes, full of hope and 
 longing, of confusion and fear. 
 
 "But we do not embrace the perfect idea of 
 the Church till we think of it, militant, suffering, 
 and triumphant, as of one great communion, which 
 begins indeed on earth, but is perfected in heaven, 
 and which includes the holy souls cleansed in the 
 fire of Purgatory from the remaining dross of sin 
 the Communion of Saints. Then, only, do we
 
 Burning Questions. 77 
 
 fully understand the sublime figure under which 
 St. Paul represents the Church. It is the body 
 of Christ, of which He Himself is the Head. No 
 more exalted view can be taken of the unity of 
 the Church and its living organization which has 
 its source in the Divinity Itself. As the human 
 body is the most perfect structure, formed of mani- 
 fold members and innumerable parts into a well- 
 ordered and living whole, in which every limb has 
 its office, every organ its work, every portion its 
 meaning ; so also is the Church, into which are 
 called all races and nations, formed of many mem- 
 bers into one marvellous body ; and its Head, the 
 Divine Principle of its unity, is no other than 
 Christ Himself, the Second Adam, the first of the 
 regenerated human race, the King of that kingdom, 
 so wonderfully favoured, glorious beyond all glory 
 of the earth, which though neither -its origin nor 
 constitution are of this world or of human right, 
 yet exists in the world, because its beginning, as 
 a visible perfect society, is on earth, although it will 
 only have its perfect completion in heaven. 
 
 "And now, at length, our train of thought has 
 brought us to that stand-point from which we see 
 the nature of the Church in a clearer light than 
 before. It is like climbing a mountain-peak to feast 
 our eyes on the landscape, which charmed us even 
 when partially seen in the valley, and half way up 
 the steep. But now that we have reached the top,
 
 78 Burning Questions. 
 
 the eye takes in at one marvelling glance all the 
 glory of the scenery outspread at our feet. 
 
 " The unity and intimate connection of the human 
 race as a school of love here and a means of increased 
 beatitude above, is a divine thought of the Creator, 
 and a part of the plan of the universe framed by 
 Eternal Wisdom. Banished from Paradise and dis- 
 persed throughout all countries after the vain attempt 
 in the plain of Sennaar, the descendants of Adam had 
 lost this unity. The race of man had not developed 
 itself as one great well-ordered family, and so spread 
 over the earth, but tribes and nations had separated 
 from each other, and stood opposed as enemies. Then 
 once more the grace they had forfeited came near 
 to men; in tUe redeemed race unity was to be re- 
 stored. In the one kingdom of God, which is set 
 up here on earth after centuries of hostile division 
 among the nations, there is no longer, 'Jew or 
 Gentile, barbarian or Scythian,' but tribes and peo- 
 ple are all called into the Church, that there may 
 be ' one fold and one Shepherd.' 
 
 "But it is not by a natural birth that men are 
 introduced into this newly-founded kingdom of God, 
 which is to lead them back to their primitive unity. 
 It must be by a new and spiritual birth which belongs 
 to another order of things than that of natural exist- 
 ence. 
 
 "And herein must be sought the deepest, the 
 inmost cause of the terrible animosity with which 
 war is now being waged against the Church to which
 
 Burning Questions. 79 
 
 the very right of existence is denied as it was by 
 the Roman Caesars. Modern infidelity refuses, above 
 all things, to be told of a supernatural order; the 
 more it fails in refuting, from its vaunted stand-point 
 of pure reason, the possibility and the existence of 
 this higher order, the more passionately and reck- 
 lessly does it dispute them. And in the Church it 
 rightly recognizes a realization of this order ; the 
 Church stands forth as the living witness for it 
 And so a faithless age returns with all the more 
 recklessness and violence to the solution of Voltaire 
 and the encyclopedists, ' ecrasez 1'infame ! ' 
 
 "We, however, will but be more faithful sons of 
 so great, so holy a mother ; let it be our chief pride 
 to belong to her kingdom ! Yes, even here, the 
 Church is, as the boy at the lake said, our true 
 country ; and how much more gloriously will it be 
 so in the future ! And who would not love his 
 country ? " 
 
 Night had fallen ; a splendid starlit sky hung 
 over the dark outlines of the mountain, and its 
 thousands of lights were reflected in the calm mirror 
 of the lake which seemed dreaming of all the golden 
 glory. The old man gazed up for a long time into 
 the wondrous mystery of the eternal book which 
 lay there open, with golden letters on a sapphire 
 ground ; then at length he broke the solemn silence 
 which had fallen on the party, by saying in a voice 
 of emotion 
 
 Ccelestis urbs Jerusalem, 
 Beata pacis visio !
 
 8o Burning Questions. 
 
 IV. 
 
 NEXT morning our friends made a little excursion to 
 one of the most beautiful parts of the mountain which 
 rose to a considerable height at the back of the villa, 
 and was covered with a splendid wood of oaks. 
 Under the shade of these centenarian trees a rocky 
 ledge jutted out, and formed a regular terrace ; and 
 stone benches had been made in this charming spot, 
 from which there was a lovely view over the lake. 
 
 Just as the walking party reached the place, and 
 were preparing to rest, they heard loud voices from 
 the woody height which led up, behind the terrace, to 
 the top of the mountain. They soon recognized two 
 well-known figures, the Dutch Zouave and the Swiss 
 lawyer, who were talking loudly and eagerly, as they 
 came down the footpath through the wood, and joined 
 the startled party below in a state of some excite- 
 ment. 
 
 "Do you want seconds?" asked the American 
 quickly. . 
 
 "What for ?" returned the Swiss. 
 
 "Well, I thought you two were looking out for 
 a place to fight in," was the dry answer. The young 
 men joined in the general laughter.
 
 Burning Questions. 81 
 
 " Even if I did not detest duelling as a barbarous 
 prejudice," said the Dutchman, " I could not consent 
 to it. I have only one life." 
 
 " And you want to keep it." remarked the Spanish 
 sailor, with a touch of contempt. 
 
 "That I do!" cried the young Dutchman with 
 flashing eyes. " I must keep it for the Pope !" 
 
 "Bravo!" said the Roman gravely, without the 
 shadow of a smile. 
 
 "What were you disputing about so loudly," 
 asked the German diplomatist, "that you woke up the 
 echo over the lake out of its sleep ?" 
 
 " Were we really so noisy ?" returned the lawyer. 
 " We were talking, as we have all been doing the last 
 few days, about Church and State. My friend from 
 the sea got to saying such extraordinary things that 
 my legal conscience utterly revolted." 
 
 "And my friend from the Alps," returned the 
 Dutchman, laughing, " brought forward such amazing 
 views, that, as a Papal Zouave, I could not hold my 
 tongue." 
 
 "But," cried the Swiss, "you make the Pope a 
 regular, absolute despot." 
 
 " No, I don't !" replied the Dutchman ; " I believe 
 him to be Christ's Vicar on earth." 
 
 " Omnipotence of the State omnipotence of the 
 Pope!" said the German diplomatist. "I do not 
 think we should hesitate long if we had to choose 
 between the two." 
 G
 
 82 Burning Qiiestions. 
 
 "Come no exaggeration !" returned the English- 
 man. " And let us take care not to put catch-words 
 for principles, lest we discover at last that we have 
 been fighting with windmills, that is to say, when we 
 find ourselves thrown from the saddle, like the knight 
 1 of La Mancha." 
 
 "Agreed !" cried the diplomatist, with a good- 
 humoured nod. 
 
 " But tell us," asked the Spaniard, " what was the 
 particular point of dispute ?" 
 
 " I am not yet quite clear on this matter," began 
 the Swiss lawyer ; " and I frankly confess, as I have 
 felt to my shame for some days past, that we doctors 
 of law concern ourselves far too little with the ques- 
 tion." 
 
 " The dark middle ages were more industrious in 
 that way," put in the diplomatist. 
 
 " I have no doubt of it," continued the Swiss. 
 "Thus much our conversations have made plain to 
 me that, looking at things from a right stand-point, 
 we cannot deny that the Church is entirely self- 
 subsisting and independent of the State." 
 
 "Nevertheless, while so saying, we do not 
 deny that she stands in a certain mutual relation 
 to the State, and, in that position which she holds 
 towards it, is bound to consider it, and on her side to 
 recognize and respect its independence." 
 
 "Certainly !" said the Swiss. "But it is precisely 
 here that the difficulty begins. So long as the
 
 Burning Questions. 83 
 
 Church's liberty was only spoken of as all, or at least 
 most of us, have been accustomed to speak of it, 
 without taking the trouble to understand clearly 
 where the authority for that liberty was to be sought 
 for, and what were the precise meaning and scope of 
 that so-called liberty ; so long as we moved about 
 sometimes very eagerly and enthusiastically on this 
 stand-point of Catholic feeling, these difficulties could 
 not come in our way. The State was, in our eyes, 
 the only proper form of social human life ; and the 
 Church though we might not put it into plain 
 words, and did not very clearly explain it to our- 
 selves was more or less the pulpit and altar round 
 which we gathered, and for which all that we really 
 claimed was the right and liberty of setting it up 
 where we, or the Church authorities, saw fit, in order 
 that there everything requisite for our holy religion 
 might be taught and performed. It was a theory 
 easily made, and Church and State could agree 
 together perfectly well if they chose." 
 
 " Then there were certain stock phrases," added 
 the diplomatist, " which we, with the greatest inno- 
 cence, allowed the enemies of the Church to get 
 possession of, and were even courteous and obliging 
 enough to help them to, in our inexhaustible good- 
 nature." 
 
 "No politics in religion!" said theVicomte. "That 
 was the great phrase." 
 
 "Exactly!" returned the German. "With what
 
 84 Burning Questions. 
 
 painful conscientiousness we Catholics clung to that 
 axiom, and dreaded nothing more than the reproach 
 of bringing a worldly element into the Church, and 
 making religion a temporal affair ! " 
 
 "And even in the present day," said the old 
 gentleman, breaking silence for the first time, "we 
 must in due measure, of course avoid that reproach. 
 Our Lord says very solemnly and pointedly, 'Let 
 the dead bury the dead.' " 
 
 " In due measure, certainly," replied the diplo- 
 matist. "As Christians, we are all agreed on that 
 point. We will not propound it as a Church question 
 whether the Russian fleet can be increased without 
 disturbing the balance of power in Europe, whether 
 France should enter into new commercial engage- 
 ments with China, whether the standing army should 
 be reduced and the fortifications increased, whether 
 this international railway should be begun, or that 
 internal ministerial organization be accepted. But 
 how many so-called political questions, or questions 
 of public justice there are, which are necessarily and 
 closely connected with the weal or woe of the Church, 
 and with the highest questions of religion : the edu- 
 cational question, in its widest sense ; the laws 
 concerning marriage ; the law of association and 
 corporation ; nay, the elections for the parliament 
 and the municipality, when there is a danger of 
 seeing the sacred rights of the Church injured by 
 a hostile majority ! "
 
 Burning Questions. 85 
 
 " Quite agreed ! " exclaimed the Spaniard. " But 
 while we were abstaining, with what may be called 
 the naivete of carefulness, from guarding our most 
 precious possession, our holy religion, on political 
 territory, or at least limited our labours in this respect 
 to the slenderest proportions, our enemies were true 
 to their principles if one can talk of the principles 
 of error and injustice in carrying their politics into 
 the territory of religion ; that is to say, they under- 
 stood how, practically, to realize their theories of the 
 omnipotence of the State without God, by cautiously 
 but constantly anticipating us, and driving us from 
 one position after another, till we had reached the 
 brink of the precipice, where, humanly speaking, we 
 are undoubtedly standing at this moment." 
 
 " All that," resumed the Swiss lawyer, " is inti- 
 mately connected with the views in which we grew 
 up, and of which I was speaking. We knew, of 
 course, that we were men, made of flesh and blood, 
 but in matters of religion we transported ourselves, 
 as it were, into the midst of the angelic choirs n 
 heaven, who have nothing earthly and corporal about 
 them : we believed, of course, in a visible Church, 
 and confessed this truth honestly and unreservedly ; 
 but in practical and public life we sublimated this 
 visibility till there was hardly anything of it left 
 We were everywhere prepared, without much hesi- 
 tation, to relegate the Church, according to the 
 plan of our opponents, to the sacristy, and very
 
 86 Burning Questions. 
 
 often we handed them over the keys into the 
 bargain." 
 
 "But was not this," suggested the old man, "the 
 natural reaction from a former condition, which must, 
 at best, be characterized as ossified and dead ? " 
 
 " There is something more to be said about that ! " 
 cried the Breton rather hotly ; then, turning to the 
 old man : " You must forgive my boldness ; but I 
 do not believe everything that people choose to tell 
 us of the absolute want of vitality in the state of 
 things before the Revolution." 
 
 "Nor do I," returned the old man, with a smile. 
 " But we must let our friend the lawyer continue." 
 
 " It would lead us too far to go into the question 
 that has just been started," said the young man, with 
 a courteous bow of thanks to the old gentleman. " I 
 believe, too, that no one who has studied history in 
 any but the most superficial way will find it difficult 
 to convince himself of the systematic falsification 
 which the last thousand years, and more especially 
 the last three centuries, have undergone for the pur- 
 poses of infidelity and of false philosophy. 
 
 " But all I meant to say was this : that no sooner 
 have we got rid of that incompleteness of idea which 
 we have been speaking of, and have acknowledged 
 the Church to be what scholastic science calls a per- 
 fect Society (an expression which I have satisfied 
 myself is adopted in the Syllabus), than we are con- 
 fronted with a difficulty which, to such modern men
 
 Burning Questions. 87 
 
 as I am unfortunately, seems all but insurmountable. 
 For turn and twist as we may, and, as has often been 
 done of late, in order on the one hand to maintain 
 Catholic truth, and on the other not altogether to 
 break with the liberalism of the age, or, which is 
 pretty much the same thing, with the principles of 
 1789, we cannot deny, if we set to work fairly and 
 loyally, that in considering the relations of Church 
 and State we have to do with two sovereign social 
 potentialities, which the history of the world places 
 side by side. For a 'perfect society' is in fact nothing 
 else than what we in the present age call a sovereign 
 State, and I think I am not far wrong in asserting 
 that if St. Thomas Aquinas were living now, he would 
 plainly teach that the Church is just as much sove- 
 reign as the State. 
 
 " Here, then, we have two sovereign powers to- 
 gether, and that not on a different but on the same 
 territory. That this under certain conditions, of 
 course is no impossibility, has, I think, been made 
 clear to us. The principal condition is, evidently, that 
 the appointed ends proper to these two powers must 
 be ordered in a suitable manner with regard to each 
 other. But it requires little consideration to perceive 
 that the very idea of order demands the subordination, 
 in some way, of one of these powers to the other. 
 Now, if we admit the necessity of this subordination, 
 we abandon the self-subsistence and independence of 
 one of the two. How is this contradiction to be
 
 88 Burning Questions. 
 
 reconciled ? And how is this subordination to be 
 conceived of ? " 
 
 Once more all looked towards the old man, whose 
 clear blue eyes rested with a well-pleased expression 
 on the young Swiss lawyer. He answered the request 
 which was expressed in the faces of all the party thus: 
 
 " We touched upon this side of our subject once 
 before, when we were speaking of the so-called ' State 
 within a State,' but we by no means exhausted the 
 question. 
 
 " It has always been admitted as a fundamental 
 principle, which follows from the nature of the thing, 
 that the relation of different societies to each other is 
 to be judged of and regulated according to the im- 
 portance of their end, and that consequently this 
 order of rank is determined by those ends. Aristotle 
 declares this; and the science of the middle ages, 
 which Dante follows in his work, Delia Monarchia, 
 teaches it Now, if we apply this undeniable prin- 
 ciple to the relations between Church and State, we 
 must logically conclude that it is for the State to be 
 subordinate to the Church. For the end of the 
 Church is the higher, nay, it is the highest that can 
 be imagined : the end of the State, even when taken 
 in the most spiritual sense, stands lower, by com- 
 parison. 
 
 " We have long ago seen clearly, that in the State 
 we have before us human society as it is realized in 
 the natural order of things. The Church, on the
 
 Burning Questions. 89 
 
 other hand, belongs essentially, as faith teaches, to 
 the supernatural order. In the State, therefore, is 
 obtained the end of human society according to the 
 natural order of creation ; the Church, on the other 
 hand, leads humanity to its supernatural end. 
 
 "But this latter is infinitely higher than the 
 former, as grace is higher than nature, even if that 
 nature in man were not a fallen one. In the state 
 of nature, man can, at best, attain that felicity which 
 is called natural ; but grace leads him to an end of 
 unspeakably perfect beatitude, which far transcends 
 all natural and earthly goods : for it consists in the 
 eternal, inalienable, and imperishable possession of 
 the highest good, which is God Himself. 
 
 " Practically put, this truth simply runs thus : that 
 temporal must be secondary to eternal things. The 
 State's sphere of action is limited to time, but it is the 
 mission of the Church to gain eternity for man. And 
 so, the State must make itself subordinate to the 
 Church, in order that by the united efforts of both, 
 the one direct, the other indirect, the one highest end 
 of man may be attained. 
 
 " This is a truth which needs no elaborate proof to 
 any Christian. It is a bad sign of our time, that 
 it has to be proved to it, after never having been 
 called in question by all Christendom for fifteen 
 hundred years ; and, moreover, there is danger of 
 giving offence in the process, of causing misunder- 
 standing, and of passing for an enemy of the true
 
 90 Burning Questions. 
 
 welfare of the human race. To such an extent have 
 error and falsehood darkened the intellect of man, 
 with all his boasted enlightenment 
 
 " But when we speak of this subordination of the 
 State, we do not thereby in any way deny its inde- 
 pendence. It not only remains a perfect society, as 
 much as the Church, but it also rests, though not 
 in the same manner as the Church, on the Divine 
 ordinance. There is no contradiction whatever in 
 this view : for it is clear that a power may be quite 
 independent, in its own sphere, and in that sphere 
 have no higher power over it, and yet, all the same, 
 be subordinate with regard to a higher end, to a 
 power which belongs to a higher sphere. 
 
 "This is how the case stands with the State, which 
 is not absolutely subordinate to the Church, but only 
 in so far as its earthly work must necessarily be made 
 secondary to the heavenly end of the Church. On 
 the other hand, it may be said that the Church is, in 
 worldly matters, in a certain kind of dependence on 
 the State. I will only remind you of the expression 
 of Pope Nicolas I., who said, writing to the Greek 
 Emperor, that the Christian Emperors are in need 
 of the Pontiffs for the attainment of eternal life, 
 but that the latter have to look to the Imperial laws 
 for the course of earthly things. It is the will and 
 design of God that both these powers should work 
 in union with each other for the attainment of the 
 one highest end which is appointed for man.
 
 Burning Questions. 91 
 
 "Next, when we thus determine the relation of 
 the State to the Church, we must never leave out of 
 consideration, that we always start from a supposi- 
 tion, which is very important, and weighs very heavily 
 in the scale, namely, that we can only speak of this 
 subordination of the State to the Church, when we 
 are contemplating a Christian State. And this only 
 exists when in its fundamental constitution the 
 Church, which can only be the one Catholic Church, 
 is recognized as the exclusive bearer of Divine 
 truth, and the one mediatrix of everlasting salvation, 
 and when, consequently, the earthly work of the 
 State is subordinate to the end of the Church, which 
 is in eternity, as a temporal means to that higher and 
 eternal end." 
 
 " Are you not going too far, there ? " interrupted 
 the American. 
 
 " In what way ? " 
 
 "By only acknowledging a Catholic to be a 
 Christian State." 
 
 " I might answer," returned the old man, " that 
 every State can be called Christian only just so far 
 as it firmly holds Catholic principles. But I will 
 content myself with remarking, that some years ago 
 there might perhaps have been a plea for such a 
 question, which deserved consideration. Now, how- 
 ever, not only do men seem no longer to attach any 
 value to the title of a Christian State, but to be 
 getting by degrees regularly to deprecate it.
 
 92 Burning Questions. 
 
 " Towards a State," he continued, " which does 
 not recognize the Church as the bearer of truth 
 and saving grace, the latter is in quite a different 
 position. There can be no question of a relation of 
 subordination, because there is no mutual relation, 
 no order at all, existing between them. The con- 
 dition, in this case, is rather one of disorder. The 
 power of our holy mother the Church extends only 
 over her children, and citizenship in her kingdom 
 is obtained by the new birth of baptism. Therefore, 
 between the Church, and the unbelieving or Pagan 
 State there is a continual condition of war. Do not 
 be too much frightened at this expression. So it is ! 
 Between these two powers there is in the world 
 continual war. The Church is incessantly preparing 
 for this war, day and night she is planning new 
 expeditions. It is that holy war which she wages 
 by the sword of the word they are those expeditions 
 which send the Gospel messengers to shores where 
 her banner, the glorious banner of the Cross, has 
 not yet been planted." 
 
 " And what do you say," asked the Spaniard, " of 
 schismatical or heretical States ? " 
 
 " In recent times," returned the old man, " there 
 has been a strange outcry raised about the Church 
 presuming to summon heretics before her tribunal, 
 and to treat them as her subjects. But the truth 
 is, that the Church embraces all men, who have 
 received, if I may use the expression, the super-
 
 Burning Questions. 93 
 
 natural naturalization of baptism. But the question 
 is different according to the relation in which these 
 States stand to the Church. Strictly speaking, the 
 answer to it is contained in the indubitable principle 
 just stated ; but practically, the relation is a confused 
 and unhealthy one, which requires regulating and 
 healing. How this is to be effected is a difficult 
 problem indeed, and whether it will be effected rests 
 in the hand of a merciful Providence. 
 
 " But if we are speaking of a Christian, a Catholic 
 State, then we must hold to the truth that it stands 
 in a certain subordinate relation to the Church. This 
 follows taking for granted the Christian idea of the 
 two powers from the nature of the thing, and accord- 
 ingly it is a fixed principle of the Church. Her 
 teaching on this point has been the same for eighteen 
 hundred years ; from the words spoken by Peter 
 and his Apostolic brethren before the Sanhedrin at 
 Jerusalem 'We ought to obey God rather than 
 men,' to the proposition which Pius IX. has 
 announced in the Syllabus with regard to errors 
 on the relation between Church and State. 
 
 "Every thing that there is to be said from the 
 Christian point of view, about the right order of 
 the two powers with regard to each other may 
 really be comprised in three propositions : 
 
 "i. In worldly matters, and in all that regards 
 purely temporal objects, the Church has no sort of 
 power over the State. On the contrary, the latter
 
 94 Burning Questions. 
 
 is, in this province, independent of, and not sub- 
 ordinate to the Church. 
 
 " 2. On the other hand ; in all spiritual concerns, 
 that is to say, those which either in and by them- 
 selves have for their object- the eternal end of man, 
 or those which are necessarily connected with that 
 end, the Church has authority ; and the State has 
 no sort of right to arbitrary encroachment. 
 
 "3. Nevertheless, the Christian State would not 
 do its duty if it were to maintain an indifferent and 
 unsympathetic attitude towards religion. For its 
 last, if not its direct end, also lies, as we have all 
 acknowledged, beyond the world and worldly pros- 
 perity ; and even its direct end, which is the order 
 and peace of law, cannot be obtained without religion. 
 Therefore, to protect it, and to support the Church, is 
 also the duty of the Christian State. 
 
 "Accordingly, we have altogether to reject from 
 our stand-point, which is the Christian one, three 
 theories of the relations between Church and State, 
 which, with manifold gradations, limitations and 
 amplifications, have been set up in our day, and 
 have brought about an infinite amount of confusion 
 and mischief. 
 
 " There are persons who teach, as we must all 
 now practically experience, the absolute power of the 
 State over the Church. They talk a great deal about 
 liberty of faith and conscience, but they set arbitrary 
 barriers to them, to suit their system. The Church
 
 Burning Questions. 95 
 
 is, in their eyes, a corporation or society in the 
 State, just like all joint-stock companies, scientific 
 associations, asylums for the poor, the sick, and the 
 insane, or institutions for the blind, or the deaf and 
 dumb. Like these she owes her existence and the 
 extent of her authority solely to the unlimited 
 governing right of the majesty of the State. If the 
 good of the State requires it; or, to speak more 
 correctly, the fancied good of the State seems to 
 require it, the association of religion, or whatever 
 the Church may be called, and whatever rights she 
 may possess, must give way, and at last renounce her 
 very existence. 
 
 " If it is asked from what principles of justice 
 this terrible theory of State omnipotence is to be 
 deduced, we are shamelessly referred to the views and 
 systems of infidel philosophers down to Hegel, and 
 of anti-papal professors such as Pufendorf, Heineccius, 
 Bohmer, and their descendants. Practically, indeed, 
 this lust of the Caesar-papacy made its appearance 
 long before Henry VIII. in England and the Holy 
 Synod in Russia ; but the glory of having reduced 
 the whole thing to a ' scientific ' system rests certainly 
 with the philosophers and professors of modern, and 
 especially of very recent times, and here, as is fitting, 
 the German professors, among whom several Jews 
 are distinguished, occupy an eminent position. 
 
 " Opposed to them stands not only the whole 
 body of Catholic science, especially that of the
 
 g6 Burning Questions. 
 
 middle ages, which certainly need not shrink from 
 comparison with the inflated learning of modern 
 times, but the Faith itself, which teaches us that 
 Christ founded a Church, and committed its guidance 
 not to worldly princes, but to Peter and the Apostles 
 and their successors. It is, therefore, simply a choice 
 between following either revealed truth and the 
 teaching of the Church, or infidel professors. I do 
 not think it can be a difficult one for us and all 
 Catholics, or even for any man of unprejudiced judg- 
 ment, who does not get his knowledge and education 
 from newspapers. 
 
 " There are others, again, who vehemently defend 
 the opinion that the State must be completely sepa- 
 rated from the Church because they are two societies 
 which are strangers to each other, and pursue their 
 respective ends in divergent directions. Hence they 
 assert that no bond can possibly exist between them, 
 and that nothing is so favourable to the prosperous 
 action of each as complete separation ; the State in 
 particular, they say, is seriously hindered in the 
 attainment of its end if it is bound by burdensome 
 fetters to the Church. Then, the due development of 
 their false principles leads them so far, that they not 
 only require the State to abstain entirely from mixing 
 itself up with the affairs of religion and worship, but 
 would completely sever it from all connection with 
 God, and place it, in its legislation, and in all its 
 governing action, on the stand-point of bare atheism.
 
 Burning Questions. 97 
 
 " A terrible theory ! marked with all the godless 
 characters of the total blindness which is the state of 
 the unhappy creature who has lost his Creator, and 
 with Him his only true last end. Just as in indi- 
 viduals an irreproachable outward course of life 
 cannot be separated from interior morality without 
 bringing man to destruction, so neither can human 
 society, as a whole, live in the social and religious 
 sphere according to contrary principles, without 
 coming to ruin. And just as, in individuals, the 
 personality from which is required the discharge 
 of religious duties is not distinct from that which 
 has to perform the duties of a citizen, so neither is 
 the society in Church and State distinct ; it is one 
 and the same, just as the individual citizen and 
 Christian is one and the same. And the individual, no 
 less than the whole, must necessarily fall into the 
 greatest confusion and the most ruinous discord, if he 
 is required to undertake such an absurdity as to seek 
 at the same time the attainment of two different 
 wholly antagonistic ends, which must go on diverging 
 ad infinitum, and never meet in a point of union. 
 
 " Fortunately, reality repels such a chimera, which 
 almost borders on insanity ; practice is more sensible 
 and reasonable than theory here, however intellectual 
 the latter may fancy itself. The true, incontrover- 
 tible necessity of life, by an involuntary process, gets 
 rid of such unsound things, with which it cannot 
 possibly exist." 
 H
 
 98 Burning Questions. 
 
 " But," said the American, " I must still ask you 
 not to push things too far. In the United States we 
 are in the very condition you describe, and are quite 
 contented with it. We live according to the principle 
 of the entire separation of Church and State, and the 
 former thrives capitally on it, as you cannot deny." 
 
 " In America," returned the old man, " you have 
 carried out these principles imperfectly. It is the 
 inconsequence, not the consequence, in their ap- 
 plication that is the cause of your thriving, or at 
 least of those principles being less dangerous. The 
 American free States are very far from being a 
 civil society which, as such, acknowledges no religion, 
 or which has placed itself on the shameless stand- 
 point of open atheism. On the contrary, it may be 
 said that North America is a much more Christian 
 State than many others which have hitherto called 
 themselves by that name. Your Congress begins its 
 sessions with a prayer, and your Constitution attests 
 that the free States by no means acknowledge the 
 principle that religion is something more than indif- 
 ferent to the citizen and to the whole of society. 
 But once let the principle of the atheistic, god- 
 less State find its full unholy application in your 
 country, and its history will teach what is the 
 tendency of the system." 
 
 "But you cannot deny," said the Swiss lawyer, 
 " that very many persons of great weight have spoken 
 in our days, even in the Catholic camp, for the entire
 
 Burning Questions. 99 
 
 separation of Church and State, and consider such a 
 separation the only salvation for our times." 
 
 "And with some reason," added the old gentle- 
 man. "But we must ascertain the source of this 
 desire, which has certainly been expressed in many 
 quarters, and then set due limitations to it. 
 
 "The wish proceeds from a just feeling that in 
 very many places the present condition of the Church 
 is simply intolerable. It is a perverse amalgamation 
 of the Church and the political power, which last, 
 either under the title of Christian, or by tyranny and 
 usurpation, has obtained a preponderating influence 
 in ecclesiastical affairs. This influence must become 
 all the more ruinous, the more the last remnants of 
 the Christian State are, as groundlessly as ruthlessly, 
 destroyed in these days. And so, day by day, the 
 terrible certainty is forced upon us more strongly, 
 that in many places the Church's power has fallen 
 into the hands of the party hostile to the Church, a 
 state of things which may become very dangerous 
 to the existence of the Church in individual places. 
 Under these circumstances, one wishes these degrad- 
 ing fetters broken, that we may see the Church free. 
 Pressed by necessity, we choose the lesser of two 
 evils. Better the Church in the Catacombs, the 
 Church of the Martyrs, than the Church with Byzan- 
 tine Court-bishops, and under the crushing 'Police- 
 cultus ' of Josephinism ! Yes, doubtless but this is 
 not to maintain that such a state of complete separa-
 
 ioo Burning Questions. 
 
 tion between the two powers is the healthy one, or 
 even one that can be of long duration. Such a 
 condition has no beneficial capacity of development : 
 it bears, contained as a principle in itself, the germ of 
 death and destruction. Still, it may seem desirable 
 as an exceptional condition. 
 
 " So, too, the wise surgeon will not hesitate to 
 enlarge the wound of a discharging ulcer, though 
 his object is to close and heal it. So the Church 
 separates married persons for valid reasons, but not 
 the less does the marriage bond continue, and a 
 re-union is never barred. And so there may at the 
 present time be good reason for desiring that a com- 
 plete separation between Church and State should 
 take place, because, humanly speaking, one sees no 
 other way of getting rid of a ruinous state of things : 
 but it is not the normal condition, not the order 
 decreed by God ; the union of the two powers in 
 due subordination of the one to the other still remains 
 the end to be attained. 
 
 " There is yet a third view of the relations 
 between Church and State, which has found many 
 partisans in our day, and its advocates seriously 
 believe that they have reproduced the device of 
 Columbus's egg with the most brilliant success. 
 These are the men who plead for the perfect co- 
 ordination of Church and State, and who have 
 invented for their theory the high-sounding phrase 
 of 'the free Church in a free State.' According to
 
 Burning Questions. 101 
 
 this view, the two powers, with quite different ends 
 are not to be brought into any closer connection, 
 still less is one to be made subordinate to the other, 
 which is absolutely impossible without intermixture. 
 But a certain relation between the two is to be esta- 
 blished by means of treaties and conventions, just 
 such as are concluded by the law of nations between 
 two powers. Of course these treaties would not 
 have an indissoluble character, that would be in 
 opposition to the principle of progress, which con- 
 cedes validity to law only from the utilitarian 
 point of view, and always contemplates its abro- 
 gation as a necessity whenever the state of things 
 at the time seems to make it advisable. 
 
 " It will be seen that this theory, however much 
 it may have to say for itself, is merely a diluted form 
 of the one which demands the complete separation 
 of Church and State. The latter, to use the image 
 so familiar to the Fathers when speaking of the 
 union of the Church and State, would drive the 
 soul out of the body with a violent blow, and yet 
 hope to keep both alive, the other really aims at 
 the same thing, but fancies it a better plan to 
 galvanize the corpse, as it were, by means of approxi- 
 mation with the soul. The comparison seems, per- 
 haps, baroque, but, making allowance for the halt- 
 ing of every simile, it contains much truth. Both 
 these systems fail from an internal contradiction : 
 for, as we have said, it is impossible for the same
 
 IO2 Burning Questions. 
 
 human society to be wrenched by the two powers 
 towards two quite different ends, which have no point 
 of contact, without being destroyed. 
 
 " This last theory is the much praised pet child of 
 Liberal Catholicism, whose essential nature consists 
 in its having undertaken the labour of the Danaides, 
 that of reconciling the so-called modern ideas, which 
 were put in practice at the French Revolution of 
 1789, with the immutable principles of truth and 
 justice which the Church has promulgated for two 
 thousand years. It is the accomplishment of the 
 process called squaring the circle, which is here to 
 be effected! People do not yet perceive that the 
 French Revolution, instead of having laid the founda- 
 tion for a beneficent age of the world, merely des- 
 troyed an old, if you will, an ossified and in many 
 respects corrupt order of things. But in this des- 
 truction it also threw down and that of premeditated 
 intention the chief supports of national prosperity 
 erected a thousand years ago by the spirit of Christi- 
 anity. The real point of attack in the Revolution 
 was the Christian State ; and unhappily it was 
 successfully carried. But it was reserved for our 
 century to see Christian men, who mean well by 
 society and the nations, seeking their welfare, less 
 shamelessly indeed than the partisans of the anti- 
 Christian revolution did, in the unchristianizing of the 
 State ; and this is, to this very hour, a source of 
 unspeakable confusion and godless destruction.
 
 Burning Questions. 103 
 
 " Now, indeed, light seems gradually beginning to 
 break upon men's minds. The fathers have eaten 
 sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. 
 But, as we have said, Divine Providence itself has 
 mounted the pulpit, to teach the people who have 
 been shamefully deceived so long. The lesson is every 
 day becoming graver, and one can hardly help seeing 
 that it must end in blood and unspeakable misery. 
 But still it will work good. When Europe has 
 drained to the dregs the foaming poison-goblet of 
 self-worship, when at last ! she perceives in mortal 
 terror what man, what science, what the State is 
 without God : then she will come to her senses and 
 turn from the broken cisterns of man's delusion to the 
 living Fountain of truth and salvation." 
 
 "And here too," exclaimed the Frenchman 
 proudly, "my country will lead the way. France 
 is already repenting ! What a grand example she 
 here gives the Christian world." 
 
 " And let us hope," said the old man, " that this 
 penitence of a noble people will be thorough and 
 permanent." 
 
 "But certainly," said the Spaniard, "we are now 
 called upon to speak out what we mean, and to write 
 our device plainly and boldly upon our banner. It 
 is time to enter the lists for the truth, and especially 
 to try to propagate right views on the relations of 
 Church and State, according to our ability." 
 
 "By doing so, however," observed the Swiss lawyer,
 
 IO4 Burning Questions. 
 
 "we should get into a fearful wasp's nest, particularly 
 in Germany." 
 
 "And shall we escape their stings by following 
 a contrary course ? " returned the German diploma- 
 tist. 
 
 "' Or are we not, on the contrary, already covered 
 with them ? " asked the English nobleman. 
 
 " At all events," put in the American, " it may be 
 questioned whether minds are yet ripe for such 
 things." 
 
 "The student becomes ripe," said the German, 
 " by being taught and by learning." 
 
 " And then," exclaimed the lord, " do we not see 
 that our adversaries are perfectly well acquainted 
 with these principles of the Church, and attack them 
 from their stand-point most decisively and with their 
 well-known practical energy ? " 
 
 "And reproach us," added the Spaniard, "with 
 lacking courage to bring our dangerous State- 
 principles to the light." 
 
 "And the consequence is," said the Roman, 
 "that many otherwise unprejudiced and honourable 
 people, nay, many of our own side, even, have had 
 their ideas quite confused by the clamour of the 
 daily press about these questions." 
 
 "No doubt!" replied the old man. "We must, 
 at last, speak out everywhere, and say constantly 
 and fearlessly, that the theory of Church and State 
 which in our day threatens once more, and almost
 
 Burning Questions. 105 
 
 more completely than ever, to carry all before it, 
 is the offspring of an infidel philosophy which pre- 
 sumes to oppose the teaching and legislation of the 
 Church for eighteen hundred years, the scientific 
 systems of her greatest thinkers, nay, the whole 
 Christian life as it has stamped itself for more than 
 a thousand years on social order and morality. We 
 must say more and more loudly, that this modern 
 conception of the State is opposed to the Divine law 
 of the Church ; both to her law of nature and to 
 the positive law of her constitution. We must go 
 on repeating and maintaining against the incessant 
 laudations of the Moloch worship, which is due to 
 the State, and against the audacious denial of every 
 other law but that which is made by the arbitrary 
 will of despots, or by a parliamentary majority, that 
 the State is related to the Church, as the Fathers 
 say, in the same way that the body is to the soul, 
 the earthly and temporal to the spiritual, which 
 passes into the everlasting life : that the State, 
 to express it more clearly, just pursues in and for 
 themselves those ends which are already determined 
 by the nature of human society, while the Church 
 is appointed to guide them to their supernatural 
 end ; that, in short, the relation of the State to the 
 Church is that of the natural to the supernatural 
 order of things ; and that therefore Church and 
 State can, no more than the natural and super- 
 natural order, be conceived of as spheres entirely
 
 106 Burning Questions. 
 
 strange, or even hostile to one another, nor, on the 
 other hand, as standing on an equal footing; but 
 that the true and right view is, to hold firmly the 
 distinction between 'the two, and the peculiar pro- 
 perties of each, but nevertheless to acknowledge 
 that they have mutual relations, and that their 
 duty is to aim, in harmony and due order of rank, 
 at the realization of a Christian society on earth. 
 
 " Apostasy of human society, as such, from God 
 and from the law of Christ : such is the last terrible 
 acquisition of the human intellect in these days of 
 ours, when paeans are sung over so-called progress, 
 and over the pretended triumph of liberty, which, 
 to use a regular North German expression, is less 
 ' makeoutable ' l every day. It is the same spirit 
 which made the mother of mankind lift a longing 
 hand to the tree of knowledge ; the same disposition 
 which challenged the longanimity of God in the days 
 when Noe was building the Ark ; it is the people 
 looking on the bleeding form of the Saviour on the 
 steps of Pilate's judgment-hall, and clamouring in 
 mad fury for the liberty of Barabbas ! 
 
 "And when as in the present conflict the 
 battle is for the best possessions of mankind, who, 
 when once he perceives what is at stake, would, 
 coldly and indifferently, leave the ranks? And how 
 much we have ourselves to make good ! How long 
 did we, in our incomprehensible simplicity, abandon 
 
 1 Unerfindlicher.
 
 Burning Questions. 107 
 
 the whole field of action to the enemy, and fancy 
 we might sit with our hands folded, for the sake of 
 peace ! How often did we try to maintain this fatal 
 peace by means of accommodations and compro- 
 mises, which forced our consciences to the very 
 brink of sin, and treason to the truth! Alas! we 
 spoke, as the prophet complains, of peace, when 
 there was no peace ! 
 
 " Let us break with these half measures ! Let us 
 at last be thoroughly what we would be what we 
 must be ! There can be no agreement between 
 Christ and Belial! It is labour in vain it is the 
 task of Tantalus to try to be at the same time a 
 faithful son of the Church and a timid favourer 
 of the Revolution, which, remember, is not now-a- 
 days to be found on the barricades only ! "
 
 io8 Burning Questions. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE conversation of the last evening afforded matter 
 for many discussions to the different groups into 
 which the villa party was divided next day. The 
 interest of the subject had evidently set people 
 thinking, and made the interchange of ideas a 
 necessity. This sometimes brought on warm de- 
 bates, and almost at every hour of the day the 
 charming walks in the park, or the footpath to the 
 lake, were the scene of eager discussion among some 
 of our friends. 
 
 This went on for some days, for the subject, as 
 everybody began to discover, was inexhaustible. 
 Numerous important accessory questions turned up, 
 and these, even when discussed only on the spur 
 of the moment, opened the way to new and higher 
 points of view in the main question. It was inevit- 
 able that, in some instances, persons should so 
 involve themselves in matters of detail as to get 
 altogether lost in the mazes of casuistry : that was 
 the result of particular character ; but for the most 
 part, great principles were kept to : for it was felt 
 that to lay these down firmly was the main thing in 
 so important and extensive a subject
 
 Burning Questions. 109 
 
 " Persons who have a case in point ready at every 
 third word," said the astronomer, " are not fit to dis- 
 cuss great questions. They are like an architect who 
 is busy with the bevelling of his doors, and windows, 
 and mouldings, before deciding how to lay his 
 foundations." 
 
 The English nobleman had almost disappeared 
 from the scene ; he was only visible at meal-times. 
 Whenever anyone enquired about him, there was 
 the same regular answer : he was in the library, 
 studying. This was quite true: the villa possessed 
 a library, which, though not very extensive, was 
 valuable and well-chosen, and the Englishman was 
 continually buried in its treasures ; when anybody 
 had the curiosity to look for him, he was hardly 
 to be discovered behind his folios. 
 
 " One ought to get to the bottom of things," he 
 answered, when some one asked what he was 
 about : " I can't stand people talking about im- 
 portant subjects without ever having tried to make 
 out what was said and thought about them before 
 our time. Of course our predecessors had not the 
 immense advantage of belonging to the nineteenth 
 century, which declares itself, with the greatest 
 naivety to be the golden age of all knowledge : but 
 we cannot without calumny deny that old writers 
 even if they are not the much praised pagans 
 were possessed of brains, sense, sagacity, and lofty 
 thoughts."
 
 no Burning Questions. 
 
 At last, one evening, when the party was assem- 
 bled on the verandah, he re-appeared for the first 
 time. All eyes were naturally turned upon him as 
 he entered, and the American expressed the curiosity 
 felt by all present, when, before the Englishman sat 
 down, he cried out to him 
 
 " Now then, at last you will bring out your wares 
 for our benefit." 
 
 " Bring out my wares ! " repeated the nobleman, 
 laughing ; " you have chosen the right word. When 
 one is bold enough, like myself within the last few 
 days, to go to school to the great minds of our 
 science, those .real giants of learning and sagacity, 
 one goes home abashed, with the miserable wares 
 of one's own knowledge in the school-boy's wallet." 
 
 "But, at all events," remarked the Roman, "you 
 have gained something of the riches of others, and 
 made it your own." 
 
 " Annexed it, you ought to say," put in the other. 
 "That word, which is a capital invention for our age, 
 better describes the result of copying out sheets of 
 extracts from folios. There are the extracts in black 
 and white ; but that is a different thing from making 
 the thoughts our own. That requires the arranging 
 power of one's own mind, and that, again, requires 
 time." 
 
 "And so, after all, you are not going to share 
 what you have learnt with us," exclaimed the Spanish 
 sailor.
 
 Burning Questions. in 
 
 " On the contrary," said the Englishman, " I hope 
 that you will be kind enough to help me in the work 
 of arrangement and appropriation." 
 
 "That is something like," exclaimed the Pro- 
 fessor of Astronomy. 
 
 " And what is the particular result of your 
 studies ? " asked the white-haired old man. 
 
 "The confirmation of your statement," was the 
 answer. " I wished, for instance, to convince myself 
 of the tradition of Catholic science concerning the 
 question we have been discussing, and here, as in 
 other kindred matters, I found the same phenomenon. 
 The development of Catholic science has always 
 followed a fixed rule, as the. plant unfolds according 
 to the law of its nature. Who does not know the 
 grand words of Vincent of Lerins about this develop- 
 ment in contradistinction to the unassailable deposit 
 of the faith ? Breaks may occur in this process of 
 evolution, for it takes place in this temporal life, and 
 has no immunity from the changes incident to it. 
 Then, again, there are times when development 
 advances more rapidly, and when the growth of 
 science is remarkably accelerated; just as the tree 
 grows faster, and bears richer fruit when it receives 
 the warmth of the sun, and the beneficent rain in 
 due season. But true ecclesiastical science can never 
 contradict or revoke itself; the principles from which 
 it proceeds are too sound, too capable of development 
 for that ; and there is never a time when it lacks the
 
 H2 Burning Questions. 
 
 guidance of the teaching office of the Church, which, 
 I may say by the way, I no more consider prejudicial 
 to the real work of science, than I can pity a ship, 
 for having, besides sails, or steam engine, a skilful 
 steersman also who guides her by the compass. 
 
 "And so it is with regard to the question with 
 which we have been so taken up lately as almost 
 to forget the lovely scenery of this wonderful lake. 
 Whoever consults the sources of theological science, 
 the Fathers, the schoolmen, the post-tridentine doc- 
 tors, acquires the conviction that the Church has 
 always held and taught, that she is, in a certain 
 sense, over the State, although the latter not only 
 rules in the sphere which belongs peculiarly to it, 
 but must also be acknowledged to be an institution 
 founded on the Divine ordinance." 
 
 " I know that I am not at home on the subject," 
 said the Swiss lawyer, " but I have often seen it 
 asserted that the doctrine of Church pre-eminence 
 belongs solely to the middle ages, and the schools, 
 and was unknown to the Fathers." 
 
 " That is simply untrue," said the Englishman ; 
 " we have already touched upon this point once, and 
 it is one, too, that I have verified within the last few 
 days. It is wonderful how people can deny or pass 
 over in silence such incontrovertible facts. The 
 second book of the so-called 'Apostolical Consti- 
 tutions' contains the proposition that the sacerdotal 
 is superior to the monarchical in the same degree as
 
 Burning Questions. 113 
 
 the soul is to the body. We know, indeed, that these 
 constitutions, as we now have them, are not the im- 
 mediate work of the Apostles, but we know, too, 
 quite certainly, that the greater part of them were 
 composed as early as the third century, and that 
 we have in this book the ancient discipline, customs, 
 and views of the Eastern Church up to Apostolic 
 times. How much weight, therefore, a proposition 
 of the Apostolical Constitutions has in the scale 1 
 Another favourite simile with the Fathers is that 
 of heaven and earth. As heaven is higher than the 
 earth, so, they say, is the spiritual more exalted than the 
 temporal power. And the famous Protestant German 
 historian, Neander, tells us that he has found what 
 he calls the ' Hildebrandine principle ' in a work by 
 a Christian Jew of the second century. And indeed, 
 in this ' Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs,' we do 
 meet with the very comparison just quoted, that the 
 priesthood ordained by God transcends the kingly 
 power as far as heaven is above earth. And certainly 
 we shall all of us consider St Chrysostom a sufficient 
 authority. In him, then, we again find both these 
 comparisons applied to the superiority of the Church 
 over the State. And we must all perfectly remember 
 that expression of St. Gregory Nazianzen, which we 
 heard a day or two ago 'We bishops, too,' he ex- 
 claims to the princes and great men of the world, 
 'have a dominion, and I say, too, a more exalted 
 and perfect dominion, otherwise, the spirit would 
 I
 
 114 Burning Questions. 
 
 be subject to the flesh, and heavenly to earthly 
 things.' 
 
 " You see, gentlemen, that such assertions as that 
 the Fathers knew nothing of the subordination of the 
 State to the Church, are a pure invention, which may 
 fit in very well with certain systems, but which has 
 historical fact against it." 
 
 "We may, at the same time perfectly allow," said 
 the old gentleman, on whom all eyes were turned as 
 soon as he began speaking, "that during the centuries 
 of persecution the doctrine of the precise relations 
 of the State to the Church was not sufficiently 
 practical to be fully developed at that time. We 
 must remember that the Church was then opposed 
 to the heathen State, in which, as history proves, and 
 we have already seen, it was impossible for her to 
 find a legitimately ordered position. The real rightful 
 relation between the two powers did not begin to 
 be settled till the State had become Christian. 
 
 " On the other hand, the proper constitution of 
 the Church, not as to her essential foundation, but 
 as to her historical completion on the basis of these 
 unassailable principles, was at that time in its first 
 stage of development. And even when the Cross 
 had conquered, and the Roman Empire had become 
 Christian, it took time, in the nature of things, before 
 the world, whose centre of gravity was entirely altered, 
 could get accustomed to the new situation, and before 
 the Church herself, although she had long held the
 
 Burning Questions. 115 
 
 true principles, could feel at home in a position, which 
 was, to her too, a perfectly new one." 
 
 "And does the same hold good with regard to 
 the middle ages and modern times ? " put in the 
 German diplomatist. 
 
 " How do you mean ? " asked the Englishman. 
 
 " I consider," said the diplomatist, " that the dis- 
 tinction, not to say contradiction, which exists 
 between the doctrine of the middle ages and that 
 of modern times with respect to our question is a 
 very important one, and I confess that this is pre- 
 cisely the point in the whole subject which confuses, 
 and always makes me undecided." 
 
 " I understand that," said the old man. 
 
 " But nevertheless, I venture to assert," said the 
 nobleman, "that there is no real contradiction 
 between the mediaeval and the modern idea. Of 
 course you understand that I am only contemplating 
 the universal doctrine of the Church, what is com- 
 monly called the sententia communis. If we follow 
 this, we shall find that the progress of the scientific 
 development of the doctrine of the relations between 
 Church and State keeps pace with the history of the 
 temporal establishment and completion of the Church 
 itself, and that in this there can be no question of 
 real irreconcileable contradictions in Catholic science. 
 This was only apparently the case in France and 
 Germany, and in individual instances in other coun- 
 tries. But you would not reckon the works of
 
 n6 Burning Questions. 
 
 Galileans and Jansenists, of Febronians and Joseph- 
 inists as belonging to Catholic science." 
 
 " Certainly not," returned the diplomatist. 
 
 "But how can the system known as that of the 
 Two Swords, and the Bull Unam Sanctum, be 
 reconciled with the theory of 'indirect power' of 
 Suarez and Bellarmine, and numerous other great 
 theologians and canonists, or with that theory which 
 has received the name of that of the 'directive 
 power ? '" 
 
 " As to the latter theory," said the old gentleman, 
 " you will do well not to give it any place in your 
 discussion. For it either issues in altogether refusing 
 to the Church all external co-active power, and 
 merely granting her the mission of influencing the 
 consciences of princes and people by official decisions, 
 by admonitions, and perhaps by the customary eccle- 
 siastical censures. But then, this theory would be 
 in the most evident contradiction to the doctrine 
 and practice of the Church, and, lastly, to the 
 Syllabus, which expressly condemns the denial of 
 all co-active power to the Church. And if it does 
 not go so far in regard to this last important point, 
 then it is in reality merely an immaterial diluting, 
 or, if you like, a milder way of putting the system 
 of indirect power, and must be treated in the same 
 way. Gerson was the first to use the expression 
 ' directive power,' but it is easy to show, that, when 
 closely examined, he really maintains the indirect
 
 Burning Questions. 117 
 
 power. Whether Fe"nelon, who borrows this expres- 
 sion from him, would maintain his theory in the 
 face of the Syllabus, we altogether doubt. It is 
 far more probable that he, too, would declare that 
 he had been misunderstood, and that he never 
 thought of wishing the power of the Church to be 
 limited in such a way." 
 
 "The two other systems, the scholastic, and the 
 modern," resumed the Englishman, "appear to me 
 to be, in reality, different ways of putting one and 
 the same truth. 
 
 " The image of soul and body, which the Fathers 
 of the Church made use of, when they wanted to 
 represent the relation and order of rank of Church 
 and State, was also familiar to the middle ages. 
 There was another, too, which was intended to 
 express the same thing ; I mean the simile of the 
 sun and moon, the two lights which, each in its 
 way, illuminate the night of civil order, and the day 
 of Christian society. The Fathers had also com- 
 pared the Church to the sun; and, so far, the 
 mediaeval simile is merely the completion of the 
 idea. At the same time, it is evidently related 
 to the patristic image of the heaven and the earth; 
 and here, too, we see that the latter, far from 
 being in opposition to the former age, is supported 
 by it. 
 
 " The allegorical application of the Two Swords 
 in the Gospel of St. Luke to the spiritual and
 
 n8 Burning Questions. 
 
 temporal powers was certainly new in the age of 
 the schoolmen." 
 
 " And you must grant," exclaimed the American, 
 " that this allegory is not only new, but without any 
 cogency." 
 
 "We may, with Bellarmine, grant that," said the 
 old man. " But the thing that immediately concerns 
 us is not the dogmatic foundation of the theory, but 
 its true meaning. We need not contemplate what is 
 to be held exegetically about that allegorical mean- 
 ing, but we have in the allegory the mediaeval idea : 
 and so, it is an argument to us for the fact of the 
 scholastic distinction and subordination of the two 
 powers." 
 
 "If we grant, then," continued the Englishman, 
 "that the pith of this theory is contained in the 
 proposition that, as St Bernard himself writes to 
 Pope Eugenius III., the Two Swords, temporal and 
 spiritual, are committed to Peter; we must equally 
 take into consideration that the same theory main- 
 tains that one of the Swords, viz., that of temporal 
 force, is not to be drawn by Peter. This is certainly 
 not to be made light of on the contrary, we are 
 justified in seeing in it the way to reconcile the medi- 
 aeval view and the declarations of the more recent 
 great Catholic doctors." 
 
 "But you must grant," remarked the Swiss doctor, 
 " that men went further than this, and spoke of the 
 Pope's unlimited dominion over the whole world."
 
 Burning Questions. 119 
 
 " I do not deny it in the least," returned the 
 nobleman. " The idea of the Pope as supreme head 
 in all things, spiritual and temporal, has been ex- 
 pressed in. many forms. It is in the nature of the 
 thing, and is a part of the narrowness and weakness 
 of the human mind that exaggerations should arise, 
 and that principles, true in themselves, should be 
 put in a false light. Still, it will be difficult to find 
 any important mediaeval Catholic author, who, how- 
 ever far he may go in this matter, does not add some 
 proviso which takes the edge off an extreme opinion. 
 But, in this question, let us seek an explanation from 
 those who are regarded, even by their opponents, as 
 the real champions of this mediaeval view, and who 
 seem, besides, to be the most reliable vouchers for 
 the true exposition of the doctrine of the Church 
 Gregory VII., Innocent III., Boniface VIII., are 
 certainly acknowledged to be the principal advocates 
 of this mediaeval theocracy. How, then, did they 
 understand the relation between Church and State ? 
 How did they conceive of the subordination of the 
 latter to the former? and what was their action in 
 the matter ? 
 
 "It is very easy to represent Gregory VII. as an 
 arrogant priest, who, in his ambition overstepped 
 all bounds, and made profit of the faithful submis- 
 sion of the people for his own dark ends. He is 
 unhesitatingly accused of having insulted and 
 degraded the temporal royal power, namely, that
 
 I2O Burning Questions. 
 
 of the Emperor. But it is this very Gregory VII. 
 who repeatedly declares the necessity of the tem- 
 poral and spiritual powers acting together in peace 
 and unity : and it is a positive rule that when he 
 treats of the sword of power which belongs to him, 
 he speaks only of the spiritual sword of Peter. 
 Gregory VII. acknowledges, accordingly, two powers 
 which are to be distinguished from each other, and 
 which are bound to mutual harmony ; and he claims 
 for himself to bear the spiritual only, never the 
 temporal sword. 
 
 " Cardinal Peter Damiani, his friend, and the 
 sharer of his opinions, whom the Church also vene- 
 rates as a saint, expresses the same principles : he 
 distinguishes between the two powers and their 
 offices, and adjudges the use of worldly weapons 
 to worldly princes, and of the spiritual sword to 
 the priesthood." 
 
 "But did not this Gregory VII.," the American 
 began with some excitement 
 
 " Pope Saint Gregory VII.," put in the old man, 
 looking at the speaker with gentle gravity. 
 
 " Yes, of course ! " the American went on. " You 
 must excuse a son of the land of liberty, which, as 
 I see more clearly every day, has its dark side 
 too : still, it may be questioned whether the Papal 
 authority has more faithful adherents than we are 
 over the water, and I am not going to dispute the 
 vast grandeur of Pope Gregory's character any more
 
 Burning Questions. 121 
 
 than his sanctity : but all the same it is a historical 
 fact that he deposed the Emperor Henry IV." 
 
 " I might dispute that too with you," rejoined 
 the nobleman, "whether Gregory's first proceedings 
 against the worthless Henry, absolving his subjects 
 from their allegiance, and forbidding him to reign 
 can be regarded as a regular deposition. But I 
 confess that it is my own opinion that depri- 
 vation of the royal and imperial dignities was in 
 substance inflicted on that prince so unworthy to 
 rule by the acts of the great Pope, and at all 
 events, by the second Papal sentence. 
 
 "But I ask, by so acting did Gregory VII. do 
 anything more than is granted even by the advo- 
 cates of the theory of indirect power ? Does not 
 Bellarmine teach that, under certain circumstances, 
 Christ's earthly Vicar certainly has the right to 
 absolve subjects from their oath of allegiance to 
 an unworthy prince, and to declare the latter to 
 have forfeited his power to reign ? Accordingly, 
 what essential difference is there, at least on this, 
 which is confessedly the main point, between the 
 theory of the middle ages and the doctrine of 
 modern times?" 
 
 " Do you, then, really and seriously defend these 
 depositions of princes by the Popes ? " asked the 
 jurist from the Swiss model republic, in astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " I must either defend them, or quarrel with the
 
 122 Burning Questions. 
 
 Church, said the Englishman. Several of the suc- 
 cessors of Gregory VII. acted in a similar way. 
 He himself pronounced the same sentence on King 
 Boleslaus of Poland. His immediate successors, 
 Victor III., Urban II., Pascal II., Gelasius II., and 
 Calixtus II. confirmed his sentence on Henry IV. 
 Alexander III. declared Frederic Barbarossa to have 
 forfeited the crown: and the same sentence was 
 pronounced by Innocent III. on John of England 
 and Otho IV. of Germany; by Innocent IV. on 
 the Emperor Frederic II. ; by Clement VI. on 
 Louis of Bavaria ; by Paul II. on King George 
 of Bohemia ; by Clement VII. and Paul III. on 
 Henry VIII. of England ; by Pius V. on Queen 
 Elizabeth of England, which sentence was con- 
 firmed by Gregory XIII. ; and, lastly, Sixtus V. 
 and Gregory XIV. deposed Henry of Navarre." 
 
 " Here," the English lord continued, " I see 
 nothing left but a choice between these two things. 
 Either the Vicars of Christ have, for centuries, been 
 the most ambitious of usurpers ; and this I cannot 
 possibly reconcile with my ideas as a Catholic ; or 
 the power of binding and loosing which was com- 
 mitted to the Popes in the person of St. Peter, and 
 which was described by our Lord Himself as uni- 
 versal and unlimited, extends also to the thrones of 
 temporal rulers." 
 
 "In saying which, we must not forget," said 
 the old gentleman, "that this power of binding
 
 Burning Questions. 123 
 
 and loosing belongs to -the supernatural order, and 
 that it is only indirectly, and so far as the higher 
 end of that order requires, that it has a right to 
 interfere in the province of the natural order." 
 
 "That is to say," said the diplomatist, "that 
 the power of the Church in temporal matters is an 
 indirect one." 
 
 "Or, as the middle ages expressed it," added 
 the Spaniard, "that the Church, indeed, holds the 
 two swords, but has herself to wield the spiritual one 
 only, committing the temporal sword to the tem- 
 poral power, which God has appointed to that office. 
 I begin to see this." 
 
 "Here, too, however," said the old man, "we 
 must put in a limitation, otherwise we shall not 
 get the complete harmony of the older and the later 
 doctrines on this question." 
 
 " I was interrupted," said the Englishman, " before 
 I could touch upon that. Will you do so for me ? " 
 
 "As a rule," continued the old man, "the Church 
 has to wield the spiritual sword only : that is a 
 capital axiom in the doctrine of the middle ages. 
 But in exceptional cases, and as it were in a subsi- 
 diary manner, she has also, according to the same 
 doctrine, to make use of the temporal sword, that 
 is, when the good of Christendom and the welfare 
 of the Church require it, and when the temporal arm 
 is not faithful to its duties. In this way we may 
 rightly circumscribe the expressions used by medi-
 
 124 Burning Questions. 
 
 aeval theologians. Regarded from this point of view, 
 the two systems, the mediaeval and the post-triden- 
 tine, are seen not to be essentially different." 
 
 " And who," asked the American, sharply, " is to 
 decide upon these exceptional cases ? " 
 
 "The Church, of course," returned the old man. 
 "Do let us lay aside that diseased fear of the 
 Church's power, which really can only alarm igno- 
 rant or foolish persons. There cannot be any doubt 
 that there is no power on earth that can offer such 
 guarantees for its right exercise as the Church can." 
 
 " But what are these exceptional cases ? " asked 
 the American, evidently pressing the question. 
 
 " I will give you," replied the old man " besides 
 the case of Christ's Vicar declaring a prince to be 
 unworthy of his crown, and to have forfeited it 
 because he neglects and injures the well-being of 
 a Christian people another case, in which the 
 Supreme Head of the Church declares a civil law 
 to be null and void, because it is in irreconcileable 
 opposition to the Divine law and to the principles 
 of justice." 
 
 " And ought we not to consider it a blessing from 
 God," exclaimed the Vicomte to the American, " that 
 He has appointed such an authority on earth ? Does 
 not the present time teach us loudly enough the 
 importance to Christian nations of such a plenitude 
 of power ? " 
 
 "One more question!" exclaimed the young
 
 Burning Questions. 125 
 
 Swiss lawyer. " And pray don't get impatient 
 with me, but make excuses for me by considering 
 that I have been sitting for five years on the benches 
 of a German university," 
 
 " You have put forward a dilemma," he went on, 
 turning to the English nobleman, "the force of 
 which I do not undervalue. But is it not possible 
 to explain that political authority, which I am 
 aware was very often exercised by the Popes in 
 the middle ages, by the importance, in a national 
 point of view, which the Papal See had then attained ? 
 At that time Christian princes and nations, by a 
 tacit understanding, conceded to the Head of the 
 Church this power, which I am willing to describe 
 as that of an umpire freely chosen by both parties." 
 
 " I quite admit," returned the Englishman, " that 
 the Head of the Church might be, and very often 
 was, chosen umpire in merely temporal matters. 
 But it is incomprehensible to me that a political 
 compact, and that, too, concerning rights and obli- 
 gations so important and extensive, would be tacitly 
 agreed upon. And the very distinction between a 
 judgment of arbitration and that of an ordinary 
 tribunal is that the latter is appointed by the 
 highest power in the State, while the former pre- 
 supposes the free, express choice of the parties 
 concerned. But I quite see that the development 
 of such a high-priestly power in the political sphere 
 presupposes Christian nations and Christianity. For
 
 126 Burning Questions. 
 
 how could the Head of the Church exercise such 
 an office, unless he were recognized as such by 
 princes and people? But that is not the same 
 thing as saying that he received it from them." 
 
 "And it is precisely with regard to that last 
 point," said the old man, "that people so often 
 fail to distinguish correctly, and so get into a certain 
 confusion of ideas. The practical recognition of this 
 plenitude of Papal power on the part of Christian 
 nations was indispensably necessary if the Vicars 
 of Christ were to make effectual use of it. But that 
 plenitude of power may exist as a right without 
 being recognized by any one, and without being 
 exercised. And this right does not depend on its 
 practical recognition, but flows from a higher Source. 
 But our young Swiss friend must allow me to remark 
 that the general view stated by him is in no way 
 confirmed by history. The proposition that this 
 power of the Popes over princes and people was 
 conferred by these latter belongs neither to canon 
 law nor to the middle ages : it took its rise in the 
 times when an attempt was made to reduce rebellion 
 against the Papal See to a scientific system. And 
 in saying this I do not deny that in certain cases 
 Popes have gone too far in the exercise of the power 
 of arbitration. Anybody can satisfy himself on this 
 point by consulting historical sources. I will only 
 give a single instance. 
 
 " Pius V., whose learning, especially in the depart-
 
 Burning Questions. 127 
 
 ment of canon law is as well known as the holiness 
 of life which procured his canonization, pronounced 
 sentence of deposition on Queen Elizabeth of 
 England. He did it at a time when there could no 
 longer be any mention of the universal recognition 
 of the supremacy of the Papal power. Yet in the 
 Bull Regnans in ccelis he appeals, as the authority of 
 his right to pronounce judicial sentence, not to any 
 power entrusted to him by men, nor to any custom 
 which had become law by being exercised for 
 centuries, but he expressly and unequivocally declares 
 that he proceeds against the Queen of England by 
 virtue of the authority delivered to him by Christ 
 Himself in the person of Peter." 
 
 " And," resumed the nobleman, " the predecessors 
 of St. Pius V. certainly acted in similar cases in the 
 same spirit, and with the same consciousness of 
 justice. 
 
 " But we have deviated a little from the particular 
 subject which we were examining, which was the 
 sense in which the great Popes of the middle ages 
 understood, in practice, the theory of the two swords, 
 which they, too, sanctioned. 
 
 "We have all, I think, acknowledged that 
 Gregory VII. was simply a logical defender of the 
 'indirect power of the Church/ rightly understood. 
 The same is the case with Innocent III., who has, in 
 some respects, been more decried by party historians 
 than even Hildebrand, the ambitious monk seated in
 
 128 Burning Questions. 
 
 the Papal chair, as they describe Gregory VII. Let 
 them read the decisions in the collection of decretals 
 which he gave on this very question. Let them 
 read and marvel ! Innocent III, the adherent and 
 advocate of the mediaeval theory of the two swords 
 committed to Peter, the Pope who is represented as a 
 reckless usurper and an ambitious despot, declares in 
 the dispute between the Kings of England and 
 France, that he will not interfere in the judicial dis- 
 pute concerning feudal tenure, with which he has 
 no concern, but that he only sits in judgment on 
 questions of morals, and summons what is sin before 
 his spiritual tribunal. In another decretal he con- 
 cedes to the German princes their right sanctioned 
 by long usage of choosing their King, and never 
 thinks of laying claim to exercise an undue influence 
 on that choice, which, inasmuch as it is the choice 
 of an Emperor, cannot, however, dispense with the 
 approval of the Pope who crowns the Emperors. In 
 a third decision he does, indeed, claim the supreme 
 decision in temporal things in certain cases ; and lays 
 down the proposition that in all difficult cases of 
 importance appeal is to be made to the See of Rome, 
 and its decision is to be followed ; but in this decretal 
 he at the same time clearly and sharply draws the 
 distinction between the temporal and the spiritual 
 tribunal, and expressly acknowledges that in tem- 
 poral matters the temporal ruler has no superior. 
 
 " No ; there can be no doubt about it. However
 
 Burning Questions. 129 
 
 distinctly Innocent III. may admit the theory of the 
 two swords, he took nothing, in substance, as the rule 
 of his practice, but the principles laid down by the 
 theory of the so-called indirect power. 
 
 " And Boniface VIII. ? He is the author of the 
 Bull Unam Sanctam, which makes a shudder run 
 through all liberal men pining for liberty in civilized 
 states; but many of his opponents are astonished 
 to find this Pope drawing from the terrible pre- 
 misses of these decretals, an unexpectedly simple 
 conclusion, which certainly no Catholic is able to 
 deny." 
 
 "And what is the conclusion?" asked the old 
 Swiss. 
 
 " That it is indispensably necessary for salvation 
 to submit to the Roman Pontiff." 
 
 " Well, that is a matter of course," said the old 
 Swiss, looking at his son. 
 
 "But it was this same Boniface," continued the 
 Englishman, " who, when the Ambassadors of the 
 French King and clergy complained of his appearing 
 to aim at diminishing the royal authority, and to 
 desire France to be regarded as a Papal fief, declared 
 publicly: 'It is forty years since we acquired our 
 knowledge of law, and we know that God has 
 ordained two powers. Who, then, dare or can believe 
 that such an absurdity suggested itself to us ? We 
 say that we claim no sort of jurisdiction over the 
 King. But neither the King nor any other Christian 
 J
 
 130 Burning Questions* 
 
 can deny that in all that regards sin he is subject 
 to us." 
 
 " May I ask for the book," said the Swiss lawyer, 
 "out of which you have just read those words of 
 Pope Boniface VIII. ? " 
 
 " It is at your service : " and the Englishman 
 handed him Hergenrother's work on Churcli and 
 State, a book replete with historical matter. "The 
 transactions of the Consistory which Boniface VIII. 
 held in August, 1302, and particularly the introduc- 
 tory address of the Cardinal Bishop of Porto, 
 will convince you, as they have convinced me, that, 
 there is no essential difference between the mediaeval 
 and the modern theory, at least as regards its prac- 
 tical application. 
 
 "The doctrine of the middle ages was what the 
 Church always has taught, and always will teach, that 
 there are two powers ordained by God, the temporal 
 and the spiritual, both placed in a due relation of 
 subordination to each other ; then, both these powers 
 are, in Christendom, in one hand, that of the Pope, 
 but only, so to speak, in idea ; so that, as a rule, it 
 is not for the Pope to exercise the temporal power 
 himself, but to leave it to the Emperor and other 
 sovereigns. The modern Catholic doctrine takes no 
 notice of this speculative distinction between the ideal 
 right to a power and the real possession of it, but 
 merely teaches that there are two powers, ordained 
 by God and in a relation of due subordination to
 
 Burning Questions. 131 
 
 each other. This, at least, is my opinion at the 
 present time," concluded the nobleman, "but I am 
 very ready to be taught a better one." 
 
 " I hardly think there is much to be objected to 
 it," said the old man, nodding kindly to the English- 
 man. 
 
 " Principles, gentlemen," exclaimed the American, 
 "are the locomotives of the mind. They give it its 
 vent, whether it will or not, and therefore I hold, 
 that it is not the same thing to start, as the middle 
 ages did, from the ideal, and to keep, as we moderns 
 do, principally or exclusively, to the real. For that 
 is really the upshot of what my lord here says. 
 Simply to banish these principles into the sterile 
 land of speculation, and entirely to refuse them all 
 influence on life and on practical right, certainly 
 seems to me going rather too far." 
 
 "But our friend did not mean to assert that," 
 remarked the old man. 
 
 " Certainly not ! " said the Englishman. 
 
 " Has it struck you," continued the old gentleman, 
 turning to the American, "that your objection may 
 have hit the very point which is an answer to it ? " 
 
 " How so ? " 
 
 "You speak strongly on the significance of the 
 ideal as opposed to the real world, and you have the 
 same right to do this that the Church has, who, far 
 from rejecting the higher and more spiritual idea of 
 the work of life, would fain counsel it rather than
 
 132 Burning Questions. 
 
 the ordinary performance of duties. She does this, 
 not only by prescribing a strict holy rule to religious 
 orders, but she teaches that in the performance of 
 duties we may all of us choose the more perfect way, 
 which lies beyond the simple precept, and opens an 
 infinite, inexhaustible, sphere both to man's liberty 
 and his desire for perfection. 
 
 "Now let us put before us the temporal power 
 of the State in the concrete, either in the person of 
 the absolute or limited monarch, or of the supreme 
 authority in a republic, and let us suppose a case 
 in which, both the holders of this power and the 
 commonwealth they rule over are Christian, because 
 either the whole nation, or at least by far the great 
 majority, profess Christianity. It is evidently the 
 duty of these holders of temporal power, the Christian 
 king, the Christian oligarchy, the supreme authority 
 in the republic, as the case may be, to put themselves 
 in right relation to the spiritual power in the Church : 
 and at the same time it is also the duty of the 
 Christian nation to do its part according to its 
 ability, to realize the right relation between Church 
 and State. Here, then, we face a duty, a moral duty 
 of the Christian ruler, and the Christian nation." 
 
 "I see your drift," said the Englishman, looking 
 gratefully at the old man, who continued : 
 
 "But, if I may so express myself, is it not well 
 that there should be a counsel corresponding with 
 this duty of the Christian ruler and the Christian
 
 Burning Questions. 133 
 
 people ? Should not the Christian State, like its 
 citizen, who, in contracting marriage, is able to form 
 a more or less perfect idea of the duties of his state 
 be able, in the sublime marriage which it has to 
 enter into with the Church, to choose a more or less 
 perfect stand-point, without thereby altering the line 
 of simple duty, which cannot be overstepped without 
 violation of conscience ? The unequivocal answer is 
 contained in those words of St. Augustine which we 
 all know : ' The happiness of civil society is not to 
 be looked for from a different source from the happi- 
 ness of the individual ; for civil society is nothing 
 more than the union of a multitude of men.' It 
 is a fundamental idea with regard to the relation 
 between Church and State which is followed also 
 by the mediaeval Doctors when they say, that, as 
 regards the highest end, the individual man and the 
 whole of society are under the same law. 
 
 " Accordingly, the Christian ideal of this life, for 
 the individual and for Christian society, consists in 
 this : that the supernatural life of grace should more 
 and more perfectly govern and direct all the depart- 
 ments and capacities of natural existence, without, 
 however, revoking the law of the natural order, or 
 essentially affecting its independence. Then are 
 established that peace and that unity which are a 
 blissful foreshadowing of the happiness which is 
 reserved in its perfection for eternity, and which can- 
 not be attained on earth.
 
 134 Burning Questions. 
 
 " This ideal of the relation between Church and 
 State floated in all its glory before the living faith 
 of the middle ages, and in the youthful freshness 
 of Christian enthusiasm they sought to realize it. 
 And they did not stop half way : they soared to the 
 idea of the Christian empire. This was, as we know, 
 that universal idea of the Christian commonwealth 
 which establishes not only unity between the Church 
 and the individual Christian empire, but, following 
 the impulse towards unity which belongs to human 
 nature, and still more to the Christian spirit, breaks 
 down the wall of partition between nation and nation, 
 binds them together, and once more pronounces them 
 to be blood-relations of the one great family which 
 has fixed its abode under the shadow of the mustard- 
 tree of the Church, whose branches extend over the 
 whole earth. This as opposed to the old pagan 
 Roman Empire is the idea of the Holy Roman 
 Empire, to whose supreme imperial sceptre all the 
 nations of the world are to do homage, and whose 
 highest imperial office must be the defence of the 
 Church. A grand thought the most ideal which the 
 law of nations can propose ! An idea embraced and 
 cherished by the Popes, the full realization of which 
 was not indeed possible on earth, but the thought 
 of it was a fact, and the attempt to accomplish it is 
 the immortal glory of the middle ages. 
 
 "Viewed in this light, how grand is the Bull 
 Unam Sanctam ! How poor and mean that inter-
 
 Burning Questions. 135 
 
 pretation of it which, for fear of offending the false 
 ideas of liberalism, shelters itself behind the impreg- 
 nable fortress of its infallible conclusion, and aban- 
 dons its magnificent thoughts because they do not 
 suit infidelity or half faith ! 
 
 " It is in the promulgation of this much-reviled 
 and calumniated Bull that we see the greatness of 
 Pope Boniface VIII. He gave solemn expression, 
 in this decretal, to the ideal thought of the unity of 
 Church and State as it was conceived by the Christian 
 middle ages just as that period was drawing to a 
 close. He held up before the Christian nations the 
 unity of the states and peoples of the earth gathered 
 together in the Church, in its sublime beauty as the 
 lofty end which Christendom should aim at, and, so 
 far as was possible, maintain. Thus considered, this 
 deed of Papal legislation, so summarily condemned 
 by many, acquires a grand significance, and takes its 
 providentially assigned place in the history of the 
 Church. 
 
 "When the great schism arose in the Church, 
 when the idea of this divine kingdom upon earth 
 paled more and more, and at last seemed quite to 
 fade away from the eyes of men, then it was an act 
 of wisdom and prudence to give up, so to speak, that 
 higher view of the relation between Church and 
 State, because it was no longer understood, but it 
 was necessary to formularize all the more precisely 
 the propositions which were absolutely essential to
 
 136 Burning Questions. 
 
 the public right of the Church, the abandonment of 
 which is the abandonment of Catholic truth itself. 
 This, it seems to me, is the stand-point of the new 
 theory of the Church's indirect power over the State, 
 of which Suarez and Bellarmine are described as the 
 especial champions. In the question of what the 
 State owes to the Church, the higher stand-point of 
 perfection was, so to speak, quitted, and the line of 
 duty drawn as sharply as possible." 
 
 There was a significant pause, and then the 
 American was heard to say, almost in a whisper : 
 " But that is regularly going back ! " 
 
 " And is it not, unfortunately, as possible to 
 do so in the history of the Church as in the 
 history of the individual human heart ? " asked the 
 old man. " How many are there who, in the 
 full enthusiasm of youth, begin to aim at Chris- 
 tian perfection, and who, to use the striking image 
 of the Doctor of the Church, barely save them- 
 selves later, in the storms of life, on that plank of 
 the sacrament of Penance, which is all that is left 
 to them in the tremendous shipwreck ! And may 
 not that which so often happens to individual Chris- 
 tians, happen too to Christian society ? Has it not 
 so happened? And do we not know, too, that the 
 discipline of the Church has become much milder, 
 and more indulgent, since she has perceived in her 
 wisdom that the holy zeal which in earlier days 
 attracted the faithful to a life of greater perfection,
 
 Burning Questions. 137 
 
 has been, if not extinguished, at least greatly cooled, 
 and that she must, therefore, adapt her laws to the 
 growing weaknesses of men ? " 
 
 " Our American friend does not fancy that," said 
 the Spaniard, smiling ; " he is looking very grave 
 about it." 
 
 "And feeling conquered by the arguments that 
 have just been brought forward," added the astro- 
 nomer. 
 
 " I confess that it is so to some extent," said the 
 American, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Just look, my dear sir," said the German diplo- 
 matist. " Without knowing it, you are still under the 
 influence of the gigantic falsehood of liberal progress, 
 that fable of what Hegel calls the inevitable perfecti- 
 bility of the human race, a fable addressed to the 
 thoughtlessness of the multitude, by one " he added 
 ironically " who seems to me much more legendary 
 than old Musaus or the Dane Andersen. I know 
 that there is a law of progress in the spiritual 
 life too ; but we do not follow it by abusing our 
 liberty. There is but one perpetual development, but 
 one irresistible progress in the history of our race : 
 it is that which is realized in the scheme of Divine 
 Providence, which goes on calmly unfolding itself to 
 the end of time." 
 
 " It is a truth," said the old gentleman, " which 
 should stimulate our watchfulness and humility. 
 Besides, regarded in the true light, how much more
 
 138 Burning Questions. 
 
 humiliating to a Christian and a Catholic is the 
 contrary assertion, which in the end more or less 
 amounts to saying that the Church of the middle 
 ages permitted herself to make unjust claims in the 
 person of her Head. Such an admission, indeed, if 
 we carried it to a logical conclusion, would lead us 
 hopelessly astray. Let us rather take this ground, 
 which must have become plainer to us this evening, 
 that, as regards her relation to the State, the Church 
 has never either altered her principles, so far as they 
 belong to the sphere of revealed truth, nor did she, 
 even in the middle ages, allow herself arbitrary action 
 or usurpation in this respect ; she has only, in conse- 
 quence of the unchristianizing of civil society, fallen 
 back, if I may so express myself, in her scientific 
 doctrine and practice to the stand-point of what is 
 absolutely required by duty in this matter. So the 
 blame falls, not on the immutable principles of truth, 
 not from a deviation of the rule aimed at by the 
 Church in a more perfect state pf things, but simply 
 and solely on human weakness, on the increasing 
 lukewarmness of faith, on the apostacy it. is a 
 terrible word, but it is well not to shut our eyes to it 
 on the apostacy of nations from Christ's kingdom 
 upon earth." 
 
 There was a long silence among the party in the 
 verandah, interrupted only by the splash of the 
 waves, as, stirred by the fresh evening air, they broke 
 against the terrace steps. The turn the conversation
 
 Burning Questions. 139 
 
 had last taken had evidently made a deep impression 
 on everybody. At length the Swiss lawyer began 
 speaking with an eagerness which showed how much 
 he was excited by what he had heard. 
 
 "There is one thing," he exclaimed, "that I 
 cannot get out of, however much I desire it, if I am 
 to give in my adhesion to these views. I see a 
 division between Church and State, which makes 
 all attempts at settling the relation between them a 
 mockery in the end. And, if I have understood 
 aright, and followed the explanation correctly, I 
 am to believe that this discordant concord you 
 must forgive the paradoxical expression which really 
 expresses my feelings forms part of the divine 
 scheme of the universe, and finds its appointed place 
 there." 
 
 The old man smiled : " You are always finding 
 contradictions," he said, "and you are right. But 
 you are wrong in thinking that they are capable 
 only of apparent- reconciliation. Let us go back, 
 once more, from Christian society to the individual 
 Christian. Do you not find in each soul these con- 
 tradictions, which the great Apostle so strikingly 
 describes, when he speaks of finding two laws ruling 
 within him ? But, you know too, where the Apostle 
 looks for the explanation of this warfare between 
 the natural and the regenerate man. It is in the life 
 of grace that he seeks and finds the means of recon- 
 ciling the law of the flesh and the law of the spirit.
 
 140 Burning Questions. 
 
 "It is the same with the contradiction of the 
 Church and State, which undeniably, to use a striking 
 expression of the Fathers of the Church, exists in the 
 Divine economy of the universe. Doubtless the same 
 omnipotence which once created man in the peace 
 of Paradise could have made the new birth of fallen 
 humanity a work of paradise also. But it pleased 
 the Eternal Wisdom to choose another way, one 
 apparently lower, but in reality more glorious ; so 
 that the Church is not afraid, with that great Doctor 
 in his triumphal Easter Chaunt, to call the fault 
 'happy,' which brought us such a redemption 
 through such a Redeemer. 'Fight!' is the watch- 
 word on this way. Peace is reserved for the here- 
 after ; the via sacra leading to the consummation of 
 victory is the royal road of the Cross. Fallen 
 wounded nature does not recover suddenly; her 
 healing is not the work of a moment. Grace is 
 to strive with her in order to gain greater merit 
 in this holy war : step by step she is to conquer 
 nature, and in the victory to make her glorious 
 almost as it were, against her will. And, therefore, 
 in this divine scheme of the economy of salvation, 
 nature retains its full right for the very reason that 
 upon it the life of grace, like the plant in the soil, 
 is gradually to be developed as upon its indispensably 
 necessary foundation. 
 
 " Hence, too, the continued existence on earth, of 
 human society in the natural order, is in accordance
 
 Burning Questions. 141 
 
 with the will and providence of God, although that 
 higher society which belongs to the supernatural 
 order is also founded in this world as a directly 
 divine ordinance. Church and State are both perfect 
 societies, both have a divine, though a different kind 
 of right of institution, both are independent in their 
 own spheres. The explanation of the contradictions 
 which necessarily exist between Church and State, 
 as they do in individuals between nature and grace, 
 must be sought in a higher unity, the perfection of 
 which, indeed, belongs to eternity, but which never- 
 theless may and must be begun in time; and this 
 for the simple reason, so often misapprehended or 
 forgotten, that the lower ends of human society must 
 be subordinated to the higher, and consequently to 
 the last and highest end of humanity ; and so a har- 
 monious working of Church and State is effected 
 because both finally pursue one and the same, and 
 that the highest supernatural end, the Church directly, 
 but indirectly also, the Christian state."
 
 142 Burning Questions. 
 
 VI. 
 
 NEXT day our party made an excursion to the 
 romantic ruins of a castle buried in the wood above 
 the villa. On the way, which led through thickets 
 of noble chestnuts, an animated conversation was 
 carried on, which turned, naturally, on the questions 
 which had been discussed in the verandah, the evening 
 before; and although some doubts were raised and 
 argued with a tolerable degree of pertinacity, still 
 the whole tone of the conversation showed, that there 
 was a general agreement as to the main points, and 
 that objections were started more for the sake of 
 gaining fuller information, than of calling in question 
 the principles themselves. 
 
 When, at length, the shady spot was reached 
 where high walls inclosed the court of the old castle, 
 and the party were preparing to sit down to the meal 
 which was awaiting them, a little adventure occurred, 
 which somewhat disturbed and delayed their pro- 
 ceedings. A cry of distress, apparently close at hand, 
 was heard, and everybody hastened in the direction 
 from which it came. From the broken rampart of 
 the outer wall they saw in the path leading through 
 the wood, rather a strange sight. A poor woman
 
 Burning Questions. 143 
 
 was on her knees, wringing her hands, two children 
 crying, and clinging for protection to her coarse 
 dress, while a third was wailing in the open basket 
 which lay beside her. A man, armed with a rifle 
 and cutlass, was dragging her by the shining black 
 hair, which fell in loosened masses over her shoulders. 
 
 " Mercy ! mercy ! " she sobbed. 
 
 But the keeper, as he evidently was, pointed 
 angrily to the bundle of dry sticks which he had 
 taken from her, and lifted his hand to strike the 
 woman. The children screamed as their mother fell 
 under the man's blows, and when she got up, and 
 tried to escape from her tormentor, he proceeded to 
 draw his cutlass. Worse would certainly have 
 happened, if the two Zouaves had ,not rushed out 
 of the castle-door, and hindered the violent minister 
 of justice from using his arms so unlawfully. The 
 Dutchman payed the fine said to have been incurred 
 by her breach of the forest laws ; the woman, who 
 was a widow, thanked him gratefully, and went away 
 with the still sobbing children, and the keeper, whom 
 the two gentlemen lectured seriously, retired with 
 sulky looks. 
 
 Everybody laughed when one of the Zouaves 
 related, that on being reproached with drawing his 
 sword on a defenceless woman, the keeper had 
 answered that she was a dangerous person. 
 
 "Sharp justice, anyhow," said the Swiss, "such as I 
 should hardly have expected in these parts."
 
 144 Burning Questions. 
 
 " That swaggering fellow in his forester's toggery," 
 remarked the astronomer, " is either tyrant or 
 coward." 
 
 "Both, I should say," said the Frenchman, who 
 made a charming host, and was preparing to carve 
 the cold vension. 
 
 There was another laugh, and then the old man, 
 who was sitting under an oak at one end of the table, 
 said : " There is certainly a comical side to the 
 circumstance ; but I must confess that I saw an 
 allegory in this scene of violence. The words which 
 we have just heard from that servant of justice, only 
 deepen the allegorical impression. The strong man 
 quite able to cope with two at a time, and armed, 
 besides, with sabre and rifle, powder and ball, 
 considered the weak woman so dangerous, that he 
 was going to draw his sword on her." 
 
 " How do you apply it ? " asked the German 
 diplomatist. 
 
 " I was thinking how people talk of the danger 
 the State is in from the Church," said the old man, 
 smiling. 
 
 "You think," exclaimed the Swiss lawyer, rather 
 warmly, "that the State, because it bears the sword 
 and possesses external power, has no reason to fear 
 the Church." 
 
 " That is what I think." 
 
 "But remember the Church's spiritual power. 
 You, at least, have no desire to dispute or diminish 
 that."
 
 Burning Questions. 145 
 
 " Certainly not," was the answer. " The Church's 
 spiritual power is great, thank God for it. But what 
 part of her spiritual and supernatual power does the 
 State fear ? Not, surely, the power of administering 
 the sacraments ? nor of consecrating and blessing ? 
 Nor the sword of the Divine Word in the pulpit ? " 
 
 "Well, I certainly thought," said the doctor of 
 laws, " that the pulpit might attract the attention of 
 the State by its sermons." 
 
 "Well and good," answered the Englishman. 
 "But surely it is a proof of great weakness in the 
 State, not to say more, if in the present age, the 
 nineteenth century, the era of intellectual liberty, it 
 is afraid of the free word which has, besides, the 
 consecration of religion, and the mission from on 
 high." 
 
 " But it may be abused ! " exclaimed the lawyer. 
 
 " Certainly," returned the nobleman, " for there 
 are exceptions to every rule. But you will allow 
 that in this case, they are rare. I am speaking of 
 the rule, however ; and as I said, I take it to be a 
 bad symptom of the time, when it proclaims liberty 
 everywhere, and proscribes liberty of speech in the 
 pulpit. Have we not incessantly before our eyes in 
 newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, and voluminous 
 works, talk about the battle, which is now being 
 fought for the highest interests of humanity on the 
 field of intellect, free from the censures of spiritual 
 power, safe from the fear of bastilles, and secure from 
 K
 
 146 Burning Questions. 
 
 the prisons and the stake of the Inquisition ? Are 
 not our ears deafened by the insane shouts which are 
 raised for the inevitable triumph which must be won 
 by the free investigations of science and the un- 
 trammelled interchange of thought, for the cause of 
 truth, and all the other great ideas which inspire 
 the human heart? And then, after all, this age, 
 which is supposed to be so great and proud, is in 
 a regular fright when it hears a Capuchin preach ; 
 and calls citizens and police to the rescue at the mere 
 sight of a Jesuit in the pulpit." 
 
 "Liberal phrases," said the Roman, "are mere 
 hypocrisy. We Italians have thoroughly learnt 
 that." 
 
 " And have not we Spaniards ? " sighed the sailor. 
 
 " And we Swiss ? " cried the father of the lawyer. 
 
 The German Zouave laughed : " Come, gentlemen, 
 if we are to begin complaining on this subject, I can- 
 not be silent. I am a Westphalian, one of Malinck- 
 rodt's countrymen." 
 
 " Don't let us go on with such a list," put in the 
 Vicomte. " I think that God's providence, which is 
 so audaciously challenged, will draw up the full in- 
 dictment at the right time, and give sentence let us 
 hope mercifully." 
 
 "When people speak of the Church as dangerous 
 to the State," resumed the old man, "I think that 
 they can only do so, seriously and honestly, from the 
 point of view from which the Church is represented
 
 Burning Questions. 147 
 
 as a perfect Society. She maintains, as we know, 
 that she forms a Society as perfect as, nay, in some 
 degree, more perfect than the civil society, the State : 
 she claims her full independence in the matter of her 
 legislation and government : she demands the subor- 
 dination to herself of civil society, so far as is required 
 by the ultimate and highest end of humanity, which 
 is the supernatural end. Such a Society, existing, 
 moreover, in its midst, and consisting of its own 
 citizens, cannot, certainly, be regarded by the State 
 with indifference, or as not concerned with itself. But 
 still, I ask, what danger that is real and not imagi- 
 nary, can the State have to fear from such a Society ? 
 Has this Church, who, from the time of her foun- 
 dation, has once for all disclaimed the sword of 
 violence, any external means at her command for 
 maintaining her independence against the State, if 
 the latter refuses it ? Can she employ any means 
 to rid herself of her oppressors, and to secure her 
 undisturbed existence ? The answer is given by the 
 early times of persecution, and as clearly by our own 
 day, when it almost seems as though the Church would 
 again have to hide in the Catacombs, and flee into the 
 desert. And yet it is true that there is one danger 
 which threatens the State that sets itself in hostile 
 opposition to the Church the danger of being con- 
 quered by her on a different field from that of legis- 
 lation, or police administration, or penal sentence 
 the danger of being brought to the Christian idea
 
 148 Burning Questions. 
 
 of its existence, the danger of becoming, or again 
 becoming, a Christian State. Then, indeed, it must 
 abate some of its fancied dignity, and be as much 
 prepared to be no longer, according to Hegel's blas- 
 phemous or insane system, the 'present God,' as the 
 old Roman emperors were obliged to abandon the 
 part of Pontifex Maximus, when they bent the knee 
 before the Cross. Only when the State chooses to 
 become CJiristian does it give up its pretended omni- 
 potence. But it must so choose : the Church neither 
 can nor will force it to do so. But when once it is 
 really the Christian State, not as in recent times 
 only nominally so, it finds its highest honour and 
 sublimest task in serving the Church faithfully, and 
 when necessary using the temporal sword for the 
 kingdom of Christ, and I think that Charlemagne, 
 Otho the Great, Edward of England ," " Louis 
 of France," added the Vicomte, " and all the 
 other great Christian princes. I think they all 
 afford a proof that the really Christian State is a 
 grand spectacle which commands respect, and that, 
 even when regarded from a purely temporal point 
 of view, the Christian policy of a sovereign is not 
 only by far the noblest, but also the most beneficial 
 and glorious." 
 
 " And now," continued the old gentleman, " if we 
 apply these principles to the present time, we shall 
 see that the State plays a curious part when it speaks 
 of its being in danger from the Church. So long as
 
 Burning Questions. 149 
 
 it refuses to return to the principles of Christianity, 
 so long as it refuses to become Christian, it is im- 
 possible to see how the Church can force it to do 
 so against its will, or to recognize her rights, which, 
 indeed, she maintains to be of directly divine origin, 
 but for the exercise of which in the world she pos- 
 sesses no compulsory means, while she is opposed 
 to a power which does not allow her claims." 
 
 " Therefore " so the old man concluded " I was 
 forcibly reminded of the Catholic Church when I saw 
 the well-armed official threatening with his drawn 
 sword a poor widow, who was supplying her needs 
 with a faggot of brushwood, and then making use of 
 the expression that the helpless creature was a dan- 
 gerous individual." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said the Spaniard. "A State con- 
 tinually talking of the Church being dangerous to 
 it, is something like the Grand Turk declaring the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople an offender because he 
 wished to baptize him." 
 
 " It is the fable of the wolf and the lamb," said 
 the old Swiss. 
 
 " You are going too far," exclaimed his son. " The 
 Catholic Church is a spiritual power, the first power 
 in the world. She fights and struggles does she not 
 call herself the Militant Church ? not with Krupp 
 cannon and breechloaders, not with police measures 
 and Draconic laws, but with the sword of the word, 
 which is all the mightier because it strikes the heart
 
 150 'Burning Questions. 
 
 and penetrates the conscience. Which of us would 
 deny that the Church knows how to stir up men's 
 minds, to direct the sentiments of the people, and to 
 increase sympathies or antipathies towards existing 
 conditions to a very important extent ? " 
 
 " And at last, no doubt," exclaimed the Vicomte, 
 to erect barricades, plant the tricolor, and proclaim 
 the sovereignty of the people by means of a ple- 
 biscite" 
 
 " You see," said the Englishman, with some seve- 
 rity, " our young legal friend from the confederate El 
 Dorado seems to confuse the Catholic Church, the 
 Bride of our Lord, who is without spot or wrinkle, 
 the Mistress of the people, to whom she has always 
 taught the truths of salvation, with a political club 
 or a Freemason society at all events, to place her on 
 the same level with them." 
 
 " No, certainly not ; " said the lawyer, excusing 
 himself. " Still, we cannot deny that the Church is 
 a power which is able to carry on political agitation." 
 
 " Catholics in this or that State may do so ; and 
 if they do it honourably, and within the limits of the 
 law, no unprejudiced person will dispute their right 
 in the matter. But when the liberty or, it may be, 
 the very existence of the Church is at stake in any 
 country, then the Catholics there are actually bound 
 to concern themselves with politics affecting Catho- 
 licity, and as citizens to defend their most valued 
 possession, their religion and its rights. But the
 
 Burning Questions. 151 
 
 Church herself has a higher mission than that of 
 defending or opposing a purely political question; 
 she only agitates for one thing the salvation of 
 souls." 
 
 " She desires to make all the world Catholic," 
 exclaimed the young Swiss ; " and a great part of 
 that world resists, and tries to get rid of the dan- 
 gerous proselytizer." 
 
 " Now," said the Englishman, " we have got back 
 again to the same point The Church, conformably 
 with the charge of her Divine Master, aims at this 
 end with peaceful, spiritual means. And is there 
 of course I' am only speaking to honest and sensible 
 persons, and not concerning myself with folly and 
 perversity is there, I ask, a more peaceful means 
 than the apostolic voyage of the missioner, who crosses 
 the ocean, with his breviary under his arm, to land 
 on some shore where he may begin the work of con- 
 version, first by learning the language of his flock 
 a flock which does not, as yet, recognize its pastor ? 
 Are there more peaceful weapons for winning the 
 triumph of Catholic truth than the foundation of a 
 religious house, the inmates of which gain men's 
 hearts by the edifying example of their lives ; the 
 foundation of hospitals where Christian charity rules 
 with the love that 'beareth all things, endureth all 
 things, seeketh not her own;' or the opening of 
 schools where mental culture goes hand in hand with 
 careful religious training? But the learned pro-
 
 152 Burning Questions. 
 
 fessors of our day, especially those belonging to the 
 German school of ' free science/ proclaim from their 
 chairs the intellectual war which this century is said 
 to have gloriously begun, and which it is to end 
 victoriously with intellectual weapons. No sooner, 
 however, does the adversary appear in the lists ready 
 for battle on the intellectual field of science and 
 inquiry, with visor up, and boldly blazoned shield, 
 than the police and the criminal law are called to 
 the rescue, to put a stop to this intellectual war. 
 What despicable conduct ! " 
 
 " That is the way of the world," said the astro- 
 nomer. " Stat pro ratione voluntas. And when the 
 will of man is conscious of being backed by power, 
 which is more rapid in its proceedings than convic- 
 tion, it eagerly grasps that sovereign remedy, which 
 is only able to produce one kind of rest in the mind 
 what the German poet calls ' the rest of the church- 
 yard.' " 
 
 "Die Ruhe des Kirchhofes ! That is an expression 
 of that living portrait of Liberalism in its most ideal 
 bloom Marquis von Posa, in Don Karlos" said the 
 German diplomatist. 
 
 " If one can talk of ideals in connection with such 
 a poisonous plant," added the old gentleman. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " returned the German gravely, 
 " how bitterly are we now paying for every moment 
 when we raved about that ideal, every grain of in- 
 cense that we thought ourselves bound to burn to 
 that idol ! "
 
 Burning Questions. 153 
 
 The Breton now begged the company to remember 
 the old proverb which teaches that meat and drink 
 are the groundwork of life, and consequently of philo- 
 sophy too. They did not need a second reminder, 
 and soon made up for lost time. 
 
 There was plenty of lively talk and humour to 
 season the luncheon in the ruins. It was particularly 
 amusing to watch the way in which the professor 
 of astronomy pursued his designs upon the son of 
 the United States, merrily declaring that it was his 
 vocation to destroy every trace of Liberal varnish in 
 him by the use of powerful chemicals. 
 
 " I know that I am fond of opposing," said the 
 American ; " opposition produces movement and ex- 
 citement, without which life is flat and stale." 
 
 " So say the great opposing forces in nature in 
 the universe " returned the professor. " The comet, 
 now, that vagabond of the sky, who is fond of oppo- 
 sing the heavenly bodies in their orbits, dashes against 
 some quiet, easy-going, citizen-like planet, and might 
 at least, so I think create a tremendous confusion, 
 under certain circumstances. For I am not one of 
 those astronomers who think that, with the experience 
 of a few hundreds or even thousands of years, they 
 have the whole universe at their fingers' ends. Then 
 fire opposes police precautions in chimneys, furnaces, 
 and steam-engines, and Chicago is burnt down ! " 
 
 " Ah, well ! even a conflagration has its advan- 
 tages," observed the American. " You know I was
 
 154 Burning Questions. 
 
 born at Chicago, which has risen like a phoenix from 
 her ashes." 
 
 " On the one hand," he continued, " my opposition 
 is not so bad as our friend the astronomer tries to 
 make out. In the first place, I am not a wandering 
 individual on earth, who does not know what he 
 belongs to ; but I am, above all things, a true and 
 faithful child of the one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic 
 Church ; and our Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ, 
 has no more obedient son in the world than I am. 
 But on the other hand, it seems to me that the 
 gentlemen of the extreme Right for without con- 
 sulting me much they have placed me on the extreme 
 Left are taking the difficulties of establishing a right 
 relation between Church and State rather easily. I 
 grant their principles freely and frankly." 
 
 "The chemicals have taken effect!" cried the 
 astronomer. 
 
 "And do you not think that I am heartily thank- 
 ful to you and all my other friends here for it ? But 
 of what use are principles to me, if they fail me when 
 it comes to practice ? And this, I confess, seems to 
 me to be the case in our question." 
 
 "And was it not a practical question in the middle 
 ages ? " asked the Englishman. " Or do you mean 
 to assert that the then existing order of things was 
 an unsubstantial one, without vitality or power of 
 development ? " 
 
 " By no means ! " exclaimed the American. " I
 
 Burning Questions. 155 
 
 consider the way people talk about the middle ages 
 to be the greatest humbug, and that only uneducated 
 and foolish persons can possibly be taken in by all 
 the fables, exaggerations, and slanders that are in 
 circulation about those times. Still you cannot deny 
 that the middle ages are past. Modern times have 
 created new circumstances, requiring a new order of 
 things." 
 
 "No!" cried the Spaniard; "not a new, but a 
 renewed order." 
 
 " Quite right," added the nobleman. " Our 
 American friend's statement has a glittering show 
 of truth, which has deceived many people, but in 
 reality it is untenable." 
 
 " How so ? " asked the American. 
 
 " You speak of new circumstances requiring a new 
 order," was the reply : " but these altered circum- 
 stances of the times, which I readily grant, and for 
 which I, too, demand corresponding alterations, in no 
 way affect the essential elements of the two great 
 corporate bodies, whose mutual relations form the 
 subject of our inquiry. The Church has remained 
 essentially the same, and so has the State. That is 
 obvious to us, of itself, so far as regards the Church. 
 As, to the State, we have by this time got so far free 
 from the errors and prejudices of modern times as to 
 perceive, that although the State may indeed be the 
 subject of philosophical investigations, it is not, for 
 that reason, to be made a shifting phantasm, accord-
 
 156 Burning Questions. 
 
 ing to the choice and caprice of this or that thinker, 
 but that it received its proper nature and office, which 
 are not subject to alteration, from the Creator Him- 
 self. 
 
 " Substantially, therefore, nothing has been altered 
 in the idea of Church and State. Nothing can be 
 altered in this, unless we would alter the order of 
 things appointed by God. It is only in the notions 
 of men respecting them that an alteration, a distortion, 
 a falsification has taken place. Consequently, there 
 can be no question of the establishment of a new 
 relation between Church and State, but the old re- 
 lation, after it has been again made clear, is simply 
 to be renewed ; and here we readily grant that dif- 
 ferent times have different customs. But we by no 
 means grant that the relation of Church and State is 
 altered as to principles, or that it can be substantially 
 established otherwise than as it has been once for all 
 ordained by God's appointment in the nature and the 
 natural mutual position of the two great bodies. 
 
 "We are not, therefore, concerned with the State 
 according to Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel ; nor with 
 the Church in the Lutheran, Calvinistic, or Anglican 
 sense, or after the Gallican, Jansenistic, Febronian, or 
 Josephist pattern. 
 
 " Our question is simply this : How does the 
 Church, which Jesus Christ founded, stand in relation 
 to the State which recognizes itself as ordained by 
 God, and that Church as a divine institution ? And
 
 Burning Questions. 157 
 
 here it is not very difficult to find the principles of 
 practical union between Church and State, when once 
 we have got rid of theoretical mistakes and have re- 
 instated truth in her rights." 
 
 " That is so, certainly," said the old man. " If, 
 when the question of the practical form of the rela- 
 tion between Church and State is started, people set 
 out with a one-sided or, in the end, an entirely per- 
 verted idea of these two divine institutions on earth* 
 they get lost in the most extravagant theories, such, 
 for instance, as the last centuries have produced in 
 succession, on the subject of the notorious rdgale of 
 the State over the Church : or again, we hear Pro- 
 fessor Rothe, styled after his death the ' Saint ' of the 
 Protestant Association, stating this proposition that, 
 ' even in the kingdom of God, the State occupies a 
 higher place than the Church.' And those do not 
 succeed much better who, as Catholics, have perhaps 
 the right view of the Church, but not of the State. 
 From this stand-point, too, it is impossible to avoid 
 mistakes, one of which is the parent of countless 
 others. For instance, it is very prejudicial, indeed 
 utterly confusing, in speaking of civil society, not to 
 distinguish the Christian from the non-Christian. But 
 when we do so the task is greatly simplified. As we 
 have already seen, the Church has no relation what- 
 ever to the pagan or non-Christian State, whether 
 ancient or modern, which is in a hostile attitude to- 
 wards her, except that of, in the first place, converting
 
 158 Burning Questions. 
 
 it. And it is hardly worth while to examine very 
 closely the points of contact between the Church and 
 the so-called ' indifferent ' State. For such a State is 
 either a merely transient phenomenon, which ends in 
 conversion to Christianity, or it is a mild way of 
 describing a State at enmity with the Church, which 
 rejects the Christian faith, and sooner or later will 
 persecute it. 
 
 " If, therefore, we desire to draw the line clearly 
 between the spheres of Church and State, we must 
 first of all contemplate, on the one side the Catholic 
 Church, and on the other the Christian State ; that 
 is, the civil society of which at least the prepondera- 
 ting majority professes the Catholic faith, and which 
 takes, as the highest rule of its legislation and govern- 
 ment, the principles of Christianity as taught by the 
 Church. 
 
 " This being premised, if we now inquire into the 
 true relations which follow between Church and State, 
 it will be easy to combine them in their principles. 
 
 "The Christian State will acknowledge the Church 
 to be what she teaches that she is by the commission 
 of her Divine Founder and the guidance of the Holy 
 Spirit. It will recognize in her that perfect Society 
 which Christ Himself has founded as His kingdom 
 on earth, and furnished with full legislative and ad- 
 ministrative powers, which are self-subsistent and 
 entirely independent of every temporal authority. 
 The State will, further, reverence in the Church not
 
 Burning Questions. 159 
 
 only the authority of the priesthood, but the infalli- 
 bility of her teaching office ; it will see in her not 
 only the dispenser of the true Sacraments, but the 
 guardian of revealed, unerring truth ; not only will 
 it perceive that the whole of civil life is hallowed and, 
 as it were, transfigured by her blessing and consecra- 
 ting hand, but it will make it a guiding principle that 
 the moral truths which the Church declares, must be 
 the inviolable rule for the legislation and government 
 of the State. 
 
 " The Christian State will not rule over the Church 
 and set itself up as her governor ; but, recognizing its 
 end to be subordinate to hers, it will make itself sub- 
 ordinate to her, as the body is to the soul, as the man 
 who believes, and has become a Christian, bends his 
 nature under the gentle yoke of the Christian law. 
 
 "Above all, the State, when it has become really 
 Christian, will refuse to meddle in purely religious 
 matters. It will do so willingly and unreservedly. 
 For the Christian State will fully recognize what 
 Plato even felt, that the guiding and ordering of reli- 
 gion is a task far beyond its sphere, and that the 
 way in which the heathen State regulated worship 
 and religion can only, at best, be regarded as an 
 unavoidable necessity." 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed the young Swiss lawyer : 
 " do you refuse all right to the State to concern itself 
 with the affairs of religion ? " 
 
 " Yes ; because it is not the infallible subject and
 
 160 Burning Questions. 
 
 expounder of truth, and because religion contains 
 within itself a voluntary interior act of acknowledge- 
 ment of God and of submission to Him, which the 
 State has no power to impose upon the citizen nor 
 to exact from him." 
 
 " Of course," continued the lawyer, " I do not con- 
 template the Jewish people and religion ; for I know 
 and agree with what you would reply." 
 
 "You mean, that, in their case, it was not the 
 State, the civil society, that regulated religion, but 
 a higher authority, that of God Himself, as in the 
 Church ?" 
 
 " Yes," returned the young Swiss : " but what do 
 you say to the worship, the sacrifices, and the priest- 
 hoods of antiquity ; for instance, among the Greeks 
 and Romans? You will surely grant that the Roman 
 State, especially may be said to have been the perfect 
 model of a civil society according to the natural order 
 of things ? " 
 
 " Yes, as regards the bright side of the old Roman 
 Commonwealth. And it is precisely in Rome that 
 I find something very suitable for the illustration and 
 explanation of my statement. If you look at this 
 closely, you will find that you must abandon the 
 argument which you thought you found in the consti- 
 tution of the Roman State." 
 
 "And what is it ?" asked the doctor of laws. 
 
 " In the old days of Rome, the priestly office was 
 combined with the kingly dignity. When royalty was
 
 Burning Questions. 161 
 
 abolished, the families which had become masters 
 framed the Republic ; but they left inviolate the 
 system of religion, the priesthood and sacrifices. 
 Nay, so great was their reverence for the traditional 
 order of worship, that they actually tolerated a 
 ' King,' that name so detested by them, in the midst 
 of their Republic. For it was to the ' King of Sacri- 
 fice ' that they committed those priestly acts of their 
 former princes, with which they did not consider 
 themselves authorized to meddle. Evidently the 
 ancient Romans were of Plato's opinion : that the 
 ordering of the affairs and exercises of religion is not 
 the business of men." 
 
 "But then, there were always the sacerdotal 
 functions of the head of the family in the patriarchal 
 State ! " once more objected the Swiss. 
 
 " I do not deny them," said the old man : " I 
 accept them as a historical fact. But I will give you 
 my answer out of Taparelli's Law of Nature, a 
 modern work of legal philosophy, the study of which 
 I strongly recommend to you. 
 
 " Taparelli supports, and I think successfully, the 
 proposition that there exists no power in civil society 
 to establish a positive religion, although it may be 
 able negatively to maintain certain religious truths, 
 which are indispensably necessary to its nature and 
 to social order. He also observes, that the positive 
 religion, which is found in certain races and nations 
 in the first ages of the world before Moses, is a clear 
 
 L
 
 1 62 Burning Questions. 
 
 proof of a primitive revelation ; a worship either 
 voluntarily accepted by individual nations, or im- 
 posed on them by the authority of their rulers. 
 And the same may hold good of all heathen states 
 of a later period. 
 
 " Human society according to the natural order, 
 the heathen State, therefore, feels the need of seeing 
 the affairs of religion regulated ; and so, forced by 
 necessity, and guided by a dim perception, it ordains 
 worship of God or idols, its sacrifices, temples, 
 festivals, and priesthoods. Hence the saying of 
 Plutarch, that ' it is easier to build a city without 
 soil than without gods.' But in so doing, this State 
 anticipates a higher order of things, which it would 
 fain realize before the time. It copies as well as it 
 can an ideal which dimly floats before it the Church 
 in which one day the royal priesthood is to bear 
 sway. Regarded in this manner, there is something 
 affecting in the religious aspect of the heathen State, 
 for it thus expresses, to a certain extent, the antici- 
 pation of a more perfect condition, and the longing 
 to see its fulfilment. Even the Roman Emperor, 
 who, at the same time, assumes the office of suinmus 
 pontifex, has, if I may venture to say so, something 
 grand about him, so far as we look at him from this 
 point of view. And on the contrary, a repulsive 
 impression cannot but be produced by the pheno- 
 menon that after the Christian Faith has reared the 
 nations for centuries, and after the Church has filled
 
 Burning Questions. 163 
 
 the world with her majestic action, men have dared 
 to set up, with a false appearance of science the 
 system of the ' Caesaro-Papacy.' It is the boast of 
 such men as we have already named, Hugo Grotius, 
 Pufendorf, Bohmer, Heineccius, and all the tribe of 
 modern politicians that they have not shrunk from 
 more or less lending the aid of their learning to the 
 futherance of the detestable principle : Ctijus est regio, 
 illius cst religio." 
 
 "Why, Protestants themselves," said the German 
 diplomatist, "got their name from protesting against 
 being deprived of the jus reformandi" 
 
 " Is it possible ? " exclaimed the Breton Vicomte. 
 
 " I see, my dear Vicomte," the German continued 
 with a smile, " that you are one of those who think 
 that the name of Protestant arose from the courageous 
 protest of the Lutheran Imperial States against the 
 restriction of their personal liberty of conscience, 
 against Papal usurpation, ungodly priestcraft. You 
 may comfort yourself with the thought that among 
 us Germans there are many very cultivated and well- 
 informed persons, who go on believing the same 
 story." 
 
 " But how was it ? " broke in the Spanish sailor in 
 perfect bewilderment. " I never read any different 
 accounts, that I remember." 
 
 " That is very excusable in you, in the Pyrenean 
 peninsula, a thousand miles from the scene of these 
 events. But I must say that so outrageous a blunder
 
 164 Burning Questions. 
 
 puts the state of historical information in Germany in 
 an unfavourable light." 
 
 " But what is the blunder ? " asked the Roman, in 
 equal astonishment. 
 
 " Well, that about the origin of the word ' Pro- 
 testant," returned the German. " It was in the year 
 1529, at the Imperial Diet at Spires, that the 
 seemingly self-evident proposition was laid down, 
 that the Lutheran princes and free-towns of the 
 Empire were not to be allowed to introduce the 
 so-called Reformation into their dominions, and to 
 compel their subjects and citizens to accept the new 
 doctrines. Against this loyal resolution of the 
 Imperial Diet in defence of individual liberty of 
 conscience, the States which were attached to the 
 Lutheran tenets protested ; and hence they were 
 called ' Protestants.' " 
 
 " There ! " cried the old Swiss, "just look at that!" 
 
 "And so," continued the diplomate, "they are 
 called Protestants because they remonstrated against 
 being interfered with in the exercise of that fearfully 
 tyrannical principle : Cnjus est regio, illius est religio" 
 
 " So, we thought, as many still think, " said the 
 Spaniard, shaking his head, "that they protested 
 against violence being done to their own individual 
 conscience ; and they really protested against their 
 subjects enjoying the freedom of theirs." 
 
 " But such things ought to be made known," 
 said the old Swiss in high indignation : " they should
 
 Burning Questions. 165 
 
 be spread among the people. That is the way to 
 clear matters up." 
 
 The German laughed. " How often," he said, 
 " have historical facts of this sort been cleared up for 
 us in Germany ! But the old distortions of them 
 always get quietly served up again, and believed. 
 I once had an odd adventure in this line, myself. 
 I had just been reading the first work that came out 
 on the true origin of the burning of Magdeburg in 
 the Thirty Years' War. Since then the subject has 
 been more circumstantially elucidated; but at the time 
 this first investigation made a good deal of sensation. 
 As I was taking the book triumphantly to show it 
 to an acquaintance, I met a well-to-do old bureau- 
 crat, who undoubtedly was an educated man after a 
 fashion. He saw the book in my hand, and inquired 
 what it was about. I told him. 'Read Schiller's 
 Thirty Years' War,' was his answer, 'there is no 
 contradicting Schiller!' And he walked off without 
 so much as expressing a wish to glance at my book. 
 That was, and is, the state of what is called educa- 
 tion at least with us Germans. Since then, Janssen 
 has published his excellent work, Schiller as an 
 historian. But there are still plenty of such fine 
 specimens of German education as my old bureau- 
 crat. But I have to apologize for such a long 
 digression." 
 
 " An instructive one, though," said the old gentle- 
 man. Then after a short pause he continued : " But
 
 1 66 Burning Questions. 
 
 as to our subject of discussion, I do not think I shall 
 be met with any serious contradiction now, when I 
 assert that the Christian State must be glad to do its 
 duty in abstaining from all interference with the 
 affairs of religion, unless I add this to avoid 
 misapprehension the ecclesiastical power has con- 
 ferred on the temporal a certain right to do so, by 
 way of favour or privilege. 
 
 "Accordingly, the legislation of the Church will 
 be recognized by the State. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction 
 and discipline will, in their full extent, remain invio- 
 late in the hand of the spiritual power, and the 
 exercise of spiritual authority will be free and un- 
 fettered, not only in the tribunal of conscience, but 
 also in the exterior tribunal. The Church will rule 
 independently in her own domain, and for that pur- 
 pose in general, and for all legitimate corporations 
 contained in her, will be invested with the legal rights 
 of a moral person." 
 
 " A vast privilege ! " said the American. 
 
 " Pardon me," remarked the Englishman. " It 
 may be questioned whether, according to the prin- 
 ciples of law and nature, every association and society 
 in the State has not, of itself, the right of existence, 
 always supposing that such a society is not prejudicial 
 to the community. Why should that right be refused 
 to the Church, who bears in herself, in her end, and 
 in her order, the guarantee of loyalty ? " 
 
 " And in former times this was so," added the
 
 Burning Questions. 167 
 
 German diplomatist. "Every ecclesiastical institution, 
 corporation, or foundation, every pia causa, when once 
 recognized and sanctioned by the Church, had the 
 character of a moral person." 
 
 " And how can that be considered exorbitant in 
 days like ours," said the Frenchman, "when every 
 shareholding company is free to establish itself, and 
 in the end to be loaded with privileges and secu- 
 rities ? " 
 
 " There are two instances," continued the old man, 
 " in which the Christian State will leave the Church 
 full liberty : both concern family life. The State 
 will entirely leave to the Church the regulation and 
 maintenance of the rights of the sacrament of Chris- 
 tian marriage ; it will also equally recognize the 
 inalienable rights which the Church has over educa- 
 tion, and not attempt in any way to curtail them." 
 
 " Do we then really refuse the State all right over 
 education ? " asked the doctor of laws. 
 
 " Ask me first," replied the old man, " whether I 
 admit that it is in any way the duty of the State to 
 concern itself with the education of its members. 
 And I confess to you that I do, not absolutely, but in 
 some respects, acknowledge this duty of the State. 
 For if I hold the mental and moral formation of man 
 for his ultimate and highest end to be the indirect 
 understand, not the direct aim of the State, I must 
 also conceive the State to be, in a certain way, bound 
 to concern itself with education.
 
 1 68 Burning Questions. 
 
 " But this duty can, clearly, extend no further 
 than the means which are at the command of the 
 State. And it would be easy to prove, even theoreti- 
 cally, that it is totally impossible for the State to 
 carry out its supposed right over schools, its school 
 monopoly, to the extent which it would fain claim in 
 our time. And even if there should be found 
 though I hardly think it is so some breaks in the 
 theoretical proof, the progress of school reform, such, 
 for instance, as we witness in Germany, will leave 
 nothing to be desired in the way of proof. Only we 
 must have patience, and wait to learn a thing which 
 is gradually becoming easier to us. 
 
 " The management of the work of instruction so 
 magniloquently described in the programme of the 
 modern State as the universal, solid, many-sided 
 education of the people ; education in the middle 
 schools, in art, science, trade, and handicraft ; educa- 
 tion in the universities, in every department of philo- 
 sophical, theoretical, and practical studies ; the 
 management of this part of the work by the State is, 
 in my opinion, an impossibility. If it does not fail 
 for want of the teaching power necessary for its 
 innumerable schools, the scheme will, sooner or later, 
 break down on the financial question. For even 
 supposing it had ready to hand the intellectual power 
 to keep up the full number of its endless list of 
 national schoolmasters, teachers of studies, professors, 
 or whatever else the legions of them are called ; it is
 
 Burning Questions. 169 
 
 impossible for it to furnish the funds for supporting 
 them, and for ensuring a succession of instructors. 
 That is only to be done by an institution which has 
 wages of another sort to offer to its teachers that is 
 only to be done by the Church. 
 
 "The ancients, always practical, seenvto have 
 been guided by the right feeling, and to have exer- 
 cised moderation in their educational practice. For 
 although, as to their philosophical systems, the Greek 
 philosophers, with Plato at their head, gave to the 
 absolute State the unlimited power of action over its 
 members, the States of antiquity, with some excep- 
 tions, such as Sparta, were prudent and dispassionate 
 enough to reckon Plato's Republic in the number of 
 barren theories. 
 
 " Then comes a further consideration, to which 
 we have often had to return, and which here, too, has 
 much weight. The State, if we take the right view of 
 it with the great Christian philosophers, exists for its 
 individual members, not they for the State. It has 
 no further office than to facilitate for each one in 
 its society the attainment of his end by the means 
 afforded by that society. Its work, therefore, can only 
 be subsidiary and auxiliary. By maintaining the 
 contrary, we must, if we draw our conclusions logi- 
 cally, fall into absurdities. And so it is in matters of 
 education, in which, above all, family rights and 
 liberty must be defended. The rights and duty of 
 the State can only take the second place.
 
 170 Burning Questions. 
 
 " But if the State is also the Christian State, it 
 must, besides, recognize the especial and peculiar 
 mission of the Church, which she claims as the 
 teacher appointed by God Himself for the human 
 race. Her teaching, first and foremost, concerns the 
 Faith, and her education is, in the first place, reli- 
 gious. But every other kind of instruction is related 
 to this as means to the end, and, naturally, rests 
 upon it." 
 
 " But people now-a-days are of quite a different 
 way of thinking," said the American. " According to 
 the latest principles, human beings in a school are 
 like the drawers in a grocer's shop, which are to be 
 filled with various goods. Each drawer is supplied, 
 and care is taken that it is as full as it can hold ; 
 then if things go well, there may be room for religion 
 in one corner." 
 
 " A crime against humanity which will be heavily 
 punished," exclaimed the Englishman, "to tear a 
 child to pieces in this way with learning, and so 
 unwarrantably neglect in his education the unity of 
 the eternal end appointed for the creature." 
 
 " But is it not a fundamental error of the time," 
 cried the Spaniard," "that the requisite oneness of 
 human endeavour is entirely forgotten ? Is not the 
 citizen in the same way separated from the Christian ; 
 and do not people think that in doing so they have 
 made important progress ? " 
 
 " Do you call it an error ? " asked the German
 
 Burning Questions. 171 
 
 diplomatist " Do you talk of forgetting ? I am of 
 quite a different opinion in the matter. In this 
 modern department system of education, and in the 
 seemingly well-meant separation of citizen and 
 Christian, although they are in each individual one 
 and the same person, there is a definite system:" 
 
 " Certainly there is," said the nobleman. " The 
 Church is separated from the State in order to 
 destroy or to enslave her; a marked distinction is 
 drawn between the citizen and the Christian, in order 
 not to take any account of the latter. The whole of 
 education is cut up into departments of teaching in 
 order to get rid of all religious instruction, which 
 must be the foundation of all education, and which 
 concentrates all knowledge in one focus." 
 
 " It will be seen, perhaps too late," said the old 
 man, with a sigh, "what mischief has been done by 
 the godlessness and hostility to the Church of modern 
 theories of education, and what an atonement is 
 required for the injustice of wresting from the Church 
 her own peculiar creation, the school. Time goes 
 quicker and quicker; and those whom age has not 
 made grey, like me, may learn a good deal in the 
 next ten years." 
 
 " But " the American began again. 
 
 " Always ready with a ' but/ " said the astro 
 nomer. 
 
 "Well," cried the American, laughing, "just this 
 once ! it shall be the last."
 
 172 Burning Questions. 
 
 "The last to-day!" added the professor drily. 
 
 " Let us hear what it is," said the old man. 
 
 " Only that you are always speaking of the rights 
 of the Church and the duties of the State. Now 
 just say something about the rights of the State and 
 the duties of the Church." 
 
 The old man smiled : " You are as impatient as 
 your own Niagara before its fall. We should not 
 have failed to gratify your wish, only certainly we 
 shall be able to be much briefer here." 
 
 " Why ? " asked the American. 
 
 "Because the Church has, for eighteen hundred 
 years, faithfully performed those duties, and con- 
 scientiously kept the path traced out for her. So 
 that here there are no wrong roads, no false systems 
 to be recorded, although we grant that men in the 
 Church both may make false steps, and have done so." 
 
 " The Church, then, as she demands from the 
 Christian State the recognition of her Divine insti- 
 tution, must, on her part, acknowledge that the State 
 also rests on the divine ordinance. 
 
 "Accordingly, she has to respect the temporal 
 power, and to leave it to rule independently in its 
 own sphere : but she has to teach the Christian 
 nations to be subject to the powers ordained by God. 
 
 "The Church has, with wisdom and patience, to 
 preserve union between the two powers, and, accord- 
 ing to her ability, to remove all the obstacles which 
 stand in the way of a harmonious co-existence.
 
 Burning Questions. 173 
 
 "She has, although temporal things are not her 
 business, not to deprive them of her care : the Church 
 must be and she always has been a faithful and 
 unselfish helper, ready even to sacrifice the ornaments 
 of the sanctuary in order to advance the good of the 
 Fatherland." 
 
 "What an ally for the State!" exclaimed the 
 Roman. "And she is despised, defaced, and perse- 
 cuted ! " 
 
 " But " began the American. 
 
 "Stop!" cried the astronomer, laughing, "you 
 have broken your promise ! " 
 
 " I know what he was going to say," said the 
 doctor of laws. " Let me speak for him ! Our friend 
 thinks that the sovereign's crown pales before the 
 glory of the Church's diadem." 
 
 The American nodded assent. 
 
 " And what if it does ? " said the Roman. 
 
 " Did the Emperor Charlemagne's crown lose its 
 splendour," asked the Breton Vicomte, "because he 
 was a faithful son of the Church ? " 
 
 " It is wonderful," added the old man, " what 
 force certain bits of clap-trap have acquired. We 
 have an instance in what is said about the unworthy 
 attitude of a temporal prince who, as a son of the 
 Church, places himself in the right relation of 
 reverence and submission to her. And to illustrate 
 this, the Emperor is always brought forward, who 
 once stood barefoot in the castle-court of Canosa.
 
 174 Burning Questions. 
 
 In other cases, every rational man knows that there 
 is no degradation in taking one's proper place, and 
 that, on the contrary, the man whose arrogance and 
 vanity strain beyond it is ridiculous and comtemp- 
 tible." 
 
 So talking, the party returned to the villa, at the 
 door of which a touching sight awaited them. 
 
 The poor woman, whose acquaintance they had 
 made so strangly in the wood, was sitting on the 
 stone-bench with her children, and enjoying with 
 them the food which had been given her from the 
 kitchen. When she caught sight of the two Zouaves, 
 she sprang towards them, and covered their hands 
 with tears and kisses, while she stammered out broken 
 words of thanks. 
 
 " Go on with your allegory," said the American to 
 the old man, pointing to the widow. 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 "That the Church is always truly grateful for 
 every benefit that is done to her," returned the other 
 with a smile. 
 
 " And every one who wrongs her must bear the 
 penalty," added the Spaniard gravely. 
 
 The old man sighed : "Would that the great ones 
 of this earth were less ready to forget it!" he said in 
 a tone of sadness.
 
 Burning Questions. 175 
 
 VII. 
 
 EARLY next morning, the lake was a very picturesque 
 scene. Boats gaily dressed with flags, and full of 
 people came rowing from every direction. On many 
 the Cross could be seen, through the glimmering 
 dawn, surrounded by banners ; and from all came 
 the sound of hymns. Numbers of people crowded 
 the landing-place below the villa ; amongst whom 
 could be distinguished one or two priests in cope and 
 stole. The procession was soon in order, and moved, 
 with floating banners, preceded by the glittering 
 gilded crucifix, along the shore of the lake, till it 
 turned in the direction of the mountains, and entered 
 the woody defile. It was the feast of St. Michael, 
 and this was a pilgrimage to an ancient shrine of 
 the Prince of the heavenly hosts. A chapel dedicated 
 to him was built on a mountain peak above the 
 wood, from which there was a wonderful view of the 
 lake and the surrounding country ; it was the goal 
 of the annual pilgrimage which always drew a great 
 crowd of country people to the functions in the 
 chapel. 
 
 The villa party, to the great edification of the 
 people, did not fail to take part in the pilgrimage.
 
 176 Burning Questions. 
 
 When, at the end of nearly two hours, the pro- 
 cession reached the chapel, a young priest mounted 
 the stone pulpit under the shade of a hundred year 
 old oak, and instructed his attentive audience, in a 
 solid yet familiar discourse, in the mystery of the 
 guardianship of men committed to the angels. The 
 young preacher's clear, strong voice rang inspired and 
 inspiringly through the air, when at the close of his 
 sermon he invoked the mighty defence of the holy 
 Archangel, the Protector of the Church, and the 
 Patron of this chapel, for the whole Catholic world, 
 and for his particular flock around that sanctuary. 
 
 Then followed High Mass. The space before the 
 chapel, inclosed by rocks and trees, formed, for most 
 of the worshippers, a suitable and picturesque nave, 
 and the blue sky its roof. 
 
 The guests at the villa, who had all approached 
 the Altar, returned home with the crowds of country 
 people. On the way, conversation turned upon the 
 sermon, in which all had been interested. 
 
 "Apart from natural talent," said the Vicomte, 
 "such a sermon proves solid theological education 
 and training." 
 
 " Had you any doubts, then," inquired the pro- 
 fessor of astronomy, " as to the good education of the 
 Italian, and especially of the Lombardic clergy ? " 
 
 "Not at all," replied the Breton. "I had been 
 convinced of it in the course of my travels. Of course 
 there are always exceptions to the rule."
 
 Burning Questions. 177 
 
 "And yet," said the Englishman, " if one reads 
 some of the books of travels, one might believe that 
 the Italian priesthood are a thoroughly degenerate 
 race." 
 
 " Our priesthood ! " cried the Roman bitterly ; 
 " that even yet gives to the Catholic world such a 
 bright example of loyalty to the Faith, and counts 
 so many great ornaments of science among its 
 numbers ! " 
 
 " There is a system in this slander also," said the 
 German diplomatist ; " and the rule of the Reformer 
 Calumniare audacter, semper aliquid hceret is not 
 golden, certainly, but correct." 
 
 " Yes," added the nobleman ; " and the calumny 
 was so boldly launched that we simple Catholics got 
 to believe it at last." 
 
 " That reminds me," said the Roman, turning to 
 the German, " of the astonishment produced in one of 
 your countrymen by the simple sermon of a Roman 
 priest He came to me, quite amazed, and confessed, 
 that he had not expected to find such pulpit eloquence 
 in Rome, as he had always heard that preaching there 
 was at a very low ebb. So, for his instruction, I took 
 him for some weeks to different sermons in a good 
 number of the churches in Rome. He was com- 
 pletely cured of his mistake, and promised to make it 
 known in Germany." 
 
 "Nevertheless," said the diplomatist, "you may 
 still have frequent opportunities of ridding my 
 M
 
 178 Burning Questions. 
 
 countrymen of this and many more mistakes about 
 Rome." 
 
 "And I will always do so as thoroughly," said the 
 Roman good-humouredly. 
 
 Once more the evening found the party gathered 
 in the verandah, and they naturally began talking of 
 the procession, which had impressed them deeply. 
 
 " I have often wondered," said the Dutch Zouave, 
 " what is the precise reason of the indescribable im- 
 pression which the solemn processions of the Church 
 make upon the believing heart For it will be granted 
 that it is something quite peculiar that comes over us, 
 when we see or take part in a procession." 
 
 " It is because we see them with the eye of faith," 
 answered the American. 
 
 " We have the same eye for other functions of the 
 Church," returned the Zouave ; " there must be some- 
 thing else." 
 
 " There is a particular charm if I may say so 
 in an act of worship in the open air," said the lawyer. 
 
 " But I think," observed the Spaniard, " that the 
 impression our Zouave speaks of is experienced just 
 as much when we see the solemn procession round the 
 church before High Mass, or when we follow with 
 our eyes the monks making their silent Way of the 
 Cross." 
 
 " Such processions are a piece of sacred poetry," 
 said the German : " but if you ask me what is the 
 aesthetic element in it, I do not really think I can 
 answer you."
 
 Burning Questions. 179 
 
 "Besides," observed the nobleman, "this sacred 
 beauty is shed over the whole of our glorious worship, 
 of which processions are only a part, though a striking 
 one." 
 
 " I, too," said the old man, and as he spoke his 
 blue eyes seemed to shine again with the light of 
 youth, "have often pondered over the psychological 
 phenomenon which all of us, though not perhaps with 
 equal strength and definiteness, have experienced. 
 The explanation which I tried to give to myself may 
 be imperfect, but I think that in the main it touches 
 the point." 
 
 "And how do you explain it ? " asked the 
 American. 
 
 "A procession is a picture of the Christian life, 
 which is a pilgrimage through this vale of tears to the 
 everlasting home of peace." 
 
 " Why do you not rather say," cried the Breton, 
 " that a procession is a picture of the Militant Church, 
 which, surrounded by sacred war songs, follows the 
 banner of the Cross, which is borne before her in her 
 battle with the world." 
 
 " It is the same idea," returned the old man, " only 
 more forcibly expressed. And I think it is the idea 
 which, more or less consciously, affects us in watching 
 or following a procession." 
 
 " I own," said the Englishman, " that it was that 
 very image of the Militant Church which floated 
 before me when we were walking with the pious
 
 180 Burning Questions. 
 
 pilgrims to the chapel of the heavenly leader of the 
 Church warring on earth." 
 
 " But," said the Spaniard, " a procession seems to 
 me too fair and peaceful an image for the hot, bitter 
 fight in which the Church has so often, as now again, 
 in our time, to engage. A flock attacked by wolves 
 would be better." 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed the Roman, " there is always 
 something peaceful and glorious about the holy war 
 of the Church, even when it has been, as with the 
 martyrs, a bloody one. The Church fights when she 
 suffers ; she conquers when she abides in patience." 
 
 " Surely ! " returned the Spaniard. " Still it is 
 human and pardonable, in such a battle as the Church 
 is again going through, to ask oneself many a time : 
 how is it to end ? " 
 
 "Et port& inferi non pnzvalebunt advcrsus earn" 
 cried the Roman, with flashing eyes. 
 
 "It cannot, however, be denied," said the pro- 
 fessor of astronomy, "that the war between the Church 
 and the world has broken out with greater violence 
 than has been the case in Europe since the days of 
 Nero and Diocletian." 
 
 " On one side Christ on the other Belial ! " ex- 
 claimed the German Zouave. 
 
 "Yes," continued the astronomer, "those are really 
 the antagonists. And so this is, for the Church, a 
 battle for life or death." 
 
 " Which our enemies will fight all the more fiercely,
 
 Burning Questions. 181 
 
 the more clearly they perceive what is at stake," said 
 the Vicomte. 
 
 " That is a fearful characteristic of our century," 
 observed the nobleman, "that it knows Christianity 
 and the Church, and yet rejects them. Two thousand 
 years ago the Church was persecuted by paganism, 
 which did not know her ; now it is the persecution of 
 apostacy that she is enduring." 
 
 " It is a bitter thought," said the Spaniard. 
 
 " But now, as then," said the Roman calmly, " she 
 will come out of the persecution victorious." 
 
 " I do not understand what all this means," re- 
 marked the American. " I cannot get into this way 
 of looking at things. It goes against the grain with 
 me, and strikes me as being how shall I put it ? so 
 sad and miserable." 
 
 " How do you mean ? " inquired the nobleman. 
 
 " Well, then, returned the American, " it seems to 
 me as though there were too much said, too much 
 stir made about what the Church is now enduring. 
 Why, that is just because she is militant ; if she does 
 not fight she cannot conquer. The disciple is not 
 above his Master our Lord Himself told us that. If 
 His own people preferred Barabbas to Him, for the 
 sake of seeing Him crucified, what can the Church 
 expect, whom He has Himself placed on the Way of 
 the Cross ? " 
 
 " We are all agreed in that," said the Englishman ; 
 "but all that we assert is that the Church has just
 
 1 82 Burning Questions. 
 
 come to a critical point in that hard battle which 
 began when the Apostles were brought before the 
 Council at Jerusalem, and which will not end till the 
 trumpet summons all the enemies of the Crucified 
 before His tribunal at the Last Day." 
 
 " I look at the matter differently," the American 
 went on, " more superficially perhaps, but more prac- 
 tically. I take the battle as it is, without pausing to 
 consider the weight of the cross that we have to carry. 
 Such speculative ideas seem to me a waste of time ; 
 I think it is much better to use each moment in taking 
 a step forwards on the Way of the Cross which, when 
 all is said and done, we shall not be let off." 
 
 " Because we have not deserved it," interrupted 
 the Vicomte. 
 
 " Granted ! " returned the American, and con- 
 tinued " and on which we must just walk to the 
 end." 
 
 As he spoke he looked at the astronomer, and 
 saw that the corners of his mouth were twitching. 
 
 " I suppose you find my views amusing," said the 
 son of Chicago, " as you have to bite your lips to keep 
 from laughing ? " 
 
 " I am admiring your American energy," replied 
 the astronomer, "in putting a good face on a bad 
 business." 
 
 "And why should I not ?" asked the other. "Have 
 I a right to demand anything else ? Am I better 
 than the martyrs ? I am, and must be, a son of the
 
 Burning Questions. 183 
 
 Militant Church, which had to fight two thousand 
 years ago, and will have to fight at the end of two 
 thousand more. There must be fighting so let us 
 fight ! And if the battle seems hotter than usual, 
 what of that, when victory is certain for the Church 
 and for us ? We must conquer, both of us we know 
 that" 
 
 " You speak like the preacher of the Old Testa- 
 ment," said the old gentleman, " who so strikingly 
 puts the fact that everything in this earthly life is 
 much the same : ' there is nothing new under the 
 sun.' " 
 
 " No ! " cried the Englishman ; " he speaks like 
 the true son of a country that as yet has no history, 
 and who therefore does not much value the philosophy 
 of history." 
 
 " Let us be just," said the Vicomte. " The prac- 
 tical American looks at his subject from the one side; 
 but surely it has another ! " 
 
 " The Old Testament," continued the other, " has 
 not only its preacher, who perceives the vanity of the 
 incessant changes of earthly things, but also its pro- 
 phets, who unfold the epic, the tragedy of the world's 
 history, before our wondering eyes." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! " exclaimed the Spaniard. " You 
 have spoken my own thoughts. I cannot help think- 
 ing that we have come to one of the most decisive 
 epochs in the history of the Church." 
 
 " Who can doubt it ? " returned the nobleman.
 
 184 Burning Questions. 
 
 " Well, then," put in the American, " we Catholics 
 of America will study our part in the tragedy well, 
 and act it boldly." 
 
 " Bravo ! " cried the Roman. 
 
 " We sons of Pelayo," said the Spaniard, " may be 
 allowed to take a different view of this Church war of 
 two thousand years, and be forgiven if our quick 
 imagination has some perhaps too much influence 
 in the matter. And then, if we are not prophets, we 
 are not dreamers. I firmly believe that there has 
 never been a graver and more important period in 
 the history of the Church since her foundation, than 
 that in which we now live. The first verses of the 
 second Psalm are again in course of fulfilment, and 
 what may not happen before the prophecy of the 
 later ones is fulfilled ? " 
 
 " Qui habitat in ccelis irridebit eos" said the Roman ; 
 and the Breton added : "Et Dominus subsannabit 
 eos" 
 
 The Spaniard began again in a voice of emotion : 
 " There is a thought about the Church which has 
 always had a singular attraction for me. The Church 
 is Christ living on in the history of the human race; 
 the history of the Church is merely the copy of the 
 life of our Redeemer : her life is the imitation and 
 sequel of her Lord and Master's. ' Whosoever will be 
 My disciple, let him take up his cross and follow Me.' 
 None has understood those words better than the 
 Bride of Him Who said them the Church : and the
 
 Burning Questions. 185 
 
 Bridegroom knows how to make her Way of the Cross 
 strikingly like His." 
 
 "And what is your conclusion ?" asked the English- 
 man attentively. 
 
 " I think that the history of the Church is a mys- 
 terious reflection and repetition of every part of the 
 life and sufferings of Christ, from the manger of Beth- 
 lehem to the hill of Golgotha, to the empty grave of 
 our risen Lord. In the early days of persecution the 
 Church had her Herod in the Roman Empire ; the 
 peaceful Hidden Life at Nazareth is mirrored in the 
 thousand years the ' truce of God ' of the middle 
 ages. Then come the stirring years of the Public 
 Life of Jesus, full of toil and labour,, of enmity, con- 
 tempt, and slander. And we now " 
 
 "Yes. I am very anxious to know where we 
 are now," said the Swiss lawyer. 
 
 "We are come," the Spaniard went on, "to the 
 eve of the entry of the Son of David into Jerusalem 
 among the Hosannas of the people. There is a 
 triumph awaiting the Church but a brief one 
 for the hours on Calvary are drawing quickly 
 near." 
 
 " Well ! I call that regular Spanish poetry ! " 
 exclaimed the American. 
 
 " And after the Good Friday of the Church's 
 history?" asked the Englishman eagerly. 
 
 " The Alleluias of the eternal Easter ! " said the 
 Spaniard gravely.
 
 1 86 Burning Questions. 
 
 " Then," asked the Frenchman quickly, " you 
 believe that the end of the world is near ? " 
 
 " That," cried the American, with a certain degree 
 of satisfaction, "is clearly contrary to the Catholic 
 Faith!" 
 
 " How so ? " asked the Spaniard. 
 
 " Because our Lord especially says that the end of 
 these things is God's secret" 
 
 " WJten the end comes, is certainly God's secret," 
 returned the Spaniard, "but that it is coming is a 
 revealed truth. I do not presume to inquire into the 
 former: but I prepare for the latter. Our Lord tells 
 us also that this is the duty of a Christian." 
 
 "All that is simply confusing," said the American, 
 "and distracts one from the performance of practical 
 duties." 
 
 "Sufficient to the day is its evil," added the 
 lawyer. 
 
 "And yet," the Spaniard went on, " the same Lord 
 Who says that also gives us the warning: 'Watch! 
 for you know not the day nor the hour.' " 
 
 "I prefer applying that to my own death," re- 
 turned the American. 
 
 "But I," replied the Spaniard, "may, and must 
 apply it to the Last Day." 
 
 "Can you deny," asked the young Swiss, "that 
 fancies of this sort about the end of the world have 
 brought many persons to the madhouse?" 
 
 The Spaniard laughed, as he answered: "I assure
 
 Burning Questions. 187 
 
 you, that my fancies do not prevent my repeating 
 Dies Ira with a sound mind whenever I hear Mass 
 for the dead." 
 
 "Because you expect a triumph first!" exclaimed 
 the American in evident excitement, "and you leave 
 the end calmly to the next generation." 
 
 "In dubiis libertas /" said the old man gently. 
 "We shall disperse to-morrow to all parts of the 
 world: and so our last words ought to be words of 
 agreement." 
 
 "Oh, we are perfectly agreed in the main!" said the 
 American. "But there can be no peace without war, 
 no clear thesis without a debate! What do you 
 think of the future? What is your opinion of the 
 future relations between Church and State?" 
 
 The old man read the same question in the faces 
 of all the party, and he said : 
 
 "Church and State, essentially different from, but 
 not therefore opposed to each other in a hostile 
 manner, are, according to the right view, placed in 
 the world by God together, and, as it were, one 
 within the other, in such a way that they form one 
 great Christian Commonwealth. By this appoint- 
 ment, the intention of which is a real union between 
 Church and State, the latter is not injured, nor in 
 any way disturbed or interfered with in its essential 
 existence, nor, again, so mingled with the Church 
 as to be entirely merged in her: but it is to be so 
 penetrated, as it were, by her, as to be thereby
 
 1 88 Burning Questions. 
 
 elevated above its own order, and thus only, to a 
 certain extent, perfected. So it happens, that the 
 Church, according to the Will of God, Who has so 
 appointed in His Widom, pre-supposes the well- 
 ordered civil society as the natural condition of her 
 normal existence ; but the civil society can find the 
 principle of its true perfection only in the Church. 
 In general, it may be said of this right union of 
 Church and State, that the natural relation of the 
 two powers in it is that of the natural to the super- 
 natural order of things. Accordingly, it cannot be 
 the office of the Church to abolish or destroy the 
 State; for, on the contrary, it has to submit to the 
 truths of faith and the laws of morals which the 
 Church proclaims, as it is her mission to do; and 
 to bear their impress in its sphere of action, as the 
 natural man who has begun to live according to the 
 spirit of faith has to submit himself to Christ the 
 Lord, Whom, in the words of the Apostle, he has 
 'put on.' 
 
 "This is, speaking broadly, the right relation 
 between Church and State, as it expresses the inten- 
 tion of God, and is in accordance with the spirit of 
 Christianity. But, just as marriage between man 
 and woman may exist in various degrees of Christian 
 perfection, and as in the life of the individual Christian 
 the relation between the flesh and the spirit may be 
 regulated with greater or less sanctity ; so, evidently, 
 has the union between the Church and the Christian
 
 Burning Questions. 189 
 
 State for it is of this only that we are speaking 
 different degrees of perfection rising from the lowest 
 step of indispensable duty, as from the foundation, 
 to higher and higher completeness. Experience and 
 reason, however, teach us that there can be no reali- 
 zation upon earth of this ideal. 
 
 " The actual condition of this relation between 
 the Christian civil society and the divine society of 
 the Church has, accordingly, gone through various 
 phases in the course of centuries, and will, in the 
 future, continue to be subject to change till the end 
 of time. The ideal of that relation has been aimed 
 at, on the side of the Church, with more or less 
 success at different times ; on the side of the State 
 these efforts have been, sometimes resisted, some- 
 times seconded with more or less good will. In 
 any case, the idea of the Concordia inter impcrium 
 et sacerdotium, the realization of which was the task 
 which the middle ages aimed at accomplishing, was 
 a grand and beneficent one : for it took a cosmo- 
 politan view of the State, and placed the sword of 
 the highest temporal power in the hand of the 
 Emperor, no longer the 'Imperator' of heathen 
 Rome, but the Head of the holy Roman Empire. 
 
 " But if we look more closely at the course of 
 historical development from the time when the Church 
 entered into the destiny of the human race as the 
 visible ordinance of salvation, we are met by a picture 
 which seems to step out of the frame of almost two
 
 190 Burning Questions. 
 
 thousand years, and which is one to dispose us to 
 serious reflection. For it reveals to us the important 
 fact that the State which, in the course of history, 
 claimed priority over the Church, so far as regards 
 the appearance of the latter as the visible ordinance 
 of salvation, did, after a certain time, enter into agree- 
 ment with her, and, by becoming Christian, submit to 
 her, but that, after the lapse of another period of time, 
 it has gradually severed itself from her, and in the 
 end assumed, more or less, an attitude of hostility to 
 her. 
 
 " If, then, we trace the history of the Church from 
 the beginning, we find her, first of all, face to face 
 with that heathen State which waged a war of exter- 
 mination with her. After the cessation of the perse- 
 cutions, the Church, in that Roman Empire composed 
 of the faithful and of pagans, received from the Chris- 
 tian emperor a protection, which by-and-bye became 
 a very doubtful and dangerous one. The relation 
 between Church and State was capable of develop- 
 ment on a sounder and more vital foundation after 
 the old population had been swept from the earth by 
 the storm of the great migrations in the West. And 
 thus, in, the middle ages, we find the idea of the 
 Christian commonwealth in Church and State realized 
 in that empire of the West which subsisted for a 
 thousand years, experiencing, like everything earthly, 
 various vicissitudes, and displaying its periods of 
 development and bloom, as well as those of decay
 
 Burning Questions. 191 
 
 and death. Then the age of the so-called Reforma- 
 tion, which seems scarcely yet to have reached its 
 final conclusion, brought the Church into new and 
 certainly hitherto unthought-of relations. The State 
 became more and more un-Christianized, even 'in 
 places where, to all appearance, the rights of the 
 Church were still fully recognized. A portion of the 
 rulers remained attached to the Catholic Faith, but 
 their subjects formed a mixed society of Catholics, 
 heretics, schismatics, and Jews ; and this un-Catholic 
 part of the population was either merely tolerated, or 
 managed in course of time to raise themselves to an 
 equality of political and civil rights with the Catholics. 
 In other States, not only were and are the subjects 
 mixed, as to their creed, but the sovereign himself 
 professes one which is either non-Catholic or schis- 
 matical ; or else the reigning Government holds an 
 un-Catholic creed as a State principle, and Catholics 
 either are or were not even tolerated by it, or they enjoy 
 toleration, and even political equality of rights, with 
 the members of the State belonging to the dominant 
 belief. Lastly and this is the last phase of the rela- 
 tion between the two powers, if indeed the word rela- 
 tion can be used at all in this case the Church is 
 confronted with a political power which professes, 
 more or less expressly, to be indifferent in religious 
 matters, and gradually attempts, as the final solution 
 of the problem, to proclaim that the power of the 
 State is altogether absolute, and tolerates no other
 
 192 Burning Questions. 
 
 independent power, least of all that of the Church 
 beside it, and so to place civil society exclusively 
 upon an earthly basis, and that to a much greater 
 extent, much more consciously and fundamentally, 
 than ever was done by the ancient heathen State. 
 
 "And here we cannot avoid a feeling of sadness 
 stealing over us ; for this is the present position, here 
 more, there less developed during the last three hun- 
 dred years, which the Church occupies towards the 
 State in almost all those nations of the world to 
 which she herself once brought Christian civilization ; 
 whilst, as we know, in other parts of the world, where 
 she has just begun her mission, or for a long time has 
 asserted it with great difficulty, she sees herself not 
 unfrequently transported back to those early periods 
 of bloody persecution. 
 
 " The Militant Church ! The Mother of nations 
 which do not honour her because they do not know 
 her, or have abandoned her after having for centuries 
 enjoyed the rich blessings of her careful nursing ! But, 
 manifold and different as may be these relations in 
 which the Church has, for nearly two thousand years, 
 been placed towards the civil society, difficult as may 
 be the connection of the Church with the power of 
 the State, critical as may be her position, one thing is 
 certain, that in none of these various periods could 
 the idea of the right, divinely appointed relation be- 
 tween Church and State be given up on the part of 
 the former, faint as the prospect often was which the
 
 Burning Questions. 193 
 
 times offered of realizing in the poorest way even a 
 part of that ideal. Charged with the mission to be 
 not only the teacher of truth and dispenser of graces 
 to all the tribes and nations of the world, but also to 
 present to those nations the true principles of that 
 prosperity in the earthly order which she herself, in a 
 certain sense, is not able to do without, the Church 
 could at no time cease to have regard to that true 
 union of the two powers, or weary in her efforts to 
 bring it about, any more than she could consent in 
 any way to abandon the essential rights of her 
 existence and constitution, and to sacrifice the 
 liberty and independence bestowed upon her by 
 God, with the idea of obtaining by such expedients 
 a more tolerable position with regard to man's 
 arbitrary will. 
 
 "And so the Church is now once more waiting for 
 the civil society : she is like the father, who counts the 
 minutes till his lost son is clasped in his arms. The 
 Church is waiting and praying it is all that she can 
 do in this hour of darkness. Her enemies, who may 
 perhaps be one day her most faithful children, may 
 sneer ; her deluded sons, who lack the courage to own 
 her boldly before an unbelieving world, may blame 
 her : the Church waits and prays. 
 
 " With the much-vaunted modern ideas, which are 
 
 nothing but the principles of infidelity of the denial 
 
 of a supernatural revelation and order, applied to 
 
 political and social questions with these ideas the 
 
 N
 
 1 94 Burning Questions. 
 
 Church, the teacher and guardian of that revelation 
 and order which are above the natural sphere of 
 things, can enter into no agreement If there is to be 
 a change for the better in the history of the human 
 race, the lost prodigal must return to his father's 
 house. The Church waits. 
 
 "And there are many signs that this return of the 
 nations to their old teacher of two thousand years is 
 in preparation. Liberalism, the latest mask for infi- 
 delity in the political and social sphere, has played 
 out its part The mask drops, the glittering mantle 
 is torn open, and reveals a miserable figure, which 
 must in the end quit the stage amidst the laughter 
 of the audience. First, indeed, the world should blush 
 for shame at having so long gazed admiringly at such 
 a -sham. 
 
 " On the other side, the Church, which is now per- 
 secuted afresh, shines in glory : the bandage falls from 
 the eyes of the long-deluded nations, and they gaze at 
 the marvel of the Church victorious in persecution, 
 blinded at first by the blaze of her splendour. Ah ! 
 this Church is the giant of the old Greek myth ! 
 Throw her on the earth : and humbled to the dust, 
 and seemingly enslaved, and as it were destroyed, she 
 rises again in the fulness of strength for a new victory. 
 And the pledge of that victory is the wonderful old 
 man who guides the helm of Peter's bark through the 
 foaming waves, and adorns his See with his apostolic 
 sway for more than the five and twenty years of the
 
 Burning Questions. 195 
 
 Fisherman of Galilee into the day of the dawning 
 triumph ! " 
 
 Next morning the steamer bore away the guests 
 of the villa to the North and South.
 
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