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. OF NARRATIVE, FICTION, &c. FOR GENERAL READING, Neatly bound in Cloth and Illustrated, post-free for the price named. Tales from the Diary of a Sister of Mercy. By C. M. BRAME. New Edition. Cloth, 4s. Nellie NTetterville : a Tale of Ireland in the Time of Cromwell. By CECILIA CADDELL, author of "Wild Times." 3*. 6d. cloth elegant, 5s. Angels' Visits: a Series of Tales. By C. M. BRAME, author of " Diary of a Sister of Mercy." 3*. 6d. Grantley Manor. By Lady GEORGIANA FULLER- TON. Boards, 2s. 6d. ; cloth, 3s. " The skill with which the plot of ' Grantley Manor* is constructed, the exquMte truth of delineation which the characters exhibit, and the inten- sity of passion which warms and dignifies the subject, are alike admirable. . . . The depth of passion which surrounds the story of Genevra is the re- sult or unquestionable genius. No heroine that we can remember excels this lovely creation in purity, deep affection, a solemn sense of the sanctity of duty, and a profound feeling of the beauty and holiness of religion." Times. Sea Stories : Tales of Discovery, Adventure, and Escape. A new and choice Collection, containing several striking Narratives, mostly unknown to English readers. Cloth, 3*. " The best volume of the kind we have ever met with." Churchman 1 * 2 Popular Books of Narrative, Fiction, $c. Romantic Tales of Great Men : Artists, Poets, Scholars, Statesmen, &c. Cloth, 3*. *** This volume will be found to convey information as well as amusement, all the tales being founded on historical facts. The Betrothed : A Romance of the Seventeenth Century. By MAKZOXI. Boards, 2s. 6d. ; cloth, 3*. This unrivalled romance, which stands quite alone in the litera- ture of fiction, is now brought within the reach of every reader in this very neat and portable edition. " I am not ture," says Rogers, "that I would not rather have written the ' Betrothed? than all Seott't noreh." " It has every quality that a work of fiction ought to have." Heir of Redcliffe. Hendrik Conscience's Tales. Complete in Six Volumes. Foolscap 8vo, cloth, 3s. each. The Lion of Flanders. The Curse of the Village, &c. Veva : or the War of the Peasants. The Mixer ; Ricketicketack. Tales of Flanders. The Demon of Gold. " Had our writers of fiction preserved the healthful tone which charac- terises these volumes, they would not have been a proscribed class. Each of the tales may be read by the most modest without a blush, and by the most fastidious without scruple." Eclectic Review. " There is a truthfulness in his pictures which is perfectly delightful, while the whole moral of his works is such as to make them a valuable addition to the light-reading division of a library." Xotet and Queries. Tales of the French Revolution : A Series of Historical Tales and Episodes of this eventful period, combining the interest of history with the charm of ro- mance. New edition, 3. The Adventures of Jules Gerard, the " Lion-killer" of Northern Africa, during his Ten Years' Campaigns among the Lions of Algeria; including the details of more than Forty Encounters, Adventures, and Episodes, and a variety of interesting Sketches of Arab Life. TWELFTH THOUSAND. Cloth, 2s. 6d. " We hope this charming little volume will meet with the popularity it deserves. We have seldom seen a manlier, a more simplfJiearted, or a mort amusiny book." Saturday Review. Popular Books of Narrative, Fiction, $c. 3 The Vessels of the Sanctuary, and the Manor of Mount Cruel : Tales of French Life, by ELIE BERTHET. Cloth, 2s. Gd. Two of the best Tales of this fertile and popular Author. The History of Jean Paul Choppart ; or the Surprising Adventures of a Runaway. Illustrated with 22 Engravings ; foolscap 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. " 'Jean Paul Choppart' is a translation of a work which has become very popular on the Continent, and is destined to receive a large share of favour in this country, should parents and instructors of children become aware of the excellent moral which its pages convey through the medium of a story which is most piquant and catching for the youthful mind." Court Journal. Father Connell. By BANIM. A New Edition. Cloth, 2s. 6d. " ' Father Connell,' the Irish ' Vicar of Wakefield.' "Literary Gazette. lerne of Armorica : a Tale of the Time of Chlovis. By J. C. BATEMAN. 6s. 6d. " We know of few tales that can be ranked higher than the beautiful story before us. The descriptions are masterly, the characters distinct, the interest unflagging." Month. " The book is excellent. If we are to have a literature of fiction at all, we hope it may include many like volumes." Dublin Review. " In reading this charming tale, we seem to be taken by the hand and made to assist at the scenes which the writer describes." Tablet. True to Trust ; or the Story of a Portrait. A Tale of the Times of Queen Elizabeth, is. " A valuable addition to the narratives of the sufferings of our fore- fathers during that period." Tablet. " A powerful and well-written story. Several of the characters are admirably drawn." Weekly Register. ' A welcome addition to the Catholic stories We are sure that amongst the young it will be a favourite." C Time*. Wild Times ; a Tale of the Days of Queen Eliza- beth. By CECILIA MARY CADDELL. New Edition. 5s. " We are glad to indorse the favourable opinion we expressed of it at the time of its first appearance." Tablet. " Miss Caddell writes forcibly and well, and has given us in this story many vividly coloured pictures." Weekly Register. " An ably written narrative." Catholic Times. Peter's Journey, and other Tales. Cloth, 3s. 4 Popular Books of Narrative, Fiction, fyc. Passion -Flower : a Catholic Story. 5s. " We should have to look back a long way before we could point to another novel so charming and attractive." Weekly Register. " Here is a book we can recommend. The story runs very smoothly, and is full of pleasant and natural gossip." CatJiolic Times. " Pleasing in its telling, and weU written. The author may well feel sure of success." Catholic Opinion. " A pleasant and clever novel." Court Circular. Seven Stories. By Lady GEORGIANA FULLERTON. Contents 1. Rosemary : a Tale of the Fire of London. 2. Reparation : a Story of the Reign of Louis XIV. 3. The Blacksmith of Antwerp. 4. The Beggar of the Steps of St. Roch : a True Story, o. Trouvaille ; or the Soldier's Adopted Child : a True Story. 6. Earth without Heaven : a Reminiscence. 7. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. 3*. Gd. " Will be sure to repay perusal. The authoress has at once such a grasp of her subject, there in such a force and finish in her touch, that the productions of her pen will stand the test of the most rigid criticism." Weekly Register. " Sound in doctrine and intensely interesting as any which have come from the same pen." Catholic Opinion. "As admirable for their art as they are estimable for their sound teaching." Cork Examintr. Maggie's Rosary, and other Tales. By the Au- thor of " Marion Howard." 3*. 6d. ; cloth extra, 3s. ; cheap edition, 2s. " We have seldom seen tales which are better adapted for children's reading." Cathulic Times. " We strongly recommend these stories. They are especially suited to little girls." Tablet. " The very thing for a gift-book for a child." Weekly Register. "A charming little book, which we can heartily recommend." Rosarian. French Eggs in an English Basket. From the French of SOUVESTRE. By Miss EMILY BOWLES. Cloth extra, 3s. Gd. " A charming collection of stories, each with an excellent moral. Al- though foreign in construction and matter, they are thoroughly English in tone." Tablet. " We commend it to parents, and to the managers of schools and con- vents wanting prizes." Westminster Gazette. " Eminently suited for children. Adopting the title of the translator, we can well call them really wholesome French eggs in a very elegant English basket." Cat/tolic Opinion. Popular Boolcs of Narrative, Fiction, fyc, 5 Marie and Paul : a Fragment. By " Our Little Woman." 3s. 6d. ; gilt edges, 4s. " A. story told effectively and touchingly, and with all that tenderness and pathos in which gifted women so much excel." Weekly Register. " We heartily recommend this little book, feeling sure that none can.'' rise, from its perusal without being touched both at the beauty of the tale itself, and by the tone of earnest piety which runs through the whole, leaving none but holy thoughts and pleasant impressions." Tablet. " Well adapted to the innocent minds it is intended for." Catholic Opinion. " A charming tale for young and old." Cork Examiner. " To all who read it the book will suggest thoughts for which they will be the better, while its graceful and affecting, because simple, pic- tures of home and family life will excite emotions of which none need be ashamed. We trust that we may meet our author on a future occasion." Month. " A very charming story, and may be read by both young and old." Brownsorii Review. A Packet of Sixpenny Books. No. 3. 3s. ; cloth, 3s. Qd. Contents Little Page ; Valentine Duval ; Pietro and his Pupil ; Little Slater ; Young Gassendi ; Artist and his Dog ; Little Vagrant. Twelve New Stories. By Mrs. PARSONS, l. Bertha's Three Fingers. 2. Take Care of Yourself. 3. Don't go in. 4. The Story of an Arm-chair. 5. Yes and No. 6. The Pied Apples under the Tree. 7. Constance and the Water Lilies. 8. The Pair of Gold Spectacles. 9. Clara's New Shawl. 10. The Little Lodgers. 11. The Pride and the Fall. 12. This Once. 3d. each ; in a packet complete, 3s. ; or in cloth neat, 3s. 6d. Also, T>y the same, Dyrbington. 3s. ; cheap edition, Is. 8^. Tales for Young Men and Women. 2s. 6d. i Twelve Tales for the Young. 3s. Twelve Tales for Children. 2s. Heath-House Stories. Cloth, Is. 6d. Afternoons with Mrs. Maitland. Cloth gilt, 2s. ; cheap edition, Is. Qd. Anecdotes and Incidents, Ecclesiastical and Religious. Containing 119 distinct Sketches. Cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. Popular Books of Narrative, Fiction, fyc. Dame Dolores, or the Wise Nun of Eastonmere ; and other Stories. By the Author of " Tyborne," &c. Contents 1. The Wise Nun of Eastonmere. 2. Known too Late. 3. True to the End. 4. Olive's Rescue. 4*. Also, by tJie same, Tyborne ; and Who went thither in the Days of Queen Elizabeth : a Sketch. New Edition. Cloth, 3s. 6d. " A thrilling tale, written in a style most attractive to young people." Tablet. " This is not a work of fiction. The author has taken historical facts, and judiciously woven them, into a tale full of interest for us in England." Catholic Opinion. " A good book for school-prizes ; and if we had our will we should have it read in all the schools and convents of the land." Westminster Gazette. Plorine, Princess of Burgundy : a Tale of the First Crusade. By WILLIAM BERNARD MACCABE. Third Edition. With Preface and Notes. Now first pub- lished. Cloth, 5*. " This thrilling tale is a model of the kind of books most required, combining as it does amusement and instruction with all the requisites of a sound Catholic work." Weekly Register. " The marvellous plot and description of scenery and character are such as would have done no discredit to the great ' Wizard of the North,' Sir Walter Scott himself." Catholic Times. " Full both of interest and instruction, and may fairly be reckoned among the ornaments of our lighter literature." Dublin Review. Fabiola: a Tale of the Catacombs. By CARDINAL WISEMAN. New Edition. Cloth, 3s. Qd. ; gilt, 4*. ; mo- rocco, 9s. The same dramatised The Youthful Martyrs of Home. By the Very Eev. Canon OAKELEY. Cloth, Is. id. Callista : a Historical Tale. By Dr. NEWMAN. New Edition, os. 6d. ; Popular Library Edition, cloth gilt, 4*. ; cloth, 3s. 6d. The same as a drama. By HUSENBETH. 2s. Xittle Flower-Garden ; or Tales for the Young. First Series. In a packet, Is. 6d. ; cloth, 2s. Ellen's Dream, &c. Lucy's Pilgrimage. The Shepherd Boy. Requiescat in Pace. Little Adam. The Cherries, &c. The Rosary. No Virtue without Struggle. Little Martin. Tale of the Ardennes. The Two Mothers. The Two Italians. Popular Books of Narrative, Fiction, $c. 1 Little Flower -Gar den ; or Tales for the Young. Second Series. By CECILIA CADDELL. In a packet, Is. Qd.; or bound in cloth, 2s. Month of Mary. Feast of Corpus Christi. Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Assumption. The- Nativity. The Purification. Ash-Wednesday. The Annun- ciation. Holy Week. Easter. Kogation-Day. Pentecost. Scenes and Incidents at Sea. A New Selec- tion. Is. id. Contents 1. Adventure on a Rock. 2. A Heroic Act of Rescue. 3. Inaccessible Islands. 4. The Shipwreck of the Czar Alexander. 5. Captain James' Ad- ventures in the North Seas. 6. Destruction of Admiral Graves' Fleet. 7. The Wreck of the Forf arshire, and Grace Darling. 8. The Loss of the Royal George. 9. The Irish Sailor Boy. 10. Gallant Conduct of a French Privateer. 11. The Harpooner. 12. The Cruise of the Agamemnon. 13. A Nova Scotia Fog. 14. The Mate's Story. 15. The Shipwreck of the ^neas Transport. 16. A Scene in the Shrouds. 17. A Skirmish off Bermuda. 18. Charles Wager. 19. A Man Overboard. 20. A Loss and a Rescue. 21. A Melancholy Adventure on the American Seas. 22. Dol- phins and Flying Fish. Never Forgotten ; or the Home of the Lost Child. By CECILIA CADDELL. Second Edition. Cloth, 3s. Gd. " A well-drawn and pleasing picture of convent life." Tablet. " A beautiful story of the perfect Catholic character." Universe. " The accomplished authoress has conferred a great boon on Catholics by publishing this story." W eekly Register. Laurentia : a Tale of Japan. By Lady GEORGIANA FULLERTON. Second Edition. 3s. Gd. " Looking at its literary merits alone, it must be pronounced a really beautiful story ; but it will be read with still deeper interest from the fact of Japan in the sixteenth century." Catholic Times. " This gracefully written work has very considerable literary merit,, and possesses an interest entirely its own." Weekly Register. By the same Author, Rose Leblanc : a Tale. 3s. The G9ld-Digger, and other Verses. 5s. " The spirit that breathes throughout is one of true Catholic devo- tion." Weekly Register. " We do not know which most to admire, the genuine modesty of the preface to this volume of poems or the Catholic tone and sweet tender- ness of the verses themselves." Westminster Gazette. "Alike creditable to the heart and intellect of the authoress." Catholic Times. 8 Popular Books of Narrative, Fiction, c. s. d. The Keeper of the Lazaretto ; or the Isle of the Dead. By SOUVESTRE 10 The Book of 300 Anecdotes 10 Columbus and La Perouse 14 Preciosa. By CERVANTES 10 Tales of Kings and Queens 10 Tales of Joy and Sorrow 10 Tales of France 10 Book of Poetry, for the Young 10 Book of Ballads, for the Young . . . . .10 The Two last in One Volume 20 Popular Poetry 20 Selections from the Poets. By DE VERB . . .36 Pictures, Tales, and Parables 30 Tales of the Crusades 26 Breton Legends . 30 Tales of Wonder. By HAUFF 26 Andersen's Select Tales 20 Kobinson Crusoe. Pocket Edition . . . .26 Arctic Voyages 20 Du Guesclin ; or the Hero of Chivalry . . . .20 Tales of Celebrated Women 20 Tales of Celebrated Men. Illustrated . . . .36 Tales of Enterprise, Peril, and Escape . . . .30 The War in La Vendee 46 The Patriot War in the Tyrol 40 Tales of Land and Sea. Gilt 30 Tales of Humour. Gilt 36 Countess of Glosswood 36 Kate Kavanagh 20 Pictures of Christian Heroism. Cloth . . . .30 Pictures, Tales, and Parables. Many cuts . . .30 Pictures of Missionary Life.- Cloth . . . .30 LONDON : BURNS & GATES, 17 & 18 PORTMAN STREET AND 63 PATERNOSTER Row. uc: ill! A 000004507 o