Chapter XXIV: “celui-La Fait Le Crime a Qui Le Crime Sert.” (7)

Deny the divinity of the Theanthropos, deny that the Theanthropos ever did or could unite his activity with personal agents, deny the essence of the church, and then you would be logical, then you would be consistent, then we could understand you. But to admit that the Theanthropos _is_ God, to admit that he _did_ unite his infinite and divine activity to the sacramental element, to admit that he did so on purpose to teach all men in time and space, and then to affirm that the church is not and cannot be infallible--that is, that the Theanthropos cannot teach infallibly through his personal agents--is such a logic as only the highly cultivated reason of Protestantism can understand. It is above the reach of that reason which is satisfied with a moderate share of culture and refinement, and cannot claim to soar so high.

We beg the reader to reflect for an instant on this single question: Is it the Theanthropos, or is it not, who teaches through the agency of his personal instruments? To this simple question, a simple answer should be given. Say you answer, It is not. Then you deny that the Theanthropos united his infinite energy to a sacramental element. Then you deny the essence of the church, and, in denying that, you must deny every other union between the infinite and the finite, as we have demonstrated. If you say it _is_ the Theanthropos who teaches through the agency of his personal instruments, then what can be more logical or more consistent than to say that he teaches infallibly? What is there more reasonable than to say that a God-man should know what is truth, and should express his mind so, should embody it in an external means so, as to represent that mind infallibly?

Then, why so much opposition against this plainest attribute of the church? Why so much obloquy, so much sneering, except that the so boasted Protestant reason is nothing but a vile, unmanly prejudice, except that those who boast so much of exercising their reason resemble those innocent and unconscious animals of which Dante speaks:

“As _sheep_, that step forth from their fold, by one
Or pairs, or three, at once; meanwhile, the rest
Stand fearfully, bending the eye and nose
To ground, _and what the foremost does that do
The others, gathering round her if she stops,
Simple and quiet, nor the cause discern_”?
--_Cary’s Translation._

The next attribute of the church is authority. This, like the rest, flows from her very essence. That essence consists in being the sacramental extension of Christ incorporating unto himself all human 838 persons in time and space, communicating to them the term of the supernatural moment in its essence and faculties, and aiding them to develop those faculties, and to bring them to their ultimate completion. The church, therefore, as sacramental--that is, outward and sensible extension of the Theanthropos intended for men--is a visible, outward society of human persons with the Theanthropos. Now, what does a visible society require? That the external relations of the associates should be determined and governed by the authority legitimately constituted in the society. For, if those relations were not determined and directed by proper authority in a visible society, it is evident that no order could be expected, and that all the members could not form one moral body, by a proper external communication. The church, therefore, as a visible society, must have authority to determine all the external relations of the members, and to govern and direct them.

This authority or power of establishing the external polity in the church is, of course, essentially residing in the Theanthropos, who communicates it whole and entire to the Supreme Pontiff, and through him to the whole hierarchy and the rest of the active church.

Having vindicated the essential attributes of the church, we think it necessary to dilate at some length upon the interior constitution, the internal organism of the same, in order to exhibit a fuller and more adequate idea of this masterpiece of the infinite. And in order to do it thoroughly, we must give a cursory glance at its eternal type, the supreme exemplar of everything--the Trinity. The reader will remember that the genesis of God’s life takes place as follows: There is in the infinite essence and nature a first subsistence, unborn, unbegotten, which terminates in the first person. This is the supreme, active principle of the second, and both are the active principle of the third. In this third termination closes the cycle of infinite life. The production of the second person is brought about by intellectual generation. For the primary unbegotten activity, being infinitely intelligent, can scan with his glance the whole depth, breadth, height, and length of his infinite nature. Now, to intelligence means to produce an intellectual image of the object which is understood. Consequently, the primary unbegotten principle, by intelligencing himself, produces an intellectual image, absolutely equal to himself, the act of intelligencing being infinite, and also distinct from him, inasmuch as they are opposed as principle and term. The first contemplates himself in his substantial image, and is attracted toward himself and his image. The second contemplates himself in his principle, and is attracted toward himself and his principle. This common, mutual attraction or love, being also infinite, is consequently substantial, and results in a third termination of the infinite essence.

From this brief explanation of the genesis of God’s life, it follows:

1st. That the infinite, though one in nature, has three distinct terminations or persons.

2d. That, though these three persons are absolutely equal, because possessed of the same identical nature, we find in them a necessary subjection of order founded on the law of origin and production, the second being originated by the first, and being in this respect subject to him; the third being originated by both, and under this respect being subject to both.

3d. The three persons, possessing the same identical nature and 839 substance, possess, consequently, all the perfections and attributes flowing from the substance in the same identical manner. Hence they possess in common all the metaphysical attributes of the substance, such as infinity, eternity, immensity, immutability; all the intellectual attributes, such as truth, wisdom, etc.; all the moral attributes of the substance, such as goodness, etc.

4th. As nature is the radical principle of action and life, it follows that, as the three persons possess the same nature, they possess one identical action and life. But as the termination is the immediate principle of action, and the three persons have a distinct termination, their one identical action receives the impress of the distinct termination of each.

5th. Finally, the essence being identical in all the three persons, and the second and third being originated by an immanent action, and all being essentially relative to each other, it follows that they all live in each other by a common indwelling.

Now, the interior constitution, the internal organism, of the church must be modelled, both in its active and passive moments, after this supreme type of everything; always granting the necessary distance of proportion intervening between the infinite and the finite. For, if the whole cosmos is and must be fashioned after that supreme pattern, how much more must the church, which is the inchoative and initial perfection of the whole cosmos, the cosmos of personalities! Consequently, we must find in its interior organism all the laws of the genesis of God’s life--laws which in the whole cosmos are reflected in those of _unity_, _variety_, _hierarchy_, _communion_.

And, first, as to the active moment of the church. As in the infinite we find one nature and essence, the abyss of all perfections, the _Being_, so in the active church we must find one nature and essence, the reflex of the essence of God. And that one nature consists in the fulness of the priesthood of the Theanthropos, communicated to the whole active church in the sacrament of order, and in the fulness of his authority.

As in the infinite the divine nature is possessed in common by a multiplicity of persons, the three terminations constituting the Trinity, so in the active church the priesthood of Christ and his authority must be possessed in common by a multiplicity of persons, some possessing it in its fulness, some partially, because distinction in the finite is by gradation, and cannot be by perfect equality, but all having the same identical priesthood as to its nature.

As in the Trinity, we find the law of hierarchy absolutely necessary in organic and living beings, which hierarchy consists in this, that the three divine persons, though absolutely equal as to nature, are distinct as to personality--a distinction which arises from opposition of origin. Now, this opposition of origin necessarily gives rise to a hierarchical superiority of order; the Father as such being necessarily superior in order to the Son, and the Son as such inferior to him; both as the aspirants of the third person necessarily superior to him, and _vice versa_.

Now, this hierarchical law must be found also in the church, and we must find a superiority of one over the other, not merely of order, but of gradation; the finite, as we have said, not being distinct except by gradation of being. Hence, we find the Theanthropos to have established three distinct elements constituting the hierarchy, and 840 organically brought together. The first, a primary principle of authority from whom all receive, and he receives from none--the Supreme Pontiff, his own vicar on earth, the visible head of the church. The second, who receive from the first in measure and limit--the episcopate, who receive from the Supreme Pontiff their authority and its extent. The third, also, receive from both in a more limited manner--the priesthood.[161]

As in the Trinity the divine nature, being the radical principle of action and life, and the termination, the proximate principle, there is one common action and life, but the same bearing the impress of the constituent of each person; so in the church the authority being the same as to nature, the Pontiff, the episcopate, and the priesthood have one common life and action radically, but each one displaying it according to the degree resulting from his dignity--the Pontiff in its fulness, the episcopate within the range of their dioceses, the priesthood within the limits appointed by the episcopate--the second as holding it from the first, the third from both.

The reader can see by the theory we have just explained, and which cannot be gainsaid, how the late definition of the infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff is in accordance with and flows from the principles we have laid down. The Pontiff in the church of Christ is the first and primary visible principle of all authority, as in the interior of infinite life the eternal Father is the first primary principle of authority over the Son and the Spirit, as we have explained above.

From the Pontiff all must receive authority, and he can receive from none, as the Father in the internal organism of the infinite communicates and receives from none. Consequently, the Supreme Pontiff being the first, primary, supreme, visible principle of authority in the church of Christ, is the first, primary, supreme, visible teacher--the office of teaching being essentially included in the fulness of authority communicated to him by Christ.

And as the office of teaching in the church of Christ would be of no avail except it were endowed with the attribute of infallibility, it follows that the Supreme Pontiff is the first, primary, supreme, _infallible_ teacher in the church of Christ. He must teach all, and can be taught by none. He teaches by himself the whole universal church, and none has and can have any authority for disputing, objecting to, and gainsaying his teaching.

We cannot perceive how any persons holding the supremacy and independence of his authority could ever have reconciled with their logic the dependence of his authority with reference to teaching.

We come to the interior organism of the passive church, to which the active church also belongs in different relation, and we find in it also a reflex of the Trinity.

For as in the infinite there is one nature common to all, communicated by the first person to the second, and by both to the third, so in the passive church we find the same nature, the term of the supernatural moment, consisting in a higher similitude of and communication with the Trinity; this term communicated by the active church; primarily by the episcopate, and secondarily by the priesthood. 841

As in the Trinity, the nature being the same, the three persons partake of all the attributes flowing from the nature, likewise, and with due proportion in the church, the nature of the supernatural moment being the same, all the members partake of the same attributes and faculties flowing from that nature; hence they have one common supernatural intelligence, one common supernatural will.

As the Trinity, the nature being the radical principle of action, and the personality the proximate, all have the same action, but each acts according to the constituent of his personality; so in the church, the term of the supernatural moment, constituting its nature, being the same, all have the same supernatural action and life; but personally, some members belonging to the active church, and some to the passive, it follows that those who belong to the first display that life in that relation, and those who belong to the second display it in the second relation.

As in the Trinity we find an indwelling of all the persons in each other, and a living perpetual communication founded on the identity of nature and on the relation of personalities; so in the church of Christ we find a perpetual communication of its members with each other, founded on the identity of nature, the term of the supernatural moment, and on the relation of personalities, all members of the passive church communicating with and living, as it were, in the active church, because proceeding from it.

We see, therefore, what is the interior organism of the church. As to the active church, the fulness of the priesthood of the Theanthropos is given to the whole active church. The organism is constituted and established by authority. The fulness of his authority is communicated to one, the Supreme Pontiff, the visible head of the church. From him, and from him alone, all others must receive authority. And hence the unity of the whole active church, unity of authority, of action and life, and the proper hierarchical order. The passive church is established upon the bestowal of the supernatural nature and faculties and acts. The two are brought together by the community of the same supernatural nature, faculties, and acts; and, by the dependence of origin, the second proceeding and being originated by the first. Both have one common life and action, but hierarchically exercised, the passive being governed and directed by the one which originates it, and thus exhibiting a most perfect image of the Trinity.

We have only been commenting upon those words of the Theanthropos: “Holy Father, keep these in thy name whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we also are.” Here we have the necessity of the church being modelled after the Trinity, the archetype of everything.

“As thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” The common nature of the active church, the mission and authority of the Theanthropos.

“And not for these only do I pray, but for all those who, through their words, shall believe in me.” The continuation of that authority.

“Sanctify them in truth.” The common nature of the passive church, the term of the supernatural moment.

“That they may be one, as thou Father in me and I in thee, that they may be one in us.” The completion of the inchoative society, brought about by the supernatural element of union, and by the incorporation 842 with the Theanthropos.

To complete the theory of the church, we have now to point out the characteristic marks which distinguish it from any counterfeit institution of men. These marks are four: unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.

_Unity._ What is the church, viewed in its essence, attributes, and interior organism? It is the Theanthropos annexing his infinite energy and his substantial presence to a sacramental element, both physical and personal, and through them first elevating human persons to a supernatural being, with its essence and faculties of supernatural intelligence and supernatural will in an incipient and inchoative state; secondly, through his sacramental, personal element proposing and expounding his _gnosis_ to their supernatural intelligence; by a second sacramental moment elevating this supernatural essence and faculties to a determinate and definite growth: by the sacramental moment of his presence incorporating all elevated persons unto himself, and thus putting them in immediate contact with himself, and through him with the Trinity on one side and with all the cosmos in nature and personality on the other side, and thus affording their supernatural faculties proper objects on which they may feed, expand, be developed, and arrive at their ultimate perfection. Finally, by the personal sacramental element governing and directing all their exterior relations and communication to one social final end; and all this not in any particular spot or period of time, but in all space and in all time. From this it is evident that the church of Christ is _one_ in force of the unity of the Theanthropos with the sacramental element; _one_ in consequence of the interior unity of organism, both of the active and passive church; _one_ in consequence of the unity of the supernatural being and faculties, the end of the church; _one_ in force of the unity of the object of the supernatural intelligence; _one_ in consequence of the unity of the object of the supernatural will--God and his cosmos, in their relations to each other; _one_ in consequence of the real communion and intercourse between the members of the church; _one_, finally, in consequence of the oneness of the visible government of the church, all emanating from one invisible and one visible head.

The second distinctive mark of the church must be holiness. For the end of the church is to impart to human persons in time and space the term of the supernatural moment, together with its faculties, and especially the faculty and habit of supernatural intelligence and supernatural will or charity, in which, as we have demonstrated in the tenth article, the very essence of holiness consists. If the church, therefore, were deprived of this distinctive mark, she would fail in that very object for which she was instituted.

But it is to be remarked that not any degree of holiness would be sufficient to constitute a distinctive mark of the church, but a certain fulness of it is required in some of its members, for a twofold reason.

Like every moment of God’s exterior action, she is subject to the law of variety by hierarchy. This involves the necessity of the church ranging between the lowest degree of sanctity to the very pinnacle of sublimest and loftiest exhibition of it; otherwise, those two laws could not be realized.

Secondly, an ordinary degree of holiness can easily be counterfeited. But none could for any length of time or any extension of space assume a sanctity which soars far above the ordinary and common level, and 843 which exhibits itself as such. _Nemo personam diu fert_ could be applied in this case more than in any other.

The next distinctive mark is _catholicity_ or _universality_. She is such not only because she contains all truth; not only because she embraces all the moments of God’s action, as the finishing stroke of them all; but because she is intended for all time and all space.

Finally, the last mark is _apostolicity_. The first members of the hierarchy chosen by the Theanthropos to communicate as moral instruments the term of the sublimative moment, with the power and authority to transmit to others that very same dignity of being moral instruments, were the _apostles_. Therefore, that church alone can be the church of the Theanthropos which to this day and for ever can show that her own hierarchy are the legitimate successors of the apostles, by an uninterrupted communication. For we have said that the essence of the church is to be the Theanthropos acting in time and space, through the agency of the hierarchy and other sacraments. Now, suppose a hierarchy who cannot claim or make good their claim to be the legitimate successors of the first ones who composed it, who could not claim any communication or union with them, how could we suppose them to be those very instruments in whom and through whom the Theanthropos lives and acts?

Before we draw the consequence which follows from all we have said concerning the church, it is necessary to recapitulate in a few words all we have written in these articles.

We set out with the question of the infinite, and after refuting the pantheistic idea of the infinite, and showing that pantheism in its solution of the problem destroys it, we gave the Catholic idea of the infinite. Here another problem sprang up--multiplicity in the infinite. No being can be conceived endowed with pure, unalloyed unity. It must be multiple, under pain of being inconceivable. What is the multiplicity which can be admitted in the infinite? We demonstrated that the pantheistic solution which says that infinite becomes multiple by a necessary interior development, destroys both terms, the unity and the multiplicity. We proceeded to lay down the Catholic answer to the problem, and explained, as far as lay in our power, the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity. The question next in order was the finite. And we showed the finite to be the effect of an absolutely free act of infinite power, free both to its creation at all and also with regard to the amount of perfection to be created; though we admitted and proved that it was befitting on the part of the Creator to effect the best possible manifestation of himself. Here we found ourselves in face of a duality which claimed reconciliation. How could the finite and the infinite be united together, so as to preserve whole and entire the two respective natures, and at the same time to effect the best possible manifestation of the infinite? We answered by laying down the Catholic dogma of the hypostatic union, which raised the finite to a hypostatic or personal union with the infinite, and elevated finite natures to the highest possible dignity. But as the hypostatic moment raised to a personal union only nature, and left out personality, another duality arose: how to unite human persons with the Theanthropos, and through him with God, and make them partakers as far as possible of the dignity and elevation of the nature 844 hypostatically united to the _Word_. The sublimative moment answered the question. This moment, medium between the Theanthropos and substantial creation, by bestowing upon human persons a higher nature and faculties, enabled them to unite in close contact with the Theanthropos and through him with the Trinity. But what was the medium chosen to transmit the term of the sublimative moment to human persons in time and space? The Theanthropos himself, the essential mediator between God and the cosmos; and to that effect he united his infinite energy and his substantial presence to personal and physical instruments, and through them imparted to human persons in time and space the term of the sublimative moment; and thus the cycle of the procession of the cosmos from the infinite was perfected in its being and faculties, to begin a movement of return to the same infinite as its supreme end. The sacramental extension of the Theanthropos in time and space we have demonstrated to be the Catholic Church, and from its essence we have drawn her essential attributes of visibility, indefectibility, infallibility, and authority, and also its intrinsic marks of unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.

After this necessarily imperfect sketch of all our articles, we submit to the reader this necessary consequence--_the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church of God_.

First, because it is in the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church alone that the life of the intelligence is possible. We have shown throughout our articles that in every question which the human mind raises, there is no possible alternative--either embrace the Catholic solution, so coherent with reason; or the pantheistic solution, and the death of the intelligence. Now, when we speak of the Catholic solution, we mean of the solution which is given by the church whose head is the Bishop of Rome, for no other pretended Catholic Church gives all the true solutions.

Second, because it is the Roman Catholic Church alone which knows her own essence and attributes. All others are more or less ignorant of the essence and attributes necessary to the church of the Theanthropos.

Thirdly, it is to the Roman Catholic Church alone to which the essence, attributes, and marks which we have shown _à priori_ to belong necessarily to the Church of Christ apply. Consequently, the Roman Catholic Church is the real cosmos of God in its perfection of being and faculties, and men have no possible alternative but to join it, to submit to its authority, under pain of the death of the intelligence, of being a creature out of joint with the whole system of God’s works, of being in the impossibility of attaining their last end in palingenesia. The Roman Catholic Church or pantheism--all truth or no truth--death or life here and hereafter.

[161] We have said _authority_ and not sacerdotal character,
because as to that there is no difference between the
Supreme Pontiff and the episcopate, but only between the
episcopate and the priesthood.

----------

THE LAST DAYS OF OISIN, THE BARD. 845

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

III.

OISIN’S YOUTH.

“Patrick! thy priests do ill to jeer,
Not me, but Oscar’s self, and Fionn:
Wise are they; but the dead are dear:
This deed is not well done.

“Who dares to say the King lies bound
By angel hosts in bonds abhorred?
Had these lain bound, great Fionn had found
And freed them with his sword!

“Had Fionn but heard thine Eve lament
The apple stol’n--the curse on men--
For _eric_ apples he had sent,
Shiploads threescore and ten!

“Likewise that serpent slain had he!
Fionn ever said this way was best,
To kill the bad that killed should be,
And be loving to the rest.

“Patrick, a pact with thee I make:
Because my warriors they deride,
With thee to heaven my father take,
And leave they priests outside!

“Patrick, this other boon I crave,
That I to thee in heaven may sing
Full loud the glories of the brave,
And Fionn, my sire and king!”--

“Oisin, in heaven the praises swell 846
To God alone from Soul and Saint:--”
“Then, Patrick, I their deeds will tell
In a little whisper faint!

“Who says that Fionn his sentence waits
In some dark realm, the thrall of sin?
Fionn would have burst that kingdom’s gates,
Or ruled himself therein!”

“Old man, for once thy chiefs forget”
(Thus oft the Saint his rage beguiled):
“Sing us thine own bright youth, while yet
A stripling, or a child.”

“O Patrick, glad that time and dear!
It wrought no greatness, gained no gain,
Not less those things that thou wouldst hear
Thou shalt not seek in vain.

“My mother was a princess, turned
By magic to a milk-white doe:--
Such tale, a wondering child, I learned:
True was it? Who can know?’

“I know but this, that, yet a boy,
I raced beside her like the wind:
We heard the hunter’s horn with joy
And left the pack behind.

“A strength was mine that knew no bound,
A witless strength that nothing planned:
When came the destined hour, I found
Some great deed in my hand.

“Forth from a cave I stept at Beigh:
O’er ivied cliffs the loose clouds rushed:--
With them I raced, and reached ere they
The loud seas sandhill-hushed.

“By Brandon’s cliff an eagle brown
O’erhung our wave-borne coracle:
I hurled at him my lance, and down
Like falling stars he fell.

“On that green shore of Ardrakese 847
An untamed horse I made my slave,
And forced him far o’er heaving seas,
And reinless rode the wave.

“Methinks my brow I might have laid
Against a bull’s, and there and then
Backward have pushed him up the glade,
And down the rocky glen!

“So ran my youth through dark and bright,
In deeds half jest. Their time is gone:
The glorious works of thoughtful might
For Oscar were, and Fionn.

“When met the hosts in mirth I fought:
My war-fields still with revel rang:
My sword with such a god was fraught
That, while it smote, it sang.

“My spear, unbidden, to my hand
Leaped, hawk-wise, for the battle’s sake:
Forth launched, it flashed along the land
With music in its wake.

“A shield I bore so charged and stored
With rage and yearnings for the fight,
When foes drew near it shook, and roared
Like breakers in the night:

“Then only when the iron feast
Of war its hungry heart had stilled,
It murmured, like a whispering priest
Or frothing pail new-filled.”

“Say, knew’st thou never fear or awe?”
Thus Patrick, and the Bard replied:
“Yea, once: for once a man I saw
Who--not in battle--died.

“I sang the things I loved--the fight--
The chance inspired that all decides--
That pause of death, when Fate and Flight
Drag back the battle tides:

“The swords that blent their lightnings blue-- 848
The midnight march--the city’s sack--
The advancing ridge of spears that threw
The levelled sunrise back.

“And yet my harp could still the storm,
Redeem the babe from magic blight,
Restore to human heart and form
The unhappy spell-bound knight.

“And some could hear a sobbing hind
Among my chords; and some would swear
They heard that kiss of branch and wind
That lulled the wild-deer’s lair!

“I sang not lies: where base men thronged,
I sat not, neither harped for gold:
My song no generous foeman wronged,
No woman’s secret told.

“I sang among the sea-side flocks
When sunset flushed the bowery spray,
Or when the white moon scaled the rocks
And glared upon the bay.

“My stately music I rehearsed
On shadowing cliffs, when, far below,
In rolled the moon-necked wave, and burst,
And changed black shores to snow.

“But now I tread a darker brink:
Far down, unfriendlier waters moan:
And now of vanished times I think;
Now of that bourn unknown.

“I strike my harp; I make good cheer;
Yet scarce myself can catch its sound:
I see but shadows bending near
When feasters press around.

“Say, Patrick of the mystic lore,
Shall I, when this old head lies low,
My Oscar see, and Fionn, once more,
And run beside that Doe?”

----------

LETTER OF MONSEIGNEUR DUPANLOUP, BISHOP OF ORLEANS, TO M. GAMBETTA. 849

FROM L’UNIVERS.

Sir: After having read the speech which you have recently delivered at St. Quentin, I waited a few days to see if some one would come forward and do justice to the words you uttered. But since they have been allowed to pass without protest from any one, I will, albeit I have not much taste for it, say what I have to say about them.

Your speech treats both of politics and religion, and you deal with these two great matters as if you were bound very shortly to become their lord and master. I shall not say much about your politics, although their threatening character adds to the already grave anxiety with which our poor country is burdened; but, as a bishop, I have a right to call you to account for the war which you declare against the church and against religion.

For war, indeed, it may be called, and accompanied with such accusations and such outrageous insults, that, if your words were true, we should deserve to be driven not only out of the school-house, as you demand, but out of the church itself.

I must admit to have been at first misled by the apparent moderation of your words. Taking interest, as I do, in conversions when they are sincere, I asked myself, while reading your discourse, in which you appeared to me so calm, so insinuating, and so circumspect, though at the same time so devoid of modesty--I asked myself if the time had come when the National Assembly was about to present the spectacle of a reconciliation of parties in the presence of the image of an ideal republic. What abundance of honey flowed from your lips! Even at times, how much toleration in your maxims!

In this statement, this programme, this message, the manifesto, or by whatever name it should be called, which you addressed to your assembled guests at St. Quentin, you proceed in this wise:

You call for “a strong and stable government, that will vigilantly protect the interests of _all_, and be able to _regenerate the morals_ of the French family.” On this point, sir, we certainly all agree. This government, you go on to say, will pacify souls, bring the social classes closer to one another, and will restore to France her rank in Europe. This is also very fine. But let us see further.

To bring about this end, you appeal even to the disabused voters of the _plébiscite_; even to the legitimists, who, by their wealth and education, are to be the _ornament of the state_; even to the conservative men, who are to be as a bridle of restraint on a policy which your friends are to urge forward.

And what is to be this policy? The _policy of labor_, very different from the policy of conquest, the triumph of the _idea of justice_ in the fulfilment of social duties. I cannot forbear remarking here that these expressions, _policy of labor_, _idea of justice_, are in daily 850 use by the _Internationale_, and not in a sense particularly intended to tranquillize society. But let us go on.

But this form of government, this policy, how is its establishment to be brought about? Why, by universal suffrage, that foremost of rights, that sole and sovereign tribunal, that army of peace. And how is universal suffrage to be persuaded and drawn to the desired end? By giving to public opinion, through _democratic intermingling_, proofs of the _morality_, the _political value_, and the _adaptation_ for _business_ of the republican party; by demonstrating that the _republican government is the most liberal of all forms of government_, etc.

Really, sir, all this must have appeared admirable to your audience, and, if your republic is of that sort, many of our most upright conservatives will tell you: Let us clasp hands, for that is the very republic which the National Assembly, acting with and through M. Thiers, is endeavoring to realize at the cost of so much self-denial, disinterestedness, and honesty.

But let us be frank.

You have no right to claim that your republic answers this description. Your sweetness is purely oratorical and Platonic; for two sentences of your address reveal you and show who you are.

“No one,” you say, “must ever give his opinion except as a means of adding to the general good; and each one must convert his mind into, as it were, a memorandum tablet for himself, in which he puts down, with a view of obtaining them, the institutions which the people have a right to expect from the democratic republic.”

If a priest had uttered these words, which seem more befitting the lips of an Italian than of a Frenchman, he would be charged with hypocrisy and mental reservation. It would be said that he is playing saint; that he is concealing his game by not revealing his innermost thoughts. But everything is forbidden to the cleric, while to the radical any and everything is allowed. This everybody knows. I confine myself to merely quoting this first sentence, without further dwelling on its merits; and I pass on to a second one, which gives me a right, not only to suspect you, as in the case of the former one, but to make a direct attack on you; its tenor is as follows:

“What I have done in the past is the true pledge of what I will do in the future, toward definitively establishing the republic.”

It is here, sir, that I must challenge you.

In the first place, I have to express my amazement that, having to account to your country, under so grave a responsibility, and for misdeeds for which you might have been rendered far more seriously liable, you can be so ready to accuse others and to glorify yourself, that you go so far as to dare to say: “What I have done in the past is the true pledge of what I will do in the future.”

What have you done in the past?

You were a young lawyer, and were turned all of a sudden, and in consequence of a tumultuous lawsuit, into a political character. The audacity of your revolutionary opinions enabled you to become a candidate for the Corps Législatif, and in the next place to take your seat as a deputy by the side of your friends Blanqui, Raspail, and Rochefort.

On the 4th September, you seized upon the governing power, and, without consulting with your colleagues, you assigned to yourself the Ministry of the Interior. Did you, as soon as you got into the 851 ministry, extend to all good citizens those arms which you seem now to be opening so widely? Not at all. In the Hôtel de Ville,[162] you installed such men as Etienne Arago, Ferry, and Rochefort; in the _mairie_, such characters as Delescluze, Mottu, Bonvalet, Clémenceau; in the _préfectures_, such as Duportal, Engelhard, and Jacobins of all sorts. You filled these places with your friends--your friends only, and these of the most excitable kind. Afterward, when your colleagues, in order to get rid of you, were so signally weak as to give you the entire realm to operate upon, when, through a fortunate contingency, you had suddenly entrusted to you that magnificent part which, to a heroic and truly patriotic heart, would have been unsurpassable, what did you do? You sought rather to force the republic--your republic--on the country than to save France. It is well for you to talk about universal suffrage. You have treated it as naught. By a first decree, you broke up the _conseils-généraux_, and did not re-establish them. By a second decree, you adjourned the elections. By a third decree, you abridged the legal qualifications for election. What have you, sole ruler everywhere obeyed, done with the treasure, the men, and the blood of her children which the nation lavished upon you? Was it not a republican who called your fatal rule the _dictatorship of incompetency_?

Though only three months in power, you had become almost a greater burden upon us than the late Imperial Government; and when you assert that the National Assembly has completed its work, which was to put an end to the war, you forget that the Assembly had received from France not one mandate only, but three. The Assembly had, and has still, given it the charge to rid our country of the Prussians, of demagoguism, and of yourself.

After the dreadful catastrophes in which the Empire sank to ruin, do you know, sir, what proved to be France’s greatest misfortune?

It was that just then, in that so terrible a crisis, you stood the absolute master of France. I make no reference to the two aged men who were at Tours with you. It was from you, a lawyer, that our generals received their orders; it was you who dictated plans for campaigns; it was you who scattered our forces, and blindly hurled our armies right and left, multiplying your lying bulletins, and at the same time and to the same extent as our reverses.--But I must turn away my thoughts from those disasters, as also from the remembrance of those poor soldiers, without clothes, without shoes, without food, without ammunition! How great an organizer, my dear sir, you proved yourself to be! How fortunate you turned out to have been in the selection of your contractors for supplies!

Nevertheless, the nation, ever generous, might have measurably accepted, as an offset to this, your personal activity, and your efforts, although unsuccessful; it had given you credit for having withdrawn yourself momentarily; but you reappeared too quickly, only a short time before the day when the Commune of Paris was putting forward your friends, your lieutenants, your teachers, or your disciples, such as Delescluze and Millière, Rigault and Ranc, Cavalier and Mottu, all those fellows who have made themselves as ignominious 852 and ridiculous as possible, some of whom are still around you; in fine, all that party which you have never, even to the extent of a single word, disavowed, and the members of which you called upon to give evidence of their morality, their political worth, and their aptitude for the business of government! That evidence has been given, and really, sir, you rely too much on the frivolity, the folly, or the credulity of the public. You preach to it about a debonair republic, but that public has not forgotten the grotesque, ruinous republic, accompanied with bloodshed, which during six months was fastened on France.

You have avoided with prudent care to call your republic _social_ as well as _democratic_; and why? In order to enjoy the happiness of a fleeting hour of dictatorship, I suppose it is worth your while to run the risk of more calamities. Alas! unfortunate land, fated to be thus perpetually the dupe and the victim of most guilty ambition!

No, in spite of all that you may say or leave unsaid, your promises are contradicted by our memories. We need, in order to be persuaded, something else than sonorous words. It is true that, in one point only, you depart from the vague style of your programme. You declare that you seek, above all things, to lay the foundation of the future of democracy on a reform, to wit, in education; and with this idea, you proclaim that you and your friends are alone capable, alone worthy, to bring up youth. You seek to turn out _just_, _free_, strong-minded and able men. This is very fine. But how? By means of a national education given after a _truly modern_ and _truly democratic_ manner.

And here you dare to affirm that the church and preceding governments have done nothing for public instruction, that they view every person who knows how to read as an enemy, and you claim to reform the world with your schools.

Allow me to reply that in this matter you are taking advantage of ignorance instead of combating it. For it argues a singular reliance on the ignorance of an audience to attempt to make it swallow at one and the same time, and in the same sentence, calumny and nonsense.

The governments that have ruled France for the past sixty years have in that period established more than 50,000 schools, and have trebled the appropriations for primary instruction.

As to the church, she is founded on two things: a book, the Gospel, and a divine command, to wit: _Ite et docete_, Go and teach. This sentence, which has become commonplace, “_Ignorance is the source of all evils_,” was uttered by a pope, and he added besides, “_particularly among the working-classes_.” These were the words of Benedict XIV., uttered more than a century before you were born.

The calumny is consequently shown to be dull-witted, and the nonsense still more so. It would seem that you also, M. Gambetta, hope, by means of schools, to stamp your effigy on future generations, just as if they were coin. But men versed in the subject know, and experience shows, that such a design is absurd, and may become a horrid tyranny. The instruction, whether primary or secondary, even with as much as you can add to it of the higher sciences, such as algebra, chemistry, etc., will not produce morals; and the parties who flatter the teachers expect, after all, much more from their influence on voters than from their action on their scholars.

Would you like to know what above all things, exerts an influence on 853 the family and on society? It is education, whether it be moral or immoral, religious or atheistic. And do you know why I mistrust your reform? Because it will be neither a moral nor a religious one.

In sober truth, what sort of tuition is a _really modern_, a _really democratic_, one? Is there such a thing as modern geometry? a democratic grammar? moral teachings of recent growth, and a geography not yet published? All these big words are but windy oratory, empty and obscure, which affords no meaning to the mind when it attempts to analyze it.

Nevertheless, after having thrown off these sentences to your hearers, you go on and recite the mottoes of the party, the watchword of the day. It is a pity that you left out tithes and forced service under feudal law. You say tuition is to be _free of cost_--that is equivalent to adding thirty millions to our budget of expenditure; but what does that signify? You have managed to spend a large sum besides. The poor will pay for the rich; but the lower classes will delude themselves with the belief that they are not paying at all, and that they are indebted to you for the benefaction. Tuition is besides to be _compulsory_. Well, let it be so, if you can devise some adequate sanction for the contemplated enactments, a reliable protection for the liberty of families, and, in particular, a reliable guarantee for the teachers, so that you can feel sure enough of them to venture, without practising the most abominable of all tyranny, to compel parents to entrust to them, what they prize most in this world, their children. But then, minor details do not stop you. To conclude, the tuition is to be by _laymen_--and now the cat is let out of the bag.

It is an easy matter to attack and calumniate absent priests, religious who make no defence. To do so is neither fair nor generous, but much popularity is to be got in that way in your party, and the hard flings at the church will offset the sweetness displayed toward other persons. So let us strike hard on this spot. The church is henceforward to be separated from the state--that is not enough, the church is besides to be separated from the school, and the school from all religion.

You have said, sir, that your republic would be a liberal one. If you accordingly begin by excluding from the common right to teach an entire class of citizens and of women, solely because their religious belief is not the same as yours, do not call yourself liberal, and do not charge the church with being intolerant, or else be logically consistent, and separate the _state from the school_. For the state, in this connection, means the budget; that is to say, the moneys which are got of all of us by taxation. You cannot, without being tyrannical, compel families to send their children to the school of the state. Lay aside these high-sounding phrases, and call things by their right names. By the church you mean _us_. By the state you mean yourself. To deprive us and our doctrines of our money, in order to bestow it on yourself and your doctrines--that is what is called separating the church from the state. But I feel pretty easy as to the choice families will make when I learn from you what the programme of this teaching is to be.

The programme is this: “It is an extensive and varied one, so that, instead of mutilated learning, man will have dealt out to him _entire truth_, so that _nothing which the human mind can grasp_ will 854 be concealed from him.” _De omni re scibili!_ Well, that is wonderful indeed! No doubt you will have the power to create minds capable of taking in this encyclopædia! You are equal to so many undertakings! So that which you have in view, gratuitous, compulsory, lay tuition, integral besides for every one and complete to an impossible degree--this is the formula of socialism, and is also the formula of absurdity.

“In the schools,” you add, “children will be taught scientific _truth_ in its rigor and _its majestic simplicity_,” and by this process “you will have reared citizens _whose principles will rest on the same bases on which our entire society is founded_.”

What do you mean by these big words? What are these _principles_? what are these _bases_? Whether it be that _those principles rest on these bases_, or that these bases are fast to those principles, how much of this will you teach to children from the ages of seven to eleven years? I call upon you to give me plainly the text of the _programme of science_ which our worthy village teachers, who are to seek to instil into children of from seven to eleven years the sense of duty and sacrifice, will have to substitute for the Ten Commandments of God, and for the sublime and popular Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What is it, pray, sir, that renders you so ungrateful towards the voters of Paris or of Lyons, who nearly all have been educated by the Brothers, so severe on the priests, who perhaps have done something for your early education, and so unjust towards the church?

It is my duty to insist on this point, and to protest against your calumnies.

What! though the clergy of France have devoted themselves, as they have done, to the service of our soldiers and our prisoners, and though when, only four months ago, our chaplains and our Brothers of the Christian Schools had served and died on the battle-fields, and though all our female religious have devoted themselves to the care of our ambulances, you have the heart to come and tell us that we are no longer French! And it is immediately after the massacre of the hostages that you repeat these calumnies, and represent us as constituting for modern society “the greatest peril.” Such are your very words, and you hold us up anew to the blind fury of our enemies.

And you direct your calumnies not against us alone, but, besides, against the Pope. Ah! I admit, the horrors, treachery, meanness, and falsehood by which he has been surrounded during the past twenty-five years have not brought him to look with favor on the charms of that sham liberty which you promise him, and he may well fail to admire that Garibaldi for whose sake you, perhaps, sacrificed our army of the East. But in the Encyclical which your hearers have never read, the Pope has not condemned the various forms of government as they exist in the laws of various nations. He has condemned liberty unrestrained, rights without countervailing duties, and societies that know not God. As to the family and property, sir, is it becoming _your_ friends to style themselves their virtuous defenders?

But what is singular in this pell-mell gathering of confused and incoherent ideas, is your alleged motive for denying to French priests the right to teach which belongs to them in common with all their fellow-countrymen: “When you have appealed to the energies of men reared by such teachers, when you seek to arouse in them ideas of 855 sacrifice, of devotedness, of patriotism, you will find that you have to deal with an emasculated, debilitated class of men.” And the reason you assign for the emasculation and debilitation of this class reared under our care is still more singular: it is because _we teach them to believe in Providence_, and because teachers that believe in Providence _are only fit to emasculate and debilitate the human race_. At this point, sir, you set “the doctrine which accustoms the mind to the idea of a Providence” in opposition to “revolution, which teaches the authority and responsibility of the will of man and free agency.” But, sir, these things are not incompatible with one another. Both are taught by Christian doctrine, and, by setting them in opposition as you do, you show that you neither understand yourself nor the matters of which you are treating.

But you, who do not believe in Providence, and who are consequently neither emasculated nor debilitated, do you know of any other belief that can better teach mankind to bear with life and brave death? You have this year ordered many men to rush to destruction. Would you have dared to recommend our soldiers to go forth to meet death, mocking God? And do you believe that the souls of the Pontifical Zouaves, and of the Breton _francs-tireurs_, were enervated by their faith in Providence?