Lecture III. The Sovereignty of God over Society

'Behold, a King shall reign injustice, and princes shall rule in judgment! Isaias xxxii. 1.

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HATSOEVER may be the first and typical fulfilment of this prophecy, no one can fail to see its true and; ultimate fulfilment in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. It is a vision of that which is singular upon earth — a just king; that is, a king who, holding supreme power, reflects not only the authority of the King of kings, but also His character. Such;a one is a king after God's own heart. Justice is the sum. of the perfections of God, the bond of all the Divine attributes of wisdom, power, mercy, and sanctity. A just king, therefore, is one who, having supreme authority, uses it in wisdom, mercy, and equity. David's highest title of glory was, that he was a man after God's own heart. His heart was conformed to the King of kings, and in the exercise of his power, in making and in executing his laws, he manifested that heart of justice to his people. Such a kingdom is a kingdom of order, peace, liberty, and equality; because, whatever be their social and accidental inequalities, all subjects are, by the supreme authority, treated equally before the law.

Such, then, is the vision of the prophecy; and it is more than a prophecy — it is a promise. It not only foretells that such a kingdom of justice shall be, but it promises that that kingdom shall exist on earth.

Now, I have already spoken to you of the sovereignty of God over the intellect and over the will of individual men. Our submission to this-sovereignty is, I explained, by the act of faith, in response to the command of God that we should' believe; and by an act of obedience to His Divine will, as it is revealed to us, in response to the commandment that we should obey. What I have now to do is to extend this subject; and these two primary truths lie at the base of what I am about to add — I mean, the sovereignty of God over society.

Society is a collection of individuals, not told »by number, but united, ordered, and organised by an intrinsic law of their nature. For when God made man, He made society. Society was a part of the first creation; society springs out of the creation of man, because from man comes the family, and from the family comes the people, and from the people comes the State. The whole civil order of the world is nothing but the growth of that society which lay in the first man, as the tree lies in the seed. Therefore in our very nature there is the society of mankind; and, as I said before, society does not mean merely men told by the head. Numbers do not constitute a people. That which constitutes a people is the principle of order, authority, and law, social relations, social rights, social duty. Where those things are not, or are trampled down, there may be a multitude, but there cannot be a people. The gospel of the present day is not the gospel of the society which God created, but the gospel of anarchy. It declares that the multitude of men, told by number and voting by plebiscites, constitutes society. Therefore when I say that God has a sovereignty over society, I mean that He has a sovereignty over those ordered relations of man to man, constituted by Himself in the creation of mankind. The first principle, then, of society is authority; the second is obedience; and the third is mutual justice, whatsoever be the varied, accidental, and providential inequalities between man and man.

I affirm, then, that there is in this world, in the order of nature, such a society as I have described. And as the Son of God Incarnate redeemed mankind by His precious Blood, so He has purchased for Himself, not only man with his individual intellect and will, but also the collective society of man as God created it. What we call Christianity is, in fact, the sovereignty of Jesus Christ over mankind. In so far as men are Christian, they are subjects of Jesus Christ; and in so far as they revolt from Him, they are but rebels, because He is the King of that society de jure, that is, by right, and de facto, that is, in fact. He is de jure., by right, King over every baptised soul; and He is not only de jure, but de facto, King over all those that are faithful to His laws. Those who, being baptised, rebel against His laws, are no longer subject to Him de facto; but they are subject de jure, that is, by right, because they have been redeemed by Him and regenerated in baptism. What, then, I purpose to show is, that there exists in the world a kingdom of which Jesus Christ is the King, and that He has a sovereignty, and exercises that sovereignty over it. The confusions we see in the world are no contradiction to what I have said — that He is, both by right and by fact, King and Sovereign over those who are faithful to His laws. He is sovereign still by right — though, through their rebellion, not sovereign by fact — over those who break those laws.

Bear in mind, I am speaking of this kingdom as God has made it, and not as man has marred it. The kingdom, as God made it, I will now go on to describe; that kingdom, as man has marred it, will be our subject hereafter.

1. First, then, when the Son of God became incarnate, He came into the world, and gathered His disciples about Him. In that act He founded His kingdom. The preaching of John was: ' The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'1 The kingdom of heaven came when God was manifested in the flesh, by His death redeemed the world, by His 1 St. Matt, iii, 2.

resurrection vindicated His sovereignty, and by His ascension took possession of His throne. By His Incarnation He had deified the nature of man, and not only restored, but elevated, man above his previous state in creation. He elevated not only man, but the society of man, which, as I said, lies in man's very nature. The first Adam was mere man, united with God indeed; but-through his disobedience he wrecked himself, and in himself, all the society of mankind. The second Adam is the Son of God Incarnate, in whom man is not only redeemed and elevated, but the whole society of mankind also; and neither man nor the society of man can again be wrecked, in so far as it is obedient and faithful to the Incarnate Son of God.

I will say, then, for clearness' sake, that the society He founded is His mystical Body, or the Church, as we shall hereafter see. Our Divine Lord restored man and society in His person when He deified our manhood, our intelligence heart, will, our whole nature, soul and body When He gathered His disciples about Him, He elevated them also. He illuminated them with the knowledge of God and His kingdom; He infused into them the grace of His Holy Spirit; He shed abroad in their heart the law of love to God and man; He inspired their will with the law of obedience; He elevated them above the natural state in which they were born. ' That which is born of the flesh is flesh,' and such they were at their first birth. l That which is born of the Spirit is spirit,' and such they were by contact with the Son of God in the regeneration. And being elevated to a higher state of faith, light, love, and obedience, He assimilated them to Himself; He changed them into His own likeness. The first Adam was defaced and disfigured, the image and likeness of God in him were shattered; but the likeness and image of God were manifested again, in their perfection, in the face of Jesus Christ. As St. Paul says: * God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.'2 Again he says: * We all, beholding the glory of the Lord with face uncovered, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.'3 And St. John writes: 'We saw His glory, the 2 2 Cor. iv. 6. » Ibid. iii. 18.

glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.... And of His fulness we all have received, and grace for grace;'4 that is to say, the fellowship of the disciples with their Lord, His daily conversation with them, the assimilating power of His life and of His example, transformed them. Their heart, mind, and will were gradually transfigured into His own likeness; and as He changed them into His own likeness, so He united them together. They became of one mind, one heart, one will; they had one faith, one vision of God, one Guide, one Teacher, one law. There was wrought in them an internal change, which perfectly united them one with another; so that their thoughts, affections, volitions, being subject by faith to the sovereignty of their Divine Master, were assimilated to each other. There grew up an internal unity in the hearts of the disciples; and therefore the external unity with which they adhered to Him and to one another, was the result and consequence of this intrinsic unity of mind and will. He thus organised them together. He made one of them to be the first, and all the rest to be equal. He gave to that one a chief authority, and 4 St. John i. 14, 16.

He gave to them all a participation, not of that sole primacy, but of all other powers which He gave to Peter, and so knit them into one perfect society, of which He Himself was the visible Head whilst on earth, and His Vicar when He ascended into heaven. This is what we call His Church, or Mystical Body.

When He ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Ghost, His disciples and all who believed in Him were united to Him by the indwelling of the Spirit of God. He thereby became their Head. They became His members, and were members one with another in one organised body, so compacted and fitted together, that as the body of a man, quickened and animated by one life, grows to its perfection, so with the Mystical Body of Christ. He bestowed on it a participation of His own prerogatives: it became imperishable, because He has immortal life; it became indissolubly one, because He is the only Son of God; it became infallible, because He is the Divine Truth, and cannot err; it became sovereign in the world, because it is the representative of Himself, and, in His Name, exercises His sovereignty among the nations of the earth.

Such, then, was the first founding of His kingdom. In its expansion afterwards, when He said to His disciples: ' All power in heaven and earth is given unto Me: go ye, therefore, and teach all nations,' He claimed sovereignty in the most ample and explicit terms. He who has all authority, lacks nothing. There is no power supreme over Him who has all authority. And having all power, He therefore said to them: * I dispose nnto you a kingdom, as My Father hath disposed unto Me.' More explicit language could not be found to declare that the power which He gave to His Apostles was a royal power; that it was a participation of His own sovereignty, and given in virtue of the right of delegation which He received from His Father. When He said: 'My kingdom is not of this world,' He did not intend — as some blindly and almost incomprehensibly misunderstand Him — that He denied His kingdom to be in this world. He affirmed it to be in this world, but not of it; that is, that the source of its authority, the fountain of its jurisdiction, the sanctions of its laws, the powers of its executive, are from His Eternal Father. It therefore does not derive its authority, sovereignty, jurisdiction, powers, rights, from this world. All these are not of men, but of God. They are not the grants or concessions of kings, princes, legislatures; nor do they come from the multitude by universal suffrage. They are of God, delegations of the Eternal King to His Incarnate Son. They are supernatural, Divine, intangible by human control, imperishable, sovereign over all.

2. When, therefore, He sent out His Apostles, it was to execute the same commission He had received Himself. What He was among the Apostles, they were to be among the nations of the world. They began by elevating men and families wheresoever they went. They communicated the same light, faith, grace, and laws, which they had first received. The illumination of faith, the gift of regeneration, the grace of the Holy Sacraments, the laws of the kingdom of God, the Ten Commandments interpreted not in the letter only but in the spirit, the Two Precepts of Charity, the Eight Beatitudes; these were the laws of the heavenly kingdom, and these the Apostles gave to the nations of the world. The nations of the world, so far as they received those laws, were elevated to a higher order, and were assimilated to the Master from whom those laws were derived. As the faith and the laws of Christianity took possession of men, of households, and of people, they were conformed to the same pattern and the same perfection. When the Apostle said: 'Be ye also followers of me, as I also am of Christ,'5 he meant to say: 'In me you see the dimmed and imperfect reflection of that perfect image and pattern which I am bid to represent; follow me, as I follow Christ. 1 am indeed among you as an example, so far as I truly represent Him to whom all men, illuminated by faith, are to be conformed — the Second Adam, the Son of God, who is now at the right hand of His Father.' As they were assimilated to that type, they were united together by the infused grace of charity, and by the supernatural union, which drew the world to believe in the Unity of God. That supernatural and miraculous union of the first Christians was the testimony and proof of the Unity of God, from whom they received their law. As our Divine Lord prayed to His Father: * That they also may be one in Us, that the world 5 1 Cor. xi. 1.

may believe that Thou hast sent Me.'G And the world beheld in wonder, if it did not yet believe. The world acknowledged this supernatural unity, saying: ' See how these Christians love one another.' It was a phenomenon never seen before, a fruit that never grew on any other tree, since sin cursed the earth. As they were united, so they were organised together; and there grew up in the world the true Vine and the branches, — the one world-wide organisation, the one life-giving society of men — united by baptism, faith, and worship; by submission to one authority; by the recognition of one visible Head — the sole fountain of supernatural knowledge and supernatural power. There was one hand which held the two keys of jurisdiction and of science — that is, of supreme power and of the perfect knowledge of faith: and that one hand was the hand of him who bears the representative character of the Vicar of his Divine Master. In this organisation — which, being visible, speaks to the eye, and having a living voice speaks audibly to the ear — there was a work of God's grace, even more supernatural, more perfect, and more marvellous. The Church has a visible body;

6 St. John xvii. 21.

so had the old Koman Empire; so has now the Empire of Britain: but the Church has what they had not — it has a soul, and that soul consists in a spiritual unity, which emanates from God the Holy Ghost, who dwells in it, and animates it by faith, hope, and charity — by the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, by the eight Beatitudes in their ripeness and perfection, by the law of charity to God and man — thereby producing a perfect internal unity of mind, intellect, conscience, and will, which God alone can create. This unity of the Church, both external and internal, which the world is always endeavouring to destroy, yet can neither destroy nor deny, stands perpetually in the world as the Visible Witness of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. But we have not yet reached to the full meaning of these words.

3. I have, thus far, described the Church in its root, as our Lord planted it; and in its extension, as the Apostles spread it abroad. Thenceforward it has grown as a tree, rising in stature and strength, overshadowing the whole world. But the action of the Church among the nations has been to create the Christian world. By the Christian world, I mean that the Church has pervaded, penetrated, and outwardly governed races and nations of men, who are not all internally obedient by faith and charity to the laws of grace. More than this, it has controlled the material power, the physical or brute force of mankind. There are but two kinds offeree in the world — material and moral; and the force of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ is the moral force of law and right. The force of man is the force of his arm, of his will, of combination, coercion, criminal codes, capital punishment, warfare, conflicts between nation and nation until one beats the other down and tramples in its blood. This is the sovereign power of mankind, unrestrained by the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. Such it was before that sovereignty was revealed from heaven; such it would be again, if that sovereignty could ever cease; such it is always and everywhere, in proportion as that sovereignty grows weak in its control over the hearts of men.

This moral power of law and right, first acting upon individuals, then upon households, then upon cities, then upon races, began to create the new Christian civilisation. The Church possessed, in the time of St. Gregory the Great, three-andtweiity provinces. The possessions over which the Vicar of Jesus Christ ruled, until sacrilege robbed him the other day, were called the Patrimony of the Church; and some twenty-three like to it were possessed by St. Gregory the Great. They extended over the greater part of Italy, the south of France, along the shores of the Adriatic, the north of Africa, Sicily, the islands of the Mediterranean. Divine providence so ordered that these patrimonies, being committed to the patriarchal care and government of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, should become the first portions of human society which were reduced to obedience to the Christian law. In these patrimonies the germs of Christian civilisation were planted. They first received the Christian law of marriage, the abolition of slavery, Christian education of children, just arbitration of Christian judges, mutual respect, fair dealing between man and man. They became the first provinces of that Christian world which has now grown up into the maturity of Christendom. There is not to be found in history anything more beautiful, more patriarchal, or reflecting more brightly the peaceful and majestic justice of our Divine Lord in the Mountain, legislating in the eight Beatitudes, than the paternal sway of St. Gregory the Great, the Apostle of England. Those twenty-three patrimonies of the Church, as I have said elsewhere,7 wrought as the leaven in the meal; and the Christian civilisation ripened in them, became the germ of the Christian civilisation which afterwards formed the nations of Christian Europe. Where, then, were Spain, France, Germany, and England? They were races, divided in conflict. Some were wild in their ferocity; others had sunk again into paganism; some had not yet emerged from it. There was then no Christian Europe, such as we now know it. St. Gregory the Great ruled over those patrimonies, and ripened the first spring of the Christian world. He sowed broadcast in the furrows of Europe those seeds of Christian progress and order of which men at this day are so proud, though they are trampling them down. Then the nations began to spring — Lombardy, Spain, France, Germany, and England. It was the action of the Vicar of Jesus Christ which made them what they are. Spain was torn by heresy, invaded by Saracens, infected by Judaism, divided into conflicting kingdoms, when the Councils of 7 Four Evils of the Day, pp. 85, 86.

Toledo, legislating by the precepts of the Christian law, knit together the many races of the peninsula into one great people. So it was in England. The Heptarchy was in perpetual conflict, seven kingdoms warring against each other, until Christianity, entering and subduing them to one faith, one law, one supreme Pastor, blended them into one; and the Christian monarchy of England arose, and endures to this day. So was it with other nations of our Christian world. And after this was done, another work began: they were then united together, and Christendom arose. What the Church had done in Spain and England, it did throughout the whole of Europe. It knit the nations together into a federation of Christian kingdoms and people, and created the unity and order of Christendom, which is the manifestation of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ over the civil powers of the world. But this subject is too large: I can but sum it up in these few words.

What has the world, then, gained by the sovereignty of Jesus Christ? The extinction of slavery, — and let any man weigh what those words mean, remembering what slavery was in the ancient world. Secondly, the sanctifi cation of Christian households, by the laws of domestic purity and the laws of marriage. Thirdly, the Christian education of children. Fourthly, the redemption of woman; the raising her from the degradation in which she was before her regeneration in Christ, to be the handmaid of the Immaculate Mother of God, and to be respected by men, as being the image of the Mother of their Redeemer. Once more, the restraining of warfare, which before was the lawless and brute violence of men and nations, without recognition of mercy and justice. War itself was tempered with mercy under the legislation of the Church and the supreme arbitrament of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Again, the civil code of every country, which still retained, even in its Christianity, the severity and sanguinary rigour of its past, was gradually mitigated from age to age, until the severities of the old world were in great measure effaced. In passing, let me protest against a common and monstrous inversion of the truth. The Church is accused of sanctioning and encouraging severities in the criminal code, which the milder legislation of princes has mitigated. The Church always restrained the severities of law to the utmost of its power, from age to age; but the hands of men in iron mail were too heavy to be stayed by the light pastoral staff of the Church. The Church would have extinguished long ago the cruelties of the penal code, if it had obtained the power. There was also introduced into the society of men a quality never known before — the charity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The manifold compassion of the Good Shepherd and of the Good Physician, — tenderness to the sick, to the sorrowing, to the orphan, to the widow, to the prisoner, to the outcast, to the poor, — these are the ripe fruits of the Sermon on the Mount, and come from no other tree. Again, mutual respect among all classes and ranks of men. When I say respect, I do not mean only or chiefly the respect of the lower for those above them, but I mean emphatically the respect of those in authority for those who are beneath them, because they see in them the image of God, and the purchase of the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ.

These, then, are some of the fruits of the Christian civilisation, which the world had never known before. The sovereignty of Jesus Christ consists therefore in this: that whereas, in the order of nature, there was a human society such as I first described, and whereas in the order which is supernatural there is a society created by our Divine Lord Himself — which is His Church — the sovereignty of Jesus Christ consists in the union of those two creations of God; in their perfect amity, intimate concord, mutual co-operation, united recognition of One Master, One Lord, One Sovereign; or, in other words, that what is called the Church and State form one sovereignty, under one Supreme Head. Woe to the man, woe to the people, that preach their separation! Woe to the world, when they shall be separated! The prophet Isaias, foretelling the sovereignty of this Just King, describes it thus: ' The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad; and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily. It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise. The glory of Libanus is given to it; the beauty of Carmel, and Saron; they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of our God.'8 And again he says, speaking of the man of faith: ' His eyes shall see the king 8 Isaias xxxv. 1, 2.

in his beauty.'9 Who is the king but Jesus Christ? what is the beauty but the manifestation of His kingdom 1 Perhaps some will say: ' Yes, in heaven.' I answer: * Yes; but also upon earth; or what do you mean day by day in praying, " Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" f To be blind to God's kingdom in the midst of us is Judaism. When the Messias came, the men of Jerusalem were looking for a king of glory. When He came in humiliation, they did not know Him. As the Apostle says: ' For if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.'10 Men are now going the same way; they are postponing the manifestation of His kingdom to the future, — shutting it up in the unseen world, that it may not trouble our peace with its justice or disturb our politics with its authority.

There are two consequences to be drawn from what I have said. The one is this; that though His kingdom — as our Lord Himself said — is not of this world, it is nevertheless here as the sphere of its manifestation. The kingdom of Jesus Christ, then, the Church and the

9 Isaias xxxiii. 17. 10 1 Cor. ii. 8.

Christian world, are here and visible; and they are not only here and visible, but they are local. Under the Old Law, Jerusalem was the head of Israel, the centre from which the Law went forth; there was the sanctuary and the priesthood; there too was the Temple, in which the high-priest ministered; and all this was typical. 1 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, not the very image of the things,'11 the substance came under the New Law. What, then, corresponds now to Jerusalem under the Old Law? It is the cant of controversy, it is the affectation of scepticism, for any man to shut his eyes and pretend that Christendom, which he admits to have a circumference; has no centre. It is the audacity of unbelief to say, that the centre has been any other than Rome. No man, with the page of history before him, can find any other solution of the things I have been saying, except in the history of the Pontiffs, the Vicars of Jesus Christ. Rome is visibly and self- evidently the head and centre of the Christian order. Rome is as surely the seat of the sovereignty of God in the Church of all nations, as Jerusalem

11 Heb. x. 1.

G was in that of the Jews. The Vicar of the Incarnate Word dwells there by the dispensation of Divine Providence. The world has striven to cast him out for eighteen centuries, and has never been able to displace him. Five-and-forty times it has striven to drive him out, or to keep him out, or to overturn the throne of the Vicar of Jesus Christ; but in vain. If he disappear for a moment, in a little while he is to be found once more reigning at the Tomb of the Apostles. If he be absent for half a century, his return is only the more supernatural. Such is the mere matter of fact. But I will go on to something that men will not deny. Rome has been the Mother of Churches. It may not, indeed, have been the Mother of all the Churches, because the Apostles went out from Jerusalem, and the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. But if Rome has not been the Mother of all the Churches of the East, assuredly it is the Mother of the Churches of the West. It is the Mother of the Christianity of Ireland, of England, of Germany; and so I might go on. It has been the Mother of the Churches of the West, and the Foster-mother of the Churches of the world. It has ever been and ever must be the Teacher and Guide of Churches, the Chief Witness of the Incarnation, the Chief Apostle of what our Lord taught, of what our Lord commanded; the Chief Judge of all controversies, the Chief Interpreter of the faith, the Chief Doctor and Pastor of the Universal Church.. So the Council of Florence declares, and so the Council of the Vatican the other day expounded, with a voice which is infallible, in virtue of that same special promise of Divine assistance made by the Son of God to Peter, and in him to all who sit in his seat for ever.

Not only so, but, as I have already very briefly traced, Rome is the mother of nations. If it be Christianity which has civilised the world, it is Rome which has sustained Christianity. The patrimonies of the Church were the seed-plot of Eu-rope. And for all these causes and reasons, Rome is the capital of Christendom. It was never the capital of Italy. When Italy and Rome were one, Italy was united to Rome, and not Rome to Italy. Rome had a world -wide empire, of which Italy was a part. The claim of that part to appropriate Rome is a stupendous usurpation. It is a usurpation upon your rights, and upon mine, and upon the rights of every Christian nation and every Christian man under heaven.

From east to west, the whole of Christendom claims Rome as its head and as its home; and every nation throughout the world goes up to Rome, as the tribes of Israel went up to Jerusalem. God has so ordered it. There are two special reasons why we hold it so to be, both as matter of faith and as matter of principle.

First, God has so ordered the organisation, constitution, and authority of His visible Church on earth. He has made Rome the seat of the Vicar of His Incarnate Son; and from that seat or throne goes forth the supreme authority both of jurisdiction and of doctrine, whereby the purity and the liberty of the Church throughout the world are perpetually preserved. Satan is wise enough to know that, if he can strike a blow on the head, he is inflicting a deadly wound upon the whole body; and for that reason the warfare from the beginning has been against Rome. This is one reason.

The other is, that Rome is the bond or link between the two societies, natural and supernatural, of which I have been speaking. In the one person who is both Pontiff and King, the two societies and the two authorities in the world, spiritual and temporal, are united. The union of these is, as we have seen, the will and purpose of our Divine Redeemer. We therefore insist upon it as a matter of principle. Every power, whatsoever it be, that attempts to dissolve the union which God has created, is fighting against God. We contend for this, not so much for the sake of the Church, which is imperishable and will live to the end of the world in all the plenitude of its majesty, as for the sake of the civil society of mankind, which, as we shall see hereafter, when separated from Christianity, will go to dissolution.

What, then, is it that men call the temporal power of the Pope? We are weary of the words. It simply means this, — the union, in one person, of the supreme authority which links together the two societies God has created for the sanctification of mankind. You know full well there never was any period of Christianity in which the spiritual authority of Rome first, and next its temporal power, has not been the special object of assault. You know the events at this moment.

Do not be afraid. Fear nothing. As long as the Christian world exists, the Christian world will recognise Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, and the PontifTto be His Vicar. It will obey the law of justice which consecrates the providential order whereby he is a sovereign among kings. Though this may be overclouded for a moment, as it has been forty times before, and may be a hundred, it will not be destroyed. If it were, the Christian world would have committed suicide; but I have better hopes. Let us not fear, then. The Scottish nation, when, by an unhappy vehemence, they cast off their obedience to the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and also the authority of the bishops who were set over them, had the faith and the wisdom to retain two things, which they hold fast to this day — the absolute independence of man and of conscience, in all things spiritual, of all civil powers; and also what they call, in true and expressive language, ' the crown-rights of Jesus Christ;' that is to say, the sovereignty of our Divine Lord, and of His kingdom, over all rulers and civil laws. Seeing a great nation retain these two principles, we may hope for it.

You, as children of the Catholic Church, have not only retained these things, but you have retained them with the pastoral care of the Apostles, and with the supreme authority of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. You owe him, therefore, fidelity, obedience of heart, mind, and will, submission of intellect and of all your powers to the revealed law of God. You owe him a generous obedience. That which we call the spirit of a good Catholic means a generous love and generous fidelity, as to the Delegate of a Divine Master and a Divine King, who is our King by right and by fact. Hon-our him, then; love him, and obey him. The desolate and impassable land, which once blossomed as the lily, is growing desolate and impassable once more. Wars choke up its highways, armed men are upon all its paths, desolation and barrenness are where the smiling fields and waving harvests were a year ago; and this is a type of the Christian world as it is before God. The glory of Libanus, and the beauty of Saron and of Carmel, are trampled down; but be not afraid. The words ot the prophet are the words of God: i I beheld in the visions of the night, and lo, one like the Son of Man came in the clouds of heaven, and He came even to the Ancient of Days; and they presented

Him before Him. And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom; and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him: His power is an everlasting power, that shall not be taken away; and His kingdom that shall not be destroyed.'12

12 Daniel vii. 13, 14.