Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/48

wisdom; her sway and her priesthood are both universal; her subjects are kings and emperors, and her heroes are saints and martyrs; her invincible soldiery are the brave men who have subdued their carnal inclinations and irregular desires. It is God who invisibly presides over her grave deliberations, and her most sacred councils. When her pontiffs speak to the earth, their infallible word has already been recorded by God in the heavens.

The Church rests upon no human foundation. After having rescued the world from an abyss of corruption, she has brought it forth out of the darkness of barbarism. She has always fought the battles of the Lord, and, having suffered much tribulation, has always proved victorious. Heretics deny her doctrine, but she triumphs over heretics. Every human passion rebels against her empire, but she triumphs over all human passions. The final struggles of paganism were directed against her, but paganism lies vanquished at her feet. Kings and emperors persecute her, but the constancy of her martyrs overcomes the ferocity of their executioners. She only contends for her sacred liberty, and the world accords her sovereign power.

Under her most prolific rule the sciences have flourished, manners have been reformed, laws perfected, and all the great domestic, political, and social institutions have had a rich and spontaneous growth. Her anathemas have only been directed against impious men, rebellious nations, and tyrannical kings.

She has, in the defense of liberty, opposed those kings who have made a despotic use of power, and she has maintained the principle of authority in opposition to those nations who have attempted to effect an abso-