age and sighs for deliverance. The old Russian party which reject the imperial innovations threaten to make common cause with the revolutionary party, much stronger than is commonly supposed, and if they do, the Russian Emperor and the Russian Pope may experience the fate of Louis XVI. of France. As to Turkey, "the sick man," we need not enlarge. Neither the internal nor external condition of that empire says much in favor of the union of the two powers in the chief of the state. It may, however, be taken as a fair example of what France in a couple of generations would become, were the Emperor mad enough to adopt the policy recommended by our author.

Poor Mr. Cayla is as unsuccessful as a historian as he is as a statesman. He supposes the Frank monarchs created the Papacy by creating the Bishop of Rome a temporal prince, and investing him as their vassal with the government of the States of the Church. The Papacy, therefore, grows out of the temporal principality, and the Bishop of Rome is Pope because he is king, not a king because he is Pope. The author could not have made a greater blunder if he had had a schismatic Anglican divine for his teacher. As to the precise date of the origin of the temporal sovereignty, or the precise causes which made the Pope a sovereign prince, we shall say nothing now. It is enough to say that the Pope never was a subject of any temporal prince, and never can be. He represents him who is King of kings and Lord of lords. He is above all earthly monarchs by the law of Christ, and if he ever submits to a temporal sovereign even in temporals, it is as our Lord himself paid tribute to Cæsar, for the sake of peace, and to avoid scandal. The status of prince belongs to him by right of his office as Vicar of Christ, for by that office he is declared independent, and clothed with plenary authority to govern all men and nations in all things relating to salvation. He never was the subject of the Roman Emperor, much less the vassal of the Frank monarchs. It was the Pope that made Pepin le Bref King of the Franks, not Pepin that made the Bishop of Rome Pope. It was not Charlemagne that made St. Leo III. Pope, but St. Leo. III. that conferred on Charlemagne the imperial dignity, and made him his coadjutor in the temporal government of the Roman States. The Papacy existed and was acknowledged by Catholics throughout the world, to say the least, long before the accession of the Carlovingians to the Frank monarchy.

The Papacy never depended on the temporal sovereignty, and would exist if the temporal sovereignty were lost. The Bishop of Rome was not made Pope by acquiring the temporal principality, but that principality was acquired by him, or conferred on him, because he was already Pope, that he might be independent in his spiritual government of the Universal Church. Even the temporal power, if such you insist upon calling it, which the Pope so long exercised as the chief of the political as well as of the religious world, did not depend on his temporal sovereignty, nor was it sustained by that sovereignty. He was the arbitrator between Sovereign and sovereign, and sovereigns and their subjects, not because he was sovereign of the Roman States, but because he was the Father of Christendom, the supreme representative of God on the earth. Deprive him of his temporal dominion, you would do a great wrong to the Holy See, but you would not deprive him of one particle of his legitimate authority as Pope. They who imagine that the loss of the temporal principality would involve the destruction of the Papacy, and put an end to the Catholic Church, reckon without their host. In the providence of God the Pope has become a temporal prince; in the providence of God he may cease to be a temporal prince; but he will remain what he has been from St. Peter down to Pius IX., now gloriously reigning, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Vicehim no ecclesiastical power or right. gerent of God on earth. The temporal principality gives

all without it, that he is with it. The depriving him of it releases the Catholic from no obligation to be in communion with him, or to obey him as the chief of his religion.

But though the loss of his temporal dominion would not in the least affect the spiritual authority of the Pontiff, who in the Catacombs as in the Vatican or the Quirinal would be equally the Vicar of Jesus Christ and the Vicegerent of

God

yet it might have a disastrous effect on his freedom

and independence in its exercise; and for this reason Catholics defend it, and the enemies of the Papacy make war against it. What effect it would have in this respect, we will not stop to inquire, for that would lead us into a discussion foreign to our present purpose.

But his entire

freedom and independence in the exercise of his spiritual sential to the well-being of the Church. The Church is not Sovereignty is the divine right of the Holy Father, and essimply Presbyterian, or Episcopal, but Apostolic, that is

to say, Papal. Our Lord founded his Church on Peter, and continues the Apostolic power in Peter's successor. The suppression of the Papal authority would be the suppression of the Church herself, or her perversion from the Church into a sect, even though her rites and dogmas should remain unchanged. There may be differences of opinion among Catholics as to the best practical means of securing in the present state of things the Papal independence, but there can be none as to that independence itself, or as to the duty of Catholics to maintain it at all hazards. Never was that independence more seriously threatened than now, since the conversion of the Roman empire. Never was the duty of defending it more urgent, and never was it more necessary that all loyal Catholics should be on the alert to discover and defeat the machinations of the politicians.

Mr. Cayla shows us very clearly, if the same thing were not otherwise shown, that it is idle for Catholics to rely for the freedom and independence of the Church on political power constituted as it now is in France and most other continental states. He says to us, contrary to his intention, "put not your trust in princes." We do not believe the Emperor of the French is in his intentions toward the Church below the average of Catholic sovereigns, and we are far from believing him disposed to adopt the extreme policy Mr. Cayla recommends, but his antecedents, his declarations, his present conduct, all go to prove that he means to be master in his own empire, to subject the clergy to his will, and compel the Pope to submit to his policy. Having defeated Austria who had so long domineered over the Holy Father and subjected the clergy to her police, he is now determined to put France in her place. Without creating or approving a formal schism, he will yet exert all his power, if necessary, to prevent the Pope at Rome, or the bishops and clergy in France, from offering any serious opposition to his secular policy.

This is no more than should have been expected from the first. We know nothing more idle than to look for an orthodox Cæsar who will stand by the Holy Father and maintain the freedom and independence of the Church. Such a Cæsar has never been known. Cæsar may have religious sensibility, he may even understand the necessity of religion to uphold his power and to keep his subjects loyal and submissive; but he can never wish the freedom and independence of the Church in his dominions; for if

free and independent she divides power with him, and he would have no division of power. He would reign supreme and alone, a God on earth. He can tolerate no brother near the throne, and suffer, if he can help it, the Church to exist no farther than he can use her in the interests of his government. This lies in the very nature of Cæsarism, whether called Christian or pagan. Cæsar never can be the supporter of the freedom and independence of the Supreme Pontiff, for that means the freedom and independence of the Church. He never does willingly and never can sustain the Pope any farther than he can use him. Hence the fearful struggles in the Middle Ages between the Pope and the Emperor. The Pope would maintain the freedom and independence of the Church as a spiritual kingdom complete in herself; the Emperor would have no constituted power or body in his empire that was independent of his authority, and which he could not control. The Pope would maintain the Church independent; the Emperor Would subject her to the political authority. Hence the struggle. Hence the inveterate hostility in all ages of the Cæsarists to the Papacy.

We can see no way of guarantying the freedom and independence of the Supreme Pontiff, and therefore the freedom and independence of the Church in each state so long as Cæsarism is suffered to stand. The fault is not in the man; it is in the system; and we can never expect Cæsar and Peter to live in peace together. There is no human security for religious freedom, but in making war to the knife on Cæsarism, in whatever form or guise it may show itself. We cannot rely on concordats, for Cæsar will either not keep his word and execute them, or he will struggle to pervert them to instruments of tyranny in regard to his subjects. The parties are not equal; the one is armed, the other is unarmed. The one wields the physical power of

the

State, the other wields only the power of faith, which

in our days is weak. Spiritual censures are despised, and the Popes can no longer combine a political force sufficient to compel the perjured prince to keep his engagements.

can succeed only by limiting the power of government, by establishing a free government, which guaranties the political equality of the citizens, and secures in the gen

eral

freedom of the citizen the freedom of religion, as is

done in our own country. This we believe is the only practicable way of attaining adequate guaranties for the

freedom and independence of the Church. We must labor so to constitute the state that every man shall have recognized by the constitution, as one of the inherent and indefeasible rights of the citizen, the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. This right of conscience implies full and entire freedom of the Church in the state, and can be infringed only by those acts which would infringe the recognized rights of all citizens whether Catholic or non-Catholic.

The political liberty we demand is, even in reference to the temporal order itself, a great good and worth struggling for; but at our age, after having fought so many battles for it, undergone so many defeats, encountered so many discouragements, experienced so many disappointments, and seen so many brilliant hopes vanish, we should not continue the struggle were we not profoundly convinced that it is necessary as the condition of securing the freedom and independence of our religion. The body is of little account; it will soon be dust, and whether it suffers a little more or a little less, whether it smarts under the lash of a taskmaster, or wastes away under disease, is a matter in itself worthy of no serious consideration, certainly of no serious struggle to one who, at farthest, must soon bid adieu to this world and all its interests. But the liberty of the mind, the liberty of the soul, the liberty of conscience, the liberty of religion is a good one is never too old to struggle for, and which is cheaply purchased at the expense of the dungeon, the stake, or the scaffold. It is the sum of all liberty, and is a good which one may carry with him into that life which never dies. We ask political freedom, we ask political guaranties of the rights of men, because we ask freedom of conscience and the full freedom and independence of our religion. We ask not freedom to oppress the consciences of others, but freedom to follow our own, and this freedom we think can be secured by founding the state on equal rights, and making the liberty of religion the political right of the citizen.

We know perfectly well that such a régime gives the Church no advantage before the state over the sects. She and they will stand on a footing of perfect equality before the civil constitution. She cannot use the state to force them to recognize her authority, and they cannot use it to force her children to renounce their spiritual mother, and accept their heresy. But this is only in accordance with