or to
look upon them merely as so much muscle or physical power."

Charity, as Pope Leo frequently understands it, would indeed effect a
wonderful amelioration in the world. But it is that charity "which is
always ready to sacrifice itself for others' sake" and the chief
characteristic of which is the love of justice. It has been degraded
in these later years into the sense of alms-giving, so that the
Christian pulpits of every denomination have too often thus been
preaching charity while ignoring justice.

Is it any wonder the world rebelled? The victories of the Church were
won when she possessed the sublime strength of weakness, and when her
martyrs and saints in language only matched by that of the radicals of
to-day were proclaiming the essential liberty, fraternity, and
equality of all men, and denouncing the iniquities of imperial Rome.
But when she took the fatuous step, and placed on her own brow the
crown of the Caesars, then she too became conservative, then the words
of her popes began to be regulated by policy, then charity became
alms-giving, and piety degenerated into ecclesiasticism. Authority was
strained until it snapped, and a suffering world revolted from the
outrageous assumptions of ecclesiastical power. A return to
Christianity is, indeed, needed, but the Church will have quite as
much of a journey to go as the world, so far as her methods are
concerned.

With regard to the position of the family in the state, Pope Leo is
the advocate of freedom as against the interference of public
authority in domestic affairs. He admits, however, that the state
should interfere in cases of family disturbance "to force each party
to give the other what is due," herein differing from the
philosophical anarchists. He discerns clearly that the interests of
labor and of capital are not antagonistic, but what he does not see is
that the interests of labor and capital may both be antagonistic to
the interests of monopoly, and that until the latter is destroyed the
two former will be continually forced into positions of seeming
antagonism. He denounces "rapacious usury," and says that it was "more
than once condemned by the Church," conveniently overlooking the fact
that the _usuria_, which was condemned, was not only "rapacious" but
was all taking of money for the use of money, all interest on loans--a
condemnation which, if insisted upon by the Church to-day, would soon
empty her sanctuaries. He refers to the "gr