in
the Divine order, or the intrinsic catholic reason of things, or they
will not yield it a full, entire, and hearty obedience. The reason
that suffices for the child does not suffice for the adult, and the
reason that suffices for barbarians does not suffice for civilized men,
or that suffices for nations in the infancy of their civilization does
not suffice for them in its maturity. The appeal to external authority
was much less frequent under the Roman Empire than in the barbarous
ages that followed its downfall, when the church became mixed up with
the state.

This trait of the American character is not uncatholic. An
intelligent, free, willing obedience, yielded from personal conviction,
after seeing its reasonableness, its justice, its logic in the Divine
order--the obedience of a free man, not of a slave--is far more
consonant to the spirit of the church, and far more acceptable to God,
than simple, blind obedience; and a people capable of yielding it stand
far higher in the scale of civilization than the people that must be
governed as children or barbarians. It is possible that the people of
the Old World are not prepared for the regimen of freedom in religion
any more than they are prepared for freedom in politics; for they have
been trained only to obey external authority, and are not accustomed to
look on religion as having its reason in the real order, or in the
reason of things. They understand no reason for obedience beyond the
external command, and do not believe it possible to give or to
understand the reason why the command itself is given. They regard the
authority of the church as a thing apart, and see no way by which faith
and reason can be harmonized. They look upon them as antagonistic
forces rather than as integral elements of one and the same whole.
Concede them the regimen of freedom, and their religion has no support
but in their good-will, their affections, their associations, their
habits, and their prejudices. It has no root in their rational
convictions, and when they begin to reason they begin to doubt. This
is not the state of things that is desirable, but it cannot be remedied
under the political regime established elsewhere than in the United
States. In every state in the world, except the American, the civil
constitution is sophistical, and violates, more or less, the logic of
things; and, therefore, in no one of them can the people receive a
thoroughly dialectic training,