istianity! So few think of reading Church
history, that erroneous notions deliberately sown among the people lead
them to condemn the Church; yet the Church has been a pattern of perfect
government such as men seek to establish to-day. The principle of
election made it for a long while the great political power. Except the
Catholic Church, there was no single religious institution which was
founded upon liberty and equality. Everything was ordered to this end.
The father-superior, the abbot, the bishop, the general of an order,
and the pope were then chosen conscientiously for their fitness for
the requirements of the Church. They were the expression of its
intelligence, of the thinking power of the Church, and blind obedience
was therefore their due. I will say nothing of the ways in which society
has benefited by that power which has created modern nations and has
inspired so many poems, so much music, so many cathedrals, statues, and
pictures. I will simply call your attention to the fact that your modern
systems of popular election, of two chambers, and of juries all
had their origin in provincial and oecumenical councils, and in the
episcopate and college of cardinals; but there is this difference,--the
views of civilization held by our present-day philosophy seem to me
to fade away before the sublime and divine conception of Catholic
communion, the type of a universal social communion brought about by the
word and the fact that are combined in religious dogma. It would be very
difficult for any modern political system, however perfect people may
think it, to work once more such miracles as were wrought in those ages
when the Church as the stay and support of the human intellect."

"Why?" asked Genestas.

"Because, in the first place, if the principle of election is to be
the basis of a system, absolute equality among the electors is a first
requirement; they ought to be 'equal quantities,' things which modern
politics will never bring about. Then, great social changes can only be
effected by means of some common sentiment so powerful that it brings
men into concerted action, while latter-day philosophism has discovered
that law is based upon personal interest, which keeps men apart. Men
full of the generous spirit that watches with tender care over the
trampled rights of the suffering poor, were more often found among the
nations of past ages than in our generation. The priesthood, also,
which sprang from the mid