become altogether useless.

* In England we call the press the fourth estate, but in France
and elsewhere the term is applied to the working classes, and
in that sense must be taken here.--Trans.

Hence it followed that Catholic socialism was legitimate. On every side
the socialist sects were battling with their various solutions for the
privilege of ensuring the happiness of the people, and the Church also
must offer her solution of the problem. Here it was that New Rome
appeared, that the evolution spread into a renewal of boundless hope.
Most certainly there was nothing contrary to democracy in the principles
of the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed she had only to return to the
evangelical traditions, to become once more the Church of the humble and
the poor, to re-establish the universal Christian community. She is
undoubtedly of democratic essence, and if she sided with the rich and
the powerful when Christianity became Catholicism, she only did so
perforce, that she might live by sacrificing some portion of her
original purity; so that if to-day she should abandon the condemned
governing classes in order to make common cause with the multitude of
the wretched, she would simply be drawing nearer to Christ, thereby
securing a new lease of youth and purifying herself of all the political
compromises which she formerly was compelled to accept. Without
renouncing aught of her absolutism the Church has at all times known how
to bow to circumstances; but she reserves her perfect sovereignty,
simply tolerating that which she cannot prevent, and patiently waiting,
even through long centuries, for the time when she shall again become
the mistress of the world.

Might not that time come in the crisis which was now at hand? Once more,
all the powers are battling for possession of the people. Since the
people, thanks to liberty and education, has become strong, since it has
developed consciousness and will, and claimed its share of fortune, all
rulers have been seeking to attach it to themselves, to reign by it, and
even with it, should that be necessary. Socialism, therein lies the
future, the new instrument of government; and the kings tottering on
their thrones, the middle-class presidents of anxious republics, the
ambitious plotters who dream of power, all dabble in socialism! They all
agree that the capitalist organisation of the State is a return to pagan
times, to the olden slave-market; and they all talk of b