Donahoes Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 | Page 9

God, that greatest and most august fountain. Popular rule, however, which without any regard to God is said to be naturally in the multitude, though it may excellently avail to supply the fires of many blandishments and excitements of many forms of covetousness, yet rests on no probable reason, nor can have sufficient strength to ensure public security and the quiet permanence of order. Verily things under the auspices of these doctrines have come to such a pass that many sanction this as a law in civil jurisprudence, to wit, that sedition may rightly be raised. For the idea prevails that princes are really nothing but delegates to express the popular will; and so necessarily all things become alike, are changeable at the popular nod, and a certain fear of public disturbance is forever hanging over our heads.
But to think with regard to religion, that there is no difference between unlike and contrary forms, clearly will have this issue--an unwillingness to test any one form in theory and practice. And this, if indeed it differs from atheism in name, is in fact the same thing. Men who really believe in the existence of God, if they are to be consistent and not ridiculous, will, of necessity, understand that the different methods of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict, even on the most important points, cannot be all equally probable, equally good, and equally accepted by God. And thus that faculty of thinking whatever you like and expressing whatever you like to think in writing, without any thought of moderation, is not of its own nature, indeed, a good in which human society may rightly rejoice, but, on the contrary, a fount and origin of many ills.
Liberty, in so far as it is a virtue perfecting man, should be occupied with that which is true and that which is good; but the foundation of that which is true and that which is good cannot be changed at the pleasure of man, but remains ever the same, nor indeed is it less unchangeable than nature herself. If the mind assent to false opinions, if the will choose for itself evil, and apply itself thereto, neither attains its perfection, but both fall from their natural dignity, and both lapse by degrees into corruption. Whatever things, therefore, are contrary to virtue and truth, these things it is not right to place in the light before the eyes of men, far less to defend by the favor and tutelage of the laws. A well-spent life is the only path to that heaven whither we all direct our steps; and on this account the State departs from the law and custom of nature if it allows the license of opinions and of deeds to run riot to such a degree as to lead minds astray with impunity from the truth, and hearts from the practice of virtue.
But to exclude the Church which God Himself has constituted from the business of life, from the laws, from the teaching of youth, from domestic society, is a great and pernicious error. A well-regulated State cannot be when religion is taken away; more than needs be, perhaps, is now known of what sort of a thing is in itself, and whither tends that philosophy of life and morals which men call civil. The Church of Christ is the true teacher of virtue and guardian of morals; it is that which keeps principles in safety, from which duties are derived, and by proposing most efficacious reasons for an honest life, it bids us not only fly from wicked deeds, but rule the motions of the mind which are contrary to reason when it is not intended to reduce them to action. But to wish the Church in the discharge of its offices to be subject to the civil power is a great rashness, a great injustice. If this were done order would be disturbed, since things natural would thus be put before those which are above nature; the multitude of the good whose common life, if there be nothing to hinder it, the Church would make complete, either disappears or at all events is considerably diminished, and besides, a way is opened to enmities and conflicts--how great the evil which they bring upon each order of government the event has too frequently shown.
Such doctrines are not approved by human reason, and are of the greatest gravity as regards civil discipline, the Roman Pontiffs our predecessors--well understanding what the apostolic office required of them--by no means suffered to go forth without condemnation. Thus Gregory XVI., by Encyclical Letter, beginning Mirare vos, of August 15, 1832, inveighed with weighty words against those doctrines which were already being preached, namely, that in divine worship no choice should be made; and that it was right