three periods: the first, when the Church as a spiritual society stood alone, separate from the world, and made up of individuals gathered from all nations, cities, and households, as a spiritual society without contact with the civil or political society of mankind; the second, when the Church and the civil society of the world, being in harmony and union, after the Empire had become Christian, were associated together in the government and sanctification of the world; the third is the period which for the last three hundred years has set in, of divorce, departure, and separation, between the spiritual society of the Church and the civil or political society of nations. Or in other words, the first period since the coming of our Lord may be called the period of the world under false gods, for the world was heathen; the second was the period of the world under the one true God; and this last period, on which we have now entered, I am afraid must be truly and justly named the world without God, the world departing from the true God.

The other day a book fell into my hands, describing the progress of the world in these three divisions. The writer says that there are three

chief cities which have affected the destinies of the civilised world. The first is Jerusalem, from which the Law, the religion of Israel, flowed by tradition into the world. The second is the city of Rome, which, as the writer said—he was certainly not a Catholic, and I believe not a Christian, and if he were not of the house of Israel, I believe he must have been a sceptic-was the source of the Christian and Catholic religion, and of the society which belongs to the Middle Ages. The third city is the city of Paris, the new Jerusalem, the leader of civilisation, the city of progress, and the city of the future. While I recite these words, your own thoughts are beginning to make their application.

At the outset of these subjects I said that the Syllabus, published by the Sovereign Pontiff some six or eight years ago, seems to have turned the world upside down. It has created commotion among peoples and kingdoms, governments and legislatures, newspapers and politicians, of whom perhaps not one in a hundred has seen even the outside of the Syllabus, and certainly not one in ten would take time to understand its meaning. This Syllabus is supposed to be a violent and mediæval aggression

upon the civil order of the world. Let me tell you simply what the Syllabus is. The Gospel of Jesus Christ—that is, Christianity-reveals a multitude of truths, and lays down a multitude of laws. Now, the world has been perpetually denying these truths, and violating these laws, both intellectually and in act. The Syllabus is a collection of eighty condemnations. Eighty of the chief intellectual and moral errors which have sprung up in the modern world, contrary to the faith and morals of Christianity, have been condemned, as they arose, by the Head of the Church in express and explicit terms. The Syllabus is a summary of those condemnations. For example, I will recite to you five of the errors that are therein condemned.

They are as follows: first of all, that the civil society of man—that is, the political order of civil society-is the fountain and origin of all right, and that it can be circumscribed by no authority; secondly, that in conflicts between the spiritual and civil authorities, the civil authority is supreme, and must determine; thirdly, that education belongs to the State, as being what is called matter of civil competence, and ought

to be strictly secular; fourthly, that kings and princes are exempt from ecclesiastical jurisdiction; lastly, that the State ought to be separated from the Church, and the Church from the State. Now, these are five of the errors which are condemned in the Syllabus; and you will easily understand that the remaining seventy-five propositions of the Syllabus are errors similar in kind. What I purpose to do is, incidentally, and without again reciting them, to show that these are five falsehoods, and are justly condemned.

There is a common axiom that passes from mouth to mouth in these days, that religion and politics have nothing to do with each other-that the Church has nothing to do with politics; that the Church must submit to the civil authorities as supreme; that politics may go their own way by themselves, and that priests and bishops, if they touch politics, go beyond their limits and exceed their powers. We hear a great deal of this talk.

Now, in the name of not only Christianity, but of common sense, I would ask you to consider for one moment the following questions: Is not the law of morals the same for a thousand men

• Syllabus Pii IX., Propp. 39, 42, 45, 54, 55.

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as for one? Is not the law of morals the same for a nation as for an individual? Are men bound by the moral law one by one, and are nations and kingdoms not bound by the moral law? Is it to be supposed that individuals, one by one, are under obligation to keep the law of God, and that states and kingdoms are not so bound? Are peasants bound to keep the law of the Gospel and of the Church, and are princes and kings not bound to keep that law? Are individuals who happen to be poor and unlearned under the obligation to obey Christian morality, and are not legislatures and executive governments equally obliged? Nay, I will say more; are they not more strictly bound and under heavier responsibility to conform themselves to the moral law? Well, then, whence comes the moral law? From reason and from Christianity; from the light of reason elevated and perfected by the Christian revelation. And to whose custody was the Christian revelation committed? To the Apostles and their successors, to whom our Lord said: 'Go ye, and make disciples of all nations: teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you.' Who, then, are the guardians of the moral law? The Apostles and their successors.