We say thoroughly Catholic, which has rarely, if ever, been the case, even in any so-called Catholic nation. The excellent Kenelm H. Digby gives us, in his " Mores Catholici," a rose-colored picture of what he calls the Ages of Faith; but in those very ages, the struggle between the pope and the emperor raged, as also that between the Catholic spirit of gentleness, meekness, and charity, and the brutal manners inherited from pagan Rome, or introduced by the barbarian invaders of the empire from Scandinavia, Germany, Hungary, Arabia, North Africa-from the North, the East, and the South. They were the ages of Henry IV. of Germany, of the Hohenstaufen, Henry II. of England, Don Pedro of Spain, Philip the Fair of France, the Paterini, the Albigenses, and other heretics, hardly surpassed in enormity by the communists of our own day. The church had conquered, so to speak, the leading European nations, but she had only partially subdued and moulded them, princes or people, into harmony with the divine teachings of the Gospel. The spirit of rebellion persisted, and there were nearly always provinces in open revolt. It is idle to pretend that there was, even during those ages, a single thoroughly Catholic nation on earth. The papal authority, if acknowledged in words, was alınost uniformly resisted, when exerted against brutal, lustful, and tyrannical rulers, and not seldom by a large portion of the national clergy and people who sided with the national sovereign, and sometimes with success. Those "Ages of Faith" were followed by the Protestant revolt, and that by the Gallican rupture of the union of church and state, which for over two centuries and a half has crippled the papal power and left the secular power virtually to govern alone. And yet liberty, as well as order, was more secure during those much decried middle ages than it is now, when no government on earth recognizes and submits to the papal authority. All that is worth preserving in modern society was elaborated by the popes and clergy during those ages. If they were able to do so much in half-catholicized nations, what might they not have done in a nation thoroughly Catholic?

There are two things which, under the point of view we are now considering the question, a nation, in order to be thoroughly Catholic, must cordially accept and firmly hold: 1, The absolute sovereignty of God; and 2, That the pope, or successor of Peter in the see of Rome, is the vicar of Christ, commissioned by him to keep, interpret, and apply

his law to the government of all men and nations, princes as well as subjects. The first point all who pretend to be Catholics at all acknowledge, although some would-be Catholic philosophers do all they can to obscure it by maintaining that God gives us rights even against himself. The late Dr. J.V. Huntington maintained it against our assertion, after Donoso Cortés, that man has duties, but no rights before God. But God, though he may give us rights against society, against our fellow-men, or the lower creation, can give us none against himself; for that would be to deny his universal dominion founded on his creative act, by which he creates all things visible and invisible from nothing.

The second point the sovereigns and their lawyers, especially Gallicans, who can no longer be counted as Catholics, try to evade, when they do not expressly deny it. They distinguish between the natural law and the revealed law, and pretend that the pope holds only under the revealed law, while the prince holds under the natural law, which the revealed law does not repeal. The pope, therefore, they contend, is the vicar of Christ or representative of God only in the revealed order, that is, in regard to dogmas, the sacraments, and worship, while all other matters, assumed to be cognizable by the light of nature, are placed within the jurisdiction of the prince, or of the sovereign people. But the conclusion does not follow, for the two laws, though distinguished, are but distinct sections of one and the same divine law, and as the natural exists for the supernatural, the natural law for the revealed law as its end, it follows necessarily that he who has jurisdiction under the revealed law, has jurisdiction under the natural law, its simple preamble. The pope has plenary authority to teach, govern, and direct the universal church, and this authority, as defined in the Bull Unam sanctam of Boniface VIII., extends to every creature; and the pope's definition must be accepted as infallible, in its true sense, which we take it is that the pope's authority extends to all men, to sovereigns as well as to subjects. The pope judges questions that arise under the natural as well as under the revealed law, and declares what is right or wrong under either law. The second point, at least since the decrees of the Council of the Vatican, can no more be gainsaid by any Catholic than the first point. Every Catholic is bound to recognize and to hold the absolute and universal sovereignty of God, and the plenary authority of the pope as the vicar of Christ to teach and

declare the law of God and to apply it to all ranks and conditions of men, to states and empires, princes and subjects, in all their relations in life, social, political, domestic, and individual.

In the Catholic Church, with this Catholic faith firmly held by the great body of the people with their rulers or leaders, forming their public and private conscience, the law of their intelligence and their will, the needed guaranties of authority and liberty will be found, as sure, as permanent, as perfect, as the divine government can furnish without depriving men of their free will, which God always respects, or in accordance with which he always governs the individual and the nation. With the Catholic Church as representing the divine order in society, and the Catholic faith in its purity and integrity held by the whole people, and informing their intelligence and conscience, the deficiencies of democracy are supplied and the objections to it disappear. But without the church, that is, without the power representing the divine sovereignty in the government of human affairs, and the Catholic faith held by the great body of the people, democracy offers no guaranty for either authority or liberty, for truth or justice, and simply substitutes the despotism of the many for the despotism of the few, or that of the one. For ourselves we ask no constitutional changes in the political order of our country, but we do ask for a change in the people, a change to be effected by the Catholic missionary and their conversion to the Catholic faith, in which is our only hope for our country, as well as for the salvation of the souls of our countrymen.

Holy Scripture tells us very plainly what we are to think of the efforts of statesmen and patriots who seek to found the state on the secular order alone, or to make it independent of the church, that is, of God, when it says, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." History and experience confirm it. The ancient nations that apostatized from the church and undertook to follow their own devices have been blotted out; the once Christian East, having broken from the centre of unity, and cast off the authority of God, represented in the government of men and nations by his vicar, is sunk in hopeless despotism; and the western nations that have rejected the papacy, that is, "forgotten God," are the prey of ceaseless conspiracies, seditions, insurrections, and violent and bloody revolutions, without security either for authority or liberty,

alternating between despotism and anarchy. What is called order, whether within or without, is liable at any moment to be broken, and is maintained in Europe only by a force of five millions of armed men. In our own country, which scorns and detests the papacy and applauds the Italian ministry for holding the pope a prisoner in the Vatican, and is devoted body and soul to the worship of Mammon, crime stalks abroad at noonday, frauds, breaches of trust, peculations, defalcations, and failures of moneyed institutions, a depreciated currency, and commercial and industrial crises, are fearfully prevalent, while the people collectively are daily and hourly living beyond their income, running in debt, and proving that Mammon, a real devil as he is, never fails to ruin and mock his worshippers. Who devotes himself to material prosperity will find even material prosperity for ever eluding his grasp.

And what else could we expect? Who dares pretend that the secular order is independent, self-existent, and selfsufficing? Who dares deny that it is dependent on God for its very existence, for all that it is or has? How, then, can it forget God, sever itself from the spiritual order, and live and thrive? Yet this is precisely what kings and emperors, princes and peoples, are foolish enough to expect when they reject the church, or seek to subject her to their will.

THE EXECUTIVE POWER.*

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for July, 1874.]

THIS is a work written originally in French by an intelligent French nobleman, the Marquis de Chambrun, resident in some official capacity, we believe, for several years at Washington, and who has devoted much of his time and attention to the careful study of the constitution and working of the American government. He intends giving the public the result of his studies and observations in four volumes, of which the present volume on the executive power is the first. M. de Chambrun writes, no doubt, with primary reference to the instruction of his own countrymen in the crisis France is now passing through, and to indicate to them what in our constitution and example may be prudently imitated, and what should be carefully avoided, whether the republic is to be definitely established, or monarchy in some form is to be restored. He is in general correct in his statements and appreciations, showing that he has really studied our political institutions, and understands them far better than all but a few among ourselves understand them; and his observations are usually wise and Just, and prove that he has studied politics as a science.

M. de Chambrun understands well that the same constitution of government is not adapted alike to all nations, and he does not, while he evidently has no anti-republican prejudices, seem to regard, like so many of our own countrymen, the fact that a nation is not in the condition that makes the republican form the best possible form of government for it, as a proof that it is inferior or less advanced in civilization. We do not think that a republican form of government is adapted to any European nation, but it would be a great mistake to suppose, because it is adapted to us, that we stand at the top of the scale of civilization, in any current sense of the word. Political propagandism is a folly and a crime, whether attempted peaceably or forcibly. Providence gives to each nation, not miraculously, or by direct

*The Executive Power of the United States. A Study of Constitutional Law. BY ADOLPHE DE CHAMBRUN. From the French. By Mrs. MADELEINE VINTON DAHLGREN. Lancaster: 1874.

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