Page:Christ and Antichrist - Manning.djvu/13

Rh decease of Pius IX., nor yet at any time—will yield one shadow of the inalienable right of the Sovereign Pontiffs to the capital of Christendom; nor will it for a moment suffer the denial of its own supreme right and duty to intervene for the protection of the Holy See. The moral cordon of justice and order will be always drawn around it; and the right of execution will never depart from the Catholic world. In the days of Pius IX. it is France alone which has executed the will of Christendom; in the days of his successor it may be a league of Catholic Powers, or the force of two hundred millions concentrated and brought to bear by some future organisation which shall give expression and effect to their will.

For twenty years the anti-Christian seditions of all the world have aimed at the overthrow of Rome, at the destruction of the Temporal Power first, of the Spiritual Power afterwards. They hate the Temporal Power much, but they hate the Spiritual Power more. They think that if it were possible to destroy the Temporal Power, the Pontiffs would be either persecuted or subject. A Pope subject to a Royal Supremacy would reduce the Spiritual Supremacy to absurdity; and derision would be a keener and more deadly weapon against Christianity than persecution. For this end, therefore, all the spirits of anti-Christian revolution have united against Rome. They have poisoned the public opinion of Europe against it by lying, or by truths perverted, which are the worst of lies. They have misled and influenced Governments, stirred up popular bigotry, painted the Government