Page:History of Freedom.djvu/415

 DÖLLINGER ON THE TEIVIPORAL POWER 37 1

the idea of denying to the Italians what we have claimed for our- selves; and that therefore we are far from thinking that it is any- where an advantage to fortify the Church with the authority of the police and with the power of the secular arm. Throughout Germany we have been taught by experience the truth of Fénelon's saying, that the spiritual power must be carefully kept separate from the civil, because their union is pernicious. They will find, further, that the whole of the German clergy is prepared to bless the day when it I shall learn that the free sovereignty of the Pope is assured, without sentence of death being still pronounced by ecclesiastics, without priests continuing to discharge the functions of treasury-clerks or police directors, or to conduct the business of the lottery. And, finally, they will convince themselves that all the Catholics of Germany will stand up as one man for the independence of the Holy See, and I the legitimate rights of the Pope; but that they are no admirers of a form of government of very recent date, which is, in fact, nothing I else than the product of the mechanical polity of Napoleon combined I with a clerical administration. And this information will bear good fruit when the hour shall strike for the return, and restitution shall be made. . . . Meanwhile Pius IX. and the men of his Council will" think upon the days of old, and have in their minds the eternal years." They will read the future in the earlier history of the Papacy, which has already seen many an exile and many a restoration. The example of the resolute, courageous Popes of the 1\1iddle Ages will light the way. It is no question now of suffering martyrdom, of clinging to the tombs of the Apostles, or of descending into the catacombs; but of quitting the land of bondage, in order to exclaim on a free soil, "Our bonds are broken, and we are free 1 " F or the rest God will provide, and the unceasing gifts and sympathies of the Catholic world. And the parties in Italy, when they have torn and exhausted the land which has become a battle-field; when the sobered and saddened people, tired of the rule of lawyers and of soldiers, has understood the worth of a moral and spiritual authority, then will be the time to think of returning to the Eternal City. In the interval, the things will have disappeared for whose preservation such pains are taken; and then there will be better reason than Consal vi had, in the preface to the M olu ProþYZ"o of 6th July 18 I 6, to say: "Divine Providence, which so conducts human affairs that out of the greatest calamity innumerable benefits proceed, seems to have intended that the interruption of the papal government should prepare the way for a more perfect form of it."

"\Ve have written at a length for \vhich we must apolo- gise to our readers; and yet this is but a meagre sketch of the contents of a book \vhich deals with a very large proportion of the subjects that occupy the thoughts and