Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/482

466 take the place of the old one and dethrone him. We know that the old churchmen saw something divine in the origin and nature of the state; but then there were in those days relations between the Church and the state that exist no longer. The kings and emperors of the middle ages never dreamed habitually of deifying themselves, or of attributing to themselves in their own personalities a divine mission. Even in its highest pretensions and most impudent usurpations the state of the old régime was never ashamed to bow before God, it acknowledged that it held its power from him, and considered itself under obligations to make his laws respected. The Church never saw an adversary or a rival in it; if it rebelled occasionally against the supremacy of the ecclesiastical power, the Church could always hope to bring it back to docility and obedience.

But we mistrust the modern state, both as Christians and as citizens. This modern state, monarchical or republican; the bureaucratic state, with a hundred arms reaching everywhere; the elective state, headless or many-headed, changing, incoherent, capricious, constantly inclined to usurp the functions of the family, of private societies, of individuals—we are afraid to extend its competence beyond bounds. We know it too well to give ourselves up to it. We know by experience how heavy and clumsy its hand is; how violent, rough, arbitrary, and tyrannical are its processes, and how presumptuous and costly are its methods. The Church itself knows something of its character and proceedings. St. Thomas of Aquinas said the state was the servant of God for good. But is it God whose minister the contemporary state is? Even when it does not sin by doctrinal presumption, or by antireligious intolerance, or by usurpation of authority over the family, the state seems to us morally incapable of assuming the high mission which some of the sons of the Church seem to claim for it. It is inspired neither with Christian law nor with the law of God, nor with the ideal justice which such persons prescribe as its guides. Its law and rule are not justice, but electoral interests. Instead of being, as it is invited to be, an impartially serene authority, lifted above all classes and providing equitably for all, the state which we know and whose workings we witness is essentially partial. The child of government by party, it is, we might say, partial by derivation. Instead of the traditional balances of justice, it has two weights and two measures in everything. It has none of the qualities of an earthly Providence: not foresight, or intelligence, or equity, or wisdom. It is always ready to encroach upon a domain which is not its own, and in every direction; it is careless of the rights of others, and recognizes hardly any but those which it has established; it assumes to be the only law-maker, and imagines that it creates right. It believes that