Page:Rome and the Revolution - Manning.djvu/14

Rh thought. Immutably, inflexibly, it witnesses and teaches, judges and condemns. And this variance is rendered still more intense by its moral teaching. It assumes to pronounce upon the right and the wrong of public legislation, of domestic authority, of personal conduct. It will not indulge either tyranny or rebellion, oppression or sedition. It will not sanction the despotism of parents nor the disobedience of children. It will not suffer unrebuked the scandals of public immorality or the licence of private vice. It is a censor of our lives, and an inexorable judge not only of what we do, but even of what we are. And this is all the more galling, because of the standard of morals it holds up before the world. It is not content to teach the bare letter of the Ten Commandments. It requires of men obedience to a discipline, and to precepts which exact interior conformity of the heart and will. And even more than this. It holds up as a standard to be honoured, if not to be imitated, by all, a life of counsels, and a state of perfection, the most contrary and mortifying to the world and to the flesh; obedience, poverty, and chastity: 'extinct virtues' which are still so vigorous in the members of the Church and in religious Orders throughout the Christian world, that they must needs be cut down and rooted out by spoliation, prohibition, dissolution, and endless contempt.

But there is yet another object of the world's enmity more visible and more within its reach. The faith is impalpable, the Church is too vast to be controlled, its morality can only be derided; but the priesthood may be grasped. It is a tangible enemy, and men