Page:Rome and the Revolution - Manning.djvu/21

Rh make themselves heard far and wide. And they, too, have preached the gospel of sedition. They would not have proclaimed the same maxims for the guidance of our own colonies or for the three kingdoms of our own country. But against the Pope anything is lawful. I will not quote chapter and verse, nor name the evangelists of these fatal doctrines. It is enough to recite a few axioms of their political morality. We are told that a people may lawfully at any time, and for any cause, overthrow its Government: that the will of the people is a sufficient justifying reason: that national aspirations are legitimate and supreme motives for the dissolution of a Government, even though confirmed by possession, prescription, and immemorial right: that a discontented minority may lawfully call in the aid of foreign sedition and foreign arms to overthrow its Government: that the principle of non-intervention binds Governments but not individuals: that even Governments bound not to interfere openly may do so secretly, that they may do by 'moral countenance' and encouragement in words what they may not do by arms: that they may look on approvingly when their subjects sow sedition in the peaceful provinces of neighbouring states, organise conspiracies in their capitals, and send arms and money to the conspirators. All these things have been publicly preached among us; and these evil seeds wafted all over the three kingdoms, all over the empire, have already fallen on a prepared soil and are bearing bitter fruit. We designed them only for our neighbours, or only for the Pope; but they have struck root in our own land, and we shall reap as we