Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/124



118 CHRISTIAN CONSTITUTION OF STATES.

requirements of sincere affection. Thou dost subject chil- dren to their parents in a kind of free service, and dost estabUsh parents over their children with a benign rule, . . . Thou joinest together, not in society only, but in a sort of brotherhood, citizen with citizen, nation with nation, and the whole race of men, by reminding them of their common parentage. Thou teachest kings to look to the interests of their people, and dost admonish the people to be submissive to their kings. With all care dost thou teach all to whom honor is due, and affection, and reverence, and fear, consolation, and admonition and exhortation, and discipline, and reproach, and punish- ment. Thou showest that all these are not equally in- cumbent on all, but that charity is owing to all, and wrong- doing to none." * And in another place, blaming the false wisdom of certain time-saving philosophers, he observes: "Let those who say that the teaching of Christ is hurtful to the State, produce such armies as the maxims of Jesus have enjoined soldiers to bring into being; such governors of provinces; such husbands and wives; such parents and children; such masters and servants; such kings; such judges, and such payers and collectors of tribute, as the Christian teaching instructs them to become, and then let them dare to sa)^ that such teaching is hurt- ful to the State. Nay, rather will they hesitate to own that this discipline, if duly acted up to, is the very main- stay of the commonwealth?"^

There was once a time when States were governed by the principles of Gospel teaching. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people; permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, estab- lished firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favor of princes and the legitimate protection of

' De moribus Eccl. Cathol., xxx. 63.

^ Epist. 138, al. 5, ad Marcellinum, ii. 15,