Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/265



ALLEGIANCE TO THE REPUBLIC. 259

most excellent in form legislation could be detestable; while quite the opposite under a regime most imperfect in form, might be found excellent legislation. It were an easy task to prove this truth, history in hand, but what would be the use ? All are convinced of it. And who, better than the Church, is in position to know it â€” she who has striven to maintain habitual relations with all political governments? Assuredly she, better than any other power, could tell the consolation or sorrow oc- casioned her by the laws of the various governments by which nations have been ruled from the Roman Empire douTi to the present.

If the distinction just established has its major im^- portance, it is likewise manifestly reasonable: Legislation is the work of men invested with power, and who, in fact, govern the nation; therefore it follows that, practical^, the quality of the laws depends more upon the quality of these men than upon the form of power. The laws will be good or bad accordingly as the minds of the legis- lators are imbued with good or bad principles, and as they allow themselves to be guided by political prudence or by passion.

That several years ago different important acts of legislation in France proceeded from a tendency hostile to religion, and therefore to the interests of the nation, is admitted by all, and unfortunately confirmed by the evidence of facts. We Ourselves, in obedience to a sacred duty, made earnest appeals to him who was then at the head of the repubhc, but these tendencies continued to exist; the evil grew, and it was not surprising that the members of the French Episcopate chosen by the Holy Ghost to rule over their respective illustrious churches should even quite recently have considered it an obliga- tion publicly to express their grief concerning the con- dition of affairs in France in regard to the Catholic re- ligion. Poor France! God alone can measure the abyss of evil into which she will sink if this legislation, instead