Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/496



490 CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY.

is the widespread disaster which will eventually fall upon all classes of society if this assistance does not arrive in time; and therefore is it that he who neglects the cause of the distressed poor is not doing his duty to him- self or to the State.

If this social movement extends its scope far and wide in a true Christian fashion, and grows in its proper and genuine spirit, there will be no danger, as is feared, that those other institutions, which the piety of our ancestors have established and which are now flourishing, will decline or be absorbed by new foundations. Both of them spring from the same root of charity and religion, and not only do not conflict with each other, but can be made to coalesce and combine so perfectly as to provide by a union of their benevolent resources in a more effica- cious manner against the graver perils and necessities of the people which confront us to-day.

The condition of things at present proclaims, and pro- claims vehemently, that there is need for a union of brave minds with all the resources they can command. The harvest of misery is before Our eyes, and the dreadful projects of the most disastrous national upheavals are threatening Us from the growing power of the socialistic movement. They have insidiously worked their way into the very heart of the State, and in the darkness of their secret gatherings, and in the open light of day, in their writings and their harangues, they are urging the masses onward to sedition; they fling aside religious dis- cipline, they scorn duties and clamor only for rights ; they are working incessantly on the multitudes of the needy which daily grow greater, and which, because of their poverty, are easily deluded and hurried off into ways that are evil. It is equally the concern of the State and of religion, and all good men should deem it a sacred duty to preserve and guard both in the honor which is their due.

That this most desirable agreement of wills should be