Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/512



506 THE RELIGIOUS CONGREGATIONS IN FRANCE.

some holy consolation and, at the same time, to address to you the advice which the occasion calls for, in order that remaining still more firm in the time of trial you will gain greater merit in the sight of God and men.

Among the many motives of courage which spring from our faith, recall, dear Sons, that solemn word of Jesus Christ: Blessed are ye when they shall revile and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you untruly for My sake} Reproaches, calumnies, vexations of all kinds will be poured out upon you for My sake, but then shall you be blessed. It is in vain to multiply against you those calumnious accusations which seek to dishonor you. The sad reality is flashed only the more vividly on men's eyes, that the true reason for which you are persecuted is that deep-seated hatred which the world cherishes against the Catholic Church, the City of God; that the real intention is, if possible, to nullify in society the re- parative action of Jesus Christ from which such beneficent and salutary results universally flow. No one is ignorant of the fact that the religious of both sexes form a chosen body in the City of God; that they represent particularly the spirit and the mortifications of Jesus Christ; that by the practice of the Evangelical Counsels they tend to carry Christian virtue to the summit of perfection and that, in a multitude of ways, they powerfully second the action of the Church. Hence it is not astonishing that to-day, as in other times, under other iniquitous forms, the City of the World rises against them, and chiefly those men who, by a sacrilegious compact, are most intimately united and most servilely bound to him who is Prince of this world.

It is clear that they consider the dissolution and ex- tinction of religious orders as a successful manoeuvre in the furthering of their deep-laid designs of driving the Catholic nations into the ways of apostasy and ahena- tion from Jesus Christ, and because of that, We may say

'Matt. V 11.