Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/574



568 REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE.

numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity.

In the domestic circle, the Church is no less fruitful in good results. For not only does it oppose the nefarious machinations which increduhty resorts to in order to attack the hfe of the family, but it prepares and protects the union and stabihty of marriage, whose honor, fidelity, and holiness it guards and develops. At the same time it sus- tains and cements the civil and political order by giving on one side most efficacious aid to authority, and on the other by showing itself favorable to the wise reforms and the just aspirations of the classes that are governed; by imposing respect for rulers and enjoining whatever obe- dience is due to them, and by defending unwaveringly the imprescriptible rights of the human conscience. And thus it is that the people who are subject to her influence have no fear of oppression because she checks in their efforts the rulers who seek to govern as tyrants.

Fully aware of this divine power, We, from the very beginning of Our Pontificate, have endeavored to place in the clearest light the benevolent designs of the Church and to increase as far as possible, along with the treasures of her doctrine the field of her salutary action. Such has been the object of the principal acts of Our Pontificate, notably in the Encyclicals on Christian Philosophy, on Human Liberty, on Christian Marriage, on Freemasonry, on The Powers of Government, on The Christian Constitu- tion of States, on Socialism, on the Labor Question, and the Duties of Christian Citizens and other analogous subjects. But the ardent desire of Our souls has not been merely to illumine the mind. We have endeavored to move and to purify hearts by making use of all Our powers to cause Christian virtue to flourish among the peoples. For that reason We have never ceased to bestow encouragement and counsel in order to elevate the minds of men to the goods of the world beyond; to enable them to subject the body to the soul; their earthly Hfe to the heavenly one;