3 08
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
His threshing-floor the chaff from the wheat, and to consume it with the fire of the catastrophes which are only His judgments and remedies. Secondly, I could not, as a historian, present the effects without going back to their causes; and it was therefore n1Y duty, a!:r it is that of every religious inquirer and observer, to try to contribute something to the Theodlcée. He' that undertakes to write on such lofty interests, which nearly affect the weal and woe of the Church, cannot avoid examining and displaying the wisdOl11 and justice of God in the conduct of terrestrial events regarding them. The fate which has overtaken the Roman States must above all be considered in the light of a Divine ordinance for the advantage of the Church. Seen by that light, it assumes the character of a trial, which will con- tinue until the object is attained, and the welfare of the Church so far secured. I t seemed evident to me, that as a new order of things in Europe lies in the design of Providence, the disease, through which for the last half-century the States of the Church unquestionably have passed, might be the transition to a new form. To describe this malady without overlooking or concealing any of the symptoms was, therefore, an undertaking which I could not avoid. The disease has its source in the inward contradiction and discord of the institutions and conditions of the government; for the modern French institut:ons stand there, without any reconciling qualifications, besides those of the mediæval hierarchy. Neither of these elements is strong enough to expel the other; and either of them would, if it prevailed alone, be again a form of disease, Yet, in the history of the last few years I recognise symptoms of convalescence, however feeble, obscure, d equivocal its traces may appear. What we behold is not death or hopeless decay, it is a purifying process, painful, consuming, penetrating bone and marrow,-such as God inflicts on His chosen persons and institutions. There is abundance of dross, and time is necessary before the gold can come pure out of the furnace. In the course of this process it may happen that the territorial dominion will be interrupted, that the State may be broken up or pass into other hands; but it will revive, though perhaps in another form, and with a different kind of government. In a word, sanabilibus labora1Jzlts 11lalls-that is what I wished to show; that, I believe, I have shown. Now, and for the last forty years, the condition of the Roman States is the heel of Achilles of the Catholic Church, the standing reproach for adversaries throughout the world, and a stumbling-block for thousands. Not as though the objections, which are founded on the fact of this transitory disturbance and discord in the social and political sphere, possessed any weight in a theological point of view, but it cannot be denied that they are of incalculable influence on the disposition of the world external to the Church. Whenever a state of disease has appeared in the Church, there has been but one method of cure,-that of an a wakened, renovated, healthy consciousness and of an enlightened public opinion in the
