Page:Christ and Antichrist - Manning.djvu/7

This page has been validated.
5

nation, and die in such a cause, how can a Christian hand write names of infamy upon them? I appeal from such wresting of judgment to the Christian conscience arid Christian justice of Englishmen. I say, of Englishmen, because the hearts and consciences of Irishmen are already wounded and burning at this violation of every instinct of their faith.

But perhaps we shall be told that Rome is the capital of Italy.

We deny it. Rome is not the capital of Italy. It is the capital of Christendom. God has so made it, and man cannot unmake it. All Christian nations have a right in it. Italy has its share in Rome as France has, and all other Catholic people; and neither less nor more. But Rome is in Italy, and Italians speak one tongue. Geography and language create no rights. If it were so, Canada would justly be annexed to the United States. North America, 'one and united,' would not be 'made' till it had incorporated Canada in its national unity of language and geography. Spain may say the same of Gibraltar, Italy of Malta, and the races of India in their several limits of territory and language. To this portentous theory of nationalism we answer, that it is a denial of all true national and international justice, the source of schism in religion, and of revolution in politics. Until the schism of the sixteenth century shattered the unity of Christian Europe, this theory of confusion was never known. A higher unity and a higher law bound together the nations of the Christian world, and consecrated the authority of States, while it protected the liberties and rights of the

a 3