Page:Christ and Antichrist - Manning.djvu/9

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off from Europe by its schism, and its schism dictates its policy. Prussia is still half united to the Catholic world. The other nations of Europe are, for the most part, or altogether, members of the Catholic unity. It is not possible for any one of them to claim the Russian or English exemption from national responsibility to a higher unity, without renouncing their Catholic character. This, in an evil hour, Italy has been lured, taunted, tempted to do. And in an evil hour it has listened. It has claimed the capital of Christendom by a vote of its Parliament as the capital of Italy. But the Catholic world will not submit to this usurpation: and France, not as France, but as the mandatory of the Catholic Powers, has defeated, and will defeat, the usurpation, and protect the centre of Catholic unity and the Head of the Catholic world. This is our answer. The unity of Christendom will not make way for the unity of Italy.

It was for this cause these brave men fell.

And yet it was not against the Monarchy of Italy they fought. They were face to face with an anti-Christian horde, which the King of Italy disowned. Some ten thousand men of all parts of Italy, and of many other countries, armed and organised, without authority of public law, and in direct violation of the same, invaded the States of the Church. They made a private war in the name of the Red Revolution. This horde was led by the man who in 1848 stained Rome with innocent blood, and the other day demanded the overthrow of the Christian religion as essential to the welfare of the world. They were on