4 66
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
his faith in her system fell rapidly to pieces. Within two months after the publication of the Encyclical he \vrote that the Pope, like the other princes, seemed careful not to omit any blunder that could secure his annihilation. 1 Three \veeks after\vards he denounced in the fiercest terms the corruption of Rome. He predicted that the ecclesiastical hierarchy \vas about to depart \vith the old monarchies; and, though the Church could not die, he would not undertake to say that she would revive in her old forms. 2 The Pope, he said, had so zealously embraced the cause of antichristian despotism as to sacrifice to it the religion of \vhich he \vas the chief. He no longer felt it possible to distinguish what was immutable in the external organisation of the Church. He admitted the personal fallibility of the Pope, and declared that, though it was impossible, \vithout Rome, to defend Catholicism success- fully, yet nothing could be hoped for from her, and that she seemed to have condemned Catholicism to die. s The Pope, he soon afterwards said, \vas in league \vith the kings in opposition to the eternal truths of religion, the hierarchy \vas out of court, and a transformation like that from which the Church and Papacy h d sprung \vas about to bring them both to an end, after eighteen centuries, in Gregory XVI. 4 Before the follo\ving year was over he had ceased to be in communion with the Catholic Church. The fall of Lamennais, ho\vever impressive as a \varning, is of no great historical importance; for he carried no one with him, and his favourite disciples became the ablest defenders of Catholicism in France. But it ex- emplifies one of the natural consequences of dissociating secular from religious truth, and denying that they hold in solution all the elements necessary for their reconcilia- tion and union. r n more recent times, the same error has led, by a contrary path, to still more lamentable results, and scepticism on the possibility of harmonising reason and faith has once more driven a philosopher into
1 Oct. 9. 1832.
Feb, 5. 18 33.
2 Jan. 25. 1833- 4\ March 25, 1833.
