Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/152

destroy her, their act would be self-destruction. Without her, there would be no freedom — " To be free," says Washington, " a nation must be virtuous," and the Church is the Mother of virtue. In France, for instance, the reign of terror began only when the Church was banished or suppressed. Without her there would be no harmony, for harmony is the result of self-sacrifice — a thing unknown outside the Church, especially among politicians. Without her there would be no national solidity. She is the keystone — the very heart of the nation at which the destroyer of truth would naturally aim as did Titus at the Jewish Temple. Without her there would be no political honesty. She teaches that public office is a public trust, conferred not by men but by God, to be exercised under the ever-wakeful and all-seeing eye of God and not under the public eye that winks and sleeps betimes. Without her there would be no patriotism. Religion and patriotism are inseparable. We cannot say with Ruth: " Thy people shall be my people " without adding with her: " and thy God my God." I love my country because I love the people in it, and it is God and the Church and not politicians that teach me to love my fellowmen, even my enemies. In fact the Catholic Church is a school of patriotism. It was patriotism that led to Christ's being born in a cave, to His being circumcised, to His paying tribute, to His weeping over Jerusalem, and the noblest patriot the world has ever seen was Christ dying on the cross. Never were truer patriots than the Apostles when they answered their persecutor: