Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/593

softens them with love and restores them to society good citizens. Here are the things of Caesar and of God, of Church and State; and the mistakes of the State are as many as the times she refused God's Church the things that are hers. The Church had, in the Old World, proved her ability to abolish slavery without a blow, but the State robbed her of that privilege here, with a consequent sacrifice of innumerable lives. The State is vainly grappling with Socialism, a monster the Church kept at bay eighteen hundred years by laws of charity and conscience and the doctrine of a hereafter. The country is crying out against lynch law, and the State is powerless to prevent it; but when the Church was given the things that are hers, the shivering victim found a safe refuge in the sanctuary. A dangerous spirit of materialism is taking possession of the young, because in educating them the rights of the Church are usurped by the State. And finally, the marriage contract, the foundation of the home and consequently the cornerstone of society — marriage is being taken from the Church and lowered by the State from the dignity of a sacrament to the baseness of a bargain, while divorce is filling the country with ruined homes, a degraded womanhood, and an immoral society. The Church is the only body to-day that takes a determined stand against these evils. She is as ready to shed her blood now for her rights and God's as were her brave sons in the hour of the nation's need. With the gentle devotedness of her consecrated daughters on the battlefield and in the hospital, she