modern rationalism: its motto was Gambetta’s ‘Le cléricalisme, voilà l’ennemi,’ or as a Belgian mob puts it more forcibly ‘À bas la calotte!’ Not that it was at all a philosophical sect: it was purely active, but accepted the conclusions of the philosophers and the critics as honestly as the orthodox clung to the conclusions of the theologian. In any case it was bitterly opposed to the established religion and the dominion of the clergy on every issue. The aristocracy, for obvious reasons, indolently sided with the Church; the peasantry, on the whole, remained faithful out of brute stolidity and imperviousness to argument.
But during the last few years there has been a profound change in the field as Socialism gained power and character. Not very many years ago a young advocate at the Brussels Catholic conference declared himself a Christian Socialist, and was emphatically suppressed by the clerical and aristocratic members: now, if it were not for Christian Socialism, Rome would soon lose its hold of the peasantry. Socialism, avowedly anti-Christian as it is, has secured the industrial classes and is undoubtedly making progress amongst the peasantry. However, it cannot join forces with waning Liberalism, for it hates the bourgeoisie; and it has had the effect of arousing the monarchy and aristocracy to some sense of its danger. Thus the power of the Church remains as yet slightly in the ascendant: it can command little more than half the votes of the country.
