1 1 8 Contemporary Evolution. 



" Of course that destructive action cannot be approved 

 and can still less be aided by any sincere Christian. So 

 to approve would be to repeat the error of De Lamennais. 

 A separation of Church and State cannot be good save 

 relatively through human perverseness. A union of 

 Church and State is the natural and true ideal, and will 

 spontaneously reappear (when once the world has been 

 reconverted) through common consent. But Christianity 

 is forbidden to propagate itself by the sword. The 

 children of those who have thrown off her yoke and 

 who are becoming more and more literally pagans cannot, 

 upon Church principles, be religiously coerced or called 

 on to accept that which, on account of honest prejudice, 

 their reason is really unable to embrace. The Church 

 absolutely condemns * the use of force when a nation has 

 either not received or has once lost the faith. 



" But although the crew of Bismarcks, Garibaldis, and 

 Victor Emmanuels may be regarded as obscene creatures 

 of rapine, nevertheless, hysenas and vultures have, after all, 

 a useful and salutary function to execute, without their 

 having any good intention in the acts they perform, or 

 being a bit less unclean vultures and hyaenas on account of 

 the salutary nature of that function. 



" A continuous action of six hundred years has not been 

 permitted without good cause, and the changes effected, 



* " Ad ccelum homines trahendos esse, non cogendos." Breviary 

 Office for St. Augustine of Canterbiiry. 



