124 Contemporary Evolution. 



Church are almost convertible terms. In France and Italy the 

 democracy is only kept from slaughtering the clergy in cold blood 

 by the fear of legal or military consequences. There are thousands 

 of workmen in Paris to whom the murder of the Archbishop ot 

 Paris only suggests a regret that he was not shot for being a 

 priest instead of being shot as a hostage, and this feeling is repro- 

 duced with more or less accuracy in every large town on the Con- 

 tinent. There is very little of this sort of fanaticism in England ; 

 but even here, if Mr. Bradlaugh had his will, the priests might 

 have a bad time. It is to a democracy largely subject to these 

 influences that the Church must make its appeal. But this hatred 

 of the Church in the minds of the working classes is only partially 

 due to the cause which has generated a modified form of the same 

 feeling in the minds of the educated classes. Disbelief in its coarser 

 shapes no doubt prevails among them to a very great extent, but 

 even this disbelief has probably a political rather than an intellectual 

 origin. They disbelieve because they hate, rather than hate because 

 they disbelieve. The main cause of democratic antagonism to the 

 Roman Catholic Church has been its alliance for so many centuries 

 with those whom the democracy regards as its oppressors. In every 

 struggle the Church has been on the side of the powers that be. It has 

 not only become associated by this means with the unpopularity which 

 attaches to these powers, it has even attracted the largest share of 

 it to its own shoulders. The Church was hated in the first instance 

 because it supported the privileged classes, and one of the principal 

 reasons why the privileged classes are now hated is that they are 

 suspected of wishing well to the Church. 



" Now the change of policy foreshadowed in the speech attributed 

 to Monsignor Meglia would strike at the root of the hatred felt by 

 democrats towards the Church. The accumulated detestation of 

 centuries would remain, but no fresh additions would be made to 

 the store. And when the source of supply is cut off, it is remark- 

 able how soon a feeling of this kind begins to decay. The recol- 

 lections of past wrongs grow faint in the light of present services. 

 The political tendencies now in action will help on this process of 

 oblivion. The French noblesse under Louis XVI. had for the most 



