4A DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



vanquished — tlic confusion in the same hands of politi- 

 cal and religious power, both of which come from above, 

 but separatel}- and differently. NoAvhere in Catholic 

 Christendom do I find this fearful confusion.' If you 

 point me to Rome, I do not find there the confusion of 

 these two powers, but the exceptional alliance of them, 

 in a place which is itself exceptional like a miracle. 

 Beneficent alliance ! league of the liberty of conscience, 

 never to be untwined, since it unites there what there is 

 need to separate everywhere besides ! never has the 

 necessity of it slione more conspicuously than at this 

 hour ! Already hast thou received the witness of French 

 blood, shed by those whom men call mercenaries, but 

 who are nothing less than heroes ! And now thou art 

 sustained by the truly national eloquence of our orators, 

 and the energetic and loyal declarations of our Grovern- 

 ment. 



[3. After having proved the existence of the theocracy, in 

 that lofty and universal sense in which it is spoken of in the 

 Bible, Father Hyacinthe remarked, that in the political system 

 the sovereignty of God is not exercised immediately and directly. 

 This was done, indeed, among the Israelites, among whom it 

 seemed good to God to preserve for a time, not only the primary 

 right of sovereignty, hut also the actual exercise of it. In ful- 

 filling at once the functions of captain, lawgiver, and judge, he 

 marched with the ark at the head of the armies, and gave 

 response from the- merc3'-seat to political as well as religious 

 questions of conscience. But all this was but a sensible type — 

 we might even say, with Origeu, sometimes a gross type — of the 

 sovereignty which he was afterward to exercise over Christian 

 nations by their princes and legislators. " B}^ me kings reign and 

 princes decree justice."* God does not act ordinarily by way of 

 miracle; neither would it be worthy of himself to condescend 

 constantly to the government of States. But those who preside 

 in such government in his name, are only the depositaries of his , 



* Proverbs, viii. 15. 



