64 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



of the religious aud the national sentiments. Father Hyacinthe 

 referred to Spain, now lallen, once so great ; the heroic and some- 

 times age-long struggles of its religious patriotism against the 

 .Moors ; and that national epopee which closed amid tlie splendors 

 of Isabella and Ferdinand the Catholic — an epoch in which Spain 

 was the first nation of Europe.] 



3. Contemj^orary Nations. 



Contemporary nations are no exception to this established 

 law. Notwithstanding the crisis that some of them are passing 

 through, Christianity continues among them to be the controlling 

 influence over public character, and the inspirer of national 

 feeling. Nothing can be more contrary to a just and careful ob- 

 seiTation of Europe and America than the opinion, so common 

 amongst us, that the religious element has been eliminated from 

 national life.] 



We liear a great deal said about Germany, and some- 

 times tliere are those who remaria witli dismay upon her 

 formidable growth at our very gates. Well, Gentlemen, 

 France has nothing to fear from Germany in the matter 

 of material power. J^either has it anything to borrow 

 from Germany in the way of that pantheist or mate- 

 rialist philosophy against which Germany itself has re- 

 acted. What I admire among the Germans is their re^'- 

 erence for home, tlieir respected and cherished traditions 

 of family life, and, despite the stubborn eftbrts of skep- 

 ticism and revolution, their national faith in Jesus 

 Christ and his gospel. 



•it î): -*}: * * 



The school of opinion against which I am contend- 

 ing tliinks that it linds in tlie United States an example 

 iiiid model of the separation of the religious and the 

 national life. I do not know a more complete mistake. 

 What is separated in the United States is the State and 

 the Church, or railier tlic clitirclies wliicli that count rv 



