RELIGION IN THE LIFE OF NAIIGNS. G5 



reckons up without iiuiul)cr : iu\d in tliat st;itc of tliin;;s 

 it could not be otlierwise. lîut if religion has nothing 

 to do there ^vith legislation, it has much to do with 

 public character. The scourge of rationalism which 

 desolates all Europe is known there only in rare and ex- 

 ceptional cases ; public opinion rejects it as not less con- 

 trary to the prosperity of the nation tlian to the wel- 

 fare of the soul. The courts of justice refuse with 

 horror the testimony of an avowed atheist.* . . . Thus 

 the most perspicacious of those French publicists who 

 make democracy to consist iu the exclusion from civil 

 society of all religious influence, refuse to acknowledge 

 the American Union as ^'a perfect democracy," and 

 make against it this bitter reproach : ^' that the Ameri- 

 can commonwealth is not satisfied wdtli philosophy, but 

 that it admits one as a citizen only on condition of his 

 being a Christian."! 



[Father Hyacinthe conchidcd the historical ar^çumcnt by the 

 example of two nations whose rare privilege it has been to unite 

 the sympathies both of Catholic and of Liberal opinion — Poland 

 and Ireland. Politicall}-, these two nations are dead ; they livo 

 only in their soul, and their soul is wholly wrapt up in Catholi- 

 cism. This is declared in eloquent terms by their orators and 

 poets, and more loudly yet, by the veiy nature of the odious 

 oppression they have suffered.] 



Part Second. — lidigion the PrincijiU of Social Jus- 

 tice and Patriotic Faith. 



[Father Hyacinthe proposed, next, to give the reason for -what 

 he had proved to be the universal fact.] 



Why is it that the soul of a people subsists mainly on 

 God and religion ? Strictly speaking, it is enough to 



* Neio York Spectator, Anj^ust 2.3, 18.31 ; quoted by de Tocqueville, 

 t La Démocratie, by il. Vacherot, pp. 34, 35. 



