72 DISCOUIiSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



These are fine lines; but they arc fiihje, and tlieir 

 generous but fatal illusion has too much affected the 

 minds of our fellow-citizens. They may not "tear 

 down" their flag, but they lower it. They unlearn true 

 patriotisnij not by loA'ing humanity too well, but by 

 loving it unwisely. 



If I were to indulge myself in the argumentnm ad 

 honiinem, I sliould haye an easy time of it. I should 

 say to the philosophic and revolutionary school : You 

 have been accusing us, till within a few years — us 

 Christians, and especially us Catholics — of not compre- 

 hending the love of country; of extirpating it, or at 

 least drying it up in the heart ! You have been telling 

 us that we could not love an earthly countr}^, because 

 we did nothing but dream of a heavenly one : — that we 

 could not serve our native land, because we w^ere labor- 

 ing for the universal Church. You haye been telling 

 us these things, flinging against us these unjust re- 

 proaches, to which our whole history makes answer; 

 and now, forsooth, you yourselves are setting humanity 

 in the place of the Church, and under our very eyes 

 are sacrificing to it the interests of your country, and 

 (though you may not suspect it) its honor also. 



[Ill conclusion, Father Ilyacinllie referred to the example of 

 tlie typical people. Nothing could be more religious than the 

 national sentiment of Israel, and therefore, by a beautiful neces- 

 sity, nothing more genuinely humanitarian.] 



I have spoken of all the rest of tlte nations, but said 

 nothing of Israel. Nevertheless, this people has pos- 

 sessed, in the highest degree, tlie two spirits which 

 make up a nation; — the spirit of tlie hearth, and the 

 ppirit of tlie altar — the two sanctuaries which religion 

 occupies or deserts at the same time. Israel was a 



