102 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



fended against itself. It is botli conservative and lib- 

 eral. Enthroned at all its firesides, there is bnt one 

 thing which it more abhors than foreign war, and that 

 is civil war. Bnt there have been in every age, and 

 they especially abonnd in evil times, a minority having 

 no concern with interests or dnties, and who, powerless 

 in the world of thought, are always ready to appeal to 

 violence. With this internal barbarism, so long as it 

 makes no aggressions, the sword has nothing to do. It 

 amounts to a principle with all free nations, that armed 

 force is not to interfere in matters of internal police ; 

 and among our neighbors, whose example I have had 

 such frequent occasion to cite, the constable carries for 

 his sole but sufficient badge of authority the wand of 

 the law. But when rebellion flies to arms, then the 

 nation, its prince at its head, must draw against it that 

 sword of which the apostle says that " the Power bear- 

 eth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of 

 God to execute wrath on him that doeth evil.''* 



[Such is the csseutially defensive chamcter of that Christian 

 war, in which force is cxchisively at the service of riglit. From 

 this, Father Hyacinthe infers the dignit}^ of the soklier's profes- 

 sion, and the grandeur of his mission in modem civilization. 

 He especially honored, in the army, that sentiment of hierarchy 

 and discipHne which tends, of late, to grow weaker in the rest of 

 the nation.] 



I have never honored insult and insurrection with 

 the name of liberty. Liberty, in my view, is the dignity 

 of that man who bows to the authority of his own 

 conscience, and consequently to tlie law and the magis- 

 trate. No one is free until he has learned how to 

 obey. Now this grand spirit of obedience is becoming 

 lost among us, and we need the army to preserve it to 



* Romans, xiii. 4. 



