178 APPENDIX. 



" Of fill the liberties which I have undertaken to defend, the 

 most precious, in my view, the most sacred, the most legitimate, 

 the most necessary, is liberty of conscience. I have loved 

 and served all forms of human liberty ; but I claim the special 

 honor of having been a champion of this. Even now, after so 

 many a struggle, and so many a defeat, I cannot speak of it with- 

 out unwonted emotion. Yes, we are bound to love and serve 

 all liberties, but among them all, the tenderest respect, the most 

 absolute devotion is due to religious liberty ; for this it is which 

 soars in regions the loftiest and purest, and at the same time, the 

 most vast. Its domain stretches from the depths of the individ- 

 ual conscience to the most splendid manifestations of national life. 

 Tliis alone illuminates two lives and two worlds: the life of the 

 soul as well as of the bod}" ; heaven as well as earth. This, alone, 

 is of equal importance to all men without exception — poor and 

 rich, strong and weak, people and kings, the least of our little 

 ones, and the intellect of a Newton or a Leibnitz. 



" And yet — most strange and grievous thing ! — it is this liberty, 

 the most delicate, tlic most exposed of all, which one cannot 

 handle without crushing it — it is this which, everywhere pro- 

 claimed in theory, is almost everywhere, in fact, least understood, 

 least respected, least protected from a thousand rude or treacher- 

 ous attacks, too often unnoticed or unpunished. 



" I must confess that this enthusiastic devotion of nine to re- 

 ligious liberty, is not general among Catholics. They are very 

 fond of it for themselves — which is no great merit. Generally 

 speaking, everybody likes every sort of liberty for himself. But 

 religious libert}" for its own sake, the liberty of other men's con- 

 sciences, the liberty of worship which men denounce and repudi- 

 ate — this is what disturbs and enrages many of us. 



" I go for liberty of conscience, in the interest of Catholicism, 

 without reservation and without hesitation. I frankly accept all 

 those consequences of it which equity requires and public moral- 

 it}^ does not forbid. This brings me to a delicate but essential 

 question, I come to it without circumlocution, because in all dis- 

 cussions of this sort, I have always found the importance of 

 meeting in advance the very natural and often very sincere anxi- 

 ety which obtains among the enemies of the liberty of Catholics. 

 Are we at liberty, now-a-days, to demand liberty for the truth — 

 that is, for ourselves (for every honest man believes what he holds 

 to be the truth), and refuse it to error— that is, to persons who 

 differ from us ? 



