DE TRESSENSK ON MKX AND PARTIES. 181 



*' Now, who tlocs not sec, ayIio does not feci distinctly, that So- 

 ciet}', -witlulrawn from the laws of religion and true righteousness, 

 can have no other object than that of heaping up riches, and in 

 all its doings will follow no other law than the indomitable desire 

 to satisfy its passions and serve its interests? Therefore, men of 

 this sort persecute with cruel hatred the religious orders, making 

 no account of the immense services which they have rendered to 

 religion, society, and literature. They cry out against them, say- 

 ing that they have no legitimate reason for existing, and thus 

 they become the echo of the calumnies of heretics. In cfTect, as 

 it was very wisely said by Pius VII., our predecessor of happy 

 incmor}', ' the abolition of the religious orders is a blow at tlio 

 liberty of publicly practising the gospel teachings ; it is a blow at 

 a manner of life recommended by tlie CIrh-cIi as conformed to the 

 apostles' doctrine ; finally, it is a blow at those illustrious founders 

 whom we venerate at the altar, and who did not establish these 

 orders except by the inspiration of God !' 



" They go farther yet, and declare in tlieir impiety that it is 

 necessary to take away from the faithful and the Church the right 

 of doing alms publicly in the name of Christian charit}', and to 

 abolish the law which forbids servile labor on certain days in 

 order to make room for divine worship : and this under the most 

 false pretext that this right and this law are inconsistent with the 

 principles of sound public economy. 



" Not content with banishing religion from society, they would 

 fain exclude it even from the bosom of the family. Teaching and 

 professing the fatal error of communism and socialism, they 

 affirm that domestic society, or the flunilj-, has the ground of its 

 existence purel}^ in civil law; and consequenth^ that all the rights 

 of parents over children, and especially the right to insti'uct and 

 educate, are derived from the civil law and dependent on it. 

 With these men of falsehood, the principal object of these impious 

 maxims and these machinations, is to withdraw completely from 

 the salutary doctrine and intluence of the Cliurch the instruction 

 and education of 3'outh, in order to defile and deprave, by the 

 most pernicious errors, and by every sort of vice, the tender and 

 flexible soul of the 3'oung. In elfect, all those who have under- 

 taken tlie overthrow of religious and social order, and to bring to 

 naught all laws, divine and human, have always and above all 

 combined their plans, their actions, and their clForts, for the de- 

 ception and perversion of the youth, because, as we have already 



