The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

Undoubtedly there were many abuses under the old regime, which the most sincere Christian regrets, and could not wish to see restored, or again attempted. But, its great feature, the inner link which bound the system together, its unity under the guidance of the universal Church, was the only safeguard for the general happiness of mankind. This admirable unity has been broken into fragments; each part does for itself, and thus the world lies at the mercy of Might, and each nation goes about like "a strong man armed, keeping his house."

Even Heeren, a writer who is strongly Protestant and liberal, is driven to confess in his "History of the Political System of Europe," that the reign of Frederick the Great, in Prussia, was "immediately followed by those great convulsions in states, which gave the ensuing period a character so different from the former. The contemporary world, which lived in it, calls it the revolutionary; but it is yet too early to decide by what name it will be denoted by posterity, after the lapse of a century."

After a brief review of the various states as they existed toward the middle of the last century, he adds: "The efforts of the rulers to obtain unlimited power had overthrown the old national freedom in all the states of the Continent; the assemblies of the states had disappeared, or were reduced to mere forms; nowhere had they been modelled into a true national representation."

He does not see that, in order to obtain that "unlimited power," the rulers had thrown off the yoke of Church authority everywhere, and that Christendom disappeared with the "old national freedom" as soon as the key-stone of the edifice, the papacy, was ejected from its place.

Nevertheless, he was keen enough to perceive it necessary to call in armed force to uphold that usurped power of rulers:

"For the strength of the states no other criterion was known than standing armies. And, in reality, there was scarcely any other. By the perfection which they had attained, and which kept pace almost with the growing power of the princes, the line of partition was gradually drawn between them and the nations; they only were armed; the nations were defenceless."

This great German historian carries his views further still, and confesses that, "if the political supports were in a tottering condition, the moral were no less shattered. The corner-stone of every political system, the sanctity of legitimate possession, without which there would be only one war of all against all, was gone; politicians had already thrown off the mask in Poland; the lust of aggrandizement had prevailed . . . . The indissoluble bond connecting morals and politics being broken, the result was to make egotism the prevailing principle of public as well as private life."

Admirable reflections, doubtless, but incomplete; the Protestantism of the writer not allowing him to perceive that, the only sure defender of morality having been discarded, egotism could not but prevail. Therefore does he complain, being blind to the true cause of the disorder, that "democratic ideas, transported from America to Europe, were spread and cherished in the midst of the monarchical system—ready materials for a conflagration far more formidable than their authors had anticipated, should a burning spark unhappily light upon them. Others had already taken care to profane the religion of the people; and what remains sacred to the people when religion and constitution are profaned?"

This last observation, thrown in at the end of some very sound considerations, would have made them far more striking, had it appeared at their head as the great source of all the catastrophes which ensued. But it requires a Catholic eye to take in the whole truth, and a Catholic tongue to give the right explanation of history, as of all things else.

Many reflections similar to those above quoted have been made by non-Catholic writers, and the defenders of the Church have spoken with clearness and energy throughout. Nevertheless, the evil has continued to grow more universal and more alarming, until, to-day, no principle on which the social fabric can securely stand is acknowledged by those who rule the exterior world. And of what Heeren calls the violation of "the sanctity of legitimate possession," let Poland and many other states speak, nay, those of the Father of the faithful himself, to whose warning voice rulers have now so long persistently turned a deaf ear. Where are now even the fragments of that "corner- stone" of the old "political system?"