Catholicism is the greatest, the most holy school of respect that the world has ever seen. France was brought up in this school, in spite of the ill use which human passions have often made of her precepts. The abuse is now little formidable; the benefit ought to be great, for we have great need of it.
Catholicism itself is suffering at present from a grievous malady.
This is the prevailing coldness and routine, the predominance of form over foundation, of external practice over internal feelings.
This arises from the often hypocritical incredulity of the eighteenth century, not very distant from the nineteenth; and also from the preponderance, which has long been excessive, in the church, of the government over the vital principle, of ecclesiastical authority over religious life.
Some analogy existed in this respect between the church and state in the last century. On both sides power was afoot with its old organization, in the hands of its former possessors; but amongst the subjects there was little faith and little love.
What is it, nevertheless, that has saved Catholicism from shipwreck? It is that it was a popular religion and faith. The Catholic government yielded, the Catholic people survived. M. de Monlosier was right; in our days, too, it was the cross of wood which saved the world.
The safety is yet incomplete. The church has risen, but many a soul languishes. Catholicism needs faith, a more inward and lively faith.
It is the vague and ill-regulated feeling of this want, which has for some time inspired those dreams of absolute independence, of rupture between church and state, those shiverings of the fever of democracy, which, under the name of M. l'Abbé de Lamennais, have scandalised the faithful and made the indifferent smile.
Mad, shameful dreams which urge Catholicism to abjure her principles and history, to hand herself over to the contagion of modern evil and to dishonour while she destroys herself.