I have said that, while the Israelites had God for their king, they had a succession of great national disasters, arising indeed really from their falling off from him; but this they would have been slow to acknowledge. They fell into idolatry; then, in consequence, they fell into the power of their enemies; then God in his mercy visited them, and raised up for them a deliverer and ruler—a judge, as he was called—who brought them to repentance, and then brought them out of their troubles; however, when the judge died, they fell back into idolatry, and then they fell under the power of their enemies again. Thus for eight years they were in subjection to the king of Mesopotamia; for eight years to the king of Moab; for twenty years to the king of Canaan; for seven years to the Madianites; for eighteen years to the Ammomites; and for forty years to the Philistines. Afterward Eli, the high priest, became their judge, and then disorders of another kind commenced. His sons, who were priests also, committed grievous acts of impurity in the holy place, and in other ways caused great scandal. In consequence a heavy judgment came upon the people; they were beaten in battle by the Philistines, and the ark of God was taken. Then Samuel was raised up, a holy prophet and a judge, and in the time of his vigor all went well; but he became old, and then he appointed his sons to take his place. They, however, were not like him, and everything went wrong again. "His sons walked not in his ways," says the sacred record, "but they turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment." This reduced the Israelites to despair; they thought they never should have a good government while things were as they were; and they came to the conclusion that they had better not be governed by such men as Samuel, however holy he might be, that public affairs ought to be put on an intelligible footing, and be carried on upon system, which had never yet been done. So they came to the conclusion that they had better have a king, like the nations around them. They deliberately preferred the rule of man to the rule of God. They did not like to repent and give up their sins, as the true means of being prosperous; they thought it an easier way to temporal prosperity to have a king like the nations than to pray and live virtuously. And not only the common people, but even the grave and venerable seniors of the nation took up this view of what was expedient for them. "All the ancients of Israel, being assembled, came to Samuel, . . . and they said to him . . . Make us a king to judge us, as all nations have." Observe, my brethren, this is just what the Roman people are saying now. They wish to throw off the authority of the Pope, on the plea of the disorders which they attribute to his government, and to join themselves to the rest of Italy, and to have the King of Italy for their king. Some of them, indeed, wish to be without any king at all; but, whether they wish to have a king or no, at least they wish to get free from the Pope.
Now let us continue the parallel. When the prophet Samuel heard this request urged from such a quarter, and supported by the people generally, he was much moved. "The word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel," says the inspired writer, "that they should say, Give us a king. And Samuel prayed to the Lord." [{586}] Almighty God answered him by saying, "They have not rejected thee, but me;" and he bade the prophet warn the people, what the king they sought after would be to them when at length they had him. Samuel accordingly put before them explicitly what treatment they would receive from him. "He will take your sons," he said, "and will put them in his chariots; and he will make them his horseman, and his running footmen to go before his chariots. He will take the tenth of your corn and the revenue of your vineyards. Your flocks also he will take, and you shall be his servants." Then the narrative proceeds, "But the people would not hear the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but there shall be a king over us. And we also will be like all nations, and our king shall judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles for us."
Now here the parallel I am drawing is very exact. It is happier, I think, for the bulk of a people to belong to a small state which makes little noise in the world than to a large one. At least in this day we find small states, such an Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland, have special and singular temporal advantages. And the Roman people, too, under the sway of the Popes, at least have had a very easy time of it; but, alas that people is not sensible of this, or does not allow itself to keep it in mind. The Romans have not had those civil inconveniences which fall so heavy on the members of a first-class power. The pontifical government has been very gentle with them; but, if once they were joined to the kingdom of Italy, they would at length find what it is to attain temporal greatness. The words of Samuel to the Israelites would be fulfilled in them to the letter. Heavy taxes would be laid on them; their children would be torn from them for the army; and they would incur the other penalties of an ambition which prefers to have a share in a political adventure to being at the head of Catholic citizenship. We cannot have all things to our wish in this world; we must take our choice between this advantage and that; perhaps the Roman people would like both to secure this world and the next, if they could; perhaps, in seeking both, they may lose both; and perhaps, when they have lost more than they have gained, they may wish their old sovereign back again, as they have done in other centuries before this, and may regret that they have caused such grievous disturbance for what at length they find out is little worth it.
In truth, after all, the question which they have to determine is, as i have intimated, not one of worldly prosperity and adversity, of greatness or insignificance, of despotism or liberty, of position in the world or in the church; but a question of spiritual life or death. The sin of the Israelites was not that they desired good government, but that they rejected God as their king. Their choosing to have "a king like the nations" around them was, in matter of fact, the first step in a series of acts which at length lead them to their rejection of the Almighty as their God. When in spite of Samuel's remonstrances they were obstinate, God let them have their way, and then in time they became dissatisfied with their king for the very reasons which the old prophet had set before them in vain. On Solomon's death, about a hundred and twenty years after, the greater part of the nation broke off from his son on the very plea of Solomon's tyranny, and chose a new king, who at once established idolatry all through their country.
Now, I grant, to reject the Holy Father of course is not the sin of the Israelites, for they rejected Almighty God himself: yet I wish I was not forced to believe that a hatred of the Catholic religion is in fact at the bottom of that revolutionary spirit which at present seems so powerful in Rome. Progress, in the mouth of some people—of a great many people—means apostasy. Not that I wouldn't deny that [{587}] there are sincere Catholics so dissatisfied with things as they were in Italy, as they are in Rome, that they are brought to think that no social change can be for the worse. Nor as if I pretended to be able to answer all the objections of those who take a political and secular view of the subject. But here I have nothing to do with secular politics. In a sacred place I have only to view the matter religiously. It would ill become me, in my station in the church and my imperfect knowledge of the facts of the case, to speak four or against statesmen and governments, lines of policy or public acts, as if I were invested with any particular mission to give my judgment, or had any access to sources of special information. I have not here to determine what may be politically more wise, or what may be socially more advantageous, or what in a civil point of view would work more happily, or what in an intellectual would tell better; my duty is to lead you, my brethren, to look at what is happening, as the sacred writers would now view it and describe it were they on earth now to do so, and to attempt this by means of the light thrown upon present occurrences by what they actually have written, whether in the Old Testament or the New.
We must remove, I say, the veil off the face of events, as Scripture enables us to do, and try to speak of them as Scripture interprets them for us. Speaking then in the sanctuary, I say that theories and schemes about government and administration, be a better or worse, and the aims of mere statesmen and politicians, be they honest or be they deceitful, these are not the determining causes of that series of misfortunes under which the Holy See has so long been suffering. There is something deeper at work than anything human. It is not any refusal of the Pope to put his administration on a new footing, it is not any craft or force of men high in public affairs, it is not any cowardice or frenzy of the people, which is the sufficient explanation of the present confusion. What it is our duty here to bear in mind is the constant restless agency over the earth of that bad angel who was a liar from the beginning, of whom Scripture speaks so much. The real motive cause of the world's troubles is the abiding presence in it of the apostate spirit, "The prince of the power of this air," as St. Paul calls him, "The spirit that now worketh on the children of unbelief."
Things would go on well enough but for him. He it is who perverts to evil what is in itself good and right, sowing cockle amid the wheat. Advance in knowledge, in science, in education, in the arts of life, in domestic economy, in municipal administration, in the conduct of public affairs, is all good and from God, and might be conducted in a religious way; but the evil spirit, jealous of good, makes use of it for a bad end. And much more able is he to turn to his account the designs and measures of worldly politicians. He it is who spreads suspicions and dislikes between class and class, between sovereigns and subjects, who makes men confuse together things good and bad, who inspires bigotry, party spirit, obstinacy, resentment, arrogance, and self-will, and hinders things from righting themselves, finding their level, and running smooth. His one purpose is so to match and arrange and combine and direct the opinions and the measures of Catholics and unbelievers, of Romans and foreigners, of sovereigns and popular leaders—all that is good, all that is bad, all that is violent or lukewarm in the good, all that is morally great and intellectually persuasive in the bad—as to inflict the widest possible damage, and utter ruin, if that were possible, on the church of God.
Doubtless in St. Paul's time, in the age of heathen persecution, the persecutors had various good political arguments in behalf of their cruelty. Mobs indeed, or local magistrates, might be purposely cruel toward the Christians; but the great Roman government [{588}] at a distance, the great rulers and wise lawyers of the day, acted from views of large policy; they had reasons of state, as the Kings of the earth have now; still our Lord and his apostles do not hesitate to pass these by, and declare plainly that the persecution which they sanctioned or commanded was the word, not of man, but of Satan. And now in like manner we are not engaged in a mere conflict between progress and reaction, modern ideas and new, philosophy and theology, but in one scene of the never-ending conflict between the anointed Mediator and the devil, the church and the world; and, in St. Paul's words, "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places."
Such is the apostle's judgment; and how, after giving it, does he proceed? "Therefore," he says, "take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast-plate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of faith, whereby you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take unto you the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." And then he concludes his exhortation with words which most appositely bear upon the point toward which all that I have been saying is directed—"praying at all times with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching therein with all instance and supplication for all the saints, and for me," that is, for the apostle himself, "that speech may be given me, that I may open my mouth with confidence to make known the mystery of the gospel."
Here, then, we are brought at length to the consideration of the duty of prayer for our living apostle and bishop of bishops, the Pope. I shall attempt to state distinctly what is to be the object of our prayers for him, and secondly, what the spirit in which we should pray, and so I shall bring my remarks on this great subject to and end.