Yet we urge not this as the motive for accepting the teaching of the church and submitting to her authority and discipline. Our Lord says to us, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you," but he does not bid us or permit us to seek the kingdom of God and his justice for the sake of "these things," or the adjicienda; he forbids us to be solicitous for them, since it is for them that the heathen are solicitous. The only motive for a man to become a Catholic, to believe what she teaches and to do what she commands, is that she is the kingdom of God on earth, and that it is only in so doing that he can possess "his justice," please God, or attain to eternal life. Christ did not come, as a temporal prince, to found—as the carnal Jews, misinterpreting the prophecies, expected—an earthly kingdom, or to create an earthly paradise; but he came as a spiritual prince to establish the reign of his Father on earth in all human affairs, and over all men and nations, and whatever temporal good is secured is not the end or reason of his kingdom, but is simply incidental to it. It is no reason why I should or should not be a Catholic because the church favors or does not favor one or another particular theory or constitution of civil government, but the fact that she does not favor a particular form of civil polity, if it be a fact, is sufficient reason why I should not favor it, for it proves that such form is repugnant to the sovereignty of God and the supremacy of his law. As a matter of fact, however, the church has never condemned any particular form of civil polity or erected one form or another into a Catholic dogma, and a man may be a monarchist, a republican, or a democrat, as he pleases, and at the same time be a good and irreproachable Catholic, if he hold the political power subordinate to the divine sovereignty.
The church is necessary to sustain a republican form of government, but it is also necessary to sustain any other form, as a wise, just, and efficient civil government. The error of those we are combating is not in that they are democrats or anti-democrats, but in holding that the state or secular order is sufficient for itself, can stand of itself without the aid of religion or the church, has no need of the spiritual, and has in fact the right to brush religion aside as an impertinent intermeddler whenever it comes in its way, or seeks to dictate or influence its policy. This is a gross error, condemned by all religion, all philosophy, and all experience. It is the old epicurean error that excludes the divine authority from the direction or control of human affairs, and in its delirium sings,
"Let the gods go to sleep up above us."
It is at bottom pure atheism, nothing more, nothing less. It is a pure absurdity. Can the creation stand without the creator? Can the contingent subsist without the necessary? Can the body live and perform its functions without the soul which is its principle of life; the dependent without that on which it depends? In the whole history of the world, you will not find an instance of a purely atheistical state, or a state held to be completely divorced from the spiritual order. There is no instance in all history of a state without some sort of religion, even an established religion, or religion which the state recognizes as its supreme law, and does its best or worst to enforce. We here, as well as in England, as well as at any time in any European country, have an established religion which the law protects and enforces on all its citizens, only it is a mutilated religion, a religion without dogmas, and called morality. If not so, whence is it the law punishes murder or arson, and forbids polygamy, or the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes? Even Jacobins erect their jacobinism into a religion, and make it obligatory on the state to persecute, to exterminate all who dare oppose it. Have we not seen it despoil the Holy See of its independence and possessions, confiscate the goods of the church, exile holy bishops from their sees and their country in Italy, and within a few weeks shoot down the Archbishop of Paris and a large number of priests and religious, suspend public worship, desecrate and plunder the churches, and banish all religion but their jacobinism from the schools? No state tolerates any religion hostile to its own established religion, and the most intolerant and cruel persecutors in the world are precisely those who clamor loudest for religious liberty.
There is no such thing as a complete divorce of church and state practicable in any country on earth. The only question is, Shall the state be informed and directed by the infallible and holy church of God, or by the synagogue of Satan? No man who is at all competent to pass a judgment on the question but agrees with the Syllabus in condemning not the distinction, but the separation of church and state; but the forms of the union of the two powers, whose harmonious action is necessary to the normal state of society, may vary according to circumstances. In countries where the state refuses to recognize frankly and fully the freedom and independence of the spiritual order, it may be necessary to regulate the relation of church and state by concordats; in others, where the state recognizes the independence of the spiritual order, and holds itself bound to protect the rights of the religion adopted by its citizens, as hitherto with us, no concordats are necessary, for the state does not claim any competence in spirituals. In this country the relation between the two powers has, with a few exceptions, been satisfactory, and the church has been free. But there is on foot a formidable conspiracy against her freedom, and it is beginning to be maintained pretty determinedly that the majority of the people, being Protestant, and the people being the state, have the right and the duty as the state to sustain Protestantism, and outlaw and suppress the church.
DRAMATIC MORALISTS IN SPANISH AMERICA.
The truth is slowly dawning, at least to curious minds, that the people of the southern half of our New World have tastes not dissimilar to our own. Indeed, they seek other arts than those of revolution, and, here and there, have other stages and actors than those which represent the pronunciamiento, with all its malicious bombast and insignificant "sound and fury." We can count poets, novelists, painters, sculptors, scientists in the ranks of the most distinguished men of our nearest sister republic. Cuba, too, rejoices in the genius of her philosophic scholar, Caballero de la Luz, and of her poets, Heredia and Gertrudiz de Avellañeda, with the same spirit which Mexico brings to her admiration of the scientific versatility of Siguenza, the quaint ideality of Sor Juana Inez, and the literary culture of Carpio and Pesado. Nevertheless, such facts as these have aided but little in forming the common estimate of Spanish-American peoples, who are to some of us scarcely more than a Bedouin rabble fighting problematic wild-beasts in the shape of pronouncers, and struggling through clouds of desert-dust and battle-smoke to the light of freedom. That great rude reserve of race, the Indians, without which the business of one-half the continent could not be carried on, seems to be swept out of our moral consideration as with a broom; yet we must think hopefully of a race which has produced an artist so extraordinary as Cabrera and a ruler so enduring and persistent as Juarez—hopefully, at all events, of their mere abilities, if mother church does not teach us to look with a shrewder and kindlier eye upon their moral capabilities. In more than one country of Spanish America we find Indians among presidents, judges, governors, congressmen, writers, artists; and this being the case, historically or actually, why should it be a matter of surprise that Spanish America, with whatever Old World culture she may possess in union with native aptitude, should have some claims upon our attention on the score of taste and intelligence? Part of these claims we propose to set forth.
The present writer has sat in the orderly theatres of Vera Cruz and Mexico, and seen performances substantially as good as those of our northern capitals. The Zarzuelas, or operettas, of Barbieri and Gatzambide were as pleasant in 1868-69 to their hearers in the southern republic as the French comic opera to New Yorkers, and nevertheless seemed decent and spirited; besides, the Mexicans had the good fortune to enjoy Gatzambide's personal direction of his Zarzuelas, and Gatzambide (now deceased) was one of the most popular musicians of Spain. Another celebrity the Mexicans honored in the person of José Valero, a gentlemanlike Spanish actor, whose superior in versatile genius as tragedian and comedian it would be difficult to find anywhere. Entertainments were plentiful in Moctezuma's city, though subsisting, so to speak, upon diminished rations. Round about all these flickering pleasures flowed the strange dark tide of Mexican life—its ragged multitude, its concealed miseries, its settled and common melancholy, not to be dissipated by any class of illusions, not to be shaken off in a day, or a year, or any brief term of years. Nevertheless, the misfortunes of a war-worn people found as tasteful and respectable a solace as their theatres could afford. Their scholars were even encouraged to revive and celebrate some ancient glories of the Mexican stage; and at the opening of a season they crowned the bust of one of the fathers of the Spanish drama, whom with reason they regard as among the greatest of the small band of very eminent Mexicans. This laurelled bust was but one of a number to be seen in the various theatres, in several instances perpetuating the memory of Mexico's own dramatic authors. On the occasion referred to, poems by well-known poets—and, among the rest, if the writer remembers correctly, an eloquent composition by the highly-esteemed blind poet, Juan Valle—preluded the revival of that celebrated comedy, La Verdad Sospechosa, or, The Truth Suspected.