XIV.—CONCLUSION.
The evolution of Catholicity which is now coming slowly to the light will gather up all the rich treasures of the past, march in response to every honest demand of the interests of the actual present, and guide the genuine aspirations of the race in the sure way to the more perfect future of its hopes.
This sublime mission is not the self-imposed work of any man or party of men, but the divinely-imposed task of religion, of the present, visible, living body of Christ, the church of God. None other has the power to renew the world, unite together in one band the whole human race, and direct its energies to enterprises worthy of man’s great destiny. Marshal MacMahon, Duke de Broglie, or any one else, legitimists, imperialists, Orleanists, republicans, anti-republicans, these men and these parties in France may contribute more or less as instruments to the initiation of the new order of things in Europe, but that is all. They will betray the cause of God and the interests of humanity, if they should attempt to turn it to any individual account or to any partisan triumph, whether called religious or political. The enemies of the church may place hindrances in her way, but they cannot stop her in reaching her goal. God alone rules and reigns.
God has spoken his “thus far shalt thou go, and no further” to his enemies and to all the persecutors of the church of Christ. When God arises, his enemies will flee and be scattered. Their strength, compared with that of his children, is as the strength of a rope of sand. Their power is gained by secrecy, and their influence by threats and deeds of violence; for their real numbers constitute but a small fraction of the French, German, Italian, and Spanish or any other people. The present struggle will render this fact evident to all the world.
Strange destiny that of France, to be the leader of Europe both for good and for evil! France was the first nation converted to Christianity in western Europe, and the first to proclaim herself, as a nation, infidel. France will be the first to recover from her errors and give the initial blow that will end in the overthrow of the enemies of modern civilization and Christianity.
The Marshal-President of the Republic of France, the brave soldier, the man without fear or reproach, is not the man to betray his high trusts through any personal ambition, or to any party, legitimist, Orleanist, imperialist, Gambettist, or whatever may be the name which it bears on its banner.
The mission of the President of France is to keep ambitious men and partisans at bay, and afford the best elements and the truest interests of all France a fair expression and the opportunity of forming a stable and suitable political government. The Catholic Church has been made to suffer too much and too long from crowned emperors, royal dynasties, and political factions in France and elsewhere to identify her great cause with theirs.
France, under the providence of God, is slowly being taught to stand on her own feet, to assert her true manhood, and to practise self-government. The political virtues the French people have practised, and the self-control they have displayed, since the formation of the republic, have discomfited their enemies, increased the admiration of their friends, and won the applause of the civilized world. France never was so really great as she is at this moment.
The purity of the motives of the President of the Republic, the disinterested love of his country, and his undaunted valor have never been impeached, nor has his escutcheon ever borne the slightest stain. His sagacity and prudence have never been at fault. That he has a will Jules Simon has learned to his cost. Patrick MacMahon, the marshal of the armies of France and the first President of her Republic, possesses evidently all the distinguishing qualities of the first commander-in-chief of the American army and the first President of the Republic of the United States—George Washington. The French people can safely trust for one term, and not unlikely for a second, their liberties, their interests, and their honor to the keeping of such a man.
France will find in her president a providential man, and his name will go down to posterity with the title of our own great patriot, the noblest of all titles—“MacMahon, the Father of his Country.”