Only those who can read in the seeds of time can tell whether such signs as these are to be interpreted as signifying the beginning of the apostasy of the Latin races from Christianity and the disintegration and ruin of Latin nations, or whether these events are to be looked upon as evidence of a latent capacity and a youthful but ill-regulated strength pointing out a transition to a new and better order of things in the future.
Judging from the antecedents of the men placed in political power by recent elections in Italy, and their destructive course of legislation, the former supposition, confining our thoughts to the immediate present, appears to be the more likely. It is not, therefore, a matter of surprise that Catholics of an active faith and a deep sense of personal responsibility feel uneasy at seeing things go from bad to worse in nations which they have been accustomed to look upon as pre-eminently Catholic. Nor is it in human nature for men of energetic wills and sincere feelings of patriotism to content themselves when they see the demagogues of liberty and the conspirators of atheistical secret societies coming to the front and aiming at the destruction of all that makes a country dear to honest men. Nowhere does the Catholic Church teach that the love of one’s country is antagonistic to the love of God; nor does the light of her faith allure to an ignoble repose, or her spirit render her members slaves or cowards.
Serious-minded men, before going into action, are wont to examine anew their first principles, in order to find out whether these be well grounded, clearly defined, and firm, and also whether there may not be some flaw in the deductions which they have been accustomed to draw from them. An examination of this kind is a healthy and invigorating exercise, and not to be feared when one has in his favor truth and honesty.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. Hecker. 1877.
II.—THE UNITY OF ITALY.
The idea of unity responds to one of the noblest aspirations of the soul, and wherever it exists free from all compulsion it gives birth to just hopes of true greatness. Would that the cry for unity were heard from the hearts of the inhabitants of the whole earth, and that the inward struggle which reigns in men’s bosoms, and the outward discord which prevails between man and man, between nations and nations, and between races and races, had for ever passed away!
“When will the hundred summers die,
And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,
Bring truth that sways the hearts of men?”