single spark thrown into it may cause a huge conflagration. The question now is, will the fermenting mass of humanity have long to wait for a pretext, to inaugurate a general movement for the destruction of authority?

The several governments of Europe are already seriously addressing themselves to the task of averting it. They are trying to remove the inflammable and explosive materials and to acquire absolute control over the unruly elements that have accumulated to an alarming extent in the ranks of the masses.

We turn, therefore, from the contemplation of the evils which are menacing society to the contemplation of the forces which are engaged in eradicating those evils.

What are the duties and obligations of governments? How do the governments of to-day acquit themselves of these duties and obligations? Are the principles of modern governments in harmony with the immutable principles which the philosophy of history inculcates as indispensable conditions of order, of power, and of stability? These are grave questions and they challenge attention, if the foreshadowings of the future in the present are more than mere idle conjectures. In order to answer these questions we must make a diversion into the past and ask: Has history a law? In other words, are the events which make up history really connected with each other, and are they in their causative principles the combined action of a Divine Providence and of human liberty, -or are they a conglomeration of facts that reproduce themselves haphazard in time and space?

Now history is certainly not an aimless, purposeless movement, nor a mere mechanical ceaseless surging to and fro of human atoms; on the contrary it is full of life and of intelligent purpose. It is a movement born, which will one day reach its end, but which, en route and in proportion as it advances, indicates to us the past and foreshadows the future-what has been and what will be. It is a witness and at the same time a prophet; and, therefore, it is an unfailing source of instruction, for religion itself forms part of it. If we search all ages, from earliest antiquity down to the beginning of the Christian era, and continuing from there through nineteen hundred years to our own days, we find that man at all times has been confronted by the same mysteries which now confront him. Whence do we come? Where do we go? What is our destiny? These mysterious problems in all ages have clamored for solution, and in all ages religion has found it her special province to satisfy man on these all-important points. Hence it is that, whenever and wherever in history man is encountered, it is always as a religious being; for what is religion, but the expression by the human race of its innate consciousness of dependence upon a Supreme Being?

Proudhon, in The Confessions of a Revolutionist, has the following sentence: "It is surprising to observe how we find all our political questions complicated with theological questions."

This, however, is not surprising to one who knows from history that religion in all ages has been regarded as the indestructible foundation of human society. Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle, the master-minds of Greece, hold with Cicero, Cato, and Plutarch the belief "that it is easier to build a city in the air than to establish human society without belief in God." Their opinion stands not alone, and we select almost at random from the works of Rousseau, and even of Voltaire, passages confirming the opinion. The former observes "that a state never was founded without religion as its basis." The latter says, "that religion on all accounts is necessary wherever human society exists." We conclude, therefore, on the unanimous testimony of all ages, that one of the main functions. of the State consists in protecting and fostering religion.

Apart, however, from the cumulative evidence of history, the duty of any government to defend and uphold religion among its subjects results also from an analysis of the purpose and object of government; and, moreover, as we shall see, it is not an optional or accidental function, but an obligatory and essential duty from which there can be no exemption. If it is conceded that human society constitutes what is called the social order, and again, that the social order is the proper sphere of political science, then it is evidently the office of the State to establish and maintain those conditions under which society alone can prosper and move forward on the road towards self-perfection. The social order, in its turn, is made up of individuals, and the individuals, finally, are composed of body and soul. On account of this dual nature, and the constant conflict between the two elements, the predominance of the spiritual over the animal part of human nature is not only desirable but necessary in the individual, for only thereby can the animal passions and desires be kept within due bounds. And, since man as a member of the social order, retains what he possesses as individual, the same necessity which exists in the individual, must recur in a multitude of individuals, that is, in human society, in the social order. And hence arises the task of the State to pay due attention to this dual composition of human nature, that the correct equilibrium between the two constituents may be preserved. Hence the necessity of a Church as well, as of a State, a duality which corresponds to the dual nature of man. The more the State promotes the elevation of the spiritual nature, the more efficient the State becomes; for, an increase of virtue and a diminution of vice invariably raise the standard of morality, and that again is the work of religion. The most religious States present themselves, therefore,

to us as the most durable in point of time. This is in perfect harmony with reason, and is so amply verified by fact, that no room for doubt is left. In times gone by, the greater or less amount of success with which governments fulfilled this paramount duty to society, determined alike their prosperity and their longevity, and the same law holds good to-day. It will greatly facilitate our insight into the principles of modern governments, if we glance cursorily at the successive stages through which they passed before they became what they now are.

Two facts strike us with peculiar force when we take a retrospect of the condition of mankind in pre-Christian times. The one is that, through the whole complicated network of superstition that enveloped the Gentile world, there runs one legend like a silver thread; it appears and reappears in many different versions, yet fundamentally it is one: the tradition of man's creation, his fall and punishment, and the necessity of a sacrifice to appease the wrath of the outraged majesty of the Infinite. The other fact is, that the amount of knowledge originally possessed by the human race in regard to the primitive universal tradition became, as time advanced, obscured. The oldest religions are more Christian, so to speak, than those nearer to our era in point of time. The pre-Christian ages recorda steady retrogression, instead of a continuous progress in that respect, and the greatest amount of moral and spiritual darkness prevailed at that very time when Christianity began to shed its light from heaven upon the utterly distorted and fragmentary notions of the original common legend, which were all that mankind had succeeded in preserving. Christianity confirmed not only the tradition of the creation and the fall of man, but it explained the first transgression in a clear and definite way, pointed out and described the indelible traces which it had left behind, namely, the disposition of the creature to revolt against the Creator; and Christianity did not stop there, it furnished also the means by which the tendency of man towards evil might be successfully overcome. The human race, rescued from barbarism by Christianity, has now passed in its onward march through nineteen centuries. Has this long period been one of uninterrupted progress? No, it has not. The paradoxical phenomenon that man is a religious creature, so much so that it is utterly impossible to entirely eradicate belief of some sort from his heart, be it merely the agnostic formula: something is; and that man, at the same time struggles incessantly to free himself from the chains which his belief creates for him,-this paradoxical phenomenon has found expression time and again during the Christian era in desperate conflicts. Yet all the events which may properly be comprised in that category up to the closing of mediæval history, may be designated as transitory rather than as lasting evidences of the perversity

of human nature. The first movement on a gigantic scale to set up the infinitesimal spark of human intelligence as a most worshipful deity, is the so-called Reformation of the sixteenth century. At no time previous did there exist a more powerful and more favorable combination of conditions to give a revolt of man against his Maker a wide range within a short time. The fall of Constantinople, and, subsequent to it, the scattering of the accumulated literary treasures of Greece and Rome, disseminated the ideas and culture of Paganism; the discovery of a new continent roused the dormant energies of the maritime nations of Europe, and the invention of printing gave a fresh impetus to its intellectual life. The Reformation, in creating Protestantism, has theoretically affirmed religion and its necessity, but practically it has denied both. For it is impossible to assert that Protestantism did not establish the principle of private judgment, and the latter, dissolved into its essence, is the virtual dethronement of God and enthronement of human reason in His place. God ceases to be authority, when each individual's judgment becomes final authority, and a religion without God as authority for its decrees, scarcely deserves the name of religion. De Tocqueville remarks that the human mind, left to follow its own bent, will regulate the temporal and spiritual institutions of society upon one uniform basis, namely, man endeavors to harmonize the state in which he lives on earth with the state he believes awaits him after death? No religion has arisen since the Reformation which is not in juxtaposition to a political opinion, connected with it by affinity. For more than three hundred years Protestantism, because it is a system without any cohesive power, has split up into an endless multitude of sects, undisturbed, nay unconcerned, even, about the results to which it finally and legitimately leads. The French Revolution or '89 presents to us the first tangible consequence of the enthronement of the cultus of reason, alias private judgment. And in the saturation of the masses with revolutionary ideas lies, as we have pointed out before, the danger of the future.

The change produced by the Reformation in the tone and character of the social order, has been accompanied by corresponding changes in the governments. The medieval monarchy disappeared. The sovereignty was transferred from the monarch to the nation, and the "sovereign (supreme) will of the people" was proclaimed as the original source of authority, par excellence. Almost every form of government now rests upon that principle; yet "the will of the nation" is one of those expressions which have been most extensively employed by the wily and the despotic, to render the principle itself barren, and under it to conceal absolutism. Nevertheless, the constitutional monarchies, as well as the republican governments of our times, rest alike on this basis.

There was a time since the Reformation during which the ruler of a country reigned himself and in his own pretended right, and we can point to no more emphatic illustration than the "cujus regio, illius religio" of that period. The process of disintegration was slow. By degrees the prerogatives of emperor and king were shorn of all vital elements, either by direct pressure or by way of compromise. The monarchical principle has receded before the democratic principle, and the masses have gradually secured a participation in the framing of laws and the decision of national questions. Again, the very essence of democratic governments rests in the principle of the absolute sovereignty of the majority. The moral power of the majority is founded upon the theory that the interests of the many are to be preferred to those of the few, and the legislatures of all existing governments are now swayed by the wishes of the majority. Thus ministries rise and fall through parliamentary majorities and minorities. Nor has the spirit of the age which thus finds expression in mere majorities, failed to impress its distinctive character upon the decrees which issue from the legislative assemblies. In almost all countries the contrast between the liberal and conservative parties has been decided in favor of the latter. A slight examination of the laws which have emanated from parliaments representing modern ideas, strongly tinged with atheism and antagonistic to all true religion, is sufficient to prove that the "cultus of reason" reigns supreme in the world to-day. The spirit of the age manifests its ascendency in wholly emancipating the State from the Church. The measures taken for that purpose tend in their intrinsic nature not so much to effect a complete separation of Church and State, and to assign to each a definite sphere, as rather to make the Church subservient to the purposes of the State. In other words, the natural and legitimate order of things is reversed, and the temporal order declared to be above the spiritual order. Practically the emancipation of Church and State amounts to this: the first and paramount duty of every human being is not to the Creator, but to the State; man must be a citizen first; afterwards, as a being endowed with a soul, he may think, if he chooses, of his Maker.

Another reform which the spirit of the age saw fit to bestow upon society as a genuine benefit and a decided advance in the right direction, is the introduction of "civil marriage." We do not gainsay its perfect harmony with the subjugation of the spiritual to the temporal order, and we are ready to concede likewise its accordance with the idea, that the State must provide for the greatest happiness (after humanitarian fashion) of the greatest number. We do not wish to call in question that the conjugal relations between husband and wife are in very many instances far from happy, and from this standpoint the indissolubility of marriage seems, indeed, a de