ideals of his young enthusiasm seemed to him united, sitting like "a dethroned queen" amon'j; her people, the guardian of their faith and of their rights, and all the more glorious in her rags and poverty to his d;
quence, but of the bold and unconipromismg earnest- ness in the cause of his Church and of the common in- terests of religious liberty which constantly character- ized his later career. After a touching allusion to his
zled vision. Here was an object worthy of all his ardor great bereavement, and an exposition of the reasons and labor. Here religion was the emblem, not of sue- ' which induced him to claim the judgment of his peers, ccssful power, but of patient suffering. Here she was \ he said : " It is sufiicieiitly wcl^ known that the career plainly on the side of the people. He returned to j on wiiich I liave entered is not of a nature to satisfy France, burning with eagerness to give a like noble an aml)ition wliich seeks jtolitical honors and places, place to the Church of his own country, that there also ' The jvnrers of the present aqe, Ix'tli in i/uvrrnment and in the Church might be the guardian of the jieople's faith ojjxisition, are, by the grace of J/eiven. eqnalhi hostile to and of their rights. Not only the peculiar condition (yitholia. Tliere is another amiiition, not less devour- of the countrj'— the July Revolution had just ended— in^', perhaps not less culpalde, which aspires to reputa- favored his project, but Lamennais had long dreamed j tion, and which is content tobuythat at any price; that, of just such a work as Montalembert proposed, and, be- 1 too, 1 disavow like the other. No one can be moro
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conscious than I am of the disadvantages with which a precocious publicity surrounds youth, and none can fear them more. But there is still in the world some- thing which is called faith ; it is not dead in all minds. It is to this that I have early given my heart and mj' life. My life— a man's life— is always, and especially to-day, a poor thing enough ; but this poor thing, con- secrated to a great and I10I3' cause, may grow with it ; and when a man has made to such a cause the sacrifice of his future, I believe that he ought to shrink from none of its consequences, none of its dangers. It is in the strength of this conviction that I appear to-day for the first time in an assembly of men. I know too well that at my age one has neither antecedents nor expe- rience ; but at m_v age, as at everj' other, one has du- ties and hopes. I have determined, for my part, to be faithful to both." He thus, on the most solemn occa- sion of his life, deliberately took his stand upon the principles to which he persistently adhered to his dy- ing day ; and the nobilitj'- of thought, the moral cour- age, the spirit of self-sacrifice which actuated him are beyond cavil or dispute, whatever maj' be thought of the prudence or wisdom of his course. It must be borne in mind all the time that, inasmuch as in the in- fidel reaction following the great Kevolution Roman- Catholic France had been allowed to sink into a with- ering and hopeless secularism, nipping its youthful national life at the root, and yielding a stunted har- vest of many evils (the end of which is not even yet), the effort of Montalembert and his colleagues to vindi- cate a place for religion in the national life and gov- ernment— to proclaim that society without God is a soulless and corrupting mass, never far from anarchy ■ — was a manifestation of an enthusiasm such as all France could not but pronounce both noble and true, and therefore it is not surprising that the result of the trial was a simple fine of 100 francs. But then came also the question what step to take next. The circu- lation of L'Avenir had not reached 3000; instead of being self-supporting, it had proved a drain on the scanty resources of the societj'', which, having to sus- tain also the expense of prosecutions and propagand- ism, broke down. As the little band had contrived to place themselves very much in the position of Ish- mael, and the clergy, headed by the episcopacj', were among the fellest of their foes, further appeals to an enlightened public were voted nugatorj', and thej' formed the extraordinaiy step of submitting the cru- cial questions in dispute to the pope. The great law- suit was not to be at Paris, but at Rome. His holiness was to decide whether L'Avenir was or was not enti- tled to the support of the Roman Catholic world, and the journal was to be suspended till his sovereign will and pleasure should be made known. The suggestion came from Lacordaire : " We will carry our protest, if necessarj^, to the Citj' of the Apostles, to the steps of the Confessional of St. Peter, and we shall see who will stop the pilgrims of the God of Liberty." No one thought of stopping them ; the moi-e's the pity, for this expedition was a blunder of the first magnitude, conceived in utter ignorance or forgetfulness of that traditional policy of Rome which lord Macaulay deems a main cause of her durabilitj' and strength. " She thoroughl.y understood, what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts. In some sects, particularly in infant sects, enthusiasm is suf- fered to be rampant ; in other sects, particular!}^ in sects long established and richly endowed, it is regard- ed with aversion. The CathoUc Church neither sub- mits to enthusiasm nor proscribes it, but uses it." She used Ignatius Loyola and St. Teresa ; she would have used John Bunvan, John Wesley, Joanna South- cott, Selina, countess of Huntingdon, and Mrs. Fry. The founders of L'Avenir were just the sort of en- thusiasts she wanted, so long as they could be kept within bounds. But thej' had proved uncontrolla- ble. If the pope and his advisers had been equally