“None worth speaking of,” answered Genestas.

“Good! and what risks do you not run by not believing?  But let us talk of the worldly aspect of the matter, which most appeals to you.  The finger of God is visible in human affairs; see how He directs them by the hand of His vicar on earth.  How much men have lost by leaving the path traced out for them by Christianity!  So few think of reading Church history, that erroneous notions deliberately sown among the people lead them to condemn the Church; yet the Church has been a pattern of perfect government such as men seek to establish to-day.  The principle of election made it for a long while the great political power.  Except the Catholic Church, there was no single religious institution which was founded upon liberty and equality.  Everything was ordered to this end.  The father-superior, the abbot, the bishop, the general of an order, and the pope were then chosen conscientiously for their fitness for the requirements of the Church.  They were the expression of its intelligence, of the thinking power of the Church, and blind obedience was therefore their due.  I will say nothing of the ways in which society has benefited by that power which has created modern nations and has inspired so many poems, so much music, so many cathedrals, statues, and pictures.  I will simply call your attention to the fact that your modern systems of popular election, of two chambers, and of juries all had their origin in provincial and oecumenical councils, and in the episcopate and college of cardinals; but there is this difference,—­the views of civilization held by our present-day philosophy seem to me to fade away before the sublime and divine conception of Catholic communion, the type of a universal social communion brought about by the word and the fact that are combined in religious dogma.  It would be very difficult for any modern political system, however perfect people may think it, to work once more such miracles as were wrought in those ages when the Church as the stay and support of the human intellect.”

“Why?” asked Genestas.

“Because, in the first place, if the principle of election is to be the basis of a system, absolute equality among the electors is a first requirement; they ought to be ‘equal quantities,’ things which modern politics will never bring about.  Then, great social changes can only be effected by means of some common sentiment so powerful that it brings men into concerted action, while latter-day philosophism has discovered that law is based upon personal interest, which keeps men apart.  Men full of the generous spirit that watches with tender care over the trampled rights of the suffering poor, were more often found among the nations of past ages than in our generation.  The priesthood, also, which sprang from the middle classes, resisted material forces and stood between the people and their enemies.  But the territorial possessions of the Church and