Heretofore it has failed to
recognize clearly its duty. It has advanced, but not designedly,
not with foresight; it has done it instinctively, by the aid of the
invisible but safe-guiding hand of its Father. Without knowing what it
did, it has condemned progress while it was progressing. It has stoned
the prophets and reformers, even while it was itself reforming and
uttering glorious prophecies of its future condition. But the time has
now come for humanity to understand itself, to accept the law imposed
upon it for its own good, to foresee its end, and march with intention
steadily towards it. Its future religion is the religion of progress.
The true priests are those who can quicken in mankind a desire for
progress, and urge them forward in the direction of the true, the good,
the perfect.
* * * * *
From "The Convert."
=_160._= POLITICS OF CATHOLIC EUROPE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
DESPOTIC.
In France, Spain, Portugal, and a large part of Italy, all through the
seventeenth century, the youth were trained in the maxim, The prince is
the State, and his pleasure is law. Bossuet, in his politics, did only
faithfully express the political sentiments and convictions of his age,
shared by the great body of Catholics as well as of non-Catholics.
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