and the all-corroding, all-dissolving scepticism of the
intellect in religious inquiries? I have no intention at all to deny,
that truth is the real object of our reason, and that, if it does not
attain to truth, either the premiss or the process is in fault; but I
am not speaking of right reason, but of reason as it acts in fact and
concretely in fallen man. I know that even the unaided reason, when
correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God, in the immortality of
the soul, and in a future retribution; but I am considering it
actually and historically; and in this point of view, I do not think
I am wrong in saying that its tendency is towards a simple unbelief
in matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, can stand against
it, in the long run; and hence it is that in the pagan world, when
our Lord came, the last traces of the religious knowledge of former
times were all but disappearing from those portions of the world in
which the intellect had been active and had had a career.

And in these latter days, in like manner, outside the Catholic Church
things are tending, with far greater rapidity than in that old time
from the circumstance of the age, to atheism in one shape or other.
What a scene, what a prospect, does the whole of Europe present at
this day! and not only Europe, but every government and every
civilization through the world, which is under the influence of the
European mind! Especially, for it most concerns us, how sorrowful, in
the view of religion, even taken in its most elementary, most
attenuated form, is the spectacle presented to us by the educated
intellect of England, France, and Germany! Lovers of their country
and of their race, religious men, external to the Catholic Church,
have attempted various expedients to arrest fierce wilful human
nature in its onward course, and to bring it into subjection. The
necessity of some form of religion for the interests of humanity, has
been generally acknowledged: but where was the concrete
representative of things invisible, which would have the force and
the toughness necessary to be a breakwater against the deluge? Three
centuries ago the establishment of religion, material, legal, and
social, was generally adopted as the best expedient for the purpose,
in those countries which separated from the Catholic Church; and for
a long time it was successful; but now the crevices of those
establishments are admitting the enemy. Thirty years ago, education