ishness that
usually characterize the possession of wealth to the embitterment of
misery and misfortune. The religious, by their vow and their means, can
share the condition of the poor and relieve it. If there is any
institution better calculated to promote the well-being of the common
people, it should be put to work. When the moneyed combinations whose
rights are respected, show themselves as little prejudicial to the
welfare of the classes, the religious will be prepared to go out of
existence.

Everyone is inclined to accept as true the statement, on record as
official, that the wealth of the Religious Orders in France is at the
bottom of the trouble. We are not therefore a little astonished to
learn from other sources that it is rather their poverty, which is
burdensome to the people. The religious are not too rich, but too poor.
They cannot support themselves, and live on the enforced charity of the
laborer. French parents, not being equal to the task of maintaining
monasteries and supporting large families, limited the number of their
children. The population fell off in consequence. The government came
to the relief of the people and cast out the religious.

And here we have the beautiful consistency of those who believe that
any old reason is better than none at all. The religious are too poor,
their poverty is a burden on the people; the religious are too rich,
their riches are prejudicial to the welfare of the people. One reason
is good; two are better. If they contradict, it is only a trifling
matter. As for us, we don't know quite where we stand. We can hear well
enough, amid the din of denunciation, the conclusion that the religious
must go; but we cannot, for the life of us, catch the why and
wherefore. Is it because they are too poor? or because they are too
rich? or because they are both? We might be justified in thinking:
because they are neither, but because they are what they are--
religious, devoted to the Church and champions of Her cause. This
reason is at least as good as the two that contradict and destroy each
other. In this sense, is monastic poverty a bad and evil thing?

CHAPTER XLIII.
THE VOW OF OBEDIENCE.

WHAT kind of obedience is that which makes religious "unwilling to
acknowledge any superior but the Pope?" We have been confidently
informed this is the ground given in several instances for their
removal. And we confess that, if the words "acknowledge" and "superior"
are used