sh, but to the finger of God. "Not to us,
O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name give glory."

I would now ask this question of all that are hostile to the Catholic
Church and that are plotting her destruction: How can you hope to overturn
an institution which for more than nineteen centuries has successfully
resisted all the combined assaults of the world, of men, and of the powers
of darkness? What means will you employ to encompass her ruin?

I. Is it the power of Kings, and Emperors, and Prime Ministers? They have
tried in vain to crush her, from the days of the Roman Caesars to those of
the former Chancellor of Germany.

Many persons labor under the erroneous impression that the crowned heads
of Europe have been the unvarying supporters of the Church, and that if
their protection were withdrawn she would soon collapse. So far from the
Church being sheltered behind earthly thrones, her worst enemies have
been, with some honorable exceptions, so-called Christian Princes who were
nominal children of the Church. They chafed under her salutary discipline;
they wished to be rid of her yoke, because she alone, in time of
oppression, had the power and the courage to stand by the rights of the
people, and place her breast as a wall of brass against the encroachments
of their rulers. With calm confidence we can say with the Psalmist: "Why
have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things? The kings of
the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord, and
against his Christ. Let us break their bonds asunder, and let us cast away
their yoke from us. He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them and the
Lord shall deride them."(108)

II. Can the immense resources and organized power of rival religious
bodies succeed in absorbing her and in bringing her to naught? I am not
disposed to undervalue this power. Against any human force it would be
irresistible. But if the colossal strength, and incomparable machinery of
the Roman Empire could not prevent the establishment of the Church; if
Arianism, Nestorianism, Eutychianism could not check her development, how
can modern organizations stop her progress now, when in the fulness of her
strength?

It is easier to preserve what is created, than to create anew.

III. But we have been told: "Take from the Pope his Temporal power and the
Church is doomed to destruction. This is the secret of her strength; strip
her of this, and, like Samson shorn of his hair,