let us hearken to the Protestant eloquence of the
_Quarterly Review_ (vol. xcii. p. 41):--

Tyranny, fraud, base adulation, total insensibility, not only to the
worth of human freedom, but to the majesty of law and the sacredness
of public and private right; these are the malignant and deadly
features which we see stamped upon the conduct of the Roman
hierarchy.

Besides which, we have the valuable opinion of Lord Derby, which no
Catholic, we should suppose, east of the Shannon has forgotten, that
Catholicism is "religiously corrupt, and politically dangerous." Lord
Macaulay tells us that it exclusively promoted the power of the Crown;
Ranke, that it favours revolution and regicide. Whilst the Belgian and
Sardinian Liberals accuse the Church of being the enemy of
constitutional freedom, the celebrated Protestant statesman, Stahl,
taunts her with the reproach of being the sole support and pillar of the
Belgian constitution. Thus every error pronounces judgment on itself
when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.

Among Catholics the state of opinion on these questions, whether it be
considered the result of unavoidable circumstances, or a sign of
ingenious accommodation, or a thing to be deplored, affords at least a
glaring refutation of the idea that we are united, for good or for evil,
in one common political system. The Church is vindicated by her
defenders, according to their individual inclinations, from the opposite
faults imputed to her; she is lauded, according to circumstances, for
the most contradictory merits, and her authority is invoked in exclusive
support of very various systems. O'Connell, Count de Montalembert,
Father Ventura, proclaim her liberal, constitutional, not to say
democratic, character; whilst such writers as Bonald and Father
Taparelli associate her with the cause of absolute government. Others
there are, too, who deny that the Church has a political tendency or
preference of any kind; who assert that she is altogether independent
of, and indifferent to, particular political institutions, and, while
insensible to their influence, seeks to exercise no sort of influence
over them. Each view may be plausibly defended, and the inexhaustible
arsenal of history seems to provide impartially instances in
corroboration of each. The last opinion can appeal to the example of the
Apostles and the early Christians, for whom, in the heathen empire, the
only part was unc