et, 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.
Rational liberty had few defenders, and they were exiled, like Fenelon,
from the court. The politics of Philip II. of Spain, of Richelieu,
Mazarin, and Louis XIV. in France, which were the politics of Catholic
Europe, hardly opposed, except by the popes, through the greater part
of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries, tended
directly to enslave the people, and to restrict the freedom, and
efficiency of the church. Had either Philip, or, after him, Louis,
succeeded, by linking the Catholic cause to his personal ambition, in
realizing his dream of universal monarchy, Europe would most likely have
been plunged into a political and social condition as unenviable as that
into which old Asia has been plunged for these four hundred years; and
it may well be believed that it was Providence that raised and directed
the tempest that scattered the Grand Armada, and that gave victory to
the arms of Eugene and Marlborough.

* * * * *

=_Theodore Dwight Woolsey, 1801-._=

From his "Introduction to the Study of International Law."

=_161._= IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY.

From all that has been said it has become apparent that the study of
international law is important, as an index of civilization, and not to
the student of law only, but to the student of history. In our land,
especially, it is important, on more than one account, that this science
should do its share in enlightening educated minds. One reason for this
lies in the new inducements which we, as a people, have to swerve from
national rectitude. Formerly our interests threw us on the side of
unrestricted commerce, which is the side towards which justice inclines,
and we lived far within our borders with scarcely the power to injure or
be injured, except on the ocean. Now we are running into the crimes to
which strong nations are liable. Our diplomatists unblushingly moot the
question of taking foreign territory by force if it cannot be purchased;
our executive prevents piratical expeditions against the lands of
neighboring States as feebly and slowly as if it connived at them; we
pick quarrels to gain conquests; and at length, after more than half a
century of public condemnation of the slave-trade, after being the first
to brand it as piracy, we hear t