ishing with death the profession
of the Christian faith. In this she practically, as well as
theoretically, overthrew state absolutism, and infused into modern
society the doctrine that every individual, even the lowest and
meanest, has rights which the state neither confers nor can abrogate;
and it will only be by extinguishing in modern society the Christian
faith, and obliterating all traces of Christian civilization, that
state absolutism can be revived with more than a partial and temporary
success.

The doctrine of individual liberty may be abused, and so explained as
to deny the rights of society, and to become pure individualism; but no
political system that runs to the opposite extreme, and absorbs the
individual in the state, stands the least chance of any general or
permanent success till Christianity is extinguished. Yet the assertion
of principles which logically imply state absolutism is not entirely
harmless, even in Christian countries. Error is never harmless, and
only truth can give a solid foundation on which to build. Individualism
and socialism are each opposed to the other, and each has only a
partial truth. The state founded on either cannot stand, and society
will only alternate between the two extremes. To-day it is torn by a
revolution in favor of socialism; to-morrow it will be torn by another
in favor of individualism, and without effecting any real progress by
either revolution. Real progress can be secured only by recognizing
and building on the truth, not as it exists in our opinions or in our
theories, but as it exists in the world of reality, and independent of
our opinions.

Now, social despotism or state absolutism is not based on truth or
reality. Society has certain rights over individuals, for she is a
medium of their communion with God, or through which they derive life
from God, the primal source of all life; but she is not the only medium
of man's life. Man, as was said in the beginning, lives by communion
with God, and he communes with God in the creative act and the
Incarnation, through his kind, and, through nature. This threefold
communion gives rise to three institutions--religion or the church,
society or the state, and property. The life that man derives from God
through religion and property, is not derived from him through society,
and consequently so much of his life be holds independently of society;
and this constitutes his rights as a man as distinguished