or an education in strict conformity to
the real order. Hence, in them all, the church is more or less
obstructed in her operations, and prevented from carrying out in its
fulness her own Divine Idea. She does the best she can in the
circumstances and with the materials with which she is supplied, and
exerts herself continually to bring individuals and nations into
harmony with her Divine law: but still her life in the midst of the
nations is a struggle, a warfare.

The United States being dialectically constituted, and founded on real
catholic, not sectarian or sophistical principles, presents none of
these obstacles, and must, in their progressive development or
realization of their political idea, put an end to this warfare, in so
far as a warfare between church and state, and leave the church in her
normal position in society, in which she can, without let or hindrance,
exert her free spirit, and teach and govern men by the Divine law as
free men. She may encounter unbelief, misbelief, ignorance, and
indifference in few, or in many; but these, deriving no support from
the state, which tends constantly to eliminate them, must gradually
give way before her invincible logic, her divine charity, the truth and
reality of things, and the intelligence, activity, and zeal of her
ministers. The American people are, on the surface, sectarians or
indifferentists; but they are, in reality, less uncatholic than the
people of any other country because they are, in their intellectual and
moral development, nearer to the real order, or, in the higher and
broader sense of the word more truly civilized. The multitude of sects
that obtain may excite religious compassion for those who are carried
away by them, for men can be saved or attain to their eternal destiny
only by truth, or conformity to Him who said, "I am the way, the truth,
and the life;" but in relation to the national destiny they need excite
no alarm, no uneasiness, for underlying them all is more or less of
catholic truth, and the vital forces of the national life repel them,
in so far as they are sectarian and not catholic, as substances that
cannot be assimilated to the national life. The American state being
catholic in its organic principles, as is all real religion, and the
church being free, whatever is anticatholic, or uncatholic, is without
any support in either, and having none, either in reality or in itself,
it must necessarily fall and gradually disapp