istian civilization, against
brute force and Pagan tyranny. Perhaps nothing has been so badly
understood as the real _casus belli_ in this struggle of centuries.
Most non-Catholics firmly believe that the conflict arose from an
effort of the Church to obtain universal dominion; to make princes and
people bow to her behests on all matters; to reduce the civil ruler to
the condition of a mere lieutenant of the Pontiff, to be removed at
will by that spiritual autocrat, and, of course, to improve the
condition of her own officials; securing for them the choicest and
fairest portions of all the good things of the earth. The Emperors and
Kings who were hostile to the Church are painted, on the other hand, as
the assertors of civil liberty, the William Tells that refused to
salute the tyrant's cap, even though it were called a tiara; the
heroes, that in a superstitious age braved the terrors of
excommunication, rather than sink into a degraded servitude, to the
heartless ambition of churchmen.

Nothing can be farther from the truth than this view of the subject. In
reality, what the Church fought for during this long struggle was--not
power, but--liberty. She refused to admit that she was a corporation
existing by the permission, or the creation of the State. She claimed
to be a spiritual society, existing by the fiat of the will of God,
entirely independent in her own sphere, having a government of her own;
executive, legislative, and judicial rights and duties of her own; an
end of her own, far above and beyond the affairs of this world. It was
for this liberty and independence that her martyrs had died, her
confessors languished in prison, her saints prayed and suffered. When
the rulers of the world became Christian, the difficulties in the way
of her liberty did not cease; they only assumed a new form. Open
opposition became oppression, under the specious name of protection;
and the State made every effort to restrain and shackle a power, the
indomitable energy and dauntless courage of which it imagined it had
reason to fear.

This was, indeed, one of the "empty" things which the sons of men,
crafty in their own generation, allow themselves to say when they speak
of spiritual things. The unrestrained power of the city of God on earth
cannot hinder, or in any way interfere with the true development of the
earthly commonwealth. Truth, morality, justice, are the surest
foundations of civil peace, liberty, and prosperity. Un