many and so great that she could not do more, even
if she had been founded primarily and specially to secure prosperity in
this life which is worked out upon earth. In truth, wherever the Church
has set her foot she has at once changed the aspect of affairs, colored
the manners of the people as with new virtues and a refinement unknown
before--as many people as have accepted this have been distinguished for
their gentleness, their justice, and the glory of their deeds. But the
accusation is an old one, and not of recent date, that the Church is
incompatible with the welfare of the commonwealth, and incapable of
contributing to those things, whether useful or ornamental, which,
naturally and of its own will, every rightly-constituted State eagerly
strives for. We know that on this ground, in the very beginnings of the
Church, the Christians, from the same perversity of view, were
persecuted and constantly held up to hatred and contempt, so that they
were styled the enemies of the Empire. And at that time it was generally
popular to attribute to Christianity the responsibility for the evils
beneath which the State was beaten down, when in reality, God, the
avenger of crimes, was requiring a just punishment from the guilty. The
wickedness of this calumny, not without cause, fired the genius and
sharpened the pen of Augustine, who, especially in his _Civitate Dei_,
set forth so clearly the efficacy of Christian wisdom, and the way in
which it is bound up with well-being of States, that he seems not only
to have pleaded the cause of the Christians of his own time, but to have
triumphantly refuted these false charges for all time. But this unhappy
inclination to complaints and false accusations was not laid to rest,
and many have thought well to seek a system of civil life elsewhere than
in the doctrines which the Church approves. And now in these latter
times a new law, as they call it, has begun to prevail, which they
describe as the outcome of a world now fully developed, and born of a
growing liberty. But although many hazardous schemes have been
propounded by many, it is clear that never has any better method been
found for establishing and ruling the State than that which is the
natural result of the teaching of the Gospel. We deem it, therefore, of
the greatest moment, and especially suitable to our Apostolic function,
to compare with Christian doctrine the new opinions concerning the
State, by which method we trust tha