eignty by means of men.
And this being recognised and admitted, it is understood that it is a
matter of justice that the dignity of rulers should be respected, that
the public authority should be constantly and faithfully obeyed, that no
act of sedition should be committed, and that the civil order of the
State should be kept intact. In the same way mutual charity and kindness
and liberality are seen to be virtues. The man who is at once a citizen
and a Christian is no longer the victim of contending parties and
incompatible obligations; and, finally, those very abundant good things
with which the Christian religion of its own accord fills up even the
mortal life of men, are acquired for the community and civil society, so
that it appears to be said with the fullest truth: "The state of the
commonwealth depends on the religion with which God is worshipped, and
between the one and the other there is a close relation and connection."
(_Sacr. Imp. ad Cyrillum Alexandr, et Episcopus metrop. ef Labbeum
Collect Conc._, T. iii.) Admirably, as he is accustomed, did Augustine
in many places dilate on the power of those good things, but especially
when he addresses the Catholic Church in these words: "Thou treatest
boys as boys, youths with strength, old men calmly, according as is not
only the age of the body, but also of the mind of each. Women thou
subjectest to their husbands in chaste and faithful obedience, not for
the satisfaction of lust, but for the propagation of offspring, and
participation in the affairs of the family. Thou settest husbands over
their spouses, not that they may trifle with the weaker sex, but in
accordance with the laws of true affection. Thou subjectest sons to
their parents in a kind of free servitude, and settest parents over
their sons in a benignant rule.... Thou joinest together, not merely in
society, but in a kind of fraternity, citizens with citizens, peoples
with peoples, and in fact the whole race of men by a remembrance of
their parentage. Thou teachest kings to look for the interests of their
peoples. Thou admonishest peoples to submit themselves to their kings.
With all care thou teachest to whom honor is due, to whom affection, to
whom reverence, to whom fear, to whom consolation, to whom admonition,
to whom exhortation, to whom discipline, to whom reproach, to whom
punishment, showing how all of these are not suitable to all, but yet to
all affection is due, and wrong to none." (_De Mori