arch of civilization, of which she is
ever one of the prime movers.

But perhaps men may blame her for leaving abandoned and betrayed the
cause of toleration, which she so ably defended in the beginning. Do
not let us exaggerate. There was, undoubtedly, a period in which she
did not deduce, from the principle she was the first to teach, all
its logical consequences. The laws she enforced against heretics
prove this. But it is false to say that, while in the beginning she
insisted strongly on the rights of conscience, she afterwards totally
disregarded them. In fact, she exercised constraint only over her own
stray children. But while she acted so cruelly toward them, she never
ceased to respect the consciences of those outside her fold. She
always interpreted the _compelle intrare_ to imply with regard to
unbelievers moral constraint, and the means of gentleness and
persuasion. If respect for human liberty is to-day dominant in the
thinking world, it is due chiefly to her.

In the matter of tolerance, the Church has only to study her own
history. If, during several centuries, she treated her rebellious
children with greater severity than those alien to her fold, it was
not from a want of consistency. And if to-day she manifests to every
one signs of her maternal kindness, and lays abide for ever all
physical constraint, she is not following the example of
non-Catholics, but merely taking up again the interrupted tradition
of her early Fathers.

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