The Encyclicals of Pope Leo Xiii

FROM the commencement of his pontificate Leo XIII. has evinced an anxious interest in the tendencies of his times. His exceptional powers of observation have been devoted to the social problems of this half-century with a solicitude which has seldom been surpassed.

The most perfect expression of his thoughts, the best evidence of the working of his mind, is to be found in the Encyclical Letters,¹ which are his principal literary achievements since coming to the throne. At the different periods of their appearance these letters have given rise to a variety of comments, but the commentators have been, for the most part, either unhesitatingly eulogistic because inspired by reverential feelings, or harshly critical from hostility to Catholic doctrine or to received religion. Now, therefore, that the papal bullary forms a volume, it is opportune to examine it from an unsectarian point of view.

The Encyclicals embody the present sentiments of Catholicism towards passing events ; in addition to which they are examples of theological reasoning and of modern Latinity. They are the voice of a voluntary prisoner who has sacrificed his liberty to the immutable principles of the great institution which he governs, and who, in the silence of his cabinet, views and judges by the standard of his faith the current of men’s thoughts.

Each Encyclical which issues from the Vatican is an event in the life of the Church. The bishops to whom these letters are usually addressed find in them the keynote of their future teachings; they also learn whether their past acts have been in harmony with the wishes of the pontiff. Scattered in almost every country of the world, the bishops are like military leaders who, having acted as their judgment prompted them, await an expression of opinion from their chief. The Encyclicals are that expression of opinion, and they are of the greatest value as evidences of the Church’s views. They record definitively the present state of doctrine, and sophistry cannot alter the assertions they contain. Biblical texts may be variously interpreted, and the utterances of ecclesiastics may be, and often are questioned, but when the Pope has spoken all discussion ends.

As models of felicitous style, of smoothness and serenity of diction, the Encyclicals are beyond criticism. They are composed like the choicest mosaics, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence : first, as is well known, in Italian, from notes made by the Pope in his daily readings and musings, and then in Latin, the language of all others most apt for the majestic dignity of phraseology which is one of the traditions of the Vatican. The text itself is the work of the cardinal secretaries rather than of the pontiff, but the import and general style are his exclusively, and many beauties of expression are traceable to the delicate refinement of his taste. The final revision, also, is made by him, but, with the prudence which characterizes the methods of the Church, the imprimatur is given only after every shade of meaning has been duly considered ; and not always even then, until in the Pope’s opinion the fitting time has come.

The Pope’s Latinity has been termed “ natural “ by his admirers ; and without endeavoring to discuss whether a truly natural style is attainable in a dead language, there is no doubt that we have from his pen some very graceful lines, of which the following faithful expression of his feelings is a good example : —

The style of the Encyclicals (and I assume that they represent the style of the pontiff) has been compared to that of Cicero and Tacitus, but they possess a special style, half ecclesiastical, half classical, which at one moment recalls the manner of St. Augustine, and at another the concentrated periods of the introductions of Sallust or the reasonings of Seneca. Sometimes the language is but that of an ordinary sermon which points out evils, and indicates the invariable panacea for them, while it often rises to considerable heights of calm sublimity. It is needless to say, however, that in compositions which are chiefly admonitory, and in which precision is the most essential quality, there is not a very great scope for literary display. The sentences, as a rule, are long and charged with words of meaning, but they flow harmoniously, and it is clear that no pains have been spared to avoid the slightest angularity or ambiguity. The ecclesiastical Latinity of the present day, indeed, has claims to rivalry with the most elaborate compositions of the pagan masters who wrote two thousand years ago. Occasionally a confliction of antiquity and modernness is to be noticed in the Latin text, which no doubt is unavoidable when it is necessary to clothe modern ideas in the idiom of a former civilization.

The predilection of Leo XIII. for generalization was shown when he was Bishop of Perugia, and only a possible candidate for the chair of St. Peter. It was then that he made his early efforts to reconcile faith with the conditions of the times, and the origin of the dominant thoughts of the Encyclicals may easily be traced to his episcopal sermons. “ Is it true,” he inquired on one occasion,

“ that civilization cannot bear its fruits in a society which lives by the spirit of Jesus Christ, and in which the Catholic Church speaks in the tone of a mother and a mistress ? ”

“Religion is sorely attacked,” he said to a French Catholic writer whom he received a short time after his election ; “ it must be defended. Upon that everything depends. Society is to be saved by defending the principles of religion."'

The germ of the idea which subsequently inspired the famous Encyclical on the labor question is to be found in one of his discourses while still Bishop of Perugia, in which he argued that manual labor, which had been despised throughout antiquity, and disdained by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Terence, had always been befriended by the Church. The Church had always been the solace and the helper of the workingman. “ Go to the people,” he said, on a later occasion, to a bishop; and thus he has been called the workman’s Pope and the great peacemaker.

A spirit of continuity is observable in all his words and acts before and after his assumption of the supreme dignity, but the ineffahleness of papal honors seems to have had its effect upon his character, and to have caused the language of Leo XIII. to he still more moderate than that of Monsignore Pecci. Compared with his predecessor, the confirmator of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and promulgator of the dogma of Infallibility, Leo XIII. is a less doctrinal Pope. He has doubtless thought that Pius IX. did enough for the things of doctrine, and that the last Œcumenical Council completed the links in Ihe chain of Catholicity. It does not seem, indeed, if we consider the mass of tenets which the Church has evolved, that future popes are likely to originate more, although in matters of faith there are few limits to inspiration or improvisation, and one of the leading characteristics of the Church has always been a gradual evolution from the teachings of the Founder of Christianity. But the Encyclicals must be passed in review, if it is desired to form a judgment as to their bearing on the questions which most affect society in general.

The first Encyclical was published two months after the Conclave had chosen its author for the pontificate (in the spring of 1878). Its title was Inscrutabili Dei, in accordance with the ancient custom which, I need hardly say, prescribes that these compositions shall be named after their initial word or words, — a method which usually causes an eloquent commencement to be selected. In this inaugural epistle — for these letters are in reality epistles after the manner of the early apostles — it is evident that the mind of the Pope is troubled by the moral disintegration of the times, the falling away from faith, the callousness of some and the hostility of others, the loss of authority over the conduct of society, and the decrease of spiritual utility. He is overwhelmed with the ills of the human race, and the spectacle which meets his eyes on all sides is a subversion of truth, defiance of the laws, suicides, an insatiable desire for earthly things, and a forgetfulness of spiritual ones. He is convinced that these evils proceed from the growing disregard for the authority of the Church, of which the enemies of order take advantage. Hence the laws which shake the constitution of the Church in the majority of countries ; it is thus that the episcopal authority is set at naught, that the religious orders have been dispersed, and that the temporal command is lost. If a man of sound mind, he says (and in several passages true health of intellect is exclusively associated with belief), compare the age in which we live with that in which the Church was respected as a mother by peoples, he must see that it is hurrying to its destruction.

The tone of this first Encyclical is regretful, and the same tone will he found to pervade almost the whole series. We no longer find the authoritative language of Pius IX., who defied the liberal aspirations of Europe by an increase of dogma, but a sorrowful acknowledgment of the magnitude of the evil which confronts the Church. This strain prevails throughout,—society is menaced, and the Church alone can save it from ruin. The whole aim of the pontiff is to reconcile the one with the other.

At the end of 1878, the spread of socialistic doctrines, the increasing number and importance of socialistic publications, called forth the Encyclical Quod Apostolici, which is a condemnation of that lethifera pestis known, it says, under the barbarous names of Socialism, Communism, and Nihilism. It is stigmatized as a new impiety, unknown even to pagan peoples ; for would not its advocates banish religion from its place in schools, and admit unbounded license in every institution ? Socialism, with which unbelief is somewhat too liberally confounded in this Encyclical, is, in its political and ethical aspect, one of the most formidable of dissolvents the Church has ever met with, and therefore stress is laid upon the Church’s efficacy to combat the hateful doctrines. To the argument of the division of property, which is perhaps more seriously considered than it deserves to be, the Encyclical opposes the natural necessity of inequality among men, and of an unequal division of their property, which is as natural a law as that by which the forces of the mind and body are unequally distributed. The Church does not neglect the poor, we are informed ; but we know, unfortunately, that the method of alleviation it adopts is beginning to belong to another age, and that those who were once humble are so no longer.

In the bull Æterni Patris (1879) the theological attainments of the pontiff are displayed. We are told at its commencement that a fruitful cause of the evil of the times is a misconception of divine and human things and of philosophic systems. From this departure we are prepared for one of those perilous arguments in favor of a reconciliation of doctrine with human reason which have always fascinated Christian thinkers, and we are told that human philosophy is beneficial when rightly used, and is by no means to he despised.² From the time of the early Fathers the Church has claimed a right to select from pagan writers those processes of reasoning which do not come in conflict with Christian doctrine, but which, on the contrary, are capable of being brought into harmony with it. This, of course, is the principle of adaptation which has been made use of by the Church in its terminology, its language, and, to a certain extent, in its architecture. It is greatly to the praise of philosophy, says the Encyclical, that it is a protection to faith and a firm stronghold of religion. The early Fathers who examined the books of ancient philosophy accepted those which were in harmony with Christian feeling, rejecting or amending the remainder; and we are reminded of the various apologists who have carried on the succession from the celebrated academies of the Greeks, until the “ Angelic Doctor” of the Middle Ages — Thomas Aquinas — is reached. It is to praise his system of philosophy, necessarily Christocentric, and to advocate its general adoption, that the Æterni Patris is composed. Its object is to restore the scholastic discipline which endeavored to place under theological subjection all human thought, which was the last great effort in the true life of faith, the strangest waste of intellect perhaps ever witnessed, and which, With vexatious sophistry, endeavored to prove the doctrines of the Christian faith; accepting revelation as the source of truth, and chaining reason in the bonds of Plato and Aristotle subject to the mystic science of theology. It is enjoined upon all Catholic academies to expound the writings of this prince of mediaeval sophists.

In an apostolic letter on the same subject, the Pope reiterates his advocacy of the Aquinasian writings, which he declares suited for the necessities of all times;³ and in support of his judgment, in a further letter he orders the publication of the great mass of literature bequeathed by Thomas Aquinas, together with the comments of the best commentators, — a monumental work, produced with the greatest care and typographical magnificence.

Pursuing his theme of social amelioration, the pontiff issued, in 1880, the bull entitled Arcanum Divinæ Sapientire, which contains an historical account of the marriage rite from the constitution of society to the present day, and a condemnation of divorce. He judges the marriage system of the Jews and pagan peoples from the standpoint of Western Christianity; observing that the marriage sacrament was established at Cana, and that the Church, having the true welfare of society at heart, has always maintained the indissolubility of the marriage tie, even when besought by kings and emperors to break it. The beauty of the state of matrimony and the position of woman in a monogamous society are shown with a profusion of argument, until the real purport of the Encyclical becomes evident, — a condemnation of the divorce laws which so many European states have admitted into their code, in obedience to the doctrines of the “ naturalists,” says the Encyclical, but rather in deference to the consensus of public opinion, against which ecclesiastical restraint is powerless. There are many passages of great elevation and beauty in this homily, such as that in which it is claimed for marriage that its object is to render the life of the married better and happier by mutual assistance in supporting the trials of life, by constant love, by common enjoyment of all property, and by the grace which flows from the sacrament. Divorce, it says, impairs mutual affection, causing prejudice to education and to the protection of children. It is a means of dissolution of domestic society; it spreads the germs of discord in families, and lessens the dignity of woman, who finds herself exposed to abandonment after having served the passions of man. The effect of the divorce laws, the pontiff considers, has been rapidly to increase quarrels and separations, and so great has been the ignominy of life (tanta est vivenda turpitudo consecuta) that those who were at first in favor of divorce have since repented. The pontiffs have earned the gratitude of all peoples, says Leo XIII., by their constant solicitude for the sanctity of marriage; and by resisting the desires of Henry VIII. and of Napoleon, they served the cause not only of the Church, but of humanity. Then, in conclusion, we find one of the most striking examples of the persuasive method of the pontiff in the following sentence in support of a good understanding between the civil and religious authority: “ Just as the intelligence of men, when it accepts the Catholic creed, derives from it a great increase and a considerable power to repel errors, so faith receives from intelligence an important increment.” The pontiff stretches out his hand to rulers (vires principes), and offers them his aid ; all the more necessary, he says, in these times when the right of command, “ as if it had received a wound,” has lost its force in public estimation. These are the chief features of the Encyclical on marriage, or rather, on divorce. It has had no visible effect on legislation, and it has estranged from the Church many Catholics for whom the marriage tie has become intolerable, but who, despairing more than ever of obtaining the Church’s sanction to loosen it, have dispensed with that sanction, or, in some cases, have adopted another faith.

In 1884, the pontiff reverted to an old evil which had been pointed out by no less than seven of his predecessors, and the Encyclical Humanum Genus, on freemasonry, which ever since its origin has excited the animosity of the Church, is little more than a repetition of previous animadversions against this rival power, which claims on secular grounds what the Church claims on spiritual ones, — the subordination of individuality to the interests of an institution. The principles of freemasonry, it says, are so contrary to reason and evidence that nothing can be more perverse (ut nihil possit esse perversius). To wish to destroy religion, and to resuscitate pagan customs after a lapse of twenty-two centuries, is a mark of folly and of the most audacious impiety. The bishops are exhorted to extirpate the pernicious doctrine, which is said to have many points in common with socialism and communism. It is an old quarrel, which will never, probably, be adjusted.

The Encyclical Immortale Dei (1885) has been considered the most remarkable of the present pontificate ; and certainly, for elegance of expression, choiceness and sobriety of language, it has not been surpassed by any. It is a sequel to the Diuturnam, published four years previously, which upheld the principle of respect for established government. This one tells us that wherever the Church has penetrated, the face of things has been changed, public manners have been invested with a new civilization, and the nations which have accepted Catholicism have been distinguished for the amenity of their manners, the equity and glory of their enterprises. From the earliest time, it is said, the Church has been accused unjustly of secret enmity towards the institutions of the state ; and now the real enemy is the jus novum to which it has become necessary, in the opinion of the pontiff, to oppose Christian doctrine. Then we read that, as men are not born to lead solitary lives, Providence has given them civil and domestic society; but as human society has a divine origin, its master must be divine, and all power emanates from God. This divine sovereignty — and here we have the first indication of the reconciliation of the Church with democracy — can make an alliance with any form of government, so long as it be just. It, is not ’awful to resist a power of this nature : sedition, therefore, is a crime not only against human majesty, but against divine. Again, just as it is permitted to no one to dispense with a religious creed, and as the greatest of all duties is to embrace the faith of Catholics, political societies cannot, without sin, act as if there were no God. The chiefs of states are accordingly forced to guard religion, on which the supreme felicity of man depends. It is not difficult to perceive which is the true religion, for abundant proofs exist that the Church is the depository of the principles of Christianity. Princes and rulers have recognized its sovereignty. There should be wellorganized relations between the civil and the religious power; for the theory of Christian organization has nothing to offend susceptibilities, and all men, “ in the uncertain and painful journey towards the eternal city,” know that they have sure guides to lead them. Thus, the subjection of men to princes, in a Christian state, is not a subjection of man to man, but a submission to the divine will. There was once a time, says the Encyclical sorrowfully, when the philosophy of the gospel governed states, when all institutions were imbued with Christian wisdom ; and this state of things would still exist if the understanding between the powers had continued, and if the sixteenth century, after throwing confusion into the Christian faith, had not laid the foundations of the new law, by which each man thinks as he pleases, and acts as it pleases him to act. In a society founded on the new principles, the pontiff says, public authority is but the will of the people ;⁴ and it is evident that the hardest fact which the papacy has to face is the constant spread of liberty, — liberty to worship or not to worship. unlimited license of thought and of publicity. This is a condition inimical to the ideal of life which the Church has always loved to form, — a life in which society is under the direct influence of its guidance, — paternal to the submissive, but disciplinarian to the independent. The Church cannot resign itself to become what the modern tendencies towards specialization are forcing it to be, an organization existing solely for the spiritual wants of its adherents.

The Church, pursues the Encyclical, always consistent, has extended its patronage to every movement which contributes to the common good, and has never been opposed to progress. But — and here we find the constant claim for the right of veto — it is necessary for Catholics to abide by what the pontiffs teach, especially in all that appertains to human liberty, though they must not refrain from interference in politics, so that a check may be placed on anarchy.

Continuing the theme of liberty, which of all themes would appear to be the most difficult of definition by the Church, the Encyclical Libertas (1888) is meant to prove, by an elaborate process of a somewhat Aristotelian character, that moral liberty flows from natural liberty, which is the attribute of those who possess intelligence to discriminate between various kinds of good. The abuse of liberty, we are told, is equivalent to a desertion of the laws of reason ; and the option of sinning is not a liberty, but a slavery. The conclusion is that human liberty needs the protection of religion. As regards the liberty of society, the arguments converge towards the same centre around which all the reasonings are grouped, — obedience to ecclesiastical guidance. One of the concluding passages of this Encyclical indicates its tone, and we quote it for that reason: "It is by no means lawful to ask, defend, or concede promiscuous liberty of thought, writing, teaching, and religion, as if these were so many rights which nature had given to man.” Thus we see that, no matter how ingenious the reasoning or how secular its form may be, the conclusions revert to the same point as inevitably as the magnet to the pole. Liberty, however, is a principle which has admitted so many interpretations in history that this bull, which conveys the Church’s definition of it, is a human document of interest. Liberty of thought and speech, with which the Church unfailingly associates license, offends that inherent sensitiveness which Christianity, always apt to apprehend disrespect or disregard, has displayed since its origin, and which is accentuated in Catholicism.

We pass by the Sapientise Christianæ, concerning the duties of Catholics in society, because it possesses little of an extra-Catholic nature. The case is different with the Rerum Novarum (1891), the long and exhaustive Encyclical on the condition of the working classes and the social question. Its style is simple, and compares favorably with the complexity, bordering on obscurity, of the Libertas, A difficult problem, the Pope admits, is that of adjusting the respective rights of capital and labor. The ancient corporations have disappeared, religion has no place in legislation, the laborers are isolated and under an almost servile yoke (prope servile jugum). The socialists take advantage of the situation to foster enmity between the two classes, and the solution they propose of the division of property is unjust, because (as an illustration) it is evident that if a laborer, by his economy, has succeeded in becoming the proprietor of a field which he has rendered fertile by his labor, he has an undoubted right to own it. This principle of property is a natural and human law. It is the basis of the family, whose chief must needs possess the substance necessary to maintain and educate his children. As children are the image of their parents, it is the parents’ duty to assure the children’s future and to create for them a patrimony. Has not the Church always advocated just relations between masters and their men, and has it not defined the respective rights of each, teaching the rich to use their wealth wisely, and the poor to respect their labor ? On the subject of charity the principle of St. Thomas is adopted, and we are told that only the surplus of individual fortunes is to be distributed to alleviate the condition of the poor, — nullus enim inconvenienter vivere debet, — a precept clearly necessary to the present constitution of society, but of somewhat doubtful concordance with Christian tenets. The state, we are told, should be unfailingly just towards the working classes; it should maintain the respect for property, prevent the occurrence of strikes by a wise regulation of wages and conditions of labor ; it should favor economy and Sunday rest. This important Encyclical refers favorably to the associations of workmen, which the state, it says, cannot prohibit, because they are founded on the human principle of sociability. With regard to the religious corporations despoiled of their rights, notably in France, the Encyclical contains a passage the logic of which is irresistible, whatever social democrats may say. That which is refused to Catholic societies of peaceable men. it remarks, who have the welfare of mankind at heart, is conceded to those who entertain subversive designs against religion and the state.

The Encyclical An Milieu des Sollicitudes, addressed to the Catholics of France, and written in French (by a rare exception to the rule) with the same choiceness of expression that pervades the series, is of the greatest political importance, and its effect has been to spread dismay in the monarchical party, which, from long association, had, naturally, considered itself the representative of the only form of government agreeable to the Vatican. Several warnings had been given of the change, but the French nobility, less far-sighted than the Pope, who scrutinizes so narrowly the tendencies of men, were unable to reconcile themselves to the new attitude. A vast plot, the Pope thinks, is on foot to annihilate Christianity in France, — in that France whose “noble people have increased their affection for the papacy since they have seen it abandoned.” All Frenchmen are invited to unite for the pacification of their country, for the maintenance of religious feeling and morality, of which latter virtue we have the following definition : “The idea of morality carries with it, above all things, a dependence towards truth which is the light of the mind, and towards righteousness which is the aim of the will.” The Church does not desire a political domination over the state, and all forms of government are good which tend towards the common weal. That is the lesson of this epoch-making Encyclical, to the terms of which the Pope adheres, in spite of the many overtures which have been made to him to change them. All individuals, it says, are bound to accept governments founded on just principles, and to do nothing to alter them (de ne rien faire pour les renverser on pour en changer la forme). By this phrase the disappointment of the royalists was completed. To the objection that the French republic is animated by anti-Christian sentiments, and is therefore incompatible by its nature with the Church, the Pope’s answer is far from clear, and has given rise to a variety of interpretations. It rests chiefly on the assertion that there is a distinction between constituted and legislative power, but its statements are contradictory. The clearest of its deductions is that the respect due to the men in office does not imply obedience to the anti-religious laws they may originate. “ Atheism is so monstrous an error that it can never, be it said to the honor of humanity, annihilate the conscience of the rights of God, to substitute for it the idolatry of the state.” The separation of Church and State, advocated by some Catholics, is weighed and found wanting, because it is at variance with the eternal claims of the Church to retain a voice in the conduct of human affairs. To wish for separation, says the Encyclical, would, by a logical consequence, be to wish that the Church should be reduced to the liberty of living common to all citizens. In Catholic France this system is inadmissible ; it is the negation of the Church’s existence.

The French Encyclical has offered many opportunities of noticing the application of the papal precepts. Its text has given rise to the most divergent of interpretations, and it has many times been found in the highest degree difficult to steer an even course between such obstinate opponents as capital and labor. The least concession made to one is soon resented by the other, and the conciliatory and prudent language of the pontiff is often irksome to the Catholic orators who use it. If a Catholic royalist side too openly with democratic claims, he is accused of raising discord and sedition. If he favor capital and order solely, he does not then fulfill the Pope’s intentions. The part he has to play is full of opportunities for error, because the teaching of the French Encyclical is delicate and brittle. It is too subtle for the artisan, and too elastic for the cultured sophist.

It is, of course, assumed that these political Encyclicals are published in the interest of peace and justice; not, as has been lately said, exclusively in furtherance of combinations to advance the Church’s welfare. Were it thought otherwise, whatever power of conviction they may be considered to possess would be seriously impaired.

Besides these notable Encyclicals there are many others, on the propagation of faith, the veneration of saints, the practice of dueling, and the question of slavery,— all of minor importance.

After this too brief examination of the papal bulls, the question may naturally be asked, What has been their influence on modern thought and on the policy of governments ? The pontiff has attempted to solve the problems which affect the welfare of society; he has given his Encyclicals a dialectic rather than an imperative form, seeking to convince the mind by argument ; but though in every sense an innovator, he has not found a novel weapon to combat the new developments of reason. His undisputed talent is continually confined within the limits of the Roman dogma; and, as a natural result, he is induced to seek an aid in retrogression, in the patristic and the Aquinasian writings, whose reasonings were so far unlike the Greek models they sought chiefly to imitate that they added mystical assumptions to what were but the early efforts of the human mind to elucidate the secrets of the universe.

Undoubtedly, it is the duty of the pontiff to raise his voice against the various expressions of combative liberalism, and were he to be silent his silence would certainly be attributed, by the critics of the papacy, to the weakness of his cause ; but a system of theological argument which has lost its force before the progress of historical research is doomed to negative results, and although it has been made use of largely in recent pulpit oratory, it is doubtful whether it does not furnish a dangerous subject of discussion, even for believers, rather than act as a preservative of doctrine. A new enthusiasm cannot thus be established ; the vitality of faith cannot thus be restored.

What is the pervading lesson of the Pope’s Encyclicals ? What does the pontiff mainly seek to urge upon his readers ? It is that the Church he governs is the true possessor of reason, wisdom, charity, and justice ; that all peoples should turn to her for guidance, as to a wise, far-seeing mother.

That is the desire, the claim, put forward by Leo XIII.; but if we glance around we do not see that it has been granted. Socialism and its variants are far beyond the reach of bishops, whose power to uproot them is infinitesimal; freemasonry is not less flourishing than previously; the divorce laws have nowhere been repealed, and strikes of workmen have not grown less frequent. The jus novum is as violently preached as heretofore, and the condition of the artisan has in no way been affected. Everywhere the socialistic element gains ground in politics, and the dictates of the Pope are so distant from the sphere of stern reality that few statesmen would attempt to quote them as arguments against the steadily advancing wave which threatens to transform society. The publication of an Encyclical, it may be contended, has far less weight in the scale of current thought than that of a remarkable or brilliant social essay which finds its way into the hands of readers in all classes, of all creeds.

It must be borne in mind, however, that the interests of Catholics are first considered in these letters, and that their influence on Catholic opinion is theoretically supreme. Authority and infallibility both conspire to make it so; although it must not be inferred that, for this reason, the Pope is absolutely free, because his authority, like that of all others, rests upon the submission of the governed to the governing.

The practical results of the Encyclicals are thus obtained within the Church itself, but they are not seen to have appreciable effects on modern politics. In his last two letters the Pope has befriended two causes which did not claim his championship, — that of the proletariat and of the French republic. Neither of these wisely conceived measures in the interests of peace and of the papacy has changed existing things. The letter on the proletariat, doubtless, has apprised the artisans that a mediator is at hand, should they ever bring themselves to place their confidence, not in his conscientiousness, but in his competency to negotiate for them ; and the second epistle has contented those Republicans (and they are many) who suffered in their conscience that their political persuasions should be open to the Church’s censure. On the other hand, it has occasioned a strange phase in the relations between the clergy (who were at first unable or unwilling to understand the bull, but who have since assimilated its teaching) and the laity, some of whom have organized a secret movement hostile to it.

These are the facts which must be faced in an impartial notice ; and the inference they lead to seems to be that the influence of the papal writings on the collective activity of modern tendencies is very slight. If, however, the theistic and political efficacy of the Encyclicals is unapparent, there still remains their moral side, in which resides a great part of their merit. Moral good retains a leading place throughout their pages. The reader feels that it is advocated by an author who is himself its best exponent, and whose existence in the world is a safeguard for the maintenance of restraint in a society which already feels the subversiveness of half-enlightened doctrinarians.