Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/90

these two things united explain both her triumphs and her afflictions.

The supernatural strength of grace is perpetually communicated to the faithful through the ministry of the priests and through the channel of the sacraments; and this supernatural strength, imparted in this way to the faithful, who are at the same time members of a civil society and of the Church, is what has produced the wonderful difference between ancient and Catholic societies, even in a political and social aspect. All things carefully considered, there is no other difference between these societies than that the former is composed of pagans, and the latter of Christians; that in pagan society men are moved by natural impulses, while in the Christian society men have subdued more or less their own nature, and obey more or less perfectly the supernatural and divine impulsion of grace. This serves to explain the difference between the political and social institutions of the ancients, and those that have arisen, almost spontaneously, among the moderns; for institutions are the social expression of ideas common to all; these ideas are the collective result of individual thought, and this thought is the intellectual manifestation of the mode of being and feeling of man; but the pagan and the Catholic man have ceased to be and to feel in the same way; one representing humanity fallen and disinherited, the other humanity redeemed. Ancient and modern institutions are the expression of two different societies only because they represent two different humanities. For this reason, when Catholic societies prevaricate and fall, it happens that paganism immediately gains a footing in them; and we behold ideas, customs,