Product Description
Published, circa 1880.
(From the Preface:)
WHOEVER has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the mental
condition of the intelligent classes in Europe and America, must have
perceived that there is a great and rapidly-increasing departure from
the public religious faith, and that, while among the more frank this
divergence is not concealed, there is a far more extensive and far more
dangerous secession, private and unacknowledged.

So wide-spread and so powerful is this secession, that it can neither be
treated with contempt nor with punishment. It cannot be extinguished by
derision, by vituperation, or by force. The time is rapidly approaching
when it will give rise to serious political results.

Ecclesiastical spirit no longer inspires the policy of the world.
Military fervor in behalf of faith has disappeared. Its only souvenirs
are the marble effigies of crusading knights, reposing in the silent
crypts of churches on their tombs.

That a crisis is impending is shown by the attitude of the great powers
toward the papacy. The papacy represents the ideas and aspirations
of two-thirds of the population of Europe. It insists on a political
supremacy in accordance with its claims to a divine origin and mission,
and a restoration of the mediaeval order of things, loudly declaring
that it will accept no reconciliation with modern civilization.
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