But there is a higher and nobler view of the situation. Let it be admitted, for the sake of argument, that economic truth has an ethical sanction; let it be admitted, also, that economic science can adjust equitably the relations of capital, labor, and all other factors of wealth; must it not follow that both religion and morality will thus have the door opened to them to re-occupy their old seats of social authority? Will not religion be inspired to formulate a nineteenth-century statement of one's duty to one's neighbor, and stimulated to enforce the observance of the duties thus defined? Will not morality take jurisdiction of economic offenses, and a conscience be evolved that is capable of comprehending the true inwardness of "the management of properties"?

Whether or not economic science, when elaborated, will be able to adjust equitably all industrial relations, can be determined only by experience. Those who believe in the ultimate sufficiency of science for every social need will accept this upon faith, and the rest of us must wait until we have an established science of economy set in a fair field and free from anti-economic laws and prejudices. At present we are able to answer only the antecedent questions, Have economic principles moral force? Are economic truths binding upon conscience?

It has been well said that the recognition of a truth is in itself an acknowledgment of the duty to believe it and to act upon it. Truth is a force, a belief-compelling, will-urging force, and every true system of morals aims, or professes to aim, at subduing to the force of truth the faculties, the impulses, and the passions of man. The fundamental postulate of morals, therefore, is, that the highest duty is to seek for what is true in respect to those matters which we talk about and in respect to whatever influences our conduct. To speak the truth one must know the truth, to act rightly one must know the right; but such knowledge is not intuitive nor does it float in the atmosphere; it must be obtained, and to be obtained it must be sought for.

It is quite evident that no one can be a good soldier without knowing so much of tactics and discipline as to be able to conduct himself properly on every military occasion, and this involves not only a knowledge of what he should do, but of

what others should do. The knowledge required of officers is more comprehensive than that which suffices for privates; generals must know strategy as well as tactics and discipline. The highest duty of every man in an army is to study military science. Now, our industrial condition makes of the people of the United States a great economic army. What we call social relations are almost entirely industrial relations, or else they arise out of industrial relations; what we call social classes are industrial classes. As voters and tax-payers all citizens are economic factors; as workers or as supported by industry all our people are subject to the operation of economic laws; hence, the highest duty of the citizen is to study economic science. The discipline and the tactics of industry suffice for the simple worker and voter; but those who are captains of industry, those who hold or who aspire to political office, must master the principles of the science.

Can it be doubted that there is a true economy just as there is a true theology, a true morality? Scientific truth revealed through the operation of natural laws is surely as well authenticated, as clearly and definitely comprehensible, as morally binding upon our acceptance and belief, as spiritual truth revealed through the writings of prophets and evangelists. Our earliest and strongest beliefs, those upon which we are absolutely dependent even for the continuance of animal existence, are drawn from observation of the uniformity that obtains in the operation of natural laws. This is the source of the confidence we have in the testimony of our senses, in the stability of matter, in the persistence of force. In what province of physical existence, in what corner or recess of the conceivable universe, under what possible conditions of form, substance, or position, can the human. intellect figure to itself, in fancy even, a being or a thing that is or rests or moves, except by the never-relaxing tension, the never-varying force, of nature's laws?

He who believes that God governs the universe must also believe that the laws of nature are his ordinances; and he who feels it a duty to learn and to live up to the written word of God cannot escape the obligation to learn and to live up to those laws which he has wrought into the very nature of things,

and which he has fitted the human mind to discern, define, and classify, and which he compels it to recognize as belonging to the highest order of verities. The scientific man realizes that the laws of nature represent absolute truth, that their invariability is not only indispensable to existence, but is the fundamental concept of all reasoning, and therefore the ultimate basis of every form and degree of belief; while the theologian must recognize in them the ordinances of that constitution with which God has endowed the universe, the conditions prescribed by Infinite Wisdom for the eternal exercise of infinite power.

The sanction of scientific truth being complete and the economic organization of society being obvious, can it be doubted that there is the very highest obligation resting upon every one to study this science, or at least to see that only those who have mastered it are intrusted with the making or the administering of the laws which impinge upon industrial interests and adjustments? It is only through the medium of this science that we can fully realize how true it is that we are "members one of another;" it is only by its light that we can fully live up to the golden rule, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also unto them;" it is only by its teachings that we can allay the turmoil between capital and labor, adjust the economic rights of the community to the industrial freedom of the individual, and reconcile the security of property with the progress of society; it is only by its aid that we can detect and remove influences that are now disturbing the equitable distribution of wealth and threatening us with calamities of portentous magnitude.

W. L. TRENHOLM.

ROMANISM AND THE REPUBLIC.

"LET us be Catholics," said Bossuet, "but let us be Gallicans. It is in the spirit of this great French preacher that I, a Frenchman by birth and education, would presume to offer a brief criticism upon the Roman Church and its relations to the American republic. Let us be Catholics, but let us be Americans. But is it possible to be, at the same time, loyal Roman Catholics and loyal American citizens? I believe that it is not, and shall endeavor, in the following pages, to give the reasons underlying this belief. "If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, it will be by the hands of the Roman clergy." These are the words of another French Catholic, a man even greater than Bossuet, and one to whom the American people gladly acknowledge an everlasting debt of deep gratitude; a man who did more, perhaps, than any other single individual, not an American, to win the political independence and secure the national freedom which this country now enjoys. But what grounds were there for such a prophecy? When Lafayette spoke these words there seemed to be nothing whatever in the actual state of things to give them warrant. The Roman hierarchy was very weak and very poor in these United States, and the churches were, for the most part, small missionary stations widely scattered over an almost boundless territory. Power and influence it had none; but it had a system which Lafayette knew well, and he saw in that system a potency which made him fear for the liberties of the nation which he had done so much to establish with his treasure and his sword.

Lafayette knew this system of old. He had seen it in his well-beloved France as a mighty serpent, coiling itself around the national life and choking out the liberties of the people. This monster serpent, Ultramontanism, had crawled up out of the deep, dark Roman sea many years before, and, as in the case

of the loyal Trojan priest Laocoön, had wound itself around the Gallican priest at the altar, and was slowly but surely strangling the priest and his faithful children, the sons of France. Many true Catholics, such as Bossuet, had seen the danger and escaped the coils of the great Vatican reptile. But Bossuet was gone; the Gallican Church was gone; liberty was gone; and Rome and anarchy were fighting over the spoils of the French nation. To change the figure, Lafayette saw in these small missionary stations the outposts of the Roman army, whose well-trained legions might ere long be in absolute possession of the whole land. It was the system that he feared, and it is the system, I think, that we should fear; for not to fear too often means not to be ready when danger is near. No native-born American could have seen danger where Lafayette saw it. No one but a Roman Catholic, born and brought up in a Roman Catholic country, could possibly have seen any danger to the American republic in the few missionary priests whom the Roman Church had sent over to the New World in such modest guise. The Americans who heard the warning words of Lafayette did not, I imagine, take them seriously; but, on the contrary, they probably laughed within themselves at such groundless fears, just as Americans to-day laugh when they are asked to give any serious attention to the dangers which appear to me to threaten this fair land from a system known as "Ultramontanism."

A good-natured contempt of such danger seems almost universal among the citizens of this great republic. I do not like the role of an alarmist, but I believe I see danger ahead, and am willing to expose myself to some ridicule in the hope of arousing my fellow-citizens to a sense of the danger which, as I believe, threatens the American nation from the Roman Church. If the note of alarm is ever sounded, it must be, I think, by some one less optimistic than the typical American; by one, in fact, who knows the Roman system, and how it has operated and is operating in other countries for the enslavement of the people.

Look about you and see what the few poor missionary stations, in which Lafayette saw cause for alarm. have become. Behold the innumerable churches, cathedrals, monasteries, nunneries,