"We must obey God rather than man," and died for it. Why, in the Epistles of St. Paul alone, may be gathered the grandest treatise on patriotism ever written. Each Christian martyr was a true patriot because he gave his life for the Christian faith which was, ultimately, to be the liberator of his country and all countries from the slavery of paganism. And who to-day are the true patriots? The infidel throng? No, no. " Give me," says a famous general, "give me the soldier who, when he kisses his country's flag throws around it the halo of his religion; who, in the vision of his beloved country, sees the font of his baptism, his home, his Church and the consecrated graves of his forefathers." In a word, since the public worship of God in Christ's own Church is the highest function of man or citizen, therefore the better the Catholic the better the citizen — the better the citizen the nearer to being a Catholic — but the " ideal Catholic " and he alone, can be the ideal citizen.
Brethren, there is opposition to our Church even in free America — some communities calling themselves Christian will oppose a Catholic more than an atheist or Nihilist. The State usurps many of her rights concerning education, marriage, and the like. So-called ministers of the Gospel, lurking cowardly behind the State, attack the State's truest friend as a foreigner and traitor. Pseudo-patriots concoct dark schemes for her destruction. Why, you ask, does not the Church bestir herself and assert her rights? Ask the huge lion, as he stalks along, why he does not
