Page:What We Want.djvu/76

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

natural, and inviolable right to the vote—not, however, that they may use it as free citizens, freely supporting the democracy in its holy aspirations, but only when the candidature of some Conservative happens to be in peril. In the present state of affairs, you have not thought of democracy as the genuine product of Christian brotherhood, as the force of the future. You have recognized in it only that external note which is accidentally hostile to the Church; and, to the loss of the people, of justice, and of Christianity, you have flung yourself into the arms of those who, so long your enemies, but now, for the sake of passing interests, pretending to be your friends, have promised you their support. You do not see that, if they still exist to-day, they will no longer exist to-morrow. You have no doubt ventured to speak of democracy and popular action, but you fail to perceive that, when these are officially ordered and guided by the Church, they