stinct of an infidel, recommended the erection of national churches as the true solvent of Catholic unity; and of patriarchates as a guarantee of subserviency to the royal will, and a barrier to exclude the Pontifical supremacy. Civil governments, so long as their Catholic subjects can be dealt with in detail, are strong, and often oppressive. When they have to deal with the Church throughout the world, the minority becomes a majority, and subjects, in all matters spiritual, become free. We are approaching a time when civil governments must deal with the Church as a whole, and with its head as supreme; and a General Council, which makes itself felt in every civilised nation, will powerfully awaken civil rulers to the consciousness that the Church is not a school of opinion, nor a mere religion, but a spiritual kingdom, having its own legislature, tribunals, and executive.
(3.) A further effect will be to hasten the extinction of the spirit of nationalism which for many centuries has troubled the Church. The Church has already had three periods: first, when it was made up of individuals, or at most of households, before as yet an entire nation was converted to the faith; secondly, when the nations were gathered into the Catholic fold, and the laws of unity and authority kept in check the ambition, jealousy, and encroachments of princes and rulers; thirdly, when the rise of modern nations began to develop the seeds of insubordination and schism; lastly, we have now entered a period in which hardly a Catholic nation exists. The kingdoms of Europe
