alliance can be real, becoming, and advantageous. In presence of the undisguised movements and the ever recurring and daring ventures of Liberty, a policy of reticence and procrastination, obscure and dim reservations, inconsistent expedients, and secret warfare, is no longer practicable; such policy, far from lending any help, discredits and weakens the power which places its trust in it. {48} As for me, I believe that the Catholic Church, if not without endangering her habits, at least without endangering her essential principles, has it in her power to set herself at peace with the fundamental principles of modern society and of actual civil governments; but should she either not wish or not know how to march towards this object and to obtain it, let her not give way to any illusion; alliance with the State would be rather a source of weakness and of peril to her than an advantage, and she would only eventually be driven to seek a refuge in the system of separation and complete independence. As for the State, the system which separates the two societies would free it from many a burthen and much embarrassment; but it would cause her other embarrassments, and lead to the loss of many advantages. It is convenient to discourse of the principle of a "Free church in a free country," but after the long alliance which has existed between them, it is easier to proclaim such principle than to apply it: not only is it impossible to divorce Church from State without violently wrenching asunder previous bonds, but more lasting consequences ensue; once disengaged from every connection with the civil power, ministers of religion busy themselves no longer about the interests of civil society; their thoughts are exclusively absorbed by questions of religion and its affairs. {49} Governments have long been accustomed to derive, and derive at the present day, a moral influence of great value from an alliance with the Church: but this influence supposes one condition which is not only especially important in our days, but of capital importance: in the actual state of opinion and of manners, no good results can be politically looked for from the alliance, if the civil power do not abstain from all interference in questions purely religious; the complete independence of the church and of its chiefs, in matters of faith and of religious discipline, is the only condition which can justify their giving their indirect support to the state government, and which can purge their support of all impure motives. {50} The alliance of the two powers could formerly, in a certain degree, co-exist with no inconsiderable confusion in their respective attributes, and a somewhat earnest claim on the part of each to domineer over the other; nothing similar can occur at the present day; neither Church nor State can any longer be the master or the servant of the other. Let neither princes nor priests deceive themselves; their reciprocal independence, and