But these things, although full of reasonableness and foresight, are not so well approved of at this time, when States not only refuse to refer to the laws of Christian knowledge, but are seen even to wish to depart each day farther from them. Nevertheless, because truth brought to light is wont of its own accord to spread widely, and by degrees to pervade the minds of men, we, therefore, moved by the consciousness of the greatest, the most holy, that is the Apostolic obligation, which we owe to all the nations, those things which are true, freely, as we ought, we do speak, not that we have no perception of the spirit of the times, or that we think the honest and useful improvements of our age are to be repudiated, but because we would wish the highways of public affairs to be safer from attacks, and their foundations more stable, and that without detriment to the true freedom of the peoples; for amongst men the mother and best guardian of liberty is truth: "_The truth shall make you free._" (John viii. 32). Therefore at so critical a juncture of events, Catholic men, if, as it behooves them, they will listen to us, will easily see what are their own and each other's duties in matters of _opinion_ as well as of _action_. And in the formation of opinion, whatsoever things the Roman Pontiffs have handed down, or shall hereafter hand down, each and every one is it necessary to hold in firm judgment well understood, and as often as occasion demands openly to declare. Now, especially concerning those things which are called recently-acquired _liberties_, is it proper to stand by the judgment of the Apostolic See, and for each one to hold what she herself holds. Take care lest some one be deceived by the honest outward appearance of these things; and think of the beginnings from which they are sprung; and by what desires they are sustained and fed in divers places. It is now sufficiently known by experience of what things they are the causes in the State; how indiscriminately they bring forth fruit, of which good men and wise rightly do repent. If there should be in any place a State, either actual or hypothetical, that wantonly and tyrannically wages war upon the Christian name, and it have conferred upon it that character of which we have spoken, it is possible that this may be considered more tolerable; yet the principles upon which it rests are absolutely such that, of themselves they ought to be approved by no man.