when will the ancient Church and modern civilization have solved the problem of their mutual pacification? No one can at this moment pronounce; but in all certitude, the problem will not for that cease to weigh upon the world, or the world to strive at its solution. Even the men who, in a spirit of pious submission or in a paroxysm of sadness and discouragement might wish, after having attempted it, to renounce the work, could never remain inactive before a necessity becoming more and more urgent; they doubtless would not be long before they returned to the lists from which they might have consented to withdraw. {57} And this is what happened to the three eminent men who had made so precipitate a journey to Rome, and had importuned her at an inconvenient moment, summoning her at once to solve the momentous questions they had raised. They returned from Rome with the intention of submitting to the decision of the Pope; but slumber to such souls was impossible, and it was not long before men saw them, the three, resuming, although by the most contrary paths, all the activity of their minds and of their lives. The Abbé de la Mennais threw himself with impetuosity into the revolt--a revolt radical against the Church and against the State; furiously demanding from the populace and from revolutions the success which he could not obtain in the bosom of order, and in concert with the authority previously so ardently defended by him. Far from following in his new and violent course, the Abbé Lacordaire and M. de Montalembert separated from him, and returned each to his natural and tranquil position; the one to that of a simple priest, almoner of the convent of the Visitation, and preacher in the chapel of the College Stanislas; the other to that of a young and brilliant political orator, already a favorite in the chamber of Peers, although its members did not always think or vote with him. {58} Both remained Romanists at heart; they zealously shared in the great movement of Christianity, now roused from her slumber, but without ceasing to be Liberals in their Catholicism, or without arresting their efforts to reconcile the Church with the régime of liberty.