Each age has its own peculiar and characteristic mission, and one from which it cannot escape; every human being has his share in it, whether he knows it or not. As a consequence of the truths and the errors, of the good and evil, of the triumphs and reverses of the preceding centuries, the nineteenth century has before it a special task, which will employ all its energies, and which will also, I hope, constitute its glory. It has both in the State and in the Church found the two supreme forces that preside over man's life, and over that of society, Authority and Liberty, in violent conflict, in turn intoxicated with victory, or vanquished, ruined. It is the mission of the nineteenth century to make them live together, and live in peace; or at least in an antagonism entailing upon neither any mortal danger. The recognition of, and respect for, authority; the acceptance and guarantee of freedom; these are the imperative necessities which our age is called upon to feel and to satisfy, both in State and Church. {117} Nor does this imply, as is often pretended, any inconsistency or any compromise of principle or any policy of expedients; it is not by inconsistency that great questions are settled, it is not by expedients that we content the cravings of men's souls, or calm the anxieties of human society; for mankind yields genuine submission and feels real confidence only where it believes in the existence of truth and justice. The recognition, veneration, and guarantee of the different rights which co-exist naturally and necessarily in human societies--of the rights, both of individuals and of the State--of the rights of religious society and of civil society--of the rights of little local societies as well as of the grand general society--of the rights of conscience as well as of tradition--of the rights of the future as well as of those of the past--these are the dominant principles of which the nineteenth century has to insure the triumph. {118} Triumphs assured, if Liberals and Christians are both of them determined to accomplish it! Notwithstanding all the violent emotions of party, and of all our differences on intellectual and social subjects, the consciousness of this situation is ever before our minds; and whether we admit it or not, the alliance of the liberal movement with the movement of awakened Christianity, is the grand measure and the grand hope of the day.