But whether this charge of absolutism be just or not, Romanism has been so long associated as a polity with monarchical governments that it has contracted a habit of domineering, and the people can never be persuaded that the papacy is democratic in its constitution. Americans are very suspicious, too, of any interference on the part of the government. If a system demands an army, a palace, lands, it must pay for them out of its own private means. A generation or more ago it was possible for an administration to give for a merely nominal sum, in the very heart of a large city, great estates to one denomination. This is possible no longer. Every sect must vindicate itself, and stand on its own feet; this alone would make it impossible for a church so poor as the Catholic to establish itself in this country on any terms of supremacy. The desire for change which is inherent in the American mind must also prove fatal in the end to any claim of absolute stability. Protestantism is therefore better for Americans than Romanism is, because it is more portable, more various, more accommodating to popular tastes and inclinations. There is no disposition to undervalue the work of the Catholic Church. Its great saints, its heroic martyrs, its stupendous missions, its enormous philanthropy, its influence in educating and controlling masses of people, cannot be exaggerated; and still it is destined to wield an immense influence as a spiritual power over the human race; but it never again can be the absolute system it once was. However it may commend itself to certain classes in our population, it must always be simply one department in the universal church. But it will be said that the Catholic Church may _accommodate_ itself to republican institutions. M. Renan doubts whether any radical change can be made. He says: Catholicism, persuaded that it works for the truth, will always endeavor to enlist the state in its defence or its spread.... Catholicism is, in fact, the believer's country, far more than is the land of his birth. The stronger a religion is, the more effective it is in this way.... More and more have Catholics been brought to think that they derive life and salvation from Rome. It is especially worth remarking that the new Catholic conquests exhibit the most sensitiveness on this point. The old provincial Catholic, whose faith belonged to the soil, has less need of the Pope, and is much less alarmed at the storms that menace him, than the new Catholics, who are coming fresh to Catholicism, and regard the Pope, after the new system, as the author and defender of their faith.... Catholicism has been seduced into becoming a religion essentially political. The Pope becomes the actual sovereign of the church.