A great clamor has been raised by the whole movement party throughout the world against the encyclical of the Holy Father, dated at Rome, December 8, 1864, and even some Catholics, not fully aware of the sense and reach of the opinions censured, were at first partially disturbed by it; but the Holy Father has given in it only a proof of his pastoral vigilance, the fidelity of the church to her divine mission, and the continuous presence in her and supernatural assistance of the Holy Ghost. The errors condemned are all aimed at the reality and invariability, universality and persistency, of truth, the reality of things, the supremacy of the spiritual order, and the independence and authority of the divine law, at real science, and the means and conditions of both liberty and progress. In it we see the great value of the independence of the church,--of a church holding from God instead of holding from man. If the church had been human or under human control she would never have condemned those errors, because nearly all of them are popular, and hailed as truth by the age. Man condemns only what man dislikes, and the popular judgment condemns only what is unpopular. It is only the divine that judges according to truth, and without being influenced by the spirit of the age, or by what is popular or unpopular. If the church had been human, she would have been carried away by those errors, and proved herself the enemy instead of the friend, the protector, and the benefactor of society.