This grand principle of the philosophy of history, due to Christian psychology and the true knowledge by man of himself, has been admirably demonstrated by St. Augustine. One sees, from numerous passages in his writings, how that holy doctor was impressed by the perpetual antagonism and irreconcilable opposition between these two powers, or "cities," (as he terms them,) who always and everywhere are making war upon each other, and to whom each succeeding century serves but as a battle-field. Quite as much and even more than others, does the sixteenth century present to the look of the observer the militant dualism of these two principles: the one, calling itself the Reformation of the church by disorder and violence; the other, wishing to be, and which has been, the fruitful and pacific renovation of Christian life by humble zeal and true charity. The Protestant Reformation claims the sixteenth century as exclusively its own. I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated that, by its most beautiful and most enduring parts and characteristics, the century belongs neither to Luther nor Calvin; but that the Catholic Church can exhibit it with just pride alike to her friends and her enemies. From this study, made in the light of this principle, I would also deduce a second conclusion and apply it directly to the times in which we live. Are we not ourselves witnesses of and actors in a struggle like or analogous to that which, before our day, divided our fathers? Yes, our century, soon to complete the third quarter of its term, itself also is engaged in this struggle between, so to term it, two opposing cities or communities. For some time past, this struggle seems to have entered upon a new phase and into a most sharp crisis. With whom will victory rest, and which of the two principles shall carry captive the other in its triumph, so as to decide definitively the character of this epoch? That is a secret as yet only known to God, and it is not mine to attempt a reply to so hidden and mysterious a question. What I do know is, that we ought to oppose, with all our might, those who, wishing to bring about a violent retrograde movement in European society, threaten every day to carry us back to the age of Voltaire, and who present to us the saturnalia of '93 as the ideal of liberty, prosperity, and progress! {69}