But is there not a sufficient number of conservatives in the present national party of Italy to stop the men now at the head of affairs before they reach their ultimate designs? Perhaps so; it would be pleasant to believe this. But the present aspect of affairs gives but little hope of this being true. These conservatives, who did not, or could not, or would not stop the spoliation of the property of the church and the trampling upon her sacred rights; these conservatives, who did not take measures to hinder the Italian radicals from possessing themselves of the legislative power of the present government and pursuing their criminal course—these are not the men to build one’s hopes upon in stemming the tide that is now sweeping Italy to her destruction. The dictates of common sense teach us to look to some other quarter for hopes of success. III.—THE MISSION OF THE LATIN RACE. How much of the present condition of the Latin peoples, politically, commercially, or socially considered, can be satisfactorily explained or accounted for on the score of climate, or on that of their characteristics as a race, or of the stage of their historical development, or of the change made in the channels of commerce in consequence of new discoveries, it is not our purpose to stop here to examine or attempt to estimate and decide. One declaration we have no hesitation in making at the outset, and that is: If the Latin nations are not in all respects at the present moment equal to others, it is due to one or more of the above-enumerated causes, and not owing, as some partisans and infidels would have the world believe, to the doctrines of their religious faith. The Catholic Church affirms the natural order, upholds the value of human reason, and asserts the natural rights of man. Her doctrines teach that reason is at the basis of revelation, that human nature is the groundwork of divine grace, and that the aim of Christianity is not the repression or obliteration of the capacities and instincts of man, but their elevation, expansion, and deification. The Catholic Church not only affirms the natural order, but affirms the natural order as divine. For she has ever held the Creator of the universe, of man, and the Author of revelation as one, and therefore welcomed cheerfully whatever was found to be true, good, and beautiful among all the different races, peoples, nations, and tribes of mankind. It is for this reason that she has merited from those who only see antagonism between God and man, between nature and grace, between revelation and science—who believe that “the heathen were devil-begotten and God-forsaken,” and “this world a howling wilderness”—the charge of being superstitious, idolatrous, and pagan.