But read the Syllabus—and few of its opponents have done this; take the trouble to understand rightly what you have read—and fewer still have taken this pains—and if you have not lost sight of the prime truths of reason, and have any faith left in the revealed truths of Christianity, you must at least assent to its principal decisions and approve of its censures. For its condemnations are chiefly aimed against pantheism, atheism, materialism, internationalism, communism—these and similar errors subversive of man’s dignity, society, civilization, Christianity, and all religion. What boots it that these distinctive errors are cloaked with the high-sounding and popular catch-words, “intellectual culture,” “liberty of thought,” “modern civilization,” etc., etc.? They are none the less errors, and all the more dangerous on account of their attractive disguise. The opposition of those who are not internationalists and atheists to the condemnation and censures contained in the Syllabus, can be explained, putting it in the mildest form, on the ground of their lack of the sense of the divine authority of the church and its office, and the misapprehension or misinterpretation in great part of its language. For at bottom the Syllabus is nothing else than the Christian thesis of the nineteenth century, as against its antithesis set up by modern sophists and conspirators, who openly put forth their programme as in religion atheism, in morals free-love, in philosophy materialism, in the state absolute democracy, in society common property. This, then, is the significance and the cause of the rage which it has called forth: the Supreme Pastor of Christ’s flock, with his vigilant eye, has detected the plots of those who would overthrow the family, society, and all religion, and, conscious of the high obligations of his charge, would not in silence take his repose, but dared, in protection of his fold, to cry aloud and use his teeth upon these human wolves, and thus warn the faithful and the whole world of their impending danger. This is the secret of the outcry against the Syllabus and Pius IX. Herein is the _Quare fremuerunt gentes_. But does not the Syllabus declare that there can be no reconciliation between the Catholic Church and modern civilization? O blind and slow of heart! do you not know that modern civilization is the outcome of the Catholic Church? What was the answer of Christ to Satan when he offered to him “all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them”? “Begone, Satan!” Which means, What you offer is already mine, and not yours to give; away, hypocrite and deceiver! So to-day, when the declared enemies of Christian civilization come in disguise to the Catholic Church and insist upon her reconciliation with modern civilization, she replies with Christ: Begone, Satan; modern civilization is the product of the Catholic Church, and not yours, and not under your protection or jurisdiction; away, hypocrites and conspirators!