Reconciliation with what these conspirators call “modern civilization”? Do men who have their wits about them know what this means? This means the overthrow of the great institutions of society, which have cost nineteen centuries of toil and struggle of the noblest men and women of the race. And for what? Only for the tyranny of a commune of declared atheists, the emancipation of the flesh, and the reign of Antichrist. Thank God! there is one man who cannot be bought by bribes, or won by flattery, or made to stoop by fear; who dares meet face to face the foes of Christ and the enemies of mankind, open his mouth and lift up his voice, and, in answer to these hypocritical invitations, speak out in tones that ring in the ears of the whole world and can never be forgotten: “Non possumus.” The question is not whether the church will be reconciled with modern civilization. The real question is whether modern society will follow the principles of eternal justice and right, and reject these false teachers; whether it will legislate in accordance with the rules of right reason and the divine truths of Christianity, and turn its back upon revolution, anarchy, and atheism; whether it will act in harmony with God’s church in upholding modern civilization and in spreading God’s kingdom upon earth, or return to paganism, barbarism, and savagery. The question, the real question which in the course of human events has become at the present moment among the Latin race a national question, and particularly so in Italy, is this: “Christ or Barabbas?” “Now, Barabbas was a robber.” It is because the Syllabus has placed this alternative in so clear and unmistakable a light that Satan has stirred up so spiteful and so wide-spread an opposition to it among his followers and those they can influence. Here is where the shoe pinches. VI.—THE VATICAN COUNCIL. It is folly to attempt to interpret any society without having first discovered its animating principle and fairly studied the nature and bearings of its organization. How great, then, is the folly of those who seem not to have even a suspicion that the greatest and grandest and the most lasting of all societies and organizations that the world has ever known—the Catholic Church—can be fathomed by a hasty glance! Yet there are men well known, and reckoned worthy of repute, who bestow more time and pay closer attention to gain knowledge of the structure and habits of the meanest bug than they deem requisite before sitting in judgment on the church of the living God. There is in our day a great variety of demagogues, and their number is very great, but a truly scientific man is a _rara avis_.