We repeat it: one of the best means to popularize religion among the people is to speak always in favorable terms of their native country. {144} There can be no doubt that deplorable excesses in the history of the last seventy years have wounded the hearts of the clergy, and imparted a savor of bitterness and sarcasm to our language respecting France. But it is wrong: one should always love one's country and one's times, though it may be a duty to combat their prejudices and their errors. On this subject I commend the words of one of our own statesmen, endeared both to religion and to his country:-- [Footnote 15] [Footnote 15: M. de Falloux.] "Do not misunderstand what I am about to say; do not imagine that I wish to unduly criticise the era in which we live. No; my country and my contemporaries will find in me rather an impassioned advocate then a prejudiced detractor. I love my country and my time, for I cannot separate the one from the other. I believe that one cannot be loved without the other. He who does not acquiesce in the age in which he lives, its responsibilities and its dangers, does not wholly love his country: does not love his country except in times which either exist no longer, or in those which have not yet come. To do this, is to discourage, to lessen the power which we should hold at its service. The age in which each of us lives is simply the frame wherein God sets our duties; the career which He opens to and imposes upon our faculties. To study one's age is to search out what God desires and demands of us." {145} Then, again, we are bound to be just. If France has done wrong, how much good has she not done; how much is she not still doing every day! The words _Gesta Dei per Francos_ have not ceased to be true as regards ourselves. Is not the blessed institution of the _Propagation of the Faith_ the work of France? Is not, also, the _Archiconfrérie_ for the return of sinners to the paternal home, the work of France? Is not the society of Saint Vincent de Paul likewise the work of France? That society numbers eight hundred confraternities throughout the world, and of these, five hundred are claimed by France. And wherever any good work is to be wrought for the Church, is it not accomplished by the words, the money, the prayers, and even by the sword of France? Surely, the citizen of such a country, the child of such a fatherland, has a right to speak well of his mother; more especially when the object is to lead souls to virtue. Reawaken, then, the old French and Christian enthusiasm, filling all hearts with the sacred emotions of earthly patriotism, and with holy love for that better home which is eternal in the heavens.