A popularizing tendency among Catholics had been much encouraged by that powerful priest, the Abbé de La Mennais, and his enthusiastic associates. It is true, he had fallen under censure, and had been excommunicated, _eo nomine_, by Rome; but the party he formed, though disavowing him, still retained somewhat of his spirit, and followed his tendency. There was a growing party in France, even among the clergy, who wished to divorce the church from the state, and induce her to abandon the courts, and cement an intimate alliance with the people, and lend her powerful influence to the democratic movements of the day. They had much that was plausible in their favor. The royal and nobiliaire governments of Europe had always labored to convert the dignitaries of the church into courtiers, and to make her their tool for enslaving and fleecing the people. The greatest injury religion had ever received, it had received from courtier bishops, and the tyranny of the state over the church, equally fatal to her and to the people. The real interests of the church would therefore seem to demand of her to make common cause with the people against kings and aristocrats, and in favor of democratic institutions. This conviction was becoming very general among the more earnest and influential Catholic laymen. A corresponding conviction was also becoming general among the great mass of the Protestant populations. It was possible, then, to labor to democratize society without alarming religious convictions; nay, it was possible to enlist them to a great extent in the same work. Nobody, it is well known, helped us on more effectually in Europe than many of the most distinguished among the Catholic clergy and laity. I need only mention Ventura and Gioberti in Italy, Montalembert, Lacordaire, Cormenin, Maret, and Archbishop Affre, in France. But, after all, great movements are never carried on by simple human means alone, and never get beyond brilliant theories unless inspired and sustained by a superhuman power, either from heaven or from hell. Christianity had taught us the weakness of human nature, and I found that weakness confirmed by experience. Between the power to conceive and to execute there is a distance. Men might form the most brilliant ideals, bring out the soundest, most attractive and perfect theories of reform, but it would avail nothing unless endued with a power not their own, to realize them in practice. Here was the defect in the plan of Signor Urbini and Young Italy. It was skilfully devised, it had all of human wisdom on its side, but it was ideal, and had no power or energy to realize itself. No man lifteth himself by his own waistbands. Without the Whereon to stand, Archimedes, with all his mechanical contrivances, cannot move the world. It is necessary to have a support outside of man; a source of power which is not human, and as the world would say, either Divine or Satanic, to be able to accomplish any thing.