In the face of such a proposed revival of pagan society, it becomes more and more necessary to insist upon the doctrine of man's spiritual dignity and moral freedom, and the unassailable basis upon which they rest. A personal God, whose essence is absolutely moral, is the fundamental truth, which alone can safeguard our rights from unjust attack. The obligation to obey the laws which God has imposed upon our conscience carries with it the power and the right to obey. Our rights thus are not given and cannot be taken away by such a State. They have their origin and authority in the supreme Author of our being. Their validity is bound up with the sovereign rights of God, and are therefore, absolute and inalienable. It is in this Divine right that we find the broad and strong foundation of our freedom and of all the rights of man. Thus Socialism is antagonistic to human liberty. Inseparably bound up with it is a materialistic philosophy. In the name of science--a word more abused than liberty--its adherents claim the right to revise and revalue all standards of morality. Experience shows that it thrives and propagates best in the soil of materialism. Its natural allies are the Secularists. Its irreconcilable foe, and the most formidable obstacle to its progress, is the Catholic Church. It is, in fact, not merely a party for social reform, but a wing of the irreligious army, operating among the working classes, doing its utmost to sow mistrust and hatred of religion and to excite the hope and belief that the amelioration of the condition of labor depends upon the success of materialism. While thus a warning is in order to those who are led by its utterances, its greatest danger lies in the fact that it may do much mischief in spreading an irreligious spirit, and weakening the foundations of belief among men whom it may not capture to its economic heresies, but who permit themselves to be influenced by what it might term its philosophic doctrines. _MODERNISM._ Out of the multiplicity of religious sects and philosophical systems with which Europe was deluged at the beginning of the present century, came the new form of Modernism, which is, as the Holy Father has said, but the synthesis of all errors. That vague endeavor to reduce Christian life and teaching to the vagaries of modern thought found its exponents in Germany, Italy, France and England. Schell in Germany sounded the note, and Fogazzaro in Milan took it up, picturing it in his novel "Il Santo." In England it found favor with the unhappy Father Tyrrell, and in France, with the Abbe Loisy and Houtin. The latter, according to present reports has become reconciled with the Church.