CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 
II9 
another heaven” that the ideal He announced was to be realized. 
“ My kingdom is not of this world,” Christ used to say. The 
element of truth in the assertion is that the Gospel, like the 
prophets of the Old Testament, is full of a spirit of brotherhood 
and equality. The “ glad tidings (cvayycA.iov) of the kingdom ” 
is announced to the poor. In the “ kingdom ” the first shall 
be last. “ Blessed be they which do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness, for they shall be filled.” What profound words, 
overflowing with that tender love for the afflicted which has 
been called charity ! 
Whatever the enemies of Christianity may say, it is beyond 
question from the gospel that the movement for the emancipa 
tion of the lower classes has come, which, after having little by 
little abolished slavery and serfage, proclaimed equality first by 
the American and then by the French Revolution. All that 
is done to elevate the lowly and to lighten the burden of the 
poor is conformable to the teachings of Christ; and thus 
Socialism, in its general tendency, and in so far as it only 
aspires, according to the St. Simonian formula, “ to ameliorate 
the moral, intellectual, and material condition of the greatest 
number,” proceeds evidently from Christian inspiration. No 
more can it be denied that those words in which Christ preached 
charity, brotherly love, and indifference to the world, when 
interpreted by absolute idealism and excessive asceticism, have 
resulted naturally in communism; a communism not merely 
such as was practised in Jerusalem by the immediate followers 
of Christ, but such as may still be seen under our very eyes in 
the thousands of convents that fill with increasing numbers both 
town and country. The Church has never condemned that 
social régime from which private property is banished, and 
even the idea of mine and thine proscribed as an outrage on 
brotherhood. On the contrary, even its most politic doctors, 
such as Bossuet, have seen therein the ideal of the Christian 
life. No doubt they were only thinking of a communism 
voluntarily practised. But if such be the ideal, is not the wish 
to make it adopted by all reasonable? At all events, it is 
certain that if those who attack the actual organization of our 
society wish to seek arms in the writings of the Christian Fathers,