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THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY.
to come to his aid. Clearly the supreme end is the triumph
of the Church \ the rest is merely the means. This is a great
end, and for those who are persuaded that the happiness of
societies here below and the salvation of men in the life to
come are bound up in it, it is the greatest of all ends. We
can then conceive how it is that everything should be sacrificed
to attain this end : nationality, fatherland, liberty, political
institutions, economic prosperity—all these secondary good
things to which usually so much value is attached.
The Apocalypse tells us of a woman seated upon a scarlet
coloured beast, and herself arrayed in a robe of purple and
scarlet, “ having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations
and filthiness ; and upon her forehead was a name written,
Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of the abominations
of the Earth.” “ And the woman which thou saw est,” says
the Apocalypse, “ is that great city, which reigneth over the
kings of the earth.” The city designated in the Revelation is
evidently Rome ; but, according to Protestant interpretations,
it was Papal Rome that was meant. Certain modern mystics
add a new interpretation. The woman arrayed in purple is
the Papacy, which, in order that it may reign over peoples
and kings, is taking up Socialism ; and the scarlet beast on
which the woman is seated is the Red Democracy, which the
Pope will make use of to overcome all resistance.
It is not necessary to invoke the Apocalypse in order to
prove a plain fact, namely, that the Church will not renounce,
without a supreme struggle, the universal domination which
it exercised in old times, and which it still hopes to regain.
Inasmuch as the bourgeoisie, proud of its liberties, will not
willingly resign them into the hands of the clergy, the Church
must draw to itself the labourers in field and factory. How
is this to be done? By speaking to them of their ills and
promising them, as Socialism does, to apply a remedy in the
shape of a more equitable distribution of the good things
of this world. Nothing can be more easy for the Church :
she has only to return to the traditions of the first centuries.
Even in the Middle Ages, did not the mendicant monks, all
imbued with communistic ideas, draw the people after them
