Therefore she is bound, when her supernatural principles clash with
human natural principles, to be the occasion of disunion. Her marriage
laws, as a single example, are at conflict with the marriage laws of the
majority of modern States. It is of no use to tell her to modify these
principles; it would be to tell her to cease to be supernatural, to
cease to be herself. How can she modify what she believes to be her
Divine Message?

Again, since she is organized on a supernatural basis, there are
supernatural elements in her own constitution which she can no more
modify than her dogmas. Recently, in France, she was offered the
_kingdom of this world_ if she would do so; it was proposed to her that
she actually retain her own wealth, her churches and her houses, and
yield up her principle of spiritual appeal to the Vicar of Christ. If
she had been but human, how evident would have been her duty! How
inevitable that she should modify her constitution in accordance with
human ideas and preserve her property intact! And how entirely
impossible such a bargain must be for a Society that is divine as well
as human!

Take courage then! We desire peace above all things--that is to say, the
Peace of God, not _that peace which the world_, since it _can give_ it,
can also _take away_; not that peace which depends on the harmony of
nature with nature, but of nature with grace.

Yet, so long as the world is divided in allegiance; so long as the
world, or a country, or a family, or even an individual soul bases
itself upon natural principles divorced from divine, so long to that
world, that country, that family, and that human heart will the