Meekness, then, is undoubtedly a Christian virtue. Sometimes it is
obligatory, sometimes it is but a Counsel of Perfection; it stands, in
any case, high among those ideals which it has been the glory of
Christianity to create.

(ii) But there are other elements in life besides the human and the
natural, beyond those personal rights and claims which a Christian may,
if he is aiming at perfection, set aside out of charity. The Church is
Divine as well as Human.

For the Church has entrusted to her, besides the rights of men, which
may be sacrificed by their possessors, the rights and claims of God,
which none but He can set aside. He has given into her keeping, for
example, a Revelation of truths and principles which, springing out of
His own Nature or of His Will, are as immutable and eternal as Himself.
And it is precisely in defence of these truths and principles that the
Church exhibits that which the world calls _intransigeance_ and Jesus
Christ _violence_.

Here, for example, is the right of a baptized Catholic child to be
educated in his religion, or rather, the right of God Himself to teach
that child in the manner He has ordained. Here is the revealed truth
that marriage is indissoluble; here that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Now these are not human rights or opinions at all--rights and opinions
which men, urged by charity or humility, can set aside or waive in the
face of opposition. They rest on an entirely different basis; they are,
so to speak, the inalienable possessions of God; and it would neither be
charity nor humility, but sheer treachery, for the Church to exhibit
meekness or pliancy in matters such as these, given to her as they are,
not to dispose of, but to guard intact. On the contrary here, exactly,