Louis Veuillot: The Liberal Illusion [1866]

[Stone]

The Liberal Illusion

Chapter XXXVIII

I commenced writing these pages with a sentiment of bitterness and anguish which I no longer feel as I bring them to a close. Not only is the liberal illusion empty to the very bottom, its counsels, which are those of weakness and dishonesty, disclose the ignoble mainspring of its conduct. The false pride in which it takes refuge when it ought obey does not suffice to cover up the obsequiousness with which it defers when it ought to have the backbone to resist. It will not long deceive souls that were made for true greatness. With Catholics, sincerity and nobility of soul straighten out the crookedness of the mind. 

If this world seems to hold out for us the prospect of a long period of inglorious combats without visible victory, together with humiliations of every sort; if we are to be laughed at, to be held up to ridicule, to be expelled from public life; if it be required of us, in this martyrdom of contempt, to stand the triumph of fools, the power of the perverse, and the conceited smugness of snobs, God, in His turn, reserves for His faithful a role whose fruitful splendor they will neither refuse nor misunderstand. To them He commits His truth contracted and reduced to the size of an altar candle, such as one might put in the hands of a child, and He bids them brave all this storm; for so long as their faith does not weaken, the living flame will not only not go out, it will not even flicker! The Earth may begrime us with its dust, the Ocean may spew on us its froth, we may be trampled beneath the feet of beasts let loose upon us, but we will forge on somehow over this malignant causeway of human history. The tiny light placed in our torn hands will not have perished; it shall kindle for us the fire divine.