CHURCH AND STATE TROUBLES.
By Editor
We wish all Catholics, and Protestants too, for the matter of that, looked upon the Church and State question as does the Rev. D. S. Phelan, editor of the Catholic "Western Watchman." He says, issue of Nov. 15, 1906: "The church of God needs no charter from the State. She owes nothing to the State, except gratitude for services with which she can very well dispense. The church will live in spite of the State, although her condition may be one of violence. She may be wounded, but she can not die. When the State plants itself across the path of her progress she must fight the State. This is not called war; the discriminating verdict of history styles it persecution. our Lord has foretold that His church would be persecuted, and He did not place a time limit or fix a degree of virulence to the work of the persecutor. She would be persecuted for His name's sake, and for the same reason that He was persecuted. The church and the State are as irreconcilable enemies as the world and Christ; as the spirit and the flesh. There never can be lasting peace between them." There is one thing in the above worthy of further note, and that is the matter of "peace between them." Peace never ought to be sought, no one on either side ought to seek to reconcile differences. But let EACH ONE ATTEND TO ITS OWN BUSINESS IN ITS PROPER SPHERE, AND THERE NEVER WILL BE WAR. The trouble all comes, and nearly always on the part of religionists, when one seeks to intermeddle with the other. Oil and water do not mix and normally will not mix, neither do they quarrel. The persecution which the Catholic Church may be suffering in France she has herself invited in her relations with the State.