Such  being  the  extreme  difference  between  the
Church  and  the  world,  both  as  to  the  measure  and  the
scale  of  moral  good  and  evil,  we  may  be  prepared  for
those  vast  differences  in  matters  of  detail,  which  I
hardly  like  to  mention,  lest  they  should  be  out  of
keeping  with  the  gravity  of  the  subject,  as  contem-
plated in  its  broad  principle. For  instance,  the
Church  pronounces  the  momentar}''  wish,  if  conscious
?,nd  deliberate,  that  another  should  be  struck  down
dead,  or  suffer  any  other  grievous  misfortune,  as  a
blacker  sin  than  a  passionate,  unpremeditated  attempt
on  the  life  of  the  Sovereign. She  considers  direct
unequivocal  consent,  though  as  quick  as  thought,  to
a  single  unchaste  desire  as  indefinitely  more  heinous
than  any  lie  which  can  possibly  be  fancied,  that  is,
when  that  lie  is  viewed,  of  course,  in  itself,  and  apart
from  its  causes,  motives,  and  consequences. Take  a
mere  beggar-woman,  lazy,  ragged,  and  filthy,  and  not
over-scrupulous  of  truth  —  (I  do  not  say  she  had
arrived  at  perfection)  —  but  if  she  is  chaste,  and
sober,  and  cheerful,  and  goes  to  her  religious  duties
(and  I  am  supposing  not  at  all  an  impossible  case),
she  will,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Church,  have  a  prospect  of


250      Social  State  of  Catholic  Countries

heaven,  which  is  quite  closed  and  refused  to  the
State's  pattern-man,  the  just,  the  upright,  the  generous,
the  honourable,  the  conscientious,  if  he  be  all  this,
not  from  a  supernatural  power — (I  do  not  determine
whether  this  is  likely  to  be  the  fact,  but  I  am  contrast-
ing views  and  principles) — not  from  a  supernatural
power,  but  from  mere  natural  virtue. Polished,
delicate  -  minded  ladies,  with  little  of  temptation
around  them,  and  no  self-denial  to  practise,  in  spite
of  their  refinement  and  taste,  if  they  be  nothing  more,
are  objects  of  less  interest  to  her,  than  many  a  poor
outcast  who  sins,  repents,  and  is  with  difficulty  kept
just  within  the  territory  of  grace. Again,  excess  iij
drinking  is  one  of  the  world's  most  disgraceful  offences
odious  it  ever  is  in  the  eyes  of  the  Church,  but  if  it
does  not  proceed  to  the  loss  of  reason,  she  thinks  it  a
far  less  sin  than  one  deliberate  act  of  detraction,
though  the  matter  of  it  be  truth. 