Edward the Confessor was a saint, and yet be prepared
the way for the Norman conquest of England; and France owes
infinitely less to St. Louis than to Louis XI., Richelieu, and
Napoleon, who, though no saints, were statesmen. What is
specially needed in statesmen is public spirit, intelligence,
foresight, broad views, manly feelings, wisdom, energy,
resolution; and when statesmen with these qualities are placed at
the head of affairs, the state, if not already lost, can, however
far gone it may be, be recovered, restored, reinvigorated,
advanced, and private vice and corruption disappear in the
splendor of public virtue. Providence is always present in the
affairs of nations, but not to work miracles to counteract the
natural effects of the ignorance, ineptness, short-sightedness,
narrow views, public stupidity, and imbecility of rulers, because
they are irreproachable and saintly in their private characters
and relations, as was Henry VI. of England, or, in some respects,
Louis XVI. of France. Providence is God intervening through the
laws he by his creative act gives to creatures, not their
suspension or abrogation. It was the corruption of the
statesmen, in substituting the barbaric element for the proper
Roman, to which no one contributed more than Constantine, the
first Christian emperor, that was the real cause of the downfall
of Rome, and the centuries of barbarism that followed, relieved
only by the superhuman zeal and charity of the church to save
souls and restore civilization.
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