John Lateran by the Roman wall, but are pilgrims to
the low marshes, the white water lilies, the lone Byzantine ruin that
even the sea has long abandoned.
"The Mother-Church?--is then this personal religious life only a state
of orphanage? Because true life necessarily begins in the independent
self, must it continue without the sheltering of the traditional past,
the instructed guidance of older wisdom, and man's joint life in common
which by association so enlarges and fortifies the individual good? Why
should one not behave with respect to religion as he does in other
parts of life? It is our habit elsewhere in all quarters to recognize
beyond ourselves an ampler knowledge, a maturer judgment, a more
efficient will enacting our own choice. To obey by force is a childish
or a slavish act, but intelligently and willingly to accept authority
within just limits is the reasonable and practical act of a free man in
society; the recognition of this by a youth marks his attainment of
intellectual majority. Authority, in all its modes, is the bond of the
commonwealth; until the youth comprehends it he is a ward; thereafter he
is either a rebel or a citizen, as he lists.
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