Chapter XVII. Civil And Religious Liberty. 225 it. The ruler may even enter into a compact in order to secure to his subjects this freedom in religious matters; and when once a compact is made it must be observed absolutely in every point, just as every other lawful and honest contract.301 This is the true Catholic teaching on this point, according to Becanus and all Catholic theologians. So that if Catholics should gain the majority in a community where freedom of conscience is already secured to all by law, their very religion obliges them to respect the rights thus acquired by their fellow-citizens. What danger can there be, then, for Protestants, if Catholics should be in the majority here? Their apprehensions are the result of vain fears, [231] which no honest mind ought any longer to harbor. The Church has not only respected the conscience of the people in embracing the religion of their choice, but she has also defended their civil rights and liberties against the encroachments of temporal sovereigns. One of the popular errors that have taken possession of some minds in our times is that in former days the Church was leagued with princes for the oppression of the people. This is a base calumny, which a slight acquaintance with ecclesiastical history would soon dispel. The truth is, the most unrelenting enemies of the Church have been the princes of this world, and so-called Christians princes, too. The conflict between Church and State has never died out, because the Church has felt it to be her duty, in every age, to raise her voice against the despotic and arbitrary measures of princes. Many of them chafed under the salutary discipline of the Church. They wished to be rid of her yoke. They desired to be governed by no law except the law of their licentious passions and boundless ambitions. And as a Protestant American reviewer302 well said about forty years ago, it was a blessing of Providence that there was a spiritual Power on earth that could stand like a wall of 301 Becanus, de Virtutibus Theologicis, c. 16, quasst. 4, No. 2. 302 Dr. Brownson, who was then a Protestant.