[Alfonso Maria de' Liguori, “La fedeltà de' vassalli verso Dio”, 1777.]
CHAPTER I. – IF KINGS WISH THEIR SUBJECTS TO BE OBEDIENT TO THEM, THEY MUST ENDEAVOR TO MAKE THEM OBEDIENT TO GOD. PROOF OF THIS ASSERTION.
By promoting good morals we promote also peace among citizens, and consequently the good of the whole state. This is an evident truth, which is everywhere proved by experience: subjects that obey the com mandments of God are necessarily obedient to the laws of princes. The fidelity that the subjects practise towards God renders them faithful to their sovereigns. The reason of this is clear: when subjects obey the divine precepts, we see a cessation of licentiousness, of thefts, of frauds, of adulteries, of homicides; then the state flourishes, order is maintained by submission to the sovereign, and peace is preserved in families. In a word, those that resolve to lead an orderly life resolve at the same time to fulfil their duties: they will take care to suppress their passions, and so live in peace with themselves and with others.
But, one will say, for this purpose the laws of princes and the punishments inflicted upon delinquents are suf ficient. No, these things are not sufficient; human laws with their penalties cannot suffice to check the boldness and inordinate passions of bad subjects who seek only to serve their own interests and to gratify their wicked desires. If, when an occasion presents itself, they despise the laws and chastisements of God, they also will easily despise the laws of their sovereign and the punishments with which he threatens them.
Human laws can aid in preserving good morals in those subjects that are well disposed, but they cannot infuse them into those that are depraved; religion alone introduces into souls and forms in them holy morals, and thus causes the laws to be observed. If religion were not there, teaching that there is a God who sees everything and knows how to punish the wickedness of the impious, rarely would they make an effort to fulfil their duties; and without this fear of divine justice which restrains men, the number of the wicked would everywhere multiply enormously.
It is religion alone that renders subjects truly obedient to their princes, by teaching them that they are obliged to obey their sovereigns, not only to avoid the punishments inflicted upon transgressors, but also to obey God and to preserve peace of conscience, according to the teaching of St. Paul, who declares that the sovereigns are the ministers of God: For they are the ministers of God, serving unto this purpose. He moreover adds, that the laws of princes even bind the consciences of subjects: Wherefore be subject of necessity, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake?
Neither the laws nor the punishments that they menace suffice, therefore, to repress the boldness of malefactors who trouble the public peace; for often misdeeds remain unpunished, either because the delinquents remain hidden, or because sufficient proofs are wanting to condemn them; and it is not rare that the guilty, although their misdeeds are well proved, escape punishment by flight. Le Clerc, although a heretic, said: "Most men are incapable of doing what is right solely in view of the public good; private interest is nearly always opposed to the common good; only the fear of divine chastisements keeps in check all dis orders."
On the other hand, as it is true that the princes are the ministers of God and his representatives, since the subjects are obliged even in conscience to obey their princes, so the princes are obliged to watch over their subjects that they may obey God. For a private individual it is sufficient to observe the law of God in order to save his soul; but for a king that is not sufficient. He must do all that he can, that his subjects may observe the law of God by endeavoring to reform bad morals and extirpating scandals.
And when the honor of God is at stake, the princes should arm themselves with courage, and not fail in their duty through fear of any adversity or contradiction that may arise; for every king that fulfils his duty has God to assist him, as the Lord himself has declared to Josue when he intrusted to him the government of his people: Take courage, and be strong. Fear not, and be not dismayed; because the Lord thy God is with thee.
Consequently the principal end that princes should propose to themselves in the government is not their own glory, but the glory of God. Those that forget the glory of God to occupy themselves only with their own glory, shall lose both. Whoever governs should be persuaded that it is not possible for him in this world, filled with wicked and ignorant people, to acquire by his acts, however just and holy they may be, the praises and the applause of all his subjects. If he exercises liberality towards the good and the poor, they will call him a spendthrift; if he executes justice in regard to the wicked, he will be called a tyrant:. Kings should, therefore, seek to please God rather than men; for then, if they are not praised by the wicked, they will be praised by the good, and above all by God who will know how to reward them in this life and in the next.
Princes should in a special manner be watchful that their states be purged of people that profess false doctrine; hence many Catholic sovereigns admit to their service neither heretics nor schismatics. They should also strictly prohibit the introduction of books infected with pernicious doctrines; the want of precaution of certain princes against this sort of books has caused the ruin of several kingdoms.
One should also consider how many virtuous princesses have increased the glory of God and piety among the subjects by their devotion and the good example which they have given. This one may see in the Lives of St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal; St. Hedwig, Duchess of Poland; St. Bridget, Princess of Sweden; and St. Catharine, her daughter.
CHAPTER II. – MEANS TO INDUCE SUBJECTS TO BE OBEDIENT TO GOD.
Let us now see which are the means used by good princes to induce their subjects to live like Christians.
1. In the distribution of offices and of honors, they give the preference to those that distinguish themselves by a more irreproachable life, excepting the case in which, in an affair of great importance to the State, another would be much more capable. Princes, how ever, should always consider that those persons who are more pleasing to God, receive from the Lord greater lights and much more strength to secure the execution of the orders that regard the public good.
2. They bestow with liberality graces and favors upon the good, and they are on the other hand reserved and strict in regard to those that lead wicked lives.
3. They take care to have always near them at court persons that are edifying in their conduct; for princes can always trust such persons, but not those that are free in their manners.
4. They profit by every occasion to praise the virtuous, and they show that they esteem but little those that care not for piety. .If it is understood that the prince looks upon good people with an eye different from that with which he looks upon libertines, this would be sufficient to reform the greater part of the subjects of his kingdom. Hence it is advisable for princes to invite to their courts zealous preachers who can persuade each one of his duty to serve God.
5. They should choose functionaries who are not only exact in rendering justice, but who are also filled with the fear of God; for those that are not filled with the fear of God will hardly be exact in the administration of justice as they should be. Moreover, they should also take care that the functionaries are zealous for the laws, not only by observing them themselves, but by having them observed by others, in order that the laws may be maintained in all their rigor.
6. As for the choice of functionaries, many Catholic princes are accustomed to employ for this purpose their counsel or the highest tribunal, to whom they pro pose three subjects among whom they choose him who seems to them the most worthy, so that in this way they may assure themselves of having the best.
7. Then, in order that the functionaries chosen may suitably acquit themselves of their charge, the prince should, as well as he can, reward those that behave themselves, and punish those that neglect their duty.
8. The ecclesiastical offices to which the prince has the right to make appointments should be conferred upon the most worthy subjects. It is also expedient that ecclesiastical pensions be granted to those that have labored most for the Church.
9. The prince should also see to it that the Superiors of religious Orders have the rules of their Institute observed; for when the religious fail in their duty and those in charge neglect to correct them, great injury to seculars and to the State itself will be the result.
A Few Maxims concerning the Good Government of the Kingdom in order that all may conduce to the Glory of God, of the King, and to the Welfare of the Subjects.
1. The good prince, in order to govern well, always has God before his eyes, and he prefers the interests of God s glory to every reason of State.
2. He shows himself an enemy to every kind of flattery; he loves the one that tells him the truth, and he wishes every one to know this. When Henry IV., King of France, was asked why he loved so much the Bishop of Geneva, who was St. Francis de Sales, he answered: "I love him because he does not flatter me."
3. He exercises justice towards every one, without passion and without partiality.
4. Before resolving important affairs, he examines everything himself.
5. In all doubtful things, or where a doubt is possible, he must consult prudent men.
6. This is the reason why he does his best to choose counsellors who are wise and of an upright conscience.
7. After having taken counsel and the counsel has been judged good, he should carry it out with firmness, unless he meets with another good reason that is the very opposite. To change ones opinion for a good reason is not weakness; it is praiseworthy prudence.
8. When he hears any one praised or blamed, let him be slow to believe what is said, and let him examine whether he that speaks does not speak with a view to personal interest.
9. Finally, the good prince, in order to urge his subjects to live well, relies more on good example than on force. The good example of the prince effects more in this respect than a thousand private individuals.
10. It is the duty not only of the bishops but also of the sovereign to induce the subjects to practise exercises of devotion, and to render to God the honor that is due to him. It is said that in the world one must have fortune; well, it is piety which is the foundation of the true fortune of all men, and especially of princes. It is certain that all prosperity or adversity depends on God, who disposes all things; no one, therefore, can hope for more happiness in the present life than he that renders himself most pleasing to God by his piety. The Lord takes to heart the prosperity of those princes that take especially to heart the glory of God. In a word, a sovereign who desires to govern well his temporal kingdom should live in such a manner as to make himself worthy of the eternal kingdom.
CHAPTER III. – EXAMPLES OF PRINCES WHO BY THEIR ZEAL CONTRIBUTED. MUCH TOWARDS THE SPIRITUAL WELFARE OF THE PEOPLE.
1. Emperor Constantine.
Among these princes, he who deserves to be mentioned in the first place is the great Emperor Constantine. Etisebius relates that this prince judged that only God whom his father had adored should be acknowledged and venerated, when he considered that the other em perors, who had put alt confidence in a multitude of gods, after having immolated to them so many victims and offered so many gifts, found themselves disappointed in the hopes which the oracles had made them enter tain, and that they all ended their lives by an unfor tunate death, while his father Constantius alone, after having condemned the errors of his colleagues and rec ognized one only God as his Lord, died a happy death.
At this epoch, being at war with the tyrant Maxentius who reigned at Rome, Constantine began to supplicate the omnipotent God to enlighten and to help him in the state in which he was. God, who is full of mercy, did not fail to take the young emperor under his protection. Towards the end of the same day a luminous cross appeared to Constantine and to his whole army; it shone in the heavens above the sun, and bore this inscription: In hoc vince.
Then the emperor sent for some Christian priests to explain to him the meaning of this sign and of this inscription. Having received the desired explanation, (so Cardinal Orsi writes), and having been thoroughly instructed by the priests, he resolutely embraced the faith of Jesus Christ. At the same time he had a model of the Labarum made, representing the sign of the cross that had appeared to him. Afterwards, in the wars that he had to wage, the Labarum was carried before him in every battle, and he always gained the victory.
In regard to the war against Maxentius, after the apparition of the cross, Constantine was animated with great courage; he engaged in a battle under the walls of Rome, October 28, 312, and gained a brilliant victory which filled the whole empire with joy on account of the death of the tyrant, who was drowned in the Tiber. The victorious emperor, full of gratitude to God, would even have desired to abolish idolatry; but in the beginning he had to tolerate many things, because the Romans were too much attached to their gods. For the rest, he at once began to favor the Christian faith as much as he could, and he publicly made known even in Rome itself what was due to the Pope, who was at that time St. Melchiades, and to the priests by admit ting them to his table.
Then he undertook to establish the worship of the true God in various parts of the empire, by the building of many magnificent churches, which he enriched with precious vessels and ornaments and endowed them with abundant revenues. He also published several edicts in favor of the Church and of the faithful, and for this he even obtained the sanction of the Senate.
The Lord also augmented the prosperity of Constantine by the death of his enemies Maximian and of Licinius, who did not cease to persecute the Church. In regard to the Church he continued, as he had proposed to himself, to labor so as to unite the empire in the belief in Jesus Christ, and he persecuted not only the idolaters but also the heretics, and especially the Arians. Hence in 325, in order to put an end to this heresy, he promoted the assembling of the Council of Nice at which he wished to be present himself. At the sight of this august assembly of bishops, of whom several bore the scars of the wounds suffered during the preceding persecutions, he was transported with joy, rendered thanks to God, and encouraged these holy prelates to defend with firmness the cause of God. The Council having finished by condemning Arius, before the bishops separated the emperor wished to receive all of them at table, and he made each one of them a noble present. But he was more particularly generous towards those bishops who still bore the marks of the persecution they had endured.
He afterwards began to found at Rome several churches, such as that of the Saviour in the Lateran, that of St. Peter in the Vatican, that of St. Paul in the Ostian Way. He also built many others at Rome and in many distant provinces, in Greece, in Africa, in Egypt, and in Syria.
Seeing afterwards that the Roman people persisted in defending idolatry to the injury of so many souls, he resolved to found in the city of Byzantium in the East a new Rome, which was to be peopled only by the disciples of Jesus Christ, and which he called after his own name Constantinople. Permitting only Catholics to live there, he excluded therefrom all infidels and heretics. From this place he also issued several edicts against the Novatians, the Marcionites, and other heretics, by forbidding their sects all private or public exercise of worship. Moreover, he ordained that all oratories where the heretics held their meetings should be handed over to the Catholics.
In a word, since Constantine, enlightened from on high, resolved to embrace the faith, he always lived as, a true Catholic. A certain author taxed him with a leaning towards the doctrine of Arius; but in ecclesiastical history it is too plainly seen that he always venerated and defended the Council of Nice in which Arius was condemned. But why did Constantine receive baptism at the hands of Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was an Arian? The reason is because Eusebius and Arius deceived him by making him believe that their doctrine was the same as that of the Council. Men, even the wisest and the holiest, are liable to be deceived without any fault of theirs, as was the case with Constantine. For the rest, Natalis Alexander in a learned dissertation affirms and proves that all the ancient writers, such as St. Athanasius, St. Epiphanius, and St. Hilary, agree in saying that Constantine always remained firmly attached to the Catholic faith; for this the Lord rewarded him with a happy death.
There is a discussion among authors about his bap tism and death. Cardinal Baronius, with several others, says that Constantine was baptized at Rome in 324 by Pope St. Sylvester; however, the learned of the present day more commonly believe, and with more probability, that he received baptism at the end of his life at Nico media, as we are informed by Fleury, Cardinal Orsi, and Natalis Alexander, with St. Ambrose, St. Isidore, and others. They say that Constantine, having fallen ill at Nicomedia, and growing worse, he called several bishops and begged them to confer baptism upon him. After he had received it he felt such consolation that he cried out: "Now I find myself truly happy!" Then as his officers were expressing the pain that they felt in seeing him in this state and the desire that they had for the preservation of his life, he answered them: "I have just received true life; I desire nothing more than to go to enjoy my God." It was in these pious sentiments that he died, May 22 of the year 337. In the Greek Martyrology, according to what Natalis Alexander says, he is venerated as Blessed on May 21.
2. St. Louis, King of France.
In reference to the subject that occupies us, the honor of God and the salvation of souls, he who merits to be mentioned for the second place is a great king and a great saint; it is the King of France, St. Louis. I omit to praise here all the virtues of this illustrious prince; books containing the history of his glorious life are everywhere found. To give an idea of his great zeal for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls, it suffices to recall to mind the magnanimous courage with which he undertook the conquest of the Holy Land in order to deliver it from the hands of the Saracens.
History informs us that the first time that he set out for Egypt with his army in 1249, having arrived with his naval forces before the city of Damietta and seeing himself surrounded by the principal lords of his kingdom, he thus spoke to them: "Friends, if we are united in charity, victory is ours. Let us then attack the enemy with courage. Do not regard my person; lam like any one among you whose life the Lord may take if he pleases. Whatever will happen will always be advantageous to us: if we are conquered, we shall be martyrs; if we are victorious, this will be for the glory of God. It is for God that we are fighting; we desire only his glory and not ours." Then, having ordered all to dis embark, the king was the first to go ashore to engage in a hand-to-hand conflict with the hostile forces who were waiting for him; but, seized with astonishment at such courage, they took to flight, so that Damietta was captured on the sixth day.
It is true, it did not please the Lord to allow the enterprise to succeed; for a pestilence having broken out among the troops, St. Louis was obliged to return to France. Later, however, in 1270, he resumed the enter prise; but disease again attacked his soldiers, and, being himself seized with the malady, he laid down his life amidst the barbarians. Such a death, however, pro cured for him the greatest merit in heaven.
Let us now consider the zeal with which he was animated for the spiritual good of his subjects. He under took for this purpose to visit his States, and in this visit lie left everywhere marks of his great piety and of his justice. He specially published most severe edicts against blasphemers and perjurers, and ordered that their tongues should be pierced with a red-hot iron. He said: "I would consent to suffer myself this torture if I could by this means banish from my kingdom blasphemy and perjury."
He never omitted to devote himself every day to the good government of his subjects, so that everything might be in order and all scandals might be avoided. At the same time he never failed to make every day his meditation and spiritual reading, and prayed for him self and for the people intrusted to his care. One of his intimate friends, seeing that he employed much time in the exercise of piety, said to him one day that this was too much; but the saint replied: "If I spent much more time in amusements, as is usual with those in my state, no one would say anything about the matter." It is thus that he merited to die a happy death.
3. St. Stephen, King of Hungary.
The third place is occupied by St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary. He was born in 977, when the greater part of Hungary was yet pagan. Having succeeded his father in 997, and wishing to attract his idolatrous subjects to the worship of the true God, he began by often assembling a large number of them in his palace, where, having received them with kindness and affability, he himself instructed them in the divine law. But the obstinate pagans suspecting that the king wished to force them to change their religion, a great multitude of them revolted, so that the saint was obliged to oppose them by an army of Christians. It would have been easy for him to reign peaceably, had he wished to permit the unbelievers to live according to their false law; but the good prince preferred the advantages of religion to those of the State. Hence, full of confidence in God and in his dearly beloved Sovereign the Blessed Virgin, under whose protection he had placed his kingdom, he did not refuse to give battle, although the number of unbelievers was much superior to his own soldiers. The pagans were totally defeated.
When he saw these obstacles removed, he labored to rid his kingdom of all that remained of idolatry. For this purpose he invited from various parts religious priests to come to preach the Gospel to his people; and as he himself was always found at the head of the missionaries, the conversion of the country was general. He then divided the kingdom into eleven dioceses, and chose the city of Strigonia as the Metropolitan See. For this he obtained the approbation of Pope Sylvester II., who conferred upon him the title of king, and con firmed all the bishoprics that he had established and all the bishops that he had appointed.
Later on, when Emperor Conrad II. had sent a formidable army to take possession of Hungary, he re signed himself entirely to the hands of God, and the Lord, who loved this faithful servant, did not fail to protect him. At the moment when the attack was feared, the troops of Conrad withdrew, and no one ever heard why the Emperor ordered the retreat of his powerful army.
When the saint had restored peace to his kingdom, he devoted himself entirely to the work of making the religion of Jesus Christ prosper, and of removing abuses. To this end he published several very salutary laws in order to abolish the barbarous customs of his subjects. At the same time he charged himself with the care of the poor and of the administration of justice for all kinds of persons. He thus employed the greatest part of the day in the government of his subjects; as for the night, he devoted it to meditating on the eternal truths and to recommending himself and his subjects to God.
Entirely resigned to the divine will, he suffered in peace the death of all his children, and especially that of Emeric, his eldest son, who was endowed with the greatest virtue, and whom he loved fondly. He also suffered with exemplary patience his numerous infirmities until God, in 1038, called him to heaven at the age of sixty-one. He died in profound peace on the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, whom he had honored with singular devotion during his whole life, and to whom he had raised a magnificent church in which he wished to be buried.
4. St. Ethelbert, King of England.
When St. Gregory the Great, in 596, had sent the monk St. Augustine, accompanied by other religious, to preach the faith in England, King Ethelbert, en lightened and converted, gained by the aid which he gave to these good missionaries several provinces to the religion of Jesus Christ. His successors, continuing to favor the mission, had the consolation of seeing this kingdom remain faithful till the time of the unfortunate King Henry VIII., who in 1533 separated from the Church. During this interval one may say that England was a seminary of saints, so that there was found no country that had not as its special protector one of its own canonized countrymen. But then came Henry VIII., who, forming a new heresy, declared himself the head of the Church; and from that time till the present the kingdom has become a sink of heresies in which all Protestant sects find room, while the Catholic religion is banished from the whole country. O England! who should not weep with compassion when considering what thou wert formerly, the Land of Angels, as thou wast called, and what thou art at the present day!
5. Louis XIV., King of France.
It would take too long were I to relate here what has been done by many other monarchs who by their zeal have purged their kingdoms of infidels or heretics. But I cannot omit to mention with special praise what was accomplished by the great Louis XIV., a truly Christian king. In 1685 he revoked the Edict of Nantes of the year 1598, by which his predecessor, Henry IV., had permitted the Huguenots the free exercise of the impious sect of Calvin. Louis XIV., not withstanding the clamors of the Calvinists, courageously prohibited all their religious exercises and all their assemblies, public and private, under the penalty of imprisonment and confiscation of property. He T moreover, ordained that all those subjects that wished to profess their pretended reformed religion to depart from all the lands subject to his authority, together with their wives and children; he allowed them only to take with them their personal property.
There were at that time politicians who taxed with imprudence this measure by which the king banished from his kingdom so many thousand families, so many millions of gold, so many renowned artisans, who were obliged to go to live in a strange country on account of religion. But Louis Muratori says: "The king wished to prefer the welfare of the Catholic religion and the peace of his kingdom to his own interest; for the State, on account of preceding events^never felt itself secure while harboring in its bosom people of a different religion, who never ceased to injure it and to hamper the exercise of its power. In a word," concludes Muratori, "so pious and generous an action on the part of Louis XIV. will always suffice to render his name glorious and immortal."
5. Charles Emmanuel I., Duke of Savoy.
There are not wanting other similar examples that we may relate; but those given seem to suffice because I do not wish to weary the reader. I cannot, however, omit to relate here the manner in which Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, brought about with the divine help the conversion of Chablais, which was quite infected with Calvinism The inhabitants of this whole country had entirely abandoned the Catholic religion, and lived without sacraments, without churches, and without priests, having only preachers who continued to pervert them. It was then that the Duke wrote to the Bishop of Geneva to persuade him to make choice of several fervent missionaries, and to send them to preach to his erring people in order to bring them back to their old religion. He promised to aid them with his protection. The bishop chose as the head of the mission St. Francis de Sales, who with his companions converted a large number of heretics, but many others remained obstinate.
The Duke had then recourse to several other means to secure the entire conversion of Chablais; especially did he wish to go there himself so as to give the mission the aid of his presence and of his authority. But seeing that the obstinate did not wish to yield, he one day ordered all the heretics to assemble the following day at his palace. He then went there himself, accompanied by his soldiers, who might prevent all disorder.
When he saw them all gathered before him, he bade all to be silent and said that, although in the beginning he could have used authority and force to make them re-enter the Catholic Church which they had abandoned, yet he-wished to employ only peaceable and gentle means by which the most of the erring ones had already been brought back to the bosom of the Church. Seeing the others blinded to such an extent as to wish to rum themselves in this world and the next, he declared that he had decided not to suffer in his States those who by their obstinacy would show themselves enemies of God and of their prince. Consequently, he ordered the good to separate themselves from the obstinate, and those that wished to follow his religion should place themselves on his right, and the others should stand on his left.
When he had ceased speaking and had wait, some time, a small number remained on the left, and the greater part went over to his right. Then the Duke, turning to the latter, said that he would always consider them his faithful subjects who could rely on his favor; then turning towards those on his left, he spoke thus to them: "As to you who in my presence dare to declare yourselves the enemies of God and my enemies, you must leave my States without any hope of ever being able to come back. I deprive you of your offices and your dignities; for I prefer to have no subjects than to have such as you are, whom I should always have to mistrust." Having said this, he turned his back upon them. But afterwards the Lord consoled this good prince; for St. Francis de Sales, after this event, had the happiness of inducing them all repent and to be converted; whereupon he was able to obtain for the prince the favor of their return, so that they all lived in peace in their country.
Conclusion.
These last two examples make us see especially how ill-founded is the opinion of some cavillers who say that even in Catholic kingdoms unbelievers should be tolerated in order that the peace of the State may be preserved. Peace is a gift of God; how can those that are the enemies of God preserve the peace? A heretic named John Leonard Froœreisen in a discourse which he published at Strasbourg, speaking of the churches of the communion of Augsburg, although a Lutheran, wrote this memorable sentence against himself: "Our communion is an army in which every one wishes to be the chief. It is a serpent, cut up into several parts, which lives but will soon die." This means that among unbelievers every one wishes to act as he pleases, because, as has been said at the beginning, those that do not obey God will nu longer obey their sovereign.
We know that sovereigns cannot always do what they wish for the good of religion. They must some times use prudence in order not to lose everything. I also know that it is not expedient to employ force to induce subjects to embrace the true faith. Force was formerly a means used by tyrants who wished to compel men to believe what they should not believe, such as God forces no one to come to him: Nullum adse trahit inritum. He wishes us to adore him with a free heart, without constraint. Moreover, zealous princes did not fail to use means more appropriate and more efficacious than force, in order to prevail upon their subjects to follow sound doctrine; and when every other means fails them, they call into their States good missionaries who by holy instruction dissipate error and make known true faith and the true way of salvation, as have done the before-mentioned princes and many others.
It is true, it is the duty of the bishops to found missions; but experience has proved that the zeal of a virtuous and prudent prince is worth more than a thousand bishops, a thousand missions, and a thousand missionaries. Hence when a Catholic prince has heretics in his States, he should try his best to have with him good priests to labor for the conversion of these unbelievers. In many non-Catholic countries it is forbidden to zealous preachers to enter; but a prince who loves the glory of God may remedy this evil by his power and his prudence.
I conclude, so as not to weary the reader; since it was for this reason that I have made this little work as brief as possible. I finish it while praying to God to give by his grace to all sovereigns, especially to those into whose hands this writing will fall, the courage to co-operate in the increase of his glory. I implore at the same time our Lord to grant them a happy reign in this life and perfect happiness in life eternal.
