In the midst of so many discontented, turbulent, persecuting,
semi-barbarous States, there was one where there was neither discontent,
nor turbulence, nor persecution. This favored Republic of Ecuador was in
close communion with Pius IX., and its president discarding all the
fine-spun views and chimerical theories of the time, ruled, as became the
chief of a free State, according to the wishes and the generally accepted
principles of his people. A republic, so governed, provided it remain
uncorrupt, cannot fail to enjoy the highest degree of prosperity
compatible with its position and material resources. Not only did Ecuador
itself enjoy the fruits of its truly free and rationally republican
government, it was able also to extend the blessings of its Christian and
liberal civilization to neighboring tribes. Moved by the example and the
representations of the good people of Ecuador, nine thousand savages of
the Province of Oriente were induced to adopt the habits of Christian
civilization. The government of the enlightened president, Garcia Moreno,
was so abundantly blessed that, in twelve years, the trade of Ecuador was
doubled, as were also the number of its schools and the sum of its public
revenues.
So bright an illustration of the good-working of sound principles was not
to be tolerated. The love of a grateful and prosperous people could not
protect their great and successful fellow-citizens against the weapons of
secret conspirators. Political fanatics, who were strangers in Ecuador,
and who, according to their own declaration, bore no personal ill-will to
the president, struck the fatal blow. “I die,” said the illustrious
victim, as he expired, “but God dieth not!” The assassins were they who
hold that God has no business in this world. “_Dixit insipicus; non est
Deus_.”
Pius IX. lamented the death of Garcia Moreno, as he had lamented some
seven-and-twenty years before, the untimely fate of his own minister,
Count Rossi. He extolled the President of Ecuador in several allocutions,
as the champion of true civilization and its martyr. He caused his
obsequies to be solemnized in one of the Basilicas of Rome, over which he
still held authority, and ordered that his bust should be placed in one of
the galleries of the Vatican.
In the estimation of a certain class of politicians, Moreno was behind the
age. In reality he was far in advance of it. The mania for Godless
government, Godless education, Godless manners, and generally a Godless
state of society, is only a passing phase on the face of the world. If,
indeed, it be anything more, woe to mankind! Despair only can harbor the
idea of its long continuance. The social and political chaos which darkens
the age, must, surely, a little sooner or a little later, give way to that
order which is heaven’s first law. Moreno beheld, through the storms that
raged around his infant State, the early dawn of this better day. This
light led him onwards. History will place him, not only among heroes and
sages, but also among the most renowned initiators of great movements. His
death is a glorious protest against the Godless, reckless, revolutionary
sects. His high career will be as a monument throughout the centuries,
constantly reminding mankind that, in this age, which may well be called
the age of chaos and confusion—confusion in politics, confusion in the
social State, confusion of ideas—there was, at least, one favored spot,
where truth, order and justice reigned, and there was a contented and
happy people.