voices rise at the opening of this assembly to thank your Holiness for your fatherly condescension to a persecuted clergy, and from the bottom of our hearts we thank you for having called us together to deliberate on questions which your sovereign authority alone has the right to decide.

The first act, then, of the meeting of the Bishops of France is an act of filial love which rises to your Holiness as a sure witness of our deepest gratitude.

This blessing of praying and taking common counsel together-is it not a compensation granted by Providence for the many trials that threaten us, and have indeed already begun to press in upon us? Isolation was hard in the tranquil days of peace; how bitter it would have been in days of persecution and struggle, and how sweet it is now for us to allow that cry of the Psalmist to break forth from our pastoral and brotherly hearts: "Behold how good and joyful a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”

We are about, then, Most Holy Father, to take counsel together according to your desire, and amid our fraternal discussions, and in the shock of the various opinions which will be put forth, we shall ever have our eyes turned towards the august and infallible guardian of truth. We shall give expression to our personal views, but only in sacrificing them in advance to the judgment of Peter, which will be for us a command from on high.

The order of our labors places in the very front the study of the Papal document-a true monument at once of divine and human wisdom which judges and condemns the Law of Separation.

Already, from every pulpit in the churches of France, has been read this solemn exposition which authoritatively brands it as impious and irrevocably condemns its alleged legal procedure; already the voice of the Bishops has made itself heard in every part of the country in a respectful accord of praise and thanks to hail, as was becoming, a teaching that was at once sound and sure.

But here we are the episcopate, speaking as a body, and our voices rise in absolute unanimity to proclaim the same sentiment with still greater force and with accumulated energy the respect and love which we individually profess for the Vicar of Jesus Christ, our beloved Pontiff and Father, Pius X.

Thanks be to you, Most Holy Father, for this utterance which, grave, solemn and powerful, has resounded over a domain which was not theirs; thanks be to your Holiness for having pointed out the errors, branded the unseemliness, condemned the injustice and suspended, to the point perhaps of prohibition, the carrying out of this pernicious law.

There are in the language of encyclicals certain more solemn

formulas and weighty words from which proceeds a sentence deliberately delivered or a condemnation carefully indicated, which stand as the resumé of the whole mind of the Pontiff who is their author. These formulas have been long and carefully thought out; they have been subjected to the most rigorous examination and placed upon the altar of prayer before being published to Christian people as the calm and strong expression of truth and justice. And have not the severe words in one of the last pages of the Encyclical Vehementer this character? Do they not make us shudder-those sentences launched from so high a place and with such an accent of independence and conviction, in which it seems that the authority of man is merged and lost in that of God, who speaks in his place? And after the just severity of the condemnation come tender appeals that reveal at once the love of the father and the indulgence even of the judge, to be followed by counsels which trace the lines for exhortation and cheer us on to the struggle, to suffering and, if need be, to martyrdom.

We are the sons of the Christ who was sacrificed, successors of the Apostles, happy of being deemed worthy to suffer for Jesus Christ, brothers of the victims whose blood poured out so gloriously marks the bright pages of the history of the Church. We cannot repudiate this heritage of splendid and triumphant sacrifice. We must remain faithful to the end to such traditions of Christian pride, of untarnished and valiant honor, of strong, triumphant truth.

Such, in brief, is the document so impatiently awaited by the world after the promulgation of the law. And the world has understood it, and has been struck with this statement of the truth that enlighteneth every man coming into this world, and has bowed down before this fresh testimony borne to everlasting truth.

This, Most Holy Father, is the book which we shall read and read again during these days of prayer and toil, and in it we shall find light to guide us and a source of strength to come to a decision.

It is told in the second book of Esdras that the people of God on their return from captivity, on re-entering Jerusalem and finding everything in ruins, everywhere sought the prophet that from his mouth they might hear the reading of the sacred text and the interpretation of the word of the Lord: "And they rose up to stand; and they read in the book of the law of the Lord their God four times in the day, and four times they confessed and adored the Lord their God."

Esdras mounts the raised platform which he has had erected that he might be heard, and all around him are the principal personages of the house of Israel. All the people are standing. When Esdras unrolls the volume of the Law, his first word is a cry of thanks

giving to Almighty God, and the people answer with cries and sobs, lifting their hands, "Amen! Amen!" For the people wept, according to the testimony of the Sacred Book, on hearing read the Book of the Law: "For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law."

From this day forth it is public penance for a whole people returning from a harsh captivity. It acknowledges that it has deserved its misfortunes. No longer does it think of reproaching God with the severity of His justice. Its sole care henceforth will be to fulfill the law. Every father of a family signs his hand to this solemn pledge. All will henceforth work at the cost of many sacrifices to restore Jerusalem, its homes and its temples.

France, Most Holy Father, passed through this feverish waiting, this hope, these deep emotions and these resolutions of amendment when she was anxiously awaiting and when she heard with gladness the august word of your Holiness in the last encyclical.

With you, Holy Father, we condemn the false principles of the possible separation of Church and State; with you, under feelings of filial indignation, we suffer the unseemly and criminal audacity of a power which, burning to tear up a contract entered into with the Church, does it by itself, without any previous notice and without any communication of any sort with the Chief of the Church. With you and like you, we protest against the sacrilegious usurpation of ecclesiastical property, of churches and pious foundations; against the pretension of the civil power to regulate alone questions of the administration of church property and alone to lay down the conditions under which the organs of that administration must work.

To sum up all in a word, we blame whatever your Holiness blamed, we condemn whatever you condemned, and with eyes turned towards Rome, the mother and mistress of all Churches, we shall await in penitence and prayer the word of the future to be given to us by Peter, and then, as Catholic Bishops and Frenchmen, we shall know how to obey.

That, Holy Father, is our last word. It is also, in spite of all appearances to the contrary on the field of politics, the feeling and resolve of the great majority of our Catholic people, insufficiently enlightened as to the consequences of their votes in the election of members of Parliament. They allow themselves to be persuaded that politics and religion are two things absolutely distinct which should not be confounded; hence comes the tendency of the people to hold no account of religious interests in political matters; hence the deception of those who had seen in the election an immediate means of restoring to the Church the plenitude of her rights and liberties.

In spite of everything, however, the sentiment of faith remains inviolable at the bottom of the soul of France. Her title of eldest daughter of the Church has kept before the eyes of the people her prestige and splendor. The Roman Pontiff is heard by all French Catholics as the mouthpiece of Christ, whose Vicar he is. His word is for them sacred; his person more venerated and beloved by them than amongst any other nation, and their fidelity will not belie itself, whatever the sacrifices that may be imposed upon them, when the Bishops, united in filial submission to the Holy See, shall make known to them the practical decisions already announced in the encyclical, and for which it has pleased your Holiness to take counsel from our assemblies.

We have hopes, too, Holy Father, that your fatherly goodness will ever be able to distinguish between the people that love Christ and the Pope, His Vicar, and the hot-headed men who silence their faith for the satisfaction of their miserable ambitions. No, a thousand times no, these men are not France, and never will be; and the day when the French democracy shall be enlightened it will show itself united in the faith of its Christ and in the love of its Pope.

This is why we dare, Most Holy Father, to beg you to keep for our France all her rights as the advance guard of your sacred person, all the privileges of her protectorate of Catholic interests in the East; and also, as we remain in spite of all the great Catholic nation, that you will give us the legitimate joy of seeing replaced in your councils the Cardinals of whom death deprived us at the very moment when our trials fell most heavily.

We await, Most Holy Father, all your paternal goodness, and we cry out as Bishops beforehand, in the union of our hearts-"Long live Christ, long live His beloved Vicar, the sweet, strong, great and generous Pope Pius X.!"

Book Reviews

GREAT CATHOLIC LAYMEN. By John J. Horgan. "Is example nothing? It is everything. Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other." 12mo., pp. 388. Benziger Brothers, New York, Cincinnati and Chicago.

Father Sheehan's introduction to this book is such an admirable essay on "Catholic Biographies," that we are glad to reprint it as a whole by way of review. We intended to quote from it, but a second reading caused us to change our purpose:

"The only reason I can advance for prefixing this introduction to a book which will speak eloquently for itself is that I believe that it was I who had the good fortune of inspiring the writer with the idea of the necessity in our age of some such handbook of Catholic biography as this proves to be. For the need, though perfectly apparent, never seems to have attracted Catholic writers; or if it did, they must have assured themselves that the time was not ripe for such a publication, or that Catholic sense and intelligence were not ripe enough to demand it. And yet who has not felt the want of some such compilation as that now presented to the public? The great writers, thinkers and workers of other religions have been glorified by studies, memoirs, biographies or reminiscences without number. Their reliques, letters--everything appertaining to them-have been published, and read eagerly by a public who delight in probing into the secrets of its heroes. Their works have been issued in every kind of novel edition, their portraits reproduced in etching, engraving and photograph. Their habits of life, their studies, their books have been eagerly searched for indisputable signs of a genius already acknowledged. For the narrower reading circles of the public, analecta have been culled and sifted and selected; and young authors and aspiring workers have been bidden to go to these masters to study their lives for the formation of character or intellect, and their books, their habits, etc., to learn therefrom how to take the initial steps towards the success that crowned their life efforts.

"I cannot recall the name of one great pagan, or Protestant, who has been neglected. But what of your Catholic writers and workers? You seek their names in vain in encyclopædia or dictionary of biography. The world has deemed them unworthy of notice; and we have accepted the verdict. Hence you will not find in the many volumes that are now published under the title 'Great Statesmen' a notice, much less a life, of Windthorst or O'Connell; or if these distinguished men are mentioned, it is to be dismissed in a few brief,