In the past our fathers here were only welded more firmly in the unity of allegiance to their Church by racial differences from without. Let us be careful lest racial antipathies from within break down that which was reared with labor and suffering and tears.

Hitherto the problem of racial and national feeling has been one between nation and nation; and Rome alone, the centre of all, by wise and patient legislation and charity, has preserved the just equilibrium of discipline.

Now every Bishop in America finds himself, owing to the growing variety of races in his flock, face to face with a problem which until now and here was unknown except to Rome. What but the clear knowledge of Catholic duty and Catholic principle showing this duty, what but the common faith and common obedience, and the fruits of eternal patience and true doctrine, can preserve, along with the Catholicity manifest here as never before elsewhere, that unity without which Catholicity means only discord.

No one may stand by in passive indifference; but each must act in the perfect harmony of that divine law which governs all. How else but by strictest vigilance and observance of this essential principle can the Church in America, the variety of whose membership, unique in all the Christian world, composed as it is of the children of every nation, East and West, with their national customs, sentiments, and even liturgy, be held firm in the order and discipline of the common Catholic Faith?

Look abroad and behold how unscrupulous men are systematically working to weaken the Church's strength. First, Religious Orders are the object of attack, because, forsooth, they are aliens to the country or their govern

ment is alien! The cry is as old as Christianity. It is nationalism against Catholicism. Next, the blows are directed nearer: it is the appointment of Bishops and the rights of the supreme authority of the Church that are curtailed. This too is alien! A national authority composed of men without faith or conscience would reduce the Church's anointed rulers, as Russia, as England, as all the schisms have ever done, to the pitiable condition of mere slavery to civil tyranny, and make of God's appointed leaders mere puppets of the State. And when that is accomplished the rest is easy. The Bishops' allegiance to Rome once weakened they are shorn of all their strength, their spiritual power is soon a shadow, and their authority over their flock, and the priest's respect from his people must inevitably and in quick sequence disappear. The beginnings seem small; the results are incalculable. The attack is methodical and well studied, and with the story of past victory before them in the evidences of countries once flourishing in the beauty of the Catholic Church and now practically infidel, our opponents are sure of their triumph if once an opening is made in the solid wall.

While we watch with prayerful interest the warfare waging in other lands and especially in that land to which in the Faith we owe so much, let us not flatter ourselves that we must always be immune. We thank God that in our nation, protected by our noble constitution, we are ever safe from the blows which are leveled by the government against the Church in France. But the danger may come, not in attacks from without, but from weakness within. The present malicious leader in the dire warfare against the Church in France was once one of her children. No, there is no security but in constant

vigilance, vigilance that does not wait until the outposts are down, but which by recalling to all the clear principles of Catholic truth, strengthens the mind to know duty and the will by God's grace to do it.

And we, who remembering Christ's words to the pastors of the flock, are but the least among you,1 pray God so to unite the minds and hearts of all, of Pastor and flock, that preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, we may realize in so far as in us lies the prayer of Christ, that we may be one with Him and His Eternal Father.3

Nowhere is the harmony which should bind the Chief Shepherd of a diocese to his priests stronger than among us. Let this evident example of union be imitated by the faithful of our Diocese abiding in dutiful unanimity with their priests, and by God's grace our portion of the flock of Christ will be a living witness of the Church's perfect unity.

May God, the Shepherd of all, preserve in the minds and hearts of you all, beloved brethren, priests and people alike, these principles and the love of them.

WILLIAM, Bishop of Portland.

Given at Portland, Ash Wednesday, A. D. 1904.

1 Luke xxii, 26.

2 Eph. iv, 3.

8 John xvii, 11.

PASTORAL LETTER OF FAREWELL

WILLIAM, By the Grace of God and of the Apostolic See, Archbishop of Constantia and Administrator of the Diocese of Portland, to the Reverend Clergy and People of the Diocese, Health and Benediction. The overruling designs of Divine Providence shape not only the destinies of nations but of men, and if it be true that not even a sparrow falls without the knowledge of this Providence and in obedience to its laws, it is certainly true that this poor instrument which God deigns allow to bear a large share in the government of His Church is guided to his destiny along lines the significance of which he little realized, but which at their terminus reveal their whole scope. This Providence by the voice of the Vicar of Christ has spoken to me once again and calls me to the high post of Coadjutor Archbishop with right of succession of Boston, one of the great Sees of this country and of the Church.

As I look back over the years of preparation which have unconsciously been shaping and forming ideas and ideals to this end, I am grateful to God. For if I have not gained something from the multiplied and varied posts which I have occupied during the past twenty years, the fault is certainly not of the bounty of that Providence which has opened to me so many avenues of the Church's life. Many and varied are the positions in which during the past quarter of a century I have done service: prefect in the Seminary, curate in a humble parish, even during the early years of curacy acting as parish priest in

the long continued absences and illness of the pastor of my first charge; many years of work in the most crowded quarter of a great city; in charge of Sunday School work and the education of children, at the head of Confraternities and Sodalities of young and old, shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow with the the poorest of the poor and most miserable of God's creatures, and at the same time by a strange series of circumstances, on terms of intimate relation with the heads of government in the City and the State; suddenly without any foreknowledge of mine or suspicion of what was working, brought back to Rome as Rector of the American College, there to learn by many years of service the life of a school for the training of ecclesiastics, the study of the character of young Levites, and the qualities requisite for Holy Orders; living at that time in close relation with the great Pontiff who has passed away and in close touch with those who govern the Church; gaining the unspeakable advantage of knowing the qualities which made them, of breathing in with the air of Rome the anima of the Church's life.

And all the time experience only increased my strong conviction and strong faith in the divine character of God's Church and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in its government the necessity of absolute cohesion with the centre of the Church growing into my very bones and brain and permeating my soul with the feeling that nothing could go wrong when there is attachment and devotion to the Holy See. There too I enjoyed the advantage of personal acquaintance of the great Bishops of this country, their work and their zeal; an acquaintance which, on account of my peculiar position as Rector of a National Institution at Rome, brought me into closer study