INTRODUCTION.

While the booming cannons and pealing bells were announcing during the past year that a quarter of a century had fled since the defeat of the temporal power of the Papal Government by force of arms at the Porta Pia, is it not an appropriate time to give a few thoughts also to the victory which the Papacy won in that same year, in the spiritual field?

The war concerning the prerogatives of the Pope which was ended by this victory in favor of infallibility was a long one, extending over centuries, prosecuted on one side against enormous odds with all the sagacity and vigor which has become identified with the name of the Society of Jesus, ard on the other hand with all the learning and piety associated with the name of Gallicanism.

Twenty-five years may seem perhaps too short a time to estimate the full effect of a victory, so important that men have been willing to toil through centuries for its achievement; but the task is lightened by the fact that the Roman Catholic Church, during the greater part of this time, had for its head a pontiff of the extraordinary enterprise, vigor and learning of Leo XIII., who has not hesitated to use to its fullest extent what was probably the greatest opportunity for the exercise of power ever given to mortal man, by outlining the future of Roman Catholic thought, in all the chief departments of human life.

As Leo XIII. possesses also the unrestricted po of selecting the men who will nominate his succes and has had the similar right of nominating dire or indirectly the bishops, clergy and teachers for whole Church during the long period of his pon cate, it seems most improbable that any attemp alter the plan laid out by him for the Church's velopment would be made, even if the very idea the infallibility of its author did not negative possibility of a retreat or of even a criticism. M over irresolution is certainly not a vice of school which has struggled so long and successf for papal predominance, and when we see the use made of this power to be in furtherance of primary doctrines of De Maistre, Cortes and G set, we can safely assume that this course will no changed until the attempt has been made to re in practice their ultimate conclusions.

Cortes, the revivor of Catholicism in Spain director of the studies of Queen Isabella of S whose "Essay on Catholicism" was translated French, with the approval of Pius IX., says: "Ca icism is a complete system of civilization. It complete that in its immensity it includes ev thing-the science of God, of angels, of the univ and of men. Catholicism controls the body senses and the souls of men. Its dogmatic theo teaches men what they must believe; its ethic struct them as to the duties of life. Without Ca icism there can be neither good sense among lower ranks nor virtue among the middle classe sanctity among the eminent."

The details of this plan of civilization had not however been authoritatively announced by the predecessors of Leo XIII. The controversy between Mr. Gladstone and Cardinal Manning, which sprang up at the time of the promulgation of the Vatican Decrees, ended with the declaration on the part of the Cardinal: "But what has this to do with Civil Allegiance? There is not a syllable on the subject (in the Vatican Decrees); there is not a proposition which can be twisted or tortured into such a meaning. For the present it will be enough to give the reason why the Vatican Council did. not touch the question of the relations of the Church to the Civil Powers. The reason is simple. It intended not to touch them until it could treat them fully and as a whole. And it has carefully adhered to its intention." (" Vatican Decrees," pp. 20 and 35.)

Pius IX. never attempted to supply this omission ; his Syllabus of Errors was published long before the Vatican Decrees, and besides, being merely in a negative form, it was not promulgated by him as a whole in the form of an encyclical. He was apparently content to supply the material-like another David, leaving the construction of the temple to his successor, the Solomon of the Church. The noiseless manner in which the latter has carried on his part of the work has concealed it from public attention-many would even deny that it had been begun.

How faithfully Leo XIII. has striven to carry out this great undertaking appears from the testimony of his most ardent admirers; in the words of Cardinal Satolli: "With regard to sociology, it is an