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This which is the ease of individuals is about equally so of States. They too unavoidably got stuck in dangerous roads when the jy turn aside from the perm: ment wey. He who is the Creator and also. the Redeemer of inankind, the Son of God, is the King and Master of the universe, and possesses a sover eign power ov er men, whether taken separately or united in society. * And He gave him power and glory, and a kingdom ; and all peoples, tribes and tongues shall serve Him " (Dan. VII 14) * But I have been appointed King by Him. . . 1 will give Thee nations as Thine inheritance, and the utmost ends of the earth shall be Thy domain. ("Ps. 11.) The law of Christ in society and in human groupings ought therefore to have such a value that it would serve to "direct and to govern not only private life but also publie. Since the Divine will has thus ordained and determined, that no one ean resist it with impunity, it follows that it watches evil in the common interest of the matter everywhere where Christian institutions have not the place which they ought to have. Jesus having been set aside, human reason is left to its weakness, deprived of its greatest support and of its better light. Then the perception of the cause which, throught the work of God has bred a universal society amongst men, easily gets him. This society exists chiefly so that by the help of social bonds the members of the socie ty may realize unaffected welfare, but in such a fashion as to harmonize completely with the good, perfect and eternal Sovereign. Those who govern and those who are governed, in fact all those whose minds are best, by the confusion of things, start away from the right road, Indeed they have not an unerring guide whom they can

follow, and they do not know where to stop.

It is unfortunate and lamen'able to deviate from the permanent way. So also is it, for similar reasons to desert the truth, The tirst, absolute, essential truth is Christ, that is no say the Word of God, consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father. “Tam the way and the truth.” This is why, if it seeks the truth, human

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reason obeys at once everything from Jesus-Christ, and rests with security, in his magistery, since it is truth itself whieh speaks from the mouth of Christ. There is a crowd of things in the midst of which, as in a ver fertile field which belongs personally to it, the human mind can give free flow to its observations and researches.

Nature does more than allow it. She claimsit. That which is evil and contrary to Nature, is to wish that the mind may continue in its narrowness to reject the obligatory reserve and despise the authority of Christ which teaches us. "This doctrine to which is attached our salvation in all things, almost entirely relates to God and matters most divine. — This is not the wisdom of some man that it may be he who has begotten it. It is the Son of God who has received it in its entirety from His Father Himself, and he has taken it to man. “The words which Thou hast given me, I have given to them,”

In consequence, this doctrine necessarily includes several things which, without being contrary to reason— for that could not take place in any way—are at such a lofty eminence that human reason can no more reach its than it can understand what is in reality the essence of God. Then if there exist so many mysterious things, over which even Nature throws a veil, of which no human genius can give the explanation, and which nevertheless no one of good sense ean eall in question, this would be to use liberty in a perverse fashion not to allow that there may be mysteries placed high above Nature, and the existence of which it is not permitted to us to penetrate. Not to suppose that th. ay be dogmas, is not to suppose that there is a Christ. a religion. The intellect must therefore submit itself humbly and faithfully “unto the obedience of Christ,” to this point at which it tinds itself, so to speak, held céptive by the power of the Divinity. " Ànd bringing into ‘aptivity every under-

standing unto the obedience of Christ." (II, Cor. x., 5.) Such is the obedience which Christ wills and by good

right, to have offered to Him inasmuch as He is God, and has therefore supreme sovereignty over the understanding equally as over the will of man.

There is nothing servile in serving Christ our Lord with the understanding, but this is especially consonant to reason and to our native supremacy. For a man does not thus submit his will to the sovereignty of any fellow man, but to that of God the Creator and First Cause of all, to whom he is made subjeet by the law of nature; nor does a man allow himself to be coerced by the imagination of any human teacher, but by th eternal and immutable truth. He attains at once the natural good of the mind and mental freedom. For truth as proceeding from the magisterium of Christ, sets in a clear light the intrinsic character and relative importance of things, whatever they may be, and thus instructed and obedient to the truth he sees, man will set facts before fancies and not vice versa; his desire will be confor:aed to reason, and not the reason of things to his desire; casting off the pernicious slavery of sin and error, he will be made free with the best kind of freedom—* You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," (John viii, 33). It is plain, therefore, that those whose mind refuses to acknowledge Christ are obstinately striving against God, Having escaped from the divine subjection, they will be no more their own masters for that; they will come under some human authority ; they will choose, indeed, as men do, some one to listen to, to obey, and to fo.low as their master. Besides this, debarring themselves from theological studies and confining the exercise of their minds within a more eireumseribed sphere they will come less efficiently trained to the consideration of subjects with which reason properly deals. There are many things in nature on the investigation or explication of which

theology sheds considerable light. And olten God, to punish men's pride, suffers them to mistake the truth, and to pay the natural penalty. For one or other of

these reasons very many men may seem endowed with

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great intellectual capacity, and of consummate erudition, who have nevertheless in their investigations of nature arrived at the most absurd and egregious blunders.

It is certain, therefore, that in Christianity the understanding should be wholly and unreservedly resigned to the divine authority. If when reason thus submits, our spiritual pride, which is so strong in us, suffers repression,.and feels pain, that proves all the more that in a Christiin there ought to be patient endurance not merely of the will, but of the mind as well. We would remind of this those who dream of, and would evidently prefer to have, some discipline of thought and aet in Christian profession, but with principles of less rigor and more indulgent, to human nature, requiring from us little endurance or none. They have no notion of the spirit of faith and of Christian institutions, they do not see that everywhere the Cross meets us, the st: andard of life and abiding banner of all who would follow Christ, not in name only, but in deed and in truth.

It belongs to God alone to be the Life. Ail other beings partake of, but are not Life. But from all eternity, and by His proper nature, Christ is “the Life " equally as “the Truth” being God of God. From Him, as from its ultimate and most august beginning, all mundane life has been, and forever will be, imparted ; all that is, has its being from Him; all that lives, lives by Him, for by the Word all things were made, and without Him was nothing made that was made.”

So much for the natural life. But above we alluded to a much better and much more desirable life, won for us by the sacrifice of Christ, viz., the life of grace, the most blessed end of whieh is the life of glory, to which all our thoughts and actions should be referred. The whole meaning of Christian doctrine and regulations is that “we being dead to sin, should live to justice,” (1, Peter ii. 24), that is to say, to virtue and holiness, in which consists the moral life of the soul with sure and certain hope of everlasting happiness But justice in

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its true and proper sense, the justice which attains salvation, is upheld by Christian faith, and by that alone. “The just man liveth by faith." (Gal. iii, 11); * Without faith it is impossible to please God.” (Heb. xi, 6) It follows that Jesus-Christ, whe is the author and parent and upholder of faith, Himself maintains and supports moral life and in especial by the ministry of the Church. To his administration, according to His bounteous and most provident purpose, He has committed the appropriate means of generating, preserving and reviving, the virtue of which we speak. The force, then, which generates and conserves the virtues necessary to salvation disappears when morality is divorced from divine faith ; and truly, those who would have morals directed in the path of virtue by the sole authority of reason, rob man of his highest dignity, and most injuriously oust him from his upernatural life, and throw him baek on the merely natural. Not that man is unable to recognize and observe many natural precepts by the light of reason, but even if he recognize and observe them all without a stumble for the whole of his life, which without the grace of our Redeemer helping him he could not do, yet vain would be his confidence of obtaining eternal salvation if destitute of faith.

“If any one abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth." (John, xv. 6). * He that beleiveth not shall be condemned.” (Mark, xvi. 16). How little that kind of virtue which despises faith avails at the last, and what sort of fruit it brings forth, of this we have only too many examples before our eyes. And why, with so much zeal displayed for establishing and augmenting national prosperity, why are States still suffering and almost sick to death in so many important directions more and more every year? They say that civil society is self-dependent, that 1t ean go on happily without the protection of Christian institutions, that by its own unaided energies it can reach

its goal. Hence they prefer to have publie affairs conducted on a secular basis so that in civil discipline and publie life there are always fewer and fewer traces discernible of the old religious spirit. They do not see what they are doing. Pile away the supremacy of God, who judges right and wrong, 'and law of necessity loses its paramount. authority, while justice 1s undermined, these two being the strongest and most essential bonds of social union. In the same way, when the hope and expectations of immortality are gone, it is only human to seek greedily after perishab le things, and every one will try, as he has the power, to clutch a larger share of them. Hence come rivalries, envies, hatreds: the most iniquitous designs follow : men would fain see all power overthrown, and plot in all directions the insanest upsetting. There is no peace abroad, nor security at home: the general life is disfigured by erimes and outrages.

In such strife of passions, in such perilous crises, we must either look for utter ruin, or some effective remedy must be found without loss of time. "To restrain evildoers, to make people civilized, to deter them from committing crimes by legislative intervention, is right and necessary ; but that is by no means all. The healing of the nations goes deeper; a mightier influence must be invoked than human endeavor, ore that may touch the conscience and reawaken the sense of duty, the same influence that has once already delivered from destruction à world oppressed with far greater evils. Revive and make strong in a State the spirit of Christianity, let the existing barriers be removed; that will be its restoration. The strife between high and low will et once be appeased, and eaeh obscrve with mutual respect the rights ofthe other. If they listen to Christ the prosperous and the unfortunate ‘will both alike remember their duty ; the one will feel that they must keep justice and charity if they would be saved, the other that they must show temper ance and moderation. Domestie society will have been placed on the best foot

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ing under a salutary fear of the divine commands and prohibitions ; and so likewise in communities at large, the suggestions of nature itself will prevail, which tell us that it is right to respect lawful authority, and to obey the laws, to do no seditious act, nor contrive anything by unlawful association. Thus when Christian law presides, without impediment put in its way, then it results naturally and without effort that the order of society is maintained as constituted by Divine Providence, and thence prosperity flourishes along with security. The general safety cries aloud that we must be brought back to Him. from whom we ought never to have departed—to Him who is the way, the truth and the life, not individuals merely, but human society as a Whole. Christ our Lord must be reinstated in possession of human society, which belongs to Him, and all the members, | all parts o£: the commonwealth : legal commands and prohibitions, popular — institutions, schools, marriage, home-life the workshop and the palace, all must be made to drink of the life that comes from Him. No one should fail to see that on this greatly depends the. eivilization of nations, which is so eagerly sought, and which is increased and nourished not so much by bodily comforts and conveniences as by what belongs to the soul, praiseworthy conductand the cultivation of virtue.

Most are estranged from Jesus-Christ rather through ignorance than perversity: for there are many to study man and the universe around him with all earnestness, but very few to study the Son of God. Let it be the first thing, then, to dispel ignoranee by knowledge so that He may not be despised or rejected as unkown. We call npon Christians everywhere to give diligence to the utmost of their power to know their Redeemer. Any one who regards Him with a sincere and candid mind will clearly perceive that nothing can be more health-giving than His law, or more divine than His doctrine. In this, your authority and co-operation.

Venerable Brethren, will inarvelously assist, as will also

the zeal and ussiduity of the clergy at large, Think it the chief part of your duty to engrave in the hearts of every people a true notion, and, We might almost say picture, of Jesus-Christ, and to illustrate in your letters, your speech, your schools and colleges, your publie assemblies, whenever occasion serves, His charity, His benefits and institutions. About “ the rights of man, ” as they are called, the multitude has heard enough ; it is time they should hear of the rights of God. That the present is a suitable time, is shown by the good impulses of many which have already, as we have said, been awakened, and in especial by the many evidences which have been given of piety towards the Redeemer, a piety which, if please God, we shall hand down to the next century with the promise of a better age. But as the matter in hand is one in which suecess can only be looked for from the divine grace, let us with a common impulse and with earnest prayer: invoke the mercy of Almighty God, that He would not suffer those to perish whom He has freed by shedding His blood, that He would graciously regard this age, which has, indeed, been grievously remiss, but has suffered much and bitterly, too, in expiation of its fault; anu that He would benignantly embracing all peoples and classes of men remember the word He spoke: “If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to Myself.” (John xii., 32).

In promise of divine gifts, und in witness of our paternal benevolence, Venerable Brethren, we impart to your clergy and people in the Lord our apostolic benediction

Given at Rome at St. Peter's, November, 1, 1900, the twenty-third year of our Pontificate.

LEO XIIL, POPE.

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