be withdrawn, and no schools be tolerated save such as teach in accordance with the atheistical programme of Paul Bert.

As it is, French Catholics freely, we had almost said joyously, contribute for Christian education sums which we should fear to name, lest we should be accused of gross exaggeration.

A committee of eminent jurists, mostly composed of men who resigned their seats on the bench when the courts of France were called upon to enforce the iniquitous Ferry-Bert law suppressing the religious orders, are attached to this General Society of Education. These gentlemen study the bearing of the antiChristian school laws, and give to all those engaged in the Catholic schools the benefit of their advice and advocacy.

Every one of these features is well deserving of our imitation in America.

Some passages in the appeal of Senator Chesnelong, the eloquent President of the Assembly, and the head of the General Society of Education, would seem to address themselves to the needs and circumstances of Catholics in our own country,-allowance being made for the freedom that we enjoy in the United States from all State interference with our parochial schools.

"The necessary instrument for the regeneration of our country,' he says, "is Christian education.

".... It is not wealth that we lack. Doubtless the prosperity of France at this moment is checked by a complex crisis, the causes of which I need not state here. But labor and economy would soon restore that prosperity, if we only had a government bent on repairing things, which would bring back to the spheres of business the security and confidence needed by our interests.

"There is among us no lack of generosity. This virtue so truly French has not been weakened in our times. Among our fellow-countrymen, nay, among our adversaries, the heart continues to be Christian long after the reason has ceased to be so.

"Nor is it truth that we lack. . . . The Church evermore holds its beacon-light on high before us. Our very ruins would, at need, eloquently preach the truth to those who are capable of understanding their mournful tale.

"What we lack is stability of principle, strength of character and conviction, rule and discipline in our actions, a consistent sequence and cohesion in our wills; the moral greatness of soul, in one word.

"Now, then, in order to give to souls this greatness, this strength, this mastery over self, this devotion to God and to country, this love for truth and justice, this fidelity to duty and to honor, there is only one way of proceeding,-to make the souls of men Christian.

"This, gentlemen, is the work undertaken by Christian teaching. It proceeds from nature's lowliest to nature's most privileged, enlightening their minds, lifting up their hearts, strengthening their wills, subjugating their souls to the glorious servitude of duty, elevating at one and the same time, by a harmonious development, the cultivation of the intellect and that of the moral sense, which are two offshoots of the same stem vivified by the same sap.

"Now, this Christian teaching, banished from the public schools, has to take refuge in our independent schools. Therefore, one of the foremost duties incumbent on Catholics at this day is to support these independent schools. There is no duty which avails so much for the salvation or, I should rather say, for the purchase of souls, as well as for the future greatness of our country."

We need not point out how aptly these eloquent words apply to American Catholics at this moment, in the discharge of their urgent and most sacred duty of procuring for their sons and daughters the priceless boon of Christian instruction and education.

It is the custom of each committee or section, after giving in its report of proceedings since the last General Assembly, to express in the form of a hope or wish such progressive measures as circumstances render imperative.

The Committee on Education thus formulates its earnest WISH for the improvement of all departments of Christian instruction in Catholic schools:

"I. As to primary schools. In all that pertains to the creation, the organization, and working of independent schools, [it is most desirable] that, in order to contend successfully with the antiChristian teaching which, according to the letter of the existing laws, disposes at will of all the administrative, financial, and material forces of the country, the General Society of Education and Instruction should call together all the founders, promoters, and defenders of our schools, and do its best to unite in common action all the supporters of true national instruction, that is, of Christian and independent teaching.

"That diocesan and parochial committees should be everywhere organized for the purpose of establishing and maintaining independent schools, and for watching carefully and combating the anti-Christian teaching of the state schools.

"That the payment of our teachers, fixed and accepted as a duty by all parents able to pay, each according to his means, should be made to secure the funds necessary for the working of our schools, concurrently with the denier des écoles (a fund collected on the same system as that of the Propagation of the Faith), VOL. XIII.-34

and with the voluntary subscriptions in the country places, and in the city districts and streets.

"As to the Friendly Societies of Alumni, let them multiply their efforts to increase their own membership and the numbers of their adherents; let new associations be formed between old college school-fellows, between the former pupils of Catholic academies and schools; let these friendly associations, by entertaining constant mutual kindly relations, communicate to each other the good they are doing, each in its own sphere, as well as their ideas about a still greater good to be achieved for the defence and support of their religious faith.

"2. As to professional education. Let Catholics exert themselves in developing independent Christian schools for superior primary instruction, for professional and special instruction, as well as to establish higher courses in their primary schools wherever their means and a proper supply of competent teachers will not allow them to create complete educational establishments.

"3. As to higher education. In all that pertains to the teaching of philosophy, let the independent courses of higher Christian instruction be multiplied in all centres where there are a sufficient number of professors and of pupils. Let popular courses be organized in the same spirit, in order to combat and to neutralize the efforts of the materialistic propaganda.

"In what relates to agricultural instruction, and in order to enable proprietors to fulfil the twofold mission incumbent on them of personal labor and patronage toward their employees,-let the knowledge and practice of scientific husbandry be taught and encouraged in Catholic schools of higher studies, as is done in the Catholic Institute of Lille; and let the High School of Agricultural Studies annexed to it be made known and encouraged in every way so as to win the sympathy and support of Catholics." It is a great happiness to say that what was only a hope and a prayer in 1887 has become a blessed reality in 1888.

It is marvellous to see with what ardor, what ability, and what success the most cultivated and most distinguished Catholics of France,―her true aristocracy of birth and culture,—devote themselves in the great capital and in the other cities of France, as well as in the country places, to the great work mapped out in the above extracts for all who have the will and the ability to save their country by becoming the apostles of revealed truth.

We have barely taken the reader into the outposts of this great army of Christian soldiers, and pointed out here and there a few of the most prominent divisions.

Of the noble host of men,-noble in every sense of the word,— who have long been and are still working to save and to improve

the toiling millions of France, we must not speak here lest we should overstep all bounds of moderation. Suffice it to mention the honored and beloved names of Count Albert de Mun and Léon Harmel, to tell all who are even slightly acquainted with the labor question in France how much has been accomplished by Catholic laymen in bringing about social peace and restoring the reign of God in the homes of the laboring poor.

Nor is it alone the men of France who have enrolled themselves in this new crusade,—a crusade which requires of every soldier of the cross as stout a heart as ever beat in the bosom of a Godfrey or a Tancred. The Catholic women of France, who are active in the glorious cause of their religion and their country, can also be counted by thousands.

We have before us as we write the Manuel des Euvres, a volume of 553 pages, which contains only a bare list of the manifold works of charity carried on in Paris and in various provincial establishments in connection with those of Paris. By far the greater part of these have been created, and are supported and directed, by the fruitful zeal of Christian women living in the world.

Cardinal Consalvi, the companion, adviser, and supporter of Pius. VII., during his exile and imprisonment in France, pays a welldeserved compliment to the great qualities of the Christian women of France. His words are only the echo of the high praise bestowed by another exiled Cardinal, the illustrious Pacca.

The hosts of true men we have glanced at in this paper have been reared in Catholic homes; they have been trained and armed for the battle by their mothers, their sisters, their wives. They are bound to win in the peaceful strife, in which the eloquent pen and the eloquent speech, and the living example, more eloquent than all, are the only weapons of warfare. These comprise what man can do in the cause of God; He is bound to do the rest. And He will not fail His soldiers.

So, remembering what happened in Catholic France from 1788 to 1800,-the glorious spectacle in Christian history only paralleled in Ireland during the three centuries preceding 1800,-we may feel sure that the torrents of blood shed by the guillotine are the pledge of the victory of the Faith in the land of the lilies.

What a springtide of all the apostolic virtues there was in France from 1804 down to 1870! We know that the enemy was there also, sowing his tares broadcast in the furrows, where religion had been casting the seed of all the good we now behold. That the tares have not choked the goodly harvest in its growth is, taking all things into consideration, a miracle in itself. of the enemy has been only partial, we know. run, he is doomed to defeat, we may gather from what has been here said or hinted at.

That the success That, in the long

It is enough to mingle for a day with these faithful sons of the ancient crusaders, in any one of their congresses or general assemblies, to feel, in the absolute trust in God which buoys them up, that they have a certain pledge of triumph.

Let us, therefore, with the same invincible confidence, hope that France's trials, no matter how manifold and how bitter they may be at present, or how portentous of evil for religion are the wellknown schemes of the party in power, will pass away, leaving her in the coming ages what she has been in the past, "The most Christian Kingdom,"-" the Eldest and Truest Daughter of the Church."

THE NEW PENAL CODE IN ITALY.

NOR years the house of Savoy has waged a relentless war on the Vicar of Christ, combining hypocrisy with violence, a pretended respect for his divinely constituted authority, while depriving him of all power and even of liberty. Success emboldened it to pursue its nefarious schemes, and the apathy of the great powers of Europe has led its counsellors to believe that no earthly power will raise a finger or utter a word to prevent it from covering the Sovereign Pontiff with insult, humiliation and affront.

The seizure of the Legations in 1859 was the commencement of its career of duplicity and violence. Though Napoleon III. had French troops in Rome, he allowed the Sardinians to occupy that portion of the Papal States known as the Legations, hold a pretended election and annex them to the kingdom of Sardinia. There was no pretext for war against the Pope, there was no war; but a stronger power simply seized territory of a weaker neighbor, and no one protested, not even France, which was lavishing the fruits of the industry and the blood of her sons to build up a state that would stand aloof in her hour of trial and make common cause with her deadliest foe.

This first act of iniquity settled the policy of the house of Savoy. Europe left the Papacy at its mercy. Yet it is a fact worth remembering that Protestant Prussia advocated the maintenance of the patrimony of St. Peter in its integrity.

Step by step every part of the estates of the Church without the