th the Borgias, the _droit du seigneur_
was a recognized custom, and bribery and violence were everywhere
prevalent.

"Public institutions and the laws," says Pope Leo, "have repudiated
the ancient religion." But is not this repudiation in large part due
to the refusal of the ministers of the ancient religion to accommodate
themselves to new conditions in the world's history, so that with the
growth of modern civilization the world has moved more rapidly than
the Church, and the latter has become dissociated from the masses,
chiefly owing to the ignorance and intense conservatism of her rulers
and their entirely unnecessary distrust of the discoveries of science?
Pope Leo admits that this is "an age of greater instruction, of
different customs, and of more numerous requirements in daily life,"
but he cannot divest himself of the trammels of ecclesiasticism which
seem to mould his thoughts and lead him to consider it "essential in
these times of covetous greed to keep the multitude within the line of
duty." With him it is "the multitude" who seem possessed of an insane
desire to break out of the line of duty. His theory is like that of
the man who accounted for the overcrowding in large cities on the
ground that the poor and unfortunate had a strange and uncontrollable
propensity for swarming in tenement-houses. He does not give
sufficient force to the influence of conditions upon human acts, and
apparently is chiefly anxious that "strife should cease," forgetting
that until justice be done the worst thing that could happen would be
the cessation of strife.

The flattering surroundings and aristocratic training of Pope Leo
cannot, however, dull the generous sympathies of his heart, or blind
his clear vision of "the misery and wretchedness which press so
heavily at this moment on the large majority of the very poor." He
says: "The condition of the working population is the question of the
hour." This will be a rude awakening to those conservative Catholic
churchmen who have in recent years been insisting that things as they
are were altogether lovely, and that the talk about the misery of the
poor was only the exaggeration of a few cunning agitators who wanted
to excite the people so that in a general upheaval these agitators
themselves might personally profit. Pope Leo's voice of sympathy is
heard declaring that there is a social problem, and that "it is
shameful and inhuman to treat men like chattels to make money by