she will betray all the
weakness of a poor mortal. Then this brilliant luminary will wax pale and
she will sink below the horizon, never more to rise again."

For more than seven centuries after the establishment of the Church the
Popes had no sovereign territorial jurisdiction. How could she have
outlived that period, if the temporal power were essential to her
perpetuity? And even since 1870 the Pope has been deprived of his
temporalities. This loss, however, does not bring a wrinkle on the fair
brow of the Church, nor does it retard one inch her onward march.

IV. Is she unable to cope with modern inventions and the mechanical
progress of the nineteenth century? We are often told so; but far from
hiding our head, like the ostrich in the sand, at the approach of these
inventions we hail them as messengers of God, and will use them as
Providential instruments for the further propagation of the faith.

If we succeeded so well before, when we had no ships but frail canoes, no
compass but our eyes; when we had no roads but eternal snows, virgin
forests and trackless deserts; when we had no guide save faith, and hope,
and God--if even then we succeeded so well in carrying the Gospel to the
confines of the earth, how much more can we do now by the aid of
telegraph, steamships and railroads?

Yes, O men of genius, we bless your inventions; we bless you, ye modern
discoveries; and we will impress you into the service of the Church and
say: "Fire and heat bless the Lord. Lightnings and clouds bless the Lord;
all ye works of the Lord bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all
forever."(109)

The utility of modern inventions to the Church has lately been manifested
in a conspicuous manner. The Pope called a council of all the Bishops of
the world. Without the aid of steam it would have been almost impossible
for them to assemble; by its aid they were able to meet from the uttermost
bounds of the earth.

V. But may not the light of the Church grow pale and be extinguished
before the intellectual blaze of the nineteenth century? Has she not much
to fear from literature, the arts and sciences? She has always been the
Patroness of literature, and the fostering Mother of the arts and
sciences. She founded and endowed nearly all the great universities of
Europe.

Not to mention those of the continent, a bare catalogue of which would
cover a large space, I may allude to the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, the two mos