eo X., Clement VIII., John XX., and a host of others, who
must be looked upon as the preservers of science and the arts, even amid
the very fearful torrent of barbarism that was spreading itself, like an
inundation, over the whole of Europe. The principle of the Catholic
Church has ever been this: "By the knowledge of Divine things, and the
guidance of an infallible teacher, the human mind must gain certainty in
regard to the sublimest problems, the great questions of life: by them
the origin, the end, the norm and limit of man's activity must be made
known, for then alone can he venture fearlessly upon the sphere of human
efforts, and human developments, and human science." And, truly, never
has science gained the ascendancy outside of the Church that it has
always held in the Church. And what I say of science I say also of the
arts. I say it of architecture, of sculpture, and of painting. I need
only point to the Basilica of Peter, to the museums and libraries of
Rome. It is to Rome the youthful artist always turns his steps, in order
to drink in, at the monuments of art and of science, the genius and
inspiration he seeks for in vain in his own country. He feels, only too
keenly, that railroads and telegraphs, steamships and power-looms,
banking-houses and stock companies, though good and useful institutions,
are not the mothers of genius, nor the schools of inspiration; and
therefore he leaves his country, and goes to Rome, and there feasts on
the fruits gathered by the hands of St. Peter's successors, and then
returns home with a name which will live for ages in the memory of those
who have learned to appreciate the true and the beautiful.

It is thus that the Catholic Church has accomplished the great work of
enlightening society. She has shed the light of Faith over the East and
the West, over the North and the South, and with the faith she has
established the principles of true science on their natural bases. She
has imparted education to the masses, wherever she was left free to
adopt her own, and untrammelled by civil interference. She has fostered
and protected the arts and the sciences, and to-day, if all the
libraries, and all the museums, and all the galleries of art in the
world were destroyed, Rome alone would possess quite enough to supply
the want, as it did in former ages, when others supplied themselves by
plundering Rome.

The depravity of man shows itself in the constant endeavor to shake off
the r