es. No conditions as to sex or nationality are
imposed upon membership, the only necessary qualification being that the
person applying to be admitted shall be actively employed in some way,
be domiciled in France, and be sixteen full years of age. It strikes me
that organisations of this sort are more likely to promote a practical
solution of the Labour question than combinations to secure the passage
of laws fixing the number of hours for which a man shall be allowed to
work.

The Church has taken an active part in fostering the development of
these mutual aid societies throughout this great department, and
particularly in Lille and Roubaix. The disasters of the Franco-German
war gave a great impulse to them. These disasters did more to strengthen
and deepen than all the vulgar violence of the pseudo-scientific and
pseudo-literary atheism of parliamentary Paris has yet done to weaken
the religious sentiment in France, and the French Catholics cannot be
cited to illustrate Aubrey de Vere's noble saying that 'worse than
wasted weal is wasted woe.'

I spent a most interesting morning at Lille with M. Grimbert in visiting
the buildings and the collections of the great Catholic University which
has been founded here to meet the assault of M. Ferry and his allies on
the higher education in France. This Catholic University has been
endowed and is maintained entirely by the private liberality of the
Catholics of the Department of the Nord, and by the revenues it derives
from the students who attend its courses. It is a thoroughly equipped
university of the first rank. The Rector, Monseigneur Baunard, is a
Roman prelate, and of the two vice-rectors, one is a prelate and the
other a canon. These, with the Deans of the Faculties, and five
professors elected from the corps of instructors, constitute the
Academic Senate. The Administrative Council comprises the Archbishop of
Cambrai, the Bishop of Arras (to the benevolence of one of whose
predecessors France is indebted for the education which enabled
Robespierre to avenge upon the Church and upon his country what in one
of his letters he calls 'the intolerable slavery of an obligation
received'), the Bishop of Lydda, the Chancellor of the University, and
the Rector. The Theological Faculty comprises a dean and nine
professors; the Law Faculty a dean, the Comte de Vareilles-Sommieres,
and thirteen professors. One of these gentlemen, M. Arthaut, was so kind
as to receive M. Grimb