Generous, high-spirited, courageous, he was a true knight-errant, the "last Crusader whom the annals of chivalry were to know; the man who had humbled the crescent as it had not been humbled since the days of the Tancreds, the Baldwins, the Plantagenets." Endowed with a brilliant imagination, he dreamed of founding an African empire, and it faded away as the mirage of some oasis amid the deserts of the dark continent. With his sword, he thought to free, some day, Mary Queen of Scots, from her prison, and to place her on the throne held by Elizabeth. But the object of his ravings died on the scaffold, while he himself passed away, leaving behind him little more for history to record than that he was the brilliant young soldier--the Hero of Lepanto. W. C. R. in _Catholic Progress_. FOOTNOTES: [A] Hita, "Guerras de Granada," quoted by Prescott, "Philip" II., III., 133. The Church and Progress. One of the favorite mottoes of revolutionists consists in the formula, "The Catholic Church is opposed to the progress of the age;" and the general tone of the day's literature, apt in adopting popular cries, criticises the Church as the arch-opponent of every effort of the human intellect. The foundation of this charge may be broadly rested on two counts, radically differing in their nature, and which I may be allowed to state thus: First, there is a large class nowadays, and this genus is always especially rampant and noisy, that uses the current shibboleths, "Civilization," "Liberty," "Equality," "Fraternity," etc., either with sinister designs beneath them, or, if dupes,--and it amounts to the same in the long run,--then without at all knowing what those words mean. With that large vision that usually characterizes her in matters even not of faith, and which makes her hated by political quacks and mad sciolists, the Church detects the real objects and aims of these innovators, and is not afraid of facing obloquy by condemning them in spite of their false banners. For this attitude we have no excuse to offer; we glory in it, and regard it as a sign of that innate divine energy and life imparted to her by the source of all life and power. The second count on which this charge is based may be found in the utterance of private Catholics, or in that of prelates and bodies, in the latter of whom is lodged a power that extorts obedience, it is true, and ought always to be treated with respect, but which can claim to act in no infallible manner, and which, in pronouncing on matters outside the domain of faith, must rest upon the suggestions of reason and external evidence alone. For instance, Catholics are often confronted with extracts from this or that author, or the pronouncements of this or that provincial council, and asked to say whether, after that, the Church may pretend not to be opposed to the natural aspirations of man? These objectors do not, or will not, see that the Church, by enlarging the