beautiful buildings erected, not to purposes of science and art, but to the glory of God, and for works of charity done in His name. The Catholic Church has always been a church builder. She began with the Catacombs, which you will find in many parts of Europe and particularly at Rome. To those places the faithful were wont to flee from the light of day to offer their rites and worship God in their own way. As you pass along those corridors, cut from the solid rock and lined on either side with the bodies of the dead, you find in places they expand into chambers where church rites were held. I recall one near Naples, a church called after St. Agnes, near the scene of her martyrdom, where there is a beautiful church, with an altar and a seat for the Bishop. In some of these churches where the light of day does not shine the walls are decorated with frescoes, from subjects of the Old Testament. I need not say that when the Church came up to worship God in the light of day she continued to erect noble edifices to the glory of God, hence those noble basilicas, churches and cathedrals we see in the old countries. Those noble structures have been stigmatized as creations of the Dark Ages. Some of you may have seen them. Those who have not can form no idea of their beauty and grandeur, which impress even those of other faiths who enter them. They are truly noble poems, built in stone under the light of Heaven. It would be quite as easy for an ordinary person to compose a stanza of Paradise Lost, or Dante's Divina Comedia, as to construct even the slightest portion of one of those beautiful works. It has been the theory of a certain school, now I am happy to say fast passing away, that these noble buildings were the result of superstition; that they were built by men of habits of great violence and crime, who compounded with God, as it were, to keep a portion of their stolen goods, while with the remainder they erected those noble churches and monasteries. This theory was entirely false. These were men like unto ourselves, as regards human nature: when they did wrong they might offer reparation, but it was no superstition that found means to build these churches. In our days men are recognizing a better theory; that it was faith, piety and love for God that prompted these works. Those men in erecting their churches gave expression to their faith, and showed their love to God as you are showing it now.'