"Latin Christianity is responsible for the condition and progress of Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century," and subsequently avers, "Whoever will, in in a spirit of impartiality, examine what had been done by Catholicism for the intellectual and material advancement of Europe, during her long reign, and what has been done by science in its brief period of action, can, I am persuaded, come to no other conclusion than this, that, in instituting a comparison, he has established a contrast." ("Conflict," p. 321.) Lecky, in his "History of Morals," vol. 2, p. 18, tells us:--"For more than three centuries the decadence of theological influence has been one of the most invariable signs and measures of our progress. In medicine, physical science, commercial interests, politics, and even ethics, the reformer has been confronted with theological affirmations that have barred his way, which were all defended as of vital importance, and were all compelled to yield before the secularizing influence of civilization." (Protestant as well as Catholic Christianity is, however, obnoxious to this stricture of Lecky.) The Freethinkers "striving to replunge the world into the depths of barbarism!" What can the Archbishop's idea of barbarism be? Doubtless in his priestly mind everything is "barbarism" which does not square with the Encyclical, or with the dogmas of his infallible Church. If, however, barbarism is in reality just the opposite of our most enlightened and highest civilization in Art, Science, Literature and Ethics, it will, I have the presumption to think, be found that those "foolish men"--those "brutalized" Freethinkers--are leading the van of progress forward to a higher civilization, instead of dragging it backward to barbarism. The truth of this is patent everywhere, in every civilized country, and many of our Christian opponents admit it, though Archbishop Lynch may not. A clergyman of Toronto--Rev. W. S. Rainsford, of St. James' Cathedral--(from whom the Archbishop of St. Mary's Cathedral might probably, to his advantage, take a lesson in toleration), in a sermon preached in that city, Nov. 17th, 1878, in speaking of Freethinkers, made use of the following language, as reported in the _Globe_ of the 18th: "This sort of infidelity, that of Materialism, has its students in the laboratory and in the library. It includes men of moral lives, of earnest purposes, * * * men who uphold morality, chastity, self-denial, perseverance with as clear a voice as Christians do, but on different grounds." Years ago the N. Y. _Independent_, a religious paper, made the following ingenuous admission: