But a truce to all these vain prognostications. When the door of the Conclave shuts behind the last cardinal, the intrigues of the world are shut out. There will be no vetos from the civil power, for more than ever is the Church separated from the civil power, and more than ever is she in touch with the people. The Catholics of the world are able to contemplate the future with greater equanimity and with a larger hope than ever in the history of the church. In some few places the church may be in sore straits, but never before has there been such world-wide loyalty to the See of Rome, or such profound enthusiasm for the advancement of religion. They who have assisted during the last few years at the great ceremonies of the Pontifical Jubilee, and have seen the multitudes from every race and country, and have realized that sensation of greatness and strength and energy that seemed latent in the throngs that filled the grandest basilica on earth, and have witnessed the deep feeling of world-power and universal supremacy that possessed the hearts of the people, as the white phantom of the Pope passed along like an apparition, have no element in their vision of the future that proclaims anything but glorious success and increasing greatness for the Church of Christ. [Transcriber's Note: After a vacancy of fifteen days, the papacy was filled by Cardinal Sarto on August 4, 1903. Cardinal Sarto took the name Pope Pius X., and forty years after his death in 1914, he was declared a saint by Pope Pius XII.] End of Project Gutenberg's Leo XIII., the Great Leader, by Rev. A. P. Doyle