of my reasons for preferring the Rosary, both for myself and English Catholics, is what ordinarily forms an objection to it. Pride, when we come to pray, is our most dangerous enemy, and I think no better security can be given against it than to pray as the poor and ignorant do. Do we then _wish_ that God should judge us by the standard of the wise who _know_ their duty, or by that of the poor little ones? If by the latter, why spurn the prayers instituted for them, and say, 'We will not use them, but the prayers better suited to the learned.' The 'Our Father' was appointed and drawn up for men who said 'Lord, teach us how to pray.' It is a prayer for the ignorant, as is the Rosary. But more of this another time. It was my intention to have begun daily prayers for England last St. George's Day; I was prevented from drawing them up, but hope to begin this year. In the meantime, I took out of our archives a printed paper, of which I enclose a copy, showing that prayers for the conversion of England, &c., have in former times occupied the attention of our college, which blessed beads, &c., for the purpose of encouraging them, and that the Holy See conferred ample spiritual privileges upon the practice. You will see how the Rosary is particularly privileged. This paper, through Giustiniani, I laid before the Congregation of Indulgences to get them renewed for prayers for England, and was told that it would be better to draw up something new, suited to present times, when Indulgences would be granted. So far as to my views and ideas before your better ones reached me, and I willingly resign all my views and intentions in favour of yours. Now, as to what is doing here. On the Feast of St. Thomas we distributed to all the cardinals that came, a copy of your sermon received that morning, with a beautiful lithograph of St. Thomas, Cant., executed in the house at some of the students' expense, to propagate devotion to him. {257} Cardinal Orioli declared that he had for years made a _memento_ for England in his mass, and Cardinal Giustiniani told me the other day that every Thursday he offers up mass for its conversion. There is a little religious weekly journal published here for distribution among the poor, and it has lately been in almost every number soliciting prayers for the same purpose. Its principal editor, an ex-Jesuit, Padre Basiaco, called on me the other evening, and told me, as a singular coincidence, that since he was in his noviciate he has made it a practice to pray on Thursday for that object. To show you to what an extent the pious custom is spreading, the Austrian Ambassador the other evening told me that his little boys (about seven and eight years old) prayed every Thursday morning for the conversion of England; and that having been asked by their mother on that day if he had prayed for it, one of