Bishops and deans have done wonderful things of late years, but this particular forecast remains fortunately unfulfilled hitherto. To 1906 belongs one of the few cartoons in this period in which the relations of Church and State are directly referred to. For this was the year in which the French Government cancelled the Concordat and laid an interdict on the Religious Orders. The policy found no favour from _Punch_. In "The Triumph of Democracy" he showed a French priest, a dignified figure, standing outside a doorway guarded by a French soldier, and bearing the notice: "République Française. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Entrée interdite au Clergé." [Illustration: HOSTESS: "And do you really believe in Christian Science?" VISITOR: "Well, you see, I've been getting rather stouter lately, and it's such a comfort to know that I _really_ have _no body_!"] Sabbatarianism gave _Punch_ little or no chance, save for a mild protest against the action of the L.C.C. with regard to the Queen's Hall Concerts in 1898. The change is accurately reflected in the opening lines:-- Ah! County C., why stop our glee? For bigotry is dead; The broader mind can nowhere find Remotest cause to dread An instant fall of scruples all If Sunday's gloom should flee; We're all agreed in word and deed, Except the County C. _Punch's_ occupation as an anti-Sabbatarian was practically gone by the end of the last century. Bishops had ceased to provoke his satire by their opulence, though the balance-sheet, issued by the Bishop of London in 1905 to prove how hard it was to make both ends meet, excited some good-humoured raillery. Christian Science _Punch_ left severely alone, save for an occasional negligible or oblique reference. His last and most forcible intervention in religious controversy was provoked by the action of the Bishop of Zanzibar in protesting against the administration of the Holy Communion to non-Anglican members. In the cartoon "The Black Man's Burden" in January, 1914, _Punch_ drew two negroes singing as a duet "Why do de Christians rage?" and this scathing comment undoubtedly reflected the views of the great majority of moderate Churchmen at home as well as missionaries and colonial administrators abroad. I have spoken elsewhere of _Punch's_ share in the Dreyfus controversy, and may add that while laudably free from anti-Semitic partisanship, he did not refrain from satirizing the ostrich-like attitude of the Jews in transition who thought that the signs of race could be obliterated by a change of name. Reverence and admiration in full measure inspire the tribute to the wise and sagacious Leo XIII, when he died in 1903:-- The long day closes and the strife is dumb, Thither he goes where temporal loss is gain, Where he that asks to enter must become A little child again.