These important documents, the Encyclical, “quanta cura,” and the “Syllabus,” are not so much the work of Pius IX. as of all the Popes of a century back, from the Council of Pistoia, Febronianism and Josephism. Whilst the “Syllabus” was yet in embryo, it was, with the exception of a few propositions which were not yet formulated, confidentially communicated to the bishops on occasion of the canonization of the Japanese martyrs. Each bishop was at that time invited to select two theologians in order to examine the propositions, and give their opinion in six months. The church, therefore, was not taken by surprise, when the “Syllabus” appeared, however much its publication may have struck with astonishment and alarm the party of revolution and unbelief. Catholics, at least, could not fail to be swayed by such a masterly exposition of Catholic theology on so many subjects, all intimately connected with human conduct in private life as well as in affairs of public import. And there were Catholics everywhere—among the rulers of the world and its leading statesmen, no less than in all classes and grades of society. Such now could have no excuse for favoring opinions which were so distinctly condemned by that authority which they all recognized as the highest upon earth. Nevertheless, whatever impression the clear teaching of the “Syllabus,” in regard to the church and her rights, civil society, and both natural and Christian morality, was destined, in time, to produce, but little disposition was shown to be guided by it at the outset. There was all but a universal clamor that the church had pronounced a divorce between modern society and the spiritual order. Nor could it be otherwise, so long as the former held principles which were essentially incompatible with the latter. Neither could reconciliation be easily or speedily brought about. The principles which religion condemned were in the ascendant. The existing civil law of all European nations was founded on them. There was no government that had not adopted them and shown itself inclined to be entirely guided by them. The formal condemnation of the cherished ideas of the age was as a thunderbolt hurled against the social elements of the day. But why disturb their peace? They had no peace. They were already discordant. “_Non esi pax impiis_.” Peace could not be born of unbelief. It could come only through the truth, even as health conquers disease by the most trying curative process. Napoleon III. was the first who openly resisted the “encroachments” of Rome, just as if they had constituted the only danger to his throne. By a decree dated 1st January, 1865, he forbade the publication of the Encyclical and the Syllabus, whilst he caused to be tried and condemned, as guilty of abuse, the Archbishop of Besançon and the Bishop of Moulins, because they had read the Encyclical in their pulpits. The other prelates of France so far submitted as to avoid printing the obnoxious documents, lest their