printers should be uselessly compromised. Several bishops declared that the Encyclical was already sufficiently published in their dioceses by the voice of the press. They thus expressed the idea of the whole episcopate. Pius IX. highly commended their zeal. “We must go back,” he said, “to the early ages of Christianity, in order to find an episcopal body that could show such courage.” To persons accustomed to theological studies, it is sufficiently apparent why each proposition of the “Syllabus” stands condemned. To others, cause is shown in the consistorial allocutions, Encyclical and other letters apostolical of the Holy Father, in relation to each proposition. Some things must be interpreted by the conduct of the Pope himself. For instance, what is said in regard to the liberty of public worship and of the press must be read in the light of that reasonable tolerance which the Popes were accustomed to exercise when they ruled at Rome as sovereign Princes. There is no liberty without some restraint. The press, in this respect, is in the same position as individuals. According to the laws of all civilized lands, when it abuses its liberty and commits crime, it is visited with severe punishment. The greater liberty which the press enjoys, and must enjoy, in the present circumstances of the world, by no means clashes with the condemnation of proposition 79 of the “Syllabus.” The press can no more be free to publish anything whatsoever, however offensive it may be, than persons are free to perform such acts as necessarily subject them, even in states where there is the greatest attainable degree of liberty, to condemnation and punishment. If every organized community possesses, as it certainly does possess, the right so to stigmatize an offending citizen, and that without any violation of liberty, it is equally entitled to judge and punish an offending press.