in accordance with the dictates of his conscience, and the wonderful obedience which the priests whom it impoverished have shown to his commands has filled with a just pride his children throughout the world . . . . His reform of church music was in the main a return to the pure and noble manner of the best masters of the sixteenth century . . . . His zeal for establishing the true text of the Vulgate--the 'authorized version' of Latin Christianity--illustrates in yet another field the plain practical nature of his mind . . . . The sweeping condemnation of 'Modernism' was the most conspicuous act of his pontificate within the domain of dogma. It was a consequence of his position and of his character as inevitable as his repudiation of compromise with the secularism of M. Combe or M. Briand. Few persons familiar with the elementary doctrines of the Roman Church could suppose that the tendencies of the new school were compatible with them. To the downright plain sense of the pope the desperate efforts of men who had explained away the content of historical Christianity to present themselves as orthodox Roman Catholics were simply disingenuous .... The elevation of Giuseppe Sarto to the most ancient and most venerable throne in Europe is a striking illustration of the democratic side of the Roman Church to which she has largely owed her power . . . . The story is not without its lessons for statesmen and for educationists. The Church did not attempt universal education, but by her monastic schools, her bursaries and her seminaries she set up a ladder leading to the most exalted of all her dignities for the most fit. It was long since a peasant's son had won the Triple Crown. In this, as in so much besides, the reign of Pope Pius X was a return to the past." In the crypt of St. Peter's the then last pope, who was a peasant, was laid close to the sepulchre of the First, who was a fisherman. This was the inscription on his tomb: PIVS PAPA X PAVPER ET DIVES MITIS ET HVMILIS CORDE REIQVE CATHOLICAE VINDEX FORTIS INSTAVRARE OMNIA IN CHRISTO SATAGENS PIE OBIIT DIE XX AVG A.D. MCMXIV POPE PIUS X POOR YET RICH MEEK AND HUMBLE OF HEART UNDAUNTED CHAMPION OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH TO RESTORE ALL THINGS IN CHRIST HAVING DONE SO MUCH DIED HOLILY AUGUST 20, A.D. 1914