It is not enough to compose such appeals as may quicken the nation to a perception of her peculiar mission; it is necessary to paint for her guidance the abominations and weakness of foreign countries. The young writer may be trusted to know his duty instinctively in this matter, but should his moral perception be blunted, a sharper argument will soon remind him of what he owes to the Common Conscience of Christians. He that cannot write, and write with zeal, upon the Balkans, or upon Finland, or upon the Clerical trouble, or upon whatever lies before us to do for righteousness, is not worthy of a place in English letters: the public and his editor will very soon convince him of what he has lost by an unmanly reticence. His comrades, who are content to deal with such matters as they arise, will not be paid at a higher rate: but they will be paid more often. They will not infrequently be paid from several sources; they will have many opportunities for judging those financial questions which are invariably mixed up with the great battle against the Ultramontane, the Cossack and the Turk. In Cairo, Frankfort, Pretoria, Mayfair, Shanghai, their latter days confirm Dr. Caliban’s profound conclusion: “Whosoever works for Humanity works, whether he know it or not, for himself as well.”[7] I earnestly beseech the reader of this text-book, especially if he be young, to allow no false shame to modify his zeal in judging the vileness of the Continent. We know whatever can be known; all criticism or qualification is hypocrisy; all silence is cowardice. There is work to be done. Let the writer take up his pen and _write_. I had some little hesitation what model to put before the student. This book does not profess to be more than an introduction to the elements of our science; I therefore omitted what had first seemed to me of some value, the letters written on a special commission to Pondicherry during the plague and famine in that unhappy and ill-governed remnant of a falling empire. The articles on the tortures in the Phillipines were never printed, and might mislead. I have preferred to show Priestcraft and Liberty in their eternal struggle as they appeared to me in the character of Special Commissioner for _Out and About_ during the troubles of 1901. It is clear, and I think unbiassed; it opens indeed in that light fashion which is a concession to contemporary journalism: but the half-frivolous exterior conceals a permanent missionary purpose. Its carefully collected array of facts give, I suggest, a vivid picture of one particular battlefield; that whereon there rage to-day the opposed forces which will destroy or save the French people. The beginner could not have a better introduction to his struggle against the infamies of Clericalism. Let him ask himself (as Mr. Gardy, M.P., asked in a letter to _Out and About_) the indignant question, “Could such things happen here in England?” THE SHRINE OF ST. LOUP.