matter, are essentially potential, inasmuch as they, too, have come out of nothing. This suffices to show that God, though containing in himself no formal and no virtual potentiality, can create a substance essentially constituted of act and potency. For we have seen that, to create such a substance, God needs only to produce an act _ad extra_, and that such an act contains in itself the formal reason of its proportionate potency; because “although the essence of a being is neither the form alone nor the matter alone, yet the form alone is in its own manner (that is, by formal principiation) the cause of such an essence.” And let this suffice respecting the general notions of first matter and substantial form. TO BE CONTINUED. THE LEADER OF THE CENTRUM IN THE GERMAN REICHSTAG. The Catholics of Germany have suffered a great loss in the death of Herman von Mallinkrodt, deputy to the Reichstag. Germany now realizes what he was, and it is indeed a pleasure for us to honor in this periodical the memory of this extraordinary man by giving a short sketch of his life. Herman von Mallinkrodt was born in Minden (Westphalia), on the 5th of February, 1821. His father, who was of noble birth and a Prussian officer of state, was a Protestant; his mother, _née_ Von Hartman, of Paderborn, was an excellent Catholic. All the children of this marriage were baptized Catholics--which is very seldom the case in mixed marriages--and were filled with the true Catholic spirit. Like Herman, so also did his brother and sister, who were older than he, distinguish themselves by their decidedly Catholic qualities. George, who had become the possessor of the old convent of Boeddekken, founded in the year 837 by S. Meinulph, cherished a special devotion towards this the first saint of Paderborn, and rebuilt the chapel, destroyed in the beginning of this century by the Prussian government. This chapel is greatly esteemed as a perfect specimen of Gothic architecture, and is now held in high honor, as being the final resting-place of Herman von Mallinkrodt. His sister, Pauline, the foundress and mother-general of the sisterhood of “Christian Love,” has become celebrated by the success she has achieved in the education of girls. (The principal teacher of Pauline was the noble convert and celebrated poetess, Louisa Aloysia Hensel, in whose verses, according to the criticism of the Protestant historian Barthel, more tender and Christian sentiments are expressed than are to be found in any German production of modern times.) These excellent Sisters were also expelled, as being dangerous to the state, and sought as well as found a new field of usefulness in America, the land of freedom.