One of the principal offices of the Catholic Church is to witness, guard, and interpret the revealed truths, written and unwritten, which was imposed upon her by Christ when he said: “Go and teach all nations whatsoever I have commanded you.” This duty she has fulfilled from age to age, in spite of every hindrance and in face of all dangers, with uncompromising firmness and unswerving fidelity, principally by the action of her chief bishop, whom Christ charged to “feed his sheep and lambs” and “to confirm his brethren.” This Supreme Pastor, in watching over the sheep of Christ’s flock, has never failed to feed them with the truths of Christ, and, lest they should be led astray, he has pointed out and condemned the errors against these truths one by one as they arose. Whatever some critics may have to say as to the form in which the Syllabus has been cast, or as to the technical language employed in its composition, this document nevertheless is all that it purports to be,—an authoritative and explicit condemnation of the most dangerous and subversive errors of our epoch. “That last, Blown from our Zion of the Seven Hills, Was no uncertain blast!” Were the Syllabus the product of the private cogitations of an Italian citizen named John Mary Mastai Ferretti, promulgated and imposed upon the unwilling consciences of Catholics by his personal authority, Catholics would indeed have reason to resist and complain. But the violent opposition, the hostility and hatred, that the Syllabus has excited among so many non-Catholics and leading minds is a cause of no little surprise. “What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?” Suppose things were as they dream them to be, the attitude of that venerable Pontiff in the Vatican, powerless to do physical harm to any one, even if he would, standing up in the sole strength of his convictions, and, in spite of the clamors of fanatics, the rage of conspirators, and the threats of the prime ministers of powerful empires, proclaiming to them and the world that what they hold to be truth is a lie, what they maintain to be right is wrong, and what they desire as good is evil—this presents the most august and sublime figure the nineteenth century has witnessed. O noble old man! well dost thou merit to be placed among the great men of the holy church, and as chief pastor to be ranked on the pages of her history in the list of her heroic and saintly pontiffs, with her Leos and Gregories.