It was a solemn hour, pregnant with profound significance, when at midnight at the beginning of this century all the churchbells of the Catholic globe were ringing, and, while everything around was silent, their blessed sound was resounding alone over the earth, over villages and cities, over countries and nations. Grandly there resounded into the whole world, over the heads of the children of men about to enter upon a new century of their history, that the Catholic Church is the Queen in the realm of mind, that she alone preserves infallibly the truths and ideals of which mankind is in quest, by which they are raised above earthly turmoil—those truths and ideals in which the heart and mind of earthly pilgrims find rest and peace on their long journey to the goal of time. Since she assumed the mission of Him who said, “I am the Way and the Truth,” and, “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world,” the Church has travelled a long way through the centuries, has withstood hard times and fierce storms. And she has faithfully preserved for mankind the precious patrimony from God’s hand. And now, at the dawn of new times, her bells proclaimed that she is still alive, holding the old truths in a strong hand. And after another century the bells of the globe will ring again, they will, so we hope—ring more loudly and more forcefully, over the nations. And these bells will also ring over the graves of this present generation, over fallen giants of the forest and over collapsed towers, over mouldy books, and the wreckage left by a culture that the emancipated, fallible human mind created, but which truth did not consecrate. And again the bells will proclaim to a new century that God, and the world’s history, are thinking greater thoughts than the puny child of man is capable of thinking within the narrow compass of his years and of his surroundings. FOURTH SECTION. FREEDOM OF TEACHING. Preliminary Conceptions and Distinctions.