His reign of seven years has already been signalized by an extraordinary virility, and a care for all in the Church. His encyclicals are marked by their timeliness and practical character. In 1906, his eyes as they surveyed the new direction of anti-Christianism, that modern refinement of error, detected its features in the movement to which he gave the name of Modernism. This system condemned by him as the synthesis of all heresies, is the destruction of the idea of Christian doctrine by the theoretical or practical subordination of Catholicism to the modern spirit. The modern world, with its ideas, its customs, its needs, Modernism tells us, is an imposing fact; no power, not even the Church, can arrest its progress; it is therefore necessary to prevent the Church, intimately allied as it is with the life of modern society, from falling into ruin; it must transform its doctrines, and make them harmonize with the needs of a new age. The ideas of the Catholic faith ought to progress like the ideas of philosophy and the profane sciences. Such is the contention of the Modernists. _MODERNISM._ They forget that the Catholic also can have modern ideas and can draw profit for himself from all that is commendable in modern progress. But at the same time the Church is actually in possession of a deposit of faith infinitely true and intangible, coming as it does from divine Truth itself, and being true it cannot undergo such changes as are signified by the word evolution. But the adaptations which this modern spirit would demand of her are nothing more than an evolution, and would mean the abandonment of her Gospel, her dogmas, her supernatural life--in a word of herself. The condemnation of Modernism naturally aroused the anger of its votaries. It had already gained to itself many men of prominence such as Schell in Germany, Fogazzaro in Italy, Loisy in France, and Tyrrell in England, all of whom made desperate endeavors to offset the effect of the Papal condemnation. But the efforts of the Holy Father were successful; Modernism has lost its prestige as a system, and men now that they are warned of its true character are quickly abandoning its influences. _THE METHODISTS IN ROME._ An incident which created considerable excitement both in Europe and America was the visit of ex-President Roosevelt to Rome in April, 1910. While Mr. Roosevelt was yet in Egypt on his way homeward, he sent a telegram to Mr. Leishman, the American Ambassador in Rome, requesting that official to arrange for an audience with the Holy Father. It was only shortly before that Mr. Fairbanks, the former Vice-President, had been refused an audience because of his expressed determination to visit and address the Methodist establishment in the Via Venti Settembre, an institution hostile and insulting to the Papacy and the Catholic Church.