victims of injustice, in greater fulness than before, the blessings of which they had been despoiled. The land that was desolate and impassable shall flourish like the lily: it shall bud forth and be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice and shall blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise; the glory of Libanus is given to it; the beauty of Carmel and Saron, they shall see the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God. And most fittingly has this dispensation of mercy been linked, in the case of Ireland, to the Synod of Thurles, which, among the other synods registered in our history, holds a place of influence peculiarly its own. In it, for the first time, the Irish Church, at the issue of her three centuries of martyrdom, was enabled calmly to survey her own condition, to mark the wounds of which in the heat of the struggle she had hardly been conscious, and to replace in fair order, according to the Sacred Canons, the scattered stones of her sanctuaries. It was one of the first fruits of the blood of countless Irish martyrs, who had sown in tears that we might reap in joy. It was held amid the prayers of an entire nation, chastened by heroic endurance of recent suffering. Its voice was the unanimous voice of the entire body of the Irish Bishops, speaking with authority inherited, through long lines of venerable predecessors, from the sainted founders of the ancient Episcopal Sees of the land. It was convoked in face of a great danger threatening the faith of the country, and in obedience to a special mandate from the Apostolic See, in whose loving guidance all afflicted churches are sure to find "defence and security, a haven where no waves swell, and a treasure of blessings innumerable." The work of such a Synod was not meant in the designs of God to be transient, nor was its influence to perish as soon as its immediate objects were attained; but, rather, its spirit was long to survive, to be to the Irish Church an abiding source of vitality and strength in which, from time to time, her youth may be renewed as of an eagle.

Gratefully acknowledging the benefits bestowed on us by God through the Synod of Thurles, in the National Synod which has just been happily completed at Maynooth, we have prayed with the Prophet, that He would once again renew His own work: O Lord! thy work, in the midst of years bring it to life. And in the regulations we have made for the renovation of discipline, and for the promotion of piety and morals, it has been our study to follow as far as possible the lines traced in the decrees of Thurles, so that, together united, the enactments of both Synods might form one 1 Isaias xxxv. I, 4. 2 St. John Chrysost. Ep. ad. Innocent I. 3 Habacuc iii. 2.

compact code of ecclesiastical law in keeping with the requirements, and adequate to meet the dangers of our time. In accordance with canonical usage, the results of our deliberations shall not be made public until they shall have received the approbation of the Roman Pontiff, to whom belongs "the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the entire Church, not merely in things that appertain to faith and morals, but also in what concerns the discipline and government of the Church spread throughout the world."

But, while awaiting this solemn sanction, without which our Synodical enactments lack authority to bind, we feel it incumbent on us to address to you, dearly beloved, on this solemn occasion, words of congratulation and thanksgiving for the spiritual blessings God has so bounteously bestowed upon you; words of warning against the special dangers that at present beset you; and words of guidance, that you may walk wisely in the midst of the snares and violence of the present persecution, because the days are evil.2

Conspicuous among the graces you have received shines forth your gift of Faith, of which it may truly be said, that it is spoken of in the entire world Judged by the tests of a people's faith as assigned by St. Augustine, the Irish still possess, in its original intensity, that grace of Faith which, St. Patrick tells us, made them even in his day pre-eminently "the people of the Lord and the sons of God." The holy Doctor accounts it as a miracle-nay, as the sum of many miracles together that in an entire people the knowledge of the true God and of the mysteries of religion should not be confined to a few among the learned, but possessed even by the simple people; that abstinence and fasting should be held in honour and practised; that chastity should be prized beyond wedlock and offspring; that patience should be kept under crosses and in spite of trials the most burning; that liberality should be practised to the length of distributing whole patrimonies among the poor; that, in fine, men should so despise this world as to desire even death. We thank God, dearly beloved, that this miracle of Faith may daily be witnessed in Ireland. Whilst in other countries religious influences are on the wane, and the exclusion of the supernatural from social and political life becomes daily more and more complete, Ireland, faithful to her Christian instincts, ranks among her grandest national glories the Christian traditions of her past, and, in the present, boldly avows that her inmost thoughts and her dearest wishes, belong, first of all, to Christ her God and to His holy religion. In the midst 'Vatican Council, constit. Pastor Eternus, cap.iii. Eph. v. 16. 3 Rom. i. 8.

of a sensual and cynical age she honours as supernatural virtues what modern public opinion derides as superstitions, and, even if, through human weakness, the popular practice should fail, the popular feeling never swerves from the correct estimate of what is good. And in this is manifest the strength of Irish Faith; for, as St. Augustine concludes, "Few do these things; fewer still do them well and wisely; but the people approve them, the people listen for them, the people cherish them-nay, the people love them; and with hearts uplifted to God, and glowing with the sparks of virtue, they bewail their own weakness that hinders them from achieving so much."

From this lively Faith it comes, that in Ireland such multitudes habitually flock to the Sacrament of Penance and of the Eucharist, and that in almost every parish, in the pious confraternities of the Holy Family, of the Sacred Heart, of the Blessed Virgin, or of St. Vincent de Paul, thousands are walking in the path of perfection. To this we owe the magnificent Churches that are everywhere springing up throughout the land; the colleges and schools in which religion is united to learning; the convents, within which, as in a closed garden, the consecrated virgins of Christ live but for their Heavenly spouse, for His little ones, and for His poor; the hospitals and asylums, in which the victims of every form of human suffering find loving and skilful hands to heal and to refresh them. This spirit of Faith in Irish hearts has become under Providence the foundation-stone of new and flourishing churches beyond the seas, in America and Australia, in Africa and India; and as in the early ages of our Church's history glorious bands of apostles went forth to evangelize the various countries of Europe, so now, obedient to the generous impulses of the same spirit of Faith, the Irish missionary goes forth to gather together in the land of their exile the children of St. Patrick, to make of each new congregation a fresh centre for the propagation of Catholic truth. Blessed, then, for ever, be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ.

Would that this victory of our Faith were made complete by the return to Catholic unity of so many of our Protestant fellow-countrymen whom we now daily behold wandering as sheep without a shepherd. The disestablishment of the Protestant Church has removed one great obstacle that hindered their approach to the one fold; and it is our earnest desire that now, at length united with us, they would follow 1 St. Augustine, lib. de "Utilitate Credendi," c. 16, 17. 2 Eph.i. 3.

the one Bishop and Pastor of our souls. We would address them with the same affection, and in the same language as St. Augustine1 addressed the Donatists of his day, "Come, brothers! come, that you may be engrafted on the true vine. You yourselves cannot but perceive what the Catholic Church is, and what it is to be cut off from the stem." See how beautiful our Catholic unity in doctrine, by which the Faith is preached, without shadow of change, and with authority, in each cathedral and church; its creeds reverenced by the faithful; its teaching set high in our academies above the assaults of infidelity and the contradictory wranglings of so-called scientific theories. See how striking our Catholic unity in government, by which spiritual jurisdiction, issuing from Christ, flows in fair subordination through bishop and priest, so that each pastor knows his own flock, while his flock knows him and hears his voice. What a contrast between this blessed vision of peace within the Church and the scene of disorder and tumult that oppresses you outside! There, each pulpit is the centre of a different teaching, which, delivered without authority, is heard without submission; there, the deepest foundations of Christianity are uptorn, to be defaced or shaped anew, according to the capricious vote of an excited assembly, whose only claim to obedience is its own hostility to authority; there, the flock strays at will from the shepherd to follow after strange masters whose own the sheep are not. "If then," continues the Holy Doctor, "if there be among you any who have care of themselves, let them arise, and come and draw vigour from the Root. Let them come before it be too late ; before they lose the little Catholic sap that yet remains to them, and become dry wood fit only for the fire. Come, then, brothers, and be engrafted on the vine. It grieves us to see you lying withered as you are, lopped from off the tree of life. Reckon one by one the Pontiffs who have sat in the chair of Peter. See how, in due, unbroken order, these Fathers of the Catholic Church have followed one after another; and there, not elsewhere, shall you find the rock which the proud gates of hell overcome not."?

1 St. Aug. Psal. Cont. partem Donati, Coll. 5.
Scitis Catholica quid sit, et quid sit praecisum a vite.
Si qui sunt inter vos cauti, veniant, vivant in radice.
Antequam nimis arescant, jam liberentur ab igne.
Venie, fratres, si vultis, ut inseramini in vite.
Dolor est cum vos videmus ita jacere.

Numerate Sacerdotes vel ab ipsa Petri sede.
Et in ordine illo patrum quis cui successit videte.

Ipsa est petra, quam non vincunt superbae inferorum portae."

But, dearly beloved brethren, this inestimable treasure of your Faith is at present beset by grave dangers, against which it is our duty to warn you. Of these dangers the mixed system of Education-Higher, Intermediate, and Primarywhich, with such obstinate persistence, it is sought to force on an unwilling country, is, unhappily, a fruitful source. Already, before the Synod of Thurles, our Holy Father Pope Pius IX. had given solemn warning to the entire Church of peril approaching from this quarter. "You well know," he said, that the modern enemies of religion and human society, with a most diabolical spirit, direct all their artifices to pervert the minds and hearts of youth from their earliest years. Wherefore they leave nothing untried; they shrink from no attempt to withdraw schools and every institution destined for the education of youth from the authority of the Church, and the vigilance of her holy pastors." Within the twelve months that immediately preceded that Synod, the danger thus foretold was brought home to Ireland by the establishment of the Queen's Colleges. Such was the constitution of these Colleges, that the Holy See declared them to contain grave and intrinsic dangers to faith and morals; and that as such they were to be rejected and avoided by all faithful Catholics. More recently still, the constitution of Trinity College, Dublin, has undergone a fundamental change of such a nature that it, too, has become a great centre of Godless Education. Moreover, the dangers which thus beset Higher Education, exist also in the kindred institutions created to serve the purposes of Intermediate Education, and especially in the National Model and Training Schools. Nor are the Primary Schools exempt from them. The radical defects inherent in the mixed system to which these schools belong, have not grown less by time, nor has the practical working of them been such as to remove the feeling of distrust which they originally inspired. The Fathers of the Synod of Thurles, notwithstanding their avowed objections to the system of Irish National Education in itself, and their strong preference of Denominational Education, were not unwilling to continue the experiment already allowed in case of the Primary National Schools, on condition that every fitting precaution should be employed to render them as little dangerous as possible. În carrying out these measures of precaution, we regret to say, Catholic managers have been frequently thwarted. The Board of Commissioners, with

the constitution of which this Catholic nation has never had reason to be fully satisfied, has too often refused to take 1 1 Encyclical Letter of Pius IX., 8th December, 1849.