twenty years refused all cession and compromise of this Christian order, of which the Holy See is the source and guardian. It is inevitable that a General Council, in which the relations of the Church in all lands to the civil powers throughout the world must be calmly revised by men of the maturest wisdom and calmest temper, under the heaviest private and public responsibility, cannot fail to disperse the clouds of empty declamation which have obscured the truth. Men are coming to perceive that the Christian society of the world is menaced; and that its preservation depends upon a firm and fearless maintenance of the great laws and principles of Christianity, as the providence of God has ordained them.
So much of the causes internal to the Church.
But there are to be found other reasons of great interest to every one who is animated by a love of souls and of the truth and honour of our Divine Lord, in the state of Christian nations separated from the unity of the Catholic Church. It is impossible to look at the East without a profound sorrow for the desolate Churches of Persia, Armenia, Palestine, Egypt, Asia Minor, and of Greece. The memories of saints and doctors hang like a light over their spiritual children now in the darkness of schism and heresy. The old sanctuaries, desecrated and forsaken, still stand, awaiting the day of their reconciliation. The Mahometan power is wasting away. There was a time when all the Christian powers of Europe could
