was, perhaps, never before offered to the Mother of God on earth. At Ephesus there were four hundred and thirty bishops, but the Vicar of her Divine Son was not there. So, simply and grandly, ended the Centenary of 1867.
There was, however, one other event over which I cannot pass in silence. The 17th of June was the anniversary of the Pope's creation. After the Mass in the Sistine, the Holy Father went to unvest in the Pauline Chapel. The Cardinal Vicar, in the name of the Sacred College, made the usual address of congratulation, ending with the words that they wished the Holy Father 'health and many years to see the peace and triumph of the Church.' His Holiness immediately answered, in words which, unfortunately, were not taken down; but as nearly as possible they were as follows:—'I accept your good wishes from my heart, but I remit their verification to the hands of God. We are in a moment of great crisis. If we look only to the aspect of human events, there is no hope; but we have a higher confidence. Men are intoxicated with dreams of unity and progress; but neither is possible without justice. Unity and progress based on pride and egotism are illusions. God has laid on me the duty to declare the truths on which Christian Society is based, and to condemn the errors which undermine its foundations. And I have not been silent. In the Encyclical of 1864, and in that which is called the Syllabus, I declared to the world the
