a great conflict, but the conflict is the forerunner of a greater manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth. The eyes of men are looking one way, as they that look for the morning. They are hungering after rest, certainty, and truth. They have sought it up and down, and have not found it. The broken cisterns will hold no water; and the dim tradition of a fountain far off and yet at hand, closed to the world but ever open to all who will, is rising again upon their memory. The nations of the Christian world have been deceived, and turned against the Mother that bare them. But the unrest, and the unsatisfied craving of the heart and of the reason, is drawing them once more toward the only Church. All countries, above all our own, are conscious, in their political, religious, and intellectual life, of desires they cannot satisfy, and needs they cannot meet. 'As he that is hungry dreameth and eateth, but when he is awake his soul is empty: and as he that is thirsty dreameth and drinketh, and after he is awake is yet faint with thirst and his soul is empty; so shall be the multitude of all the nations that have fought against Mount Sion.'[1] It is the conflict with the Church of God that has wasted and withered the spiritual and intellectual life of Europe. England, with all its faults, is very dear to us. It has still a zeal for God; and the face of our land is yet beautiful with the memories of our Saints and Martyrs. The Council has moved it with strange and kindly aspirations. England hopes for some clearing in the dark sky which for the last three hundred years
- ↑ Isaias xxix. 8.
