Last year, on this day, we made intercession before our Divine Lord, in the Blessed Sacrament, through the prayers of His Blessed Mother, in behalf of the person and authority of the Sovereign Pontiff. It was then a moment of great anxiety. On the twelfth of the following December the protection of France was to be withdrawn. It was prophesied that when 'the foreign bayonets' were gone, in twenty-four hours the Romans would rise, and the power of the Pontiff would be dissolved. They were withdrawn; and where are the prophets? Pius IX. reigns calmly still. In the month of June last, half the bishops of the world were gathered around the throne which ought to have been in dust. And now, again, before Rosary Sunday has returned, the chief antagonist of the Holy Father, the man who has earned his fame by bravade against the Vicar of Jesus Christ, has, by the just authority of his king, been rendered harmless. Such are the events of this twelvemonth past. We are entering on another year. I cannot foretell what it may bring forth. It is full of menace, and of peril, and all things seem tending to a crisis. But the events of the year gone by are an encouragement for the year to come.
We may be told that they were but political and human agencies which protected the Holy Father. Be it so. God works through the politics and actions of men. They are instruments in His hands, and over all their powers there is a will and a control which directs and restrains them. God works through the combinations of rulers, whether they will or no; and brings about His ends by the most adverse and
