of their pristine brilliancy. Those years have brought to Catholic Ireland what the Prophet designates the revenge of recompense. This divine form of revenge is the answer which Providence ever gives to the cries and tears of those who meekly suffer persecution for justice' sake. In it God's mercy repairs the wreck made by man's cruelty, and gives back to the 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 her 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 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 thanks

1 St. John Chrysost. Ep. ad. Innocent I.
2 Habacuc iii. 2.
3 Vatican Council, constit. Pastor Eternus, cap. iii.

giving 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.1

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 1 Eph. v. 16. 2 Rom. i. 8.

of all, to Christ her God and to His holy religion. In the midst of a sensual and cynical age she honors 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."

1

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 1 St. Augustine, lib. də “Utilitate Credendi,” c. 16, 17.

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 the one Bishop and Pastor of our souls. We would address them with the same affection, and in the same language as St. Augustine 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 'Eph. i. 3. 2 St. Aug. Psal. Cont. partem Donati, Coll. 5.