to the king, from the king to the pontiff, from the pontiff to Him, who is both our Creator and Redeemer, our Judge and our Benefactor. The family must again become the nucleus of happiness, and marriage a holy union, on the altar of which man offers up a threefold sacrifice in his threefold capacity-one to God, by a life of purity and love, one to the human family, by propagating the race, one to the State, by educating his offspring into citizens upon which he and the State may look with honorable pride. It is entirely useless to expect a cure of the present social pestilence from any other source than that which it has pleased Divine Providence, through the advent of our Saviour, to institute for that purpose, namely, the Church.

How erroneous it is to regard the Catholic religion as the natural enemy of progress and civilization, and hence of modern governments, whereas, in truth, it is the one religion of all that is most favorable to an equality of condition, is admirably told by De Tocqueville. He says:

"On doctrinal points the Catholic faith places all human capacities upon the same level; it subjects the wise and the ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details of the same creed; it imposes the same observances upon the rich and the needy; it inflicts the same austerities upon the strong and the weak; it listens to no compromise with mortal man, but subjecting all the human race to the same standard, it confounds all distinctions of society at the foot of the same altar, even as they are confounded in the sight of God.”

We have said that it is the mission of the Catholic Church to hasten to the succor of man and of society in his and its greatest stress. And already the voice of the successor of Him, who brought the light of Christianity down from heaven, has sounded. In the Encyclical of December, 1878, Pope Leo XIII., after dwelling upon the grave outlook, and then vividly depicting the dangers that encompass human society, in a spirit of charity, and yet of dignified, undaunted courage, points out the road which prince and statesman, nation and family, the aggregated people and the individual must alike pursue, if they desire to avoid total shipwreck. Whether the political outlook will remain dark and cheerless, as at present, or become brighter, as is to be hoped, will depend, therefore, upon whether existing governments will, or will not, heed the voice which has spoken to them. If they continue to display that arrogance and indifference which is the temper of the modern mind, whether in states or individuals, towards the utterances of the Sovereign Pontiff; if they turn away from that power which, in their folly and frenzy, they have tried to crush, but failed, as fail they ever must in like attempts, for it is a power divine and invulnerable, possessed of a life which is inextinguishable because eternal; if they persist in their wicked, impious folly, then the

most calamitous social eruption the world has yet beheld seems certain to overwhelm Europe. But if the governments and peoples of Europe will listen to and return to her who, though calumniated and persecuted, in superhuman charity extends her helping hand to her persecutors in distress, then we may expect relief. Reason and history, both tell us that in the Church alone dwells the power to restore the equilibrium in the dual nature of individual man, which the presence of sin has destroyed; and so, too, by necessary consequence, in human society and in the State. For, nineteen hundred years ago voices of angels gave warning to all times to come that "Glory to God in the Highest" is a necessary condition, precedent and concomitant, to "peace on earth."

CATHOLIC SOCIETIES.

OY Catholic Societies we mean those bodies of Catholics who

BY Catholic Societies we cane purpose more or less relating

to religion or morality, and under the guidance and approval of the Church, an approval ordinarily signified by the presence of their chaplain. Not every association of Catholics, therefore, is a Catholic society, otherwise any banking company, composed exclusively of Catholic business men, should be called a Catholic society or association. We are aware that this is sometimes done; but with bad taste, and with more or less harm to religion, often made responsible in this way for the shortcomings of individuals. We remember once reading some sharp remarks of the New York Herald, venting its spleen against some one by styling him "a professional Catholic." It was wickedly witty. But our enemies sometimes shoot these remarks at us, not without a certain spice of truth in them. And it is to be hoped that the abuse of the word Catholic, for business or other purposes not religious, will be confined to the narrowest limits compatible with human frailty. In his late Encyclical our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII., recognizing the existence of societies as a special feature of this age, and deploring the evil influences under which societies generally are, which with truthful appreciation he points out, recommends as an antidote for the children of the Church, the formation of other

similar societies among laymen under the guidance of religion. His words are: "It seems fitting that societies of artisans and workmen be encouraged, which, placed under the guardianship of religion, may make their members content with their lot, patient under their burdens, and lead them to live a quiet and tranquil life."

The question, therefore, is not whether we should have societies, a question already practically settled, and now officially settled by the sovereign Pontiff; but how are our societies to be constituted; how are they to be organized; what are the dangers they are to guard against; how are they to stand in relation to the Church; how far is the Church to wield her influence over them; how far are they to be allowed to take their part in solving the labor questions of the day;-all these are very important questions, which we shall strive to answer after we shall first have treated of Societies in general, and the relation of the Church to them in the past.

The spirit of association is in man in virtue of his very nature. Once the inhabitants of the earth became numerous, and the ties of the one family became loosened, common interest formed men into nations, and varied interests common to a number had the effect of making this number cling together, and constitute a body united together by common customs. The remains of antiquity that have come down to us tell us of the existence of colleges of those whose pursuits were similar; the well-known college of bakers of ancient Rome, for example, and the guilds of the Middle Ages are only another confirmation of this tendency of human nature. The Church, whose office is not to pervert human nature but to foster it, with her characteristic prudence took these associations under her protection and guided them in the right path, except where her influence was set at naught by the passions of men. She was herself one vast society, and the experience she had gained by centuries of experience was placed at their disposal. Even at the early period of her struggles she had within her these colleges, and in the catacombs are to be seen the representation of the fossores, or guardians of her cemeteries, allusions to coopers and to other tradesmen. Acting under the guidance of the Spirit dwelling in her she formed the most perfect of colleges-the Religious Order, realizing what the Tusculan philosopher had written : Omnium societatum nulla præstantior est, nulla firmior, quam cum. viri boni moribus similes sunt familiaritate conjuncti. Off., lib. I. We see, therefore, the Church, given by God to govern and direct the moral order of society, taking the association of laymen under her ægis, laying down for them laws, endowing them with privileges and giving them a canonical status, which made them

respectable; securing also for them a legal entity, she conferred importance on them, giving them a legal power which checked the daring of the feudal lord who chanced to be a tyrant.

But if they were made what they became by the power and widespread influence of the Church, she did not give them full sway to do as they listed. On the contrary she curbed them by salutary restraints. From time to time it would happen that they forgot themselves, and asserted their independence of their local ecclesiastical superior. Then would come the appeal to the central authority of the Church, and the decision reasserting the power of the bishop. There are some of these decisions on record, which as interesting exemplifications of what we have said we introduce here.

It must be remarked that these societies came to be known as Confraternities, and were instituted for all kinds of purposes, all more or less connected with religious exercises. Thus there existed at Lanciano, in Italy, a society or Confraternity, known as the society for taking care of the dead. These good people came into conflict with their archbishop, and the case went to Rome. They didn't want him to have anything to do with the election of their officers, and much less did they desire him to look into their accounts; and if he did, they wanted the work done through men of their own choosing. The Sacred Congregation of the Council, on the 20th of September, 1710, decreed, after mature deliberation: 1st, that they must proceed with their election in the presence of the vicar-general, as commanded by the archbishop; 2dly, that an election made otherwise was invalid; 3dly, that the election of the officers required for its validity the confirmation of the archbishop; 4thly, that the society must give an account of its funds and expenses to the archbishop; 5thly, that the archbishop could make use of his own agents, and was not bound to make use of those chosen by the members.

There was another society at Offida, near Ascoli, in Italy. They were also a body of men who, in like manner as the above, had as their special object to pray for the dead. They had their legal and canonical status. They differed with their bishop, and the case went to Rome. Like those just spoken of they tried to keep the bishop from having anything to do with their elections, and from auditing their accounts. The same Sacred Congregation of the Council, on the 3d and 24th of March, 1725, decreed, in answer, that the bishop, personally or by deputy, could be present at the elections; that he could remove the officers who were unfit for their place; and that the society was bound to give an account of their pecuniary administration to the bishop. It is of no use to

multiply instances. These are enough to show the spirit of the Church, and her mode of dealing with such societies.

The societies we have nowadays are of two kinds; one is the Confraternity as described above; the other is the society which has no recognized legal or canonical status, but which consists of laymen united together under the patronage of the Church for some beneficial purpose. They are societies for mutual aid; and that aid, according to the scope to which it tends, generally gives the name to the organization.

It is of these latter societies that we shall now specially speak, as they are those which have arisen from the circumstances of our time, the outcome of the vicissitudes of the nineteenth century.

It may prove a useful guide to us at the outset to remember that these Catholic Societies have been rendered necessary by the secret societies that have overspread the nations of the earth. They have been constituted as it were in self defence. The manner, therefore, in which secret societies have been constituted will to some extent give us a clue as to the constitution of our Catholic societies.

It is no secret that the so-called secret societies here in America are in great part merely beneficial associations, for mutual aid in sickness or distress, and especially for the advancement of business relations. That some of them, if not all, have affiliations with the secret societies of Europe, societies political and rationalistic, as well as beneficial, is a fact known to us; for we have had it from the mouth of those who, not understanding the languages of the countries through which they were journeying in Europe, found, in spite of that, the sign-manual a passport, and a command obeyed with alacrity. Their principal feature, however, here, besides their secrecy and strange forms, or rituals, is the business and beneficial feature.

From these societies, Catholics are necessarily excluded by the circumstances of the case. The oath of secrecy, and the false principles which are the basis of these societies, sapping the foundation of religion and government, have long since, as we all know, made the sovereign authority of the Church condemn them formally. The exclusion in this way of Catholics makes them look around in self-defence for means of protection. The movement is general, and we should regard it with favor. Our Catholics should band together, come to each other's assistance, and give that mutual aid and comfort and even business help, denied them by the other social combinations of the day; for it is an undeniable fact that unless a man belong to some secret trades-union, he will hardly be able to find employment. We are the last person to wish to array our fellow-Catholics against our non-Catholic fellow-countrymen, to whom we acknowledge ourselves sincerely attached. But