At a meeting of the French Academy in Paris at the end of November, two pronouncements were made concerning the renewal of diplomatic relations between France and the Holy See which are so remarkable that they deserve quotation in some detail. The occasion was of unusual importance, for it coincided with the recent troubles in French politics which had compelled M. Poincaré to reconstruct his Government, as the result of attacks by the Radical Party, directed very largely against his proposal to encourage the French foreign missions. M. Herriot and his colleagues had been compelled to retire from the Ministry, and M. Poincaré had to form a new Government drawn very much from the same elements which composed the old Bloc National. Once again, during November, the old controversy over the relations of Church and State had cut across party politics in France; and M. Poincaré, after going to the furthest possible lengths in concession to the old sectarian spirit, had decided to trust to his own prestige and persuasive powers to carry the Chamber with him.

Of all human situations, that perhaps which marks the end of a visit is the most difficult to define. Its ceremonial contains elements which cannot have varied greatly since the beginning; and yet it must, and does without hypocrisy, appear to be special to this leave taking, isolated from all others. Upon humble door-steps, and where even neither door nor step has been, ritual which is forever associated with ancient breeding observes its due development, the note of slight fatigue, the scarcely perceptible smile. There is no margin for criticism; for all that is evil or less perfect has been eliminated, while reticent benevolence pervades the rite.

A barrier as of golden gossamer, exquisite in its tenuity, descends; and it is at the same time a mutual screen to cover the nakedness of whatever regret, awkwardness, relief might humanly be present; restoring solemnity; preserving the sacredness of hospitality, recalling its noble etymology. Sooner or later, seldom or often, each has stood on one side or the other of this imagined partition.

Henry Stuart was born in 1725. He died in 1807 in his eighty-third year. The birth of his father, the Old Pretender, had been the occasion of James the Second’s flight from England; and he himself lived to see the opening of negotiations for Catholic Emancipation in this country. He was created Cardinal at the unusually early age of twenty-two, and fourteen years later he was appointed to the bishopric of Frascati. In addition to this, he held the office of Dean of the Sacred College for the last four years of his life. Throughout this long and distinguished career he may be said to have had two interests, and two only, at heart: the service of his family and the service of his Church.

Of his devotion to the Stuart cause much has already been written. He has been alternately maligned by Hanoverian historians and white-washed by the assiduous supporters of the White Rose League. The former have pointed with contempt rather than with pity to the spectacle of this last of the Royal Stuarts begging George the Third for a further subsidy to support him in his old age : while the latter have either blamed him for becoming a Cardinal or else reminded the world of his untiring attempts to secure Papal recognition for his brother as Charles the Third, and later of his own constant, if tactful, assertion of his rights to the English throne. But these desultory tracts of historical controversy are profitless for any save the most dauntless student of lost causes; and neither an emphatic condemnation of Henry Stuart’s conduct nor his political rehabilitation would be likely to have any effect on modern life or thought.

There is only one way of making supernatural truths manifest, only one way of showing such truths to be truths, and that is by showing them to be vouched for, and therefore revealed, by God. If they are really truths, before they were revealed, they were, as being supernatural, known to the Divine Wisdom alone, and we can come to the knowledge of them only by getting His word for them and taking them on His authority. Before, then, we can accept such truths as truths, the assertion of them must come to us clothed in some way with the light of His divine authority.

By adequate signs the Divine Wisdom showed His presence in the Christian Faith, showed that what was asserted in the preaching of that Faith originated from Him; from Him, too, the inspiration of those who preached it. These teachers of the Christian Faith taught, not only by the spoken, but also by the written word. This written word was later gathered together to form what we know as the New Testament. Hence what is taught in the New Testament comes to us invested with divine authority.

Animals play a very prominent part in the Lives of the Saints, and for this reason they have, if useful, been placed under the protection or, if harmful, under the ban of some chosen patron saint. But in charity we must add that the only animal apparently without a heavenly friend is the snake, whose stout enemies are St. Paul, bitten by a viper in Malta, and St. Patrick, who chased all serpents out of Ireland. Another Irish saint, a hermit named Sauman, is invoked against poisonous reptiles, because some time in the seventh century he cured the Duke of Gascony’s daughter when bitten by an adder.

Rats and mice, who live in a world of enemies, find saints amongst their friends, particularly Blessed Martin of Porres (+1635), a Dominican Tertiary, who lived in the great convent of Lima. He used to feed the rats and mice at the end of the garden, but forbade them to enter the building; and he was, we are told, obeyed. He used to say that these little creatures would do no harm if they were fed daily as human beings are. Accordingly, though he was their friend, he is invoked against their depredations. Bd. Martin, if he cannot be, considered as the best-known animal-lover amongst the saints,, deserves to rank as their most practical friend. He made a little hospital for lost dogs and cats, and all sorts of suffering animals till his patients outgrew their accommodation, whereupon he persuaded his wealthy sister to give them lodging in her house, whither he repaired daily to doctor them.