THE POPE'S SPEECH TO THE FRENCH PILGRIMS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 147, 25 February 1876, Page 13

THE POPE'S SPEECH TO THE FRENCH PILGRIMS.

" I aim glad to perceive that manifestations of an increase of faith and of works of charity are becoming daily more evident, especially in France. The priests stand at the foot of the altars and pray ; the people crowd the sanctuaries and churches, which echo with their supplications necessary to the c troubled times. Still the scourge presses on the Church, and her enemies obstinately persist in persecuting and afflicting her. The long trials of the Church in various countries seem to weaken the faith of some, and to cause their courage to sink. They fear that the Church, being so much oppressed, is likely to be unable to sustain the burden of her calamities, and they quail before the unjust demands of her persecutors. It is not thus with you, who are firm and constant in courage, and who make the world witness that you have not lost a jot of your confidence in God, nor of your hope that soon you will see a calm succeed to the present storm. Now, to these weak brethren I say : ' Who are ye that pretend acquaintance with the hidden ways of Providence, and to know when and how troubles are to end ?' I will speak to them in the words of St. Francis de Sales : ' Beware ! The moth which flutters too near the candle ends by falling into its flame. So he who seeks to penetrate too closely into the secrets of God, and to search presumptuously into his ways, will be crushed, beaten and reduced to ashes.' Wherefore it is needful to maintain ourselves firm in faith, and to redouble our confidence even when appearances are against us. " The city of Jericho had been remarked for the manner in which it filled up the measure of iniquity, and God in His justice decreed that Jericho should cease to be numbered amongst the cities of the earth. Therefore he summoned Josue, the successor to the great leader of the people of Israel, and commanded him to slay the inhabitants of Jericho, and to reduce the city to ashes. Josue obeyed the divine commandment, and faithfully executed all God ordered him to do. He assembled the priests and told them to take the Ark of the Covenant and the trumpets of the Jubilee. He marshalled the people and led them, as it were, in procession beneath the walls of the sinful city, and renewed the march in the same order and in the same circuit for several days. But after the first, the second, the third and the fourth day, think you the inhabitants of Jericho, corrupt with all vice and full of wickedness, did not mock what seemed to them these useless repetitions of processions which did them no harm ? Can you believe that they, from the heights of their fortress walls, which were deemed impregnable, did not turn the ark, the priests, the trumpets, the people and the soldiers into ridicule ? And, think you that even amongst the Israelites there were none who, being stiffnecked, did not look upon the ceremonies as useless and ridiculous, calling them mock processions and mock sieges which ended in nothing ?" This is precisely what is happening in our day, through the fault of those who, on one hand, imitate the vices 'of the ancient people of Jericho, and of those, on the other hand, who imitate the bnd Israelites in their distrust. The impious despise the Church and her sacred rites, and mockingly proclaim as mere fanaticisms all which we know and believe to be holy, salutary and religious. And as there were those among the Israelites, who were diffident and ungrateful, there are those also who wish to live in peace at any price, and who, seeing that society moves onwards in the evil path and shows no sign of retracing its steps, unite with the former, without perceiving it, and manifest a desire to come to some accommodation with the wish of unbelievers, and who yield and concede what ought never to be yielded or conceded. But on the seventh day, and on the seventh repetition of the procession, the people, according to instructions given them, raised the cry, which joined to the clamor of the priests' trumpets struck terror into the hearts of the blind inhabitants of Jericho, and the walls of the city fell down with a terrific crash and each man entered by the part which was over against him, and a terrible slaughter of the inhabitants and a reduction of the city to ashes ensued. Then the people oi Jericho discovered but too late that one cannot with impunity mock with God or turn his ordinances into ridicule."

The Pope then proceeded to relate how, when St. Peter entered Home, that city was given up to every conceivable vice and wickedness. It was necessary for her purification that three centuries of persecution should be endured by the Church, and that millions of Christian martyrs should perish. " Now," continued his Holiness, "what are tin modern innovators doing, but seeking to bring back Christian Rome to the Koine of the idolatrous Cresars > They would place reason in the place of faith and corrupt the rising generation/ The Pope proceeded to draw a vivid picture of the terrible condition of Rome at present, and showed the parallel between the processions which went round and round the walls of Jericho, and tho Jubilee processions which are at present visiting Rome. Both o them had the same object in view, the downfall of iniquity. T c Holy Father ended his allocution by entreating the faithful to pr iy without ceasing for the peace of the Church.