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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 17, 21 August 1885, Page 13

To beard the lion in his den is a proverbially difficult and dangerous undertaking, but it has lately been pc formed with considerable success by a courageous Frenchman, M. Eugene Kendu who boldly entered the hall of the anticlerical Congress at Rome while that body was holding one of its sittings and delivered to its members a telling speech. He spoke in Italian ; but such was the eloqrence of his words that he was listened to with bnt comparatively few interruptions. In answer to the first of these which took the form of the questions, " Who are you 1 uttered by many voices at a time, he in for ok d the free-thinking assembly that he was, or rather had been for 20 '.years the inspector-General of the University of Trance, and that he had come quite as much in the name of reason, philosophy and history, as of religion, to protest against their proceedings. He then went on to taunt them with the fact that none of their great countrymen, Cavour included, whom he had intimately known, would have countenanced their insane fashion of serving the cause of Italy by making that country ridiculous before the world. To the cry of " Victor Hugo J " M. Bendn had no difficulty in showing that even that poet would have disowned them too ; for though made a god of in the new Pantheon, even he had stated in his will that he believed in the one true God. But the most eloquent part of his speech was devottd to the subject of the moral power enjoyed by the a°red prisoner of the Vatican whose alliance ought to be courted by all true friends of Italy. To the cry that no such moral power existed he pointed to the spectacle of a Pope without fleets or armies treating with the great armed Powers of the world and sending and receiving ambassadors. Looking to the past, the speaker asked his hearers to tell him where all the barbarian invaders of Italy had been quelled and subdued. It was at Canossa and Legnaoo, and the victories there won were Pontifical •victories. "Range yourselves,' then ore, said M. Bectu, '-on the side of the greatest moral Power wl.ich exists in the world, and you will find in it a bulwark against Italy's many enemies ;, bnt beware of making the spiritual Ruler of Christendom your enemy." —Bombay Catholic Etsmminer,