religious persecution. Say what some may, such are in France the results of the Papal encyclicals in favor of the Republic.

Leo shows forth in especial splendor the Church's catholicity-her divinely-begotten fitness for all ages and all nations. He withdraws the Church from political and social entanglements, makes her independent of the transient traditions of the past, and sets her before the world radiant in her native beauty and freedom, prepared to embrace and bless the new humanity of the twentieth century, as she embraced and blessed the humanity of preceding centuries, the Church of to-day as of yesterday, the Church of to-morrow as of to-day.

True, much is yet to be done before the union of Church and age is complete; but the work has been begun and is progressing. May Leo live yet many years! May Leo's spirit long dominate in the Vatican! All will then be well. Meanwhile, in America, let us be loyal to Leo, and work as earnestly as he does for the welfare of Church and of humanity, and in full accord with his teachings. We are especially favored by Leo. He lives among us in the person of his chosen friend and representative, one who makes the pontiff known to us as none other could, and who, in the acts and discourses by which he interprets. Leo's mind, proves daily to us that Leo is, indeed, the pontiff of the age. The Church and the age! Rome and America! Their intimate union is heralded in the command of Monsignor Satolli to the Catholics of America: "Go forward on the road of progress, bearing in one hand the book of Christian truth-Christ's gospel-and in the other the Constitution of the United States."

Gibbons, of Baltimore: I cannot give to my words the warmth of my heart; I will give to them its sincerity. I have spoken of the providential Pope of Rome. I speak now of the providential Archbishop of Baltimore. Often have I thanked God that in this latter quarter of the nineteenth century Cardinal Gibbons has been given to us as primate, as leader. Catholic of Catholics, American of Americans, a bishop of his age and of his country, he is to America what Leo is to Christendom. Aye, far beyond America does his influence extend. Men's influence is not confined by the frontiers of nations, and Gibbons is European as Manning is American. A special mission is reserved to the American Cardinal. In America, the Church and the age have fairest field to display their activities, and in America more speedily than elsewhere is the problem of their reconciliation to be solved. The world has a supreme interest in this reconciliation, and watches intently the prelate who in America leads the forces of the Church. The name of Cardinal Gibbons lights up the pages of nearly every European book which treats of modern social and political questions. The ripplings of

his influence cross the threshold of the Vatican. Leo, the mighty inspirer of men, is himself not seldom inspired and encouraged by his faithful lieutenants, from whom he asks: "Watchman, what of the night?" And the historic incident of the Knights of Labor, whose condemnation by the Roman Congregations Cardinal Gibbons was able to avert, exercised, I am sure, no small influence upon the preparation of the encyclical, "The Condition of Labor."

But Cardinal Gibbons belongs to America; let him be judged by his work in America.

The work of Cardinal Gibbons forms an epoch in the history of the Church in America. He has made the Church known to the people of America; he has demonstrated the fitness of the Church of America, the natural alliance existing between the Church and the freedom-giving democratic institutions of America. Thanks to him, the scales have fallen from the eyes of non-Catholics; prejudices have vanished. He, the great churchman, is also the great citizen. In him Church and country are united, and the magnetism of the union pervades the whole land, teaching laggard Catholics to love America, teaching well-disposed nonCatholics to trust the Church. Church and country, Church and age, modern aspirations and ancient truths, republican liberty and spiritual princedom-harmonized, drawn into bonds of warm amity, laboring together for the progress and happiness of humanity! How great the mission assigned to Cardinal Gibbons! How precious the work done by him in fulfilment of it!

I need not tell what qualities of mind and heart have brought the reward of success to the labors of Cardinal Gibbons. The nation knows them. He is large-minded; his vision cannot be narrowed to a onesided consideration of men or things. He is large-hearted; his sympathies are limited only by the frontiers of humanity. He is ready for every noble work-patriotic, intellectual, social, philanthropic, as well as religious-and in the prosecution of it joins hands with laborer and capitalist, with white man and black man, with Catholic, Protestant, and Jew. He is brave; he has the courage to speak and to act according to his convictions; he rejoices when men work with him; he works when men fall away from him. Cardinal Gibbons, the most outspoken of Catholics, the most loyal co-laborer of the Pope of Rome, is the American of Americans. I desire to accentuate his patriotism, for it has been a wondrous factor in his success. We have heard it said that frequent declarations of patriotism are unseeming in loyal citizens, whose silent lives ought to give sufficient evidence of their civic virtue. Then let it be said, too, that frequent declarations of religious faith are not

in place among devoted Christians; then, let the Credo be seldom repeated.

I have spoken my tribute to the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore. A wide field remains ungleaned from which others may gather other tributes.

My whole observation of the times, and in particular of this memorable Columbian year, convinces me that the Church has now her season of grace in America, and I often put to myself the anxious question: Will she profit by it? At times my soul sinks downward to the borderland of pessimism. I hate pessimism; I believe it to be one of the worst crimes against God and humanity; it puts an end to progress. Yet it tempts me, when I read in so many souls indifference and inertia, when I hear of the trifles with which soldiers of truth busy themselves, when I perceive the vast crowd looking backward lest they see the eastern horizon purpled by the rays of the new sun, and moving at slowest pace lest perchance they leave the ruts of the past and overtake the world, whose salvation is their God-given mission. But this evening, far from me is pessimism driven. I feel that religion will surely conquer. My soul throbs with hope. For I remember the God above me; I remember the leaders He has given to the Church-in Rome, Leo XIII.; in America, Cardinal Gibbons. What one man can do is wondrous; what could not ten men- -a hundred men-do? O Catholic Church, fruitful mother of heroes, give us in unstinted measure men, sons of thy own greatness and of thine own power!

The jubilee of Cardinal Gibbons is not a celebration of song and tinsel; it is a lesson to bishops, priests, and laymen of God's Church in America.

886 SALT

By Henry Van Dyke

(Baccalaureate address delivered at the commencement of Columbia University, June 5, 1898.)

"Ye are the salt of the earth." This figure of speech is plain and pungent. Salt is savory, purifying, preservative. It is one of those superfluities which the great French wit defined as "things that are very necessary." From the very beginning of human history men have set a high value upon salt and sought for it in caves and by the seashore. See page 641.

The nation that had a good supply was counted rich. A bag of salt, among the barbarous tribes, was worth more than a man. The Jews prized it especially, because they lived in a warm climate where food was difficult to keep, and because their religion laid particular emphasis on cleanliness, and because salt was largely used in their sacrifices.

Christ chose an image which was familiar when He said to His disciples, "Ye are the salt of the earth." This was his conception of their mission, their influence. They were to cleanse and sweeten the world in which they lived, to keep it from decay, to give a new and more wholesome flavor to human existence. Their function was not to be passive but active. The sphere of its action was to be this present life. There is no use in saving salt for heaven. It will not be needed there. Its mission is to permeate, season, and purify things on earth.

Now, from one point of view, it was an immense compliment for the disciples to be spoken to in this way. Their Master showed great confidence in them. He set a high value upon them. The historian Livy could find nothing better to express his admiration for the people of ancient Greece than this very phrase. He called them sal gentium, "the salt of the nations."

But it was not from this point of view that Christ was speaking. He was not paying compliments. He was giving a clear and powerful call to duty. His thought was not that His disciples should congratulate themselves on being better than other men. He wished them to ask themselves whether they actually had in them the purpose and the power to make other men better. Did they intend to exercise a purifying, seasoning, saving influence in the world? Were they going to make their presence felt on earth, and felt for good? If not, they would be failures and frauds. The savor would be out of them. They would be like lumps of rock-salt which has lain too long in a damp storehouse; good for nothing but to be thrown away and trodden under foot; worth less than common rock or common clay, because it will not even make good roads. Men of privilege without power are waste material. Men of enlightenment without influence are the poorest kind of rubbish. Men of intellectual and moral and religious culture, who are not active forces for good in society, are not worth what it costs to produce and keep them. If they pass for Christians they are guilty of obtaining respect under false pretenses. They are meant to be the salt of the earth. And the first duty of salt is to be salty.

This is the subject on which I want to speak to you to-day. The saltiness of salt is the symbol of a noble, powerful, truly religious life. You college students are men of privilege. It costs ten times as much, in labor and care and money, to bring you out where you are to-day, as

it costs to educate the average man, and a hundred times as much as it costs to raise a boy without any education. This fact brings you face to face with a question: Are you going to be worth your salt?

You have had mental training, and plenty of instruction in various. branches of learning. You ought to be full of intelligence. You have had moral discipline, and the influences of good example have been steadily brought to bear upon you. You ought to be full of principle. You have had religious advantages and abundant inducements to choose the better part. You ought to be full of faith. What are you going to do with your intelligence, your principle, your faith? It is your duty to make active use of them for the seasoning, the cleansing, the saving of the world. Don't be sponges. Be the salt of the earth.

I. Think, first, of the influence for good which men of intelligence may exercise in the world, if they will only put their culture to the right use. Half the troubles of mankind come from ignorance-ignorance which is systematically organized with societies for its support and newspapers for its dissemination-ignorance which consists less in not knowing things, than in wilfully ignoring the things that are already known. There are certain physical diseases which would go out of existence in ten years if people would only remember what has been learned. There are certain political and social plagues which are propagated only in the atmosphere of shallow self-confidence and vulgar thoughtlessness. There is a yellow fever of literature specially adapted and prepared for the spread of shameless curiosity, incorrect information, and complacent idiocy among all classes of the population. Persons who fall under the influence of this pest become so triumphantly ignorant that they cannot distinguish between news and knowledge. They develop a morbid thirst for printed matter, and the more they read the less they learn. They are fit soil for the bacteria of folly and fanaticism.

Now the men of thought, of cultivation, of reason, in the community ought to be an antidote to these dangerous influences. Having been instructed in the lessons of history and science and philosophy, they are bound to contribute their knowledge to the service of society. As a rule they are willing enough to do this for pay, in the professions of law and medicine and teaching and divinity. What I plead for to-day is the wider, nobler, unpaid service which an educated man renders to society simply by being thoughtful and by helping other men to think. The college men of a country ought to be its most conservative men; that is to say, the men who do most to conserve it. They ought to be the men whom demagogues cannot inflame, nor political bosses pervert. They ought to bring wild theories to the test of reason, and withstand rash experiments with obstinate prudence. When it is proposed, for