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ment seals from the closed schools, acquitting persons accused, etc. The Catholic press is fighting fearlessly and efficaciously. Organization is progressing vigorously. The leaders speak, write and act. M. de Mun points out that there are but forty or fifty radical or socialist deputies, put in by Waldeck-Rousseau, who form Combes' majority: let us get rid of them. The Congress of Catholic Lawyers at Rennes condemned the tyrannical laws of the Ministry, and insisted on educational rights and those of the priests. Brittany resists the suppression of her language, and public courses of instruction in Breton have been begun. Where it is possible, the Catholic schools have opened with increased attendance. The conversion of the co-editor of the Gaulois, M. Gaston Pollonnais, from the Jewish faith, has made the radicals furious: the Radical calls on the government to punish "this political manifestation."

SPAIN.

Impressions of Spain.-M. Lorin, professor of the University of Bordeaux, declares, in his Spain of To-day, that the Spaniards are, as a people, monarchical, and attached to the present dynasty. Spain, he says, has just now "an immense need of peace," not of agitation, to develop her natural wealth and rightly use the noble traits of her people. The question of the religious orders is "superficial and more political than religious," the people looking upon it as matter to be settled with Rome. The agitator, Canalejas, who, however, declares himself a sincere Catholic, has weakened his "liberal" friends; although the leader, Señor Sagasta, is, according to M. Lorin, as much of a clerical as his conservative opponent, Silvela.

The Ladies of African Works.-This new Catholic institute dates only from 1891. Several ladies, born, some in Africa and some in Spain, and not all apparently of the Spanish race, but foreseeing that Spain must naturally exert a great influence on North Africa, obtained in 1891 the official approval of the Cardinal Primate and the Queen Regent, with permission to found at least one central establishment in Spain, for the purpose of awakening vocations and training volunteers.

The purpose of those Ladies is to open houses in Africa for the reception of Christian orphans, and, as soon as they are able, to establish infirmaries, schools and workshops for the wives and daughters of the Mahometans. Those apostolic women, besides the ordinary intellectual training, will acquire some knowledge of medicine. They will wear the ordinary dress of European ladies, save where an Oriental garb may be necessary for success.

The Politicians of Spain.-The Siglo Futuro, referring to the rumors of European coalitions in which Spain would play an important part, declares its conviction that "treachery may well be feared from the vile policy followed at the present day by the nations which are proclaimed to be cultured. But the principal danger for Spain is not there. There is another still greater. It is the manifest contemptibleness and notorious ineptitude of the men who manage the politics of Spain. From them every catastrophe is possible. We may reasonably fear that the parties and the men who have betrayed us to our actual state of prostration will accomplish the work of destruction. Spain must recover her good name if she wishes to escape the agony of death."

The Siglo deplores the frustration of Spain's providential destiny by the advent of the Bourbons. Her destiny was to establish independent and truly Spanish States in America and to civilize and Christianize North Africa.

Protests Against the Insults Offered to the King.—A despatch from Washington published in the New York Herald towards the beginning of November, stated that the President, members of the Cabinet, prominent men, officials and others, expressed to the Spanish Minister their regret for the journalistic attacks on the King and Queenmother. The Minister declared that those contemptible stories were utterly without foundation.

The Herald of November 3 says:

"The bitterly hostile campaign against the boy King of Spain, organized and conducted with tireless animosity and unscrupulous disregard for truth or even probability by the so-called 'foreign correspondents' of the 'yellow press' in England, France, the United States and elsewhere, must have disagreeably impressed newspaper readers throughout the world.

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Every right-minded man, therefore, must have read with satisfaction and sympathy the few words of cordial admiration of King Alfonso XIII uttered by M. Paul Déroulède in an interview with a reporter of the Heraldo de Madrid."

BELGIUM.

The University and the National Life.-The Tablet, quotes from the Courrier de Genève, the following tribute to the University of Louvain: it is a not exaggerated acknowledgment of the influence of higher education on a nation's life :-" Whence comes the victorious firmness of the Belgian government at a moment when we see elsewhere only feebleness and capitulation? Whence the resisting force

of an enlightened public opinion? What is the bond which unites all sane forces, all men of good will in the country, in the dogma of law, order, and liberty? . . . Is there any other country in which there exists a Catholic spirit so upright, so enlightened, so certain, and so widely diffused? We do not wish to make comparisons; it is sufficient to state what exists there, what we have seen with our own eyes during frequent visits to Belgium. The explanation, the source of all this is the Catholic University of Louvain. It is the teaching of the Alma Mater that has regenerated the ideas of the ruling classes. There are at present 2,000 students at Louvainn, early all Belgians. Since the foundation of the University by the Belgian episcopate thousands and thousands of students have gone forth, who to-day are everywhere and are exercising the legitimate and irresistible influence of knowledge, talent, certain doctrine, manly character, and practical faith. And as on the other hand these fortunate possessors of a high intellectual culture are in contact with a population which has itself received the best training in Catholic primary schools, and free middle and secondary schools, these forces immediately understand one another and unite in a common action."

Lessons from Belgium.-Of all Catholic, or so-called Catholic, countries, Belgium has the most sincerely Catholic government : and, notwithstanding the noisy clamor or attempted revolution of "liberal" or socialist, and with the nearest approach to universal suffrage on earth, the people have steadfastly enabled the government to retain office longer than any popular government now existing. The Belgian Ministry has been honest, courageous, Catholic, in its rule, and in this simple manner has gained the confidence of a shrewd and industrious and order-loving people. The country's progress under the present ministry has been so great, that, according to the official report, it "holds the first place in foreign commerce, in proportion to its population; surpassing France by twenty per cent., the United States, by 345 per cent., and Germany by 172. The rate of increase, of late years, has been over fifty-two per cent. In 1899, Belgian commerce amounted to the sum of 1,000 francs for each inhabitant. On an area of 11,373 square miles it supports 6,700,000 people. proportion, France would have 121,000,000, instead of 39,000,000. Since 1873 the country has spent immense sums on its railways, canals, rivers, ports, public buildings, etc.; while taxation is not very much more than one-third of that of France for each person; nor are debt and taxation growing at a ruinous rate as happens so commonly elsewhere. Taxation is, moreover, prudently adjusted, and falls lightly on the laboring classes; for whom the government spends more than it receives.

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The Belgian schools have increased by one third since 1884, and the pupils by more than one-half. The Catholic religious orders flourish more than elsewhere, and those expelled by France are welcomed. The missionary enterprises of this most remarkable little country are peculiarly vigorous, well-supported, and successful. Each year the Parliament declares as a part of its political faith the necessity of the temporal independence of the Holy See.

When, a short time ago, the revolutionary good-for-nothings agitated for better chances of controlling parliament, the government proposed to extend the suffrage even to the women: this the agitators did not desire.

University Extension.-The rapid growth of extension work begun by the University of Brussels, which, under pretense of neutrality, was bitterly sectarian, has urged the Belgian Catholics to undertake extension work of a saner kind. They are beginning just now, committees having been formed in the principal towns. The most eminent persons in learned and artistic circles have accepted the patronage of the movement, and about one hundred lecturers, amongst whom there is a very large percentage of university professors, have already proffered their services; in order that, as the SecretaryGeneral M. Deschamps, writes, "professors, engineers, lawyers and artists, may bring the subjects of which they make a specialty, to such proportions that men of ordinary culture can grasp them, making thus more general and more popular their university lectures, deprived of their abstract and technical character."

GUATEMALA.

Terrific Volcanic Eruption.-Guatemala seems to have been the theatre of scenes similar to those of ill fated Martinique. The New York Herald (Oct. 29) announced that the government of Guatemala suppressed all news of the disaster, allowing, after some days, only this brief statement that there had been no loss of life, although the country, for twenty miles around the volcano of Santa Maria was covered deeply with ashes; 100,000 sheep, mules and cattle were destroyed, and the entire zone of rich coffee plantations was ruined. Telegrams from Mexico report the probable destruction of three or four towns. Ashes eight inches deep fell in the neighboring parts of Mexico, and a Mexican sea-port sank into the deep. Earthquakes shook, we are told, the entire country, and caused houses to fall across the border in Mexico. The rumbling of the volcano was heard a hundred miles away, at Guatemala City. The terrified people knelt down and prayed for mercy. The news came later that at least one person perished, the ex-President Barillas; that the government was

still suppressing the news, and that probably there had been great loss of life. The volcano of Santa Maria was never known to have been in eruption.

This is not the first of Guatemala's afflictions. Only a few month's ago there were terrific earthquakes which caused great damage, and almost entirely ruined the town of Quezaltenango.

The Persecution of the Church.-"Thirty-two years of bitter persecution in the name of liberty," is the later history of the Catholic Church in Catholic Guatemala, we are assured by Father Aguirre Muñoz, who has been driven from his native land, and is now in charge of a Catholic parish in New Mexico. Cabrera, the President, is at present the chief actor on the stage. Two archbishops and their co-adjutors have died in exile. The Cathedral canons were proscribed and banished. All religious congregations after enduring various acts of persecution, have been suppressed and expelled, and their property confiscated. The homeless nuns were seen begging for food. One priest was shot, another died of poison, others were expelled. The few who were allowed to remain could wear no religious dress, or distinctive mark of their profession. All Catholic periodicals were suppressed, and all church property declared to belong to the government. The sacred vessels were robbed from the altars, and other things of value from religious edifices. "The proceeds of this sacrilegious vandalism amounted to $35,000,000." Much of this vast sum was destined or used for schools, colleges, hospitals, etc., and so taken from the poor.

Everything was secularized-charity, education, marriage, even the cemeteries. This state of things lasts yet. Catholic marriages are penalized, and nominally against the law. To hinder them, the gov ernment insists that the priest demand an exorbitant sum, even as much as twenty-five dollars. It is necessary to have a government license to baptize a child! Even a person dying may not be baptized without a license; hence many die unbaptized. The penalty for violating this infamous regulation is $500. The same is to be said of marriages. The government exacts one dollar every time a church bell is tolled for a funeral; and the church bells must be rung to summon the children to the public schools. It should not be necessary to say that the schools are "Godless." The children—and the public-are taught that "education has been brutalized by monks." All manifestation of the Catholic religion is rigorously forbidden outside the churches, but not so the Protestant--nor the pagan. Specially repugnant acts of irreligion are allowed or encouraged by law. The feast of Minerva is national, the goddess being represented by a thin-clad girl, who is photographed with the President at the

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