ever libellous, blasphemous and immoral they may be, tends to the corruption of morals.
The last condemnation censures the insulting assertion, that the Roman Pontiff either stands in need of reconciling himself with true civilization, or that he ought to join hands with Red Republicanism, covertly implied in the term "liberalism."
I now have but one word to say in conclusion. Non-Catholics will of course find much in the Syllabus which is at variance with their belief, but, I trust, they will not find in it the spectre conjured up by Mr. Gladstone's fancy. They will find in it much with which they will heartily concur, and will allow that the Holy See could not, on Catholic principles, pronounce other wise than Pius IX. has pronounced.
A few unhappy men have gone out from among us during these last years, rather than accept such acts of the See of Peter as the Syllabus and the definition of Infallibility. If there was any one among them who enjoyed in the bosom of the Church a reputation for great learning and great integrity of life, yet let us bear in mind the words written, fourteen hundred years ago, by Vincentius of Lerins: "In the Church of God, the going astray of the master is the danger of the people; and the more learned he was who hath gone astray, the greater the temptation. But herein is something worthy to be learned and necessary to be borne in mind: that all true Catholics should know, that from the Church they receive their teachers; but do not forsake, with erring teachers, the communion of the Church."
