e came, and We unveiled to them Our beauty, failed to
recognize Me, notwithstanding that they call upon Me at dawn and at
eventide." "Read ye the Evangel," He again addresses them, "and yet refuse
to acknowledge the All-Glorious Lord? This indeed beseemeth you not, O
concourse of learned men!... The fragrances of the All-Merciful have
wafted over all creation. Happy the man that hath forsaken his desires,
and taken fast hold of guidance."

These "fallen stars" of the firmament of Christendom, these "thick clouds"
that have obscured the radiance of the true Faith of God, these princes of
the Church that have failed to acknowledge the sovereignty of the "King of
kings," these deluded ministers of the Son who have shunned and ignored
the promised Kingdom which the "Everlasting Father" has brought down from
heaven, and is now establishing upon earth--these are experiencing, in this
"Day of Reckoning," a crisis, not indeed as critical as that which the
Islamic sacerdotal order, the inveterate enemies of the Faith, has had to
face, but one which is no less widespread and significant. "Power hath
been seized" indeed, and is being increasingly seized, from these
ecclesiastics that speak in the name, and yet are so far away from the
spirit, of the Faith they profess.

We have only to look around us, as we survey the fortunes of Christian
ecclesiastical orders, to appreciate the steady deterioration of their
influence, the decline of their power, the damage to their prestige, the
flouting of their authority, the dwindling of their congregations, the
relaxation of their discipline, the restriction of their press, the
timidity of their leaders, the confusion in their ranks, the progressive
confiscation of their properties, the surrender of some of their most
powerful strongholds, and the extinction of other ancient and cherished
institutions. Indeed, ever since the Divine summons was issued, and the
invitation extended, and the warning sounded, and the condemnation
pronounced, this process, that may be said to have been initiated with the
collapse of the temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff, soon after the
Tablet to the Pope had been revealed, has been operating with increasing
momentum, menacing the very basis on which the entire order is resting.
Aided by the forces which the Communist movement has unloosed, reinforced
by the political consequences of the last war, accelerated by the
excessive, the blind, the intolerant, and