charity. As often as we think of this, so often are we deeply moved; for
we love with a paternal charity that island which was not undeservedly
called the Mother of Saints; and we see, in the disposition of mind of
which we have spoken, the greatest hope, and, as it were, a pledge of
the welfare and prosperity of the British people.

Go on, therefore, venerable brethren, in making the young your chief
care; press onward in every way your episcopal work, and cultivate with
alacrity and hopefulness whatever good seeds you find; for God, who is
rich in mercy, will give the increase.

As a pledge of gifts from above, and in witness of our good-will, we
lovingly grant in the Lord to you, and to the clergy and people
committed to each one of you, the Apostolic Benediction.

Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the 27th day of November, in the year
1885, in the eighth year of our Pontificate.

LEO PP. XIII.

BISHOP SPALDING ON STIMULANTS.--I hate drink, because it destroys the
good in life. I find in my own experience that I am more myself, while
under total abstinence, than when I was a moderate drinker. Life is
sweeter, fonder, freer to me as a total abstainer than as a moderate
drinker. So I say, if you want to get the most out of your life, if you
want to sympathize with your fellow-man, to feel the true force of your
beginning, abstain from alcoholic stimulants.

Te Deum.

The course of the general election has surpassed the most sanguine
expectations of the Irish leader. Our success has been such as might
well take our breath away with joy. The Irish race at home and in the
stranger's land have risen to the height of the great crisis with a
unity and soldier-like discipline absolutely unparalleled in the world's
history, and their magnificent enthusiasm has swept all before it. Three
grand results may already be chalked up, and they involve triumphs that
a few years ago would have been deemed the ideal of crazy dreamers. The
Nominal Home Rulers are effaced to a man. The once proud Irish Whig
party, who for a quarter of a century held undisputed sway over the
Irish representation, is literally annihilated. If Mr. Dickson should be
a solitary survivor, he will survive not as a living force in Irish
politics, but as the one bleak and woe-begone specimen now extant of a
race of politicians who once swarmed over four-fifths of the
constituencies of this island. The third great achievement of the
election camp