ccesses. The venerable Innocent the Eleventh appointed the
Festival of the Holy Name of Mary, for their rout before Vienna.
Clement the Eleventh extended the Feast of the Rosary to the whole
Church for the great victory over them near Belgrade. These are but some
of the many instances which might be given; but they are enough for the
purpose of showing the perseverance of the Popes.

Nor was their sagacity in this matter less remarkable than their
pertinacity. The Holy See has the reputation, even with men of the
world, of seeing instinctively what is favourable, what is unfavourable,
to the interests of religion and of the Catholic Faith. Its undying
opposition to the Turks is not the least striking instance of this
divinely imparted gift. From the very first it pointed at them as an
object of alarm for all Christendom, in a way in which it had marked out
neither Tartars nor Saracens. It exposed them to the reprobation of
Europe, as a people, with whom, if charity differ from merciless
ferocity, tenderness from hardness of heart, depravity of appetite from
virtue, and pride from meekness and humility, the faithful never could
have sympathy, never alliance. It denounced, not merely an odious
outlying deformity, painful simply to the moral sight and scent, but an
energetic evil, an aggressive, ambitious, ravenous foe, in whom foulness
of life and cruelty of policy were methodized by system, consecrated by
religion, propagated by the sword. I am not insensible, I wish to do
justice, to the high qualities of the Turkish race. I do not altogether
deny to its national character the grandeur, the force and originality,
the valour, the truthfulness and sense of justice, the sobriety and
gentleness, which historians and travellers speak of; but, in spite of
all that has been done for them by nature and by the European world,
Tartar still is the staple of their composition, and their gifts and
attainments, whatever they may be, do but make them the more efficient
foes of faith and civilization.

3.

It was said by a Prophet of old, in the prospect of a fierce invader, "a
day of clouds and whirlwinds, a numerous and strong people, as the
morning spread upon the mountains. The like to it hath not been from the
beginning, nor shall be after it, even to the years of generation and
generation. Before the face thereof a devouring fire, and behind it a
burning flame. The land is like a garden of pleasure before it, and
behind it a