y with persons in this
country external to the Catholic Church, nor have been forced into any
direct collision with institutions or measures which rest on a foundation
hostile to Catholicism. No one can accuse me of any disrespect towards
those whose principles or whose policy I disapprove; nor am I conscious of
any other aim than that of working in my own place, without going out of
my way to offend others. If I have taken part in the undertaking which has
now brought us together, it has been because I believed it was a great
work, great in its conception, great in its promise, and great in the
authority from which it proceeds. I felt it to be so great that I did not
dare to incur the responsibility of refusing to take part in it.

How far indeed, and how long, I am to be connected with it, is another
matter altogether. It is enough for one man to lay only one stone of so
noble and grand an edifice; it is enough, more than enough for me, if I do
so much as merely begin, what others may more hopefully continue. One only
among the sons of men has carried out a perfect work, and satisfied and
exhausted the mission on which He came. One alone has with His last breath
said "Consummatum est." But all who set about their duties in faith and
hope and love, with a resolute heart and a devoted will, are able, weak
though they be, to do what, though incomplete, is imperishable. Even their
failures become successes, as being necessary steps in a course, and as
terms (so to say) in a long series, which will at length fulfil the object
which they propose. And they will unite themselves in spirit, in their
humble degree, with those real heroes of Holy Writ and ecclesiastical
history, Moses, Elias, and David, Basil, Athanasius, and Chrysostom,
Gregory the Seventh, St. Thomas of Canterbury, and many others, who did
most when they fancied themselves least prosperous, and died without being
permitted to see the fruit of their labours.

Lecture II.

Literature. A Lecture in the School of Philosophy and Letters.

1.

Wishing to address you, Gentlemen, at the commencement of a new Session, I
tried to find a subject for discussion, which might be at once suitable to
the occasion, yet neither too large for your time, nor too minute or
abstruse for your attention. I think I see one for my purpose in the very
title of your Faculty. It is the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. Now
the question may