injustice which arrested the uplifted arm of one of the strongest governments of modern times. The union of Catholics was, of course, organic. Catholic religious instruction given by Catholic teachers is a sine qua non for Catholic schools, so that in this respect there was no room for divergence of opinion among Catholics. But it was in the plan adopted to keep this unity of purpose well before the public and make it effective that the leaders in the educational campaign deserved most credit. Whilst Lancashire and the North took, as usual, the leading part in the getting up public demonstrations to proclaim and insist on Catholic rights, it fell to Archbishop Bourne to watch the more silent but far more important battleground within Parliament. He wisely saw that it was there the most practical work was to be done. We have already mentioned how His Grace took the Irish Parliamentary party into his counsel and made them the champions of the English Catholic cause. The result has proved the wisdom of this policy, and it affords a valuable lesson in the right and proper use of an intelligent body of laymen by ecclesiastical authorities. The late Mr. Gladstone used to say that if you trust a man you should trust him fully. The same applies to groups of men. Archbishop Bourne not only confided the Catholic cause to the Irish members, but he showed them marks of the fullest confidence. He gave them a free hand and left them the arbitrers of the best tactics to be adopted as occasion arose.

Another very important lesson to be gathered from the educational fight in England is the futility of compromise, especially on matters of principle, and the fatal weakness of those who have recourse to it. Cardinal Newman has told us in his "Apologia" that the results of the compromise which he made with the ecclesiastical authorities of Oxford in connection with Tract 90 led him to hate compromises ever afterwards. Compromises on matters of faith or of religious principle are fatal. Yet all heretical forms of religion are necessarily prone to compromising. For they possess no firm beliefs; they are never sure of their ground, and every wind or view shakes them. Such systems of religion, being founded on private judgment, must compromise with the world or disappear, and they know it. It was, therefore, nothing out of the way for the official head of the Anglican Church to enter on the road of compromise, even in the matter of the religious teaching of his Church's children. But there is in the Church of England a very considerable body of able men and sincere Christians, who belong to the soul, though not to the body of the Catholic Church. These men loudly protested against the idea of compromise in matters of religious principle. Their views have found expression in what is considered the ablest review of England, the Saturday Review, to which, by the way,

Catholics are much beholden for its noble advocacy of Pius X.'s French policy. That journal had three articles on the compromise bill, in each of which the illusion and sin of the proposed compromise was set forth, and the very eminent ecclesiastic who fathered it in the name of the Anglican Church was handled without gloves as unfaithful to his trust. In the third of these articles, entitled "The Fate of the Compromise," the following expressions occur: "Cash stuck where principle was swallowed. The Archbishop

wanted a little more, the government a little less. The subject of their haggling and huxtering being the religious faith of the majority of the children of England, we do not find all this a very seemly business. Caviare as it might be to the Gallios who make up the Settlement Committee, we had much rather this contention were about some 'obstinate questionings of sense and outward things.' It would better become a high steward of the mysteries of God. Confidence in the Bishops is more than shaken. We can understand convinced opposition, but the middle course, to profess-we will not be offensive, we will say to have-strong principles and to strive strenuously only to minimize their force-this is a position a plain man cannot understand; it requires an Archbishop or at least a Bishop to do that." The writer draws attention to the fact that "the Roman Catholics everywhere were active and solid against it (the compromise bill)." (Saturday Review, 5 December,

1908.)

The acceptance of compromise by the official heads of the Anglican Church has set in strong relief the uncompromising attitude of the Catholic Church and the reasons on which it is grounded. Nothing could have put in more marked contrast the unity and unchangeableness of faith and the unstable quicksands, the shifting beliefs and opinions of heresy. The conflict has thus been, from the point of view of faith and principle, a distinct gain to the Catholic Church in England. There is no longer any logical position outside her fold for the large and very influential body of High Anglicans who are in revolt against the compromising spirit of their own Church leaders. The heroic stand made by Catholics, notwithstanding the paucity of their numbers and the slenderness of their resources, must open their eyes to the one way of truth and life. It certainly has opened the eyes of numbers of thinking men, and it is morally certain that we have heard the last of the bigoted cry, "Rome on the rates." Catholics have vindicated for themselves a position in the education question, the justice of which has had to be admitted. and the force of which cannot be ignored.

A further lesson which stands out clear from amid all this war for the control of the elementary schools of England is that the vast

majority of the people of that country insist on having religion of some kind taught to their children. They will have none of the secular or Godless schools such as prevail in certain other countries. This is satisfactory as far as it goes, for, although the religious instruction known by the name of Cowper-Templeism is very meagre and uncertain, yet the principle of uniting secular and religious education is sound and supplies to Catholics one of their strongest arguments. It is certain that it would fare ill with Catholic schools in England if ever the day came when the public elementary schools would be conducted on secular lines. It is to be feared that in such conditions Catholic schools would have to shift for themselves. It is true that this is what Catholics are doing in Australia and in our own country. But the circumstances are very different in this sense-that, whereas, American and Australian Catholics can and do support their own school system, English Catholics are too few and too poor to do so. The result of secularism in England would be for the poorer Catholics either inferior education or loss of faith It is to the credit of British statesmanship that it recognizes the exceptional position of Catholics, and it is hoped that some way will yet be found whereby Catholics and all others who desire positive denominational teaching for their children will be able to secure it within a national system. In other words, Pandenominationalism, as it is called, under public control bids fair to be the character of the English elementary education of the future.

These reflections on the origin, history and issue of the great school fight in England supply additional grounds for certain valuable conclusions for ourselves here in the United States. The first of these, to which the Catholic Church in America is long since wedded, is the necessity of religious training in the schools. We have seen that the overwhelming majority of English people of all shades of opinion are agreed on this point. This unanimity on the part of one of the most enlightened of modern nations gives increased force to the arguments of those who maintain that it is very injurious for the best interests of the United States to spend so much treasure on Godless education, which is so frequently diverted to ends that are subversive of the very life of the Republic. It has to be admitted, however, that the difficulties in the way of denominational education here are far greater than in England. There is a much larger proportion of our population indifferent or even hostile to religion of any kind. Moreover, the Jews, who are growing so numerous and influential, don't keep up separate schools here, as they do in England, nor do they appear to have sufficient specific belief left in them to care to do so. The hordes of the children of their poorer immigrants are receiving free education at

the expense of the State in far higher proportion than the children of other immigrants, who, being for the most part Catholics, support their own schools. Indeed, only Catholics and the relatively small bodies of Lutherans and Episcopalians give any proof that they have sufficient regard for the tenets of their religion to support at their own expense schools where they will be properly inculcated. Strong religious faith is thus heavily mulcted, and the standard of education is thereby lowered throughout the land. Will the United States awaken to the deplorable deficiencies of Godless education in the primary schools and discover a just and adequate remedy? There don't seem to be many grounds for an affirmative answer just yet. The first step to be taken would be a united demand for religious education of some kind in the public schools. This would pave the way to the recognition of religion as an integral part of education, and once this was settled in the public mind, there would be less difficulty in recognizing the claims of denominational schools in harmony with the beliefs of parents. However this may be in the future, Catholics have reason to thank God that they have the liberty and the means, even though through great sacrifice, to uphold their own distinctive schools and make them the equals in secular training with the pampered secular schools of the State, whilst they are at the same time the nurseries of Catholic faith and morality. JOHN T. MURPHY, C. S. SP.

Cornwells, Pa.

NEWEST PHASES OF THE EASTERN QUESTION.

"R

OUTE to Constantinople." Such was the inscription upon a triumphal arch on the road followed by Catherine II. of Russia when, at the head of an army of two hundred thousand, she invaded the Crimea. Russia has never since lost sight of the "Route to Constantinople," and we may be sure that with characteristic tenacity she will keep her eyes fixed upon it. Hence Russia may truly be said to have been the greatest factor in the "Eastern Question."

It was Joseph II. of Austria who, perhaps, best formulated the Question. In the spring of 1787 he visited Catherine in her camp on the Black Sea to conclude a secret alliance with her. She then proposed to him to partition the Ottoman dominions and to restore the Greek empire of Constantinople. "But what shall we do with Constantinople?" In this question, put by the Austrian to the

Russian, lies the essence of the Eastern question. Decide what is to be done with Constantinople and you have solved it. We know that Russia wants Constantinople, but for very good reasons of state the great powers, and notably England, do not wish her to have it. Since 1566 Russia and Turkey have been in conflict at least ten times, and the end is not yet. The Danubian principalities were the occasion of the last war, and they may at any time cause a conflagration again.

Strange had been the vicissitudes of these remarkable peoples. Roumania, now divided into Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, in ancient times the home of the Getæ, among whom Ovid had languished in exile, became in the second century a Roman province, in which Trajan established his legions. Trajan's memory lives in the land to-day, while in tradition, language and race the stamp that Rome impressed upon it is still visible. Goths, Huns, Slavs and Bulgars succeeded or intermingled with each other, and when the waves of foreign invasion had rolled back we find the country occupied by Slavs on the plains, and the descendants of the Roman colonists in the mountains. In the thirteenth century the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia were established. Turkish power gradually increased within these districts, and by the seventeenth century Roumania had become a dependency of the Ottoman empire.

The earliest inhabitants of Bulgaria were Thracians and Illyrians, both of the Indo-Germanic family. The Roumunea are the Romanized descendants of the former, while the Albanians are all that is left of the latter. The country became a Roman province in 29 B. C., with the name of Moesia. By the fifth century of our era Slavs had scattered over the province, but in course of time the Bulgars, who have bequeathed their name to the country, became the ruling power. They were, however, swallowed up by the Slavic population, so that the present inhabitants of Bulgaria, taken collectively, may be regarded as Slavs. Bulgaria retained its independence until, about the tenth century, it became incorporated into the Byzantine empire. A second Bulgarian empire lasted from 1185 to 1398, when it fell under the dominion of the Turks.

Servia seems to have been originally settled by Slavs, but it does not come into the full light of history until about the twelfth century. Its independence lasted until the close of the fifteenth, when it was incorporated into the Ottoman empire.

Montenegro, originally a part of Illyria, belonged for some time to Servia until, about the middle of the fourteenth century, it became independent, a position it has practically occupied to the present.

Albania, the scene of the exploits of the great "Scanderbeg," is nominally subject to the Porte, but the wild mountain tribes are