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so far, experience has confirmed the wisdom of their choice In this, no doubt, they were largely influenced by the splendid example of the French clergy in recent years, as well as by the fact that priests throughout the English-speaking world prefer to live without dependence on the State.

The Portuguese Revolution was responsible for a great deal of brutality and injustice, but it was unaccompanied by the wholesale atrocities that disgraced the French and Russian Revolutions. This, no doubt, was due to the 'brandura dos nossos costumes-the mildness of our manners,' as the Portuguese are fond of saying. In truth, the people of Portugal, when not led astray by designing fanatics or demagogues, are among the most lovable and best-natured people in the world.

The brief but glorious consulate of Sidonio Paes opened a new horizon before the minds of his countrymen and may well have a lasting influence on the fortunes of Church and State. Sidonio Paes was the greatest man that Portugal has produced in the last two hundred years-greater even than Pombal, for Pombal was but a gifted despot, while Sidonio Paes was a magnanimous patriot and broad-minded statesman. A man of extraordinary resourcefulness and daring, after serving as Professor of Mathematics in the University of Coimbra and Portuguese Ambassador in Berlin, he became Provisional President as the result of a wellplanned revolution in December 1917. Some months later, his generous and equitable rule secured his election to the Presidency of the Republic by an overwhelming vote of his countrymen. It was the first and only time in the history of Portugal, from 1834 to the present day, that a popular election was freely and honestly held.

Under Sidonio's enlightened rule, diplomatic relations were resumed with the Holy See; prelates and priests returned from banishment; churches were freely thrown open; and the vindictive and vexatious prohibition of church services after sunset was rescinded. Patriotic Republicans, and even the bulk of the Monarchist party, rallied to his standard. The Catholics in general, despite their Monarchist proclivities, were enthusiastically in his favour. There was freedom for every honest citizen, whatever his creed or party; coercion was only for evil-doers. For the first time in several generations, Portugal tasted the sweets of good government. Sidonio Paes became the idol of the people.

His ideal was a noble one-the noblest ideal that has

inspired any Portuguese statesman in modern times. He aspired to create a benevolent, tolerant Republic, which should raise Portugal to her rightful place among the prosperous and progressive nations of the world. He desired a Republic in which the best services of every law-abiding citizen should be utilized for the moral and material benefit of his native land. He wished that Portugal should be a land of liberty and progress, like the United States of America or the kindred Republic of Brazil. He meant to save his country from following in the wake of the persecuting French Republic, or of the volcanic, Freemason-ridden Republics of Mexico and Venezuela. Above all, he would have the government of his country' broad-based upon the people's will.' In a word, he stood for democracy, as opposed to faction; for Christian liberty, as opposed to Masonic tyranny.

The highly popular and successful rule of Sidonio was gall and wormwood to the secret societies which form the mainstay of the trumpery little factions that have been battening on the country since the Republic began. Portugal has the misfortune of possessing 4,000 Freemasons and 40,00 Carbonarios; therein lies the crux of her national problem. The lodges of these secret societies are little better than murder-clubs, in which assassinations and crimes of violence are planned. Any statesman who runs counter to the wishes of the secret societies, and of the political groups which they dominate, will be morally certain to share the fate of Sidonio Paes. When Sidonio learned that some of his subordinates had raided the Gremio Lusitano, the headquarters of Portuguese Freemasonry, he is recorded to have remarked sadly-'They have drawn up my deathsentence.'

It was but too true. Shortly afterwards, the Epoca, a leading Catholic journal, managed to secure detailed information showing that the assassination of the patriotic President had been decreed by a highly influential Masonic lodge in Paris. A curious story is told as to the manner in which the murderous order was smuggled into Portugal. Its bearer is said to have purchased a large number of books, which filled two or three boxes. The official Masonic document was deftly stowed away in a volume at the bottom of one of the boxes, and thus escaped the vigilance of the Customs officials. This may be a mere legend-one of the many legends that are destined to cluster around the heroic memory of Sidonio Paes. What is certain is that on his

departure for Coimbra and Oporto, laden with gifts and comforts for the poor, towards whom his generosity was always princely, Sidonio was basely murdered in the Central Station of Lisbon, after a single year of beneficent and memorable rule.

His funeral was a demonstration of popular grief, surpassing anything that had been witnessed in Portugal within living memory. It was widely felt that, in a true sense, he had laid down his life as a martyr for his country. Hundreds upon hundreds of Masses have been offered for the welfare of his soul. The immortelles which lie upon his tomb, and crowd the chapel in which his remains have been laid to rest, are almost worth a king's ransom. The other day, as I knelt before his bier in the historic Church of the Jeronymos, I could not help realizing that here, indeed, was a man whose memory will be cherished for ages in the hearts of his countrymen-a man whose noble and inspiring example may well be a burning and a shining light to generations yet unborn.

The tragic end of Sidonio Paes was speedily followed by another tragedy. The young Monarchists, seeing that no worthy successor to Sidonio Paes was likely to arise from the Republican ranks, and knowing that the most capable men in the country were still adherents of the Monarchist cause, attempted a coup d'état, with a view to the restoration of the Monarchy. The attempt, ill-planned and ill-executed, ended in a miserable fiasco. Sidonio's party fell from power, and the country fell once more into the grasp of the corrupt Republican factions which derive their inspiration and support from the secret societies.

The ideal of these societies-in so far as they can be said to have an ideal-is government by faction. They desire that the reins of power shall rotate from one to another of the corrupt, incompetent, and tyrannical factions into which orthodox Republicanism is divided. They desire that each faction in turn shall have the privilege of plundering and misgoverning the country. Each of these factions represents but a small minority of the people. Elections are so marred by intimidation and jugglery that nowadays only a tiny percentage of the electors will take the trouble to record their votes, though they voted in great numbers during the honest régime of Sidonio Paes. To state the matter briefly, each faction climbs into power by fraud, against the wishes of the mass of the people. To say this is to say that the

government of such a faction is a tyranny. Worse still, the faction maintains its power by sheer armed force-by the bayonets of soldiery, the sabres of policemen, and the muskets of bluejackets; in other words, by methods of terrorism. Worst of all, the faction's conduct, while in power, is open to the gravest suspicion of jobbery and malversation; so much so that the ordinary citizen regards the Republican régime as incomparably the rottenest that Portugal has ever known. When the dominant faction has gorged itself, it quietly drops off—either by reason of a hostile combination of other factions, or by collusion between the Front Benches-and another faction steps into power, and begins to repeat the same process.

Such was the condition of affairs during the first seven years of the Republic, and such has been the condition of affairs since the tragic death of Sidonio Paes. The common people, keenly sensitive to governmental influences, had freely assisted at Mass and fraternized with the clergy in Sidonio's time; now, in view of the altered circumstances, they show a feeling of constraint, of hesitation, of timidity. This adds enormously to the Church's difficulties. Given a good government, a good press, a good clergy, and a good system of education, the Portuguese people would be one of the finest, most warm-hearted, and most charming peoples in Europe. Unhappily, for the last century and a half, they have had none of these things, or they have had them very inadequately.

It seems to me that no people in Europe, exposed for the last hundred and fifty years to the multitudinous agencies of evil that have been operating against the Portuguese people-no other people in Europe would have retained so much natural politeness and goodness, so much Christian faith and piety, as the Portuguese people have managed to retain.

Despite all the difficulties which now confront the Church in Portugal, it seems to me that religion is in a better way than it was twenty years ago. There are many reasons which seem to justify this belief. To set them forth in detail would unduly prolong this article.

M. H. MACINERNY, O.P.

To be concluded.]

TRIM

A SITE FOR A UNIVERSITY IN 1584

BY REV. PETER BYRNE, C.M., LL.D.

THE following extract from an article on the Ruins of Trim is offered as a postscript to Father Callary's interesting paper on the Priory of St. John, in the I. E. RECORD for February. The article from which the extract is taken was published in the Metropolitan Magazine, 1858, vol. iii. pp. 661-665. The archaic spelling and expressions of the original are retained.

An excellent and graphic description of Trim in olden days, is given in a memorial presented in 1584, by Robert Draper, Parson of Trim, to Lord Burghley, Lord High Treasurer of England, respecting the foundation of a University in Trim. The rev. gentleman thus presents its attractions :

'Firste, it is situate in a most fresh and wholesome ayre, XXti myles from Dublin, and XV from Droghedaghe, an haven towne. The towne itselfe is full of very faire castles and stone houses, builded after the Englishe fashyon, and devyded into fyve faire streetes, and hathe in it the fairest and most stately castle that her Matte hath in all Ireland, almost decayed. It hath also one greate and large Abbey, nothinge thereof defaced; but the church and therein, great store of goodly roomes, in meetly good repair, the howse is put to no use, and will (I think) be easily bought of the owner, Edward Cusack, of Lesmollen. The said Edward hath also a fryary in the said town, a very fit place for a colledge, which also may be easily gotten of him.

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Further, your suppliant hathe a Friery having stanche and good walls for an hall, for 4 or five lodgings, a cellar, a kitchen, a place for lectures with a pleasant backside, conteyning three acres at leaste; all which your said suppliant will freely give to the furtherance of this good worke. Throughe the myddest of the towne runneth the most pure and clere ryver of the Boyne; up this ryver might all provision come from Droghedaghe to Trym, by boate, if the statute to that purpose made in Sir Henry Sidneis' time were executed. Harde by the towne is an excellent good quarry; if they should need any stone, lymestone enough harde at the gate, slates within XI myles and timber enough within three

1 The writer came across this magazine some years ago in a private library in the County Westmeath. It is but little known. Apparently it had a short life, from April 1857 to September 1858. It was published by W. Robertson, 23 Upper Sackville Street, Dublin.

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