The Judges of Faith

THE disposal of nearly the whole first edition of two thousand (2000) copies of this Manual on Schools, among comparatively but few of the Most Rev., Rt. Rev. and Rev. Clergy, and their faithful people, has encouraged the appearance of this re-written edition under the exalted auspices with which it is favored. Well-meant and well-taken criticisms from various sources have enabled the writer to bring this book nearer to his ideal of an authoritative collection of judgments on secular as opposed to religious schools. It is unreservedly submitted to The Judges of the Faith, and especially to the supreme arbitrament-condemnation or approval--of our Most Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII. The testimonies recorded are all that could be obtained after fifteen years' waiting and watching. It may be worthy of remark that these pages contain the conciliar or single rulings of no less than three hundred and eighty (380) the high and highest Church Dignitaries. There are brought forward twenty-one Plenary and Provincial Councils; six or seven Diocesan Synods; two Roman Pontiffs; two Sacred Congregations of some twenty Cardinals and Pontifical Officials; seven single Cardinals-who with thirty-three Archbishops make forty Primates and Metropolitans; finally nearly eighty single Bishops and Archbishops deceased or living in the United States. All documents and rulings are from the past half-century. The entirely new matter from the volume of the III. Plenary Council of Baltimore rounds off the treatment of our dual subject-now presented according to the programme thus prescribed by a friend in the American hierarchy: "I believe your little work, when toned down somewhat and recast, will do a great deal of good. The Bishops at the Council have discussed the school-question at length, and are unanimous in urging the necessity of a Catholic school in every parish. I trust Catholic education will receive a new and strong impulse; and hence any book, that calmly and without bitterness, lays bare the evils of our Public School System, will be read with interest and profit." While thanking the prominent Catholic and non-Catholic press for its nearly uniform kind reception of the first imperfect edition, the Compiler gratefully acknowledges his obligations to the stanch staff of the NEW YORK FREEMAN'S JOURNAL, for translations of some documents from the Spanish and Portuguese, French and German tongues, and of one or the other from the Latin, originals of which could not be procured.