If the Lombard and Venetian patriots called us together in those days to talk of politics, it was by no means always in order to conspire, nor to determine revolutionary acts; it was to enable us to communicate news, to become acquainted, to keep the flame of the idea alive.

This is what we wish to do in the religious field.

The Abbe Marinier may rest assured that that negative accord of which he spoke will amply suffice.

We must strive to widen it, that it may embrace the majority of the intelligent faithful; that it may even reach the Hierarchy.

He will see that positive accord will ripen in it, mysteriously, as the seed of life ripens in the decaying body of the fruit.