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LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA 17 •N. THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC race between two powers, viz: the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over Divine, the other over human things. Each is the greatest in its own kind; each has certain limits within which it is re stricted, and those limits defined by the nature and proximate cause of each; so that there is, as we may say, a world ’marked off as a field for the proper ac tion oF each.’ Further: ‘all things which are em braced in the civil and political order are rightly subject to the civil authority, since Jesus Christ has commanded that what is Caesar’s is to be paid to Caesar, and what is God’s to God’ (Encyclical of Leo XIII on ‘Christian Constitution of States’). I feel, for one, that we can trust the Roman Catholic Church and the American Republic in fellowship with one another, and my appeal is this: let us all, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants alike—nay, Jews and Gentiles march together and shoulder to shoul der for the safety of the Republic and the moral and political leadership of the world.” SYMBOLISM IN CATHOLIC CHURCHES (Written for The Bulletin.) It has been said that the liturgy of the Catholic Church is the supreme art of the world. Even Cath olics, without sufficient reflection, are apt to think this statement somewhat extravagant. It is, however, perfectly true. In its full significance; given the benefit of its history, its proper setting, its strict and reverent observance, the Catholic liturgy is a work of art that surpasses all other works of art in its beauty and inspiration. There is no limit to what could be written in de lineation of the many beautiful and sublime features of our Catholic services. They reach all heights, sound all depths, touch all bounds. The history and significance of the sacred vestments alone, supply matter for volumes; the sacred vessels another, the ornaments on the altar another, the altar itself an other; while a great library could be written about the Mass without exhausting the subject. Indeed, if the books that have already been written about only one of the parts of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mas3 could all be brought together, no library on earth is capacious enough to hold them. This brief article, then, can give but the faintest idea of the richness of the symbolism in our churches. Take the very simplest features, those that are a part of the church edifice and do not enter into the liturgy except as a setting, so general that it is appropriate to all of our Catholic services the most distant back ground, as it were, in the picture—even of these features only the barest sketch can be made within our present limits. But from this sketch, particularly in those churches where the financial means at hand have admitted of a display of features of architectural skill, it will be seen what valuable helps to Christian devotion confront the Catholic worshipper at every turn. The church building itself, calls up some period of Catholic history, perhaps several different periods, ac cording to the order and style of architecture observed in outline, or the combinations shown in detail. A Gothic Church reminds us of that period when the great Roman Empire, having exhausted its energies to destroy the Church, was itself destroyed in the rnigration of nations and the incursions of barbarous hordes, during which the Goths brought in this order of the art of building. A Byzantine Church carries os back to the time when Constantine removed the seat of Empire from Rome to Constantinople, after which no emperor ever again sat in Rome, and the City of the Caesars became known as the Rome of the Popes. And so, each of the other orders of architecture, and each style of each order, and each various modification, as shown in columns and spires and turrets and domes and crosses and doors and por ticoes and tesselated pavements, has its particular sig nificance and goes to remind the well instructed Cath olic of some salient period or event in the history of the Faith. Within the church edifice likewise, every separate feature has a symbolic meaning. There are no lost lines in Catholic art, as there is no waste motion or vain word in Catholic liturgy. One need not mention the stained art-glass wnidows, for which Catholic Churches have long been noted; they speak their own lesson, as they witness their own unrivaled excellence, in pictures of inimitable beauty and richness of tone. Also, the fine-wrought mosaics, and rare frescoes, which are never wanting in the well-appointed, finished Catholic Church, tell their own story. Catholics look upon these works of art with kindling devotion. They grow familiar with the figures and scenes thus de picted, and almost without effort acquire a liberal education in sacred history, in the life of our Lord and His Apostles, in the trials and triumphs of the Martyrs „and the Saints. But the more strictly symbolic features appear in the interior architectural lines; where one may ob serve, say, twelve pillars, when perhaps only eight would be necessary to support the weight they bear; they remind us of the Twelve Apostles. So where one notes seven windows when a lesser number would perhaps suffice, they are suggestive of the Seven Sac raments. Two steps before the communion' rail are symbolic of the. two natures in the one Person of our Lord. Three steps leading up to the altar represent the Trinity. Six half columns against the walls on each side, and while pleasing and tasteful, obviously not necessary to the strength of the edifice, suggest the six Corporal Works of Mercy on the one hand, and the six spiritual works of mercy on the other. The gridiron of St. Lawrence, the scallop shell of St. James, the lion of St. Jerome, the singular form of the cross of St. Andrew, and like emblems mingled with appropriate architectural lines, are rich with symbolic meaning. There are emblems also common to .groups of Saints, as the palm branch, indicative of martyrs. Then, certain conventional emblems are used for the evangelists—a winged lion for St. Mark,