POPE XIII ON FREEMASONS.

                                 DEL. 7.

36.  In the fourth place, in order more easility to

attain what We wish, to your fidelity and

   watchfulness We commened in a special manner

the young, as being the hope of human society.

      Devote the greatest part of your care to their

instruction; and do not think that any precaution

      can be great enough in keeping them from 

masters and schools whence the pestilent breath

     of the sects is to be feared.

Under your guidance, let parents, religious

     instructors, and priests having the cure of souls,

use every opportunity, are their Christian teaching,

     of warning their children and pupils of the infamous nature of these societes so that they

     may learn in good time to beware of the various

and fraudulent artifices by which their promoters

   are accustomed to ensnare people.

And those who instruct the young in religious

     knowledge will act wisely, if they induce all of

them to resolve and to undertake never to bind

    themselves to any society without the knowledge

of their parents, or the advice of their parish

    priest or director.

               A CALL TO PRAYER AND ACTION.

37.  We well know, however, that our united labors will by no means suffice to pluck up these

   pernicious seeds from the Lords field, unless the

Heavenly Master of the vineyard shall mercifully

      help us in our endeavors.

We must, therefore, with great and anxious care,

     implore of Him the help which the greatness

of the danger and of the need requires.

     The sect of Freemasons shows no bounds to its

pertinacity.

     Its followers, joined together by a wicked compact and by secret counsels, give help one to

     another, and excite one another to an audacity

for evil things.

    So vehement an attack demands equal defense

----- namely, that all good men should form the 

     widest possible assocation of action and of

prayer.

     We beseech them, therefore, with united hearts,

to stand together and unmoved against the

   advancing force of the sects; and in mouring and 

supplication to stretch out their hands of God,

    praying that the Christian name may flourish and

prosper, that the Church may enjoy its needed 

     liberity, that those who have gone astray may return to a right mind, that error at length may give

    place to truth, and vice to virtue.

Let us take as our helper and intercessor the

   Virgin Mary, Motherof God, so that she, who from

the moment of her conception overcame Satan,

    may show her power over these evil sects, in which revived the contumacious spirit of the

   demon, together with his unsubdued perfidy and

deceit.

     Let us beseech Michael, the prince of the heavenly angels, who drove out the infernal foe;

    and Joseph, the spouse of the Most Holy Virgin,

and heavenly Patron of the Catholic Church; and the

    great Apostles, Oeter and paul, the fathers and

victorious champions of the Christian faith.

    By their patronage, and by perseverance in

united prayer, We hope that God will mercifully

    and opportunely succor the human race, which 

is encompassed by so many dangers.

38.  As a pledge of heavenly gifts and of Our benevolence, We lovingly grant in the Lord, to you,

     Venerable Brethren, and to the clergy and all 

the people commited to your watchful care,

     Our Apostolic Benediction.

39.  Given at St. Oeters in Rome, the twentieth 

    day of April, 1884, the 6th year of Our Ponticate.

                                            LEO XIII, POPE.