“ What wonder, then, that the immense influence for good exercised by the University of Louvain, under the presidency of its distinguished rector, should be acknowledged in Belgium by enemies as well as friends, and that on more occasions than one the Holy See itself should have exhorted the bishops of other countries, as well as of Ireland, to imitate their brethren of Belgium by founding a Catholic University like that of Louvain!
While labouring to make the youth of the University good Christians, Mgr. de Ram laboured also with indefatigable zeal to make them learned men and good citizens. ”

“ It is much better candidly to admit that we cannot determine with accuracy the number of servants that accompanied Jacob into Egypt, or the number of servants and proselytes that afterwards became incorporated with the Hebrew people; that we cannot ascertain the precise number of generations in each family, or the average number for the entire nation; lastly, that we cannot estimate how far polygamy and intermarriage with the Egyptians may have conduced to the wonderful increase of population. ”

“ In all her faculties there are among the professors not only men of extraordinary learning, who unite clearness and method with depth and extent of knowledge, but also models of every Christian virtue; so that with good reason does F. de Buck conclude this portion of his notice of the illustrious prelate by exclaiming: “Yes, the professorial staff brought together by Mgr. de Ram, and which can henceforth be easily recruited from amongst the students of the university itself, is the chief glory, the undying crown of his rectorship”. ”

“ Peter, Christian Rome has been made the seat of an empire surpassing that of pagan Rome, by as much as the power of religion surpasses that of the sword. Each line of the network of railways and telegraphs with which modern progress has girded the globe, is in itself a new Appian Way, by which some distant country communicate, on its spiritual concerns with Rome ”

“ PETER FRANCIS XAVIER DE RAM. The great question of the present day is the question of education. The Catholic Church, as the infallible teacher of men, claims for herself the right to control human thought, and exercises that right by sitting in judgment on each newfangled system as it appears. ”

“ And all this is due in a great measure to one man, who at thirty years of age was called by the Belgian Episcopacy to rule over it, and who, with untiring energy, consummate wisdom, and gentle perseverance, moulded every part into perfect symmetry, so that schismatical Russia came to study the model, and the Holy See could say to Ireland, as well as to any other country wishing for a Catholic University: “Inspice, et fac secundum exemplar”. ”

“ De Ram, spoke as follows, in the name of his fellow students who stood around him:
“The great work founded by the Belgian episcopacy has grown under the shadow of our political and religious independence, and, as our rector himself expressed it, ‘The university is not only a Catholic institution, but also a national institution’. ”

“ The episcopacy of Belgium continued firm in its opposition, and the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Leo XII., directed his internuncio at the Hague to explain that it was impossible for the head of the Catholic Church to assent to measures destructive to the liberties of Catholics, or even to abstain from condemning them and protesting against them. The Belgian youths would not go to the Philosophical College; the few who went would not be admitted to Holy Orders by the bishops; and four years passed slowly along in passive opposition to the inroads of the government on Catholic education. ”

“ In vain, by another decree of the 14th of August following, the youth of Belgium were forbidden to seek abroad the free Catholic education denied to them at home, and unless educated in one of the state institutions, declared incapable of holding any public office in the gift of the government, or exercising any ecclesiastical function within the kingdom. In vain, by a decree of the 20th November, were the superiors of the diocesan seminaries ordered to dismiss forthwith all youths received since the previous 11th of July; and the young men themselves also commanded to withdraw. ”

“ It cannot be objected that, during the sojourn in Egypt, there is no explicit mention of polygamy in the Mosaic narrative. Moses did not undertake to write a history of the period. A single chapter in the beginning of Exodus, contains all that he records of what took place from the death of Jacob to the birth of Moses. Neither could we expect much information on this point from the genealogies which are given elsewhere in the Bible. Every one knows that it was not the ordinary custom of the Jews to mention the mothers of those whose pedigree was traced, but only the fathers. ”

“ In its working it has wedded together interests which the sophistry of the day makes it fashionable to represent as antagonistic. It is eminently national, eminently scientific, eminently Catholic. It cultivates literature with a zeal which does not interfere with its devotion to theology and other sacred studies, and pursues even the highest investigations of science in such a way as to prove that nowhere can freedom of scientific research find a more congenial home than in a Catholic university. These sentiments were eloquently expressed by one of the students of the university. ”

“ The practice of reciting the De Profundis after each low mass, we believe, exists in all Ireland, without any exception of diocese or district, and has existed for a long period. It is the opinion of many well versed in Irish ecclesiastical matters, that it was introduced and authorised by the Holy See as a substitute for the numerous masses and suffrages for which innumerable endowments were founded by the piety of the faithful in former times, and which were taken away from the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation. ”

“ But, though we are unable to say how the population did increase in point of fact, we can easily show how it may have increased. For this purpose we venture to lay before our readers a calculation by which we account for the fact in a manner perfectly conformable to all the “data of the Pentateuch”. First, as regards the number of generations. Since a generation is descent from father to son, the length of time to be allowed for a generation will be determined in each particular case by the age of the father when the son is born. ”

“ Now the circumstances of the Israelites in Egypt were peculiarly favourable to an unusually rapid increase. To say nothing of the special blessing of God which attended them, they were dwelling in a country of which the inhabitants were noted for a remarkable fecundity; the climate was genial; the land fertile; the means of living abundant. Let us then take a medium between the extreme figures mentioned above, and suppose that during the whole period of the sojourn in Egypt, the population was doubled every eighteen years. This supposition may or may not be true ”

“ The Colleges of Ghent and Liege contain the practical branches, to which the majority of the young men attach themselves. The schools of mines and engineering are at Liege. The schools of mechanics and of practical chemistry are at Ghent. There are great schools of medicine at both colleges. Hence the practical education is conducted at those colleges where there is no religion and no discipline. In Belgium there are three colleges, one with ultra-ecclesiastical discipline, attended generally by Catholic foreigners, whom the traditional fame of the medieval university brings to Louvain. ”

“ Whatever may have been its origin, it has become a usage with the force of law, against which no individual is at liberty to act. Even if the Holy See did not authorise the practice in the commencement, it must necessarily have been introduced by the bishops of the day, and its continuance for so long a period throughout the entire Irish Church without any reclamation from ecclesiastical authority, would be quite sufficient to show that all should conform to such a practice, which in itself is so holy and useful, and calculated to confer such advantages on the suffering souls in Purgatory. ”

“ At that time the number of Catholic barristers and physicians who practised their religion was extremely small. Now, in Brussels, Liege, and Ghent, the greater part of the young bar, if not of the whole bar practising in the chief courts of law, which are situated in these three cities, are thoroughly devoted to the Catholic Church. Without doubt, several of these young lawyers did not study in Louvain; they owe the preservation of their faith to the good education received in the bosom of their families, in the Jesuit Colleges, and in other Catholic institutions ”

“ An University founded and governed by a Catholic episcopacy, by the aid of their Catholic people only, established on purely Catholic principles, without any of those helps which men of the world value most, already in its infancy rivals the great seats of learning of the middle ages. ”

“ De Ram’s great work, but not his only work, was the foundation of the Catholic University of Louvain. At the time when he was called by the bishops of Belgium to form and direct the new institution, he was diligently engaged in promoting the spread of good books, in illustrating the antiquities of his country, and especially in publishing the lives of the saints and other distinguished men who have shed glory on his native land. ”

“ Thus was there formed, outside of the masses, who remained faithful, a multitude of men of position and of influence, who know the religion of their fathers only from the bad books where it is attacked, from the stage where it is insulted, from the assemblies where its sacred ministers are ridiculed, from the newspapers where it is calumniated”. ”

“ We may, however, fairly suppose that, among the Hebrew people in Egypt, taking one family with another, every man on an average had children born to him at the age of 32. Thus 32 years would be the average length of each generation. The males of the first generation, as we have before seen, were all living at least three years before the descent into Egypt, or 218 years before the Exodus. For each succeeding period of 32 years we must add, according to our calculation, one generation more. In 218 years there are just six periods of 32 years each, and 26 years over. ”

“ It followed the students in their several careers through life. His old students always found in their rector one to encourage them, to counsel them, to gather them about him, as a father gathers his children, to rejoice in their success—in a word, to make them his joy and his delight”. ”

“ Faith, Learning, Liberty, were the words which he loved to unite in his discourses. Every one knows the results of his inculcating those principles without ceasing on the young Belgians entrusted to him by his Catholic country, which had just recovered its liberty from Protestant Holland ”

“ Where was he to find professors in whom faith and true Catholic principles were united with that profound and varied learning which would fit them to occupy chairs in the new university? When we consider the deplorable state of Catholic education among the cultivated classes in Belgium at the time we speak of, these difficulties can be better imagined than expressed ”

“ In the face of a jealous government, to urge, and to urge successfully, the inalienable rights of the Church, requires no ordinary tact; in the face of the contempt, or distrust, or antagonism of the intellect of a country, to take every understanding captive unto Christ, demands no ordinary courage and ability. ”

“ His brethren, it is true, have taken the alarm, and have made a show of resistance, but they only demonstrate their own weakness. Like Canute of old, they command the waters to advance no further, but their command is vain and fruitless. ”

“ En 1845 je remis à Monseigneur Pecci, Nonce Apostolique, deux exemplaires de la nouvelle édition de la Logique et de la Théodicée, en priant Son Excellence de vouloir bien les faire parvenir à Rome, afin que la S. Congrégation pût juger si les additions et les changements introduits répondaient entièrement aux voeux exprimés par elle. A plusieurs reprises je reçus des assurances qui me persuadérent que j’avais fait ce qui m’était demandé. ”

“ That great highway—leading from the capital to the Eastern provinces—was ever thronged by a ceaseless crowd of men, engaged in the varied business, and swayed by the various interests, that centre in the seat of a mighty government. ”

“ We have led our readers a long and weary journey. We have conducted them through a bewildering labyrinth of names and numbers, of intricate genealogies and complicated calculations. Our way indeed lay through the midst of a beautiful country ”

“ Wherever our students are called by duty, this noble thought will always be their motto, as it is to-day their hope.
“God, the knowledge of whom you have imparted to us so well, to whom your life of merit, hidden to men’s eyes, is manifest for your recompense. ”

“ The science of the age sides on the whole with the civil power as against the Church. Towards the ecclesiastical authorities it assumes at times an air of pity, as towards men whose otherwise estimable qualities are warped by a religious bigotry which is eminently unscientific ”

“ En recevant cette communication, j’ai compris que je devais fournir des explications et des éclaircissements au sujet de ces cinq propositions. Je croyais que la S. Congrégation de l’Index, ayant égard à ma position de professeur à l’Université catholique de Louvain, avait daigné m’appliquer le § 10 de la constitution de Benoit XIV, Sollicita ac provida, et n’avait pas voulu porter de jugement définitif avant de m’avoir entendu. C’est dans cette persuasion que je m’empressai de rédiger un Mémoire explicatif et justificatif, que votre Eminence a bien voulu transmettre à Rome. ”