LEO XIII.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5120, 15 June 1885, Page 2

LEO XIII.

The most striking feature of the sac* cessor of Pius IX. is a pronounced taito for the study and discussion of theology and philosophy. One of his favorite recreations is to assist at the learned debates which took place regularly in the Roman seminaries. Not only does he encourage the students and misters who complete ip these theological jousts, but he lores to recall the time when he himself took part in them, and the successes he gained. Indeed, about 1828 and 1838. young Pecoi wag the most brilliant pupil of the Roman College and the Gregorian University. He was doctor at twenty-one years of age. It is enough to read a few pages of his two writings on the "Church and Civilization " to perceive at once that one is in the presence of a remarkably cultured mind. One is even surprised, ia addition to quotations from Flato, Aris» lotle, Cicero, Juvenal, or Dante, to find in. the pastoral of an Italian Bishop passages from Montesquieu, Bastait, M. Re. nan, and the Dieux Mondes. This evidently proves a man open to the ideal and controversies of the day, who doei not ignore the peculiar character of the modern world. His Latin discourses are, iv form and beauty of arrangement, quite perfect in their kind. One seems to discover in Cardinal Pecci a dootor armed with all the syllogisms of St. Thomas Aquinas, and, at the same time, a delicate humanist of the Renaissance.