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Mr. President and Gentlemen : — In the name of the 

 Catholic University of America, I offer respectful homages 

 and affectionate greetings to the American Philosophical 

 Society, the youngest to the oldest of American institutions 

 for the advancement of learning. In its name, I return heart- 

 felt thanks for the broad-hearted liberality manifested by this 

 invitation to j^our centennial celebration, and for the over-kind 

 words with which my unworthy self has been introduced to 

 you to-night. Such a spirit we honor as worthy of this City 

 of Brotherly Love, and worthy of your great founder, Franklin, 

 who was noted among all his contemporaries for the univer- 

 sality of his human sympathies, and who numbered among his 

 friends and among his colaborers for our country's liberties our 

 great patriot bishop, John Carroll, 



In the name also of our University, I heartily endorse the 

 sentiment embodied in the toast to which I have been so 

 kindly asked to reply. We welcome and hail every advance 

 in philosophical research and in scientific discovery, and we 

 pay homage to the great men whom God makes use of for 

 their achievement. 



In the establishment of our own University, our purpose in 

 opening our work with the faculty of Divinity has been to 

 place the great God, the all-creating Father, in the very, centre, 

 in order that around him all philosophical and scientific studies 

 may be harmoniously grouped and may move in order like 

 the planets around their central sun; and we are firmly con- 

 vinced that he not only deserves well of his fellow-men, but 

 deserves well of Almighty God, who in any way adds to the 

 store of human knowledge, since of God it is said that " He is 

 light and there is no darkness in Him." 



The inspired wise man has said that " man has been made a 

 little lower than the angels and has been crowned with glory 



