A POEM by Pope Leo, which is designated as his “dying prayer,” has recently been widely published in this country. Its theme is his approaching decease. He states that he is about to die,— “Leo, now sets thy sun; pale is its dying ray;
Black night succeeds thy day.” He is to be laid “under the cold stones,” but his “freed soul” takes its flight “to reach the realms of light.” How it can be that “black night” succeeds his day when at the same time he is entering into “realms of light” far surpassing earthly brightness, is not clear to us, but the discrepancy is demanded by theology, Protestant as well as Catholic. The concluding portion of the poem, however, is distinctively Catholic,— “That I may see thy face, Heaven’s
Queen, whose mother love
Has brought me home above “To thee, saved through the tangles of
a perilous way,
I lift my grateful lay.” He recognizes not Jesus, but the Virgin Mary, as his guide and savior. His “dying prayer” stamps his approval, the approval of the highest Catholic authority, upon the doctrine of salvation through the Virgin Mary and the “saints.” But the Christian doctrine exalts the name of Jesus as the only name “under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”