MR. ROBERT SPEER thinks that there is ten times as great moral need for missionary work in the Catholic countries of South America as in China. He quotes the following lament from a letter of the Pope to the clergy of Chili: “In every diocese, ecclesiastics break all bounds, and deliver themselves up to manifold sensuality; but no voice is lifted to imperiously summon the pastors to their duty. It is sad to reflect that prelates, priests, and other clergy are never to be found doing service among the poor, never in the hospital, never in the dwellings of the afflicted or the distressed, or engaged in works of beneficence; that they are always absent where human misery is, unless paid as chaplains or a fee is given. You, as clergy, are always to be found in the house of the rich, where gluttony is to be engaged in and where good wines are to be obtained.” One of the ecclesiastics of the country, the bishop of Caracas, writes in the same strain: “The scandals in the parish or town take on unmeasured proportions. The enemies of the church triumph because of the shameful evils of the parochial priests, and good souls retire to groan in secret. It is revealed in the deserted churches. We should know that the one cause of this humiliating decay is none else than the hidden corruption of the heart and life of the priests.”—Present Truth (London).