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17 FOREWORD.

THE more deeply and earnestly the Church is contemplated the more manifest is its pre-eminence above all others, and the more surely we feel ourselves in the presence of One who has been divinely delineated. Supreme and concentrated holiness stands forth as its one predominant characteristic. The piety, learning, wit, philosophy, genius, eloquence and poetry inherent therein have stamped its signature upon nearly every phase of the world's history since the coming of the Babe of Bethlehem. It has mingled with the political disquisition—it has pervaded the philosophical treatise and has found a foremost place in the magnificent epic of Queensland's progress. The history of Queensland so abounding in wonders, so full of strange sights and extraordinary changes, perhaps presents its master marvel, and its most singular transformation, in the story here briefly to be told—the story of the inception and rise of the Catholic Church within its borders. The story combines every ingredient and property of a grand and perfect drama. There has been a rapid succession of striking and most diverse scenes; there has been an endless variety of startling incidents; there has been an astonishing multiplicity of remarkable characters, and therefore it is not meet that the splendid deeds of self-abnegation which have been performed by servants of the Church should go down to the "tongueless silence of the dreamless dust" unrecorded and unsung. It is a solemn duty owed to those who dedicated