Chiefly, however, we desire to have shine forth in your deeds that
singular and renowned token of Christians which our Savior Christ,
when on the point of offering up his most innocent life and his
most holy blood--that thereby, in rescuing us from the deadliest of
fates, he might ensure the freedom of mortals--commended repeatedly
to his followers as a countersign, in these words: "By this shall
all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for
another." This is that priceless boon of charity which Paul styles
"the bond of perfection," which we trust may not only shine forth
from your midst--Whereby you should cling to Christ as a companion,
and seek the possession of his spirit--but that the same affection
of peace and love flow thence from you to all other men as from a
clear fountain, to the end that those who have made profession of this
soldiership in Christ may cling to one another in the mutual bond of
charity, to the maintenance amidst the clash of arms of that "grace
which," the Apostle affirms, "is above all sense." For peace, be it
known, dwells even in the midst of affrays, and is to be commended
by you all, to the best of your power, to the inhabitants of those
regions--to whom you should, as the heralds and vanguard of true
evangelical piety, appear as in search not of what is your own,
but of what is Jesus Christ's. Moreover, we earnestly exhort your
charity in the Lord, as far as lies in our power, to announce the
all-holy gospel of Christ to all races, baptizing them that believe
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;
training them in the holy Catholic faith, on the same lines on which
the faithful are trained by our cherished mother the Church of Rome;
shunning utterly therein all novelty of doctrine, which we desire
shall in all things conform to the holy and ecumenical councils and
doctors acknowledged by the same Church; teaching them especially
that obedience which all Christians owe to die supreme Pontiff and the