Page 47 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

PIBTH ANNUAL REPORT.

FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT.

To Hrcn EXCELLENCY, A. W. RANDALL,
Governor of the State of Wisconeipa:
SIB:-The office of an Historical Society, is not to write
history, but to gather the proper materials and preserve them
for the use of the biographer, the statistician, and the historian.
and
It looks to the PAST, the PRESENT, the FUTURE. It has
regard to the actions of men and of nations-the living and the
dead.
"It is because God is visible in History," says BANCROBT,
%hat its office is the noblest except that of the poet. The poet
is at once the interpreter and the favorite of Heaven. He
catches the first beam of light that flows from its uncreated
source. He repeats the mesNage of the Infinite, without always
being able to analyze it, and often without knowing how he
received it, or why he was selected for its utterance. To him,
and to him alone, history yields in dignity; for she not only
watches the great encounters of life, but recalls what had
vanished, and partaking of a bliss like that of creating, restores
it to animated being. The mineralogist takes special delight in
contemplating the process of crystallization, as though he had
caught nature at her work as a geometrician; giving herself up
to be gazed at without concealment such as she appears in the
very moment of exertion. But history, as she reclines in the
lap of eternity, sees the mind of humanity engaged in formative
efforts, constructing sciences, promulgating laws, organizing
commonwealths, and displging its energies in the visible move-
men6 of its intelligence. Of all pursuits that require analysis,
history, therefore, stands first. It is equal to philosophy; for
as certainly as the actual bodies forth the ideal, so certainly