1

no means infallible, and appeal lies from us to the public. The aggrieved party can appeal, and in most cases, we doubt not, the appeal will be sustained ; for we are far from pretending to be guided by popular taste or public opinion in forming and expressing our judgments. The authors of the publications in question are, for the most part, entirely unknown to us, and we have and can have no personal motive for treating them unfairly or unkindly. We take a deep interest in our literature, and wish to see it flourish, but they must pardon us if we tell them that we prefer Catholicity to its literature. Faith and sanctity are necessaries of life, but literature is not. A bad literature is worse than none ; and any literature which is not adapted to our wants, which turns our minds away from what should fix attention, and aids and encourages tendencies already too strong, in our judgment, is bad. If in this we err, or if we have misconceived the spirit of our present popular literature, it has been from ignorance or weakness, not from malice.

We have spoken plainly and strongly, for it is always better to crush an evil in the bud than when it is full blown, and because we regard our popular writers as possessing learning, talents, genius enough to give us far better works than they do, and they deserve something of a castigation for not doing so. They give us works which spring from the exceptionable tendencies we have pointed out, and which, instead of checking, can hardly fail to exaggerate them. We tell them this, not to discourage them, but to do what in us lies to direct their attention to the dangers to which the faithful are exposed, and 10 urge them, by the most powerful motives of our religion, to adapt their works to our actual and most pressing wants. We respect their motives and applaud their zeal, but we pray them to look deeper, to take a wider survey of our actual condition, and consider more attentively the peculiar teinptations and seductions we are called upon 10 resist; and to write books which will tend to edify us, to turn our attention, not outward, where all is hostile, but inward, where all should be, and may be, unremitted effort after Christian perfection. If they would do this, and give us works modelled, to some extent, after the charming tales of Canon Schmid, -works which unfold the internal richness and beauty of religion, which show how it blends in with all our daily duties and household affections, sweetening our cares, sustaining us in our trials, consoling us in our sorrows, imparting depth and tenderness to chaste love, new charms to the innocence and sprightliness of childhood,

strength and dignity to the prime of life, peace and gravity to old age, they would furnish a far more attractive series of publications, secure to themselves a far wider circle of readers, and exert an infinitely more healthful influence, both on Catholics themselves, and on those who unhappily are aliens from the kingdom of God.

Unquestionably, such works would require labor and study, prayer and mortification, abstraction from worldly thoughts and cares, subdued passions, and complete self-annihilation. But we will not suppose that this would be an objection. It should rather be an argument in their favor, and serve to stimulate ambition. The ambition to do what is beautiful, great, noble, and difficult, for the love of God and our neighbour, is praiseworthy, and the only ambition that is not mean and belittling. A blessing would attend the preparation of such works. The author would live in a pure and serene atmosphere, and commune with the sweet and gentle, the strong and the heroic. He would dwell in the presence of God, and sustain and nourish his life with Him who gave his own life to be ours. He would become a better man ; his vision would be purged, his heart expanded, and his soul filled with holy unction; and from his pen would flow words of sweetness and power ; he would make to himself a throne in the hearts of the young and the old, the joyful and the sorrowful ; the poor and the bereaved would bless him, the saints would claim him as their brother, and God would embrace him as his son. His work would be holy; his reward a crown of life. O, who would not, if duty permitted, leave the arid and barren field of mere dialectics, the tumultuous sea of controversy, and seek out some quiet retreat, where bloom the perennial flowers of piety and love, and where, if he spoke at all, he would speak from the heart to the heart of the rich graces and consolations our good Father, through our sweet Mother, never tires in bestowing on those who love him, and seek no love but his ?

When we look upon the multitude of our youth, growing up in a land so hostile to their faith, amidst temptations and seductions so numerous and so powerful, and reflect how hard it is, even for those who are far advanced in Christian perfection, to maintain their ground, we feel that every generous heart should beat for them, and every lover of God and of his neighbour should rush to their aid and rescue. It is frightful to think how many of those around us, who have never known the true Church, precious souls, for whom God has died, must

finally be lost; but it is far more frightful, that not these only, but thousands of our own dear children, regenerated in Holy Baptism, anointed with the Holy Chrism, soldiers enlisted in the army of King Jesus, are to fall away, become deserters, traitors, and, from heirs of heaven, heirs of eternal fire. These claim our thoughts, our prayers, and our labors. For the love of Jesus, dear friends, turn your minds and affections towards these exposed youth, and speak, if you can, a word that shall touch their wet susceptible hearts, that shall quicken their love for religion, and make them feel how noble, how honorable, it is to be a Catholic, especially in a land where the Cross is derided, where holy things are hourly profaned, and men glory in denying the Lord that bought them. Open to them the grandeur and sublimity of our holy religion, and make their cheeks redden that they ever were so cowardly as to be ashamed of it. Make them feel, by your own quiet, assured manner, by your own inward fulness and joy, that you have in it all you ask for, and that you do not need to coax all the world to go with you, in order to save you from regretting the choice you have made. Show that you love your brethren, that you honor your Catholic friends, even the humblest, and see, in the poorest and most illiterate servant-girl, a nobility that infinitely surpasses that of the proudest of earth's kings or potentates ; for the humblest Catholic has that which makes him the son of the King of kings, and heir of an immortal crown.

Our youth find their religion rejected and derided by those they see, when they look forth into the world, honored, courted, and flattered, even by Catholics themselves. Wealth, fashion, honors, distinction, place, power, are in the hands of the enemies of the Church, and they feel that their religion is an obstacle to their rising in the world, a bar to their worldly ambition, and they are tempted to wear it loosely, or to throw it off altogether, — unless, perchance, to call it in, if they have an opportunity, to bury them. They are ashamed of it, because they imagine it detracts from their respectability ; and it is not uncommon to hear even those who are not, as yet, quite lost, apologizing for it, and alleging as their excuse, that their parents were Catholics, and brought them up to go to Mass. This, in a country like ours, where there are no fixed ranks, where nobody is contented to serve God and save his soul in the state of life in which he was born, and where there is a universal strife of every body to rise to the top of the social

ladder, makes the condition of our Catholic youth one full of peril.

It is of no use to undertake to show them, in books, that we have Catholics able to grace any walk in life, or to add lustre to the most brilliant and fashionable assemblies, and that we are daily making converts from the very élite of Protestant society. This is only to approve their false ambition, and to inflame it yet more. Moreover, these marvellous Catholics, and still more marvellous converts, so common in Woks, are somewhat rare in every-day society ; they bear but a small proportion to the whole number of the faithful; the worldly advantages remain as ever on the side of the enemies of the Church, and those Catholics who flatter themselves that they are somebody are very apt to show that they prefer a rich and distinguished heretic, as a friend and companion, to the poor but devout Catholic. Our authors should study to correct this, and seek to avert the evil by drying up its source. They must repudiate the silly and absurd notion, that the heretical world around us is the fountain of honor, that it is an honor to a Catholic for rich and influential heretics to take notice of him, or that it is better to frequent the gay saloons and fashionable assemblies of those who are the enemies of God, the deriders of his Immaculate Spouse, than it is to live in the modest and humble society of the faithful. What is the proudest heretic in the land, in comparison with the poorest and most illiterate Irish laborer or servant-girl ? Who would not rather be poor and outcast, despised and trampled on, with the hope of heaven before him, than to have all this world's goods, and hell in the world to come? And who that has a Catholic heart does not find more that is congenial to his taste and feelings, more of all those qualities which adorn human nature, and which make one a desirable friend and companion, in the humblest but sincere Catholic, than in your most elevated, high-bred, accomplished, and fascinating heretic? Believers are the true nobility, whatever their social position or worldly possessions. They are God's nobility, and will surround his throne, and live in his immediate presence ; while others, whom a vain and foolish world runs after, admires, adulates, all but adores, will be cast down to hell, to writhe in eternal agony with devils, and all that is foul, and filthy, and hateful, and disgusting, - gnashing their teeth, and blaspheming, as they behold from afar the glory and beatitude of those they had despised when living. This thought should stamp itself on the pages of our literature.

а

Our writers should aim to show not tenderness only to the poor, but true Christian Honor, as our religion commands ; they must acknowledge no high life, where God is not loved and served ; rise above the vain follies and frivolities of the world ; and, avoiding the levelling absurdities of the day, all of which spring from a worldly pride, recognize the dignity and worth of every soul, the true equality of all souls before God, and then they will breathe a Catholic spirit, and, to the extent of their influence, create a Catholic atmosphere around our youth, — a Catholic public sentiment to which they may defer without meanness or danger of corruption.

Our authors would do us a service, if they would stamp with disgrace that silly notion which some, who regard themselves as the better sort among Catholics, are not ashamed to express, — that our condition would be much pleasanter, and the cause of Catholicity more flourishing in this country, if we had a larger number of wealthy and distinguished Catholics. We have heard this said, and coupled even with a regret that so large a portion of the Catholic population is made up of poor foreigners. Converts from the old Puritan stock, like ourselves, are very apt, when first coming into the Church, to take up without reflection a notion of this sort. God forgive them ! Whom did

a our Lord choose for his intimate friends and for his apostles ? Were they not poor fishermen and contemned publicans ? Who composed the first Christian congregations in the cities of the Gentiles ? Were they not poor dispersed Hellenistic Jews, the poor Irish of their day, — almost an abomination to

- their proud and idolatrous heathen neighbours, — and after those, chiefly the slaves and the lowest class of the people ? Did the A postles complain of this ? Nay, they gloried in it. Do our honorable bishops and priests complain of the rank and standing of their flocks ? By no means, for they know that God seeth not as man seeth. What matters it where a man was born ? Let us who are native-born remember that so large a portion of our brethren were born elsewhere only to remember the faith and virtues they brought with them, and to engage in a holy strife with them which shall outdo the other in humility, and works of charity and mercy. The Church is the Catholic's country, and his home is where God is offered for the living and the dead, and abides with his people.

Finally, we beg our authors to study to strengthen the sentiment and draw closer the bonds of brotherhood among our widely scattered population, and to induce us to feel and speak