"THOU SHALT NOT KILL” It is impossible not to be struck, in taking up the morning papers, with the terrible increase in crimes by which men and women deprive each other of life. Editorials declare that not within many years has the phenomenon of so strong a tidal murderwave been noted in the country. As a result of this wave of crime, at least five-eighths of the newspapers are filled with police news of a more or less tragical kind. Of a newspaper, the news-sheets of which numbered eight, the articles which dealt with criminal items of one sort or another were counted and it was found that they exceeded any other form of news in the proportion of seven to one. In other morning papers the proportion seemed to be about the same. From all time, the crime of murder has been regarded as the most atrocious of which the human heart in its outburst of wickedness, is capable. The Almighty's first order to men, when the Earth was cleared of the Deluge, was that they should not imbue their hands in each other's blood. Again, among the precepts of the Old Law expounded by Our Lord, the commandment not to kill, holds the very first place, it being certain that the disposition of man to remove from his path, those whom he hated, has ever been latent in his heart when the spirit of wickedness lured him on to the fullest expression of that hatred. "I will require," says the Almighty, "the blood of your lives at the hand of every beast and at the hand of man." There is a two-fold development in the obligation: the one forbidding the depriving another of life, the other commanding us to cherish sentiments. of charity, concord and friendship towards our enemies. There are no injunctions, however, in regard to the killing of animals which are intended for the food of man. "When," says St. Augustine, "we hear the words that we are not to kill, it is to be understood that this prohibition does not extend to the fruits of the Earth which are insensible, nor to irrational animals which belong not to the society of mankind." Nor does the prohibition extend to the magistrate to whom is entrusted the duty of seeing that God's command, that the murderer shall atone, is to be carried out. The end of the commandment being the preservation and the security of human life, the magistrate's power to wield the sword is sacred and lawful in the case of murderers. The soldier, too, is without guilt who kills in his country's cause. Again if a man kills another in defence of his own life, having taken what precautions he could to avoid killing, he does not violate the commandment. not to kill. Unwilful ignorance that causes death is not murder. It is strange, as the Catechism of the Council of Trent tells us, that the Jews were under the impression that to abstain from shedding human blood was enough to satisfy the obligation imposed by this commandment. Nevertheless, the Christian knows that the command is also spiritual, and that hatred and murder must be kept from our hearts. Many are, indeed, guilty of murder, if not in act, at least in desire. In the Holy Writ, God pours out the deepest execrations against the murderer, declares that of the very beast of the field he will exact vengeance for the life of man and commanding the beast that sheds human blood to be put to death. The murderer, says the Psalmist, is the worst enemy of the species, and consequently of nature: to the utmost of his power, he destroys the universal work of God by the destruction of man for whom God declares He created all things. It is the crime which. born of hatred, the Spirit of Darkness prompts the weak heart to commit. To show how energetically the murderer is precipitated by the impulse of the devil into the commission of such says: an enormity, the Psalmist GENUINENESS There is nothing which will add so much to one's power as the consciousness of being absolutely sincere, genuine. If your life is a perpetual lie, if you are conscious that you are not what you pretend to be-that you are really a different person from what the world regards you-you are not strong. There is a restraint, a perpetual fighting against the truth going on within you, a struggle which saps your energy and warps your conduct. If there is a mote at the bottom of your eye you can not look the world squarely in the face. Your vision is not clear. Everybody sees that you are not transparent. There is a cloudiness, a haze about your character, which raises the interrogation point where you go. Character alone is strength, deceit is weakness, sham and shoddy are powerless, and only the genuine and true are worth while. SOCIETIES Societies should stick to the purpose for which they were organized. If they have too many irons in the fire, they accomplish nothing. If they attempt too many things, they fritter away their strength. If an organization is formed and begins to prosper, some one is sure to try to divert it from its proper work. Let other objects get other societies to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. PARENTAL LOVE There are few things more harmful to the real interests of the average child than overindulgence, and lack of wholesome discipline. The so-called parental love that expends itself in rendering a child dependent upon others for the simplest wants of its nature, self-centered and inconsiderate of the rights and feelings of those about it, usually succeeds in warping an otherwise good disposition, and spoiling material that under different treatment might and probably would evolve and develop finer and nobler qualities and characteristics. If a child subjected to the coddling and pampering of thoughtless, weak or foolish parents turns out well, in a broad and catholic sense, it is in spite of circumstances and not because of them. It is obvious, therefore, that the most important duty that confronts parents is that of forming the character of their children on right lines. This cannot be done, and it is not done merely by providing lavishly or solely for their bodily needs and intellectual cravings. Nor can parents delegate the duty to teachers or others. They must do it themselves, patiently, conscientiously, unceasingly, according to their lights. It is an obligation whose fulfillment demands more consideration and exercise of higher virtues than that of the natural requirements. which touch only bodily necessities. The best man and the best citizen and the best father is he who devotes his best thought, not to public concerns, the affairs of the world or the enticements of worldly ambition, but to the personal duty of rearing his children. to become intelligent, upright, Godfearing men and women, no matter what their lot or station in life. The sooner this fact is taken home to themselves by the parents of the United States the better it will be for the country and for the race. This truth is one that should appeal even more forcibly to Catholics than to others. THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE* There is no commoner historical calumny than that the Church was opposed to science, and that her opposition was the cause of the failure of science to develop, until recent times, when the Church lost much of her influence. There are details of how she is said to have forbidden dissection, to have prohibited chemistry, and to have hampered astronomy. Those who think that there is any foundation for these stories should read Dr. Walsh's book on "The Popes and Science." He shows that the Bulls that are referred to (and he quotes. them completely in Latin and in English) mean something quite different from what they have been said to mean, as is very plain to anyone who reads the Papal documents in their entirety. On the other hand he has told the story of the Papal Medical School and the Papal Physicians. Anatomy and chemistry and what we now call the biological sciences were all studied in the medical schools as they are indeed at the present time, and for several centuries the greatest medical school in the world was that at Rome, founded and supported by the Popes. The great medical school at Bologna, for several centuries at the height of its fame, was in the Papal States. The Papal physicians for the last seven centuries have had among their number the greatest names in the history of medicine and of biology. The Popes made it a point to get the leader of scientific medicine for their personal physician. This is so different from the ordinary impression in the matter. as to be quite striking, and this is probably the first time that it has ever Other been brought out in detail. features of science history are gone *The Popes and Science. The story of The Papal Relations to Science from the Middle Ages down to the Nineteenth Century. By James J. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., LL.D. 400 pp. Price $2.00 net: postage. 20 cents extra. Fordham University Press, 110 West 74th Street, New York. into in the same way. There is only the Galileo case and that was a personal matter. Galileo himself remained a faithful Catholic and realized that whatever mistake had been made was because churchmen are human and are liable to err, but the Church herself was not involved. Dr. Walsh has shown in his book on "The Thirteenth Century" that the Church was not opposed to education; in his "Makers of Modern Medicine" that the greatest physicians make the best. Catholics, and now he has rubbed out the calumnies with regard to Church opposition to science. For those who have been looking for material with which to offset the arguments of Protestants, these books provide a storehouse of facts never before brought together. E Bribery at elections ought to be suppressed. A man convicted of offering or of taking money for a vote, should be publicly degraded from citizenship, forever disfranchised, fined heavily, and imprisoned at hard labor for long term. He should be treated as an enemy of society and a traitor to the republic. The politicians are beginning to get busy. From now on until election in November, they will seek to win votes. They will start alarms. They will threaten ruin. But their wild talk of panics and bankruptcy must be seasoned with the salt of patriotic common sense. COSTLIEST EDUCATION The costliest education in the United States to-day is Catholic education. It is given at the cost of the lives of young and brilliant men and women, who leave father and mother and home and kindred and all the comforts which the world longs for, to follow the voice that whispers within and to help to develop in the souls of the boys and girls who come under their influence a conformity to Christ, without which all science is dross and no man can see God forever. THE NIGHT LIFE OF YOUNG MEN One night often destroys a whole life. The leakage of the night keeps the day forever empty. Night is sin's harvest time. More sin and crime are committed in one night than in all days of the week. This is more emphatically true of the city than of the country. The street lamps, like a file of soldiers, torch in hand, stretch away in long lines on either sidewalk; the gay colored lights are ablaze with attractions; saloons and billiard halls are brilliantly illuminated; music sends forth its enchantment; the gay gambling dens are aflame; the theatres. are wide open; the mills of destruction are grinding health, honor, happiness and hope out of thousands of lives. The city under the electric light is not the same as under God's sunlight. The allurements and perils and pitfalls of night are a hundred-fold deeper and darker and more destructive. Night life in our cities is a dark problem, whose depths and whirlpools make us start back with horror. All night long tears are falling, blood is streaming. Young men, tell me how and where you spend your evenings, and I will write out a chart of your character and final destiny, with blanks to insert your name. It seems to me an appropriate text would be, "Watchman, what of the night?" Policeman pacing the beat, what of the night? Where do these young men spend their evenings? Who are their associates? What are their habits? Where do they go in, and at what time do they come out? Policeman, would the night life of young men commend them to the confidence of their employers? Would it be to their credit? Make a record of the nights of one week. Put in a morning paper the names of all the young men, their habits and haunts, that are on the streets for new and newer sinful pleasure. Would there not be shame and confusion? Some would not dare go to their place of business: some would not return at night; some would leave the city; some would commit suicide. Remember, young man, that in the retina of the All-Seeing Eye there is nothing hidden but shall be revealed one day. IS GAMBLING PERMITTED? In the wave of reform which has lately swept over the country the element of gambling has met with strict prohibitive measures from authority. Betting at the various race tracks has been declared illegal and subject to penalties of more or less severity. Satisfaction has been expressed by the anti-gambling element in society upon this determined stand of the State, while consternation has characterized the feelings of those interested in betting circles. The motives which prompt such restrictive measures are undoubtedly praiseworthy, but the method employed must of necessity fail of complete satisfaction. No practice, however pernicious to the welfare of the individual or the community, can ever be successfully blotted out of existence by a sudden and drastic act of authority. Such a practice as betting and gambling has become from the earliest day of history a part of the very life of man. The gambling element has grown with the growth of civilization, and the aim of the State should be directed towards a rational eradication of the practice, accomplished by gradual restrictions, and not by the sudden and abrupt method of prohibition so frequently met with in the various legislative assemblies. Aside from the question of civil enactments, it were well for the practical Catholic to remember that this habit is one fraught with evils of a most insidious nature. From a game indulged in for the sake of pleasure. the gambler passes to a servitude in which honor and character are lost sight of in the mad desire to get something for nothing, to win all and lose nothing. Catholic theology looks upon the practice with fear. It is true that playing is a necessary relaxation from mental and physical exertion, but it is equally true that gambling is naught but a pernicious outgrowth of this innocent and necessary recreation. The theologian places restrictions upon the indulgence in this gambling practice, and such restrictions, if thoroughly examined, will be found to be well-nigh prohibitive of any form of gambling. Let the gambling enthusiast be mindful of such restrictions and he will be forced of necessity to abandon the practice entirely. We are told that permission to gamble may be extended to us when we have full dominion of all the moneys we stake, when the games are honest and not prohibited by law; when no cheating or fraud is exercised; there must exist an equal danger or chance for all to win or lose, and no such large sums of money are staked as will endanger the welfare of the family dependent upon the player or as will affect the credit of the participant. A word by way of suggestion. Gamblers, think over these modifications. Keep as far as possible from a practice which has ever been the most insidious enemy that man has had to combat.-L. B. 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