been an inspiration to thousands since his death. The painting of the Children of the Shell hangs in the Prado Gallery at Madrid; it is widely known, being entirely unique in composition and emblematic in significance. Christ gives St. John the Baptist to drink. from a shell; in a spiritual sense He presents to him the water of life. John, being Christ's herald, carries the Cross bearing the legend Ecce Agnus Dei, or Behold the Lamb of God. At the left of the picture we see the Lamb, the emblem of our Savior, typifying His purity, and the vicarious sacrifice He is to make for man and man's sins. Notwithstanding the religious character of this great work of art, we still find it alive with human interest. It is but an incident in the play of two happy lads, whose hearts have never known sorrow and whose souls have not been wrung with anguish. THE "HURRY-OUT CATHOLIC" The "hurry-out Catholic" is a type common to all localities. The most notable thing about his religion is his hurry to get away from it. His one sentiment in regard to religious exercises is a wish to cut them short. He shuns the High Mass because of its length. He objects to the sermon because it takes time. He attends the shortest Mass he can get, and can't wait for the end of the last Gospel to rush away from that. The strange thing about this expeditious and time-saving gentleman is that he is usually to be found urbanely occupying the curbstone when the congregation has dispersed, disseminating his valuable views on the political situation or explaining the reasons for the failure of the home base ball team. Then he smilingly and leisurely saunters home to devote what is left of his precious time to the painstaking perusal of the Sunday paper. The trouble with the "hurry-out Catholic" is that he does not think. Perhaps in time he might even come to regard it as a privilege to be prolonged, rather than as a duty to be cut short. Where he can never be generous enough, the "hurry-out Catholic" manifests a most begruding spirit to the Almighty. * BLESSINGS "Blessings brighten as they take their flight." Loss is the test of value. We never prize a thing so much as when 'tis lost. For instance, health is truly valued by him who lies feverish and feeble on the bed of sickness. The prisoner prizes freedom, the blind crave for sight and the value of water is known to him who lies parched in the desert. And so in the supernatural order. We scarce give a thought to many blessings until we are prived of them. Shakespeare's lines are true: "It so falls out that what we have we prize not to the worth, being lost, why then we count the value." de but Our blessings as members of the Catholic Church are often slighted even by practical Catholics, whilst those who are Catholics in name only disregard and perhaps sneer. LOVE THE LIGHT-BEARER AND THE LIGHT-BRINGER The most profound minds: philosophers, historians, novelists and poets, saints and sinners alike, have persistently studied the force of love and its many correlations, and with all the world concede that it is the paramount force in human life: the living energy which enables men to will and to do; and, they all admit, when directed in a proper way, toward a worthy object, its ultimate outcome is a happiness commensurate with the value of the object desired; while on the contrary, when its object is unworthy, although there may be for a time an 'apparent happiness, in the end its reward is unhappiness, which is often followed by unnumbered sinful entanglements and lasting misery. The full force of love in its highest manifestation can best be studied in the writings of Christian Mystics: á Kempis. Tauler, Suso, Catherine, Teresa and John of the Cross, and in the lives of the Saints, all of whom taught either by writing or example, or both, that the one utterly desirable end of human endeavor was to gain by the force of love the unity which unifies every unity and enables man to unbuild from the creature, inbuild with Christ, and overbuild into the Godhead. On the other hand it would seem as if the force of love in its lower manifestations, in its human relationships, could best be studied in the pages of history; while in truth it is not so, works of fiction affording a far better field, and all because in history the mere outer facts are given, while in fiction the psychological_motives are displayed as well as the facts. And because such is the case, the novelists have become the greatest educators of the day, and the novel a most powerful instrument for good or evil, hence the care that should be given in selecting the right one to recommend to the general reader. Of the vast number of novels which have recently appeared, most of them are silly, many harmful, some unutterably evil, and few, very few, worthy of the highest commendation of the critic and the moralist. Among these last are THE ROYAL END,* and A FRIAR OBSERVANT, two works dealing with the force of love. One a pure love story, a creation of the imagination; the other, a love story interwoven with historic incidents and characters. The first a posthumous novel by the late Henry Harland, left incomplete by the author, and since his death completed by his widow, a task in which she has been most successful, more especially in imitating in a wonderful way the almost inimitable literary style of her gifted husband. Like all his novels there is very little or no plot, nevertheless it holds the attention of the reader from the first page to the last by the refinement and wit of its dialogues, the irresistible charm of its style and the honesty of its purpose. It is frankly Catholic without being controversial, and clearly shows the value of Faith, and the beauty of life when lived in union with Catholic teachings. It is only here and there that there are any positive religious statements, and they are expressed by non-Catholics. For example: in a conversation between the heroine and a young New England boy of Protestant parentage who declared his intention of becoming a Catholic when he became his own master, he says: "Now a man wants to be decent, and the Catholic Faith (I got Mary to tell me a lot about it), while it makes allowance for human nature treats it in the most sympathetic way, does know how to keep it within bounds. Why, it's a regular school of Saints! And it honestly recognizes that we're mortal: inheritors of original sin as the spark flies upward. Yet if we go and confess our and sins and try to feel sorry for 'em we receive the grace of the Sacrament of Penance and Absolution, and we can then receive the Blessed Sacrament. And when we receive the Blessed Sacrament our souls are developed and fed from God Himself and enabled to dominate our bodies. On the whole the book is a beautiful creation, and clearly proves that Love is the Royal End. The second book: A FRIAR OBSERVANT, is not as finished a piece of fiction as that of Mr. Harland, although the author is a skilled writer, the wife of the actor and playwright, Charles Brookfield, whose former books: The Diary of a Year (1903)– Mrs. Brookfield and her Circle (1905) -The Cambridge Apostles (1906)My Lord of Essex (1907), have been much praised. In parts it is very interesting, and would be all the way through, if the author had only kept in mind that she was writing a novel and not a history, but her desire to be truthful and instructive masters her imagination, so much so that some of her pages are dull reading. The book is written along the lines which proved so successful in Father Benson's By What Authority. It is an attempt to picture the Reformation days in Germany, at the beginning of the great revolt, a time that Martin Luther himself tells us was full of evil, forgetting that his teachings were the cause of the evils he arraigns. Evangelicals, he said, are becoming seven times worse than they were before; for, after we have learned the Gospel, we steal, lie, cheat, eat and drink, and give way to every vice (Ausleg D.V. Buch. Mos, Walch. Vol. III, p. 2727). When Mrs. Brookfield's hero, an English Franciscan, was in Germany, the Landgrave of Hesse, like the uxorious Henry VIII, wanted a new wife, but unlike the Royal Reformer wished to keep the old one as well, and as he was an earnest Bible reader he held the Good Book was on his side and that there was no reason why he should not make a polygamous marriage; to this view Dr. Martin Luther and his fellow theologians at Wittenberg agreed. All of this, and much more of a like nature, is worked into the story of A FRIAR OBSERVANT, Over and above all the force of love is shown to be the great enchantress, brings happiness to the faithful ones, and to the Friar its furtherest goal, a mystical love-gift, the soul's deepest centre-and this centre is God. He who loves Me shall be one thing with Me and I with him, and I will manifest Myself to him, and we will dwell together. 馋 THE HOME OF THE SACRED HEART In Paray-le-Monial, where Blessed Margaret Mary lived and died, the multitude of communicants who approach the altar rails on every Friday of the month, the worshippers who kneel before the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altars, the crowds attending the monthly or weekly services in the churches to honor the Sacred Heart, and the Catholic households in which an image or picture of the Sacred Heart is set up for worship, all attest the universal veneration in which Paray and its chief sanctuary are held in the hearts of Catholics. While the influence of other shrines is to lead Catholics to visit them in pilgrimage, that of Paray-le-Monial seems to be to invest every corner of the earth with its own sacred associations. Margaret Mary's sacred endeavor was not to make Paray a shrine, not to draw people to invade the sacred precincts of her monastery, but to multiply the places all over the earth in which the image of the Heart of Jesus should be held in veneration. It is a singular coincidence that Samuel Champlain, the French explorer, should have discovered the beautiful lake named after him in the same year that Henry Hudson won immortality on earth by the discovery of the Hudson river. Although the lake flows northward into the St. Lawrence, and the river flows southward into the Atlantic, both bodies of water have a kinship in their sources, and history has woven them into the same story, the struggle between France and England for the new continent, and the later struggle between England and the Colonies for the lesser territory, which has since become the greater. Up Lake Champlain and down the Hudson went all the fleets and armies engaged in those ancient wars. Washington held stub bornly to the river, and his General Schuyler held the great lake of the north. The trail from New York to Montreal bristles with historic memories. Hence the celebration this year of the tercentenary of the Hudson and Lake Champlain is full of interest for Americans and Canadians. The Catholic Summer School is located at one of the most interesting points of the Lake, and in order to get to Cliff Haven, its official county name, one may take the route up the Hudson to Ticonderoga, and down the Lake to the Summer School, passing all the points of interest, and landing in full view of the scene of the Battle of Lake Champlain, fought on water by Commodore Macdonough who defeated the British and destroyed them in the war of 1812 Just opposite the Summer School is the little island of St. Michel, later known as Crab Island, now named the Macdonough National Park, on which Congress has placed a monument, a dock and a guardhouse, in memory of the American and British soldiers and sailors buried there. Between this island and the point of Cumberland Head, two miles off, was fought the desperate battle. On the land side, almost on the very ground where the Summer School village stands, another battle was fought between the rival armies, and the British army retired from the field, on seeing the destruction of its fleet. Samuel Champlain passed by Cliff Haven on his Samuel de Champlain way down the lake in 1609. It is now intended to have him pass the same way, in the week of July 4-10, but this time he will stop at Cliff Haven, with his soldiers and his Indians, be received honorably, entertained royally, and sent on his way again. This pageant is contemplated by the officials of the Summer School. Meanwhile the States of New York and Vermont have taken the matter in hand, have appropriated sums of money for a proper celebration beginning July 4, and will give several representations of the Hiawatha spectacle; in which two hundred Indians. from Montreal, real Iroquois, will enact Hiawatha on a grand stage, floating on the bosom of the lake. This pageant will be held at five different places on the lake shore from Ticonderoga to the Canadian border. President Taft and Vice-President Sherman, Governor Hughes, and representatives from all parts of the nation and the world are to be present. The Cardinal of Baltimore, Archbishop Ireland and other prelates, have signified their intention to assist at the ceremonies. Undoubtedly that first week of July will witness the most beautiful scenes Lake Champlain has seen since the real historical events occurred there centuries back. An excursion for that week is being organized by the Summer School authorities, which will send up the most eminent of the citizens of New York. Chaplain Matthew Gleason of the navy, popular and honored, will lecture on the navy. Father Chidwick, known to all America, will be one of the hosts. The dramatic company will give patriotic dramas at the auditorium. And the pageant of Champlain landing in the bay should of itself be sufficient to interest thousands. The distinguished actor, Mr. Frank Keenan, has been offered the part of Champlain and the command of the discoverer's little army. After the celebration the Summer School will settle down to its steady and useful work of instruction, under the guidance of Rev. Thomas McMillan, and to its administrative work, under President McMahon, Secretary Charles Murray, and Father Chidwick, rector of the chapel. The lecture course is as effective as ever, and has improved in the artistic and musical features. 缨 -A noble mind disdains not to repent. -He who pays promptly borrows when he will. -Better cabbage in peace than sugar with grumbling. -All things that are good and beautiful make us more religious. |