day? Have they any ambition to learn and acquire knowledge after that? Is not their impressionable brain far more busy about the next round of pleasure than about the success of their school work? Will spiritual life influence the young heart, impressionable as wax, when the fire of the senses has melted the necessary safeguard of its yet ununderstood longings? Alas! Some parents, by culpable negligence, if not by sinful coöperation, too often expose their children to temptation instead of guarding them against it. They cause the pure love of God, which children so readily take to, to be deadened in innocent hearts by their own attachment to earthly goods and by their bondage to worldly amusements. As a consequence, the boys whom God called to be His priests, and the girls who were to be the virgin spouses of Christ, are pushed headlong into worldly ways which lead them often in their old days to become the scourges of their parents' mistaken kindness. Fathers and mothers, by all means in your power preserve intact the authority which God has given you over your children; protect them against the inroads of the modern spirit of over-indulgence; keep them away from frivolous amusements, as long as you can. Be yourselves so very faithful to the virtues which lend dignity and charm to your position as parents and superiors, that your children be impressed by your good example and venerate in you the representatives of the God who commands them to respect and obey you. unworldly. Renounce for your children's sake the many occasions of self-indulgence with which the World, the Devil and the Flesh surround you in this modern atmosphere of pagan sensuality and faithless irresponsibility. Make your home the most sacred, as well as the most enjoyable, spot on Let your unearth for your children. selfish love for their souls attract them and hold them spellbound within the Be family circle; let your peaceful and affectionate home life keep them near you, far from the temptations of street life and of night diversions. Having thus bound your sons and daughters to the sanctuary of your home, do not forget to teach them from their very infancy the eternal truths of religion: "Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend.......for I was also my father's son, tender and as an only son in the sight of my mother; and he taught me and said: Let thy heart receive my words, keep my commandments and thou shalt live."-Prov. iv. 1, 4. Tell them of the good God who created them to His own image. and likeness; tell them of the dignity of their souls whom Christ Jesus came to redeem from sin by taking upon Himself a body and soul like ours; instill into their souls a salutary fear of and horror for mortal sin which nailed our Redeemer to the Cross of Calvary; guard them against the insidious attacks of the devil, who lies in wait to lead them away from God by temptation and evil deeds. Above all, tell them of the love of Jesus Christ, who lives for them in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, ever ready to feed them with His own Flesh and Blood. Let your loving watchfulness and care over them be rewarded by the parental joy of sending them to a Catholic school before even the breath of sin has touched their innocent hearts or awakened the evil possibilities of the bodily senses. There the devoted Sisters and Brothers, whose lives are a perpetual lesson of virtue and faith, will continue and strengthen your parental work of love; they will carefully nurture the precious seed of the love of God which your maternal care has implanted into their hearts. First Communion will be the happy crowning of the early period of their innocent lives; Jesus Christ will then assert His preferred claim upon their youth, and will take possession of their souls. Weekly, yes daily, Communion will keep them in a state of grace and sanctify their thoughts, words and deeds. No doubt most children are called to a life in the world and to enter the state of matrimony. But who will dare claim that a youth of innocence and purity is not the best preparation for a state of life which God Himself has called holy? Is not such a preparation to Christian endeavor the best guarantee to goodness of life and of fidelity to duty in the married state? And is not a thorough understanding of religion and the daily practice of it a necessity for those who assume the responsibility of raising children and of the many other burdensome duties of married life? Our present contention, however, is that by pursuing a manner of educating your children such as we plead for, you parents will not be held guilty of depriving God of those sons of yours whom He may call to the holy priesthood, or of daughters whom He marked for His own. After First Communion, parents who can afford it should, even at the cost of onerous pecuniary sacrifices, give an opportunity to their children to continue their studies. Better leave them at your death the benefits of a thorough Catholic education without a cent of money, than thousands of dollars without such education. The memory of the great boon you procured them will abide with them, be better appreciated as they advance in years and they will hold your name in grateful remembrance after your death. As long as your children go to school, keep them interested in their class work; make them appreciate their advantages and respond to the obligation to avail themselves of them. Nor should they be exposed to the temptation of parties and kindred amusements until after their graduation; we have said, and we repeat it, the contrary practice is an injustice to their normal development, an injury to their intellectual and spiritual growth, and but too frequently proves the undoing of most holy desires, the death of most sacred ambitions. But above all things, do not put any obstacle in the way of your sons' and daughters' vocation. By opposing their sacred calling you are liable to endanger your salvation and to force them in a way of life for which they have not the necessary graces. When you reflect on the results of a man's priesthood, viz., hundreds, yea sometimes thousands, of souls converted to God and to the faith, would you dare to face the responsibility of the loss entailed by keeping your son from becoming a priest? You know the good our sisterhoods are doing in Our hospitals, asylums, Catholic schools, etc.; do you not tremble at the thought of being held to account for the loss of faith of hundreds of children, for the neglect of scores of sick and dying, by preventing your daughter from going to the convent to which she is called? Besides, reflect on this fact: many a young man has gone astray in the world and become the bane of his parents' life, who would have become a zealous and apostolic priest if they had not stood stubbornly in the way of his vocation. Are you prepared to deliberately invite such a calamity upon your old age? college course for your boys, for an Remember that in pleading for a academic curriculum for your girls, I have in view not only the fostering of vocations to the priesthood or religious life, but more especially the formation of the character of your children, the education of the heart. Our young people lack will-power because they are not sufficiently acquainted with the principles of faith and morality. Sad experience teaches us that many perish in the quicksands cause they have not been sufficiently of indifference and immorality, betrained to withstand the assaults of unprincipled men and women without faith. with the allurements of a frivolous, If your children cannot cope nav, of a sinful, life in the world, it is because you gave them no opportunity to become intellectually and morally strong enough to hold out against it. You oblige them to face the responsibilities of life and the temptations of an ignorant and careless youth without sufficient adequate equipment and Christian knowledge. Is it a wonder if they go down and bring sorrow to your heart and shame upon your name? Let the fundamental principles of a thorough Christian life be laid deep and lasting in the minds and hearts of our youth and their lives will be without reproach; you will have occasion to take a legitimate pride in their career, and both society and religion will be the gainers. Your sons and daughters will not become the victims of precocious willfulness and of unguarded ignor ance. SELF-EXPANSION We hear it said so frequently: "We can not all be employers; we can not all be in business for ourselves." But what if your employer had said the same thing, and decided that he would better work for somebody else all his life? Have you not as much right to absolute independence as he, and is it not your duty to put yourself in a position where you will develop the largest possible man? Where was the obligation born that compels you to work for somebody else all your life? But you will tell me that there are plenty of managers and superintendents, and all sorts of employees, who could not do any better if they were working for themselves. We know perfectly well that there are tens of thousands of employees who are absolutely conscientious, and think they are doing their level best, who apparently could not do better if they were working for themselves; but let one of these faithful employees get a start for himself, and he will find that his ambition is touched as never before, and a new power is born with in him. He will feel a new motive working within him which will take drudgery out of his task as nothing before did. When he is conscious that he has no one to lean upon, or to make his program for him, but must do his own thinking and planning, he will find himself expanding. He will feel a new power, because he will be exercising, more than ever before, his self-reliance. No one else will be furnishing the capital. He alone will be piloting his ship through panics, through dull seasons, and through hard times. His own resourcefulness will be touched as never before and called into larger action. He will find that his motives run down deeper into his nature than he had dreamed. While working for another his desire was to render efficient and honest service-perhaps even to earn much more than he found in his pay envelope-but when in business for himself he feels every power and faculty in him called upon to give up its best. His pride is at stake; he has committed himself; he has said to the world, "Now, watch me and see what I can do for myself," and he calls on all the resources in him to make good. 缨 PUBLIC OPINION Public opinion is one of the standards by which we measure ourselves. A man will say, in the spirit of bravado, that he cares not a whit what people think of him. He is his own master, he declares, and will do exactly as he pleases. And yet only in cases of rare recklessness does he carry out his boast of personal independence. He does care for what others think and say, and he is thereby restrained from doing what his own inclination or caprice dictates. Even when no moral question is involved, he observes the same caution. does not go to church bareheaded, because other men wear hats; he does not eat with his fingers at table, because other men use knife and fork and spoon. He Taken all in all, public opinion is a wholesome restraint upon the individual, but the opposite is sometimes true. A man who lives in a community where profanity is a prevalent vice, or where the Sabbath is loosely observed, may swear or break the Sabbath without exciting remark or criticism. Under provocation, he is quite likely in time to fall into these evil practices, unless he has regard to some higher rule of life. "Bad company" is something to be "lived down. to" rather than "lived up to." THE WHITE PLAGUE The literature regarding tuberculosis has increased remarkably in late years and is a hopeful sign for the health of at least the next generation. The white plague somehow has its grip on modern civilization, although a great many claim it is not only curable but preventable. In a large hospital in one of our Eastern cities, some years ago, the mortality from this disease among the religious in charge grew alarming, until serious efforts. were made to lessen it and with success. By care and watchfulness, it can to a large extent be prevented. One may wonder how much good would be accomplished if people would coöperate with the Church as they do with science and law to stamp out physical disease, in stamping out moral evil. Of course it is very true that law can not prevent all disease, nor can the Church stop all evil, but as hearty a coöperation with the Church as is often given civil law might accomplish wonders. This country has for years recognized the growing evil of the "white plague," but is just commencing to feel that a great moral evil, "the divorce plague," is destructive of society's best interests. The war against tuberculosis is carried on by all classes, but the war against the evil of divorce is left to the Church and a few far-seeing men and women; still it is an encouraging sign when some of our popular and best magazines give space to those who write with authority upon this subject. It might well be named "The black plague," for it disfigures society, homes, families and offspring. If we have thousands die of the white plague, we have thousands whose souls are endangered and ruined by the black plague of modern society. Humanity is slow to see the soul's evil, but quick to scent. danger to the body. PIUS X VENERATES THE BEATA, JOAN OF ARC A Pope never attends the ceremony of beatification, though at a canonization he is always present. He comes, however, in the afternoon to venerate the new "Beata" in state. At 3:30 o'clock Sunday, May 2d, preceded by a stately procession of Cardinals, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, generals of religious orders and congregations, the parish priests of Rome, the Holy Father was borne in to St. Peter's on the sedia gestatoria, surrounded by the Noble Guard and his court of prelates and distinguished laymen. Pius X looked vigorous as he smilingly blessed the people to the left and right. left and right. But when the enthusiastic French at one point broke out into applause his face assumed at stern expression, and the Pope held. up a warning finger to quell acclamations-a thing he will on no account tolerate in the church. After the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, the Holy Father, accompanied by Cardinal Rampolla, proceeded to the foot of the altar and incensed the Sacred Host. The benediction be ing given, the brief ceremony terminated and the Pope was borne out of St. Peter's. A society without religion is a society without morals-without the principles of justice, of order, and of right. It is a prey to the caprices of the strong, to evil passions, revolutions, and all disorders. SOME BLESSINGS Which the Catholic Church Has Conferred on Society Cardinal Gibbons in pointing out what the Church has effected for civilization and the uplifting of man, says: "The Catholic Church has purified society in its very fountain-which is the marriage-bond. She has invariably proclaimed the unity and sanctity and indissolubility of the nuptial tie, saying with her Founder: 'What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. "The Catholic Religion has proclaimed the sanctity of human life, as soon as the body is animated by the vital spark. Infanticide was a dark stain on Pagan civilization.....being sanctioned, and even sometimes enjoined, by such eminent philosophers as Plato and Aristotle, Solon and Lycurgus. "There is no phase of human misery for which the Church does not provide some remedy or alleviation. No distinction is made either of person, nationality, color or creed, for true charity embraces all. "The Catholic Church has ever exerted her influence toward the mitigation and abolition of human slavery. From the earliest ages, Christianity has been the unvarying friend and advocate of the bondman. Before the time of Christ, slavery was universal in civilized as well as barbarous countries, and the Apostles were everywhere confronted by the children of oppression. No Christian country contains to-day a solitary slave. "Finally, the Catholic Church has always been the staunch unwavering friend of the sons of toil. Before the coming of Christ manual and even mechanical work was regarded as servile by the freemen of Pagan Rome, and was consequently relegated to the slave. "These, then, are some of the blessings which the Catholic Church has conferred upon society. The beneficent movements inaugurated by her, the philanthropic institutions which she has founded, the innumerable works of Christian benevolence which she originated, have all stimulated and encouraged other Christian denominations in their noble efforts for the moral and social regeneration of mankind." POPE PIUS AND WOMAN His Holiness Pius X on addressing a delegation of Italian Catholic ladies said: "After creating man, God created woman and determined her mission, namely, that of being man's companion, helpmeet and consolation. "It is a mistake, therefore, to maintain that woman's rights are the same as man's. "Women in war or parliament are outside their proper sphere, and their position there would be the desperation and ruin of society. Woman, created as man's companion, must so remain under the power of his love and affection, but always under his power. "How mistaken, therefore, is that misguided feminism which seeks to correct God's work. It is like a mechanic trying to correct the signs and movements of the universe. Scripture, especially the three epistles of St. Paul, emphasize woman's dependence on man, her love and assistance, but not her slavery to him. "Woman's duties, however, are not confined within the household's walls. She has a great social mission; a place in every charitable cause; work to perform on behalf of the sick, the suffering and the criminal; the protection of women and children. În this great and common action women should unite and should strive to secure the means necessary to exercise the apostolic injunction of social charity." -To persevere in one's duty and to be silent is the best answer to cal umny. |