hold up for his admiration such examples as are sure to win his praise. "He is such a troublesome child." "She is such a torment." How often do we hear these words from the lips of fretful, nervous mothers, who fail to recognize that in many cases the fault is nearly all their own.

Do not be hard on the troublesome children. The genial and lovable Father Faber of the London Oratory, said in his own characteristic way: "It is not often that an untroublesome novice makes a subject worth a straw." So it is with our children. A faultless child is very often a poor little prig, and not at all interesting at his best. God did not send saints into the world, but creatures very full of human nature. So let the good Christian mothers see to it that in their homes the beginnings of sanctity are planted, and let them take heart of hope because of troublesome children, remembering that Augustine was of the great army of such, but Monica was his mother, and so the Church and the world are the gainers because of one troublesome boy.

THE PAROCHIAL SCHOOL Truthful history most generously attests what a powerful factor the parish school has ever been in the formation and development of honest and virtuous character. Within its sacred precincts were taught the first lessons which directed the mind and heart of the child to the study and love of truth and virtue. It has stood side by side with the Church; hand in hand they have come down through the ages, guiding, instructing and training youth in the way of truth, justice and morality, sharing in the glory of giving to the sanctuary true men of God; to the religious life daughters whose deeds have been a blessing to humanity; to the nations citizens, scholars, soldiers and statesmen whose labors and triumphs are the glory of every cause they espoused and the joy of every heart that loves justice and hates iniquity.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

A public library for the use of students along special lines is a good thing in any community, but a public library whose shelves are filled with a miscellaneous collection of books regardless of their accuracy or of their moral or literary standards is capable of being a positive detriment to a city, especially where children are allowed its privileges. We are apt to endow books with a fictitious value, forgetting that they are but the recorded thoughts of men and women whose brains may or may not reflect ideas worthy of our acceptance, and immature minds too often are influenced to their detriment by reading books depicting wrong conditions in an attractive light.

Parents should be as careful of the class of literature read by their children as they are of their associates, and never should young children be allowed to frequent public libraries which cater to the diversified tastes of their patrons. Catholics especially should strictly supervise the family reading and guard against the introduction of false doctrines and wrong theories of life to the minds of their children. The whole course of a life may be changed by reading one bad book, while a soul may be safeguarded against the secret sins which beset young hearts with their temptations, by reading strong, pure, helpful literature. The human mind is like a flower opening to the warmth of the sun of truth, responsive to the soft caresses of the breeze of wholesome humor and refreshed by the dews of honest, tender sentiment, but scorched by the hot blasts of morbid ideas and the very sweetness and beauty lost and destroyed by gnawing worms of vile doctrines and degrading thoughts. Let us, then, guard and guide the growing minds of our children by directing their reading along wholesome lines, keeping before us the fact that while our public libraries have many good books on their lists they also contain a great number that are

SHE IS AT WORK

Those, and there are a few, who think the Church is doing nothing in America ought to look at the tens of thousands she is caring for in her hospitals.

They ought to look at the thousands of aged men and aged women she is feeding and clothing in her homes for the aged poor.

They should behold the great army of young people she is training up into useful citizens in her protectories, asylums and industrial schools.

They should look again and see the tens of thousands of fallen women of every faith and none whom she is unselfishly leading back to holy lives in her Good Shepherd homes.

They should note the work of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which quietly visits, feeds and clothes the poor, stricken and unfortunate in their homes.

They should look at her nuns going forth to the homes of the sick, to districts fetid with yellow fever, cholera, leprosy, plague upon plague, even to the battlefield itself, to minister to the ill, wounded and dying, and to the laying down of their own lives in the service of God and humanity.

And then they should reflect that in the midst of a civilization that is rapidly turning away from God she is standing impregnably for Christian religion and morality in education.

She is standing against divorce. She is standing against atheistic socialism and anarchy.

A religious atmosphere, daily prayer, devotional pictures, the little religious library, the rosary, the prayer book, the Catholic paper, the society or sodality badges, the children preparing their lessons, the catechism, the supervision of children's conduct, correction of faults. the regular approach of parents to the sacraments, "the early to bed and early to rise" principle.

II.

A worldly atmosphere, no daily prayer, religious pictures confined in the servant's bedroom, parlor walls. decorated with winter scenes in oil and dogs and cows at a stream, a library of Balzac, Zola and other vile French writers, a half dozen different kinds of secular magazines, one or two yellow journals, a couple of Greek society emblems, a marble bust of some heathen diety, children off to society functions, receptions, races, theatricals, etc., prayer, if mentioned, would turn every one blue, parish societies not thought of, reception of sacraments restricted to Christmas and Easter, if then, no interest whatever in parochial affairs, and—well, we have pictured enough to make the contrast startling.

An unbelieving servant said: "The master is gone away now; so we need not go on working." His Christian fellow-servant answered: "My Master is not gone away. He looks down on me from heaven at all times."

This is the fourth of a series of sketches of famous artists and their masterpieces, published for the instruction of our young readers.

Titian or Tiziano Vecellio, was born at Pieve di Cadore in 1477, and died in Venice, August 27, 1576, at the advanced age of ninety-nine. At the age of nine or ten he was apprenticed to an artist at Cadore, where a Madonna in fresco at the Casa Vallenzasco, is pointed out as his first work. His Sacred and Profane Love (1503), in the Palazzo Borghese, at Rome, shows the influence of Palma Vecchio, as the Christ bearing his Cross, in the Church of S. Rocco, Venice, shows that of

Giorgione. In 1511 Titian entered the service of Alfonso I., Duke of Ferrara, for whom he painted the Christ of the Tribute Money, now in the Dresden Gallery, and the Bacchus and Ariadne, in the National Gallery at London. His Madonna in the Vatican at Rome; the Entombment in the Louvre, at Paris; and the St. Peter, martyr, are examples of Titian's powers at their height. The life of Titian is not marked by any striking incidents or vicissitudes. He was a man of simple tastes and devout spirit. His industry was untiring and his charity great. Between the ages of twelve and ninety-two he was constantly busy with

his brush, and the number of wonderful paintings which he completed was enormous. Taken in their totality, Titian's pictures fairly entitle him to be called the greatest of all painters; for while others may have surpassed him in single qualities, none have equaled him in general mastery. In landscape as in figure painting, in sacred as in profane subjects, in ideal heads as in portraits, in frescoes as in oils, he is "facile princeps;" and whether we chiefly prize grace, tenderness, character, and dramatic power, or drawing, composition, texture, color, and chiaroscuro, we are sure to obtain the highest satisfaction in studying his works. Many of his works are treasured in the great galleries of Europe. A few have been secured for the United States. His Pietro Aretino, and Martyrdom of St. Lawrence are in the possession of the Historical Society of New York.

A LADY

A much abused word, though not big, except in the actual significance with which we have invested it, is "lady." Its origin is Anglo-Saxon, and originally it meant simply "loafgiver"-the wife or daughter of a man whose means allowed her to be broadly charitable to the hungry. The word has undergone many mutations in the course of the centuries, until, in America at least, it was so badly over-worked, that the common sense of most revolted, and "woman" was "Gentleaccounted a better word.

man," too, was abused; but not to the same extent as "lady." Perhaps its abominable abbreviation, "gent," saved us from even worse vulgarity. At least, we have not had "salesgentleman," "working-gentle

nor

man," nor "ash-gentleman."

It is no compliment to womanhood, no dignified assertion of the rights of labor, to speak of "saleslady," instead of

"saleswoman" or "salesgirl"; "newspaper lady" instead of "journalist"; "sewing lady" instead

of

an

may be an exquisite lady and financially able to buy out, so to speak, a dozen of her professional sisters; but simply in the fact that the teacher, author, dramatist, or what you will, is likely to be extremely deficient in her knowledge of "business," as the word is commonly understood. She may earn much money, but may have no capacity for saving or for prudent investment.

"Business," as a slang term of the dramatic art, has not the faintest connection with financial ability; and the story, the poem, or the descriptive sketch is simply "good copy" or "tommy-rot," or "hot stuff," to the managing editor.

Perhaps nowhere more than in the study of words and their uses are we made to understand human independence. The author and the editor cannot make their way without the publisher and the business manager; the dramatist depends for much of her effectiveness on the dressmaker: and the best political or philanthropic or social organizer cannot dispense with the treasurer, nor successfully carry both offices.

They

In older civilizations than ours "gentleman," "gentlewoman," and "lady" are technical terms. mean that the person so designated belongs to the aristocracy or gentry. The latter, and even the former classes, are not condemned to inaction.

They may support themselves and their families-if they can-by medicine, law, authorship, and a few other things that are included under the head of the liberal arts or professions. "The gentry" as so maintained, once stood in sharp opposition in England and Ireland to mere "tradesmen" or shop-keepers; and it would be difficult to express in any language comprehensible to Americans the social horror following on the marriage of a "gentlewoman" to a mere "tradesman." The lines are much more loosely drawn now, even in England; since many merchants have been ennobled, and many of the aristocrats and the gentry have gone into "trade"; but it is essential to grasp the terms as they were once generally. and are still in various sections, used, if we would fully understand certain Old World literature.

A "lady" or a "gentlewoman," in the English technical sense, might still be a very unpleasant person, with execrable manners. Her distinction

was in her family line, or in her father's occupation.-The Republic.

A DEATHBED

The barrenness of a deathbed without the sacraments and the wonderful consolation and peace with which the Catholic Church surrounds the passage of a soul into eternity are vividly brought out in a moving description of a deathbed scene which occurs in a novel by Christian Reid, "The Wargrave Trust," now running as a serial in the Ave Maria.

No one who has seen only Catholic deathbeds can fully realize all of which the stupendous apostasy that we call the Protestant Reformation has deprived those who still suffer from its effects. For, as a matter of fact, we are born only in order that we may die, and since death is therefore the most important act of life, what is so appalling as the mutilated forms of Christianity which send the soul forth unshriven by the great

absolving power of Holy Church, unfed with the sustaining viaticum for its last journey, unblest with sight or touch of the crucifix to strengthen it by the thought of Him who also tasted this last agony of humanity? We may know these things at all times, but to witness such a deathbed is not only to understand the full, terrible result of that great spiritual robbery of the past, but to be filled with a pity as wild as it is impotent for the particular soul thus bereft in its last dire extremity.

PROFANITY

In

Many men swear when they are pleased, as well as when they are angry; they appear to think that without profanity they cannot impress upon others the reality of their emotions, the force of their determination. excusable and evil as this practice is among men, it is far worse among the young, who appear to be acquiring a proficiency in profanity with all the remarkable ability and quickness. which characterize the youth of America. Wherever half-grown lads assemble nowadays the passerby cannot but note that their conversation is impregnated with the taint of swearing in a shocking flow of curses that is terrible in itself and an indictment of parents who do not keep a closer watch over their growing sons. It is not manly to curse; it is as babyish as crying. It is, moreover, a revelation of vulgarity and weakness which should subject the offender to social ostracism until he learns to be a man.

Life is a building. It rises slowly, day by day, through the years. Every new lesson we learn lays a block on the edifice which is rising silently within us. Every experience, every touch of another life on ours, every influence that impresses us, every book that we read, every conversation we hold, every act of our commonest days adds something to the invisible building.