the child only in the light of its utility to the State, and soon infanticide will commence again, and deformed children will be put to death when men shall have lost the tenderness which Christianity has produced and fostered.

"Most men admire the Church's action in regard to divorce. They be lieve that her conservatism in this respect is essential to the preservation of the family and the sanctity of human love. But all her action and her sufferings in maintaining this principle are founded in doctrine that marriage is indissoluble, and because of this doctrine the Pope himself and all the bishops of the world united with him. cannot grant a single divorce.

"Look at the great motives of human action. Behold that young man contending with fearful temptation, wrestling with some 'midday demon.' The pleasure promised is certain and alluring. Religion whispers in his ear: 'Fear God, listen to your conscience; you know that to yield is wrong. Remember the punishment which God has threatened. Remember the heaven you renounce if you yield, and the hell whose punishment you deserve.' Now all this warning is based on doctrine. Only whisper in his ear: 'There is no hell, God is indulgent, or takes no congnizance of human action.' Strike down the great truth and you strike down the great motive.

"But someone may say that it is utterly impossible that we should go back to the paganism from which Christianity has liberated us. There is no danger of our going back to the paganism from which Christianity has liberated us. Yet one must remember that human nature is always the same, and that mere culture will not save us. We have no greater or as great poets as Horace and Virgil, no greater or as great orators as Cicero, no greater moralist outside of Christianity than Seneca, and yet they could not save society from the civilized barbarism of paganism.

"We must remember that, though the new religion of the future, of which some men dream, may not be called paganism, it is paganism under another name. We occasionally hear of this 'religion of humanity.' What is this but paganism which defiles all that is true and beautiful and good with all that is vile in our nature, and calls these things by various names the deities of its religion?

"If any one whispered to the inndel philosophers of France who sought the destruction of the Christian religion that the day would come when they would find themselves worshipping at a pagan altar, they would have smiled in derision. But false principles soon act themselves out into institutions. Man is a religious being. If he worship not God he will worship himself. Deny the doctrines of faith and you try to kill Christianity and establish some form of paganism.

"In the name of our Christian civilization, I, a Bishop of the Christian Church, lift up my voice to warn you that the popular modern system of teaching morality without the doctrines that motive it, whether that system be called Christian ethics or moral instruction or unsectarian teaching, is sapping the very foundation of Christianity and Christian civilization."

CHRIST AND HIS DOCTRINE IN THE CLASS ROOM

The late Father Wm. O'Brien Pardow, the eloquent Jesuit of New York, in an address delivered in New York in 1905 at the public meeting of the Catholic Educational Association. closed it with these pertinent words:

"The Catholic Church has ever taught that Christ and His doctrine have at least as good a right to enter the classroom during regular class hours as the copy-book, the reader and the multiplication table. The study of religion during class hours has never been an obstacle to success in all secular branches. It is not the mere num

ber of minutes given to any subject, that counts, as every teacher knows; it is the disposition of mind and will. Theory and practice combine to prove that the only road to true and lasting success in educational matters is to listen sincerely to the One Teacher, God."

In the desire to make our schools the equal, yea, even the superior of the State-supported schools in secular learning, we must not, we cannot afford to lose sight of the absolute need of thorough education in Christian doctrine, so that our youth may be able to give a reason for the faith, and more than that, may go forth into the world practical Catholics in every

sense of the word.

"The children of to-day will be the Catholic men and women of to-morrow. They will have to face a world cold in indifference and even frigid in infidelity. The devotions of their childhood will do much to keep them untainted, but in the fierce battle, which the natural and merely human and humanitarian is now waging against everything supernatural and divine, nothing but profound and intimate knowledge of the foundations upon which their faith rests, the divine authority of the Church and the main and salient points in their Church's history, can save them from the ubiquitous perils which, more than anyone else, the professional man and the man in public life must inevitably face. More and not less instruction in religion is the demand of the hour." We commend this last stirring sentence-"More and not less instruction in religion is the demand of the hour," to every pupil, teacher and friend of our parish schools, colleges and homes of education. It is the only means of stopping the leakage, of stemming the tide of practical apostasy, of the swarm of those born and bred in the faith and yet strangers to its practice. He is no enemy of Catholic education. who cries aloud from the house tops, when he sees danger or when he notes the clouds that tell of the storm.

GOOD RULES

A Baltimore man who has a large number of men employed has posted in the various departments of his establishment cards which bear the above caption and the following terse rules:

Rule I-Don't lie; it wastes my time and yours. I am sure to catch you in the end, and that's the wrong end.

Rule 2-Watch your work, not the clock. A long day's work makes a long day short and a day's short work makes my face long.

Rule 3-Give me more than I expect and I'll pay you more than you expect. I can afford to increase your pay if you increase my profits.

Rule 4-You owe so much to yourself that you can't afford to owe anybody else. Keep out of debt or keep out of my shops.

Rule 5-Dishonesty is never an accident. Good men, like good women, can't see temptation when they meet it.

Rule 6-Mind your own business and in time you will have a business of your own to mind.

Rule 7-Don't do anything here which hurts your self-respect. The employee who is willing to steal for me is capable of stealing from me.

Rule 8-Don't tell me what I'd like to hear, but what I ought to hear. I don't need a valet to my vanity, but I need one for my dollars.

Rule 9-Don't kick if I kick. If you're worth while correcting, you're worth while keeping. I don't waste time cutting specks out of rotten apples.

For the souls in purgatory we can do most real work. Has not Holy Church placed in our hands the means of paying their debts, giving us the key to the treasury of the Precious Blood, which, on easy conditions, we can sprinkle broadcast into the fierce flames, assuaging their heat and releasing their prisoners?

EXPERIMENTAL MARRIAGE In a general sense any marriage, is experimental, says the Rochester Democrat. Not, however, in the sense that it is terminable at the option of either or both of the parties. The option is exercised before the knot is tied. After that only a decree of the State under the law can cut it, and that does not affect the ethical obligation implied in marriage.

It is experimental in the sense that a trial only can determine whether the true spirit and purpose of marriage can be maintained. But the only true theory of marriage which is consistent with the maintenance of the security and welfare of society is that which regards the marriage bond as indissoluble.

In these days when sociological cranks flourish like Canada thistles in a neglected goose pasture, there are some who declare that marriage is simply a loose agreement which may be terminated at the option of both parties, or even one of them, and new relations may then be formed. Some have gone so far as to make formal expression of that opinion when they were married. A South Orange dispatch recently announced that a man and woman of that place will be reunited in marriage by the pastor of a Methodist church there. They were married ten years ago, with the understanding that if, at the end of ten years, there was any dissatisfaction, the contract was to be terminated. They have two children, boys, one seven, the other four years old.

Evidently the marriage proved satisfactory. But that has nothing to do with the question. The agreement they made was essentially immoral. plainly without any legal force, and ritually insulting and debasing. Whether they are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church or not does not appear, but the clergyman who performed the second marriage is, and it is a serious question whether he has not exposed himself to the disciplinary action of the authorities of

his church by becoming a party to the proposed mummery..

Of course the repetition of the marriage service was wholly superfluous. The man and his wife were as much married as they ever could be. They simply appeared in a sensational comedy which was disgraceful to them and to the minister who officiated on the occasion. Their "understanding" was and is wholly devoid of any legal or moral force whatever. There is no such thing as terminating the marriage contract voluntarily, excepting by such a violation of it by one of the parties to it as will enable the other to secure a divorce.

The notion that marriage can be terminated at will is entertained and sometimes practiced by ignorant foreigners who came from countries or communities where it prevails; but no one worthy of American citizenship can tolerate any such notion.

It is essential to the welfare of both society and the State that the sanctity as well as the legal obligations of marriage shall be maintained. All such freak notions and performances as that announced from South Orange deserve the severest reprobation that society and the public press can inflict upon them.

IN CASE OF MIXED MARRIAGES

In some of the dioceses of the Northwest it is the rule to require that for at least a month before marriage the non-Catholic will be instructed that he may enter the marriage with a full understanding of its meaning and obligations to the Catholic.

The outcome of this law was, according to the American Ecclesastical Review, a high authority, that ninety out of a hundred non-Catholics embraced the faith. This statement rests upon observations made by the Bishop of Green Bay in his own diocese, and proximately confirmed in other localities where the regulations of the provincial meeting were carried out.

PREVALENCE OF PROFANITY A patrolman fined forty dollars for profanity while on duty in St. Louis and a recent article in the New York Herald, from the pen of George Wright of Halifax, Nova Scotia. wherein he deplores the prevalency of profanity on the stage, particularly in the play, "The Girl from the Golden West," brings our thoughts to this theme.

Profanity is not an accomplishment, although ignorance has so often grinned at it that some believe they do not measure up to a man's height until they have learned how to pollute their speech. A gentleman is never pro. fane, for a gentleman will not disrespect the rights of others by abusing their ears and shocking their sensibilities. It is said of Ulysses S. Grant that when he was in the field one of his staff officers approached him to quote a volley of half-drunken and wholly profane language used by a soldier. The officer prefaced his intention with the remark, "Are there any ladies around?" "No," said General Grant, "but there are gentlemen." Needless to say, the story was like Macbeth's "Amen"-it stuck in the throat of the would-be entertainer.

Profanity has proven to be a public nuisance. It acts as if it owned the street. It never strikes itself with the thought that the bark of a mad dog is far more musical than the bray of an ass. It never considers that it is in other people's way-that it is a trespasser on the sidewalk. When a pub. lic officer, whose purpose it is to see that peace is preserved, so makes inroads through profanity upon the order of society, a fine should be only the promise of a discharge from public service. When the stage volunteers to insult its patrons by believing that they think profanity to be wit the people owe it to their own respectability, not to say education or decency, to let the stage know that there is great length between originality and vulgarity. A driveling idiot can be profane, but true wit is the thought of genius.

In a Catholic, profanity is detesta

ble. The tongue that touches the Holy Eucharist should never be as an adder's fang forked with poison. The ear which is filled with the happy promises of Christ's word should not entertain a violation of Christ's name. The heart that is the very tabernacle of God's graces should not laugh when the devils are delighted.

The question here presents itself, What should we do when we hear the name of Christ profaned? One of the most eloquent rebukes possible is for a man to quietly and reverently take off his hat, and so he will punish the defamer and make ready atonement for the insult given to Jesus. Christ.

THE INDECENT PLAY AGAIN A number of the filthy dramas that were produced last year, have been booked for a tour of the theatres during the coming season. The protests of respectable people are not to be considered.

The public has only one recourse, now that appeals to the theatre managers have failtd, and that is to stay away. Boycott the theatre that produces demoralizing shows. Keep out of it entirely, good play or bad play, so long as it is in its present hands. If they can get your money this week and the money of the vicious next week, they will "milk the cow on both sides." Cut them and their place out of your life absolutely.

The theatre theatre that produces bad plays some of the time, should be avoided all of the time,