The children there will learn about Julius Cæsar, about Alexander the Great, about Napoleon, and the other great worldlings who won their way to glory through rivers of blood, whose victorious path left behind thousands, hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of corpses-and countless numbers of maimed and helpless -whose "upward and onward" career was accompanied by the wailings of the widow, by the tears of the orphan, by crimes of every nature, by pillage and destruction. These are the heroes of the public schools.

And there is One in whose life no blood was shed, save His own. "What greater love hath man than this that he give up his life for his friend?" One, who went about doing goodhealing the sick, and the lame, and the blind, raising the dead to life. One who dried the tears of the orphan, consoled the widow-who was sinless. "He became like unto man in all things, sin alone excepted." Whose worst enemy could not convict him of a single crime. This hero is Jesus Christ. He is God, and this is the hero of the Catholic school, whose name in some public schools dare not be mentioned.

Childhood is seed-time. Childhood is the time most affected by its ideals. Childhood, above all, is the time of hero worship. See how the child imitates its parents, its first heroes; then comes the Jack the Giant Killer stage when little older than baby hands would do deeds of giant prowess; then comes the awakening of intellect, the period whose ideals seem to last a life time, whose heroes are the patterns after which the little lives shape themselves.

Which set of models are held up for your children? God and His heroes? The World and its heroes? The answer to this question depends upon the answer to another question. Which school do your children attend, the Catholic school or the Godless

Bishop Burgess that even the Protestant churches are awakening to the fact that school time without God means pretty generally a life time without God.

Not so long ago the teaching of religion in the schools was considered as one of the “fads" of the Catholic Church. The thoughtful men of the country are now beginning to realize that it is a necessity. When France wished to blot out the name of God, where did she begin? In the schools, the very foundation-stone of the moral and economic system. She poisoned the wells. Like causes produce like effects. Our public schools are Godless. Like France our rising generation, their children and their children's children will be the same. What a dreadful responsibility therefere a Catholic parent takes in sending the children to any other but a

Catholic school.

We extend to the Protestant Bishop of Long Island the hand of hearty good fellowship in the work of saving our youth from the perils of infidelity through a system of education void of religion. We sincerely hope that he

I will succeed in his efforts to imitate our example, and thus share in the glory of saving our beloved country from the fruits of the Godless schools.

"By their fruits you shall know them."

NO USE AFTER DEATH

Of how little use money will be when the curtain falls on life, is brought home to the minds of most men by the warning that speaks from. coins of Innocent XI: "They will not profit thee in the day of judgment.' The pontificate of Innocent XI, though only thirteen years in duration, seems to have been rich in the variety and beauty of the sayings on the coins used. "He that loves gold will not be saved" is the motto on a golden crown, and another reads, "He who trusts in riches will fail." The same

Pontiff asks: "What doth it avail a man? What doth it avail a fool?" and the question, meeting you on a coin, has a special directness that one cannot avoid.

Innocent XII speaks touchingly to those whose hearts are fixed, on the accumulation of wealth when, on a coin of about two francs nominal value, he says, "Let it not be to thy perdition." And the effect of avarice on the mind is admirably suggested by the words of another coin of the same Pope, "Money has no color for the avaricious." The money grabber is universally denounced. "Who is poor? The miser," is the question and answer which another coin gives. "What I have I give to thee," is the phrase on another coin on which is represented St. Peter healing the lame man. The bearer of the coin may not be able to heal otherwise than by giving what he has. Another pertinent question is asked on one of these pieces of money, "But these things which thou hast gathered, whose will they be?" Such a question must raise serious considerations in the minds of thoughtful men.

AN ENCOURAGING SIGN

"A nation which sins against the sacredness of the marriage tie is doomed," said the Rev. Dr. William T. Manning, rector of Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church ir a sermon a few weeks ago. Dr. Manning does not believe in compromising with the dreadful divorce evil. "The time has now come," he said, "when we must realize what it means, when every man and woman must be ready to take a stand in society, in the church, in the legislatures, to check this flooding tide of evil. We must make this a subject of national, not of State regulation. We must create by every means in our power a sentiment that shall brand this repudiation of life's most sacred obligation, in whatever class of society

it may be seen, as a sin against decency and good citizenship as well as against God and religion." When other Protestant clergymen take a similar stand against the divorce horror the wrecking of homes and lives will not be such a common thing as it is to-day in this country.

LEGEND OF THE HOLY
MISTLETOE

Christmas does not seem like Christmas without the holly wreath and the mistletoe. and the mistletoe. Christians venerated the holly, or holy tree, because to them the little thorny leaves and red berries made in a wreath typified the crown of thorns and the bloody drops. Doubtless they introduced this solemn reminder at the joyous festival in order not to forget the sacredness of the occasion in the general festvities.

The mistle bush, mistletod.-or mistletoe, as we know it, owes its use as a festal decoration to pagan times. According to the Scandinavian legend, Baldur, the most beloved of all the gods, had a premonition that death impended. Thereupon, his mother, Frigga, besought everything that was begotten of earth, air, fire or water to swear not to harm her son.

But in her request she overlooked the insignificant little mistletoe. Loki, the god of destruction, disguised as an old woman, visited 'Frigga, and, learning of her oversight, hurried back to where the gods were assembled. There they were amusing themselves by hurling all manner of missiles at Ealdur, and all were turned aside. But Loki, with an arrow made of mistletoe, pierced Baldur's heart.

In reparation, the mistletoe was given to Fragga to do as she saw fit, provided it touched not earth. And she, to show that she bore no ill will, hung it up, and every one who passed under it received a kiss as a token that, instead of hatred and jealousy, the mistletoe now stood for love and forgiveness.

THE CHAINED BIBLE

The following interesting note is taken from a sermon on "The Church and the Bible," by the late Father Pardow, S. J.:

"When Martin Luther in the early years of the sixteenth century rose in rebellion against the Church, his battle cry was, 'The Bible, the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible.' But who among Luther's enthusiastic followers would dare to raise the same battle cry to-day? Modern Protestant theology does not place at its foundation stone the infallibility of a book.

an open

"The twentieth century is willing to admit the seemingly paradoxical statement that the 'chained Bible' of the Catholic Church was Bible. Would any citizen of New York maintain that in this the city directory is a 'sealed book' because in many cases, it is chained to the counter in apothecaries' shops. And will any American citizen so far defame his country as to declare that the iron cup is chained to the fountain in our cities in order to prevent the people from drinking of the water?

"It is twaddle such as this that has been taught as history for 400 years. It is high time for men and women to be more critical and refuse to accept mere assertion in lieu of proof. The fact is that before the invention of printing in 1438 not one person in ten thousand could possess a Bible, as the slow progress of copying by hand rendered the books so expensive. Hence the Church, in order that the people might read the Word of God for themselves, had large written Bibles chained to the pillars of the cathedrals. 'The Chained Bible,'

therefore, means, when examined critically, the 'Open Bible.' They are synonymous terms."

Virtues are dangerous if not accompanied by humility; we lose our reward through the vain glory they produce.-St. Bernardine of Sienna.

GREAT DONATIONS ALL FAKES

The Osservatore Romano, official organ of the Vatican, publishes the following: "Newspapers hostile to the Holy See announce that the Holy Father during his pontificate has received numerous and important legacies amounting to several millions. As these notices appear from time to time and are copied in good faith by the Catholic press it is necessary to make known once for all that they are absolutely false and without foundation. The scope of such publications is to persuade the faithful that the Holy Father has no need of the generous aid of his children in the many necessities of his Apostolic ministry." 潔

ANOTHER O'CONNELL AND HIS BEADS

All remember O'Connell's answer when he was upbraided for reciting his beads in the corridor of the English House of Commons, while his colleagues were in hot debate in the interests of their Faith and of their native land.

"I am helping them more than you think."

M. de Castelnau, French Senator, whose death has just been chronicled. was as ardent a lover of the beads as the great Emancipator. He was a Catholic who believed in frequent communion. Every Sunday, all feast days saw him at the altar. The secret of his power was fervent prayer, and not content with the beads, he often recited the fifteen decades of the rosary, the little office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and besides, he went daily for advice to his Friends of the Tabernacle. His beads brought him victory at the polls.

"What do you want us to do with a deputy who says his beads every day?" said one, but these beads did not prevent him from being listened to with attention every time he spoke in the chamber, where he often treated with rare ability, questions of law. finance and agriculture.

held at the Summer and Winter Solstice, and the May festival. On June 21 the Summer Solstice, St. John's Tree was decorated and worshipped. At the May Festival, the May Tree. (The English custom of dancing around the gaily decked Maypole to merry music probably originated from this). And on December 21, the Winter Solstice, the Fir Tree was ornamented. The latter festival, coming at a time when the days began to lengthen again, was a feast of rejoicing over the renewed growth and blossoming of the light tree in the sky. (They likened the sun riding higher in the heavens to the spreading of a tree). It was celebrated during the twelve sacred nights, for the old Teutons counted by nights instead of days, as the expression fortnight (zwoelften or "zwoel Naechte") and sennight still testify, and from these the Holy Nights-Geweihten Naechten, originates the German name Weihnachten-Christmas."

We learn also, that, during the time of these festivities, the Teutons lighted small fir trees with candles, placing these earthly substitutes for the heavenly light at the entrance of their homes.

The converted pagans soon saw the possibility of molding their customs into those of Christian purport. The 21st of December, their day of light, was relinquished for December the 24th, the birth of the true LightChrist. The Church, rejoicing over the Teutons' conversion, recognizing too, the imprudence of opposition to practices ingrained by ages, sanctioned such as were compatible with the teachings of Christ, hoping in this way to draw the hearts of their pagan brothers to the Saviour. They accepted our faith, we their usages. As heretofore presents were exchanged, the poor were remembered, the fir tree was decked and lighted, but not for Odin's sake; in the name of Christ our Redeemer were these customs continued.

The origin of our Christmas usages having been traced to rather an un

looked-for source, we will give our special attention to the further development of what is now our Christmas tree, and the plausible reasons for its attractive but singular decorations.

The tree from the beginning of the world has ever played an important part in the life of man, who has endowed it with supernatural powers and worshipped it for its strength, beauty, and its many symbolic attributes.

It recurs everywhere. We find it in mythology, in the old sages, in the Bible. It is ever with us, an example of fortitude, of development and of protection.

Think of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

Of the fabled tree of Colchis.

Of the aspen tree, which played so mournful a part on the day of the Crucifixion.

Do we not also count generation after generation upon the tree of genealogy? And so on.

An old tradition of India speaks of the tree Ude-taba, the sun tree of the earth, which at sunrise shoots from the earth and in proportion as the sun ascends toward the zenith, it grows up into the air until its topmost branches reach the sun, when at noon he stands high in the heavens, but diminishing with the decline of day, it sinks back into the earth. From this phase of belief common to the Aryan peoples have arisen countless traditions in which we find the tree of light, the sun tree, ever recurring under the most varied forms.

We learn from the investigation of Professor Schwartz that the celestial sun tree of the Aryans is the prototype of the Christmas tree. He says: "The light of the rising sun appeared to the Aryans like the trunk of a gigantic tree, the ascending rays spreading in all directions seemed like branches and twigs, while the clouds formed the leaves, and the sun, moon and stars were the mysterious golden fruit, according to their imagination. The light, fleecy clouds floating in the