heaven to which he looked forward was not a strange country to him.

Nowhere, either in the Old World or the New, can the Catholic faith live and flourish without the solid devotion to Mary which is the natural and inevitable fruit of a true belief in the incarnation of the Son of God. It would be foolish to speak as if this devotion were wanting in any country which belongs to Catholic Christendom. But there may be atmospheres in which faith cannot be as joyous, as free, as exulting, and as demonstrative as elsewhere, and it would be foolish also to undervalue the influence of a devotion which is able to mark itself on every detail of life instead of lying hid in the heart of the people in which it prevails. The joyousness of England went away from her shores at the Reformation, and it is the joyousness of faith which is one of the special fruits of a deep overpowering devotion to the Mother of God. The book before us gives many a hint as to the way in which this joyousness was fostered by our ancestors, and this is one main reason why we desire to see its teaching made familiar to English-speaking Catholics in the new hemisphere as well as in the old.

Mcterize

NEWSPAPERS AND NOVELS.

ENTAL activity is commonly believed to specially characour age. If reasons for this belief are demanded, the inquirer is pointed to the facts that in every department of human knowledge, investigation, and research are prosecuted with untiring energy; that these departments in modern times have greatly increased in number; and that the field and scope of each of them have been greatly enlarged. On these grounds it is commonly held that the educated classes of to-day are intellectually far superior to those of past times.

Without entering into any lengthy discussion of this conclusion, we affirm that it is faulty in that it represents only one side of the question. If the number of individuals who possess a respectable amount of knowledge be taken as a rule for measuring the intellectual progress of a period, and if the word knowledge is taken in the broad and liberal sense now commonly attached to it, then it must be admitted that the present age is greatly in advance of all previous times. But quantity is not the only element that should be taken into account in the calculation. Quality also enters into it,

and giving quality its due value we will be brought to a very different result from the conclusion just referred to.

We readily concede to the second half of the nineteenth century almost unparalleled intellectual activity, but at the same time we maintain, paradoxical though it may seem, that this activity is combined with a lassitude of thought which also is unparalleled.

This statement perhaps will be startling to some, and elicit only a smile of utter incredulity from others, yet it is not difficult of proof.

The literary world, that with which we are now concerned, is made up of two classes, those who write and those who read. In past times the student who represented the latter class was not less an intellectual worker than was the author who represented the former. But at present it may be laid down as a rule, having but few exceptions, that only the writers work mentally.

The great mass of the reading public has sunk into an almost hopeless intellectual "dolce far niente." There is no room to doubt that reading nowadays seems productive of drowsiness of mind, a torpor of the mental faculties, manifesting itself in widespread mental indolence. Thus, our age presents the unique spectacle of a union of strongly contrasted extremes of the greatest intellectual activity and of the greatest intellectual inertia; action and energy on one side, and the stagnation of habitual laziness on the other.

An obvious reason for this state of things suggests itself, namely, the enormous increase in the number of literary productions and the comparative ease with which they can be procured. The amount and variety of reading matter devoured by individuals in our times precludes the possibility of thoroughly digesting it, and prevents the nutritive and stimulating effect upon the thinking faculties which a more moderate supply of less heterogeneous matter would produce.. Then, too, the relation between reader and writer has undergone a change, or rather an additional relation has sprung up between them. Conscious of the incapacity of most readers to form intelligent judgments upon or draw logical conclusions from what they read, writers accommodate themselves to this inertness of thought. As for the reader, if he encounters a problem which requires close thought to enable him to understand it thoroughly, in nine cases out of ten the consideration of the problem will be deferred until some writer or other has obligingly relieved him of all necessity of mental labor by formulating a solution for him.

"Labor-saving" machines, as we all know, abound in our times. We believe that modern writers might be styled not unaptly "thought-saving" machines; for that is, in fact, the office which, to a very great extent, they perform for the reading pub

lic. They condense facts, weigh evidence, arrange ideas, criticize, judge, and point out the sequences of cause and effect in the great strife of thought, and furnish convenient superficial summaries of the intellectual movements of the day for those who are themselves either unable or unwilling to study those movements.

The ancient maxim that "knowledge is power" was never before so universally accepted as true, nor so generally acted on, as now. The necessity of possessing a certain amount of knowledge for the practical discharge of the duties of life has helped to ingraft this maxim deeply on our age. Besides this, there is an almost universal pretension and desire to be ranked amongst the educated classes of society, together with an unceasing effort to bestow upon the greatest possible number the boon of education. The result of the combined working of these several factors is a general anxiety for knowledge. But notwithstanding this, we here repeat that before we can determine upon the claim of our age to supreme mental advancement we must make a qualitative as well as a quantitative analysis, that is to say, we must extend our inquiry and direct our attention upon two points, viz., the number of literary productions, and, going hand in hand with this, a higher standard of thought and style.

In regard to the first point, it would argue either gross ignorance or gross want of candor did we fail to note as distinguishing our age the increased number of instrumentalities by means of which information on every subject is gathered, and of channels through which it is diffused. A stream of printed matter, immense in volume, pours forth incessantly upon the world, the greater portion of which consists of the lighter kinds of literature. For the sake of greater clearness and definiteness in our remarks we may divide this literature into five classes.

First in order we place what is commonly called the newspaper press. The daily and weekly journals, whose readers number in the aggregate millions beyond computation, have-it is hardly necessary to remark-grown into a necessity of life, like tobacco and tea, and sugar and coffee. We dismiss them now, however, that we may refer to them later on. The next class is a motley crowd. It comprises all the serial and periodical publications, magazines, reviews, etc., with contents of a most heterogeneous character, promiscuously mixed up. Poetry, fiction, essays, reviews of books, novels in chapters, are interspersed here and there with a smattering of heavier matter, such as treatises on religion, sociology, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics. Many are eclectic in character, and are the vade-mecum of the “habitués" of literature. They are, in truth, indispensable to all who wish to keep au fait with the literary world, and they meet a want which the vastness

and variety of literary productions has necessarily created, and which a single individual could never supply without their aid. Third in order comes the incessant avalanche of novels. These, good, bad, and indifferent, are the pabulum on which the modern mind loves to feed, and hence the important part they play as agents of culture and civilization. A great falling off in numbers is noticeable in the next class, which consists of travels, explorations, biographies, and works on history, religion, politics, national economy, and that much contested battle-ground, philosophy. In this class too is comprehended polemic and controversial literature, which furnishes also a large amount of material for the second class. The rear of the procession is brought up by republications and translations of the standard classics of all times and of all nations. The publications belonging to this fifth class are, we regret to say, purchased by many rather because they are considered indispensable to a library than with any intention of reading and re-reading them until the golden treasures of their thought become fully known and appreciated. This is the picture we find ourselves compelled to paint of contemporary literature.

To the first and third class of our division belongs the distinction of having obtained the largest number of readers, and to these two classes, therefore, we shall confine our remarks in this paper.

The indifference and want of discrimination people generally exhibit in regard to what they read, strangely contrasts with the care shown in other occupations. If a person proposes to set out on a tour through distant countries, the moment the intention has ripened into resolution he commences to make preparations for it. Maps and guide-books are consulted, the route is carefully laid out, inquiry made as to the comfort and safety of railroads and steamship lines, their arrival and departure; the hotels at the stopping-places are decided upon-an investigation in which more experienced friends, who are acquainted with the localities to be visited, assist with their knowledge and advice; in short, every possible precaution is taken to insure the success of the trip. The details of the arrangements will vary, of course, according to the length of time the traveller has at his disposal, the distance to be traversed, the depth of his purse, and his station in life. But as a rule no one travels without previous preparation. Yet the same person, whose preliminary steps for a tour we have outlined, walks into a bookstore, selects at random some recent publication, or trusts entirely to the recommendation of a clerk or a eulogistic notice in a newspaper. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that the vast majority read without system, without purpose, without discrimination. We do not mean to imply that there are none

who read with aim and method and judgment; for such there are. But their number is only a trifling percentage of the reading public; they form, indeed, an almost infinitesimal fragment of the vast society of readers. The dictates of reason and common sense seem to have no influence or power when people engage in a pursuit so unimportant as "reading." The world seems to take for granted that the step from reading nothing to reading something denotes a great intellectual advance, and that it is therefore immaterial what is read, since it cannot fail to result ultimately in benefiting the reader. These remarks may seem ill-tempered and too sweeping to some, but unless the truth which they express is admitted it is impossible to explain intelligibly the conduct of a large portion of the reading public.

But let us return to the subject of newspapers. Between newspapers and newspapers there is as much difference as there is between an excellent saddle of mutton, well cooked, tender, juicy, delicious to the palate, and a tough sinewy steak cut from an animal of prehistoric times. So with newspapers. From the highest type of a good paper, for instance, the London Times, to the lowest, such as the Nihilistic organ, Land and Liberty, we pass through innumerable gradations of excellence until we reach those in which a microscopic inspection even, fails, to discover an intelligible reason for their existence. Let us analyze the process of newspaper-reading as it is prosecuted by civilized Christendom. In our description we follow in the main an astute observer of human nature, whose name, however, we are unable to rescue from oblivion. After the paper is obtained, the attention is first directed to the telegrams. But it would be erroneous to presume that anxiety about affairs of gravity occurring throughout the world is the motive. It is done for no better reason than because a habit has been acquired of wishing to be fed with the latest intelligence. A craving for news, like any other craving, once contracted must be satisfied. For this reason, then, all the telegraph news, home and foreign, great and small, is read with an equal amount of interest and an equal lack of reflection. After this the leading articles are turned to. The fate they meet is best described by saying "they are read;" for it must not be imagined that any concern is felt whether their contents are true or false, exaggerated or misrepresented. The eye runs over them to catch the general drift of what is written. Exceptions are made only in favor of anecdotes or really quite startling paragraphs, which are intrusted to memory for the sake of using them to create a sensation. Next comes, probably, the home and foreign correspondence, which is glanced over in the same way. There is probably a letter from Paris and one from London or from New York, each as likely to