inkers and libertines were
devoured, and if any young man had the heroic courage to
remonstrate, his words would be drowned in derision.

God permitted that warning to come, but have we taken it as a
warning? What efforts have we made since to secure the
entrenchments? The danger passed, and we sank back into the old,
dreamy lethargy, and left the field open to the devil to sow his
tares anew. Our greatest danger to-day is our apparent safety. We
wrap ourselves into a false security, while a dry rot is
permitted to stealthily corrode the pillars of intellectual
conviction that must uphold all. Unless this is fought, and
fought effectively, the structure of our Catholic life will
topple like a house of cards.

[Side note: Objections answered]

All looks calm now, but so long as the causes that produced the
sad outburst of twenty years ago continue unchecked, worse
inevitably awaits us. I may be told. Look at the union of priests
and people to-day; look at our flourishing sodalities and our
beautiful churches.

The union of priests and people was then tested by one strong
wrench, and it snapped; and so long as the evil forces that
caused the fissure continue to gnaw once more the bond that
unites the hearts of priests and people, is it stronger you
expect that bond to grow?

With regard to our pious sodalities. Did the question ever
present itself--How much of the average sodalist's piety is
resting on sentiment and tradition, and how little of it on
intellectual conviction? Transplant him from the hotbed to the
ice-chills of infidelity in America or Australia, where the very
air is electric with doubt and denial, and when the storm beats
upon him, is his head armed to defend his Faith?

Where could he get the necessary knowledge? Not from the book in
his hand, for it is "Marie Corelli" or "Hall Caine" you find him
best acquainted with. Not from the Catholic newspaper, for the
question is--Do we possess one? It is a strange fact that while
Irish Catholics abroad have founded, and support, splendid
Catholic journals in every land where they have found a home, the
mother Church from which they sprang is practically defenceless.
He gets poor assistance from the pulpit; for while homilies and
exhortations are admirable in their way, they fall far short of
covering the needs of this questioning age. Our dogmatic
treatises are permitted to lie entombed in dust on our top
shelves, while clear and homely exposition of