in the use
of his weapons that he may become a living force on the future
field of action.

The college is but the training ground, not the final goal; the
real field of our activities lies outside its walls. Yet when the
scholastic course closes these richly-gifted men dip below the
horizon, and the world seldom hears of them again; the
destructive wave that in its silent strength is covering the land
receives no check from them; they are engraving no impression on
the intellect of the day.

Our humiliation and surprise increase when we turn to the
publisher's lists and see parsons, who have to prepare to meet
critical audiences Sunday after Sunday, and are weighted with the
cares of heavy families, holding leading places in every literary
enterprise.

Now, if our young men set to work to popularise our native
saints, and in their lives dig up the buried glories of our
Catholic past, if each diocese produced even one crisp
well-written life, what a splendid step in advance.

But the demand for our literary activities is far wider than the
shores of Ireland.

[Side note: America and Australia]

The American and Australian Churches are daughters of this soil.
We are proud of them; they are the frontier regiments of our
fighting army; they are daily advancing Patrick's standard over
fresh fields of conquest: but what help have we given them?

The present generation of priests there are builders. But, like
the men on Jerusalem's walls, they have to grasp the sword in one
hand and the trowel in the other.

Protestantism in those lands is fast running to its final
declension--naked infidelity. Now the infidel knows no rest;
activity is the law of his existence. The buried ghosts of past
heresies are resuscitated and draped in all the attractiveness of
modern dress. The arsenal of error stored by every perverse
genius from Arius to Tyndal is daily discharged into the Catholic
ranks. There is scarcely a truth free from truculent assault.

It is hard to ask the men toiling in the glare of the camp fires,
to fight the battles and manufacture the shells.

Now, all that is best of French Catholic intellect has been given
to this cause for the past century. The priest who would devote a
few winters to the holy toil of translating this into a shape
suitable to the needs of our fighting millions would do an act of
merit that God alone could measure. Yet what ammunition have we
supplied to our brave soldiers? Scarcely