e sheep--foolish enough, heaven knows!--but also of
the still more helpless lambs. Thus it becomes the duty and the
privilege of the successors of the fisherman to protect the sheep and
the lambs, and not merely to protect them from wild beasts who may try
to do harm from without, but quite as much from the wild rams of the
flock who are capable of doing a great deal of injury from within. In
one of his letters, from which quotation has already been made, the late
Monsignor Benson sums up, in homely, but vivid language, the point with
which we have just been dealing. "Here are the lambs of Christ's flock,"
he writes: "Is a stout old ram to upset and confuse them when he needn't
... even though he is right? The flock must be led gently and turned in
a great curve. We can't all whip round in an instant. We are tired and
discouraged and some of us are exceedingly stupid and obstinate. Very
well; then the rams can't be allowed to make brilliant excursions in all
directions and upset us all. We shall get there some day, if we are
treated patiently. We are Christ's lambs after all."

The protection of the weak: surely, if it be deemed both just and wise
on the part of the civil government to protect its subjects by
legislation in regard to adulterated goods, contagious diseases,
unhealthy workshops and dangerous machinery, why may not the Church
safeguard her children, especially her weaker children, the special
object of her care and solicitude, from noxious intellectual foods?

It is just here that the question of the _Index_ arises. Put briefly,
this is a list of books which are not to be read by Catholics unless
they have permission to read them--a permission which, as we have just
seen, is never refused when any good reason can be given for the
request. I can understand the kind of person who says: "Exactly, locking
up the truth; why not let everybody read just what they like?" To which
I would reply that every careful parent has an _Index Prohibitorius_ for
his household; or ought to have one if he has not. I once knew a woman
who allowed her daughter to plunge into _Nana_ and other works of that
character as soon as she could summon up enough knowledge of French to
fathom their meaning. The daughter grew up and the result has not been
encouraging to educationists thinking of proceeding on similar lines.
The State also has its _Index Prohibitorius_ and will not permit
indecent books nor indecent pictures to be sold. Eno