rom the Vatican Council, he wrote to Father
Deshon from Assisi:

"I felt as if I would like to have peopled that grand and empty
convent with inspired men and printing-presses. For evidently the
special battle-field of attack and defence of truth for half a
century to come is the printing-press."

He believed in types as he believed in pulpits. He believed that the
printing-office was necessary to the convent. To him the Apostolate
of the Press meant the largest amount of truth to the greatest number
of people. By its means a small band of powerful men could reach an
entire nation and elevate its religious life.

This being understood, one is not surprised at the extent of his
plans for this Apostolate. He was never able to carry them out fully.
Not till some years after the founding of the community could he make
a fair beginning, although the first volume of the Paulist Sermons
appeared in 1861. Delays were inevitable from the difficulties
incident to the opening of the house and church in Fifty-ninth
Street, and these were aggravated by the war, which for over four
years bred such intense excitement as to interfere with any strong
general interest in matters other than political. But the very month
it ended, in April, 1865, Father Hecker started _The Catholic World._
Its purpose was to speak for religion in high-grade periodical
literature. The year following he founded The Catholic Publication
Society, with the purpose of directing the entire resources of the
Press into a missionary apostolate. In 1870 he began _The Young
Catholic._ In literary merit and in illustrations it equalled any of
the juvenile publications of that period, and was the pioneer of all
the Catholic journals in the United States intended for children. And
finally, in 1871, he projected the establishment of a first-class
Catholic daily, securing within a year subscriptions for more than
half the money necessary for the purpose, when the work was arrested
by the final breaking down of his health.

_The Catholic World_ was considered a hazardous venture. At the time
it was proposed, such modest attempts at Catholic monthlies as had
struggled into life had long ceased to exist. The public for such a
magazine seemed to be small. The priesthood had little leisure for
reading, being hardly sufficient in number for their most essential
duties; the educated laymen were not numerous, nor remarkable for
activity of mind in matters of religion; nearly