ization, the centre and pivot
of which was established here, but which is mow extending itself all
over the country. Most assuredly there is nothing in the story of this
work to indicate either the approaching death or the decay of the
religious sentiment in France.

This work rests, like all great works, upon certain principles. But
these principles were worked out, not through any theoretical
inquisition into the possibilities of society, but through a direct
personal practical experience of the relations between an employer of
labour and his employees. It is known now throughout France as the work
of the 'Christian Corporations,' and it includes, as a part of its
machinery, the 'Catholic Workmen's Clubs,' which are increasing and
multiplying throughout France. Its founder, M. Leon Harmel, is at the
head of an important manufactory at the Val-des-Bois near Reims. This
manufactory was established here half a century ago by the father of M.
Harmel, and the great social work which the son is now doing is the
coming to fruit, after many years, of the virtues and the experience of
his father. The Ardennes is the northernmost of the four Departments
into which the wise men of 1790 divided the ancient province of
Champagne, and M. Harmel, the father, had inherited a manufactory in
that department. This he gave up to his brother, and removing to the
Marne in 1840 he founded here the establishment of the Val-des-Bois. He
was a devout and sincere Catholic, and he had lived all his life among a
quiet and Catholic population in the Ardennes. He found himself
surrounded in his new home by a totally different people. His new
employees were amazed when they saw him attending mass at the parish
church on Sunday. A few of their wives and daughters went there
irregularly, but the men, as a rule, were 'total abstainers.'

M. Harmel made no attempt to preach to his people otherwise than by his
example. But the employer being regarded, in the light of modern
progress, as the natural enemy of the employee, this example had little
effect. M. Leon Harmel tells a delightful story of his father's first
success in inducing some of his workmen, with whom he had fallen
incidentally into conversation on the subject, to go over to Reims in
the early morning at the beginning of Lent, and confess to an excellent
priest there who was one of his friends. He spake with the men
separately, and said nothing to any one of them of his conversations
with t