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it, "born five or six centuries too late into a pushing, modern world, which knows not chivalry." He is introduced to us at the age of fifty-five, a superannuated bank clerk, a Londoner by education and business associa tion, but inheriting from his Spanish ancestors their grandee manner, and possessing a noble and ascetic soul. Every detail in the drawing of this character is perfect; the haughty note in the Spanish character is struck in his aloofness, his inability and disinclination to make friends, its self-sufficiency in his wholly unconscious preservation of that spirit of isolation, the result of the temperament and ideals produced by the difference of race. Its warmth is exemplified in his passionate adoration of his mother, his tender care of her, the memory of her serving to keep him a more than ordinarily good man till well on in middle life; its artistic tendency, in his appreciation of only the best in art and literature. He is presented to us as "a man who had lived long outside the creeds, and that not ungodlily, still less bestially," driven by his loneliness, and the coming of old age, to ask the question of the wherefore and the whither of this mortal pilgrimage, "desiring earnestly to be given grace to find the road-however archaic in the eyes of the modern world that road might be-which leads to the light on the far horizon, and beyond to the presence of God." Then at the age of fifty-five, assisted by boyish memories of his mother, whom he had revered, after much visiting of lecture halls and chapels, after much argument in books and with his own soul, he chose Holy Church, the communion in which he had been born and baptized.

The twenty-second chapter is wonderful in its clear, calm exposition of the claims of the Catholic Church to be considered "an organism, not an organization; a living being, perfectly proportioned, with inherent powers of development and growth; ever existent in the Divine Mind before time was; recipient and guardian of the deepest secrets, the most sacred mysteries of existence, endlessly adaptable to changing conditions, yet immutably the same."

The heroine, however, is not constructed of such fine clay; she is a very unconventional type. Far from blameless as to her past, she greatly errs in many ways as to her present.

That a woman should be able to picture so well and so delicately a character such as Poppy St. John, is a striking illustation of Lucas Malet's ability. The creation of these two characters-Iglesias in all the strength and beauty of his lonely soul, Poppy in the witchery of her personality, her irresponsibility, masking the tragedy of her woman's experience, made deeper through her yearning for the unattainable-is sufficient to lift the book above the level of the ordinary work of fiction.

The mind that could effectively combine these unusual elements-a hero in middle life, true to his ideals and undistinguished as to wealth or achievement, and a heroine not recognized by Mrs. Grundy, whose only outward bond of sympathy with the hero is her loneliness-that could develop their mutual attraction into the pathetically beautiful relationship described in The Far Horizon, and picture so dramatically the spiritual quest and triumph of Iglesias and the redemption of Poppy St. John gives proof of rare ability.

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N our day and land it is not easy to exaggerate the importance of the Sunday-school. It is still true that a majority, or at least a very large proportion, of our Catholic children depend chiefly upon it for their knowledge of religious truth; at the same time, it is admitted that the religious education it imparts is, in many cases, below the desired standard. The great desideratum is a body of competent teachers; and this can hardly come as the result of natural growth, but is to be obtained by the careful selection and training of teachers. This aim is being pursued in various places, conspicuously in New York, under the auspices of the Training School for Catechists; and his Grace, the present Archbishop, has recently issued a letter strongly urging the importance of this work upon the priests and laity of his diocese. The object of the following pages is to trace the history and sketch the organization of a successful Sunday-school; to indicate something of the good accomplished by it; and thereby, we trust, to show what we may hope for from a Sunday-school that is the product of true zeal, organization, method, and hard work.

I.

Visitors to the great churches of Paris readily find their way to St. Sulpice, the principal church of the old Latin Quarter, * See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, August, 1905, "The Teaching of Christian Doctrine," by Rev. John F. Brady, M.D.

Copyright. 1907. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEw York.

for it ranks in interest and importance, if not in beauty, with the celebrated churches of Notre Dame and the Madeleine. It is noted as a remarkable centre of religious life and activity; in fact, as a model, in this respect, for the churches of the whole country. The visitor entering the spacious edifice at any hour of the day cannot fail to remark the constant stream of people coming to assist at one of the many impressive services, or else to pay their tribute of silent prayer before the altar of the Blessed Sacrament. And if the visitor be a Catholic he cannot but be convinced that he is in a church where the faith is properly understood and practised.

But religion was not always in so prosperous a state at St. Sulpice. When, in the middle of the seventeenth century, Father Olier entered the parish as its pastor, and began the erection of his celebrated seminary, the place was considered the rendezvous for the irreligious, immoral, and criminal of all Paris. At that time the parish limits were much more extensive than they are now, embracing the whole Faubourg St. Germain, a territory which to-day is divided among nine parishes. To change the face of this, the most wicked part of Paris, and that too in an age of general moral laxity and religious indifference, might seem indeed a hopeless task. But Father Olier, animated with the spirit of our divine Savior, the Shepherd of souls, and encouraged by confidence in the assistance of the Mother of God, boldly began the work. The sure instinct of the true pastor led him to the root of the evil-the appalling ignorance of saving truth in which the majority of his people were living. The duty of religious instruction had been so sadly neglected that the great majority of the children —yes, and of the parents as well-were quite ignorant of even the elements of Christian doctrine. Here then lay the pastor's first appointed work; and so well and firmly did he establish it, that it has endured through all the vicissitudes of more than two centuries and a half, and has been perhaps the most powerful support of that religious life which has ever since characterized the parish of St. Sulpice.

Father Olier began the work of evangelizing and instructing his parish by putting into effect a carefully thought-out plan of organization. The district was altogether too populous and extensive for one school of catechism to satisfy its needs; so,

school at the Church of St. Sulpice, and twelve subsidiary schools at points chosen for the convenience of the children and their parents. In equipping these schools with teachers he had an advantage with which few pastors are favored. He drew upon the resources of the adjoining ecclesiastical seminary, founded by himself, and thus obtained a corps of teachers who were the mainstay of the school, instead of being the element of weakness which, among us, renders so many Sunday-schools inefficient.

These young men, before the time of class, went through the streets, bell in hand, gathering the children together; they entered homes with an invitation to the parents to accompany their children; some of them even arranged to teach catechism at certain hours in the common schools, in order that all might be reached. "I begin," wrote Father Olier, "to perceive the design of God for the reformation of this parish. He wishes us, first of all, to secure the youth by imparting to them Christian principles and the fundamental maxims of salvation; and he will effect this by the ministry of the young students of the seminary." His confidence was not in vain. The novel spectacle of ecclesiastics, most of them of noble birth, going through the streets and into houses to gather pupils for their catechism classes produced a profound impression; and they soon secured for all the schools a normal attendance of four thousand children, besides a goodly number of parents.

II.

The organization as first effected has been kept essentially the same down to our own day. In certain details, however, changes have been made to suit varying circumstances. Thus, as new parishes were formed, the need for subsidiary schools at different points in the Faubourg diminished. To-day, besides the great school gathered in the Church of St. Sulpice, there exists only the school attached to the social-settlement house of the parish. Moreover, the establishment of the new parishes has naturally resulted in a greatly reduced attendance; yet still the school remains an exceptionally large one. Last year 1,740 names were inscribed on the rolls, while the attendance each week averaged 1,400 to 1,500. Yet another change is the smaller attendance of adults for instruction, mainly because few

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