himself and heeded the Scriptural | ment is not a little supercilious.

They

warning, "He that loveth danger regard it in the light of a good thing shall perish in it." It is not, for the victims of intemperance, for the however, the importance of Total Absti- poor and uneducated, but, further than nence to the reformed drunkard, that that, their interest and sympathy do needs insisting upon here. This is too not go. This cold-heartedness is only evident and too generally recognized. another illustration of the fact, that there But the support the Total Abstinence is but the smallest modicum of heroism movement should receive from those to be found in the world. Men like to who do not need it for their own safety, be credited with high and generous is, perhaps, not so well understood as it motives; but place some little act of selfmight be. When we consider what a sacrifice within the easy scope of their curse this craving for intoxicating every-day lives, and their selfish nature liquor has inflicted upon the world, at once asserts itself.

when the misery and crime following Successful as it is and has been, the in its path confront us in our daily Temperance movement has not yet experience, is it too much to expect assumed the importance such a cause that we, who are free from this degrad- as it demands. Many priests and ing passion, should help the unfortu- laymen have thrown themselves, heart nates among our fellow-men out of their and soul, into the work, but they need bondage? And how can this be a larger number of intelligent and edubetter done than by the influence of cated helpers to second their efforts. our example? If we will deny our- The Temperance movement should be selves what is at best but a petty regarded not only as a means of regengratification, and become total abstainers erating the intemperate, but as an infrom the use of liquor-though this strument to elevate the character and measure may not be needed to protect us from our own passions-it will encourage others to resist cravings which require all their strength and resolution to put down. It seems like the veriest commonplace to call attention to this aspect of the Temperance question, but observation has convinced us of the necessity of so doing.

We are all ready to die for our religion, and some of us are anxious to fight for our country; but when we are asked to live and make. our lives an example to the weak and erring ones of our creed and race, we have little

education of the people. What there remains to be done in this direction can be easily conceived by any one familiar with the routine of Temperance organization, and who is aware. of the indifferent influences occasionally brought to bear upon some of the many societies. It is not to complain unreasonably that we say this, but because we feel that the mission of the Temperance Society might be made a higher and a wider one, without any deviation from its original and vital purpose.

We have intended merely to sugmore to offer than fine words. Indeed, gest a thought on this question, and that the attitude of some well-meaning thought is, that, whoever would be interpeople towards the Temperance move-lested in and useful to the Temperance

movement, his interest and usefulness which had better been left to the must be inside not outside of it. It is eloquence of the Temperance orator. of little avail to clap a drunkard upon But, for all that, we have thought no the shoulder and advise him to desert more proper place could be found his fatal habit. If we will cease drinking than in a Catholic magazine, to brush ourselves, even though there be no poi- aside the vain longings and sentison in the cup for us, we will have done mental aspirations of would-be heroes, him a real service and proven our in- and to show to our fellow Catholics terest in his welfare. of education and culture a noble field. for the exercise of their generosity and

We are aware that some of our readers may deem these hurried words manliness. of ours wasted on an insignificant subject

FRANCIS X. DESMOND.

A Catholic man may sin, like other them to come to this holy Sacrament, men; he may be false in every rela- where they will find grace to enable tion of life; he may be false in the them to live up to the principles which domestic circle; he may be false so- they had forsaken. But give me the cially; he may be false politically; but practical, intellectual Catholic man, the one thing you may be sure of-that he man of faith; give me the man of human either does not go to confession at all, power and intelligence, and the higher or, if he goes to confession, and comes power, divine principle and divine to the holy altar, there is an end to his love. With that man, as with the falsehood, there is an end to his sin; lever of Archimedes, I will move the and the whole world around him, in world.-Father Burke.

the social circle, the domestic circle, the political circle, receives an absolute guarantee, an absolute proof that that It is noticeable how intuitively in man must be all that I have described age we go back with strange fondness the Christian man to be-a man in to all that is fresh in the earliest dawn whom every one, in every relation of of youth. If we never cared for little life, may trust and confide. This is children before, we delight to see the test. Do not speak to me of Catho- them roll in the grass over which we lics who do not give us this test. When hobble on crutches. The grandsire a Catholic does not go to the sacraments, turns wearily from his middle-aged, I could no more trust in him than in care-worn son, to listen with infant any other man. I say to you, do not laugh to the prattle of an infant grandtalk to me about Catholics who do not child. It is the old who plant young go to the sacraments. I have nothing trees; it is the old who are most sadto say of them, only to pray for them, dened by the autumn, and feel most to preach to them, and to beseech delight in the returning spring.

THE AVOWAL OF ST. BERNARDINE OF SIENNA.

My heart is not mine any longer,

I confess it to you, dearest friends;
I love, and no love could be stronger,

For my Loved One the whole world transcends

My heart is not mine any longer!

'Tis useless to dwell on her beauty,

She has utterly conquered my heart—

To praise her I feel is my duty,

But her fairness excels all my art

'Tis useless to dwell on her beauty.

I cannot endure life without her,

Nor the length of the night and the day

'Tis life to be thinking about her,

So I love her, and live in that way—
I cannot endure life without her!

My study is only to find her

Unto this all my powers are trained;
My hope is that she will be kinder;
My mind and my will are enchained-
My study is only to find her!

For her, then, my whole soul is yearning-
After God she has now all my love;
'Tis a bright and pure flame ever burning,
'Tis a true vow recorded above-

For her, then, my whole soul is yearning!

So, now, need I name this fair Maiden,
And say, Mary the Mother of God?

My bosom at last is unladen

TRUTHFUL STATESMANSHIP.

[Alumni Oration delivered at Manhattan College.]

I would feel more at ease were I here not to parade infamy upon the statuteto speak in terms of eulogy upon the book. statesmanship of a century, so bold in And where are we to look for such! enterprise, so active in achievement. Not to the Diets of Europe, for it is But I am only to unsay what deception in the guise of shrewdness gifted tongues have spoken and fluent which there prevails. Not to American pens have writ, to deny the statecraft cabinets, for venality there flaunts its of the age its boasted length of foresight tinsel in the light of day. And are and honesty of purpose, to denounce they of the past then the severity of it as unwise, unlawful, and unjust. principle, the dignity of life, the senPerhaps the charge is hasty. Perhaps the facts will not support me in making it. But the history of the world is an open book which will not puzzle or mislead when you study it with your reason and not with your prejudices. And that history is in our day the most substantial protest that can be offered against the perfidy of cabinets, the iniquity of government, and the false-classes, would have turned to use the hood of diplomacy.

Survey the field of European politics for the last ten years, and mark how few are the measures which truthful statesmanship has dictated.

sitiveness of honor, which became the parliaments of men so well? Have the virtues which graced the Capitol gone over the Tarpeian rock, that a decade of continental History appears thus so barren in all that is good, and so largely abounds in all that is evil? We had fancied that the science of government, relieved of the restraints of privileged

ripe experiences of the past, that, tainted by no courtly arrogance and disfigured by no vestige of prejudice, diplomacy would have assumed a liberal and equitable aspect. How I mean the statesmanship which aggravating is it, then, to see this statessecures a country's interests without manship from which we had hoped so violating its pledges with another, and into which venality and the claims of party do not enter. I mean the statesmanship which scorns to hide baseness behind an empty pretext, and dares

much, pursuing its purposes through devious and occult ways, and ruthlessly assailing the barriers of Justice and Right! How sad to see it violating the covenants it was to guard from encroach

ment, and demeaning itself with vulgar | may wreathe for his forehead, will subterfuge and deceit! The chivalry wither in the light of an early day. of the past has indeed gone down View the men I have mentioned by under the car of Progress. The high this standard, and see if their dimenconceptions of duty which marked sions will not dwindle. One is the the deliberations of the old Roman hack of a faction; another, the tool of forum, have become lax and sluggish a court; the third, the slave of an idea. in the modern cabinet. Where are And how ductile is the honesty that the perfection of law, the dignity of can be drawn around the deceits of an politics? Look at the Judge--his Irish University Bill, how brittle the ermine is drabbled with the mire of truth that plies the logic of the venality; and at him, the senator, Prussian Reichstag! And whence whose brow bears the laurels of debate, came this spirit of falsehood which and who holds in charge the holiest has broken through the walk of oldtrust his country can confide-even he time practice and openly dictates to does not disdain to stoop to the pitiful courts and cabinets? Where was its arts of the trickster. nativity? growth?

We look upon these things with our own eyes in a land whose infant virtues we had thought would grow to manly stature, and we hear them whispered to us from beyond the seas.

Where, then, can the truthful statesman be found? Did I ask the Englishman, he would mention Gladstone and Disraeli. Did I ask the Austrian, he would refer me to Beust. The German no doubt would point out Otto von Bismarck.

What air nourished its

Look on the page of later-day history, and you can follow it back fifty years to a cradle in the chamber of the French deputies.

There the scheme which lingered in the chambers of Napoleon's mind found expression in the memorable declaration, "Italy shall be free from the Alps to the Adriatic."

There was a certain pith and epigrammatic force in the saying. It Permit me to say, I deny these men flew from tongue to tongue. It was no intellectual power, I assert no defi- caught up to inspire an anthem of the ciency of talent. But it is not in the people, it became the war-cry of Maznarrow span of intelligence alone that zini, and again the catchword of Emmantruthful statesmanship lies. There is uel. Besides it represented an ideasomething needed beyond activity of the idea of Italian unification; the idea brain and breadth of knowledge to con- which became the policy of Cavour; stitute it. Choose me what minister the idea that has contributed, more you will, endow him with the noblest largely than any other cause, to defile powers of mind and tongue, give him with lies the faith of Europe's cabthe finest culture of the academies, cast inets. his actions in the most heroic mould, You know the consummation to which but, without an upright purpose and an it led. How, in the face of Heaven and honest heart, his fame ere long shall in violation of the eternal principles of pale, and the chaplets infatuated opinion justice, the Pontiff was stripped of his