“So much for the practical side, which is the moral that particularly needs pointing at this moment. Of the spiritual amplitude and sustaining which the Church gives there is little need to speak. Only a woman can know what Faith means in the existence of women. The uplift which she needs in moments of great trial; the sustaining power to bear the constant harassment of petty worries; the outlet for emotions which otherwise choke the springs, the tonic of prayer and belief; the assurance of a force sufficiently divine and eternal to satisfy the cravings of human longing—what but this is to make life worth living for her? And where else, in these days of scepticism, is she to find such immortal dower? It is a commentary upon worldly wisdom, that it has attempted to ignore this necessity, and left woman under the increased pressure of her new obligations, to rely solely upon such frail reeds as human respect and conventional morality. She needs the inspiration of profound conviction and practical piety a hundredfold more than ever before. The woman of the old time, secluded within the limits of the household, surrounded by the material safeguard of custom, might lead an untroubled existence even if devotion and faith were not vital principles with her. The woman of to-day, harassed, beset, tempted, driven by necessity, drawn this way and that by bad advice and worse example, is attempting a hopeless task when she tries the same experiment.” The poetry of Mrs. Blake is rational and wholesome. She knows her gifts and is content to use them at their best, giving us songs in a minor key, that if they add little to human thought, yet make the world better from their coming. In the poems of childhood she is particularly happy. She knows children, their joys and sorrows, has caught their ways. Her’s is a heart that has danced in the joy of motherhood and been stricken when the “dead do not waken.” She is our only intelligent writer of children’s poems. The assertion may be controverted. A hundred Catholic poets for children may be cited writers “of genius profound,” of “exquisite fancy,” “whose works should grace every parish library.” I quote a stereotyped criticism, a constant expression with Catholic reviewers. I laugh, in my hermitage, and blandly suggest, to all whom it may concern, that insanity in jingles is not relished by sane children. I speak from experience, having perpetrated a selection from the one hundred on a class of bright boys and girls. Peaceful sleep, and, let us hope, pleasant dreams, came to their aid. Shall I ever, Comus, forget their faces in the transition moment from dulness to delight? Let us cease cant and rapturous criticism. Catholic literature, to survive the time that gave it birth, must be built on other foundations. Hasty and unconscious productions must be branded as such. We must have, as the French so well put it, a horror of “pacotille” and “camelotte.” “If my works are good,” said the sculptor