nature, and in the mental culture which enables them to enjoy more keenly the high thoughts and fair images which live in literature and art. As a well-trained intellect, in argument with the unskilful, easily makes the worse appear the better cause, so in an age or a country where the best discipline of mind is found chiefly among those who are not Christians, or at least not Catholics, public opinion will drift away from the Church, until the view finally becomes general that, whatever she may have been in other times, her day is past. Nor will aught external, however fair or glorious, secure her against this danger. How often in the history of nations and of religions is not outward splendor the mark of inward decay? When Rome was free, a simple life sufficed; but when liberty fled, marble palaces arose. The monarch who built Versailles made the scaffold on which French royalty perished; and so a dying faith, like the setting sun, may drape itself in glory. The Kingdom of God is within; there is the source of life and strength, without which nor numbers nor wealth, nor stately edifices nor solemn rites, avail. Nor can we be certain of men's love when we cease to have influence over their thoughts. The proper appeal is to the heart through the mind; and even a mother loses half her power when she ceases to be the intellectual superior of her children. How then shall the heavenly Mother of the soul keep her place in the world, if those who speak in her name mar by imperfect and ignorant utterance the celestial harmony of her doctrines?