I don't say, indeed, that my curate would indulge in this affectation, for he is rather disposed to take the old, unlearned modes of saving souls and going with them to Heaven, than the new, brilliant mimetism of a world that knows not God. But still I know he would think it waste of time to pursue such studies, until the modern _Luciferi_ tell us exactly what they have placed beyond the borderland of conjecture, and into the certain and unshaken fields of mathematical demonstration. So I left my Scriptural syllabus at home. He looked slightly appalled at the large schedule of science I showed him. I reassured him by telling him I insisted positively on his taking only one subject in each department. "The grand mistake," I declared, "made by us, Catholics, is in taking too wide, too bird's-eye a view of human history and philosophy, instead of mapping them into sections, as the astronomical photographers are mapping the skies from the Papal Observatory in Rome to the Lick Observatory in California. What we want most is sectional treatises on single subjects. Now, what you are to give us is not a vast diorama from Thales to Rosmini, and from the persecutions of Julian to the _Kulturkampf_ of Bismarck, but a neat etching of some particular persons and events, and a clear photograph of some practical point of Catholic philosophy. If you throw in a few side-lights from the errors of non-Catholic thinkers, so much the better. Now, look it over carefully; as the strolling player declares--'You pays your money, and you takes your choice.'" He thought that question of inductive philosophy very nice. He had read something about it in Macaulay. He liked that Platonic question very much. It bordered upon poetry and mysticism Then St. Augustine! That would be charming. He had always such a love for St. Augustine! But Fénelon? The "dove of Cambrai" _versus_ the "eagle of Meaux!" What a delightful idea! No good housekeeper, at a cheap sale, was ever so puzzled. Finally, we decided that, in philosophy, he was to take up the question of "Modern Aspects of Pantheism;" and in Ecclesiastical History he selected "The Cappadocians." "But what about books?" he asked in dismay. "I haven't a single book on these blessed subjects." "Buy them," I said. "Every good workman buys his tools and materials." "I have a strong suspicion, Father Dan," he said, "that this is all a practical joke. Why, that means a whole library. And if I had money, which I have not, I do not know the name of a single blessed Catholic author on these subjects." "Why, my dear fellow, there are hundreds. Let me see! On the Fathers, Basil and the two Gregories. Let me see! Haven't you--my memory is failing--haven't you Cardinal Newman's essays on these Fathers?" "Well? You don't want me to give a verbatim version of Cardinal Newman, surely, do you?"