"The retreat given by the band of Missionaries of St. Paul the Apostle to members of St. Vincent de Paul's Society, and other men of this city, closed on Sunday evening, the Rev. Father Baker preaching an admirable sermon on the characteristics of Christian perfection for men in the world. During the week that this retreat has continued, the number of men approaching the sacraments was about two thousand. The religious effects of the occasion will be great and permanent. But besides results that the Catholic faith leads to expect, St. Patrick's Cathedral has, the past week, presented a subject for thought and astonishment to the observing and reflecting man, though not a Catholic. What has gathered these crowds of busy, practical men? What keeps them kneeling, or standing quietly in solid masses, for an hour before the exercises commence? Most of these men rose from their beds at four o'clock, some as early as half-past three, and made long walks through the darkness to secure their standing-place in the church during the early instructions. They hear from the pulpit solid, distinct, earnest instructions in regard to what a man must believe, and in regard to what he must do to attain eternal life when this world is past. But whence comes this lively appreciation of truths beyond the reach of the senses, in the minds of men plunged all day long, and every day, in material occupations? {176} Here are men of the class that, in communities not Catholic, do not suffer religion to interfere with their comfort--who like best to discuss the points of their religious profession after dinner, and to listen to sermons while seated in cushioned pews. What causes them thus to stand in the packed throng of the faithful, listening to the homely details of daily duties required of them, or kneeling on the hard floor, repeating with the multitude, in a loud voice, the prayers they learned in childhood? Then, these sons of humblest toil that kneel beside them. All the heat and excitement of the "revival" failed to bring any considerable number of the corresponding class of non-Catholics to the "prayer-meetings." The latter mentioned would say that they had to look out for their daily bread, and that the rich men at the prayer-meetings did not want them any way. Here they are at St. Patrick's, by five o'clock in the morning, and either they do without their breakfast, or it was dispatched an hour or more before. These various classes of men, having attended the exercises given by the Missionaries of St. Paul, during the week, stood crowded within St. Patrick's on Sunday evening. The parting instruction of the missionaries was to stir them, by all the courage and fervor and endurance that they had manifested during the retreat, to fix higher principles and firmer purposes for the guidance of their future life--to be faithful to every duty, to their families, to