that when Americans have made up their mind to do anything, they never ask if it be difficult." Our charity: Souls are won by love. We do not, and cannot, love the Protestant religion. It has little that is lovable in it; and besides, our own holy faith, all beautiful and good as it is, absorbs all the love our hearts can possibly hold. But could our Protestant brethren know how we Catholics love them--how we yearn over them as a mother yearns over her wayward child--how we long to welcome them home again; could they see how the "charity of Jesus Christ presseth us" to labor and pray for them; could they overhear us conversing with one another about them and learn our wishes and plans, our hopes and our wonderings at their continued absence, then we would win their souls. They could not stand all that. The power of divine charity would draw them sweetly on. Then they would ask themselves, What motive can these Catholics have to wish us so fervently to become as they are? Would that they might all be brought to ask that question! When we, who stand upon the firm rock, see them stumbling over the bogs and marshes of a groundless and unstable faith, there is a strong temptation to laugh at their bewilderment, and mock at them as they go leaping about from one little hillock of opinion to another, and at last fall, sprawling, into the mire of religious doubt. Better pity them. Human nature, you know, has _such_ a tendency to follow will-o'-the-wisps, even if it be only for the purpose of scientific investigation! Whatever truth they have, after all, is Catholic truth. Their piety, their love of religion, their hatred of sin, their fear of hell and hopes of heaven, are all the results of the teachings of Jesus Christ, in whom they believe as far as they know, and through whom, in some vague sense, they hope for salvation. {139} They have been led away from the true fold, and are wandering sheep, who are getting further and further each day out of hearing of the voice of the true Shepherd. But the time is not far distant when they will return. God's hand is stretched out over this people. His Holy Spirit is moving their hearts, and the signs of the day of peace and unity of faith are already appearing. Preachers usually begin with a text; we take the liberty of ending with one, very _à propos_, we think, to the subject of our thoughts: "I will call them my people, that were not my people: and her beloved, that was not beloved: and her, that had not obtained mercy, one that hath obtained mercy. And it shall be, in the place where it was said to them: you are not my people: there they shall be called the children of the living God." -------- New Publications.