That the devotion of the middle ages is yet alive in the church is proved by the influx of pilgrims at the shrine of St. Germaine of Pibrac, at Notre Dame de Lourdes, and a thousand other places of popular devotion. So great is the number of pilgrims to Lourdes, drawn by the brightness of Mary's radiant form, that the railway between Tarbes and Pau was turned from its intended direct line in order to pass through Lourdes. In one day the train from Bayonne brought nine hundred, and at another time over a thousand pilgrims. And as for the continued charity and hospitality of the church, witness the monks of St. Bernard and of Palestine, known to all the world. How disinterested is genuine Catholic charity, done unto the Lord and not unto man! Some suppose the good works practised among us is by way of barter for heaven, but they little know the spirit of the church. Charity is one expression of its piety, which, in its highest manifestations, is devoid of self-interest. Listen to John of Bordeaux, a holy Franciscan friar, who, after quoting a saying of Epictetus, that we generally find piety where there is utility, says: "He does not come up to the standard of pure Christianity: he pretends that piety takes its birth in utility, so that it is interest that gives rise to devotion. Yes, among the profane, but not among Christians, who, acquainted with the maxims of our holy religion, have no other end but to serve God for his love and for his glory; forgetting all considerations of their own advantage, they aspire to attain to that devotion which is agreeable to him without any view to their own interest." And in these practical times another holy writer, Dr. Newman, says in the same spirit: "They who seek religion for culture's sake, are æsthetic, not religious, and will never gain that grace which religion adds to culture, because they can never have the religion. To seek religion for the present elevation, or even the social improvement it brings, is really to fall from faith which rests in God, and the knowledge of him as the ultimate good, and has no by-ends to serve."