This _en passant_. It is pleasing, after having read it, to be able to testify to Mr. Hallock’s excellent sentiments, as shown in the extract already given from his report, which concludes in this touching fashion: “We are left to labor in the vineyard amid scenes sometimes discouraging, severe, and depressing even. But, amid all, the sincere and earnest worker may hear the voice of the Great Teacher uttering words of comfort and consolation: _Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me_.” Those words of consolation may be read in more senses than one. In keeping with all this is the report of the president, Mr. Edgar Ketchum. He also has the Catholics in his eye. He is strong on the moral training of the children and “the mild discipline of the house,” of which the public knows sufficient to warrant our letting Mr. Ketchum’s ironical expression pass without comment. He is “far from discouraging any effort to extend Christian sympathy and aid to a class who so deeply need them.” He believes that “religion, in her benign offices, will here and there be found to touch some chord of the soul, and make it vibrate for ever with the power of a new life.” What religion and what offices? He is of opinion that “the interests of society and the criminal concur; and if his crimes have banished him from all that makes life desirable, _they need not carry with them also a sentence of exclusion from whatever a wise Christian philanthropy can do in his behalf_.”