"I will say to you frankly that there is a very great want of a spirit of piety, faith and religion in our clergy. It is useless to investigate the cause of this. I will say briefly that it has probably in good measure arisen from the great majority of the missionaries being young men, from the little control that has been exercised by the Bishops for many years over their young priests on the mission, and probably above all from the spirit of the times which is incessantly infused into the mind of a young man by our abominable newspapers. In fact, a greater pest, a more efficient weapon of the devil does not exist in the world than the English newspapers. Their pernicious effect on the minds of our young ecclesiastics has been observed and lamented by many others as well as myself." At the present day the evil is of course emphasised by the great profusion of cheap newspapers, and as a rule the cheaper the paper, the lower the style and setting. And a further evil has arisen of reading those parts of them which give a momentary excitement. The little paragraphs are a potent time-waster. Even during the war, the evening papers contain much that is not really of any permanent importance about it, but out of war-time we became familiar with any number of small tit-bits which may beguile the time of a business man returning home from his work, but which are unworthy of the attention of a serious-minded priest. Yet the paper became so full of them that even important news, such as the proceedings of Parliament, became relegated to a back page, or even got omitted altogether. If we want to see a priest at his worst, we cannot think of a better opportunity than after breakfast on a winter's morning, if we can find him, as we sometimes can, spending an hour or two of the most valuable time of the day, when he is best fitted for work, in sitting before the fire reading the newspaper and smoking pipe or cigarette.