Cambridge and Oxford
First Premium Men
When we read of brilliant students at Cambridge or Oxford, we naturally look forward to see them leaders of thought or action in their own land, and we are seldom disappointed. Our Irish colleges are discharging yearly swarms from their doors, many of them men with brilliant records. Who hears of them after? What have these first-class premium men, who gave such splendid promise, done with their gifts and knowledge? How little does the Irish Church owe them? The day the premium book was handed them, all serious effort died. They were content to rest for the remainder of their lives under the shade of their academic laurels.
The soldier is not satisfied with the triumphs of his recruit days. He knows that the purpose of his life then is not to gain a prize and stop at that, but to acquire efficient skill in the use of his weapons that he may become a living force on the future field of action.
The college is but the training ground, not the final goal; the real field of our activities lies outside its walls. Yet when the scholastic course closes these richly-gifted men dip below the horizon, and the world seldom hears of them again; the destructive wave that in its silent strength is covering the land receives no check from them; they are engraving no impression on the intellect of the day.
Our humiliation and surprise increase when we turn to the publisher's lists and see parsons, who have to prepare to meet critical audiences Sunday after Sunday, and are weighted with the cares of heavy families, holding leading places in every literary enterprise.
Now, if our young men set to work to popularise our native saints, and in their lives dig up the buried glories of our Catholic past, if each diocese produced even one crisp well-written life, what a splendid step in advance.
But the demand for our literary activities is far wider than the shores of Ireland.
America and Australia
The American and Australian Churches are daughters of this soil. We are proud of them; they are the frontier regiments of our fighting army; they are daily advancing Patrick's standard over fresh fields of conquest: but what help have we given them?