[ ORIGINAL. ]
OUR MOTHER'S CALL.
Come home, O weary wanderers, from error's tangled maze,
My mother-heart yearns sore for you in all your troubled ways.
I've rest, and food, and shelter, for all the earth can hold--
Then hasten, weary wanderers, home to the single fold.
I am the Master's gamer, which ever yieldeth more,
The more the needy millions receiving from my store;
No number's can exhaust me; no beggar at my gate
For rest and food and shelter, shall ever have to wait.
If in mine inner chamber the Master seems to sleep,
While fearful storm and peril are out upon the deep.
My lightest tone will call him to rescue of his own
For his dear children's haven I am, and I alone.
Almighty wisdom made me the home upon the rock--
The Saviour's fold of safety to all his ransomed flock.
My door is ever open, and they who enter in.
Find rest from all their wanderings, and cleansing from their sin.
One thing, and but one only, the Master doth demand.
That they who seek shall find him as he himself hath planned;
Beneath my lowly portal shall bow each haughty head,
And to my narrow pathway return each wandering tread.
I cannot lift the lintel, nor widen out the posts,
For every stone was fashioned by him, the Lord of hosts.
My Master, and thy Master if thou wilt hear his voice
And in his pleasant pastures for evermore rejoice.
Can human handcraft ever compete in skill with him,
Whose throne is in the heavens amid the cherubim?
Then cease your idle toiling another home to raise;
He on my fair proportions toiled all his mortal days.
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When out of depths of darkness he called the glorious sun
In all its dazzling splendor, he spoke and it was done;
His sweat and blood were both poured out that he might fashion me
His sun to souls in darkness till time no more shall be.
Hold it no light offending that you can turn aside,
And scorn in wilful blindness the Saviour's spotless bride.
He who hath full dominion unchecked o'er all the earth,
Made me the mighty mother of the blest second-birth.
Come, weigh ye well the value of his three and thirty years,
And number o'er the treasure of all his prayers and tears.
And count ye out the life-drops that flowed from his cleft side.
And learn the wondrous bounty with which he dowered his bride.
Rich-dowered for your salvation, ye dearly bought of earth!
By his dying, and my living, oh! weigh salvation's worth,
And in the single shelter his mighty love hath given.
Learn the dear will that maketh the blessedness of heaven.
GENEVIEVE SALES.
EASTERTIDE, 1866.
[ ORIGINAL. ]
USE AND ABUSE OF READING. [Footnote 81]
[Footnote 81: "Appel aux Consciences Chrétiennes contre les abus et les dangers de la lecture."' P. Toulemont. Etudes Religieuses, Historiques et Literaires. Tome 8, N. S.]
We have been much interested in the grave and earnest essay on the abuses and dangers of reading, by P. Toulemont, in that excellent periodical, the "Etudes," so ably conducted by fathers of the Society of Jesus, and we would translate and present it to the readers of the Catholic World in its integrity, if some portions of it were not better adapted to France than to the United States; yet much which we shall advance in this article is inspired by it, and we shall make free use of its ideas, facts, authorities, and arguments.
This is a reading age, and ours is to a great extent a reading country. The public mind, taste, and morals are with us chiefly formed by books, pamphlets, periodicals, and journals. The American people sustain more journals or newspaper than all the world beside, and probably devour more light literature, or fiction, or trashy novels than any other nation. Reading of some sort is all but universal, and the press is by far the most efficient government of the country. The government itself practically is little else with us than public sentiment, and public sentiment is both formed and echoed by the press. Indeed, the press is not merely "a fourth estate," as it has been called, but an estate which has well-nigh usurped the functions of all the others, and taken the sole direction of the intellectual and moral destinies of the civilized world.
The press, taken in its largest sense, is, after speech--which it repeats, extends and perpetuates--the most powerful influence, whether for good or for evil, that man wields or can wield; and however great the evils which flow from its perversion, it could not be annihilated or its freedom suppressed without the loss of a still greater good, [{464}] that is, restrained by the public authorities. In this country we have established the régime of liberty, and that régime, with its attendant good and evil, must be accepted in its principle, and in all its logical consequences. If a free press becomes a fearful instrument for evil in the hands of the heedless or ill-disposed, it is no less an instrument for good in the hands of the enlightened, honest, and capable. The free press in the modern world is needed to defend the right, to advance the true, to maintain order, morality, intelligence, civilization, and cannot be given up for the sake of escaping the evils which flow from its abuse.