This is but one of many instances recorded by Abbé Mullois in L'Ami du Jeune Clergé, a monthly magazine devoted to the interests of religion.
Go into many houses, and you will find the Ledger; the Sunday Mercury, the daily newspapers, the Atlantic Monthly, and often, even in Christian families, you may find publications far worse than these; occasionally, even lay hold of an obscene or grossly immoral book lying around loose, within reach of the children. Let our Catholic publications drive out all others—at least, such as are positively injurious—from Catholic families. Let the children, the young men and women, have Catholic books to read, and let the Catholic doctrines percolate through their minds even from early life.
How can we effect this? By children's, family, and parish libraries. We must write good books for the young, and give them opportunities of reading; parents should see to this; and should always have in their families a supply of good Catholic reading matter; a collection of tracts, or of tales, like those of Canon Schmidt, or a Catholic newspaper, magazine, or review. A family library is a treasure in a house, and goes down from father to child as a most precious heirloom. Its benefits are spiritual; and it is often better than a fortune.
But the principal means of promoting a taste for Catholic literature, and encouraging those who have devoted their lives to its cause, is by the formation of parish libraries. Let us hear the Abbé Mullois pleading in this cause. "In order to combat bad books and bad doctrines, we must have and spread good books as the only efficacious method. It is useless to spend the time in complaining or in railing against evil publications. There is a new want in our days not known to the middle ages. The people know how to read, and they will read. The popular intellect is hungry, and we must feed it. You cannot argue with hunger; it is stronger than you; it will break and sweep away all your arguments and reasons. You have no right to say to some one who is dying of hunger, 'You are wrong to eat such food; it is unhealthy,' unless you can give him something good and wholesome. In hunger, people eat what they have, not what they would like to have.
"We say, then, that actions, not words, are necessary, and that every one should help, for there is plenty to do for all, both priests and laity.
"What must we do? Let us go straight to the point. In the first place, every parish should have a little library of select books, both instructive and amusing. Books of history, of science, of agriculture, on morals or religion, at the disposal of every one to read, and to bring back safely. You must have one, my reverend brother, else your parish will be considered the worst managed in France; for these libraries are almost everywhere in it."—Is this true of the United States?—" If it already exists, increase it annually, embellish and complete it. It brings in a revenue. Can it be possible that you have no parish library? Oh! how difficult it is to propagate good ideas! We spend money for schools, and invite the world to the banquet of science; we create appetites, but when they are willing to eat, we tell them there is little or nothing for them. We have schools for boys, and for girls, day, night, and Sunday-schools; but where is the use of all these if there is nothing to read, or nothing but what is pernicious? If we teach children to read, we must provide intellectual food for them, or show ourselves devoid of logic, reason, good sense, and heart."
To whom are we to look for the realization of the good Abbé's plan in our country? In the first place, to the clergy. They are our guides, our fathers, our leaders in every good enterprise. Their influence is unlimited. Probably in no country has a priest so much power, or so many opportunities of doing good, as in the United States. The politician may control several thousand votes; a brave general may so infuse his own courage into the hearts of his soldiers as to make them carry the fiercest battery with the cold steel. But no one can do as the priest. On a Sunday, from his pulpit or altar, he can, in a short discourse of fifteen or twenty minutes, influence the actions, open the purses, and create the spirit of enthusiastic sacrifice in a whole community. He can build a church; he can found a benevolent society; surely he can found a parish or Sunday-school library. He knows the ravages of souls committed by non-Catholic periodical or other literature. He has only to say the word, and he, in a great measure, stops them. A sermon on the dangers of bad books will have its completion in the founding or enlarging of a parish library, filled with good publications. What an easy means of preventing so much evil!
"But," you say, "the clergy have no time." Undoubtedly their time is greatly taken up with parochial duties. In our country, bricks and mortar are by necessity as familiar to the eye of the priest, as books of theology. He has no time to write; very little time to read. This is true of the venerable senior clergy. But they need not do more than give their sanction to the work, and entrust it to the hands of the assistant, or of some responsible layman. A "few words from the pastor, recommending the library, and an occasional inspection of its management, will be sufficient. The curate, whose duties are not of so engrossing a nature as those of the pastor; or some good lay members of the parish; the young men of a literary or debating society; or members of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society; or the school-teacher, or, if need be, the schoolmistress, will do all that is necessary. In many parishes there are libraries, well conducted, well managed, and productive of immense moral and intellectual benefits among the young and old of both sexes. Our readers must know that there are such from their own experience. It will, therefore, require very little time from the pastor to have and to keep a parish library in perfect working order, according to rules laid down or sanctioned by himself. No zealous priest, who has once known the beneficial results of good family and parish libraries among his flock, would allow them to be neglected; or would not become a champion of our good cause. We ask, then, in the name of religion, of charity and morality; by the love of our holy faith, and by the zeal of the apostles, that all the clergy, young and old, should put their shoulders to the wheel with us, and roll on the car of Catholic progress, which carries in it our Catholic books and publications.
So many hundred priests, talented and learned, speaking from so many hundred pulpits and altars, guiding the consciences of so many millions of men, are a power able to defeat all the productions of a licentious press; and if, united by a common zeal, they but lock hands and pull together, they cannot fail to realize the already quoted expression of our holy Father, Pius IX., speaking of France, to inundate the country with good publications. We priests often fail to realize our power and influence.
Nor should the laity be idle. "In the day of a nation's peril," says Tertullian, "every citizen becomes a soldier; in the great struggles of the faith, every Christian becomes an apostle." Let the sacred fire of zeal pass from the bosom of the priest to burn in the breasts of the laity. There is a certain priesthood of the laity, which they do not sufficiently understand. They are too apt to be passive, to let the priest do all the labor, and only help him when called and urged; they forget that piety and good works are as essential to them as to their spiritual directors, and that so far from, their zeal being an intrusion on that of the priesthood, it is an acceptable assistance. How many a poor, tired priest longs that some good layman would relieve him of a portion of his burden, and enable him to bear the load and responsibility of his parish! We call on the laity, then, to come to the rescue: help in the cause of God! Found libraries; or at any rate, stock a few shelves in your own homes with good books for yourselves and your friends or children. Become propagandists! You propagate the faith; you aid the pope, the bishops, and the priests; you are doing a work acceptable to God, when you help to spread good books or periodicals. Encourage others by your example. Are you a young man? Engage others with you in the cause of Catholic literature. Can you write? Have you a ready pen? Why not write a tract, or a good article for a Catholic paper? or buy it and give to your infidel or Protestant neighbors? You may save a soul by giving that little tract. You may save a soul for one cent! Do not be afraid because you are said to be too young; or, if some one patronizingly informs you of the fact, be sure you are right, and that God is on your side; then go ahead.