and willing to give an equally good education on the voluntary principle."

Let not those of other faiths fancy that back of our contention for freedom of education lies a furtive thought to turn this. great Republic from its path of progress and glory to diminish in slightest degree, or to detract in any way from the constitutional right of freedom of conscience, thought and action. Let no one imagine that we have in view ulterior motives to make this government other than its patriot foun lers intended it to be the home of liberty, the haven of the oppressed and persecuted of every land, and the safe abiding place of popular sovereignty the youngest but fairest of the great nations. On the contrary we say: We have marched and fought together from Lexington to Appomattox; together borne the hunger and cold at Valley Forge. We were with you in the bloody charge against the heights of Fredericksburg and with you carried our country's flag to victory above the clouds at Chickamauga. We sailed and fought with you under Barry, Jones and Dewey on every sea, around the orb of earth, and, no more than you, did we haul down the glorious ensign that fluttered at our masthead. We shall be with you again when country calls, touching elbows as we face the foe ready as are you to follow our flag to victory, or die in its defence.

When, perhaps, to gain a vital point some forlorn hope shall, under cover of the night, steal out to die for the Republic, you will find our boys with yours, climbing together the fire-swept slope behind which lies the foe- and whether in victory or death, they shall not be divided. If they win, they win together. If they die, they side by side pour out their life's blood, which, mingling in a common stream, effaces the last vestige of distrust, and adds a new glory to the flag!

HOW MAY THE COLLEGE INFLUENCE PUBLIC

OPINION?

VERY REV. JOHN CAVANAUGH, C. S. C., PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME, NOTRE DAME, IND.

In one of the apocryphal books of the New Testament is a saying attributed to Our Lord, which is so lofty that I regret it is not authentic. The saying is this: "If the neighbor of the just man sins, the just man shall not be without fault."

One way of estimating the worth of any life or of any institution is to judge it by its influence on men: "By their fruits," says Our Lord, "ye shall know them." The Catholic college, then, will be judged ultimately by its influence on public opinion. For surely when we think of the vast energies which the Church puts into the work of education, the number of her consecrated sons and daughters whom she sacrifices to it, we have a right to expect that the result will be more than alert and strong minds and successful worldly careers. The aspiration of Bishops, priests and people is after a vigorous, influential laity; a militant laity instinct not alone with the sense of general battle, but with the courage and the skill to wage single combat against the enemies of revealed truth. The faithful surely dream of a race of youthful Davids, who, when the Goliaths of error stand forth to mock and deride the armies of the Lord, shall send ringing through the world the holy challenge: Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? And then, waiving aside the armor in which other men had fought — "not willing to wear any other man's clothes" - should stand forth in their own naked strength to hurl against the giant the little pebble that kills, the little pebble of truth so feared of every hectoring Philistine before and since Goliath!

And what work awaits the Davids? St. Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles. Shall there be no apostles to the genteels? I

do not, of course, mean the superficial fops and dandies of the world; the social climbers and the lion tamers and the tedious parlor wits; but shall there be no part of the priestly family dedicated to the salvation of minds, as well as of souls? Or rather the salvation of minds as a means to the salvation of souls?

It is a lamentable fact that, so far at least as intellectual influence is concerned, the forces of error have to a large extent to-day captured the imagination of the world. We who are within the Church have a loyal conviction that she is still the custodian of knowledge as well as of Faith. We know of our great universities throughout the world and of our modest scholars who see deeply into the darkest questions of the schools, and laboratories, and cabinets. We write learned papers and deliver massive lectures to prove what is undoubtedly truethat the Church has from the beginning been the friend of learning; that the fathers of every science have been her sons; that the arts have survived because they have been her handmaids; and indeed that the world has received hardly any immortal service except from her children. These things we know who are within the Church, but is it not true that the critic and the skeptic have succeeded in imposing their consciousness upon the world? Does not the old faith seem to be discredited in the minds of millions who do not, who cannot, weigh, and analyze, and reject?

And here the preaching, baptizing, absolving parish priest may well challenge comparison with the clerical savant. It is the beautiful charity the parish priest bestows upon the poor, the solicitude he shows for the children of his people, the fatherly love with which he enters into their joys and sorrows that glorify the priesthood in the common eye. It is the work of the patient sisterhoods and the multitudinous and ingenious ministrations of mercy devised by the Church that still hold for her in large measure the respect and admiration of the outer world. On its charitable and moral side the work of the priesthood has been brilliant; but has the scholar done his duty? Have we as a people achieved literary and scientific distinction here in America? Are we opposing a strong barrier to the advance of unbelief not only among our own people but throughout the na

tion? The Goliaths of error stalk proud and insolent before us; have we the Davids to send out against them?

Our hope lies in the school. A great American priest has said that if St. Paul lived in our day he would be a journalist; surely one of the prime functions of the college-bred man is to cultivate and practice the art of composition; to take a large and honorable part in the discussion of important subjects and to show to the world that the old traditions of Catholic learning have not been lost. Of what avail will it be that we have a true message to deliver, if we are prophets of a harsh and stammering tongue; if we cannot speak to the age in the language of the age; if our argument is ponderous and pedantic; if our evangel is announced in strange accent or in foreign phrase?

Unquestionably, as I have said, the world to-day lies largely under the domination of the leaders of unbelief. In the judgment of the plain man modern research and criticism have sent confusion into the old theology. The plain man is wrong. He does not know the facts of the case but he has a vague conviction that the things which he held sacred in his youth are now discredited and denied. The newspaper, the magazine and the popular book are the vehicles that bring this message to the multitude. The popular writer with the trick of turning a pretty sentence is the agent who spreads it. The world of simple folk and middle folk naturally knows little of the man in the laboratory; but the popular writer acquaints himself with the findings of the laboratory and proceeds to make reputations, to destroy philosophies, to change beliefs, to abolish religions and regularly each year to re-create the face of the earth. The men who generate this atmosphere of unbelief are not the masters in research. They are of no importance compared with the scientist in the laboratory. In final consequence, they are of no importance compared with the simple millions who read and believe them; but because they assume to interpret the great scholar or scientist to the multitude they really wield an influence utterly disproportionate to their importance.

Now I appeal to the college graduate to take up this popular work. I plead for a tribe of writers who shall take their stand in this middle field and by a brilliant presentation of the great

questions of scholarship win back the world to a respect for the supernatural and for revealed religion.

To do this we must acquaint ourselves thoroughly with the contents of modern science. We must know the present status of those questions about which there is controversy, or if we take philosophy, or sociology, or economics, for our field we must be familiar with the farthest-going questions in these great fields. But whatever the matter we select what the Church expects of the Catholic college is a skilled body of intellectual swordsmen ready to leap to her defense at a moment's notice. I know that the less prudent have a simple and common contempt for excellence in writing; but is there any finer test of the mentality of a man than his power of expression? Is there any quality that will so surely attract the indifferent and the unbelieving as distinction here?

Consider the enormous influence exercised on the more thoughtful class of popular readers by Mallock. He has made no serious contribution to learning, and yet his prismatic writings have colored thousands of minds on subjects of science, and philosophy, and theology. Read the life of Bernardine of Siena an I see how in that day of worldliness, and skepticism he wrought his reformation through the gift of eloquence. Recall how in a later age when France lay under the lethargy of skepticism and indifference, there stepped one day into the pulpit of Notre Dame a brilliant young Dominican who had mastered in the schools the philosophy and science of his age and had learned the art of expressing thoughts that breathe in words that burn, and the next Sunday that great cathedral, but a little while before almost deserted, was thronged to the doors, while men climbed in at the windows to see and hear Lacordaire. It is but a few years since there vanished out of the shadows into the light the meek and lovable figure of Newman. When he entered the Church in the prime of his power he lay a long time under the odium of an apostate from the national church, but so great was his power of expression, so exquisite the quality of his diction, so limpid and fluent his utterance, that he conquered distrust and dislike-conquered them to such a degree that when he passed away at a venerable age there went up a wail over the whole