and above all, from the director of our souls.  If we take up a book, and we find that, without foolish scruple, it is raising doubts in our mind or exciting our imagination in perilous directions, then we must be brave enough to close it, and not open it again.  If our weakness is such that we cannot resist temptation, which unforeseen may come upon us, then it is our duty not to read any book the character of which is quite unknown to us.  If any such book is a source of temptation to us, we must shun it, if we wish to do our duty to God.  If our reading makes us discontented with the lot in life which Divine Providence has assigned to us, if it leads us to neglect or do ill the duties of our position, if we find that our trust in God is lessening and our love of this world growing, in all these cases we must examine ourselves with the greatest care, and banish from ourselves any book which is having these evil effects upon us.

Lastly there is an immense amount of literature, mostly of an ephemeral character, which almost of necessity enters very largely into our lives at the present day.  We cannot characterize it as wholly bad, though its influence is not entirely good, but it is hopeless to attempt to counteract what is harmful in it by any direct means.  The newspapers and magazines of the hour are often without apparent harm, and yet very often their arguments are based on principles which are unsound, and their spirit is frankly worldly, and entirely opposed to the teaching of Jesus Christ and of the Gospel.  Still more when the Catholic Church and the Holy See are in question, we know full well, and the most recent experience has proved it, that they are often consciously or unconsciously untruthful.  Even when their misrepresentations have been exposed, in spite of the boasted fairness of our country, we know that we must not always expect a withdrawal of false news, still less adequate apology.  Constant reading of this character cannot but weaken the Catholic sense and instinct, and engender in their place a worldly and critical spirit most harmful in every way, unless we take means to counteract it.  What are these means?  A place must be found in your lives, dear children in Jesus Christ, for reading of a distinctly Catholic character.  You must endeavour to know the actual life and doings of the Catholic Church at home and abroad by the reading of Catholic periodical literature.  You must have at hand books of instruction in the Catholic Faith, for at least occasional reading, so as to keep alive in your minds the full teaching of the Church.  You must give due place to strictly spiritual reading, such as the “Holy Gospels,” “The Following of Christ,” “The Introduction to a Devout Life” by St. Francis of Sales, and the lives of the Saints, which are now published in every form and at every price.  It is not your duty to abstain from reading all the current literature of the day, but it is your duty to nourish your Catholic