[Side note:  What the Londoner saw]

An Irishman residing in London, after visiting his native country in 1900, records his impressions:—­

“I have been amazed during recent visits to Ireland at the display of London weekly publications, while Dublin publications of a similar kind were difficult to obtain.  I have seen the counters of newsagents in such towns as Waterford, Limerick, Kilkenny and Galway piled as thickly, and with as varied a selection of these London weekly journals as in Lambeth or Islington. . . .  I was so impressed with the phenomenon that I endeavoured when in Dublin to obtain some accurate information in regard to its extent.  At Messrs. Eason’s I was told that within the past ten years the circulation of these journals in Ireland had almost quadrupled, although the population had diminished within the same period by one-eighth."[2]

[2] Mr. MacDonagh in “Nineteenth Century,” July, 1900.

This is the offal the national mind is feeding on, and yet people express surprise that we are becoming West-British and losing Catholic thought and character.

It is estimated that, without counting the book or parcel post, every week there are three tons of this literature discharged on the quays of Dublin alone.  If this is even approximately true it reveals a startling condition of things.

It may well be questioned whether the bayonets of Cromwell or the plantations of James threatened more destruction to all we hold dear.  I believe they were as toy armies compared with the silent foe now encamped upon the soil.

Out of these three tons it would be easy to count, not the volumes, but the pages, devoted to a defence of the Ten Commandments.  Works of open or professed assault on faith or morals are as yet few, the time is not ripe just yet, their forerunners are here, however, the ground is being prepared.  The advance guards have come, and it is only a question of time till the heavy ordnance is planted in our midst.

[Side note:  Cardinal Logue]

Our present danger has been admirably described by an eminent prelate:—­“A mass of literature which professes to be innocent, and ostensibly aims at being interesting, but seeks to create that interest and engross attention by fostering thoughts that appeal to the passions with no uncertain voice.  Even when such works do not openly attack faith or the sanctity of morals, they seek to convey the subtle poison of unbelief or corruption by covert insinuation, by ridicule, by ignoring religious truth and supernatural motives as unworthy of consideration, more effectually and fatally, than they would have done by open and undisguised assault."[3]

[3] Cardinal Logue, Lenten Pastoral.

There are novels that constitute an unbroken attack, from the first page to the last, against some divine truth, yet with such a delicate hand is the insidious poison distributed that you may be challenged to lay your finger on a single objectionable passage.  Satan has not been studying the human heart for six thousand years without knowing it well.  He takes very good care not to label his drugs, or present his poison to timid minds in large doses; hence there is no alarm:  but the treacherous danger of such books is well illustrated by a tree to be found in tropical forests.