that they were baptized. It is to be wished that these corrupt persons would keep to themselves the poison of unbelief which they have swallowed. However, they are not content to do this, but rush about like mad dogs, and poison others with their bites; and what is most to be lamented is that even the plain people in our country districts are not spared.
If they can not smuggle their poison, contained as it is in bad newspapers, periodicals, and pamphlets, into every household, because some pious and careful father of a family refuses to admit it beneath his roof, they scatter it on the public highway, in saloons, workshops, and manufactories, by means of their irreligious conversation. Whence proceed such expressions as "priest-ridden," "priestly inventions," "let us cast off the yoke of Rome," and so on? Whence comes mocking at prayer, confession, the Most Blessed Sacrament, the veneration of the saints? whence so many blasphemous expressions? Some individual, perhaps, who, when a child, received but scant religious instruction, goes far away from home and begins to imbibe the poison of unbelief by 'reading anti-Christian books and listening to unorthodox teaching; he has especially noticed certain catch-words and forcible phrases, and these he repeats whenever he finds himself in the company of others, in order to lure them to destruction. The well-instructed Christian blushes at the folly of it all but the ignorant
