devotion, is denied or assailed. Sometimes it is attacked by open hostility, but more often by a chilling indifference, or by a bitter ridicule of all the claims of religion.
"Now if this be the actual state of things, let me ask: Are we Catholics fully alive to the very grave dangers that beset us from the literature of all kinds that is being daily and hourly issued in such enormous quantities by the publishing houses of America?
"Too many of us seem to have a positive distaste for the best — what has been written by Catholics. In fact, many of us are utter strangers to our own authors, outside of a few great names. We know little or nothing of our greatest writers. Their writings are a sealed book to many. The very name of a Catholic publishing house on the title-page of a book seems to repel rather than attract the purchaser. That is the present situation; it is one to be deplored and must be entirely changed before we Catholics come into the full possession of the literary treasures that are our rightful inheritance."
Bishop Hedley in his pastoral letter, "On Reading," says:
"There ought undoubtedly to be a great advance on the part of Catholics in the knowledge of religion by means of print. And, happily, it cannot be pretended that there is nothing to read. If we consider, for example, the list of the publications of the Catholic Truth Society, we find anong them instruc-
