Mother, or the saints. No one should be without a book on the Mass. Besides one's prayer-book, one should have manuals of meditation and of instruction on Christian virtues. More extended devotional treatises will keep alive the piety of those for whom they are suitable. But all Catholics, whatever their condition, should make use oi spiritual reading. It is impossible to exaggerate the effect on the lives and characters of Christians of the words of holy men, of the heroic acts of the martyrs, of the example of the lovers of Jesus in every age, of the contemplation of our Lady's prerogatives and goodness, and, above all, of the story of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The 'Following of Christ,' and Other books of a like nature, are at once a guide to virtue, ac encouragement to prayer, and an influence drawing the heart daily nearer to God. The reading of Holy Scripture, of the sermons and conferences of distinguished preachers, and of the penetrating devotional books in which our language is by no means deficient, is adapted to sanctify the house, and to keep out of it, to a greater or less degree, that flood of objectionable printed matter which overflows the land at the present moment.
"Priests and laity can not do more for souls than to encourage by every means in their power good and cheap Catholic literature — instruction, devotion, tales, and periodicals — and to bring it within the reach of every class
