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do not believe this at all.
I look with disfavor upon
luxuries which would have seemed to us like the opulence of
Aladdin's palace. I cannot wax enthusiastic over the in-
trusion of Mr. Matthew Arnold and Mr. Pater upon the
library shelves, where Chambers' Miscellany used to be our
nearest approach to the intellectual. The old order changes,
and that unlovely word, modernity, is heard within the tran-
quil convent walls. Even the iron hand of discipline has been
relaxed; for the long line of girls whom I now watch filing
sedately in and out of the chapel have been taught to rule
themselves, to use their wider liberty with discretion. I wonder
if liberty, coupled with discretion, is worth having when one
is eleven years old. I wonder if it be part of wisdom to be wise
Our successors to day know more than we
knew (they could not well know less), they have lectures and
enamelled bath tubs and "Essays on Criticism"; but do
they live their lives as vehemently as we lived ours; do they
hold the secrets of childhood inviolate in their hearts as we
held them in ours; are they as untainted by the common-
place, as remote from the obvious, as we always were; and
will they have as vivid a picture of their convent days to look
back upon as the one we look at now?

so soon.

The picture is vivid, and the children are of real flesh and blood. The clique that are the heroines of the story are united in common sympathy. But a line will set forth the different characters, as yet undeveloped, of each. Their loves and their hatreds are undisguised. Their confidences and their trusts; their pranks and their ambitions are all simply, delightfully told. The book is a charming human document. Miss Repplier is a master of the phrase, and the added skilful touch, here and there, the unexpected turn, the summary, within a line, of a tendency or custom or personage, gives to the work an exceptional grace and power.

We couldn't beg our mothers, even when we saw them, for dictionaries of a language they knew we were not studying. Lilly said she thought she might ask her father for one, the next time he came to the school. There is a lack of intelligence, or at least of alertness, about fathers, which makes them invaluable in certain emergencies; but which, on the other hand, is apt to precipitate them into blunders.

And because it is a true memoir of how teachers are VOL. LXXXII.-36

of spiritual activity. Their college has been a centre of educational influence among the young men of the city. The religious communities of women throughout the city have relied on them almost entirely for training in the spiritual life. The extra work of the diocese, such as the visitation of prisons, industrial schools, and asylums, has fallen largely to them. In these and many other avenues of missionary activity they were the most efficient helpers of the Archbishop.

The Fathers themselves were associated with the Turin province, and were for the most part Italians. The names of Fathers Maraschi and Accolti and Burchard and Congiato and Varsi, and a score of others, were household names to the older generation of San Franciscans. Their work remains as a monument of their zeal and devotion.

The Jesuits of San Francisco begin their second half century with a wonderfully complete plant. It remains for the newer generation to uphold the high standards of devotion and efficiency that have been left to them by their saintly prede

cessors.

CONVENT DAYS.
By Agnes Repplier.

It is impossible for us to renew our youth; but still it is in the power of genius to make the days of childhood live again. Miss Repplier, in her latest volume,* has recalled the past years, and presented them with such living power that, in all the charm, the frankness, the mischievousness, and romance of childhood, they live again.

We who are old were delighted to be brought into such close association with young hearts and even though we never knew the heroines, we felt that we knew many who were like them; only that ours lacked something of the vivid imagination and the romantic enthusiasm which warmed, sometimes overmuch, the young blood of the author's fellow-students.

The theme of the book is distinctly personal. It is Agnes Repplier's own convent days, and she returns to them with a love that, evidently, has only increased with time.

Everything has changed in the convent that I loved, and I am asked to believe that every change is for the better. I *In Our Convent Days. By Agnes Repplier. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

do not believe this at all.... I look with disfavor upon luxuries which would have seemed to us like the opulence of Aladdin's palace. I cannot wax enthusiastic over the intrusion of Mr. Matthew Arnold and Mr. Pater upon the library shelves, where Chambers' Miscellany used to be our nearest approach to the intellectual. The old order changes, and that unlovely word, modernity, is heard within the tranquil convent walls. Even the iron hand of discipline has been relaxed; for the long line of girls whom I now watch filing sedately in and out of the chapel have been taught to rule themselves, to use their wider berty with discretion. I wonder if liberty, coupled with discretion, is worth having when one is eleven years old. I wonder if it be part of wisdom to be wise Our successors to-day know more than we knew (they could not well know less), they have lectures and enamelled bath tubs and "Essays on Criticism"; but do they live their lives as vehementy as we lied ours: do they hold the secrets of childhood inviolate in their hearts as we held them in ours; are they as untainted by the commonplace, as remote from the obvious, as we always were: and will they have as vivid a picture of their convent days to look back upon as the one we look at now?

so soon.

The picture is vivid, and the children are of real flest and blood. The clique that are the heroines of the story are ver in common sympathy. But a line will set forth the differer characters, as yet undeveloped, of each. Their loves and hatreds are undisguised. Their confdences and the mat their pranks and their ambitions are at simpy.

told.

The book is a charming human documem As s plier is a master of the phrase, and the asses su here and there, the unexpected . The L line, of a tendency or custom or T

an exceptional grace and power.

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viewed by the pupil, teachers might learn more than one lesson from its pages. We quote a clever and instructive description of why a child was not duly impressed by a certain form

of punishment:

But I had not imagination enough to grasp the importance of a candle more or less upon the altar. It was useless to appeal to my love for the Blessed Virgin. I loved her so well and so confidently, I had placed my childish faith in her so long, that no doubt of her sympathy ever crossed my mind. My own mother might side with authority. Indeed, she represented the supreme, infallible authority, from which there was no appeal. But in every trouble of my poor little gusty life, the Blessed Mother sided with me. Of that, thank heaven! I felt sure.

Miss Repplier, with praiseworthy humility, says: "Our successors to-day know more than we knew." We can but say, that if there are many pupils now in our convent schools who will attain to Miss Repplier's knowledge and power, the outlook for Catholic literature is promising indeed.

CHURCH ARCHITECTURE.
By Cram and Others.

Not only to those directly concerned in Church-building, but to the many to whom the beauty of God's House is dear, this book will be welcome and valuable. It is wholly concerned with what is being done in the present, and largely, if not altogether, in our own country. The manifest tendency to build churches more in harmony with the venerable and hallowed traditions of ecclesiastical architecture found in Catholic lands will be noted. And the peculiar variations in belief and worship found among American non-Catholics are just as prominent in the strange forms employed in their ecclesiastical buildings. The up-to-date" church of many among our separated brethren means more than a house of prayer; it is now the "centre of all the parish activities," and as such its architecture exhibits many modifications and departures from the traditional forms.

We are glad to see some noteworthy Catholic Churches.

* Ecclesiastical Architecture. A special number of The Architectural Review. With articles by Ralph Adams Cram, F.A.I A., F.R.G.S., Thomas Hastings, R. Clipston Sturgis, and others. Boston: The Bates & Guild Company. $2.

among the specimens of recent ecclesiastical buildings in this country. Many of these show the influence of that form of the Gothic found in northern Italy, and our Catholics can justly be proud of them. It gives us pleasure, too, to read Mr. Cram's learned and eloquent plea for the Gothic as the proper expression of Christianity in art, though the pages of this volume show that his professional brethren are not in this always in accord with him. It is scarcely necessary to add that the book is beautifully and copiously illustrated.

FAIR MAID OF GREY

STONES.
By Dix.

When we read the opening sentence of this story: "In the nave of St. Andrew's Church two men were mauling each other zealously, while near threescore of tatterdemalions cheered them on," we suspected that we would be condemned to the reading of another story of battlefields and blood and death. But in a short while the unhappy suspicions were cleared, and we read a tale as enjoyable as any we have met in a long time. Scotland is the ground, and the bloody quarrels between Royalists and Roundheads the general subject.

But these things, though giving a local color and a fanciful historical setting to the tale, might be taken away, and yet the tale be just as interesting. The plot is not novel, and it is rather a late date to expect novelty in plots, but it is human and thrilling.

Our sympathies are with Jock Hetherington from the very beginning. He is young and impetuous, and culpably imprudent. He himself lies to save probably his head, and his lie visits him with dangers and misfortunes that require some three hundred pages to recount. But Jock, quite paradoxically, is the soul of honor, and though persecuted and hounded by deceit and treachery and poison and starvation and pistol and sword, lives and fights bravely against them all.

Our hearts were with Jock, and though we knew he would come out with a sound body and mind, we had, for a time, to accept the result on faith; and, speaking figuratively, our faith was not strong enough to keep our hearts quiet and without fear. Misfortune with Jock was a blessing in disguise, since it

* The Fair Maid of Greystones. By Beulah Marie Dix. New York: The Macmillan Company.

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