bers of the Body of Christ. We must never lose sight of our duties to the whole Church, to all our brethren in Christ, and to the unbelieving and unconverted everywhere in the world.

There are two general policies, either one of which may conceivably be adopted by members of the so-called Protesant Episcopal Church who rejoice in the fact that they are Catholics.

One is to cut themselves off from their brethren who do not agree with them as to Catholic beliefs and practices; to take no part in the authorized efforts to fulfill the Church's mission to the heathen at home and abroad; and to refuse to co-operate with the executive system which functions through the President and Council, as constituted by General Convention. There is more to be said in defence of this policy than might appear at first sight. It is not simply taking refuge in a narrow parochialism which is self-pleasing and comfortable. It is rather taking a heroic stand with the Catholic Church of the ages, refusing to compromise with anything that does not make for Catholic dogma and life, knowing that persecution will inevitably follow.

The other policy would demand that they throw themselves heartily and enthusiastically into the official activities and authorized expressions of Christian zeal of that part of the Church in which God has placed them for better or for worse. They would thus endeavor to leaven the lump of missionary enterprise with Catholic teaching, sacraments, and worship; they would do all in their power to send religious orders into the mission field; they would seek to influence the authorized textbooks for religious education, so that the Catholic religion and none other might be taught to our children and young people; they would contribute their point of view and their solution of the problems before the Church, in Church Congresses,

Summer Conferences, and Conventions of every sort. They would not hide their light under a bushel but let it shine before men. They would encourage their young men to enter the priesthood and the religious life, and their young women to enter convents or prepare for the mission field. In other words, as long as they remained members in good standing in the Episcopal Church, they would play the game!

The second of these two policies would certainly be the more difficult to carry out, and it would require infinite charity, humility, and patience. In the end we believe that it would be the more telling in results. The first policy would harden us into a bitter, bigoted, partisan group, numerically insignificant, in the midst of unsympathetic and hostile surroundings. The second policy, by the grace of God, would ultimately make the whole Anglican Communion Catholic not only in word, as it is now, but in deed and in truth. And that is what we want.

Instruction from the Pulpit

IT is disquieting to think of the vast amount of sacerdotal energy that is wasted every Sunday through preaching. The energy is wasted because the average sermons preached in our pulpits are so utterly ineffectual. We are not thinking of the manner in which they are delivered; that may be beyond reproach. The voice of the preacher may be smooth and well-modulated-to the comfort of the sleepers. His ideas may be expressed in matchless English. It is the ideas that we are criticizing. The average sermon is simply the expression of the preacher's personal opinions, tinctured more or less with spiritual sentiment. What the people carry away might be summed up in a platitude or two: "God sometimes uses little gifts

for great undertakings." "Effort is necessary if we are to make spiritual progress." "Sooner or later we shall reap what we sow." Undeniably these things are true. These truths may be vigorously driven home, and the personal magnetism of the preacher may stir the emotional life of his hearers to the depths. But at best the effect of such sermons is fleeting and insignificant.

We are convinced that Father Curtis is right when he says that the laity appreciate and value plain, straightforward teaching of the truths of the Catholic Faith, and clarifying explanations of what they must do to be saved. The most effective preachers are not those who proclaim, however eloquently, their own views and opinions on subjects more or less remotely connected with religion; but those who set forth the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church on faith and morals. The preacher's aim in every sermon should be to make a permanent addition to the moral or spiritual or theological equipment of his congregation. Many of them should be able to say as they leave the church door, "I learned something today which I never understood before, and I shall never forget it."

It is all very well to arrange systematic courses of instruction of weekday evenings for those who wish to learn about the Faith. The difficulty is that most of them have other things to do on weekday evenings. Much as they would like to hear the instructions they cannot. Sunday morning is the preacher's supreme opportunity for building up his people in the knowledge of their holy religion, for that is when most of them come to church. This is true to a lesser extent of Sunday afternoon or evening. It is a crime to throw away this golden opportunity by making the Sunday sermon a display of personal brilliancy, a string of harmless platitudes, or a sensational outburst on some subject of the day.

The Increase of Crime

JUDGE Kavanagh of Chicago, who has been on the bench for twenty-five years, is reported by the Catholic Columbian to have said that there are more criminals in the United States in proportion to the population than in any other country. He thinks that there is less fear of the law and less respect for the law among us than anywhere else in the world. Last year there were in the United States 10,480 homicides; the year before there were 10,238; and the year before that, 10,108.

The United States has a record of 100 murders to every million of the population, while Canada has 13; England, 9; Germany before the war, 5; Italy-hot-blooded, emotional Italy-only 16.

Judge Kavanagh holds that one cause of the increase of crime in this country is that we have developed a dangerous tendency to coddle criminals. In seeking for the welfare of the delinquent, we have oft lost sight of the safety of the law-abiding citizen. He is particularly severe on the way in which sentimental people treat juvenile delinquents. We quote his words from the Catholic Columbian:

A boy is brought before the court. He comes into the court full of terror. He is coddled and petted by officers, as if he were an object of pity, and then let go to afterward strut as if he were a hero before his companions at school. The court has no terrors for him after that. Indeed, an arrest comes at last to be a pleasant adventure. He comes back so often that he is classed at last as

mentally deficient. In the meantime he is corrupting the other children in his neighborhood. The chances are that if he got a good birching the first time the lad would never develop into a hero, and wouldn't come back for a second thrashing.

There has also been a great increase in the number of suicides. Again our authority for the figures we give is the Catholic Columbian. The Save-a-Life League of

New York reported for the first six months in this year 6,509 suicides in this country, of whom 4,527 were males and 1,952 were females. In the corresponding period of last year there were reported 2,771 suicides. This shows an alarming increase. Of those thus far reported for 1921, 214 were boys and 293 were girls! This is truly a distressing situation. Those whose business it is to teach faith and morals should face the facts, however distressing they may be.

The Individual and the Law

SOMEONE has said that the essence of sin consists in

making oneself the exception. The sinner, even when committing a sin, would generally admit that it would be better if all people would do the right thing; but he thinks for the moment that they are special reasons why he should do the wrong thing. He does not intend always to do the wrong thing; he really hopes to repent some day and live a better life; but this particular act is an exception which he pretends to think is justifiable for him to commit at this time.

Thus it comes about that it is often difficult for the average man or woman to obey the law-whether human or divine. The man who wants a drink does not see how it can be wrong for him to evade the prohibition law if he can do so without being caught. The young woman who has met a man she likes better than her husband does not see why she should be restrained from marrying him by the Church's law against the marriage of divorced persons. Both these individuals assume that what they want must be the right thing for them to have-law or no law. The fundamental mistake of such people is that they are bent only on their own individual pleasure or satisfaction, and ignoring the good of society at large. They