scattered in profusion throughout our literature and all modern European literature. Next in importance comes the work of the greatest poets (in prose or verse): Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Aeschylus, Plato, Thomas à Kempis, Plutarch, Sophocles, Cervantes, Euripides. You should have more than a bowing acquaintance with these ten Immortals, either in their original garb or in a good translation. But the gradually increasing knowledge of the world's greatest minds, and of such others as Milton, Keats, Goethe, Molière, Virgil, to name a few only, is not a question of a year or two but of your whole life-time. As to the value of translations of the classics for inspiring men with ideas and ideals, we have only to consider two immortal poets, Shakespeare, who knew little Latin and less Greek'; John Keats, who knew little Latin and no Greek; both men of genius, who knew that even genius must have its proper mental food; that God alone can create; that the human mind must derive its material from outside. Shakespeare who needed less took less; Keats drank deep draughts of Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser and Wordsworth and of the Greek and Latin classic writers in translations. It was a good habit our fathers had, that of reading every day a chapter of Holy Writ and a chapter of the Imitation of Christ. Though they did this for the spiritual fruit, it will be equally good for our literary profit. The literary neophyte might well add to this pious tradition a chapter or two every day from some complete work of some great Classic, read slowly and intelligently until he has finished the work. This advice will seem silly or a truism to some superior people, whose idea of reading is to gallop through a novel, often the latest and worst, after dinner. I am not talking here of reading as a mental distraction or as a debauch, but of reading for a purpose, reading in order to acquire literary style. Next we come to the authors whom one reads in order to imitate. Here it is harder to advise, as the same author will not suit different people. Monsignor Benson advises his correspondent to read "Stevenson again and again; and a certain amount of Ruskin, Walter Pater and Newman. These are the people for style." (Op. cit. p. 101). 66 The books I recommend first are: Kidnapped, Master of Ballantrae, Across the Plains Marius the Epicurean (Pater). The Apologia (Newman). (Stevenson). Sesame and Lilies (Ruskin). (Op. cit. p. 104). These books will not suit everyone, and Monsignor Benson's pupil was probably more advanced in her literary education than those who may do me the honour to read these lines for their instruction. 1 I would advise first of all not a deep plunge but free dipping into such authors as Newman (especially his Thoughts on the Present Position); Miss Mitford; Stevenson; Macaulay; Hazlitt; Ruskin (especially Sesame and Lilies); Walter Bagehot; George Borrow; and into such authors among the living as G. K. Chesterton, Augustine Birrell, Arnold Bennett, Agnes Repplier; our Irish James Stephens; our Irish Katharine Tynan. I do not mention such greater names, from the prose style view-point, as Swift or Lamb, because by universal admission they cannot be imitated: nor do I mention the wielders of a stately prose like Gibbon; nor the writers of a highly-coloured prose such as de Quincey; but I suggest such writers of a good modern prose style of varying degree of excellence as lend themselves more or less easily to imitation. If you write as clear a style as any of the above writers, if you have anything worth saying, it will be read with pleasure. By having first saturated yourself in the Great Classics you have acquired a certain taste, a certain sensibility to literary temperature, if I may coin a phrase: by dipping you will see how far the 'temperature' of the writer agrees with you, and you should continue to dip till you have found your first master and inspirer. He or she may be only a teacher in the Infants' School of the Muses, so to speak, but approach humbly and you will promote yourself to a higher standard when the time comes. University College, Galway. MAX DRENNAN. A PRODIGAL Look down, O Christ, Thou Lord and King Fain would I soar on pinions strong Thou art my Father, Maker, Lord; Framed by Thy Hands this shrine of clay; A breath of Thine my soul hath formed A thing of light, a child of day. Behold, O Lord, Thy gracious gift All marred and stained by sins of mine: In evil ways my feet were swift But pity, Lord, and grace are thine. I bring Thee back my wayward heart Thy kiss of peace shall seal my brow. I have no gift to offer Thee, The days have passed in toil and sin; Thou wilt not spurn my misery Nay, sinners' hearts Thou yearn'st to win. O God, I know Thou lovest me (For love Thou knowest how I long) My weakness cannot fly to Thee But Thy great love shall make me strong. Into Thine everlasting Arms I cast the burden of my years, Keep Thou the remnant of my life, T. D. A. AN ADVENTURE IN CONTROVERSY S By REV. JOHN GAFFNEY, S.J. OME account of Father John Gaffney, S.J. may well be given here not only for introduction sake, that the reader may know what manner of man he was who wrote this narrative of his controversy, but also for the sake of the worthy man himself and of the good work he did for the Faith in his native city of Dublin. Here he was born more than a hundred years ago, on October 14th, 1813. He was educated for the Church first in the little seminary of Beauvais, in France, where he remained for seven or eight years, and on leaving Beauvais he entered the Irish College in Rome in the days of Cardinal Cullen, with whom he was associated on terms of particular friendship. He there studied theology and gained the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Laws, and Doctor of Divinity. At Rome he had as his professor Father Perrone, S.J. a name that speaks for itself to those who have studied theology; for the benefit of the more numerous others we may mention that he entered the then just restored Society of Jesus in 1815, being already a Doctor of Theology, and was made, a few years later, professor of dogmatic theology in the Roman College, a position which he was to hold with great distinction and for a very long period. He took part in the discussions which ended in the definition of the Immaculate Conception. He wrote no fewer than forty-four works, some of them very popular in their day, the most famous being his "Praelectiones Theologicae" which has actually reached a thirty-fourth edition in nine volumes. His name will occur again a little later on in connection with our Adventure in Controversy. Father Gaffney, after his ordination, returned to Ireland, and joining the archdiocese of Dublin, he was appointed to the curacy of Athy, and afterwards to that of Booterstown; but before his thirtieth birth-day, on September 13th, 1843, he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus. He was stationed for a time at Malta; but his chief work was done in connection with the Church of St. Francis Xavier, Dublin, to which he was attached for close upon forty years, and where he became noted as one of the most active and zealous members of the Society of Jesus in Ireland. He was largely identified with mission work, but he also devoted much time to the question of poor schools, so urgently needed for the education of Catholic youth amongst the poor of the city of Dublin in the "fifties," at a time when the efforts of the agents of proselytism were being directed with unusual vigour and energy to the destruction of every Catholic interest in the hearts of the children of the very poor. His first step in the direction of opposing the efforts of the proselytizer was the establishment of a Ragged School in Rutland-street, which was set up in close proximity to one of the schools that had been established for the purpose of sapping the foundations of the Faith of the youth of the Catholic poor in that thicklypopulated neighbourhood. His initial effort succeeded so well that later on he found it necessary to seek larger premises for the increasing number of children who flocked to his school, and eventually he decided upon erecting a school in Dorset-street, close to the Drumcondra-road, on the site now occupied by the fine schools of St. Francis Xavier, which are still known to many as Father Gaffney's Schools. In 1884 failing health rendered it advisable for him to abandon the active work to which he had devoted the best years of his life with such unflagging ardour, and to retire to Milltown |