Break up the institution of the family, deny the inviolability of its relations, and in a little while there would not be any humanity.

A day! It has risen upon us from the great deep of eternity, girt round with wonder; emerging from the womb of darkness; a new creation of life and light spoken into being by the word of God.

The gospel has but a forced alliance with war. Its doctrine of human brotherhood would ring strangely between the opposed ranks. The bellowing speech of cartoon and the baptism of blood mock its liturgies and sacraments. Its gentle beatitudes would hardly serve as mottoes for defiant banners, nor its list of graces as names for ships-of-the-line.

Some people habitually wear sadness, like a garment, and think it a becoming grace. God loves a cheerful worshipper.

The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is the fact that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangements of a boundless Providence.

Temptation cannot exist without the concurrence of inclination and opportunity.

Events are only the shells of ideas; and often it is the fluent thought of ages that is crystallized in a moment by the stroke of a pen or the point of a bayonet.