e and effect and the renewal of the same struggle which has been
from the beginning, in ever fresh phases. The outcome of historical
teaching to Catholics can never be discouragement or depression,
whatever the forecast. The past gives confidence, and, when the glories
of bygone ages are weighed against their troubles, and the Church's
troubles now against her inward strength and her new horizons of hope,
there is great reason for gratitude that we live in our own much-abused
time. In every age the Church has, with her roots in the past, some buds
and blossoms in the present and some fruit coming on for the future.
Hailstorms may cut off both blossoms and fruit, but all will not be
lost. We can always hold up our heads; there are buds on the fig-tree
and we know in whom we have believed.

In bringing home to children these grounds for thankfulness, the quality
of one's own mind and views tells very strongly, and this leads to the
consideration of what is chiefly required in teaching history to
children, and to girls growing up. The first and most essential point is
that we ourselves should care about what we teach, not that we should
merely like history as a school subject, but that it should be real to
us, that we should feel something about it, joy or triumph or
indignation, things which are not found in text-books, and we should
believe that it all matters very much to the children and to ourselves.
Lessons of the text-book type, facts, dates, summaries, and synopses
matter very little to children, but people are of great importance, and
if they grasp what often they only half believe, that what they are
repeating as a mere lesson really took place among people who saw and
felt it as vividly as they would themselves, then their sympathies and
understanding are carried beyond the bounds of their school-rooms and
respond to the touch of the great doings and sufferings of the race.

It is above all in the history of the Church that this sympathetic
understanding becomes real. The interest of olden times in secular
history is more dramatic and picturesque than real to children; but in
the history of the Church and especially of the personalities of the
popes the continuity of her life is very keenly felt; the popes are all
of to-day, they transcend the boundaries of their times because in a
number of ways they did and had to do and bear the very same things that
are done and have to be borne by the popes of our own day.