books of
instruction in the Catholic Faith, for at least occasional reading, so
as to keep alive in your minds the full teaching of the Church. You must
give due place to strictly spiritual reading, such as the "Holy
Gospels," "The Following of Christ," "The Introduction to a Devout Life"
by St. Francis of Sales, and the lives of the Saints, which are now
published in every form and at every price. It is not your duty to
abstain from reading all the current literature of the day, but it is
your duty to nourish your Catholic mental life by purely Catholic
literature. The more you read of secular works, the more urgent is your
duty to give a sufficient place to those also, which will directly serve
you in doing your duty to God and in saving your soul. Assuredly one of
the most pressing duties at the present day is to recognize fully our
personal and individual responsibility in this matter of reading, and to
examine our conscience closely to see how we are acquitting ourselves of
it.

Before we leave this subject, we wish to ask all those among you dear
children in Jesus Christ, who, whether as fathers and mothers, or as
members of religious institutes, or masters and mistresses in schools,
are charged with the education of the young, to do all in your power to
train those committed to you to a wise and full understanding of this
matter of reading, and to a realization of its enormous power for good
and harm, and, therefore, to a sense of the extreme responsibility
attaching to it. Make them understand that, while all are able to read,
all things are not to be read by all; that this power, like every power,
may be abused, and that we have to learn how to use it with due
restraint. While they are with you and gladly subject to your influence,
train their judgment and their taste in reading, so that they may know
what is good and true, and know how to turn from what is evil and false.
Such a trained and cultivated judgment is the best protection that you
can bestow upon them. Some dangers must be overcome by flight, but there
are far more, especially at the present day, which must be faced, and
then overcome. It is part of your great vocation to prepare and equip
these children to be brave and to conquer in this fight. Gradually,
therefore, accustom them to the dangers they may meet in reading. Train
their judgment, strengthen their wills, make them loyal to conscience,
and then, trusting in God's grace, give them to their