ain and prepare them for reception, cannot, as a rule, clothe
them with the habit. A very recent decree also requires clerical
students to have completed four years' study of Latin before admission
as novices into any order.

Persons who object to early entrance into religion seem to forget that
the young have equal rights with their elders to personal
sanctification, and to the use of the means afforded for this purpose
by the Church. It is now passed into history, how some misguided
individuals forbade frequent Communion to the faithful at large, and
altogether excluded from the Holy Table children under twelve or
fourteen, and this notwithstanding the plain teaching of the Council
of Trent to the contrary. To correct the error, the Holy See was
obliged to issue decrees on the subject, which may be styled the
charter of Eucharistic freedom for all the faithful, and especially
for children. As the Eucharist is not intended solely for the mature
or aged, so neither is religious life meant only for the decrepit, or
those who have squandered youth and innocence. Its portals are open to
all the qualified, and particularly to the young, who wish to bring
not a part of their life only, but the _whole_ of it, along with
youthful enthusiasm and generosity, to God's service.

How many young religious have attained heroic sanctity which would
never have been theirs had religion been closed against them by an
arbitrary or unreasonable age restriction! A too rigid attitude on
this point would have barred those patrons of youth, Aloysius,
Stanislaus Kostka and Berchmans, from religion and perhaps even from
the honors of the altar. St. Thomas, the great theological luminary of
the Church, was offered to the Benedictines when five years old, and
he joined the Dominicans at fifteen or sixteen; and St. Rose of Lima
made a vow of chastity at five. The Lily of Quito, Blessed Mary Ann,
made the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience before her
tenth birthday, and the Little Flower was a Carmelite at fifteen. And
uncounted others, who lived and died in the odor of sanctity,
dedicated themselves by vow to the perpetual service of God, while
still in the fragrance and bloom of childhood or youth.

"What a pity!" some exclaim, when a youth or maid enters religion.
"How much better for young people to wait a few years and see
something of the world, so they will know what they are giving up."
This is ever the comment of the worldly s