sh city, who has consecrated his life and
his fortune to his faith in the spirit of the earliest Christian times,
and I think my readers will agree with me, not only that the religious
sentiment is not dead in France, but that it never was more living and
more active in France, nor more full of promise for the social and
political regeneration of this great people.

I shall not run the risk of offending this good Catholic by naming him,
though his name and his work are an open secret for every intelligent
person in Lille. Suffice it that, coming of an old Flemish stock and
bearing an old Flemish name, this citizen (the title of citizen means
something respectable in these staunch old free cities) of Lille years
ago insisted to his brother, who was his associate in the ownership and
management of one of the largest commercial houses of this region, that
they should take regularly into the partnership account of their
business, for one-third of their annual profits, 'the work of God.' This
was done; and from that day to this the proportion thus set apart of
their profits has been regularly devoted to the service of the Church
and of charity. But this is not all. The brother, of whom I speak with
the reticence and the reverence due to a type of character not
absolutely common in this age of the Golden Calf, has systematically
limited his own personal expenses during the whole of these years to a
few thousands of francs, devoting all the rest of his income to
religious and benevolent objects.

I should really like to see a calm business-like estimate made of the
economical advantages likely to result to a country from extinguishing
at an expense of several hundreds of millions of francs a year the faith
which gives birth to characters such as this.

I visited, in one of the suburbs of Lille, the extensive manufactories
of another well-known house, the heads of which have worked out and
established an excellent system of 'mutual assistance' among their
employees, and built up a large and well-ordered _cite ouvriere_ on a
plan substantially resembling that of those which I saw at St.-Gobain
and at Anzin. A house for young girls established by this firm, very
near their main factory, struck me as particularly admirable. It is
under the management of the Sisters of St.-Vincent de Paul, who fill the
place with a pervading spirit of cheerfulness and animation, quite
indescribable. The dormitories were the perfection of neatness