he did not reflect perhaps how easy would be the refutation for the medic who has learned that the heart is a flexible muscle. The readers of Byron must have often sympathized with him in his revelation of grief when he says

"Maid of Athens, ere we part,

Give, oh give me back my heart!"

But here again the medic propounds a conundrum which plucks the feathers from the wings of poesy. How could Byron live long enough to make that piteous appeal after he had lost the prime organ of vitality. This is truly a sapient query, and it would lead almost anyone to adopt the children's explanation of "make believe" for Byron's appeal.

Wordsworth "heart of endless agitation" would probably be explained by aneurism of the aorta; Scott's slave "whose heart hath ne'er within him burned" would in all likelihood be congratulated upon having escaped an attack of inflammatory rheumatism, so deadly when it seizes on the organ of life. To the bold question of Avon's bold bard: "What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?" some valetudinarian could quietly remark, "a porous plaster." And thus a modern voice, thin perhaps, as a pipestem, would blow himself against the side of William's pedestal and make his statue tremble.

Except, however, in cases of sickness, we think the poet has the better side; he has more admirers, judging from the fact that what the poet says of the heart is more widely known than what the medic says. Then again, the poet's speech is simple, while that of the medic, when he speaks officially, and sometimes when he speaks otherwise, has about it the flavor of Greek roots, Latin shavings and arnica. His discourses about the heart are mostly of a business sort, and though he may speak little he speaks in a most practical manner, as his invalid audiences can testify by their depleted purses.

Now, the poet speaks more often for nothing than for any gain that accrues to him beyond the immortal wreath that his admirers twine for him when he is dead. With many a poet, indeed. Fame has arrived much behind the undertaker. But such poets did not have, perhaps, the gift of analyzing the

passions as some modern members of the craft have, and did not realize what untold wealth lies hidden in a stanza that would put the most delicate of the commandments to a blush. Poor poets have, as a rule, been poor in the analytics; they could not or they would not pick the fibres of the heart to pieces that its depravity might be regilded by the touch of genius of which Swinburne and writers of his class are exponents.

The simple balladist, telling of simple hearts in which there was no guilt, is nevertheless as much admired and loved by those of simple manners as the prurient mongers and retailers of the gilded vice. It is indeed no prima facie evidence of a poet's easy morals that he is rich, else would we have to condemn many a bard who now is wealthy, and whose songs are as pure as any streams from Helicon, but it is certain that nowadays, at least, a goodlyn mixture of the indelicate with a slight mixture of the shoddy sentimental will go a great way toward fattening a poet's bank account.

But let us turn from this sordid speculation on wealth and the unholy means of gaining it, to some of the honeyed words that our poets have wreathed as garlands around the heart. Tennyson in one of his songs says:

veal:

"My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the rich moist smell of the rotting leaves."

Again in his "Adeline" he says:

"Hast thou heard the butterflies

What they say betwixt their wings?

Or in stillest evenings,

With what voice the violet woos

To his heart the silver dews?"

What a beautiful, simple character the following lines re

"Howe'er it be, it seems to me

'Tis only noble to be good;

Kind hearts are more than coronets,

And simple faith than Norman blood."

Chaucer in the prologue to the "Reve's Tale," depicting the

presence of old age, says:

"Gras time is don; my foddre is now forage;

This white top writeth min olde yeres;

Min heart is also moulded as min heres."

Poor, misanthropic Byron, who wrote at times like one well nigh inspired, and lived as one who had no anchored hope, well knew what a fund of poesy leaps forth when the heart is touched upon. How intensely suggestive are the lines from "Don Juan:' "The devil hath not in all his quiver's choice,

An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.'

Moore, the friend of Byron, was also, like him, an adept in playing on those mysterious chords which twine themselves around our nature, which throb with the pulse of song in rhythmic response, and which by genuine poets, at least, are concentrated in the heart. Four times in his "Vale of Avoca" does Moore refer to this figurative seat of the affections, twice in synonym and twice in name. No wonder, then, that he should consider the heart, and the song, the key which opens it, as the best gifts to be offered at the shrine of Love:

"I give thee all, I can no more,

Though poor the offering be;

My heart and lute are all the store
That I can bring to thee."

Fourth Annual Meeting of the Represen= tatives of Catholic Parish Schools.

Report of Proceedings.

TUESDAY, JULY 11.

The fourth annual meeting of the Representatives of Catholic Parish Schools was called to order by the president, Rev. Louis S. Walsh, at 11:30 a. m. The first business presented was the recommendations of the Executive Board.* After reading the recommendations it was moved and seconded that they be referred to the Executive Committee of the School Department with instructions to report at the first meeting on Wednesday. The motion was carried. The president delivered the following address:

ADDRESS OF REV. LOUIS S. WALSH.

We are meeting here today, a year from the meeting at St. Louis, where this Association was formally organized. There is one idea and only one before us and that is to promote the cause of religious education first of all, and Catholic education -as the two are synonymous for us. Since last year, I think that we might say truly that our cause has been advanced in the country at large by the number of meetings held, where the fundamental idea of religious education has been strongly expressed and has been declared a necessity for the clearer education of our children all over the land. A few facts I think will prove it:

In the city of Boston in the month of November last, there was a large gathering of the Religious Educational Association of America, representing colleges, schools and associations of various kinds, and the one note that was dominant all through was this: that there is something lacking in the education of this country, since the fruits brought forth in our schools, colleges and universities are not satisfactory to the public at large; that See page 17.

the public conscience, the public morality, ideas of justice, honesty and purity have not grown towards the ideal, but are going from it and therefore the resolution was made that we ought to put forth all our efforts to advance that idea that religious education is necessary. That is one striking fact in which all participated.

The Episcopal Association of New England met a short time ago and declared likewise that the one thing missing in educational ideas was religion and morality. Here are two very striking evidences that the idea is becoming prominent and that we must take hold of it and push it as far as we can.

With all this, however, there is great opposition which holds sway at the present time, namely the principle of secularism; that is the word which is used and is now entrenched in the schools and in our universities. It is only another form of old paganism that the Church had to fight for 300 years before she came out victor; it is only another form of heresy. Today, under the form of secularism, we are to meet a giant in opposition to our plan and which it is our duty to oppose, as far as we possibly can. To use a Biblical illustration, it is like the giant Goliath strutting up and down the country and challenging every one to come and defeat him, and sometimes the size and importance and noise made by the giant are apt to frighten us, who are only beginning in our campaign to make the Church stand where she ought to stand in our country. Our country has put down the principle of separation of Church and State and we do not ask for union of them, but we want the state to recognize all beautiful ideas, and the Church which represents so much and which is doing so much, has a right to be recognized in our state and national legislation. Lately, we heard of a great sum-ten millions-given towards education and another fund of 10 millions given for pensions. In the presence of these two facts, we can present this fact that the Catholic Church is giving not for once, but year after year, twenty millions of dollars for the education of her children in this country and therefore the Church is the greatest benefactor of all, and this point we need to keep before our mind, not in