SOUND ADVICE TO CATHOLIC PARENTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 182, 22 September 1876, Page 14

SOUND ADVICE TO CATHOLIC PARENTS.

W« commend the following utterances of the renowned Jesuit missionary, Father Danien, to the careful consideration of Catholic parents. Their force must come home to every heart; and we print them in this prominent portion of the ' Union ' in the hope that they may the more readily catoh the eye of all those charged with the guardianship of youth, and hear goodly fruit in the heart. Says Father Damen : " If you wish for reading matter, are there not plenty of good Catholic weekly newspapers, which do not contain all the silly trash to be found in * Harper's ' or the * New York Ledger P' But some will object and say, * Father, I like very well to have a Catholic paper in my house, hut I cannot afford the expense/ and you will pay 10 centß for an anti-Catholic paper that never has any »ood -word, about our good religion, and you will not pay 5 cents, Salf the price, for a paper that defends Catholicity. Shame on

you ! Story papers and others of that stamp malign the Catholic Church, while Catholic papers take part with it. Will you then contribute to support our enemies or our friends ? If you support anti-Catholic periodicals, you support the enemies of the Church. If, on the contrary, you support Catholic periodicals, you support those who defend the principles of the Church against the attacks of Freemasons, infidels, and the whole host of sinners arrayed against us. Take Bides, then, and choose for yourselves ; and let your choice be on the side of the religion of your fathers, by your preferring Catholic to anti-Catholic journals. " The anti-Catholic journal costs five dollars a year, and the Catholic journal does not cost quite three dollars a year, so that as far as expense is concerned the latter is the cheaper of the Wo. When you have the Catholic journal in the house you have useful as well as entertaining reading for your children. You have stories, too, of a moral tendency, where you will find food for piovu thought. You also get instructed in your religion, and you are able to defend your faith, for you can find answers to objections in Catholic journals. The Catholic press is a power for Catholicity, and every Catholic worthy of the name should support it. It defends our religion against the attacks of infidelity, and by sustaining it we, to a certain extent, sustain our religion. Therefore, get a Catholic paper into your house every week, and your sons and daughters, by perusing it, will become better citizens and better Catholics. If you do not give your children good reading they will get bad reading for themselves; so it remains with you, fathers and mothers, to let them receive good, sound ideas of their religion by means of Catholic newspapers. The Protestant papers are against it, and are supported by Freemasons and all the enemies of the Church. Therefore do not support them, because by doing so you inflict injury on your religion." We may be permitted to supplement these salutary utterance of the great missionary — than whom few have a better opportunity of experiencing the necessity of a solid, healthy Catholic literature being diffused among our people — by the following pertinent remarks of our very able contemporary, the ' Catholic Review' : "If the Catholics of America have not a powerful press, crowned by an efficient daily paper in New York, the reason is to be found not in their inability to support it, as many think, nor in their inability to read, as Protestant Parson Talmage alleges in reply to the ' Catholic Eeview,' but in their unwillingness to stand by their own, to oppose their enemies, and to support and read their own literature. To our shame be it said, if the support we Catholics give to the corrupt and anti-Catholic press of America were withdrawn from it, we would seriously weaken it ; if it were given to o.ur own papers, American Catholics would have the strongest and best papers in the world. Whose fault is it that we have not ? Answer, Catholic, wit yours !" — ' Catholic Union.'