SOURCE: "The Continued Apostolate of the Pen," in Orestes A. Brownson: A Definitive Biography, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 1976, pp. 676-94.

In the following essay, Ryan, a Roman Catholic priest and educator, chronicles Brownson's contributions to several Catholic journals, discussing the author's religious motivation for writing.

Of all the works . . . that Brownson had speculated on writing after the suspension of his Review, The American Republic and his Essay in Refutation of Atheism are the only ones he ever completed. This is largely explained by the fact that other projects intervened in the meantime to claim his attention more immediately. His friend, Fr. Isaac Hecker, founded a monthly magazine in 1865, The Catholic World, and Fr. Edward Sorin, founder of Notre Dame University, also inaugurated in 1865 the Ave Maria, a weekly periodical dedicated to the promotion of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. To both of these journals Brownson made significant...