Parents shudder at the bare possibility of their child being born an idiot, or with some repulsive birth-mark.  Yet, before the infant can lift its hand in protest, the parents poison its life at the very source and send it on the world with a moral deformity marking its nature.

[Side note:  The Dawn]

These were the two sources of weakness in the past:  a public opinion that fostered, instead of smiting, the curse, and an hereditary taint that grew stronger with every generation, while the will to resist became more feeble.  Thank God, the dawn of a brighter day is with us:  there is a healthy awakening of public opinion.  The Gaelic revival has for the first time in our history linked sobriety with patriotism:  the word has gone forth that reconstructed Ireland must not rest on staggering pillars.  The young priest of the future has the rising tide with him, and Ireland has seen her darkest day.

No matter how we may deplore emigration, we must deal with it as a fact.

[Side note:  Is the Emigrant Prepared]

[Side note:  His Peril Abroad]

From what class are the emigrants drawn?  From the young.  It is hard to part with them:  but there is one consolation.  They go to build up the Church in other lands, but every precaution must be taken to strengthen them for the trials awaiting them.  Now, every returned American and Australian priest will candidly tell you that the Irish emigrant is poorly equipped for his new surroundings.

Dr. Kenrick and Cardinal Gibbons go so far as to say that the neglect of the Irish priest in preparing his emigrating flock, is the main source of leakage in the American Church.  They are not able to answer the most ordinary objections, and they have not moral strength to withstand the shafts of ridicule.  In the fierce cross-currents of unbelief, he is poorly able to keep his foothold.  Many stagger; some fall, never to rise.

We reply:—­Look at our Confirmation classes, and at the admirable lives of the youth before they leave us.  Neither of these weaken the contention.  At the age a child is confirmed, he is incapable of reflective reason; his knowledge is three parts memory.  It is between the Confirmation day and the twentieth year that the convictions and principles that guide a lifetime are formed.  Yet, this is the precise period during which the young boy is permitted to starve.

Secondly, the good life of a person reared in a purely Catholic atmosphere is no guarantee of what he may become when transplanted to a country where the very atmosphere palpitates with doubt and denial.

[Side note:  Activity III]

Here surely is a field that urgently demands a young priest’s activities.

Every young priest should be the eldest brother to the young men of the parish, the repository of their confidence, the director of their sports, the organizer of their Feis; and when there is danger of angry passions running high or of drunkenness getting in among them, the curate’s place is not the study, but the football field.