therefore, stood sponsor to courage.  The cautious policy of an eclectic was adopted, and for more than a year the magazine, with the exception of its book reviews, was made up of selections and translations from foreign periodicals.  The late John R. G. Hassard, who had already succeeded as a journalist, was chosen by Father Hecker as his assistant in the editorial work.  Efforts were at once made to secure original articles; but before the magazine was filled by them three or four years were spent in urgent soliciting, in very elaborate sub-editing of MSS., and in reliance on the steady assistance of the pens of the Paulist Fathers.  As a compensation, The Catholic World has introduced to the public many of our best writers, and first and last has brought our ablest minds on both sides of the water into contact with the most intelligent Catholics in the United States.  All through its career it has represented Catholic truth before the American public in such wise as to command respect, and has brought about the conversion of many of its non-Catholic readers.  Since its beginning it has been forced to hold its own against the claims of not unwelcome rivals, and against the almost overwhelming attractions of the great illustrated secular monthlies, to say nothing of the vicissitudes of the business world; and it has succeeded in doing so, Father Hecker’s purpose in establishing it has been realized, for it has ever been a first-rate Catholic monthly of general literature, holding an equal place with similar publications in the world of letters.  He was its editor-in-chief till the time of his death, except during three years of illness and absence in Europe.  He conducted it so as to occupy much of the field open to the Apostolate of the Press, giving solid doctrine in form of controversy, and discussing such religious truths as were of current interest.  He kept its readers informed of the changeful moods of non-Catholic thought, and furnished them with short studies of instructive eras and personages in history.  These graver topics have been floated along by contributions of a lighter kind, by good fiction and conscientious literary criticism.  Meantime, the social problems which had perplexed Father Hecker himself in his early life, have caught the attention of the slower minds of average men, or rather have been thrust upon them; and their consideration, ever in his own sympathetic spirit, now forms a prominent feature of The Catholic World.

The Young Catholic was an enterprise dear to his heart.  His interest in it was constant and minute, and some of the articles most popular with its young constituency were from his own pen.  It has always been edited by Mrs. George V. Hecker, assisted by a small circle of zealous and enlightened writers.  It has held its way, but has had to encounter the not unusual fate of bold pioneers.  It created its own rivals by demonstrating the possibilities of juvenile Catholic journalism, calling into existence