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Show The unfortunate failure of wages of labor to keep pace with the uniformly upward tendency of prices in the case of the necessaries of life, leads one of the ablest of our eastern secular exchanges to moralize i nthis strain: "This is an era of great industrial activity. Our optimists op-timists are fond of asserting and reasserting re-asserting that the country was never more prosperous than at present. Perhaps Per-haps that is true. But the average housekeeper will not agree with the optimist op-timist that high prices are an unmixed blessing. When she counts up her balance bal-ance at the end of each week she is inclined in-clined to think she has a grievance. It seems to be impossible to reconcile her facts with the optimist's theories and conclusions." Comparing the purchasing power of one dollar in 1897 with its purchasing pur-chasing power in 1902.- the Massachusetts bureau of statistics finds that buyers of household commodities are at a far greater great-er disadvantage now than they were five years ago. This condition is not peculiar to New England, but is common to the whole country. Monitor. The oldest Catholio bishop in the British empire is Bishop Vaughan of Plymouth, England, uncle of the cardinal. He is now in his With year, or several years the senior of Afohbishop- Murphy of Hobart, Tasmania. He is said to regard the cardinal car-dinal as yet a stripling. Bishop Gavilan of Chihuahua. Mexico, already has set to work creating a new order 'in his diocese. Not content with Btirring the schools into greater activity, he is now devising means whereby necessary nec-essary hospitals artd industrial schools may be established. The foundation of a Catholic association is being planned. -4B In 1R3S the Jesuits began a mission in the unpromising town of Galashiels. Scotland Scot-land For veors success seemed impossible impos-sible but finally it came abundantly. Now Galashiels has ceased to be a mission, mis-sion, and in a few weeks the Jesuits will hand over the church to their successors and deDart for other fields. The habit of dissipating every serious seri-ous thought by a succession of agreeable agree-able sensations is as fatal to happiness happi-ness as to virtue; for when amusement 1 is' uniformly substituted for objects of moral- and mental interest, we lose all that elevates our enjoyments above i the scale. of childish pleasures. The world has not, I believe, a body of men Who are 'more contented, better bet-ter satisfied with their lot in life and the work they are doing than the priests of the Catholic church. Bishop Spalding. . I It-is n't by change of place that we ' can come nearer to him who is in every place, but by. the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits. St. Augustine Au-gustine If a man . does not make new acquaintances ac-quaintances as he advances through life he will soon find himself alone. A I man should keep his friendship fn constant con-stant repair. . The last discovery in our high civil-iization civil-iization is that intellectual men are in their prime at 70. J. P. Newman, D. D. |