This is the most beautiful experiment in life, to
pass from the service of the world to that of
God ! — to give one's youth to heaven !

To those who seek for true greatness, and a
permanent basis for action, a divine basis for
life, — a basis that will give to the intellect ever
brighter visions of truth, to the heart irresistible
impulses to love and heroism, and to the arm
an unfailing strength ; a life that will render
them independent of all ties of kindred and
friendship, and make them conquerors of the
world, and masters of themselves ; it is here, in
these schools of religious discipline, they will
find it, and all the means to make such a life
their own. Out of these schools came the Je-
romes, Augustines, Gregories, Bernards, Fran-
cises, the Vincent de Pauls, the Xaviers, and
other great doctors and missionaries of the
Church. Yes, the Catholic Church is the mother



EXHORTATION. • 277

of great men, the nurse of heroes, and of an un-
failing succession of saints and martyrs. It is
the very nature of the Oathclic faith when it
takes root in the heart to make men superior to
nature, and true heroes.
Men talk of greatness and of heroism, but in
the Church there is a perennial source of great
men and heroes. There is no other.
