morning are messengers of light or darkness. Their influence for
good or evil is more powerful than that of armies or parliaments:
that influence we can no more escape than we can escape the
sunlight or the air that surrounds us. It penetrates our homes;
it colours our thoughts; it furnishes motives for our actions.
The Press is indeed the lever that moves the world of our day,
and we are but the puppets of its will.

Such being the case, is it not a question of first importance for
the priest to examine its bearing on his own life, and on the
lives of those committed to his care?

[Side note: A general principle]

That we may do so in a scientific manner, let us take a simple
general principle. Reading is the food of the mind. Now, the body
is marvellously influenced by the food it assimilates; give a man
wholesome nutriment and mark the bounding vigour of his blood,
the activity and healthy development of every organ; feed him on
innutritious food and the most robust must fade; on poisonous
food and the strongest languishes unto death.

The substance of the body is so influenced by what it assimilates
that scientists assure us, young animals fed on madder will
reproduce the purple dye of the plant in the very texture of the
bone.

[Side note: The principle illustrated]

With far greater thoroughness and completeness does thought act