of poor and, at best, mediocre performance; but, after all, the
business of sanctity is a serious business. It calls for grit and
endurance, and, as a picture, is only saved from the sordid by
spiritual motives which are unseen. If all moral life is a
monotonous warfare, the life of a Saint is warfare in the very first
ranks where the trenches are filled with water and the shells fall
thickest and the general discomfort and pettiness are at their
maximum. It is misleading and not in strict accord with known
realities, to paint the portrait of a Saint in rose color and
sunlight, diffusing an iridescent atmosphere of cheerful gayety and
buoyancy.

The criticism is not without some foundation; but youthful readers
will not adopt it. For youth is generous, and age is crabbed. And
because Saints never become crabbed we are right in concluding that
they always remain youthful. And, to draw out our conclusion, the
lives of Saints, contrary to the popular belief, are much more
interesting to the child than they are to the man. It is a pity that
Catholic parents do not recognize this outstanding truth. No
Saint's life is dull to the average intelligent child. Grown-ups
are dull: they never yield to sublime impulses: they measure,
calculate, practice a hard-and-fast moderation, reduce the splendid
possibilities of life to a drab level of safe actuality, and pursue
ideals at a canny and cautious pace. Not so the Saints. They always
retained the freshness and confidence and generous impulses of
childhood. If God spoke to their inner ear and bade them leap
boldly forth into His Infinite Arms, spurning irretrievably the
solid footing of our spinning globe, without hesitation or question
they took the leap. And every child can see the wisdom of it. To
the child it is common sense: to his elders it is inspired heroism