Ste,—It has been my intention for some time to write to you concerning the " Thanksgiving Notices " published in THE CATHOLIC HARALD.
In a recent issue you published a masterpiece: " MY grateful thanks to the Sacred Heart, Blessed Virgin, St. Anne, St. Joseph, St. Jude, St. Anthony, St. Patrick, St. Roche, St. Teresa Mary, Teresa Ledochowska, and Wladimir Ledochowska, for great favour received "; and others finishing with " Publication promised."
I can imagine a devout Catholic kneeling in front of the statue of a saint (a different one each week), having first paid for a candle, and letting him or her know what is wanted and finishing with the extra bribe—publication of thanks in THE CATHOLIC HERALD.
'You have spoken honestly about the Archbishop of Winnipeg's advertisement and similar extravagances, yet you continue to give profitable approval to such practices here by printing " Thanksgiving Notices."
E. EMP.RY.
" Rosemary," Bledlow Ridge, High Wycombe.
[The profits from these notices are, we assure our correspondent, quire
negligible. Though the practice has been criticised we are unable to see in them anything but a natural and simple faith in the intercession of the saints. expressed in an obviously human way. In these days of rationalism and halfscepticism they remind us of an older Catholic attitude and rebuke us for our intellectual superiority. They have nothing whatever in common with an abuse recently referred to. —EDITOR, C.H