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 of our faith, and in one of our earliest hymns we professed fidelity to the Rosary unto death—

I love my cross, I love my beads, Each emblem of my faith; Let foolish men say what they will, I’ll love them until death.”

As the years passed by, the Rosary gradually became more familiar to us, and charmed us with its beauty and sweetness. We beheld our devoted pastor reciting it Sunday after Sunday in the presence of his flock; we saw our pious mother pouring forth her soul in prayer while the beads gently and silently slipped through her fingers; we recited the Rosary frequently with our school-companions; and the closing act of each day was to cluster around our parents, and murmur fervently that sweet devotion which is so suitable as a family prayer.

The Rosary is cherished alike by the learned and the ignorant, by the priest and the layman, by the rich and the poor. The Sovereign Pontiff derives from it supernatural strength to bear his tremendous burden, and light and grace to discharge the duties of his exalted office with Christ-like fidelity; the priest finds in his Rosary