Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.

Francis of Assisi on 31st Street. Merton began routinely praying but discontinued the practice after leaving the school. During his initial months of schooling Merton begged his father to remove him.

O. T. Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding.