The Female Religious Of America…

The Female Religious Of America

In this busy world of labor, where mankind seems exclusively bent on the acquisition of wealth, fame, or power, on fashion, folly, and empty pleasures, how seldom we pause to consider seriously the diversity and multiplicity of the elements of humanity by which we are surrounded! How few, in their headlong career after vain desires, ask themselves if this world were made for them alone; if the end and object of life, the first gift of a merciful Creator, is merely selfish enjoyment, or whether the social compact, as well as the laws of God, do not require of us to assist in every way possible our less fortunate or more afflicted fellow‐ creatures.

It requires little reflection or effort to distinguish the favorites of fortune—those whose lot having been cast in pleasant places, shine in the public regard like beings of a superior order. Worldly success is ever prominent, and its devotees are always ready to court its notice and extol its merits. To be fashionable is to be fawned upon; to be influential, sought after; to wield power is to be placated. Not so with the humble, the poor, the ignorant, and the obscure; the victims of physical affliction or of moral degradation. They are usually shunned, often despised, and, as far as possible, contemptuously ignored. They constitute the outcasts of “society,” and, when they come betwixt the wind and its nobility, are merely objects of contempt, barren pity, or downright loathing. Yet these very unfortunates comprise, even in our own favored land, a very large and, in an indirect sense, a potent constituent of our population. Always with us, no matter how much we may attempt to separate ourselves from them, they appeal to us for help in the name of all we hold sacred; and their supplications, no matter how mutely made, if unheeded, are certain to be followed, even in this life, by a blight on our souls as well as a curse to our bodies. The heart of man becomes hardened, the fine perception of fraternal love and charity with which he is naturally blessed withers and shrivels up, and he becomes a mere embodiment of self, an arid isolation, in proportion as he steels himself against the cries and sufferings of his kind. The very ignorance he will not help to remove, the want and squalor he refuses to alleviate, rise up in judgment against him, and, developing into crimes against life and property, haunt his footsteps, and but too often mark him for their prey.

As in all things else, if we want an exemplar for our conduct in relation to our fellow‐beings, we must look to the church. Following the teachings of her divine Founder, from the earliest ages she has recognized the existence of the vast amount of misery, poverty, vice, and ignorance which underlies the surface of civilization, ancient and modern, and has used every effort to mitigate it. While yet the successors of S. Peter were struggling with the effete though polished paganism of the dismembered Roman Empire, and the greater part of Europe was enshrouded in the darkness of barbarism, societies of holy men and pious women were established and sustained by the popes and the fathers of the church, to mitigate in some degree, by their prayers and good works, the evils which beset society in its earliest transition state. The principal evils to be combated at that time were the ferocity of heathenism outside the confined limits of Christendom, and, within, the mental obscurity of the barbaric catechumens and neophytes. Physical destitution, in our signification of the term, was but little known beyond the limits of a few great cities; for men’s wants were few and easily supplied before the increase of population and the unequal distribution of property became general in the Old World. Therefore we find that the monks and nuns of the IVth century, and for many hundreds of years afterwards, devoted themselves mainly to preaching and teaching, to the multiplication of copies of the Holy Scriptures, and to praying for the conversion of mankind. Thus the order founded by S. Basil, Archbishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, A.D. 362, and that of S. Benedict, Abbot of Norcia, in Italy, in 529, and the numerous cenobitic communities which sprang from them, all more or less strictly observing the rules laid down by those great lights of the church, considered prayer, humility, and obedience the essential principles of their foundation.

Congregations of women devoted to the worship of God, prayer, and poverty were coeval with, if not anterior to, those of men; for we find that S. Anthony, in the latter part of the IIId century, placed his sister in a “house of virgins,” of which she afterwards became abbess; and that on Christmas day, 352, in S. Peter’s Church in Rome, Pope Liberius conferred the habit and veil on Marcellina, enjoining on her a life of mortification and prayer. A little later, mention is made of SS. Marcella, Lea, and Paula as distinguished Roman women who forsook the world, and spent their remaining life in prayer and good works; the latter especially, who, with her daughter, built a hospital at Bethlehem, erected a monastery for S. Jerome and his monks, and founded in Palestine three convents for female recluses, of which she took personal charge. S. Basil found many such convents in existence, and established several more within his jurisdiction, one of which was presided over by his sister Macrina, at Pontus. S. Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, up to 407, writes that in Egypt the congregations of women were as numerous as the monasteries; and S. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (396‐430), built a convent of nuns, of which his sister was superior, giving it, in 423, a written rule, still followed by the religious who bear his name. Four years after, S. Benedict founded his monastery at Monte Casino, the rules of which, having been approved by Gregory the Great, in 595, have been very generally adopted by many religious bodies of men and women in Europe and America.

At first these religious institutions were confined to Italy and the East; but as the light of the faith gradually extended over Europe, religious houses were multiplied; and though for a long time each convent was governed by its own inmates, and followed the ancient rules, modified in many instances by peculiar circumstances, it was eventually found judicious to form them into distinct orders or congregations, in which all the establishments of a particular foundation were governed by a general head or superior. The strict requirements of prayer, humility, and obedience were still observed; but to these were added the education of the children of the poor, alms‐giving, and other acts of external devotion. Wherever a church was built, a monastery planted, or a number of people gathered together to worship God, there was generally to be found a convent, wherein the ailing might find relief; the afflicted, consolation; and the ignorant of the female sex, enlightenment. There the young whose parents were scarcely out of the slough of barbarism were taught their catechism and the beautiful prayers and litanies of the church, as well as to weave, spin, and all the other duties of a civilized housewife. While the clergy, secular and regular, went among the adults, preaching, instructing, and baptizing, holy women were near at hand to pray for the success of their efforts, and to show, by their gentle charities and meek demeanor, the loveliness and beneficence of the Christian religion.

One of the greatest glories of the Catholic Church is that she, and she alone, freed woman from the grossest slavery, and placed her in her proper sphere of usefulness and influence. By the sacrament of marriage, woman was made the honored equal of man; by her commandments and precepts, the church guarded her liberty and her purity, exalted her authority in the family, and recognized in her, even in death, the loving protectress of her offspring. But the church did more than all this. She gave to woman a part in her divine mission, a share in the most glorious task ever allotted to humanity—the propagation of the law of the Most High; and the dispensation of his mercies and benevolence. We are not surprised, then, to learn that in past ages, “when faith was young,” the most gifted and high‐born of their sex in every Christian land, daughters of nobles and princes, abandoning all the fascinations of the world, even those of royalty itself, were to be found eager to take part in the great work of religion, and consecrate their lives to prayer, penance, and charity, for the sake of the poor and helpless.

Such humility and implicit faith in the goodness of God could not have been unavailing; and we who now enjoy the blessings of true morality, with the refinements and graces of true civilization, seldom cast a thought back to the days of semi‐barbarism among our forefathers, when the only light that illumined the gloom of the outer world proceeded from the lamp of the sanctuary, and the only asylum open to the affectionate and modest soul of woman was the humble convent, where she could surround herself with the innocent and unstained children of both sexes, and teach them the way of salvation. Beyond those sacred enclosures, in bygone days, were little but passion, grossness, and self‐indulgence; while within reigned peace, delicacy, and that knowledge which is justly called the beginning of wisdom. The world at length commences to acknowledge the incomparable services of the monks and doctors, the penmen and preachers of the so‐ called dark ages; but who shall count up the debt of gratitude we owe to the thousands upon thousands of holy women who, spurning every earthly allurement, abandoning home, friends, and country, have sought, generation after generation, to win an eternal reward by unceasing prayer and continuous acts of benevolence? Europe is still, as in the past, enjoying the benefits of the labors of her pious daughters; India, China, and the furthest confines of the eastern hemisphere are reaping the advantages of the missionary efforts of the good nuns and Sisters; but America seems destined to be in the future the field whereon the full effulgence of God’s goodness is to be made manifest in the persons of his chosen handmaids.

To us especially the presence of so many pious and educated women is of incalculable advantage. The Catholic body in the United States has to combat a much more insidious and dangerous foe than was ever arrayed against the church, even in her darkest days of persecution. Then Christianity had only to shatter the idol of imperial Rome, already tottering to its base; now we have to fight against what may be termed civilized paganism, energetic, unscrupulous, and worldly‐wise, which aims at mere sensuous enjoyments, cultivates the intellect at the expense of the soul, and even attempts to use the very evidences of God’s works as a justification for their contempt of his law, and as argument against his existence itself. At the worst, the rude pagan of Northern and Western Europe had a belief in a superior Being, and an acknowledged, innate dependence on his will; but the fashionable sceptic of to‐day, the learned doubter of our schools and academies, believes in nothing but himself, and obeys his own whims as his highest rule of morality. It is a melancholy fact, but none the less true, that, according to official authority, nearly one‐half of the people of this country, male and female, practically believe in no form of religion whatever. Disgusted at the perpetual wranglings and disagreements of the sects in the name of Christianity; trained into mere cultivated animals by a system of public tuition which ignores God, or recognizes his existence only to ridicule and travesty his word; and freed from all the restraints which the church so wisely throws around her children from their earliest infancy, is it wonderful that the majority of the youth of this nation should grow up in the actual deification of their own prejudices and passions? With so many instances daily and hourly presented to our eyes, are we to be surprised that persons thus reared should be so active in creating a public opinion among us which is not Catholic, nor even Protestant, but simply and absolutely heathenish, without the refinement of the ancient Greeks to soften its grossness, or the pride of the Roman to save it from cupidity and dishonor?

How all‐important is it, then, to parents to be able to find schools wherein their children—those loved ones whom they have been instrumental in bringing into the world, and for whose eternal welfare they are responsible—will be cared for and instructed, taught habits of industry as well as accomplishments, and in which bands of zealous, educated, and religious women are ever ready to plant and nurture the seeds of virtue in their hearts, while shielding their young minds from even the shadow of contamination. Such guardians of the female youth can only be found in the nunneries, convents, and schools of the Catholic Church. There their lives are wholly and exclusively devoted to works of benevolence, of which the religious instruction of the ignorant is by no means the least. The world for them has neither cares nor attractions; they move, live, and have their being in an atmosphere of order, prayer, and tranquillity, their very appearance being in itself a homily of obedience and cheerful reliance on the goodness of their Maker.

Even though the educational establishments of the nuns and Sisters are in their infancy, there are few parents who need deprive their children of the advantages to be gained only in them. A quarter of a century ago, we could only boast of sixty‐six such institutions, while now we have nearly four hundred academies alone. What excuse, therefore, is there for a piously‐inclined mother or a discriminating father to imperil the happiness and faith of her or his children by sending them to secular schools where the training they receive is worse than artificial? In the convents they can be taught every accomplishment that befits a young lady, no matter how high her station in life, without being made the shallow creature, the mere puppet of fashion, which we find so often “turned out” by the modern secular school‐mistresses of our time; without heart, feeling, and, we might almost say, with no fixed perception of right and wrong.

Then we have two hundred and forty select schools, or an average of four for each diocese, attended by boarders or those living with their relations. These differ from the academies only in degree, being intended for the benefit of children whose position in life does not demand the same elaborate mental culture, or whose school‐days are necessarily short. Still, they receive the same attention, and are subjected to precisely similar moral influences, as the others. But the poor—those whose parents are unable to pay for their education—are they to have none of the advantages so freely accorded their wealthy neighbors? Must they be thrust into the tainted atmosphere of our public schools, and left to shift for themselves? Not so. The poor have ever been the primary objects of the good Sisters’ solicitude; and though they count their academies by hundreds, the number of their free schools, parish, orphan, and industrial, may be reckoned by thousands, and the pupils by myriads.

In the Diocese of New York there are forty‐six of these female schools, with over twenty thousand children, whose tuition is gratuitous, besides some three thousand inmates of orphan asylums and other charitable institutions for juveniles. In the Philadelphia diocese there are thirty‐ five Sisters’ free schools, containing nearly ten thousand scholars, in addition to the orphans. In Cincinnati, where the school system has been brought to a state of great efficiency, the proportion of the attendants to the Catholic population is much greater. We have no means of ascertaining the total number of pupils in the entire country; but if we take the three dioceses above mentioned as a criterion, it will be found that in the United States there are nearly three hundred thousand girls daily receiving at the hands of the Sisters of various congregations a free, thorough, and practical Catholic education. The expense alone of this great work of charity, if not performed without compensation, would be, judging from the cost of the public schools of New York, at least eight millions of dollars annually. If we add to the number of girls in the free schools the fifty or sixty thousand pupils in the six hundred and forty academies and select schools, we will find that about three hundred and fifty thousand female children are, in this year of grace 1874, under the more than maternal care of the religious of the Catholic Church.

Who can estimate the immense amount of good which is accomplished in this manner? Who can measure the beneficent effects to the country produced by these institutions of learning, which annually send to their homes so many thousands of children to gladden the hearts of fond parents, not so much by their varied acquirements, as by their gentleness of disposition and unaffected piety? If we cannot gauge the merits of the Sisters by what we see before us, how much less capable are we of estimating the reward which their long years of devotion will receive from Him who said of little children, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

As to the efficiency of the nuns and Sisters as teachers of the young people of their own sex, there is scarcely a second opinion, even among non‐Catholics. Many Protestants and unbelievers, while professing little or no religion themselves, but who would not see their fair daughters follow their example, are careful to place them under the charge of the daughters of the church, well knowing that, while their minds will be amply stored with useful and elegant knowledge, their impressionable hearts will be guarded against the follies and sins of the world. If all the communities in the country—in number about forty‐five—were to devote their entire labor alone to this great work of education, what a benediction would they deserve from untold millions!

But they do not stop here. They go much further, and, with some few exceptions, their charity takes a far wider range. There are the poor waifs, left deserted on the highways, to be rescued from impending death and nursed into consciousness; the orphan, who has been deprived of its natural guardians, to be cared for; the unfortunate pariah of her sex, to be consoled and encouraged to resume the path of virtue; the jails, where lie the agents of passion and crime, to be visited; the aged and infirm to be taken by the hand, and led down the slope of life with tender solicitude. Again, the deaf, the blind, the insane, the wounded, the sick, and even the incurable, are, according to their several needs, objects of unremitting attention. No evil is so deep‐seated, no affliction so bitter, no disease, whether of the mind or of the body, so loathsome, that the holy women of the church, with God’s assistance, cannot assuage or cure.

To teach children is doubtless a responsible and laborious occupation, but nevertheless not without attractions; but to walk day and night the wards of a hospital, and breathe the dire contagion of disease, or, in the reformatory, to have the ear filled with the blasphemies and ribaldries learned in the lowest dens of vice, are surely trials to appall the stoutest heart, and to test to the very utmost the constancy and zeal of delicately‐nurtured women. Yet the capacious bosom of the church has room enough, has rest and shelter, for all classes of unfortunates. In the sixty‐two dioceses and vicariates into which the United States is divided, there are nearly three hundred foundling, orphan, deaf, blind, and insane asylums, reformatories, protectories, industrial institutions, homes for the aged, houses of the Sisters of the Poor, as well as infirmaries and hospitals; the former numbering over two hundred, and the latter about ninety, or, collectively, an average of five charitable institutions for each ecclesiastical division.

What a load of human misery is thus presented to the eye and committed to the relief of the indefatigable followers of Christ! Who can imagine that has not experienced it the daily round of toil, of watching, and solicitude which constantly awaits the footsteps of the gentle Sister, as she goes among her helpless clients in the foundling asylum, listens to the tale of woe and crime from the still youthful lips of the repentant Magdalene, or comforts the outcast of his kind at the very foot of the scaffold. Watch how lovingly she hushes the deserted babe or the scarcely less pitiable orphan to sleep; how kindly she takes the hand so long stained by contact with the vicious and the guilty into her own soft palm, and breathes words of comfort and encouragement into ears long used only to curses and vile speech; how deftly she smoothes the pillow of the sick, and smiles on the second childishness of her protégés, the aged and infirm poor. At her approach, the suffering child forgets its pains and stretches forth its little arms for her aid; the hospital loses half its ennui and gloom, and even the condemned cell is illumined by a ray of sunlight when she enters it. In fact, wherever there is poverty, sickness, or suffering of any kind, there is the place for the devoted Sister, and there, in truth, she becomes “a ministering angel.”

The distribution of these asylums and hospitals is another interesting feature in their capacity for general usefulness. In dioceses having an estimated Catholic population of over one hundred thousand, they may be thus classified: In Buffalo there is one to every 8,000 Catholics; in Cleveland, St. Louis, and Louisville, one to 13,000; in San Francisco, one to 15,000; Albany, one to 18,000; in Pittsburg, Cincinnati, New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia, one to 23,000; Newark, Alton, and St. Paul, one to 25,000; Boston, one to 30,000; Milwaukee, one to 40,000; Chicago, one to 45,000; Galveston and Providence, one to 60,000; Hartford, one to 80,000; and in Springfield, one to every 150,000. Of the less populous dioceses, Oregon has 1, Burlington 1, Columbus 2, Covington 3, Erie 1, Fort Wayne 3, Grass Valley 3, Mobile 3, Monterey and Los Angeles 5, Nashville 2, Natchez 2, Natchitoches 3, Nesqually 4, Portland 2, Richmond 3, Rochester 5, Santa Fé 2, Savannah 3, Vincennes 4, Wheeling 2, Wilmington 1, Kansas 2, Nebraska 1, Charleston 2. Green Bay, Harrisburg, La Crosse, Little Rock, Ogdensburg, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, and North Carolina, all small dioceses or sparsely‐settled vicariates, have none.

It is impossible to give anything like an approximate report of the vast number of persons of all ages and sexes who find relief, advice, and protection in these asylums and hospitals; for we are not aware that there is in existence any general or full returns from one‐half of the charitable institutions scattered so broadcast over the country. We can therefore only attempt to form an estimate of the whole by taking the statistics nearest us. For example, in this diocese there are 572 girls and very young boys in the female protectory, 1,297 in seven orphan asylums, 546 penitents in the House of the Good Shepherd; while in one of the four city hospitals, S. Vincent’s, 950 patients were received during last year. In Brooklyn there are 1,041 orphans, 208 penitents, 420 patients in two hospitals, in addition to nearly 3,000 externs who received medical and surgical attendance, and 229 old men and women under the charge of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The care of these charitable institutions is not confined to any particular community, but, according to locality or peculiar circumstances, falls to the lot of different congregations. Thus of the asylums, 5 per cent. are under the charge of the Sisters of Notre Dame; 14 per cent. under the Sisters of Mercy; 34 per cent. under the Sisters of Charity; 8‐½ per cent. under the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; 6 per cent. under the Little Sisters of the Poor; 2‐½ per cent. each under the Sisters of Providence, Holy Cross, Sacred Heart, S. Teresa, and S. Dominic; 5‐½ per cent. under the Sisters of S. Francis; 10 per cent. under the Sisters of S. Joseph; 1‐½ per cent. under the Sisters of the Holy Name, S. Benedict, and the School Sisters of Notre Dame, besides a few others belonging to different communities. Of hospitals, the Sisters of Mercy have 18 per cent., the Sisters of Charity 37, Providence 2, Holy Cross 1, S. Francis 7, Little Sisters of the Poor 2, S. Dominic 5, S. Joseph 11, Sœur Hospitalières 2, Nazareth 5, and of all others 20 per cent.

Of the teaching orders and communities in the United States who devote themselves solely to the higher branches of education and, when possible, to the gratuitous instruction of poor children, we have the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, the Ursulines, the Visitation, the Immaculate Conception, Presentation, and the Sisters of the Precious Blood, Loretto, S. Clare, Our Lady of Angels, S. Ann, S. Mary, Sacred Heart of Mary, Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, Humility of Mary, S. Agnes, Incarnate Word, Holy Child, and Daughters of the Cross. The Carmelites, Servite Nuns, and Sisters of S. Anthony are contemplative communities, though, in some special instances, the poor are taught and assisted in their convents.

A short account of the origin and growth in this country of some of the most prominent orders and communities may be found acceptable to those who take an interest in the successive developments in the church of works of education and charity.

The first convent established within the present limits of the United States—if we except some, perhaps, that might have existed long years since in New Mexico and California—was that of the Ursulines, opened at New Orleans in 1727, when that city was a portion of French territory. For about sixty years, the nuns were either natives of France or of French descent, till 1791, when, on the occasion of the revolt of the French colonists in the West Indies, the convent, with its academy, hospital, and asylum, received large accessions from San Domingo. This house still exists, with an affiliation at Opelousas, and has branches in Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Alton, Cleveland, Galveston, Green Bay, Mobile, and several other dioceses; that of New York, situated in what was formerly a portion of Westchester County, being the principal, containing forty‐seven members. The Ursuline Order was founded in 1532, at Brescia, Italy, by S. Angela of Merici, and was approved by Pope Paul III., in 1544, as a religious congregation under the name of S. Ursula. Eighteen years after, at the request of S. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, it was obliged to enclosure, created an order, and placed under the rule of S. Augustine by Pope Gregory XIII. Its special duty is the education of young ladies; but a poor school is, when necessary, attached to each house.

Next in point of time was the Carmelite Nunnery, erected in 1790, near Port Tobacco, Maryland, through the exertions of the Rev. Charles Neale. That zealous clergyman, having visited Europe in that year, returned with four nuns, of whom three are said to have been Americans and one English. On account of the difficulties surrounding their locality, the community was afterwards transferred to Baltimore, in 1831, and permitted to open a school, which, however, was soon after discontinued. There are now in all eight houses of this order in America, of which two—the mother‐house and one in St. Louis—are of the reform of S. Teresa; the others, following the less strict rule, add the care of outside schools, asylums, and hospitals to their other duties. The Carmelite order of monks was founded in the early part of the XIIIth century under the rule of S. Basil, which was exceedingly strict as regards mortification, prayer, and fasting. The order of nuns was not created for two centuries after, when John Lorett, twenty‐sixth general, founded a female institute under the rule of his order, and established several convents in France. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V. approved the foundation; and in 1457 Françoise d’Amboise, the widowed Duchess of Brittany, built the house at Vannes, in her own possessions, taking the veil and habit at the same time. A hundred years later, S. Teresa of Castile, finding that many innovations and relaxations had crept in, undertook the work of reform, and her efforts were eventually approved by Pope Pius IV. in 1562. Thus there became two branches of the order—the Mitigated Carmelites, whose rule is not so austere as those of the Discalceated, who follow the reform of S. Teresa. The latter are obliged to observe perpetual silence, abstain from the use of flesh‐meat, sleep on straw, and wear habits of coarse serge and sandals instead of shoes. Their habit is a brown gown, scapular, and hood, and in choir a white cloak and black veil.

Soon after the arrival of the Carmelites in Maryland, an effort was made by a few Catholic young ladies in Philadelphia to establish a religious community. The principal movers were Miss Alice Lalor and a couple of friends. Her companions, however, having died before anything tangible could be effected, Miss Lalor left Philadelphia for Georgetown, D. C., in 1798, and established herself there as a teacher. Gradually she drew around her young persons of similar views and tastes, and a community was formed, at first simply for the purpose of prayer and education; but when, in 1816, their rules had been approved by the Most Rev. Leonard Neale, Archbishop of Baltimore, and recognized by the Holy Father, they became a regular branch of the Visitation Order, and submitted to solemn vows and enclosure. Their houses now number about twenty, and are to be found in Baltimore, Brooklyn, St. Louis, Mobile, Covington, Dubuque, and several dioceses in the South and Southwest. The order dates back to 1610, when it was founded by S. Francis de Sales and S. Jane Frances, Baronne de Chantal. It was at first merely a congregation, but by permission of Pope Paul V. it was changed into a regular order, the essential principles of its rule being the education of the children of the rich, though many free schools for the poor are found attached to its convents.

While Miss Lalor was working silently in the District of Columbia, there was another pious woman—one whose name is destined to be for ever illustrious in the annals of the church in America—nobly struggling against innumerable difficulties in the same holy cause. This was Mrs. Eliza A. Seton, the foundress, in the United States, of the glorious Sisterhood of Charity. Like all men or women whom Providence selects for great ends, Mrs. Seton passed through a long novitiate of sorrow and trials before she was found qualified to lay the corner‐stone of an institution which, above all others, has made Catholic charity and womanly self‐sacrifice most useful, most respected and beloved amongst us. Born in New York on the 28th of August, 1774, of wealthy Protestant parents, her infancy and girlhood were passed amid all the scenes of pleasure and luxury that family position and affluence could command; and it was not till she had married and entered upon matronhood that she experienced her first great grief. This arose out of the death of her father, Dr. Bayley, who, in his devotion to the sick immigrants, at that time very numerous, fell a victim to ship‐fever. His daughter, it would appear, felt for him even more than filial affection and respect, and his sudden death made such an impression on her spirits and such inroads on her health that she was obliged to make a tour in Europe in company with her husband, also an invalid. Her mind had early been imbued with strong religious impressions, as well as cultivated by careful study and extensive reading; and during her stay in Southern Europe, where she had ample opportunities of visiting the churches and convents, and of seeing for herself the beauties and glories of Catholicity, she first began to long for that rest for the weary and doubt‐distracted soul which is only found in the bosom of the church. Her husband, dying in December, 1802, was buried in Italy; and she, now left the sole guardian of her children, returned to America. But the thoughts that had come to her in the solemn basilicas of the Old World followed her to the New, and would not be dismissed. She struggled much with them, prayed fervently, sought the spiritual advice of many pious friends, and finally, in 1805, entered the church. We of this generation can hardly conceive the sacrifices Mrs. Seton made in thus becoming a Catholic. So rife and uncompromising was the spirit of Protestant bigotry in those days that the moment it was known that she had become a convert, every friend and relative, the companions of her youth and the sharers of her blood, shrank from her with positive loathing, as if her touch was infectious. All forsook her except her children. But she was a woman of undaunted courage as well as of implicit faith. She resolved to leave New York, and take up her residence in Baltimore, then the only city in the country where Catholics had either influence or social standing. Here, by the advice of the archbishop, she determined to devote herself to teaching, and, to carry out her idea more fully, to establish a community. Accordingly, in May, 1809, we find her, with four companions, setting out for Emmittsburg to take possession of a log house and commence her grand enterprise. On the first of June, these pioneers of the Sisters of Charity in the United States arrived at their destination, and on the day following, the Feast of Corpus Christi, they appeared in the little church of the college in their habits—“white muslin caps with crimpt borders, black crape bands round the head and fastened under the chin, black dresses, and short capes similar to those of the religious of Italy.”

At first the community was called the Sisters of S. Joseph; but in 1810, it was agreed to assimilate it to the Congregation of Charity in Europe, and, through the influence of the Rev. F. Flaget, it was hoped that some Sisters might be induced to come from France to take charge of the little community. Owing to the disturbed state of the times, F. Flaget failed to procure the desired aid; but he brought with him the rule of the Sisters, which, having been adopted by the community, was approved by Archbishop Neale, January 17, 1812.

The growth of the new congregation was slow, for many unforeseen difficulties had to be encountered; but having been planted deep in the soil, it gradually grew strong and vigorous, and, when it once commenced to throw out offshoots in every direction, they took root and flourished with wonderful vitality. In 1814, some Sisters were sent to Philadelphia to take charge of the new Catholic orphan asylum; and in 1817, Mother Seton, with Sisters Cecilia O’Conway and Felicité Brady, came to New York, at the request of Bishop Connolly, to superintend a similar institution established by the New York Catholic Benevolent Society. They selected a small frame house on Prince Street, where now stands their noble asylum. How the houses of this illustrious community have multiplied during the last half‐century is truly astonishing, and can only be attributed to the help of a Power more than human. Nearly one hundred asylums and hospitals are now under their charge; about the same number of academies and select schools claim their care; free schools and scholars beyond computation enjoy the blessings of their pious instruction; and their convents and establishments dot the country in every direction. In New York alone, where the mother‐house of the province is situated at Font Hill, Yonkers, there are attached to it 409 professed Sisters, 92 novices, and 13 postulants, who conduct 72 different establishments in New York, Jersey City, Brooklyn, New Haven, Providence, and Columbia. In Newark, in the mother‐house of the diocese, at Madison, N. J., there are 190 members; and in almost every section of the country where Catholicity is at all known, the simple black dress and cape, and the small white collar, of the daughters of S. Vincent de Paul are familiar objects. This congregation, though dating only from March 25, 1634, when Louise de Marillac, widow of Antoine Le Gras, secretary to Marie de Medicis, the first mother of the Daughters of Charity, consecrated her life to God, has now, it is said, more than twenty thousand members throughout the world, all, like their sainted founder, Vincent, unremittingly employed in works of divine charity.

Next in order of usefulness, though not in age, come the Sisters of Mercy. This congregation is of Irish origin, having been founded in Dublin, as late as 1827, by Catharine McAuley, a native of that county. Miss McAuley was born September 17, 1787, of Catholic parents; but they dying when she was quite young, her guardianship was assumed by a Protestant family, who brought her up in their own faith—if faith it may be called; but the girl early developed a remarkable inclination towards Catholicity, and, when of proper age, reunited herself to the church of her fathers. At thirty‐four she found herself the possessor of a large fortune bequeathed to her by her adopted father, who had become a Catholic on his death‐bed; and this, with all her subsequent life, she resolved to dedicate to the service of the Almighty. She therefore built at her own expense, in the most fashionable part of the city, a magnificent convent, and, associating with herself several other ladies, commenced the work of instruction and the visitation of the sick poor in their homes and in the public hospitals. The Most Rev. Dr. Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, gave her all the assistance in his power, and, after consulting with the Holy See, approved the new foundation. In 1841, Pope Gregory XVI. confirmed the congregation, which is now so strong in the United Kingdom that it numbers 133 convents, besides numerous charitable institutions. Unlike the Sisters of Charity, this congregation has no superior‐general, each convent being independent and self‐governing.

Though introduced into this country by the late Bishop O’Connor, of Pittsburg, about thirty years ago, the Sisters of Mercy have spread rapidly over the United States. They have already nearly 50 asylums and hospitals, 80 academies and select schools, an immense number of free schools, convents almost as numerous as those of the Sisters of Charity, and considerably over 1,300 members. They are to be found in New York, the New England dioceses, Albany, Philadelphia, Louisville, Pittsburg, most of the old dioceses, and many of the newer ones.

There are other orders and congregations among us, if not so numerous, equally meritorious; for instance, the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, who conduct about 30 academies and select schools, in which the very highest order of education is imparted; the Sisters of Notre Dame, also a teaching order, having the care of 20 houses, in which there are 431 boarders and over 1,200 day scholars, besides about 14,000 pupils attending the free schools, half that number in the Sunday‐schools, in addition to those taught in evening schools and instructed in various other ways. This congregation, though founded in 1804, by Mother Julia Billiart, assisted by Marie‐Louise‐Françoise, Vicomtesse Blin de Bourbon, and Catharine Duchâtel, at Amiens, has so extended its labors that it now counts in Belgium, England, and Central America 68 establishments, 12,000 scholars in its boarding and day schools, and over 32,000 children gratuitously taught in its free schools. It was introduced into the United States, in 1840, by the Most Rev. Dr. Purcell, Archbishop of Cincinnati, and, in connection with its convents and academies, has charge of 70 asylums. The Sisters of S. Joseph, numbering about sixty communities, have, by the latest returns, 42 academies, 20 select schools, 20 asylums, and 9 hospitals. These latter are specially charged with the instruction of the colored children of the South. Then there are the congregations of the Third Order of S. Francis and of S. Dominic, whose duties are equally multifarious; the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, whose mission it is to receive and reform the very outcasts of female society, and to save young women from lives of vice and crime; and the meek Little Sisters of the Poor, who actually go about from door to door, from store to market‐place, begging, in the name of holy charity, for the crumbs of our tables to feed their aged and decrepit dependents who are tottering on the verge of the grave. Besides these, there are many other communities of pious women in our midst, quietly and unostentatiously pursuing their career of goodness, the history of whose foundation the limits of an article will not allow us to descant upon. Their actions are doubtless recorded in another world, where lie their trust and promised reward.

Thus we have seen how our glorious land is twice blessed by the presence of those pure‐minded, zealous, and meek followers of their Saviour. We are blessed in their prayers and in their active charity. No one is so rich as to be independent of their good offices; no one so poor, afflicted, or degraded that they cannot succor and console. The vilest dens of infamy in our crowded cities are made almost sacred by their tread; the far‐away prairies and forests resound with their chants and songs of praise; while the daintily‐nurtured daughter of the aristocracy is taught, in some convent of the Sacred Heart, or of the Ursulines, to shine in and adorn her social sphere without forgetting that she is a Christian; the poor little negro children of the everglades of Florida, or the savage Indian babes of the Pacific slope, are kneeling at the feet of some Sister of S. Joseph or of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, lisping their first prayer. Without exaggeration, it may be said that there is no ignorance so dense that they will not succeed in expelling; none of the many ills to which flesh is heir that they cannot assuage; and that they, and they alone, of all their sex, “can minister to a mind diseased, and pluck from the heart a deep‐rooted sorrow.”

And yet all this toil and pain and solicitude bring with them, even in this world, abundant rewards. Who that has ever entered a convent or a religious house has not been impressed by the gentle air of cheerfulness and inward peace that sits on the faces of its inmates? We look in vain for the anxious glance that betrays an unsatisfied mind, or the deep‐drawn lines that tell a tale of worldly struggle and discontent. No; every countenance is serene, placid, and healthful. This is the reward of noble works well performed, the luxury of doing good, to which the women of the outer world are for the most part strangers. But what shall be the eternal recompense for those who thus abandon kindred and home, friends and companions, the pleasures of the world and the passions of the heart, to follow in the footsteps of the Saviour who was crucified for us, and to carry out his precepts, regardless of all consequences, to the end? Such is the holy nun who storms heaven with her prayers for the salvation of mankind and the pardon of national crimes; such the humble Sister who devotes the energies of her mind, the years of her life, nay, her very life itself, to the service of God’s poor, helpless, and sinful creatures. Can a nobler ambition than this find place in the human mind? Can the glory, the charity, and the all‐absorbing beneficence of the Christian faith find brighter examples and purer exponents than within the convents which so numerously overspread and are continuing to increase on the soil of our young republic?

Switzerland In 1873.

“Going to Lyons to‐morrow! Impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. C——, whom my friend and I accidentally met in the hall of the Berner Hof Hotel at Berne this autumn. “You cannot surely go without seeing the Lake of Lucerne! I should be quite ashamed to confess that I had been so long in Switzerland and was leaving without having been up the Rigi. In fact, if you persist in this resolution, you will have to come back again next summer expressly for that, and for nothing else. Think what trouble that may be! And all from want of a little energy now; for I feel quite certain you have no appointment to take you to Lyons in such a hurry. I know you cannot have,” she added smiling, and noticing some hesitation on our part, “so you must just change your plans again and come off to Lucerne with our party this afternoon! You may go to Lyons later, if you like, but there will be time enough to think about that!”

It was quite true. There was no special reason for our starting for Lyons that day, no pressing necessity for our leaving Switzerland just then. The Lake of Lucerne, moreover, had originally a prominent place in our itinerary, and the weather was so fine that there seemed fair hope of the prescribed sunrise from the Rigi. But, if the truth were told, we were weary—weary not in body but in soul; and had taken such an aversion to the country, from a spiritual point of view, that a strong antidote—such as Lyons with its Notre Dame de Fourvières and general Catholic life would afford—had become to us absolutely essential.

Six weeks previously we entered Switzerland—two ladies overflowing with enthusiasm. The picturesque was certainly a main object in our journey; for where else can it be equalled, or found in such variety? Still, we had no intention whatever of leaving religion and devotion behind us, and never doubted for a moment that we should succeed in finding means of satisfying our desires.

It was our first visit to this region, and our knowledge of it, we are bound to confess, was most superficial. But how little does one know of a foreign country until either long residence or some special circumstance excites the curiosity or rouses the attention! Catholics even, who as a rule interest themselves more than all others about the religious state of countries outside their own—instigated by that principle of universal brotherhood, that bond of spiritual union, which the church so effectually promotes—seldom know, notwithstanding, the details of current ecclesiastical foreign events, unless accident brings them to the spot. A great commotion like the warfare going on in Geneva, and the fact that the attitude of the Catholic community in that town was most noble, and those willing “to suffer persecution for justice’ sake” neither few nor faint‐ hearted, had of course a large place in our view of the case. But except this, and the broad facts that Geneva, Berne, and Zurich were Protestant, Lucerne and its neighborhood Catholic, we are constrained to admit that our acquaintance with Swiss matters, geographical, historical, or ecclesiastical, was very limited. It is little wonder, therefore, that we lent a willing ear to the thoughtless assertions of fellow‐travellers, who told us we should find Catholic churches scattered all over these districts. Without further questioning, then, we proceeded, commencing by a few days at Lausanne and along the shores of the lovely Lake of Geneva. Thence we made our way to Bellalp, Zermatt, the Eichhorn, and, finally, passing round to the northern side of the great mountains, wandered on from the Faulhorn, Scheideck, and Wengern Alps to Mürren, where we rested for several days, having “done” sunsets and sunrises, peaks and glaciers, until our minds were filled with the most magnificent images. Still, despite all these wonderful beauties of nature, which seemed every day to draw us more closely and more humbly towards the Creator, an irrepressible dreariness had crept over us, from the absence of all visible signs of union with him or of grateful worship on the part of man. Certain it is that the result our present wanderings had produced by the time we reached Berne was a longing for a Catholic land and Catholic churches, where we might pour forth our praises, and give utterance to our thanksgivings for the glorious sights we had seen; a longing that had grown stronger than the mere love of the sublime and beautiful, for its own sake, of which we were, nevertheless, most ardent votaries.

It may be said that, coming to Protestant cantons as we did, we ought not to have expected a profusion of Catholic churches; the Catholic population is small, especially in the highland districts, and labors under many disadvantages. True, and after the first disappointment was over, we were ready to study our excursions, and often to shorten them, in order to hear Mass on Sundays. Yet even so, more than once we could not even accomplish this; and the difficulty of approaching the sacraments under these circumstances is most distressing to travellers. Besides, to an outside observer, piety does not seem to flourish; or, where it does, the Catholic congregations have that subdued look peculiar to all persecuted communities, so extremely depressing to witness. Many believe that, for this and other reasons, the battle now raging in Geneva and elsewhere will be productive of great gain, and that Switzerland and Germany will emerge from a life resembling that of the early Christians in the Catacombs, only with tenfold power and vigor. At the present moment, one is chiefly led to reflect on the false interpretation of that freedom so much boasted of by the Swiss Protestants—if one may so style the advanced liberals and free‐ thinkers who come to the surface nowadays—and remember how easily an American Catholic could make them blush by his report of how differently these matters are treated across the Atlantic.

Our path had nowhere, as yet, it is true, touched on a Catholic canton; and there all might be different, though everything we could glean led us to a contrary expectation. An old German who had been coming to Switzerland for the last thirty years, and whom we met en route, told us it was all the same. “No religion anywhere. Nothing can be more uninteresting than the people,” he asserted. “Bent only on money‐making and fighting about religion—religion, that is to say, in name, but not in deed; the disputes are purely party questions, and have no real, substantial foundation. Peaks and passes are alone worth a thought,” he added. On these he was inexhaustible, but always dismissed the other subject with contempt. Later, when our own observations in the Catholic cantons completely altered our opinions, we also ascertained that he, like so many of the summer tourists one encounters nowadays, was perfectly indifferent to all forms of worship, and blind to those signs and manifestations of the inner being which still abound in all that region. Meanwhile, however, his report, coming from one familiar with every part of Switzerland, carried conviction to our untutored minds, as, no doubt, happens in similar cases every day.

But it was not, perhaps, the difficulty about, and paucity of, Catholic service which so much roused our indignation, once we saw the small number of our co‐religionists, as the universal aridity, tepidity, nay, coldness, of all the inhabitants of these favored regions. Nor could we gain much knowledge about them. The ordinary tourist never meets a Swiss above the class of guides and hotel‐keepers; the former, in the Protestant cantons, are a stolid, uncommunicative race of men, with all their intellects apparently given to their horses and Trinkgeld; the latter too much engrossed in the feverish anxiety of drawing up large bills and providing for the passing crowd to give attention to any other matter during the summer season. Besides, the line of interest does not run in the direction of the “people”; if it did, these men would no doubt also labor to supply the demand; as it is, few have time, or, having time, inclination, for anything but scenery, and next to scenery—sometimes first—come food and lodging.

It was unreasonable, many observed, to aspire to more. “A thorough knowledge of a nation is not to be picked up in passing”; “One comes to Switzerland for the scenery only”; “The people cannot be judged by outward appearances,” were phrases which met us at every turn whenever we ventured to make a remark. “Doubtless the people may be excellent,” was our reply; “but outward appearances are an index to their minds. In the Tyrol, Bohemia, Brittany, and other Catholic lands, all who ‘run may read.’ ” Mountain chapels, wayside crosses, holy pictures inside and outside their dwellings, speak a language common to all Christian hearts; and the indifferentism and dryness of soul which their absence betokens in the Bernese Oberland, especially amidst its grandest scenes and greatest dangers, cannot fail to leave a most painful impression on every thoughtful traveller.

The only information we found it easy to gather related to everything connected with material subjects. In a surprisingly short space of time, we knew, from our guides, the names of all the peaks, and many, too, of the smaller summits, and, above all, could speak in an authoritative tone of the best hotels in different places, the price of pension in each, whether the Kellners were civil, the living better in one than another, Cook’s tickets an advantage or not, where the carriage‐roads ended and the riding or walking began—in fine, became very clever on all those points which form the staple of conversation at all Swiss hotels and halting‐ places. Yet we conscientiously employed our eyes and ears, so as to come to no wrong conclusion. The more one travels in Switzerland, the more necessary this precaution seems. Whatever efforts we made, however, brought about the same unfavorable result. The whole aspect of the country we traversed justified our German acquaintance’s harsh criticisms. Even the Protestant churches, which, if only from a pure spirit of opposition, one might expect to show a flourishing exterior, are in Switzerland more than usually bald and cheerless. Unlike English churches of the present day, they are completely innocent of the slightest approach to decoration, and very often without sign of communion‐table or anything even representing it. Sometimes a bare slab of marble, without altar‐cloth or covering, stands in the middle; but often this is brought out only at stated periods for the administration of the Lord’s Supper, and, as a rule, the seats are ranged round the pulpit—the only centre of attraction in these buildings. Of all nations, the English show the most tangible signs of life. They, at least, bring themselves more prominently forward; for the first paper that strikes the eye on entering every Swiss inn is the list of services and chaplains supplied to Switzerland for the season by the English Church Colonial Society. Churches they do not possess, except in a few favored spots; and many are the lamentations amongst the wandering Britons at being obliged to content themselves with the drawing‐ room or billiard‐room of a large hotel, where probably the evening before they had assembled amidst gaiety and laughter. It is an arrangement, too, often complained of by the other inmates—one which led to a serious dispute in one place, where the German visitors claimed their right to the billiard‐table at the hour appointed by the English chaplain for his service. Still, there they are, mindful, at least, of “Sabbath worship,” when the majority of their co‐religionists see no necessity for remembering it.

Crowds of Anglican clergymen were also found travelling, on their own account, in the Protestant cantons. Five‐and‐twenty were together one day at Mürren, of all shades and hues, too; from my Lord Bishop, with his wife and daughters, to the young Ritualist curate, in his Roman collar and otherwise Catholic dress, the highest ambition of whose heart is to be taken—or rather mistaken—for a true Catholic priest. And very hard it is to distinguish him, at first sight, from the genuine character, so exact has he made the superficial copy. After a little conversation, however, it is easy to know that such unmitigated abuse of the Episcopal dignitary who sits at the other end of the room, and of the whole bench of bishops, cannot belong to the true church, which not only enjoins but practises submission to authority. Intellectual these High‐Churchmen always are, and would make pleasant company but for the crookedness of their “opinions,” and their unconcealed exultation, too, at the assumed progress of the so‐ called “Old‐Catholic” movement, which they represent as undermining the whole of Switzerland. Catholic Switzerland they always meant; for even they could not blind themselves to the fact that in the Protestant districts there is little left to take away. One could only wonder how, with their hankering after Catholic things, they could in any way feel drawn towards those cantons; and it more than ever strengthened our conviction (though nothing offends them more than such a suggestion) that the sole binding link between these English High‐Churchmen and the miscellaneous companies which assemble at the “Old‐Catholic” meetings is their common ground of rebellion to mother church—which, as daily experience infallibly proves, gathers together all grades of belief and unbelief outside the Catholic fold, and induces them to ignore all their important differences in the bond of a hatred which is truly preternatural to the spouse of Christ!

Wet days at Swiss hotels are proverbially fruitful of talk and discussion; and nowadays these religious subjects are certain to be started by some new Ritualistic acquaintance, who evidently presumes on sympathy from English‐speaking travellers. Above all, should he or she discover that you are a “Romanist,” as they choose to call us children of the true church, it is most curious to observe what an irresistible secret attraction impels them to follow you, from morning to night, with their arguments and spiritual “views.” Oh! what days of annoyance continued rain has cost us on those mountain‐tops—days of true annoyance unmixed with good; for in no single instance did we find any permanent impression made on these Ritualists, who, of all Protestants, are the most hopelessly blinded and obstinate. And most fully do we agree with a high ecclesiastical authority who recently remarked to us that all other shades of churchmen, including the evangelical or Low Church, respond to the call of grace more readily than these men and women, whose stand‐point is that pride which obscures their spiritual vision. After two or three such discussions, we foresaw the point exactly when they would dogmatically assert that they, “too, are Catholics,” and that an irreparable breach was to be the immediate consequence of the solemn protest which it became our duty to make on each similar occasion. Before we reached Mürren, therefore, we had learnt to avoid them. By that time, too, we found that all their information about “Old Catholics” was derived either from the English newspapers or those foreign ones which, in rainy, stay‐at‐home weather, are studied in those places with persevering assiduity.

We ourselves endeavored to gather from this source some of that information unattainable elsewhere, but very soon indignantly threw aside these tainted productions. Our German friend was right on this point, certainly; for anything more shameful and less religious than the attacks on the priesthood in general, the false statements put forward, and the undisguised rationalism—not to give it a worse name—of most of these foreign newspapers which flood the reading‐rooms of Switzerland, it would be difficult to imagine. Not a single Catholic newspaper came under our eye in the pensions and hotels. If they were taken in, they were certainly hidden away; and the tone of the German press, in particular, perfectly justified the assertion which has been hazarded—namely, that it has altogether fallen into the hands of the once‐despised Jews. Alas! alas! the “Israelites” of the present day may well exult and lift up their heads in the remarkable and daily‐increasing manner so noticeable all over Europe, where the faith of Christians is so tepid and their sight so weak as no longer to distinguish the true from the false in these proud and “enlightened” days!

Disheartened by all we saw and heard, we frequently turned to the poor, in the hope of better feelings; and although no outward token of man’s habitual remembrance of his Maker met our observation, we tried to lead the guides and peasants to speak, now and then, on these subjects. In vain, however. They appeared to have no thoughts to communicate, no familiarity with the supernatural, nor other answer but the dry, curt one to give: Wir sind alle Reformirten im Canton Berne—“We are all Reformed in the Canton of Berne.”

This hard, unsympathetic tone of mind jarred on our highest and tenderest feelings; and the grander the surrounding scenery, the more painful its impression. It had reached its climax a few days before we met Mrs. C—— at Berne.

Having slept one night at Lauterbrunnen, and the next morning proving lovely, we determined to go on at once to Grindelwald. There had been no service of any kind at the village of Mürren; but here a bell rang early, and we had thus begun the day by lamenting that it did not summon us to Mass before starting on our journey. But this being a strictly “Reformed” neighborhood, it was foolish to nourish any such hope. The sparkling rays of sunlight on the Staabbart, however, the drive through the magnificent valley, the rushing torrent, and opening views of our favorite mountains, free from the veil of mist that had covered them on the previous day, the exhilarating air, and general brightness of a grand nature, gradually restored us to more contented dispositions. The day was splendid. The Wetterhorn, Finsteraarhorn, Eiger, and Jungfrau stood erect before and above us, as we drove up to the hotel, in all their grandeur, sternness, and soft beauty withal; their spotless snows and blue glaciers running down amongst and fringing the green, placid pastures below, whilst Grindelwald itself, the pretty village of scattered châlets, lay bathed in sunshine at their feet. It was the beginning of September; yet the visitors were so few and imperceptible that we felt as if we alone had possession of this wonderful scene. Nor was there a breath of wind or a cloud in the sky, in an atmosphere of transparent brilliancy—one of those rare days which seem lent to us from Paradise, when one’s only thought can be that of thankfulness; one’s only sigh, “Lord! it is good for us to be here.” We had been sitting for some time on a grassy slope, drinking in all this ethereal beauty, and gazing silently on those “great apostles of nature, those church‐towers of the mountains,” as Longfellow so beautifully calls them, when our thoughts wandered on to the perils peculiar to such a spot. Of the two glaciers right before us, one—the smaller one, it is true—had all but disappeared within the last four years. It had melted away gradually during an unusually hot summer, the guide had told us, though fortunately without causing any considerable damage in the valley underneath. Very different it would be if the larger one were to vanish; and we naturally reverted to a description we had recently read, by a well‐known dignitary of the English Church, of the appalling catastrophe near Martigny, in 1818, when the whole district was made desolate and villages swept away, in consequence of the breaking‐up of a similar glacier under the Lake of Mauvoisin. We had just said that if any people should “stand ready” it certainly was the Swiss, when suddenly, as if in response to our meditations, the silvery sound of a church‐bell came wafted to us through the balmy air. The building itself was out of sight, hidden behind a small knoll; so we hastened at once on a voyage of discovery in search of it. The day and hour were so unusual that a faint hope arose of finding some out‐of‐the‐way Catholic convent, forgotten, perhaps, by the old “Reformers.” It was only the small church of the village, however. The bell was still ringing, and the door open, but no one near; and, entering in, nothing was to be seen save an empty interior with whitewashed walls, where a few benches alone indicated that it served any purpose or ever emerged from its present forlorn and desolate condition. Perplexed for an explanation, we appealed to some villagers in the vicinity—old women who, had it been a Catholic church, were just the sort of bodies one would have found telling their beads in some corner of it at every hour of the day; but blank countenances were all we elicited by our first question of why the bell was ringing or what service was about to begin. “Service! What service?” they answered inquiringly. “Divine service”—Gottesdienst—we replied, making the question more explicit, the better to suit their capacities. “Divine service? Oh! that is only on Sundays, of course,” was their answer; and it never seemed to cross their minds that people ought also to pray on other days. In fact, no single person in the place could give any reason for the tolling of this bell (evidently the Vesper‐bell of old Catholic times), except that it rung regularly on every afternoon at 3 o’clock. A poverty‐stricken, unhealthy‐looking population they were, too—just the class that stand much in need of spiritual comforts—of those aids from heaven which the poor need more palpably even than the possessors of material wealth, in order to bring them through the troubles of this weary world, and to sustain their courage at every step. Both here and at Lauterbrunnen, despite all police prohibitions, our carriage was followed by numbers of sickly and deformed children, whose monotonous drone was unenlivened by one bright look, by any petition “for the love of God,” or any of those touching variations of the Catholic beggar in every part of the world, which, no matter what one may say at the time, do appeal to a Christian heart more than any one is aware of until made sensible of their impression by the chilly effects of their absence on such occasions.

But our spirits revived, as we returned to Interlachen, at sight of the old Franciscan convent standing embosomed in its stately trees. Hitherto we had only passed through the place on our way to and from the mountain excursions; but to‐morrow would be Sunday, and the Catholic service, we had ascertained, was in the convent church. Away, therefore, with our saddened hearts and dismal musings! The plain would evidently treat us more charitably than the highland country had hitherto done! Beautiful, lovely Interlachen! lying amidst its brown, flowery meadows, under its stately walnut‐trees; the white‐robed Jungfrau rising opposite in all her dignified beauty, unaccompanied by Monk or Eiger, or any of her snowy compeers. The sun was setting as we drove up to the hotel Victoria just in time to see its deep‐red, crimson farewell, thrown across the brow of the grand mountain, melt gradually into the most tender violet, as if in mourning for his departure. And as we sat on the balcony all that evening in the stillness of the autumnal air, watching the full moon shining on the “pale Virgin,” making her glitter like silver, and stand out, in all her majesty, from the dark, enclosing line of intervening hills, we felt once more how glorious is God’s creation in all its simple magnificence! How grand, how awful it can be! And again, at dawn, we beheld the same spotless peak receive with a tender, pink blush the first rays of the returning sun, to dazzle us henceforward during all that day by her transcendent loveliness through an ethereal veil of transparent delicacy, and to draw our thoughts heavenward, pointing upwards like a faithful angel guardian anxious to remind us that all this earthly beauty is as naught compared to the bright visions which await us beyond!

It was nine o’clock that morning before the church‐bell sounded; but then we sallied forth with full hearts, and made our way along the beautiful avenue of walnut‐trees towards the old convent. With elastic gait we ascended the ancient steps of the ivy‐mantled church, rejoicing in the sign‐post which boastfully pointed “à l’Eglise Catholique”! But vain were our illusions! How could we have been so sanguine! This fine old convent, as perfect as at the time of its suppression in 1527, is far too valuable, think the authorities, to be given up by an antagonistic government to the successors of its original owners. A large part of the dwelling portion, therefore, is used by the commune of Interlachen for its public offices, whilst the remainder is divided between the different foreign “persuasions” that visit Interlachen every summer. That high‐sounding title, “l’Eglise Catholique,” belonged only to a small chapel constructed out of one end of the church—the smaller end—and floored, moreover, up to half its height. The other and larger portion was given up for the English Church service, whilst the Free Kirk of Scotland and “l’Eglise Evangélique de France,” were installed here and there amongst the cloisters. Most correctly, then, did an old man, who was found sweeping out the passages, describe himself as employed by tous les cultes.

Nor was the Catholic congregation more permanent than the others. It appeared to consist chiefly of strangers, and the priest, a Frenchman, who spoke in feeling accents of the persecution going on throughout the country, announced that although the following day would be a holiday, there could be no Mass; for he had to quit Interlachen on that same evening.

As we came out from the convent, sad and gloomy, a pretty sight awaited us: hundreds of boys and girls, of all sizes and ages, marching to the strains of a band towards a large meadow hard by, where gymnastic and other games were about to commence. Orderly and bright‐looking they all were, accompanied by half the population of the town and neighborhood, chiefly attired in the picturesque Bernese costume, and including, evidently, the fathers and mothers of the young generation. It was a most brilliant yet soothing picture, as we beheld them passing on under the shade of the wide‐spreading, lofty walnut‐trees; the little maidens in their fresh summer dresses, embroidered muslin aprons, and hats crowned with masses of flowers, standing out against the green background of the nearer mountains, whilst the lovely Jungfrau beyond shone out resplendent beneath the rays of a dazzling sun. Long stood we watching them; for it was a scene to enjoy and treasure up in one’s memory. What a pity that the recollection should be darkened by the after‐knowledge that none of this merry crowd had begun the day by divine worship! And noteworthy was this fact, making all the difference between this and the Catholic practice in such matters. Nor shall we fail to remember, if ever again taunted by those Protestants who consider it a sin to be light‐hearted on the Sabbath, that this mode of keeping Sunday is not sanctioned by a Catholic, but by one of their own cherished “Reformed” cantons. Catholic the proceedings truly were, in being orderly, innocent, healthful, and rational; but most _un_catholic in not having even allowed the time necessary for religion. No Catholic ecclesiastical authority sanctions such amusements on Sundays without the whole population having had the opportunity of hearing Mass first—a matter that is not left optional, but made obligatory on every member of the church. Here, on the contrary, there is only one service in the Protestant church, and that at 10 o’clock A.M.; so that, even had they wished it, none of these merry‐makers could have been present. Nor, during the whole of that day, did we hear any neighboring village‐bells summoning their flocks to prayer. Indeed, many of the villages are without any churches. There is none, for instance, at Mürren, nor in many of the hamlets along the Lake of Brienz, nor in various other spots which might easily be named. One hears a vast deal about Swiss “pasteurs,” and pretty stories are written wherein they figure largely; but it is only natural to conclude that if there are numberless villages without churches, they are equally without “pasteurs”; and one cannot help wondering how the sick and poor fare in these distant parts in the ice‐bound winter weather, nor avoid fearing that there is much truth in the dreary suggestions we often heard expressed, that they constantly die and are buried without any spiritual ministrations whatsoever.

And yet the Swiss, and especially the people of this neighborhood, did not always voluntarily abandon the ancient church, nor lapse of a sudden into the indifferentism now so general. But no doubt the present apathy is the inherited result of the mixed notions which actuated their forefathers, and the absence amongst them of that pure attachment to their faith and the unconquerable steadiness and manliness by which the adjoining cantons of Unterwalden and Uri have so eminently distinguished themselves up to the present hour.

Whilst meditating over all we had seen and heard, we accidentally opened Zschokke’s History of Switzerland at the page where he speaks of those mixed feelings which were perceptible in all the religious divisions between 1527 and 1528. The writer is a Protestant, and therefore his version is all the more interesting, as admitting the coercion it was necessary to use for the introduction of the new doctrines—doubly interesting, too, as read here, at Interlachen, on the spot and by the light of the similar system—for there is nothing new under the sun—at present in full operation in so many of these same cantons.

After speaking of various disputes, he says: “For of those who raised their voices against the new creed, thousands upon thousands were actuated, not by piety or love of the good and true, but by interested motives under pretence of religion. Amongst the country people, many expected greater liberties and rights by the introduction of the recent doctrines; and when these were not granted to them, they returned to the Catholic faith. The moment the town council of Berne suppressed the convent at Interlachen, and appointed preachers of the reformed church, the peasants, highly pleased, thought and said: ‘No convent mesnes, no taxes, no feudal service.’ But when the town only transferred the taxes and service to itself, the peasants, through pure anger, became Catholic again, drove away the Protestant preachers, and marched in armed bodies to Thun. Berne hereupon appealed to its other subjects, offering to leave the matter to their arbitration; for the town desired peace, knowing well that neither quick nor efficient aid could be counted on by them from the neighboring cantons, which were all Catholic. These subjects of Berne, flattered by the confidence reposed in them by the authorities, decided in their favor, saying: ‘The worldly rights of the convent go to the worldly authorities, and are in no wise the property of the peasants.’ On hearing this, the rebellious country‐folk of Grindelwald returned to their homes, but in no contented mood, although the town had relieved them from many burdens, in favor of their suffering poor.” And curious it was to note the tight hold still retained on these same worldly goods by the commune of Interlachen, and to see, after a lapse of three centuries, their bureaux administratifs still located in the cloisters; nor can it be supposed that the “suffering poor” of Grindelwald have reaped much benefit from their three centuries of secular masters, if we may judge by the numberless beggars who now over‐run that whole district.

Having then related that much discontent at the state of affairs was felt by the monks of Interlachen, the abbot of Engelberg, and the inhabitants of Oberhasli—a district which, though under the protection of Berne, held many rights and privileges independent of that town—Zschokke proceeds: “When the commune of Oberhasli, encouraged by the monks of Engelberg and their neighbors of Unterwalden, likewise drove away the Protestant parsons, and sent to Uri and Unterwalden for Catholic priests, those of Grindelwald did the same; Aeschi, Frutigen, Obersimmel, and other villages followed their example, and the Unterwaldeners even sent them military assistance across the Brunig. But Berne flew to arms at once, and her army marched on rapidly, before the secession had time to increase. The timid and discontented peasants fled in a panic, and even the Unterwaldeners retreated over the mountain. Berne then punished Oberhasli severely—took away its public seal and many other privileges for a long period; for ever deprived the valley of the right to elect its own landamman; had the ringleaders of the movement executed, and forced the others to plead for pardon on their knees, surrounded by a circle of armed soldiers. Frutigen, the Simmenthal, and others were also brought back by main force to the Protestant faith”—if “faith” that can be called, we may add, which shows no sign of life in all these places.

In no happy frame of mind we pushed on next day to Berne, half inclined to abandon the remainder of our Swiss tour—an inclination which had ripened to a determination by the time we met our friend in the hall of the Berner Hof on the following morning.

In Berne, as in other of the large Swiss towns, Catholicity has made itself both seen and felt of late years, and a handsome church has recently been built there, in place of the one which was formerly shared with the Lutherans in that extraordinary manner still in operation in one or two Protestant parts of Germany. Some friends of ours, who had passed through Berne about fifteen years ago, had been at Mass early one Sunday morning, and, returning at a later hour, found the same church in possession of the Protestants, the only difference observable being the “communion‐table,” then placed at the end opposite to the Catholic altar, and the chairs turned round in that direction. This anomalous state of things has now ceased, and the new Catholic church is both pretty and well served. But the week‐day congregation is very small, and the half‐past seven o’clock Mass we found but thinly attended. Still, there it is, even so, in striking contrast to the Protestant cathedral. In pleasing contrast, were more truly said; for this beautiful pre‐Reformation cathedral, with its splendid porch of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, its elaborately‐carved choir, and its old stained‐glass History of the Blessed Eucharist, is lifeless and colorless in its present aspect. Though we went there at an early hour, every door was closed, except one at the side, jealously guarded by a cross old woman, who hindered all entrance until we had each paid thirty centimes. Then we were handed on to another woman—between them they had charge of the church—who ran from one party of sight‐seers to another, showing off the different points in a loud voice, just as if it were a museum or any other secular building! Had it been an English cathedral church even, there would probably have been a daily service; but then such a pious practice seemed quite as unfamiliar as to the peasants of Grindelwald. The old guardian stared at us in blank surprise on our asking the question, and—seeming to imply that she detected we were “Papists”—proudly answered, “Certainly not! Only on Sundays, and then at nine o’clock.”

As usual, no communion‐table stood in the place of the high altar, but here, as in many other Swiss churches, a large black marble table which serves for this purpose stands right in front of the choir and pulpit, and the stalls immediately near were assigned to the “Guardian of the Holy Supper” and one or two other of the church functionaries. In the cathedral square outside, the town has recently placed the beautiful statue of Rudolf von Erlach, the great hero of Laupen, one of the starting‐points of its history, in 1339. It was impossible, as we passed it, not to remember that the most glorious victories of Berne were fought and won in those olden days of the true faith, when her sons knew how to unite the love of freedom with devotion to the church and obedience to her authority, and that one of the prominent causes of that great and victorious battle was their refusal to recognize the Emperor Louis of Germany, simply because the pope had recently excommunicated him. Those golden days of Bernese history! of which her Protestant historian, Zschokke, is constrained to say that “the town, which was threatened with entire destruction, became so victorious as henceforward to threaten destruction to all her enemies. Her citizens had fought with one thousand iron arms against ten thousand; all with one mind and one heart; no one for himself, but all for the good of the town. In this manner alone can wonders be effected.”

Full of sad thoughts on the degeneracy of her present children, who strive to use their powerful influence over the rest of their confederates for the persecution and suppression of their former faith, we turned to seek information at the railway station about the trains to Lyons or Mâcon, persuaded that a further stay on Swiss ground would only increase our discontent; and, truly, our wrath grew to fever heat when, passing by the book‐stall, we found it filled with the most shocking caricatures—and worse—of everything Catholic, nay, everything religious. Illustrated Lives of the Saints, Of the Pious Helen, and such like titles, got up in the most attractive form, first caught our eyes and rejoiced our hearts with the hope of better things; but anything more scandalous than the scenes there depicted, the low, disgraceful ideas put forward, in the coarsest style, by both pen and pencil, we never before beheld exposed in any civilized community. In England the police would at once have interfered and seized the whole establishment. Here they covered the book‐ stall; and the woman who presided showed us undisguisedly that they were written and printed in Germany, and sent here for sale. What hope is there for populations who, in the name of religion, can countenance such wickedness?

It was at this stage of our perambulations and in this condition of mind that, on returning to the hotel, we had encountered Mrs. C——. She was no Catholic, but, entering into all our feelings, she protested that we should find everything quite different in the Catholic cantons, if we only would make the experiment. She had been there often, and knew that we should be delighted with them. To every objection we made she had a ready answer. Besides, what is more magical than the bright faces and kind looks of friends—above all, of old friends, when met abroad? As a natural consequence, therefore, it was not surprising to us to find ourselves, after all, seated with this pleasant party in the train which that afternoon was leaving for Lucerne. Our equanimity, it is true, was disturbed at the junction at Olten—by the sight of that manufacturing town full of the “free thought” and advanced liberals of modern society, the head‐quarters of Old‐Catholic meetings, and the only place where, at that date, the parish church had been given up to one of the few rebellious priests, whilst its true pastor was obliged to live in a small private house, where he still ministered to his old flock as in the days of early Christian persecution. But we soon reached Lucerne and a Catholic atmosphere, and what befell us in that quarter, what we saw and heard from its people, shall be related in the following chapters to our kind and indulgent readers.

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Epigram on Abraham Lincoln

Scivit in extremis statuum defendere fœdus: Reddidit optatam collecto milite pacem.

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Grapes And Thorns. Chapter XII. A Taper Lighted, And A Taper Blown Out

By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”

Our two travellers did not know how far removed they were from the common ways of life till they were again on land. The strangeness of a sea‐voyage had made their own strangeness less apparent; but when they saw homes, and all the daily interests of life moving on as once they had moved for them, familiar things assumed in their eyes a certain grotesque appearance, and they scarcely knew themselves or each other. How hollow sounded the careless laugh they heard, how terrible the jest! How impossible they found it to comprehend how business and pleasure could absorb men’s souls! To them this gay and busy world was wandering recklessly on the brink of an unseen precipice which they alone could see.

Annette Gerald had adopted her husband’s inner, as well as his outer, life—had, as it were, stepped inside his guilt, and wrapped it round her, and his world was henceforth her world. With his eyes she saw a leafless and flowerless England sweep behind her as they sped onward to London; and she shrank, even as he did, when the thick fog of the great city took them in and shut them as if in walls of stone.

“We cannot stay here,” her husband said. “I should lose my senses in twenty‐four hours. This fog makes me feel like a smoky house. Are you too tired to go on? Do let us have sunshine, at least.”

No, she was never too tired to go on with him.

They had a compartment to themselves, and, weary as they were, started on again, a little relieved in mind. No one had accosted them in either of the great cities, and there seemed to be no immediate danger. Overcome with fatigue and loss of sleep, they both leaned back in the soft cushions, and slept soundly till some sound or a slackening of their speed awakened them.

The London fog was far away, and they found themselves passing slowly and smoothly through a cloud‐world of blue and silver. There was no land in sight. The window at one side showed them a cliff that might be alabaster, and might be an illuminated cloud. At the other side, a deep‐blue sea, foam‐flecked, and a deep blue sky half‐veiled in silvery mists, were so entangled with each other that only where the full moon rode could they be sure that it was sky, and only where the wave ran up and curled over in foam almost within their reach could they be sure that it was water.

“The fairies have taken possession of Dover,” Annette said. “I hope they have not whisked the steamer away. No; here it is. We will stay on deck, Lawrence. It is not cold.”

As they steamed out into the channel, another scene of enchantment took the place of the ordinary view. As they withdrew from the town, it showed only a crescent of lights; lights clustered all over the foamy water, and stars clustered in openings of the fleecy clouds above, so that they moved as if swimming through constellations.

“I hardly know which is up and which is down,” Lawrence said. “Is Europe made of clay and rock, like America?”

His wife was leaning on his arm, and they stood looking over the rail of the little steamer. “We might come this way a hundred times, and not see such a sight,” she replied. “But there is land beyond. That is France—that low, dark line. In a few hours we shall be in Paris. I shall be glad to rest when we get there.”

But when they reached it, Paris was as much too light as London had been too dark. In the one city a foe might stumble upon them at any moment; in the other, he might see them from afar. They went to a dingy little hotel in the old part of Paris, and stayed there one day, trying to find rest, but in vain. Every sound made their hearts beat more quickly; every glance and sudden step near them sent the blood to their faces. Besides, the quiet of the place afforded them no distraction from their thoughts. The noises in the narrow street on which the hotel was built were all shut out by the heavy portal, and the quadrangle was as still as a forest solitude. Ivy climbed about the windows, a tiny fountain overflowed and ran in a stream across the pavement, and the only persons who appeared were the clergymen who were the chief patrons of the house, and now and then the universal waiter and servant of servants, François, who shuffled across the view, a napkin over his arm, and his heavy head dropped forward, so that only a great ball of frowzy dark hair was visible.

“We cannot stay here,” Annette said, as they stood by the window the first evening after their arrival. “It is too much like a prison.” She felt her husband start, and made haste to add: “It is stupid, and I fancy the air is not good. Besides, Paris is too gay, if we go out into the city. We do not want gaiety, Lawrence. We want some earnest employment for our time.”

“We will go to Rome,” he said.

“Rome!” she hesitated. “One meets everybody there,” she said; “and there are so many idlers, too, who have nothing to do but talk of other people’s affairs. Are you sure you wish to go to Rome, dear?”

“I must go! I have an object in going there,” he exclaimed, excited by the first show of even slight opposition. “I stake all on Rome. Whatever happens to me, let it happen there.”

“We will go, then,” she answered soothingly. “And we may as well set out to‐night. Nothing is unpacked, and we have three hours before the train starts.”

He walked to and fro over the stone floor of their little sitting‐room, which allowed only half a dozen paces, so narrow was it. “Three hours!” he muttered. “It is too much! Cannot we go out? There must be a church near.”

“Yes; in France and in Italy there is always a church near.”

They went into the fading sunset, and soon found themselves entering the old church of S. Etienne du Mont. Inside, the pale gloaming was changed to a richly‐tinted gloom that grew every moment deeper. Here and there a lamp marked some picture or shrine held in special veneration, and far away in the apse of the church, where the shadows stretched off till they seemed reaching out to eternity, burned a single point of light, as small as a star.

Annette clasped her hands over her husband’s arm, and leaned her cheek close to his shoulder, as they stood near the door and looked at this little beacon. “O Lawrence!” she whispered, “it is like the light the mother sets in the window to guide her children home at night. O me! O me!” she cried pitifully. “What is to become of us!”

A crown of tapers burned about the shrine where the body of S. Geneviève had once lain, and an old woman sat near by with her prayer‐book, presiding over a table piled with tapers of different lengths, her white cap showing like a little heap of snow in the place.

“People buy tapers for a sou or two, and set them by the shrine to honor S. Geneviève and remind her of their needs,” Annette said softly as they approached this illuminated space. “Would you like to offer one?”

Lawrence Gerald had been wont to mock somewhat at such observances in the old time before life had been shattered about him and shown eternity between its gaps. Now he went eagerly forward, selected a taper, lighted it, and placed it, whispering a prayer while his fingers lingered on it. Annette followed his example, placing her offering beside his, and making her request also.

As they were turning away, a sacristan approached them from the next chapel, and asked if they had any article they would like to have touched to the inside of the shrine. Annette immediately gave him her rosary, which he laid an instant where the saint’s body had lain.

“Ask him if I can put my hands in,” Lawrence whispered.

“Certainly you can!” she answered with dignity, seeing the man look rather curiously at him.

She held the lid open, and her husband put both his hands in, and instantly drew them back, his eyes dilating and his color rising, as if he had put them into fire.

They walked on past the grand altar, and knelt in a nook by a confessional. The daylight faded, and the smouldering fires of the windows went out in black and ashen gray. But when no outer brightness was left to enter and show the glories of that house of God, the lamps and tapers inside burned with a clearer flame. They shed a faint illumination through the vast twilight; they spread a soft gilding up the height of the clustered pillars, and made tender the gloom brooding in the roof that arched over their capitals; they sparkled on the crowns of the saints, and touched marble faces with such a holy radiance that a soul seemed to shine through them.

A slight stir in the confessional near them showed that a priest was there. “Lawrence,” said Annette suddenly, “may I go to confession?”

“Wait a minute,” he answered. “I will go first, and then you will only need to say that you are my wife.”

His tone revealed a bitter pain; for unconsciously her question had shown that there was no weight on her conscience save that which he had placed there, and that she was more in need of consolation than of forgiveness.

She sank on to her knees again. “O my God!” she murmured, “has it come to this, that I must enter thy house without being able to find comfort there?”

It was nearly half an hour before Lawrence joined her, and they went out together. “I have no wish to go now,” she said when he offered to wait while she went to confession. “Besides, there is no time, if we are to start to‐night.”

“Do you know, Annette, what I prayed for when I put the taper up in honor of S. Geneviève?” her husband asked when they were again in the street. “I asked that my mother may die in peace before the month is out. That will be in less than two weeks.”

“My poor Lawrence!” she sighed.

“And can you guess the reason why I wish, above all things, to go to Rome, and don’t much care what may happen after?” he went on. “Of course you cannot. Well, I want to receive absolution from the Pope. I go to confession, and pour out my story there, and I feel no better for it; or, if I feel better than I should without confession, I am still not at peace. I don’t feel absolved. Yet I want to go to confession every hour of the day. I am like the Ancient Mariner, who had to tell his story to every one he met. I want to tell mine to every priest in the world.”

“But, dear Lawrence,” she said, “that will not be so easy to compass. Don’t expect such a privilege too confidently. You know we cannot have an audience, because we cannot go to him under false names. If we could, his blessing would satisfy you, would it not? But I see no way, dear, though I would not discourage you.”

For once her objections did not irritate him. “I have been thinking of it ever since we left America,” he said; “and in one way or another I shall succeed. Yes, his blessing would be enough; and if there were no other way, I could tell him my real name. Now, we must make haste. We have just time to reach the station.”

How many hearts have quickened in their beating as they travelled that road, drawing near to Italy! How many eyes have gazed eagerly at that first cross, set aloft on the mountain side, at the first shrine of the Virgin Mother! And then come the armies of poplars and solemn cypresses.

“They look as if the dead warriors, and prelates, and poets had risen from their graves, and were staring out over Italy to see what their degenerate sons were doing,” Annette said. “See how tightly they hold their cold green robes about them!”

Our travellers slept a few hours at Turin, and, resuming their journey before daylight, reached Florence in the evening. And here, having some time to wait, they wandered out, hoping to find a church open; but all were closed at this hour. Presently they found themselves standing on the bridge of the Holy Trinity, listening to a burst of wild music from many bugles, played by some unseen band. So loud and piercing was the strain, the very stars appeared to tremble as it went up. Then, as suddenly as it rose, it dropped again, and all was silent. The city was quiet, and the Arno gleamed across it like a jewelled cestus across a sleeping breast. Its waters seemed to have crystallized into a purple enamel about the golden reflections of the lights along its banks, not a ripple showing which way they flowed. Not far away, another bridge spanned the tide, its soft and dreamlike arches set roundly over the answering arches in the deeps below. A small boat, faintly seen, shot underneath this bridge, and disappeared. It was a vision of Florence as one sees it in history and poetry.

The two strangers leaned on the balustrade of the bridge, and, as they gazed, felt the curse upon them grow less sharp, as though they were ghosts, and their crime some old, old story, touched with a sad splendor by poet and painter, and half washed away by the tears of pitying generations.

Standing there, silent and half comforted, they became aware of a low, murmurous sound of many feet and voices; and then a long line of white‐ robed figures appeared, carrying torches. A bier was borne aloft in their midst, what it held covered with an embroidered pall that glistened with gold. These men recited prayers together as they went, and the river and bridge were for a moment bright with the glare of their torches. Then they disappeared, and a star‐lighted quiet reigned again over the city of flowers.

Annette touched her husband’s arm, and they reluctantly turned away from that spot where first they had experienced a feeling of peace.

And then, all night they plunged deeper and deeper into Italy, till morning and the Eternal City met their faces, and dazzled them.

“Thank God! I am in Rome at last,” exclaimed Lawrence. “Now nothing but death shall tear me away from it.”

Yes, there it was! the crumbling, stately city of the past, looking as if it had just risen from the bottom of the sea, after having been submerged for centuries. It was all a faded gold color, like autumn leaves, and its narrow streets were chilly, as though death had breathed through them. But its heights were warm and sunny, and its dusky trees and hedges were steeped in warmth, and over its magnificent decay the sky was fresh and blue, and the morning sunshine flowed bountifully.

“Now,” said Mrs. Gerald, becoming business‐like at once, “we must first engage an apartment, and get our luggage into it. I think I know Italian enough for that, thanks to the songs I have learned.”

“Do you propose singing an aria to call a cab?” her husband asked. “And will you engage an apartment to the tune of ‘Hear me, Norma’?”

He smiled, and for a breath looked like his old self. But the next instant his face changed. The thought of his mother was enough to banish the smile for ever.

That thought had taken full possession of him, filling him with a terror, sorrow, and longing that burned in his heart like consuming fire. His flight had been made with no feeling but fear for himself; but with the first breath of the air of the city of saints, he inhaled a penitence which was without taint of weakness.

While his wife, then, arranged their affairs, and attended to the preparation of their little ménage, he took in hand the one work possible for him—the study of his own soul. This anguish for his mother, whom he loved deeply, much as he had wronged her, was like a sword that cleft the selfish crust of his nature. His whole life came up before him with merciless distinctness—all its ingratitude, its pettishness, its littleness, its sinful waste, its many downward steps leading to the final plunge to ruin. He saw, as if it were before him, his mother’s loving, patient face; he heard, as if she were speaking at his side, her sad and tremulous voice; and more pathetic even than her sorrow were the brief moments of happiness he had given her, her smile of pride in him, her delight when he showed her some mark of affection, her eager anticipation of his wishes. As he went back over this past, the self‐pity, the blindness, the false shame, were stripped away from him, and he saw himself as he was.

“Nothing but utter ruin could have brought me to my senses,” he said to his wife one day, when he had been sitting for a long while silent, gazing out at a little fountain that sprang into air in a vain effort to reach the laden orange‐tree that overshadowed it.

She made no reply, and he needed none. She had let him go his own ways, keeping watch, but never interfering. She had nothing to do for him now but wait and see what sort of call he would make on her.

He wandered from church to church, and knelt at every shrine in the city of shrines. Wherever the signal lamp told that there some troubled soul had found help, he sent up his petition. He glanced with indifferent eyes past the rich marbles and gilding; but when a face looked from marble or canvas with an expression that touched his heart, there he made his appeal. The luxuries of life grew loathsome to him; fashion and gaiety were to him like a taunt of the evil one, who had used them as lures for his destruction. He hated the fineness of his own clothes, the daintiness of his food. None of the people he saw seemed to him enviable, save the poor monks in their coarse brown robes, with their bare feet thrust into rough sandals. In his own house he lived like an ascetic.

Now and then he would rouse himself from this stern and prolonged examen to think of his wife. She had claims on him which, perhaps, he was forgetting.

“You poor child!” he said, “we are not in India, that you should immolate yourself over my dead hopes. What can I do for you. I would free you, if I could.”

“You are not to think of me,” she replied quietly. “It is God who now commands you to think of yourself.”

“Yes!” he exclaimed, “I have made my own instruments of torture. Having thought of myself when it was a sin, I am forced to think of myself when it is a torment. And I escape that thought only to remember my victims. Annette, but one day is left of the four weeks. O my mother! if space could be annihilated, and I could be with you till it is over! If I could but know what has happened, what will happen, to her!”

He had spent the whole day in a church near by, sometimes praying before an altar, sometimes gazing at the pictures, in search of a divine meaning that might be hidden in them; but oftener, withdrawn to a dusky nook where only a single lamp burned before a head crowned with thorns, he gave himself up to grief.

“It is useless to wish and repine,” his wife replied sadly. “That is one of the weaknesses we must cure ourselves of. Since it is only a torment to imagine what may be taking place at home, let us try to banish the thought, leaving all in the hands of God. And now, Lawrence, do you know that you have eaten nothing to‐day? When you stay so long again, I shall go after you. In Rome, at this season, it is dangerous to allow the strength to fail. You will soon be ill, if you go on fasting so.”

“And what matter if I should?” he asked.

The wife waited till the servant had placed the dinner on the table and gone out before she spoke, and the moment of consideration had made her resolve on a stern answer, however willingly she would have given a tender one. She had long since discovered that her husband was one of those whom the flatteries of affection enervate instead of stimulating, and she was not sure enough of a radical change having taken place in him to yield to her own impulse to soothe and persuade when reproof might be more effectual.

“Of all the gifts which God has bestowed on you,” she said, “you have cast away every one but life; but with that life you may yet atone, and become a blessing to the world. It is your duty to watch over the only means left you of making reparation.”

He did not show the slightest displeasure at her reproof. On the contrary, there seemed to be something in it almost pleasant to him. Perhaps the suggestion that he might yet be a blessing in the world, incredible as that appeared, inspired him with an undefined hope. He dwelt thoughtfully on her words in a way that was becoming habitual to him whenever she spoke with peculiar seriousness, and Annette, seeing his humility, was half sorry for having put it to the test. With a confused impulse to give him at least some pitiful and perilous comfort, she poured a glass of wine, and placed it by him, well aware that for weeks he had not drunk any.

He put it away decidedly. “I would as soon drink poison, Annette,” he said reproachfully. “I did not think that you would offer it to me.”

She withdrew the glass immediately, ashamed of her weakness, and making a hasty apology. “If I had known you had made any resolution on the subject, I would not have offered it,” she said. “Forgive me! I never will again.”

“Oh! there was no resolution needed,” he said. “If you had been burned almost to death once, would you need to resolve not to go into the fire again? I fancy the sight of it would be enough. But I think I may promise never again to take wine, unless I should be commanded to by some one who knows better than I.”

His wife did not reply. This was a degree of asceticism which she had not expected and was afraid to trust. She had expected him to refuse indulgences, but not consolations. Indeed, she did not now understand her husband, and her hope of his redemption was but a trembling one. This self‐denial might be only another illustration of that instability which rushes from one extreme to the other, only to return to its first excess.

We all know how to rely on that natural firmness, which the sad experience of mankind has shown to be never so strong but it may fail at any hour; but the supernatural strength of the naturally weak who have cast themselves on God often finds no doubting. We miss the firm lips, the steady eyes, the undaunted brow—those signs of a resolute soul which the pagan shares with the Christian—and we forget that the tremulous mouth we distrust has sighed out its prayer to Him who is mighty, the shrinking eyes have looked upon the hills whence help cometh, the timid brow has been hidden beneath the wing of an angel guardian, and that, faltering though the soul may have been, and may be again, the shield of God is before it, and it can be conquered by no human strength.

This soul had made such an advance as to be conscious of some such fortitude infused into it. Lawrence Gerald had no fear of falling into his former sins. He might have the misery of seeing the destruction he had brought on others, might be himself destroyed by a sorrow and remorse too great to bear; but he had an immovable conviction that he could never again return to his old ways nor commit any grave transgression. It was this conviction which had made him say that nothing but destruction could have brought him to his senses.

“I like that church you took me to this morning,” he said, walking slowly up and down the room. “The others, many of them, seem to me fit only for the happy. They are all display and confusion and sight‐seers, with scarcely a nook in them where a person in trouble can hide. They do not give me any impression of sacredness. But this one is so quiet and sober, and there are no people standing about with guide‐books, talking aloud while you are praying or trying to pray. Then there is a little place, half chapel, half vestibule, between the church and the sacristy, where a side door enters the church, with an Ecce Homo in a little shrine; and there you can be quite private, without any one staring at you. I shall go to that church altogether.”

The church he spoke of was Santa Maria della Pace.

“It is Our Lady of Peace,” his wife said, “and was built to commemorate the peace of Christendom. I thought it would please you. Surely some special consolation and tranquillity should linger about a temple built and cemented with such an intention. I like it, too, better than most others we have visited, though it is not so splendid as many.”

She did not tell him that, after having left his side, when the early Mass was over, she had lingered in the church till it was closed at noon, not to watch him, but to be near him. Requesting the sacristan to withdraw the curtain covering the Four Sibyls of Raphael, she had seated herself before the chapel opposite, and divided her attention between that matchless vision and the unquiet figure that moved about the church. Once he had come near, but without seeming aware of her presence, and, standing at her side, had gazed with her. And while he gazed, she had seen the trouble in his face grow still for a moment. The noble serenity of that composition, so soothing to eyes wearied by the sprawling magnificence of Michael Angelo and the ever‐present, dishevelled, wind‐tossed figures of Bernini, lifted his soul to a higher plane. Even when he sighed and turned away, as if not willing to allow himself the pleasure of looking at so much beauty, he carried something of that spirit of harmony with him.

“Lawrence,” his wife said presently, when she had borne his restless promenade as long as she could, “I know that you did not sleep any last night. I wish that you would take a powder that I will give you, and try to sleep now. You look worn out. Lie down on the sofa here, and I will keep everything quiet.”

He shook his head. “I would rather not take anything to make me sleep, Ninon. And to‐night I would not sleep, if I could. But I will lie down here a little while; for I am tired, now I think of it.”

He threw himself on the sofa, and she placed a screen before him, and closed the window near his head, so that even the soft plashing of the fountain was shut out, and the small notes of birds that twittered in the great pine‐tree in the garden. And after a little while, finding him still restless, she went to the piano, and sang how God sent Elias to reassure and comfort a doubting and tempted soul. The notes flowed with a soothing murmur from under her fingers, and her voice, no longer the brilliant, ringing tones he had taken such pride in, was so low it might be a spirit singing:

“Tell him that his very longing Is itself an answering cry; That his prayer, ‘Come, gracious Alla!’ Is my answer, ‘Here am I!’ Every inmost aspiration Is God’s angel undefiled; And in every ’O my Father!’ Slumbers deep a ‘Here, my child!’ ”

Ending, she listened a moment, then stole across the room, and looked behind the screen. Lawrence was sleeping, with his head thrown back, his beautiful profile and moist, dark curls thrown out strongly by the garnet cushions and pillow.

She went to the window, and seated herself on a footstool near it, wrapping the long red curtains about her, and leaning against the wall. The sculptured marble of that stately salon was cold against her cheek; a flock of doves wheeling about over the garden caught some last rays of the sun on their wings, and threw them down over her, so that little white wings seemed to be fluttering all around the room; the casement slipped open, and the sound of tossing waters and twittering birds again became audible; but the watcher there took no note of these things. She was looking at the figure stretched on the sofa, and thinking that in all Rome there was no ruin so mournful and so terrible. He was like some fair column stricken from out a temple and cast aside into the dust; not touched by the hand of time, that, with its slow to‐and‐fro of days and nights, and seasons and years, lulls all the pain of decay to sleep, but broken and scathed, as if by lightning.

While she looked, he stirred, and opened his eyes; and the sympathetic pain with which she saw how he came back to a consciousness of his position almost drew an outcry from her. The first tranquil, half‐ wondering glance which saw, instead of the familiar surroundings of his childhood and youth, that immense room, with its profuse hangings and painted ceiling, and the long windows opening like doors; then the brief flash of startled questioning; lastly, the anguish of full recollection.

“O my God! my God!” he exclaimed, and hid his face in the cushions again.

She was at his side in a moment.

“Let us go out for a long drive, Lawrence,” she said. “There will be a bright moonlight to‐night, and we can see so many places by it. Come! I will send for a carriage at once. There is nothing else for either of us to do.”

Nothing could have shown more clearly the change in Lawrence Gerald than his manner of receiving this proposal. Instead of expressing at once his aversion, and reproaching his wife that she could believe it possible for him to go sight‐seeing at such a time, he stopped to consider if what she thought best might not be best, however it should seem to him.

“You must think for me now, Annette,” he said with a sort of despair. “You know I do not wish to seek pleasure nor distraction; but I suppose I must live.”

She sent for a carriage at once, and they went out under the full moon that was beginning to replace, with its pearly southern lights and northern shadows, the fading cross‐lights of the sun. They drove to the Colosseum, not yet despoiled of its sacred emblems, and, kneeling there in the dust, made the stations in their own way. Annette named each one as they reached it, then left her husband to make his meditation, or to utter the ejaculation that started up from his tormented heart, as sharp as a blade from its sheath.

At last they stood together by the crucifix, with the moonlight falling on them and through the great arches in a silvery rain.

Annette saw her husband wipe his forehead, though the night was cool. He breathed heavily, and looked at the earth beneath his feet, as if he saw through it, and beheld the martyr lying where he fell centuries before.

“O my dear!” she said, “I know that there is no lion like remorse. But is it no comfort to you that you are not alone?”

“It is both a comfort and a pain,” he answered gently. “I should be desolate without you, and I should have done something desperate, perhaps, if I had been alone. You must understand my gratitude and my regret without expecting me to express them. I cannot speak. I know I have wronged you bitterly, and that you are an angel of goodness to me; but I can say no more about it. If I were at my mother’s feet this moment, I should be speechless. I cannot pray even. I acknowledge the justice of God, and will endure whatever he sends. That is all I can say.”

He had forced himself to speak, she perceived, with a great effort. The season of complaints and outcries had gone past, and he had entered on the way of silence.

They went out, and left the ruin to its solemn tenants—the gliding shadows, which might be the troubled ghosts of the slayers, and the floating lights, which might be the glorified souls of the slain, visiting the loved spot where they had seen the heavens open for them.

The streets were nearly deserted when the two returned to them, their horses walking. They stopped at the fountain of Trevi, leaned awhile on the stone rail, and watched the streams that burst in snowy foam all along the front.

“What a heap of coals and ashes Rome would be without her fountains!” Annette said. “It would be like a family of patriarchs where no children are seen. And yet the waters do not always seem to me so childish. Theirs is the youth and freshness of angels. See how triumphant they look! They have been a long while in the dark, till they may have despaired of ever seeing the sun again. It is the way of souls, Lawrence. They walk in darkness and pain, they cannot see their way, and they sometimes doubt if light any longer exists. And at last they burst from their prison, and find themselves in the city of God.”

“Yes,” he said, “but they have not sinned; they have only suffered. I have always thought, Annette, that the saints have the easier life. You know we are told that the way of the transgressor is hard.”

“But the saints did not choose that life because it was the easier,” she replied. “They gave no thought to such a reward, but it was bestowed on them; and probably, when they chose, the other way seemed the easier, in spite of what the preacher says. The person who chooses a good life because it is the easier will never persevere in it; for the devil will always persuade him that he has made a mistake, and, since he chose from a selfish motive, God will owe him no help. The saints took what was hard, and what seemed the hardest because it was right, and left the consequences with God; and they had their reward. The sinner takes what seems the easiest, and thinks only of himself; and he, too, has his reward. Do not the waters look lovely? They are so fresh and new! How beautiful an image it is to compare divine grace to a fountain!”

They drove on through the town, across the bridge of S. Angelo, and saw the angel sheathing his sword—or was he unsheathing it?—against the sky, and, leaving their carriage at the entrance of the piazza of S. Peter’s, walked across it to that majestic temple, which, more than any other, and at that hour more than ever, seemed worthy of the Spouse of the Spirit. Golden and white, the mystical flood of moonlight veiled it, rippling along its colonnades, glittering in its fountains, setting a pavement of chalcedony across the piazza and up the wide ascent, and trembling round the dome that swelled upward like a breast full with the divine milk and honey with which the church nourishes her children.

Lawrence stopped near the obelisk.

“The first question the church asked of me when I was brought before her, an infant,” he said, “was what I had come to ask of her, and my sponsors answered for me, Faith. Now once again she asks the same question.”

He was silent a moment, looking up at the church, but with eyes that saw only the sacred Mother. Tears rolled down his face, and his lips trembled; but there was no sign of that desperate passion which had so worn him. “I ask for forgiveness and perseverance,” he said.

She observed that he did not ask for peace.

He went forward to the steps, and knelt there; and as he wept and prayed, his wife heard ever the same petition that God would have mercy on his mother, that in some way he would spare her the blow that threatened to fall upon her, and that she might know how he loved her and mourned his ingratitude.

Annette withdrew from her husband, and paced to and fro not far away. She, too, had a mother who was about to be stricken with grief on her account, and whom she might never again see in life.

She had almost forgotten her husband and how time was flying, when she heard his voice at her side.

“My poor Annette, I am killing you,” he said. “Come home. See! the day is breaking.”

The east was, indeed, growing pale with the early dawn, and the western colonnade was throwing long shadows as the moon declined. It was time for them to return. Chilled and exhausted, they entered their carriage, and were driven home.

The dawn of that same day, when in its course the sun rose from the Atlantic, and brightened the New England shore, saw Mrs. Gerald and Honora Pembroke go to early Mass together.

F. Chevreuse had visited them the morning before, and requested them to go to communion that day, and pray for themselves, their friends, and for his intention.

“I have a difficult duty to perform,” he said, “and I want all the help I can get. So make yourselves as saintly as possible, my dear friends. Confess and prepare yourselves for holy communion as if it were to be your last, and pray with all your strength, and do not allow a single smallest venial sin to touch you all day.”

F. Chevreuse often asked them to pray for his intention, and all they observed in this was his unusual earnestness. It had the effect of making them also unusually earnest in their devotion. Mrs. Gerald was, indeed, so absorbed that she failed to notice that when Honora came from the priest’s house, where she had been just before evening, she did not look quite well. F. Chevreuse had requested her to come there from her school, before going home, and she had been with him nearly an hour.

“So you have been to confession,” Mrs. Gerald said, arranging the tray for their tea. “I thought we would go there together this evening.”

She spoke in a very gentle, almost absent way; for she had been saying, as she went about, all the short prayers she could remember to the Blessed Virgin, and would resume them presently.

“So we will go together,” Miss Pembroke replied. “But I wanted to see F. Chevreuse this afternoon.”

She seated herself in a shady corner of the room, and opened her prayer‐ book; but it trembled so in her hand that she was forced to lay it aside, and pretend to be occupied with her rosary instead. Now and then she stole a glance at her companion, and saw with thankfulness that she was entirely occupied with her devotions. As she went about, preparing with dainty care their simple meal, her lips were moving; and sometimes she would pause a moment to bless herself, or to kiss the crucifix suspended from her neck, or to dwell on some sweet thought she had found hidden in a little prayer, like a blossom under a leaf.

And later in the evening, when the two returned from the priest’s house, there was nothing to attract attention in Miss Pembroke’s manner; for they sat reading and meditating till it was bed‐time. It was their custom, since they lived alone, to prepare thus strictly for the reception of the Holy Eucharist.

Mrs. Gerald stood a minute before the embers of the dying fire, when they were ready to go up‐stairs, the hand she had stretched for the bed‐candle resting on the edge of the mantel‐piece near it. “How peaceful we are here, Honora!” she said in her soft way, yet rather suddenly.

Miss Pembroke was bending to push the few remaining coals back, and her reply was indistinct, yet sounded like an affirmative.

“We have so much to be grateful for,” Mrs. Gerald went on. “I do not think that we could be more comfortable. I am sure that greater riches would disturb me. Indeed, I never wanted riches, except for Lawrence; and now he does not need them. I can truly say that I have all I desire.”

Miss Pembroke did not reply nor look up. She only stooped lower, and stretched her hands out over the coals, as if to warm them. Yet the two had always been so in harmony that her silence seemed to be assent.

“F. Chevreuse spoke beautifully to me to‐night,” Mrs. Gerald continued, still lingering. “He kept me some time talking after I had made my confession; and, what is unusual with him, he spoke of himself. He said that all the favors he has to ask of God are for others; but that when he comes to pray for himself, he can only say, ‘Amen.’ Now and then, he said, he thinks to ask some special favor; but when he lifts his eyes to heaven, only one word comes: ‘Amen! amen!’ I did not understand, while he spoke, how much it meant; but I have been thinking it over since I came home, and I see that the word may include all that a Christian need say.”

A murmured “Yes!” came from Honora, who turned her head aside that the candle might not shine in her face. “And now, dear Mrs. Gerald, since we are to rise early, we had better go to bed. Can I do anything for you? Is there anything to do to‐night?”

“Nothing, thank you, dear!”

They went up‐stairs together, and, when they parted, Miss Pembroke embraced her friend with unusual tenderness. “May you have a good night’s sleep!” she said; and, in the anguish of her heart, could almost have added, “And may you never wake!”

For F. Chevreuse had wisely judged it best to prepare her to sustain her friend when the hour of trial should come; and Honora, better than any other perhaps, understood what that shock would be.

“Go out in the morning and dismiss your school for the day,” the priest had said to her. “Then return home immediately, and make some excuse for it. You will easily be able to plead a headache, I fancy. Tell Mrs. Gerald that F. O’Donovan is coming to see her, so that she may not go out. And pray, my child, pray! What else is there for any of us to do in this terrible world but pray?”

Honora was obliged to make her excuses before going to school, for Mrs. Gerald at length noticed her altered looks, and almost insisted on dismissing the school for her. But she would not allow that.

“I shall feel better to go out than to sit in the house waiting,” she said, quite truly. “But I will come back at once. Pray do not be anxious about me. You know I am strong and healthy.”

When she returned, she found that Mrs. Gerald had, with motherly affection, made every preparation for her comfort. A deep sofa was pushed into a shady corner of the sitting‐room, pillows and a shawl were laid ready, and, as she entered the room, she perceived the pleasant odor of pennyroyal, their favorite remedy for colds and headaches.

Mrs. Gerald set down the steaming cup she held, and began to remove her young friend’s bonnet and shawl. “I thought you would rather lie down here than go up stairs by yourself,” she said. “I will keep everything quiet.”

Honora submitted to be made an invalid of, since this tender soul could have no greater pleasure than to relieve suffering; allowed herself to be assisted to the sofa; let Mrs. Gerald arrange the pillows under her head and cover her with the shawl; then drank obediently the remedy offered her. But all the while her heart was sinking with an agony of apprehension, and she listened breathlessly for a step which was to bring doom to this unconscious victim.

“Now what else can I do for you, dear?” her nurse asked, looking vainly to see what had not been done.

Honora answered, “Nothing”; but, recollecting that something might be needed, if not for her, added, “You might place a glass of water and the camphor‐bottle here where I can reach them.”

Mrs. Gerald brought them, from the mere pleasure of serving. “But you must not drink the water, for you are to be kept warm,” she said. “Your hands are quite cold now. And, you know, camphor never does you any good.”

She was about turning away when Honora took her hand, and detained her. She dared not look up, but she held the hand close to her cheek on the pillow. “Dear friend,” she said in a stifled voice, “it sometimes almost hurts me to remember how good and kind you have always been to me. I hope I have never seemed ungrateful; I have never felt so. But in future I want to be more than ever to you. Let me be your daughter, and live with you always. I do not want to go away with any one else.”

“My daughter!” said Mrs. Gerald, full of loving surprise and pleasure; and stooped to leave a kiss on the girl’s forehead.

“And now, dear mother,” said Honora, “do not fancy that I am very sick. In an hour, all will be over.”

Mrs. Gerald smiled at this promise of sudden cure.

“Then I will leave you quiet a little while, and go out to water my plants. The seeds have come up which I sowed in the tracks my other two children made; and in a day or two, when Lawrence and Annette come home, their footprints will be quite green.”

She spoke with a gentle gaiety, for she was happy. So much affection had been shown her, she seemed to be of such help and value to those she loved best, that life assumed for her an aspect of spring and; youth, and a gladness long unknown to her rose up in her heart.

As she left the room, Honora looked eagerly after her, raising herself on her elbow, as soon as she was out of sight, and listening toward the door. When she heard her step on the veranda, she started off the sofa, and ran to look out through a blind into the garden. Mrs. Gerald was on her knees by the precious tracks, which she had carefully enclosed with slender pegs of wood, and was sprinkling with water the tiny blades of green that grew thickly inside. A soft and tender smile played round her lips, and the wrinkles that pain and anxiety sometimes drew in her face were all smoothed away. The spring morning hung over her like a benediction, silent and bright, not a breath of wind stirring; and in that secluded street, with its cottages and embowering trees, she was as safe from public observation as she would have been in the country.

Honora glanced at the clock. It wanted five minutes of ten.

“Five minutes more of happiness!” she murmured, and, from faintness, sank on her knees before the window, looking out still with her eyes fixed on that quiet, bending figure.

Mrs. Gerald stretched her hand and slowly made the sign of the cross over each one of those precious footprints. “May all their steps be toward heaven!” she whispered. “May angels guard them now and for ever, and may the blessings of the poor and the suffering spring up wherever they go, like these flowers, in their path.”

She rose and stood looking off into distance, tears of earnest feeling glistening in her eyes.

“Two minutes longer!” murmured Honora, who felt as if the room were swimming around her, so that she had to grasp the window‐ledge for support. She could not see, but she heard a step on the sidewalk, and, though it was more measured than usual, there was no possibility of mistaking it. Only one step would come in that way and stop at their gate this morning. She heard F. O’Donovan’s voice, and presently the two came into the entry together.

“Perhaps you had better come into the parlor,” Mrs. Gerald was saying. “Honora is lying down in there. She has a bad headache this morning.”

“Nevertheless, we will go in and see her,” was the reply.

Miss Pembroke started up, frightened at her own weakness. It would never do to fail now, when all the strength she could show would be needed. She had only time to seat herself on the sofa when they entered the room.

“My dear child! why did you not lie still?” Mrs. Gerald exclaimed. “I am sure F. O’Donovan would excuse you.”

“I would rather sit up, if you will come and sit by me,” Honora answered; and, taking Mrs. Gerald’s hands, drew her down to the sofa, and sat there holding her in a half embrace.

The lady noticed with surprise that no greeting passed between the priest and Honora, and that he had not uttered a word of sympathy for her illness, nor, indeed, scarcely glanced at her. He went to the window, and opened one of the blinds.

“Allow me to have a ray of sunshine in the room,” he said. “Why should we shut it out? It is like divine love in a sorrowful world.”

Mrs. Gerald had hardly time to notice this somewhat unusual freedom of manner on the part of F. O’Donovan, for, as he came and seated himself near her, she was struck by the paleness and gravity of his face.

“Are you ill? Has anything happened?” she asked hastily; but he saw that in her anxiety there was no thought of danger to herself. It was a friendly solicitude for him; and she instantly glanced at Honora, as if connecting her illness with his altered appearance. That her young friend might have some cause of trouble seemed to her quite possible; for she had never been able to disabuse her mind of the belief that Honora had become more interested in Mr. Schöninger than she would own, and that she had never recovered entirely from the shock of his disgrace.

“I have great news to tell you,” said F. O’Donovan. “Mr. Schöninger is proved innocent, and will immediately be set at liberty.”

“How glad I am!” exclaimed Mrs. Gerald, who immediately believed that she understood all. “But how is it known?”

“The real criminal has confessed,” the priest went on; “and the confession and the circumstances are all of a sort to excite our deepest compassion. For it was not a deliberate crime, but only one of those steps which a man who has once consented to walk in the wrong path seems compelled to take. The poor fellow was deceived, and led on as all sinners are. He was in pecuniary difficulties, and yielded to a temptation to take F. Chevreuse’s money, intending to repay it. The rest followed almost as a matter of course. Mother Chevreuse defended her son’s property, and the poor sinner had to secure what he had risked so much to obtain, and escape the disgrace of detection. Others were approaching, and he was desperate. He gave an unlucky push, with no intention but to free himself, and the devil looked out for the result. But, if you could know how entirely that poor soul has repented, not only the fatal step in which his errors ended, but every smallest fault that led to it, you would have only pity for him. Mother Chevreuse died a good and holy woman, full of years and good works, and perhaps her death will be the cause of one man being a saint. He promises everything for the future, and that with a fervor which no one can doubt. He acknowledges the justice of any contumely and suffering and loss which may befall him. The only thought too hard for him to bear is that of the sorrow he has brought on his own family. If he could suffer alone, he would not complain; he would suffer tenfold, if it were possible, to spare those he loves.”

Mrs. Gerald had listened with intense interest to this story, and when it was ended she drew a long breath. “Poor man!” she sighed. “Has he a wife?”

“Yes; he has a wife who is all devotion to him, and who will follow him to the last. She will never be separated from him.”

“Will she go to prison with him? Will she be allowed to do that?” Mrs. Gerald asked in surprise.

“Oh! it is not a question of imprisonment,” the priest replied. “He has escaped, and will probably never be taken. His confession was written, sealed, and entrusted to a priest, to be opened at a certain time. It was opened this morning.”

The two watched Mrs. Gerald with trembling anxiety as she sat a moment with downcast eyes, musing over this strange story. Honora did not dare to breathe or stir, lest she should loosen the thunderbolt that hung suspended over their heads, ready to drop, and the priest was inwardly praying for wisdom to speak the right word.

“I hope he has no mother,” Mrs. Gerald said, without looking up.

“That is the hardest part of all,” said F. O’Donovan. “He has a mother. It is that which renders his remorse so terrible. But fortunately she is a Christian woman, who will know how to bend to the will of God, and leave her afflictions at his feet. She will be comforted by the thought that her son is a sincere penitent, and is by this awful lesson put for ever on his guard against sins which might otherwise have seemed to him trivial.”

“Oh! but think of her responsibility!” exclaimed Mrs. Gerald, raising her eyes quickly. “Think of her remorse and fear when she looks back on her training of that child, and thinks that all his faults and crimes may be laid at her door. I know a mother’s heart, F. O’Donovan, and I tell you there will be no comfort for that mother. You cannot have seen her. Where is she? I would like to go to her.”

“She does not yet know,” replied the priest, almost in a whisper, and stopped there, though other words seemed about to follow.

She gazed at him in surprise, and her look began to grow strange. She only looked intently, but said nothing; and in that dreadful silence Honora Pembroke’s arm closed tightly about her waist, and her breath trembled on the mother’s paling cheek.

“Cast yourself into the arms of God!” exclaimed F. O’Donovan. “Do not think! Do not fear nor look abroad. Hide yourself in the bosom of God! Sin and sorrow are but passing clouds, but heaven and hope and peace are eternal!”

Those beautiful violet eyes that had wept so many tears, now dry and dilating, were fixed upon him, and the face changed slowly. One wave of deep red had flown over it and sunk, and from pale it had grown deathly white, and over that whiteness had stolen a faint gray shade.

“Mother! mother! speak!” cried Honora Pembroke, weeping; but the form she clasped was rigid, and the face was beginning to have a blank, unnatural expression.

“Live for your son’s sake!” said F. O’Donovan, taking in his her cold hands—“live to see his repentance, to see him win the forgiveness of the world and of God.”

But that blankness overspread her face, and the light in her fixed eyes grew more dim.

The priest stood up, still holding strongly one of her hands, and with his other made the sign of the cross over her, giving with it the final absolution. Then he seated himself beside her, and, while Honora fell at her feet, put his arm around the rigid form, and touched the cheeks with his warm, magnetic hand, and pleaded tenderly and with tears, as if she had been his own mother, now a word of human love, now a word of divine hope; and suddenly he stopped, and Honora, with her face hidden in Mrs. Gerald’s lap, heard him exclaim, “Depart, Christian soul, out of the body, in the name of the Father who created thee, in the name of the Son who redeemed thee, and in the name of the Holy Ghost who has sanctified thee.”

She started up with a faint cry, and saw that Mrs. Gerald’s head had dropped sideways on to her shoulder, her eyes were half‐closed, and her relaxing form was sinking backward, supported by F. O’Donovan.

How it happened she did not know, but almost at the same instant Mrs. Macon entered the room followed by a doctor, and to Honora’s confused sense it seemed as though helpers were all about and she was separated from her friend. She heard F. O’Donovan’s voice repeating the prayers for the dead, and presently the weeping responses of the servant, but she was powerless to join them.

She roused herself only when she heard the priest speak her name. “Did I make any mistake? Did I do well, do you think?” he asked anxiously. “I did not know any better way.”

Honora opened her eyes and looked about.

“There was no better way,” she said. “The result would have been the same in any case, and she suffered only a minute.”

Tears were swimming in his fine eyes.

“She has, indeed, hidden herself in the bosom of God, where no harm can reach her, and it is best so. We can see that it is most merciful for her. But for that unhappy son....”

“Do not name him!” exclaimed Miss Pembroke, shuddering. “I cannot think of him without abhorrence! See what ruin he has wrought wherever he has been. What has escaped him? Nothing! Do you, can you, believe there is hope for one whose soul is such an abyss of weakness and selfishness? He has stripped from me my dearest friends; he has smitten those who loved him best....”

She stopped, half from the bitter weeping that choked her words, half because the priest had laid his checking hand on her arm.

“The silence of death is in the house,” he said gently. “Do not disturb it by anger. Leave Lawrence Gerald to the lashes of his guilty conscience. Believe me, it will be punishment enough. Forgive him, and pray for him.”

“Not yet! I cannot yet!” she protested. “He has been forgiven too much. But I will say no more. I am sorry I should have spoken so in her home.”

“Come out into the air of the garden a little while; it will refresh you,” the priest urged. “I must go directly to F. Chevreuse, but I will return. He went to Mrs. Ferrier more than an hour ago, and was to wait there for me or come this way to learn the result. Poor F. Chevreuse! he is sorely tried. Everything rests on him. Don’t sit here in the dark any longer. Come!”

“You had better go, Miss Pembroke. You can do nothing here,” Mrs. Macon said to her.

She went out and hid herself in a little arbor that had been a favorite retreat of Mrs. Gerald’s on warm summer days, and sitting there, too stunned for weeping, now that the first burst of tears was dried, tried to recollect and realize what had happened.

As she sat there she heard presently the trampling of horses and the roll of a carriage, and mechanically leaned forward to see who was passing, but without in the least caring. The bright bays and the sparkling harness were very familiar to her eyes, and she saw that Mrs. Ferrier herself was in the carriage. The woman’s face was red and swollen with weeping and excitement, and as she passed the cottage she put up her hand as if she would have shut it from her sight. Evidently her interview with F. Chevreuse had been a stormy one, and had left her in anything but a charitable frame of mind.

Miss Pembroke looked indifferently at first, but a moment after she rose and took a step forward to see better; for F. Chevreuse and F. O’Donovan had appeared in the street in front of the carriage and stopped it, and the elder priest was speaking sternly to Mrs. Ferrier.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“I am going to the prison to tell them to let Mr. Schöninger go free,” she answered defiantly. “I am going to take him to my house.”

“You are going to do nothing of the sort,” said the priest. “You have no right to, and will only do harm, and disgrace yourself.”

“I couldn’t be more disgraced than I am already, with that ...” she began in a loud voice, but F. Chevreuse stopped her.

“Silence!” he said authoritatively. “You are insane.”

“John, drive on!” she called out of the window.

“John, you will not drive a step further,” said the priest in a low voice.

“You’d better do what he says, ma’am,” said John, leaning down from the box. “And you’d better not talk so loud. People are beginning to notice.”

“I should like to know what you think of yourself for a priest, making my own servants disobey me,” the poor woman cried, relapsing into tears. And then, instantly recovering her spirit, she added, “If I cannot go to the prison, I will know where my poor daughter is. I believe Mrs. Gerald could tell. She must know where they are hid. I will have Annette back again.”

“You had better come in and ask Mrs. Gerald,” F. Chevreuse said calmly. “Do not hesitate! It will, perhaps, be better for you to see her.”

She shrank a little, yet could not bear to remain inactive. To her mind, she had been hushed, and imposed on, and silenced by everybody, in order that this worthless criminal might ruin her daughter’s happiness, and obtain possession of her money, and she was burning to pour her anger out on some one. F. Chevreuse’s authoritative interference, while she yielded to it, only exasperated her more. “I will go in and find where Annette is,” she said resolutely, and stepped out of her carriage, too much excited to stumble.

Honora Pembroke came forward and stood between her and the door, looking in astonishment at the two priests who followed her.

“Let her go in!” F. O’Donovan said.

She was obliged to, indeed, for Mrs. Ferrier’s strong hand set her aside as if she had been a feather.

The woman entered with a haughty step and a high head, her silks rustling about her through the solemn silence, and walked straight to the sitting‐ room. Mrs. Macon met her at the door, but she put her aside, and took a step into the room; only one step, and then she stopped short, and uttered a cry.

“See how that mother heard the news!” said F. Chevreuse in a low voice at her side. “Have you any questions to ask her?”

Mrs. Ferrier retreated a step, and leaned against the door‐frame. They all drew back and left her a full view of the silent form stretched on the sofa, and only Honora Pembroke’s weeping disturbed the silence.

“You don’t say that it killed her!” she exclaimed in a low, frightened voice; then, before they could answer, she threw up her arms, and ran across the room. “You poor dear!” she sobbed. “You poor, broken‐hearted dear!”

She flung herself on her knees beside the sofa, and embraced and wept over the motionless form there, all her anger, all thought of self, forgotten in a generous and loving pity and grief.

F. Chevreuse glanced at his brother priest with a faint, sad smile. “Her heart is right,” he said. “It is always right.”

To Be Continued.

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Material Faith

Give me a God whom I can prove By certain academic rules, Approved by all the learned schools; And if he fitteth not our groove, We’ll leave him for unscienced fools To idolize. But if his attributes should be All classed within high Reason’s bound— His origin and parts be found With analytics to agree— This God, whom we can solve and sound, We’ll patronize.

But still our right we will reserve— A sacred privilege of Science— To herald forth our non‐compliance With Scriptural accounts that swerve From our grand basis; such defiance We’ll not endure. We’ll rule out the creation chapter; ’Tis so absurd! and lacks support Of brilliant sages in our court Whose own hypotheses are apter. So exit Moses’ crude report For something newer.

The Bible we will not reject In toto; no, we’ll let it stand, Lest our fair fame should bear a brand; But when we’ve banished ev’ry sect, Then forth we’ll drag from Lethe’s sand Our fossil link! Completing the material chain By philosophic labor wrought, And beaten out by mighty thought! Eureka! what a motley train Of dry bones, labelled to a jot, Round Learning’s brink!

Such wondrous titles ne’er were heard In all the mythologic lore! We’ll drape in gloom of Stygian shore All held as truth; and at our word Darkness, in cloak of Light, shall soar To Reason’s throne! Then, when this wheeling globe is ours, We’ll send God forth a wand’ring myth Void, and bereft of son, or kith: And stone‐eyed fossils, robed in flowers, From sea of spice to frozen frith, Shall teach alone.

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A Glimpse of the Green Isle. I

“What the lady wants, sir, is hair,” said Edward.

“Hair!” I repeated scornfully, at the same time glancing at the wealth of dark‐brown hair which fell dishevelled over the shoulders of the Lady from Idaho. “Hair!”

It was evident that no comb had touched that wonderful chevelure for several days.

“I shall never be able to comb it out again,” said the Lady from Idaho in a weak, despairing voice. She lay on a sofa in a state‐room on board the transatlantic steamer Lima, from New York to Liverpool, calling at Queenstown. She had been terribly sea‐sick. During seven days she had not eaten enough to keep a buffalo‐gnat alive.

“I don’t mean ‘air,’ sir,” said Edward, raising his nose to an altitude of 45°, with the lofty dignity of your true English waiter. “I means hair—wentilation.”

“Ah! yes. I believe you are right, Hedward.”

Hedward was a steward on board the Lima, to whose fostering care the writer was entrusted.

The Lady from Idaho had reached that point of sea‐sickness when one does not want the trouble even of getting better. We carried her on deck, however, and laid her, well wrapped up, on one of the cushioned seats. The circular horizon of many days was being broken by the Irish coast just coming into view. The mere sight of land seemed to revive the fair Idaho traveller. As we neared the coast, and the green of the fields and trees could be seen, she said:

“Oh! what a goodly sight. What a beautiful country! I could chant its praises with the most enthusiastic Irishman of them all!”

We feasted our eyes on the beautiful coast until darkness fell upon it and its outline was marked for us only by the lights which traced the curves of the shore.

We exchange rocket‐signals with the shore and with other steamers lying in the bay. The land‐breeze has set the Lady from Idaho on her feet again. The tug comes alongside to take the mails and those passengers who wish to land at Queenstown. All is bustle and excitement. There are regretful leave‐takings between fellow‐passengers whom the traditional “stand‐ offishness” of English‐speaking people prevented from enjoying each other’s society until it was almost time to part. Among those who go on shore at Queenstown are the Lady from Idaho—poor seasick soul! she would have gone on shore days ago, if she could have found any shore to go on; a young Irishman bringing his American bride home for inspection by his friends in “the Black North”; some American ladies and gentlemen making their first European tour, evidently determined to be pleased with everything they see; some specimens of young and infant America, and the writer.

There’s not much provision for the comfort of passengers on board the tug. The night is rather moist, but the cabin is “stuffy” and ill‐ventilated, and we prefer remaining on deck.

The “Cove of Cork” is certainly a beautiful place by day or night. But the night effect is the finer, me judice. The rows of lights rising above each other, tier on tier, on the heights, cast a magic glamour over the scene.

The tug has reached her dock. The custom‐house officers have come on board. Horrid moment! Worse, however, in anticipation than in reality, everywhere except on the trans‐Atlantic docks of New York City.

“Have you any cigars or tobacco?”

“No.”

“Any firearms?”

“No, sir,” I answer, and inwardly bless my stars that my better and more sensible half has left behind, for lack of room, the “six‐shooter” which I carried for ten years in the free land of the West. What a piece of luck! I have been assured by Irish friends that had I brought that unhappy “six‐ shooter” with me, I should most undoubtedly have been arrested for some undefined bloody intentions with regard to that most susceptible animal, the lion of Great Britain. The lion would have been very much mistaken; for never were the Irish shores visited by any one whose heart was more full of peace and good‐will.

Ireland is not a safe place for any one who has a trans‐Atlantic odor about him during a Fenian paroxysm. The possession of a pocket derringer is sufficient evidence of belligerent intentions. New‐York‐made boots are objects of suspicion, and in times of excitement have been the cause of trouble to the wearer. As harmless and commercial an article as a wooden nutmeg, carried merely as a patriotic souvenir, may entail considerable annoyance on its possessor, and perhaps necessitate the good offices of his consul to enable him to pursue his tourist path of pleasure or business in peace. In such periods as anti‐Fenian frenzy, English ports are the safest and pleasantest; for in Ireland, then, the lion is rampant, roaring and seeking whom he may devour. It is better to keep away from his super‐serviceable retainers in Ireland.

But the political horizon is unclouded. The bloody‐minded revolutionists of the pen and inkstand are quiescent for the nonce. We find the officials kind and polite. They opened only one of our trunks. They gave its contents merely a cursory inspection, and chalked cabalistic characters on all our boxes, portmanteaus, satchels, etc. They fished for no fee, nor was any offered them.

It is nearly midnight when we leave the tug. We step ashore. After a quarter of a century of absence, my foot is upon my native heath. My name is not MacGregor, dear reader, nor is it Micawber.

I do not think people feel much at the moment that anything happens to them. It is either before or after; in anticipation or retrospection. In describing their sensations, they tell us what they suppose they are going to feel, or what they think they ought to have felt. I have stood bare‐ headed by the grave of Washington at Mount Vernon. I believe the man and his work to be among the greatest that ever blest the world. What did I feel? A kind of sorrowful, reverential, awe‐struck mental numbness; then a sad yet selfish pity for my kind, who, however good and great they be, e’en to this favor must they come at last. I could not have distinctly shaped a thought or given expression to any of the ideas which a visit to the grave of Washington might be supposed to suggest to a conventionally susceptible imagination. Yet my eyes were full of tears. In the evening, however, in a comfortable room at Willard’s, in an easy‐chair by a cheerful fire, in the pleasant ease of slippers and cigars, with a quire of thick, white, unglazed letter‐paper before me, any kind of steel pen (I hate a gold pen for literary work; it has a counting‐house suggestiveness that seems to disagree with the muses), with mayhap a modicum of vin chaud at my elbow, what pages of “Thoughts suggested by a visit to the grave of Washington” I could have “knocked off”! But unluckily Jones rushed in with the sad news that poor Thompson had been killed on the other side of the river, and drove all the intended “Thoughts” out of my head. There is no real present. We have only the past and the future.

The debarkation of a number of ladies, children, trunks, boxes, and carpet‐bags is not generative of the softer emotions. The night is damp and chilly. It has reached the wee sma’ hours. There is no omnibus or hack to take us to the hotel. Some night‐birds, with low, flat caps and Corkonian accents, offer to carry our luggage and show us the way to the hotel. It is “only a step or two.” The cortége sets out for the hotel. Corkonian youngsters—who ought to have been in their beds, if they had any beds to go to—come suddenly out of the darkness, and ask, with wonderful chromatic elocution, the privilege of carrying our satchels. It is useless to tell them we do not need their assistance. They will not be denied. They keep up their chromatics until we succumb. Well, it is sixpence each for them—a treble, or American, gratuity. An American, native or adopted, to whom, especially if he have lived in the West, “a quarter” seems the lowest gratuity that he can offer to the negro who blacks his boots in a sleeping‐car, feels an impulse of lavishness on touching Irish ground. He “feels good,” and wishes to make all around him partake of the feeling. Half a dollar seems the least that he can offer the waiter at the hotel with justice to his own dignity and that of the country he has the honor to represent. He is not always so generous when he returns at the end of his tour, and the gratuity system of Britain has disgusted him and helped to deplete his purse. Then he comes down to the smallest silver coin in his portemonnaie. He cannot offer coppers, and never gets as low as the Englishman’s “tuppence.”

The English and the Irish in Ireland inveigh bitterly against the American propensity to give extravagant douceurs. They say that Americans are spoiling their waiters, porters, servants, etc. They call this liberality snobbishness, desire to display! The fact is, it is partly a matter of habit, partly a want of knowledge of the comparative values of “tips” at home and abroad. What American from the further side of the Mississippi expects to get anything for a penny? Add to this, what I before remarked, that the American in Ireland “feels good,” and wants to scatter around all the good he can.

Well! here we are at the hotel. A somewhat stupefied porter receives us. He has to see somebody before he can inform us as to the probability of entertainment. He has not indicated any room where the ladies and children can sit and take the night‐chill off while we await the result of his conference with Mr. or Mrs. Boniface. We remain standing in the entry, our carpet‐bags and wraps in our hands. At length the comatose porter returns, and says that bed‐rooms are ready for us!

“Can we have any supper?”

“No, sir. The cook’s gone home, sir.”

“Not a cup of tea?”

“No, sir. It’s too late, sir.”

“At least, we can have some hot Irish whiskey‐punch?”

“No, sir. There’s no hot wather in the house, sir.”

“Is there any cold water in the house?”

“Of coorse there is, sir,” replies our negative Amphitryon, slightly roused by the question.

“Then bring me some Irish whiskey and cold water.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll thry, sir. I’ll see if the bar‐maid isn’t asleep, sir, and get the key from her, sir.”

We were then presented with one‐third of a tallow candle each, and marshalled to our respective sleeping‐apartments. No chance of a little pleasant chatter and some gentle exhilaration on our first night on Irish soil.

We sleep pretty well, however, and pretty long into the forenoon of the next day. Waiter comes to say that we can have breakfast in the coffee‐ room whenever we desire it. This is a delicate hint that we are not early risers. He wants to know when we wish breakfast and of what we wish it composed.

“Chops and tomato‐sauce, ham and eggs—”

“Yes, sir. Rashers and eggs, sir.”

“Beefsteak, tea, and coffee, in half an hour.”

Raining! The view of the bay is rather cheerless. Everything looks dankish, dingy, and dull.

“Can you realize that you are in I Ireland?” I inquire of the Lady from Idaho.

“Not in the least,” responds the most amiable of her sex. “Can you?”

“No, indeed.”

It is not a good morning for the interchange of ideas. Misty mornings never are. As for certain projected “Thoughts on touching Irish soil after twenty‐five years’ absence,” their suggesting themselves under such a murky sky is out of the question. They will have to wait for the bright, creative sun. Perhaps, after a good warm breakfast, one may be able to think some “Thoughts,” if the railway time‐tables will admit of it.

The “coffee‐room” of “the best hotel” is cold and cheerless. Smoke without fire is obtained from some wet coal‐dust, economically caked, according to the mode of thrifty housekeepers in the British Isles, in an infinitesimal grate in a remote corner of the room. Impossible to think any “Thoughts” here. Some solemn‐looking men, very particular about their chops—I mean their mutton‐chops—are enjoying—or, more correctly, consuming, for there is no evidence of enjoyment—their morning meal.

Our breakfast is not a bad one. The chops are excellent; the beefsteak, so‐so. I have eaten better beef in New York. The bread is hard and heavy, but white and not ill‐tasted. I wish the Irish and English waiters would adopt the short alpaca jacket and long white apron of the waiters of Paris and New York. It is a much neater and cleaner costume. The greasy full‐ dress coat and limp, whity‐brown neck‐cloth are not only absurd; they are often disgusting.

Still raining! The sidewalks are hid from view by the thickly‐passing umbrellas. Let us go and buy some umbrellas! Life seems to be impossible without them here. In the three kingdoms, umbrellas are indispensable to respectability.

“I hate respectability,” said the Lady from Idaho with a vicious emphasis.

I was rather astonished by this outburst, but I reflected that allowance must be made for ladies’ tempers on draggle‐tail mornings.

“Such weather,” I remarked, “is enough to make one hate anything.”

“It is not that,” she retorted. “I hate respectability, rain or shine.”

“Des goûts et des couleurs—you know the old proverb.”

“There is nothing more selfish, more hypocritical, more cowardly, than ‘respectability.’ ”

“My dear madam, I did not take the trouble of coming from the other side of the Rocky Mountains for the purpose of chopping logic. I must buy umbrellas.”

I bought me an umbrella. Thenceforward I was only separated from it during sleep and meals while I remained in the British Islands. It was almost always necessary. The wretch who sold it to me, however, saw that I wore overshoes, and charged me about three Irish prices. I feel certain that the day will come when he will be fitly punished. He will emigrate to the United States sooner or later, and the hackmen or restaurateurs of New York will avenge me!

Steam is a wonderful leveller. It is destroying national costume and toning down national peculiarities. The same round hat which was worn in New York when I left is worn in Queenstown; the same fashion of winter overcoat. The up‐and‐down‐the‐gamut intonations of the Cork brogue, however, bring you to a consciousness of your true latitude and longitude. The long, hooded cloth cloaks of the peasant women have some suggestions of nationality about them. Occasionally, too, a girl of seventeen or eighteen with bare feet and short kirtle is seen. This is characteristic.

“Buy a bunch of Irish shamrocks from me, sir? Now, do, sir, if ye plase.”

We cannot refuse. We lay in a plentiful supply of the chosen leaf of bard and chief.

“Long life to you, sir, and to the purty ladies and the beautiful childer, and all the blessings in the world on ye. May ye never know what it is to want anything for them!”

The shamrocks alone were not dear; but with such a prayer added, we felt as if we were taking the poor woman’s stock in trade for nothing.

As a matter of course, I expected to find Ireland rather backward as regards women’s rights and that sort of thing. I was somewhat surprised, therefore, on entering the telegraph office, to find a telegraphist of the gentler sex. She seemed to be quite a business young lady—quick, intelligent, and polite. With the least possible display of conscious superiority, she instructed me in the mode of filling those absurd British blanks for my first British telegrams. With the condescending gentleness of an amiable “school‐marm” instructing a good boy of unfortunately limited knowledge and capacity, she “posted” me in the names and location of streets in Dublin. She was industrious as well as intelligent. She had brought her knitting. During our conversation, she doubly improved the shining hour by rolling into a ball a skein of worsted which a most serious and attentive young lady of eight or nine summers held distended on her outstretched and uplifted hands.

The hotel at which we stopped was managed by women. I afterwards remarked, in my trip through the island, that the internal economy of most of the hotels in Ireland is under female direction. The post‐offices and postal‐ telegraph offices are very generally managed by women. There are numerous institutions for the care of aged, sick, or destitute women, or for the rescue and reformation of the poor erring sisters who have been led away from the paths of purity and peace.

“I really believe, after all,” said the Lady from Idaho to me one day, in conversation on this subject, “that they take better care of their women than we do.”

We take the cars for Cork. We ride to the “beautiful city” through the loveliest bit of landscape on which the sun ever shone, or, more appositely, on which the gentle rain from heaven ever fell. It is indeed a land of loveliness and song. The good‐natured guard, having remarked our overshoes doubtless, puts his face to the car‐window, and enthusiastically asks:

“Well, sir, an’ isn’t this a counthry worth fightin’ for?”

Confound the fellow! even though he be bright‐faced and seems good‐ natured. I wish those people who are eternally talking about fighting and never doing it—except among themselves—would stop talking, or, if they cannot do anything better, go out, take a good “licking” manfully, and be done with it. Daring and doing, even if one gets the worst of it, is better than loud talking and nothing doing. I hate the vox et præterea nihil. We have had too much of it.

“Faith,” says the guard, “it’s the fine, healthy‐looking childer ye’ve got. Shure, they don’t look like Yankee childer at all, at all.”

“If by Yankee you mean American, my friend, that they undoubtedly are,” replies the gentleman responsible for the little responsibilities who are too healthy‐looking to be like “Yankee childer”; “but they come from ayont the Mississippi, which may account in some degree for their hardy appearance.”

“What town is that on the other side of the water?”

“Passage, sir.”

Passage! Shade of “Father Prout”! How often have we rolled our tongues in luscious enjoyment around thy roaring lyric in praise of that wonderful borough!

“The town of Passage Is large and spacious, And situated Upon the Lay;

It’s nate and dacent, And quite convanient To come from Cork On a summer’s day.

Unfortunately, it is not exactly the kind of a day that one would like

“to slip in, To take a dippin’ Fornint the shippin’ That at anchor ride; Or in a wherry Cross o’er the ferry To Carrigaloe On the other side;”

for it still rains, and Carrigaloe is upon our side, as a sign‐board and the voice of the guard informs us: “Carrigaloe!”

We shall not have an opportunity of testing the reliability of the poet’s promise that

“land or deck on, You may surely reckon, Whatever country You come hither from, On an invitation To a jollification With a parish priest That’s called ‘Father Tom.’ ”

The guard blows his whistle. We leave Passage and its satellite, Carrigaloe, behind, and with them the pleasant vision of a cheerful evening with the hospitable and large‐hearted ecclesiastic of the inimitable song.

Not in this wide world is there a lovelier piece of landscape than that between Queenstown and Cork. Here the Lee is bordered by lovely lawns of the freshest green, sloping gently to the water’s edge. Further on it flows between verdurous walls of lofty trees. The leaves of their drooping branches kiss the rippling current as it passes. Yonder the Castle of Blackrock frowns over its gently‐flowing tide. The grass and the leaves are green with a vivid greenness that justifies all that the poets have sung about the Emerald Island. What glory in thy long, green vistas, beautiful Glanmire!

Our road is bordered on one side by the river; on the other, rich demesnes, bounded by trees, ivy‐covered walls, and moss‐covered rocks, from which fall miniature cascades and waves the green and graceful fern.

The landscape needs only one modest charm to make its loveliness complete. I miss the humble cottage, lowly yet lovely, where honest labor finds its comfort and repose. There are rich mansions and umbrageous groves and broad pastures, but no smoke ascends from cheerful hearths of tillers of the soil. The peasantry, whose cottages might grace these lovely glades, are building themselves new homes on the broad prairies of the West. The humble wooden sheds or the rough cabins on the brown and treeless plains, sacred to the Lares of independence and self‐reliance, are far lovelier in the eyes of the lover of his kind than thy greenest glades, beautiful Glanmire!

“A bold peasantry, their country’s pride, If once destroyed, can never be supplied.”

Here is the beautiful city. It does not do itself justice to‐day. The rain, which softens and freshens the beauties of the country, blackens and bedraggles the town. “God made the country, and man made the town.”

But what are those deep, soft tones that reach us through the humid air? Can it be? Yes, there is no doubt about it. We are listening to

“The bells of Shandon That sound so grand on The pleasant waters Of the river Lee!

“I’ve heard bells tolling Old Adrian’s mole in, Their thunders rolling From the Vatican;

“And cymbals glorious Swinging uproarious From the gorgeous turrets Of Notre Dame;

“But thy sounds are sweeter Than the dome of Peter Flings o’er the Tiber, Pealing solemnly.

“Oh! the Bells of Shandon Sound far more grand on The pleasant waters Of the river Lee!”

Cork, with its fine bridges crossing the branches of the Lee, might, under bright atmospheric effects, lay claim to its antique designation; but, amid mud and rain, the most enthusiastic traveller can see no extraordinary beauty even in Paris itself. Church spires and buildings darkened by the rain have a gloomy look. Even the church of S. Anne, which may fairly be said to have “two sides to it”—one being of differently‐ colored stone from the other—has had its peculiar claims to the traveller’s attention somewhat weakened by the effect of the rain.

We have concluded to wend our way quietly toward Dublin, taking in our route anything that may be of interest. The Great Southern and Western Railway runs through one of the most beautiful districts in Ireland. A long panorama of beautiful and characteristic scenes is unrolled as you steam along. Green hedges and slopes, furze‐covered fences, century‐old trees covered with moss and ivy, rippling streams, a ruined abbey or dismantled tower, bits of soft blue appearing through slate‐colored clouds—the humid atmosphere toning down all harsh lines, and yet spreading a sweet though melancholy softness over all—this limited by the gentle undulations of the ground, whose beautiful curves give life to the landscape, yet circumscribe its horizon, and you have the peculiar characteristics of an Irish landscape.

There is an air of solidity about the track and its accessories to an eye habituated to trans‐Mississippi railroads. Very pretty are those stations of stone, covered with green ivy, every foot of space in front of them devoted to the culture of some sweet, simple flowers. The Lady from Idaho, who has recently been dipping her gentle nose into the cryptogamia, is in ecstasies over the magnificent ferns we have passed at various points of our route.

For an excellent railway dinner, let me recommend Limerick station to the traveller. The best railway breakfast I have ever eaten—and I have eaten not a few in both hemispheres—I ate at Altoona, on the Pennsylvania Central. It was twelve years ago, however. The best railway dinner I have ever eaten I had at Limerick Junction. It would have done credit to many a pretentious hotel on either continent. It surpassed the menu of private hotels in London, “patronized by officers of both services and their families.” It was a better meal than I have had at what is considered one of the best hotels in Northern Germany, and did not cost half so much. It was well and comfortably served, malgré the ponderous solemnity of the British style of hotel attendance, which to me is a terrible bore. Plenty of time was allowed us to eat and enjoy our meal. Some jovial young gentlemen at the table politely caused champagne to be offered us, in compliment to our trans‐Atlantic character. They insisted, as far as politeness would admit, on regaling us; but we declined indulgence in the lively beverage. Sparkling wines are not good to travel on. One of the gentlemen was fascinated by a specimen of infantine America—a member of our party, and one of its most important members, by the way. The champagne, probably, had a softening effect on the gentleman. He lamented his childless condition, and expressed his readiness to give fabulous amounts for the little Columbian stranger. The father of the latter good‐ humoredly told the gentleman that Young America, white or black, is out of the market, and has been so for some years.

The bell rings. We resume our seats in the train. We have a carriage to ourselves. The guard told us, on leaving Cork, that he would try to keep us alone. This means that he wants a gratuity at the journey’s end; for your conductor, or “guard,” on European railways is not above taking a shilling or a sixpence. He shall have it, so far as we are concerned.

The manner of starting a train is good. The bell rings—signal to the passengers to take their seats. There are two guards, one in front and one in rear, each supplied with a whistle. They look along the train to see that the doors of all the compartments are closed. The forward guard, seeing all right at his end, blows his whistle. The rear guard, to make assurance doubly sure, glances along the entire train, and, finding everything in readiness, whistles. The second whistle is the signal to the engineer, who then sounds the steam‐whistle, and the train starts.

The trains generally exceed ours in rapidity, but are very much behind them in comfort and elegance. There is no drinking‐water in the English or Irish carriages. There are no stoves to keep one warm in cold weather or during the chilly hours of the night. If the weather is cold, tin foot‐ warmers, filled with water which is not always warm, are furnished in the proportion of one to two first‐class passengers. There is no luxurious sleeping‐car, where you can sleep comfortably, awake refreshed, find your boots ready blacked when you get up, and wash yourself at a marble wash‐ stand. No comfortable hotel‐car, into which you can step from the sleeping‐car in your slippers, and enjoy your beef‐steak and fried potatoes, or your quail on toast, at the rate of thirty miles an hour.

In consequence of the absence of arrangements for personal comfort on trains, the British traveller is obliged to weight himself down and half fill his compartment with rolls of railway rugs, bottles of water, and plethoric lunch‐baskets, to his own great inconvenience, as well as that of his fellow‐travellers. The trouble caused by the want of a proper system of baggage transportation compels the traveller to carry huge leather portmanteaus about five times as large as an ordinary American travelling‐satchel. As these are considered “parcels that can be carried in the hand,” the traveller is allowed to take them into the carriage with him. By this means he avoids the trouble of watching the “luggage‐van” at junctions, and the delay of waiting for its unloading at the terminus. Then come bundles of umbrellas and canes strapped together, and the leather hat‐box—that inseparable adjunct of British respectability. Behold the unprotected matron, surrounded by half a dozen family jewels, with any quantity of wraps and lunch‐baskets, and bottles and umbrellas, and band‐ boxes and multitudinous matters wrapped up in endless newspaper packages! How she glares at you when you step as carefully as you can among the formidable piles to three square inches of a seat in the interior corner! Woe be to him who displaces one of the parcels sacred to family use. I might be able to stand a Gorgon, but I could not stand that. Please do not put me in the carriage with the matron! Rather in the van with the untamable hyena, Mr. Guard, if you please!

Imagine a succession of Broadway omnibuses, with windows and doors at either end, placed laterally behind an engine, and you have an European railway train. Half the passengers necessarily sit with their backs to the engine. The first‐class carriages are upholstered in cloth or plush like hackney coaches. The benches are divided into two double seats on each side, giving seats for eight passengers in each compartment. The compartment is lighted by a small and generally dim and smoky oil‐lamp placed in the roof.

In the second‐class carriages the seats are not divided. Six persons are supposed to be accommodated on each bench. On some lines the seats are very thinly cushioned with leather; generally, they are not cushioned. In France and Belgium the second‐class carriages are cushioned and backed with gray cloth, and the difference in comfort between them and the first‐ class carriages is not worth the difference of fare. This is about one‐ third greater for first‐class tickets. Twelve persons, with a proportionate quantity of wraps, bundles, baskets, bottles, umbrellas, and portmanteaus, pack a compartment pretty closely. Your European traveller makes as much preparation for a trip of sixty miles as an American would for an all‐rail journey from New York to San Francisco. An American railroad car is quite a cheerful “institution”; whereas travelling seems to be a more serious business on the other side of the Atlantic. A compartment—first or second class—is a gloomy place. In first‐class carriages, the “swells” and snobs are afraid to imperil their dignity by risking intercourse with somebody who may be “nobody.” The result is silence and solemnity. In second‐class carriages you often find very pleasant people—clergymen, professional men, young tourists, artists, and students—who can talk pleasantly and well, and have no snobbish, conventional dread of doing so.

It is a common saying in England that only fools and Americans travel first‐class. I have heard of a crusty old Irish peer, who, being asked why he always travels third‐class, replied that he does so because “there is no fourth class.” I think the venerable lord was rather ostentatious of his humility. I would not advise any of my American friends to try third‐ class travelling in England or Ireland. A third‐class car is a cold, dirty, noisome place. It is full of tobacco‐smoke and the smell of strong drinks of various kinds. It is worse than the forward car on a prairie railroad, filled with immigrants and “railroad hands.”

Mail trains are generally composed of first and second class carriages only. Class distinctions meet us everywhere. We find a first and second class waiting‐room, first and second class restaurant, third‐class waiting‐room and third‐class restaurant. The waiting‐rooms are separate for each sex in each class. You are parted from your wife, sister, or sweetheart. If you have something of importance to communicate to your fair companion, and should appear near the door of the ladies’ waiting‐ room for that purpose, a pre‐Raphaelite female, armed with a broom, throws herself into the breach, and fiercely demands your business, while she reduces you almost to a jelly by a Gorgon glare.

To Be Continued.

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Cora

A flower of the pale, sad South: Yet pale nor sad is she; For she blooms on a wonderful tree That knows not blight or drouth— A certain miraculous tree Our Lady has planted down South.

A rose let me call you, dear girl— A fadeless and thornless rose; So richly your modesty shows Its blushes bejewell’d with pearl— And a dew‐drop of grace every pearl— That I think of the Mystical Rose.

I have seen, and must needs pass on; But this I bear with me away: A fragrance that will not be gone, But haunts me, and most when I pray. It comes like the memories of May From the pure, happy years that are gone.

Then the Lord of the sweet and the fair (For whom is all beauty alone), I pray him that floweret so rare No hand may dare cull but his own; That no other bosom may wear This rose of the South than his own.

Charles X. At Holyrood.(93)

By The Comte Achille De Jouffroy

From Paris Ou Le Livre Des Cent‐Et‐Un.

Several friends of the exiled royal family, having been led by devotion to their cause to visit Scotland, have published detailed accounts of the residence at Holyrood. These narratives have left but little untold concerning the august proscribed personages, their situation, their mode of life, and their habits, the uniformity of which no important circumstance occurred to modify during the two years of their abode in the ancient palace of the Stuarts.

The reader, therefore, must not expect to meet in the following sketch with descriptions which have already been given by others with much minuteness, and which have been repeated in various works. Here will be found merely a small number of observations, impartially collected, which may serve to combat prejudices of a diverse nature that have been called forth, as well by the assertions of an unjust and bitter hatred, as by the injudicious efforts of a flattering servility.

Certainly, any enemy of the royal family, unless he were insane or wicked, had he been admitted into the privacy of Holyrood, must at least have ceased to regard them with dislike. Their most prejudiced adversary, no matter to what distinguished rank of society he might belong, could not have learned to know the domestic virtues displayed by these princes in adversity without wishing himself to have a father, a son, a wife, a sister, or children resembling them. On the other hand, those who, through attachment, duty, or interest (for there are political situations which a well‐comprehended interest forces some to retain, even after the occurrence of disasters)—those, I say, who have made themselves the noisy apologists of this family have carried exaggeration so far as to attribute to them qualities and talents which would have been more than sufficient for ruling even in these difficult times; without reflecting that this blindness of zeal in regard to princes who met with so sudden a downfall while surrounded by a faithful army, and in the midst of devoted provinces, must diminish the confidence due to that portion of the eulogium which is really just. As private individuals, the Bourbons of the elder branch have never merited the smallest of the outrages which it has been their fate to endure; as sovereigns, it is well known they have been great chiefly in their fall, and have shown their courage and resolution less in their lives than in their deaths.

The writers of whom I speak, carried away by the feelings of their hearts, have poured them forth in eloquent descriptions. Identifying themselves, so to speak, with the misfortunes of which they have been witnesses, they have given us chiefly the recital of their own emotions. I shall not imitate them; the spectacle of an entire family, precipitated from the most brilliant of thrones into the miseries of exile, is of itself sufficiently touching; it has in it enough of sad sublimity to render it useless to overload the picture with the pretentious ornaments of the elegiac style. To put together sentimental phrases for the purpose of describing a misfortune like this is to place one’s self, no matter what talents one may possess or exhibit, very much beneath the level of the subject.

I have considered this preamble needful in order to avoid being taxed with coldness. To speak with a suitable calmness of the Bourbons may perhaps be permitted to one who for fifteen years has defended their cause, and who has followed them into banishment; who has never obtained from them either favors or places, and who also has never betrayed them.

In quitting France, Charles X. had only carried away with him, after so much splendor, a sum barely sufficient for a modest subsistence during a few years. The abode at Lullworth was expensive; its vicinity to France made it accessible to a crowd of travellers, many of whom came only to solicit from the king, in return for services past, or in view of services offered, the assistance which the unfortunate monarch was no longer in a condition to grant without reducing himself to want. In order to escape from these importunities, and to withdraw himself from the painful necessity of refusing, he asked and obtained from the British government the enjoyment of the asylum which he had already for a long time inhabited during the period of his first exile.

The capital of Scotland, in which is situated the palace of Holyrood, is in the same latitude as Moscow, but its vicinity to the sea renders its temperature much more endurable. Edinburgh is, in many respects, the most agreeable residence which a stranger can select in Great Britain. The liberal arts are there cultivated with a particular devotion. It is a large town, picturesque in the extreme, and sumptuously built. The seat of old Edinburgh is worthy of remark; in seeking for a comparison which may convey an idea of it, the device of the arms of the kingdom naturally occurs to furnish me with one. Imagine, at the entrance of a deep and narrow valley formed by the hills of Salisbury and Calton, an enormous lion, half couched. His head, which is turned towards the rising sun, and overlooks the plain, is a peaked rock, three hundred feet in elevation, and nobly crowned by the old castle. To the right and left, the houses are suspended from his flanks, like the waves of his mane. The ridge of his spine is represented by a long street, which, dividing the two opposite declivities, begins from the esplanade of the castle, and terminates at the Canongate in front of the portal of Holyrood. The new town occupies the plateau of Calton hill. Larger than the old town, it is also better built, and all the streets are laid out in regular squares.

This city, take it altogether, resembles none other with which we are acquainted. It is an assemblage of monuments of every age and in every style, built of beautiful stone, many of them very carefully constructed, and thrown, in the most picturesque manner, upon projections of rugged rocks, in the hollows of precipices, on the slopes of valleys. Magnificent bridges, gigantic causeways, unite the different parts of the city. The ancient and the modern are preserved without alteration of character. Here rise houses of eleven stories, the highest of which is on a level with the great street of which we have spoken. There, beside a Greek peristyle, the luxury of the boudoir is sheltered by embattled towers. At the sight of this singular town, of this variety of edifices, of these steep mountains, of the sea, and of the sky, we can more fully comprehend the genius of Sir Walter Scott. Everything here seems created to clothe with form and substance the conceptions of romance. Here we can walk, if we like, under Athenian porticos or in Gothic cloisters, and can pass from the sombre tints of a feudal habitation to drawing‐rooms freshly decorated in the modern style of luxury; we can leave the modest sidewalks of the bourgeois of the XVth century, above which the projecting roofs and gables are still in good preservation, to enter upon railways, those marvels of modern invention. At every step our eyes are met by objects less precious, perhaps, from the value they represent than from the associations they recall: the crown of gold enriched with jewels, the sceptre, and the sword of the ancient kings of Scotland, discovered, fifteen years ago, in a walled‐up room of the old castle; the furniture used by Mary Stuart; the embroidery which occupied the last happy leisure hours of this unfortunate queen; the tapestry raised by the assassins of Rizzio when they entered her apartment; the bed of crimson damask on which she used to sleep. Here we tread on the ashes of a long line of kings, of a multitude of celebrated personages; and the last circumstance worthy of note, in this abode so suggestive of mysterious traditions and royal misfortunes, is that the wreck of the court of the Tuileries have taken refuge beneath the ancient hereditary roof of James II.

The palace of Holyrood is nothing but a cold and gloomy cloister, flanked at the two extremities of its anterior front by towers. The apartments of Charles X., situated on the first floor, extend over one of the sides of the cloister, and over the angle opposite the principal entrance. After crossing a vestibule leading to the chapel, an ante‐chamber, an unfurnished gallery, a billiard‐room, we enter the dining‐room—a gloomy apartment with bare walls, containing only an oval table and chairs. From thence we pass into a drawing‐room twenty‐five feet square, opening upon a small, uncultivated enclosure called a garden, and furnished in the style of the drawing‐room of a Parisian bourgeois. It was in this apartment that receptions for strangers were held from eleven to twelve o’clock in the morning; and in the evening, all the royal family met here after dinner. The persons belonging to the household and the invited guests were admitted to these soirées, which lasted until about ten o’clock. The Duc de Bordeaux(94) and mademoiselle played games together; the king had a whist‐table; the dauphiness and her ladies worked at a round table. Frequently the conversation became general, and was almost always interesting. The French and English newspapers were read and commented upon. Sometimes the king and the dauphin would repair to the billiard‐ room, and play a few games together. In these soirées, there was no more etiquette observed than is usual in the house of a gentleman living on his estates.

At the left of the drawing‐room, a door led to an intermediate apartment, forming the private study of the king. Into this opened his bed‐chamber. With the sleeping‐room of the king communicated that of the Duc de Bordeaux, situated on the same floor, and looking into the courtyard. The Baron de Saint Aubin occupied a room at the side; the apartments of mademoiselle were on the upper floor.

The Duc de Blacas, when he was at Holyrood, had the superintendence of the household; when he was absent, the details of these functions were directed by the Baron de Saint Aubin. The suite was composed of about forty persons, lodged in the town in the vicinity of the palace.

The equipages of the king were limited to one carriage, hired by the month. When this was not sufficient, another coach was sent for; and three saddle‐horses sufficed for the rides of the king and his family. Charles X., having given up the amusement of hunting, and needing exercise to maintain his health, was in the habit of walking every day three or four miles around Holyrood. The table was supplied abundantly, but without luxury; the king usually invited two or three strangers, but the number of covers seldom exceeded fourteen or fifteen.

Such was the mediocrity to which fate had reduced this family, so lately surrounded by the greatest possible luxury and splendor. No sign of regret, no trace of vexation, could be perceived on the countenance of Charles X. Never did a word of bitterness escape from the lips of these illustrious sufferers. The dauphiness, whom some have dared to represent as a vindictive and fanatical woman, was gentleness itself. In vain would any one have sought, in the expression of her face, so full of goodness and resignation, for even the appearance of a pride which nevertheless her elevated rank would have sufficiently justified. As to the dauphin, so far did he carry his abnegation of all personal resentment that he was more than once heard to recall with commendation the talents and bravery of some officers whom he had overwhelmed with his favors, but who, nevertheless, had been the first to betray him.

Every one admitted to Holyrood could not but recognize and admire the presence of those virtues which form the charm of domestic life. They doubtless do not suffice for those upon whom Heaven has imposed the terrible task of governing men. The most marked trait in the character of Charles X. is indecision; in that of the dauphin, a pretension to acuteness, which has more than once discouraged his friends, without inspiring confidence in his enemies. As for the dauphiness, the intensity of her misfortunes in this world has led her to fix her hopes upon a better one. Pious, although tolerant, she herself feels that her counsels would be of little avail in this age of incredulity. In what she desires for France, she never can separate religion from legitimacy. When, at Holyrood, she heard of the pillage of the archbishopric, these words fell from her lips: “Alas! the French have cast off religion, and at length I begin to comprehend why it is they hate us.”

The Duchesse de Berri was a being apart in the royal family. Young, animated, full of regrets, of desires, and of hopes, she could not pardon those who had prevented her from presenting herself before the Parisians on the 30th of July, 1830, in order to claim from them the crown for her son. Confident in her adventurous courage and in her ability to create for herself another future, her irritation for the past and the projects she still contemplated, little agreed either with the calm resignation of the dauphiness or with the habitual prudence of the king. She could only endure for a few weeks the monotony of the residence at Holyrood. Besides, the rigor of the climate appeared to affect her health, and she repaired to the mineral waters of Bath. Here various speculators came to surround her, in a manner to take possession of her as of a pledge for their future fortunes, and induced her to borrow considerable sums of money on the property still remaining to her, in order to defray the expenses of the projected expedition. The duchess was brought to London, where the final arrangements for this loan were to be made. She was concealed in a small house, and not a single Frenchman, excepting those composing the circle by whom she was surrounded, knew what had become of her until the day of the embarkation.

The announcement of the departure of the duchess was received at Holyrood with a species of consternation. The expedition she was about to undertake was regarded as an act of extreme imprudence. To throw herself into France, in order to create an insurrection, without arms, without money, without the prospect of assistance from any European power; to give herself up to the chances of inconsiderate promises made by a few men without influence and without resources; to calculate chiefly upon the defection of an army, recomposed in part, and still agitated by the preceding defection into which the sudden departure of the king had precipitated it—this was, in the eyes of the exiles of Holyrood, to attempt an enterprise of which the success would scarcely have justified the temerity, and of which the success itself was considered impossible. Other reasons for fear, which we may now be permitted to recall, disturbed the heart of the old monarch. He distrusted the impetuosity of the duchess, her fiery temperament, her ardent and independent character, which, even should it not lead her to disregard conventionalities, might authorize those possessing her confidence and affection to overstep their limits in her affairs. He foresaw more than one disaster; he dreaded all sorts of misfortunes. The unfortunate princess was destined to experience them all. The Duc de Blacas was commissioned to follow her, and to oppose, as far as it might be in his power, the dangerous influence of her advisers; but the resolution of the duchess was too much in unison with her tastes and character. Soon the position of M. de Blacas towards her became no longer tenable, and he returned without having accomplished anything, to the great displeasure of the king.

Charles X. never approved of the projects for civil war. When these were proposed to him, he did not manifest that aversion which has been attributed to him by his flatterers; he simply replied that, in the times in which we live, civil war is a thing difficult to undertake and impossible to sustain. He had been a king; he was acquainted with the secrets of the government; he knew that all the forces of the kingdom being at the present day centralized, the provinces cannot withdraw themselves from the power of the telegraph and of the budget; and that nothing but a signal disaffection on the part of the army would be likely to produce a second 20th of March. The riots which took place in the capital at first excited his attention; but after the days of the 5th and 6th of June, he appeared to have ceased to fear, or rather to hope, for their success.

As for foreign war, Charles X. never could endure the idea of it. Never did it enter his thoughts to implore the armed intervention of other sovereigns. He believed that a third invasion of France, were it to take place, would lead to incalculable disasters; to the partition of the territory. Perhaps, also, he felt that he could not claim the assistance of his allies, in virtue of the treaties of 1815; since, during his reign, the government had always been inclined to throw off the yoke of those treaties. The late ministry, in its endeavors to restore France to her natural limits, had excited distrust in the cabinets of London, the Hague, Berlin, Vienna, and Turin. It was not, therefore, probable that these powers would assist in restoring a government which had placed itself in a hostile position to them all, without demanding, in return, ruinous sacrifices and humiliating guarantees.

It is needful to look at things from this point of view, in order to appreciate the policy which was followed at Holyrood. With foreign governments few or no relations were maintained; with the interior, various correspondences, the authors of which differed in plans, in principles, and in views. All were received, all were replied to, in accordance with their various ideas and modes of thinking. The object was to offend no one, to discourage no opinion, in the uncertainty as to which opinion would be the most useful.

Many excellent royalists, with the most praiseworthy disinterestedness, wrote to place at the disposal of the king their hearts, their fortunes, and their lives. If any means were sought for to utilize these generous offers, it was frequently discovered that these worthy people possessed neither money nor influence, and that many of them were advanced in years.

Others sent plans of conspiracies which included three‐fourths of France, but with lists of names for the most part unknown. They undertook, they said, to cause Henry V. to be proclaimed all over the kingdom, provided Charles X. would send them in advance sufficient sums of money.

Some personages, who still figure on the theatre of politics, took measures to remit, with great precaution, their offers of service. It is worthy of remark that such notes arrived each time there was any rumor of revolt or any prospect of war in foreign countries. These offers were not expressed in as precise terms as the preceding ones; they were always accompanied by conditions, of which the principal ones were that the direction of the movement in question should be confided to no one excepting the authors; that a provision should be made of entire approval of the measures upon which they might decide; and, above all, that the portfolios of the ministry of the restoration should be ensured to them. They alone, they asserted, understood the needs of France and the way to rule her. In a few missives of another kind, some old servants set forth the faults which, in their opinion, the king had committed during his reign, and ended by offering him advice in case he should regain the throne. Some of these, irritated by what they considered the oblivion of their former services, permitted themselves to utter bitter reproaches, without pity for misfortunes the sight of which should have been sufficient to disarm even a just resentment. These letters were received with perfect indifference. There were, however, demands which, by dint of their audacity, obtained greater success.

A person wrote from Paris to one of the servants of the king: “I am about to publish a work which will contain the account of various acts of the government of Charles X. You know that the offices I held afforded me opportunities of knowing many things; the revolution of July has deprived me of my situation and my pension; the public loves scandal; the publishers will pay a high price for it; and I will furnish it to them unless I receive thirty thousand francs, which I cannot do without.”

If these are not the precise terms of the letter, at least I am sure that I have not altered the sense. The author of this letter had been employed under the Restoration; he had received many favors from both the last two monarchs; a compromise was made with him. I do not know what was the sum sent, but I do know that the person employed to mediate in this affair was successful; the threatened work was never published. Among the offers of services which reached Holyrood, some deserve particular mention for their singularity.

A hero of July, famous during the fatal days, and furious at not having been able to obtain some office, proposed to rally all the republicans among his friends to the cause of Henry V., and concluded his epistle by announcing that he would repair in person to the sea‐coast, and with his own hands place the plank of debarkation beneath the feet of the legitimate heir to the crown.

A personage who has for a long time figured under the Empire had despatched to England a very active agent, who offered, at the same time, his services to the princes of Holyrood, to the Duchesse de Berri, and to the heirs of Napoleon; meanwhile, the personage in question was negotiating at Paris with the republicans. The result of this quadruple piece of diplomacy was that he obtained employment from the government of Louis Philippe.

Already, during the period of their former exile, had the august occupants of Holyrood had but too many opportunities to estimate the real value of the offers, the schemes, the demands, the pretext for which was furnished by a projected restoration, of a crowd of ambitious and intriguing men. Wearied, as it were, by the variety of sentiments expressed towards them, the obliging interest they manifested was merely the effect of an exquisite politeness. Unhappily, in this indifference they lost sight of real devotion to their cause; they did not appear to have made any very great progress in the art of estimating men—an art the ignorance of which had been the cause of their second downfall.

And, besides, in order to receive these propositions with profit, to give them a useful direction, it would, first of all, have been necessary that the most important political point—that of legitimacy—should be settled and proclaimed.

Those who have asserted that there existed on this subject a perfect unanimity of opinion among the royal family and among their advisers as to the right to the crown in the present situation of affairs, either have not known all the truth, or else have concealed a portion of it, in conformity with their own political views. During his residence at Holyrood, Charles X. addressed to the principal courts of Europe a confirmation of his abdication at Rambouillet; but, besides that this confirmation, being declared free, indicates that the abdication was always considered as forced, and therefore null, Charles X., in this second instrument, expressly reserves to himself the regency of the kingdom.

The dauphin, on the other hand, positively refused to give a similar declaration. “I sign nothing,” said he; “not that I desire to dispute with my nephew a crown of which I am far from envying him the possession, but, on the contrary, in order to preserve it for him, in case the follies which are being committed in his name should render my reappearance necessary.”

Lastly, in regard to the Duchesse de Berri, no law, no historical precedent, could have been found to authorize her to consider herself regent of the kingdom during the minority of her son. Had not the abdication of Charles X. been conditional, and, besides, where could there have been found a states‐general legally convoked to recognize madame in this capacity?

The uncertainty on this point became a source of discussion for the various members of the suite. The servants of the king, those of the dauphin, and those of the Duc de Bordeaux held many grave arguments over their respective pretensions to the title of the royal household; but we must add that these all ended in discussion. The royal family, who lived together in a sincere and patriarchal union, appeared to take but little interest in these various opinions; whether it were that these unfortunate princes believed it impossible for them at this time to recover the crown, or whether they regarded the possession of it as something little desirable, they frequently conversed upon this subject as if it had been a question of historic right foreign to themselves. One opinion, one feeling, however, united them all, and this was that all rights to the crown must one day centre upon the head of Henry V., and that it was necessary to educate him in such a manner as to prepare him worthily to sustain this high destiny in case Providence should call him to it.

Here we must speak of the education which is being given to the young prince under the direction of the Baron de Damas. Much good, and also some evil, has been said of him. In the first place, however, it appears to me that too great importance has been attached to his functions. In order that the character of the governor should have any decisive influence over that of his pupil, it would be necessary for the two to live in comparative isolation. Perhaps, surrounded by all the pomp of the Tuileries, the fetters of etiquette might have tended to produce such isolation; but in the greater freedom consequent upon exile, interruptions of all kinds prevent this species of influence. At all hours of the day the Duc de Bordeaux is receiving new and varied impressions. He receives them from his teachers, from his professors, from his servants, from the strangers who approach him, from the paternal solicitude of his grandfather, from the gentle piety of his aunt, from the companionship of his young and charming sister; he receives them from his studies, from his exercises, from his travels, from his recollections—in short, from his misfortunes; for he is of an age and of an intelligence to understand and to feel them. We must take into account the combined influence of all these diverse impressions, in order to draw probable deductions as to the profit he is one day to receive from his present education.

At all events, if the Baron de Damas does not possess very enlarged ideas, his character is firm and upright. For many things he deserves commendation: he endeavors to prevent all flatterers from approaching his pupil; from those by whom he is surrounded he exacts nothing but sincerity and cheerfulness. And then, he is careful to admit to the presence of the young prince, in unrestrained confidence, all strangers, and especially all Frenchmen, who desire access to him, unless their request should be prompted merely by the wish to gratify an impertinent curiosity.

The office of M. de Damas has been envied, and even sought after, by some of those persons who style themselves the courtiers of misfortune, but who are perhaps merely the courtiers of greatness expected, or at least hoped for. But it may reasonably be doubted whether this governor could be replaced in a manner advantageous to the young prince. Among the notabilities of the present epoch who might be designated for this important position, is there one who combines the necessary qualifications? Would we seek among the number of those who, by their interested counsels or by their calculated disaffection, contributed to the overthrow of the throne of Charles X., for men to teach his grandson the art of restoring and of preserving the throne? Can we confide in these system‐mongers at a period like this, when all systems have made shipwreck? No; all that can be done is to make of the young prince a man of learning without pedantry, of sincerity without indiscretion, of courage without temerity. In the present age, in which everything indicates the necessity of a power strong enough to restrain the elements of anarchy introduced by sophists into society, in which the overthrow of ancient institutions leaves to power only the force it can obtain from armies, what is chiefly to be desired in the king of a nation like ours is military qualities combined with liberality, enlightenment, religion, prudence, and justice. Now, none of these conditions are wanting in the education which is now being given to the Duc de Bordeaux—neither proper methods on the part of the preceptors, nor the disposition to receive on the part of the pupil.

M. Barande, one of the most learned men of our time, instructs the young prince, with admirable precision, in the facts of history, combined with chronology and geography. The Abbé de Meligny explains to him with simplicity the doctrines of religion. M. d’Hardivilliers inspires him with a taste for, and a knowledge of, the fine arts. The first elements of the science of war form the subjects of his games and of his recreations. Young Henri rides on horseback, practises fencing, shoots with the pistol, speaks and writes several languages. His memory is unusually excellent; his discernment is beyond his age. The regular distribution of his time gives him habits of order and of diligence. His health, watched over by Dr. Bougon, is robust; his frame, fortified by exercise, is strong and agile. In a word, he is an intelligent, sprightly, vivacious child, and yet, withal, a reasonable one. There is no mother who would not be proud of him; no father whose every wish would not be gratified by the possession of such a son. Having thus sketched his portrait, I do not intend to imitate the enthusiasm of those who have gathered up and published his most unimportant remarks, and have even, in their exaggerated admiration, attributed to him, possibly, speeches of their own.

At the sight of this royal child, proclaimed, at the hour of his birth, future monarch of a great empire, and now entering upon his adolescence in exile, this reflection naturally presents itself: How if he had never been born?

Had he not been born, probably France would not have been disturbed. The partisans of the younger branch, certain of one day attaining to power, would have had patience; the republicans of July would not have been able to enter by the breach opened by the Orléanists and the disaffected royalists. His grandfather and his uncle might have died upon the throne.

Had he not been born, and had the double abdication still become indispensable, Louis Philippe would to‐day be more firmly seated on his throne than any monarch in Europe; for in him would be found resolved the great problem of the union of fact and of right, of legitimacy and of force.

Had he not bean born, ... but he has been born, he is growing to manhood, and in him are being developed all the characteristic signs of the rejuvenescence of his race. In this age of tribulations and of wonders, who may venture to sound the abyss of the future?

This was what was said at Holyrood, and it was added: “Did not M. Odillon Barrot, when, in the drawing‐room at Rambouillet, he executed the task assigned to him of announcing to Charles X. the hard decree of exile, pronounce the memorable words: ‘Sire, watch well over this royal child; one day he will be of importance to the destinies of France?’ ”

New Publications.

THE LIFE OF S. JOHN OF THE CROSS. By David Lewis. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1874.

Mr. Lewis has certainly deserved well of the inhabitants of Mount Carmel. His translation of that incomparable gem, S. Teresa’s Autobiography; his truly splendid work, the translation of the writings of S. John of the Cross, and now his Life of the latter saint, make up a series of works for which English Catholic literature is deeply indebted to him. The devoted and enthusiastic interest which S. Teresa, the Queen of Carmel, has inspired in modern times is something wonderful, though it cannot seem strange or surprising to any one who is acquainted with her history and capable of appreciating her character. Happily for the world, S. Teresa has found among her devotees several both able and willing to make her life and works known with an intelligent and painstaking zeal for which we cannot be too grateful. F. Bouix and Canon Dalton are conspicuous among these devout admirers of the modern glory of Carmel who have labored so faithfully and with so much pious and scholarly learning and taste to diffuse the light and fragrance of her sanctity and doctrine. Mr. Lewis devotes himself more especially to S. John of the Cross; but it was really only a part of the great work of S. Teresa which S. John executed, both by his labors and his writings. He was her spiritual son, the chief instrument of carrying out the reform with which she was inspired among the friars of the order of Carmel; and in his works he was, so to speak, S. Teresa’s theologian and expositor. Every one who has been interested in S. Teresa’s life must have wished for a good life of S. John of the Cross; and whoever has tasted of the delicious fountain of divine doctrine in his works must have desired it still more. Such a life Mr. Lewis has undertaken to give us, compiling it from the older Spanish biographies. Mr. Lewis’s biography of the saint is short and succinct, but very precise, accurate, and complete in its narrative of facts and events.

So far, it is what was wanted; and to one who has learned to know the interior life of S. John in his writings it is sufficient. It is not, however, in itself, by any means such a complete and adequate portraiture of S. Teresa’s counterpart and companion as we possess of herself, thanks to the happy thought of her confessor, who obliged her to write her own life, and to the devoted and affectionate biographers who have supplied so fully all that she herself omitted. The number of those who will read this Life with pleasure and profit must necessarily be a comparatively small one. And we forewarn all its readers, even devout Catholics accustomed to reading the lives of saints, that it requires a robust faith to avoid being scandalized or frightened by this one. S. John was most cruelly persecuted and maltreated by his own brethren and superiors of the Mitigated Rule, and even by one unworthy prior of the Reform. Moreover, the austerity of his life and the additional sufferings which God sent upon him may easily frighten and dismay most of us, soft and effeminate Christians as we are, when they are looked at as presented in a dry historical narrative, and apart from the inward consolations, the supernatural graces, the high contemplation, which made trials and crosses sweet to this great and heroic soul. We cannot, therefore, expect this book to be a favorite with the common run of even pious readers. But those who are capable of enjoying and profiting by it will be greatly rejoiced that it has been written and published.

WHAT IS DARWINISM? By Charles Hodge, Princeton, N. J. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.

There is a great deal of modest wisdom in this small volume from the pen of one of the most learned and accomplished of the Princeton gentlemen. Dr. Hodge chiefly aims at showing what the real virus of Darwinism consists in, and finds it to be the denial of final causes, or virtual atheism. There is also a very good summary of arguments against the theory of evolution, and there are careful, well‐studied criticisms upon various writers of distinction upon themes connected with the author’s topic. We are glad to see that Dr. Hodge affirms the infallibility of reason—that is, its possession of first principles which are unerring, and its capacity of attaining to the knowledge of truth or true science. We do not approve, however, of his definition of scientific evidence as that which is attained through the senses, or his distinction between science and theology. It is most important to maintain the rights of philosophy and theology as the highest and most certain of sciences, having supremacy over all others. We suppose that Dr. Hodge admits this in regard to the things themselves, but we consider it important to retain even the terms by which the things are properly designated, and to resist at all points the impertinent as well as futile attempts of modern scientists to dethrone the queen of the sciences. The style and tone adopted by Dr. Hodge in this volume are remarkably quiet and moderate, and we trust that this characteristic of his manner of arguing with persons who are disposed to lend an ear to the sophistry of modern infidels will give it a readier access to their minds. There is, however, an excess of amiability in the praise which is awarded to Mathilde Blind’s “excellent translation” of Strauss.

We recommend this book without hesitation as one which, so far as it goes, is satisfactory and likely to prove very useful.

MADAME AGNES. By Charles Dubois. Translated from the French by M. P. T. THE FARM OF MUICERON. By Marie Rheil. Translated from the French by Mrs. A. B. S. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1874.

This brace of French novels, under one cover, comes very opportunely at this time, when careful teachers are on the lookout for premiums which will be at once attractive and safe to put into the hands of their young charges, and summer tourists are in search of literary provender to stow away in their portmanteaus and saddle‐bags. Those who have watched the progress of the stories through these pages are aware that the French literature which comes out under Catholic auspices is very different from that which reaches the public through the secular press.

We are inclined to look on The Farm of Muiceron as somewhat unique among recent works of fiction. The writer, as well as most of her characters, speaks the language of the French peasantry; and, if a more learned interlocutor is introduced, the author frankly tells us “not to expect her to explain the meaning of the big words he uses.” Should the reader thence conclude that the plot is weak, and its evolution more so—in fact, that he has taken up a goody‐goody book—he will speedily get rid of that absurd idea before he proceeds very far; and he will also be convinced that the translation of such a work requires peculiar qualifications. A knowledge of classical French will not alone suffice. An intimate acquaintance with provincial modes of thought and expression, and of such English equivalents for the idioms as will best preserve their racy flavor, are essential. This advantage we are satisfied the present version has, as the translator unites to a thorough knowledge of her own tongue a practical familiarity with the dialect intended to be represented. Every linguist knows the wonderful capabilities of the French language in its delicate shades and modulations of expression; and if the translation fails to reproduce them, the fault must be laid at the door of our unyielding vernacular.

We do not intend to anticipate the pleasure of the reader by any attempt to analyze the contents of either story. Some of the scenes of the second are laid in the midst of the stormy days of July, 1848, and hence many of its descriptions read like a page of contemporary history, and its pictures of rustic life are full of simplicity and pathos.

Madame Agnes will suit readers of a more serious cast, or the same readers in a different mood; and the two combined may serve as light and shade to each other. The solidity and gravity of the one sets off the vivacity and naïveté of the other. Madame Agnes is decidedly a story of real life in its lifelikeness to everyday experience, and its lessons may, perhaps, the sooner find their way to the reader’s heart and conscience for that reason.

THE NEW MANUAL OF THE SACRED HEART. Compiled and Translated from Approved Sources. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1874.

Confraternities of the Sacred Heart will welcome this additional manual. It contains every kind of devotion that lovers of the Sacred Heart can wish for. We hope it will have a wide sale.

SINS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster.

WHO IS JESUS CHRIST? Five Lectures. By the Right Rev. Bishop Hedley.

THE POPE AND THE EMPEROR. Nine Lectures. By the Very Rev. J. N. Sweeney, O.S.B., D.D. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Archbishop Manning’s sermons are plain, practical discourses in his usual clear and masterly style. Bishop Hedley’s lectures give an exposition of the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation and the principal heresies which have sought to corrupt and subvert it, with an explanation of redemption and the Real Presence. They are both theological and eloquent. Dr. Sweeney sketches graphically the contests between the head of the church and the imperial power from Jesus Christ to Pius IX. Each of the three volumes is of small size, but full of instruction.

THE FRENCH PRISONER IN RUSSIA. Translated from the French by P. S., a Graduate of S. Joseph’s Academy, Emmittsburg. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1874.

It has been said that a French novel is either very bad or very good, and we are glad to be able to place the one before us in the latter category. It is the story of a French family, the head of which, an officer in Napoleon’s grand army, with his son, is taken prisoner during the Russian campaign, and sent to Siberia. No tidings having been heard from them after the disastrous retreat from Moscow, they are supposed to be dead, and the mother and only daughter, a most amiable and gentle girl, are thrown upon the world in poverty and sickness. When years have elapsed, and the ladies have succeeded in winning an humble competence, news arrives that the lost ones are alive; so the mother and daughter set out on a long and dangerous journey to effect their release. How they fared in their noble mission, and what dangers they encountered on the way, will be best learned from the book itself. The original tale is written in excellent French style, which is ever simple and fluent, and the translation appears to have been carefully made with proper regard to the idiom of our vernacular.

S. JOSEPH’S ASCETICAL LIBRARY. Edited by Fathers of the Society of Jesus. No. IX.: MEDITATIONS FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR AND THE PRINCIPAL FESTIVALS. By the Ven. F. Lancicius, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The fact that Jesuits edit this library is its best guarantee and recommendation in respect to the sound and solid character of the works which will be included in its series. The well‐known good taste and literary culture of the English fathers of the society is a warrant for the care and skill with which the editorial work is performed. The present volume is most carefully and tastefully published, and its contents are of the best quality. The work itself is an old and standard one by one of the best writers of the society. The volumes of this library cannot be too strongly recommended to all devout Catholics.

THE HISTORY OF GREECE. By Professor Dr. Ernst Curtius. Translated from the German by Adolphus Wm. Ward, M.A. Vol. IV. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.

We have already given an extended notice of the previous volumes of this work, and we now simply repeat the judgment previously expressed. It is the most complete, and, in many respects, it is the best history of Greece yet placed within the reach of the English reader.

GLORY AND SORROW; and SELIM, PASHA OF SALONICA. Translated from the French by P. S. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1874.

Here are more stories for premiums. While the didactic purpose is not lost sight of, the narratives are sufficiently enlivened to hold the reader’s attention throughout. In the first tale the young student is warned against the consequences of an excessive ambition for wealth and power; and contentment with his position in life is inculcated as a necessary condition of happiness. Selim is a tale of the wars between the Christians and Turks in the East.

CATHERINE HAMILTON. A Tale for Little Girls. By M. F. S. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1874.

We have no doubt this will prove a very attractive book to the little folks, and would be glad to see it widely circulated among them.

MAY PAPERS. By Edward Ignatius Purbrick, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This pretty book, just received in this country, was prepared originally for the use of the boys at Stonyhurst College. It is the first attempt, we believe, in English to adapt the instructions for the month particularly to young people, and we therefore think it worthy of special mention.

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A Criticism

LAFAYETTE, IND., April 21, 1874.

The article “On the Wing,” in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for May, is one of unusual merit; but in the haste of composition, the writer, at page 216, makes a mistake in stating that S. Peter’s Church at Rome was “built from the designs of Bernini, and completed by Michael Angelo.” Bernini had nothing to do with the edifice proper. He only built the baldacchino over the high altar and the colonnade in the public square adjoining the church. Michael Angelo completed the piers of the dome, and made a wooden framework on which to construct a dome; but the dome was constructed by Giacomo della Porta from designs of his own. The edifice proper was finished by Carlo Maderno, and on the plan of a Latin cross, the suggestion of Bramante, overruling Michael Angelo’s suggestion of the form of a Greek cross.

It is very seldom that THE CATHOLIC WORLD is at fault, even in ecclesiology; but I think here is a plain case.

Having made S. Peter’s something of a study both in Rome and at home, I feel myself at liberty to make you these comments. Yours very truly,

J. A. WILSTACH.

The poem “For ever,” originally sent to this magazine, and published in our May number, was also published in Lippincott’s of the same month, the author concluding, from its non‐appearance in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, that it had been declined.

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