DONAHOE'S MAGAZINE

A Monthly Journal

CONTAINING

TALES, BIOGRAPHY, EPISODES IN IRISH AND AMERICAN HISTORY, POETRY, MISCELLANY, ETC.

AN EXTREMELY INTERESTING VOLUME.

VOL. XV.

January, 1886, to July, 1886.

BOSTON:

THOMAS B. NOONAN & COMPANY.

1886.

Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes have been moved to the end of the chapters. This issue only contains January, 1886.

Contents.

His Eminence John Cardinal McCloskey.
See page 18.

[Pg 1]

Donahoe's Magazine.

"The future of the Irish race in this country, will depend largely upon their capability of assuming an independent attitude in American politics."—Right Rev. Doctor Ireland, St. Paul, Minn.

Encyclical Letter

OF OUR MOST HOLY LORD LEO XIII., BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE,

Concerning the Christian Constitution of States.

To all the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops and Bishops of the Catholic World, in the Grace and Communion of the Apostolic See,

LEO PP XIII.

Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction.

The work of a merciful God, the Church looks essentially, and from the very nature of her being, to the salvation of souls and the winning for them of happiness in heaven, nevertheless, she also secures even in this world, advantages so many and so great that she could not do more, even if she had been founded primarily and specially to secure prosperity in this life which is worked out upon earth. In truth, wherever the Church has set her foot she has at once changed the aspect of affairs, colored the manners of the people as with new virtues and a refinement unknown before—as many people as have accepted this have been distinguished for their gentleness, their justice, and the[Pg 2] glory of their deeds. But the accusation is an old one, and not of recent date, that the Church is incompatible with the welfare of the commonwealth, and incapable of contributing to those things, whether useful or ornamental, which, naturally and of its own will, every rightly-constituted State eagerly strives for. We know that on this ground, in the very beginnings of the Church, the Christians, from the same perversity of view, were persecuted and constantly held up to hatred and contempt, so that they were styled the enemies of the Empire. And at that time it was generally popular to attribute to Christianity the responsibility for the evils beneath which the State was beaten down, when in reality, God, the avenger of crimes, was requiring a just punishment from the guilty. The wickedness of this calumny, not without cause, fired the genius and sharpened the pen of Augustine, who, especially in his Civitate Dei, set forth so clearly the efficacy of Christian wisdom, and the way in which it is bound up with well-being of States, that he seems not only to have pleaded the cause of the Christians of his own time, but to have triumphantly refuted these false charges for all time. But this unhappy inclination to complaints and false accusations was not laid to rest, and many have thought well to seek a system of civil life elsewhere than in the doctrines which the Church approves. And now in these latter times a new law, as they call it, has begun to prevail, which they describe as the outcome of a world now fully developed, and born of a growing liberty. But although many hazardous schemes have been propounded by many, it is clear that never has any better method been found for establishing and ruling the State than that which is the natural result of the teaching of the Gospel. We deem it, therefore, of the greatest moment, and especially suitable to our Apostolic function, to compare with Christian doctrine the new opinions concerning the State, by which method we trust that, truth being thus presented, the causes of error and doubt will be removed, so that each may easily see by those supreme commandments for living, what things he ought to follow, and whom he ought to obey.

It is not a very difficult matter to set forth what form and appearance the State should have if Christian philosophy governed the commonwealth. By nature it is implanted in man that he should live in civil society, for since he cannot attain in solitude the necessary means of civilized life, it is a Divine provision that he comes into existence adapted for taking part in the union and assembling of men, both in the Family and in the State, which alone can supply adequate facilities for the perfecting of life. But since no society can hold together unless some person is over all, impelling individuals by efficient and similar motives to pursue the common advantage, it is brought about that authority whereby it may be ruled is indispensable to a civilized community, which authority, as well as society, can have no other source than nature, and consequently God Himself. And thence it follows that by its very nature there can be no public power except from God alone. For God alone is the most true and supreme Lord of the world, Whom necessarily all things, whatever they be, must be subservient to and obey, so that whoever possess the right of governing, can[Pg 3] receive that from no other source than from that supreme chief of all, God. "There is no power except from God." (Rom. xiii. 1.) But the right of ruling is not necessarily conjoined with any special form of commonwealth, but may rightly assume this or that form, provided that it promotes utility and the common good. But whatever be the kind of commonwealth, rulers ought to keep in view God, the Supreme Governor of the world, and to set Him before themselves as an example and a law in the administration of the State. For as God, in things which are and which are seen, has produced secondary causes, wherein the Divine nature and course of action can be perceived, and which conduce to that end to which the universal course of the world is directed, so in civil society He has willed that there should be a government which should be carried on by men who should reflect towards mankind an image as it were of Divine power and Divine providence. The rule of the government, therefore, should be just and not that of a master but rather that of a father, because the power of God over men is most just and allied with a father's goodness. Moreover, it is to be carried on with a view to the advantage of the citizens, because they who are over others are over them for this cause alone, that they may see to the interests of the State. And in no way is it to be allowed that the civil authority should be subservient merely to the advantage of one or of a few, since it was established for the common good of all. But if they who are over the State should lapse into unjust rule; if they should err through arrogance or pride; if their measures should be injurious to the people, let them know that hereafter an account must be rendered to God, and that so much the stricter in proportion as they are intrusted with more sacred functions, or have obtained a higher grade of dignity, "The mighty shall be mightily tormented." (Wisd. vi. 7.)

Thus truly the majesty of rule will be attended with an honorable and willing regard on the part of the citizens; for when once they have been brought to conclude that they who rule are strong only with the authority given by God, they will feel that those duties are due and just, that they should be obedient to their rulers, and pay to them respect and fidelity, with somewhat of the same affection as that of children to their parents. "Let every soul be subject to higher powers." (Rom. xiii. 1.)

Indeed, to contemn lawful authority, in whatever person it is vested, is as unlawful as it is to resist the Divine will; and whoever resists that, rushes voluntarily to his destruction. "He who resists the power, resists the ordinance of God; and they who resist, purchase to themselves damnation." (Rom. xiii. 2.) Wherefore to cast away obedience, and by popular violence to incite the country to sedition, is treason, not only against man, but against God.

It is clear that a State constituted on this basis is altogether bound to satisfy, by the public profession of religion, the very many and great duties which bring it into relation with God. Nature and reason which commands every man individually to serve God holily and religiously, because we belong to Him and coming from Him must return to Him, binds by the same law the civil community. For men living together in society are no less under the power of God than are[Pg 4] individuals; and society owes as much gratitude as individuals do to God, Who is its author, its preserver, and the beneficent source of the innumerable blessings which it has received. And therefore as it is not lawful for anybody to neglect his duties towards God, and as it is the first duty to embrace in mind and in conduct religion—not such as each may choose, but such as God commands—in the same manner States cannot, without a crime, act as though God did not exist, or cast off the care of religion as alien to them or useless or out of several kinds of religion adopt indifferently which they please; but they are absolutely bound, in the worship of the Deity to adopt that use and manner in which God Himself has shown that He wills to be adored. Therefore among rulers the name of God must be holy, and it must be reckoned among the first of their duties to favor religion, protect it, and cover it with the authority of the laws, and not to institute or decree anything which is incompatible with its security. They owe this also to the citizens over whom they rule. For all of us men are born and brought up for a certain supreme and final good in heaven, beyond this frail and short life, and to this end all efforts are to be referred. And because upon it depends the full and perfect happiness of men, therefore, to attain this end which has been mentioned, is of as much interest as is conceivable to every individual man. It is necessary then that a civil society, born for the common advantage, in the guardianship of the prosperity of the commonwealth, should so advance the interests of the citizens that in holding up and acquiring that highest and inconvertible good which they spontaneously seek, it should not only never import anything disadvantageous, but should give all the opportunities in its power. The chief of these is that attention should be paid to a holy and inviolate preservation of religion, by the duties of which man is united to God.

Now which the true religion is may be easily discovered by any one who will view the matter with a careful and unbiassed judgment; for there are proofs of great number and splendor, as for example, the truth of prophecy, the abundance of miracles, the extremely rapid spread of the faith, even in the midst of its enemies and in spite of the greatest hindrances, the testimony of the martyrs, and the like, from which it is evident that that is the only true religion which Jesus Christ instituted Himself and then entrusted to His Church to defend and to spread.

For the only begotten Son of God set up a society on earth which is called the Church, and to it He transferred that most glorious and divine office, which He had received from His Father, to be perpetuated forever. "As the Father hath sent Me, even so I send you." (John xx. 21.) "Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." (Matt. xxviii. 20.) Therefore as Jesus Christ came into the world, "that men might have life and have it more abundantly" (John x. 10), so also the Church has for its aim and end the eternal salvation of souls; and for this cause it is so constituted as to embrace the whole human race without any limit or circumscription either of time or place. "Preach ye the Gospel to every creature." (Mark xvi. 15.) Over this immense multitude of men God Himself has set rulers with power to govern[Pg 5] them; and He has willed that one should be head of them all, and the chief and unerring teacher of truth, and to him He has given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. "To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. xvi. 19.) "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." (John xxi. 16, 17.) "I have prayed for thee that thy faith may not fail." (Luke xxii. 32.) This society, though it be composed of men just as civil society is, yet because of the end that it has in view, and the means by which it tends to it, is supernatural and spiritual; and, therefore, is distinguished from civil society and differs from it; and—a fact of the highest moment—is a society perfect in its kind and in its rights, possessing in and by itself, by the will and beneficence of its Founder, all the appliances that are necessary for its preservation and action. Just as the end, at which the Church aims, is by far the noblest of ends, so its power is the most exalted of all powers, and cannot be held to be either inferior to the civil power or in any way subject to it. In truth Jesus Christ gave His Apostles unfettered commissions over all sacred things, with the power of establishing laws properly so-called, and the double right of judging and punishing which follows from it: "All power has been given to Me in heaven and on earth; going, therefore, teach all nations;... teaching them to keep whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19, 20.) And in another place He says: "If he will not hear, tell it to the Church" (Matt. xviii. 17); and again: "Ready to punish all disobedience" (2 Cor. x. 6); and once more: "I shall act with more severity, according to the powers which our Lord has given me unto edification and not unto destruction." (2 Cor. xiii. 10.)

So then it is not the State but the Church that ought to be men's guide to heaven; and it is to her that God has assigned the office of watching and legislating for all that concerns religion, of teaching all nations; of extending, as far as may be, the borders of Christianity; and, in a word, of administering its affairs without let or hindrance, according to her own judgment. Now this authority, which pertains absolutely to the Church herself, and is part of her manifest rights, and which has long been opposed by a philosophy subservient to princes, she has never ceased to claim for herself and to exercise publicly: the Apostles themselves being the first of all to maintain it, when, being forbidden by the readers of the Synagogue to preach the Gospel, they boldly answered, "We must obey God rather than men." (Acts v. 29.) This same authority the holy Fathers of the Church have been careful to maintain by weighty reasonings as occasions have arisen; and the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased to defend it with inflexible constancy. Nay, more, princes and civil governors themselves have approved it in theory and in fact; for in the making of compacts, in the transaction of business, in sending and receiving embassies, and in the interchange of other offices, it has been their custom to act with the Church as with a supreme and legitimate power. And we may be sure that it is not without the singular providence of God that this power of the Church was defended by the Civil Power as the best defence of its own liberty.

God, then, has divided the charge of the human race between two[Pg 6] powers, viz., the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human things. Each is the greatest in its own kind: each has certain limits within which it is restricted, and those limits defined by the nature and proximate cause of each; so that there is, as we may say, a world marked off as a field for the proper action of each. But forasmuch as each has dominion over the same subjects, since it might come to pass that one and the same thing, though in different ways, still one and the same, might pertain to the right and the tribunal of both, therefore God, Who foreseeth all things, and Who has established both powers, must needs have arranged the course of each in right relation to one another, and in due order. "For the powers that are ordained by God." (Rom. xiii. 1.) And if this were not so, causes of rivalries and dangerous disputes would be constantly arising; and man would often have to stop in anxiety and doubt, like a traveller with two roads before him, not knowing what he ought to do, with two powers commanding contrary things, whose authority however, he cannot refuse without neglect of duty. But it would be most repugnant, so to think, of the wisdom and goodness of God, Who, even in physical things, though they are of a far lower order, has yet so attempered and combined together the forces and causes of nature in an orderly manner and with a sort of wonderful harmony, that none of them is a hindrance to the rest, and all of them most fitly and aptly combine for the great end of the universe. So, then, there must needs be a certain orderly connection between these two powers, which may not unfairly be compared to the union with which soul and body are united in man. What the nature of that union is, and what its extent, cannot otherwise be determined than, as we have said, by having regard to the nature of each power, and by taking account of the relative excellence and nobility of their ends; for one of them has for its proximate and chief aim the care of the goods of this world, the other the attainment of the goods of heaven that are eternal. Whatsoever, therefore, in human affairs is in any manner sacred; whatsoever pertains to the salvation of souls or the worship of God, whether it be so in its own nature, or on the other hand, is held to be so for the sake of the end to which it is referred, all this is in the power and subject to the free disposition of the Church: but all other things which are embraced in the civil and political order, are rightly subject to the civil authority, since Jesus Christ has commanded that what is Cæsar's is to be paid to Cæsar, and what is God's to God. Sometimes, however, circumstances arise when another method of concord is available for peace and liberty; we mean when princes and the Roman Pontiff come to an understanding concerning any particular matter. In such circumstances the Church gives singular proof of her maternal good-will, and is accustomed to exhibit the highest possible degree of generosity and indulgence.

Such, then, as we have indicated in brief, is the Christian order of civil society; no rash or merely fanciful fiction, but deduced from principles of the highest truth and moment, which are confirmed by the natural reason itself.

Now such a constitution of the State contains nothing that can be[Pg 7] thought either unworthy of the majesty of princes or unbecoming; and so far is it from lessening its imperial rights, that it rather adds stability and grandeur to them. For, if it be more deeply considered, such a constitution has a great perfection which all others lack, and from it various excellent fruits would accrue, if each party would only keep its own place, and discharge with integrity that office and work to which it was appointed. For in truth in this constitution of the State, which we have above described, divine and human affairs are properly divided; the rights of citizens are completely defended by divine, natural, and human law; and the limitations of the several offices are at once wisely laid down, and the keeping of them most opportunely secured. All men know that in their doubtful and laborious journey to the ever-lasting city they have at hand guides to teach them how to set forth, helpers to show them how to reach their journey's end, whom they may safely follow; and at the same time they know that they have others whose business it is to take care of their security and their fortunes, to obtain for them, or to secure to them, all those other goods which are essential to the life of a community. Domestic society obtains that firmness and solidity which it requires in the sanctity of marriage, one and indissoluble; the rights and duties of husband and wife are ordered with wise justice and equity; the due honor is secured to the woman; the authority of the man is conformed to the example of the authority of God; the authority of the father is tempered as becomes the dignity of the wife and offspring, and the best possible provision is made for the guardianship, the true good, and the education of the children.

In the domain of political and civil affairs the laws aim at the common good, and are not guided by the deceptive wishes and judgments of the multitude, but by truth and justice. The authority of the rulers puts on a certain garb of sanctity greater than what pertains to man, and it is restrained from declining from justice, and passing over just limits in the exercise of power. The obedience of citizens has honor and dignity as companions, because it is not the servitude of men to men, but obedience to the will of God exercising His sovereignty by means of men. And this being recognised and admitted, it is understood that it is a matter of justice that the dignity of rulers should be respected, that the public authority should be constantly and faithfully obeyed, that no act of sedition should be committed, and that the civil order of the State should be kept intact. In the same way mutual charity and kindness and liberality are seen to be virtues. The man who is at once a citizen and a Christian is no longer the victim of contending parties and incompatible obligations; and, finally, those very abundant good things with which the Christian religion of its own accord fills up even the mortal life of men, are acquired for the community and civil society, so that it appears to be said with the fullest truth: "The state of the commonwealth depends on the religion with which God is worshipped, and between the one and the other there is a close relation and connection." (Sacr. Imp. ad Cyrillum Alexandr, et Episcopus metrop. ef Labbeum Collect Conc., T. iii.) Admirably, as he is accustomed, did Augustine in many places dilate on the power of those good things, but especially when[Pg 8] he addresses the Catholic Church in these words: "Thou treatest boys as boys, youths with strength, old men calmly, according as is not only the age of the body, but also of the mind of each. Women thou subjectest to their husbands in chaste and faithful obedience, not for the satisfaction of lust, but for the propagation of offspring, and participation in the affairs of the family. Thou settest husbands over their spouses, not that they may trifle with the weaker sex, but in accordance with the laws of true affection. Thou subjectest sons to their parents in a kind of free servitude, and settest parents over their sons in a benignant rule.... Thou joinest together, not merely in society, but in a kind of fraternity, citizens with citizens, peoples with peoples, and in fact the whole race of men by a remembrance of their parentage. Thou teachest kings to look for the interests of their peoples. Thou admonishest peoples to submit themselves to their kings. With all care thou teachest to whom honor is due, to whom affection, to whom reverence, to whom fear, to whom consolation, to whom admonition, to whom exhortation, to whom discipline, to whom reproach, to whom punishment, showing how all of these are not suitable to all, but yet to all affection is due, and wrong to none." (De Moribus Eccl. Cath., cap. xxx., n. 63.) And in another place, speaking in blame of certain political pseudo-philosophers, he observes: "They who say that the doctrine of Christ is hurtful to the State, should produce an army of soldiers such as the doctrine of Christ has commanded them to be, such governors of provinces, such husbands, such wives, such parents, such sons, such masters, such slaves, such kings, such judges, and such payers and collectors of taxes due, such as the Christian doctrine would have them. And then let them dare to say that such a state of things is hurtful to the State. Nay, rather they could not hesitate to confess that it is a great salvation to the State if there is due obedience to this doctrine." (Epist. cxxxviii., al. 5, ad Marcellinum, cap. ii., 15.)

There was once a time when the philosophy of the Gospel governed States; then it was that that power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had penetrated into the laws, institutions and manners of peoples—indeed into all the ranks and relations of the State; when the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, firmly established in that degree of dignity which was befitting, flourished everywhere, in the favor of rulers and under the due protection of magistrates; when the priesthood and the government were united by concord and a friendly interchange of offices. And the State composed in that fashion produced, in the opinion of all, more excellent fruits, the memory of which still flourishes, and will flourish, attested by innumerable monuments which can neither be destroyed nor obscured by any art of the adversary. If Christian Europe subdued barbarous peoples, and transferred them from a savage to a civilized state, from superstition to the truth; if she victoriously repelled the invasions of the Mohammedans; if civilization retained the chief power, and accustomed herself to afford others a leader and mistress in everything that adorns humanity; if she has granted to the peoples true and manifold liberty; if she has most wisely established many institutions for the solace of wretchedness,[Pg 9] beyond controversy is it very greatly due to religion under whose auspices such great undertakings were commenced, and with whose aid they were perfected. Truly the same excellent state of things would have continued, if the agreement of the two powers had continued, and greater things might rightfully have been expected, if there had been obedience to the authority, the sway, the counsels of the Church, characterized by greater faithfulness and perseverance, for that is to be regarded as a perpetual law which Ivo of Chartres wrote to Pope Paschal II.: "When the kingdom and the priesthood are agreed between themselves, the world is well ruled, the Church flourishes and bears fruit. But when they are at variance, not only does what is little not increase, but even what is great falls into miserable decay." (Ep. ccxxxviiii.)

But that dreadful and deplorable zeal for revolution which was aroused in the sixteenth century, after the Christian religion had been thrown into confusion, by a certain natural course proceeded to philosophy, and from philosophy pervaded all ranks of the community. As it were, from this spring came those more recent propositions of unbridled liberty which obviously were first thought out and then openly proclaimed in the terrible disturbances in the present century; and thence came the principles and foundations of the new law, which was unknown before, and is out of harmony, not only with Christian, but, in more than one respect, with natural law. Of those principles the chief is that one which proclaims that all men, as by birth and nature they are alike, so in very deed in their actions of life are they equal and each is so master of himself that in no way does he come under the authority of another; that it is for him freely to think on whatever subject he likes, to act as he pleases; that no one else has a right of ruling over others. In a society founded upon these principles, government is only the will of the people, which as it is under the power of itself alone, so is alone its own proper sovereign. Moreover, it chooses to whom it may entrust itself, but in such a way that it transfers, not so much the right, as the function of the government which is to be exercised in its name. God is passed over in silence, as if either there were no God, or as if He cared nothing for human society, or as if men, whether as individuals or in society, owed nothing to God, or as if there could be any government of which the whole cause and power and authority did not reside in God Himself. In which way, as is seen, a State is nothing else but a multitude, as the mistress and governor of itself. And since the people is said to contain in itself the fountain of all rights and of all power, it will follow that the State deems itself bound by no kind of duty towards God; that no religion should be publicly professed; nor ought there to be any inquiry which of many is alone true; nor ought one to be preferred to the rest; nor ought one to be specially favored, but to each alike equal rights ought to be assigned, with the sole end that the social order incurs no injury from them. It is a part of this theory that all questions concerning religion are to be referred to private judgment; that to every one it is allowed to follow which he prefers, or none at all, if he approves of none. Hence these consequences naturally[Pg 10] arise; the judgment of each conscience is without regard to law; opinions as free as possible are expressed concerning worshipping or not worshipping God; and there is unbounded license of thinking and publishing.

These foundations of the State being admitted, which at the time are in such general favor, it easily appears into how unfavorable a position the Church is driven. For when the conduct of affairs is in accordance with the doctrines of this kind, to the Catholic name is assigned an equal position with, or even an inferior position to that of alien societies in the State; no regard is paid to ecclesiastical laws; and the Church, which, by the command and mandate of Jesus Christ, ought to teach all nations, finds itself forbidden in any way to interfere in the instruction of the people. Concerning those things which are of mixed jurisdiction, the rulers of the civil power lay down the law at their own pleasure, and in this manner haughtily set aside the most sacred laws of the Church. Wherefore they bring under their own jurisdiction the marriages of Christians, deciding even concerning the marriage bond, concerning the unity, and the stability of marriage. They take possession of the goods of the clergy because they deny that the Church can hold property. Finally, they so act with regard to the Church that both the nature and the rights of a perfect society being removed, they clearly hold it to be like the other associations which the State contains, and on that account, if she possesses any legitimate means of acting, she is said to possess that by the concession and gift of the rulers of the State. But if in any State the Church retains her own right, with the approval of the civil laws, and any agreement is publicly made between the two powers, in the beginning they cry out that the interests of the Church must be severed from those of the State, and they do this with the intent that it may be possible to act against their pledged faith with impunity, and to have the final decision over everything, all obstacles having been removed. But when the Church cannot bear that patiently, nor indeed is able to desert its greatest and most sacred duties, and, above all, requires that faith be wholly and entirely observed with it, contests often arise between the sacred and the civil power, of which the result is commonly that the one who is the weaker yields to the stronger in human resources. So it is the custom and the wish in this state of public affairs, which is now affected by many, either to expel the Church altogether, or to keep it bound and restricted as to its rule. Public acts in a great measure are framed with this design. Laws, the administration of States, the teaching of youth unaccompanied by religion, the spoliation and destruction of religious orders, the overturning of the civil principality of the Roman Pontiffs, all have regard to this end; to emasculate Christian institutes, to narrow the liberty of the Catholic Church, and to diminish her other rights.

Natural reason itself convinces us that such opinions about the ruling of a State are very widely removed from the truth. Nature herself bears witness that all power of whatever kind ultimately emanates from God, that greatest and most august fountain. Popular rule, however, which without any regard to God is said to be naturally in the[Pg 11] multitude, though it may excellently avail to supply the fires of many blandishments and excitements of many forms of covetousness, yet rests on no probable reason, nor can have sufficient strength to ensure public security and the quiet permanence of order. Verily things under the auspices of these doctrines have come to such a pass that many sanction this as a law in civil jurisprudence, to wit, that sedition may rightly be raised. For the idea prevails that princes are really nothing but delegates to express the popular will; and so necessarily all things become alike, are changeable at the popular nod, and a certain fear of public disturbance is forever hanging over our heads.

But to think with regard to religion, that there is no difference between unlike and contrary forms, clearly will have this issue—an unwillingness to test any one form in theory and practice. And this, if indeed it differs from atheism in name, is in fact the same thing. Men who really believe in the existence of God, if they are to be consistent and not ridiculous, will, of necessity, understand that the different methods of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict, even on the most important points, cannot be all equally probable, equally good, and equally accepted by God. And thus that faculty of thinking whatever you like and expressing whatever you like to think in writing, without any thought of moderation, is not of its own nature, indeed, a good in which human society may rightly rejoice, but, on the contrary, a fount and origin of many ills.

Liberty, in so far as it is a virtue perfecting man, should be occupied with that which is true and that which is good; but the foundation of that which is true and that which is good cannot be changed at the pleasure of man, but remains ever the same, nor indeed is it less unchangeable than nature herself. If the mind assent to false opinions, if the will choose for itself evil, and apply itself thereto, neither attains its perfection, but both fall from their natural dignity, and both lapse by degrees into corruption. Whatever things, therefore, are contrary to virtue and truth, these things it is not right to place in the light before the eyes of men, far less to defend by the favor and tutelage of the laws. A well-spent life is the only path to that heaven whither we all direct our steps; and on this account the State departs from the law and custom of nature if it allows the license of opinions and of deeds to run riot to such a degree as to lead minds astray with impunity from the truth, and hearts from the practice of virtue.

But to exclude the Church which God Himself has constituted from the business of life, from the laws, from the teaching of youth, from domestic society, is a great and pernicious error. A well-regulated State cannot be when religion is taken away; more than needs be, perhaps, is now known of what sort of a thing is in itself, and whither tends that philosophy of life and morals which men call civil. The Church of Christ is the true teacher of virtue and guardian of morals; it is that which keeps principles in safety, from which duties are derived, and by proposing most efficacious reasons for an honest life, it bids us not only fly from wicked deeds, but rule the motions of the mind which are contrary to reason when it is not intended to reduce them to action. But to wish the Church in the discharge of its offices to be subject to the[Pg 12] civil power is a great rashness, a great injustice. If this were done order would be disturbed, since things natural would thus be put before those which are above nature; the multitude of the good whose common life, if there be nothing to hinder it, the Church would make complete, either disappears or at all events is considerably diminished, and besides, a way is opened to enmities and conflicts—how great the evil which they bring upon each order of government the event has too frequently shown.

Such doctrines are not approved by human reason, and are of the greatest gravity as regards civil discipline, the Roman Pontiffs our predecessors—well understanding what the apostolic office required of them—by no means suffered to go forth without condemnation. Thus Gregory XVI., by Encyclical Letter, beginning Mirare vos, of August 15, 1832, inveighed with weighty words against those doctrines which were already being preached, namely, that in divine worship no choice should be made; and that it was right for individuals to judge of religion according to their personal preferences, that each man's conscience was to himself his sole sufficient guide, and that it was lawful to promulgate whatsoever each man might think, and so make a revolution in the State. Concerning the reasons for the separation of Church and State, the same Pontiff speaks thus: "Nor can we hope happier results either for religion or the government, from the wishes of those who are eagerly desirous that the Church should be separated from the State, and the mutual good understanding of the sovereign secular power and the sacerdotal authority be broken up. It is evident that these lovers of most shameless liberty dread that concord which has always been fortunate and wholesome, both for sacred and civil interests." To the like effect Pius IX., as opportunity offered, noted many false opinions which had begun to be of great strength, and afterward ordered them to be collected together in order that in so great a conflux of errors Catholics might have something which, without stumbling, they might follow.

From these decisions of the Popes it is clearly to be understood that the origin of public power is to be sought from God Himself and not from the multitude; that the free play for sedition is repugnant to reason; that it is a crime for private individuals and a crime for States to observe nowhere the duties of religion or to treat in the same way different kinds of religion; that the uncontrolled right of thinking and publicly proclaiming one's thoughts is not inherent in the rights of citizens, nor in any sense to be placed among those things which are worthy of favor or patronage. Similarly it ought to be understood that the Church is a society, no less than the State itself, perfect in kind and right, and that those who exercise sovereignty ought not to act so as to compel the Church to become subservient or inferior to themselves, or suffer her to be less free to transact her own affairs or detract aught from the other rights which have been conferred upon her by Jesus Christ. But in matters however in complex jurisdiction, it is in the highest degree in accordance with nature and also with the counsels of God—not that one power should secede from the other, still less come into conflict, but that that harmony and concord should be preserved which is most akin to the foundations of both societies.[Pg 13]

These, then, are the things taught by the Catholic Church concerning the constitution and government of the State. Concerning these sayings and decrees, if a man will only judge dispassionately, no form of Government is, per se, condemned as long as it has nothing repugnant to Catholic doctrine, and is able, if wisely and justly managed, to preserve the State in the best condition. Nor is it, per se, to be condemned whether the people have a greater or less share in the government; for at certain times and with the guarantee of certain laws, such participation may appertain, not only to the usefulness, but even to the duty of the citizens. Moreover, there is no just cause that any one should condemn the Church as being too restricted in gentleness, or inimical to that liberty which is natural and legitimate. In truth the Church judges it not lawful that the various kinds of Divine worship should have the same right as the true religion, still it does not therefore condemn those governors of States, who, for the sake of acquiring some great good, or preventing some great ill, patiently bear with manners and customs so that each kind of religion has its place in the State. Indeed the Church is wont diligently to take heed that no one be compelled against his will to embrace the Catholic Faith, for as Augustine wisely observes: "Credere non potest homo nisi volens." (Tract. xxvi., in Joan., n. 2.)

For a similar reason the Church cannot approve of that liberty which generates a contempt of the most sacred laws of God, and puts away the obedience due to legitimate power. For this is license rather than liberty, and is most correctly called by Augustine, "libertas perditionis" (Ep. cv., ad Donatistas. ii., n. 9); by the Apostle Peter, "a cloak for malice" (1 Peter ii. 16), indeed, since it is contrary to reason, it is a true servitude, for "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." (John viii. 34.) On the other hand, that liberty is natural and to be sought, which, if it be considered in relation to the individual, suffers not men to be the slaves of errors and evil desires, the worst of masters; if, in relation to the State, it presides wisely over the citizens, serves the faculty of augmenting public advantages, and defends the public interest from alien rule, this blameless liberty worthy of man the Church approves, above all, and has never ceased striving and contending to keep firm and whole among the people. In very truth, whatever things in the State chiefly avail for the common safety; whatever have been usefully instituted against the license of princes, consulting all the interests of the people; whatever forbid the governing authority to invade into municipal or domestic affairs; whatever avail to preserve the dignity and the character of man in preserving the equality of rights in individual citizens, of all these things the monuments of former ages witness the Catholic Church to have always been either the author, the promoter, or the guardian.

Ever, therefore, consistent with herself, if on the one hand she rejects immoderate liberty, which both in the case of individuals and peoples results in license or in servitude; on the other she willingly and with pleasure embraces those happier circumstances which the age brings; if they truly contain the prosperity of this life, which is as it were a stage in the journey to that other which is to endure everlastingly.[Pg 14] Therefore what they say that the Church is jealous of, the more modern political systems repudiate in a mass, and whatever the disposition of these times has brought forth, is an inane and contemptible calumny. The madness of opinion it indeed repudiates; it reproves the wicked plans of sedition, and especially that habit of mind in which the beginnings of a voluntary departing from God are visible; but since every true thing must necessarily proceed from God, whatever of truth is by search attained, the Church acknowledges as a certain token of the Divine mind. And since there is in the world nothing which can take away belief in the doctrines divinely handed down and many things which confirm this, and since every finding of truth may impel man to the knowledge or praise of God Himself, therefore whatever may happen to extend the range of knowledge, the Church will always willingly and joyfully accept; and she will, as is her wont in the case of other departments of knowledge, studiously encourage and promote those also which are concerned with the investigation of nature. In which studies, if the mind finds anything new, the Church is not in opposition; she fights not against the search after more things for the grace and convenience of life—nay, a very foe to inertness and sloth, she earnestly wishes that the talents of men should, by being cultivated and exercised, bear still richer fruits; she affords incitements to every sort of art and craft, and by her own virtue directing by her own perfection all the pursuits of those things to virtue and salvation, she strives to prevent man from turning aside his intelligence and industry from God and heavenly things.

But these things, although full of reasonableness and foresight, are not so well approved of at this time, when States not only refuse to refer to the laws of Christian knowledge, but are seen even to wish to depart each day farther from them. Nevertheless, because truth brought to light is wont of its own accord to spread widely, and by degrees to pervade the minds of men, we, therefore, moved by the consciousness of the greatest, the most holy, that is the Apostolic obligation, which we owe to all the nations, those things which are true, freely, as we ought, we do speak, not that we have no perception of the spirit of the times, or that we think the honest and useful improvements of our age are to be repudiated, but because we would wish the highways of public affairs to be safer from attacks, and their foundations more stable, and that without detriment to the true freedom of the peoples; for amongst men the mother and best guardian of liberty is truth: "The truth shall make you free." (John viii. 32).

Therefore at so critical a juncture of events, Catholic men, if, as it behooves them, they will listen to us, will easily see what are their own and each other's duties in matters of opinion as well as of action. And in the formation of opinion, whatsoever things the Roman Pontiffs have handed down, or shall hereafter hand down, each and every one is it necessary to hold in firm judgment well understood, and as often as occasion demands openly to declare. Now, especially concerning those things which are called recently-acquired liberties, is it proper to stand by the judgment of the Apostolic See, and for each one to hold what she herself holds.[Pg 15]

Take care lest some one be deceived by the honest outward appearance of these things; and think of the beginnings from which they are sprung; and by what desires they are sustained and fed in divers places. It is now sufficiently known by experience of what things they are the causes in the State; how indiscriminately they bring forth fruit, of which good men and wise rightly do repent. If there should be in any place a State, either actual or hypothetical, that wantonly and tyrannically wages war upon the Christian name, and it have conferred upon it that character of which we have spoken, it is possible that this may be considered more tolerable; yet the principles upon which it rests are absolutely such that, of themselves they ought to be approved by no man.

Now action may be taken in private and domestic affairs, or in affairs public. In private life, indeed, the first duty is to conform one's life and manners to the precepts of the Gospel, and not to refuse, if Christian virtue demands, something more difficult to bear than usual. Individuals, also, are bound to love the Church as their common mother; to keep her laws obediently; to give her the service of due honor, and to wish her rights respected, and to endeavor that she be fostered and beloved with like piety by those over whom they may exercise authority. It is also of great importance to the public welfare diligently and wisely to give attention to the duties of citizenship; in this regard, most particularly, with that concern which is righteous amongst Christians, to take pains and pass effective measures so that public provision be made for the instruction of youth in religion and true morality, for upon these things depends very much the welfare of every State. Besides, in general, it is useful and honorable to stretch the attention of Catholic men beyond this narrower field, and to embrace every branch of public administration. Generally, we say, because these our precepts reach unto all nations. But it may happen in some particular place, for the most urgent and just reasons, that it is by no means expedient to engage in public affairs, or to take an active part in political functions. But generally, as we have said, to wish to take no part in public affairs would be in that degree vicious, in which it brought to the common weal neither care, nor work; and on this account the more so, because Catholic men are bound by the admonitions of the doctrine which they profess, to do what has to be done with integrity and with faith. If, on the contrary, they were idle, those whose opinions do not, in truth, give any great hope of safety, would easily get possession of the reins of government. This, also, would be attended with danger to the Christian name, because they would become most powerful who are badly disposed towards the Church; and those least powerful who are well disposed. Wherefore, it is evident there is just cause for Catholics to undertake the conduct of public affairs; for they do not assume these responsibilities in order to approve of what is not lawful in the methods of government at this time; but in order that they may turn these very methods, as far as may be, to the unmixed and true public good, holding this purpose in their minds, to infuse into all the veins of the commonwealth the wisdom and virtue of the Catholic religion—the most healthy sap and blood, as it were. It was scarcely done otherwise in the first[Pg 16] ages of the Church. For the manners and desires of the heathen were divergent as widely as possible from the manners and desires of the Gospel; for the Christians had to separate themselves incorrupt in the midst of superstition, and always true to themselves, most cheerfully to enter every walk in life which was open to them. Models of fidelity to their princes, obedient, where lawful, to the sovereign power, they established a wonderful splendor of holiness everywhere; they sought the advantage of their neighbor, and to all others to the wisdom of Christ; bravely prepared to retire from public life, and even to die if they could not retain honors, nor the magistracy, nor the supreme command with unsullied virtue. For which reason Christian customs soon found their way, not only into private houses, but into the camps, into the senate, even into the imperial palace. "We are of yesterday and we fill your everything, cities, islands, castles, municipalities, councils, the very camps, the rank and file of the army, the officerships, the palace, the senate, the forum," (Tertullian Apol., n. 37), so that the Christian faith, when it was unlawful publicly to profess the Gospel, was not like a child crying in his cradle, but grown up and already sufficiently firm, was manifest in a great part of the State.

Now, indeed, in these days it is as well to renew these examples of our forefathers. For Catholics indeed, as many as are worthy of the name, before all things it is necessary to be, and to be willing to be, regarded as most loving sons of the Church; whatsoever is inconsistent with this good report, without hesitation to reject; to use popular institutions as far as honestly can be to the advantage of truth and justice; to labor, that liberty of action shall not transgress the bounds ordained by the law of nature and of God; so to work that the whole of public life shall be transformed into that, as we have called it, a Christian image and likeness. The means to seek these ends can scarcely be laid down upon one uniform plan, since they must suit places and times very different from each other. Nevertheless, in the first place, let concord of wills be preserved, and a likeness of things to be done sought for. And each will be attained the best, if all shall consider the admonitions of the Apostolic See, a law of conduct, and shall obey the Bishops whom "the Spirit of God has placed to rule the Church of God." (Acts xx. 28). The defence of the Catholic name, indeed of necessity demands that in the profession of doctrines which are handed down by the Church the opinion of all shall be one, and the most perfect constancy, and from this point of view take care that no one connives in any degree at false opinions, or resists with greater gentleness than truth will allow. Concerning those things which are matters of opinion, it will be lawful, with moderation and with a desire of investigating the truth, without injurious suspicions and mutual incriminations. For which purpose, lest the agreement of minds be broken by temerity of accusation, let all understand: that the integrity of the Catholic profession can by no means be reconciled with opinions approaching towards naturalism or rationalism, of which the sum total is to uproot Christian institutions altogether, and to establish the supremacy of man, Almighty God being pushed to one side. Likewise, it is unlawful to follow one line of duty in private and another in public, so that the authority of the Church[Pg 17] shall be observed in private, and spurned in public. For this would be to join together things honest and disgraceful, and to make a man fight a battle with himself, when, on the contrary, he ought always to be consistent with himself, and never, in any the least thing or manner of living, decline from Christian virtue. But, if inquiry is made about principles, merely political, concerning the best form of government, of civil regulations of one kind or another, concerning these things, of course, there is room for disagreement without harm. Those whose piety, therefore, is known on other accounts, and whose minds are ready to accept the decrees of the Apostolic See, justice will not allow accounted evil because they differ on these subjects; and much greater is the injury if they are charged with the crime of having violated the Catholic faith, or are suspected, a thing we deplore done, not once only. And let all hold this precept absolutely, who are wont to commit their thoughts to writing, especially the editors of newspapers. In this contention about the highest things, nothing is to be left to intestine conflicts, or the greed of parties, but let all, uniting together, seek the common object of all, to preserve religion and the State.

If, therefore, there have been dissensions, it is right to obliterate them in a certain voluntary forgetfulness; if there has been anything rash, anything injurious, to whomsoever this fault belongs let compensation be made by mutual charity, and especially in obedience to the Apostolic See. In this way Catholics will obtain two things most excellent; one that they will make themselves helps to the Church in preserving and propagating Christian knowledge; the other that they will benefit civil society; of which the safety is gravely compromised by reason of evil doctrines and inordinate desires.

These things, therefore, Venerable Brethren, concerning the Christian constitution of States and the duties of individual citizens, we have dwelt upon; we shall transmit them to all the nations of the Catholic world.

But it behooves us to implore, with most earnest prayers, the heavenly protection, and to beg of Almighty God these things which we desire and strive after for His glory and the salvation of the human race, whose alone it is to illumine the minds and to quicken the wills of men and Himself to lead on to the wished for end. As a pledge of the Divine favors, and in witness of our paternal benevolence to you, Venerable Brethren, to the Clergy, and to all the people committed to your faith and vigilance, we lovingly bestow in the Lord the Apostolic Benediction.

Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the first day of November, in the year of Our Lord mdccclxxxv., of Our Pontificate the Eighth.

LEO PP. XIII.

Venerable Bede records: "It was customary for the English of all ranks to retire for study and devotion to Ireland, where they were hospitably received, and supplied gratuitously with food, books and instruction."

[Pg 18]

His Eminence John Cardinal McCloskey.

ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK, CARDINAL PRIEST OF THE TITLE OF SANCTA MARIA SUPRA MINERVAM.

The waning days of the year 1885 witnessed the peaceful decline, and the happy Christian death, of one of the most remarkable men of the Irish race in this country. His glorious obsequies in the magnificent Cathedral which he completed and dedicated, produced a deep impression on all classes, nor was there ever witnessed a greater and more unanimous concord than pervaded the tributes of respect from the press and pulpit of the land to this prince of the Catholic Church.

In a modest dwelling on Fort Greene, Brooklyn, fronting the road that led to Newtown Turnpike, John McCloskey was born on the 10th of March, 1810, while deep snow covered the fields far and wide, and ice choked the rapid current of the East River. His father, George McCloskey, had emigrated to this country from the county Derry, some years before, with his wife, and by industry, thrift and uprightness was increasing the little store of means which he had brought to the New World. The boy was not endowed with a rugged frame, and few could promise either mother or child length of days. Yet she lived to behold him a bishop.

Brooklyn was then but a suburb of the little city of New York; it did not number five thousand inhabitants, and the scanty flock of Catholics had neither priest nor shrine. The child of George McCloskey, was taken to St. Peter's Church, New York, to be baptized, by the venerable Jesuit Father Anthony Kohlmann. As he grew up he crossed the East River on Sundays with his parents to attend that same church, then the only one in New York; it has just celebrated the centenary of its organization, as a congregation, and the life of the great Cardinal, which faded away just before that event, covers three quarters of its century.

George McCloskey was one of the few energetic Catholics, who, about 1820, started the movement which led to the erection of St. James on Jay Street, and gave Brooklyn its first Catholic Church and future Cathedral. Meanwhile, his son carefully trained at home, was sent to school at an early age; gentle and delicate, he had neither strength nor inclination for the rough sports of his schoolmates; but was always cheerful and popular, studying hard and winning a high grade in his classes. Till the church in Brooklyn was built, the boy and his mother made their way each Sunday to the riverside to cross by the only conveyance of those days, in order to occupy the pew which the large-hearted George McCloskey had purchased in St. Peter's, for in those days pews were sold and a yearly ground rent paid. When St. Patrick's was opened, an appeal was made to the liberal to take pews in that church also, and again the generous George McCloskey responded to the call, purchasing a pew there also.[Pg 19]

This whole-souled Irish-Catholic built great hopes on the talents of his son, and intended to send him to Georgetown College, of which Father Benedict Fenwick, long connected with St. Peter's, had become president. But in the providence of God he was not to see him enter any college; while still in the prime of life, he was seized with illness, which carried him to the grave in 1820. Mrs. McCloskey was left with means which enabled her to carry out the plans of her husband; but as Father Fenwick had left Georgetown, she acted on the advice of friends, and sent her son to the College of Mount St. Mary's, which had been founded near Emmittsburg, by the Rev. John Du Bois, a French priest, who, escaping the horrors of the Revolution in his own country, and the sanguinary tribunals of his old schoolmate, Robespierre, had crossed the Atlantic to be a missionary in America.

Mount St. Mary's College, when young McCloskey entered it after the summer of 1821, consisted of two rows of log buildings; "but such as have often been in this country, the first home of men and institutions destined to greatness and renown." Humble as it was externally, however, the college was no longer an experiment; it had proved its efficiency as an institution of learning. Young McCloskey entered on his studies with his wonted zeal and energy, and learned not only the classics of ancient and modern times, but the great lesson of self-control. Blessed with a wonderfully retentive memory, a logical mind that proceeded slowly, not by impulse, his progress was solid and rapid; his progress in virtue was no less so; every natural tendency to harsh and bitter judgment, or word, was by the principles of religion and faith checked and brought under control. If, in after life, he was regarded universally as mild and gentle, the credit must be given to his religious training, which enabled him to achieve the conquest.

A fine stone college was rising, and with his fellow-students he looked forward with sanguine hope to the rapidly approaching day, when the collegians of Mount St. Mary's were to tread halls worthy of their Alma Mater, their faculty and themselves. Its progress was watched with deep interest, when, in the summer of 1824, the students were roused one Sunday night by the cry of fire. An incendiary hand had applied the torch to the new edifice. No appliances were at hand for checking the progress of the flames; professors, seminarians, and collegians labored unremittingly to save their humble log structures destined to be for some time more the scene of their studious hours.

McCloskey joined in the address of sympathy which the pupils of Mount St. Mary's tendered to their venerated president. He beheld the energy and faith of that eminent man in the zeal with which he began the work anew, and completed the building again before the close of another year. Thus the talented young Catholic boy from New York State learned not only the lore found in books, but the great lessons of patience, self-control, correspondence to the will of God. Before he closed his college course, he saw Dr. Du Bois, called away from the institution he had founded to assume, by command of the successor of St. Peter, the administration of the diocese of New York. The good work continued under Rev. Michael De Burgo Egan as President, and John McCloskey was graduated, in 1828, with high honors. At that[Pg 20] time Mount St. Mary's had in the seminary twenty-five or thirty aspirants to the priesthood, and in the college nearly one hundred students. The early graduates of the Mount are the best proof of the thorough literary course followed there, as well as the thorough knowledge and love of the faith inculcated.

Young McCloskey returned to the home of his mother in Westchester County, N. Y., and looked forward to his future career in life. As often happens, a family bias, or wish, rather than the judgment of the young man himself, induces the first step. John McCloskey was to become a lawyer. We are told that he began the study of Coke and Blackstone, of the principles of law and the practice of the courts, in the office of Joseph W. Smith, Esq., of New York. But the active mind was at work solving a great problem. A fellow-student at college, his senior in years, brilliant, poetic, zealous, had resolved to devote his life and talents to the ministry, and had more than once portrayed to young McCloskey the heroism of the priestly life of self-devotion and sacrifice. The words of Charles C. Pise and his example had produced an impression greater than was apparent. McCloskey meditated, prayed and sought the guidance of a wise director. Gradually the conviction became deep and firm that God called him to the ecclesiastical state. He closed the books of human law, renounced the prospects of worldly success, and resolved to prepare by study and seclusion, by prayer and self-mastery, for the awful dignity of the priesthood.

The next year he returned to Emmittsburg to enter the seminary as a candidate for holy orders from the diocese of New York. He was welcomed as one whose solid learning, brilliant eloquence, deep and tender piety, studious habits and zeal made it certain that he must as a priest render essential service to the Church in this country. As a seminarian, and, in conjunction with that character, as professor, he confirmed the high opinion formed of him, and at an early day Bishop Du Bois fixed upon him as one to fill important positions in his diocese.

From the moment that he took possession of his See the Rt. Rev. Dr. Du Bois had labored to give New York an institution like that which he had brought to so successful a condition in Maryland, reckoning as nought the advance of years and the heavy duties of the episcopate. It was not till the spring of 1832, that he was able to purchase a farm at Nyack, in Rockland County, as the site for his seminary and college. To preside over it, he had already selected his seminarian, John McCloskey, whom he summoned from Emmittsburg. The visitation of the cholera, however, prevented the progress of the undertaking, although the school was opened. The corner-stone was laid on the 29th of May, 1833, and the erection of the main building was carried on till the second story was completed, when the bishop appealed to his flock to aid him by their contributions.

On the 24th of January the old Cathedral in New York witnessed the solemn ceremony of an ordination, and the Rev. John McCloskey was raised to the dignity of the priesthood. The young priest was stationed at Nyack; but his eloquent voice was heard and appreciated in the churches of New York City. The first sermon which the young priest preached after his ordination is an index of the piety and devotion[Pg 21] which guided him through life. It was on devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and was delivered in the church reared in New York in honor of the Mother of God.

In the summer of 1834, the little chapel at Nyack, adjoining the rising college, was ready for dedication; but before the institution could be opened, the virulent declamations of a Brownell had inflamed the minds of the ignorant peasantry in that neighborhood with religious hatred, and the college was denounced as an evil to be prevented. The torch of the incendiary soon laid the edifice in ashes.

The project of a seminary and college was thus indefinitely deferred, although Bishop Du Bois, with characteristic determination, resolved to rebuild the blackened ruins and raise the college anew. So confident was he of success, that he would not appoint Rev. Mr. McCloskey to any parochial charge, reserving him to preside over the diocesan institution on which he had set his heart. In order to fit himself for the position, the young priest begged his bishop to permit him to proceed to Rome in order to follow for two years the thorough course of theological studies in the Gregorian University, thus profitably employing the time that would necessarily be required to fit the institution for the reception of pupils.

As Bishop Du Bois saw the wisdom of the suggestion, he consented, and early in 1835 Rev. John McCloskey reached the Eternal City, and enrolled himself among the distinguished pupils like Grazrosi, Perrone, Palma, Finucci, who were then attending the lectures of Perrone, Manera, and their associate professors. One who knew Rome well, and knew the late Cardinal well, wrote: "What advantage the young American priest drew from them has ever since been seen in the remarkable breadth and correctness and lucidity of his decisions in theological matters, whether coming before him in his episcopal duties, or brought up for discussion in the episcopal councils which he has attended. His words, calm and well considered, have ever been listened to with attention, and generally decided the question. But, beyond the mere book learning, so to speak, of ecclesiastical education, he gained a knowledge of the ecclesiastical world, nowhere else attainable than in Rome. Brought in contact with the students of the English College, under Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman, of the Irish College under Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Cullen, of the Propaganda under Monsignor (afterwards Cardinal) Count de Reisach, of the Roman Seminary, and of other colleges, he came to know many brilliant young students of various nationalities, alike in faith and in fervent piety, yet dissimilar in the peculiar traits of their respective races. He formed friendship with many who have since made their mark in their own countries. The young American priest, so polished and gentlemanly in his address, so modest and retiring, and yet so full of varied learning, so keen of observation, and so ready, when drawn out, with unexpected and plain, common-sense, home thrusts, was fully appreciated among kindred minds of the clergy of Rome, and of other countries visiting Rome. Though avoiding society as far as he could, and something of a recluse, he was welcome in more than one noble Roman palace. But it was especially in the English-speaking circle of Catholic visitors each winter to Rome,[Pg 22] that he was prized. Cardinal Weld, ever an upholder of Americans, anticipated great things yet to be done by this young priest, and loved to present him to the Cliffords, the Shrewsburys, and other noble English-speaking Catholics, as a living refutation of the accounts of Americans and American manners, just given to the English world by Mrs. Trollope."

Among this English-speaking colony in Rome he found abundant occasion for the exercise of his ministry, such was the confidence inspired by his piety and learning. Among those placed under his direction was Mrs. Connolly, an American convert, who, in time, founded in England a teaching community of high order, the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, which has now many houses in England and the United States.

At the expiration of the time assigned for his studious sojourn in Rome, Rev. Mr. McCloskey left the Eternal City, well fitted, indeed, to assume the directorship of the seminary. He travelled with observant eye through Northern Italy, Austria, Germany and France, then crossed to the British Isles, visiting England and Scotland. His tour enabled him to meet old friends and to win new ones; as well as to learn practically the condition of the church in all parts of Europe.

When he returned to New York in 1838 he found that Bishop Du Bois had, overcome by difficulties and trials, finally abandoned his projected seminary; and now desired to assign him to parochial work. With the well-trained priest to hear was to obey. Yet the position of the bishop was one of difficulty. An uncatholic national feeling had been aroused some years before in New York, assuming under Bishop Connolly all obsequiousness to that prelate and zeal for his honor; under Bishop Du Bois its whole power was wielded against him; and as few of the leaders in the movement were practical Catholics, appeals to their religious sense fell unheeded.

The parish offered to Rev. Mr. McCloskey presented difficulties of its own. The last pastor, his old friend and brother-collegian, Rev. Charles C. Pise, had indiscreetly aroused a deep and bitter feeling against himself, and the hostile party in the congregation was led by a man of learning and real attachment to his religion, though of little self-control. For the Rev. Mr. McCloskey to assume the pastorship of St. Joseph's required no little courage. He was as obnoxious on some grounds as his predecessor, being like him American by birth, trained at Emmittsburg under Bishop Du Bois. In this conjuncture the Rev. John McCloskey displayed what must be recognized as the striking virtue of his character, the highest degree of Christian prudence, and with it and through it, courage, firmness and self-control. He repaired to the post assigned to him by his bishop, and entered upon the discharge of his duties. The Trustees ignored his appointment utterly, made no appropriation for his salary, took no steps to furnish his house, so that he had not even a table to write upon. "But," as His Grace Archbishop Corrigan well says, "the young priest was equal to the emergency. He discharged his duties as sweetly, as if there never had been a suspicion of dissatisfaction; he prepared his sermons as carefully, as if the best audience New York could afford[Pg 23] were there to listen." His parish extended up to the line of Harlem; but he complained neither of his treatment, nor of the labor of the day and the heat; and men ready and anxious to complain, found that they had to do with a priest who gave them not a tittle to bear before the people as a grievance to complain about. The clouds vanished so completely that the people forgot there had ever been any. In a few years one of those who had received him with the greatest distrust, had grown to appreciate him so highly as to address him as a priest "whose unaffected piety as a Christian Divine, splendid talents as an effective preacher, extensive acquirements as an elegant scholar, and dignified, yet amiable, manners as an accomplished gentleman, have long been the admiration, the ornament and the model of his devoted flock."

The project for which Bishop Du Bois had summoned his young seminarian from the Mount was at last carried out in 1841 by the vigorous head and hand of Bishop Hughes. The diocese of New York had its Seminary and College at Fordham. It was a remarkable tribute to the merit and ability of the Rev. John McCloskey, that Bishop Hughes, though the diocese had been joined by many able and learned priests, still turned to him to fill the post for which Bishop Du Bois had selected him when but a seminarian. Yet he was now a parish priest, and the tie between him and his flock had grown so close that both feared that it might be sundered.

He undertook the organization of the Seminary and College, retaining his pastoral charge to the consolation of his flock. The result justified the selection. His power of organization, his knowledge of the wants of the times, of the duties of teacher and pupil, were thorough. The institution was soon in successful operation, and the seminarians were edified by the piety, regularity and unalterable calmness of the Superior, who was always with them at their morning meditation, and always with them at exercises of devotion, his perfect order and system preventing all confusion, foreseeing and providing for all.

After placing the new institutions on a firm basis, he resigned the presidency to other hands, and resumed his duties at St. Joseph, to the delight of his flock. It was, however, really because Bishop Hughes already determined to solicit his elevation to the episcopate, that he might enjoy his aid as coadjutor in directing the affairs of the diocese, which were becoming beyond the power of one man to discharge. In the Fifth Provincial Council, of Baltimore, held in May, 1843, Bishop Hughes laid his wishes before the assembled Fathers, and the appointment of Rev. John McCloskey, as coadjutor of New York, was formally solicited from the Sovereign Pontiff by the Metropolitan of Baltimore and his suffragans. At Rome there was no hesitation in confirming the choice of a clergyman whose merit was so well known, and on the 30th of September, Cardinal Fransoni wrote announcing that the Rev. John McCloskey had been elected by the Holy Father for the See of Axiere, and made coadjutor to the Bishop of New York.

The consecration took place in old St. Patrick's Cathedral on the 10th of March, 1844, and the scene was the grandest ever till then witnessed in New York, The Rt. Rev. John Hughes, Bishop of New York, assisted by Bishop Fenwick, of New York, once administrator of[Pg 24] the diocese, and Bishop Whelan, of Wheeling, consecrated three bishops, the Rt. Rev. Andrew Byrne, Bishop of Little Rock, the Rt. Rev. William Quarter, Bishop of Chicago, and the Rt. Rev. John McCloskey, Bishop of Axiere, and coadjutor of New York.

From the pulpit of the Cathedral, the venerable Dr. Power, addressing the newly consecrated coadjutor, said: "One of you I have known from his boyhood. I have seen the youthful bud of genius unfold itself; and I have seen it also in full expansion; and I thank God I have been spared to behold it now blessing the house of the Lord. Rt. Rev. Dr. McCloskey! it must be gratifying to you to know, that if the choice of a coadjutor of this diocese had been given to your fellow-laborers in the vineyard, it would certainly have fallen upon you."

It was surely no ordinary merit, that won the Rev. John McCloskey such universal esteem. To have been chosen for the same responsible post by men so different in mind and feelings as Bishops Du Bois and Hughes, to be at once the choice of Bishop Hughes and a body of priests among whom great divisions had existed, and great differences of nationality, education and inclination prevailed, was something wonderful and unparalleled.

His elevation to the episcopate did not withdraw Bishop McCloskey from the church of his affection, that dedicated to the Spouse of Mary. Here his throne was erected, and the congregation rejoiced in the honor and dignity conferred upon him, and through him on their church. He then began the discharge of the episcopal duties devolved upon him by the Rt. Rev. Bishop of the See. The earliest was the dedication of the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in New York City. From that we can mark his course confirming in all parts of the diocese, dedicating churches, and ordaining to the priesthood, two of the six first ordained by him on the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady in 1844, still surviving hoary with long years of priestly labor, Rev. Sylvester Malone and Rev. George McCloskey. But the weightier and important duties connected with the administration are unrecorded. The most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore in his funeral sermon on Cardinal McCloskey said truly: "The life of the Cardinal has never been written and never can be. And this is true of every Catholic prelate. He can never have his Boswell. The biographer may relate his public and official acts. He may recount the churches he erected, the schools he opened, the institutions of charity and religion which he established; the priests he ordained, the sermons he preached, the sacraments he administered, the laborious visitations he made, but he can know nothing of the private and inner life which is 'hidden with Christ in God.' That is manifest to God's recording angel only. The biographer knows nothing of the bishop's secret and confidential relations with his clergy and people, and even with many who are alien to his faith. He is the daily depository of their cares and anxieties, of their troubles and afflictions, of their trials and temptations. They come to him for counsel in doubt, for spiritual and even temporal assistance. Were a bishop's real life in its outward and inward fulness published, it would be more interesting than a novel."

Even with the aid of so untiring a coadjutor as Dr. McCloskey,[Pg 25] Bishop Hughes found the diocese too large to be administered with the care that all portions required. When the Sixth Provincial Council convened at Baltimore, in May, 1846, which he attended with his coadjutor, he urged a division of his diocese, the necessity of which Bishop McCloskey could attest. New Sees were proposed at Albany and Buffalo. Pius IX., yielding to the request of the Fathers of the Council of Baltimore, erected the dioceses of Albany and Buffalo. Bishop McCloskey was translated from the See of Axiere to that of Albany, and the diocese committed to his care comprised the portion of New York State north of the forty-second degree, and lying east of Cayuga, Tompkins and Tioga counties.

He took possession of his diocese early in the summer, making St. Mary's his pro-cathedral, till the erection of his cathedral, of which he laid the corner-stone soon after his arrival. A visitation of his diocese followed, and then began the work of developing the Catholic interests in the portion of the State. His diocese contained forty-four churches, and about as many clergymen, with but few institutions of education or charity. Its progress was steady, solid and effectual. He added new priests, well chosen and trained, introduced the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Christian Brothers, the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. His Cathedral was completed and was recognized as one of the greatest ornaments of the city; but all extravagance was avoided and discouraged. Churches were reared suited to the means of the flock, and the tepid, careless and indifferent were recalled to their Christian duties, till the diocese assumed a new spirit. None but those who lived there, and witnessed the progress, can form a conception of what Bishop McCloskey accomplished while he gave the best period of his life to the diocese of Albany.

More than a hundred churches, and nearly a hundred priests, with schools, academies, hospitals, asylums, were the fruits of the Catholic life aroused by his zeal.

As Bishop of Albany he took part in the Seventh Provincial Council of Baltimore in 1849; the first Plenary Council, in 1852; and the first of New York, 1854. In all these his prudence and wisdom deeply impressed his associates, as many of them have testified. In his diocese his relations to his clergy in his Synod, and in occasional directions, showed a gentle consideration for others, which overcame all obstacles.

On the death of Archbishop Hughes, to whom he had long since been named successor, the voice of the bishops of the Province, as well as the desire of the clergy and people of the diocese, solicited from the Holy See the promotion of Bishop McCloskey, and the successor of St. Peter soon pronounced the definitive word. He returned to New York just as the terrible civil war came to a close; and the paralyzed country could look to its future. Under his impulse the new Cathedral was completed and dedicated with a pomp never yet witnessed in the Western World. The State of New York for some years had suffered from a want of churches; but amid a war draining the wealth and blood of the country, it would have been rash to attempt to erect them when all value were fictitious. Now, under the impulse of the quiet and[Pg 26] retiring Archbishop, old churches were enlarged; new parishes were formed and endowed with churches; schools increased in number and efficacy. While increasing the number of his parochial clergy both in numbers and in the thorough education he so highly esteemed, Archbishop McCloskey gave the religious orders every encouragement, and introduced others. Communities of religious women, for various forms of charity, also found a hearty support from him. In the administration of the diocese, and the direction of these communities, he displayed his wonted wisdom in selecting as his Vicar General, the Rev. William Quinn, whose ability of a remarkable order had already been tested.

Archbishop McCloskey took part in the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, in 1866, whose acts are such a code of doctrine and discipline. "Of it he was a burning and a shining light," said Archbishop Gibbons. "He was conspicuous alike for his eloquence in the pulpit, and for his wisdom in the council chamber. I well remember the discourse he delivered at the opening session. The clear, silvery tones of his voice, the grace of his gestures and manner, the persuasive eloquence and charm of his words are indelibly imprinted on my memory and imagination. Just before ascending the pulpit, a telegram was handed to him, announcing the destruction by fire of his Cathedral. He did not betray the slightest emotion, notwithstanding the sudden and calamitous news. Next morning I expressed to him my surprise at his imperturbable manner. "The damage," he replied, "is done, and I cannot undo it. We must calmly submit to the will of Providence.""

The decrees of the Plenary Council, with those of the Council of New York, were promulgated by him in a Synod held by him at New York, in September, 1868.

The next year he was summoned to attend a General Council at Rome, the first held in the church since the Synod of Trent. The Council of the Vatican had been equalled by but few in the number of bishops, by none in the universality of the representation. Before modern science had facilitated modes of travel and communication, the area including those who attended was comparatively limited. To the Vatican Council, however, they came not from all parts of Europe only, but from Palestine, India and China; from the Moslem States of Africa; the European colonies; the negro kingdoms of the interior; America sent her bishops from Canada and the United States; the Spanish republics, Australia and the islands of the Pacific even had their bishops seated beside those of the most ancient Sees. Here Archbishop McCloskey was a conspicuous figure, respected for learning, experience, the firmness with which he held the opinion he mildly but conclusively advanced. In the committee on discipline his wisdom excited the highest admiration of the presiding cardinal.

When the impious seizure of Rome made the sovereign Pontiff a prisoner in the Vatican, the proceedings of the council were deferred to better days, which the Church still prayfully awaits. Archbishop McCloskey returned to his diocese; but the malaria of the Campagna had affected his health, never rugged, and shattered some years previously[Pg 27] by a railroad accident, on a journey required by his high office. But he resumed his accustomed duties, inspiring good works, or guiding and supporting them like the Catholic Protectory, the Catholic Union of New York, and its branch since developed to such wide-reaching influence, the Xavier Union.

The impression which he had produced at Rome, from his early visit as a young priest to his dignified course in age as a Father of the Council of the Vatican, led to a new and singular honor, in which the whole country shared his honor. In the consistory held March 15, 1875, Pope Pius IX. created Archbishop McCloskey a Cardinal Priest of the Holy Roman Church, his title being that of Sancta Maria supra Minervam, the very church from which Rt. Rev. Dr. Concanen was taken to preside over the diocese of New York as its first bishop. The insignia of the high dignity soon reached the city borne by a member of the Pope's noble guard and a Papal Ablegate. The berretta was formerly presented to him in St. Patrick's Cathedral, April 22, 1875. According to usage he soon after visited Rome and took possession of the church from which he derived his title. He was summoned to the conclave held on the death of Pope Pius IX., but arrived only after the election of Pope Leo XIII., to whom he paid homage, receiving from his hands the Cardinal's hat, the last ceremonial connected with his appointment.

After his return he resumed his usual duties, but they soon required the aid of a younger prelate, though all his suffragans were ever ready to relieve their venerated Metropolitan by officiating for him. He finally solicited the appointment of the young but tried Bishop of Newark as his coadjutor, and Bishop Michael Augustine Corrigan was promoted to the titular See of Petra, October 1, 1880. Gradually his health declined and for a time he was dangerously ill; but retirement to Mount St. Vincent's, where in the castellated mansion erected by Forrest, he had the devoted care of the Sisters of Charity, and visits to Newport seemed to revive for a time his waning strength. His mind remained clear, and he continued to direct the affairs of his diocese, convening a Provincial Council, the acts of which were transmitted to Rome. "The Cardinal's fidelity to duty clung to him to the end. He continued to plead for his flock at God's altar, as long as he had power to stand. Even when the effort to say Mass would so fatigue him that he could do nothing else that morning, he continued, at least, on feast days, to offer the Holy Sacrifice. He said his last Mass on the Feast of the Ascension, 1884." At the Plenary Council in Baltimore, at the close of that year, the diocese was represented by his coadjutor.

From the time of his last Mass he was unable to read or write; unable to move a single step without assistance. In this condition he lingered, sinking by a slow and gradual decline, but preserving his serenity and the full possession of his mental faculties. "None of those around him," says Archbishop Corrigan, "ever heard the first syllable of complaint. It was again his service of the Lord, such as our Lord ordained it. To those who sympathized with him in his helplessness, the sweet answer would be made: 'It is God's will. Thy will, O Lord, be done on earth as it is in heaven.' Fulfilling God's will, he[Pg 28] passed away, calmly and in peace, as the whole course of his life had been, and without a struggle; 'the last words he was able to utter, being the Hail Mary.'"

The death of our first American Cardinal, October 10th, 1885, called forth from the press, and from the clergy of other denominations, a uniform expression of deep and touching respect. He had won many moral victories without fighting battles; his victories left no rancor. Everywhere at Catholic altars Masses were offered for the repose of his soul, and when the tidings crossed the Atlantic, the solemn services at Paris and Rome attested the sense of his merit, and of the Church's loss.

His funeral in New York was most imposing. Around the grand Cathedral, as around a fretted rock of marble, surged the waves of people, like a sea. The vast interior was filled, and beneath the groined roof he had reared, lay, in his pontifical vestments,—the hat, insignia of his highest dignity, at his feet,—the mild and gentle and patient Cardinal McCloskey, his life's work well and nobly ended.

The solemn Mass, the deep tones of the organ, the Gregorian notes of the choirs moved all to pray for the soul of one whose life had been given to the service of God. The Archbishop of Baltimore, the Most Rev. James Gibbons, pronounced the funeral discourse, and then the body was laid beside those of his predecessors in the crypt beneath.

A month later, and again the Dies Iræ resounded through that noble monument of his love for religion. The Month's Mind, that touching tribute which our Church pays her departed, called forth from the Most Rev. Michael A. Corrigan, who knew him so well and so intimately, words full of touching reminiscences.

Bishop Lynch, of Charleston, S. C., who knew him so intimately, thus described him a few years ago before the hand of disease had changed him. "In personal appearance the Cardinal is about five feet ten inches in height, straight, and thin in person and apparently frail, though his chest is full, and the tones of his voice when preaching are clear and far reaching. His features are regular and finely chiselled. The brow is lofty, the nose thin and straight, the eyes keen, quick and penetrating; the thin lips, even in repose, seeming to preserve the memory of a smile; the whole expression of the countenance, one of serious thought and placid repose. Yet you feel or see indications of activity ready to manifest itself through the brows, the eyes or the lips. In fact his temperament is decidedly nervous; and if you observe the natural promptness and decision of his movements, you might almost think him quick and naturally impetuous. There could be no greater mistake; or, if he is such by natural disposition, this is one of the points where his seminary training has taught him to control and master himself. The forte of his character is his unchanging equanimity. And yet there must have been in him a wondrous amount of nervous energy to enable him to survive very serious injuries to his frame in early life, and to endure the severe physical labors of an American bishop for thirty years.... Piety, learning, experience, zeal—every bishop should have these as a matter of course. He has more. In address, gentle, frank and winning, he at once puts you at ease, and[Pg 29] makes you feel you are speaking to a father or a friend in whom you may unreservedly confide. Soft and delicate in manners as a lady, none could ever presume in his presence to say a word or do an act tinged with rudeness, still less indelicacy. Kind and patient with all who come to him, he is especially considerate with his clergy. To them he is just in his decisions, wise in his counsels and exhortations, ever anxious to aid them in their difficulties. Tender and lenient as a mother to those who wish to do right, and to correct evil, he is inflexible when a principle is at stake, and can be stern when the offender is obdurate. Notoriety and display are supremely distasteful to him. He would have his work done, and thoroughly done, and his own name or his part in it never mentioned. He studiously avoids coming before the public, save in his ecclesiastical functions, or where a sense of duty drives him to it. He prefers to work quietly and industriously in the sphere of his duties. Here, he is unflagging, so ordering matters that work never accumulates on his hands through his own neglect."

The Pope and the Mikado.

The following is the text of the letter addressed by His Holiness to the Mikado of Japan:—

To the Illustrious and Most Mighty Emperor of All Japan, LEO PP. XIII., greeting.

August Emperor:

Though separated from each other by a vast intervening expanse of space, we are none the less fully aware here of your pre-eminent, anxious care in promoting all that is for the good of Japan. In truth, the measures Your Imperial Majesty has taken for the increase of civilization, and especially for the moral culture of your people, call for the praise and approval of all who desire the welfare of nations and that interchange of benefits which are the natural fruit of a more refined culture,—the more so that, with greater moral polish, the minds of men are more fitted to imbibe wisdom and to embrace the light of truth. For these reasons we beg of you that you will graciously be pleased to accept this visible expression of our good-will with the same sincerity with which it is tendered.

The very reason, indeed, which has moved us to despatch this letter to Your Majesty, has been our wish of publicly expressing the pleasure of our heart. For the favors which have been vouchsafed to every missionary and Christian, we are truly beholden to you. By their own testimony we have been made acquainted with your grace and goodness to both priests and laymen. Nothing truly, in your power, could be more praiseworthy as a matter of justice or more beneficent to the common weal, inasmuch as you will find the Catholic[Pg 30] religion a powerful auxiliary in maintaining the stability of your Empire.

For all dominion is founded on justice, and of justice there is not a principle which is not laid down in the precepts of Christianity. And thus, all they who bear the name of Christian, are above all enjoined,—not through fear of punishments, but by the voice of religion,—to reverence the kingly sway, to obey the laws, and not to seek for ought in public affairs save that which is peaceful and upright. We most earnestly beseech you, therefore, to grant the utmost freedom in your power to all Christians, and to deign, as heretofore, to protect their institutions with your patronage and favor. We, on our part, shall suppliantly beseech God, the author of all good, that he may grant your beneficial undertakings their wished-for outcome, and may bestow upon Your Majesty, and the whole realm of Japan, blessings and favors increasing day by day.

Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the twelfth day of May, 1885, in the eighth year of Our Pontificate.

Order of the Buried Alive.

The order of the Buried Alive in Rome, the Convent of the Sepolte Vivo, is a remnant of the Middle Ages in the life of to-day. The London Queen's correspondent had the privilege of an entrance within, one after another, of the five iron doors, and talking with the Mother Superior through the thick swathing of a woollen veil, but ordinary communication with the convent is carried on through the "barrel," which fills an opening in the wall. Over the barrel is written: "Who will live contented within these walls, let her leave at the gate every earthly care." You knock at the barrel, which turns slowly around till it shows a section like that of an orange from which one of the quarters has been cut.

You speak to the invisible sister, who asks your will; and she answers you in good Italian and cultivated intonation. You hear the voice quite distinctly, but as if it was far, far away. She is really separated from you by a slender slice of wood, but she is absolutely invisible. Not the smallest ray of light, nor the smallest chink is visible between you and her. Sound travels through the barrel, but sight is absolutely excluded. These nuns live on charity, keeping two Lents in the year—one from November to Christmas, the other the ordinary Lent of Catholic Christendom. Living, therefore, on charity, they may eat whatever is given to them, saving always "flesh meat" during the fasting time.

If you take them a cake or a loaf of bread, a roll of chocolate bonbons, a basket of eggs, it is all good for them. They must be absolutely without food for twenty-four hours before they may ask help from the outside world; and when they have looked starvation in the face, then they may ring a bell, which means: "Help us! we are famishing!"[Pg 31] Perhaps you take them nothing eatable, but you place on the edge of the cut orange, by which you sit, some money, demanding in return their "cartolini," or little papers.

The barrel turns slowly round, then back again, and you find on the ledge, where you had laid your lire, a paper of "cartolini." These are very small, thin, light-printed slips, neatly folded in tiny packets, three to each packet, which, if you swallow in faith, will cure you of all disease. After your talk is ended, the barrel turns around once more and presents its face as of an immovable and impenetrable-looking barrier. One of the pretty traditions of Rome is, that each sister has her day, when she throws a flower over the convent wall as a sign to her watching friends that she is still alive. When she has been gathered to the majority, the flower is not thrown, and the veil has fallen forever.

Harvard College and the Catholic Theory of Education.

Slowly, but with unmistakable certainty, the logic of the Catholic teaching regarding true education is forcing itself upon non-Catholic minds. Day by day some prominent Protestant comes boldly to the front and declares his belief that education must be based upon religion. One of the latest accessions to this correct theory is President Eliot, of Harvard College, who declared at a recent meeting of Boston schoolteachers that,—

These are strong words, and coming from such a source cannot fail to have their legitimate result. The fearlessness and sincerity of President Eliot in thus stating his position on this most important subject merits the appreciation of every American, Catholic or Protestant.

We add in connection with the above, the remarks of the Christian Advocate, a Protestant paper published at San Francisco, Cal.:—

An Affecting Incident at Sea.

Seldom have passengers by our great Atlantic steamers witnessed so solemn and impressive a scene as that at which it fell to the lot of the passengers in the outward voyage of the Inman liner, "City of Chester," to assist. It appears that one of the passengers was a Mr. John Enright, a native of Kerry, who, having amassed a fortune in America, had gone to Ireland to take out with him to his home in St. Louis three young nieces who had recently become orphans. During the passage Mr. Enright died from an affection of the heart; and the three little orphans were left once more without a protector. Fortunately there were amongst the passengers the Rev. Father Tobin, of the Cathedral, St. Louis; the Rev. Father Henry, of the Church of St. Laurence O'Toole, St. Louis; and the Rev. Father Clarkson, of New York. Father Henry was the Celebrant of the Mass of Requiem; and Colonel Mapleson and his London Opera Company, who were also on board, volunteered their services for the choir. They chanted, with devotional effect, the De Profundis and the Miserere; and Madame Marie Roze sang, "Oh, rest in the Lord," from "Elijah." The bell of the ship was then tolled; and a procession was formed, headed by Captain Condron, of the "City of Chester." The coffin, which was enveloped in the American flag, was borne to the side of the ship, from which it was gently lowered into the sea. The passengers paid every attention to the orphans during the remainder of the voyage, at the termination of which they were forwarded to the residence of their late uncle in St. Louis.

Sing, Sing for Christmas.

[Pg 33]

Dead Man's Island.

THE STORY OF AN IRISH COUNTRY TOWN.

T. P. O'Connor, M. P.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DOOMED NATION.

A passion of anger and despair swept over Ireland when it was at last announced that Crowe had sold the pass. For some days the people were in the same dazed and helpless condition of mind that followed the potato blight of '46. In that terrible year one of the strange and most universally observed phenomena was that the people looked, for days after the advent of the blight that brought the certainty of hunger and death, silent and motionless and apathetic. And so it was now, when there came a blight, less quickly, but as surely, destructive of national life and hope. There was a dread presentiment that this was a blow from which the nation was not destined to recover for many a long day, and though they could not reason about it, the people had the instinctive feeling that the rule of the landlord was now fixed more tightly than ever, and that emancipation was postponed to a day beyond that of the present generation.

The landlords appreciated the situation with the same instinctive readiness and perception. At once the pause which had come in the work of eviction was broken, the plague raged immediately with a fierceness that seemed to have gained more hellish energy and more devilish cruelty from its temporary abatement. The roads were thick with troops of people rushing wildly from their homes and fleeing from their native country as from a land cursed alike by God and by man. Mat Blake, passing along from Dublin to Ballybay, was almost driven to insanity by the sights he saw at the different sections along the way.

Every station was besieged by vast crowds of the emigrants and their friends. There are few sights so touching as the sight of the parting of Irish families at a railway station. The ties of family are closer and more affectionate than anybody can appreciate who has not lived the life of an Irish home. The children grow up in a dependence on their parents that may well seem slavery to other peoples. The grown son is still the "boy" years after he has attained manhood's years, the daughter remains a little girl, whom her mother has the right to chide and direct and control in every action. Such ties beget helplessness as well as affection, and the Irish peasant still regards many things as worse than death, which, by peoples of less ardent religious faith, are regarded more philosophically.

When Mat looked at the simple faces of those poor girls, at the bewildered look in the countenances of the young men, and thought of[Pg 34] how ignorant and helpless these people were, he could understand the almost insane anguish of their parents as they saw them embark on an ocean so dark and tempestuous and remote as the crowded cities of America, and Mat could penetrate down into the minds of his people and see with the lightning flash of sympathy the dread spectre that tortured the minds, filled the eyes, and darkened the brows of the Irish parents.

Station after station, it was always the same sight. The parting relatives were locked in each other's arms; they wept and cried aloud, and swayed in their grief.

"Cheer up, father; God is good."

"Ah, Paddie, my darlint, I'll never see ye agin."

"Oh mother, dear, don't fret."

"May God and His Blessed Mother in heaven protect my poor girl."

Then more kisses through the carriage windows.

The guards and porters frantically called upon the people to stand back; they clung on, careless of danger to life and limb; and as the black, hideous, relentless monster shot away they rushed along the line; they passed into the fields, and waved handkerchiefs, and shouted the names of the parting child or sister or brother; until at last the distance swallowed up the train and its occupants, and then they returned to homes from which forever afterwards the light had passed away.

Such were the scenes which Mat saw, and when he got to Ballybay station there was that look on his face which to any keen observer would have revealed much in the Irish character and afforded the key to many startling episodes in Irish history. It was a look at once of infinite rage and infinite despair; it spoke of wrong—hated, gigantic, at once intolerable and insurmountable. One sees a similar impress in the faces of Irishmen in Massachusetts, though the climate of America has reduced the large, loose frame to the thin build of the new country, and has bleached the ruddy complexion of Ireland to a sickly white or an ugly yellow; it is the look one can detect in the faces of the men who dream of death in the midst of slain foes and wrecked palaces; it blazes in the eyes of Healy, as with sacrilegious hand he smites the venerable front of the mother of Parliaments.

Mat had come to Ireland for the Easter recess; he had drawn out of the savings bank a few pounds of the money he had placed there for the furnishing of the house which he destined for Mary and Betty Cunningham. He longed to have a share in punishing the perjured traitor who had betrayed the country. The sights he had seen along the route satisfied him as to the temper of the people, and he entered Ballybay secure in the hope that if the traitor had been raised by the town to the opportunity of deceiving the people, he would be cast into the dust by the same hand.

He had not been long in the town when he found that he had wholly misconceived its spirit. The one feeling that seemed to dominate all others, was that the acceptance by Crowe of office meant another election; and another election meant another shower of gold.

In his father's house he found assembled his father and mother,[Pg 35] and Tom Flaherty and Mary. They were discussing the election, of course, and this was how they discussed it.

"I always thought Crowe was a smart fellow," said Fleming. "There's one thing certain; he'll have plenty of money now, and as I have always said, 'I'm a Protestant,'" and then Mat repeated his characteristic saying.

"Do you mean to say," said Mat, with a face fierce with rage and surprise, "that you'd vote again for Crowe, after his treason?"

"And why shouldn't he vote for him?" asked Mat's mother, in a voice almost as fierce as his own. "Isn't he a Government man, and doesn't every one know that the people who can do anything for themselves or anybody else in Ireland are Government men?"

Mat, fond as he was of his mother, felt almost as if he could have killed her at that moment; he could not speak for a few minutes for rage. At last he almost shrieked, "If there was any decency in Ballybay Crowe would never leave the town alive."

"Ah! the crachure!" said Tom Flaherty.

"Ah! the crachure! Why shouldn't he look out for himself; shure, isn't that what we're all trying to do? God bless us."

Mary glanced uneasily at Mat, but he refused to look at her; she seemed for a moment spoiled in his eyes by her kinship with this polluted and degraded creature. His father gave him a wistful glance, but said nothing. Whenever there was a tempest between his wife and his son he remained silent.

And so this was how Ballybay regarded the great betrayal! Mat felt inclined to throw himself into the Shannon, and have done with life as quickly as he was losing hope and faith.

He took a look once more at the bare and squalid streets and gloomy people; and then at the frowning castle and the passing regiment of the English garrison; and he despaired of his country.

But he had come to help in the fight against Crowe; and after the involuntary tribute of this brief interval of despondency, he at once set to work. After many disappointments he found a few men who shared his views of the situation, and a committee was formed to go out and ask Captain Ponsonby to stand once more; for though Mat hated the politics of Ponsonby, he thought any stick was good enough to beat the foul traitor with. Captain Ponsonby consented, and so the contest was started. The Nation newspaper sent down several of its staff; the old Tenant Right Party held meetings, asked that Ballybay should do its duty, and save the whole country from the awful calamity of triumphant treason. Everything was thus arranged for a struggle with Crowe that would test all his powers, backed though he was by the money and the influence of the Government.

Mat's speeches, the articles in the newspapers, and the vigorous efforts of the few honest men in the town, had at last roused Ballybay until it began to share some of the profound horror and indignation which the action of Crowe had provoked throughout the country generally. There was but one more thing necessary, and the defeat of Crowe was certain; if the bishop joined in the opposition, there was no possibility of his winning.[Pg 36]

All Ireland waited in painful tension to see what the verdict of the bishop would be. Mat heard it before anybody else, for a young curate who lived in the College House with the bishop, and was a fierce Nationalist, gave Mat a daily bulletin; the bishop resolved to support the Solicitor-General.

At first nobody would believe the tale; but the next day it was put beyond all doubt, and Mat was almost suffocated by his own wrath as he saw the "Seraph," with his divine face, arm in arm with the perjured ruffian that had brought sorrow to so many thousands of homes.

Mat fought on, but it was no longer with any strong hope of winning. His face grew darker every day, and the lines became drawn about his eyes, for there was another struggle going on in his mind at this moment, as well as the political contest in which he was engaged.

The reader may remember the monitor of the school in which Mat was a pupil when the eviction of the widow Cunningham took place. The monitor was now the teacher of the National School, and Mat and he had begun to have many colloquies.

Michael Reed was regarded as a very sardonic and disagreeable person by most of the people of Ballybay. His hatchet face seemed appropriate to a man who never seemed to agree with the opinion of anybody else, who sneered, it was thought, all round, who laughed when other people wept, and who derided the moments of exultant hope. He had always been among those who hated and distrusted Crowe, and Mat, who was intolerant himself, rather avoided him, while he still had faith in the traitor. But the wreck of all his illusions sent him repentant to Reed, and they had many conversations, in which Mat found himself listening willingly and after a while even greedily, to ideas that a short time before he would have been himself the first to denounce as folly and madness.

The idea of Reed was that the only way to work out the freedom of Ireland was by force of arms. Mat at first was inclined to laugh at the idea; but an impressionable and vehement nature such as his was ill calculated to cope for a lengthened time with a nature precise, cold, and stubborn like that of Reed. Strength of will and tenacity of opinion make their way against better judgment, especially if there can be no doubt of the sincerity of the man of such a temper, and the rigid eye, the proud air, and the whole attitude of Reed spoke, and spoke truly, of a life of absolute purity, and of a fanaticism of Spartan endurance.

There was one consequence of the acceptance of the ideas of Reed, and from this, with all his devotion and rage and sorrow for the pitiable condition of his country, Mat still shrank. A revolutionary could not marry or be engaged to marry; for what man had the right to tie to his dark and uncertain fate the life of a woman—perhaps of children?

The defeat of Crowe would once more restore faith to the people in constitutional resources, and would save them from the cynicism and apathy which might require a revolutionary movement to rouse them once more to hope and action. And thus in fighting against Crowe,[Pg 37] Mat now felt as if he were fighting not merely for his country, but for his own dear life.

Then if Crowe were defeated, Mat could return to his work in London, and resume his efforts in carrying out the sacred purpose of raising his father and mother from poverty; for of marriage he could not think unless he were in a position to help his father and mother more than he had done hitherto. If he ever dared to think of marriage otherwise, there came before him the gaunt image of his mother pointing to her faded and ragged workbox with its awful pawn-tickets and bank bills.

It was while he was in the midst of this fierce and agonizing struggle that Mat was called hurriedly one day to the house of Mary, by the news that Mrs. Flaherty had been taken very ill, and was supposed to be dying.

Mat came to the house, endeared to him by so many memories and hopes, trembling, and with a cold feeling about his heart. Why was it that he started back with a pang when he saw Cosgrave in the house before him? Why at that moment did there rush again over his whole soul that awful image which swept over him before? Why in imagination did he stand at night on a wild heath, shivering and alone?

"What brought Cosgrave here?" he asked of Mary sharply.

"Oh!" said Mary, "he came to tell us that he had been made a J. P."

"So he has attained his pitiful ambition," said Mat sharply. "It's through sneaks like him that scoundrels like Crowe are able to betray the country."

"Oh, never mind the low creature," said Mary, with a look of infinite contempt, that Mat was surprised to find very soothing.

He went up stairs. A look at the face of Mrs. Flaherty showed him at once that the alarm was not a false one—she was evidently dying.

There was the old look of patient affection in her tender face, and there was another look, too, which Mat could not misunderstand. It was a look of wistful appeal, half-uttered question, of a fond but tremulous hope.

And it added to the misery of that dark hour that Mat could say nothing, and that he had to let that true and deeply-loved soul pass out of life with its greatest fear unsatisfied, and its brightest hope unassured. For Mat could not utter a decisive word.

Between him and the speech there stood two shadows, potent, dark, and resistless—his mother pointing to her workbox, and Reed pointing to a revolver.

Mary stood beside the bed tearless.

"Doesn't Mary bear up well?" said Mat in surprise to her blubbering father.

"Mary doesn't cry," said her father; "she frets," and in these words Mat thought the whole character of the girl was summed up.

Mrs. Flaherty died on Thursday; the polling was on the following day. Mat was still under the impression of the dark and painful scene when the new excitement came. He hoped against hope to the[Pg 38] last, went about the town like one insane, and spoke in his passion of country even to O'Flynn, the pawn-broker, and of honor to Mat Fleming, and then waited at the closing hour to hear the result. The result was:—

Mat turned pale, and almost fell, his head swam, his heart seemed for a moment to have stopped. He would not yet acknowledge it in so many words; but the sentence still kept ringing in his ears, "Thy doom is sealed, thy doom is sealed."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE STORY OF BETTY CUNNINGHAM.

The disaster which swept over all Ireland through the final success of the treachery of Crowe raged soon after in Ballybay. The town had been reduced by successive misfortunes to a condition so abject that one calamity was sufficient to completely submerge the greater portion of its inhabitants. Mr. Anthony Cosgrave, J. P., signalized the event by driving out the few tenants who still remained on the properties he had bought. He turned all his land into pasture, for this was the prosperous era of the graziers, and cattle were rapidly transformed into gold. Other landlords pursued similar courses, and within a couple of years, ten thousand people had been swept from the neighborhood around.

The calamity reached down to the very lowest stratum, and touched depths so profound as the fortunes of the widow Cunningham and her daughter Betty.

It had now become habitual for the widow and her daughter to remain for a couple of days with barely any food. One night they were sitting opposite each other on the bare floor of the railway arch in which they had for several years found refuge, staring at each other with the blank, wild gaze of hunger. There was a terrible pang at the heart of the mother on this night of nights. Throughout all her long years of struggle two great thoughts still remained burning in her soul, and in spite of poverty and hunger that soul still remained afire. One was vengeance on Cosgrave for the long train of woes through which she herself had passed, and the other was the protection of her child.

With that profound reverence for female honor which is still one of the best characteristics of the Irish poor, she had seen the growth of her beautiful daughter with a love mixed with terror, and guarded her child as the tigress watches by her lair. Her own life had long since ceased to be dear to her. She walked for hours through the streets, she pleaded for custom, she smiled under insult, she bore rain and hail and snow, in hope of the fulfilment of this great passionate purpose—to keep her daughter pure.[Pg 39]

The misery of the last six months had been aggravated by the dread, growing in intensity with every hour, that all this endurance would be in vain, that behind the wolf of hunger there stalked the more cruel wolf of lust, and that her daughter was doomed. On this subject not a word passed between the two women, for the delicacy of feeling which marks even the humblest grade of Irish life sealed their lips; but the dread was always there in the mother's heart, pursuing her as a nightmare through the long watches of the darkness, and haunting her every moment as wearily she carried her basket through the streets in the day.

"Buy a few apples, yer honor, for God's sake," she often said to a passer-by, in a tone that might have struck one as menacing, or at least as entirely disproportionate to the urgency of the appeal; but in every such prayer for pence the mother felt that she was crying for her child, and her child's soul, and her accents came from the very anguish of her mother's heart.

On this night—it was about a month after the election of Crowe—the two sat together, buried in their own sad thoughts. They were suddenly aroused by the floor becoming inundated, and at once knew what to expect. The Shannon periodically rose above its banks outside Ballybay, and then its waters overspread the "Big Meadows," and the railway arch underneath which the widow and her daughter had taken refuge was, as will be remembered, close to these Meadows.

They rose and rushed from the spot. They were now absolutely homeless, without even a place on which to lay their heads. They went further on to another railway arch, and at last slept. When the mother awoke in the morning she was alone.

At this period a Ballybay landlord, afterwards destined to figure largely in the social life of Ireland, had just come of age. Thomas McNaghten was perhaps the handsomest Irishman of his day; tall, broad-shouldered, muscular. He had a physique as splendid as that of the race of peasants from whom his father sprang; while from the gentler race of his mother he derived features of exquisite delicacy and the complexion of a lily-like pink and white. He afterwards ran a career of mad dissipation that made his name a by-word even among the reckless and debauched class to which he belonged, and died a paralytic before he was forty. But at the period of our story, he was still in the full strength and the first flush of manhood. He had cast his eyes on Betty Cunningham, and had held out to her bribes that seemed to unfold to the girl visions of untold wealth. The innate purity of the maiden had hitherto been proof against the direct influences of poverty and wretchedness and the advances of her tempter. But at last the combined intensities of hunger and despair became his allies.

Three weeks after her desertion of her mother Betty Cunningham was drunk in one of the public-houses, which were frequented by the soldiers quartered in Ballybay. The fatal progress of the Irish girl who has fallen is more rapid than in any other country. Society, always cruel to its hapless victims and its outcasts, in Ireland is fanatically and barbarously savage. Betty was driven out from every house! People[Pg 40] shuddered as she passed. She lay under hedges, her bed was often in the snow. To Ballybay she was as much an object of loathing and of horror as though she were some wild beast that men might lawfully destroy.

The girl herself had no compensation for all this dread outlawry. The Traviatas of other lands are painted for us in gilded saloons, with costly wines in golden goblets, and noble lovers sighing for their smiles. But Betty, outcast, hungry, and houseless, had not one second's enjoyment of life. The faith in which she had been trained still held its grip upon her, and neither vice nor drink nor human cruelty could relax its grasp. She was a sinner against Heaven's most sacred law; and after brief life came death, and after death eternal torment. Pursued by this ever-present spectre she drank and drank, and awoke more wretched than ever, and then she drank again.

She would sometimes seek refuge from her burning shame and from her tortured soul in fierce revolt. She rolled in mad delirium through the streets, yelled the blasphemies in the shuddering ears of Ballybay, fought the police who came to arrest her, developed, in short, into a raging demon. Her face became bloated, her expression horrible to witness. One day, as she passed through the streets in one of these frenzies, she met Mat Blake. She shivered in every limb, and a pang, as from the thrust of a dagger, passed through her heart. But she attempted all the more to steel her nerves, and to harden her face. She raised her eyes and glared, but the eyes fell, and she slunk away.

And thus it was that Mat saw, for the first time since his return to Ballybay, the gentle, timid, lovely girl who had once willingly stood between him and death.

A few minutes afterwards, Betty's mother appeared. Her features bore the traces of the deepest grief that had yet assailed her. All pride had gone from that once imperious face; she was a stooped, shame-faced, old woman. As Mat looked at her there rushed before his memory the many momentous hours of his life with which that face was bound up, his days of childhood in her prosperous home, his association with her daughter, and the glad hours during the first election of Crowe, when life was still full of glorious hope, and she had dashed the glad vision with the first breath of suspicion and anticipated evil.

They looked at each other silently for a moment, and then she shook her head, and with a look of infinite grief in her eyes, said to him—

"Ah, Master Mat, it was the hunger did it; it was the hunger did it."

By a trick of memory Mat recollected that these were the words he had heard on that day, long ago, when Betty had rescued Mary and himself from the enraged bull.

One thing Mat had noticed as Betty Cunningham had passed; it was that amid the wreck of her beauty one feature still remained as strangely witching as ever. The soft eyes had not lost their delicacy of hue, nor had the evil passions of her soul deprived them of their gentle look. Those who mentioned her, and she was not an uncommon topic among the men of the town, still spoke of Betty's beautiful eyes.[Pg 41]

At last there came a temporary change in her fate. A branch of the Mary Magdalene Asylum was established in Ballybay for the rescue of fallen women, and she was one of the first to enter. But her temper, spoiled by excesses and disappointment, fretted under the restraint. She quarrelled with the nuns, and one night she fled. Then the revival in all its fierce vigilance of the old spectre of eternal punishment made her more infuriate than ever. She drank more deeply, cursed more fiercely, was oftener in the police-cell, and Ballybay loathed her more than ever.

One morning—it was a Christmas morning—Mat was walking with his father in the "Big Meadows." Snow had fallen heavily the night before; and as they passed a bush, they saw the impress of a woman's form; it was evident that an unhappy being had there spent her Christmas Eve.

"My God!" said Mat, "a woman has slept there."

Mat's father was the kindest and most humane being in all the world, but "Serve the wretch right!" was his comment.

Her story wound up in a tragic climax. One night she made more violent resistance than ever to the attempts of the police to arrest her, and when she was at last captured, she was torn and bleeding. They put her into a cell by herself; she could be heard pacing up and down with the infuriate step of a caged tiger. The policeman on duty afterwards told how he had heard her muttering to herself, and that he thought he caught the words, "These eyes! These eyes! They have undone me! They have undone me!" Soon afterwards he heard a wild, unearthly shriek that froze his blood. He rushed into the cell, and there, horrible, bleeding.... But I dare not describe the sight.

Betty Cunningham was taken once more into the Mary Magdalene Asylum. Her voice was trained, and after some years she sang in the choir. A strong hush always came over the chapel when her voice was heard. People still told in whispers the terrible story of the blind lay sister; and Mat, sitting in the chapel years afterwards, was carried over the whole history of her career and his own and that of Ballybay generally as he listened to her rich contralto singing second to the rest. He had always thought that there was something wondrously pathetic, at least in sacred music, in the voice that sings seconds, and the impression was confirmed as he listened to the blind girl's accompaniment to the other voices; low when they were loud, sad when they were triumphant, following painfully their quicker steps with that ever plaintive protest and soft wail—fit image of life, where our highest joys are dogged by sorrow's quick and inevitable step.

Conclusion next month.

Charity's mantle is often made of gauze.

[Pg 42]

Alone.

A Midnight Mass.

From the French of Abel d'Avrecourt, by Th. Xr. K.

In the height of the Reign of Terror, my grandmother, then a young girl, was living in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. There was a void around her and her mother; their friends, their relatives, the head of the family himself, had left France. Mansions were left desolate or else were invaded by new owners. They themselves had abandoned their rich dwellings for a plain lodging-house, where they lived waiting for better times, carefully hiding their names, which might have compromised them in those days. The churches, diverted from their purpose, were used as shops or manufactories. All outward practice of religion had ceased.

Nevertheless back of a sabot-maker's shop in the Rue Saint-Dominique, an old priest who had taken up his father's humble trade, used to gather some of the faithful together for prayer; but precaution had to be observed, for the hunt was close, and the humble temple was exactly next door to the dwelling of one of the members of the revolutionary government, who was an implacable enemy of religion.

It was then a cold December night; midnight Mass was being celebrated in honor of the festival of Christmas. The shop was carefully closed, while the incense was smoking in the little room back of it. A huge chest of drawers on which a clean, white cloth had been spread, served as altar. The priestly ornaments had been taken from their hiding-place, and the little assembly, composed of women and a few men, was in pious recollection, when a knock at the door, like that of the faithful, attracted attention.[Pg 43]

One of the worshippers opened the door; a man hesitatingly entered. The face was one to which all were unaccustomed in that place. To some, alas! it was a face too well known; it was that of the man who had in the public councils shown himself so bitter against gatherings of the faithful, and whose presence, for that reason, was more than ever to be dreaded at such a moment.

Nevertheless the majesty of the sacrifice was not disturbed, but fear had seized on all the attendants; did not each of them have reason to fear for himself, for his family, and for the good old pastor, in even greater danger than his flock?

With severe, but calm, cold air, the member of the convention remained standing until the end of Mass and communion, and the farther the ceremony progressed, the more agitated were all hearts in the expectation of an event which could not but too well be foreseen.

When all was over, in fact, when the lights were hardly extinguished, the congregation cautiously slipped out one by one; then the stranger approached the priest who had recognized him, but who remained stoically calm. "Citizen priest," he said, "I have something to say to thee."

"Speak, my brother; how can I be of service to you?"

"It's a favor I must ask of thee, and I feel how ridiculous I am. The red is coming up into my face and I daren't say any more."

"My bearing and my ministry nevertheless are not of the kind to disturb you, and if any feeling of piety leads you to me—"

"Eh? That's exactly what it isn't. I don't know anything about religion; I don't want to know anything about it; I belong to those who have helped to destroy yours; but, for my misfortune, I have a daughter—"

"I don't see any misfortune in that," the priest interrupted.

"Wait, citizen, thou shalt see. We people, men of principles, we are the victims of our children; inflexible towards all in the maintenance of the ideas which we have formed for ourselves, we hesitate and we became children before the prayers and the tears of our children. I have then a daughter whom I have reared to be an honest woman and a true citizeness. I thought I had formed her to my image, and here I was grossly deceived.

"A solemn moment is approaching for her. With the new year, she marries a good young fellow, whom I myself selected for her husband. Everything was going right; the two children loved each other,—at least I thought so,—and everything was ready for the ceremony at the commune, when, this evening, my daughter threw herself at my feet, begging me to postpone her marriage.

"Surprised at first, I lifted her to her feet.

"'What! you don't love your intended?' I asked her.

"'Yes, father,' she replied, 'but I don't want to get married yet.'

"Pressed with questions on this strange caprice, she finally confessed her girlish idea. She wanted to wait, hoping that a day would come when she could get married, and have her union blessed in the church. My first burst of anger having passed, I cannot tell you all the fine reasons she gave me to obtain from me a thing so contrary to[Pg 44] my rule of conduct. The marriage of her dead mother had been performed in the church; her memory required that pious action; she would not think herself married if it was not at the foot of the altar; she would prefer to remain single the rest of her days.

"She said so much, mingling her entreaties and tears with it all, that she vanquished me. She even showed me the retreat which a few days ago I would not have discovered with impunity to you all. I have come to seek thee out, and now I ask thee: Thou hast before thee thy persecutor: wilt thou bless according to thy rite, the marriage of his daughter?"

The worthy priest replied:—

"My ministry knows neither rancor nor exclusion; I am glad, besides, for what you ask of me; only one thing grieves me, and that is that the father should be hostile to his daughter's design."

"Thou mistakest: I understand all sentiments. That of a girl who wants to be married as her mother was, seems to me to be deserving of respect, and just now, I saw, there is something touching which I cannot explain in your ceremonies, and it has made me better understand her thought."

A few days later the same back shop contained a few intimate and conciliating friends who were attending a wedding. We need not say that from that day, whether through change of principles or through gratitude, the member of the revolutionary government was secretly the protector of the little church which could live on in peace, unknown to its persecutors.

The Hero of Lepanto.

Part II.

"Every nation," it has been said, "makes most account of its own, and cares little for the heroes of other nations. Don John of Austria, as defender of Christendom, was the hero of all nations." He was the hero of "the battle of Lepanto which," as Alison remarks, "arrested forever the danger of Mahometan invasion in the south of Europe." As De Bonald adds, it was from that battle, that the decline of the Turkish power dates. "It cost the Turks more than the mere loss of ships and of men; they lost that moral force which is the mainstay of conquering nations."

It is not necessary in this sketch of the life of Don John, to enter into any details about the tedious negotiations which preceded the coalition of the naval forces of Spain, Venice, and the Pope. Suffice it to say, that repulsed from Malta by the heroism of the Knights of St. John, the Turks next turned their naval armaments against Cyprus, then held by the Venetians. Menaced in one of her most valuable possessions, the Republic of Venice, too long the half-hearted foe of the[Pg 45] Turks, turned in her distress, for help to the Vatican and to the Escorial. St. Pius V. sat in the See of Peter. He turned no deaf ear to an appeal that seemed likely to bring about what the Roman Pontiffs had long desired—a new crusade against the Turks. Philip the Second, ever wary, ever dilatory, more able than the Pope to assist Venice, was less ready to do so. Spain would willingly have done what she could to destroy the Turkish power, but her monarch was not sorry to humble Venice, even to the profit of the infidel. So diplomatic delays and underhand intrigues delayed the relief of Cyprus, and the standard of the Sultan soon was hoisted over the walls of Famagusta—to remain there until replaced in our times—thanks to the wisdom of a great statesman—by the "meteor flag of England."

The terror caused by the fall of Cyprus, brought about after many negotiations, a league between the Republic, the Papacy, and the Spanish monarchy. A mighty naval armament was to be gathered together, and its commander was to be Don John of Austria. His success in subduing the Moriscoes naturally designated him, in spite of his extreme youth, for this high command. His operations, indeed, had been so far chiefly on land, but in the sixteenth century, a man might one day command a squadron of cavalry and on the next, a squadron of galleys. General and admiral were convertible terms. There was, indeed, some division of labor. Sailors navigated and soldiers fought the ship. And, as there is more resemblance between the row-galleys of Don John's epoch and the steam driven vessels of our times than there is between these and the ships which Nelson and Collingwood led to victory, perhaps we shall return to the old state of things and again send our soldiers to sea!

To return, however, to our hero, who has meanwhile subdued the Moriscoes and returned to Madrid before setting out to take command of the great fleet at Messina. One, however, there was who did not return with the Prince to Madrid, one who was no longer to be his "guide, philosopher, and friend." The faithful Quijada had been struck by a musket-ball in a fight at Seron, in which Don John himself, in rallying his troops, had a narrow escape. After a week of suffering, the brave knight expired in the arms of his foster-son, February 24, 1570. "We may piously trust," says the chronicler,[A] "that the soul of Don Luis rose up to heaven with the sweet incense which burned on the altars of St. Jerome at Caniles; for he spent his life, and finally lost it, in fighting like a valiant soldier of the faith."

Before relating the episodes of the great victory of Lepanto, it will not be inopportune to glance at one of the great evils, that of slavery, which the Turkish power entailed on so many thousands of Christians. Nowadays, thousands of travellers pass freely, to and fro, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Suez Canal, and from one part of the Mediterranean to another. Our markets are supplied with fruits and vegetables from Algiers. Our Sovereign has no fears, except as to sanitary arrangements, when she sojourns on the northern shores of the Mediterranean. A cruise in an unarmed yacht on its waters is the[Pg 46] pleasantest of pastimes. It is, therefore, hard for us to conceive what three centuries, nay, even three generations since, were the fears of those who dwelt along the coast of Southern France, of Spain, and of Italy, or, who, as pilgrims, merchants, or sailors navigated the blue waters of the inland sea. Every year, even after the battle of Lepanto, and still more before it, the corsairs of the northern coasts of Africa scoured the Mediterranean and carried into captivity hundreds of Christians, of all ages, nations, and of both sexes, from vessels they encountered or from villages along the shores of France, Italy, or Spain. Hence it is, that to this day, those shores are studded with the ruins of castles and forts, erected as defences against those corsairs. So great was, however, their boldness that even as late as the seventeenth century, Algerian pirates ventured as far as "the chops of the Channel."

When we read the annals of those religious orders devoted to the redemption of captives, we can more fully realize the terrible extent to which the Christian slave trade was carried by the infidels. As Englishmen, we do well to cherish the memory of Wilberforce. As Catholics we should not forget the religious men who risked all, slavery, disease, and death, to rescue Christians from the chains of slavery. Let us recall to mind a few facts about them. One single house of the Trinitarians, that of Toledo, during the first four centuries of its existence, ransomed one hundred and twenty-four thousand Christian slaves. The Order of Mercy, during a similar period, procured freedom for nearly five hundred thousand slaves. As to the number of slaves in captivity at one time, it may be mentioned that Charles the Fifth released thirty thousand by his expedition against Tunis, and about half as many were set free by the battle of Lepanto. It was estimated that in the Regency of Algiers, there was an average of thirty thousand slaves detained there. As late as 1767, in Algiers itself, there were two thousand Christians in chains. Of such slaves many were women, many mere boys and girls. And as late as 1816, Lord Exmouth, after the bombardment of Algiers, set many Christian slaves free. It is, as we said, hard to realize that in times almost within the memory of living men, Christians toiled in chains for the infidel, in the way some may have seen depicted by pictures in the Louvre. Similar pictures are kept in the old church of St. Giles, at Bruges, where a confraternity existed for the redemption of captives. This association is still represented in the parochial processions, by a group of children. Some are dressed as white-robed Trinitarians, leading those they have redeemed from slavery. Others are gorgeously attired as Turkish slave owners; others represent Turkish guards, leading Christian slaves, coarsely garbed and bound with chains. Happily Lepanto made such sights as these the processions of Bruges commemorate, of less frequent occurrence, until at length they have been relegated to pageantry, and the once powerful Turk is simply suffered to linger on European soil, because the jealousies of Christian nations will not allow of his expulsion.

Salamis, Actium, Lepanto and Trafalgar are the four greatest naval battles of history and of these Lepanto was perhaps the greatest. Salamis turned back the invasion of the East; Actium created the[Pg 47] Roman empire; Trafalgar was the first heavy blow dealt against a despotism that threatened to strangle Europe. Lepanto, however, saved Europe from a worse fate—the domination of the Turk. The name of this great victory is derived from the picturesque town, with its mediæval defences still left, of Naupaktos which the modern Greek designates as Epokte, and the Italian as Lepanto. The engagement, however, was in reality fought at the entrance of the Gulf of Patras, ten leagues westward from the town.

The facts of the fight of the seventh of October—a Sunday—of the year 1571, are so well-known, that we need merely recall to the memory of our readers the leading features of the contest. Spain, Venice, Genoa, Malta, and the Papal States were represented there, but "the meteor flag of England" was not unfurled in sight of the Turkish, nor were the fleurs-de-lys to be seen on the standards that gaily floated from the mast-heads of the great Christian armada. England, alas! was in the clutches of a wretched woman, and France was on the eve of a St. Bartholomew's Massacre, and for all that France and England cared, at that time, Europe might have become Mahommedan.

Don John led the centre of the long line—three miles in length—of galleys, while on his right, Doria the great Genoese admiral, from whose masts waved the cross of St. George; and on the left, the brave Barbarigo, the Venetian, his flank protected by the coast commanded. Against the wind, the sun shooting its bright rays against the ships, the Turkish fleet, in half-moon formation, two hundred and fifty great galleys and many smaller craft, carrying one hundred and twenty thousand men, slowly advanced "in battle's magnificently stern array." The brave Ali Pacha led the van.

As the hostile fleets met, the two admirals exchanged shots. At noon, the Christians, among whom was one of the greatest soldiers and one of the ablest authors of that age—Farnese and Cervantes—knelt to receive absolution from their chaplains, and then rose up to fight. In many a quiet village away in the Appenines, or in the Sierras of more distant Spain, the Angelus was ringing, and many a heartfelt prayer was aiding the Christian cause, then a wild cry arose from the Moslem fleet and "from mouth to mouth" of the cannon the "volley'd thunder flew." The combat deepened and became hand to hand. The two admirals ships grappled together in a deadly struggle. Don John, foremost in the fray, was slightly wounded. At a third attempt, Ali Pacha's galley was boarded, captured, himself slain, and the Standard of the Cross replaced the Crescent. Victory! Victory! was the cry from one Christian ship to another. In less than four hours, the Turkish ships were scattered, sunk, or burning, until darkness and storm drove Don John to seek shelter in port, and hid the wreckage with which man had strewn the sea. The Christian loss was eight thousand, the Turkish four or five times greater. Don John hastened to console and comfort his wounded. Did he not, perchance, visit, on his bed of suffering, the immortal Cervantes? After the wounded, he turned to his prisoners, whom he treated with a generosity to which the sixteenth century was little accustomed.

One there was, let us not forget it, who not bodily present, had a[Pg 48] lion's share in the victory. A second Moses, with uplifted hands, St. Pius V., had prayed God and Our Lady, to aid Don John's arms. "The night before the battle, and the day itself, aged as he was, and broken with disease, the Saint had passed in the Vatican in fasting and prayer. All through the Holy City the monasteries and the colleges were in prayer too. As the evening advanced, the Pontifical treasurer asked an audience of the Sovereign Pontiff on an important matter. Pius was in his bedroom, and began to converse with him; when suddenly he stopped the conversation, left him, threw open the window, and gazed up into heaven. Then closing it again, he looked gravely at his official, and said, "This is no time for business; go, return thanks to the Lord God. In this very hour our fleet has engaged the Turkish, and is victorious." As the treasurer went out, he saw him fall on his knees before the altar in thankfulness and joy."

The great writer, from whom we have taken the above account of St. Pius the Fifth's supernatural knowledge of the victory, remarks "that the victories gained over the Turks since are but the complements and the reverberations of the overthrow at Lepanto."

Here we may take leave of the hero of Lepanto, leaving him in the midst of his glory, receiving the thanks of Christendom, from the lips of a Saint—its Supreme Pontiff. We need not follow Don John of Austria on his expedition against Tunis—a barren conquest his too imaginative mind dreamed of converting into a great African empire. Nor need we follow him when he goes, disguised as a Moorish page, accompanied by a single cavalier, to undertake the bootless task of pacifying the revolted Netherlands. The incidents and intrigues of this task rather belong to the history of the Low Countries than to the story of our hero. In the midst of them, worn out by too ardent a spirit, or stricken by an epidemic, Don John expired, in his camp near Namur, at the early age of thirty-two, on October 1, 1578. The task of saving a part of the revolted provinces to the Spanish crown, he left to the strong arm and genius of his cousin Alexander Farnese.

Don John's desire was to be buried beside his father in Spain. His body, says Strada, was dismembered and secretly carried across France, onwards to Madrid, where it was, as it were, reconstructed and decked with armor to be shown to Philip, who might well weep at such ghastly display. The heart of the hero is kept, to this day, behind the high altar of the Cathedral of Namur.

Generous, high-spirited, courageous, he was a true knight-errant, the "last Crusader whom the annals of chivalry were to know; the man who had humbled the crescent as it had not been humbled since the days of the Tancreds, the Baldwins, the Plantagenets." Endowed with a brilliant imagination, he dreamed of founding an African empire, and it faded away as the mirage of some oasis amid the deserts of the dark continent. With his sword, he thought to free, some day, Mary Queen of Scots, from her prison, and to place her on the throne held by Elizabeth. But the object of his ravings died on the scaffold, while he himself passed away, leaving behind him little more for history to record than that he was the brilliant young soldier—the Hero of Lepanto.

W. C. R. in Catholic Progress.

[Pg 49]

The Church and Progress.

One of the favorite mottoes of revolutionists consists in the formula, "The Catholic Church is opposed to the progress of the age;" and the general tone of the day's literature, apt in adopting popular cries, criticises the Church as the arch-opponent of every effort of the human intellect. The foundation of this charge may be broadly rested on two counts, radically differing in their nature, and which I may be allowed to state thus: First, there is a large class nowadays, and this genus is always especially rampant and noisy, that uses the current shibboleths, "Civilization," "Liberty," "Equality," "Fraternity," etc., either with sinister designs beneath them, or, if dupes,—and it amounts to the same in the long run,—then without at all knowing what those words mean. With that large vision that usually characterizes her in matters even not of faith, and which makes her hated by political quacks and mad sciolists, the Church detects the real objects and aims of these innovators, and is not afraid of facing obloquy by condemning them in spite of their false banners. For this attitude we have no excuse to offer; we glory in it, and regard it as a sign of that innate divine energy and life imparted to her by the source of all life and power. The second count on which this charge is based may be found in the utterance of private Catholics, or in that of prelates and bodies, in the latter of whom is lodged a power that extorts obedience, it is true, and ought always to be treated with respect, but which can claim to act in no infallible manner, and which, in pronouncing on matters outside the domain of faith, must rest upon the suggestions of reason and external evidence alone. For instance, Catholics are often confronted with extracts from this or that author, or the pronouncements of this or that provincial council, and asked to say whether, after that, the Church may pretend not to be opposed to the natural aspirations of man? These objectors do not, or will not, see that the Church, by enlarging the domain of her teaching to cover all things with the mantle of infallibility, would most effectually crush the action of the human intellect, which was meant for use, not rust, which must be allowed something to act upon, and which in independent action is bound to rush into a variety of differences according to the bent of the individual mind. However, to answer thus merely opens up a multitude of questions, and launches one into a sea of chaos, across which he will have to sail without chart or compass. Accordingly, I usually answer that these various utterances of individuals and provincial bodies are not infallible; that the only utterance absolutely binding on the conscience of the Catholic is that of a general council with the Pope at its head, or that of the Pope speaking ex cathedra; and that all the other acts of men or bodies, high or low, are subject in their degrees to human infirmity, though we are to receive them with respect and judicious obedience, and that at most they are but temporary in time and limited in space.

No idea could be more extravagant or more unjust than that usually entertained by Protestants on our doctrine of the Pope's infallibility.[Pg 50]

They imagine that a Catholic dares not utter a word upon any subject until the Pope has spoken. Or, if they advance beyond this, that he dares not say anything about religion except what comes direct from Rome. Or, if they can stretch their imagination to realize that the Pope speaks only after discussion, that we must look to have our every word snatched at, and a damper put upon us, before we have well begun. This last is the central objection of intelligent Protestants, who know well that it will never do to fly in the face of facts like their more ignorant neighbors. They have taken the trouble to examine the definition of the dogma; and it cannot be denied that to their minds it does bear this sense. Any one familiar with the minute despotism of those thousand little Protestant Popes, the reverend offspring of the "Reformation," would see at once what a charter such authority would put in the hands of a set of Chadbands only too eager to use it. Enlightened Protestants have begun to feel the burden of this one idea, dead-dragging officialism, and to kick against it. They are probably religious men, by which I mean men with devout minds, who earnestly feel the need of belief. They become inquirers, run through the sects nearest at hand, and finally come before the Church and gaze upon her. Written on her front they see "Infallibility." Here lies their stumbling-block. They begin to question. Arguments are exhausted on each side, and if they be deeply imbued with the knowledge that there is a God, with the consciousness thence following of their fallen nature, and with an ardent hope to re-unite themselves to God, they will admit, perhaps, the truth of the dogma, viewed in the abstract. But they will say, how will it work in practical affairs? Judging by their former experience, they will picture the Pope as a thousand Protestant preachers rolled into one, and invested with an authority undreamed of before, and using that authority to tyrannize over the least thoughts of men. What room, they will exclaim, will men have to advance in the arts and science, not to speak of development of doctrine, if this incubus is to rest upon them, and weigh them down, and terrify them into silence and inaction?

The best answer to this is doubtless an enlarged view of Catholic Christendom, from the earliest times down, for in that period the Pope did possess the prerogative of infallibility, though it has only recently been defined as a dogma. Here it must be recollected that I am not arguing; it would be mere presumption in me to attempt a scientific exposition altogether out of my power. Suffice it to say, that theologians have exhausted the inward reasonings upon it, and though I am not able to set them forth, I am at least convinced by them. Still the concrete world remains, and things are to be seen in them from historical and exterior aspects. It is this last which strikes the imagination most, and to all men a ready test. Minds have various ways of approaching the truth; and right reason has a way of arguing and apprehending simply impossible to men in bulk and to myself. For which I have thought it not unuseful to draw out my way of viewing the historical aspects of the Church in relation to the progress and freedom of man; and perhaps many will look at the subject from a similar standpoint.[Pg 51]

Why I believe in God I cannot express in words. Only I know there is an inward monitor constantly reminding me of that fact, vividly impressing it on my imagination, and punishing me with the lash of remorse when I do wrong. I have never doubted when the matter was brought home to my mind. Still, there are periods when this intense conviction has been clean wiped out of me; else, how could I have sinned, as I know I have done, and feel this keen remorse? I do not see how men can sin with the full consciousness that a God of truth, purity, and justice is looking upon them with terrible eyes. This is the reason for my faith; conscience is the charter of my belief. Far be it from me to deny the arguments drawn by great intellects from the outward course of events, and which appeal, perhaps, to most minds, as evidence of a Creator and Sustainer of the universe. I can only say they do not touch me, nor cause the revivified life to relieve the winter of my desolation, and the leaves and buds of the new spring to bloom within me. For when I look forth into the world, all things—even my own wretched life—seem simply to give the lie to the great truth which possesses and fills my being. Consider the world in its length and breadth, its contradictory history, its blind evolution, the greatness and littleness of man, his random acquirements, aimless achievements, ruthless causes, the triumph of evil, the defeat of good, the depth and intensity and prevalence of sin, the all-degrading idolatries, the all-defiling corruptions, the monstrous superstitions, the dreary irreligion—is not the whole a picture dreadful to look upon, capricious as chance, rigid as fate, pale as malady, dark as doom? How shall we face this fact, witnessed to by innumerable men in all ages and times, as the natural lot of their kind? Much more so when suffering falls upon us, as it does inevitably on all, and forces upon us an attempt to solve the riddle of our chaotic existence?

There is only one way out of the difficulty. If there is a God, the source of all truth and goodness, how else can we account for this desperate condition of his highest creation, except we admit man's fallen condition? It is thus that the doctrine of original sin is as clear to me as is the existence of God.

But, now, supposing that God intended to interfere with this state of things, and to draw his prodigal children to Him again, would it not be expected that He would do so in a powerful, original, manifest, and continuous new creation set amid His old? So intensely is this felt, that atheists have drawn an argument from it against the Creator, and their feeling is expressed by Paine, when he says, that if there be a revelation from God, it ought to be written on the sun. So it should; so it is. So was it gloriously shining forth once, in a city set upon a hill, full of noon-day splendor, and visible to the eyes of all. Still is it there, discernible to the eye of faith; but clouds obscure the sun on occasions, and the miserable doings of the sixteenth century have hid its light to uncounted millions.

And, now, where shall I find that shining light, that overcoming power, which my reason tells me to expect? I quote the words of one who sought for many years and at last found:—

"This power, viewed in its fulness, is as tremendous as the giant[Pg 52] evil which has called it forth. It claims, when brought into exercise in the legitimate manner, for otherwise, of course, it is but dormant, to have for itself a sure guidance into the very meaning of every portion of the Divine Message in detail, which was committed by our Lord to His Apostles. It claims to know its own limits, and to decide what it can determine absolutely and what it cannot. It claims, moreover, to have a hold upon statements not directly religious, so far as this, to determine whether they indirectly relate to religion, and, according to its own definitive judgment, to pronounce whether or not, in a particular case, they are consistent with revealed truth. It claims to decide magisterially, whether infallibly or not, that such and such statements are or are not prejudicial to the Apostolical depositum of faith, in their spirit or in their consequences, and to allow them, or condemn and forbid them accordingly. It claims to impose silence at will on any matters, or controversies, of doctrine, which on its own ipse dixit it pronounces to be dangerous, or inexpedient, or inopportune. It claims that whatever may be the judgment of Catholics upon such acts, these acts should be received by them with those outward marks of reverence, submission, and loyalty, which Englishmen, for instance, pay to the presence of their sovereign, without public criticism upon them, as being in their matter inexpedient, or in their manner violent or harsh. And lastly, it claims to have the right of inflicting spiritual punishment, of cutting off from the ordinary channels of divine life, and of simply excommunicating those who refuse to submit themselves to its formal declarations. Such is the infallibility lodged in the Catholic Church, viewed in the concrete, as clothed and surrounded by the appendages of its high sovereignty; it is, to repeat what I said above, a supereminent prodigious power sent upon earth to encounter and master a giant evil."[B]

Such is the weapon placed by divine power in the hands of the Church for her conflict with the world. And this being so, the inquiring Protestant, after realizing its tremendous nature and scope, will draw back perplexed, imagining that a weight like it would crush the human intellect. He does this only because he loses sight for the moment of the terrible power of the earth giant. The human intellect is no baby, weakening under every stroke; it is a tough, wild, elastic energy, struggling up in every direction, and is never more itself than when suffering beneath the blows of heaven. Moreover, its natural tendency is to explain away every dogma of religious truth, from the lowest to the highest. In that old pagan world this natural process is to be seen. Everywhere that human genius opened up a way for itself, and had a career, the last remnants of primeval truth were well-nigh banished. Look, too, at the educated intellect of the non-Catholic world to-day. Genius, talent, eloquence, and art, what are they in England, Germany and France, if we may not describe them as simply godless? Why is this?

Now turn your gaze on the Middle Ages, and observe the difference. It is scarcely necessary to say that in those times the Church was pre-eminent,[Pg 53] not only having the spiritual power, but often also the secular. If she had wished it, she could have crushed out every form of inquiry, and firmly established herself as the one and only source of all truth. But she did not do it. Never since the world began were such daring inquiries set on foot, such subtile propositions offered, such a vast and varied display of the human intellect in all the departments of theology. The office she claimed was that of arbiter; and surely nothing was more reasonable. A man would work out some original view or deduction; he hoped it was true, but could not be certain; he would put it forth; it would be taken up by an opponent, come before some theological authority of minor note, pass on to some university, be adopted by it and opposed by some other; higher authorities would be appealed to, and at last the subject would appear before the Holy See. Then, perhaps, no decision would be made, or a dubious one, or minor details would be rectified, and so the whole matter sent back for a new discussion. Years and years would pass before anything like a final decision would be reached; and then, when every defect had been rubbed off, and every minute bearing of the matter evolved, the Church would either reject it, or adopt it, and stamp it with the seal of dogma. I say this is an epitome of doctrinal development in the Catholic Church. If there is any one thing more manifest in her ecclesiastical history than others, it is her extreme slowness and caution in final pronouncement, and the general wise treatment with which she has fostered the growth of mental development, so excellent in itself, so erratic in its courses, and so needful of her strong guiding hand.

Indeed, it has been used as a reproach against her that Rome has originated nothing. It is true. It was not her function. She was instituted as the guardian of the Apostolical depositum of faith, over which, of course, her control was supreme; and her jurisdiction was to extend over all other subjects, because they necessarily touched this. But without citing other names, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas stand forth as the formers of the western intellect. Men saintly in character they were, but they had no special relations to the central See, and were only fallible mortals like the rest of their fellows; yet, as I say, they are to be counted the very originators of modern Christian thought. Rome did nothing but stamp their teachings with the seal of her approval. So was it throughout. Her work has been to check and balance the erratic courses of the human mind, allowing it free play within certain limits, but firmly preventing its suicidal excesses. How tenderly has she dealt with schismatics; how forbearing has been her conduct in regard even to the worst heretics; patiently hearing all they had to say, allowing the force of their plea where it was possible, and only casting them out when they proved incorrigible.

Most Protestants suppose that whereas there are two religious principles at work in Christianity, private judgment, and authority, they have all the private judgment, while we are weighed down by an unmitigated authority. Nothing could be more false. This aspect of Christianity is complete without them; they represent simply a negation, and no positive force at all. Show me the doctrine that Protestantism has originated, and it will then deserve to be treated[Pg 54] in a philosophical manner. It has had no innate life, nothing to develop from, and has simply withered down from the first, until now the advance guard of it has reached the shadowy ground of natural religion, and Mr. James Antony Froude, its special champion in its past acts, can write that it is dead. On the contrary, when I view the external aspect of Catholicism as a whole, I behold within it the active forces of life at work from the first. The human intellect is no passive instrument, merely being filled by the reception of faith, but a living organism, feeling a void in it for faith when it has it not, and eagerly receiving and digesting it when it comes. Forthwith it begins a process of development, explaining, proving, modifying, enlarging, in all the various ways that suit the multiplicity of man's nature. This process is observable in all times and places, as the inevitable outcome of civilization. Barbarous nations do not reason, but receive their religion as an outer cloak; as they stagnate in all things else, so also in their creeds. Witness the Turks. Intellectually, morally, religiously, they are the same as they were six hundred years ago; and unless overthrown from the outside, they will probably so remain to the end of time. No heresy has arisen amongst them; no progress in civilization is to be marked; no change even in decline; for power is relative, and the Moslem empire is weak now only in comparison with the vigorous young empires of the West. But the action of civilization is different. Under its influence States are in constant movement, changing from day to day. The change may be good in this detail, and bad in that; it may on the whole be for the good, or it may on the whole be for evil. But what I say is the distinct mark of civilization, as contrasted with barbarism, is emphatically and simply change; change, in the natural order, is its law. For the intellect is alive and vigorous, seizing on everything within its scope, shaping it by its individual bent, and, hemmed as it is by walls of sense, naturally rushing into error on every side. These are effects of private judgment, and they are not less to be seen in the whole Catholic world, from its beginning until, to-day, than anywhere else; but Catholics have had a safeguard against the rebellious and suicidal excesses of fallen reason, and this safeguard is the infallibility of the Church.

The meaning and scope of that infallibility has been given in words fitter than mine. Viewing the nature of things on the whole, and then taking it for granted that God has made a revelation, and intended it to be set up and maintained alongside of and within a civilization anxious to get rid of it, what more reasonable to be expected than that an infallible abiding authority should be His human instrument. It is a thing we should be led to expect if it did not exist; as is fully proved by Paine's saying about its being written on the sun. How convincingly, then, is the truth forced home on us, when we do learn that there is an institution that exactly fulfils our foregone conclusion!

So far as theory goes, the infallibility of the Church can be a burden to none; so far as actual facts go, it has not demonstrably, to my knowledge, acted as a damper on intellectual effort, but merely as the restrainer of its excesses.[Pg 55]

I shall be quite candid in giving my views on this inexhaustible subject, merely letting them stand for what they are worth, and knowing full well that there are depths in it, as in all things else, not to be sounded by me. And I shall now go on to state what are the real difficulties and burdens to me, as to many other Catholics perhaps, in this doctrine of infallibility; always premising that ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt. And here some may be inclined to say that, as touching the papal headship of it, the evil deeds of many Popes and their apparently immoral lives, do inevitably tend to throw discredit on it as being lodged in them. But let all that can be said be admitted; what then? Why, I answer, David was a man after God's own heart, and stood nearer to Him as being inspired than any Pope as being infallible; yet one of God's Prophets could say to him, "Thou art the man!" The lesson of which is not to judge men's inner lives entirely by outward facts, as the young and inexperienced are too apt to do. Our Blessed Lord foretold scandals to come in the very sanctuary of His dwelling, and we know the doom pronounced upon those by whom they come. And if we view the action of these individuals in relation to the Apostolical depositum, we can actually draw thence an argument awful as it is startling. These Popes, so frail as men, were yet wise as the Vicars of Christ; never have they dared lay hands on the faith committed to their care.

The difficulty lies in another direction. As has already been explained, the Church claims infallibility only in matters of faith; but a little reflection will show us that there are many things not coming directly under this head yet appertaining to it. In these latter she claims unquestioning outward obedience at least. Thus she has the right to determine when any scientific theory or other controversy bears upon matters of faith, or has a dangerous tendency to do so; also to check the usurpation of State, when they begin to reach in this direction; and in the exercise of this prerogative she is not guarded from error. I have already shown how slow, cautious and gentle, has been her dealing on the whole with controversies that do relate to faith; much more so has she been in the kindred but outer domain. Still, to our fallible reason, it may sometimes appear that she acts hastily and wrongly in forbidding certain things. She forbids at one epoch what she allows in another; tacitly withdrawing the former condemnation. This, I repeat, is a difficulty, and, stated baldly thus, must often perplex even Catholics.

But let our opponents be as candid as I have been. Let them admit—what is no more than a fact—that this prerogative of the Church has been exercised very seldom; and that even on the most of these occasions, the Church has in the end proved to be in the right, and the supposed martyr in the wrong. Things are not to be judged simply in themselves, but a course of events prove them; and there is a season for all matters, and a season when they are not in order. This right or power is a necessity to every constituted body of whatever kind. A State, for instance, may wrongly condemn a man for some offence; but that is no argument against the State having the right of judging in such matters, even if it must incur the danger of[Pg 56] wrong judgment once more. If this prerogative were taken from the Church, all outside the simple domain of faith would fall into a mere chaos. Now, let the man who holds that this would be as it should be, let him consistently carry out his doctrine into all the concerns of life, and a hideous chaos would be the result. Has not such been the result in religious matters outside the Catholic Church? And as chaos has resulted there from revolt against the constituted authority, so would it be in society at large, were the theory consistently carried out. To say that non-infallible exercise of authority should, on account of occasional error, be resisted and overthrown, is simply suicidal; and an objection founded on it is no more than an objection founded on the fact of evil in man's nature, of which it is a necessary part. And into this bottomless pit of doubt I for one do not purpose to fall.

Let the problem, then, be fully grasped. It is to secure sufficient liberty and a stable authority. Freedom in itself is a good; but such is man's fallen nature, that it cannot be enjoyed without a partial sacrifice of itself, which it yields up to authority. This becomes the domain of authority, and the two interact on each other. So much is clear; but conflicts arise, and the precise issue is, not exactly between the two, but as to where their boundaries meet. We Catholics believe that we hold the solution in our hands, and I shall now merely state how I look at it, admitting, of course, that I may be in incidental error.

The conflict is supposed to lie now between science and the Church. Well, stated simply I would say, let scientists become theologically founded, and let theologians become scientists. At first blush this may sound like a paradox; but it is not. If theologians would honestly strive to master scientific theories, there would be less danger of hasty action on their part. Many of them would not stand committed, as they do, to a condemnation of evolution, while on the other hand it was not their business to sanction it; and if scientists had not allowed themselves to become narrow-minded in their studies, they would not have similarly placed themselves in a false position by trying to make their legitimate discoveries bear upon matters not within their range. The point is, that a Catholic, whether scientist or theologian, should not allow himself to be alarmed by the rash utterances of individuals; but, conscious of a right purpose and true faith, pursue his track to the end, knowing that natural truth cannot clash with supernatural; if at times it appears so, then he knows that this is only temporary, and that in the end difficulties will clear away. Charity on each side will go a long way. However, I think the Church has forborne remarkably in these matters, not committing herself to any precise attitude, but awaiting the issue of the struggle. No idea could be falser than that the scientist would hamper himself in submitting to the Church. Quite otherwise. He would, by this step, secure a central pillar of support, and thence venturing could go further than any of them now dream of. The separation of science and the Church is the distinctive evil of the day. Both would gain, in strength and freedom, by a union, and the progress of the next century would thus redouble that of this.

Hugh P. McElrone.

[Pg 57]

Honor to the Germans.

Letters from those missionaries in Annam, who have escaped the fate which has befallen so many of their flocks, agree in charging the representatives of France with a negligence, which, under the circumstances, assumes the very gravest aspect. Père Dourisboure, for instance, writing from the Seminary at Saïgon, where he has taken refuge, declares that the presence of French vessels at some of the ports, and the firing of a few shots without hurting any one, would have been the means of saving the lives of some thirty thousand Christians, and securing their homes and possessions against injury. Formerly, he says, the mandarins contented themselves with putting missionaries and the leading converts to death; but this time, the persecution and hatred of France, rather than of Christianity, has been the cause of what can only be called a war of extermination, and France has done nothing for those who have suffered for their supposed loyalty to her. When the news of the massacre at Qui-Nhon, where there were seven thousand Christians, reached Mgr. van Camelbeke, he at once requested the commandant of the Lyon, which was lying at that port, to see to the safety of Father Auger and Father Guitton; but that officer replied that his instructions would not allow him to fire a single shot in defence of the missionaries or the native Christians, and all representations and entreaties on the subject proved ineffectual. In this difficulty aid came from an unlooked-for quarter. Deserted by their own countrymen, the missionaries applied to the captain of a German merchantman, which was in the port, and the request being acceded to, two of the Fathers and five German sailors rowed ashore, armed to the teeth, to arrange for the escape of as many Christians as possible. They were met by three mandarins, one of whom was the bitterest enemy of the Christians. These the sailors captured and put in irons on board their vessel, and secure in the possession of these hostages, they proceeded to bring off some seven hundred Christians, the utmost number which the ship could contain, forcing the natives to assist in the work. One of the mandarins was then sent ashore charged with a message that any act of violence against the Christians would be visited upon the two who remained in the custody of the Germans. Père Dourisboure's narrative ceases with the safe arrival of the seven hundred Christians at Saïgon; but we may well hope that the brave Protestant sailors on their return to Qui-Nhon found that their device had proved effectual.

A Writer in the New York Commercial gives facts and figures to prove that there is no quarter of the globe so much in need of missionary enterprise as New England. The Puritans have ceased to be a churchgoing people.

[Pg 58]

Vindication.

From the German of Reinick.

Rev. John Costello.

Jules Janin, a witty French writer, nicknamed lobsters "Naval Cardinals." He probably imagined that lobsters in the sea are as red as they are when served on our tables or placed in the windows of our fishmonger's shops. Curiously enough sailors call the ships used to carry our red-coated soldiers from one part of the world to another, lobster-boxes.[Pg 59]

Tracadie and the Trappists.

The flourishing village of Tracadie, in the county of Antigonish, Eastern Nova Scotia, well sustains for its French inhabitants, the prestige, as industrious husbandmen, which their ancestors' contemporaries established in Western Nova Scotia—the land sung of by Longfellow in his "Evangeline;" and the much-vaunted superiority of the Anglo-Saxon, reads like a melancholy sarcasm, in the face of the fact that the lands from which the inoffensive Acadians were mercilessly hunted, are, to-day, far, very far, removed from the teeming fertility, which charmed the land-pirates in the last century. Simple-minded folks are wont to say, that the lands of the dispersed Acadians, languish under a curse, nor need we, of necessity, dissent from this theory, if we consider the manifestation of the curse to be shown, in a lack of skill, or industry—or mayhap both—in the descendants of those who profited by that infamous transaction. Certain it is, that these lands are now much less fertile than of yore.

Arriving at Tracadie, as we drive from the Eastern Extension Railway Station, we notice as a curious coincidence of alliteration, the sign,—

HALF-WAY HOUSE.
H. H. HARRINGTON.

and remark that with the super-addition of "Halt Here," the signboard would be an unique curiosity.

Leaving the hospitable farmhouse of Mr. DeLorey, on a bright October Sunday, after hearing Mass in the neat and commodious parish church dedicated to St. Peter, a pleasant drive of three miles, bring us to the Trappist Monastery of Our Lady of Petit Clairvaux, the buildings of which are of brick, and form a quadrangle, of which one side has yet to be erected.

Ringing the porter's bell we are admitted and handed over to Brother Richard, the genial and amiable guest master, who is most assiduous in his attentions to us.

The monastery was founded as a Priory, early in the present century by Father Vincent, a native of France, and was raised to the dignity of an abbey nine years ago, when the present Abbot, Father Dominic, was consecrated. The community at present number thirty-seven, of whom sixteen are priests and choir-religious, the remaining twenty-one being lay brothers; the monks being chiefly Belgians, with a few from Montreal, and a few from this vicinity.

The abbey is surrounded by four hundred acres of land, tolerably fertile, though rough in part, and has excellent limestone quarries—the monks burning as much as one hundred barrels of lime at once in their kiln; they also manufacture all the bricks required for the multifarious works which are incessantly in progress. Their domain is well[Pg 60] watered by a stream upon which the indefatigable monks have had a mill erected. At the date of our visit, they had just finished a new dam composed of immense blocks of limestone, and had almost completed a new and larger mill—to supersede the old one—and which in addition to the ordinary grist grinding will also be utilized, simultaneously, for carding, sawing boards, and sawing shingles. The new mill has dimensions of 150 x 40 ft., and the main barn 220 x 40 ft. The latter building now accommodates fifty heads of horned cattle, including some Jersey thoroughbreds and Durhams and six horses. We were also shown some Berkshire thoroughbred pigs, enormous, unwieldy brutes, one rather youthful porker being estimated to weigh nearly six hundred pounds.

The monks make a large quantity of butter, all the year round, the sale of which forms an important item of their revenue. The abbey has made its repute all through the surrounding country, and it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the benefit of this model farm to the inhabitants of adjacent lands; combining as it does the latest improvements in agriculture with the untiring industry of the Trappist Monk. For several years, their grist-mill was the only one for a great distance, and even now wheat is brought in, for grinding, from a radius of fifteen miles.

The monks contain among themselves all the trades necessary to their well-ordered community, ex-gr two blacksmiths, two tailors, two millers, a baker, shoemaker, and doctor, not forgetting the wonderful Brother Benedict, who is at once architect, carpenter, mason and clockmaker. In the last-mentioned capacity his ingenuity is shown by a clock which has four faces; one visible from the road approaching the abbey, the second from the chapel, the third from the infirmary, and the fourth from the refectory, where the modest table service of tin plates and wooden spoons and forks, offer but few attractions to those who overlooking the final end of all created things, look at life from the animal point of view.

We are also taken to the dormitory, and look into the narrow compartments, where the good brothers sleep, with easy consciences, upon their hard beds; and are also shown the discipline, which, though no doubt a wholesome instrument of penance, does not in any way resemble the article of torture under which guise it masquerades in the average anti-Jesuit novel.

Descending again we are taken to the neat cemetery where the brothers are deposited in peace after life's course is run, covered only by their coarse serge habits, and without coffins. Every grave has painted in white letters, on the black ground of a plain, wooden cross, the name in religion once borne by him, whose mortal remains rest below.

In the centre of this final resting-place stands a tall cross, and near by we observe a bare skull, whose mute lips powerfully preach the folly of worldliness, and like an accusing spirit warns all beholders of the dread day when every wasted minute, as well as every useless word, must be strictly accounted for.

The costume of the monks, in its coarseness and simplicity, would[Pg 61] not commend itself to our modern dudes; but, then, life is a terrible reality to these brothers, who, hearing the voice of God, have hastened to follow his call, fully realizing, that without the one thing necessary, all else is vanity.

These reflections are interrupted by the abbey bell, calling us to Vespers, which are chanted by the monks (the music being supplied by the organist Father Bernard), upon the conclusion of which, we take our departure, deeply and favorably impressed with our visit to this monastery, which stands alone, in the Maritime Provinces of the Canadian Dominion, and sincerely grateful, for being enabled to see with our own eyes the works of those much-abused monks, who in general are so frequently defamed by the thoughtless boys who write for the secular press, and by the equally empty-headed old women—of both sexes—who write for that class of periodical which by a curious misnomer is designated religious. These are the people, who, it is to be feared, shut their eyes to the truth, lest they should be compelled to acknowledge it.

In the face of so much prejudice, it is pleasant to be able to record that quite recently some Protestant clergymen visited the monastery, and did not refrain from expressing their honest and undisguised admiration for what they beheld.

J. W. O'Ryan.

Gladstone at Emmet's Grave.

HOW THE UNMARKED TOMBSTONE OF THE MARTYR LOOKED.

The day Mr. Gladstone went to Dublin to receive the freedom of the city, which the town council had unanimously agreed to confer upon him, he spent a day in the docks and courts and in visiting St. Michael's Church—a place full of historical interest. On the vestry table lie two casts of the heads of the brothers Shears, who were beheaded in the rebellion of 1798. Such are the properties of the soil in the cemetery that the bodies of those are as perfect as the day on which they were hanged.

The church itself is eight hundred years old, having been built by a Danish bishop during the ascendency of his race.

Mr. Gladstone examined the communion plate, some of which came out of the spoils of the Spanish Armada.

But these were light trivialities! The grave of Robert Emmet is here. "Let no man mark my tomb," said he, "until my country takes her place among the nations of the earth."

Mr. Gladstone stood beside the rough granite, unchiselled, unlettered, silent slab. No name, no date, no word of sorrow, of hope. The sides are clipped and hacked, for emigrants have come from afar to take to their home in the new world bits of the tomb of Robert Emmet. How he comes to lie here is simply said. When his head was cut off[Pg 62] in Thomas Street, his body was taken to Bully's Acre,—what a name!—and buried.

Rev. Mr. Dobbyn, a sympathizer in the cause, was then Rector of St. Michael's; he ordered the body to be disinterred that night, and he placed it secretly in St. Michael's church-yard. A nephew of Robert Emmet, a New York judge, corroborated this statement some years ago. But Emmet is not the only rebel that lies here in peace.

Oliver Boyd sleeps here, with God's noblest work, "an honest man," written on his tombstone. Here, too, is the grave of the hero, William Jackson, who was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. While the judge was still pronouncing the awful doom, the man grew faint and in a few minutes fell down dead. He had swallowed poison on hearing the verdict from the jury. In this vault, over which Mr. Gladstone peers anxiously, you can see a group of heads, all of 1798 men and there on one of them, is the hangman's crape as it stuck in the wounded neck since the day on which it and its owner parted company. Mr. Gladstone is silent as he sees all this and at last mournfully moves away.

Is there ever a tragedy in which clown is wholly absent? As he steps over the graves, up comes a man as drunk as a goat, and cries out, "Ah! Mr. Gladstone will you take the duty off the whiskey?" Upon which he of Hawarden Castle turns him round and says slowly—"My friend, the duty does not seem to stand much in your way."

John W. Monahan.

Gerald Griffin.

That part of Limerick formerly known as Englishtown, and at present localized in city ordinances and surveying maps as King's Island, consists of a knot of antique houses crowding thick around a venerable cathedral. An ancient castle, its dismantled tower within easy bow-shot, overrun with weeds and ivy, overlooks the noble river, whose expansive sweep of waters is at this point of passage spanned by an old, but still substantial bridge. In the shadow of the cathedral and within hearing of the river, Gerald Griffin, dramatist, poet and novelist, was born on the 12th of December, 1803. His father, who had succeeded to a goodly estate, a considerable fortune and an honored name, sold the fee simple of his landed inheritance, and removed to Limerick, that his children might enjoy all the advantages of a good education, which at that period were best obtainable in large towns and great cities. He established himself in the business of a brewer; and, as in every speculative walk of life where personal energy is not well supplemented by judicious management and long experience, time alone was needed to diminish his capital by rewarding his unremitting industry with profitless returns. The natural disposition of this good man presented a medley of those attractive qualities which secure for their fortunate possessor an immediate share of the sympathetic good-will[Pg 63] alike of the friend and the stranger. He had a kind heart and a winning manner. He could enjoy and exchange a good joke, and to the end of his life was a sterling and an uncompromising patriot. Yet his admiration for valor and virtue was circumscribed by no political limits, by no narrow-minded prejudices. An ultra-volunteer in '82, and an O'Connellite in '29, he was enthusiastic over the victory at Waterloo, and wept at the melancholy fate of Sir Samuel Romilly. Gerald's mother was a gentle and accomplished lady, whose affection for her child was tempered and regulated by the treasures of a refined and cultured mind, and by a sensitively religious disposition. When he was in his third year, Mrs. Griffin, with her family, removed to a country district, which, from local association with the escapades of lepracauns and phookas, had inherited the significative title of Fairy Lawn. The new home was romantically situated amid the umbrageous woods and pastoral meadow-lands through which the Shannon flows at its confluence with the little Ovaan River. His infancy thus cradled in a landscape rich in the diversified picturesqueness of storied ruin and historic tradition, what wonder that Gerald at a very early age should feel the inspiration of his poetic surroundings as he looked towards the winding river, the green fields, the islands mirrored in the tributary Fergus, and the solemn shade and cloistered loneliness of ruined abbeys and gray cathedrals. To the careful training of his good mother he was indebted for the exquisite taste and truthfulness with which he interpreted nature; for the nice sense of honor which distinguished him through life, and which often rose to a weakness; for the delicate reserve which made absence from home a self-imposed hermitage; and for the deep, devotional feeling and healthy habit of moral reflection which ever shaped and inwove the pure current of his thoughts and writings.

A visiting tutor gave Gerald an elementary knowledge of English until the year 1814, when he was sent to Limerick. He remained in the city attending a classical school till he had acquired a familiarity with the works of the great Latin authors. At an age when it is scarcely customary to emancipate children from the prim decorum and polite restraint of the nursery, young Griffin was pouring with unmixed delight over the pages of Horace, Ovid and Virgil. Of the three, he preferred the sweet pastoral of the gentle poet of Mantua, and to the end of his life retained this partiality. Inspiration caught from so pure a source wrought itself into innumerable songs and sonnets, which Gerald managed to write clandestinely, when some new frolic drew away the attention of his brothers and sisters, and left him in the enjoyment of a peaceful hour and a quiet corner. During these intervals of busy writing he was insensibly acquiring that light and graceful style, by the gentle charm of which the most sober strain of serious thought became the most acceptable kind of agreeable reading. Though still young, he could well realize how indispensable a good style is for literary success. He lived at a time when books were comparatively scarce, in a district remote from easy access to well-filled libraries; when the cost of transportation often equalled the advertised price for the newest canto of "Childe Harold," or the latest novel by the "Great Unknown." But what would have been disadvantages to many a beginner proved to[Pg 64] have been of incalculable benefit to Gerald Griffin. His knowledge of books and authors was limited to the extent of his mother's library, and it contained, among other choice works, the writings of the inimitable author to whose graceful allurement Washington Irving owed half his fame and all the classic sweetness of his fascinating style. He copied out whole chapters of the "Vicar of Wakefield," and rarely went out of doors without bringing for a companion a copy of the "Animated Nature."

In the boy, pensive and serious beyond his years, might be traced the different characteristics of mind and heart which eventually made up the texture of his later manhood, the yearning desire for retirement, the habit of sober reflection, the trait of gentle sadness, and the passionate love for home and country. The years of his childhood passed unattended by a single sorrow. Time, however, brought a change, which broke rudely in upon the even tenor of his happy life. The pretty homestead on the banks of the Shannon was to be broken up, old poetic haunts had to be forsaken, and the sheep of the little fold were to be dispersed.

In the year 1820 his father suffered such heavy losses that a slender competency was all that remained at his disposal to resume, if he had been willing, a business which had hitherto been productive of only disappointments and regrets. The family, not wishing to run further risks, set sail for America, and settled in another Fairy Lawn, in Susquehanna County, Pa., leaving Gerald and two younger sisters to remain with their brother, a physician, who was at that time living in the town of Adare. Here Gerald remained for two years, pounding drugs and manipulating pills, ostensibly to study medicine, but in reality to devise plots for projected dramas, and to sketch character and incident for tales in prose and poetry. The pathway of his future career had already been carefully mapped out. He had long pined in secret for a literary career, and years only whetted his eagerness to put his unspoken wish into practical execution. Like poor Kirke White, he felt the irresistible influence of an unmistakable destiny drawing him, as he fancied, from lowly walks to ways of loftier prospect and more uncertain enterprise. In the prophetic fervor of anticipated triumph, he foresaw himself the lion of the literary coterie, the courted favorite at titled levees and fashionable dinner parties. He occasionally contributed short essays and fugitive poems to the Limerick Reporter, a sheet of news on which were wont to be chronicled the gossip of the city, critiques of provincial dramas, statistics of the Baldoyle steeplechases, or the latest speech by the Liberator. Sometimes he ran into the city to have a chat with a young man, who had begun to be recognized in the circuit of provincial journalism as a literary star of rising magnitude. The young man was John Banim, whose noble services under trying circumstances Gerald had reason some years later to experience and appreciate. During the two years immediately preceding his departure for London, he devoted his attention almost exclusively to dramatic composition. Banim's "Damon and Pythias" appeared in 1821, and the success which had at once raised its obscure author into prominence, must have had no slight influence in confirming the resolution[Pg 65] which Gerald had already made. A religious motive, too, entered into the spirit and outlined the object and policy of his work. His plays, when they should be produced, were not to terminate with uproarious applause and calls for the "gifted author" at the fall of the curtain. The spirit of the drama had at this time wofully departed from the sphere of its legitimate function received from historic tradition. The design of the great dramatic master had been in his own words to hold the "mirror up to nature." The interest of London stage-managers led them to pander to public taste, and crowd the boards with sensational makeshifts and spectacular unrealities. Otway's "Venice Preserved" and Heman's "Vespers of Palermo" could not attract a pit full; while scenes introducing battlefields, burning forests, and cataracts of real water crowded the houses to overflowing. It was at this juncture that Griffin hoped to bring about his dramatic revolution. It was with this object in view that he composed a tragedy and read it for his brother, who, seeing that it contained much that was excellent and much that gave evidence of future success, no longer withheld his permission for Gerald to try his future in the heart of the English metropolis.

One cold morning, in the autumn of the year 1823, Gerald Griffin found himself a bewildered stranger in the streets of London. The sense of utter loneliness, the feeling of timid embarrassment, which overpowered him in the bustle and uproar, amid the winding streets and smoky labyrinths of the densely populated Babel, had been experienced by many another aspiring adventurer, whom the glitter of a great name and the hope of literary preferment had drawn from happy retirements to battle through adversity to fame and fortune. His first object on his arrival in town was to seek the shelter of respectable lodgings; his next, to introduce himself, to explain his projects and to submit his tragedy to the manager of a London theatre. The manuscript was returned after some months delay, with the intimation that it was too poetic and too didactic, and would require extensive revision before it could be brought upon the stage. Accident, rather than good luck, threw Banim across his path, and he proved to be a valuable and a faithful friend. In the little sanctum at the rear of No 7 Amelia Place, Brompton, where Curran had written his speeches and Banim had composed his tragedies, Gerald sat down to reinspect the returned work, and at the suggestion of his friend to omit whole scenes, to substitute others, to lop off epithets which were too glaringly poetic, and to abbreviate speeches which were too discursively long. But despite all the author's revision and Banim's abler experience "Aquire" was fated never to occupy the boards. No amount of labor could redeem the fault of a drama which conveyed moral precepts in the classic solemnity of select and studied periods. Despairing, at length, of ever having it produced, Gerald withdrew it in disgust; but what he did with the manuscript, whether it was purposely destroyed, or accidentally lost, we are unable to say. "Aquire," however, must have contained many excellencies, judging from other poetical work of the author written at the same time, and from the testimony of his accomplished brother, whose excellent literary taste made him a competent judge. "Gisippus," a tragedy[Pg 66] written at this period, was produced with great success two years after the author's death, Macready sustaining the title rôle. A series of continued failures to satisfy the wants of exacting stage managers, slightly altered the plan, though not the purpose, of the work which Griffin had set himself to accomplish. He was compelled to give up writing tragedies, and write for a livelihood; but London was overcrowded with impecunious journalists, and he received the merest pittance in return for the most arduous species of literary drudgery. The author of "Irene," on his arrival in London, was not more incontestably the literary helot at the mercy of Cave, Millar, and Osborne, than was Gerald Griffin the typical booksellers' hack amid shuffling reviewers and extorting publishers. Johnson at the outset of his literary career received but five guineas for a quarto English translation of "Lobos Voyage to Abyssinia." Griffin, after working for weeks received two guineas for a translation of a volume and a half of Prevot's works. But he was not to be easily dismayed by first reverses of fortune. He had long ago made himself familiar with the catalogue of miseries in the literary martyrology beginning with Nash and Otway, and ending with his friend Banim. Early intimacy with distress and disappointment would but stimulate him the better to conquer both. He would sacrifice everything, consistent with a stainless name and an honorable career, in the attainment of his cherished end—the society of friends, the little luxuries of a frugal table, the modest though comfortable room in which he had hitherto lived and toiled. Poor Gerald! he had yet to learn when his most ambitious yearnings had been fully realized, that worldly honors do not satisfy the cravings of a Christian heart, that the most imperishable coronal of true success is woven of deeds little, lowly, and seemingly contemptible, and that labor spent in purely secular pursuits is labor spent in vain. But the nobler promptings of his nature were as yet unheard amid the discord in which he lived.

He now removed to a miserable garret in a lonely corner of a lonely street in the loneliest part of London. The forlorn solitude of his dreary room was, however, somewhat cheered by the thought, that in such dizzy eeries, amid the eccentric gables and rheumatic chimney pots of great capitals, works were often composed which were destined eventually to confer lasting honors on their obscure authors. Goldsmith had written his "Vicar of Wakefield" in the memorable, dingy eminence at the head of Breakneck Steps. Pope, walking with Harte in the Haymarket, entered an old house, where mounting three pair of creaking stairs he pointed to an open door and said: "In this garret Addison wrote his 'Campaign.'" Gerald Griffin, however, had yet to experience all the hardships which were endured by Goldsmith before his landlady threatened eviction, and by Addison before he received the fortuitous visit of Henry Boyle, Lord Chancellor of the Exchequer. He wrote prose and poetry for which he was often glad to get sufficient money wherewith to purchase a cup of coffee and a crust of bread. He studied Spanish, and when he had so mastered the language as to be able to translate fluently, his publisher said that on second consideration he would prefer to receive original contributions. And now commenced[Pg 67] a period in Griffin's life, which, for exceptional want and misery, might claim a certain pre-eminence in the long list of hapless victims, who made up the literary hecatomb of the Johnsonian era. Without the grosser elements, which enter into their methods of living and disfigure their character, the abject squalor of vulgar surroundings, the love for pot-houses and low companionships, the utter disregard for personal respect, he otherwise underwent all the pain, the want and uncertainty of their impoverished condition. But the roughness of the road was unthought of in the anticipation of a rich reward at the end of his journey. He would redouble his efforts to ensure its nearer approach. He abandoned old companionships; invitations to dinners and literary soirées, which came from his friends Banim and McGinn, were politely declined. He locked himself in his lonely room and wrote through the hours of an unbroken day. Only at night when the lamps were lit, and the crowds had left the street, would he venture out of doors, and then merely to take a ten minutes' walk to ease his aching head, and to rest his wearied eyes. Once he remained three whole days without tasting food, till a friend accidently came to see him and found him pale and faint but still writing. Yet in all the sunless gloom of this dreadful time his letters home were most cheerful. The want of actual nourishment he felt, the evil influences by which he was surrounded, the chances of certain success which awaited him if he would but do violence to a certain portion of his scrupulous orthodoxy, counted for nothing with one whose good sense could see no grave inconsistency between temporary poverty and the first efforts of struggling genius. Nor is poverty so fatal to the efforts of genius as a superficial thinker would suppose it to be. To a noble nature it presents no feature of degradation or terror. Its supposed evils are, for the most part, begotten of the pride of those who are its victims.

If it forbade Griffin to ask or receive favors from those who were able and willing to help him, it thereby conferred self-independence and ceaseless energy, the constant forerunners of inevitable success. His industry was speedily rewarded, and in a manner which seemed the result rather of good luck than of strenuous effort or personal merit. One day Gerald made bold to write an article after the manner of those in the great reviews. He sent it anonymously to the proprietor of a leading periodical, and in return received unsolicited a cheque for a handsome sum of money, with an invitation to continue sending contributions of a similar kind. This was the first hopeful speck in the horizon of a brilliant future. The benevolence of the kindly publisher did not end here. He sought out the anonymous writer, invited him to dinner, treated him handsomely, and obtained for him the editorship of a new publication. "It never rains but it pours," is a true old maxim attributable with equal propriety to good and evil happenings. Hitherto he had been unable to make his time profitable either in a literary or pecuniary sense. His later contributions had all at once begun to attract attention, and the amount of time at his disposal seemed too short to enable him to satisfy all the requirements of numerous engagements. He was employed as a parliamentary reporter and as a writer of short plays for the English Opera House. He reviewed books which[Pg 68] were published, and revised books which were unpublished. He contributed essays, stories and poetry to the News of Literature, the European Review, and the London Magazine, for the smallest one of which he received more money than for the huge translation of Prevot two years previous. He was now enabled to take more comfortable chambers; but he miscalculated his powers of endurance; when in such a stage of mental anxiety and mental application he would remain up at literary work till he heard the church clocks strike four in the morning. The evil results of this abuse of health soon made themselves manifest. He had lost all appetite for food. His rest was broken by fits of insomnia, during which his heart would beat so loud as to be distinctly heard by his brother in the same room. In the streets he would be suddenly attacked by swooning fits, during which he would have to support himself by leaning on gate posts and sitting on door-steps. At the earnest solicitation of his good brother he set out for Ireland with the hope of recruiting his failing energies by a few months' leave of absence. His vacation was productive of literary as well as of sanitary results.

He returned to London with a volume of stories for the press, and sold the copyright to the Messrs. Simpkin Marshall & Co., for £70. The work appeared in December 1826, under the title of "Hollandtide Tales." It was well received. The style was original, graceful and easy. The three novels, which comprised the series, were interesting and free from the taint of grossness and immorality, so erroneously deemed essential when describing the habits and customs of the poorer classes. It was an eloquent vindication of a much-wronged portion of the Irish peasantry, and like Banim's contemporary writings, it was hailed with universal exultation in Irish literary circles. The success of his first work was so immediate and decisive that he resigned his editorship, abandoned the magazines and reviews, and continued with few interruptions to appear annually before the public as a novelist. "Tales of the Munster Festivals," which appeared in two series, and for which he received £250, was the title of his next work. In 1858 appeared "The Collegians" which placed him with one bound in the fore front of the great writers of his country. It was not only the best Irish novel that had appeared previous to its first publication, but is admittedly the best that has ever been written since.[C] "The Invasion," "The Rivals," "The Duke of Monmouth," and others which he wrote subsequently, are all far inferior when placed side by side with this great master-piece of fiction. In it may be seen to best advantage the wonderful power and versatility of Griffin's genius as a great novelist, for within its single compass he has touched with a master hand the whole gamut of human passion and human affections. As a literary artist of the "dark and touching mode of painting," which Carleton has set down as the chief characteristic of his brother novelist, Griffin has few equals and no superior. To depict the more sombre tints of[Pg 69] human nature, to trace the unbroken events linked together in a career of crime, from the first commission of evil till its last expiation in the felon ship, or on the gallows, he especially delights. He does not delay the progress of the plot to impress upon his reader the exact frame of mind in which his hero felt at certain trying conjunctures. This suggests itself unconsciously, in occasional snatches of vague and emotional distraction, in half uttered replies, in the joke that mechanically escapes the lips, in the capricious laugh that best discovers the anguish preying on the mind and the despair eating at the heart. But it is in the ingenuity with which he makes local surroundings play such an important part in the drama of human destiny, that Griffin excels to a remarkable extent. What reader of the "Collegians" has not realized all the perils of the windy night and the stormy sea with trepidation and horror scarcely surpassed by the occupants of the little craft tossing amid the boiling breakers—Eily, the hapless runaway, Danny, the elfin hunchback, and Hardress, the conscience-stricken victim of conflicting thoughts and passionate impulses? How much more tragic the finding of the dead body of Eily, the "pride of Garryowen," since it occurs on the hunting field, surrounded by the half maudlin squires, and before the bloodless face of the horrified murderer? But Griffin deserves mention other than as a dramatist and novelist. It is saddening to know that in an age where so much weak sentiment, scarcely discernible in its wealth of verbose ornamentation, is so easily imposed upon the public under the name of poetry, that so much really good poetry should be forgotten and unread. One is often provoked to regret that the scalping knife has become blunted in the hands of the "buff and blue," and that the race of useful parodists should seem to have expired with the wits of "Fraser." As a poet Griffin is comparatively little known; and yet, to make a seeming paradox, few poets have been more universally popular. The exquisite songs, "A Place in Thy Memory," "Schule Agrah" and "Aileen Aroon" have been read and sung wherever the English language is spoken. Yet very few young Irish ladies and gentlemen are aware that Gerald Griffin is the author. The religious spirit which exhibits its moral influence through the thread of his stories appears more extensively and more perceptibly in his poetry. If his shorter poems are the best of all he has written, the best of all his short poems are those which breathe a religious spirit. To verify our assertion we need only mention, "Old Times, Old Times!" "The Mother's Lament," "O'Brazil" and "The Sister of Charity." It is a matter for much regret that Griffin should have written so little poetry. Had he devoted more exclusive attention to this department of literature, he would undoubtedly have become the Burns of his country; for his muse had taught him a kindred song, and given him to write with equal tenderness and simplicity.

In the year 1838, Gerald Griffin had attained a popularity which would have satisfied the wishes of the most ardent literary enthusiast. He was no longer the literary hack, the despised minion, the swindled victim at the mercy of harpy publishers and newspaper knaves. He could now write at his leisure, and be handsomely rewarded for his labor. Positions from which much emolument might be derived were[Pg 70] offered him, but he answered them with a polite refusal. Contributions were solicited to no purpose. The desultory articles written under pressure of hunger in the confinement of the garret near St. Paul's were hunted for by publishers, who were too happy to pay a handsome premium for any thing printed over the name of the now popular author. To those who have never tried to realize the working of divine grace in the hearts of the pure and virtuous, Gerald Griffin would now seem to have nothing more to wish for, no unacquired honor to enkindle a new aspiration, no need of money to compel him once more to write for a living. The wisdom of advanced years, and a religious discernment guided by the spirit of God, and becoming more devotional day by day, began at last to discover the sophistry and the deceit of human glory and human praise. He still yearned after a mysterious something which he began to realize could never be found amid the jarring discord and empty distractions of the secular world. A new light irradiated the thick gloom by which he had long been encompassed. Gradually the mist and shadow of doubt and difficulty rolled away, disclosing at length the gray walls of a silent monastery in spirit of unpretentious work and pious exercise, far sequestered from the busy haunts of worldly men. Step by step he was approaching the humble cell of recollection and prayer, in the religious solitude of which he was to find true peace and lasting happiness. From the cottage cradled on the Shannon's breast to his later home in the poetic solitude of sweet Adare; from the three-cornered garret in the London back street to the tables of the rich and the titled, he had experienced every vicissitude between the antithetical extremes of joy and sorrow. When, at length, the final step was taken, it was not the rash or eccentric choice of momentary impulse, but the matured result of wise and cautious deliberation. He prepared to enter the noble order of the Christian Brothers, whose humble office it is to instruct the children of the poor, and whose labors in the cause of Christian education have been of incalculable benefit to the Irish race. One morning previous to Gerald's final departure, an elder brother entered his bedroom. He found him in a kneeling posture holding the last fragment of a charred heap of manuscript over the blazing fire. He had made the final sacrifice to God of all that could wed his heart to future worldly honors. In the year 1838 he entered the Christian Brothers at Cork, and after a short novitiate received the habit and the vows by which these holy men consecrate themselves to the service of their Maker and the spiritual welfare of their fellow men. But the splendid genius of the new Brother was not destined to remain idle. It was now to be exercised more energetically than ever, consecrated as it had been to the service of religion and the glory of God. He had just completed a small number of Catholic tales, written in his happiest vein, when a fatal attack of malignant fever struck the pen from his hand. Every remedy that the skill of great physicians could devise, every attention that loving confrères could bestow was procured for him during his last illness. But the invisible decree had gone forth, and the near passing was inevitable. He lingered but a few days, edifying his attendants by his fervent piety and resignation under suffering. He died consoled by the rites of Holy[Pg 71] Church on the 12th of June, 1840. In the humble cemetery, of the monastery at Cork, a modest grave, unnoticed amid rows of similar ones, is surmounted by a small cross. The cross bears the name of Brother Joseph, the grave holds all that was mortal of the good and gifted Gerald Griffin.

Oxford, N. J.

James H. Gavin.

Rev. Father Fulton, S. J.,

Condescended to notice the ravings of Mr. Robert Ingersoll, at Boston College Hall, on the evening of the 11th of November. We should be pleased to publish a full report of the lecture, but our limits will not permit us to do so. We merely give a few extracts: "Once upon a time there was a person named Scholasticus, who suffered by death the loss of his child, to whose obsequies came the people in great throngs. But our friend, instead of receiving their expressions of condolence, hid himself blushing in a corner, and, on being expostulated with, and asked why he was ashamed, replied: 'To bury so small a child before so large an assembly.' This lecture is the child, and the concourse is the audience before me. I have been engaged on matters foreign to literary and scientific pursuits, and have had no time to prepare a regular lecture, but I think it will not need much time to demolish Mr. Ingersoll. I will take his book on 'Orthodoxy,' in which he declares that 'he knows that the clergy know that they know nothing.' Mr. Ingersoll is not a philosopher, nor a theologian, though he may be, as we hear, an orator of matchless voice and gesticulation. He is witty, as any one may easily be who attacks what we most revere. Let us look at his scholarship. He has no argument whatever, except the old objections brought up in the schools. In the whole book there have been no references nor authorities cited. His only method of reasoning is that by interrogation, why? why? why? Suppose I answer I don't know! The proper test of an argument is to put it in syllogistic form, which is impossible with Mr. Ingersoll's arguments. Again, the very importance of the subject demands a respectful and reverential treatment, which Mr. Ingersoll denies it. I will try to make a synopsis of the work. Mr. Ingersoll declares himself sincere in his belief, thereby insinuating that they who believe in Christianity are hypocrites. Then follows an examination of the Congregational and Presbyterian creeds, under the supposition, absurdly false, 'ex uno disce omnes.' 'Infidelity,' says Mr. Ingersoll, 'will prevail over Christianity.' This does not prove that Christianity is not the true religion, for infidelity may triumph only because the intellect is obscured by passion. 'The Christian religion,' says he, 'is supported only because of the contributions of some men.' Would those men have supported it had they not firmly believed in it? Again, Mr. Ingersoll says the Christian religion was destroyed by Mohammed, and yet no one knows it. Nor were the crusades unjust and destructive wars, for the land which they fought for was one dearest[Pg 72] to them; their Saviour died there. Was it not a just war? And this war saved all Europe, for the power of Mohammed was rising rapidly and was about to inundate all Europe. But the war was carried into the enemy's country, and by the attack all Europe was saved. Again, we were freed from the ignorance of the dark ages (dark, as I may say, only because we have no light on them), by the introduction into Italy of some manuscripts, according to Mr. Ingersoll. But the truth is, all the learning of that period was centred in the church, and by her alone were erected seats of learning. It was from the barbarian that this ignorance arose. Nor has the church been inimical to the sciences, more particularly to astronomy and its promoters, for among the most able astronomers of Europe are to be found Catholic priests." The lecture was delivered to a large audience completely filling the College Hall.

Private Judgment a Failure.

It is a common fallacy of Protestants that the scepticism, which is so prevalent, affects the Catholic Church equally with Protestant sects. Now, this is a great and pernicious error, for it tends to divert sincere inquirers from seeking true, infallible doctrine in the church. When I witness the strenuous efforts made by Protestant writers against scepticism, and their ill success, I am led to execrate the miscalled "Reformation." Had that horrible event not taken place, instead of the desultory warfare by detached guerillas, we should have had the full strength and power of an organized, disciplined, compact army, against scepticism. To speak even of the learning displayed by Protestant writers is to suggest how much more vast the learning, that would now be the portion of England, if the church property were in the hands of the Abbots of former days instead of being held by its present possessors. In force of reasoning, too, Protestant vindicators of religion are at an immense disadvantage. They are hampered by principles, which they should never have adopted. Private judgment is to them what Saul's armor was to David, ill-fitting, and cumbersome. To borrow an illustration from Archbishop Whately, "They are obliged to fight infidelity with their left hand; their right hand being tied behind them." One of the specialties of this age is "historical research." The application of the historical criticism inaugurated by Niebuhr has dealt Protestism a fatal blow, while, on the other hand, it has been favorable to the cause of Catholicity. This has happened for the reason that the Catholic Church is not founded exclusively on the Bible, as Protestantism is. Catholics take the Bible as an authentic history. This authentic history establishes the divine mission of our Lord, and the institution of the church by His divine authority. This church, "the pillar and ground of truth," attests the divine authority of Holy Scripture. There is no circulus vitiosus in our argument. With us the individual must bow to the collective wisdom of the church, divinely established.[Pg 73] Protestants cut a pretty figure with private judgment. In political elections, and in clubs, meetings, and so forth, the Protestant very properly allows that the voice of the majority must prevail. This is common sense; and yet in religious matters forsooth, the private judgment of an ignorant and illiterate individual must be permitted to overrule the decision of the collective wisdom of learned theologians. This shows how far men are liable to be blinded by prejudice. In fact, if men had an interest in denying that "two and two make four," they would unquestionably do so. We may also deduce from this violent aberration in religion an argument to prove the doctrine of original sin, and the existence of evil spirits exercising a malignant influence on the souls and minds of men.

Physicists experience that longing for religion natural to man; and hence they endeavor to patch up some sort of a religion from the shreds of truth that are found in physical science, "rari nantes in gurgite vasto." Unfortunately, they are unacquainted with Catholic doctrine, and they see in the conflicting sects of Protestantism no good ground to base their faith upon. Accustomed to deal with matter, they are unable to elevate their minds to the supernatural. They dissect the human corpse, and stupidly wonder that in a dead body they cannot discover a living soul; they search the empty tomb for the resurrected Saviour.

The minds of those men are set in a wooden, mechanical way. They are impervious to logic at the very time that they are asserting their loyal adherence to its rules. They have a horror of Catholic conclusions as, it may be also remarked, have Protestants likewise. On this account, both classes prefer rather to accept the most untrustworthy theories of physical science, even when they verge on gross and laughable absurdity, than to grant the conclusions of Catholic theologians.

It must be borne in mind that the Bible is not one book, as popular Protestantism regards it. It is seen now in the light of historical criticism, that the amount of knowledge requisite for the proper exercise of private judgment on the Bible is immense, and such as can only be acquired by a few, comparatively speaking. Protestantism is, therefore, moribund. Infidelity is to be combated by the church; by this only can it be conquered. Nor is it hard to conquer. We should see it disposed of very soon, if it ventured to put forth a system. But its strength lies in grumbling. It asks, like Pontius Pilate, What is truth? And goes away without waiting for an answer.

Burlington, N. J.

Rev. P. A. Treacy.

His Holiness the Pope having written a letter to the Mikado of Japan thanking him for the kindness extended by him to the Catholic missionaries, his Majesty has replied in cordial terms, assuring the Holy Father that he would continue to afford them protection, and announcing the despatch of a Japanese mission to the Vatican.

[Pg 74]

Priests and People Mourning.

The Great and Gifted Redemptorist Father, Rev. John O'Brien, Deceased—Beautiful and Appropriate Tributes to his Memory.

A pillar of the Lord's temple, a lustrous light of faith departed, a glorious soldier of the church militant on earth, is the sorrowful, but withal grateful, subject of our memoir. Taken from this life suddenly in the very bloom of a magnificent manhood, and from the career of his saintly priesthood, fragrant with thousands of tests of the divinity of his ordination; aye, taken from the multitudes who so much needed his spiritual guidance and support, may we well exclaim that the ways of our Almighty Father are wondrously mysterious and hidden beyond the ken of our feeble understanding. The great and gifted young priest was truly of that royal race of him, Boroimhe, who was slaughtered by the hand of a desperate assassin, as he prayerfully knelt in his tent, on the battle-field, offering thanks to the Lord of Hosts for victory over the hordes of northern barbarian invaders. He of Clontarf was king, soldier and saintly Christian. His descendant, transplanted in his youth, as if by divine ordination, from Ireland to America, was soldier, Christian, king of hearts and saver of souls. Majestic in person, gentle in deportment, tender of heart, Rev. John O'Brien, C. SS. R. through wondrous graces of mind and soul won upon all; brought the wayward into the paths of holy places, and readily summoned sinners to repentance. He achieved miracles, temporal as well as spiritual. It will be recollected how agreeably our whole community was startled by the corroborated recital, not so very long since, that the young daughter of Col. P. T. Hanley, of Boston Highlands, was healed of her chronic lame infirmity through the efficacy of his ministrations and her own pure prayers and strong faith. How heroic he was in "apostolic zeal and saintly fervor," like one of those heroic, primitive soldiers of the Cross, the martyrs of the catacombs, his reverend and eloquent panegyrist attests, when he reminds us how little terrors for him and his pious associates had the murderously-inclined orangemen and other bigots of Newfoundland, when these Fathers were there not long ago on the mission.

Rev. Father O'Brien had been for some years connected with the Redemptorists' Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, at Boston Highlands. He was in his thirty-sixth year at the time of his decease, which occurred suddenly on November 8th, from rheumatism of the heart, at Ilchester, Md., the parent house of the order. He had, only a few days previous to his death, closed a most arduous but successful mission in Philadelphia, where, but a short time previously, Rev. Father McGivern was taken with his fatal illness through overwork in his missionary labors. The remains of Father O'Brien were conveyed here by Mr. Cleary, one of our undertakers, and reposed in the main aisle fronting the altar of the Tremont Street basilica, during the evening[Pg 75] and night of November 11, where many thousands visited them in tears, and rendered upward their silent and heartfelt prayers for the purposes which animated his sanctified soul. The emblems of mourning in the edifice, the varied and beautiful and artistic floral tributes, the grief depicted on the features of young and old of the people, and many other evidences, attested most unerringly the great bereavement which the Catholics of Boston sustain by his death.

The Late Rev. John O'Brien, C. S.S. R.

On the morning of the 12th, at 9 o'clock, the Redemptorist Fathers' Church was thronged with a great congregation, and hundreds were unable to get in when the office of the dead was recited. Over fifty priests participated in the sanctuary devotions. The clergymen offering up the Solemn High Mass of Requiem were as follows: Celebrant, Rev. Father Welsh, C. SS. R.; deacon, Rev. Father Wynn, C. SS. R.; sub-deacon, Rev. Father Lutz, C. SS. R.; master of ceremonies, Rev. Father Licking, C. SS. R.; Father Licking also preached the panegyric. The Reverend Father took for his text:

[Pg 76]

He began most impressively and substantially as follows: "What shall I say to you on this sad occasion? How shall I find words to express the sorrow and sadness, which I see depicted on your countenances? The zealous, the learned, the whole-souled Redemptorist, Rev. John O'Brien, is laid low on the bier of death. A young warrior has fallen on the battle-field of duty. A strong worker has sunk beside the vines he was preparing for the heavenly kingdom.

"Oh, brother, if thou hadst not died in the prime of youth! If thou hadst not within thee the strength and energy to labor long and successfully in thy sublime vocation! If thou hadst grown gray in the service of God, I should congratulate you on this day, the day of thy espousals to Jesus Christ. I should say to thee: well done thou faithful servant, thou hast labored long and well in the service of thy maker. Thou hast gone to thy well-merited reward." Father Licking continued at some length in this strong strain of apostrophe to the name and memory of his beloved brother, and then entered into reminiscences, in which he said, "I remember well when first I met the departed. It was in the year 1870. We were then students at the preparatory college of the Redemptorist order. He was even then the picture of health, and a model for every student. Never was he known to infringe upon the slightest rule of the institute; never (and this is saying a great thing), never did he lose a single moment of time. Always at his books by day and by night, even stealing from his well-merited rest some hours in order to acquire knowledge which he might employ in after years in the service of God and for the good of souls. So well pleased were his superiors with his conduct, that they appointed him, together with the late lamented Rev. Father McGivern, overseer of the college boys in the absence of their superiors."

He received the habit of the order in 1875, with Rev. Fathers Beal and Licking. The panegyrist made most feeling allusion to the occasion, when the lamented dead took "the profession of those holy vows, those tremendous vows, those eternal vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.... Thank God, he kept those vows to the end."

Father O'Brien was next sent to the Redemptorist Theological Seminary of Ilchester, Md., to further pursue the great studies that fitted him for his calling.

"It often required an express command of his superiors to take him from his books that his body might not succumb, and the mind gain the necessary rest. So exact was he in all his ways, that we, his fellow students, could, at any hour of the day, point out the very spot where he might be found, either going through the Way of the Cross, or praying before the Blessed Sacrament, or reciting his rosary, or studying at his books. Is it a wonder, then, that God should allow him to die on a spot which had so often been the witness of so much piety and so many of his good works."

He was ordained priest in 1880, and the following February found him at the Boston Highlands in the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Here he administered for the first time the Sacrament of Penance; here he preached from the pulpit of his panegyrist his first sermon; here he entered upon "that career of zeal and usefulness[Pg 77] which made his name proverbial in every family of the parish." ... "He possessed a powerful and comprehensive mind, a prodigious memory, and a most fertile imagination; and, above all, a most generous spirit and tender heart. Graced besides with every form of manly beauty, strength and vigor, of a powerful frame, nothing seemed wanting to him. It might be said of him as the poet sang of the ancient hero:

Father Licking dwelt at length upon the great extent of the work done in the parish by the beloved deceased. "Every interest in the large parish received his particular attention." All were participants of his zeal and charity. In 1883 he passed through his second novitiate after a retirement of six months, which fully equipped him for the missions. "And now his soul rejoiced, indeed, in the Lord."

"It is related," said the preacher, "of a Southern officer, that when he returned from a successful expedition, the first question he put to his general always was: 'Where is the next blow to be struck? Send me there!' So it was with the young warrior of the Cross, whose death we mourn. His zeal knew no bounds except those of obedience. Hardly had one mission been finished when he hastened to another.... North, South, East and West were witnesses of his Apostolic zeal and saintly fervor. The cold weather, the fierce storms, and still fiercer spirits of hostile sects in Newfoundland, had not terrors enough to deter him, and the hottest sun of July and August could not draw from him a single word of complaint, when engaged in arduous task of giving retreats. And though comparatively a young man, when only four years had elapsed since his ordination, his superiors trusting in his zeal, his prudence, and his wisdom, selected him, from out of many, to the important office of giving retreats to the clergy of the land." ... "I see among the floral tributes one bearing the letters 'Apostolic Zeal.' It shows me that you have understood his spirit."

In the panegyrist's recital it was told that six weeks before his death he was returning from missions in Pennsylvania. He saw in New York the very Rev. Provincial, who told him that the Fathers at work on the missions at Philadelphia were becoming exhausted, and that even then the Rev. Father McGivern was on a dying bed there. Father O'Brien stood up, and stretching himself to the full height of his massive frame, he exclaimed, "Look at me! Am I not a strong man? Send me. I'll do the work for them!" "Does it not remind you of the brave general who said, 'Where is the next blow to be struck. Send me there.'" When that, his last mission, closed, the Fathers had heard thirty-five hundred confessions, and he retired to Ilchester for a cursory visit, where the joy he experienced in meeting his old Alma Mater superiors was beyond description. While there he remarked: "Father, this would be a nice, quiet and holy place to die in." That night he was attacked with the fatal malady. His limbs became racked with pain. The rheumatism reached his great heart, and he is found at five o'clock in the morning insensible. The last[Pg 78] sacraments were administered, and at seven o'clock his noble soul took its flight from its mortal abode.

With an eloquent peroration, Rev. Father Licking closed by craving the prayers of the faithful for the departed hero of the Cross.

The pathetic musical services were rendered by the regular choir of the church, and comprised the Gregorian Requiem Mass, Miss Nellie M. McGowan, organist. The twelve pall-bearers were Colonel P. T. Hanley, Frank Ford, John J. Kennedy, M. H. Farrell, Thomas Kelly, E. J. Lynch, James McCormack, Thomas O'Leary, James B. Hand, William S. McGowan, John Reardon and Timothy McCarthy. Mount Calvary Cemetery was the place selected for the interment. In His Grace Archbishop Williams' vault the body will repose until the completion of work now in progress on a lot specially intended for Father O'Brien. It is estimated that the services at the church were attended by over twenty-five hundred people, and the funeral was likewise largely attended. Every kind attention was paid to his bereaved mother, father, and sister, who came on here from New York State.

SLEEP ON.

In Memory of Father John O'Brien, C. SS. R.

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Crown and Crescent.

A great event was witnessed on the evening of Monday, November 23, when the new electric crown and crescent, which adorn the statue of Our Lady on the dome of the university, were lit up for the first time. There, lifted high in the air—two hundred feet above the ground—the grand, colossal figure of the Mother of God appeared amid the darkness of the night in a blaze of light, with its diadem of twelve electric stars, and under its feet the crescent moon formed of twenty-seven electric lights. Truly, it was a grand sight; and one, which, though it is becoming familiar to the inmates of Notre Dame, must ever strike the beholder with awe and reverence, realizing as it does, the most perfect expression, in a material representation, of the prophetic declaration of Holy Writ: And there appeared a great wonder in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

It must, indeed, have been an inspiration, or a prophetic foresight of the great advance soon to be made in the domain of science, that, a few years ago, caused the venerable founder of Notre Dame to conceive the grand idea which to-day we see so perfectly realized. In 1879, when the new Notre Dame was being raised upon the ruins of the old, comparatively little progress had as yet been made in electric lighting. In particular, the great problem of the minute subdivision of the light remained unsolved. Edison had not then begun his experiments, and the incandescent light was not even dreamed of. To employ the arc light around the statue was out of the question, not only because the necessary appliances would detract from the beauty of the figure, but also on account of the daily attention which the lamps would require.

But the idea had taken possession of the mind of Very Rev. Father Sorin, and was tenaciously clung to, in spite of discouraging report through the years that followed, until, at length, the success of subsequent experiments, and the invention of incandescent electric lighting, revealed the complete practicability of carrying out the grand design of the venerable founder.

Now, twelve of the Edison incandescent lamps encircle the head of the statue, while at the base are three semi-circles of nine lamps in each, which form the crescent moon. These, together with the lights in the halls of the college, are fed with the electric current by a powerful dynamo, situated in the rear of the building. Thus the visitor to Notre Dame, as he comes up the avenue at night, or the wayfarer for miles around, can realize and revere that glorious tribute to the Queen of Heaven, the Protectress of Notre Dame, as he sees her figure surrounded with its halo of light, typifying the watchful care she constantly exercises, by night as well as by day, over the inmates of this home of religion and science, which has been specially dedicated to her honor.

Notre Dame (Ia.) Scholastic.

[Pg 80]

Four Thousand Years.

Abram J. Ryan.

Abolishing Barmaids.

A bill "for the Abolition of Barmaids" sounds like a joke from "Alice in Wonderland," or from one of Mr. Gilbert's burlesques. Nevertheless it is a serious legislative proposal now pending before the Parliament of Victoria. It is actually in print, and makes it penal for any keeper of a public house to employ women behind the counter. Of course, the advocates of this astonishing idea have their arguments. They do not go quite as far as Sir Wilfrid Lawson, who would disestablish not only barmaids, but barmen and bars; they would not shut up all dram-shops; but they would make them as dreary as possible, so as to repel impressionable young men. In Gothenburg the spirit-drinker is served by a policeman, who keeps an eagle eye upon him that he may know him again, and refuse him a second glass if he asks for it before a certain interval has expired. The Victorian reformers have a corresponding idea of diminishing the attractions of intoxication by surrounding the initial stages with repellent rather than enticing accessories. Instead of the smiling Hebes who have fascinated the golden youth of the colony, men will serve as tapsters, and without note or comment hand across the counter the required draught. The effect may be considerable, as male drinkers do undoubtedly take a delight in the pleasant looks and bright talk of the young ladies who, as the French say, "preside" at these establishments. But should not the Victorian apostles of abstinence go further? It is well to replace girls by men, and thus subdue the bar to masculine dullness; but could not the Act of Parliament go on to declare that none save plain, grim-visaged males should be tolerated as assistants? The most inveterate toper might hesitate to enter twice if he were always met by the ugly aspect of some dark, forbidding countenance. A kind of competition might take[Pg 81] place for the posts, which might be given to the most repulsive people the Government could select. Fearful squint would be at a premium; scowls would be valued according to their blackness and depth; a ghastly grin would be desirable; while a general cadaverousness might be utilized as suggesting to drunkards the probable end of their career. The gods of Olympus laughed loudly when the swart, ungainly Vulcan for once replaced Hebe as their cup-bearer; but it would be no joke for the young idlers of Melbourne to find stern, grim men frowning over the counters where once they were received with "nods and becks and wreathed smiles."

Christianity in China.

The arrangement which the Pope has made with the Emperor of China promises to be productive of the happiest results, and to open the Flowery Kingdom fully to the spread of the gospel. For many years the French assumed the position of protectors of Christian missionaries in barbarous countries. The first expedition to Annam was avowedly sent to put an end to the murders of missionaries and converts so frequent in that country; and for a time it did serve to put a check on the ferocity of government and people. In the treaty of Tienstin it was stipulated that the French Government should have the right to protect missionaries in China. For a time that seemed to work well. But the many complaints made through the French consuls, and the punishments inflicted on Mandarins at their demand, served to irritate the Mandarins and the populace. The indiscretion of some French missionaries, who interposed to protect converts not always deserving of protection, and who flaunted the flag of France in the faces of the Mandarins in their own courts, increased the irritation. Some of the missionaries boasted also in letters, which the Chinese saw when published, of the respect for France which they instilled into their converts. The consequence was, that, although the missionaries are from all nations, the Chinese learned to regard them as French; and when the French made the late war on China, to regard all Chinese Christians as traitors. Formerly the government persecuted the Christians. Latterly Chinese mobs massacred the Christians and destroyed their churches, convents, schools, etc., and the French scarcely made an effort to protect them even in Tonquin. The Holy Father, in the letter which we published some time ago, assured the Emperor that the missionaries who are of all nations are of no politics and desire only to preach the Christian religion, and begged the Emperor to protect them. It has now been arranged that the Pope shall hereafter be represented by a Legate at Pekin to whom the rank, etc., of an ambassador will be given, and who will receive any complaints the missionaries may have to make and will seek redress for them. Thus the interests of religion will, in the minds of the Chinese, be entirely dissociated from the interests of all foreign countries, and the feelings which now prevail will subside in[Pg 82] time. The French Government infidel, though it is, will not like, it is thought, to be thus put aside; but if the missionaries cease to appeal to its agents it will be powerless.

"Faro's Daughters."

There was plenty of gambling in London at the end of the last century, and ladies took a prominent part in it. Faro was then a favorite game, and ladies who were in the habit of keeping a bank used to be called "Faro's Daughters." Of these, Lady Archer and Lady Buckinghamshire were the most notorious, and Mrs. Sturt, Mrs. Hobart, and Mrs. Concannon were also noted gamblers. The usual method was for some great lady to give an entertainment at which faro was played, when the lady who took the bank gave her £25 towards the expenses. St. James's Square was the scene of many of these revels. The Times of April 2, 1794, stated that "one of the Faro Banks in St. James's Square lost £7000 last year by bad debts." The same number tells us that "Lady Buckinghamshire, Mrs. Sturt, and Mrs. Concannon alternately divide the beau-monde at their respective houses. Instead of having two different hot suppers, at one and three in the morning, the Faro Banks will now scarcely afford bread and cheese and porter." The lady gamblers were considerably alarmed at certain hints they received, that they would be prosecuted; and in 1796 the Times said, "We state it as a fact, within our own knowledge, that two ladies of fashion, who keep open houses for gaming at the West End of the Town, have lately paid large douceurs to ward off the hand of justice." But in the following year Lady Buckinghamshire, Lady Elizabeth Lutterell, and Mrs. Sturt were each fined £50 for playing faro at the house of the first named. The evidence proved that the "defendants had gaming parties at their different houses by rotation," and that they played until four or five in the morning. The fines seemed light enough, for an extract from the Times in the same year says:—"The expense of entertainments at the Gaming House of the highest class, in St. James's Square, during the eight months of last season, has been said to exceed 6,000 guineas! What must be the profits to afford such a profusion?" In modern times backgammon is not usually associated with very desperate gambling; but a captain in the guards is said to have lost thirteen thousand guineas at that game at one sitting in 1796. He revenged himself, however, by winning forty-five thousand guineas at billiards in a single night shortly afterwards.—Saturday Review.

Never use water that has stood in a lead pipe over night. Not less than a wooden bucketful should be allowed to run.[Pg 83]

Juvenile Department.

A CHILD'S DAY.

Katharine Tynan, in Merry England.

When little Willie L. first heard the braying of a mule in the South, he was greatly frightened; but, after thinking a minute, he smiled at his fear, saying, "Mamma, just hear that poor horse with the whooping-cough!"

A Little grammar is a dangerous thing: "Johnny, be a good boy, and I will take you to the circus next year."—"Take me now, pa; the circus is in the present tents."[Pg 84]

THE CHRISTMAS TURKEY.

Grandfather Patrick lived a long time ago; in the days when all the grandfathers wore white wigs with little tails sticking out behind.

One day he went into the back yard where an old Turkey Gobbler lived, and said to him:

"Mr. Turkey Gobbler: Next week comes Christmas and I want you to come into the house with me, and help us have a good time. You are such a fine, fat fowl, I am sure you will be just the one we want."

Mr. Turkey Gobbler was a vain bird, and when he heard Grandfather Patrick say this, he spread out his tail, stuck up his feathers, and stretched his wings down to the ground. Then he said: "Yes, I know I am a fine fowl, and I want to get away from this low, mean yard, into the grand house, among grand people, where I think I belong."

"And so you shall," said Grandfather Patrick. "You shall leave this cold yard and come in to the stove where it is warm. You shall[Pg 85] come to the table with us all on Christmas Day. You shall be at the head of the table, and the boys and girls will be glad to see you, and they will say how fat you are, and how good you are, and how they wish they could have you at the table every day."

Mr. Turkey Gobbler was so pleased at all this that he went into the house with Grandfather Patrick and Aunt Bridget.

And all the little chickens looked on, and they said to each other: "Why cannot we go into the grand house, and come to the table the same as Mr. Turkey Gobbler? We are just as fine as he."

"Be patient," said Grandfather Patrick; "your time will come."

THE CHRISTMAS STOCKING.

THE CHRISTMAS CRIB.

[Pg 86]

From the French of J. Grange, by Th. Xr. K.

There still subsist, in certain provinces of France, old religious customs which are full of charming simplicity. May they endure and ever hold out against the icy breath of skepticism, the cold rules of the beautiful, and the wearisome level of uniformity.

In the churches of Limousin, between Christmas and the Purification, is found a rustic monument called crib. The crib is generally a straw hut, thatched with branches of holly and pine; on these branches are scattered little patches of white wadding, which look like snowflakes. Inside the house, on a bed of straw, lies an Infant Jesus made of wax. All these Infants look alike and are charming; they have blond hair, blue eyes, pink cheeks, and a silk or brocade gown, with gold and silver spangles. To the right of the Child is the Blessed Virgin; to the left, St. Joseph. These are of wax or even of colored pasteboard. A little behind the Holy Family, and forming two distinct groups, may be seen the kings and the shepherds. The shepherds are like peasants of that part of the country, with long hair, big felt hats, and blue drugget vests. Most of them carry in their hands, or in baskets, dairy or farm presents,—fruits, eggs, honey-comb, a pair of doves. As for the kings, they are superbly clothed in long gowns, whose trail is carried by dwarfs. One of them, called the king of Ethiopia, is black and has kinky hair.

In certain cribs, simplicity and exactness are pushed to such lengths, as to represent the ox and the ass, with the rack full of hay. There may be also seen, but less frequently, in the kings' group, camels and dromedaries, covered with rich harness, and led by the bridle by slaves. If you want to do things right and leave nothing out, you must skilfully arrange above the crib a yellow-colored glass in which burns a flame, which represents the star that the Magi perceived and which stopped over the grotto at Bethlehem. Candles and tapers burn before the crib, which is surrounded by some pious women, and a number of children, who never grow weary of admiring the Holy Family and its brilliant retinue.

I was one day in a church where there was one of these cribs. I was hidden by a column and was a witness, without any wish of mine, of the impressions which the little monument made on visitors.

A gentleman, a stranger in the locality, entered the church with a young lady, about eighteen years of age, who seemed to be his daughter. The gentleman took off his hat, put on a smoking cap, and began to visit the church with as much carelessness of demeanor as though it were a provincial museum. The young lady dipped the tips of her fingers in the holy water, sped through a short prayer, and hastened to rejoin her father, with whom she began to chat and laugh.

When they came in front of the crib, the father adjusted his eye-glasses, the daughter took her opera-glass, and for a few minutes they gazed on this scene, new to them.[Pg 87]

After gazing a little while, the gentleman shrugged his shoulders and asked:

"What are all those dolls?"

"Papa," replied the daughter, "that is the Stable of Bethlehem, and a simple representation of the birth of Jesus Christ."

"Simple?" exclaimed the father, "you're indulgent to-day, Azémia; you should say grotesque and buffoonish; that it should be possible to push bad taste so far! It is not enough that their mysteries are incomprehensible; here they're trying to make them ridiculous!"

"Goodness, papa," said the young lady; "just think! for the common people and peasants"—

"I tell you, Azémia, that it is absurd and shocking, and that the peasants and the natives themselves must laugh at it. Let us go! I feel myself catching cold here, and dinner must be ready."

They had hardly left the church, when a lady entered with a charming four-year-old baby. The child ran to the crib where the mother joined him after a prayer which seemed to me less summary and more serious than that which the young lady had said.

"Oh! mamma," the child said half aloud; "look at the little Jesus, and the Blessed Virgin, and St. Joseph. See the kings and the shepherds. Oh! mamma, see the star the kings followed and that stopped over the Stable of Bethlehem."

And the child stood on tip-toe and looked with wide-open eyes.

"Mamma," he went on, "see the ass and the ox that were in the stable when the little Jesus came into the world. Oh! the beautiful gray ass! and that ox that is all red; it looks like an ox for sure, like those in the fields. Say, little mother, could I throw a kiss to little Jesus?"

And the child, putting his finger-tips to his lips, made a delightfully naive salute.

The mother silently kissed her child, and it seemed to me that she was weeping.

"Now, darling," she said, "now that you've seen everything, say to the little Jesus the prayer you say every night before going to bed."

The child seemed to hesitate.

"You see there is nobody here but the good God and us; then you can say it low."

"My God," said the child; "I love you. Keep me during my sleep; keep little father and little mother too, good papa and good mamma, my sister Mary, who is at boarding-school, and all my relatives, living and dead. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, I give you my heart."

The mother and the child left. And I who had heard these things, I thought of the sacred texts:—

"Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God."

"I thank Thee, Father, because Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to the little ones."

"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise."[Pg 88]

CHRISTMAS GIFTS FOR THE BOYS.

"Please suggest a suitable Christmas present for a boy of nine."

The above, addressed to the New York Sun, elicited the following reply, which may be read with much profit by all parents of young hopefuls.

If your nine-year-old has developed any mechanical taste, gratify it by a small kit of tools. The chests of cheap tools sold in the stores are not good for much. Select a few tools of good quality at a hardware store, and put a substantial work bench, such as carpenters use, in the play room. Never mind an occasional cut finger.

Pet animals or birds, which may be found in great variety in the bird fanciers' stores, always delight the boys. But city boys do not always have room to keep them.

An aquarium of moderate dimensions, stocked with half a dozen varieties of fish, turtles, snails, seaweed, etc., is a very useful and interesting present for any boy or girl. In the spring add a few pollywogs, and watch them in their evolution into frogs. You will be interested in the process yourself.

What do you say to a microscope?

If your boy lacks muscular development for his years, get him a set of apparatus for parlor gymnastics. He will have lots of fun and it will do him good. A bicycle isn't bad either.

If he hasn't learned to skate yet it is time to start in. Get him a good pair of steel runners.

Of course he has a sled?

Perhaps he has all of the things we mention. If so, get the housemaid, or some other person whom he would not suspect, to ask him what he would like best for Christmas, and get that if it is within the bounds of reason.

Throw in a book. There are plenty of them.

Don't give him a toy pistol.

ROBIN REDBREAST.

All over Great Britain and Ireland the redbreast's nest is spared, while those of other birds are robbed without ceremony; and his life is equally sacred. No schoolboy who has ever killed a robin can forget the dire remorse and fear that followed the deed. And little wonder, for terrible are the punishments said to overtake those who persecute this little bird. Generally such a crime is believed to be expiated by the death of a friend. Sometimes the punishment is more trivial. In some parts of England it is believed that even the weasel and the wildcat will spare him.

In Brittany, the native place of the legend, it is needless to say, the redbreast is thoroughly popular, and his life and nest are both respected. In Cornouaille the people say he will live till the day of judgment, and every year will make some young women rich and happy.[Pg 89] In some parts of England and Scotland his appearance is considered an omen of death. In Northamptonshire he is said to tap three times at the window of a dying person's room. In the Haute Marne district of France he is also thought a bird of ill omen, and is called Beznet—meaning "the evil eye."

In Central Europe, where there is also no trace of a passion legend attached to the redbreast, he is held none the less sacred. Mischief is sure to follow the violator of his nest. But by far the most prevalent belief, and especially in Germany, is that the man who injures a redbreast or its nest will have his house struck by lightning, and that a redbreast's nest near a house will protect it from lightning.

These robins are very rarely seen on this side of the Atlantic. Several of them were brought to this country a few weeks ago from Larne, county Antrim, Ireland, and were landed in New York.

They are the tamest of all the birds in the British Isles, and are utter strangers to the timidity which our robin displays toward man. At the same time they are not pert and presumptuous like the sparrow, but seem to feel that their innocent confidence in man has gained for them immunity from the danger of being stoned or shot at, to which nearly every other bird is subjected to without compunction. The most mischievous schoolboy in those countries never thinks of throwing a stone at a robin, although he regards any other bird as an entirely proper object for his aim. Like every other songster of the feathered tribe, their age depends on how old they are when captured. If taken from the nest they will live for years in a cage, but should they have enjoyed some years of freedom they pine away soon, and in such cases refuse to sing. The nest bird, however, sings in captivity, though its notes might lack the sweetness and duration of the free bird. In appearance the little robin bears scarcely any resemblance to its namesake of this continent, being much smaller in size, and having a breast of far rosier hue.

FOOLISH GIRLS.

While the great majority of our girls are sensible and wise, not a few are silly victims of sensational story papers. Their minds become corrupted, and their imaginations attain an unhealthy development. They picture to themselves an ideal hero, and easily fall victims to designing knaves, who induce them to elope. The spice of romance in an elopement takes their fancy, and they leave the homes of happy childhood to wander in the paths of pleasure. It has been well remarked that nothing good is ever heard of a girl who elopes. Now and then she figures in the divorce courts either as plaintiff or defendant, but ordinarily the world moves on, and leaves her to her fate. Occasionally the police records give a fragment of her life when the heyday of her youth and life has fled, and the man with whom she has eloped has taken to beating her in order to get up an appetite for breakfast. Here and there the workhouse or charitable home opens its doors to receive her, when she wearies of the life she gladly assumed, and is too proud to beg for forgiveness at home.

LITTLE QUEEN PET AND HER KINGDOM.

[Pg 90]

There was once a little queen who was born to reign over a great rich kingdom called Goldenlands. She had twelve nurses and a hundred and fifty beautiful names: only unfortunately on the day of the christening there was so much confusion and excitement that all the names were lost as they fell out of the bishop's mouth. Nobody saw where they vanished to, and as nobody could find them, the poor little baby had to return to the palace nursery without anything to be called by. They could not christen her over again, so the king offered a reward to the person who should discover the princess's names within the next fifteen years. Every one cried "Poor pet, poor pet!" over the nameless baby, who soon became known as the Princess Pet. But her father and mother took the accident so much to heart that they both died soon after.

Of course, little Pet was considered too young to manage the affairs of her own kingdom, and so she had a great, powerful Government to do it for her. This Government was a most peculiar monster, with nine hundred and ninety-nine heads and scarcely any heart; and when anything was to be decided upon, all the heads had to be laid together, so that it took a long time to make up its mind. It was not at all good to the kingdom, but little Pet did not know anything about that, as she was kept away in her splendid nursery, with all her nurses watching her, while she played with the most wonderful toys. Sometimes she was taken out to walk in the gardens, with three nurses holding a parasol over her head, a page carrying her embroidered train, three nurses walking before, fanning her, and six nurses following behind; but she never had any playfellows, and nothing ever happened at all different from everything else. The only variety in her life was made by startling sounds, which often came echoing to the nursery, of the gate-bell of the palace ringing loudly.

"Why does the bell ring so?" little Pet would cry, and the nurses would answer:

"Oh, it is only the poor!"

"Who are the poor?" asked Pet.

"People who are born to torment respectable folks!" said the head nurse.

"They must be very naughty people!" lisped Pet, and went on with her play.

When Pet grew a little older she became very tired of dolls and skipping-ropes, and she really did not know what to do with herself; so one day, when all the nurses had gone down to dinner at the same time, she escaped from her nursery and tripped down the passages, peering into the corners on every side. After wandering about a long time she came to a staircase, and descending it very quickly she reached a suite of beautiful rooms which had been occupied by her mother. They remained just as the good queen had left them; even the faded roses were turning into dust in the jars. Pet was walking through the rooms very soberly, peering at, and touching everything, when she[Pg 91] heard a queer little sound of moaning and whispering and complaining, which came like little piping gusts of wind from somewhere or other.

"Fiss-whiss, whiss, whiss, whiss!" went the little whispers; and "Ah!" and "Ai!" and "Oh!" came puffing after them, like the strangest little sighs.

"Oh, dear, what can it be?" thought Pet, standing in the middle of the room and gazing all round. "I declare I do think it is coming out of the wardrobe!"

An ancient carved wardrobe extended all along one side of the room, and indeed the little sounds seemed to be whistling out through its chinks and keyholes. Pet walked up to it rather timidly; but taking courage, put her ear to the lock. Then she heard distinctly:

And besides this strange complaint she caught other little bits grumbles floating about, such as

And:

As soon as she had recovered from her amazement, Pet opened the wardrobe, and there she saw a long row of gowns, hanging in all sorts of despondent attitudes, some hooked up by their sleeves, others caught by the waist with their bodies doubled together.

"Here is somebody at last, thank goodness!" cried a dark-brown silk which was greatly crumpled, and looked very uncomfortable hanging up by its shoulder.

"Oh, gowns, gowns!" cried Pet, staring at these strange grumblers with her round, blue eyes, "whatever do you want?"

"Want?" cried the brown silk; "why, of course, to be taken out and given to the poor."

"The poor again!" cried Pet. "Who can these poor be at all, I wonder?"

"People who cannot buy clothing enough for themselves," said the brown silk. "When your dear mother was alive she always gave her old gowns to the poor. Only think how nice I should be for the respectable mother of a family to go to church in on Sundays, instead of being rumpled in here out of the daylight with the moths eating me."

"And I," cried a pink muslin, "what a pretty holiday frock I should make for the industrious young school-mistress who supports her poor grandfather and grandmother."

"And I! and I! and I!" shrieked many little rustling voices, each describing the possible usefulness of a particular gown.

"Yes! we should all turn to account," continued the brown silk,[Pg 92] "all except, perhaps, one or two very grand, stiff old fogies in velvet and brocade and cloth-of-gold; and even these might be cut up into jackets for the old clown who tumbles on the village green for the children's amusement."

"My breath is quite taken away," cried Pet. "I shall certainly see that you are all taken out and given to the poor immediately."

"She is her mother's daughter after all;" said the brown silk, triumphantly; and Pet closed the door upon a chorus of little murmurs of satisfaction from the imprisoned gowns.

"This is a very curious adventure," thought the little queen, as she trotted on, fancying she saw faces grinning at her out of the furniture and down from the ceiling; and then she stopped again, quite sure she heard very peculiar sounds coming out of an antique bureau which stood in a corner. After her conversation with the gowns this did not surprise her much at all, and she put her ear to the keyhole at once.

cried the queer little voices coming out of the bureau.

"What can this be about, I wonder?" said Pet, and turning the key, peeped in. There she beheld a whole heap of gold and silver lying in the depths of the bureau, all the guineas and shillings hopping about and clinking against each other and singing:

"Why, what do you want to get out for?" asked Pet, looking down at them.

"To help the poor, of course!" said the money. "We were put in here by the good queen, your mother, and saved up for the poor who deserve to be assisted. But now every one has forgotten us, and we are rusting away while there is so much distress in the kingdom."

"Well," said Pet, "I shall see to your case; for I promise you I am going to know more about these wonderful poor."

She shut up the bureau, and went on further exploring the rooms, and now you may be pretty sure her ears were wide open for every sound. It was not long before she heard a creaking and squeaking that came from a large wicker-basket which was twisting about in the most discontented manner.

mourned the basket.

"And why were you filled with bread?" asked Pet.

"Your mother used to fill me," squeaked the basket, "and give the bread out of me to feed the poor."

"Why! do you mean to say that the poor have no bread to eat?"[Pg 93] asked Pet. "That is really a most dreadful thing. I must speak to my Government about these poor immediately. Whatever my mother did must have been perfectly right at all events, and I shall do the same!"

And off she went back towards her nursery, meeting all her twelve nurses flying along the corridors to look for her.

"Go directly and tell my Government that I want to speak to it," said Queen Pet, quite grandly; and she was brought down to the great Council Chamber.

"Your Majesty has had too much plum-pudding and a bad dream afterwards!" said the Government when Pet had told the whole story about the gowns, and the money, and the bread-basket, and the poor; and then the Government took a pinch of snuff and sent Queen Pet back to her nursery.

The next day, when all the nurses had gone to their dinner again, Pet was leaning out of her nursery window, with her two elbows on the sills and her face between her hands, and she was gazing down on the charming gardens below, and away off over the fields and hills of her beautiful kingdom of Goldenlands. "Where do the poor live, I wonder?" she thought; "and I wonder what they are like? Oh, that I could be a good queen like my mother, and be of use to my people! How I wish that I had a ladder to reach down into the garden, and then I could run away all over my kingdom and find things out for myself."

Just as she thought thus an exquisite butterfly perched on her finger and said gaily,—

"Can they, indeed?" cried Pet; "and are you acquainted with the spiders?"

"I should think so, indeed," said the butterfly; "I am engaged to be married to a spider; I have been engaged ever since I was a caterpillar."

"Well, just ask them to be so good!" said Pet, and away flew the butterfly, coming back in a moment with a whole cloud of spiders following her.

"Be as quick as you can, please, lest my nurses should come back from dinner," said Pet, as the spiders worked away. "Fortunately they have all good appetites, and cannot bear to leave table without their six helpings of pudding."

The ladder being finished, Pet tripped down it into the garden, where she was hidden at once in a wilderness of roses, out of which she made her way through a wood, and across a stream quite far into the open country of her kingdom.

She was running very fast, with her head down, when she heard a step following her, and a voice speaking to her, and looking round, saw a very extraordinary person indeed. He was very tall and all made of[Pg 94] loose, clanking bones; he carried a scythe in one hand, and an hourglass in the other, and he had a pleasant voice, which made Pet not so much afraid of him as she otherwise might have been.

"It is no use trying to run away from me," said this person. "Besides, I wish to do you a good turn. My name is Time."

Pet dropped a trembling courtesy.

"You need not be afraid of me," continued the stranger, "as you have never yet abused me. It is only those who are trying to kill me who have cause to fear me."

"Indeed, sir, I wish to be good to every person," said Pet.

"I know you do," said Time, "and that is why I am bound to help you. The thing you want most is a precious jewel called Experience. You are going now in search of it; yes, you are, though you do not know anything about it as yet. You will know it after you have found it. Now, I am going to give you some instructions."

"Thank you, sir," said Pet, who was delighted to find that he was not a government, and had no intention of bringing her back to her nursery.

"First of all I must tell you," said Time, "that you have a precious gift which was born with you: it is the power of entering into other people whenever you wish, living their lives, thinking their thoughts, and seeing everything as they see it."

"How nice!" cried Pet.

"It is a most useful gift if properly cultivated," said Time, "and it will certainly help you to gain your jewel. Now, whenever you find a person whose life you would wish to know all about for your own instruction, you have only to wish, and immediately your existence will pass into theirs."

"And shall I ever get out again?" asked Pet, who had an inveterate dislike of all imprisonment.

"I am going to tell you about that," said Time. "You must not remain too long locked up in anybody. Here is a curious tiny clock, with a little gold key, and you must take them with you and be very careful of them. Whenever you find that you have passed into somebody else, you must at once wind up your clock and hang it somewhere so that you can see it as you go about. The clock will go for a month, and as soon as it runs down and stops, you will be changed back into your separate self again. A month will be long enough for you to live in each person."

"Oh, thank you, thank you," cried Pet, seizing the clock.

"One thing you must be sure not to forget," said Time, "so attend to me well. There is a mysterious sympathy between you and the clock and the little gold key, and if you lose the key after the clock is wound up the clock will go on forever, or at least until you find the key again. So if you do not want to be shut up in somebody to the end of your life, be careful to keep guard of the key."

"That I will," said Pet.

"And now, good-by," said Time. "You can go on at this sort of thing as long as you like—until you are quite grown up, perhaps; and you couldn't have a better education."

Conclusion next month.

[Pg 95]

Useful Knowledge

Knives and forks with ivory, bone or wooden handles should not be put into cold water. But we suggest that when our readers buy knives for the table they get those with silver-plated handles and blades. They need no bath brick to keep them bright, but only an occasional rub with whiting, and save "lots of trouble."

Lemon Pie.—One cup of hot water, one tablespoonful of corn starch, one cup of white sugar, one tablespoonful of butter, the juice and grated rind of one lemon. Cook for a few minutes, add one egg, and bake with a top and bottom crust.

Strawberry Shortcake.—One quart of flour sifted dry, with two large teaspoonfuls of baking powder, one tablespoonful of sugar, and a little salt. Add three tablespoonfuls of butter and sweet milk, enough to form a soft dough. Bake in a quick oven, and when partially cooked split open, spread with butter, and cover with a layer of strawberries well sprinkled with sugar; lay the other half on top, and spread in the same manner.

A Good Way To Use Cold Meat.—Take the remnants of any fresh roasted meat and cut in thin slices. Lay them in a dish with a little plain boiled macaroni, if you have it, and season thoroughly with pepper, salt, and a little walnut catsup. Fill a deep dish half full; add a very little finely chopped onion, and pour over half a can of tomatoes or tomatoes sliced, having previously saturated the meat with stock or gravy. Cover with a thick crust of mashed potato, and bake till this is brown in a not too hot oven, but neither let it be too slow.

Omelet.—Take as many eggs as required, and add three teaspoonfuls of milk and a pinch of salt to each egg. Beat lightly for three or four minutes. Melt a teaspoonful of butter in a hot pan, and pour on the eggs. They will at once begin to bubble and rise up, and must be kept from sticking to the bottom of the pan with a knife. Cook two or three minutes. If desired, beat finely chopped ham or parsley with the eggs before cooking.

An experienced gardener says that a sure sign to find out if plants in pots require wetting is to rap on the side of the pot, near the middle, with the finger knuckle; if it give forth a hollow ring the plant needs water; but if there is a dull sound there is still moisture enough to sustain the plant.

Cakes Without Eggs.—In a little book just issued from the press of Messrs. Scribner & Welford, New York, a large number of practical, though novel, receipts are given for making cakes of various kinds, from the informal griddle-cake to the stately bride-cake, without eggs, by the use of Royal Baking Powder. Experienced housekeepers inform us that this custom has already obtained large precedence over old-fashioned methods in economical kitchens, and that the product is frequently superior to that where eggs are used, and that less butter is also required for shortening purposes. The advantage is not alone in the saving effected, but in the avoidance of the trouble attendant upon securing fresh eggs and the annoyance of an occasional cake spoiled by the accidental introduction of an egg that has reached a little too nearly the incubatory period. The Royal Baking Power also invariably insures perfectly light, sweet and handsome cake, or when used for griddle cakes, to be eaten hot, enables their production in the shortest possible space of time, and makes them most tender and delicious, as well as entirely wholesome. There is no other preparation like it.

Feeding Cooked Material.—The feed for young chicks should always be cooked, for if this is done there will be less liability of bowel disease; but the adult stock should have whole grains a portion of the time. By cooking the food, one is better enabled to feed a variety, as potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots and such like, can be utilized with advantage. All such material as bran, corn meal, middlings, or ground oats should at least be scalded, if not cooked, which renders it more digestible and more quickly beneficial. Where shells or lime are not within reach, a substitute may be had by stirring a spoonful of ground chalk in the food of every six hens; but gravel must be provided where this method is adopted.

[Pg 96]

The Humorist

In an argument with an irascible and not very learned man, Sydney Smith was victor, whereupon the defeated said, "If I had a son who was an idiot, I'd make a parson of him." Mr. Smith calmly replied, "Your father was of a different opinion."

A Banana skin lay on the grocer's floor. "What are you doing there?" asked the scales, peeking over the edge of the counter. "Oh, I'm lying in wait for the grocer."—"Pshaw!" said the scales: "I've been doing that for years."

The late Dr. Doyle was applied to on one occasion by a Protestant clergyman for a contribution towards the erection of a church. "I cannot," said the bishop, "consistently aid you in the erection of a Protestant church; but I will give you £10 towards the removal of the old one." Received with thanks.

"What is a curiosity, ma?" asked little Jimmy. "A curiosity is something that is very strange, my son."—"If pa bought you a sealskin sack this winter would that be a curiosity?"—"No, my son; that would be a miracle."

A British and Yankee skipper were sailing side by side, and in the mutual chaff the English captain hoisted the Union Jack and cried out—"There's a leg of mutton for you." The Yankee unfurled the Stars and Stripes and shouted back, "And there is the gridiron which broiled it."

A Mr. Follin became engaged to a fair maid whose acquaintance he formed on a transatlantic voyage last year. The girl's father consented to their union and while joining their hands he said to the would-be bridegroom, "Follin, love and esteem her."—"Of course, I will," was the reply. "Didn't I fall in love on a steamer?"

Miss Lily, seeing a certain friend of the family arrive for dinner, showed her joy by all sorts of affectionate caresses. "You always seem glad when I come to dinner," said the invited guest. "Oh, yes," replied the little girl. "You love me a great deal, then?"—"Oh, it isn't for that," was the candid reply. "But when you come we always have chocolate creams, you know."

Piety That Paid.—"How does it happen that you joined the Methodist church?" asked a man of a dealer in ready-made clothing. "Vell, pecause mine brudder choined der Bresbyterians. I vas not vant der let haem git advantage mit me."—"How get the advantage?"—"Mine brudder noticed dot he was ein shoemaker und dot der Bresbyterians shtood oop ven dey bray. He see dot dey vare der shoes oud in dot vay und he choins dot shurch to hold dot trade, und prospers; so I choined der Methodists."—"What did you gain by that?"—"Vy, der Methodists kneel down unt vare der pritches at der knees out ven dey bray, unt dey bray long unt vare pig holes in dem pritches. Vell, I sells clothes to dem Methodists unt makes monish."—"But don't you have to donate considerable to the support of the church?"—"Yah, I puts much money in dot shurch basket, but efery time I denotes to dot shurch I marks pritches oop ten per cent, und gets more as even."

Prose and Poetry.—"Yes," she said dreamily, as she thrust her snowy fingers between the pages of the last popular novel; "life is full of tender regrets." "My tenderest regret is that I haven't the funds to summer us at Newport," he replied, without taking his eye off the butcher, who was softly oozing through the front gate with the bill in his hand. "Ah, Newport," she lisped, with a languid society sigh; "I often think of Newport by the sea, and water my dreams with the tender dews of memory." She leaned back in the hammock, and he continued: "I wish I could water the radishes and mignonette with the tender dews of memory."—"Why?" she asked, clasping her hands together. "Why, because it almost breaks my back handling the water-pot, and half the water goes on my feet, and it takes about half an hour to pump that pail of water, and it requires something like a dozen pailfuls to do the business. What effect do you think the tender dews of memory would have on a good drumhead cabbage?" But she had turned her head and was looking over the daisy-dappled fields, and she placed her fingers in her ears, while the prosaic butcher, who had just arrived, was talking about the price of pork.

[Pg 97]

DONAHOE'S MAGAZINE.

BOSTON, JANUARY, 1886.

Notes on Current Topics.

"IT IS FASHIONABLE TO BE IRISH, NOW."

Hon. Hugh O'Brien's Magnificent Record as Mayor of Boston.

Hon. Hugh O'Brien, Mayor of Boston, has made one of the ablest chief executives that the city has ever possessed. Indeed, few past Mayors can at all compare with him either in personal impressiveness or financial acumen. No man living understands Boston's true interests better than he, and no one has the future prosperity of the New England metropolis more sincerely at heart. Possessing an earnest desire for the public welfare, he has, with characteristic vigor, energy and broadmindedness, advocated measures calculated to redound to the immense benefit of the capital of the old Bay State. His name will live in the history of the great city, as that of one of far-seeing judgment, great administrative ability and unsurpassed intellectual accomplishments.

"It is fashionable to be Irish, now!" said a gentlemen at a meeting a short time since, and in a great measure the assertion will stand the test. When Hugh O'Brien sought the suffrages of his fellow-citizens, a year ago, for the mayorality, thousands, who then malignantly sneered at his candidacy, were this year found among his most earnest supporters for re-election. His brilliant administration, thorough impartiality and manifest sound judgment has entirely removed the prejudice and bias from a very large number of honest, well-meaning citizens, who had previously regarded the idea of an "Irish" Mayor with profound distrust. Mayor O'Brien's friends and supporters are not now confined to any one particular party, but have given evidence of their existence in other political camps. A Democrat in politics, and nominated originally by the Democrats, Hugh O'Brien has not only proved entirely satisfactory to his own party, but has also earned the confidence and esteem of a large portion of the Republican element. At a recent Republican meeting, Otis D. Dana, strongly advocated the nomination of Mr. O'Brien by that party on the ground that as a matter of party expediency and for the good of the entire city, Mr. O'Brien should receive Republican indorsement, and thus be given an opportunity "to act even more independently than he has this year." This is but an instance of Mayor O'Brien's popularity with men of all parties. The world moves, and the re-election of Hugh O'Brien to the mayorality may be considered cumulative evidence of the truth of the quotation made above, that "It is fashionable to be Irish, now."

A New Year's Present.—No better present can be given to a friend than a copy of our Magazine. Any of our present subscribers getting a new one will get both for $3.00 (one for himself and another for his friend), sent to separate addresses.

A New Deputy Collector For Boston.—We endorse with pleasure this from the Connecticut Catholic: We congratulate Thomas Flatley, secretary of the Land League, under the presidency of Hon. P. A. Collins, on his appointment as deputy collector of the custom house in Boston. He is a whole-souled gentleman of ability, and Democratic to the core. His elevation will please thousands of Irish-Americans in many States besides Massachusetts.

Important Announcement.—As we have electrotyped our Magazine, we can supply any number of this issue.

Mr. P. J. Maguire for Alderman.

[Pg 98]

The Democracy of Wards 19 and 22, constituting the 9th district, have unanimously voted to support Mr. P. James Maguire for alderman at the ensuing election. This, no doubt, secures for Mr. Maguire the cordial support of the Democratic City Committee, and as the two wards are democratic in politics, it ought to be an election for that gentleman without any doubts thrown in. Mr. Maguire has had a varied experience in municipal legislation, in which he has proved himself a most useful and capable servant of the people. He served six years in the Boston City Government, that is, from 1879 to 1884 inclusive. During this time he was on the committee on public buildings, also on the committee on the assessors department, on committees on Stony Brook, public parks, claims, police, and several others of more or less special importance, in all of which he showed a fine business efficiency and discriminating capacity highly laudable. He has also served as a Director of Public Institutions. Last year he had to contend against the forces of a big corporation, and other organized oppositions, in favor of the Republican nominee for alderman, which are not likely to avail against him in this campaign. The gentleman is of the highly respected firm of Maguire & Sullivan, merchant and military tailors, 243 Washington Street, between Williams Court and the Herald office, one of the busiest sections of the city. Their trade, it should be said embraces considerable patronage from the reverend clergy for cassocks and other wearing apparel.

We give our readers this month sixteen additional pages of reading matter. Should our circulation increase to warrant a continuance of this addition—say one hundred and ninety-two pages a year—we will continue the addition. Come, friends, and enable us to benefit you as well as ourselves. Let each subscriber send us a new one.

A Fair in aid of Fr. Roche's working Boys' Home will be held in the new building on Bennet Street, commencing Easter Monday night.

The King of Spain, Alphonso XII., died at his palace in Madrid, on the morning of the 25th of November, in his 28th year.

Death of the Vice-President.

The eventful political and professional career of Hon. Thomas Andrews Hendricks, Vice-President of the United States, came to an abrupt end towards evening, on the 25th of November, at his home in Indianapolis, Ind. The event was sudden and unexpected. There was no one at his bedside at the time, for his wife, who had been there all day, had left for a few minutes to see a caller, and it was she who first made the discovery of his death. For more than two years Mr. Hendricks had been in ill health, and recently the apprehension had been growing on him that his death was likely to occur at most any time. He had a gangrenous attack arising from a disabled foot in 1882, when, for a time, it was feared he would die of blood-poisoning. After his recovery from this he was frequently troubled with pains in his head and breast, and to those with whom he was on confidential terms he frequently expressed himself as apprehensive of a sudden demise from paralysis; but he said that when death came he hoped it would come quickly and painlessly. He was at Chicago the previous week, and upon his return he complained of the recurrence of the physical troubles to which he was subject. His indisposition, however, did not prevent him from attending to business as usual. The night previous he attended a reception given at the residence of Hon. John J. Cooper, treasurer of the State. The death following so soon after that of the late ex-President Grant, has cast a gloom over the whole country. His age was sixty-seven years. The interment took place on the first of December, at the family grave in his own town. There were present members of the Cabinet and representatives from every part of the country. None will regret his loss more than the friends of Ireland, at home and abroad. His recent speech on Irish affairs, which was published in the November issue of our Magazine, had more influence on the stirring events in England and Ireland than any other utterance for years. The nation laments his loss, and the Irish people throughout the world join the mourning.

Southern Sketches.—We are obliged to lay over the interesting "Southern Sketches." The next will be a description of Havana, Cuba.[Pg 99]

Conversions.—The Rev. Wm. Sutherden, Curate of St. John's, Torquay, and the Rev. W. B. Drewe, M. A. (Oxon), who for twenty-three years held the Vicarage of Longstock, Stockbridge, Hants, have been received into the Church—the former by the Cardinal-Archbishop at Archbishop's House, Westminster; the latter by the Very Rev. Canon Mount, at St. Joseph's, Southampton.

Particular Notice.—This issue of our Magazine commences the eighth year of its publication. There are some dear, good souls who have forgotten that it requires money to run the publication. They surely would not like to hear that we were unable to pay the printer, bookbinder, clerks, paper-maker, etc. Without their aid we cannot fulfil our obligations to those we employ. This notice has reference only to those who owe us for one, and many for two, years. Let not the sun go down, after reading this notice, without paying what you owe us.

College in Holland.—There lately arrived in Rome Rev. Andrew Jansen, Rector of the College of Steil, in Holland. This College is German, established in Holland to avoid the Kulturkampf persecutions. It is in a most flourishing condition, having at present 130 students preparing themselves for the foreign missions. Father Jansen is accompanied by the renowned missionary Anser. Two years ago, the latter was in the Province of Chang-tong, China, and one day, travelling alone, he was surprised by a band of ferocious idolaters, taken and stripped, and tied by the arms to a tree. They then beat him most unmercifully with rods, broke one arm and one leg, and left him bleeding, and, as they thought, dying. Some Chinese, passing by shortly afterwards, found him still alive; took him to a neighboring hut, and by assiduous care, skill, and nursing, healed him.

Illustrated Almanac.—The Angel Guardian Annual, in a new garb, is announced. The friends of this admirable Institution, will find this year's issue particularly interesting. It contains 16 additional pages and has several splendid illustrations. No Catholic family in the city should be without it. It costs only 10 cents. Look at the announcement and order at once. Orders filled by Brother Joseph, Treasurer House of Angel Guardian, 85 Vernon Street, or by Messrs. T. B. Noonan & Co., Boylston Street, Boston, Mass.

The Encyclical we have used is The London Tablet's translation.

The Catholic Citizen, Milwaukee, Wis., has entered upon its sixteenth year. We are pleased to see it is well sustained, as it deserves to be long up to the Citizen.

The Forty-Ninth Congress of the United States, assembled at Washington on the 7th of December.

The fair held at Mechanic Building, Sept. 3d, in aid of the Carney Hospital, netted $2,803.38. The largest amount realized by one table was $347.45 taken by the Immaculate Conception table, under charge of Miss A. L. Murphy.

Salt Lake City has a population of about 25,000 inhabitants, with a good brick Catholic church and three resident priests. There is also a convent and sister's hospital. The latter is a fine building and looks as big and firm as the mountains themselves, the cost of which is estimated at $70,000. It would be an ornament to the largest city in the United States.

China and Japan.—The important and successful communications between the Vatican and Pekin have been followed by the opening of similar relations with Japan. The Sovereign Pontiff has written a letter to the Mikado, thanking him for the favor extended to Missionaries and the Mikado replies in most cordial terms, assuring the Pope that he would continue to afford protection to Catholics, and announcing the despatch of a Japanese mission to the Vatican.

The will of the Rev. Michael. M. Green, of Newton, Mass., which is on file at the Middlesex Probate Court, bequeaths his house and land on Adams and Washington Streets, Newton, to the Home for Catholic Destitute Children, at Boston; his household furniture to St. Mary's Infant Asylum of Boston: his horse and carriage and garden implements to the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Carney Hospital; his library to Rev. Robert P. Stack in trust to the Catholic Seminary[Pg 100] of the Archdiocese of Boston, and to the Church of Our Lady Help of Christians at Newton; his gold watch to the Young Ladies' Sodality of Our Lady Help of Christians at Newton. Rev. Robert P. Stack, of Watertown, is the executor.

A Welcome Home.—The people of St. Augustine's parish, South Boston, gave to their beloved pastor, Father O'Callaghan, on his return from a four months trip to Europe, a welcome that he can never forget. He arrived in Boston on Saturday, Nov. 21, and on Sunday he celebrated High Mass. In the afternoon the pastor was welcomed by the Sunday School and presented with a check for $300. The presentation speech was made by Master Philip Carroll, and feelingly responded to. An address was also made by Rev. James Keegan. In the evening the lecture-room was packed to overflowing at the reception given by the congregation. The welcoming speech was delivered by Judge Joseph D. Fallon. At the conclusion of the address the Judge, on behalf of the congregation, presented Father O'Callaghan with a check for $2,125. Father O'Callaghan was overcome, but responded with emotion, in a fitting manner expressing his gratification at the welcome he had received. Father O'Callaghan is in perfect health and spirits, and expressed himself delighted with his trip. A large number called at the parochial residence, in the evening, to pay their respects.

New Chapel in the Immaculate Conception.—The handsome new marble altars in the basement chapel of the Immaculate Conception were consecrated on the 20th of November, by Most Rev. Archbishop Williams. The central altar is the gift of the daughters of the late Mrs. Joseph Iasigi. The three beautiful stained glass windows in the sanctuary are the gift of the Married Men's Sodality. The altars and the stained glass windows in the side chapels, which are dedicated respectively to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and to our Lady of Lourdes, are the gifts of the Married Ladies' Sodality, the Young Ladies' Sodality, and the Sunday School children. New Stations of the Cross have also been added. There is now probably no finer basement chapel in the country than that of the Immaculate Conception. The usual Masses, Sunday School, and evening services were held there for the first time last Sunday.

Sadlier's Catholic Directory and Ordo for the year 1886 will be issued immediately. Since it has passed under the editorial control of John Gilmary Shea, this work has been greatly improved and we hope that the forthcoming edition will possess such excellence that not only all the old customers of the Sadlier publications may purchase it, but that at least 10,000 new patrons may be found for it.

What the Papers Say.—Chicago Citizen: Donahoe's Magazine (published by Patrick Donahoe, editor and proprietor, No. 21 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass.,) for December, has come to hand and is one of the best issues of that admirable Irish-American publication that we have seen. It contains, among other highly interesting papers, the following: "The Irish Apostle of Corinthia;" "Reminiscences of Our Ninth (Mass.) Regiment;" "Shan Pallas Castle," by Edward Cronin; "Southern Sketches," by the Rev. Father Newman; "Dead Man's Island," by T. P. O'Connor, M. P.; a life of Hon. A. M. Keily, etc. The Magazine is also replete with poetry, editorial and miscellaneous writings. It is, in short, a credit to Irish-American literature.

The Roman Catholic Protectorate, an educational institute for boys, at Glencoe, Mo., was burned recently. There were nine Christian Brothers and eighty-five boys in the building when the fire broke out, but no lives were lost. One Brother and two of the pupils, finding their escape cut off by the flames, were compelled to leap from a third-story window. All were hurt but will recover.

Execution of Riel.—Riel was hanged at Regina, on the morning of the 16th of November, a few minutes after eight o'clock. Up to the very last moment many refused to believe that Sir John A. Macdonald would, merely to serve himself, or his party, hang a man who was undoubtably insane. Many also believed that as the Metis had been very cruelly and unjustly treated by the government, the recommendation attached to the verdict of guilty would have effect and the sentence would be commuted. But a faction on which Sir John A. Macdonald depends for existence ravened for the unfortunate man's blood, and Sir John judged it politic to gratify their thirst for vengeance, and riel was hanged.[Pg 101]

Notre Dame Scholastic:—Our great metropolis of the West may take a just pride in numbering amongst its citizens so true and talented an artist as Miss Eliza Allan Starr. This lady is one who has aided the accomplishments of a naturally gifted mind, and skilful pencil, by great and careful study, and extensive travel through the celebrated art centres of Europe. As a result, her contributions to Catholic literature have placed her in the first rank among the distinguished writers of the present day, while her lectures on art and art literature have been, for some years back, highly prized by the social circles of Chicago. It is with pleasure, therefore, that we learn that Miss Starr resumed, on the 17th of November, her regular weekly lectures on Art Literature, to be continued throughout the winter and spring. This series will consider the wonderful treasures of the Eternal City, and will receive a fresh interest by reason of new illustrations received from Rome and Florence during last summer. It is our earnest wish that her efforts for the advancement of true artistic taste and culture may meet with the due appreciation they so well deserve.

A Marriage has been arranged between the Duc de Montpensier's only surviving son, Antonio, and the Infanta Eulalie. The former was educated by Mgr. Dupanloup, and is two years younger than his fiancée, he having been born in Seville in 1866, and she in Madrid in 1864. The negotiations about the marriage settlements have been difficult. He will inherit at least half of the largest royal fortune in Europe. The Infanta Eulalie is of lively manners and agreeable physiognomy. She was educated by the Countess Soriente, a lady of New England birth, and is an accomplished player on the harp and guitar. Her instructor was the gifted Cuban negress, who used to perform at Queen Isabella's concerts at the Palais de Castille.

The First Purchase of land by tenants in Ireland, under the Land Purchase Act of last session, was completed on Monday, the 9th of November, when Mr. George Fottrell, late Solicitor of the Land Commission, met some forty tenants, on an estate in the county of Tyrone, and got the deeds executed which make them fee-simple proprietors, subject only to the liabilities to pay, for forty-nine years, instalments materially less than their rent. The entire transaction, from the date of Mr. Fottrell's first meeting with the tenants at Tyrone to that of the execution of the deeds, occupied only one fortnight. Mr. Fottrell's exuberant energy is finding a vent in pushing on the work of land purchase in Ireland, and his large experience and keen interest in all that concerns the land question are recognized as extremely valuable at this moment. Not only has he, in an unusually rapid manner, carried out this first sale under the Purchase Act, but he has published what he calls a "Practical Guide to the Land Purchase Acts," a book which is likely to be of great practical utility to lawyers and other persons engaged in the work of carrying sales under the Acts into effect.

Buried Alive.—Full particulars have come to hand from Bishop Puginier regarding the martyrdom of the Chinese priest Cap. For three days he suffered excruciating torments. On the fourth day the mandarin asked him to translate the Lord's Prayer. When he came to the third petition, "Thy kingdom come," he was asked of what kingdom he spoke. He replied, "Of God's kingdom." The mandarin immediately ordered him to be buried alive.

A Boston Merchant on the Irish Question.

The following is a letter of Mr. A. Shuman, one of Boston's leading merchants, which was read at the great meeting in Faneuil Hall, and was received with cheers:

Boston, Mass., Oct. 19.

My Dear Mr. O'Reilly:—I regret, exceedingly, that absence from the city will prevent my acceptance of your courteous invitation to be present at the meeting Monday evening, at Faneuil Hall, called to express practical sympathy with Ireland and the work of Parnell.

It is natural for the American people, with their love of freedom and equity, to have fellow-feeling with struggling Ireland in any peaceful method they might adopt to secure their political rights and equality with Great Britain.

Political freedom in Ireland, I am assured, combined with her natural position, would inaugurate an era of prosperity such as she had before from 1782 to 1800. Capital would be attracted, lands, now lying barren, would be utilized, and mills and factories would spring up.

I think that the Irish question is an[Pg 102] important American question. The many millions of dollars now sent annually from this country by kin to their struggling relations could remain here. Nine-tenths of the many hundred employees of our own firm were either born in Ireland, or are of Irish parentage, and all contribute, some more, some less, to the same purpose. This would be unnecessary, and Ireland could erect herself into a position of independence, and neither ask nor accept favors from the rest of the world.

This condition of the country would be hastened could she choose, from the midst of her people, representatives who understand her wants and are in sympathy with her welfare. But, as the British Government does not pay its representatives, Ireland is deprived of many of her best men who have not the means of independent maintenance, but who would gladly serve their country and espouse her cause.

Hence, the most practical thing, it seems to me, is to raise funds to assist members who otherwise could not afford to go.

Being, therefore, in sympathy with the movement to that end, and believing that the election of such men will require the assistance of American merchants. I enclose, herewith, a check for $100, which please forward, and oblige,

Yours truly,

A. Shuman.

Dr. John G. Morris, son of our esteemed old citizen and patriot, Dr. Patrick Morris, has removed from South Boston to 1474 Washington Street, Boston. Dr. Morris won high honors in the Medical School of Harvard, and is sure to take a prominent place as a practising physician.

Concert and Reunion of the Holy Name Society.—On the evening of Nov. 23, in Union Park Hall, Boston, a vocal and instrumental concert took place under the direction of Mr. Calixta Lavallee, assisted by Miss Helen O'Reilly, soprano, and Mr. Charles E. McLaughlin, violinist. Dancing and refreshments followed. The society was present in full strength, and the entertainment was a notable success.

The parishioners of St. Francis de Sales' Church, Vernon Street, Boston Highlands, welcomed home their pastor, Rev. John Delahunty, who has just returned from Europe. A check for nearly $2,000 was presented to him.

The Notre Dame Scholastic says of The Ave Maria, which we endorse with all our heart:—Our esteemed contemporary, The Ave Maria, now appears in a new and attractive dress of type, which, while adding to the appearance of this popular magazine, must greatly increase its value to subscribers by reason of its legibility of character. The beauty and clearness of the type and printed page reflect credit alike on the type-founders and the printers. In this connection it may be proper to state that the enterprising editor of Our Lady's journal announces an enlargement of four pages for the volume beginning with January, 1886. This improvement, together with the fact that some of the best and most popular writers in the English language will continue to contribute to its pages, makes The Ave Maria the cheapest and most valuable publication of its kind in the world.

Rev. Father Sestini, who for twenty years has edited the Messenger of the Sacred Heart, and directed the Apostleship of Prayer in America, now retires from office on account of advanced age. He is succeeded by the Rev. R. S. Dewey, S. J., to whom, at Woodstock College, Md., all communications concerning the interests above-named shall be henceforward addressed.

St. Elizabeth's Hospital.—The old Winson estate, West Brookline Street, Boston, purchased last year by the Sisters of St. Francis, has been enlarged by the addition of a four-story brick building and wing, and otherwise adapted to its new purpose. The Sisters in charge have spared no pains to have every detail arranged so as to secure the comfort and convenience of the patients. The house was opened on the feast of its patron, Saint Elizabeth, November 19, on which occasion Archbishop Williams celebrated Mass, and formally dedicated the institution.

A New port has been discovered in Guinea by the Missionaries of the Propaganda. They have given it the name of Port Leo, in honor of the reigning Pontiff.[Pg 103]

The Elections in England and Ireland.

The contest between the two great parties—Liberal and Tory—is close. That is, the Tories and Parnellites are about equal to the Liberals. At the time of our writing there were several elections to be held. As things look, Parnell is master of the situation. The London Times declares that "that the only one certain result of the elections is the commanding position secured by Mr. Parnell. This is not an inference, but a fact that concerns parties alike."

Mr. Parnell says: "It is very difficult to predict whether or not the Liberals will have a majority over the Tories and Nationalists, but neither the Liberals nor Tories, with the Nationalists, can have more than a majority of 10, and, therefore, I think the new Parliament can't last long. As to our policy, I can only say it will be guided by circumstances. We cannot say what our course is till we hear declarations by the English leaders on the Irish question. That question will be the question unless foreign complications arise."

One of the most surprising features of the general election in Ireland is the complete collapse of the Liberal party. Not a single Liberal has returned for any constituency. Saturday's dispatches announced the defeat of Mr. Thomas Lea in West Donegal, and Mr. William Findlater in South Londonderry. That settles it. The list is closed. Every Liberal candidate who tried his fortune with an Irish constituency has suffered a signal discomfiture at the polls. Some of them have been beaten by Conservatives, others by Nationalists. In one way or another all have been sent back to private life.

At the general election of 1880, Ireland returned to Parliament eighteen Liberals, and twenty-six Liberal Home Rulers, twenty-four Conservatives and thirty-five Parnellites. Thus, out of the one hundred and three Irish members, Mr. Gladstone could count forty-four supporters against sixty-nine Conservatives and Parnellites. In the present election the Conservatives will probably have eighteen seats, while the Parnellites will secure the remaining eighty-five seats. The Liberals and Liberal Home Rulers are wiped out to the last man. God save Ireland.

The Livingstons, in Ireland, lived on the land of the famous Con O'Neill, who once was rescued from prison by his wife in the oddest way imaginable. She hollowed out two small cheeses, concealed a rope in each, and sent them to her lord and master, who swung himself down from the castle window and struck a free foot upon the green grass beneath.

There are in the United States 400 Catholic priests bearing some one of the following nineteen well-known Irish names. The numbers following the names indicate the number of priests in this country: Brennan, 12; Brady, 22; Carroll, 13; Doherty, 16; Kelly, 25; Lynch, 21; McCarthy, 15; Maguire, 12; McManus, 14; Meagher, 14; Murphy, 33; O'Brien, 24; O'Connor, 14; O'Neill, 18; O'Reilly, 34; O'Sullivan, 18; Quinn, 16; Ryan, 31; and Walsh, 33.

Philadelphia has established an excellent precedent for every other city and town in the Union. A few days ago the manager of a popular theatre there was fined $100 for advertising a spectacular exhibition by setting up indecent posters. It is high time this shocking breach of common propriety was corrected everywhere. The pictorial representations, by which the performances of the stage are introduced to the public, are often far worse than the living exhibitions.

New York Family Journal.—A few days ago the Mugwumps thought they were as big and powerful as Hell Gate, with all its attachments, before General Newton blew it up. Now they are just where that obstruction was the day after the explosion. They thought they were the rooster, when they were only one of his smallest tail feathers.

The Orange Crop of Florida for the season of 1884-5 was, as near as it could be definitely ascertained, 900,000 bushels. For the coming season the crop is estimated at a million and a quarter bushels. Of the last crop of 900,000 bushel crates, over one-half was shipped through Jacksonville.

The Manatee, or Sea Cow, is still to be seen on the southeast coast of Florida. At the extreme southern end of Indian River, in the St. Lucie River, and in Hope Sound, are found the favorite feeding grounds of these rarest and shyest of North American marine curiosities.

[Pg 104]

Personal.

Bishop Gilmour, on his late visit to Rome, received the honor of Monsignore for his vicar-general, Father Boff.

The Hon. William J. Onahan has returned from a tour through the Irish Catholic colonies of Nebraska and Dakota. He reports them to be in a flourishing condition.

It is not generally known that the parish church of Eu, France, where the chateau of the Comte de Paris is situated, is dedicated to St. Laurence O'Toole.

It is reported that Lord William Nevill, who some months ago was received into the Catholic Church in Melbourne, and who has returned to England, contemplates entering the Priesthood.

Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly has recently written a hymn for the Golden Jubilee of the Priesthood of His Holiness, Pope Leo XIII., which occurs December 23d, 1887. It has been set to music, and it has not only been translated into German, but into Italian by an eminent theological professor, and the hymn is now on its way to Rome to be presented to the Pope by a member of the Papal Court.

Madame Sophie Menter, the famous pianist, now inhabits a castle in the Tyrol (Schloss Itter), where she has just received the Abbé Liszt, who passed several days there, getting up at 4 o'clock a. m., to work, attending mass at 7.30, and then continuing work until midday. The Abbé, who was received with guns and triumphal arches, has now left for Rome.

The friends of Dr. Thomas Dwight, Parkman Professor of Anatomy at Harvard University, will be pleased to learn that he has been made a member of the Philosophæ-Medicæ Society of Rome. A diploma has been issued by President J. M. Cornoldi, S. J. This society was founded by Dr. Travaglini, with the full sanction of the late Pope Pius IX. It is intended for the advancement of the sciences and philosophy, and it ranks among its members some of the greatest scientific men, doctors of medicine, and philosophers of Europe. The diploma is now on its way to America.

Rev. R. J. Meyer, S. J., rector of St. Louis University, of St. Louis, Mo., has been made Provincial of the western province of the Jesuit Order, vice Rev. Leopold Bushart, S. J.

The Right Rev. Louis De Goesbriand, D. D., Bishop of Burlington, Vt., celebrated the thirty-second anniversary of his elevation to the episcopacy of the Catholic Church on Friday, October 30th, ultimo.

Rt. Rev. Jeremiah O'Sullivan, D. D., recently consecrated the fourth bishop of Mobile, Ala., was born in Kanturk, county Cork, Ireland, and is forty-one years old. At an early age he intended to devote himself to the Church, and made his preparatory studies in the schools of his native place. At the age of nineteen he came to America, entered St. Charles College, Howard County, Md., and finished his classics. The year following he entered St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore. Having completed his theological course, in that institution, he was ordained by Most Rev. Archbishop Spaulding in June, 1868. His first charge was in Barnesville, Montgomery County, Md., where he remained one year. He was transferred to Westernport, Md., where he remained nine years. During his stay he built a large church, and a convent for the Sisters of St. Joseph, whom he introduced to Western Maryland. In 1880, or 1881, Most Rev. Archbishop Gibbons selected Father O'Sullivan as the successor to the Rev. Father Walter as pastor of St. Patrick's, Washington, D. C., the latter going to the Immaculate Conception parish. But an appeal being made to His Grace by St. Patrick's congregation for the retention of Father Walter, the change did not take place. On the removal of Rev. Father Boyle to St. Matthew's, Rev. Father O'Sullivan was called to take his place at St. Peter's. During his ministry there he displayed great ability in managing. He reduced the debt of the church from $47,000 to $12,000, besides, making expensive improvements in the church, schools and pastoral residence. He possesses administrative qualities to a high degree, and makes an impressive and forcible speaker.

[Pg 105]

Notices of Recent Publications.

The Catholic Publication Society Co., N. Y.

For eighteen years this welcome annual visitor has been received by us. It seems to improve with age, for this is the best number yet issued. The illustrations, matter, printing and binding, are all excellent. We refer the reader to the advertisement for a description of its varied and excellent contents. The price is only 25 cents. Every subscriber to our Magazine sending us, free of expense, their annual subscription ($2) will receive a copy of the Annual free. Send money at once.

The subjects treated of in this book are: Is religion worthy of man's study? What rule of faith was laid down by Christ? The Church One. The Church Holy. The Church Catholic. The Church Apostolic. The various subjects are ably discussed in a pleasing and attractive manner by the learned author. The book is beautifully printed and bound. It is just the book to place in the hands of an inquiring Protestant friend as a Christmas present.

The Catholic Publication Society Co. has published an American edition of this book. It contains pieces in prose and verse by all the leading Irish writers and speakers. It is bound in Irish linen, gilt edges, and sold for $1.

A very good book for the season. Buy it, all ye lovers of good music.

Benziger Bros., N. Y., Cin., and St. Louis.

It is now about a year since this book was published, and the enormous sale in that short time is the greatest testimonial it could possibly receive.

D. & J. Sadlier & Co., New York.

This play, says the preface, has been received most favorably by large audiences in the hall of St. Bernard's Church, New York City. It is a Christmas play, and most suitable for the coming holidays. It has been witnessed by thousands of the clergy and laity. The author is indebted to Rev. Albany J. Christie, S. J., of London, Eng., Rev. Abram J. Ryan, poet-priest of the South, Miss Anna T. Sadlier, and others, whose beautiful thoughts can be found in the work. Father Healy continues: "It has often been a thought with me, as I suppose it has often been with many of my fellow priests, that it would be well for us and advantageous to our congregations, to revive some of the old mystery plays, which did so much to strengthen the faith of the faithful in the middle ages, and this has been one of the prevailing motives which induced me to complete the material for, and give the representation of, the nativity play." There are eight photographic views, representing the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Adoration, visit of the Magi to King Herod, etc. We recommend the book to the Rev. clergy, colleges and academies, and others, as a very interesting, edifying and appropriate performance not only for the holidays, but for all parts of the year. The book is gotten up by the Messrs. Sadlier in a handsome manner. It is a good Christmas gift for any of our young, or even for those advanced in years.

John Murphy & Co., Baltimore, Md.

The value of this book is already known to the presidents, teachers, etc., in our colleges, seminaries and academies. Messrs. Murphy & Co. have given us an excellent book, and at a very moderate price.[Pg 106]

Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Ind.

This is another of the Ave Maria series of interesting stories, and told by our old friend, Mrs. Dorsey, who was a contributor to the Pilot some forty odd years ago.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Catholic Historical Researches. Rev. A. A. Lambing, A. M., edits a magazine of extraordinary interest, entitled, "Catholic Historical Researches." It is published in Pittsburgh. It deserves the support of all who wish to see published and preserved the early labors of Catholic missionaries and settlers in America. Copies of valuable French manuscripts, bearing on our early history, lately received from the archives of Paris, will soon appear in this magazine, the admirable motto of which is from the address of the Fathers of the Third Plenary Council, of Baltimore: "Catholic parents teach your children to take a special interest in the history of our own country.... We must keep firm and solid the liberties of our country by keeping fresh the noble memories of the past."

The Life of Father Isaac Jogues, Missionary Priest of the Society of Jesus, slain by the Indians in the State of New York in 1646, is having a good sale. The price is $1. The profits of the sale go towards the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs, at Auriesville, where Father Jogues and René Goupel were put to death.

Admirers of the popular Irish authoress Miss Rosa Mulholland, will be pleased to learn that Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., of London, are about to bring out a collection of her poems.

Mr. Sarsfield Hubert Burke, well known here as the author of "Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty" and as a contributor to The Catholic World, will publish, in the spring, in London, a new work on the "Tyranny and Oppression Practiced by the English Officials in Ireland," from an early date down to 1830.

Prof. Lyons intends to publish, at an early date, Christian Reid's admirable story, "A Child of Mary," which originally appeared as a serial in the pages of The Ave Maria.

MUSIC.

From White, Smith & Co.

Vocal: "A Few More Years," words by Sam Lucas, music by H. J. Richardson. "Oh! Hush Thee," song by Chas. A. Gabriel. "I'll Meet Ole Massa There," song by G. Galloway. "Carol the Good Tidings," Christmas carol by E. H. Bailey.

Instrumental: "Under the Lime Tree," by G. Lange. "Fairy Voices Waltz," by A. G. Crowe, arranged for violin and piano. The same for violin alone. "Nanon," lanciers quadrille, by E. H. Bailey. "Walker's Dip Waltzes," by C. A. White. "Beauty Polka," by Wm. E. Gilmore. Potpourri from "Mikado." "Mikado' Lanciers," by E. H. Bailey.

Books: Gems from "Whitsuntide in Florence" opera, by Richard Genee and J. Rieger, music by Alfons Czibulkas. "Melodies of Ireland expressly arranged for piano and organ." This book is a well arranged collection of Irish instrumental music, both grave and gay, serious and comical, issued in very neat and attractive style, and sure to please. Published by Messrs. White, Smith & Co.

Oliver Ditson & Co., Boston.

Leaves of Shamrock, a collection of melodies of Ireland newly arranged and adapted for the piano and organ.

"Leaves of Shamrock" is a book of fine appearance, and the price is moderate. 80 cents, paper; $1.00, boards; $1.50, elegant cloth binding. Without being difficult, there is more to them than appears at first glance, and there is nothing so very easy. The poet Moore was so taken with the beauty of the ancient music of his country, that he composed poems, many of them very beautiful, to quite a number of the melodies. These are all given in "Leaves of Shamrock" which contains full as many more, or, in all, double the number that met the eye of the poet.

The French Elections.—The new Chamber will contain 381 Republicans and 205 Catholics; but the colonies return 10 deputies, who will all probably be Republicans. The strength of parties will thus be 391 to 205, whereas in the last Chamber it was 462 to 95. Fifty-six departments are represented exclusively by Republicans; twenty-six are represented exclusively by Catholics.[Pg 107]

Obituary.

"After life's fitful fever they sleep well."

BISHOP.

The Funeral of the late Most Rev. Dr. Dorrian took place on Friday, 13th of November, when the lamented bishop was interred in the vault under the episcopal throne in St. Patrick's Cathedral, in Belfast, amidst a vast crowd of his mourning flock. Dr. Dorrian's health had been failing for some time past, and about a fortnight before his death he was attacked severely by congestion of the lungs. From this he rallied, but was warned by his physician to be extremely careful. The good bishop, however, returned to his work with all his characteristic energy, and on the very day after the doctor's warning attended three funerals outside Belfast. Later, in the afternoon of the same day, he was seized with illness in his confessional, from which he had to be carried in a dying state. The last sacraments were administered on the same spot, and he was afterwards removed with great difficulty to his residence. During the following days he lay peacefully passing away, surrounded by his devoted priests; the Sisters of Mercy, among whom was the bishop's niece, remaining in his house till after he had breathed his last. His energy and love of labor were so extraordinary that almost to the very end he seemed to expect to recover and return to work. When told that he had not long to live, he said, "May the Lord's will be done," with the meekest submission. His mind was all along absorbed in heavenly thoughts, except when for a moment he would remember how the cause of Ireland was at stake, and asked what was being done towards the election of a nationalist M. P. for Belfast. Shortly before his death, he seemed to fancy that he was still hearing confessions, and went on giving imaginary absolutions, and admonishing poor sinners, till, without agony or pain, he went to his rest. While the seven o'clock Mass was being celebrated on the Feast of St. Malachy, in St. Malachy's Church, a messenger ascended the altar steps and spoke some words to the officiating priest, whereupon the congregation knew, by the manner in which the priest suddenly bowed his head, that all was over, and that their good pastor had departed from among them. The fact that the Bishop of Down and Connor had passed away on the Feast of St. Malachy was not unnoticed. A devoted priest, who had been Dr. Dorrian's friend from boyhood, and who had made a long journey to assist him in his last moments, remarked, "One would think that his holy patron had kept him for his own feast in order to conduct him on that day into heaven."

CLERGYMEN.

Rt. Rev Mgr. Sears, Vicar-Apostolic of Newfoundland, died on Nov. 7, at Stellarton, of dropsy. His history during the last seventeen years has been the history of Newfoundland. His services were recognized by the Pope, who four years ago invested him with the dignity of domestic prelate and the title of monsignor.

The Late Very Rev. Dr. Foran.—The funeral of this most distinguished priest, who after a most edifying life and three weeks of painful illness, died a most edifying death, took place in the church of Ballingarry. His death has cast a gloom over the archdiocese, which in his demise has sustained a great, almost an irreparable, loss. He was its most highly-gifted, most highly-respected, and best-beloved priest, and upon the death of the late lamented and illustrious Dr. Leahy, if the great majority of the votes of his brother priests could have done it, he had been their archbishop. He was a man of great intellect, of great good sense, of vast and varied learning, and withal simple as a child, unselfish, unassuming, and inoffensive, meek and humble of heart; charitable in word and deed; sincere in his relations with God and man; tender to the poor and little ones; always attentive to his duties, ever zealous for God's glory, never caring to make display or to gain the applause of men. His whole life seemed regulated by the motto of the Imitation, "Sublime words do not make a man just and holy, but a virtuous life maketh him dear to God."[Pg 108]

Death of the Very Rev. John Curtis, S. J.—A venerable patriarch has just passed away to his reward. Father John Curtis died recently at the Presbytery, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin. He was in his ninety-second year, and had been for some months failing in health. Father Curtis was born in 1794, of respectable parents, in the city of Waterford. Having been educated at Stonyhurst College, he entered the Society of Jesus at the age of 20. As novice and scholastic he passed with much merit and distinction through the various grades of probation and preparation by which the Jesuit is trained for his arduous work, and was ordained priest in the year 1825. Being a ripe scholar, well versed in literature, ancient and modern, an able theologian, a fluent and impressive speaker, he soon took a foremost place amongst the leading priests at his time.

The Very Rev. Canon Lyons, P.P.V.F., Spiddle, County Galway, died recently at the venerable age of seventy-four years. He was educated for the priesthood at St. Jarlath's College, Tuam, while yet that institution included a thorough theological course in its curriculum of studies. He was ordained in 1839, and speedily distinguished himself as a pastor of zeal and eloquence, indefatigable in his labors for the spiritual and temporal welfare of his flock. He built many churches and parochial schools, and was among the foremost of the clergymen who drove the infamous Souper plague from West Connaught. Canon Lyons was charitable to an extent that always left him poor in pocket but rich in the love of his people. He was buried within the walls of his parish church and the funeral was attended by priests and people from many miles around.

The death is announced of Rev. Francis Xavier Sadlier, S. J., at Holy Cross College, Worcester, Mass., after a brief illness. He was born in Montreal, in 1852, and was the son of the late James Sadlier, who, with his brother, the late Denis Sadlier, founded the well-known Catholic publishing house of D. & J. Sadlier & Co. His mother is the well-known Catholic authoress, Mary A. Sadlier. Father Sadlier was educated at Manhattan College, and after a brief but brilliant career in journalism decided to enter the priesthood. He was received into the Jesuit novitiate at Sault-au-Recolet, Canada, on the 1st of November, 1873, and had the happiness of being ordained at Woodstock last August. In the death of this gifted young priest the Society of Jesus has met with a loss which can only be accurately estimated by those to whom his perfect purity of heart, deeply intellectual mind and most lovable character have endeared him for many years. We deeply sympathize with his aged mother and family. His mother had not seen him since his ordination, but was present at the funeral, where she saw her loved son in death. Happy mother to have such a son before her in heaven, where we trust he is now enjoying the rewards of a well-spent life.

Rev. John J. McAuley, S. J., professor of rhetoric at Holy Cross College, died suddenly of apoplexy, at the residence of Dr. L. A. O. Callaghan, Worcester, Mass., on the afternoon of December 2. Father McAuley went with a party of the students from the college to skate at Stillwater Pond, and during the recreation he broke through the ice and into the water. He returned to the college and changed his clothing, and not feeling very well, started off toward the city for a walk, accompanied by Father Langlois. He called on Dr. Callaghan, but before reaching his house he became ill and had to be carried inside, where he soon died, after the arrival of Rev. John J. McCoy, who, with Father Langlois, performed the last offices. The deceased has been, for several years, attached to Holy Cross College, and is distinguished among the Jesuits as a rhetorician of high order. His funeral will take place at the college. This is the second death at the college within one month.

Rev. Father Ruland, C. SS. R., Professor of Moral Theology at the Redemptorist College, at Ilchester, Md., died on the 20th of November, of apoplexy. The Rev. Father was a venerable and well-known priest. His loss will be keenly felt by the community as he was a man of deep learning and truly good.

Rev. Thaddeus P. Walsh, first pastor of Georgetown and Ridgefield parishes, Connecticut, departed this life on the 10th of November, at 3 o'clock, in St. Catherine's Hospital, Brooklyn, N. Y., to which place he had been taken. Friday, October 30th, Father Walsh went to New Haven on business, and it was there that the first warning of sickness, and as it came out, of death, came to him. He had an apopletic stroke of paralysis which affected his left side, rendering it almost powerless. The following Saturday evening he received[Pg 109] the last rites from the church, and on Tuesday morning he died. The funeral took place on the 13th of November. There were present Rt. Rev. Bp. McMahon, some sixty priests, and a large concourse of his afflicted friends. Father Walsh was born in Easkey, County Sligo, Ireland, about fifty-five years ago. He was ordained priest in St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, in 1880. His classical course was made in St. Charles College, Ellicott City, Md., and was begun when he had reached the age of forty years. Before he went to college he lived in Meriden, where he saved money enough from daily toil to pay for an education. He was a good and faithful priest in every sense of the word, and was most devotedly attached to his sacred duties.

The Rev. Father Simon P. Lonergan, pastor of St. Mary's, Montreal, died there, November 11. Father Lonergan was very well known and exceedingly popular in that city, and, in fact, throughout the Dominion. He was a man of rare culture and experience, and through his death the Catholic Church in Canada loses one of its strongest pillars. Father Lonergan died of typhoid fever, and to his labors among the sick during this time of sad affliction in Montreal may be attributed the overwork which brought on the disease.

Many in Buffalo, says the Catholic Union and Times, will hear of Father Trudeau's death, recently in Lowell, Mass., with sincere sorrow. Deceased was a distinguished Oblate Father, who, while engaged in parochial duties at the Holy Angels, in this city, won the reverent affection of all who knew him by his priestly virtues and sunny nature.

SISTER.

The death is announced of Mother Mary, the Foundress and first Superioress of the Sisters of Immaculate Conception, a Louisiana foundation, whose mother house is located at Labadieville. Known in the world as Miss Elvina Vienne, she belonged to one of the best Creole families in the State. She died in her 51st year, and the twelfth of her religious profession.

LAY PEOPLE.

Mr. Thomas Cosgrove, who, during the past half century, has occupied a prominent position in Providence, R. I., as a successful business man, died Sunday, Nov. 8th, at his residence on Somerset Street, in the eighty-first year of his age. The story of his life is a practical illustration of the success which rewards persistent endeavor and strict attention to business. He was born in county Wexford, Ireland, and after receiving the advantages of a common-school education of that time, he begun his life-work in the pursuit of various branches of business in Nova Scotia, Portsmouth, N. H., and Portland, Me. In the year 1837 he came to Providence, where his energy and business ability met with successful results. He occupied a prominent position among the members of the Catholic Church, and was a devout attendant at the services of the Cathedral. His wife died several years ago, and Mr. Cosgrove leaves four children. James M., who was formerly an active member of the legal profession in Providence, and has been prominently identified with the local Irish associations, is now an invalid. One of his daughters is the widow of the late Richard McNeeley, who was engaged in the dry goods' business on Westminister Street, Providence, many years ago. The other two daughters are unmarried and reside at his late home on Somerset Street. The funeral services of Mr. Thomas Cosgrove were held at the Pro-Cathedral. They were largely attended by the congregation, of which Mr. Cosgrove was one of the oldest and most prominent members, and by Catholics and business men from different parts of the State, completely filling the sacred edifice. A solemn Pontifical High Mass of Requiem was celebrated by Right Rev. Bishop Hendricken. At the conclusion of the Mass, the bishop, assisted by the officiating clergymen, pronounced the final absolution, and spoke a few words relative to the life of the deceased as a man and a Catholic.

Mr. James Waul, so long and favorably known to the Catholic public, in his office as sexton of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, died at his home in Boston on the evening of Saturday, Nov. 7th. He was a native of the county of Galway, Ireland, but came to this country when quite young. For the last fifteen years he had faithfully discharged the responsible duties of the office above referred to, making many friends through his uniform courtesy and kindly disposition. He will be sadly missed in the church with which he was so long connected. The prayers of those whose[Pg 110] interests he cared for so earnestly will doubtless be fervently offered for his eternal rest. The funeral took place from the Church of the Immaculate Conception, on the morning of November 10th. The Rev. Father Quirk celebrated the Requiem Mass. The Rev. Father Boursaud, rector, and the Rev. Father Charlier accompanied the body to Calvary Cemetery. May he rest in peace!

We regret to chronicle the death of James Valentine Reddy, Esq., a well-known member of the Richmond bar, who died at his residence in that city, on Nov. 5, of pneumonia. He was about thirty-six years of age, and removed to that city from Alexandria, Va., where his relatives now reside. He was of Irish birth, and his love for the old sod of his forefathers was pure and strong. He was a member of the National League, and of several societies connected with St. Peter's Cathedral. He was devoted to the practice of his religious duties, and ere his spirit winged its flight received its last consolations. Deceased had more than common gifts of oratory and was a ready penman. His disposition was generous, and he was always ready to relieve distress when in his power. Mr. Reddy was a contributor to our Magazine, and although we never saw him, we were led to esteem him highly. He was a great lover of Irish poetry and song, and had, perhaps, as fine a private collection of them as there is in this country. His heart was indeed wound up in the dear old land; but he did not forget in this love the allegiance and fealty he owed to the land of his adoption. His life is but another of the many examples of Irishmen, who, living at home under a government of giant's strength used as a giant would use it, would be called a rebel; but who under a government where all men are free and recognized becomes a worthy and faithful citizen, a good example for those around him. The deceased was born in the county of Kilkenny, near the village of Kilmacow, and about six miles from Waterford City. St. Patrick's Branch of the Catholic Knights of America, in their resolutions of condolement, say that he was a faithful, worthy and popular member, and they fittingly voice the sentiment of all the Catholic and Irish-American and other civic societies, with which he was associated, in thus placing on record this expression of their sorrow over his early demise, and also in giving utterance to their deepest sympathy for, and in behalf of, the bereaved wife and children thus unhappily deprived of the fond love and tender care of a devoted husband and affectionate father.

Mr. John Reilly, a well-known and respected resident of Charlestown, Mass., died at his residence, 92 Washington Street, on Wednesday, Nov. 4th, after an illness of nine months at the age of sixty-four years. He was perfectly conscious to the last, and bade each member of his family a fond farewell ere he closed his eyes in death. Mr. Reilly was a carpenter by trade, and in politics an active Democrat, being for a number of years a member of the Ward and City Committee. He was also a member of the Old Columbian Guards of Boston. He leaves a widow, two sons and two daughters to mourn his loss. The funeral services were held at St. Mary's Church on Saturday morning, Rev. Wm. Millerick officiating, and the burial took place in the family lot at Calvary, the following gentlemen acting as pall bearers: Messrs. Michael K. Mahoney, James Hearn, James H. Lombard, Thomas Hearn, Thomas B. Reilly and David Hearn.

Mr. John Nagle, a prominent member of the Cathedral parish, died of consumption at his residence in Boston, on Sunday, November 29. He leaves a family of five children. His funeral took place from the Cathedral on December 1. The Rev. Father Boland celebrated the Mass, Fathers O'Toole and Corcoran being, respectively, Deacon and Subdeacon. The friends of the deceased were present in large numbers.

In this city, on the 27th of November, Mrs. Catherine Daly, aged 74 years. She; was born in Bandon, county Cork, in 1811. She had been a resident of Boston some forty years. Her death was peaceful as her life had been good and charitable. Her remains were interred from the Church of the Immaculate Conception, where a Mass of Requiem was said for the repose of her soul, which may God rest in peace. The interment took place at Calvary Cemetery.

Bashfulness.—Do not yield to bashfulness. Do not isolate yourself, sitting back in a corner, waiting for some one to come and talk with you. Step out; have something to say. Though you may not say it well, keep on. You will gain courage and improve. It is as much your duty to entertain others as theirs to amuse you.