The Catholic World, Vol. 07, April 1868 to September, 1868

by Various

The Veneration Of Saints And Holy Images.

The veneration paid to saints by Catholics with the formal approbation or tacit sanction of the supreme authority in the church is, together with the use made of their images and that of Christ in religious worship, under the same sanction, the one feature of the Catholic system most obnoxious to Protestants. They do not hesitate ordinarily to qualify it as idolatry, that is, as a rendering of the worship due to God alone to creatures, both living and inanimate, similar to that which the heathen system of polytheism ascribes to its numerous divinities and their images.

We propose to discuss this matter briefly, not with the intention of proving that the Catholic doctrine and practice are truly a genuine outgrowth of the Christian religion by extrinsic evidence, but of showing their intrinsic harmony with Christian first principles, and refuting the objections derived from these first principles against them. As the subject naturally divides itself into two distinct parts, already clearly indicated in our opening paragraph, we shall confine our remarks at present to the first part of it, or that relating to the veneration of saints.

The preliminary charge of idolatry, or a direct contradiction to the monotheistic doctrine of natural and revealed theology, is perfectly groundless, and, however it may be modified and diminished, there is not an atom of truth in it upon which any objection to the Catholic doctrine can be based.

Idolatry, or the worship of the creature instead of the creator, originates in ignorance or denial of the true conception of the one living and true God. God is not worshipped, because he is not known or believed in. By necessary consequence, something which is not God is conceived as highest, best, most excellent, most powerful, without reference or relation to God as the author and sovereign of all that has any existence. The pantheist is an idolater of all nature, but especially of himself. Even Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were not free from idolatrous principles, although probably free from all sin in the matter, since they ascribed to the universe a certain amount of being not caused by the intelligence and will of God as creator. Neither are our modern rationalists free from the same error, since they withhold from God the homage of their reason, and give it to themselves as to persons possessing intelligence which is independent of God. Wilful and obstinate heretics are all likewise in the same category; for, by rejecting a part of what God has revealed, they, by implication, profess to be superior to God in intelligence, and substitute an idol of their own vain imagination in lieu of that eternal truth which is identical with the essence of God. Idolaters, in the strict sense of the word, or polytheists, such as the ancient Greeks and Romans were, paid a formal worship to their gods, as superior beings having a supreme and irresponsible control over nature and over men. It was a worship which was a substitute for that originally given to the true God, totally contrary to it, and an insuperable barrier to the spread of monotheism as a religion. These false divinities were, therefore, the rivals of the true God, and filled the place in the religious worship of the heathen which was filled by him in the worship established by divine revelation from the creation of mankind. It is evident, from the very statement of what idolatry is in itself, that a veneration paid to any creature, which is proportionate to the degree of excellence which it has received from the creator, is not idolatrous, and cannot detract from the supreme veneration which is due to God as the sovereign lord of the universe. Those who condemn the religious honor paid to created natures by the Catholic Church cannot therefore lay down an a priori principle from which to demonstrate in advance that this honor is necessarily idolatrous, unless they previously demonstrate that the excellence ascribed to these natures is such that God cannot communicate it to a creature. The worship paid to the sacred humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ is that which is apparently the most obnoxious to the charge of idolatry of any other species of relative worship which the church has decreed to be due to any created nature. Our chief controversy is, therefore, with Jews, Mohammedans, Unitarians, and others who claim to be pure theists and who deny the incarnation. What we affirm against these is, that they cannot demonstrate the impossibility of the incarnation. They cannot demonstrate the impossibility of a hypostatic union between the human nature and the divine nature, by virtue of which the personality of the human nature is divine, and the human nature is the nature of God, and thus worthy of relative adoration. Therefore, they cannot argue that the divinity of Jesus Christ has not been revealed, and that divine worship is not due to him by the law of God, because God cannot reveal such a doctrine or command such a worship without contradicting the essential truth of his nature. Suppose that evidence is given sufficient in itself to authenticate the revelation of the mystery of the incarnation, and at once it becomes evident that divine worship is due to Jesus Christ as God incarnate, precisely because worship is due to God. The question is then only debatable on the point whether this revelation has been made or not. If it could be proved that it has not, and that Jesus Christ is a created and finite person, it would follow that the worship paid to him by all orthodox Christians is idolatrous. It would be idolatrous to worship any man who should pretend to be God incarnate when he is not, or who should be erroneously believed by his disciples to be a divine person, without any reference to the question whether any such incarnation can be or has been decreed by the wisdom of God. We are not attempting to prove the truth of the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ, or to prove directly that the worship we pay to him is not idolatrous. Everything, we admit, depends on proving it. If it cannot be proved, Christianity is a superstition, and must be classed with Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism. For the proof of the truth and reality of the incarnation, we must refer the reader elsewhere. We are intent on showing that no elevation of created nature which is possible is in any way incompatible with the supreme dignity and sovereignty of God, and, consequently, no honor due to such an elevated nature incompatible with the supreme worship due to the divine majesty. We are also intent on showing that it is principally the fact of the incarnation on which the whole question hinges, and the worship paid to Christ against which the objections of so-called theists to saint-worship are levelled. The incarnation is the principle of saint-worship. All orthodox Protestants are accused of idolatrous saint-worship by Unitarians, Jews, Mohammedans, and all pure theists. It is true that the orthodox do not regard Jesus Christ as a mere saint, but all others regard him as being, at the highest, only the greatest among the saints. All Protestants who are orthodox on the incarnation, and conformed in belief to the doctrine of their own confessions and great divines, believe that the holy humanity of Jesus Christ is entitled to divine worship. They are obliged to worship not only the divine nature of Jesus Christ, but also his human nature, his soul and body. Yet, the human nature of Christ is a created and finite substance, not possessing a single divine attribute. How, then, can it receive the worship due to God alone? Evidently it cannot receive such a worship as terminating in itself, or as absolute. It is impossible for the intellect to make the judgment that the substance of the body and of the soul of Jesus Christ is the infinite, self-existing being whom we call God, and from whom all things derive existence. Why, then, is the humanity of Jesus Christ to be worshipped? Because of the divine person to whom it belongs. The soul and the body of Jesus Christ are the soul and body of the Son of God. The same person who is God is also man, and his humanity is inseparable from his person. It is, therefore, on account of and in relation to his divine person that his human nature is adored with the worship of latria. If our Lord should condescend to come upon the earth again, we are persuaded that every sincere Protestant who believes in his divinity would gladly prostrate himself at his feet to pay him supreme adoration, and, if he were able to look upon his face, would feel that he was gazing upon the very countenance of God, and that the eyes of the Lord of heaven and earth were fixed upon him. If there are any whose mind or feelings revolt from the worship of the Son of God in his human body and through the medium of his visible form, let them admit at once that they are no believers in the incarnation, that they have abandoned the doctrine of the ancient Protestant confessions and are really Unitarians. Those who fully admit the Catholic doctrine that the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ is to be adored must range themselves at once on our side and prepare to defend our common cause. They must defend themselves and us against the charge of idolatry. They cannot do it without laying down the principle that, when a created nature is elevated to a special union with the divine nature, and made to participate with it in dignity, it is worthy of a proportionate religious veneration. The more orthodox Unitarians cannot deny this principle without condemning themselves. They give a veneration at least equal to that which Catholics call the worship of hyperdulia to Jesus Christ; and as they do not acknowledge in him any dignity differing in kind, but only one differing in degree, from that of angels, prophets, martyrs, confessors, and other saints, they cannot consistently deny the propriety of giving a lesser veneration, or worship of dulia, to the saints. Episcopalians and other Protestants dedicate days and churches in honor of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, which are acts of very high religious veneration. Only those who refuse all religious veneration either to Jesus Christ or to any created nature, because they deny any supernatural elevation of created nature into a mysterious union with the divine nature, have any pretext or appearance of consistency in their charge of idolatry against Catholic saint-worship. Yet it is precisely the trinitarian Protestants who are loudest and most violent in repeating this charge. So far as rationalists and Unitarians are concerned, it is not of much utility to discuss the question of the veneration of the Virgin and of the saints directly. The preliminary question of the incarnation has first to be settled. It is the divine worship we pay to Jesus Christ which is their great stone of stumbling and rock of offence. We leave them aside, therefore, to pursue the one direct line of argument on which we started, namely, that the veneration of saints flows logically out of the worship of the sacred humanity of Christ; and is rooted in the doctrine of the incarnation.

Orthodox Protestants are bound to pay divine worship, or the adoration of latria, to the soul and body of Jesus Christ; a worship which would be idolatry if the humanity of Christ were not united to the divine nature in one personality, so that the worship of Christ as man is necessarily referred to his divine person and terminates upon it. For the same reason, they are bound to pay an inferior veneration, or worship of dulia, to the saints, because they also are united to the divine nature through the incarnation and in Christ, as his co-heirs and brethren, the participators of his glory. They are not united with the divine nature in one personality, therefore they cannot receive divine worship. But they are in a lesser mode made "partakers of the divine nature," as the Scripture explicitly declares, and, therefore, deserve a veneration commensurate with their degree of union, which is ultimately referred to God, who is "worshipped in his saints." To compare the veneration of the saints of God with the Greek polytheism is simply absurd. It is connected with and springs out of the doctrine of pure monotheism and the worship paid to the one true God. It does not, in the slightest degree, supplant this doctrine or worship, confuse the idea of God, or interfere with the recognition of his sole and absolute sovereignty. It presents necessarily, and by its very essence, the saints as the creatures, the servants, the courtiers, ministers, and favored friends of God, intercessors and advocates for men before his throne. It presents, therefore, necessarily, God as their creator, sovereign, and as the source and fountain of all their sanctity, beatitude, and glory, the author and giver of all the blessings asked for through their intercession. The perpetual presence of the true idea of God preserves the idea of the hierarchy of creatures from all corruption or perversion, and keeps continually before the mind their relation and subordination to the supreme and absolute Lord of the universe.

In the same way, the presence of the true idea of the incarnation prevents the idea of the mediation of the saints between God and man from being corrupted. It is impossible for the Blessed Virgin or any other saint to take the place in the Catholic idea which belongs to Jesus Christ as the Redeemer and Saviour of mankind, the Mediator between God and man. It is clearly understood and vividly realized that Jesus Christ is the medium of union between God and man through the hypostatic union of human nature with the divine nature in his person. His expiation of sin derives its infinite value from the divinity of his person. His merits derive their infinite value also from his divinity. He is the source and fountain of grace and mercy, because he is God and possesses life in himself. He is the sacrifice perpetually offered in the divine eucharist, the perennial source of life from which the soul is fed in the holy communion. The mediation of the saints is derived from him, subordinate to and dependent on his mediation. The Blessed Virgin and the saints are honored on account of their relation to him, and are invoked as his agents and ministers in dispensing grace. It is impossible, therefore, to attribute to them any separate merit or independent power; and, so far from the devotion to Our Lady or the saints impeding the view of Christ, it only brings him into bolder relief, and by contrast and comparison enhances the conception of his infinite elevation, as their and our creator and sovereign, above all creatures even the most exalted. Dr. Johnson with his usual strong good sense, saw this, and with his usual manly honesty avowed it, as every one knows who has read his Life by Boswell. Intelligent Protestants ought to be ashamed of themselves for perpetually reiterating the stupid charge against the Catholic Church, that she substitutes the Virgin and the saints as objects of worship in the place of God, or as objects of confidence in the place of our Saviour Christ. The only excuse for those who make this assertion is invincible ignorance, an excuse not very creditable to men who profess to be theologians. It may avail for those who have grown too old to make any new studies or receive any new ideas, and for those whose intelligence and learning are so circumscribed that they cannot become acquainted with or understand the arguments of Catholic theologians. But for those who have the obligation and the opportunity to study and understand these grave questions, but yet persist, either through culpable ignorance or wilful dishonesty, in misrepresenting Catholic doctrine, there can be no excuse. In spite of our desire to stretch charity to its utmost limits, we cannot help thinking that they are afraid to meet the question openly and fairly, afraid to investigate, and afraid to discuss the issue between us on its real merits. They apprehend, more or less vaguely or distinctly, that they cannot maintain their ground if they state the Catholic doctrines fairly and argue against them as they really are. Their instinct of self-preservation teaches them that their only safety consists in the smoke which they create by their incessant fusillade of misrepresentation, and which hides the true aspect of the field from their deluded followers.

We leave this part of our subject with a reiteration of what we have already affirmed and proved. The attempt to prove a priori from the idea of God, or from the idea of the incarnation and mediation of the Word made man, that the religious veneration of the saints is incompatible with the supreme worship due to God, and the supreme confidence we are bound to repose in the merits and grace of the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ, is perfectly futile. The only real question is one of evidence: whether the Catholic Church can furnish evidence of her divine authority to teach that the Blessed Virgin and the saints have received a subordinate office of mediation, and are to be honored and invoked by a special and formal cultus. If the evidence which is proposed can be refuted, the worship of the saints may be qualified as a vain observance, a superstition, a useless addition to Christianity. But it can never, with any reason, be denominated idolatry; because it distinctly limits itself to that veneration which is simply commensurate with a merely created and derived dignity, leaving intact and perfect the supreme worship of God. It can never be denominated a substitution of many saviours and mediators in place of the one Saviour and Mediator Jesus Christ; because it leaves the doctrine of his mediation intact and perfect. That this evidence can be demolished by sound historical learning, scientific exegesis of the Scriptures, or solid theological arguments, we have no fear. We do not think our antagonists have much hope of doing it. They have already said all that can be said on their side, and only damaged their own cause by it. They cannot get rid of the universal testimony of all ages and countries to the Catholic doctrine, without resorting to principles which subvert their own foundation and leave them to sink down into the pit that has swallowed up Rénan and Colenso. These topics have been exhaustively handled by numerous and able Catholic writers, to whom we refer those readers who wish to investigate them. We turn now to the second part of our subject, which relates to the honor paid to the sacred images of Christ and the saints.

Anticatholic writers are so illogical, careless, and confused in their arguments against Catholic doctrines and practices, and use so much rhetoric, directed merely ad captandum vulgus, especially when they take up this, which is one of their favorite themes, that it is very difficult to follow and refute them in a clear and methodical manner. They deal very much in assertions and vituperative expressions, in misrepresentations, ridicule, and low attempts at wit, in unmeaning laudations of themselves as the only enlightened and spiritual persons in the world, and wholesale depreciation of Catholics, especially the simple and pious peasantry and common people of Catholic countries. We suppose that the substance of their objections against the veneration of images, extracted and reduced to a clear and precise statement, would be something like this: The use made of images in religious worship by Catholics is idolatrous, because it either is actually an adoration of images as gods in place of the true God, or, if not, leads to and encourages such a worship, and bears the outward appearance of being identical with it. It is, therefore, to be condemned, as intrinsically dangerous in itself, and therefore prohibited under the old law, and as in many cases among the uneducated grossly superstitious and heathenish. It is, therefore, on a par with the idolatry of the Greeks and Romans, and other pagan nations, which is so severely denounced in the Holy Scriptures, and so unmercifully ridiculed by the early Christian writers; although enlightened Catholics, like enlightened pagans, may be free from the grossness of the vulgar superstition.

A full discussion of the subject would require us to go into the question of the nature of image-worship among the heathen nations. This has been done already by Bishop England, who has handled the whole matter with great learning and ability in his "Letters to the Gospel Messenger." It has also been briefly but satisfactorily treated in an article on "Is it Honest?" in a former number of this magazine. We may assert it as a certain and established fact, that the heathen priests and other intelligent advocates of polytheism held the opinion, so far as they were sincere believers in their own system, that the divinities whom they worshipped were in some way bound to their images, and acted through them as the soul acts through the body. They did not, of course, worship the metal or wood of which the images were composed; but they did worship the images themselves, as being animated statues informed by a divine virtue, and really containing the persons they represented. Philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and others, and persons who were imbued with the principles of the more sound and monotheistic philosophy, were not idolaters in the strict and gross sense. They regarded the divinities of the popular mythology as only a sort of genii, and probably considered their images as only representations intended to impress the senses and keep alive the belief and devotion of the people. But the doctrine of polytheism was not the doctrine of the sounder and higher philosophy. The system was idolatrous, both in its substitution of imaginary beings for the one, true God, and also in its offering of the worship due to God to images as containing their imaginary divinities. It is necessary to take into account, in estimating the idolatrous character of this heathen worship, not only that it terminated upon objects which were not divine as the ultimate end of the homage given, without reference to the supreme creator and lord, but also that these objects were unreal and imaginary beings. It was not, therefore, merely an undue exaltation of the creature, but a substitution of mere creations of the imagination in lieu of the true God. It was, therefore, not only polytheism, or a denial of the unity of God, and a division of the deity among many beings possessing divine attributes, but idol-worship, that is, the worship of nonentities in place of the real, infinite Being. The image represented nothing real. It was worshipped as related to an imaginary divinity, supposed to reside in it and to communicate to it a certain divine quality. There being no such person really existing, the image was a mere idol; and the worship had no real object to terminate upon except the material of which it was composed. A man who cherishes and honors the picture of his wife has a real and legitimate object upon which the affections and emotions awakened by the picture may terminate; but an artist who falls in love with a picture painted after an imaginary ideal in his own mind loves a mere painted form, an idol, and is, therefore, guilty of an absurd form of picture-worship. If this love takes the place of the love of God in his soul and leads him to place his supreme good in this imaginary being, he is an idolater. The heathen had nothing in their idols but lumps of wood, stone, or metal, fashioned to represent some imaginary being. They were therefore open to all the ridicule and scorn of the prophets and other servants of the true God, for shaping to themselves gods which were the mere creations of their own art and skill. The condemnation of idols in the Holy Scripture falls, therefore, not chiefly upon the mere use of images as representing the object of worship, but upon the making and honoring of images representing beings who, if they existed, would not be entitled to the worship they received, and who, in point of fact, had no real existence. Idolatry is also called in the Scripture demon-worship, because, as we understand it, the demons by means of it seduced men away from the worship of God, and also because, by possessing the images of the false gods, speaking through the oracles, and inciting to the commission of a multitude of crimes in connection with idolatry, they reduced the heathen into servitude to themselves.

The prohibition of images to be used in the worship sanctioned by the divine law was a precept of discipline enacted for a special reason. The reason was the same which lay at the foundation of that economy by which the trinity of persons in the Godhead, the incarnation of the Son in human form, the hierarchy of angels, the glory of the Mother of God, the exaltation of the saints to a deific union, were at first obscurely revealed, and only gradually disclosed to the clear knowledge and belief of the generality of the faithful. It was necessary to establish first the doctrine of the divine unity and spirituality, then the Trinity and Incarnation, so firmly in the faith of the people of God, that it could not be disturbed by anything similar to the corrupt worshipping of created things, before it was safe to allow the glorification of all creation and all nature, which is the consequence of the Incarnation, to be fully manifested. The Trinity and Incarnation were but dimly revealed, and only explicitly known by the élite of the faithful, in order that the attention of the childish, imperfect minds of those who lived in those early ages, surrounded by a brilliant and seductive polytheism, might be fixed principally on the unity and spirituality of the divine nature. It was the special mission of the patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations to preserve and hand down the doctrine of the one, true God. There would have been a danger in distinctly revealing the Trinity before the time, that the dogma would have been corrupted and perverted by a false conception of the plurality of persons in the divine being, as of a plurality of beings. The Incarnation would have been perverted also into anthropomorphism, or the conception of the divine nature as identical with human nature. Too distinct a knowledge of the angelic hierarchy would have dazzled the minds of a people predisposed and continually tempted to idolatry, and would have withdrawn them from the contemplation and worship of God. Sculpture and painting would have affected their senses and imagination too powerfully, and would have fostered the disposition to conceive of the divine nature as divided among many deities, and resembling material, created objects. It was necessary that Christ should come and manifest himself to men in his true character, and that he should establish an infallible church, competent to teach and define the Trinity and Incarnation in their relation to the divine unity, to condemn all errors, and to direct the development of theology with unerring certitude, before the grand and abstruse mysteries of faith could be safely exposed to the gaze of the multitude. Our Lord himself proceeded with great caution in these matters, and so did the apostles and their successors. The trinity in unity and the person of Christ had first to be proposed and to be sunk indelibly into the mind of the church, before the Blessed Virgin and the saints could be brought prominently forward; and religion had first to be imbued with spirituality and pure, robust morality, before the splendor of worship and the riches of the fine arts, and all the subsidiary means of impressing the senses and the imagination, could receive their due development. Nevertheless, that the unity of revelation might be manifest and the continuity of development be kept unbroken, everything which was destined to bloom forth in its season in full splendor upon this grand plant of God whose branches are destined to overshadow the world, existed in germ and bud from the very beginning. It would lead us too far to follow up this thought. Orthodox Protestants will admit it in regard to the principal mysteries of Catholic faith. The text of Scripture shows plainly that ceremonial, architecture, and music, in a word, all that was not liable to lose its symbolic character too easily in the minds of the people, were profusely employed in the religion of the old law. Philosophy, poetry, science, and literature were kept in abeyance to a great extent, and yet given sufficiently for intellectual culture in the inspired writings. And, notwithstanding the restriction placed on sculpture and painting, yet images were to a certain extent made use of, by the divine commandment, for symbolic purposes in the sanctuary and in the temple. This is their true and legitimate use, and they are to be classed with other symbols, emblems, or exterior signs and representations to the senses of persons and things in the supersensible and celestial world. Sacraments, holy places, holy things, temples, altars, vestments, ceremonies, images, all belong to the same order, and find their reason and principle in the Incarnation. The Incarnation is the highest consecration and elevation of material substance and form. The body of Christ is hypostatically united to the divine nature and made the true, living image of the Godhead, as the Second Council of Nice teaches, the medium by which God is manifested in the sensible and visible order. Through Christ the whole material universe is sanctified and united with God as its final cause. The fanciful theosophies and mythologies of the heathen world were only abortive efforts to express this truth. Mr. Gladstone has recently given utterance to this idea in very beautiful language, so far as Greek polytheism is concerned, in his review of Ecce Homo. Heathen art was similarly a perverted foreshadowing of Catholic art, copied after the ideal, not of redeemed and glorified but of fallen nature, not of heaven but of hell, which is but a dark counterpart of heaven.

Modern Protestants will generally admit the lawfulness and utility of sculpture and painting, considered as the outward expression of the Christian ideal of beauty, the representation of persons, scenes, places worthy of respect, means of improving the senses and imagination with religious ideas. They are not like their ancestors, who defaced sanctuaries, rifled the tombs of the saints, burned relics, broke stained-glass windows, destroyed sculptures and paintings, and, with barbarous vandalism, did what they could to efface the glorious monuments of the ages of faith. The remnants of these sacred relics of antiquity which they have now in their possession they preserve with jealous care. They even make use of sculpture and painting to perpetuate their own heretical tradition, as well as to set forth what they have retained that is truly Christian. They adorn their churches with works of art, and erect monuments and statues to their own chiefs and leaders, as, for instance, the monument to the English pseudo-martyrs at Oxford, and the statue of Luther recently unveiled with so much pomp and ceremony at Worms. They are, therefore, precluded from making objection to the use of sculptured or painted images of Christ and the saints in general, and are restricted to objections against certain uses of these images in religious rites or worship, and certain acts of respect and veneration which are exhibited toward them. We will, therefore, proceed to show that this use of images is precisely identical in principle with that use of them to which Protestants do not object, and in conformity with the natural and necessary laws of the human mind, which even the most violent iconoclasts cannot break.

The human mind is forced to use images as its media; and, although it is not necessary to have these images sculptured or painted, it is by reason of the aforesaid necessity of using images of some kind that man instinctively seeks in sculpture and painting a suitable outward form and expression of his intellectual images, and finds so much pleasure in beholding these intellectual images expressed in works of art by others.

The human intellect is incapable of contemplating the divine essence immediately. It forms an intellectual conception or image which represents God to itself, but which is most imperfect and inadequate. Any one who should believe that God really is like the conception or imagination he is able to form of him, would commit as great an absurdity as one who should believe that he is like a venerable old man with a long white beard. Not only is the conception or intellectual image of God formed by the mind always inadequate, but it is often false in certain respects. Aristotle's conception of God was essentially a false one; so is that of the Deists, of the Calvinists, and of those Universalists who deny his retributive justice. Even the highest contemplatives, as they themselves positively affirm, although they speak of a certain purely spiritual and imageless view of God, never contemplate God so directly that they can dispense with every intellectual species or image as a medium, and intend only by imageless contemplation to designate a degree of subtility in their intellectual operations which renders them pure and spiritual by comparison with those of grosser minds. Probably most persons of uncultivated intellects represent God to their imagination under some majestic and venerable human form, and think of him as seated on a throne, in a superb palace, with his ministering angels, also clothed in corporeal forms, attending upon him. Those whose clear intellectual conceptions enable them to rid themselves of every image borrowed from the human figure in thinking of God, will still find that their minds make use of certain emblems, figures, or images of the divine attributes, such as light, the sea, the atmosphere. Much more will they find themselves compelled to transfer to their conception of the divine intelligence and volition the analogy of their own manner of thought, of their sentiments and affections. In the same manner, when a person thinks of Jesus Christ, meditates on his life, death, and glorified state in heaven, he will form to himself images which represent his ideal conception, images so much the more distinct as they reflect the humanity of Christ with which we are far more immediately united than we are with the divine nature, and which we are therefore able to represent more exactly and vividly to our imagination. Are we to say, then, that every person worships the image of God or of Jesus Christ which his intellect has formed, and becomes thereby an idolater? Certainly not. His reason and faith assure him of the existence of God and Christ as objectively real, distinct from his own mental conception, and surpassing all his apprehensions. His intention in worship is directed to God as he really is, and is true worship, although the intellectual media which the soul is obliged to make use of are imperfect and inadequate.

The case is no way altered if the sculptured or painted image of Christ is made use of, instead of or together with the intellectual image. The crucifix is only a permanent image affecting the exterior senses, as the intellectual representation is a transient image affecting the interior senses. Coleridge says that a picture is "an intermediate somewhat between a thought and a thing." The same may be said of a statue, though a statue is more of a thing than a painting is. The material substance employed by the artist is merely the substratum of the form, which is something ideal, as language is merely the medium of thought. In painting or sculpture of real merit, the higher and more perfect conceptions of men who possess the artistic gift are transferred to the minds of those whose ideal conceptions are of an inferior order, or who, at least, are not able to give their conceptions an outward and permanent expression. The artist who makes a statue or painting of our Lord intends to represent him according to the ideal which he has in his own mind. His object is to bring the ideal conception of Christ vividly and distinctly before the imagination of the beholder. The more completely he succeeds in producing the desired effect, the more perfect will be the identification of the image with the object it represents in the imagination of the beholder; that is, the image, the more completely it is an image, the less does it attract attention to its own separate reality, and the more does it fix the attention of the mind on the object it represents. A person whose mind is susceptible to the influence of art, looking at a masterpiece of painting or sculpture, forgets that it is only a representation, and seems to himself to be looking at the reality. His imagination transports him to the scene of crucifixion, and he is spell-bound as he gazes on the face of the dying Christ. The same emotions arise in his mind that would arise if he were actually gazing upon the crucifixion itself. If he is a Christian, he will spontaneously elicit acts of worship toward the Son of God dying on the cross. These interior acts will manifest themselves by exterior signs, by the respectful posture, the silence, the reverential expression of countenance, the moistened eye, which betray the workings of the soul within to any attentive observer. Suppose that he kneels down and offers a prayer, that he kisses the feet of the image of Christ, that he exclaims aloud, "My Lord and my God!" is that idolatry? Is he worshipping a picture or a statue? If he is, then all the merely interior and mental acts of a person who is affected by a statue or picture of Christ are equally idolatrous. If the sculptured or painted image of Christ is really substituted for Christ himself, and receives as a reality, distinct in itself, any homage or affection which it terminates as an ultimate object, then all admirers of works of art are guilty of the same species of absurdity, commit the same unreasonable act, in a lesser degree, which culminates, in the case supposed, in the supreme folly of adoring marble, ivory, canvas, and paint. That class of persons who go into raptures over works of art, therefore, have nothing to say against the Catholic use of the crucifix which is not contradicted by their own practice and avowed sentiments. If the devout sentiments awakened by a crucifix or a painting of the crucifixion are legitimate for once and for the space of half an hour, they are legitimate at all times. If it is lawful to go to a picture-gallery in order to see a masterpiece, it is lawful to buy it, to hang it in an oratory, to visit it every day, and to make a regular and constant use of it, as a means of exciting devotion. If the inward sentiments it awakens are lawful, so is their outward expression; and if this outward expression is in itself lawful, it may be prescribed as a law by the ritual of the church. The same principle that justifies the making of a crucifix, and the looking upon it with emotion, justifies the church in placing it above the altar, bowing or genuflecting before it, incensing it, exposing it on Good Friday to veneration, and chanting the words: "Ecce lignum crucis, venite adoremus."

The crucifix, considered as a material object, is merely treated with the same respect which is shown to a Bible, an altar-cloth, a chalice, or any other object devoted to sacred uses. As a representation, it is not distinguished from the object which it represents, and the acts of interior or exterior veneration which terminate upon it are merely relative, and are referred altogether to Jesus Christ. They are like the kiss which a man imprints upon his wife's picture, or the uncovering of the head when a procession passes the statue of Washington. There is only one question, therefore, in regard to the veneration given to the crucifix, and that is, Does the object or person represented, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, deserve the worship of latria, or divine worship, which we pay to him, and which we signify by these exterior marks of respect toward his image? The same is the case with the images of the Blessed Virgin and the saints. The veneration paid to them has no respect to the material of which they are composed, but passes to their prototypes, that is, the persons represented. The only question, therefore, is, Do these prototypes deserve the honor we intend to pay them? If they do, it is right to signify this honor by marks of respect to their images, such as bowing, offering incense, burning lights, decorating the shrines in which they are placed with flowers, and kneeling before them to offer prayers.

We have already shown that those who have the mere devotion of taste and imagination toward statues and pictures act in a manner precisely analogous, and pass through the same mental process which is exhibited by the Catholic in the respect which he pays to the sacred images of Christ and the saints. The only difference is, that the latter makes use of his imagination in the service of a real and practical faith and piety. His devotion is not a mere intellectual or sentimental devotion, but a spiritual exercise. It is, therefore, less dependent on the artistic merit and excellence of the representation than the merely sentimental excitement of the votary of art. A rude crucifix or a simple image of the Blessed Virgin is sufficient for the only purpose for which the devout Catholic makes use of them, as a help to fix the senses and attention, a sort of step-ladder by which he may raise his mind to the contemplation of Christ and his blessed mother. Many other circumstances give value to sacred objects besides their intrinsic worth. Their history, their antiquity, the associations connected with them, the traditions of past ages which cluster about them, often give them a sacredness far beyond the charm of symmetry and beauty. Of the two, we should much prefer to have Bernini's exquisite statue, over which the Rev. Mr. Bacon goes into raptures which betray his refined love of art, destroyed, rather than the venerable statue of St. Peter, which, with manners the reverse of exquisite and refined, he calls "a grimy idol." Even persons of the most exquisite taste often love an old house, old portraits, old articles of furniture, and many other old things, intrinsically ugly and valueless, far more than any similar objects which are new, costly, and fabricated in the highest style of art. For the same reason, certain objects of devotion, which are devoid of all artistic excellence, may be very dear and venerable to Catholics of the most cultivated taste. Much more, then, it is natural that rude and unsightly statues or pictures should be objects of devotion to Catholics of uncultivated taste. Protestants make a great mistake in judging of the sentiments of the common people in Catholic countries. They attribute to superstition what is really to be ascribed only to uncultivated taste. The sentiments which are awakened by masterpieces of art they can understand; but they cannot understand that ordinary and even grotesque images are masterpieces of art and models of beauty to the rude and childish mind of the multitude. To their prejudiced and distorted fancy, these images appear like idols, and the devotion of the people toward them like a stupid idol-worship. They do not appreciate the fact that they are to these simple people what chefs-d'oeuvre of religious art are to them—a vivid representation, in outward form, of their own highest ideal. The susceptibility of these untutored minds to those emotions which are awakened through the senses is far greater than that of the more educated, though it is not so chastened. This is especially the case with the southern races. Poetry, music, painting, everything which appeals to the imagination, finds a ready response in their ardent temperament. It is, therefore, a proof of the highest wisdom in the church that she has taken advantage of all these means of impressing religious ideas upon the minds of all classes of men in every stage of intellectual development. There are some whose devotion takes a more purely intellectual form, and who elevate their minds to God and heaven more easily by interior recollection and meditation than by any exercise of the imagination or any outward aids. A few prefer the solitude of a cell or a cave to Cologne Cathedral, and an hour's abstracted contemplation to all the pageantry of St. Peter's. Such are permitted and encouraged to follow the bent of their own inclination and the leading of the divine Spirit. The mass of men, however, even of the educated and cultivated, need the help of the exterior world to give them the images and emblems of divine and spiritual things without which they cannot fix their attention or awaken their emotions. The quality and quantity of the helps and instruments with which they worship God vary indefinitely. The devotion of those whose state is a kind of intellectual childhood, or in whose temperament imagination and passion predominate, will necessarily be more sensuous than that of more cultivated minds or races of a more cool and sedate temperament. It is the same principle, however, which pervades and regulates all; the spirit is one, though the form varies. The true mystic, who is absorbed in the contemplation of the divine nature, does not deny to the sacred humanity of Christ, to the Blessed Virgin, the saints, or to any holy things, their worth and excellence, although he does not fix his attention upon them so frequently and so directly as others. The great saints and theologians of the church never despise the devotions of the people or accuse them of superstition. The distinction between the intelligent few and the superstitious many in the Catholic Church, is one which the most highly educated and spiritually minded Catholics disdain and repudiate as a dishonor to themselves. It is made by sciolists, who are unable to answer the arguments of our theologians or to deny the sanctity of our saints, and who seek to evade in this way the overwhelming force of the evidence for the truth of our religion. The veneration of saints and the use of images in religious worship, they say, though it does not prevent the élite of Catholics from offering a supreme and pure worship to God and looking up to Jesus Christ as their only Saviour, leads the multitude to superstition and idolatry. We are better judges of the fact than they are. They know next to nothing of the practical working of our religion, or of the ideas and state of mind of our people. We know these things. We have, at least, as much abhorrence of idolatry as they have, and as much zeal for the enlightenment and spiritual welfare of the multitude. We know that there is no taint of superstition or idolatry in the devotion of our people. The Catholic Church keeps the ideas of God and Christ vividly before the minds of her children; they realize them in a manner of which those who are out of the church have no conception. The accusation of withdrawing from God and our Lord that which is due to them—to divide and scatter it among inferior beings—comes with a very bad grace from Protestants. What have they done to reclaim mankind from polytheism and to spread the worship of the true God? They have done nothing, except to cripple the efforts of the Catholic priesthood by sowing dissension in Christendom and giving the scandal of disunion to infidels. They have bred anew the old heresies against the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ which had become extinct, together with the more monstrous error of pantheism. We, the Catholic priesthood, have conquered the ancient heathenism, have planted everywhere Christianity, have established on an immovable foundation the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ, together with the worship of his adorable name.

We are now carrying on the work of converting the heathen, and of defending theism and Christianity against the hosts of enemies raised up against them by the revolt of the sixteenth century. If Christianity is to gain in the future new and more glorious triumphs over the false religions of the world, it will be through our labors and our blood that she will win her victories. Not only do the defence and advancement of the supernatural order rest on us; we are obliged also to defend nature, reason, the arts, the poetry and romance of life, from a gloomy Puritanism, a hopeless scepticism, a desolating materialism, which would sweep away all spiritual philosophy, all sound science, all gayety and charm in life, all joyousness in religion, all ideality and heroism in the sphere of human existence. It is against a universal iconoclasm we have to contend—an iconoclasm which seeks to throw down and deface the image of celestial truth and beauty, to break the painted windows through which the light of heaven streams in upon this earthly temple, to efface those angelic and saintly forms with the Madonna who is the queen of the whole bright multitude, to overthrow the cross, and finally to drag down the sacred humanity of Christ, together with the deity that dwells in it and is worshipped through it, leaving mankind without a temple, an altar, a Saviour, or a God. We have learned the nature of the warfare we are engaged in too well from the conflicts of eighteen centuries, to be deceived or misled. We know that an attack on the smallest portion of the edifice of the Catholic Church means its total subversion, and that, consequently, it is just as necessary to resist it as if it were avowedly aimed at the foundation. We know that we cannot and must not yield up the smallest fragment of Catholic truth for any plausible end whatever. Although, therefore, the veneration of saints and holy images is not among the most necessary and fundamental parts of the Catholic religion, yet, as the principle from which it proceeds is an integral portion of Catholic doctrine, we shall always maintain it with the same fidelity as we do the primary truths of the Creed, the Unity and Trinity of the Godhead, the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The images of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, and of the saints, will always remain above our altars and on the walls of our churches; the Salve Regina and Litanies of the Saints will never cease to be chanted in our solemn services; and we shall continue to adore the Incarnate Word in his sacred humanity with the worship of latria until the end of the world.

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Nellie Netterville; Or,
One Of The Transplanted.

Chapter XV.

Before leaving the guard-room, Ormiston poured out a large goblet of wine from a flask which he had sent one of the soldiers to procure at a wine-tavern hard by, and insisted upon Nellie drinking it to the last drop.

The remainder of the flask he gave to Roger, who, truth to say, was almost as much in need of it as Nellie; and they then all went forth together, O'More having previously pledged his word, both to Ormiston and Holdfast, to consider himself merely as a prisoner at large, until they themselves should release him from his parole.

Their way led them from the gate-house into Bridge street, and from thence to Ormond Gate, Earl's Gate, "Geata-na-Eorlagh," as it was then sometimes called. With Major Ormiston in their company, this was opened to them without a question, and they afterward proceeded, as fast as Nellie's strength permitted, up the steep hill street, debouching into the Corn Market. Entering the latter, they found themselves face to face with Newgate, the great criminal prison of the city. There it stood, dark, strong, and terrible—too strong, Roger could not help thinking, to be a fitting prison for the frail, dying woman it was guarding for the hangman. It seemed, indeed, almost like an abuse of power to have cast her there, so helpless as she was, and powerless, in the strong grasp of the law.

Newgate had originally formed a square, having at each of its four angles a tower, three stories high, and turreted at the top. Two of these however, those facing toward the city, had been recently taken down; and when Nellie looked upon it for the first time, it consisted merely of the gate-house, with its portcullis and iron gates, and a strong tower at either end. Near the prison stood the gibbet, metaphorically as well as really; for few, indeed, in those sad days, were the prisoners who, once shut up within the walls of Newgate, ever left them for a pleasanter destination than the gallows. From the position in which it stood, they could hardly avoid seeing it as they passed onward toward the prison; but in the faint hope of sparing at least poor Nellie's eyes this terrible apparition, Ormiston stepped a little in advance of his companions, and placed himself between her and it. Roger, however, upon whose arm she leaned, knew, by the sudden tremor which shook her frame that this tender caution had been in vain. Nellie, in fact, had already seen and guessed at the ghastly nature of its office there; and as her eye glanced reluctantly—and almost, as it were, in spite of herself—toward it, she felt as if she had never before thoroughly realized the awful position in which her mother stood. What wonder that she grew sick and giddy as the thought forced itself, in all its naked reality, on her mind, that her mother—her mother, the very type and personification of refined and delicate womanhood—might at any hour be dragged hither, shrinking and ashamed, beneath the rude hangman's grasp? What wonder that her very feet failed to do their office, and that Roger was compelled rather to carry than to lead her past the spot, never pausing or suffering her to pause until they stood before the gates of Newgate?

Here, as at the city gate, the name and authority of Ormiston procured them ready admission, the jailer receiving them with courtesy, and showing them at once into a low, vaulted room on the ground-floor of the prison. Notwithstanding this, however, Ormiston had no sooner announced the name of the prisoner they had come to visit, than the man showed symptoms of great and irrepressible embarrassment.

"The prisoner had been very ill," he muttered; "had burst a blood-vessel in the morning, and the bleeding had returned within the hour. A doctor had been sent for, and was at that moment with her; but if Major Ormiston could condescend to wait, he would call his wife, who was also in attendance on the poor lady, and would tell her to announce the arrival of a visitor. It must be done gently," he repeated over and over again, "very gently; for the doctor had already told him that any sudden shock would of necessity prove fatal."

Ormiston eyed the man curiously as he blundered through this statement. He knew enough of Newgate, as it was then conducted, to doubt much if the visit of a doctor was a luxury often vouchsafed to its inhabitants; and feeling in consequence that some mystery was concealed beneath the mention of such an official, he was almost tempted to fancy that Mrs. Netterville was already dead, and that, on account of the presence of her daughter, the man hesitated to say so. The next moment, however, he had leaped to another and more correct conclusion, though for Nellie's sake, and because intolerance formed no part of his character, he made neither question nor comment, as the jailer evidently expected that he would, on the matter. Greatly relieved by this apparent absence of suspicion on the part of the English officer, the man brought in a stool for Nellie to sit upon, and then once more announced his intention of going in quest of his wife. Just as he opened the door for this purpose, Ormiston caught a glimpse of a tall, gray-haired man, who passed down the passage quickly in company of a woman. The jailer saw him also, and with a sudden look of dismay upon his features, closed the half-opened door, and turned again to Ormiston.

"It was the doctor," he said with emphasis—"the doctor who had just taken his departure; and as there was nothing now to prevent their seeing the sick lady, he would send his wife at once to conduct them to her cell."

A long ten minutes followed, during which time Nellie sat quite still, her face hidden by her hands, and shivering from head to foot in fear and expectation. The door opened again, and she sprang up. This time it was the jailer's wife who entered.

"The poor lady had been informed," she said, "of the arrival of her daughter, and was longing to embrace her. Would the young lady follow her to the cell?"

Nellie was only too eager to do so, and they left the room together. Ormiston hesitated a moment as to what he would do himself; but not liking to leave Nellie entirely in the hands of such people as jailers and their wives were in those days, he at last proposed to Roger to follow and wait somewhere near the cell during her approaching interview with her mother. To this Roger readily assented, and they reached the open door just as Nellie entered and knelt down by her mother's side.

More than a hundred years later than the period of which there is question in this tale, the treatment of prisoners in the Dublin Newgate was so horrible and revolting to the commonest sense of decency and humanity as to demand a positive interference on the part of government. There is nothing, therefore, very astonishing in the fact, that the state in which Nellie found her mother filled her brimful with sorrow and dismay. The cell in which she was confined was low, and damp, and dark, and this she might have expected, and was in some degree prepared for; but she had not counted on the utter misery of its appointments; and the sight of her pale mother—death already haunting her dark eyes, and written unmistakably on her ghastly features—stretched upon the clammy pavement, a heap of dirty straw her only bed, and a tattered blanket her only covering, was such a shock and surprise to Nellie that, instead of joyfully announcing the fact of her reprieve to the poor captive, as she had intended, she fell upon her knees beside her, and wept over her like a child.

"Mother! mother!" was all that she could say for sobbing, as she took her mother's hand in hers and covered it with tears and kisses. Mrs. Netterville appeared for a moment too much overcome to speak, or even move, but gradually a faint flush passed over her wan face, and her eyes at last grew brighter and more life-like, when Nellie, making a strong and desperate effort to command her feelings, suddenly wiped away her tears and bent over the bed to kiss her.

"O mother! mother!" the poor girl could not refrain from once more sobbing, "is it thus that I see you after all?"

"Nay, child," the mother gasped with difficulty, "you should rather thank God for it on your knees. See you not it is an especial mercy? If I had not burst a blood-vessel to-day, to-morrow—yes, to-morrow"—a shudder ran through her wasted frame, and she broke off suddenly.

"But I have brought you a reprieve," sobbed Nellie, hardly knowing what she said, or the danger of saying it at that moment—"a reprieve which is almost a pardon. Only a few days more, and you would have been free, whereas now—now"—tears choked her utterance, and, hiding her face on her mother's scanty coverlet, she sobbed as if her heart were breaking. Mrs. Netterville half raised herself on her pallet bed. For one brief moment she struggled with that desire for life which lurks in every human breast, and which Nellie's exclamation had called forth afresh in hers. For one brief moment that phantom of life and liberty, lost just as they had been found again—lost just as they had become more than ever precious in her eyes—that contrast between what was to be her portion and what it might have been, deluged her soul with a bitterness more intolerable than that of death itself, and her frail body shook and trembled like an aspen leaf beneath the new weight of misery thus laid upon it. That one unguarded word of Nellie's had, in fact, changed, as if by magic, all her thoughts and feelings and aspirations. Death and life, and health and sickness, freedom and captivity, had each put on a new and unexpected aspect in her eyes, and that very thing which, only a minute or two before, had seemed to her soul as a source of real consolation, had suddenly taken the guise of a great misfortune. It was as if God himself had mocked her with feigned mercy; a weaker soul might so have said, and sunk beneath the burden! But with that strong and well-tried spirit the struggle ended otherwise.

Clasping her wasted hands together, and lifting up her eyes to heaven, the dying woman exclaimed, in a voice which none could hear and doubt of the truth of the sentiments it uttered, "My God! my God! Thy will, not mine, be done!" Then she fell back quietly on her pillow, exhausted indeed with the effort she had made, but calm and smiling and resigned, as if that sudden glimpse of renewed happiness and life had never, mirage-like, risen to mock her with its beauty.

The first use Mrs. Netterville made of her victory over nature was to comfort Nellie.

"Weep not, dear child," she whispered tenderly; "weep not so sadly, but rather thank God with me for the consolation which he has given us in this meeting. Where is Hamish?" she added, turning her dim eyes toward the open door, where Ormiston and O'More were lingering still, and evidently fancying that one or other of them was her absent servant—"where is Hamish? He has done my bidding bravely; why comes he not forward, that I may thank him?"

"Hamish is not here, mother; I left him with my grandfather."

"God help you, child!" moaned Mrs. Netterville, a sudden spasm at her heart at the thought of her unprotected child, "God help you! have you come hither all this way alone?"

"Mother," said Nellie in a smothered voice, "I am not alone. Roger More came with me. Without him it would have been impossible."

"Roger More—Roger More," repeated Mrs. Netterville, trying to gather together her memories of the days gone by. "It was in the arms of a Roger More that your father breathed his last."

"In mine, dear lady!" cried Roger, unable any longer to resist the temptation of presenting himself to Nellie's mother—"in mine! And knowing that the father did me the honor to call me friend, Lord Netterville has had the great kindness to entrust me with the daughter in this long journey, which the love she bears you compelled her to undertake."

Something in the tones of Roger's voice, rather than in the words he uttered, seemed to strike on the mother's ear. She smiled a grateful smile of recognition, and then turned a questioning glance, first upon his face and afterward on Nellie's. Perhaps Roger interpreted that glance aright. At all events, he took Nellie's hand, and, as if moved by a sudden inspiration, laid it on her mother's, saying:

"Only the day after that on which I saw her first, I told her that I would never ask for this dear hand until her mother was by to give it."

"Her mother gives it," said Mrs. Netterville solemnly. "Yes! for I guess by Nellie's silence that her heart is not far from you already."

"Mother, mother!" cried Nellie, resisting Mrs. Netterville's feeble efforts to place her hand in Roger's—"not here—not now—not when you are dying."

"For that very reason," gasped the mother. "My son," she added, fixing her eyes full on Roger, "you can understand. I would see my Nellie in safe hands before I go."

"It would be the fulfilment of my dearest wish," said Roger earnestly, "if only it be possible."

"It is possible," she was beginning; but pausing at the sight of Ormiston, who had by this time joined himself to the group around her bed, she added in an apprehensive tone, "but there is a stranger present."

"Not a stranger, but a friend," the young officer replied, in a tone of sincerity it would have been impossible to doubt, even if Nellie had not whispered, "A friend, indeed! Without him we could hardly have been with you now."

"Then I will trust him as a friend," Mrs. Netterville replied. "The gentleman who left me as you entered—"

"The doctor," Ormiston interrupted, with a marked emphasis on the word.

"Well, the doctor," she replied, with a languid smile. "He can do all I need, and he lives close at hand, with the merchant William Lyon, who knows him not, however," she added, mindful of the safety of the person named—"who knows him not in any other character than that of a lodger and chance sojourner in the city."

"In ten minutes he shall be here," said Ormiston, "if I can induce him to come with me. Meanwhile I will give orders to the jailer to leave you undisturbed."

"If you permit it, Major Ormiston, I will go with you," said Roger, not only zealous for the success of the embassy, but anxious, likewise, that before taking such a decided step Nellie should have the opportunity of a private conference with her mother. "I think my name, and a word which I can whisper in his ear, may be of use—otherwise he might fear a snare."

Ormiston assenting to this proposition, the young men departed, and for the first time since the commencement of their interview mother and daughter were alone together.

For some minutes, however, neither of them spoke. Mrs. Netterville lay back, endeavoring to recover breath and strength for the coming scene, and Nellie was completely stunned. The shock of finding her mother dying at the very moment when she had hoped to restore her to new life—the bodily weariness consequent on her journey—the sudden, and, to her, the most inexplicable resolution to which Mrs. Netterville had come in her regard—all combined to paralyze her faculties, and, hardly able to think or even feel, she sat like a statue on the floor beside her mother.

From this state of stupor she was roused at last by the sound of the dying woman's voice:

"Nellie!"

"Mother!" cried the girl; and then, as she felt that poor mother's hand feebly endeavoring to twine itself round her neck, she burst into a fresh flood of tears. They saved her senses, perhaps—who knows? Creatures as strong in mind as she was, and stronger far in body, have died or gone mad ere now beneath such a strain on both as had been put upon her for weeks.

"Nellie, my child—my only one—weep not!" her mother whispered tenderly. "Believe me, little daughter, that I die happy."

"O mother, mother!" Nellie sobbed; "and I thought to have given you life!"

Mrs. Netterville paused a moment, and then, in a voice tremulous with feeling, she replied:

"Nellie, I would not deceive you. Life is no idle thing to be cast off carelessly as a garment; and for one brief moment the thought that, but for this sudden malady, I might yet have lived some years longer, filled my soul with sorrow! But it is over now—more than over—and I am at peace. Why should I not? for you are safe—you for whom I chiefly clung to life! Yes! now that a man good and generous, as I long have known Roger More to be, is about to take my place beside you, I go without repining—nay, 'repining' is not the word," she said, correcting herself—"I go in great joy and jubilation to the presence of my God."

"O mother!" sobbed Nellie, cut to the soul by this allusion to her marriage, "that is the worst of all. Do not insist upon it, I entreat you."

"Silence, Nellie!" Mrs. Netterville answered, almost sternly. "Think you I could die happy if I left you—a child—a girl—unprotected in this wild city?"

"Mother, be not angry, I beseech you," Nellie pleaded, "if I remind you that I came hither safe!"

"Ay, but you were coming to your mother, and the world itself could say no evil of one bent on such a mission. To-morrow, Nellie, you will be motherless, and I will not have it said of you hereafter, that you went wandering through the country protected by a man who had no husband's right to do it. Child, child!" Mrs. Netterville added, in a tone of almost agonized supplication, "if you would have me die in peace, if you would not that your presence here (instead of joy) should cast gall and vinegar into the cup of death, you will yield your will to mine, and go back to your grandfather a wedded woman."

"Mother!" cried Nellie, terrified by the vehemence with which her mother spoke, "dear mother, say no more! It shall be even as you wish. I promise. Alas! alas! this weary bleeding has commenced again—what shall I do to aid you?"

Mrs. Netterville could not speak, for blood was gushing violently from her lips, but she pointed to a jug of water on the floor. Nellie took the hint at once, and dipped a handkerchief into the water; with this she bathed her mother's brow, and washed her lips, until by degrees the hemorrhage subsided, and the dying woman lay back once more pale and quiet on her pillow.

Just then, to Nellie's great relief, the jailer entered, bearing a lighted torch; for the sun was going down, and the cell was almost dark already.

After him came Ormiston and O'More, accompanied by the gray-haired man who had been with Mrs. Netterville at the moment of their own arrival in the prison. Ormiston took the torch from the jailer's hand, and placing a gold piece there instead, dismissed him, with orders to close the door behind him, and to give them due notice before shutting up the prison for the night. As he set the torch in the sconce placed for it against the wall, the light fell full upon Mrs. Netterville's face, which looked so pale and drawn that for a moment he thought that she was dead, and whispered his suspicion to the stranger.

The latter drew a small vial from his bosom, and poured a few drops upon her lips. They revived her almost immediately; she opened her eyes, and a smile passed over her white face as they fell upon her visitant. "You here again, my father!" she murmured beneath her breath. "I thank God that you have had the courage. You know the purpose for which I need you?"

"I know it—and, under the circumstances, approve it," the stranger answered quietly. "The sooner, therefore, that it is done the better it will be for all."

"Poor child—poor Nellie!" murmured Mrs. Netterville, as she caught the sound of the low sobbing which, spite of all her efforts at self-control, burst ever and anon from Nellie's lips. "Poor little Nellie! no wonder that she weeps. It is a sad, strange place for a wedding, is this prison-cell!"

"These are strange times," said the priest kindly, "and they leave us, alas! but little choice of place in the fulfilment of our duties. Nevertheless, sad as all this must seem at present, I am certain that your daughter will, some day or other, look back upon her wedding in this prison-cell with a sense of gladness no earthly pomp could have conferred on marriage; for she then will understand, even better than she does now, how, by this concession to a mother's wishes, she has secured peace and happiness to that mother's death-bed. That is," he added, turning and pointedly addressing himself to Nellie, "if sorrow for her mother's state is the sole cause for all this weeping?"

Nellie felt that he had asked indirectly a serious question, and she was too truthful not to answer it at once. She did not speak, however—she could not; but she gave her hand to Roger, and made one step forward.

"Come nearer," whispered her mother, "come nearer, that I may see and hear."

Roger drew Nellie nearer, until they both were standing close to the sick woman's pillow.

"Raise me up," the latter whispered faintly.

He lifted her in his strong arms, for she was as helpless as a child, and placed her in a sitting posture, with her back supported by the wall near which her bed was placed.

As soon as she had recovered a little from the faintness consequent on this exertion, she waved her hand to Roger as a signal that the ceremony should begin. The priest turned at once to the young couple, and commenced his office, making it as brief as possible. Brief, however, as it was, and bare of outward ceremonial, Ormiston, as he stood a little in the background, could not help feeling that he never before had looked on, might never again behold, such a strangely touching scene. The wasted features of the poor mother, for whom death seemed only waiting until her anxiety for the safety of her child had been set at rest for ever; the fair face of Nellie, pale now with grief and watching, but ready as a budding rose to flush into yet brighter beauty with the first return of sunshine; Roger, with such a look of grave yet conscious gladness in his eyes as best suited the mingled nature of the scene in which he was a foremost actor; the priest, who, at the risk of his own liberty or life, was fulfilling one of the most solemn offices of his sacred calling; the vaulted roof above, glistening in the damp as the light flashed on it, and the bare, bleak walls around, with the names of many a weary captive inscribed upon them; joy and sorrow, hope and fear; life springing forward, on the one hand, to its brightest hours, and sadly receding, on the other, into the shadows of the tomb—all were gathered together in that prison-cell, and combined to form a picture which would have needed the pencil of a great master to render in its full force and truth.

It was done at last! Nellie had said the word which made her a wedded wife, and Mrs. Netterville folded her in her arms, and whispered, "Thank you, dearest, thank you; for I know what this must have cost you!" and then placing her hand in Roger's, added, "Take her, my son—take her; God is my witness that I give her to you without a fear for her future happiness. To you in whose arms the father died I may well intrust the daughter!"

"You shall never repent it, mother—never!" said Roger, with that calm, determined manner which better than many words, brings assurance to the soul, of truth. "I loved her from the first day I saw her, not so much for her brightness and her human beauty, as for that higher beauty which I thought I discovered in her soul, and which she has bravely proved since then. Over beauty such as that time has no power; the love, therefore, that springs from it must last for ever."

"It is well, my son," replied Mrs. Netterville, "I thank you, and believe you. And now, be not angry if I bid you go! For this one day Nellie must be all my own—to-morrow there will be no one to dispute her with you."

She spoke the last words hurriedly, for the jailer entered at that moment to inform Ormiston that the prison was about to be shut up for the night, and that it was his duty to see that all strangers left it.

"But not Nellie—not my child?" said Mrs. Netterville, with an appealing look, first to the jailer and then to Ormiston. "Surely you will leave Nellie with me?"

"They must!" cried Nellie passionately, "for by force alone can they drag me from you."

"Sir," said the dying woman, addressing herself this time to Ormiston alone, "add this one favor, I beseech you, to all the others you have done me, and let my child close my dying eyes?"

"I cannot refuse you, madam," he replied, much moved. "But is your daughter equal to the effort? Would it not be better to have the jailer's wife as well?"

"No—no!" cried Nellie, answering before her mother, who looked half inclined to assent to this proposition, could reply. "I am equal, and more than equal. I would not have a stranger with us to-night for the world."

"Come for her, then, at the first dawn of day," said Mrs. Netterville, with a glance, the meaning of which they understood too well. She gave her hand in turn to each of the young men, and then signed to them to withdraw. Ormiston did so at once; but Roger turned first to Nellie, and taking her passive hand, lifted it silently to his lips. Not to save his life or hers could he have done more than that in the solemn presence of her dying mother.

He then followed Ormiston. The priest lingered a moment longer to speak a word of cheer to his poor penitent; but the jailer calling him impatiently, he also disappeared, and the cell-door was closed behind him.

Chapter XVI.

The rattling of the key in the lock as the jailer shut them up for the night came like a death-knell on poor Nellie's ear. So long as Ormiston and Roger had been there beside her, she had, quite unconsciously to herself, entertained a sort of hope that something (she knew not what) might yet be devised for the solace of her mother; and now that they were gone indeed, she felt as people feel when the physician takes his leave of his dying patient, thus tacitly confessing that all hope is over. The lamp, which, in obedience to a word from Ormiston, the jailer had brought in trimmed and lighted for the night, revealed the cell to her in all its bleak reality, and as she glanced from the straw pallet, which at Netterville they would have hesitated to place beneath a beggar, to the pitcher of cold water, which was the only refreshment provided for the dying woman, Nellie felt anew such a sense of her mother's misery and of her own inability to procure her comfort, that, unable to utter a single syllable, she sat for a few moments by her side weeping hopelessly and helplessly as a child. Mrs. Netterville heard her sobbing, and, after waiting a few minutes in hopes the paroxysm would subside, said gently:

"Nellie—my little one—weep not so bitterly, I entreat you; you know not how it pains me."

"How can I help it, mother?" sobbed the girl, unable to conceal the thought uppermost in her own mind. "You suffer, and the lowest scullion in the kitchen of Netterville would have deemed herself ill-used in such poverty as this!"

"Is that all, my child?" said her mother, with a faint smile. "Nay, dear Nellie, you may believe me, that, to a soul which feels itself within an hour of eternity, it is of little moment whether straw or satin support the body it is leaving. Eternity! yes, eternity!" she murmured to herself "Alas! alas! how little do we realize in the short days of time the awful significance of that word, for ever!

"Mother, you are not afraid!" burst from Nellie's lips, a new and hitherto unthought-of anxiety rushing to her mind.

"Afraid!" Mrs. Netterville echoed the expression with a smile. "No, my daughter, by the grace of God and goodness of Our Lady I am not afraid. Nevertheless eternity, with its ministering angel Death, are awful things to look on, Nellie, and if I could smile at aught which makes you weep, it would be to think that such a silly grievance as a straw pallet could add to their awfulness in your eyes."

"Not to their awfulness, mother," Nellie sobbed, "but to their sorrow; it is such a pain to see you comfortless."

"And has no one else been comfortless in death?" Mrs. Netterville whispered almost reproachfully. "Only consider, Nellie, this straw bed which you lament so bitterly is a very couch of down compared to His, when he laid him down upon the hard wood of the cross to die."

"Mother, forgive me; I never thought of that," said Nellie humbly. "I only thought of your discomfort."

"Think of nothing now, dear Nellie, but this one word of Scripture, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord;' and hope and pray that it may be so with me to-night. Now, dry your eyes and listen, for I have much to say, and but little time left wherein to say it. Dry your eyes, for I cannot bear to see you weeping thus. Your tears have almost the power to make me repine at death."

The last hint was sufficient. Nellie resolutely checked her tears, and laid her head down on her mother's pillow, in order that the latter might speak to her with less danger of fatigue.

Then, in a few earnest, touching words, Mrs. Netterville set before her daughter the duties of her new state of life, and gave advice, which, precious as it would have been at any time, was doubly precious then, coming as it did from the lips of a dying mother; after which, true to an idea ever uppermost in the Irish mind, and which she had too thoroughly adopted her husband's country not to feel as keenly upon almost as he could have done himself, she adverted to her own place of burial.

"It cannot be at Netterville, I know," she said. "I may not sleep, as I had ever hoped, by the side of my brave husband! But in your new western home, dear Nellie—in your new western home, where the churches, I believe, are yet undesecrated—there, if it be possible, I would gladly take my rest—there, where you can come sometimes to pray for your poor mother, and where, when my husband's father follows me, as no doubt he must full soon, he can be laid quietly to sleep beside me."

She paused, and Nellie muttered something, she hardly knew what, which she hoped would sound like an assent in her mother's ears. Not for worlds would she have saddened her at such a moment by allowing her to discover that Roger, like themselves, had been robbed of his inheritance, and that, instead of that quiet western home of which she spoke so confidently, her wedded life with him must be spent of necessity in a foreign land.

Whatever she did or did not say, her mother evidently fancied it was a promise in conformity with her wishes, and went on in that low, rambling way peculiar to the dying:

"It was not thus—not thus that I had thought to visit that wild land. I dreamed of a resting-place and a welcome—a meeting of mingled joy and sadness—and then a homely life, and at its close a peaceful ending. But it is better as it is—much better. Our next meeting will be all of joy—joy in that eternal home where God gathers together his beloved ones, and bids them smile in the sunshine of his presence. Yes, yes! it is better as it is!"

"As God wills. He knows best—he knows," and then Nellie stopped, powerless to complete the sentence.

"Remember me to my father, Nellie, "Mrs. Netterville continued faintly—"for father I may truly call him who has been in very deed a parent to me ever since I was wedded to his son. And poor Hamish also—let him not think himself forgotten, and tell him especially of the gratitude I feel for this great consolation procured me by his faithful service—my Nellie's heart to rest on in dying—my Nellie's hands to close my eyes in death."

The last words were barely audible, and after they were uttered Mrs. Netterville lay for a long time so mute and still that, fancying she was asleep, Nellie hardly dared to move, or even almost to breathe, lest she should disturb her. At last she felt her mother's hand steal gently in search of hers.

"Your hand, dear Nellie," she whispered softly. "Nay, do not speak, my daughter, but take my hand in yours, that I may feel, when I cannot see, the comfort of your presence."

Nellie took her mother's hand in hers. It was as cold as ice, and she gently tried to chafe it. But the movement disturbed the dying woman.

"It prevents me thinking, Nellie," she whispered faintly, "and my thoughts are very sweet."

The words sent a gush of tenderness and joy to Nellie's heart, telling her, as they did, that her mother's was at peace. But the physical condition of that poor mother still weighed heavily on her soul, and taking the mantle from her own shoulders, she laid it on the bed, hoping thus gradually and imperceptibly to restore warmth to the failing system. Mrs. Netterville perceived what she had done, and, true to that forgetfulness of self which had been the chief characteristic of her life, she would not have it so. "Nay, nay, child," she murmured as well as she could, for she was by this time well-nigh speechless, "put it on again, for you need it, and I do not. This death-chill is not pain."

She tried to push it from her as she spoke, and became so uneasy that Nellie, in order to calm her, was forced to resume the garment. Satisfied on this point, her mother closed her eyes like a weary child, and fell into a dozing slumber. It was the stupor preceding death, but Nellie, never suspecting this, felt thankful that her mother's hacking cough had ceased, and that her breathing had become less painful. For more than an hour she sat thus, her mother's hand in hers—praying, watching, weeping—weeping silent, soundless tears—not sobbing, lest it should disturb the sleeper.

The night passed onward in its course, but day was yet far off when the lamp began to waver. Sometimes it flickered and sputtered as if just going to be extinguished, and then again it would flare up suddenly, casting strange shadows through the gloomy space, and deepening the pallor on the sleeper's brow, until it almost seemed as if she were dead already. Lower still, and lower, after each of these fresh spurts, it sank, while Nellie watched it nervously; but just as she fancied that it had actually died out, it flashed up high and bright again, full upon her mother's face. Nellie turned eagerly to gaze once more upon those dear features. Even as she did so, a rush of darkness seemed to fill the cell—darkness that could be almost felt—and a pang seized upon the poor girl's heart, for she knew at once by intuition that the lamp was now gone indeed, and that she had looked for the last time on the face of her living mother.

The sudden change from light to darkness seemed somehow to disturb the invalid. She opened her eyes wearily, and something like a shudder passed over her; but when she felt her daughter's hand still clasping hers, a heavenly smile (pity that Nellie could not see it then—she saw its shadow on the dead face next day, however) settled on her features, and she whispered:

"You here still, dear child? Thank God—thank God for that!"

"Mother, what would you?" Nellie asked, amid her tears.

"It is coming, Nellie; be not frightened, dearest. It is coming like a gentle sleep. Pray for me, dear one; pray loud, that I may hear you."

What prayer could Nellie say at such a moment? An orphan already by the loss of her father, she was about to be doubly orphaned in her mother's death, and her thoughts turned naturally and spontaneously toward that other Parent whose home is heaven, and who, Father as he is to each of us, has pledged himself to be so in a yet more especial and individual manner to the fatherless of his earthly kingdom.

The words of the "Our Father" seemed to rise unbidden to her lips.

"Our Father who art in heaven."

"Who art in heaven," her mother repeated after her; and then came a pause of sweet, and solemn meditation.

"Thy kingdom come," Nellie once more found voice to say. Mrs. Netterville had ever kept the desire of that kingdom in her heart of hearts. Surely he was now calling her to enjoy it in eternity! So Nellie thought, and the thought gave her strength and courage to go on.

"Thy will be done!"—that will which was calling her last parent from her side. Nellie sobbed aloud as she uttered the words, but Mrs. Netterville took them up, and, in a voice of ineffable love and sweetness, kept repeating over and over again, as if she never could weary of the sentiment.

"Thy will be done; thy will—thy will—thy will, ever merciful and to be adored—thy will, my God, my Father, and my Redeemer—thy will, not mine, be done!"

Nellie listened until she almost felt as if she herself were standing with her mother on the threshold of eternity. A sweet and awful calmness settled on her soul. She knew intuitively that her mother was in the very act of dying, but she no longer felt fear or sorrow. It was as if the Judge of the living and the dead, not stern and exacting, but tender and approving, was descending in person to that bed of death to speak the sentence of his faithful servant. It was as if saints and angels were crowding after him, bowed down, indeed, beneath his awful presence, but yet glad and jubilant over the crowning of a sister spirit, and bringing the songs and sweetness of heaven itself on the rustling of their snowy wings. And in the midst of such thoughts as these, Nellie still could hear her mother's voice repeating, "Thy will, my God, not mine, be done."

Fainter still and fainter grew that voice, as the soul which spoke by it receded toward eternity; then all at once it died away, and Nellie felt that the last word had been said in heaven.

It was very dark now, and very cold—the cold that precedes the dawn—cold in Nellie's heart within, and cold in the outside world around her. She shivered, and was scarcely conscious that she did so. Was her mother really dead? She knew it, and yet could scarce believe it. For a little while she knelt there still, waiting and holding in her breath in the vague, faint hope that once more, if it were even for the last time, once more that sweet, plaintive voice might greet her longing ear. But it never came again. At last, by a great effort, she put forth her trembling hand and touched her mother's face. It was already growing cold, with that strange, hard coldness which makes the face of the dead like a marble mask to the living hands that touch it. She shuddered; nevertheless, with an instinctive feeling of what was right and proper by the dead, she did not withdraw it until she had pressed it gently on the eyelids, and so closed them without almost an effort.

That done, she knelt down once more, and, hiding her face in the scanty bedclothes, tried to pray.

......

Day began to dawn at last, and a few sad rays forced their way into that gloomy cell; but Nellie never saw them. Sounds began to come in from the newly-awakened city, but Nellie never heard them. The prison itself shook off its slumbers, and there was a slamming of distant doors and an occasional hurried step along the passages; and still she took no heed. She knew, in a vague, careless way, that at one time or another some one would be sent to her assistance, and that was all she thought or cared about it. In the mean time she prayed, or tried to pray; but when at last they did come, they found her stretched upon the floor, as cold almost and quite as unconscious as her dead mother.

Chapter XVII.

"To the memory of Francis, Twelfth Baron of Netterville, one of the Transplanted, and of Mary, the widow of his only son."

Nellie stooped to decipher the inscription, but it may be doubted if she saw aught save the stone upon which Hamish, in obedience to his master's dying orders, had engraved it, for her eyes were full of tears. A hurried journey to the west, another death-bed, and a few weeks more of tears and renewed sense of desolation had followed the events recorded in our last chapter, and then at last a holy calmness settled upon Nellie's soul—a calmness and a happiness which was all the more likely to endure that it was founded upon past sorrows bravely met and meekly borne, in a spirit of true and loving resignation to the will of Him who had laid them on her shoulders. From the day of her departure from Clare Island, the old lord had drooped like a plant deprived of sunshine, and he died on the very evening of her return, his hand in hers, smiling upon her and her brave husband, and leaving for only vengeance on his foes the inscription which heads this chapter, to be engraved upon his tombstone.

Nellie laid him to rest beside her mother; for through the kindness of Ormiston she had been enabled to carry out Mrs. Netterville's dying wishes, and to bear her remains to that western shore which she had so fondly and so vainly fancied was to be her daughter's future home. Ormiston had done yet more. He had obtained a reversal of the sentence of outlawry against Roger, coupled with the usual permission to "beat his drum," as it was called, for recruits to follow his banner into foreign lands, to fight in the armies of foreign kings. It was the evil policy of those evil times.

To rid Ireland of the Irish was the grand panacea for the woes of Ireland, the only one her rulers ever recognized, and of which, therefore, they availed themselves most largely, careless or unconscious of the fatal element of strength they were thus flinging to their foes. As a native chieftain and a well-tried soldier, Roger had a double claim upon his people, and short as had been the time allotted to him for the purpose, fifty men, of the same breed and mettle as the soldiers who fought at a later period against an English king until he cursed, in the bitterness of his heart, the laws which had deprived him of such subjects, had already obeyed his summons. They assembled under the temporary command of Hamish, near the tower, waiting the moment for embarkation, and the ship that was to convey them to their destination was riding at single anchor in the bay on that very morning when Nellie and her husband knelt for the last time beside her mother's grave. It was like a second parting with that mother. But with Roger at her side she could not feel altogether friendless or unhappy, and they prayed for a little time in silence, with a calm sense of sadness which had something of heavenly sweetness in it. At last it was time to go, and Roger laid a warning finger upon his young wife's shoulder. She did not say a word, but she bent down once more and kissed her mother's name upon the stone; then she gave her hand to Roger, and they left the churchyard together. While she had been lingering there, Henrietta had landed with Ormiston at the pier to bid her a last adieu. The quick eye of the English girl instantly perceived the goodly company of recruits assembled near the tower, and with a little smile of malicious triumph she pointed them out to her companion. Ormiston shook his head reprovingly. He was too thoroughly a soldier not to lament the policy which drafted large bodies of men into foreign armies, but he was full at that moment of his own concerns, and had little inclination to waste time in discussing the wisdom of his leaders. The truth was, Henrietta's reception of him on his arrival from Dublin the night before had disappointed him. He had come in obedience to her own written orders, as conveyed to him by Nellie, and instead of the frank, loving meeting which his own frank and loving nature had anticipated, he had found her shy, cold, and, he was forced to confess to himself, almost unkind. At first he consoled himself by attributing this in a great measure to the presence of her father, before whom she always seemed naturally to assume the bearing of a spoiled and unruly child; but when at her own invitation he had rowed her that morning to Clare Island, and her manner, instead of softening, as he had hoped, grew even colder and more constrained than it had been before, he became seriously distressed, and unable to endure the suspense any longer, they had hardly landed from the boat ere he turned short round upon her, and said:

"Henrietta, before you move one step further, you must answer me this question—are we in future to be friends or foes?"

"Not foes! Oh! certainly, not foes!" Henrietta stammered, taken quite aback by the suddenness of the question. "Oh! certainly, not foes!"

"Because I cannot endure this uncertainty much longer," he went on as if he had not heard her. "I must have an answer, and that soon. I might, indeed, insist upon your own letter, but I will not. It was written under a sudden impulse, and the word that gives you to me for a wife must be said with a calm consciousness of its import. What shall that word be, Henrietta—yes or no?"

"Yes, if you will have me," she said, in a low voice, half-turning away her head as she did so.

"If! So long and so faithfully as I have loved you, and do you still talk of if?" he answered, almost reproachfully.

"There is an 'if,' however," said Henrietta; "and when you have heard me out, you will have to decide the question for yourself."

"Nay, the only 'if' for me is the 'if' that you really love me," he replied wistfully, and in a way which showed he felt by no means certain upon that score.

"That is the very thing," she answered, flushing scarlet. "Harry, dear Harry, remember that I have never had a mother's care, and promise to be still my friend, even if what I have got to tell you should alter all your other wishes in my regard."

"What can you have to say that could do that?" he asked impatiently. "For God's sake, Henrietta, say it out at once, whatever it may be!"

"It is not so very easy, perhaps," she said in a low voice. And then she added quickly: "They call me a woman grown, Harry, and yet in some few things I think that I am still almost a child."

"In a great many things rather, I should say," he could not resist saying, with a smile.

That smile reassured her, and she went on quickly: "You know that it has never been a new thing to me to consider myself your wife, Harry. My father has treated me from childhood as your affianced bride, and we have played at being wedded in the nursery. You cannot be surprised, therefore, if in my feelings toward you there has been something of unquestioning security, which does not enter usually, I think, into the relations in which we stood toward each other. This kind of sisterly feeling—oh! do not look so cross, Harry," she cried, suddenly stopping short, "or I shall never be able to go on." "Do not talk of sisterly feeling, then," he answered moodily, "for that I cannot bear."

"I need not, for I do not feel in the least like a sister to you now," she answered, with a pretty naïveté, that made him almost depart from the attitude of cold seriousness in which he had elected to receive the confessions of his betrothed. He checked the impulse, however, and signed to her quietly to proceed.

"You know, for you were with us at the time," she accordingly went on, "how much I was charmed with this wild western land when my father first brought me hither. You know, too, of my indignation when I found that the real owner had been deprived of it in order to our possession. True, I had heard before of the law of transplantation enacted for the benefit of our army, but not until it stared me in the face as an act of private injustice, done for the enrichment of myself, did I thoroughly appreciate its iniquity. From that moment the very abomination of desolation seemed to me to rest upon this land, which I had once felt to be so beautiful. I grew angry and indignant with all the world—with my father chiefly, but with you also, Harry, because, though I acquitted you of all active share in the robbery, I yet felt that it was your character as a good officer, capable of holding it against the enemy, which had encouraged him to commit it. From dwelling upon the injustice, I went on almost unconsciously to question of its victim. At first, however, I only thought of him with a sort of contemptuous pity, as of a half-tamed savage wandering sadly among the hills which had once been his own. But one day I met him. You remember that evening when I returned home so late, that you and my father became alarmed and went out to seek me? I told you then that I had lost my way, but I did not tell you that it was the O'More who had helped me to regain it, and who, finding I was nervous at the lateness of the hour, had walked back with me nearly to the gates. He was a gentleman, there was no mistaking that; and there was something so foreign in his look and accent, that I never even dreamed of him as the owner of the Rath, until I asked him to come in and make the acquaintance of my father. Then—I can hardly tell you in what words, but I know that they were courteous, and that I felt them to be all the more cutting for that reason—he told me WHO he was. In my surprise and shame, I tried, I believe, to stammer out something like an apology for the wickedness of which he had been the victim; but he cut me short with a cold, quiet smile, pointed to the gate, which we had by this time almost reached, saluted, and so left me. Harry, from that moment, wild dreams began to float through my brain as to how I might restore him to his own. There was one way, and only one way, in which, as a woman, I could do it. Remember, I was not yet seventeen, dear Harry."

"I have need to be reminded of it," he answered bitterly, "when I am forced to listen to such things as you are saying now."

"And yet I loved you all the time, Harry; I did, indeed," she answered in a low, earnest voice. "I loved you, although I think I knew it not—should never, perhaps, have known it quite, if we had not at last quarrelled and parted, as I thought, for ever. In the first keen suffering which that parting caused me, my heart woke up all at once to a true knowledge of itself, and I felt that, dormant as my love for you had been, it had yet become so deeply rooted in my whole being that by no effort of my own will, (and you know that it is a pretty strong one, Harry,") she added with a faint smile—"by no effort of my own will could I have transferred it to another."

"Go on," said Harry, now smiling in his turn, for she had paused in a little maidenly confusion at this full and frank avowal of her sentiments in his regard—"go on, for I can listen to you with patience now, Ettie."

"I never dreamed again, Harry, of any other than yourself," she answered softly; "and When, the day after your departure, I went to Clare Island to warn him of a coming danger, (but not, I do assure you, with any other motive,) I saw at once that if he ever cared for any woman in the world, it was, or soon would be, Nellie Netterville. It did not grieve me that it was so, but I confess it wounded my woman's vanity a little, and for a moment I felt inclined to be angry with her. But I was ashamed of the pitiful feeling, and for the first time in my life, perhaps, I tried to conquer my evil passions. In this her sweet, quiet frankness greatly helped me, and her forgetfulness or forgiveness of the great injury I, or at all events, my father, had inflicted on her, made me blush for my own unkindness. If ever you take me for a wife, Harry, and that you find me a more manageable one than I have given you reason to expect, remember that you will owe it entirely to her example."

"Nay, nay! not entirely!" here interposed Harry, "for the sun shines in vain upon a barren soil."

"And now," continued Henrietta, regardless of the compliment, "can you forgive me, Harry? Believe me, you know all, I have told you the truth, and the whole truth. I would not deceive you in such a matter for the world."

"My love, I believe you, and I am more than satisfied," he answered in a tone of trustful tenderness which left no room for doubting in Henrietta's mind.

"And, Harry," she added pleadingly, "our home that we have left in England is as pleasant, if not so sublime, as this, and we can call it, at all events, honestly our own!"

"Some day, dear Ettie, we will go there; and should your father's death ever place these lands at our disposal, we will leave them to their rightful owner."

"O Harry! how could I doubt you?" she said remorsefully. "Can you ever forgive me for it?"

"Yes, if you will never doubt again," he answered with a bright smile. "But, hark! the bugle sounds, and yonder is Roger and his wife talking to old Norah at the tower-gate."

Henrietta looked in that direction, and she saw that Nellie was taking leave of the old woman, who had flung herself at her feet, and was sobbing bitterly. This much she could guess from the attitude and action of both parties; but she could not guess the infinite delicacy and feeling which Nellie contrived to put into that last farewell, nor yet the reverent admiration with which Roger watched his young wife, as, silencing her own deeper sorrows, she soothed the old woman's clamorous grief over the departure of her hereditary chieftain and his bride, "her beautiful, darling, young honey of a new mistress!"

Nellie was still occupied in this manner when the bugle once more sounded. The soldiers, who at the first summons had mustered together under the command of Hamish, instantly put themselves into motion, and, with flags flying and pipers playing, marched past the tower, saluting Roger as they did so, and coming down to the place of embarkation amid the wails of music which, martial and spirit-stirring in the beginning, had died gradually away into such wild, plaintive strains as best befitted the thoughts of men who were leaving their native land for ever. Another moment, and Nellie threw herself into Henrietta's arms, and the two girls sobbed their farewells in silence. Then some one separated them almost by force, there was a short bustle of departure and a clashing of oars, and when Henrietta could see again through her blinding tears, Nellie had nearly reached the ship which was to convey her to her new home; while over the crested waves came the voices of the soldier-emigrants singing that farewell song which rang so often and so sadly in those days along the coasts of Ireland, that it has left, unhappily, many an echo still to wake up thoughts of bitterness and distrust in the minds and memories of her living people.

Years afterward, when Henrietta was a happy wife and mother in her quiet English home, and her friends, thanks to her generosity and her husband's, were once more settled in that western land which was dearer to them than all the shining kingdoms of the earth, the music of that wild "Ha-till" would strike at times suddenly on the chord of memory, and she would weep again almost as bitterly as she had wept upon that late autumn morning when, floating over the waters of Clew Bay, came those voices to her ear, sadly singing:

"Mute in our grief, our fortunes broken.
Land of Eire, [Footnote 221] farewell, farewell!
Sad is that word—half-wept, half spoken—
Sad as the sound of the passing bell.
Ha-till, ha-till! we return no more,
Eire, beloved, to thy winding shore!
"Ever in dreams to see thee weep!
Ever to hear thy wail of pain!
Bitter as death, and as dark and deep.
The grief that we carry across the main.
Ha-till, ha-till! we return no more,
Eire, beloved, to thy winding shore!
"Happy the dead who have died for thee!
More happy the dead who died long ago!
Who never in sleep had learned to see
The grief and shame that have laid thee low.
Ha-till, ha-till we return no more,
Eire, beloved, to thy winding shore.
"Farewell! we have poured out our blood like rain,
We asked for naught but a soldier's grave;
Yet say not thou we have sought in vain.
While foes confess that thy sons are brave.
Ha-till, ha-till! we return no more,
Eire, beloved, to thy winding shore."

[Footnote 221: The ancient name for Ireland.]

The End.

---

The Holy Shepherdess of Pibrac,
Canonized By Pope Pius IX. In 1867.

In the latter part of the sixteenth century, beneath the walls of Toulouse, bloomed, almost unseen and unknown, a little flower of the fields, whose delicate chalice emitted a perfume scarcely perceptible to mortal sense. It passed away, and seemed forgotten; but its odor still lingered where it had blossomed; and after a few years had gone, its dust was gathered into the sanctuary, that the holy place might be filled with the celestial fragrance.

Germaine Cousin was born at Pibrac, a village of nearly two hundred families in the environs of Toulouse, about the year 1579. The parish church was dependent on the great Priory of the Knights of Malta in that city. The chateau belonged to the Du Faur, Lords of Pibrac. The actual proprietor was Guy, famous at once as an orator, a poet, and a successful courtier. Once the proudest remembrance of the place was the visit of Catharine de Medicis and her daughter, Margaret of Navarre, who were magnificently entertained by the Lord of Pibrac. But now the visit of the two queens, and the fame and opulence of the great orator, are nearly forgotten; while the memory of our holy shepherdess has lived for nearly three centuries in the hearts of all the inhabitants of Pibrac. The chateau is a forsaken ruin; but the church has become a place of pilgrimage, because Germaine prayed beneath its arches, and there found a tomb.

Her father was a poor husbandman, to whom tradition gives the name of Lawrence. Her mother's name was Marie Laroche. From the first moment of her existence, she seemed destined to suffering and affliction. She was infirm from her birth, being unable to use her right hand, and afflicted with scrofula. While yet a child, she became motherless; and, as if these were not trials enough to accumulate at once upon the head of one so frail, her father did not long delay to fill the vacant place on his hearth. Absorbed in her own children, this second wife, instead of pitying the hapless orphan whom Providence had confided to her care, conceived an aversion for her. But the trials to which Germaine was subjected were proofs of the divine favor. To them she was indebted for the brilliancy of her virtues, especially humility and patience.

As soon as she was old enough, her step-mother, who could not endure her presence at home, sent her forth to guard the flocks. This was her occupation the remainder of her life. But even in the depths of her lonely life, our shepherdess created for herself a more profound solitude. She was never seen in the company of the young shepherds; their sports never attracted her; their jeers never disturbed her thoughtful serenity; she only spoke sometimes to girls of her own age, sweetly exhorting them to be mindful of God!

We know not from whom Germaine received her first religious instructions—what hand, friendly to misfortune, revealed to her the great truths of salvation. Doubtless, it was the curé of the parish; for holy church despises not the meanest of her children; and her sagacious eye is quick to discover the chosen of God. But, whoever it was, he did but little, and there was little to be done. God himself perfected the religious training of his handmaiden. She early learned what must for ever remain unknown to those who do not recognize in him the fountain of all wisdom. Living amid the wonders of creation, she contemplated them with the intelligent eye of innocence. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God—see him in the brilliant stars, the burning sun, the unfathomable heavens, and the changing clouds—see him in the flowers and plants that cover the surface of the earth! Germaine learned from the open book of nature a wondrous lore; and her attuned ear caught and comprehended that mysterious, anthem of praise, which, floating through creation, is unheard by more sinful man. Her pure soul united in the eternal song: Benedicite omnia opera Domini Domino: laudate et superexaltate eum in saecula!

Although Germaine was a poor infirm orphan, subjected to the heavy yoke of a severe step-mother, and exposed by her occupation to the inclemency of the weather, she bore all her trials with cheerfulness, never brooding over her sorrows. One of the characteristics of the saints which particularly distinguishes them from ordinary Christians, is, the use made of the common occurrences of life. They share in common with other men, and often in a greater degree, the trials common to humanity; but they are chastened, purified by them, and they look upon the afflictions of this life as a means of assimilating them to Him who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Even in the manifest ill treatment and injustice of the malignant and wicked, they disregard the channel, but accept the suffering, as a means of perfection.

The extent to which this principle is carried, is peculiarly Catholic; and, in reading the lives of our saints, we cannot but be struck by it. They never struggled against their trials, and therefore were cheerful under them; for the greater part of our wretchedness proceeds from struggling against the current of life. This is the key to the saying of Fénélon: Non-resistance is a remedy for every ill.

The paternal roof was not for Germaine, as for most—even the most wretched—a refuge and a place of repose. And yet neither her poverty, nor sorrows, nor infirmities, could have rendered her insensible to that which surpasses all the other pleasures of life—the happiness of being loved. By a divine foresight, God has placed in the hearts of parents, by the side of that fount of love for their offspring, a well of singular tenderness for the unfortunate child, the black lamb of the flock. This peculiar love Germaine had not. She had not even the legitimate share of her father's heart. She was denied a place at the fireside; she was hardly allowed shelter in the house. Her step-mother, irritable and imperious, would send her away to some obscure corner. She was not permitted to approach the other children—those brothers and sisters whom she loved so tenderly, and whom she was always ready to serve without manifesting any envy on account of the preferences of which they were the object, and she the victim. The inflexible harshness of her step-mother obliged the infirm girl to seek a place of repose in the stable, or upon a heap of vine branches in an out-house.

But Germaine knew too well the value of sufferings not to accept with joy these humiliations and this injustice. And, as if her cross were yet too light, she imposed upon herself additional austerities. During the greater part of her life, she denied herself all nourishment but bread and water.

So great a conformity to her poor, suffering, and persecuted Saviour, kindled in the heart of Germaine an ardent love for his adorable humanity. Notwithstanding her feebleness and other obstacles, she assisted every day at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Even the obligations of her calling could not keep her from church at that hour. Confiding in God, she left her flock in the pasture, and hastened to the foot of the altar. It is a misguided piety which induces us to neglect the duties of our state of life in order to satisfy our devotion; but with Germaine this was the result of prompt obedience to a special inspiration. She knew who would guard her sheep; while she, poor lamb of Christ's flock! went to refresh herself at the fountain of living water.

Even when her sheep were feeding close by the wood of Boucone, which skirted the fields of Pibrac, and abounded with wolves, at the sound of the church bell she would plant her crook or her distaff in the ground, and hasten to the feet of the divine Shepherd. At her return, she always found her sheep unharmed. Not one was ever devoured by the wolves, nor did they ever stray into the neighboring fields.

Long after St. Germaine's death, the peasants of the hamlet remembered the unearthly brightness of her face as, week after week, she approached the holy sacraments.

"A celestial brightness, a more ethereal beauty,
Shone on her face and encircled her form when, after confession,
Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her."

In the Holy Eucharist she found a compensation for every grief. That divine Spouse to whom she was pledged placed himself as a seal upon her heart, thereby strengthening it to endure the trials of life, and enriching it with such abundant grace that, while dwelling at large in the great temple of nature, her life gleamed before him, brightly, and purely, and constantly, like the undying lamp of the sanctuary!

Like all the saints, Germaine had a singular devotion to Mary—that devotion so dear to the Catholic heart, and which is considered by the fathers as a mark of predestination. The world does not realize how much it has owed to Mary during these eighteen hundred years; yet some, some of us know how dark and almost unbearable it would be with its sorrows, and cares, and privations, if over all were not diffused the beauty and softness, the sweet charm of virginity and love, from the divine face of Mary!

To Germaine, the Ave Maria was another salutation of the angel preluding the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost; and she murmured the sacred words with infinite tenderness, above all, at the hour when they are on every lip. As soon as she heard the Angelus bell, which has three times a day, for six centuries, intoned the Ave Maria between heaven and earth, it was remarked that, wherever she might be, she immediately fell upon her knees as if insensible to the incommodiousness of the place.

The Rosary was her only book; and to her this devotion was no vain repetition. "Love," says Lacordaire, "has but one word, and, in saying that for ever, it is never repeated."

"Ever transformed to meet our needs.
Oft as Devotion counts her beads,
As if those beads had caught the light
In her celestial girdle bright,
But each with its own colors dight.
Thus, whensoe'er that prayer is heard,
Fresh thoughts are in each solemn word:
An orb of light comes from the skies
To kindle holy liturgies;
It gathers and gives back their rays.
Now turned to prayer, and now to praise."

The love of God insensibly leads to the love of one's neighbor. Germaine, when she could, used to draw around her the little children of the village, and endeavor to explain to them the truths of religion, and sweetly persuade them to love Jesus and Mary. This little school, held in the shade of a thicket of the lone fields, was a spectacle worthy of the admiration of angels, and is a proof of the unselfishness of real piety, even in the most lowly.

Although the piety of Germaine produced a profound impression in the village, yet the world is the same everywhere, and always conceives a secret aversion to piety. It cannot avoid censuring it in some way, however unobtrusive a piety it may be. Religion imposes esteem upon the world, and the world avenges itself by raillery. So the wits of Pibrac persecuted Germaine with mockery; they laughed at her simplicity, and called her a bigot.

But if God permits, for the perfection of the saints, that their virtue be turned into ridicule, he knows, when it pleaseth him, how to render them glorious in the eyes of the world.

In order to reach the village church, Germaine was obliged to pass the Courbet, a stream she generally crossed without difficulty in ordinary weather; but after heavy rains, it was too wide and deep to be passed on foot. One morning, as she was going to church, according to her custom, some peasants who saw her afar off stopped at a distance, and asked one another in a tone of mockery how she would pass the stream, now so swollen by the rain that the most vigorous man could hardly have stemmed the torrent. Dreaming of no obstacle, and perhaps not seeing any, Germaine approached as if none existed. ... O wonder of divine power and goodness! As of old the waters of the Red Sea opened for the passage of the children of Israel, so those of the Courbet divided before the humble daughter of Lawrence Cousin, and she passed through without wetting even the edge of her garments. At the sight of this miracle, afterward often repeated, the peasants looked at one another with fear; and from that time the boldest began to respect the simple maiden whom they had hitherto scoffed at.

After having thus glorified the faith of Germaine by dissipating the material obstacles to the performance of her duty, God wished also to glorify her charity to the poor.

If any one could believe himself exempted from the obligation of charity and alms-giving, it was certainly our shepherdess. She had no superfluities; she lacked even the necessaries of life. What was there, then, to retrench, in her life of extreme privation and severe penance? How economize the reward of her labor, which consisted only of a little bread and water? But charity is ingenious; and, seeing only our suffering Lord in the person of the poor, Germaine often deprived herself of a part of the bread which was allowed for her nourishment, doubly glad to give it to the hungry, and increase the treasure of her privations. Such are the deeds of the saints which will one day reproach us with terrible power! What will the rich man say when he beholds, rising up to confront his hardness of heart, the alms of Lazarus!

The pious liberality of Germaine made her an object of suspicion to her step-mother, who, not divining her resources, accused her of stealing bread from the house. One day she learned that Germaine, who had just gone with the flock, carried in her apron some pieces of bread. Furious, and armed with a cudgel, she immediately ran after her. Some of the other inhabitants of Pibrac happened to be on their way at this very moment to the house of Lawrence Cousin. Seeing this woman almost beside herself with passion, they divined her intentions, and hastened to protect Germaine from the ill treatment with which she was menaced. Overtaking the step-mother, they learned the cause of her anger. Finding Germaine, she seized her apron, and instead of bread, it was filled with bouquets of roses, although it was a season when those flowers were not in bloom. Thus God confounded the malice of her implacable enemy by renewing a miracle, likewise wrought in favor of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and other saints.

From this time, Germaine was regarded as a saint. Lawrence Cousin, conceiving more tender sentiments toward this pious child whom he had so little known, forbade his wife's annoying her any more, and wished to give her a place in his house with the other children. But Germaine, accustomed to suffering and loving privation, besought him to leave her in the obscure place which her step-mother had assigned her.

It was now that Germaine attained and proved the perfection of her humility. We must not consider it a trifling honor to have been esteemed at Pibrac; nor a small reward to have had a place at the fireside of Lawrence Cousin. Human nature is the same everywhere. There is no theatre too small for ambition. We know there are as many cabals for the first place in a village as for the chief place in an empire.

Perhaps it may not be entirely useless to speak of the exterior of the blessed Germaine. The manners and customs of the remote provinces of France retain so much of primitive simplicity, they change so little year after year, and the people in these localities have such a marked appearance, that we may form a reasonable idea of her person and habits.

She is represented in paintings and engravings as we see scores of shepherdesses in the south of France at this day—seated on a hillock in the fields, and surrounded by her flock. With a spindle in her hand, and under her arm the distaff laden with flax, she is spinning, after the primitive manner of that country. She is rather below the medium size, and is slight in form. She has the long head of the Toulousains, and their dark, Spanish complexion and eyes. The face, half hidden by the picturesque scarlet capuchon, is expressive of silence, interior silence; and forcibly speaks of the deep, deep calm within. A pleasing sadness, or rather a subdued joy, veils her face. There is an introspective look about the eyes which shows that her spirit has passed the bounds of sense, and is concentrated in one mysterious thought—some dream of a heavenly world. Sitting alone, away from her kind, her thoughts were pure and holy and bright, like the fragrant flowers of her own green meadows. She must have seemed to the other peasants like some phantom of unearthly love, as she sat there enveloped in a divine ethereal atmosphere. In the distance rise the towers of the church, and the antique château of the Lords of Pibrac, and between murmurs the Courbet. Over all, is the sunlight of her own bright clime.

Perhaps the miracle of the roses is the most popular representation of Saint Germaine, as something not quite so unearthly. There is no mystery about the look of the fierce step-mother, as with one hand she raises the cudgel over the head of the resigned-looking girl, and with the other grasps the apron from which tumble out the bright and fragrant flowers. The face of Germaine is somewhat sad, and her eyes are cast down in fear to the earth. Tremulous and mute she stands before her step-mother, for she is humble and sore afraid. There is a reflective charm about her of which she is wholly unconscious, for it emanates from that spiritual beauty visible only to the intelligences and bright ardors around the throne.

Saint Germaine died soon after the miracle of the roses. Almighty God, having sanctified her by humiliations and sufferings, withdrew her from this world when men, becoming more just, began to render her the honor her virtue merited. She terminated her obscure and hidden life by a similar death, but according to appearance this terrible moment, which confounds human arrogance, gave her no terror or pain.

One morning, Lawrence Cousin, not seeing her come out as usual, went to call her where she slept—under the stairs. She made no reply. He entered and found her upon her bed of vine-branches. She had fallen asleep while at prayer. God had called her to enjoy the reward of eternal life. She had ceased to suffer.

It was about the commencement of the summer of the year 1601 that Saint Germaine entered into the joy of her Lord. She was twenty-two years of age.

That same night two pious men were overtaken near Pibrac by the darkness of night, and obliged to await the return of day in a neighboring forest. All at once, in the middle of the night, the woods were flooded with a light more brilliant than the dawn, and a company of virgins, clothed in white garments and surrounded by a dazzling light, floated by on the darkness toward the house of Lawrence Cousin. Soon after they returned, but there was another in their midst—more radiant still—who had on her head a chaplet of fresh flowers. ...

People came in crowds to her funeral, wishing to honor her whom they had too long despised, whom too late they had known. This was the first testimony of public veneration. Her body was buried in the church in front of the pulpit. Forty-three years after, it was found entire and preserved from corruption. It had been embalmed with her virginal purity. In her hands were a taper and a garland of pinks and heads of grain. The flowers had scarcely faded. The grain was fresh as at the time of harvest.

The holy body was removed and finally placed in the sacristy, where people of all ranks, incited by the wonders wrought at her tomb, came to offer their homage.

In 1843, more than four hundred legally attested miracles had been wrought at her shrine, and so excited the faith of the people in her power before God, that the Archbishop of Toulouse, and nearly all the other prelates of France, petitioned the Holy See for her beatification. It had been desired before the French Revolution, but it was not attempted till the time of Gregory XVI.

When the commissioners went to examine the condition of the remains of the venerable Germaine, a most extraordinary scene took place. The inhabitants of Pibrac, thinking that the beatification of their shepherdess might terminate in the loss of their holy treasure, came in a body to the door of the church. They received the commissioners with threats and even with stones, so it was only with difficulty an entrance could be effected into the church. The furious multitude followed, and the examination was made in the midst of a frightful tumult. "No! no!" was heard on all sides. "No beatification. St. Germaine cures us when we are sick; that is enough. She belongs to us. We wish to keep her."

The brief for the beatification of Germaine Cousin was issued by the order of his holiness Pius IX., on the 1st of July, 1853.

The Triduo which was held at Pibrac, in 1854, in honor of this event, manifested the joy and the faith of the people. Altars, lighted up by the bright sun of France, were erected in the fields once trod by the feet of Germaine, so that hundreds of Masses could be offered at once. The whole country around poured in. Toulouse seemed vacated. There were eighty thousand persons assembled around that shrine. On the first day there were fourteen thousand communicants. In the procession were eighteen hundred young ladies robed in white. They all held white lilies in one hand, and wax tapers in the other, and as they entered the church and passed the altar, they deposited their tapers on one side and their lilies on the other. Conspicuous in the procession were those who had been healed by the intervention of the holy shepherdess. Lights were in their hands, and they made an offering of gratitude at the altar.

The house in which the blessed Germaine had lived was endangered during those days of religious triumph. It was in a tolerable state of preservation, but every one seemed anxious to secure a portion of the walls that once sheltered her, and especially of the spot sanctified by the angel of death.

A resident in the south of France at the time of the beatification of Saint Germaine, as she was even then, with one accord, called in that country, I was forcibly impressed with the enthusiastic veneration and confidence with which she was regarded by all classes. Every week I heard of some new miracle at her tomb; so they soon ceased to excite wonder, and seemed to belong to the established order of events. There was scarcely an individual in my circle of acquaintance who had not been, at least once, to prostrate himself at her shrine, and there was a lively faith in her protection, which proved to me how strongly the spirit of the middle ages still animates the hearts of the faithful.

So popular a devotion was a novelty to me—a "native American"—but I could not long remain insensible to its influence. One misty October day found me likewise an humble pilgrim at the shrine of the holy shepherdess of Pibrac.

The very air of that antique chapel inspires devotion. A supernatural influence seemed to impregnate everything around me. I saw, too, that I was not the only one who felt this subtle influence penetrating to the very heart; for the faces of all the pilgrims, priests, religious, and laymen of every rank who are constantly arriving and departing, were indicative of a holy awe. Though I got there at a late hour, and it was raining, Masses were still being celebrated, and the church was full. It was no festival. It was so every day. Masses were said at every altar from early dawn till the latest canonical hour. Prostrate groups from different parishes were always there, clustered in the nave, or gathered about the shrine; and here and there were lone pilgrims who, like me, had been brought from the ends of the earth. And around and over all were constellations of brightly burning tapers, emblematic of the prayer of faith, left there by the pilgrim as loth he slowly left the hallowed sanctuary.

The tomb of Saint Germaine is in a side chapel, protected by a grate. Her relics are covered with gold and silver and precious stones, ex votes, which gleam in the light of the votive candles around. Involuntarily there comes to the heart in this fitting place, and to the lips, the strain, Exaltavit humiles!

"Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick!" is the cry of every weary, sin-laden heart; above all here, where thou dost love to display thy goodness and thy power. The sacred heart of thy humanity, ever touched with feeling for our infirmities, is not hardened. It is still as tender and as compassionate as when thou didst weep over the grave at Bethany, and thy hand is as powerful. I believe that thou, who art honored in thy saints, dost heal here both soul and body of those who approach thee with faith and with love, especially with love. "Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much," was uttered centuries ago, but has been repeated times without number since, over penitent, loving souls. O power of love over the divine heart! It is only the cold, the feeble in faith, who have no power to draw from this inexhaustible well of compassion.

If every Catholic heart were, as it should be, a chapelle ardente, all aflame with the love of God, how soon would the spiritual infirmities of entire humanity be healed, and the wounds of Christ's bleeding body be bound up!

Reader! let the aspiration of divine love, indulgenced by our sovereign pontiff on the 7th of May, 1854, in honor of the beatification of Germaine Cousin, be often on our lips and in our hearts: "Jesu, Deus MEUS, AMO TE SUPER OMNIA!" Jesus, my God, I love thee above all things!

---

From The Latin Of Prudentius.
An Elegy.

Aurelics Prudentius Clemens, the glory of the early Christian poets, was born in Spain in the year 348. He studied eloquence in his youth under a celebrated master. He was twice made governor of provinces and cities, raised to the highest rank, and placed at the court by the Emperor Theodosius I., next in dignity to his own person.

But in the vigor of his age, he quitted worldly honors and employments, made a pilgrimage to Rome, and thence returning to Spain, led a secluded life, consecrating his leisure to the composition of sacred poems. He is esteemed the most learned of the Christian poets, and, for the sweetness and elegance of his verses, has been compared to Horace.

Venient citò saecula, quum jam
Socius calor ossa revisat,
Animataque sanguine vivo
Habitacula pristina gestet.
Quae pigra cadavera pridem
Tumulis putrefacta jacebant,
Volucres rapientur in auras,
Animas comitata priores.
Quid turba superstes inepta
Plangens ululamina miscet?
Cur tam bene condita jura,
Luctu dolor arguit amens?
Jam moesta quiesce querela,
Lacrymas suspendite matres,
Nullus sua pignora plangat:
Mors haec reparatio vitae est.
Sic semina sicca virescunt
Jam mortua, jamque sepulta,
Quae reddita cespite ab imo
Veteres meditantur aristas.
Nunc suscipe, terra, fovendum,
Gremioque hunc concipe molli;
Hominis tibi membra sequestro,
Generosa et fragmina credo.
Animae fuit haec domus olim
Factoris ab ore create;
Fervens habitavit in istis
Sapientia, principe Christo.
Tu depositum tege corpus;
Non immemor ille requiret
Sua munera fictor et auctor,
Propriique aenigmata vultûs.
Veniant modò tempora justa,
Quum spem Deus impleat omnem;
Reddas patefacta necesse est,
Qualem tibi trado figuram.
Non si cariosa vetustas
Dissolverit ossa favillis,
Fueritque cinisculus arens,
Minimi mensura pugilli;
Nee si vaga flamina, et aurae
Vacuum per inane volantes
Tulerint cum pulvere nervos,
Hominem periisse licebit.

Translation.

The hour is speeding on amain
When back into its olden form,
Once more with ruddy life-blood warm,
The spirit shall return again.
The freed soul soars aloft through space:
So, dust with dust, aloft through air,
This heavy clay swift gales shall bear
From its sepulchral resting-place..
Why doth the crowd surviving fill
The air with a lamenting vain?
Why with such idle griefs arraign
The justice of the Eternal will?
Oh! end these pangs with murmurs rife,
O mothers! cease your tears, your woe;
Weep not for your dead children so,
Death the renewal is of life.
The dead, dry seed lies hid from view,
To burst forth to new glorious bloom;
The former beauty to resume,
The ancient harvest to renew.
O earth! in thy soft bosom keep,
And quicken with new warmth this clay,
This sacred frame to rest we lay.
It smiles in thy embrace to sleep.
'Twas once the immortal spirit's cell.
That breath breathed from the lips divine;
Here was the living wisdom's shrine,
Here deigned the Christ supreme to dwell.
Guard it beneath thy faithful sod,
For He, one day, will re-demand
From thee this labor of his hand.
This breathing likeness of its God.
Oh! for the appointed hour to rend
The grave! the hope God gives is sure:
Safe, beauteous, through these gates obscure
What now descendeth shall ascend.
Yes, though this frame divinely planned
Be wasted by decay and rust,
And naught left save a little dust.
The filling of the smallest hand:
Though these strong sinews ashes be
On wandering breezes wafted wide,
Inviolate ever shall abide
The mortal's immortality.
C. E. B.

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Translated From Der Katholik.
The Ancient Irish Church.

The history of the ancient Irish church, for many reasons, claims our respectful attention. In the time of the migration of the European races, this church had a great mission to accomplish among the Germanic tribes. When the Goths had overrun Spain, the Franks and Burgundians conquered Gaul, the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain, the Vandals spoiled Africa, and the Lombards gained strongholds in Italy; when the Alemanni and Sueves had penetrated into the valleys and claimed the mountains of ancient Helvetia; who was it in those stormy times that elevated the moral condition of those peoples, drew them out of the darkness of German paganism, or converted them from Arianism; regenerated them internally, civilized and incorporated them into the kingdom of God, after they had devastated the provinces of the Western empire, leaving ruins, deserts, confusion, and desolation behind them in their plundering march? It was the missionaries of the ancient Irish church that rescued Europe from the barbarism of that period. Evidently sent by God, those Irish missionaries founded new Christian colonies in different lands, hewed down the forests, civilized the deserts, founded churches, schools, and monasteries. As the Roman empire without the barbarians was nothing but an abyss of slavery and rottenness, so would the barbarians have been a wild chaos without the monks. The monks and barbarians combined produced a new world which we call Christendom.

Germany also owes much to the missionaries of the ancient Irish church. In the olden time Ireland was called the "island of saints and sages;" as her people in our days receive from us the honorable title of "martyr-nation of the west," for their inflexible fidelity to their faith during three centuries of shameless and brutal persecution. "No one but God in heaven knows the number of the saints whose dust is mingled with Irish soil," wrote one of the oldest Irish writers, the biographer of St. Ailbe of Emly. We count, not by hundreds, but by thousands, the holy Irish bishops, abbots, priests, monks, and virgins. Even in the days of St. Patrick, and still more after his successful apostolate, Ireland was not only a great training-school for foreign missionaries, but a second Thebais, in which the exercises of the spiritual life were thoroughly practised, and where students could devote themselves in solitude to the study of philosophy and holy writ under the ablest professors. Pious men went from Britain, from the European continent, from France, and even from Rome, to the classic and holy "island of saints," to learn the doctrines of Christian perfection, literature, and theology, in the renowned monasteries of the land of Columba and Colombanus.

Even to this day Ireland is specially favored by God. There are no snakes in it or other venomous reptiles. The very dangerous portion of the animal kingdom is entirely excluded from its sacred ground; and all attempts to naturalize poisonous creatures there have been unsuccessful. The old Irish rhyme reads:

"St. Patrick was a holy man,
He was a saint so clever,
He gave the snakes and toads his ban,
And drove them out for ever."

Throughout Ireland there are great fields of wheat and grain of every description, and many lakes. The climate is mild, and snow so rare that cattle can graze in the fields all the year round. Rain showers are frequent, and give such fertility and verdure to the soil as no other land in Europe possesses, so that the island is known as "Green Erin," or the "Emerald isle." The plants, flowers, and trees of Ireland, in their shape, color, and material, remind one somewhat of Normandy in France, or of Asturia in northern Spain.

The History of the Ancient Irish Church has been just presented to the public by an author who is in a better condition than most of his contemporaries to write such a work, which charms us more and more the more frequently we read it. We speak of the recent work of the Bishop of St. Gall, Dr. Charles John Greith, in which we recognize one of the greatest efforts of German historical literature. We cannot, therefore, refrain from imparting to our readers an epitome of the contents of this remarkable and highly interesting production. The right reverend author considers his work of four hundred and sixty-two pages as an "Introduction to the history of the Bishopric of St. Gall." He published the book on the commemoration and centenary of the consecration of the cathedral of St. Gall, August 17th and 18th, 1867, and dedicated his literary effort to the chapter and the clergy of his diocese. From early youth the distinguished author has been familiar with the legends and history of St. Gall, and studied them with love and veneration. Love for that great Irish missionary saint, whose worthy successor Dr. Greith is, inspired the work whose continuation we desire most earnestly. "St. Gall has left behind him a world-wide reputation as the apostle of the Swiss Alps. Centuries have not diminished his fame, which the gratitude of Christians sanctions."

Veneration for St. Gall has been spread far beyond the boundaries of Switzerland; from the foot of the Alps to Upper Burgundy and Alsace, even to the limits of the Vosges; then into Brisgau and the Black Forest, to the Suabian Alps, and thence into Nibelgau, and Algau. In all these regions, the monks of St. Gall imparted the blessings of religion and education. Full of admiration for the Christian zeal of St. Gall and his disciples, our author recalls the words spoken by Ermenreich of Reichenau, to Abbot Grimald of St. Gall, over a thousand years ago: "How could we ever forget the island of Ireland, from which the rays of Christian light and the sun of Christian faith have shone upon us!" Taking this expression for his motto, the right reverend writer gives us his magnificent History of the Ancient Irish Church and its Connection with Rome, Gaul, and Germany.

Divided into six books, the work describes in the two first the migrations of the barbarians and the fall of the Roman empire; then the heresies which swarmed in the church of the period; then the school of the island of Lerins, where St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, was instructed. The four last books are consecrated to St. Patrick and his apostleship in Ireland; to St. Columba, the apostle of Scotland; to St. Colombanus and his deeds in France, Flanders, and the north of Italy; and to St. Gall, the apostle of Germany. The sixth and last book treats of Christianity and its customs in the Irish church.

The illustrious author made use of manuscripts as well as printed works in the compilations of his history. Many manuscripts were at his disposal in St. Gall itself. The original sources of ancient Irish history consist of different materials; genealogies which trace the origin of kings or saints and their relatives; annals which give the year of the death of saints, or of other distinguished characters; church calendars which give the day of the month on which the death of a saint occurred; and finally, the lives of the saints themselves. These biographies are copiously used. We cannot restrain our desire to quote what the author thinks of those sources of history. "Erudition is not sufficient for us to judge the biographies of the ancient saints; we must have sympathy with them in their zealous labor; and a spiritual relationship in their faith. Every age must be judged according to the ideas, and customs which prevail in it; and every saint according to the circumstances in which he lives." The poetic as well as the historical element, the legendary as well as the authentic, must be combined in forming a correct estimate of a saint's character.

Even in the early part of the middle ages, every cathedral church, large monastery, or distinguished hermitage, possessed its hagiographers, who wrote the lives of the saints of the place, either from authentic written documents, traditions, or from knowledge acquired as eye-witnesses. Since John Moschus published his collection of legends, extraordinary diligence in the criticism and sifting of the ancient biographies of the saints has been manifested in the church. The collection and critical works of the Bollandists, of Lurius, Mabillon, d'Achery, and others, keep their reputation undiminished to the present day. These writers display such a thoroughness in their researches, that the modern rationalists have been unable to find a flaw of any consequence in their criticism. The truthful historian must describe those apostles of religion and civilization among the Germans, such as they were, children of their century, representatives of its ideas, views, and manners. Following this method, he will not cast doubt on the purity of their motives, or try to lessen their merit in drawing entire nations of barbarians out of the darkness of paganism and immorality into the light of Christianity and virtue. The blind party spirit of our times recognizes no justice, and modern paganism is only satisfied when it can throw everything that is noble and holy out of history. The modern pagans tear with scorn the Holy Scriptures into shreds before our eyes, and subject to a lawless criticism the ablest records of ecclesiastical history, while they try to overturn every monument that might shelter the weary pilgrims of earth on their road to heaven.

II.

The most trustworthy documents regarding the first traces of Christianity in Ireland, inform us that up to the time of Pope Celestine I., (a.d. 422-432,) that country had not been converted. Up to the year of our Lord 432, no Christian missionary had trodden the soil of the island, or caused the light of faith to shine over the hills and through the valleys of green Erin. Palladius and Patrick were the first apostles, (A.D. 430.) It is true, several High-Church English writers have endeavored to prove the establishment of an Irish church prior to St. Patrick; but this theory is unsupported by any authentic documents. Besides, the attempt of those writers was prompted by the partisan desire of proving an original separation in belief between Ireland and Rome. Nevertheless, it is not improbable that many non-commissioned Christians may have gone from Britain and Gaul into Ireland before the year 430, and formed small communities, or lived scattered among the heathens. "On the wings of every day commerce, the flower-seeds of Christian faith must have been borne to Erin from Britain and Gaul; as from the earliest times direct business relations were kept up between Nantes, other harbors of Armoric Gaul, and Ireland. To the north-west of Gaul also came the Irish rovers, under the guidance of some distinguished chieftain, in quest of plunder, and frequently carried off Christians into captivity. In this way St. Patrick, when a youth of sixteen years of age, was taken from the coast of Armorica by the pirates of King Niall, and with many thousand others detained in bondage, as he informs us himself in his writings," (p. 86.)

Besides the fact that there was no Irish church prior to St. Patrick, though there may have been individual Christians in the country, we must prove that the Christianity imported into Ireland was Roman, and that her apostles received their mission from the pope. Pope Celestine, in the year 431, sent Palladius, deacon or arch-deacon of the Roman church, as the first missionary. This apostolic man, who had long been casting his eyes toward Britain and the other western islands of Europe, had a double and very important task to execute in Ireland, namely, to strengthen the dispersed Catholics in the faith, and to evangelize the heathens. He landed in Hay-Garrchon, penetrated into the interior of the country, baptized many, built three churches in the province of Leinster; but, taken altogether, his mission was unsuccessful, and he met with much opposition. "But when Palladius understood that he could not do much good in Ireland, he wanted to return to Rome, and died on the voyage, in the territory of the Picts. Others say that he received the crown of martyrdom in Ireland."

What Palladius begun—but which God's providence willed to remain incomplete—Patrick accomplished in sixty years of apostolic labor. Him God chose as the instrument, and fitted him for this holy work. That he received his commission from Rome from the hands of Pope Celestine, A.D. 432, cannot be doubted; for the fact is confirmed by a crowd of witnesses, both Roman and Irish. We must, therefore, consider and reverence Patrick as the apostle of the Irish people.

All the early Irish annalists unanimously agree that his mission began in the year 432, and that he died in 493—an apostleship of sixty years! How great and glorious for him and for his people!

Patrick was born A.D. 387, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, in modern Picardy, and was of noble Roman origin. In his sixteenth year, in a marauding expedition of an Irish clan called Niall, he was carried prisoner to Armoric Gaul; thence to Ireland, and there sold to a pagan officer named Milcho, whose swine he herded for six years. After this, he escaped, and returned to his native land. Having fully determined to consecrate himself to the service of God, he went to Marmontiers, the monastery of St. Martin of Tours, to study there the principles of Christian science and perfection. A few years after, he visited the happy island of Lerins, near Marseilles, at that time one of the most famous schools in Christendom, and met there, as fellow-students, the holy monks Honoratus, Hilary, Eucherius, Lupus, and others. An interior voice there told him that he should return to Ireland to preach the Gospel in that country; and he therefore travelled from Lerins to Rome, in order to represent to the holy see the darkness of heathenism which brooded over Ireland. But, as the apostolic see was not then in a condition to provide for the Irish mission, Patrick went back to Gaul, and remained with St. Germain of Auxerre, under whose guidance he made further progress in holiness and learning. Such was his life up to the year 429.

In this year he accompanied Bishop Germanus and Lupus to Britain, who were sent by the pope to root out Pelagianism in that country. Thus was Patrick prepared for his apostleship.

It was then he heard of the mission of Palladius, and its failure. (A.D. 431.) The holy Bishop Germanus cast his eyes on Patrick, who knew the Irish language, people, and country from personal observations. Did he not seem peculiarly fitted—sent, in fact, from heaven, to undertake the conversion of the Irish nation?

Patrick, therefore, with the priest Legetius as his companion, went to Rome, and received from Pope Celestine his blessing and the necessary authority to undertake the task of converting Ireland. It is hard to tell now whether he was consecrated bishop by Celestine before his departure, or by Bishop Amatorex, of Eboria, a city in north-western Gaul. He reached Ireland in the first year of Celestine III. A life of continual triumphs began for him. He was repulsed from the coast of Dublin: no matter; he sailed for Ulster, and landed at Strangford. He converts the chieftain Dicho and his whole house, and celebrates his first Mass in Ireland in a neighboring barn. At the royal city of Tara, he meets King Leoghaire, with all his clan; defends and explains Christianity in their presence, and gains a victory over the Druids. Dublach, a Druid and poet, is converted, and sings, for the future, only hymns in the honor of the true God. The daughters of the king, Ethana and Fethlimia, also bow to the yoke of the Gospel, and consecrate their virginity to God, and many other holy women follow their example. Thus, a happy beginning was made in the island.

Soon the converts number thousands. Everything succeeds; the conversion of the Irish people was effected without persecution or martyrs. Patrick frequented the national assemblies, and used the occasion to preach to the multitudes. He destroyed idolatry and idolatrous practices throughout the whole land, and built churches to the living God on places that had hitherto been dedicated to the worship of idols. Wherever he went, he baptized crowds of men, provided the new Christian communities with churches, made the most virtuous of his disciples priests and bishops, and appointed them to govern the faithful, and extend the reign of the Gospel.

Thus did he labor year after year, going about preaching, baptizing, and blessing, in Leinster, Ulster, Munster, and Connaught; and everywhere his astonishing activity and self sacrifice effected wonderful results. Everywhere the people were ready and docile for the reception of Christianity. Divine Providence wonderfully protected him from all danger.

But when the whole island was converted to Christ, congregations formed, and churches erected in all parts of the country, St. Patrick thought of building a metropolitan cathedral for the primate of Ireland. He chose for this purpose the heights of Admarcha, or Armagh, near which stood the old royal fortress of Emania. After the building of his cathedral and the conversion of the Irish, St. Patrick passed the remaining years of his life partly at Armagh, partly at his favorite spot at Sabhul, where he began his missionary career. He assembled a few synods, wrote his Confession, as it is called, on the approach of death, and was attacked by his last illness at Sabhul. When he felt his end approaching, he collected his remaining strength, and endeavored to go to Armagh, which he had chosen as the place of his burial; but, warned by a voice from heaven, he returned to Sabhul, and died there eight days after, on the 17th of March, 493.

III.

Let us now glance at the disciples and followers of this great man. They followed up his work with such zeal and indefatigable activity that, at the end of the sixth century, Christianity was spread over all Ireland. We distinguish, in the Irish church, "Fathers of the First Order," and "Fathers of the Second Order." The holy men from Rome, Italy, Gaul, and especially from Wales or Cambria, who followed St. Patrick as their leader, and aided him in his labors, are the "Fathers of the First Order." Patrick brought with him from Rome, in the year 432, nine assistants; in the year 439, Secundinus, Auxilius, and Iserninus, were sent to him from Rome. The two former of these, together with Benignus, were present as bishops at the first synod of Armagh, in the year 456. Bishop Trianius, a Roman, another disciple of St. Patrick, imitated so exactly the life of the great apostle, that his food was nothing but the milk of one cow, which he took care of himself. The first mitred abbot of Sabhul was Dunnius; and the first bishop of Antrim was Leoman, Patrick's nephew. The oldest Irish bishops appointed by Patrick, were Patrick of Armagh, Fiech of Sletty, Mochua of Aendrun, Carbreus of Cubratham, and Maccarthen, of Aurghialla. Seven nephews of St. Patrick, who followed him from Cambria, are invoked in the Irish litanies as bishops. They are the sons of Tigriada, Brochad, Brochan, Mogenoch, Luman; and the sons of Darercha, Mel, Rioch, and Muna. When the heathen Anglo-Saxons conquered Britain in the year 450, and sought to destroy the old British church, many learned and pious men fled to Ireland, and joined Patrick. Thirty of them were made bishops, and devoted themselves to the special task of converting the neighboring islands. The most renowned of these Welsh missionaries are Carantoc, Mochta of Lugmagh, and Modonnoc, who introduced the rearing of bees into Ireland, where they had never been seen before. Three companions of St. Patrick—Essa, Bitmus, and Tesach—were expert bell-founders, and makers of church-vessels. The fact that Patrick was sent from Rome, that his first assistants were Romans, and that his co-laborers from Gaul and Britain were sons of the Roman church, completely destroys the Anglican hypothesis of an Irish church independent of Rome. Even Albeus, who, on account of his services, was called the second Patrick, Declau, and Ihac, the apostles of the Mumons; Enna, or Enda, the founder of the great monastery of Aran; Condland, Bishop of Kildare, all disciples of St. Patrick, were educated and consecrated bishops in Rome. There also were Lugach, Colman, Meldan, Lugaidh, Cassan, and Ciaran, consecrated and afterward numbered among the earliest bishops and fathers of the Irish church.

From the time of St. Patrick, continual communication was kept up between Rome and Ireland by countless pilgrims, as many documents attest, (Greith, p. 142-156.) Patrick left his love and reverence for the Apostolic See of Peter as a precious legacy to his immediate disciples; and they, in turn, to their successors up to the present day. The frequent pilgrimages of Irish bishops, abbots, and monks, are facts so well proven, that the Anglican theory of a separate Irish church is shown to be a pure invention, no longer contended for as truth by any respectable historian.

Let us now pass to the fathers of the second order in the Irish church, and their illustrious foundations. The founders of those numerous Irish monasteries, which counted their inmates by hundreds and thousands, those men who were mostly brought up by the immediate successors of St. Patrick, belong to the "Second Order of Irish Fathers." Twelve of them, instructed by the renowned Abbot Finnian, at Clonard, are called the twelve apostles of Ireland. At their head stands Columba, the apostle of the Picts, shining among them like the sun among the stars. Their names are, Columba, of Iona, Corngall, of Bangor, Cormac, of Deormagh, Cainech, of Achedbo, Ciaran, of Clonmacnoise, Mobhi, of Clareinech, Brendan, of Clonfert, Brendan, of Birr, Fintan, Columba, of Tirgelass, Molua Fillan and Molasch, of Damhs-Inis. These holy men erected all over Ireland and in the adjacent isles churches and convents, which became centres of art, learning, and sanctity. The monastery of Clonard, founded in Meath by Abbot Finnian, contained during his lifetime three thousand monks. At Clonmacnoise, a monastery founded by St. Ciaran, in the middle of Ireland, agriculture was made a special study; and Monastereven on the Barrow, Monasterboyce in the valley of the Boyne, Dearmach, etc., were renowned institutions. These first and oldest Irish monasteries were not large, regularly-built houses, but composed of numbers of separate cells or huts, made of wicker-work, stalks, and rushes. The church or oratory stood in the midst of the huts, and was made of the same material. It was at a later period that the Roman architecture was introduced into Ireland; and then stone edifices took the place of the primitive structures. Special mention is always made in the Irish annals of the erection of a stone church, for the people preferred wooden buildings, and their preference shows itself up to the twelfth century. The stone churches were looked upon as the fruit of foreign architecture, as St. Bernard informs us in his life of St. Malachy. The Roman church gradually introduced into Ireland the fine arts and a higher order of architecture, as she had done at an earlier date in Gaul and Britain. Choral singing became usual. The church hymns took the place of the Druidical rhapsodies; and the muses of Inisfail forgot to sing of heroes, and learned to tune their harps to sing the praise of Christ and his saints.

The Irish missionaries reclaimed barren lands and made them fertile, ameliorated the condition of agriculture, spread commerce, and discovered new islands in the sea. Many of the Irish saints, at the period of which we are writing, were great navigators.

Dr. Greith paints in glowing colors the life of St. Columba and his labors in Ireland, the Hebrides, and Scotland, as well as the discipline and rules of the Abbey of Hy, which was founded by him. We cannot enter into details, but refer the reader to Dr. Greith's book. Columba was born on the 7th of December, 521. In the first half of his life, Ireland was the scene of his zeal; the second half was spent among the Scots and Picts. In Ireland he founded Durrow, Derry, and Kells. He went with twelve disciples to Caledonia in the year 563. Christianity among the Scots had degenerated; and the Picts were still pagans. The king of the Picts, Brudrius, gave him the island of Iona or Hy, where his works began which God crowned with wonderful success. He soon became the beacon light for all the faithful priests and laity of Ireland and Caledonia. He visited Ireland to counsel his noble relatives, settle their disputes, or oversee the churches and monasteries which he had established, and travelled among the Picts preaching the Gospel, founding monasteries, and erecting churches which should consider Iona as their mother. He built thirty-two churches, to most of which monasteries were attached, in Scotland; and eighteen among the Picts, in the space of thirty-three years, (563-597.) Even during his lifetime he was so celebrated that, from all sides, princes, nobles, bishops, priests, monks, and the faithful of all classes ran to him for counsel in their difficulties, consolation in their distress, and help in their necessities. Columba fought against the superstition of the Picts, the cunning of their magicians, and the wickedness of lawless men. Princes' sons, whose fathers had lost their lives and crowns in battle, went to Iona to lay their grievances before Columba, and to each one according to his need, the saint gave consolation and hope. The common people brought their children to him, to ask him to decide their vocation. It was not an unusual spectacle to see kings and nobles lay aside the insignia of their greatness at Iona, and break their swords before its altars. Columba's prayers were very powerful. His blessing controlled the elements and the forces of nature. He seemed to rule nature as a lord. He had also the gift of prophecy. He died June 9th, A.D. 597. His departure from life was made known to many holy men in different parts of Ireland and Scotland at the same time, who declared that "Columba, the pillar of so many churches, had gone to-night to the bosom of his Redeemer." The isle of Iona was illuminated by a heavenly light, emanating from the countless angels who came down to take up the happy soul of the saint to the bosom of his God.

The Irish monasteries increased wonderfully during the sixth century. Finnian's monastery at Clonard, as already mentioned, contained 3000 monks; and that of Bangor and Birr had the same number; St. Molaissi had 1500 monks around him; Colombanus and Fechin had each 300; Carthach, 867; Gobban, 1000; Maidoc, Manchan, Natalis, and Ruadhan, each 150; Revin and Molua were each the head of several thousand. There was no common rule for all those convents, like that which St. Benedict wrote for the religious of his order, (A.D. 529.) Each monastery had its own laws. Columba had made no special rule for Hy or for his other monasteries. St. Colombanus was the first who collected and methodized the customs and traditions of Irish monastic life.

A thorough investigation of the most ancient custom of the Celtic church, proves that it was in communion with the church of Rome. The trivial differences between the two churches regarded neither dogma, nor morality, nor the essentials of the Liturgy, of the Mass, or the Blessed Sacrament. The supremacy of the pope was recognized by all the Irish; and the celibacy of the clergy observed as in the other Western churches. In the ceremonies of the Mass, it is true, there were certain usages and forms observed not Roman, as was the case also in the churches of Spain and Gaul. The rites of baptism in the Irish church were simpler than those of the Roman. The difference mainly consisted in the style of the tonsure and in the time of celebrating the Easter festival. The Irish and Britons did not keep the reckoning of the Abbot Dionysius the Little, as he is styled, regarding Easter, and tenaciously clung to the old Roman calculation. Every departure from it seemed to them contrary to the traditions of their fathers. It was only in the year 716, and after hard and bitter fighting, that perfect union between Rome and Ireland was effected in this particular.

The history of the Irish, as well as of the British church, is of the greatest importance for Germans who want to know the origin of Christianity in their own land. But we shall develop this point in a second article.

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