America should never forget it.
Student.
Drunkenness in Old Times.
The offence of drunkenness was a source of great perplexity to the ancients, who tried every possible way of dealing with it. If none succeeded, it was probably because they did not begin early enough by intercepting some of the ways and means by which the insidious vice is incited and propagated. Severe treatment was often tried to little effect. The Locrians, under Zaleucus, made it a capital offence to drink wine if it was not mixed with water; even an invalid was not exempted from punishment, unless by the order of a physician. Pittacus, of Mitylene, made a law that he who when drunk, committed any offence, would suffer double the punishment which he would do if sober; and Plato, Aristotle and Plutarch applauded this as the height of wisdom. The Roman censors could expel a Senator for being drunk and take away his horse; Mahomet ordered drunkards to be bastinadoed with eighty blows. Other nations thought of limiting the quantity to be drunk at one time or at one sitting. The Egyptians put some limit, though what is not stated. The Spartans, also had some limit. The Arabians fixed the quantity at twelve glasses a man; but the size of the glass was, unfortunately, not clearly defined by the historians. The Anglo-Saxons went no further than to order silver nails to be fixed on the side of the drinking cups, so that each might know the proper measure. And it is said that this was done by King Edgar after noticing the drunken habits of the Danes. Lycurgus, of Thrace, went to the root of the matter by ordering the vines to be cut down. His conduct was imitated in 704 by Terbulus of Bulgaria. The Suevi prohibited wine to be imported. And the Spartans tried to turn the vice into contempt by systematically making their slaves drunk once a year to show their children how foolish and contemptible men looked in that state. Drunkenness was deemed much more vicious in some classes of persons than in others. The ancient Indians held it lawful to kill a king when he was drunk. The Athenians made it a capital offence for a magistrate to be drunk, and Charlemagne imitated this by a law that judges on the bench and pleaders should do their business fasting. The Carthagenians prohibited magistrates, governors, soldiers and servants, from any drinking. The Scots, in the second century, made it a capital offence for magistrates to be drunk: and Constantine II. of Scotland, 1761, extended a like punishment to young people. Again, some laws have absolutely prohibited wine from being drunk by women; the Massillians so decreed. The Romans did the same, and extended the prohibition to young men under thirty. And the husband and the wife's relations could scourge the wife for offending, and the husband himself might scourge her to death.
The Paschal Candle.
From the French of Rev. Michael Romanet, Augustinian, by Th. Xr. K.
From Septuagesima to Holy Saturday, everything in the liturgy breathes a profound sadness. During those seventy days, like the captives of Babylon, the sacred spouse clad in mourning garments, no longer sings her glad canticles; she, too, has hung her harp on the willows beside the brook. The song of the angels is heard no more at Mass except on the festivals of the saints, instead of that loud cry of gladness, the divine Alleluia, there is naught but a severe and dragging melody; and, on Sunday, the night office loses its magnificent Ambrosian hymn.
The closer the day of her spouse's death approaches, the deeper the Church is plunged in grief.