SONNET.
St. Francis and St. Dominic.
Francis and Dominic, the marvels twain
Of those fair ages faith inspired and ruled,
When Christendom, alike by darkness schooled
And light, served God, and spurned the secular chain.
Strong brother-saints of Italy and Spain,
The nations, Christian once, whose love hath cooled,
The sects pride-blind, the sophists sense-befooled,
Your child-like, God-like lowliness disdain!
But ye your task fulfilled! All love the one,
Christ's lover, burning with seraphic fire;
All light the other, from the cherub choir
Missioned, a clouded world's re-risen sun;
Warriors of God! for centuries three at bay
Those crowned lusts ye kept that gore his church to-day.
Aubrey de Vere.
Rome—Convent of St. Buonaventura.
THE HOUSE OF YORKE.
CHAPTER XI.
POLEMICS AND THE WEATHER.
It is trite to say that error is most dangerous when mingled with truth; but never was this saying more applicable than in the case of the Native American or Know-Nothing party. "America for Americans" was not all a cry of bigotry and exclusion: the hospitality and freedom of the nation had been abused, and a reform was needed. But, unfortunately, it was possible to make the question a religious one. The fact that the greater part of the crime in cities is committed by foreigners, and that the majority of foreigners in the country are at least nominally Catholic, could easily, by a lame syllogism, be turned against the church. But what matter how lame the syllogism, when prejudice props it on the one side and malice on the other?