From this life of happiness Mary is disturbed by a summons from her sister, who had married and gone to a home of her own, leaving the aged grandmother, who had been the support of their childhood, without the attendance she so much needed. Mary is called back to Ireland, and, after a hard struggle, resolves to go. It will perhaps have seemed that we have drawn more largely from the text than is usual in notices of this kind; but the extraordinary beauty of the poem would justify much more copious extracts. We cannot leave it without giving some lines from the description of Mary's life in its last period, after her return home: Aud so once more she trod this rocky vale, A humbler gentleness was o'er her thrown; With gusts of flying spleen; nor feared she now And such strange sweetness came to her, men said Ever a nun, she ministered with looks That healed the sick. The newly-widow'd door Had pleased her more than childish ways; but now, A spotless flock, sat round her. From her smiles In God's great Book above. So passed her life ;— But, like an autumn-mocking day in spring, The sweets were sweeter for the rain, the growth Many of the shorter pieces are perfect in their way. Here is one that will wed itself naturally to some graceful and pathetic melody. All sorts of composers have been doing, and overdoing, Longfellow in this way. Will not some one try his hand at this? LINES. Only a reed that sighed :— And the poplar grove hard by From a million of babbling mouths replied: Only a dove's low moan : And the new-gorged raven near Let fall from the red beak the last white bone, The pale, still face too soon Was paler, stiller thrice : And ere the rose burst in the breast of June, We have but one extract more to give. We could not omit it now, when all men's eyes, whether they will or no, are turned in one direction. It is taken from the piece entitled "A Wanderer's Musings at Rome" : Hark that peal! From countless domes that high in sunlight shake, A thousand bells roll forth their harmonies : The City, by the noontide flame oppressed, Even now, Along the Pincian steep, with youthful step Precede their grave preceptors. Courts grass-grown, Of prince or prelate of the Church, intent On some majestic rite. That peal again ! It pauses through the dusky archway drawn ; The sacred pageant rests. With stealthy motion, Flows back from vein to vein. That sound prevails To Christ, for ever present, to His Saints, Rome, O Rome! Surely thy strength is here.-Pp. 117-119. If the tendency of Catholic criticism amongst us has sometimes been towards an exaggerated appreciation of the works of contemporary Catholic writers, that is not a reason why we should rush into the opposite extreme, and shrink from giving all the praise that is due to men of rare genius and culture, when, spurning the fame that might be cheaply won by following the current of popular favour, they bravely labour, amid much discouragement, and with little or no earthly recompense, for such ends only as their conscience approves. We do not hesitate, therefore, to claim for Mr. de Vere the widest and most welcoming audiences among those of our body—and we know they are very many-to whose hours of leisure a high and pure literature brings a refreshment and solace only in ferior to that which comes, at times of graver thought, from holier influences. For "thoughts that breathe and words that burn," they need not have recourse to sources tainted by falsehood and corruption, while writers such as he can fill their minds with noble conceptions and graceful images, steeped in the golden glow of faith and resplendent with the silvery sheen of purity. ART. V.-FATHER FABER'S WORK IN THE CHURCH. Devotion to the Pope and Devotion to the Church. By the late FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D.D. Third edition. NOT OT many men leave vestiges of their passage through the world. Of those who do, a majority would probably desire, if it were possible, to efface them. But this craving for oblivion, whether suggested by remorse or inspired by humility, is always doomed to disappointment. The world refuses to forget, however unwisely it may appreciate, actions of a certain weight and gravity, especially those of which the effect survives the performers. Such actions, considered in their results, form the most critical chapters in the history of the human family. They belong to the universal record. They colour the thoughts of many generations, and when they prove to be the germs of new systems, or become embodied in new institutions, they endure as long as the races by whom the latter are adopted. But if certain actions acquire an inevitable immortality, it is not always those which have had most influence in shaping the destinies of men which fill the largest place in their memory, or continue to attract their gratitude. In the ceaseless conflict between good and evil, which begins anew every day, the most signal benefactors of human society are often supplanted in popular esteem by others who had bequeathed to posterity only a legacy of crimes or errors, and whose new maxims are approved the more eagerly, because they tend to discredit ancient services which the foolish world no longer values, and desires to forget. It wishes to obliterate memories which have become a reproach, and rudely cancels obligations which it has resolved not to recognize. If Popes and Bishops, acting in person or by the instrumentality of religious communities, have been in every age the conservators of all the good which is still to be found in the world, and the principal architects of that peculiar civilization which distinguishes Christian nations from the heathen societies of old, their claim to our gratitude is not likely to be admitted by men who are conspiring to corrupt that civilization, to assimilate it to pagan types, and to limit, with that object, ecclesiastical influence within so narrow a field, that it shall neither be able to perpetuate its own creations, nor to combat those which the world proposes to substitute for them. It is a But if the world forgets or disparages its benefactors, Christians sec in this ingratitude only an additional motive for exalting them. To refuse to such men the homage of love and respect, is to refuse it to Him from whom they received their gifts. Others have lived for themselves, but these for all mankind. And though this is true in the most eminent degree only of the few whose actions have become a monument for all time, it applies in a lower sense to every workman of their class, who, in his own day and in his own measure, has freely chosen to be the servant of his brethren, has consented to postpone all thought of personal ease and comfort to another life, and resolved to make the glory of God and the salvation of souls the only aim and purpose of his existence. decisive proof of the perpetual presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, that, in every land, and in every generation, men of this heroic temper abound. They are at least as numerous in our own time, in spite of the contrary phenomena which some regard so despondingly, as at any epoch since the Apostolic age. Perhaps their number has never been so great. To say nothing of saints, nor of the vast army of religious who dedicate their whole life by a solemn vow to a ministry of love and sacrifice, nor of the multitude of lay persons who now emulate in the world virtues which were once deemed peculiar to the cloister,--every one duly called and elected to the ecclesiastical state, and faithful to all which that vocation implies, is of the school of the Apostles, and, in proportion to his gifts, a continuator of their work. What good princes and wise statesmen are in the temporal order, to compare small things with great, such men are in the spiritual. They are, like their predecessors, the only real and permanent benefactors of the human race. No labours which secular zeal can initiate, or natural benevolence inspire, may be compared with theirs, because they spring from lower motives, and are directed to lower ends. If such efforts, which always end in total or partial failure, and are constantly renewed only to lead again to the same results, were as effectual as, in fact, they are weak and unproductive, they would still accomplish only temporal good, and promote only transient interests. They do not so much as profess to have any supernatural aim, and a well-known organ of English rationalists has lately announced, as if it were a self-evident truth, that "modern philanthropy and Christianity are two things fundamentally opposed to each other."* * Pall Mall Gazette, October 12, 1869. |