ure;" the intellect itself would conspire against the state, and ten to one but the will would be led to the guillotine, or left to eke out a miserable existence, while pride or some kindred passion wit and playful humor, invoked him: would tyrannize over man, "O! et præsidium et dulce decus meum." nas is certainly of royal extraction and the glory of a most glorious age, for he whom a great man (I mean an English poet), styled inimitable for soul-stirring. And has it not been so from time But what of Pisistratus ?-he too was immemorial? Were the Grecians free, the patron of learned men. Nay; he with all their towering intellect? Ask himself collected the scattered remains Socrates, whose capital offence was to of the Mooniam bard, compacted, and have come too near the true idea of God, transmitted then to posterity. Will any and to have worshiped according to the one dare to weigh his tyranny after this, dictates of his conscience. Was pagan without putting in the opposite scale his Rome free? Ask the heroic martyrs, preservation of Homer? Can any be whose only crime was their refusal to found so dead to the beauties of the deify the Cæsars. Were the Egyptians Prince of Song? None surely in our free, those pioneers of so-called civiliza- age of enlightenment. tion? Ask Juvenal, who so immortalizes the gods that grew in their gardens: Porrum et cepe nefas violare ac frangere morsu O sanctas gentes, quibus hæc nascuntur in hortis Numina ! Oh! how delightful and far above the other senses is that of seeing! What a magnificent boon is light! How varied the pleasures it spreads out before us in endless profusion! I behold a graceful What were all those who, breaking form. The dream of Hercules could not loose from moral restraint, gave wings equal this. She sits a goddess, she to their intellect and imagination? Ask walks a queen. Literature is in her the inspired Apostle: "Esteeming them- train. Poets do her homage. Comselves to be wise, they became fools." merce takes wings at her benevolent "God gave them up to a reprobate look. Prosperity besieges the land. sense, to do such things as is shameful to The gorgeous pageantry of her court utter." But perhaps they were the could employ a dozen Spencers, and ignorant multitude who were so degrad- leave enough to be gleaned by future ed, a class always capable of any extrav- laureates. Indeed this is the Fairie agence, of whom one of the better sort, Queen. The Elizabethan age is risen: because more enlightened-one of the Roll back, ye mists; Cimmerian gloom give way, literati of those times-says, " Odi pro- And let a race of brilliants now hold sway. fanum vulgus et arceo." Let us hear one No more patristic and scholastic lore of the best of this herd of literary flat- Shall overcast fair Albion's glittering shore. Come, glorious Locke, unlock the cells of thought And teach us all to reason as we ought. O mighty lever of a single mind! To exalt, refine and sublimate mankind. Hold Bacon comes; the dynasty resign, O ill-starred Pope, why stigmatize as mean And let a master-mind's New Organ shine. The man whose like the world has never seen! terers: Deus nobis hæc otia fecit, Namque erit ille mihi semper deus. And why? Because Augustus, to make amends for his cruelties and want of virtue, thought well to make a donation of a small farm to a literary genius. Octavius was no fool. He is immediately deified for his liberality. He is forever after among the Caesarea Sidera. Mæce But let us clip the wings of our en thusiasm, and stand again on our vantage ground, the terra firma of common sense. Power is very fascinating. ion. Now, literary men, for that they have der if knowledge has claimed to be knowledge, know all its charms, and power, and power in turn boasted to be knowing, they admire and praise and knowledge. These are the two Spartanlove; but the ancients, not without kings; they had no queens according to reason, represented Cupid as the blind the laws of Lycurgus. Let them quarlittle deity. And even the sober Aris-rel occasionally. They will make it up totelians admitted "Nihil cognitum, nihil again. It was not of them Horace said: volitum." Now, the tendency of love is "Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur to unite. Here there is an enigma achivi." These are the two consuls awaiting another Oedipus. How can from whom the ages are marked as the the light remain if darkness be superin-hours upon a dial whose names are induced? As this is the age of essays, I scribed on monuments are perennius, if will essay a solution. Besides, I am not not in the hearts and memories of the trammeled by logic; for if not by people. These are the two streams common consent, at least by the Gram- that drain, if they do not fertilize, the mar of Assent, logic has been relegated rich valleys of all lands, bearing along to another age. The fact is this, to the freighted cargoes of individual borrow a favorite expression from a thought into the ocean of public opinmodel essayist, or better, the more laconic, "the truth is." The riddle bears solution in one of the following ways: Either there are varieties of lights and varieties of powers, as there are varieties of greatness, and a man may be a lynx in one while he is a bat in the others, just as a man may be a pigmy in intellect, though a giant in bodily strength. Again, it may be that the light remains while darkness is all around it, as when a solitary star looks out from between two clouds upon a drowsy world. Or, finally, it may be that the mind is so shut up in its own speculations, bent on matters of "high emprise," that it fancies there can be no light beyond it, even as a person who had never come up from a coal-pit would think the lamp above his head the only sun in the uni verse. But if the how be not made clearer, we may refer the cause to its being so patent that it is seen intuitively, and assume it as an axiom that knowledge is enamored of power, it does not matter which of the family, for it has many members. And being united and made one, it is not, after all, matter for won The same But softly! We must be cautious in our demeanor before this present deityPublic Opinion. This is that just power that ostracized Aristides. that reached Socrates the hemlock. The same that cries out from time to time: "Vox populi, Vox Dei." The same that once cried out in France, "Let us have the Goddess Reason." The same that cried out a moment ago in Spain, "The revolutionists alone are freemen." The very same that formerly shouted: "Away with him, we have no king but Cæsar." The same, too, which now says, "There is no right but in the sword: Let Rome be the patrimony of those who have the courage to depise the precepts of religion and dare to trample upon every vestige of effete. antiquity. O wondrous weight of that one word, "What will people say?" How many a scale has it brought down, hanging in air long speeches of conscience! But let us jump at a few conclusions and take breath while looking back at how we have reached them. This is a branch of gymnastics extremely invigor ating and dates back to a venerable an- |lous conscience relative to the victims tiquity. It was one of the pancratic of persecution in Ireland? Would not exercises in ancient Greece. this have also changed Prescott's admirMankind are at this moment sailing able parallel between Elizabeth and on the ocean of public opinion. Those Isabella into a striking contrast? This known by the name of "we" are at the would certainly leave nothing to say to helm. Captain Power and first mate the apologists of Mary, Queen of Scots. Wealth issue the orders. The passen- Sir Walter Raleigh should have been gers comprise three classes: The pass- set at large, had it been pleaded that he port to the first is money; to the sec- wrote a History of the World. Washond, marketable knowledge; to the ington did very wrong in signing the third, a negative quantity. These last death warrant of Major Andre; for he are the promiscuous crowd. Whoever was a young man of no common literary has accumulated only virtue, is stowed taste and no ordinary acquirements. away with it in the hold. Now, what They must have been no better than effect has this arrangement? Why, backwoodsmen who counseled Washthat every little Hannibal is brought to the altar of Dollar or Fame and made to promise never to have peace at home or abroad till victory has crowned him at one or the other shrine. Woe be to virtue if she thwart this heroic resolve. Now you see him leaping over the Pyrenees and sliding down the Alps. ington to such a total disregard of the claims of a liberal education as must fix at least one stain upon his character. But we have hazarded speculations enough, if we do not wish to turn bankrupt. To sum up, virtue should be placed above knowledge. Knowledge, if united with virtue, should be esteemed worthy of double honor; without it, should be feared. Physical strength is inferior to mental, mental to moral or religious strength. All man's greatness must be in one or more of these three. Heaps of money add nothing to a man. They are his surroundings, his gilded trappings. St. Joseph was not rich, and there was not a more dignified man on earth. The Apostles were not learned, in the common sense of the term, and they regenerated the world. Why are we ashamed to take truth for our motto? The virtuous man studies to do the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven. And he or she who does that best, deserves the highest honor, as Opposuit natura Alpemque nivemque: Diducit Ecopulos, et montem rumpit aceto. Juvenal says that oratory cut off the head of Demosthenes and adorned the rostrum with the head and hands of Cicero. But no wonder, since they did not wed it to power. How could it lead a life of celibacy? Indeed, even in later times, some excellent men have had too much ingenuousness and not enough shrewdness to carry their point. To what else could we attribute such an omission in Froude and other defenders of Queen Elizabeth, as that she gave Killcolman Castle with 3,500 acres at tached, a truly royal gift, to the author of the Fairie Queen, and that, too, after ejecting the Earl of Desmond to make does the Immaculate one who said: room for the favorite of Parnassus? "Let it be done unto me according to Would not this silence the most scrupu- Thy Word." A TALE FOR THE MONTH OF MAY. BY JOSEPH. A star-lit night in the month of May Trembling in every limb, with a face cast its shadows upon a quiet lane, awakened into eagerness by past memothrough which, with unsteady step, ries, he slowly entered the church, and walked an old man arrayed in tattered there a scene, more of heaven than of garments. As the moon emerged ever earth, met his view. An altar, brilliantand anon from the fleecy clouds passing ly lighted and adorned with choicest over its face, the light shone on the flowers; a statue of the Virgin Mary, countenance of the wayfarer, revealing her brow encircled by a crown of dazhis haggard, dissipation-stained features, and seeming to invest with a radiance of mercy even his very misery and degradation. Sorrowfully he pursued his way, like one deserted by the world, with head hung down, never looking up at the beautiful heaven above, until a faint sound came floating upon the evening air, and, as he approached nearer and nearer, it grew in sweetness like the melody of angels. At last he stopped before an humble cross-crowned church, and leaning his aching head against the railings, listened to the voices within as they sang: As the dewy shades of even Listen to my vesper prayer. Free my thoughts from aught defil'd; With thy wings of mercy, cover Safe from harm thy helpless child. Thine own sinless heart was broken, Of thy tender love so true. Mary take me to thy care. Some powerful emotion ran through the old man's frame and moved him as the reed is swayed by the passing wind. zling light and her face seeming to beam with all a mother's love upon the children who knelt before her shrine and chanted hymns in her praise. In the shadow of a dark corner he knelt down upon the church floor, and as the little voices intoned their sweet melodies, the bitter tears flowed from his aged eyes. Recollections of days, long since gone by, came back to him, when he too was a pure and spotless "child of Mary” and when, in the May days of long ago, he decorated her altar with garlands of flowers. Oh! how he yearned for those days of innocence to return again, and with bowed head thought of the misfortune and sin, through which he had fallen so low! The childish voices ceased and the echo of the last departing little footstep had died away, but he knew it not, and still kneeling, thought upon all the lost happiness of his life, until in the anguish of the moment he sobbed aloud. A venerable, white-haired priest came to where he knelt, and gently raising him said: "My friend, you are troubled, cannot I help you ?" The old man looked up at the calm face of the speaker, and then casting his eyes down in shame replied: "Father, I am a poor, miserable va grant, who once knew better days. came into the church, hearing the music of the children, and it has made me feel how deep I have sunk since I, too, was like them. Now I'll go. Such a wretch as I am should not be here, in this holy place." "Stay, my friend," urged the priest; "God has touched your heart and you must not refuse His grace. Come with me and tell me of your life; and remember, my brother, there is no life so dark but can be made bright again." But that beautiful May night had aroused him from his lethargy, and the scenes he witnessed in the simple church touched a heart long insensible to its own misfortune. A holy light of charity beamed in the eyes of the good priest as he heard the old man's story. He determined with the help of God, to save this troubled soul and poured forth into the ear of the wanderer, the earnest language of religion and hope. He at last succeeded, and the refreshing waters of penitence cleared away the bitterness and misery which had made one life so dark and dreary. How Heaven must have smiled upon that scene of forgiveness and mercy. How the angels must have praised her, the "Refuge of sinners" and "Comfort of the afflicted," whose power awakened that old man's heart, and led him back to a pure manhood once again. The priest was not a philanthropist : he was more than that, he was a minister of God. With him charity was not an abstract theory, it was an active, living duty. He was not content to simply bring back this lost sheep to the fold, but resolved to watch over the few remaining years of the old man's life. Silently the wanderer obeyed, and with tears of long-pent-up feeling trickling down his withered cheeks, followed the priest to the sanctuary. There, encouraged by words of cheer and comfort, he told the story of his life, and in the generous heart of the listener, found the sympathy he so sorely needed. His tale was a sad, but not a strange one. Like thousands in the world he had rioted and feasted in his youth, until the dread days of retribution came. A proud father, a fond mother and a loving wife, had been taken away by the kind hand of death, before he fell entirely from manhood and became a slave to the insanity of passion. The demon of intemperance that ruins so many of the fairest of earth, accomplished his de- After that May night these two men struction. Step by step, from the mad lived together, the penitent serving the revelry of the gilded saloon to the brut-priest in their little household, with a ish orgies of the rum shop, he fell lower love and veneration too deep to be exand lower, until he became a drunken pressed in words. Little by little the outcast among his fellow-men. It was well, as he wearily said himself, that when he had fallen so low, there were no friends nor kindred to care or sorrow for him, no heart but his own to be bro- afforded him the greatest pleasure, to ken by the degradation of his lot. He was alone in the wide, wide world; and now when age had whitened his locks, he was a helpless wanderer, homeless and penniless, often without a mite to eat, or a place to rest his failing limbs. sad past became a dream to the old man, and the future, though on earth it could be but short, was full of joy and peace. It was one of his duties, which take care of the little church, and especially to adorn Mary's altar. As his good resolves were strengthened his devotion to the Mother of God became more ardent, for to her intercession he attributed his rescue from misery. He |