SAUNTERING.

"Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb,Take this new treasure to thy trust,And give these sacred relics roomTo slumber in the silent dust,"

singing the hymn through.

In a confined place the sailor's voice would have been too powerful, and, perhaps, would have sounded rough; but in open air, with no wall nearer than the distant hills, no ceiling but the sky, and with the complex low harmony of the ocean bearing it up and running through all its pauses, it was magnificent. He sang slowly and solemnly, his arms folded,his face devoutly raised, and the clouds seemed to part before his voice.

When the hymn was ended, he remained a moment without motion or change of face, then stooped for his shovel, and began to fill in the grave.

While listening to him, Edith Yorke had stood in a solemn trance, looking far off seaward; but at sound of the dropping gravel, her quiet broke up, like ice in spring. She threw her arm, and her loose hair with it, up over her head, and sobbed behind that veil. But her tears were not for Mr. Rowan. Her soul had taken a wider range, and, without herself being aware of it, she was mourning for all the dead that ever had died or ever should die.

The first sunbeam that glanced across the water showed a feather of smoke from a steamer that came up through the Narrows into the bay, and the row-boat, a lessening speck, making for the wharf. Twice a week, passengers and freight were taken and left at this wharf, three miles below the town.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Saunterer (fromSainte Terre), a pilgrim to holy lands or places.—Thoreau.

"They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean," says Thoreau. I found the Holy Land in Paris, the city of fashion and gaiety, and wherele suprême bonheuris said to be amusement. Every church is a station of the divine Passion, and to every votary therein could I say:

"I behold in theeAn image of him who died on the tree.Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns."

Before these churches, consecrated to some sweet mystery of the Gospel or bearing the hallowed names of those who had put on the sacred stole of Christ's sufferings, I always stopped. I was like Duke Richard, in theRoman du Rau:

"Whene'er an open church he found,He entered in with fervent meansTo offer up his orisons;And if the doors were closed each one,He knelt upon the threshold stone."

And one might well kneel upon the threshold stone of these ancient churches, feeding mind and soul with sacred legends of the past embodying holy truths which are depicted on the outer walls, as at the north door of Notre Dame de Paris, the arch of which contains in many compartments representations of a diabolic pact and of a deliverance effected by our potent Lady, which is related in a metrical romance composed by Ruteboef, in the time of St. Louis. Saladin, a magician, wears a cap of pyramidal form. And what a mine of legendary and biblical lore all over these venerable walls! Sermons in stones come down to us from the stonen saints in their niches and the bas-reliefs which speak louder than human tongues. The first stone of this edifice was laid by Charlemagne, and the last by Philip Augustus. How much this fact alone tells! And there is the Porte Rouge, anexquisite specimen of the Gothic style of the fifteenth century, the expiatory monument of Jean-sans-Peur after the assassination of the Duke of Orleans. In the arch are the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, in the attitude of supplication, one on each side of our Saviour and the Blessed Virgin. It is an eternalLibera me de sanguinibus, Deus.

And then the Portail du Milieu, with the last judgment in the ogive, the angels sounding the last trump, the dead issuing forth from their graves, the separation of the righteous from the wicked, the great Judge with the emblems of the crucifixion, the Virgin and the loved apostle John, and, finally, a glimpse of the joys of heaven and the horrors of hell. Yes, one could linger here for days before thisBiblia pauperum, were there no more powerful attractions within. And this is not the only church the very exterior of which is full of instruction.

In the porch of St. Germain de l'Auxerrois is the statue of a maiden holding in one hand a breviary and in the other a lighted taper. By her is a demon with a pair of bellows, vainly trying to blow out the light—symbol of faith and prayer. This is the statue of one who deserves to be ranked in history with Joan of Arc on account of her heroism, for twice she saved Paris by her courage and her prayers. Would that she might once more have intervened to save the capital of fair France from the invader! St. Genevieve is placed thus at the entrance of the church of St. Germain to remind us of his connection with her history.

When St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre, and St. Lupus, the learned Bishop of Troyes and the intimate friend of Sidonius Apollinaris, were on their way to Britain to combat the heresy of Pelagianism, they passed through the village now called Nanterre, about two leagues from Paris. All the inhabitants of the place poured forth to meet them and obtain their benediction. St. Germain noticed in the crowd a little girl with a face as radiant as an angel's. His prophetic instinct told him she was destined to be a chosen vessel of God's grace, and, when she expressed a wish to be the spouse of Christ, he led her with him to the church, holding his apostolic hands upon her head during the chanting of the vesper service. He afterward suspended a bronze medal, on which was a cross, from her neck, in remembrance of her consecration to God, bidding her henceforth give up all ornaments of silver and gold. "Let them who live for this world have these," said he. "Do thou, who art become the spouse of Christ, desire only spiritual adorning." Dr. Newman says it was a custom, even among the early Christians, to wear on the neck some token of the mysteries of their religion. Long after, in memory of this event, the Canons of St. Genevieve, at Paris, distributed upon her festival apain béniton which was an impression of this coin.

Eighteen years after, St. Germain again passed through Nanterre, once more on his way to Britain. He had not forgotten Genevieve. At the age of fifteen, she had received the virgin's veil from the hands of the Bishop of Paris. Her parents dying, she went to Paris to reside with her godmother. Here she suffered that persecution so often the lot of those who live godly lives. Those who outstrip their fellows even on the path of piety are objects of envy, and they who leave the beaten track of everyday religion are derided. St. Genevieve was visited at Paris by the holy Bishop of Auxerre, who saluted her with respect as atemple in which the divine Presence was manifest. Her life was one of prayer and penance. She used to water her couch with her tears, and when the adversary of our souls extinguished the taper that lighted her vigils she rekindled it with her prayers. When Attila, king of the Huns, threatened Paris, she besought the inhabitants not to leave their homes, declaring that Heaven would intervene to save them. The barbarians, in effect, were dispersed by a storm, and betook themselves toward Orleans. In the church of St. Germain there is a chapel dedicated to St. Genevieve, with a painting representing her haranguing the inhabitants of Paris.

When Childeric besieged Paris, and sickness and famine were carrying off the inhabitants, St. Genevieve laid aside her religious dress, took command of the boats that went up the Seine for succor, and brought back a supply of provisions. And when the city had to surrender, the conquerer treated her with marked respect, and Clovis loved to grant her petitions. The remains of paganism were rooted out of Paris through her influence over him and Clotilda, and the first church built on the spot that now bears her name, but then dedicated under the invocation of Sts. Peter and Paul. In that church was the shepherdess of Nanterre buried beside Clovis and Clotilda. St. Eloi wrought a magnificent shrine for her remains, but it was destroyed at the Revolution, and the contents publicly burned. A portion of her relics is now enshrined at the Pantheon. I found lights burning there, and flowers and wreaths, and votive offerings, and the sweet-smelling incense of prayer rising from a group of people praying around. But the magnificence of the Pantheon is miserably depressing, as Faber says. How much more I delighted in the interesting church of St. Etienne du Mont, where is the curious old tomb of St. Genevieve! There too were lights and ex-votos, and an old woman sat near the tomb to dispense tapers to those who wished to leave a little gleam of love and prayer behind them. Once what lights and jewels blazed around such shrines, and what crowds of devout pilgrims! Now, a few dim tapers, a few prayerful hearts, light up the place.

"Now it is much if here and thereOne dreamer, by thy genial glare,Trace the dim Past, and slowly climbThe steep of Faith's triumphant prime."

Now the world seems to begrudge the temple of the Most High the silver and the gold that belong to him. And jewels are not to be thought of. Such wealth must be kept in circulation, that is, on Prince Esterhazy's coat, I suppose, and by ladies of fashion. The world nowadays is like Julian the Apostate, who was displeased at the magnificence of the chalices used in the Christian churches. For me, I love these offerings from time to eternity, as Madame de Staël says. Let all that is most precious be poured out at the feet of the Saviour, and let no one murmur if such offerings are crystallized. I took pleasure in looking at some splendid vessels of the sanctuary at Notre Dame, and thought:

"Never was gold or silver graced thusBefore.To bring this body and this blood to usIs moreThan to crown kings,Or be made ringsFor star-like diamonds to glitter in.When the great King offers to come to meAs food,Shall I suppose his carriages can beToo good?No! stars to goldTurned never couldBe rich enough to be employed so.If I might wish, then, I would have this bread,This wine,Vesselled in what the sun might blush to shedHis shineWhen he should see—But till that be,I'll rest contented with it as it is."

"Never was gold or silver graced thusBefore.To bring this body and this blood to usIs moreThan to crown kings,Or be made ringsFor star-like diamonds to glitter in.

When the great King offers to come to meAs food,Shall I suppose his carriages can beToo good?No! stars to goldTurned never couldBe rich enough to be employed so.

If I might wish, then, I would have this bread,This wine,Vesselled in what the sun might blush to shedHis shineWhen he should see—But till that be,I'll rest contented with it as it is."

In my saunterings I frequently lingered before the tower of St. Jacques de la Boucherie, the highest in Paris, and the most perfect specimen of Gothic architecture. The remainder of the church was demolished at the Revolution. The tower was saved by the artifice of an architect, who besought the crowd to imitate the enlightened English revolutionists, who destroyed their churches, but preserved the towers to be converted into shot-houses! In this church crowds used to assemble to hear Bourdaloue thunder, as Madame de Sévigné expresses it. I fancy I can hear that uncompromising preacher ringing out like a trump in the presence of the Great Monarch, "Thou art the man!" This exclamation should have appealed to the heart of the people, and saved the church he loved from profanation.

This church was built by the alms of pious people. Nicholas Flamel built the portal in 1388, which he covered with devout images and devices, which were regarded, even by the antiquaries of the last century, as symbols of alchemy. This Flamel was a benefactor to many churches and hospitals of Paris, which he took pleasure in adorning with carvings in which he made all things tributary, as it were, to the worship of God. At first a simple scrivener, he became painter, architect, chemist, philosopher, and poet. He certainly had the fancy of a poet, and wrote in durable materials. He left by his will nineteen chalices of silver gilt to as many churches.

These churches and religious houses are all connected with the history of the city. Paris owed its extension on the north side of the Seine to the school in the Abbey of St. Germain de l'Auxerrois, which was famous at an early age. There were four great abbeys around Paris in the time of the third dynasty—St. Lawrence, St. Genevieve, St. Germain de l'Auxerrois, and St. Germain des Près. These were surrounded by their dependencies, forming villages which gradually extended till they united to enclose the city, then chiefly confined to the island. The poor loved to live near these abbeys. St. Germain des Près, besides providing for the poor in general, used privately to support several destitute families who were ashamed of their poverty. The old abbots of this monastery were both lords spiritual and temporal in the suburbs on that side of the city. This abbey was a monument of repentance. Digby says when it was rebuilt in the year 1000 the great tower and the portals were left as before. The statues of eight kings stood at the entrance, four on the right hand and four on the left. One of them held a scroll on which was written the tragical name of Clodomir. And another, with no beatific circle around his head, held an open tablet on which were the first and last letters of the name Clotaire. These were the statues of the murderer and his victim.

The square tower of the monastery, built in the time of Charlemagne, contributed greatly to the defence of the house against the Normans. A stout old monk, Abbon, conducted the defence, and proved himself on this occasion a valiant defender of the walls of Zion. Perhaps it was his skilful hand that wrote an Homeric poem on the siege of Paris by the Normans in the year 885. If not by him, it was by a monk of a similar name.

The Pré aux Clercs, now the Faubourg St. Germain, took its name from being a place of recreation for the students of this abbey. One of the scholars, Sylvester de Sacy, so learned in the Semitic languages, ascribed the bent of his mind to the aid and encouragement given him by one of the monks who took his constitutional in the abbey gardens at the same time as the boy, then only twelve years old.

The library belonging to this abbey was celebrated in the middle ages, and there were monks of literary eminence in the house. Dacherius was the librarian when he composed hisSpicilegium. Usuard compiled a martyrology. They had a printing press set up immediately after the invention of printing, which gives one a favorable idea of their mental activity. Most of these old monastic libraries were accessible to all; that of the Abbey of St. Victor was open to the public three days in the week; and there were public libraries attached to some of the parish churches. In the time of Charles V., rightly named the Wise, he ordered the Royal Library of Paris to be illuminated with thirty portable lamps, and that a silver one should be suspended in the centre for the benefit of those students who prolonged their researches into the night. The numerous collections of books in Paris made that city very attractive to certain minds even in the middle ages. Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, in England, who established the first public library in that country, used to resort to Paris for fresh supplies. "O blessed God of gods in Sion!" he exclaims, "what a flood of pleasure rejoices our heart whenever we are at liberty to visit Paris, that paradise of the world, where the days always seem too short and too few through the immensity of our love! There are libraries more redolent of delight than all the shops of aromatics; there are the flowering meadows of all volumes that can be found anywhere. There, indeed, untying our purse-strings, and opening our treasures, we disperse money with a joyful heart (evidently the truth, for he paid the Abbot of St. Albans fifty pounds weight of silver for thirty or forty volumes), and ransom with dirt books that are beyond all price. But lo! how good and pleasant a thing it is to gather together in one place the arms of clerical warfare, that there may be a supply of them for us to use in the wars against heretics, should they ever rise up against us!"

What would this book-loving prelate have done had he foreseen that the church would one day be accused of being a foe to progress and to the diffusion of knowledge! This bishop, who lived in the thirteenth century, was the Chancellor and High Treasurer of England, and celebrated for his love and encouragement of literature. He had libraries in all his palaces, and the apartment he commonly occupied was so crammed with books that he was almost inaccessible. He was said to breathe books, so fond was he of being among them. None but a genuine lover of books would give such amusing directions for their preservation. "Not only do we serve God," says he, "by preparing new books, but also by preserving and treating with great care those we have already. Truly, after the vestments and vessels dedicated to our Lord's body, sacred books deserve to be treated with most reverence by clerks. In opening and shutting books, they should avoid all abruptness, not too hastily loosing the clasps, nor failing to shut them when they have finished reading, for it is far more important to preserve a bookthan a shoe." He then goes on to speak of soiling books; of marking passages with the finger-nails, "like those of a giant;" of swelling the junctures of the binding with straws or flowers; and of eating over them, leaving the fragments in the book, as if the reader had no bag for alms. Waxing warm over the idea, he wishes such persons might have to sit over leather with a shoemaker! And then there are impudent youths, who presume to fill up the broad margins with their unchastened pens, noting down whatever frivolous thing occurs to their imagination! And "there are some thieves, too, who cut out leaves or letters, which kind of sacrilege ought to be prohibited under the penalty of anathema." The bishop had evidently had some sad experience with his cherished tomes. His testimony respecting the appreciation of books by the monks of his time is valuable. Remember the age, reader—that period of deepest darkness just before the dawn! "The monks who are so venerable," says he in hisPhilobiblion, "are accustomed to be solicitous in regard to books, and to be delighted in their company, as with all riches, and thence it is that we find in most monasteries such splendid treasures of erudition, giving a delectable light to the path of laics. Oh! that devout labor of their hands in writing books; how preferable to all georgic care! All things else fail with time. Saturn ceases not to devour his offspring, for oblivion covereth the glory of the world. But God hath provided a remedy for us in books, without which all that was ever great would have been without memory. Without shame we may lay bare to books the poverty of human ignorance. They are the masters who instruct us without rods, without anger, and withoutmoney. (The bishop had evidently forgotten those fifty pounds of silver, and many more besides!) O books! alone liberal and making liberal, who give to all, and seek to emancipate all who serve you. You are the tree of life and the river of Paradise, with which the human intelligence is irrigated and made fruitful."

But I did not always linger at the doors of churches, studying the walls and pondering on their history. The true Catholic knows that these magnificent churches are only vast shrines enclosing the great Object of his adoration and love. M. Olier, when travelling, never saw the spire of a church in the distance without calling upon all with him to repeat the Tantum Ergo. He used to say: "When I see a place where my Master reposes, I have a feeling of unutterable joy." This feeling comes over every one at the first glimpse of that undying lamp before the tabernacle, "that small flame which rises and falls like a dying pulse, flickering up and down, emblematic of our lives, which even now thus wastes and wanes."

The very first act on stepping into a church completely changes the current of one's thoughts. The holy water, the sign of the cross, dispel the remembrance of material things and recall devout thoughts of the Passion.

"Whene'er across this sinful flesh of mineI draw the holy sign,All good thoughts stir within me, and collectTheir slumbering strength divine."

Thebénitiersat St. Sulpice are two immense shells, given to Francis the First by the Republic of Venice; but for all that, theeau béniteseemed just as holy, and I made the sign of the cross just as devoutly.

For devotion, I prefer the largest churches, because the seclusion is more perfect, as at Notre Dame. Behind some pillar or in the depthsof some dim chapel, one can find perfect solitude where he can be alone with God. Alone with God! that in itself is prayer. The world-weary soul finds it good simply to sit or kneel with clasped hands in the divine Presence.

"My spirit I love to compose,In humble trust my eyelids closeWith reverential resignation,No wish conceived, no thought expressed,Only a sense of supplication."

Joubert says the best prayers are those that have nothing distinct, and which thus partake of simple adoration; and Hawthorne asks: "Could I bring my heart in unison with those praying in yonder church with a fervor of supplication but no distinct request, would not that be the safest kind of prayer?" Surely every devout soul feels that "prayer is not necessarily petition," and what is technically known as the prayer of contemplation is the very inspiration of such churches. In this temple of silence, man seems to be brought back to his primeval relations with his Creator.

What mute eloquence in these walls! What an appeal to the imagination in the calmness! Earthly voices die away on the threshold, and peace, dovelike, broods over the very entrance. A daily visit to such a temple gives life a certain elevation. The very poor who come here to pray must acquire a certain dignity of character. How many generations have worshipped beneath these arches! The saints have passed over the very pavement I tread. I recall St. Louis, who, out of respect to our Lord, had laid off his shoes and divested himself of his royal robes, bearing solemnly into this church the holy Crown of Thorns. And great sinners, too, are in this long procession of the past. There is Count Raymond of Toulouse, barefoot, and clad only in the white tunic of a penitent, coming to receive absolution from the papal legate before the grand altar.

When one recalls the popes, cardinals, and other dignitaries of the church, the kings and queens and knights of the olden time who have been here, one almost shrinks from entering such a throng of the mighty ones of the earth. It seems as if he were elbowing the Great Monarch or the gallant Henry of Navarre.

On the galleries around the nave were formerly suspended the flags and standards taken in war, and it was in allusion to this custom that the Prince of Conti, after the victories of Fleurus, Steinkerque, and La Marsaille, made an opening in the crowd around the door of the church for the Marechal de Luxembourg, whom he held by the hand, by crying: "Place, place, messieurs, au tapissier de Notre Dame!"—"Room, room, gentlemen, for the upholsterer of Notre Dame!"

It is charming to see the birds flying about in the arches of this church, as if nature had taken its venerable walls to her bosom. It made me think of the old hermits of the middle ages, living with the sea-birds in their ocean caves. Like St. Francis, the canons of Notre Dame say the divine office with their "little sisters, the birds;" and the bird is the symbol of the soul rising heavenward on the wings of prayer. We, like the birds, build our nests here for a few days. Blessed are we if they are built within the influences of the sanctuary which temper the storms and severities of life. It is only in the clefts of the rocks that wall in the mystic garden of the church that there is safety for the dovelike soul.

In the transept is the altar of Our Lady, starry with lamps. Above her statue is one of her titles, appealing to every heart—Consolatrix afflictorum!To this church M. Olier came, in all his troubles, to the altar of Mary. There is also a fine statue of her over the grand altar, formerly at the Carmes. No church is complete without an altar of the Blessed Virgin. Wherever there is a cross, Mary must be at its foot, as at Calvary, directing our eyes, our thoughts, our hearts, to him who hangs thereon.

"O that silent, ceaseless mourning!O those dim eyes! never turningFrom that wondrous, suffering Son!"Virgin holiest, virgin purest,Of that anguish thou endurestMake me bear with thee my part."

"O that silent, ceaseless mourning!O those dim eyes! never turningFrom that wondrous, suffering Son!

"Virgin holiest, virgin purest,Of that anguish thou endurestMake me bear with thee my part."

In traversing Paris, one passes many private residences of interest which have a certain consecration—the consecration of wit and genius. I cannot say I ever went so far as Horace Walpole, who never passed the Hôtel de Carnavalet, the residence of Madame de Sévigné, without saying his Ave before it, much as I admire heresprit, and though she was the granddaughter of St. Jane de Chantal, the foundress of the Nuns of the Visitation. Walpole thought the house had a foreign-looking air, and said it looked like an ex-voto raised in her honor by some of her foreign votaries. It was once an elegant residence, with its sculptured gateway and Ionic pilasters, and its court adorned with statues. In the day of thespirituelleletter-writer, it was the resort of the learned and the refined; now, O tempora! it is a boarding-school, and thesalonof Madame de Sévigné (the temple of "Notre Dame de Livry," to quote Walpole again, if it be not profanity) is converted into a dormitory. Truly, as Bishop de Bury says, "all things pass away with time," but the wit and genius she embodied in her charming letters are eternal.

In one of the upper stories of a house in the Rue St. Honoré lived Joubert, the Coleridge of France. His keeping-room was flooded with the light he loved, and from it, as he said, he saw a great deal of sky and very little earth. There he passed his days among the books he had collected. He rigorously excluded from his library all the books he disapproved of; unwilling, as he said, to admit an unworthy friend to his constant companionship. To this room he attracted a brilliant circle of conspicuous authors and statesmen by his conversational talents, and there he wrote his immortalPensées. He said he left Paris unwillingly, because then he had to part from his friends; and he left the country unwillingly, because he had to part from himself. Writing from that sunny room, he says: "In many things, I am like the butterfly; like him, I love the light; like him, I there consume my life; like him, I need, in order to spread my wings, that there be fair weather around me in society, and that my mind feel itself surrounded and as if penetrated by the mild temperature of indulgence." But he wrote graver and more profound things there. One of his friends said of him that he seemed to be a soul that by accident had met with a body, and was trying to make the best of it. And he, ever indulgent to the faults of others, said of his friends, "When they are blind of one eye, I look at them in profile."

The Abbaye aux Bois is interesting from its association with Madame Récamier and her circle. Her rooms were in the third story and paved with tiles, and they overlooked the pleasant garden of the monastery, and, when lit up with wit and genius, they needed no other attraction. Among her visitors there were Sir Humphry Davy, Maria Edgeworth, Humboldt, Lamartine, DelphineGay, Chateaubriand, etc. They must have been like the gods, speaking from peak to peak all around Olympus. Lamartine read hisMéditationsthere before they were given to the public. Chateaubriand thus speaks of the room: "The windows overlooked the garden of the abbey, under the verdant shade of which the nuns paced up and down, and the pupils played. The top of an acacia was on a level with the eye, sharp spires pierced the sky, and in the distance rose the hills of Sèvres. The rays of the setting sun threw a golden light over the landscape and came in through the open windows. Some birds were settling themselves for the night on the top of the window-blinds. Here I found silence and solitude, far above the tumult and turmoil of a great city."

To the church of the abbey, a plain, unpretending structure, Eugénie de Guérin went every day to Mass during her first visit to Paris. There, too, were the bans of her brother Maurice published, and there he was married.

The house of Madame Swetchine, in the Rue St. Dominique, must be regarded with veneration. There was no austerity about thesalonof this remarkable woman. It was adorned with pictures, bronzes, and flowers, and in the evening it was illuminated with a profusion of lamps and candles, giving it a festive air. And then the great lights of the church, always diffusing their radiance and aroma in that favored room, Lacordaire, De Ravignan, Dupanloup, De la Bouillerie, etc. To have found one's self among them must have seemed like being among the prophets on Mount Carmel. They all loved to officiate and preach in her beautiful private chapel, which was adorned with a multitude of precious stones from the Russian mines, gleaming around the ineffable presence of the Divinity. Mary, too, was there. On the base of her silver statue was her monogram in diamonds, which Madame Swetchine had worn as maid of honor to the Empress Mary of Russia.

These circles, and many others I could recall, are now broken up for ever. We have all heard and read so much of those who composed them that they seem like personal friends. We linger around the places to which they imparted a certain sacredness, and follow them in thought to the world of mystery and eternal reunion, thanking God that the great gulf from the finite to the infinite has been bridged over by the Incarnation.

One morning, I went to the church of the Carmelites. A tablet on the wall points out the spot where the heart of Monseigneur Affre was deposited—the heart of him who gave his life for his flock. Around it were suspended some wreaths. On one, of immortelles, was painted, in black letters,A mon Père, the offering of one of his spiritual children. Wishing to have some objects of devotion blessed, I went into the sacristy (I remembered Eugénie de Guérin speaks of going into that sacristy), where I found one of the monks prostrate in prayer, making his thanksgiving after Mass. Enveloped in his habit, his bald head covered by a cowl, he looked like a ghost from the dark ages. Not venturing to approach the ghostly father, I made known my errand to a good-natured-looking lay brother, who conveyed it to that part of the cowl where the right ear of the monk might reasonably be supposed to be, which brought back the holy man to earth, causing me some compunction of conscience. The brother spread out my articles, brought the ritual and the stole, and the father, throwing back his cowl,murmured over them the prayers of holy church, and then disappeared into the monastery. Presently I heard the voices of the monks saying the office, which they do, like nuns, in choir and behind a curtained grate, so they are not seen from the church.

This monastery may be compared to the Roman amphitheatre where the early Christians were thrown to the wild beasts. Here indeed was fought the good fight, and the victors rose to heaven with palms in their hands. I know of nothing more sublime and thrilling in the annals of the church than the massacre of about two hundred priests that took place here on the second of September, 1792. I cannot refrain from giving a condensed account of it by one of the writers of the day: "For some weeks there had been assembled and heaped together two hundred priests, who had refused to take the schismatic oath, or had nobly recanted it. During the first day of their incarceration, these loyal priests had been inhumanly imprisoned in the church. The guards in their midst watched to prevent their having the consolation of even speaking to each other. Their only nourishment was bread and water. The stone floor was their bed. It was only later that a few were permitted to have straw beds. These priests, whom martyrdom was to render immortal, had at their head three prelates whose virtues recall the primitive days of the church. Their chief was the Archbishop of Arles, Monseigneur du Lau. He had been deputed to the states-general; his piety equalled his knowledge; and his humility even surpassed his merit. The day after the memorable 10th of August he had been sent to the Carmelite monastery (then converted into a prison) with sixty-two other priests. Notwithstanding his age (he was over eighty) and his infirmities, he refused all indulgences that were not also extended to his brother-captives. For several days a wooden arm-chair was his bed as well as his pontifical throne. Thence his persuasive words instilled into those around him the sentiments of ineffable charity that filled his own heart, and when his exhausted voice could no longer make itself heard, his very appearance expressed a sublime resignation.

"Two other bishops, brothers, bearing the name of De la Rochefoucauld, one the Bishop of Beauvais, and the other of Saintes, also encouraged their companions in misfortune by their words and by their example. The Bishop of Saintes had not been arrested, but, wishing to join his brother, he made himself a prisoner. There were members of every rank in the ecclesiastical hierarchy: M. Hébert, the confessor of the king who wrote to him at the beginning of August, 'I expect nothing more from man, bring me therefore the consolations of heaven;' the general of the Benedictines, the Abbé de Lubusac, several of the curés of Paris, Mr. Gros, called the modern Vincent of Paul, and priests brought from various places, holy victims whom the God of Calvary had chosen to associate with his sufferings, and judged worthy of the most glorious of all deaths—that of martyrdom.

"For more than two days, the wretches who hovered around their enclosure had filled the air with cries of blood, and predicting that the sacrifice was about to take place. One said to the Archbishop of Arles: 'My lord, on the morrow your grace is to be killed.' These derisive insults recalled to the holy captives the judgment-hall of their divine Master,and like him they bore them in silence, forgiving and praying for their enemies.

"On the second of September they could no longer doubt that their last hour had arrived. The hurried movements of the troops, the cries in the neighboring streets, and the alarm-guns they heard made them somewhat aware of the sinister events that were passing without. At the dawn of day they had gathered together in the church. They made their confessions to each other, they blessed one another, and partook of the Holy Eucharist. They were singing the Benediction together at about five in the evening when the ominous cries came nearer. Then two holy hymns succeeded the prayers for the dying. All at once the jailers entered, and began calling the roll, which already had been done three times that day. The prisoners were then ordered into the garden, which they found occupied by guards armed with pikes and wearing thebonnet rouge. The murderers filled the courts, the halls, and the church, making the venerable arches re-echo to the noise of their weapons and their blasphemies. The priests, one hundred and eighty-five in number, were divided into two groups. About thirty, among whom were the bishops, rushed toward a little oratory at the extremity of the garden, where they threw themselves upon their knees, recommending themselves to God. They embraced each other for the last time, and began saying the vespers for the dead, when suddenly the gates were flung open, and the assassins rushed in from various directions.

"The sight of these holy priests upon their knees arrested their fury for an instant. The first who fell under their blows was Father Gerault, who was reciting his breviary regardless of their cries. That breviary, pierced with a ball and stained with blood, was discovered on the spot at the restoration of the Carmelites, and it is preserved as a precious relic. Then the Archbishop of Arles was demanded. While they were seeking him through the alleys, he was exhorting his companions to offer to God the sacrifice of their lives. Hearing his name called, he knelt down, and asked the most aged of the priests to give him absolution; then, rising, he advanced to meet the assassins. With his arms crossed upon his breast and his eyes raised toward heaven, he uttered in a calm voice the same words his divine Master addressed to his enemies: "I am he whom you seek." The first stroke of the sword was upon his forehead, but the venerable man remained standing; a second made the blood flow in torrents, but still he did not fall; the fifth laid him on the ground, when a pike was driven through his heart. Then he was trampled under the feet of the assassins, who exclaimed, 'Vive la nation!'

"The general massacre then ensued. While the unfortunate priests, with the instinct of self-preservation, were flying at random through the garden, some screening themselves behind the hedges and others climbing the trees, the murderers fired at them, and, when one of them fell, they would rush upon his body, prolong his agony, and exult over his sufferings. About forty perished in this manner. Some of the younger priests succeeded in scaling the walls and hiding themselves; but, remembering they were flying from martyrdom and that their escape might excite greater fury against their companions, they retraced their steps and received their reward! The Bishop of Beauvais and his brother were in the garden oratory with thirtypriests. A grating separated them from the murderers, who fired upon them, killing the greater number. The Bishop of Beauvais was not touched, but his brother had a leg broken by a ball.

"For an instant this horrid butchery was suspended. One of the leaders ordered all the priests into the church, whither they were driven—even the wounded and dying—at the sword's point. There they gathered around the altar, offering anew to their Saviour the sacrifice of their lives, whilst their executioners, calling them out two by two, finished their butchery more promptly and completely. To each one life was offered on condition of taking the revolutionary oath. They all refused, and not one escaped. Whilst these assassins added blasphemous shouts to their murderous strokes, whilst they demolished the crosses and the tabernacles, the holy phalanx of priests, which death was every moment lessening, kept praying for their murderers and their country. The two bishops were among the last executed. When it came to the turn of the Bishop of Beauvais, he left the altar upon which he had been leaning, and calmly advanced to meet his death. His brother, whose wound prevented his walking, asked for assistance, and was carried out to his execution. It was eight in the evening when the last execution took place. Over four hundred priests were massacred in different parts of Paris at this period, besides many isolated murders."

The constancy of these martyrs has made many do more than exclaim with Horace Walpole: "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Catholic!" He says, in a letter dated October 14, 1792: "For the French priests, I own I honor them. They preferred beggary to perjury, and have died or fled to preserve the integrity of their consciences. It certainly was not the French clergy but the philosophers that have trained up their countrymen to be the most bloody men upon earth."

In 1854, this monastery, where flowed the blood of martyrs and which had echoed with their dying groans, resounded with the strains ofO Salutaris Hostia!on the festival of Corpus Christi, and priests bore the divine Host through the alleys of the garden where, sixty years before, had rushed those who were swift to shed blood. An altar had been erected under the yew-tree where the Archbishop of Arles fell. Children scattered flowers over the place once covered with blood. Well might the pale-lipped clergy tearfully chant in such a spot:

"The white-robed army of martyrs praise thee!"

Every age has its martyrs. They are the glory of the church, and their blood is its seed. The church must ever suffer with its divine spouse. Sometimes its head—the Vicar of Christ-is crowned with thorns; sometimes its heart bleeds from a thrust in the very house of its friends; and, again, its feet and hands are nailed in the extremities of the earth.

And every follower of Christ crucified has his martyrdom—a martyrdom of the soul, if not of the body. The sacred stigmata are imprinted on every soul, that embraces the cross, and no one can look upon him who hangs thereon, with the eyes of faith, without catching something of his resemblance. Suffering is now, as when he was on earth, the glorious penalty of those who approach the nearest to his Divine Person.

"Three saints of old their lips upon the Incarnate Saviour laid,And each with death or agony for the high rapture paid.His mother's holy kisses of the coming sword gave sign,And Simeon's hymn full closely did with his last breath entwine;And Magdalen's first tearful touch prepared her but to greetWith homage of a broken heart his pierced and lifeless feet.The crown of thorns, the heavy cross, the nails and bleeding brows,The pale and dying lips, are the portion of the spouse."

So little is known of Spanish American literature that any fresh report from its pages seems to have the nature of a revelation. Our acquaintance with Heredia, Placido, Milanes, Mendive, Carpio, Pesado, Galvan, Calderon, is slight or naught; yet these poets are most interesting on account of the countries, peoples, and causes for which they speak eloquently, even if we deny that they add greatly to the genuine substance of our literary possession. Less question, however, can be entertained of the importance of some older names whose fame made for itself a refuge in the Spanish churches and cloisters of the New World long before revolutionists took to shooting the Muses on the wing. In the seventeenth century lived and wrought Cabrera, Siguenza, and Sor or Sister Juana Ines. They belonged to a country which claimed for awhile as its scholars, though not as its natives, Doctor Valbuena, author of the very well-known epical fantasy calledThe Bernardo, and Mateo Alaman, who wrote the famous story ofGuzman de Alfarache. Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, one of the most remarkable dramatic poets of a great dramatic age, was a native of that same country, Mexico. Siguenza, as mathematician, historian, antiquary, and poet, has been well esteemed by Humboldt and the scholars of his own race. It is much to say that the land which produced an artist as great as Cabrera also gave birth to a scholar and poet as renowned in her day and as appreciable in ours as Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. Among all these celebrities, who would have been eminent in any time among any people, this Mexican nun of the seventeenth century holds a place of her own. Looking back upon the past with all our modern light, we cannot but regard her as one of the most admirable characters of the New World.

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was born at San Miguel de Nepantla, twelve leagues from the city of Mexico, in the year 1651, and died at the age of forty-four. When but three years old, she was able to read, write, and "cipher," and at eight she wrote a prologue for the feast of the Holy Sacrament. Once she cut her hair, and would not allow it to grow till she had acquired the learning she proposed to herself, seeing no reason why a head should be covered with hair that was denuded of knowledge, its best ornament. After twenty lessons, it was said, she knew Latin, and so great was her desire to learn that she importuned her parents to send her to the University of Mexico in boy's clothes. When seventeen years of age, and a cherished inmate of the Viceroy Mancera's family, she amazed a large companyof the professors and scholars of the capital by tests of her various erudition and abilities. Notwithstanding her beauty and fortune, her rank and accomplishments, and the life of a gallant and brilliant court, she determined at that early age to retire to a cloister, and in a few years became known as Sor Juana of San Geronimo, a convent of the city of Mexico. After this appeared her poems,The CrisisandThe Dream, in the latter of which she writes much of mythology, physics, medicine, and history, according to the scholastic manner of her time. With these and her subsequent poetic writings, such as her sonnets, loas, romances, and autos, she had rare fame, and won from some of her admirers the enthusiastic titles of "The Phœnix of Mexico," "Tenth Muse," and "Poetess of America." The writer has an old volume before him bearing literally this title-page: "Fama, y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, y Dezima Musa, Poetisa de la America, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Religiosa Professa en el Convento de San Geronimo, de la Imperial Ciudad de Mexico. Recogidas y dadas a luz por el Doctor Don Juan Ignacio de Castorena y Ursua, Capellan de Honor de su Magestad, y Prebendado de la Santa Iglesia Metropolitana de Mexico. En Barcelona: Por Rafael Figuero. Año deMDCCI. Con todas las licencias necessarias." Thus it appears we owe to the Prebendary Castorena the edition of the posthumous works of Sor Juana given to the light in 1701, six years after her death.

But, whether as the sister or the mother of a convent, Juana Ines de la Cruz was more than a mistress of vain learning or unprofitable science. Her daily assiduous exercise was charity, which at last so controlled her life and thoughts that she gave all her musical and mathematical instruments, all the rich presents which her talents had attracted from illustrious people, and all her books, excepting those she left to her sisters, to be sold for the benefit of the poor. Though she had evidently prized science as the handmaid of religion, the time came when her verses upon the vanity of learning reflected a mind more and more withdrawn from the affairs of this world to the contemplation of the next. When an epidemic visited the Convent of San Geronimo, and but two out of every ten invalids were saved, the good, brave soul of Madre Juana shone transcendently. Spite of warnings and petitions, and though all the city prayed for her life, Madre Juana perished at her vigil of charity—the good angel as well as muse of Mexico.

Of the enthusiasm created by her genius, we have abundant and curious proofs. Don Alonzo Muxica, "perpetual Recorder of the City of Salamanca," wrote a sonnet upon her having learned to read at the age of three, when "what for all is but the break of morn in her was as the middle of the day." Excelentissimo Sir Felix Fernandez de Cordova Cordona y Aragon, Duke of Seffa, of Væna and Soma, Count of Cabra, Palomas, and Olivitas, and Grand Admiral and Captain-General of Naples, speaks of her in a lofty poetic encomium as for the third time applauded by two admiring worlds of readers, and praises her persuasive voice as that of a sweet siren of thought. Don Garcia Ribadeneyra, with the grandiose wit of his day, says in a decima that this extraordinary woman surpassed the sun, for her glorious genius rose where the sun set, that is to say, in the West; and Don Pedro Alfonso Moreno argues piously that St. John the Baptist's three crowns of Virgin, Martyr, andDoctor were in measure those of Madre Juana, who was from early years chaste, poor in spirit, and obedient, according to the vow of religious women. Don Luis Verdejo declares that she transferred the lyceums of the Muses to Mexico, and that the light of her genius is poured upon two worlds. Padre Cabrera, chaplain of the Most Excellent Duke of Arcos, asserts that the Eternal Knowledge enlightened Juana in all learning. "Only her fame can define her," writes one of her own sex; and when the Poetess of the Cloister wrote with her own blood a protestation of faith, it was said of this "Swan of erudite plume" that she wrote like the martyr to whose ink of blood the earth was as paper. Her gift of books to be sold in order to relieve the poor inspired Señora Catalina de Fernandez de Cordova, nun in the Convent of the Holy Ghost in Alcara, to say thus thoughtfully:

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