Chapter III

But, unhappily, in these latter days certain elements have been imported into men's conceptions of progress, of which the Catholic Church is the stern and uncompromising foe. In so far as the advocates of modern progress aim at the destruction of those Christian principles of conduct which should influence the individual man in his relations to himself, to the family, and to the State, they may expect unceasing opposition from the Catholic Church.

In some respects the Church does not consider modern progress, so-called, as progress in the true sense of the word, but rather a retrograde movement--a relapse into the moral corruption, the political and social degradation of ancient paganism. When a man finds himself moving forward at a rapid pace along a road which he discovers to be a wrong one, he is only moving farther away from the end of his journey; he cannot be said to be making progress. Or, when a man is sick of a deadly disease, which is rapidly gaining ground, it cannot be said that he is progressing, since such progress leads to death, not life.

In certain European countries at the present day, advocates of progress insist that the Church should adapt herself to the spirit of the age, and would fain transform her into a mere creature of the civil government, a sort of moral police under its pay and control, or to use the illustration of Cardinal Newman, employ her as a pet jackdaw, useful for picking up the grubs and worms on its master's trim, smooth-shaven lawn.

The Church, however, will not surrender her independence, nor will she change her doctrines to suit the shifting, fallible opinions of men. Her mission is to hold pure from all taint of error, and transmit unimpaired to future generations the word of her master: "Guard that which is entrusted to thee, turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called."

The Church is opposed to modern progress in so far as it seeks to rob Christian marriage of its sacramental character, and reduce it to the level of a mere contract, which may be dissolved at the will of the contracting parties.

She is opposed to the divorce of religion from education, holding that the development of man's moral and intellectual nature, should go hand in hand. Indeed, among ourselves of late, many serious-minded persons seem to be coming round to the Church's way of thinking on this important matter. They are exerting themselves to find some substitute for religion in the moral training of children, and profess to have discovered it in a knowledge of the elements of physiology. A text-book of this science, which will clearly impress on the youthful mind the dire fattening qualities of alcohol is the _unum necessarium_. It is fondly hoped that the natural horror which one experiences at the thought of an accumulation of adipose tissue in the intestines will be quite sufficient to deter the rising generation from the use of alcoholic stimulants.

This, however, is only taking a limited view of the matter, for humanity may be conceived as divided into two classes, the fat and the lean. This latter class constitutes a large percentage of the world's population; and in their case the temptation is great of falling back on alcohol as an excellent substitute for padding, forswearing thin potations and addicting themselves to sack.

Furthermore men of science inform us that, owing to the conditions of our environment, climatic and otherwise, there is a tendency among Americans, after a few generations, to develop into a type of man, similar to the Red Indian, tall, muscular, gaunt. If this is so, have we not cause to apprehend the universal use of alcohol as a means of counteracting such a deplorable tendency. We respectfully refer these considerations to the serious attention of those who would place the science of morals on a physiological basis.

Finally then, the only progress which the Catholic Church upholds is that which rests on the foundations, everlasting and unchanging as adamant, of Christian truth and Christian morality. A fair and goodly tree, the higher it grows, the more widely it expands, the deeper must it cast its roots into the ground, if it would not come toppling down and cumber the earth. So must the roots of modern progress strike themselves more and more deeply into the soil of the Christian virtues, that its fine growth of material well-being may not drag down the fair tree, and only serve to hasten its speedy disappearance in corruption and death.

J. C.

Give Charity While You Live.

_Lake Shore Visitor_:--The many men and women who leave large bequests to religion and to charity do in a certain sense some good. Their means thus disposed of may feed the hungry and bring the erring to a sense of duty. But generally speaking means thus left are not as well husbanded as if they were spent by the testator himself. It is given in a bulk and the legatee not having been put to the trouble and pains of earning the legacy dollar for dollar soon lets the specie fly. It came easy and is very apt to go the same way. It is not necessary for the charitably inclined to wait until the message comes in order to perform an act of charity. We are told that the "poor we always have with us." The orphan may be found in every city and town, and orphanages and hospitals exist in every city. To be really disinterested in our charity, we should give while in health. While giving thus we are making a sacrifice, and plainly proving that our hearts are not very strongly set on the goods of this world. To give when that which we give is about to be snatched away from us is certainly not giving with the hope of obtaining a very great reward. Looking after our own donations would make them more profitable to the cause of good, and giving when we are in health and strength is making a sacrifice that without doubt will meet a reward.

Emmet's Rebellion.

At the time when the plans of the United Irishmen were slowly ripening toward revolution, and when Wolfe Tone and Edward Fitzgerald still believed in the immediate regeneration of their country, there were two young men in Dublin University--close personal friends--who were watching with peculiar interest the progress of events. Both were exceptionally gifted young men, and both were destined to leave behind them names that will live forever in the history of the Irish nation. One was Thomas Moore; the other, his junior by a year and his senior by one class in the University, was Robert Emmet.

It was especially natural that two such young men should take the keenest interest in the national movement that was going on about them. It was a movement calculated to attract all the generous and impassioned impulses of youth. Both Moore and Emmet were profoundly ambitious for their nation's welfare; both of them, we may well assume, felt conscious of the possession of abilities beyond the average; and both were animated by a desire to be of active service to their people. The desire, however, which led Moore to become the poetical voice of Ireland's aspirations and regrets, urged Emmet into directer and more decided action. Emmet was a brother of Thomas Addis Emmet. He was, therefore, closely in connection with the revolutionary movement, and did all that lay in his power to advance it by his speeches in the Debating Society and in the Historical Society of the College. Political speeches were, of course, forbidden in such bodies as these two societies; but Emmet always contrived to introduce into his utterances upon any of the themes set down for debate some burning words which those who listened to him, and loved him, could readily interpret into justification of the United Irishmen, and encouragement of their efforts.

Between the young orator and the young poet the closest friendship and affection existed. The genius of Moore was naturally captivated by the pure and lofty enthusiasm of Robert Emmet; and it is almost surprising that under the circumstances Moore did not become more deeply involved in the conspiracy that spread all around him. Moore had not, however, the nature of the conspirator, or of the very active politician. He was called upon to do other work in this world, and he did that work so worthily that we may well forgive him for having been so little of a rebel at a time when rebellion was the duty of every Irishman. Moore tells a touching little story of himself and of his friend, which, in itself, exemplifies the different natures of the two young men. Moore had become possessed of that precious volume in which the labors of Mr. Bunting had collected so much of the national music of Ireland; and he delighted in passing long hours in playing over to himself the airs which he was destined later on to make so famous by his verses. Emmet often sat by him while he played, and Moore records how, one evening, just as he finished playing that spirited tune called "The Red Fox," Emmet sprang up from a reverie, and exclaimed, "Oh, that I were at the head of twenty thousand men marching to that air!" The air which awakened in Emmet the gallant hope, which he was never destined to see realized, had probably started in the brain of Moore dim memories of the lost glories of Ireland; of the Knights of the Red Branch, of Malichi with the gold torque, and of the buried city of Lough Neagh. The music which Emmet had desired to hear as the marching song of victory is familiar to every Irishman as "Let Erin Remember the Days of Old." "How little did I think," said the poet, "that in one of the most touching of the sweet airs I used to play to him, his own dying words would find an interpreter so worthy of their sad but proud feelings; or that another of those mournful strains would long be associated in the hearts of his countrymen with the memory of her who shared with Ireland his last blessing and prayer." Ninety-eight had come and gone like a dream. The leaders of the United Irishmen were dead, in exile, or hiding from the law. The Irish parliament had passed from existence, and the hated union with England had become an accomplished fact. The promises of the British minister, which had done so much to facilitate the passing of the Act of Union, had, of course, been shamefully violated.

* * * * *

There were desperate riots in Limerick, Waterford and Tipperary in the year of the union--smouldering embers of the revolution of '98, which were destined still to break out into one final, fitful conflagration. Robert Emmet saw the sufferings of his country with indignation, but not with despair. He conceived the possibility of reviving the spirit of '98. In his eyes revolution was not dead, but only asleep; and he proudly fancied that he might be the voice to wake rebellion from its trance, and lead it to its triumph. He had some personal fortune of his own, which he unselfishly devoted to the purpose he had in view. Gradually he began to gather around him a cluster of the disaffected--survivors of '98 who had escaped the grave, the gibbet, or exile--men like the heroic Myles Byrne, of Wexford, who had evaded the clutch of the law, and was lying _perdu_ in Dublin, as assistant in a timber yard, and waiting for fortune. In Myles Byrne, Emmet found a ready and a daring colleague, and each found others no less ready, no less daring, and no less devoted to their country, to aid in the new revolutionary movement. Like the United Irishmen, Emmet was willing to avail himself of French arms; but he trusted France less than the United Irishmen had done. He had been in Paris; he had had interviews with Napoleon; he had distrusted the First Consul, and, as we know from his dying speech, he never for a moment entertained the slightest idea of exchanging the dominion of England for the dominion of France. His scheme was desperate, but it was by no means hopeless. Large stores of arms and gunpowder were accumulated in the various depots in Dublin. Thousands of men were pledged to the cause and were prepared to lose their lives for it. The means of establishing a provisional government had been carefully thought out, and had been given effect to in an elaborate document, in which vast information was printed, ready to be sown broadcast through the city and the county as soon as the green flag floated over Dublin Castle. That was Emmet's chief purpose. Once master of the castle, and Dublin would be practically in his power; and Dublin once in the hands of rebellion, why, then, rebellion would spread through the country like fire in a jungle, and Ireland might indeed be free.

* * * * *

It is scarcely necessary to recapitulate the events of that memorable evening of July 23, 1803. At 10 o'clock a rocket sent up from Thomas Street blazed for a moment, the meteor of insurrection, in the unwonted darkness of that summer night. But the signal that was to have been the herald of freedom was only the herald of failure. A small mob of men hurried to the malt house in Mass lane, which was the principal store of arms. There pikes were hurriedly handed out to the crowd, and then Emmet, who had hoped to head an army, found himself the centre of an undisciplined rabble. His hopes must have sunk low as he stood there in the dim and dismal street, in his glittering uniform of green and gold; but his heart did not fail him for a moment. He turned towards the castle at the head of his turbulent horde as composedly as if he had been marshalling the largest army in Europe. But the crowd lacked cohesion, lacked purpose, lacked determination. It fell away from its leader loosely, even aimlessly. Some rushed wildly at the castle; others, at the moment when unity and concentration were of the utmost importance, hurried off in another direction to sack a debtor's prison and set the inmates free. While the disorganized crowd was still in Thomas Street, while Emmet was vainly trying to rally his forces and accomplish something, a carriage came slowly down the street--the carriage of Lord Kilwarden, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Inside the carriage were Lord Kilwarden, his daughter, and his nephew, the Rev. Mr. Wolfe. The mob surrounded the carriage; Lord Kilwarden and his nephew were dragged from the carriage, and killed with innumerable pike-thrusts. The girl was left untouched; was, it is said, carried out of danger by Robert Emmet himself, who had vainly attempted to stop the purposeless slaughter. Before the Chief Justice was quite dead Major Sirr and a large body of his soldiers made their appearance, and the mob vanished almost without resistance, leaving several prisoners in the hands of the military.

Emmet had disappeared, no one knew where--no one, that is, except some dozen of his followers and some farmers in the Wicklow Mountains, whose hospitality and protection were extended to the fugitive patriot. Emmet might easily have escaped to France if he had chosen, but he delayed till too late. Emmet was a young man, and Emmet was in love. "The idol of his heart," as he calls her in his dying speech, was Sarah Curran, the daughter of John Philpot Curran, the great orator who had played so important a part in defending the State prisoners of '98. Emmet was determined to see her before he went. He placed his life upon the stake and lost it. He returned to Dublin, and was hiding at Harold's Cross, when his place of refuge was betrayed, and he was arrested by Major Sirr, the same who had brought Fitzgerald to his death, and who now, strangely enough, occupies a corner of the same graveyard with the "gallant and seditious Geraldine."

Curran very bitterly opposed Emmet's love for Sarah, and the voice which had been raised so often and so eloquently in defence of the other heroes and martyrs of Irish revolution was not lifted up in defence of Emmet. Curran has been often and severely censured for not undertaking Emmet's defence, and he has been accused, in consequence, of being, at least indirectly, the cause of his death. But we may safely assume that no advocacy either of men or of angels could by any possibility have stirred the hearts of those in authority, and saved the life of the man who was presumptuous enough to rebel against the Union. The trial was hurried through. Every Irish schoolboy knows the impassioned and eloquent address which Emmet delivered--an address which even the tragic circumstances could not save from the brutal interruption of Lord Norbury. On the altar of truth and liberty, Emmet had extinguished the torch of friendship, had offered up the idol of his soul, and the object of his affections. With the shadow of death upon him, the doomed patriot addressed his countrymen in words of wellnigh prophetic import, forbidding them to write his epitaph until his country had taken her place among the nations of the earth. The words did not pass his lips long before his death. He was found guilty late in the night of the 19th of September, and he was hanged the next morning in Thomas Street, on the spot where the gloomy church of St. Catherine looks down Bridgefoot Street, where his principal stores of arms had been found.

* * * * *

Such was the fate of Robert Emmet. His dying request has been faithfully obeyed by his countrymen; and it is but fitting that no spot should bear his name, no statue should typify his memory, until the time comes for which he hoped, and for which he suffered. His old friend, the companion of his youth, the poet who had loved him, has honored his memory with two of his noblest lyrics, and has devoted a third to the girl whom Emmet's love has made immortal. Curran never forgave his daughter for having given her affections to Emmet; he practically disowned her, and did not, it is said, even extend his forgiveness to her at the hour of her death some years later. It is melancholy to have to record the fact that the betrothed wife of Robert Emmet was not entirely faithful to his memory. She married, at the instance, it is said, of her friends, and did not long survive her marriage.

JUSTIN HUNTLEY M'CARTHY in _United Ireland_.

* * * * *

No workman engaged in the copper mines or in the manufacture of copper was ever known to have cholera. Science has demonstrated the fact that cholera has raged the least where the presence of electricity in the air was most positive.

The Annunciation:--March 25th.

How pure and frail and white
The snowdrops shine!
Gather a garland bright
For Mary's shrine.

For, born of winter snows,
These fragile flowers
Are gifts to our frail Queen
From spring's first hours.

For on this blessed day
She knelt at prayer;
When, lo, before her shone
An Angel Fair.

"Hail, Mary!" thus he cried
With reverent fear;
She, with sweet, wondering eyes
Marvelled to hear.

Be still, ye clouds of heaven!
Be silent, earth!
And hear an angel tell
Of Jesus' birth.

While she, whom Gabriel hails
As full of grace,
Listens with humble faith
In her sweet face.

Be still, Pride, War and Pomp,
Vain Hopes, vain Fear,
For now an angel speaks
And Mary hears.

"Hail, Mary!" lo, it rings
Through ages on;
"Hail, Mary!" it shall sound
Till time is done.

"Hail, Mary!" infant lips
Lisp it to-day;
"Hail, Mary!" with faint smile,
The dying say.

"Hail, Mary!" many a heart
Broken with grief
In that angelic prayer
Has found relief.

And many a half lost soul
When turned at bay,
With those triumphant words
Has won the day.

"Hail, Mary, Queen of Heaven!"
Let us repeat,
And place our snow-drop wreath
Here at her feet.

ADELAIDE PROCTOR.

Much-a-Wanted.

The sun of an Italian September was shining in broad, yellow splendor on Ancona--shining on the city, on its tawny background of hills, and on the shimmering spread of the Adriatic at its feet. But for all the sunshine, the city was not cheerful. The narrow streets were deserted by ordinary wayfarers, shops were shut, sometimes a wan face peeped furtively from a half-opened casement. The churches were turned from their normal purposes to those of hospitals. Sant' Agostino, near the Piazza del Teatro, was assigned to one set of patients; even the transepts and aisles of the Duomo, on the top of the Monte Ciriaco, were converted into wards and lined with rows of beds.

It was not that a pestilence brooded over the place, but something worse, much worse.

Unfortunate Ancona, the scene of so many pages of strife written by Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, by the troops of Barbarossa and of others, was undergoing its latest bombardment on this September day of 1860. Since the opening of the century it had changed its masters four times: now it was about to change them anew.

An army-corps, commanded by the Sardinian general, Cialdini, was encamped outside the advanced works, and had planted batteries which sent projectiles hissing and screaming not only over the ramparts and citadel, but into the heart of the thickly peopled city; and the fleet of the Sardinian admiral, Persano, was steaming to and fro outside the harbor, and occasionally joining in the work of destruction by pitching a heavy missile into the Lazaretto (occupied as barracks), or against the masonry of the Mole. De la Moriciere, the general to whom Abd-el-Kader had surrendered, and who had driven the Red Republicans of Paris from the left bank of the Seine in the June of 1848, was "holding the fort" for Pio Nono. He had escaped but a few days previously from the disaster of Castelfidardo with a troop of light dragoons, and was battling stubbornly against odds which forbade the chance of success. He had not much faith in his Swiss--they were purely and simply mercenaries; the Italians at his disposal were neither unquestionably loyal nor of the stuff of which heroes are made; the only men he had beyond his own small ring of French Legitimists--his personal followers so to speak--on whose courage and fidelity he could depend were the Irish and the Austrians. The former, the Battaglione di San Patrizio, were in the citadel and the environing entrenched camp; the latter, being more seasoned and better armed, were assigned to the approaches of the beleaguered stronghold. The inhabitants of Ancona were by no means all well affected; but the one sentiment in which they were unanimous was the hope that it might soon end--for all were in a mortal fright. The roar of artillery, the bursting of shells, the collapse of shattered walls, bugle-blasts, drum-beats, the tramp of armed men, the crepitation of the hoofs of cantering chargers on the hard pavements, were frequent, and now and again rose a shriek of terror, or an alarm of fire. But the inhabitants took care to keep away these sounds as much as possible; they cowered in dark cellars, and prayed and cursed, and played _mora_, and helped to make each other uncomfortable by the contagion of an abject poltroonery.

On the spacious sloping piazza in front of the Cathedral, where the market used to be held, the main-guard was posted, and a pair of _jaegers_ paced backward and forward with the stolidity of Germans between their sentry-boxes. Suddenly they halted, raised a cry, the meaning of which I could not grasp, and the guard turned out. I could see no visiting officer, and was lost in conjecture when I noticed an ambulance party with a stretcher moving slowly downwards by the road leading from the citadel. A blue great coat outlined a figure on the stretcher; one of the legs cased in red trousers was lumpy with bandages, through which the blood oozed, but the face of the sufferer was screened from observation and from the fierce noon glare of the sun by a strip of linen. The party came to a standstill opposite the post of the sentries; the guard presented arms, the officer lowered his sword, the bugle blew thrice a weird melancholy wail of notes, and the stretcher-bearers resumed their careful, slow march.

This, I heard, was a usage borrowed from chivalrous times, and was intended as a compliment; but I could not help thinking it a cruelty to the poor wounded wretch whose recovery the delay of a minute might imperil.

I went up to the party and asked who was the last victim of the war they were carrying.

"A countryman of yours," was the answer.

I gently lifted the strip of linen, and recognized in the sufferer a youngster from Sligo, of some nineteen years, the only son of his mother, who had joined the Papal service through motives of the most sincere faith and devotedness. To his aged parent, in her humble Connaught cabin, he had sent the twenty _scudi_ he had received as bounty. Andy was his Christian name--I never heard that of his family; but he usually went by the nickname of "Much-a-Wanted." This originated from a habit he had of using the phrase on all occasions, suitable and unsuitable. If it came on to rain, Andy would say, "much-a-wanted;" if macaroni, which the Irishmen unaccountably disliked, were served up from the dinner-boiler, he met it with the same exclamation; if he got a newspaper from home, or won a _mezzo-baioccho_ at pitch-and-toss, it was alike. All were "much-a-wanted." Verily, I believe if he had been sent to the cells on a false charge, the philosophic Andy would have consoled himself with the cheery reflection that it was "much-a-wanted."

On inquiry I discovered he had come in for his fate characteristically. While they had been preparing the mid-day meal for his company, the cook complained of a scarcity of water. The path to the draw-well was in the direct line of a terrible fire; it was positively furrowed with ripping segments of shell. Instead of ordering the men on fatigue duty (whose actual business it was) to go, volunteers were asked for, and Andy and a comrade stepped forward and undertook to fetch a bucket. Hardly had they started into the open on their hazardous errand, when a shell exploded almost at their feet, knocking them over like ninepins, and sending the fragments of the bucket whizzing in splintered chips far asunder. Andy's comrade was hit on the sole of the foot, and broke into a bellow of pain. It was no want of fortitude; the torment must have been insupportable. The net-work of sinew and muscles in that most delicately formed portion of the human framework was torn through, and the dirty leather of the shoe was forced into the flesh, and there was an ugly circle of jagged spokes around like the star-fractures made by a stone flung through a pane of glass. Andy's right leg was shattered a few inches above the knee, and hung on by a shred of skin; the shock must have deprived him of sensation, and the rapid gush of blood caused a merciful swoon. The hemorrhage was stopped by a surgeon on the spot, and a dose of brandy poured down his throat. As he recovered his speech he murmured in a dazed way his old catch-words "much-a-wanted."

While I was learning these particulars, the pathetic little procession was climbing towards the hospital of St. John of God, where the most accomplished of our staff of surgeons were in waiting to perform serious operations, and the zealous brothers of the institution--a sort of anticipatory Red Cross order--were on the constant watch to supply all that science, good nursing and the beautiful compassion of religion could suggest for the benefit of the afflicted.

On the ground floor the operating-room was situated, and thither the party bore their pale-faced, perspiring, still burden. I followed, thinking I might be of use as I understood Italian; and, in any case, when the sufferer returned to consciousness it might be some comfort to him to have the face of one he knew by his pallet. It was promptly decided that the leg should be amputated at the thigh, and as the surgeons, with workmanlike coolness, proceeded with their grim preliminaries, the pain awoke Andy to his situation. And yet not quite. By the wild unrest of his eyes and the working of his features, it was plain that he was in the throes of acute agony; he felt it, but he could not tell why or wherefore it was. He knew too keenly where the seat of pain was, but he could not divine the exact injury he had sustained, and strove almost frantically to rise so as to obtain a view of his lower extremities. He caught sight of me, and besought me to lift him. I laid my hand on his forehead and tried to pacify him, but in vain. He sank back with a moan that went to my very marrow. While he lay thus, as if in the coma of prostration, I asked quietly if they did not propose to administer chloroform, but they shook their heads and said they had none to spare except for officers. I insisted that the boy would die under the knife unless he had something to numb his sensibility, and at the moment he opened wide his eyes, and, with a look of pleading which I can never forget, gasped--

"Gracious God! How I burn. Take me out and shoot me."

Then, in a sharp shout of entreaty as if wrung by a stronger spasm than before--

"If you're friends, if you're men, you'll put me out of pain."

The surgeon-major at last relented and nodded to an aide, who administered the chloroform. Quickly and skilfully the operation was performed, and when the patient came back to things of the world he lay in a ward on the same floor, a cradle over the stump to avert the risk of hemorrhage from the dressings being disturbed. He was very feeble and languid, and spoke like one in a trance.

"Do you feel better after your sleep, Andy?"

"Yes, thank you; 'twas much-a-wanted. But my feet are very cold."

His feet! Then he knew nothing of what had occurred; that he was no longer as others, but maimed in his youth, destined to go through life a cripple--if he ever rose from his bed.

"Put more covers over me," he besought.

He got a stimulating cordial from one of the brothers who specially charged himself with his guardianship, and I passed through some of the remaining wards on my way out. Those who were the least querulous appeared to be the very men who were most grievously wounded, perhaps they were too spent to sigh; those who were loudest in their yells of anguish--there is no other word--were a number of unfortunates who had their flesh scorched and shrivelled by the blow-up of a magazine. It is as trying to hear a strong man yell with anguish as to see a strong man shed tears. Here and there a lighted taper was placed at the foot of a bed, and the white sheet drawn over the mute and motionless occupant told its own story.

The next forenoon I visited Andy. He was weak but sprightly, and still unconscious of his great loss. He asked me how we were getting on, and when we should have the enemy beaten, for he could distinctly hear the whistling of shells and the repercussion of the booming of the big guns.

On the following day there was a change in him for the worse. There were two reasons to explain it; a shell had fallen on the roof of the hospital and crashed into one of the wards of the upper story where it burst. This naturally caused a fearful commotion, and fevered and mutilated patients had started from their beds in panic and crouched in the corridors and on the staircases. But, to my thinking, the alteration in Andy's condition was to be traced rather to another accident. He had learned the extent of his misfortune. A rough, good-natured comrade who had snatched time for a friendly call had blurted it out.

"Keep up your spirits, my hearty; you won't be the first lad to hobble through life on a timber-peg."

The poor fellow turned a ghastly white, gazed around him in a scared, vacant manner--so the brother told me--and asked with dry, tremulous lips for a drink of water. Afterwards he had dozed into a delirious slumber. In his ravings he fancied he was on a lone and dangerous post in advance of our lines, and that his officer had forgotten him.

"I'm perishin' wid the cowld," he peevishly muttered, "and no sign o' the relief. Ten hours on sentry; I give them ten minutes more. If they don't come, I'll go."

Then there must have been a struggle in his harassed brain between duty and the sense that he had been neglected.

"No," he continued. "Desertion before the inamy--disgrace! Can't do that. As I'm here, I'll see it out. I wish the relief would come."

And then the poor crazed youth went through the motions of slapping his hands across his breast to quicken the circulation, and began humming the air of "The Pretty Maid Milking her Cow."

By degrees the motion of his hands slackened, his voice grew fainter, he turned his head on one side, and dropped into a deep, calm sleep.

Duty took me elsewhere, but I returned in a few hours. As I stole up to the bedside the patient was awake and looked brighter and better than before. It was the blazing of the wick before the candle expires.

"He has had a lucid interval," whispered the brother, "and was so meek and patient that it made me weep. But he is delirious again--still yearning for that relief."

At that instant the sunset flame shooting through a window burnished the sufferer's face until it looked like that of some waxen image with a halo; by a powerful effort he propped the upper portion of his body on his left elbow, raised his right arm in salute, and cried--

"Hurrah! I saw the sunlight on yer bay'nets, boys. Andy wouldn't lave his post. But whisper, sargent, ye were much-a-wanted, much-a-wanted!"

And with a glad laugh the boy-soldier fell back.

There was a thin crimson streak upon the pillow. The relief had, indeed, come at last.

JOHN AUGUSTUS O'SHEA, in _Merry England_.

Mixed Marriages.

Marriage is so intimate a union between man and wife that the hearts of both should ever beat in full and unalloyed sympathy and accord. Above all, the religious convictions of both ought to be in perfect harmony. If there is not in the family a common faith and a common form of divine worship, the consequences are disastrous to home comfort, to religious training, and to faith itself. Show me a family that forms an exception, and you either show a strengthening of the rule, or you show a family that is happy only in appearance. For, even then you will find that the Catholic party has to do a thousand things unknown to the other, and to beg of the children to keep matters secret. There is woe following the telling of the secret. Suffice it to know that the wisdom of the Catholic Church is opposed to these unions; that if the Catholic party die, the children, as a rule, are lost; and that even in the best cases religious indifference is the ordinary consequence.

How often do we meet such an instance as this, nor shall I overdraw it. A young Catholic lady tells her confessor that she intends to marry a Protestant young man. The confessor remonstrates. It is useless. Her mind is made up on the matter. He is a good young man, with no prejudice against her faith, and is satisfied to be married by the priest. Very well; they get married; and six months afterward the bell is rung at the priest's door. A thickly veiled female comes in, and she has a sad story to tell. She has been abused, called names in which her religion was not complimented; and, oh, worst of all, this very day he has thrust her out of doors. Yes; called Papist and thrown down the stoop by the "splendid young man" on whose arm she hung so proudly in the heyday of her foolish fascination!

Some of our young ladies may be educated a little too high for our average young man. And too many of them look down on honest labor--on the young mechanic or tradesman--and cast their eyes on some banker's clerk or broker's accountant, who, with ten or twelve dollars a week, studies the manners of the millionnaire, frequents the opera, and may not be above forging his employers' name. Better to cast her lot with the honest young Catholic tradesman, who attends to his religious duties, is temperate and steady, forgetting altogether that he neither dresses like a fop nor poses like a Chesterfield.

If the man be the Catholic, the case is worse. The mother has most influence with the children. The father worries, drinks, loses his position, and perhaps dies a victim of intemperate habits.

Farewell, My Home.

Though sunshine dances merrily
On wave and stream and trembling leaf,
Though wild birds wake their minstrelsy,
My heart is full of grief.

No sunshine there; 'tis sad and lone;
No echo to the wild bird's lay;
One only thought--the dear hearth-stone
I loved is quenched to-day.

My heart will break; I cannot bear
To part with scenes so loved, so blest.
My heart will break; I cannot tear
Me from this home of rest.

Yet, though I say farewell, my home,
'Tis but the lips that speak their part;
Believe, wherever I may roam,
I leave with thee my heart.

Broken, yet clinging still to thee,
My home, as to a mother's breast;
Broken, yet loving tenderly
My home, my heart's first rest.

Farewell, my home, farewell, farewell;
One last, one lingering look I take
On each dear scene of hill and dell,
Of mountain bold and silver lake.

Farewell, I leave my bleeding heart
Within thy loved retreats to roam;
Farewell, farewell, too soon we part;
My home, my childhood's home.

Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, Ireland. ULIDIA

* * * * *

ARBITRATION.--The question of arbitration received quite an impetus at Braddock, Penn., by the selection of Rev. Father Hickey, the well-known pastor of St. Thomas' church, at that place, as an arbitrator. The Bessemer Steel Works, an institution employing _six thousand men_, was shut down on account of the strike. Father Hickey was selected by both parties, and succeeded in satisfactorily settling the difficulties.

The "Ten-Commandment" Theory.

Sir Wilfred Lawson, writing to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ (a London paper), says:--"In a recent article on Home Rule, you declared: 'We are all for Home Rule plus the Ten Commandments. But if the Irish seek Home Rule expressly to violate the Ten Commandments with impunity, then they shall not have Home Rule, let them demand it ever so loudly.' I have my doubts whether it is possible to 'violate the Ten Commandments with impunity,' but we will not stop to argue that point. But what I want to know is, how far you intend to carry this 'Ten-Commandment' theory? Is it applicable to all nations or only to the Irish? If the former, how shall we stand in England? The Ten Commandments forbid among other things, murder, stealing and coveting our neighbors' possessions.

"Do we reverence the command, 'Thou shalt do no murder?' Let the thousands of Zulus, Afghans, Egyptians and Arabs whom we have slaughtered during the last few years give dumb evidence on that point. The slaughter of these unfortunate men, whose crime is that they are worse armed than we are, is duly hailed with public acclamation and with ecclesiastical thanksgiving!

"Stealing is equally popular. At this very moment the press gushes with rapturous delight because Lord Dufferin has succeeded in stealing the territory of the Burmese.

"As to lying, I need say nothing, as we are all fresh from the general election.

"The Irish will be very ingenuous if they can contrive to violate the Ten Commandments more successfully than we do in very many of our public proceedings. The crimes for which we are responsible are, however, mainly committed against feeble foes who have no means of stating their case to the world. But the violation of the Eighth Commandment, which is what you really fear will be endorsed in Ireland, will be committed against the body of Irish landlords, who, up to a recent period, have had their own way in that country. The fear is that the tenants will steal the property of the landlords. In former times the landlords have stolen the property of the tenants. In either case stealing is most deplorable, but I do not know whether, in a moral point of view, the latter is worse than the former. Honest men must hope that both may be put a stop to. Sir, I hold by the Ten Commandments, and I heartily wish that all nations and all individuals would pay them practical deference. All that I maintain at present is, that the fear that the Irish may, on one point, adopt a different course is not enough to justify us in refusing them the benefit of self-government. If we are to wait until we have guarantees for the observance of the Ten Commandments before we grant political rights to nations, we shall have, I fear, to wait until doomsday, or, at the very least, until the millennium is upon us. However, the position taken up in your article may be the right one; but even in that case we shall speak to our Irish brethren with much more effect if we can show that we ourselves are observing the precepts which we are so anxious to enforce upon them."

Bay State Faugh-a-Ballaghs.