"Did Father Letheby call?" I asked.

"Oh, dear, yes, that was my only consolation. He calls twice a week, sometimes three times; and he brought Miss Campion, and she comes every day and reads for hours with me; and look at those violets and lilies of the valley—'t was she brought them; and sometimes a strange gentleman comes with her, and he sits down and talks and puts queer questions to me—all about God, and what I do be doing, and what I do be thinking. But since Father Letheby told me that there is something behind it all that I don't understand, and that some day I will understand it, and see it is all God's love and not His anger, I am quite resigned, Father, and I do be saying all day: 'Thy Will be done! Thy Will be done.' But I break down when I think of all I've gone through."

"Let me see," I said, as a light began to dawn upon me; "you are now perfectly resigned, my poor child, are you not?"

"Oh! yes, Father; and really happy. Only for mother, who frets about me so much, I wouldn't care to be well again. Sure, as Father Letheby says, I don't know but that something dreadful was in store for me; and that God, in His mercy, has just saved me."

"Quite right! quite right! my child. And tell me now,—this strange gentleman,—has he ever asked you to pray for him?"

"He did, Father. And I didn't like it at first; but Father Letheby said I should. And I have been saying a Rosary for him every day since. And the last day he was here he asked me: 'Now, Alice, tell me the plain truth. Are you glad this has happened you?' I hesitated for a moment, then I looked at the Wounds of our Lord, and I said firmly: 'I am.' And he said: 'Do you believe God will give you back your beauty, and make it a hundred times greater in heaven for all you have suffered here?' And I said confidently: 'I do.' 'Alice, my child, will you pray and pray strongly for me?' I said: 'I will, sir.' And he went away looking happy. But, you know, Father, these are my good times, when I feel resigned and think God is using me for His own wise purposes; welcome be His Holy Will! But I am sometimes bad, and I get unhappy and miserable, and I ask myself: 'Why did God do it? Why did God do it?' And once I said to our Blessed Lady, when she looked so cold and stern,—I said—"

"What did you say, dear?"

"I said: 'If Daddy Dan was here, he wouldn't let you do it.'"

And the poor child smiled at her own childishness and simplicity.

"But that's not all, Father. I have told no one but mother and you; but I'm all one running sore down to my feet, and the doctor said something about an operation the other day. Sure, you won't allow that, Daddy Dan, will you?"

She was rolling one of the buttons in my sleeve round and round in her thin fingers, and looking wistfully at me.

"No, my child, no operation! You have gone through too much for that. But now cheer up, Alice, it will all come right. Some of these days you will see how our dear Lord and His Holy Mother love you. Why, don't you know, you little goose, that these are signs of your predestination? Don't you remember all that you have learned about the saints, and how they prayed to be afflicted?"

"I do, Daddy Dan."

"And don't you remember all about those holy women that were marked with the wounds of our Divine Lord?"

"I do, Daddy Dan."

"Very well! Now you're one of them. The Lord has made you His own. Now, good by. I'll come to see you every day in future. But pray! pray! pray! won't you?"

"I will, Daddy Dan! Will you come to-morrow?"

* * * * *

This was all very well; but I was as cross as a bear with a sore head, notwithstanding.

"Wisha, then, Mrs. Moylan," I said, as I was leaving the house, "aren't you the mighty proud woman entirely, never to call in your parish priest, nor send him word about your poor child! What are we coming to, I wonder, when poor people are getting so much above themselves?"

"Well, then, I didn't like to be troubling your reverence. And sure, I thought you knew all about it, and that Father Letheby told you."

"He didn't, then. You and he have kept it a great secret,—a great secret entirely. Never mind. But tell me, is the poor child really resigned?"

"Well, indeed she is, your reverence, excep' now and then, when the whole thing comes back to her. In fact, she's less trouble than when she was well. Then nothing could please her. She was always grumblin' about her clothes, an' her food; and she was short and peevish. Now she is pleased with everythin'. 'T is 'whatever you like, mother;' or ''t is too good for me, mother;' or 'thank you kindly, mother,' until sometimes I do be wishing that she had some of the old sperrit, and take me short in her answers. But, sure, 't is all God's Blessed and Holy Will. Glory be to His Holy Name!"

I went back through the village again and called upon Father Letheby. He was just sitting down to dinner.

"I don't want to take away your appetite," I said, refusing the chair which he proffered; "but I am for the first time genuinely angry with you. I suppose you had your reasons for it; but you ought to know that a parish priest has, by every law, natural and canonical, the right to know about his sick or distressed poor people, and that a curate has no right to be keeping these things a secret from him. Reticence and secretiveness are excellent things in their way; but this too may be overdone. I have just been down to Mrs. Moylan's to learn for the first time that her child has been sick for nearly two months. You knew it and you never told me. Now, I'll insist for the future that a sick-call book shall be kept in the sacristy, and that the name of every patient, in the parish shall be entered there. Good evening."

He flushed up, but said nothing.

I passed the chapel door and went in straight up to the altar of the Blessed Virgin.

"Now," I said, "you've carried this entirely too far. Is this the return I've got for all I've done for you for the past fifty years? Think of all the Rosaries I said for you, all the Masses I offered for you, all the May devotions I established for you, all the Brown Scapulars I gave for you—all—all—and this is your return; and she your own child, that I thought was so like you. 'Pon my word, I think I'll blow out that lamp and never light it again."

The mild, brown eyes looked down on me calmly, and then that queer thing called Conscience, that jumps up like a jack-in-the-box when you least expect it, started at me and began:—

"What folly is this, Father Dan? Do you think you know more than God and His Blessed Mother? Do you? Your head is so turned with heathen vanity that you think you ought to get the reins of the universe into your hands. Here's your classics, and your Spinoza, and your Cappadocians, and your book-writing, and all your castles in the air, and your little children lying on their sick-beds and you knowing nothing about it. Look sharp, old man, your time is at hand, and think what the Judge may do with you when His hand presses so tightly on His little children."

I sat down to my dinner, but couldn't touch a bit. It was a nice little dinner, too,—a little roast chicken and a scrap of bacon and some nice floury potatoes. No use. The thought of that child would come before me, and her piteous cry: "Oh, don't, dear Lord, don't!" and, "Sure you won't let Him, Mother; you said you wouldn't;" and with a great big lump in my throat I pushed aside the plate and went over to the darkening window.

After a time Hannah came in, looked at the dishes, and looked at me.

"Was there anything wrong with the chicken?" she said, thinking I was reflecting on her cookery.

"No, Hannah, 't was all right; but I'm not in a humor for eating."

She was surprised. So was I. It was the first time for many years that I bolted. Thank God, a good appetite and His Divine Grace have never deserted me.

"I'm thinkin' you're in for somethin'," she said. "And no wondher! I niver knew a man to timpt Providence like you. Will you have the hot wather, as you ate nothin'?"

"Don't mind, Hannah. I'll have a cup of tea by and by."

I sat down to the fire, looking into all its glowing crevices and crannies, thinking, thinking of many things. By and by, in came Father Letheby. He was subdued and deferential, but evidently very much hurt at my unaccustomed rudeness. He stood with his back to the fire, looking down on me, and he said, in his best Sunday accent, smoothed and ironed:—

"I confess, sir, I am still quite at a loss to understand your rather—well—forcible remarks this evening. I can see, certainly, a great deal of reason in your irritation; and I am not at all disposed to contravene the principle that you have an indefeasible right to be acquainted with the sorrows and trials of your parishioners; but pardon me for saying it, I was only carrying out, perhaps too logically, your own reiterated teaching."

"Look here," said I, "have you had your dinner?"

"Yes, sir," said he.

"Well, then, sit down, and have your coffee here. Touch that bell."

He sat down, and somehow this took a lot of the starch out of him.

"You were saying something," said I, "about my teaching. When did I ever teach you to keep the most vital interests of these poor people a secret from me?"

"Well," said he, balancing the sugar in his spoon over the cup, "if there was one lesson more than another that was continually dinned into my ears, it was: 'When a young man comes into a strange parish, he must be all eyes and ears, but no tongue,' and I think you quoted some grave authorities for that aphorism."



"Quite so," I replied. "I think it is a most wholesome advice. For there never yet was a young man that was not disposed to think that he could run a parish better than all the pastors that lived for generations there. But did you understand me to say that we were never to talk over and discuss parochial affairs?"

"Well, I confess," said he, "I did not. But you see, sir, your thoughts were running in quite another channel. You were interested in the classics and in literary matters."

"My conscience, my dear boy, has already made me aware of that, and in somewhat more forcible and less polite language than you have used. Now, I admit that I have been a surly old curmudgeon this afternoon, and I am sorry for it; but hereafter, don't leave me in the dark any longer about my parishioners. It seems to me that, if we dropped our occasional uncharitableness about each other and our more occasional criticisms on our superiors, and addressed ourselves to the work God gives us to do in that limited circle He has drawn about us, it would be all the better."

"Well, sir, I quite agree with you. But I must say that for the few months I have been here, I do not remember to have heard much uncharitableness about our brethren from you."

There now! How can you be angry with a fellow like that? The black cloud turned softly into gray, and the gray turned slowly round, and showed only the silver lining.



CHAPTER XXI

THE FACTORY

Notwithstanding my gloomy forebodings, I find that Father Letheby has eagerly grasped the idea of writing on the historical and philosophical subjects I had suggested. Where he got books of reference I know not, nor can I conjecture; but he has a silent way of accomplishing things that would seem to a slow-moving mind like my own little short of a miracle. When, therefore, one fine day in early April I strolled in to see him (for that little tiff about the sick child has only cemented our friendship), I gasped to see a huge pile of quarto manuscript paper in a fair way to be soon well blackened, and by the side of his writing-table several heavy, leather-lined folios, which a certain visitor described as "just the kind of book you would take with you for a stroll by the seashore, or your annual holiday at Lisdoonvarna."

"Hallo!" I cried; "so you're at it. I thought you had given it up."

"I'm in for it," he replied modestly, "for good or ill. You see, I recognized some truth in what you said, and I determined to do a little to take away our reproach."

"I must say you are a singularly acute and deep thinker to recognize my far-seeing, almost Promethean wisdom; but to tell you the truth, I haven't the faintest idea of what I said to you, except to recommend you to do something for the spread of Catholic literature."

"Never mind, Father Dan," he replied, "the seed is sown; the die is cast. I intend to scribble away now and to submit my manuscript to the editor of some ecclesiastical journal. If he accepts it, well and good; if he doesn't, no harm done. By the way, you must help me, by looking over this translation of the funeral oration of St. Gregory Nazianzen on St. Basil. I depend on your knowledge of Greek a great deal more than on these garbled versions of Scotch or Oxford translators."

Isn't that a nice young man? What could I do but go over, then and there, that famous panegyric, that has made the author as great as his subject. At the end of his papers on the "Three Cappadocians," Father Letheby intends to give in Greek, with English translation, passages from their sermons and poems. A happy idea!

"Now, so far so good!" said Father Letheby, after this little conference. "The metaphysical subject is more difficult to tackle,—a fellow can be tripped up so easily; but we'll postpone that for the present. Now here are three matters that concern us. I think Ormsby is on the point of coming over. The prayers of the little children and of that poor Dolores, Alice, have nearly pushed open the gates of the Kingdom. At least, they're creaking on their hinges. Secondly, I'm beginning to get afraid of that young girl. Under her awful cross she's developing such sanctity as makes me nervous about guiding her any longer. She is going up the eternal hills, and my spiritual sight cannot follow. Thirdly, we open the shirt-factory on the 20th. I give you timely warning, Father Dan, for you are to be chairman, and your speech is to be the event of the occasion."

"Quite an anti-climax from the eternal hills," I said, noticing his tendency to practical issues rather than to supernatural evolutions; "but now, let us see. Are you sure of Ormsby?"

"Nearly so. I have left him severely alone—told him the matter concerned himself altogether. He has given up reading and argumentation of every kind. He says the Veni Creator every day. But I think, under Heaven, it is the patience and divine serenity of this poor child that affect him most deeply."

"Then he isn't shocked at her appearance?"

"Oh, dear, yes! He cannot bear to look at her. He says it is more like Oriental leprosy than anything he has seen in these countries. But her gentleness and patience and her realization of the unseen startle him—"

"It has startled me more than once," I replied.

"And me. I begin to feel almost nervous about directing so high a soul. I am glad you have noticed it, because you can give me lights."

"H'm. You are becoming sarcastic, young man. But I feel we are treading on holy ground. Let us look to ourselves. How often do you give the child Holy Communion?"

"Every Sunday and holiday."

"Has she asked for more frequent Communion?"

"Yes, indeed; but I hesitated."

"Hesitate no longer. Digitus Dei est hic."

Of course, I had seen all this myself; for in a quiet, unconscious way this poor child had manifested even to my purblind eyes the dealings of God's munificence with her. By degrees all the old vain regrets after her beauty had yielded to perfect resignation; and resignation had grown into peace, and peace had been transformed into rapture.

"I used be thinking, Daddy Dan, a good deal of what you said to me—how these poor bodies of ours were but a little lime, and phosphorus, and water; and that we must all go through the terrible changes of death; and what you told me of that great saint in Spain and the dead queen; but it was only when Father Letheby read to me about our Lord, 'a worm and no man,' 'a leper and accursed by God and afflicted'; 'and one huge sore from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet'—that I began to think He had made me like Himself, welcome be His Will, and Holy be His Name!"

Then I got her a fine big brass Crucifix from the Passionist Fathers at Mount Argus, and left her to her wonder-working and merciful Master. But she has impressed Ormsby profoundly. "The weak things of the world hast Thou chosen to confound the strong." "Thy ways are upon the sea, and Thy pathway on the mighty waters, and Thy footsteps are unknown."

"Well, now," I said to Father Letheby, getting out of my reverie, "to come down from the Holy Mountain, what's this you are saying about the shirt-factory? You don't mean to aver it is a fait-accompli?"

"Certainly," he replied, "everything is arranged; and on the 20th a dozen sewing-machines will be clicking merrily in the old mill."

"You have the lamp of Aladdin," I said admiringly. "Now, who's to be there?"

"All the gentry and the elite of the neighborhood," he said.

"Rather a limited audience for a great occasion," I couldn't help saying.

"No matter," he cried, rising up; "it is a good work, however. But you'll take the chair, Father Dan, won't you?"

"All right," I replied, but with a little misgiving, for no one knows what necromancy this fellow is capable of, and I had already conjured up visions of the Lord Lieutenant and the Dowager This and the Countess That—"but mind you, my speech is to come in at the end; and I promise you they won't have to look long at their watches."

"Very good, sir," he replied, "all is now arranged."

I went down to see my little martyr, for she is pleased to say that I do her good by my visits. There she lay meekly, the big crucifix in her hands, and her lips always moving in silent prayer. The children often come in to see her, she told me, and read by her bedside; for now there is no jealousy, nor triumph, but all have begun to think that there is a saint in the parish. The little milliner used come at the beginning, and bring her little novelettes and journals, and talk about the fashions, which only made the sufferer unhappy. All that is now stopped; and the "Clock of the Passion" and the "Visions of Catherine Emmerich" are now her only reading.

"Mr. Ormsby was here again to-day," she said.

"Indeed. And was he as inquisitive as usual?"

"Nearly," she said, with a smile. "But do you know, Daddy Dan, I think he'll become a Catholic. Isn't it an awful thing not to be a Catholic, Daddy Dan?"

"'Tis, my child. It's worse than being born blind."

"Now, what would I do if I had not our dear Lord"—kissing the crucifix—"and His holy Mother? I'd rather a thousand times be as I am than Queen of England."

"Of course. Who brought these flowers?"

"Miss Campion. She calls them lilies of the valley. Is it a sin to smell them, Daddy Dan?"

"No, child, it is no sin. Nay, 't is a prayer if you glorify God for the wonders He has wrought in these tiny leaves."

"But they'll fade away and die in a day or two, Daddy Dan!"

"So shall all beautiful things, my child, only to be transplanted where there is no rust or fading."

"Thank you, Daddy Dan. That's just what I said to Mr. Ormsby. 'Do you really believe,' he said, 'that it is the love of God that has smitten you?' 'Yes,' I said firmly. 'Do you believe that you are all the dearer to Him for that He has smitten you?' 'Yes,' I said, 'I'm sure of it.' 'And do you believe that God will take you out of the grave and build you up far fairer than you have been?' 'I believe it most certainly,' I replied. 'It's the sublime and the impossible,' he cried. And then he said,—but I shouldn't repeat this, Daddy Dan,—'Mind, little one, if I become a Catholic, it's you have made me one.' But it would be so nice, if only to repay Miss Campion for all her goodness."

Then I began to think of some holy man that said: There should be an invalid and an incurable one in every religious community, if only to bring God nearer to them in His great love.

As I was leaving, Mrs. Moylan pulled me aside.

"Is there any chance at all, your reverence, of her recovery?"

She looked with a mother's wistfulness at me.

"For I do be praying to the Lord morning, noon, and night, that if it be His Blessed and Holy Will, He would take her out of suffering, or restore her to me."

I made no answer.

"You could do it, your reverence, if you liked. Sure, I don't want you to do any harm to yourself, God forbid; but you could cure her and restore her to me, if you plazed."

"I couldn't, Mrs. Moylan," I replied; "and what is more, I wouldn't now take her away from God if I could. I was as bitter as you about it; but now I see that God has His own designs upon your child, and who am I that I should thwart Him?"

"Perhaps your reverence is right," she replied; "but the mother's heart will spake up sometimes whin it ought to be silent."

I passed by my little chapel as I went home, and knelt down for a prayer. I thought the Blessed Virgin looked queer at me, as if to say:—

"Well, are you satisfied now? Who was right—you or my Son?" And I went home very humbled.

* * * * *

The great day at last arrived. And if I was surprised the evening of the concert at the transformation effected in the old mill, I was still more surprised when, entering its precincts on the opening day of the Kilronan Shirt-Factory, I came face to face with quite a distinguished gathering. There were carriages drawn up at the door, the liveried coachmen hardly able to hold the prancing horses' heads; and the owners were in the great room upstairs, chatting in groups or examining the machines, that, clean and bright and polished, only awaited the soft touch of human fingers to work wonders. And there, on the large table filling up the whole centre of the room, was displayed an assortment of linen and flannels cut up into as many sections as you could take out of all the diagrams of Euclid. And there, of course, was the stage, undisturbed since the evening of the concert; and there were the same flowers and palms, and the same little girls dressed in satin, and the same piano, and Miss Campion, only waiting the signal to commence.

I moved up through the long hall, making my bows to right and left. Father Letheby was chatting gayly with some very grand people, and pointing out his little improvements here and there. He was in his best optimistic humor, and was quite at his ease in the groups that surrounded him. It is curious how we differ. I did not feel at all comfortable, for I'd rather be talking over the cross-door to any old woman about her chickens, or settling the price of a bonham, or lecturing about the measles and the croup, than conversing with the grandest people of the land. But every one to his tastes; and sure, I ought to be proud that my good curate—

"I move that the parish priest take the chair."

"I beg to second the proposal," said a dapper young fellow, who looked as if he had stepped out of a bandbox. And before I knew where I was, I was on the stage ensconced in a comfortable chair; and then there was a burst of music around me, which gave me leisure to look about and take stock. It was all very nice. There was a great group of fine ladies in front, and they were all staring at me as if I were a dime-museum prodigy. I was "Gorgonized from head to foot with a stony, British stare"; a cool, unblushing, calculating stare, that made me feel as if I were turning into stone. I did not know what to do. I tried to cross my legs coolly, but the arm-chair was too low, and I fell back in a most undignified manner. Then I placed my hands on my knees, thinking that this was the correct thing; but it struck me immediately that this was the attitude at High Mass, and I gave it up as out of place. Then I assumed an air of frigid composure, and toyed with my watch-chain. But a little girl screwed her eyes into me, and said, evidently, in her mind: "That old gentleman is a fidget." Then I leaned back gracefully, but something whispered: "That's all right at home, Father Dan, but please remember that the convenances of society require a different posture;" and I sat bolt upright in a moment. My eye caught in a blissful moment my new handsome umbrella that lay against my chair. I took it up and leaned with dignity upon it; but that aforesaid little girl looked at me, and looked at her mamma, and said—I know she said in her own mind—"That old gentleman thinks it is going to rain, and he wants to open his umbrella. Mamma, tell him that there is no danger of rain here." I put down my umbrella. Then Miss Campion—God bless her! she always comes to my relief—tore her little fingers along the keys in a grand finale, and then tripped over to her old pastor, and said gayly:—

"Hurrah! Now, Father Dan, for the grand speech. Won't you astonish these heretics?"

I believe I did astonish them. For, after a few preliminaries, I settled down coolly into a quiet, deliberate talk; and I saw by degrees the stony stare melt away into sunny smiles, and the sunny smiles broadened into genteel laughter, and there was great clapping of hands, and suppressed cheers, and altogether I felt that I held them all in the palms of my hands. But that wicked little girl in the front seats held out a long time. She did not know whether to laugh or to cry. She blinked her eyes at me, as if to be sure it was not a spectral vision; then looked dreadfully alarmed; then consulted her mother's face, now wreathed in smiles; and then, when her brother was falling off the seat laughing, and poking her with his stick, she condescended to relax her awful stare, to smile, to look surprised at herself for smiling—at last, to laugh. I knew then I had the victory, and I sang, lo Triumphe! in my own mind.

It is curious and interesting to notice how thoroughly these Protestant folk warm to a priest the moment they discover he is not quite an ogre. All these great people gathered round me; they were so delighted, etc.

"What's your name, my dear?" I said to the wicked little girl.

"Nonna!" she replied.

"By Jove!" I exclaimed, "St. Gregory's mother!"

"Naw," she said, "it's grandmaw's name."

"It's a pretty name all the same," I replied; "may you wear it as long as grandma."

The girls were all sitting at the machines waiting. Down near the end of the hall were two individuals in close conversation. They looked prosaic and dull amid all the excitement. When I got near them I saw the man, who was looking at me steadily, with one eye closed, whilst I was speaking. He was an infidel, a Giaour, an incredulous, questioning, calculating unbeliever in all my rosy forecastings. He was the manager over from Loughboro'. The lady was manageress, and had come over to superintend the initial proceedings at Kilronan. Somehow I didn't like them. They chilled the atmosphere. There was that cool, business-like air about them, that L. S. D. expression that shears off the rays of imagination, and measures and weighs everything by the same low standard. I saw Father Letheby buoyant, enthusiastic, not merely hopeful, but certain of the success of his enterprise. I saw these two business people chatting and consulting together, and I knew by their looks that they were not quite so sanguine. It was "the little rift within the lute."

As I went home, pondering and thinking,—for I didn't wait for the tea and cake that are supposed to be essential to all these gatherings,—I heard the patter of a light foot behind me, and in a minute Bittra was by my side.

"Dear me!" she panted, "you are so young and active, Father Dan, it is hard to keep up with you."

By which kind sarcasm I knew that Bittra had something good to tell me.

"Shall I call you Bittra or Beata?" I replied, looking down at her flushed face.

"Beata! Beata! Beatissima!" she said, in a kind of ecstasy; "it is all right; and God is so good!"

"I always object to the fireworks style of elocution on the part of my curate," I said, "and if you could shed a calm, lambent light on this ecstatic episode, it would suit my slow intellect."

"Slow," she said, stopping,—"do you know, Father Dan, that is, you do know, that you have just made one of the nimblest, wittiest, drollest, most eloquent speeches that ever was made. I heard Mrs. S—— say that she never could have believed—"

"Beata," I interrupted seriously, "my purgatory will be long enough, I believe. Indeed, if I get out in the general exodus on the Day of Judgment I shall consider myself happy. Where's the use in your adding to it, and making an old vain man so much vainer? Tell me about what is nearest to your heart to-day."

Thus soberized, she gave me a fairly consecutive account of what had happened. I say "fairly," because, of course, there were many exclamations, and notes of interrogation, and "asides," which I let pass without comment.

Ormsby had paid the suffering child a visit that morning, and had put his final theses and difficulties before her. Disbeliever in miracles, he was face to face with a miracle. That such an awful affliction as befell Alice should be accepted, not only with resignation, but with joy; that she would consider it a positive misfortune to be restored to her old beauty, and that she was forever thanking God that He had elected her to suffering, was either of two things—insanity or inspiration. And her faith in the supernatural—her intense realization of the existence and the daily, hourly influence of our Lord and His Blessed Mother, and her profound conviction that one day her physical shame and torment would intensify her glory in Heaven—all this struck him as a revelation, before which the antics of spiritualists, and the foreknowledge of Brahmins, and the blank agnosticism of science paled into contemptible insignificance.

Bittra, as usual, had been speaking to Mrs. Moylan in the kitchen. Sitting on the straw chair, she spoke for the hundredth time her words of consolation to the poor mother. The murmur of voices came clear, but indistinct, from the little chamber of the sick girl. Then, after a long conference, Ormsby came out, grave and collected as usual, and Bittra having said good by to the mother, and kissed the leprous face of the sick girl, they both walked on in silence, until they came to the bridge that spanned the fiord near the "great house." Ormsby leaned on the parapet of the bridge looking out over the tumbling waters for a long time. Then, turning, he said:—

"Bittra, I must become a Catholic."

Then Bittra put her hand in his gloved palm, and that was all.

"And was that all?" I exclaimed incredulously.

"That's all," said Bittra, "and wasn't it enough?"

"That's not the way a novelist would wind up such a delightful romance," I said. "There would have been at least twenty or thirty pages of lurid description."

"Ah! but this is not a romance," said Bittra; "this is stern reality."

And she tried ineffectually to frown.

"It only remains now," she continued, "that Rex shall be instructed, and that won't take long; and then received, and make his First Communion, and that won't take long; and then—and then—"

She paused. I was studying attentively a seagull that was poised motionless over the heaving waters.

"Father Dan, you're becoming very unkind."

"Indeed? I was only waiting for the date and circumstances of the 'then.'"

"Well, you see, it can't be May; because the people have a foolish superstition about May; though I should so like to be—to be—married under our Lady's auspices. But the first day in June. Won't that be delightful? And it must be right under the statue of the Sacred Heart; and I shall put there such a mass of roses that day; and we shall both go to Holy Communion, and you'll say the nuptial Mass, Father Dan—"

"I?"

"Yes, of course. Who else, I should like to know?"

"I thought you would be bringing down an Archbishop or even a Cardinal—"

"Now, you're jesting as usual. I'll have no one but you—you—you—to marry me; and perhaps, if I were not asking too much, the choir might sing—"

"Certainly! They must. But I won't promise you that wedding-march by that German fellow—"

"Mendelssohn?"

"Yes. That's his name, I believe. Nor that other march of that other fellow, whom we see on the papers."

"I know. You mean the grand march in 'Lohengrin.' Why, Father Dan, what a musician you are! Who would ever think it?"

"Ah, my dear, I'm not understood at all. But I'll promise you one thing, my little child, such an ovation from the poor of Kilronan as will make the angels cry with envy."

Here Bittra was silent.

"One word more, Father Dan," she said, wiping away a happy tear, "I must be running back. Rex is waiting. But he doesn't speak enthusiastically about this sewing business. You know he has great experience of the world—"

I nodded "Of course."

"And he has seen all kinds of things, and he is awfully shrewd and clever, and he knows people so well, and he understands business matters so thoroughly—"

"Go on," I said, admiringly.

"Well," she continued, with a laugh, "he does not like this affair at all, nor the boat business at all. He's afraid that Father Letheby, for whom he has the greatest admiration, will become embarrassed in money matters, and that there will be trouble—"

"Don't let this imaginary shadow darken your sunshine, Bittra. It will be all right. Trust Father Letheby. He is very far-seeing."

"Well, good-by, Father Dan. Pray for me. And won't you go see our little saint, and tell her? I have no time to-day."

"Good-by, and God bless you!" I said fervently.

It is these white souls that brighten the gray landscapes of life, and make death desirable; for shall we not meet their sisters and compeers in Heaven?



CHAPTER XXII

THE MAY CONFERENCE

My mail is not generally a heavy one, thank God! and when I do see a sheaf of letters on my table, I feel pretty certain that there is something unpleasant amongst them. I make it a rule, therefore, never to read a letter until breakfast is over; for I think we ought take our food, as the Lord intended, with a calm mind. And I am not one of those ascetics whom every mouthful they swallow seems to choke. I take what God sends with a thankful heart, and bless Him for it. And sure it was well I followed this wholesome practice the following morning; for I do not think I ever lost my equanimity so thoroughly as when, on opening a circular, I saw a formal and extended and appalling syllabus of our Conferences for that year. Up to this, our Conferences had been conferences—informal conventions, where we met, talked over our little troubles, discussed a rubrical or theological question in an academic fashion, and listened with patience and edification to some young man, who nervously read for an hour or so some carefully prepared paper on a given subject. Then, if the Master of Conferences wanted to show how well read he was, he put a few questions here and there around the table. But if he was very persistent, and the chase became too hot, it was easy to draw a red herring across the track, the aforesaid red herring generally taking the shape of one of those venerable questions, which, like the trisection of an angle, or the quadrature of a circle, or the secret of perpetual motion, shall never be finally solved. The red herring that did us most service, and was now, after the lapse of forty years' discussion, a battered skeleton, was "whether invincible ignorance on the part of the penitent as to the reservation of a particular sin excused from the reservation, or whether faculties in every case were withdrawn from the confessor." I believe the question has been warmly debated in the schools; but there it remains, suspended, like the Prophet's coffin (I am afraid my metaphors are getting mixed), between heaven and earth.

But altogether these conferences were nice, pleasant occasions for meeting the brethren and exchanging ideas. What was my consternation this morning to read a series of new rules, as dogmatic as an Act of Parliament, which put an end forever to the old order of things, and reduced our delightful meetings to a number of monthly examinations on Rubrics, Sacred Hermeneutics, Theology, and Ecclesiastical History. Our names were all to go into a hat, and the unfortunate prizeman was to be heckled and cross-examined by the chairman for ten minutes, like any ordinary Maynooth student at the Christmas and Easter examinations. Then came the Conference, after three or four poor fellows had been turned inside out. This was a paper to be read for three-quarters of an hour. Then came another cross-examination of that unhappy man; then a series of cross-questions, after we had all gone into the hat again. "And then," I said to myself with chagrin and disgust, "they will gather up all that remains of us from the floor and send us home for decent interment." Here is one little trifle, that would easily fill up a half-year's study in a theological seminary:—

PRO MENSE AUGUSTO.

(Die I^ma Mensis.)

1. Excerpta ex Statutis Dioecesanis et Nationalibus. 2. De Inspiratione Canonicorum Librorum. 3. Tractatus de Contractibus (Crolly).

"Good heavens," I exclaimed, as Father Letheby came in and read down the awful list in the second copy which I handed him, "imagine that! What in the world do bishops think? It is easy for them to be twirling their rings around their little fingers and studying the stones in their mitres. They have nothing else to do, as we all know, except the occasional day's amusement of knocking curates around, as you would pot balls on a billiard-table. But what consideration have they for us, poor hard-working missionary priests? What do they know about our heavy confessionals, our sick-calls, our catechising in the schools, our preparing for our sermons, our correspondence for our people, with Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Oceanica, our—our—our—look at this! 'Excerpta ex Statutis!' That means reading over every blessed diocesan and national statute, that is, two ponderous volumes. Again, 'De Inspiratione'—the whole question of the Higher Criticism, volume after volume, Bull after Bull, articles in all the magazines, and the whole course of German exegetics. That's not enough! But here, as dessert, after junks of Rubrics, and indigestible slabs of controverted hermeneutics, come the light truffles and pate de foie gras of Crolly's 'Contracts.' Begor, the next thing will be they'll want us to preach our sermons before them; and then this Master of Conferences,—he's a good fellow and an old classmate of my own; but of course he must exhibit his learning, and bring in all his Christy minstrel conundrums, as if any fool couldn't ask questions that twenty wise men couldn't answer;—and then he'll cock his head, like a duck under a shower, and look out of the window, and leave me stuck dead—"

There was a quiet smile around Father Letheby's mouth during this philippic. Then he said, smoothing out the paper:—

"There is a little clause here at the end, which I think, Father Dan, just affects you."

"Affects me? If there is, it didn't catch my eye. Show it to me."

I took the paper, and there, sure enough, was a little paragraph:—

"6 deg. The privilege, in virtue of which parish priests of a certain standing on the mission are exempted from the obligations of the Conference, will be continued."

I read that over three times to make quite sure of it, my curate looking down smilingly at me.

"If you are not of a certain standing, Father Dan, I'd like to know who is."

"True for you," I replied musingly. "I believe I am called the Patriarch of the Conference."

Visions of an old man, leaning back in his chair, whilst he was proof-protected against theological bullets, swam before me; and I began to feel like a man on a safe eminence, overlooking the battlefield, or a Spanish lady at a bullfight.

"'Pon my word," I said, at length, "I'm beginning to think there is something in it, after all. The Holy Ghost has something to say to our good and holy prelates. There is no doubt there was a great waste of time at these Conferences, and young men got into idle habits and neglected their theology; and, you know, that's a serious matter. In fact, it reaches sometimes to a mortal sin. We must all study now. And you see how practical the bishop is. There's Rubrics. Now, there's no doubt at all that a good many of us don't respect the ceremonies of the Mass. Go to Lisdoonvarna, and every fellow appears to have his own idea of—"



"Pardon me, sir," said Father Letheby, "I cannot quite follow you there. I must say I never saw the Rubrics half so well carried out in England as here at home. In fact, this complaint appears to be one of these satires on racial characteristics that are only half true, and take all their force from traditional misrepresentations."

Isn't that fine language? You see, he's taking a leaf or two out of my book.

"Well, but you can't deny that this question of Scriptural exegesis is one of these dominant questions that must arrest the attention of all who are interested in ecclesiastical or hieratical studies," said I, trying to keep pace with him.

"Quite true," he said; "and yet I should like to see these new-fangled theories about Scriptural inspiration, plenary or otherwise, lifted from the shaking quagmires of conjecture onto the solid ground of demonstration."

"You cannot deny whatever," I replied, just before giving in, "that Crolly's 'Contracts' is solid and well-reasoned and coherent argument; and look at its vast importance. It touches every question of social and civil life—"

"It is an excellent heliograph in sunny weather," he said; "but what about a muggy and misty day?"

"Well, God bless the bishop, whatever," I replied, throwing up the sponge; "if we haven't the ablest theologians, the smartest Master of Ceremonies, and the best Orientalists in Ireland, it won't be his fault. Dear me, how far-seeing and practical he is!"

"But about his ring and his mitre, sir?" said my curate. "You were pleased to make some observations a few minutes ago—"

"That'll do now," I replied. "My mare will be ready the morning of the Conference. You'll drive, and we must be in time."

That was a pleasant drive. May in Ireland! What does it mean? It means coming out of a dark tunnel into blinding sunshine; it means casting off the slough of winter, and gliding with crest erect and fresh habiliments under leafy trees and by the borders of shining seas, the crab-apple blossoms, pink and white, scenting the air over your head, and primroses and violets dappling the turf beneath your feet; it means lambs frisking around their tranquil mothers in the meadows, and children returning at evening with hands and pinafores full of the scented cowslip and the voluptuous woodbine; it means the pouring of wine-blood into empty veins, and the awakening of torpid faculties, and the deeper, stronger pulsations of the heart, and the fresh buoyancy of drooping and submerged spirits, and white clouds full of bird-music, as the larks call to their young and shake out the raptures of their full hearts, and the cheery salutations of the ploughmen, as the coulter turns over the rich, brown soil, and the rooks follow each furrow for food.

"A grand day, Mick!"

"Grand, your reverence, glory be to God!"

"Good weather for the spring work."

"Couldn't be better, your reverence."

We're out of hearing in a flash, for the little mare feels the springtime in her veins, and she covers the road at a spanking pace.

"You've thrown off twenty years of age, to-day, Father Dan," said Father Letheby, as he looked admiringly at his old pastor, then turned swiftly to his duty, and shook out the ribbons, and then drew them together firmly, and the little animal knew that a firm hand held her, and there was no fear.

"No wonder, my boy," I cried; "look at that!" And I pointed to the [Greek: anerithmon gelasma] of old AEschylus; but what was his AEgean or even his Mare Magnum to the free and unfettered Atlantic? Oh! it was grand, grand! What do I care about your Riviera, and your feeble, languid Mediterranean? Give me our lofty cliffs, sun-scorched, storm-beaten, scarred and seamed by a thousand years of gloom and battle; and at their feet, firm-planted, the boundless infinity of the Atlantic!

We were in time, and I was snugly ensconced in my old corner up near the bishop's chair before the priests began to throng in. Now, I'd like to know this. If an old gentleman, not hitherto very remarkable for dandyism, chooses to brush his white, silvered hair over his coat-collar, and has put on a spotless suit of black cloth, and sports his gold chain and seals conspicuously, and wears his spectacles easily, and drops them in a genteel manner on the silk ribbon that is suspended around his neck; and if he is altogether neat and spruce, as becomes an ecclesiastic of some standing in his diocese, is that a reason why he should be stared at, and why men should put their hands in their pockets and whistle, and why rather perky young fellows should cry "Hallo!" and whisper, "Who's the stranger?" And even why the bishop, when he came in, and we all stood up, should smile with a lot of meaning when I kissed his sapphire ring and told him how well he looked?

"And I can reciprocate the compliment, Father Dan," his Lordship said; "I never saw you look better. All these vast changes and improvements that you are making at Kilronan seem to have quite rejuvenated you."

Father Letheby, at the end of the table, looked as demure as a nun.

"I must congratulate your Lordship also," I said, "on these radical changes your Lordship has made in the constitution of our Conference. It is quite clear that your Lordship means to give full scope to the budding talent of the diocese."

A groan of dissent ran round the table.

"I'm afraid you must give up your Greek studies, Father Dan," said the bishop; "you'll have barely time now to master the subject-matter of the Conference."

"That's true, my Lord, indeed," I replied, "it would take twenty hours out of the twenty-four, and seven days out of every week to meet all these demands, at least for a valetudinarian ('Oh! Oh!' from the table). But your Lordship, with your usual consideration, has taken into account the nimble intellects of these clever young men, and exempted the slow-moving, incomprehensive minds of poor old parish priests like myself." ("No! No!! No!!!" from the table.)

"Now, now," said the Master of Conferences, a thin, tall, high cheek-boned, deep-browed, eagle-eyed priest, whom I have already introduced as "a great theologian," "this won't do at all. We're drifting into the old ways again. I mustn't have any desultory conversation, but proceed at once to business. Now, my Lord, would you kindly draw a name?"

"Put in Father Dan! Put in Father Dan!" came from the table.

The bishop smilingly drew up number four; and the chairman called upon Father Michael Delany.

Father Michael squirmed and twisted in his seat. He was a very holy man, but a little peppery.

"Now, Father Michael," said the chairman blandly, "we'll take the Rubrics first. Let me see. Well, what do you do with your hands during the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice?"

"What do I do with my hands?" said Father Michael sullenly.

"Yes; what do you—do—with your hands?"

"That's a queer question," said Father Michael. "I suppose I keep them on me."

"Of course. But I mean what motions—or shall we call them gestures?—do you use?"

"What motions?"

"Yes. Well, I'll put it this way. There's an admirable book by an American priest, Father Wapelhorst, on the Ceremonies. Now, he wisely tells us in the end of the book what things to avoid. Could you tell me what to avoid—what not to do in this matter?"

"Don't you know, Father Michael?" said a sympathetic friend; "go on. Elevans et extendens—"

"Young man," said Father Michael, "thank you for your information, but I can manage my own business. What's this you were saying?" he cried, turning to the Master of Conferences.

"What mistakes might a priest make with his hands during celebration?"

"What mistakes? Well, he might put them in his pocket or behind his back, or—"

"Never mind, never mind. One question more. If you wore a pileolus, zucchetto, you know, at what part of the Mass would you remove it?"

"I wouldn't wear anything of the kind," said Father Michael; "the five vestments are enough for me, without any new-fangled things from Valladolid or Salamanca."

The chairman had graduated at Salamanca.

"My Lord," I interposed charitably, "I don't want to interfere with this interesting examination, but my sense of classical perfection and propriety is offended by this word in the syllabus of to-day's Conference. There is no such word in the Latin language as 'Primigeniis,'—'De Primigeniis textibus Sacrae Scripturae—'"

"Now, Father Dan, this won't do," shouted the chairman. "I see what you're up to. There must be no interruptions here. Very good, Father Michael, very good indeed! Now, we'll take another. Father Dan, if you interrupt again, I'll put you into the hat. Well, number eighteen! Let me see. Ah, yes. Father Irwin!"

Poor Father Michael looked unhappy and discomfited. It is a funny paradox that that good and holy priest, who, his parishioners declared, "said Mass like an angel," so that not one of his congregation could read a line of their prayer-books, so absorbed were they in watching him, couldn't explain in totidem verbis the Rubrics he was daily and accurately practising.

Which, perhaps, exemplifies a maxim of the Chinese philosopher:—

"One who talks does not know. One who knows does not talk.

Therefore the sage keeps his mouth shut, And his sense-gates closed."

Before Father Irwin was questioned, however, there was a delightful interlude.

Some one asked whether it was lawful for any one, not a bishop, to wear a zucchetto during the celebration of Mass. As usual, there was a pleasant diversity of opinion, some contending that the privilege was reserved to the episcopate, inasmuch as the great rubricists only contemplated bishops in laying down the rules for the removal and assumption of the zucchetto; others again maintained that any priest might wear one; and others limited the honor to regulars, who habitually wore the tonsure. The chairman, however, stopped the discussion peremptorily, and again asked (this time a very aged priest) the question he had put to Father Delany. The old man answered promptly:—

"The zucchetto, or pileolus, is removed at the end of the last secret prayer, and resumed after the ablutions."

"Quite right," said the chairman.

"By the way," said the old man, "you pronounce that word pileolus. The word is pileolus."

"The word is pileolus," said the chairman, whose throne wasn't exactly lined with velvet this day.

"Pardon me. The word is pileolus. You find it as such in the scansions of Horace."

"This is your province, Father Dan," said the bishop. "There's no one in the diocese so well qualified to adjudicate here—"

"'Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi—'

my Lord!" said I. I was drawing the bishop out. "There were ironical cheers at 'Agamemnona.'"

"'Mutato nomine, de te Fabula narratur,'"

said the bishop, smiling. "Of course, we have many a rich depositary of classical lore here,

"'At suave est ex magno tollere acervo.'"

"My Lord," said I, pointing around the table,

"'Omnes hi metuunt versus, odere poetas,'"—

("Oh! Oh! Oh!" from the Conference.)

"'Nec recito cuiquam nisi amicis, idque coactus Non ubivis coramve quibuslibet.'"

Here the Master of Conference, seeing that the bishop was getting the worst of it, though his Lordship is a profound scholar, broke in:—

"'Ohe! Jam satis est! Dum aes exigitur, dum mula ligatur, Tota abit hora.'"

He looked at me significantly when he said, "dum mula ligatur," but I had the victory, and I didn't mind.

"Now, look here, Father Dan, you're simply intolerable. The Conference can't get along so long as you are here. You are forever intruding your classics when we want theology."

"I call his Lordship and the Conference to witness," I said, "that I did not originate this discussion. In fact, I passed over in charitable silence the chairman's gross mispronunciation of an ordinary classical word, although I suffered the tortures of Nessus by my forbearance—"

"There will be no end to this, my Lord," said the chairman. "That'll do, Father Dan. Now, Father Irwin."

I was silent, but I winked softly at myself.



CHAPTER XXIII

A BATTLE OF GIANTS

"Now, Father Irwin," said the chairman, addressing a smart, keen-looking young priest who sat at the end of the table, "you have just come back to us from Australia; of course, everything is perfect there. What do you think—are the particles in a ciborium, left by inadvertence, outside the corporal during consecration consecrated? Now, just reflect for a moment, for it is an important matter."

"Unquestionably they are," said the young priest confidently.

"They are not," replied the chairman. "The whole consensus of theologians is against you."

"For example?" said Father Irwin coolly.

"Wha-at?" said the chairman, taken quite aback.

"I doubt if all theologians are on your side," said Father Irwin. "Would you be pleased to name a few?"

"Certainly," said the chairman, with a pitying smile at this young man's presumption. "What do you think of Benedict XIV., Suarez, and St. Alphonsus?"

The young man didn't seem to be much crushed under the avalanche.

"They held that there should be reconsecration?"

"Certainly."

"Let me see. Do I understand you aright? The celebrant intends from the beginning to consecrate those particles?"

"Yes."

"The intention perseveres to the moment of consecration?"

"Yes!"

"And, the materia being quite right, he intends to consecrate that objective, that just lies inadvertently outside the corporal?"

"Quite so."

"And you say that Benedict XIV., Suarez, and St. Alphonsus maintain the necessity of reconsecration?"

"Yes."

"Then I pity Benedict XIV., Suarez, and St. Alphonsus."

There was consternation. The bishop looked grave. The old men gaped in surprise and horror. The young men held down their heads and smiled.

"I consider that a highly improper remark, as applied to the very leading lights of theological science," said the chairman, with a frown. And when the chairman frowned it was not pleasant. The bishop's face, too, was growing tight and stern.

"Perhaps I should modify it," said the young priest airily. "Perhaps I should have rather said that modern theologians and right reason are dead against such an opinion."

"Quote one modern theologian that is opposed to the common and universal teaching of theologians on the matter!"

"Well, Ballerini, for example, and the Salmanticenses—"

"Psha! Ballerini. Ballerini is to upset everything, I suppose?"

"Ballerini has the Missal and common sense on his side."

"The Missal?"

"Yes. Read this—or shall I read it?

"'Quidquid horum deficit, scilicet materia debita, forma cum intentione, et ordo sacerdotalis, non conficitur Sacramentum; et his existentibus, quibuscunque aliis deficientibus, veritas adest Sacramenti.'"

"Quite so. The whole point turns on the words cum intentione. The Church forbids, under pain of mortal sin, to consecrate outside the corporal; consequently, the priest cannot be presumed to have the intention of committing a grave just at the moment of consecration; and, therefore, he cannot be supposed to have the intention of consecrating."

"Pardon me, if I say, sir," replied the young priest, "that that is the weakest and most fallacious argument I ever heard advanced. That reasoning supposes the totally inadmissible principle that there never is a valid consecration when, inadvertently, the priest forgets some Rubric that is binding under pain of mortal sin. If, for example, the priest used fermented bread, if the corporal weren't blessed, in which case the chalice and paten would be outside the corporal, as well as the ciborium; if the chalice itself weren't consecrated, there would be no sacrifice and no consecration. Besides, if you once commence interpreting intention in this manner, you should hold that if the ciborium were covered on the corporal, there would be no consecration—"

"That's only a venial sin," said the chairman.

"A priest, when celebrating," said Father Irwin sweetly, "is no more supposed to commit a venial than a mortal sin. Besides—"

"I'm afraid our time is running short," said the bishop; "I'll remember your arguments, which are very ingenious, Father Irwin. But, as the chairman says, the consensus is against you. Now, for the main Conference, de textibus Sacrae Scripturae."

"Father Duff will read his paper, my Lord, and then we'll discuss it."

"Very good. Now, Father Duff!"

Father Duff was another representation of the new dispensation, with a clear-cut, smooth-shaven face, large blue-black eyes, which, however, were not able to fulfil their duties, for, as he took out a large roll of manuscript from his pocket, he placed a gold-rimmed pince-nez to his eyes, and looking calmly around, he began to read in a slow, rhythmic voice. It was a wonderful voice, too, for its soft, purring, murmurous intonation began to have a curious effect on the brethren. One by one they began to be seized by its hypnotic influence, and to yield to its soft, soporific magic, until, to my horror and disgust, they bowed their heads on their breasts, and calmly slept. Even the Master of Conference, and the bishop himself, gently yielded, after a severe struggle. "I shall have it all to myself," I said, "and if I don't profit much by its historical aspects, I shall at least get a few big rocks of words, unusual or obsolete, to fling at my curate." And so I did. Codex Alexandrinus, and Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Bezae, and Codex Vaticanus rang through my bewildered brain. Then I have a vague recollection that he actually laughed at the idea of six literal days of creation, which made an old priest, out of his dreams, turn over to me and whisper: "He's an infidel"; then, again, he ridiculed the idea of the recognized authorship of the Pentateuch; spoke of Chaldean and Babylonian interpolations; knocked on the head the Davidical origin of the Psalms; made the Book of Daniel half-apocryphal; introduced the Book of Job, as a piece of Arabian poetry, like the songs of some man called Hafiz; talked about Johannine Gospels and Pauline Epistles; and, altogether, left us to think that, by something called Ritschlian interpretations, the whole Bible was knocked into a cocked hat. Then he began to build up what he had thrown down; and on he went, in his rhythmical, musical way, when just as he declared that "the basal document on which everything is founded is the ur-evangelium, which is the underlying cryptic element of the Synoptic Gospels,"—just as he reached that point, and was going on about Tatian's "Diatessaron," a deep stertorous sound, like the trumpeting of an elephant, reverberated through the conference room. They all woke up, smiling at me, and as they did not seem inclined to apologize to Father Duff for their misbehavior, I said gravely and most angrily:—

"My Lord, I think the Conference should be a little less unconscious of the grave discourtesy done to one of the most able and erudite papers that I have ever heard here—"

There was a shout of irreverent laughter, in which, I am sorry to say, the bishop joined. At least, I saw his Lordship taking out a silk handkerchief and wiping his eyes.

"I propose now, my Lord, as an amende to the most cultured and distinguished young priest, that that valuable paper be sent, with your Lordship's approbation, to some ecclesiastical journal in Ireland or America. Its appearance in permanent print may give these young men some idea of the contents of the document, the main features of which they have lost by yielding, I think too easily, to the seductions of ill-timed sleep—"

Here there was another yell of laughter, that sounded to my ears ill-placed and discourteous; but the chairman again interposed:—

"Now, Father Duff, if you are not too highly flattered by the encomiums of Father Dan, who was your most attentive and admiring listener, I should like to ask you a few questions on the subject-matter of your paper."

"Surely," I declared, "you are not going to attack such a stronghold? Besides, the time is up."

"There is a full hour yet, Father Dan," said the bishop, consulting his watch; "but you won't mind it, you are able to pass your time so agreeably."

I did not grasp his Lordship's meaning; but I never do try to penetrate into mysteries. What's that the Scripture says? "The searcher after majesty will be overwhelmed with glory."

But the little skirmishes that had taken place before the paper was read were nothing to the artillery-duel that was now in progress.

"With regard to the Septuagint," said the chairman, "I think you made a statement about the history of its compilation that will hardly bear a test. You are aware, of course, that Justin, Martyr and Apologist, declares that he saw, with his own eyes, the cells where the Seventy were interned by order, or at the request, of Ptolemy Philadelphus. How, then, can the letter of Aristeas be regarded as apocryphal?"

"Well, it does not follow that the whole letter is authentic merely because a clause is verified. Secondly, that statement imputed to Justin may be also apocryphal."

"Do you consider the names of the seventy-two elders also unauthentic?"

"Quite so."

"And altogether you would regard the Septuagint as a rather doubtful version of the Ancient Law?"

"I'd only accept it so far as it agrees with the Vulgate and the Codices."

"But you're aware it was in common use amongst cultivated Jews years before the coming of our Lord; in fact, it may be regarded as a providential means of preparing the way of the Lord for the Jews of Greece and Alexandria."

"That proves nothing."

"It proves this. It is well known that the Hebrews were scrupulously exact about every title and letter, and even vowel-point—"

"I beg your pardon, sir; the Hebrews before Christ didn't use vowel-points."

"That's a strong assertion," said the chairman, reddening.

"It is true. I appeal to his Lordship," said Father Duff.

"Well," said the bishop diplomatically, "that appears to be the received opinion; but the whole thing is wrapped up in the mists and the twilight of history."

I thought that admirable.

"To pass away from that subject," said the chairman, now somewhat nervous and alarmed, "I think you made statements, or rather laid down a principle, that Catholics can hardly accept."

Father Duff waited.

"It was to the effect that in studying the history of the Bible, as well as in interpreting its meaning, we must take into account the discoveries and the deductions of modern science."

"Quite so."

"In other words, we are to adopt the conclusions of German rationalistic schools, and set aside completely the supernatural elements in the Bible."

"Pardon me; I hardly think that deduction quite legitimate. There are two schools of thought in the Church on this question: the one maintains with Dr. Kaulen, of Bonn, that the conclusions of modern criticism are so certainly erroneous that young students should not notice them at all. The other holds that we must read our Bibles by the light of modern interpretation. The official Encyclical of the present Pope Leo XIII. ('Providentissimus Deus') should have closed the controversy; but men are tenacious of their opinions, and both schools in Germany utilize the Encyclical for their own ends. Professor Aurelian Schoepfer, of the Brixen, at once published his book ('Bible and Science'), in which he maintained that the teaching of the natural sciences may be used by Catholics not only to confirm Biblical statements, but to interpret them. As I have said, he was opposed by Kaulen, of Bonn. There was a second duel between Schantz of Tuebingen, and Scholz of Wuerzburg. The former insisted that no new principle of Biblical interpretation has been introduced by the Encyclical; the latter that the principle of scientific investigation was recognized, and was to be applied. Now, a Protestant, Koenig of Rostock, was interested in this Catholic controversy, and collected seventy reviews of Schoepfer's work by leading scholars in Germany, Austria, France, Ireland, America; and he found that five sixths endorse the position of the author—"

"You might add, Father Duff," said my curate, who was an interested listener to the whole argument, and who had been hitherto silent, "that these reviewers found fault with Schoepfer for ignoring the consensus patrum, and for decidedly naturalistic tendencies."

The whole Conference woke up at this new interlude. The chairman looked grateful; the bishop leaned forward.

"But the 'Civilta Cattolica,'" said Father Duff, "which we may regard as official, says, in its review of the same book: 'Biblical history cannot be any longer stated except in agreement with the true and correct teaching of the Bible and the reasonable conclusions of the natural sciences.'"

"Quite so," said Father Letheby, "that applies to the certain discoveries of geology and astronomy. But surely you don't maintain that philology, which only affects us just now, is an exact science."

"Just as exact as the other sciences you have mentioned."

"That is, as exact as a mathematical demonstration?"

"Quite so."

"Come now," said my curate, like a fellow that was sure of himself, "that's going too far."

"Not at all," said Father Duff; "I maintain that the evidence of history on the one hand, and the external evidence of monuments on the other, combined with the internal evidence of Scriptural idiomatisms of time and place, are equivalent to a mathematical demonstration."

"You'll admit, I suppose," said Father Letheby, "that languages change their structures and meanings very often?"

"Certainly."

"The English of Shakespeare is not ours."

"Quite so."

"Even words have come to have exactly antithetical meanings, even in a lapse of three hundred years."

"Very good."

"And it is said that, owing to accretions, the language we speak will be unintelligible in a hundred years' time."

"Possibly."

"Now, would you not say that a contemporary of Shakespeare's would be a better judge of his poetry and its allusive and natural meaning than ever so learned a linguist, after an interval of change?"

"Well, I should say so. I don't know where you are drifting."

"What is the reason that we never heard of these 'internal evidences,' these 'historical coincidences,' these 'exclusive idioms,' from Origen or Dionysius, or from Jerome or Augustine, from any one of the Fathers, who held what we hold, and what the Church has always taught, about the authorship of the Sacred Books, and to whom Hebrew and Greek were vernacular?"

"But, my dear sir, there are evident interpolations even in the Gospels. Do you really mean to tell me that that canticle of the Magnificat was uttered by a young Hebrew girl on Hebron, and was not rather the deliberate poetical conception of the author of St. Luke's Gospel?"

I jumped from my seat; but I needn't have done so. I saw by the whitening under my curate's eyes, and the compression of his lips, and his eyes glowing like coal, that our dear little Queen's honor was safe in his hands. Father Duff couldn't have stumbled on a more unhappy example for himself. Father Letheby placed his elbows on the table and, leaning forward, he said in a low, tremulous voice:

"You may be very learned, Father, and I believe you are; but for all the learning stored up in those German universities, which you so much admire, I would not think as you appear to think on this sacred subject. If anything could show the tendency of modern interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, it would be the painful and almost blasphemous opinion to which you have just given expression. It is the complete elimination of the supernatural, the absolute denial of Inspiration. If the Magnificat is not an inspired utterance, I should like to know what is."

There was a painful silence for a few seconds, during which I could hear the ticking of my watch. Then the Master of Conference arose, and, kneeling, said the Actiones nostras. We were all gathering up our books and papers to disperse, when the Bishop said:—

"Gentlemen, the annual procession in honor of our Blessed Lady will be held in the Cathedral and College grounds on the evening of May the 31st. I shall be glad to see there as many of you as can attend. Dinner at four; rosary and sermon at seven o'clock. Father Letheby, would you do me the favor of preaching for us on that occasion?"

Father Letheby blushed an affirmative; and then the bishop, with delightful tact, turned to the humbled and almost effaced Father Duff, and said:—

"Father Duff, leave me that paper; I think I'll adopt the admirable suggestion of our friend, Father Dan."

Some of the young fellows, wits and wags as they were, circulated through the diocese the report that I tried to kiss the bishop. Now, there is not a word of truth in that—and for excellent reasons. First, because like Zacchaeus, I am short of stature; and the bishop—God bless him!—is a fine, portly man. Secondly, because I have an innate and congenital dread of that little square of purple under his Lordship's chin. I'm sure I don't know why, but it always gives me the shivers. I'm told that they are allowing some new class of people called "Monsignori," and even some little canons, to assume the distinctive color of the episcopate. 'T is a great mistake. Our Fathers in God should have their own peculiar colors, as they have their own peculiar and tremendous responsibilities. But I'll tell you what I did. I kissed the bishop's ring, and I think I left a deep indentation on his Lordship's little finger.

The Master of Conference detained me.

"I'm beginning to like that young fellow of yours," he said. "He appears to have more piety than learning."

"He has both," I replied.

"So he has; so he has, indeed. What are we coming to? What are we coming to, at all?"

"Then I suppose," I said, "I needn't mind that bell?"

"What bell?"

"The bell that I was to tie around his neck."

"Father Dan, you have too long a memory; good by! I'm glad you've not that infidel, Duff, as curate."

We went home at a rapid pace, my curate and I, both too filled with thought to speak much. At last, I said, shaking up:—

"I'm beginning to think that I, too, took forty winks during the reading of that paper."

"I think about forty minutes of winks, Father Dan," he replied. "You slept steadily for forty minutes out of the forty-five."

"That's a calumnious exaggeration," I said; "don't I remember all about Job, and Daniel, and the synoptic Gospels."

"These were a few preliminaries," replied my curate.

"But who was that undignified and ungentlemanly fellow that woke us all with such a snore? I suppose it was Delaney?"

"No; it was not Delaney. He was too agitated after his rencontre with the chairman to fall asleep."

"Indeed? Perhaps it would be as well for me not to pursue the subject further. This will be a great sermon of yours."

"I'm very nervous about it," he said, shaking the reins. "It is not the sermon I mind, but all the dislike and jealousy and rancor it will cause."

"You can avoid all that," I replied.

"How?"

"Break down hopelessly and they'll all love you. That is the only road to popularity—to make a fool of yourself."

"I did that to-day," he said. "I made a most determined cast-iron resolution not to open my lips unless I was interrogated, but I could not stand that perkiness and self-sufficiency of Duff, especially when it developed into irreverence."

"If you had not spoken I should have challenged him; and I am not sure I would have been so polite as you were. The thing was unpardonable."

We dined at Father Letheby's. Just after dinner there was a timid knock at the door. He went out, and returned in a few minutes looking despondent and angry. I had heard the words from the hall:—

"She must give it up, your reverence. Her little chest is all falling in, and she's as white as a corpse."

"One of the girls giving up work at the machines," he replied. "She's suffering from chest trouble, it appears, from bending over this work."

"Who is she?" I queried.

"Minnie Carmody—that tall girl who sat near the door."

"H'm," I said. "I think it would be nearer the truth to say that Minnie Carmody's delicacy comes from the vinegar bottle and white paper. She was ashamed of her red face, and this is the latest recommendation of the novelette to banish roses, and leave the lilies of anaemia and consumption."

"It augurs badly, however," he replied. "The factory is not open quite a month yet."



CHAPTER XXIV

THE SERMON

I am quite sure that sermon cost me more anxiety and trouble than Father Letheby suffered. I was deeply interested in its success, of course. But that was not the point. I am probably the feeblest and worst preacher in my diocese. This gives me the indefeasible right to dogmatize about preaching. Just as failures in literary attempts are the credentials of a great critic, so writers on sermons can claim the high authority and ambassadorship to dictate to the world, on the grounds that they are incapable of producing even a catechetical discourse. But they fall back upon that universal and indisputable privilege of our race—the belief in their own infallibility. It often surprised me that the definition of Papal Infallibility, which concentrated in the Vicegerent of the Most High the reputed privilege of our race, did not create a greater outcry. It was the final onslaught of the Holy Spirit on the unspeakable vanity of the race. It was the death-blow to private judgment. At least, it ought to have been. But, alas! human vanity and presumption are eternal and indestructible. From the corner-boy here at my window, who asks indignantly, "Why the deuce did not Gladstone push his Bill through the House of Lords, and then force the Commons to accept it?" to the flushed statesman, whose dream is Imperialism; from the little manikin critic, who swells out his chest, and demands summary vengeance on that idiot of an author who has had the daring presumption to write a book on the Greek accent, or binary stars, up to the Jupiter Tonans of the world-wide circulating journal, which dictates to the universe, it is all the same. Each from his own little pedestal—it may be the shuffling stilts of three feet high, or it may be the lofty security of the Vendome column—shrieks out his little opinion, and demands the silence or assent of the universe. Would that our modern Stylites, like to those of old, might, from their eminences, preach their own nothingness! Would that, like the Muezzins of Islam, they might climb the minarets of publicity and fame, only to call the world to praise and prayer!

But I, sharing the weaknesses, and, therefore, the privileges of a common humanity, claim the right to the luxury of preaching, which comes nearest to that of criticising, and is only in the third degree of inferiority from that supreme pleasure that is involved in I told you so.

And so, here by the western seas, where the homeless Atlantic finds a home, do I, a simple, rural priest, venture to homilize and philosophize on that great human gift of talk. Imagine me, then, on one of those soft May evenings, after our devotions in my little chapel, and with the children's hymns ringing in my ears, and having taken one pinch of snuff, and with another poised in my fingers, philosophizing thus:—

"I think—that is, I am sure—that the worst advices I ever heard given in my life were these:—

"On Preaching.—Try to be simple; and never aim at eloquence.

"On Meditation.—Keep your fingers in your Breviary, and think over the lessons of the Second Nocturn.

"And they are evil counsels, not per se, but per accidens; and for precisely similar reasons. They took no account of the tendency of human nature to relax and seek its ease. When the gray-haired counsellor said, 'Be simple,' he said, 'Be bald and vulgar.' For the young men who listened aimed at simplicity, and therefore naturally argued, the simpler the better; in fact, the conversational style is best of all. Where, then, the need for elaborate preparation? We shall only vex and confuse the people, consequently preparation is superfluous. We know the results. 'A few words' on the schools; an obiter dictum on the stations; a good, energetic, Demosthenic philippic against some scandal. But instruction,—oh, no! edification,—oh, no! That means preparation; and if we prepare, we talk over the people's heads, and we are 'sounding brasses and tinkling cymbals.'"

"But surely, sir, you wouldn't advise young men to study the eloquence of Massillon, or Bourdaloue, or Lacordaire? That would be talking over their heads with a vengeance."

"Do you think so?" I said. "Now, listen, young man. Which is, you or I, the elder? I am. All right. Now, my experience is that it is not the language, however eloquent, the people fail to follow, but the ideas, and they fail to follow the ideas because they are ill-instructed in their religion. Of course, I'm involved in the censure myself as well as others. But I proved this satisfactorily to myself long ago. We were in the habit of 'reading a book' at the Lenten exercises in the last town wherein I officiated as curate. Now, the people hate that above all things else. They'd rather hear one word from a stuttering idiot than the highest ascetical teaching out of a book. Nevertheless, we tried it; and we tried the simplest and easiest books we could find. No use. They couldn't follow one paragraph with intelligence. One evening I read for them—it was in Passion week—the last discourse of our Lord to His disciples—words that I could never read without breaking down. I assure you, they failed to grasp the meaning, not to speak of the pathos and divine beauty, of those awful words. They told me so."

"Do you mean then to conclude that we, young priests, should go in for high, flowery diction, long phrases, etc.? I could hardly imagine any man, least of all you, sir, holding such a theory!"

"You're running away with the question, my boy. The eloquence that I recommend is the eloquence of fine taste, which positively excludes all the ornaments which you speak of."

"By Jove, we don't know where to turn," said my curate. "I never ventured, during my late English experience of seven years, to stand in the pulpit and address the congregation, without writing every word and committing it to memory. I daren't do otherwise; for if I made a mistake, fifty chances to one, some Methodist or Socinian would call at the presbytery next morning and challenge me to deadly combat."

"And why should you give up that excellent habit here," I said, "and go on the dabitur vobis?"

"Because you may conjecture easily that I shall be talking over their heads."

"Better talk over their heads, young man, than under their feet. And under their feet, believe me, metaphorically, they trample the priest who does not uphold the dignity of his sacred office of preacher. 'Come down to the level of the people!' May God forgive the fools who utter this banality! Instead of saying to the people: 'Come up to the level of your priests, and be educated and refined,' they say: 'Go down to the people's level.' As if any priest ever went down in language or habit to the people's level who didn't go considerably below it."

"'Pon my word, Father Dan," said Father Letheby, "if I did not know you so well, I would think you were talking nonsense."

"Hear a little more nonsense!" I said. "I say now that our people like fine, sonorous language from the altar; and they comprehend it! Try them next Sunday with a passage from Lacordaire, and you'll see what I mean. Try that noble passage, 'Il y a un homme, dont l'amour garde la tombe,'—'There is a man whose tomb is guarded by love,'—and see if they'll understand you. Why, my dear fellow, fifty years ago, when the people were a classical people, taught only their Homers and Virgils by the side of the ditch, they could roll out passage after passage from their favorite preachers, and enjoy them and appreciate them. It was only a few days since, I was speaking on the subject to a dear old friend, who, after the lapse of fifty years, quoted a passage on Hell that he had heard almost as a child: 'If we allowed our imagination, my dear brethren, to dwell persistently on this terrific truth, Reason itself would totter on its throne.' But the people of to-day cannot quote, because they cannot get the opportunity. The race of preachers is dead."

I shut him up, and gave myself time to breathe.

"Would you say then, sir," he said meekly, "that I should continue my habit of writing out verbatim my sermons, and then commit them to memory?"

"Certainly not," I replied, "unless you find it necessary to maintain the high level on which all our utterances should be placed. And if now, after the practice of seven years, you cannot command your language, you never will. But here is my advice to you, and, as you are a friend, I shall charge nothing for it, but I make it copyright throughout the universe:—

I. Study. II. Preach not Yourself, but God. III. Live up to your Preaching.

That's all."

He appeared thoughtful and dissatisfied. I had to explain.

"A well-filled mind never wants words. Read, and read, and read; but read, above all, the Holy Scriptures. Never put down your Breviary, but to take up your Bible. Saturate yourself with its words and its spirit. All the best things that are to be found in modern literature are simple paraphrases of Holy Writ. And interweave all your sentences with the Sacred Text. All the temporal prosperity of England comes from the use of the Bible, all its spiritual raggedness and nakedness from its misuse. They made it a fetish. And their commentators are proving, or rather trying to prove, that it is only a little wax and pasteboard—only the literature of an obscure and subjugated race. But, even as literature, it has had a tremendous influence in forming the masculinity of the British character. They are now giving up the Bible and the Sabbath. And the debacle is at hand. But I often thought we would have a more robust piety, a tenderer devotion, a deeper reverence, if we used the Sacred Scriptures more freely. And our people love the Sacred Writing. A text will hang around them, like a perfume, when all the rest of our preaching is forgotten. Why, look at myself. Forty years ago I attended a certain Retreat. I forget the very name of the Jesuit who conducted it; but I remember his texts, and they were well chosen:—

'I have seen a terrible thing upon the earth: a slave upon horseback, and kings walking in the mire.'

'You have taken my gold and silver, and made idols unto yourselves.'

'If I am a father, where is my honor?'

'If I am a master, where is my fear?'

I have made hundreds of meditations on these words, and preached them many a time. Then, again, our people are naturally poetic; the poetry has been crushed out of their natures by modern education. Yet they relish a fine line or expression. And again, their own language is full of aphorisms, bitter and stinging enough, we know, but sometimes exquisite as befits a nation whose forefathers lived in tents of skins. Now give them a few of the thousand proverbs of Solomon, and they will chew them as a cow chews the cud. But I should go on with this subject forever."

"But what about the use of sarcasm, sir? Your allusions to the Gaelic sarcasms reminded me of it. I often heard people say that our congregations dread nothing so much as sarcasm."

"I'm glad you reminded me of it. I can speak on the matter like a professor, for I was past-master in the science. I had a bitter tongue. How deeply I regret it, God only knows. I have often made an awful fool of myself at conferences, at public meetings, etc.; I have often done silly and puerile things, what the French call betises; I think of them without shame. But the sharp, acrid things I have said, and the few harsh things I have done, fill me with confusion. There's the benefit of a diary. It is an examination of conscience. I remember once at a station, a rather mean fellow flung a florin on a heap of silver before me. He should have paid a half-crown. I called his attention to it. He denied it. It was the second or third time he had tried that little game. I thought the time had come for a gentle remonstrance. I said nothing till the people were about to disperse. Then I said I had a story to tell them. It was about three mean men. One was an employer of labor in America, who was so hard on his men that when his factory blew up he docked them, or rather their widows, of the time they spent foolishly up in the sky. There was a titter. The second was a fellow here at home, who stole the pennies out of the eyes of a corpse. There was a roar. 'The third, the meanest of the three, I leave yourselves to discover. He isn't far away.' The bolt went home, and he and his family suffered. He never went to a fair or market that it was not thrown in his face; and even his little children in the schools had to bear his shame. I never think of it without a blush. Who wrote these lines?—

'He who only rules by terror Doeth grievous wrong; Deep as Hell I count his error, Listen to my song.'"

"I'm not sure," said Father Letheby. "I think it was Tennyson."

"Thank God, the people love us. But for that, I should despair of our Irish faith in the near future."

"You said, 'Preach not yourself, but God'?"

"Aren't you tired?"

"No!" he said; "I think you are speaking wisely." Which was a direct implication that this was not in my usual style. But never mind!

"Let me carry out my own suggestion," I said. "Take down that Bible. Now, turn to the prophecy of Ezekiel—that lurid, thunder-and-lightning, seismic, magnetic sermon. Now find the thirty-third chapter. Now find the thirtieth verse and read."

He read:—

"And thou, son of man: the children of thy people, that talk of thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak, one to another, each man to his neighbor, saying: Come and let us hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come to thee, as if a people were coming in, and my people sit before thee; and hear thy words, and do them not; for they turn them into a song of their mouth, and their heart goeth after their covetousness. And thou art to them as a musical song that is sung with a sweet and agreeable voice; and they hear thy words and do them not."

"Very good. Now, there is the highest ambition of many a preacher: 'to be spoken of by the walls, and in the doors of the houses.' And, when judgment came, the people did not know there was a prophet amongst them."

"It isn't easy to get rid of ourselves in the pulpit," said Father Letheby.

"No, my dear boy, it is not. Nowhere does the [Greek: ego] cling more closely to us. We are never so sensitive as when we are on ceremonies, never so vain as in the pulpit. Hence the barrenness of our ministry. The mighty waters are poured upon the land, to wither, not to fertilize."

"You said, thirdly, 'Live up to your preaching' That's not easy, either."

"No; the most difficult of the three. Yet here, too, your words are barren, if they come not supported by the example of your life. A simple homily from a holy man, even though it were halting, lame, and ungrammatical, will carry more weight than the most learned and eloquent discourse preached by a worldly priest. I know nothing more significant in all human history than what is recorded in the Life of Pere Lacordaire. In the very zenith of his fame, his pulpit in Toulouse was deserted, whilst the white trains of France were bringing tens of thousands of professional men, barristers, statesmen, officers, professors, to a wretched village church only a few miles away. What was the loadstone? A poor country parish priest, informed, illiterate, uncouth,—but a saint. And I know nothing more beautiful or touching in all human history than the spectacle of the great and inspired Dominican, coming to that village chapel, and kneeling for the blessing of M. Vianney, and listening, like a child, to the evening catechetical lecture, delivered in a weak voice, and probably with many a halt for a word, by the saint of Ars."

Here I could proceed no further. These episodes in the lives of our holy ones fill me up to the throat, for my heart swells for their beauty. And I am a soft old fool. I can never read that office of St. Agatha or St. Agnes without blubbering; and St. Perpetua, with her little babe, kills me outright.

We had a great debate, however, the following evening about the subject-matter of the sermon. He wanted to preach on the Magnificat. I put down my foot there, and said, No!

"That poor Duff will be there; and you'll be like the victor rooster crowing over a fallen antagonist."

"But Duff and I are the best friends in the world."

"No matter. I suppose he has nerves and blood, like the rest of us. Try something else!"

"Well, what about the Ave Maria, or Tu gloria Jerusalem, tu laetitia Israel, etc.?"

"The very thing."

"Or, the place of the Blessed Virgin in Scripture?"

"You've hit the nail on the head. That's it!"

"Well, now," said he, taking out a note-book, "how long shall it be?"

"Exactly forty-five minutes."

"And I must write every word?"

"Every word!"

"How many pages will that make?"

"Twenty pages—ordinary copy-book. The first fifteen will be expository; the last five will be the peroration, into which you must throw all the pathos, love, fire, and enthusiasm of which you are capable."

"All right. Many thanks, Father Dan. But I shall be very nervous."

"Never mind. That will wear off."

I said to myself, you have heavier troubles in store; but why should I anticipate? The worst troubles are those that never arise. And where's the use of preaching to a man with the toothache about the perils of typhoid fever?

I went down to see my little saint.

She was "happy, happy, oh! so happy! But, Daddy Dan, I fear't won't last long!"

"You are not going to heaven so soon, and leaving us all desolate, are you?"

"No, Daddy Dan. But Mr. Ormsby, who thinks that I have made him a Catholic, says he will bring down a great, great doctor from Dublin to cure me. And I don't want to be cured at all."

"If it were God's Holy Will, dear, we should be all glad. But I fear that God alone can cure the hurt He has made."

"Oh, thank you! thank you! Daddy Dan. You have always the kind word. And sure you know more than all the doctors. And sure, if God wished me to be cured, you'd have done it long ago."

"I'm not so sure of that, my child," I said; "but who is the great doctor?"

"He's a doctor that was in the navy—like my poor father—and he has seen a lot of queer diseases in India, and got a lot of cures."

"Well, we're bound to try every natural specific, my child. But if all fails, we must leave you in the hands of the great Physician."

"That's what I should like best, Daddy Dan!"

"You must pray now for Father Letheby. He is going to preach a great sermon."

"On what?"

"On our Blessed Lady."

"I should like to be there. The children tell me he preaches lovely. They think he sees the Blessed Virgin when he is talking of her. I shouldn't be surprised."

"I think he'll have crosses, too, like you, my dear. No, no, I don't mean illness; but crosses of his own."

"I should be sorry," she said, her eyes filling with tears.

"Of course, you want heaven all to yourself. Aren't you a selfish saint?"

"I'm not a saint at all, Daddy Dan; but Father Letheby is, and why should he be punished?"

"Why, indeed? Except to verify that line of Dante's of the soul in Paradise:

"'E dal martirio venni a questa pace.'"



CHAPTER XXV

MAY DEVOTIONS

I often wonder if the May devotions in other countries are as sweet and memory-haunting and redolent of peace as here in holy Ireland. Indeed, I suppose they are; for there are good, holy Catholics everywhere. But somehow the fragrance and beauty of these May evenings hang around us in Ireland as incense hangs around a dimly lighted church, and often cling around a soul where faith and holiness have been banished. I cannot boast too much of the picturesqueness and harmony of our evening prayers at Kilronan, at least until Father Letheby came. We had, indeed, the Rosary and a little weak homily. Nevertheless, the people loved to come and gather around the beautiful statue of our Mother. But when Father Letheby came, he threw music and sunshine around everything; but I believe he exhausted all his art in making the May devotions attractive and edifying. He said, indeed, that they were imperfect, and would always remain imperfect, until we could close them with Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament; and he urged me again and again to apply for permission, but, to tell the truth, I was afraid. And my dear old maxim, which had done me good service during life—my little pill of all philosophy—lente! lente! came again to my aid. But I'll tell you what we had. The Lady altar had all its pretentious ugliness hid under a mass of flowers—great flaunting peonies burning in the background, beautiful white Nile lilies in the front, bunches of yellow primroses between the candles, great tulips stained in flame colors, like the fires of Purgatory around the holy souls in our hamlet pictures. And hidden here and there, symbolical of the Lily of Israel, and filling the whole church with their delicate perfumes, were nestled lilies of the valley, sweetest and humblest of all those "most beautiful things that God has made and forgot to put a soul in." Then such hymns and litanies! I do not know, I am sure, what people feel in grand city churches, when the organ stops are loosed and the tide of music wells forth, and great voices are lifted up; but I think, if the Lord would allow me, I would be satisfied to have my heaven one long May devotion, with the children singing around me and the incense of flowers in the air, and our dear Mother looking down on us; only I should like that there were life in those wondrous eyes of Mother and Child, and I should like that that Divine Child, who holds us all in the palms of His little hands, would get a little tired sometimes of contemplating His Mother's beauty and turn in pity towards us.