"This must not be a pauper's funeral," said Adelaide, as she rose from her knees. "Father, I am a stranger here; will you appoint some one to see to it?" She placed her purse in his hand as she spoke. The father looked at her. "Surely I have seen you be fore," he said; "your face is familiar to me, but I cannot remember where we met." Adelaide blushed. "I will see you after the funeral," she said; "meanwhile, may I ask you to point out some woman to go home with me, and take charge of these children? I will pay her well for her trouble." The abbé sent for a woman; a coach was called, and Adelaide took the poor children to her lodgings. Here they were fed, washed, clothed in neat mourning, and made ready to do the last sad honors to their mother's remains.

A large concourse of Irish neighbors attended the funeral, though of course all eyes were attracted to the stranger ladies, who walked up the aisle with a child at each side of them. The priest was evidently moved as he turned to address the assembly; and ever and anon his eye would glance to Adelaide, as if trying in vain to make out who she was. His discourse was on the history of poor Bridget, who lay before them. It ran something after this fashion: "My friends, as we pass through life, and the actions and thoughts of real human beings come under our notice, one reflection seems to strike us more forcibly than all the rest; it is this: that the real heroism of the earth is often overlooked, not only by the world at large, but also by the actors themselves. The greatest acts of virtue are performed by those who are unconscious of their greatness -the greatest works done in this miserable world are done by those who never dream that they are heroines at all. A lady is thought wondrously condescending if, from charity, she sit for a few hours in an atmosphere which the poor one she is tending endures always. She is deemed charitable if, from her abundance, she bestows alms on

the naked and starving. Now, all this is well, very well; I would encourage such efforts to the utmost; they bring a blessing both to the giver and receiver but for heroism, it is oftenest with the sufferer. I will relate to you a history with which I have only been made acquainted within these few hours. I had it from the lips of a friend who arrived from Ireland two days ago, in search of her who now lies before us. Bridget Norton was the daughter of an Irish farmer, who was somewhat better off than the majority; the farm-house was well kept; the dairy was a picture of neatness. Everything around the place was so fixed that they added to the completeness of the landscape. Bridget was a fine handsome girl, sought after by many, and unfortunately among her suitors was one base enough to vow revenge for the preference she gave to the man she married. Bad times came; the rejected suitor became agent for the landlord, and he perpetually harassed Norton for cash on every possible pre tence; while he made base proposals to the wife, which were rejected with the scorn they deserved, and the rage of the deceiver increased. The landlord was unluckily a proselytizer. He conferred great gifts to all who would go to the English church, but was re lentless against all who held out. Young Norton took sick; when he was at the worst, the agent found a flaw in his lease, and served an ejectment on the family at the very time that the husband was unable to leave his bed. Then his cattle died, some said by poison, and his crops failed. The man sank under these reverses, and died. The landlord made many offers to Bridget of assistance if she would send her children to his school and to church, and the agent contrived many species of persecution to get her into his power. Bridget fled to Liverpool, and by sheer hard work contrived to maintain her family decently for some time; but her persecutor traced her, followed her, blackened her character, so that she lost her employ

ment. Again she fled, but sickness overtook her ere she had made herself known; she lost one of her children by sickness also, and, lastly, was compelled to sell her little furniture to buy bread; last week she moved to the cellar where she died. You know in what state she was found there. Yet throughout these trials her confidence in God never has faltered; she has for the last five years suffered hardship, penury, want, and persecution. Amid all she has kept faithful to God, forgiven her enemy, and taught her children the catechism. They have often wanted food, but never missed their prayers; they have often been clothed in rags, but never neglected a mass of obligation. This, for one brought up as Bridget had been to love neatness and take pride in appearing respectable, argues no small victory. over human respect. But the love of God was deeply rooted in her heart; she knew that exercise elicits virtue; she felt herself at school to an all-wise Father, who appointed for her the lessons best suited to bring out that unfailing trust which was conspicuous in her character, and which, in spite of her many trials, bore her cheerily throughout them all. Yes, cheerful ness was (as is attested by all who knew her) Bridget's most amiable characteristic, and it proceeded from her implicit trust in God. She had a martyr's courage and a martyr's love, and I think it would be risking little to suppose that even now she may be wearing in heaven the martyr's crown. Yet she passed through the world unnoticed, and certainly was not counted among its heroines."

CHAPTER XXIX.

IMMEDIATELY after the funeral Adelaide called on the abbé, according to her promise. She was accompanied by Hester.

"Well," said the good father as soon as the preliminary compliments had

66

My husband was the late Duke of Durimond.”

The father started: he looked again. "That accounts for my fancy," he said. "I was sure I had seen you before. I recognize you perfectly now: but what can bring your grace hither, and in this guise ?"

"Father," said Adelaide, "I came to apologize to you for my conduct on that dreary occasion that you know of; to beg your pardon and your prayers."

The good priest raised the lady, for Adelaide had knelt to him as she uttered the last words. "You have my prayers, my child," he said; "you have long had them: it was his last request that I should daily pray for you. And as for pardon, such an act of humility would redeem a worse offence. Be at peace, I beg of you."

"And did the duke really interest himself on my account?"

a

"He did, and most sincerely; it was constant topic with him. He ever maintained that, with your nobility of character, you must eventually follow in your brother's footsteps. I presume I may conclude you have now done so."

"Not so, father. Hester (whom you probably also recognize) and myself are but inquirers as yet, and the difficulty is that our inquiry must not be suspected just now. We came to request assistance from your charity; but we beg you not to name us otherwise than as ladies of your acquaintance. The Misses Godfrey will pass unheeded by, but if you address me as your grace again, you will bring upon us the attention we are trying to avoid."

"I will try to remember Miss Godfrey; it will be a little difficult, I fear, but I need not tell you my services are at your disposal."

"This is indeed returning good for evil, said Adelaide.

"Do not speak of it; good has al ready come of that to which you al lude, as is usually the case if we wait long enough. Let the past be past. But surely I have seen you both at mass; you have, then, lost your prejudice against the church."

"Indeed, yes," said Adelaide. “Our great regret is that we have not faith. The system which you propose is beautiful in all its bearings. It is our torment to feel that all that is beautiful in poetry or in art, nay, even in ethics, belongs to Catholicity, yet we do not belong to it. A hall of sculpture representing the Catholic ideal, as the figures of the duke's pantheon represent the pagan myth, would form the most sublime elucidation of the high triumphs of soul over self that could be imagined. There is no act of heroism, mental, moral, or physical, that would not find a representative in some authenticated historic personage. From martyrdom endured to maintain the truth of alleged facts, to voluntary poverty chosen as the best preservative of the disposition to receive and maintain truth, there is a regular chain of virtue personified. There is a reality about Catholicity (in books at least) which we find nowhere else.” "Where is your difficulty, seeing that you admit all this?"

"I can hardly explain it, yet it seems to shape itself thus: Why, if men are so blessed with a divine religion, is the world so bad? History gives us saints, sublime ones, who make our very souls thrill with the recital of their unselfish spirit, exemplified in act; but, on the other hand, the same history tells us of multitudes of bad men for one good one. The men who attempted to poison St. Benediet, were monks, men who had renounced all for Christ; and the multitudes were Catholic up to the fifteenth century, yet what fearful struggles for power, and indulgence of luxury in high places, and of crime among all, high and low! Most of the saints were reformers, combating with

their fellow-Catholics for virtue; and now, are all Catholics unselfish, unworldly?"

"It seems," said Hester, "that a very definite amount of good has been achieved by Christianity, in giving an impetus to the spirit of the masses to claim intellectual rights by the recognition of man's spiritual equality before God; and to strip off illegitimate uses of power from the sense of justice thus evolved. It has also placed our sex on a footing permitted by no other religion-this is much, very much; but here it seems to stop, and these are but indirect results. Religion professes to inculcate higher motives than the improvement of earthly position, desirable as this may be. Men are now selfish in their avowed principle, and this, I think, must ultimately destroy all that has been achieved. Self-gratification as a motive, and the only motive recognized, must lead back to want of discipline, and from that the step to barbarism is easy. Only under the Christian dispensation has labor been honored; in all other civilizations, slaves, captives of the sword and spear, have performed by compulsion the work of tilling the soil and so forth; and yet men now seek to avoid labor, the real labor of producing, as if they still thought it fit for slaves only; any other kind of occu pation is preferred, as more noble. If this is the result of eighteen hundred years of Christian teaching, I own it puzzles me. Where are the direct results of unselfishness and of corporal sacrifice for the attainment of spiritual good, that books teach us to expect?"

"These are very painful facts," said the abbé, "which distress the heart of many a Catholic priest; bus with reference to their influence on faith, I think a little reflection will explain most of the phenomena without prejudice to such souls as are earnestly seeking truth. We must remember that there was a time when whole nations suddenly assumed the name of Christians under the influence of the ruling powers. The majority of these

people were not only ignorant, but many did not care to learn high spiritual truths; the conversion was necessarily partial, even that which was genuine. But because all divine truth is positive and co-relative to natural truth, some degree of enlightenment followed even in the natural order; and worldly minds, who had no affinity for spiritual revelations, laid hold, notwithstanding this, of the types that presented spirit ual truths, and, finding they bore an earthly signification also (as all real enlightenment does, the body being the mate for the soul), they seized on the lower meaning, and hence the civilization of that ilk. This is not wrong, but it is defective; as far as it is moral, it is the material expression of a spiritual idea; but it does not touch the first step of the ladder by which we rise to God-it is the lesser influence of a principle comprehending affinities of an infinitely higher character."

"But this does not explain the corruption in high places."

"Power and greatness and wealth do not confer spirituality; no, nor does intellect. When the church grew wealthy and powerful, many a wolf entered in sheep's clothing for the sake of the perquisites. The miracle is that the church survived such destructive influences, not that she suffered by them."

"And the more immediate trouble with the present conduct of Catholics ?"

"May be referred to similar causes. They inherit their religion without giving its real conditions a thought; to this may be added the fact that, for the last three hundred years, the attention of immense numbers has been directed to polemics instead of to the requirements of religion. There have been so many disputes about which is the true faith, that practically faith has been assumed to mean holding a correct intellectual creed.' Now, with out derogating, in the least degree, from the importance of holding the right faith, even in this light, it is certain that these controversies have

drawn the soul from that more serious business to which a right intellectual creed is but the first step, though an important, a very important one. The object of religion is, the union of the soul to the will of God. This is an individual matter, one which cannot be laid hold of en masse, but must be personally brought home to every individual. To effect this, there must be, 1. Desire of good-real, earnest, sincere. 2. Prayer for good, arising from the firm conviction that in God only resides all good-from him only all good can come. 3. Co-operation in act, including not only correct moral action, but a constant endeavor to instruct ourselves, more and more, in divine lore, with an earnest zeal of rising continually in spiritual life. Now, if you examine these conditions, you will find that few observe them, compared with the numbers who bear the name of Catholics-and the power of Catholicity must be judged of by its effect on those who observe its precepts, not by the multitudes who conform by halves, or by less than that proportion, to its teachings. You would not judge of the effect of a medicine by those who keep it in their houses, but by those who take it."

"Are not those Catholics, then, who do not act up to their religion?"

"In as far as they neglect their religion they are imperfect Catholics. It would, however, be very dangerous for us to judge how far their imperfections arise from culpability on their part. All men are wounded by the fall in some shape or other; some have this faculty impaired, some that; consequently there will be gradations of virtue apparent everywhere, the cause of which we cannot fathom, and the delinquencies of which we cannot judge. As regards judgment, all we have to do with is with ourselves; our faculties, great or little, with imperfections greater or less, must, as far as in us lies be devoted to God-be improved for him-be exercised in accordance with his will as manifested to us. 'This do and ye shall live.'”

CHAPTER XXX.

AN INTERVIEW AND A LETTER.

Ir were superfluous to reiterate the instructions given by the good abbé to the neophytes under his guidance; where the instructor is learned, patient, and gentle, and the learner docile and humble, the result may be easily predicted. One day, in the course of conversation, the abbé said to Adelaide: "If you are looking for examples in Christian life, I could name one living in this neighborhood, living so simple and beautiful a life, that those who have the happiness of knowing her, half believe her to be an angel in disguise."

"I think I know whom you mean," said Adelaide; “already have I paused at the threshold of her dwelling, wishing to enter, but hardly knowing whether I dared."

"She will be glad to see you. She has a better memory than I; she recognized you at church, and has interested herself warmly in your conversion." Thus encouraged Adelaide ventured on the visit. The greeting between the two ladies was that of sisters; they wept together, clasping each other's hand in silence. We pass over the exciting scene. Adelaide was completely fascinated by all she saw. For the first time in her life she felt that glow of thrilling interest that binds heart to heart, and makes us know what real love is, when that love is founded in God. Ellen was one of those happy temperaments, so rare on earth, that seem formed to dispense the sunshine of happiness on all who came under their influence. Heaven seemed to have descended to earth to dwell with her, and in that heaven she had learned to live-out of herself altogether. Her life was passed in doing good, but, so unconsciously to herself was that good done, that she seemed but to be following her own pleasure all the time. The one great sorrow of her life surmounted, she had resigned herself (no! resignation would not express the depth of her de

votedness); rather had she thrown her whole being into the profound abyss of the mystery of God, seeking only his will, mysterious as it was to her. She came at last to live as a child`on the daily promise, forming no plans, asking nothing of the morrow, but ever seeking to pour out her great love in making others happy. The poor, the sick, the wretched, were her friends, her children, the objects of her tenderness, and her presence was to them as a ray of sunshine to lighten every woe. There are few Ellens on this weary earth, for nature and grace seemed to combine in her to diffuse their charms. Those who knew her asked themselves, where was her share of the original taint, "of that trail of the serpent which is over us all"? Though Adelaide's senior by many years, she had so youthful, so buoyant an expression, albeit chastened by the atmosphere of purity and sanctity in which she moved, that you could not connect the idea of age with her frame at all. Adelaide felt that she had obtained a friend, a sister, a guide for the future, and a friendship was quickly cemented between the two that ended but with life.

Meantime the hour approached when the sisters were to be received into the church. Hester was not a little agitated as she thought of the ef fect that would be produced upon her father: it was as much as Adelaide and Ellen could do with their united efforts to calm her fears. Adelaide's firm mind bade her take her resolution according to her conviction, and face the consequences like a soldier.

"Yes, if they were consequences to myself," sighed Hester; "but my future, will it not suffer from it? Suppose he should sicken as my mother did!"

"Dear Hester," said Ellen, "you must leave off trusting yourself, in this manner, and apprehending consequences, as if you had the control of events. Do you not believe God reigns omnipotent ?"

"Why, yes, certainly I do."

"Then let your first offering to him be a practical recognition of that be