hearts of his countrymen ;' whether these things are to be taken as evidence of a growing irreverence for the great principles which he and his immortal associates fought, and bled, and died to maintain, a few years more may reveal. Certain it is, there are strange analogies between such material facts and truths of a far more spiritual order.

"In aris et focis est respublica,' said Rome's first orator: The republic is our altars and our homes. Where one or the other is wantonly desecrated, who will undertake to read the palm of futurity, and tell the fortunes of our republic?

"To the multitude it may be a matter of little moment to overturn the cross that invites the stranger's gaze to the grave of a martyr; or to profane, as the humor of! the hour may be, the home of the patriot, or the shrine of a saint. And yet, never did a Reaumur or a Fahrenheit point out the state of the weather with more certainty, than do such facts indicate a condition of the moral atmosphere around us, which may well arrest the attention of every man who can not forget, that among the noblest aspirations of the fathers of this confederacy was that which fondly portrayed the shores of these United States, as the home of equal laws, order, peace; and its constitution, as the beacon of liberty, sending its cheering rays over the troubled waves of modern society, to the oppressed of every tribe and tongue throughout the world. But why utter these thoughts? why make these suggestions? Is it because I have ever spent so much as a day among the prophets, who have already taken upon themselves to predict the speedy downfall of our free institutions? We ignore the whole sect. With such the sons of the 'Mountain' never sympathized, and never will. So far from indulging in such anticipations, we would not counsel you to inscribe on your rings the words the eastern sage gave to the sultan for his-the moral alike for days of joy and days of grief- And this too shall pass away;' but we would

offer the nobler sentiment, the motto of freemen and Christians: Have faith, and struggle on.'

"True it is, there is an end to every work of man. And that the day will come, when our vast republic, with the riches of its glory, and the greatness and boasting of its power, will be matter of history, like the proud confederacies that have gone before it, and filled the earth with their renown, we must admit. But whether that day be near at hand or afar off, there are duties and joys for all to embrace; for every age, for every rank; the unlettered and the wise; whether ye

come

From clanging forge, from humming mill,
From workshop and from loom;
From ploughing land and ploughing sea,
From student's lonely room.'

"We have a country to love, second to none beneath the sun. We have laws to reverence, which, faithfully obeyed, will make this union' the joy of all the earth. We have rights to cherish, principles to maintain, which we can not disregard, without proving ourselves false to the good and true of every land, and every age who have bequeathed them to

us.

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'Say not, think not, that your influence is weak to retard or advance the interests of the commonwealth. More than once a woman's arm hath turned the tide of battle, and raised a prostrate nation to its feet."

The following tribute to the venerable founder and first president of Mount St. Mary's College, and also third superior of the Sisters of Charity in America, the late Rt. Rev. Bishop Dubois of New York, while it does honor to the speaker's heart, may indeed be read with profit, as an apt illustration of what individual worth and zeal may accomplish. The passage, however, although highly instructive, could have its full force only when heard amid the beautiful creations of Dr. Dubois' untiring zeal and indefatigable labors.

"But why appeal to ancient bard or modern poet; to the pages of history, sacred or profane, when the very spot on which we stand proclaims what one great heart and willing mind can do for his fellow men, his country and his God. With no other wealth than his trust in heaven; with no other strength than the firm resolve to follow wherever duty led; with no other influence than what his character as a devoted, humble priest, could win; an exile from his native land, a stranger in our own; unknown to fame, while living, above its praise, since dead; there was one who came to this 'mountain' side, some fifty years ago, from those bright shores which bore a Fenelon, to prove what worth may be in human clay. Wish ye to know his name, his labors, their results? Go, ask the mitred prelate, who, in wisdom, dignity and peace rules the flock of God committed to his charge. Go, ask the toilworn missionary, who, through the burning sands of the south, and over the frozen plains of the north, in the thronged streets of our eastern cities and amid the swollen rivers of the west, unwearied bares his breast to the everlasting warfare between light and darkness, good and evil, which this life presents. Enter the army, pace the deck of the battle ship, take your seat in the halls of legislation, or in our courts of justice; who formed the youthful officer, the advocate, the judge, who, faithful to his duty as a Christian and a man, has won the unsolicited respect and confidence of all around him?

"Pass the gates of the public hospital; tread those halls of pestilence and death; with reverence look upon the gentle form that glides before thee, her beauty consecrated to God, her accomplishments buried from the world's applause ;-what benefactor of his race has nerved her soul, to stand, from day to day, by the pillow of the friendless stranger, or the homeless slave, who never, even in his happiest dreams, divined that he was sent into the world for any thing else than to toil, to

suffer, and to die? Follow that angel of mercy through years of self-denial; who hath enkindled within her virgin-heart the pure ambition of walking in the steps of Him who went about doing good to all; unheeding, meanwhile, whether for the orphan she has taught the useful arts of life and the mysteries of heaven; for the dying stranger, she has soothed, by her words of grace, and saved, by her example; for the broken heart she has bound up and laid to rest, on the bosom of its God, her only earthly recompense should be the world's cold praise or its thrilling scoff.

"Turn to the domestic circle, and if there you meet with a father, whose brow reflects the nobler features of his soul; with a mother, whose eye beams with faith, intelligence and love; with sons and daughters, who, amid the saddening disregard for parental authority which disgraces American society, have never forgotten, that he who honoreth his mother is as one that layeth up a treasure,' and that the father's blessing establisheth the houses of the children;' surely you will not pass that home without a wish to know who was the guide of their youth, whose watchful care and Christian training laid the foundation for such domestic happiness as this. Return to these scenes again. Ascend yon mountain-side. Gaze for a moment, for it is a beauteous scene. Bathed in the light of the rising sun, crowned with the smile of God, the benedictions of mankind, you behold in the vale below one of those favored spots of earth whose very aspect fills the soul with thoughts and hopes of heaven; whilst almost beneath your feet, amidst the clustering foliage, the everblessed cross towers above these halls, appealing to Him, whose sign it is, to cherish, save, protect, defend as fair a home as virtue, science, pure religion ever chose to call their own.

HE intelligence of the death of the sovereign pontiff, Pope Gregory the sixteenth, has filled the Catholic world with mourning and sorrow, while his pure and irreproachable life has called forth the acknowledgments of the liberal minded of all denominations. The hearts of the faithful had in some measure been prepared for the sad tidings of his demise, by advices from Italy which represented his holiness as suffering for some time back from the effects of a malady which almost always proves fatal. During the latter part of May the symptoms of the holy father's disease assumed an alarming aspect, and a surgical operation on the leg became necessary. Inflammation of the limb unfortunately resulted from this process, and so rapid was its progress that, on the 30th of May, his medical attendants considered his holiness in a dying state. On the following day, the first of June, their worst apprehensions were realized, and the sovereign pontiff, the vicar on earth of Jesus Christ, in the eighty-first year of his age, and the sixteenth of his reign, gave back his soul to its Maker. This sad event has left the church, for an interval, without a head. But the promises of its divine Founder are a bond of union for the Catholic world, holding it together till the next successor of St. Peter shall have seated himself in the vacant chair. Even while we write it is more than probable that the throne of Peter is again occupied, and that those heavenly assurances of Christ are again confirmed by the addition of another link

Since the above was written Cardinal John Marie Mastai Ferretti has been elevated to the papacy; an interesting account of him will be found under the head of our foreign intelligence. VOL. V.-No. 8. 39

to the chain of the papacy. Amid the countless vicissitudes which have overtaken empires and dynasties, the havoc of war, the crumbling of thrones, amid the changes of manners, laws and institutions, in the lapse of the last eighteen centuries, the papacy alone has come down to us unimpaired and vigorous as in the morning of its existence. The words of Christ, enough for the true believer, confound the scoffer by this visible and enduring testimony. In the biographical sketch, which we are about to submit, we have drawn largely on an article in the New York Freeman's Journal for our facts.

His holiness, Gregory XVI, was born in Belluno, Italy, on the 18th of September, 1765. His name was Mauro Capellari. At an early age he embraced a religious life, having entered the Camaldoli, a branch of the Benedictines. He gave evidence of great aptness and talent in his studies, and became a professor of theology in his order. Among his monastic brethren he was particularly esteemed for his ecclesiastical knowledge, and remarkable for his thorough acquaintance with the ancient and modern languages of the east. To these acquisitions, so creditable to his name, was added a reputation for piety which soon reached beyond the walls of his cloister. His many accomplishments and spotless character secured for the modest monk a high degree of consideration long before he became a member of the sacred college. He was made widely known to the Italian public by a controversy in which he engaged with Tamburini and his scholars in 1799, in which he manifested great logical powers and' extensive learning. In "The Academy of the Catholic Religion," instituted by Pius

VII, Capellari was enrolled as one of its first members. He resided at Rome from 1801 to 1804, was a constant attendant at its meetings, and contributed an annual dissertation tending to advance the objects of the institution. His discourse, delivered in 1801, had for its purpose to prove, that "the errors that have sometimes accompanied the general consent of mankind on the existence of God, do not weaken the force of the general argument;" his discourse in 1802 was to demonstrate that "the natural law prescribes the rendering to God an interior and exterior worship, which is designated under the name of religion." The thesis he undertook to establish in 1803 was that the prophecy of Daniel, on the seventy weeks, has reference solely to the Messiah; and in 1804, he enforced the unity of the Christian religion, maintaining that the "Christian religion is essentially one in its principles of faith and morality." When Pius VII was carried off from Rome, father Capellari returned to the Venetian territory and joined several of his religious brethren in their monastery at Murano, near Venice. For some years he was occupied as an instructor in the college established by father (afterwards cardinal) Zurla. In 1811, the library of the Camaldoli, which had been previously much abused and diminished by revolutionary plunder, was seized upon and sold at public auction, and in 1814 Father Capellari, with the other members of the college, removed to Padua. Upon the restoration of Pius VII he was recalled to Rome, and was appointed successively procurator and vicargeneral of the Camaldoli, and abbot of St. Gregory's on Monte Celio. He was soon after nominated counsellor of several of the sacred congregations, among others of the Supreme Tribuna and the Propaganda. Leo XII bestowed the purple upon father Capellari, and in his allocution to the consistory intimated that the new cardinal owed his elevation "to the innocence of his life, the gravity of his manners, the extent of his knowledge,

and his experience in ecclesiastical matters." This high tribute was alike honorable to Pope Leo XII and its object. Soon after his preferment, Cardinal Capellari was appointed prefect of the Propaganda, and discharged the duties of that arduous office with zeal and ability till he was elected sovereign pontiff. On the second of February, 1831, he was elevated to the dignity of sovereign pontiff, and on the sixth of the same month he was crowned and took solemn possession of the chair of Peter. Devoted, previously to his elevation, almost exclusively to affairs of a spiritual nature, to literary pursuits and the ministerial duties of his order, Cardinal Capellari assumed the tiara without a shade of that worldliness with which the purest and strongest intellects may be tinged in their connexion with secular business. The pontifical career of Gregory XVI was one of dignity, energy and glory, and though running through a long series of years, it never failed to command the indiscriminate respect of all nations. He regarded with profound anxiety and inte rest the spiritual and temporal welfare of the whole human race. The rights of the church found in him an unflinching advocate. In the troubles which overtook the church in Prussia and Spain, we find him firm and uncompromising, boldly denouncing the oppressions of it practised by temporal rulers. All must recollect with pride and consolation the noble rebuke which his holiness addressed to the Emperor Nicholas, on account of the persecutions of Catholics in that despot's dominions. It was under the inspiration of his piety, more than from the depth of his great humanity, that in this personal interview he so vehemently defended justice and suffering religion. The odious traffic in slaves also received his indignant condemnation, as at war alike with the principles of humanity, morality and Christianity. He was distinguished equally as a temporal prince, and had thoroughly endeared himself to the people of his estates. His reign was one of