Stray leaves
Date: 2026-07-30T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Europe -- Description and travel

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Title: Stray leaves
or, Traces of travel

Author: Alexander MacDonald

Release date: July 31, 2026 [eBook #79240]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Christian Press Association, 1914

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79240

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRAY LEAVES ***

STRAY LEAVES

OR

TRACES of TRAVEL

BY
RT. REV. ALEX. MacDONALD, D.D.
BISHOP OF VICTORIA, B. C.

NEW YORK
CHRISTIAN PRESS ASSOCIATION

SOLD FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH
PRICE, $1.00.

COPYRIGHT
BY
CHRISTIAN PRESS ASSOCIATION
PUBLISHING CO.
1914

CONTENTS

THE SOUND OF ANOTHER SEA

THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM
On the misty Atlantic
London and Paris
Paray le Monial
Geneva, Berne, Interlaken
Milan and Venice
Rome
Florence and Genoa
Lourdes

JOTTINGS OF A TRIP IN SCOTLAND

ROME—A CHRISTMAS REMINISCENCE

THE ROSES OF ASSISI

FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES

FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO

THROUGH SPAIN

LOURDES REVISITED

A FEW MORE STRAY LEAVES AND TRACES

TO
MY FELLOW PILGRIMS.

THE SOUND OF ANOTHER SEA

Breaks upon mine ear
The sound of another sea,
Linking far with near—
That far how near to me!

Echoes out of the past.
Wave-sounds from the shore,
Woven in dreams at last
Of days that are no more;

Days that ebbed away
By the side of another sea,
When life was young and gay,
And all its ways were free.
—Victoria, B. C, January 1, 1910.

THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1900

We leave Montreal in a great downpour of rain—a perfect deluge. In spite of the rain, there are many gathered on the pier to see us off. There is mutual waving of handkerchiefs, and exchange of farewells. The rain descends in torrents, type and token of God's manifold blessings, so at least we pilgrims are fain to look upon it. As our ship frees herself from her moorings, and glides into the stream, one fond pilgrim is overheard remarking that Montreal is weeping over our departure. And such copious tears as they are, too!

Last evening at eight, we all met at the Cathedral, St. James's, to assist at Pontifical Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The great church, modelled on St. Peter's at Rome—one-half of its length and one-eighth of its cubic contents—was thronged. The Archbishop gave the Benediction, and afterwards from his throne addressed the pilgrims in French. He looked every inch of him a Bishop, and spoke with great dignity and sweetness, in a rich, clear voice. He seems well fitted to rule the Church of God in Mary's City—the great Catholic city of Montreal, which, with its grand churches, its splendid educational and charitable institutions, makes the pilgrim prouder of his Faith and of his country.

We reach Quebec at 7 p.m. Carriages—cabs, caleches, and vehicles of all sorts—are in readiness to convey the pilgrim party to the Chapel of the Ursulines. Here for the first time in Canada Mass was offered in honour of the Sacred Heart. The Ursulines of Quebec were founded by the Blessed Mary of the Incarnation—the first religious foundation in Canada. They are a cloistered Order. From behind their gratings the nuns sing, in their sweet voices, the Benediction Service, which is preceded by a stirring address in French to the pilgrims. At nine we are back on board. There are ringing cheers from the shore, and hearty cries of bon voyage. On the ship, many of the pilgrims join in singing a French chanson, with its lively chorus, "Bon soir, mes amis, bon soir!" Scarcely has the last note died away when the ship's bugler breaks out in the familiar strains of Auld Lang Syne. We slip our moorings, and are off.

Down the river we glide swiftly in the stillness of the night. On either bank is a fine stretch of fertile land studded with picturesque villages, and dotted with the houses of les habitants. Now it lies as if asleep, wrapped in the mantle of night. We see but in shadowy outline the Laurentian hills, rising out of the darkness. What a majestic river is this St. Lawrence! There is nothing like it in America—in all the wide world. The scenery on the Hudson is very picturesque in places, and somewhat more varied, perhaps. But one misses there the fine expanse of open country, with its setting of mountains, and the river itself lacks the breadth and grandeur of the St. Lawrence.

* * *

PENTECOST SUNDAY, JUNE 3.

Nine or ten pilgrims have joined us at Quebec. We are now ninety-two in all, including twenty-three priests. There is also another priest on board, who is not a pilgrim. It is the feast of Pentecost, and all the priests say Mass. There are Masses all the morning at two altars—such altars as men hastily improvise on board ship—from 4.30 to 10. The space between decks, forward of the saloon, has been turned into a chapel. Around about most of the pilgrims have their staterooms. At the seven o'clock Mass, celebrated by Father Pichon, S.J., director of the French section of the pilgrimage, the Veni Creator is sung with fine effect. Some of these French Canadian priests and several of the lay pilgrims, too, have splendid voices, trained in the music of the Church.

In the afternoon we assemble in our chapel to sing the vespers of the day. Several of the lay pilgrims, men and women, lend their voices, and the ship resounds with the strains of the divine psalmody, the Veni Creator, and the Magnificat. What fine voices these French Canadians have, and how well they know the chant of the Church! Even the lay pilgrims sing the psalms and hymns in Latin, recite with us the Litany of Loreto in Latin, and seem to understand every word of what they sing or say.

In the evening at eight there is service in English. We sing two hymns:—Nearer My God to Thee, and, Come Holy Ghost. Many of the French priests and lay pilgrims join us in singing. Father Kavanagh, S.J., director of the English-speaking pilgrims, gives an instruction on the mission and work of the Holy Ghost. This is followed by the Rosary in English, and Night Prayers in French. Every day we say the Rosary together, in French at 3.30 p.m., and in English at 8.30. Every day, too, hymns are sung to our Blessed Lady, the Ave Maris Stella and her own canticle of the Magnificat being our favourites.

All day long we steam down the St. Lawrence, hugging the southern bank. Early in the afternoon, the mountains of St. Anne are seen in the distance. They rise to a height of from two to three thousand feet, back of the hills that border on the river. Their summits and shoulders are white with snow. It forms a pleasing contrast to the blue of the river, and the green of the fields that lie at their feet. By this time all trace of tears has been wiped away from the face of the June sky, which smiles benignantly upon us. It is glorious weather.

* * *

MONDAY, JUNE 4.

We have passed Gaspe, and are in the Gulf. To the south, Bird Rock is dimly seen. Our passenger list—already a long one—has received an addition during the night. Two birds, the smaller a sparrow, boarded the ship, most likely before we were yet fairly away from land. They are objects of much interest to their fellow-passengers. The larger bird, which the sailors take to be "a howl" (as one of them expresses it), proves, on closer and more careful scrutiny, to be a hawk. Jack-tar is not an ornithologist. His acquaintance with the feathery tribe seems to be confined to a few aquatic birds, such as seagulls and Mother Carey's chickens. As for land birds, it is probable that he doesn't even "know a hawk from a handsaw," much less from "a howl."

The presence of the birds on board gives rise to not a little speculation. Why hath the sparrow left its cosy nest and the hawk its home on the dry land, to roam over this waste of waters? Some say that the birds are stealing a free passage to Newfoundland. Others, sagely taking into account how ill-assorted the pair are, reach a more likely solution of the puzzling problem. The hawk, they say, sallied forth in the early dawn to find itself a breakfast. The sparrow was already abroad on similar mission bent. Chased by the pirate of the air, and having a natural dislike to become food for its hungry pursuer, instead of getting something to appease its own hunger, it sought refuge on the passing ship, closely followed by its foe. As we near the coast of Newfoundland the birds leave us and fly landward. But whether the smaller was inside the larger bird, when land was reached, is still matter for speculation to the other passengers of the Vancouver.

By 10.30 a.m. we are abreast of Cape Ray. As we steam by Channel, otherwise known as Port Basque, we descry the massive hulk of the Elder-Dempster liner, Montpellier, wrecked here some weeks ago. Even the good ship Vancouver might be cast away on these cruel rocks, as was her sister ship, the Chicago, on the rocks of Kinsale. This is the thought that comes to one's mind as one gazes on the stranded ship. But the smiling June sky, radiant with sunshine, chases it quickly away, and we breathe a prayer to the heart of Him who rules the wind and the waves.

We are now fairly at sea, and our ship has made her first bow to the Atlantic rollers. This token of homage old Neptune claims, nay compels, from every ship that presses upon his bosom and feels the throbbing of his mighty heart. And full many a one of those who go down to the sea in ships, is, in like manner, made to pay tribute, and never a one but grudges the payment. But the theme is too painful to dwell upon.

* * *

TUESDAY, JUNE 5.

A little before noon Cape Race is on our larboard quarter, and in an hour or two more we catch our last glimpse of Terra Nova. The weather is still fine, and the sea comparatively smooth. At 9 p.m. a large number of the passengers gather in the saloon to hear a lecture on the causes that led to the war in South Africa. The lecture is by the Rev. Mr. Philips, an Anglican minister, who has spent seven years as missionary among the blacks and half-breeds of the Transvaal. He arraigns the Boer Government severely for its treatment of the natives. The truth of what he says is confirmed by Father Kavanagh, in seconding the motion for a vote of thanks at the close of the lecture. He remembers quite well when a boy at Stonyhurst hearing the Jesuit Fathers, returned from South Africa, recount what they saw and heard of the oppression of subject races by the Boers. "The tale they then told," he says, "has been retold here to-night." Precisely at 11 o'clock the sound of the whistle warns us that we have at last run into the inevitable fog. The dismal tooting is kept up at intervals of one or two minutes during the rest of the night.

* * *

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6.

A good deal of motion in the ship; fewer passengers at the breakfast table. Still Masses are celebrated from 5.30 to 8, and several of the priests and lay pilgrims receive Holy Communion. In the afternoon, fogs again steal upon us. They gather around our ship, these mists of the mighty Atlantic, and envelop her as with a shroud. They come and go at intervals during the afternoon, forcing us to slow down and at times come to a standstill, so great is the danger of collision with an iceberg or an incoming ship. There is nothing for it but to wait for the fog to lift with such patience as one can command. We pace the deck, or withdraw to our staterooms and there listen idly to the murmur of the waves as they beat against the ship, or brood on the mystery of the sobbing sea.

* * *

THURSDAY, JUNE 7.

From noon yesterday till noon to-day we have covered 316 nautical miles, and are now a little more than half way across from Quebec to Liverpool. The log reads at noon: Day, 7; lat., 30.06 N.; long., 38.36; distance run, 316 miles. Remarks: Moderate winds, choppy sea. The reader will please bear in mind that this is from a ship's log, and that the "remarks" are to be understood in a strictly nautical sense. These "moderate" winds of ours would pass on shore for something between a very stiff breeze and a moderate gale. And as for "choppy" seas, the Atlantic is not exactly a pond, though sometimes irreverently described as such by the fellow who has never crossed it, and this choppy sea makes our big ship reel and tumble about like a man slightly more than "half seas over." There is a deal of sickness in consequence. Some are unable to leave their beds. Others manage to crawl on deck, but only to lie there in chairs, silent and sullen, or mope about with a most woe-begone appearance. Even your genial rover of the seas, who has been across a score of times and assures you that he is not the least bit sick, is not half so gay and talkative as he was yesterday and the day before. You see there are degrees and stages of seasickness, and one passes through a great variety of less or more painful experiences before the last stage is reached. Over that final act of the nautical drama (which to the heartless onlooker is too often comedy, but to the chief actor, or rather sufferer, is in the last degree tragic) we willingly let the curtain fall. Many drink sea-water, glass after glass of it, and believe that it relieves them, or keeps them from falling sick, as the case may be. I fancy I can hear some one say as he reads this that the remedy is worse than the disease. But I am quite sure that the one who says so has never been seasick—perhaps never been to sea—in his life.

* * *

FRIDAY, JUNE 8.

This morning, in spite of the rolling of the ship, Masses were said and several of the pilgrims received Holy Communion. There are but few English pilgrims; including cleric and lay, not more than a dozen out of the ninety-two. I say English rather than English-speaking, and in contradistinction to French, as many of the French pilgrims speak English fluently.

There is little to break the monotony of a sea voyage. One day is just like another. You wake in the morning, rise, go through the same little round, turn in at night. Each day you seem to be just where you were the day before. The same voices call out to you "from the vasty deep." The same sea-waves lift their crested heads, shake their flowing manes, and sport and gambol in all the wild abandon of their unbridled freedom. And your vision is ever bounded by the same narrow horizon. Anything is welcome that breaks this sameness, the passing ship, or even the seagull that wings its way over the water. We have met few ships. The smoke of a steamer—of two of them, indeed,—was descried yesterday morning, and about sundown a big ship under shortened sail was seen beating her way to windward.

* * *

SATURDAY, JUNE 9.

One pilgrim, who has been well enough up till now, is so squeamish to-day that he dare not write even half a dozen lines for fear of consequences. This "leaf," therefore, is all but blank.

* * *

TRINITY SUNDAY, JUNE 10.

The sea still runs "choppy." It has been our worst night since we came on board—"rocked in the cradle of the deep," but with no gentle hand. The rocking continues this morning, and Mass is said by Father Pichon and one or two other priests under considerable difficulties. In the afternoon vespers are sung in the saloon, and in the evening, after the Rosary, there is a sermon in English by the Rev. Father Sloan, Pastor of Fallowfield, in the diocese of Ottawa. This is a very distressing day to many of the passengers. There is longing for the repose of smooth waters, and from four in the afternoon eager eyes are scanning the distant horizon, in front of us, for a sight of land. At six it is sighted—a vast rock in the form of a cathedral, known as the "Skelligs," and by ten we are steering straight for the Fastnet Light which flashes its welcome rays upon us at intervals of a few seconds. The anger of ocean is fast subsiding, the stars are out, and the Irish moon looks down upon us from a cloudless sky. It is the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, and to-night, as in all the nights since His creative hand hung those orbs in space, "The heavens proclaim His glory, and the firmament of heaven shows forth the work of His hands."

* * *

MONDAY, JUNE 11.

I have spoken of Masses said under difficulties. There are difficulties and difficulties. While I was serving Father Kavanagh's Mass at 8 o'clock this morning, voices pitched in a high key came from a stateroom hard by. This is what the voices said—needless to say the owners were neither pilgrims nor of the household of the faith:

Male voice: "Open the porthole."

Female voice, from an adjoining stateroom, shrill, as if in anger: "Do you command? Are you 'boss'?" (The bedroom steward alone may open the porthole).

Male voice: "Mine is open."

Female voice (sarcastically): "Don't fall through."

We are now in St. George's Channel. On our right, but not in view, is the coast of Wales. On our left the coast of Ireland is plainly visible. With a pair of glasses we can see cottages, churches, and the green, green fields of Erin. We shall be in Liverpool about ten o'clock to-night. There I will mail this batch of "leaves" which have at least the merit of continuity. Others to follow will necessarily be scattered and disconnected—stray leaves blown about by every wind of travel.

* * *

PARIS, MONDAY, JUNE 18.

We reached Liverpool a week ago to-day. It was about ten a.m. when we entered the Mersey, having been detained by fog for some time at the mouth of the river. The famous docks of the city, stretching for six miles on the left bank of the Mersey, as you enter, were lighted with electricity, presenting a brilliant spectacle. At ten the next morning we were on our way to London by the Great Western R.R., which runs through some of the finest parts of England. Rural England, at least what we have seen of it, is highly cultivated and very beautiful. The country traversed by the Great Western trains, from Liverpool to London, is one vast park—great grassy plains on either hand, with here a river, and there occasionally a mountain, and everywhere rows of trim hedges and the majestic oaks of Old England. We pass through smoky Birmingham, and from the railway catch a glimpse of the twin towers of Christ's Church, Oxford, both places fraught with reminders of the illustrious Cardinal Newman.

In London, we stay for the greater part of three days. Our hotel is hard by Westminster Abbey. We visit the famous abbey more than once, and each time with mingled feelings of admiration and sadness—admiration for the noble temple itself, and sadness for the change that has come over it, and the uses to which it is put. The hour is half-past ten in the morning and the Canons of Westminster are chanting their office. Decorous and sweet is the music of their voices, but it grates upon the ear as one thinks of those old monks of St. Benedict, who so often here offered the Holy Sacrifice, and made the vast edifice resound with far other and more solemn music in the centuries long gone by. Here rest the sainted bones of Edward the Confessor, in the magnificent shrine prepared for them by the founder of the abbey, Henry III, in the thirteenth century. Yonder is the tomb of the ruthless Cromwell, and a few steps beyond it, Charles Darwin, naturalist and agnostic, lies in death. Over against the monument of the martyred Mary Queen of Scots, rises that of her royal cousin and murderess, Elizabeth. The place is full of these painful contrasts, though fragrant still with memories of its glorious past—a past which, however, bids fair to renew itself, at least in a measure, for England and her people. Is it not a token of this "second spring" that the Faith which built Westminster Abbey, and which people once fondly thought was dead and buried in England, past all hope of resurrection, is now building an even more spacious temple to the Most High, not many hundred yards from the historic abbey, the new Catholic cathedral of Westminster.

Back of what was once the high altar of the old abbey is the Coronation Chair, with, beneath it, the historic Stone of Scone, on which the Scottish Kings used to be crowned for long ages before the days of Bruce. Now the monarchs of England sit in the chair on the day of their coronation. Queen Victoria sat in it twice, once when the diadem of the greatest empire of the earth was placed on her girlish brow—she was still in her teens—and a second time, sixty years after, on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. One other, more youthful, but of low degree, sat in the royal chair since—aye, and slept in it too, so our guide tells us. A boy from the neighbouring schools was dared by his mates to spend a night alone with the bones of the mighty dead, and the ghosts of the Royal Chapel. He did so, slept in the Coronation Chair, and boylike cut his name and the record of his nocturnal exploit in the wood on which Royalty has been enthroned since the days of the First Edward. Many are the sights of London. But we pilgrims are not sightseers, though of course we do not travel with our eyes closed. During the two or three days that we were in London, several places of historic interest were visited, among others the famous Tower. As for myself, I went not much about, having spent in all six days in London on the two former occasions that I was in the city. I paid a visit to an old classmate of mine in the Propaganda, who is now Canon Gildea, rector of St. James's, in Spanish Place. From him I learned that there are altogether about one hundred Catholic churches in London, most of them somewhat small of size, and that they are so situated that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered up every Sunday within ten minutes' walk of any Catholic home in the vast city. On the Feast of Corpus Christi I assisted at the Solemn High Mass and Procession of the Blessed Sacrament in the Brompton Oratory. The church of the Oratory is easily the finest Catholic church in London. It is modelled on the great church of St. Philip, in Rome, and is distinctly Roman in every detail. Here Newman preached those thrilling sermons which drew Thackeray away from his novel writing and Macaulay from some favourite haunt in the literary circles of the city. The echoes of that wondrous voice seem still to linger in the place. Newman's figure in white marble, larger than life, fronting the street that runs by the Oratory, arrests the steps of many a passer-by.

Between England and France, the distance is not great, if you reckon it in miles, but it is leagues and leagues if you measure it by differences of race and national characteristics. The English Channel, with its swift tide and fretful sea, severs two entirely different peoples. We cross from Folkestone to Boulogne-sur-Mer. Boulogne is a quaint old-world town, and a favourite resort of tourists. We make but a short stay, and push on to Paris. Our way lies through an undulating country, well-wooded and well-watered, with here and there a great stretch of pasture-land, where flocks of sheep are grazing and shepherds with their dogs are keeping watch. This part of France does not appear to be as highly cultivated as are the parts of England that we have seen; but the scenery is more diversified. By ten o'clock at night the electric light on the summit of the Eiffel Tower is visible afar, and we know that we are nearing Paris.

We arrived in Paris last Friday night. We leave it next Wednesday morning. What shall I say of the City on the Seine, the gay and brilliant capital of France? I will say frankly that I don't like it—that I would rather live in London with its dullness and fog, than live in Paris with its gaiety and sunshine. Why? Well, perhaps because I am dull myself, at least in the sense of not being gay—certainly not because I love the fog, for I do dearly love the blue sky and the light of the blessed sun. Perhaps, again, it is because I don't understand the French tongue or French ways as I understand the English tongue and English ways. But most of all, I think, what I dislike about Paris is its godlessness. The evidences of it are on every hand. The Londoner has at least the good sense to hide his irreligion, if he is irreligious. At any rate, he does not wear the badge of his irreligion in the streets. The Parisian, who is irreligious, parades his irreligion and seems to glory in his shame. I have seen less of London than of Paris—too little of either, indeed, to enable me to form a just idea of their condition. But certainly the latter city seems to be the more godless of the two.

Religion there is in Paris, and piety, too, much more of it, I have no doubt at all, than there is in the city on the Thames. But it hides itself in church and home; the stranger in the streets sees little of it. Take the matter of Sunday observance. Public opinion and the law in London make people respect, at least outwardly, the Lord's Day; public opinion and the law in Paris make people do the very opposite, at least as far as the force of custom and example and the spur of business rivalry can bring this effect about. Last Sunday in Paris almost all the shops were open, and people went about their work as on an ordinary week day. Paris does not keep the Sunday, though many Parisians doubtless do. Is there no warrant for the inference that Paris has ceased to be Christian?

This is a land of contrasts, and Paris is emphatically a city of contrasts. Piety and godlessness, virtue and vice, are here more sharply contrasted than in any other city on earth. "If the devil reigns in Paris, God is, perhaps, better served there than anywhere else; good and evil alike find their supreme expression; 'tis Babylon and Jerusalem both."

In the grand churches dwells the deepest piety; godlessness is rampant without. We are in Notre Dame Sunday, during the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament. What a splendid spectacle! The music how heavenly! Boys with angel voices make the stately edifice ring with the grand old chant of the Church. Troops of boys and girls, the boys with lighted torches in their hands, the girls clothed in spotless white and bearing great bunches of roses which shed their fragrance far, march in the long procession. At the end, the Eucharistic Lord, from His throne over the high altar, blesses the assembled multitude. It is all so solemn and so soulstirring. We pass out from the church, deeply moved. The street is almost blocked with worldly traffic, and men—two soldiers and two civilians—are playing cards under the very shadow of Notre Dame.

Sunday morning, the pilgrims went in a body to Montmartre—the priests to say Mass, the lay pilgrims to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion. The basilica which the piety of Catholic France has erected to the Sacred Heart on Montmartre is truly a splendid structure. Built on a lofty eminence, it dominates the city which seems to lie quite at one's feet. Five thousand boys from the seminaries of France received Holy Communion at Montmartre that morning. As one watched tier after tier of them at the high altar eat of the Bread of Life, with every mark of piety and devotion, one felt that there was hope for the future of the Church in France. And yet at least to human seeming, how gloomy is the outlook! One of the lay pilgrims, a very devout French-Canadian, told me after we left Montmartre that morning of a talk he had with a Parisian matron the day before. She had two children—the regulation number, for in France, as statistics show, the deaths all but exceed the births. She sent them to Mass, she said, though she did not go herself, remarking that no harm would come of their going. She sent them to the godless State school, because they would not get on so well in the world, she thought, if they went to the Christian Brothers' school. There is reason to fear that many of the mothers of France are to-day like this Parisian dame—solicitous about the things of this world, and neither knowing nor caring for the things that are above.

At dinner, in the restaurant at Boulogne on Friday, only meat was served. We asked for fish, but could get none. At lunch, in our own hotel here at Paris the same evening, again no fish. True, the railway restaurant at Boulogne and the hotel at Paris cater to the travelling public. But do not the French themselves travel? And if, in travelling, they eat fish on Friday, will not fish be forthcoming when asked for? I have said that Paris does not keep the Sunday—at least the Sunday rest; I fear that France does not keep Friday, or keeps it but very indifferently. I speak as one less wise and under correction. But putting this and that together, I cannot but conclude that there is a dreadful decay of faith in France. It does not seem possible that the France of the Catholic Missions, the France of our Lady of Lourdes, will be lost to the Church. But if she is to be saved to God and Church, it will be so as by fire. Another chastisement, cutting deeper into the nation's life than that of 1870, must first bring to her knees, and to the very dust in penance, the Eldest Daughter of the Church.

I am at the end of my chapter, and not a word about the Exposition. I have visited the grounds but once, and then viewed them from the Eiffel Tower, midway to the top. The buildings, which stand on both banks of the Seine, are certainly very grand. They seem to be more spacious, upon the whole, than were those of the Chicago Exposition. But they do not stand by themselves and apart, as was the case in Chicago; you do not get one impression of them, so to say; nor is the sight so beautiful as was that of the White City on the shores of Lake Michigan. The view to be had from the Ferris Wheel at Chicago was, I think, finer than that which you get to-day from the Eiffel Tower at Paris. I am speaking only of what is to be seen of the Exposition from without. But what of the Paris Fair from within? That you must learn, if at all, from some one else. I paid but a flying visit to one of the buildings, and saw a variety of things of which I have now but a very confused notion. I have no faculty for seeing things, as your enthusiastic sightseer has, and can find no sort of pleasure in the process. To me it is all a weariness of spirit—and a weariness of the flesh into the bargain. Non satiatur oculus videndo, says the Wise Man—the eye is not sated with seeing. To which one may add, in view of the special circumstances of the case, sed fatigatur corpus ambulando—but the body is fatigued with walking.

* * *

GENEVA, SUNDAY, JUNE 24, 1900.

We left Paris last Wednesday morning, and arrived at Paray le Monial a little before six in the afternoon. All day we traversed a land of great fertility, rich in grain fields, for the most part open and level, in places picturesque. The season here is at least six weeks earlier than at home. Already the grain is ripe or fast ripening in the fields, and the people are busily at work making their hay and gathering in the harvest.

Paray le Monial is situated on the banks of a small stream, in the Department of Loire-et-Saone, in the very heart of France. It is a town of not more than 4,000 inhabitants, quiet with the quietude of all country places, quaint with the quaintness of almost all of the old-world towns. No smoke of factories darkens its sky, no sound of worldly traffic is heard in its streets. You hear instead the song of birds in the morning, the pealing of bells, and all day long the pilgrim's hymn. A deep peace, a sweet and restful tranquility, broods on the place which the Prince of Peace, the Lord of the Sacred Heart, has chosen for His sanctuary.

The Chapel of the Sacred Heart, attached to the Convent of the Visitation, must seem commonplace enough to the ordinary traveller. It is small of size, and, as seen from without, very plain, very unpretentious. Within is a wealth of votive offerings from every land. Consecrated banners, wrought in silk and gold and richly embroidered, are ranged around the walls, and the light of many lamps falls upon the high altar where Our Blessed Lord revealed His heart to the lowly Visitandine, and whence He still dispenses His grace.

All day Thursday and far into the night pilgrims keep pouring in from all parts. All night long the Chapel is open, and the stream of incoming and outgoing pilgrims is as the flow and ebb of a mighty sea. At two in the morning of Friday, Feast of the Sacred Heart, the Masses begin. They continue at all of the eight altars until ten, at most of them until twelve, yet not one-third of the priests in Paray le Monial with the great International Pilgrimage can say Mass this day in the sanctuary of the Sacred Heart. They must needs go elsewhere, to the basilica, to other churches or chapels.

At ten o'clock Solemn High Mass is celebrated in the basilica, the Vicar-General of Paris being the celebrant. The Bishop of Autun, Cardinal Perraud, occupies the throne on the gospel side, for Paray le Monial is in his jurisdiction. In the sanctuary are several prelates and dignitaries, among others Arch-bishop Corrigan of New York, and as many priests as can find standing room. The church is literally packed with pilgrims, yet many thousands have been unable to gain entrance. In the nave, directly in front of the main altar, are ranged the banners of the various pilgrimages, some thirty or forty in all—I cannot give the exact number. Hither they have been borne by pilgrim bands from all quarters of the globe, from many countries of Europe, from Asia, from Africa, from America, North and South, and from the islands of the far Pacific Ocean. Conspicuous among them is our own Canadian banner, with its almost life-size image of Our Lord revealing His Sacred Heart in the centre, and ranged along the borders the heroic founders of the Church in Canada, Laval, Champlain, Maisonneuve, Breboeuf, Mary of the Incarnation, Marguerite Bourgeois, and the foundress of the Ursulines of Quebec. A little beyond is unfurled another American banner, which proudly claims a place here to-day by a right peculiarly its own. It is the banner of Catholic Ecuador, the Republic of the Sacred Heart. Inscribed on it, in letters of gold, which first were written in blood, are the words of the martyred President, Garcia Moreno, as he fell by the hand of the assassin, Iddios ne meure—God dies not. At the Credo all are on their feet, and the priests in the sanctuary and in all parts of the basilica pilgrim voices from many lands sing in unison the time-honoured Confession of the Faith "once delivered to the saints"—in the chant of the Church and in the language of the Church, the Creed of the Church Catholic and Apostolic. It is a most impressive and most solemn scene, one never to be forgotten.

Thursday night the pilgrims made the Way of the Cross by torchlight in the great garden adjoining the basilica. The garden itself was brilliant with lights, and at each station the arch-priest attached to the basilica delivered a discourse in French, of some five or ten minutes. In the intervals between stations the vast multitude joined in singing the hymn of Catholic France, with its pleading refrain, Sauvez, Sauvez la France. On the afternoon of Friday the basilica was again packed to hear the sermon of Father Couper, one of the first preachers of France, and to assist at the International Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart. It was indeed a red-letter day in the City of the Sacred Heart. From earliest dawn the streets were lined with pilgrims in picturesque costumes and gay with banners, the Papal colours and the banner of the Sacred Heart ever holding the place of honour. As the sun went down and darkness fell upon the scene, the celebration was brought to a close by a great torchlight procession through the streets.

That night, in the hotel of the Sacred Heart hard by the Chapel of the Visitation, the Canadian pilgrims were introduced to General Charette, sometime leader of the Pontifical Zouaves, and Admiral Cuverville, of the French Navy. Both made short speeches brimful of Gallic fire, and of loyalty to the Sacred Heart and to Holy Mother Church. O that France had many such high-souled, God-fearing men among her leaders and councillors!

There were many pilgrimages at Paray le Monial, and many people represented there. But it is quite safe to say that the pilgrimage which represented the Catholics of Canada cut the greatest figure and claimed the greatest share of attention. This it owed not to its numbers; numerically it was one of the smallest. Nor was it the rank or dignity of its members that won it a foremost place: it was made up of plain priests and humble lay people, many of them from the remote rural districts of the Province of Quebec. But the Catholics of France saw in the vast majority of the pilgrim band that gathered round the Canadian banner the descendants of the men and women who went forth from France three centuries ago to found a new France on the banks of the St. Lawrence. And as they heard them sing their hymns in French to airs that have been familiar to generations of pious Frenchmen, and saw how they still hold fast, with unswerving fidelity, the Faith of their Fathers, the Faith of Old France, their hearts went out to them as they went out to the members of no other pilgrimage there. Most of all was this made manifest yesterday morning as we gathered in the sanctuary at Paray le Monial to sing for the last time before leaving the hymn of the Canadian pilgrims. Mr. Rivet, organizer of the pilgrimage, who has a rich, strong and most musical voice, sang the solos, and all joined in the chorus. The emotion of many present found vent in tears, and copies of the hymn were afterwards eagerly sought for. This particular hymn, one of two, was composed while we were in London, by a French Canadian Sister who has entered a convent there. I subjoin a copy of it, with an English translation, which one who looks at it without reading might mistake for verse, but which is really only a rude rendering into English, line for line and almost word for word, of the original:

Cantique des Pelerins Canadiens
a Paray le Monial.

(AIR: PITIE, MON DIEU.)

I.

Des bords lointains de la Nouvelle France,
Du Canada, Maitre, nous accourons;
O Roi des rois, a Vous notre allegeance.
A votre Coeur, nous nous consacrons.
Coeur adorable,
Foyer d'amour,
Le pays de l'erable
Est a Vous sans retour.

II.

Peuples, debout! le Maitre nous appelle,
Rallions-nous autour du Sacre-Coeur;
Il faut au monds une seve nouvelle:
Allons tous boire aux sources du Sauveur.
Coeur adorable,
Nous voici tous,
Nous venons, Coeur aimable,
Chercher la vie en vous.

III.

Nos maux sont grands, nous sommes bien coupables,
Mais Vous, mon Dieu, vous etes toujours bon;
Vous avez fait les peuples guerissables,
Il leur suffit de Vous crier: Pardon!
Coeur adorable,
Qui nous aimez,
A la terre coupable,
Coeur divin, pardonnez.

IV.

Coeur de Jesus, que tous les coeurs soient votres,
Au cher pays, en la France, en tous lieux!
Par votre amour, unis les uns aux autres,
Nous serons forts et nous serons heureux.
Nous voulons etre
A Vous, Jesus;
Prenez nos coeurs, bon Maitre,
Et ne les rendez plus.

V.

Daignez benir notre chere Patrie,
Tous nos foyers, nos Pretres, nos Pasteurs;
Et que toujours, de Jesus, de Marie,
Les Canadiens soient loyaux serviteurs!
Coeur adorable,
Gardez tou jours
Au pays de l'erable
La foi des anciens jours.

Hymn of the French-Canadian
Pilgrims at Paray le Monial.

From the shores of far New France,
From Canada, Lord, we come;
O King of Kings, we swear fealty to Thee,
And to Thy Sacred Heart we consecrate ourselves.
Adorable Heart,
Fountain of Love,
The Land of the Maple
Is Thine forevermore.

II.

Hark, ye peoples! the Master calls us,
Let us rally round His Sacred Heart.
The world needs the sap of a new life;
Let us all go and drink at the fountains of the Saviour.
Adorable Heart,
Behold us all here,
We come, O loving Heart,
To find life in Thee.

III.

Great are our sins, our souls are stained with guilt,
But Thou, my God, Thou art ever merciful,
In Thee is healing for the Nations;
Enough that they cry out: Forgive!
Adorable Heart
That lovest us;
Pardon, Heart Divine,
The guilt-stained world.

IV.

Heart of Jesus, may all hearts be Thine,
In our own dear country, in France, in every land!
Bound together by the bonds of Thy love,
We shall find strength and happiness.
Thine, O Jesus,
We would be;
Take our hearts, dear Lord,
And make them Thine for ever.

V.

Deign to bless our dear Country,
Our Homes, our Priests, our Bishops;
And may Canadians ever be
Faithful Servants of Jesus and Mary!
Adorable Heart,
Always conserve
To the Land of the Maple
The Faith of our Fathers!

* * *

We reached Geneva last night and are leaving to-morrow morning for Berne. Geneva is a beautiful city, situated at the head of the lake of the same name. The atmosphere is wonderfully clear here to-day and the sun shines out of a cloudless sky. Afar off—though it seems not far, it must be some score of miles away—the snowy summit of Mont Blanc is distinctly visible. All around are Alpine peaks. The city is full of historic interest. Here Calvin preached his gloomy creed and ruled with an iron rod. Here, too, the very opposite of Calvin in every way, that sweetest and most lovable of Saints, Francis of Sales, wielded episcopal authority over a devoted flock. His spirit seems to breathe in the peace and calm of this June day. One can even fancy that one hears the accents of his gentle voice calling his sheep away from earthly pastures to heavenly ones, guiding them ever onward to the Great Shepherd of the sheep, in the fold upon the everlasting hills.

* * *

LUCERNE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27.

The parts of Switzerland that are capable of cultivation seem to be even more fertile than the parts of France that we have passed through. Both the hay and grain crops are heavier, at least this year, and the vine thrives marvellously on the hillsides of this beautiful and romantic land. For beautiful it is and romantic, this land of bright-blue skies, and snow-capped mountains, and leaping cataracts, and sylvan glades, and smiling valleys.

We spent Sunday at Geneva, and stayed two or three hours at Berne Monday on our way to Interlaken. Berne is the national capital. Its most notable buildings are the Federal House of Parliament and the Lutheran Cathedral. The latter dates from the beginning of the 15th century, and to this day bears about it tokens of the Faith that first set it up. Berne is the German word for "bear." The city takes its name "de bellua caesa," as an old monument bears witness, from a bear having been slain on the site where it stands. Thence the bear is the emblem and heraldic decoration of the Swiss capital. You can't turn in any direction without running across the figure of a bear. The poor beast is drawn in every conceivable shape and tortured into every conceivable attitude. One is reminded of the fable of the Lion and the Man, as told by Newman. There are bears couchant, bears passant, and bears regardant. There are old bears and young bears, big bears and little bears, bears climbing trees, bears standing on their hind legs, bears hugging each other, and bears making faces at each other. And to crown all, the city maintains four huge live bears and several young ones in an enclosure about twelve feet below the level of the ground. They are shown to every visitor who crosses the stone bridge that spans the Aar river, on the banks of which Berne stands.

Interlaken, as the name implies, is situated between two lakes. It is an ideal summer resort, a very paradise of tourists. It is hemmed in by mountains on every side. On the east, Jungfrau lifts her snowy summit to the skies. Jungfrau (pronounced yungfrau) is German for virgin. And a tall virgin she is, this Maiden of the Snows, ever holding her head erect some 13,000 feet above the level of the sea. She always wears her white mantle, and for apron a great glacier. On the evening of our arrival she had on a cap of cloud, and some time during the night further shrouded herself in a veil of mist. Nor would she lift it as we went away, eager though we were to catch a glimpse of her morning face.

Between Interlaken and Lucerne the scenery is uninterruptedly grand. Mountain, lake, and Alpine river quickly succeed one another, but without sameness. The most remarkable feature of this route is the over-mountain railway. The train climbs an Alpine hill from 1,200 to 1,500 feet in height, and makes its way down on the other side. Our train was divided into three sections, each section of which was pulled by a powerful locomotive. The wheels revolve on cogs set in the rails. At one time the train is on the very edge of a precipice, with a sheer descent of several hundred feet; at another, an overhanging cliff threatens to fall down on top of it and smash it into atoms. Now it seems to be on the verge of dropping into a lake hundreds of feet below; the next moment the dense Alpine forests hides even the heavens from one's view. It is a thrilling experience, and one feels a sense of relief once it is fairly over.

* * *

ROME, JULY 6TH, 1900.

It is more than a week since last I put pen to paper. We were then at Lucerne, amid the eternal hills. We are now in the Eternal City. Into this short space much has been crowded—too much even to touch on here or give in barest outline. There is the sublime scenery of the Alpine Passes between Lucerne and Como, with the passage through the great tunnel at St. Gothard's. There is Milan with its marvellous Duomo, "a dream in marble," as some prose poet has pictured it. There is the vast plain of Lombardy, stretching for miles and miles from the foot of the Alps to the Mediterranean, the garden of Italy, as Italy is the garden of Europe. Then there is Venice, Queen of the Adriatic, the city of doges and of gondolas. The doges are dead; we visited the church where monuments in marble and in bronze enshrine their ashes and perpetuate all that now remains of their former greatness—a fugitive and fitful memory. The gondolas are still there, with their graceful, swan-like shape and movement—just such as they were in the days when the Republic of Venice was mistress of the seas. There, again, is Padua, with its shrine of St. Anthony, whose incorrupt tongue still witnesses to the power with which this "trumpet of the Gospel" heralded Christ and Him crucified. There, too, is Loreto, with its Holy House, where the Word was made Flesh—a most gracious shrine. Lastly, as we hasten Romeward, midway between Ancona and Rome, amid the Umbrian hills, yet another shrine draws us to itself—Assisi, where live the memories of St. Francis and the spirit of St. Francis—live, too, as fresh and fragrant as are the blood-bedewed roses that bloom on thornless bushes in his garden, where he fought the good fight against temptation and won for the men of all time the Pardon of the Portiuncula.

Those of us who spent Wednesday in Assisi did not reach Rome until a late hour that night. Imagine our surprise and almost consternation when we were told that all the pilgrims were to be received in audience by the Holy Father at eleven the next (yesterday) morning. We had counted on being at least a day or two in Rome before the audience took place, and we were not ready. We ran about for two or three hours in the morning, buying medals, etc., to be blessed—I with no little difficulty, getting English gold for the cheques containing the Peter Pence offering of our diocese, some two thousand one hundred and fifty francs. By eleven o'clock we are at the Vatican, and half an hour afterwards Pope Leo enters the Sala Clementina, borne on a chair, amid the 'evivas' of the assembled pilgrims. There are two pilgrimages, the Brazilian, ranged along one side of the great hall, and the Canadian along the other. First the Pope receives the Brazilians, then the Canadians. He is carried in his chair right around the hall, in front of the pilgrims who line the sides. To each he gives his hand to kiss; to each his blessing and some gracious token of tenderness—a word, a smile; to all, at the close, the Apostolic Benediction. Pope Leo is of course changed since I saw him last, sixteen years ago; the white hair is scantier and whiter still, the lines on the face are deeper, the hands are more tremulous, the voice has lost its resonance. But the light of the coal black eye is not dimmed, there is more of pathos in the voice, and the whole face has melted into tenderness. There has come into it a gentler and more winning look, which one likens to the mellowness of ripe fruit when it is ready to drop from the tree. This fruit is surely meet to be gathered, one says to oneself, yet none but the Master's hand may pluck it from the stem.

The scene in the Sala Clementina, at the close of the audience, as the aged Pontiff blessed the pilgrims, I will not attempt to describe. I shall never forget it, and no one who was there ever can forget it. When the Pope raised himself on his chair and stretched out his hand to give the Apostolic Benediction, there was a stillness as of death throughout the vast hall—a stillness soon broken by sobs, for tears filled the eyes of all that were there, and many wept aloud. The first words were spoken in distinct though somewhat low tones, but as the last words, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, were being uttered the Holy Father himself broke down completely. The voice grew husky with emotion, the eyes closed, and great tears rolled down the aged cheeks. Leo XIII felt that he was blessing for the last time these faithful children of his from the two Americas, and we felt that never in this life should we look upon his face again. I must close abruptly, without as much as one word about Rome itself- -Rome to which I have come, not merely as a pilgrim from afar to a holy place of pilgrimage, but as a son comes to his mother after long years of separation. For Rome is to me the mother of my soul.

* * *

GENOA, FRIDAY, JULY 13.

We left Rome Tuesday at 2 p.m., after a stay of six days, which was all too short. For one could spend months and months in Rome and still not see a tithe of what is worth seeing, or even begin to be weary of a place so rich in all that sages have thought and poets have dreamed of and artists have wrought and martyrs have bled for and saints have loved. We leave Rome with regret; feeling as all must feel in whom there is a spark of Divine Faith, that it is the City of the Soul, to which, in the words of the poet, "the exile of the heart" must forever turn.

The run from Rome to Florence is made in five or six hours. Florence, the city of flowers, is built on both banks of the Arno. It is a beautiful city much frequented by tourists. It is the birthplace of many of Italy's greatest sons, of Dante, of Michael Angelo, of Galileo. Here Savonarola lived and preached and wielded an influence more potent than that of any civil ruler. We saw, in one of the palaces of the Medici, the chapel where he spoke his last words to his brother monks, just before he was led out to be burnt at the stake in the Piazza of the Signoria, hard by. Here, too, first saw the light of day one who was the opposite of Savonarola in many ways, the sweet and gentle Philip Neri. Rome, the city of his adoption, of which he became the second Apostle, is still filled with the fragrance of his saintly life.

From Florence we come by rail to Pisa, and thence the same day to Genoa. From Spezia to the latter city, the railway, skirting the shores of the Mediterranean, is one series of tunnels. In the intervals between tunnels we catch glimpses of as beautiful and picturesque scenery as one could wish to gaze upon—a background of hills, rising in many places abruptly to a great height, sloping vineyards, groves of olive, clusters of fruit trees, and, in front, the waters of the Mediterranean, clear as crystal and mirroring in their depths the fleecy summer clouds that float in the blue above. Over all, like a great dome over Nature's own Cathedral, is the sky of Italy.

"Genoa la Superba"—Genoa the Superb—the Genoese call this city by the rippling Mediterranean, and well they may. It is, indeed, superb. In its marble palaces could be entertained to-day, in princely fashion, all the princes of the earth. It is the richest city of the peninsula, the great mart of the Mediterranean, the Liverpool of Italy. From the harbour, where float the flags of all nations, the city resembles a vast amphitheatre, tier upon tier of tall buildings rising one above another. Even the urchins in the street are proud of this queenly city. In the higher part of the town, away up among the hills, near the marvellous Campo Santo, a group of them stood talking rapidly, and to me unintelligibly, in their own Genoese dialect, as we passed by. "Che linguaggio parlate voi altri?" I asked somewhat bluntly. "Noi," says one of the number, with a sweep of the hand which took in the other members of the group, and then pointing proudly with his finger to his breast, "Noi siamo Genovesi—We are natives of Genoa."

That Campo Santo, by the same token, is one of the wonders of the world. Truly the dead of Genoa dwell in marble halls, and this city of the dead is a miracle in marble. Every monument is a work of art. The pose of that figure, how graceful and natural! Those faces in marble and bronze, how life-like are they! The dead seem to live in them again, and to look down at you with their solemn eyes from the other world.

We loved that hall, tho' white and cold
Those niched shapes of noble mould
A princely people's awful princes,
The grave, severe Genoese of old.
—Tennyson, "The Daisy."

Quieti et Memoriae—you meet it everywhere, this terse and beautiful epigraph. Recalling the memory of some dear departed one, it breathes a prayer for that rest after which the human heart ever hungers here below—that rest which we look for "where beyond these voices there is peace."

For full nine hundred years, from 900 to 1,800, Genoa maintained herself an independent Republic. Already six centuries had rolled over this Old World Republic when the boldest of her sailors embarked at Palos on his voyage of discovery. "Were it not for him we might all of us to-day be—Indians," is the curious thought that comes to one of the pilgrims as he gazes on the massive monument, near the railway station, which bears the legend in huge letters:

A CHRISOFORO COLOMBO LA PATRIA

Ah, those might-have-beens of an unborn past! It is bootless to speculate upon them.

LOURDES, JULY 19, 1900.

"Lourdes is a small town in the diocese of Tarbes, Hautes Pyrenees, picturesquely situated on the right bank of the river Gave." I quote the words from a booklet which purports to be "A Short Account of the Apparitions and Miracles at Lourdes." We arrived here from Toulouse about five o'clock on the afternoon of the day before yesterday. It had been a very hot day in the cars, but all covered with sweat and dust as we were we went straight in procession to the Grotto of Our Lady, without waiting to go to our hotel. There, on our knees before the statue, which smiles down sweetly upon us, as did erstwhile the Virgin Mother for whom it stands, upon the simple peasant girl of the Pyrenees, we recite the Rosary and sing the Magnificat. All about us throngs are kneeling in prayer, and there are signs of a subdued excitement, for just five minutes before our arrival a young girl who had suffered severe injuries by a fall three years ago, and was carried thither in her little carriage, a few hours before, was seen to rise to her feet and walk. But neither before nor after the cure did she report at the Bureau des Constatations Medicales.

The words that I have quoted at the head of this page were written twenty-four years ago by an English priest who visited the shrine. Were he now writing he would no longer say that Lourdes is a small town. The old town of Lourdes is, indeed, small, just a bit of a village in the Pyrenees. But the new Lourdes that has sprung up as if by magic on the banks of the Gave, over against the famous Grotto, has pretensions to rank as a city. It has its banks, its public buildings, its electric cars, rows upon rows of stores, though the wares are almost wholly of a devotional character, hotels and boarding houses without number, and a population of about ten thousand souls. And yet twenty-six years ago, just two years before our English priest wrote his account, there was not, as an old inhabitant told us, a stone upon a stone of the modern, and, for the most part, handsome buildings that one sees to-day.

Nature has lavished her charms on this favoured spot. Nothing is wanting of all that can please the eye or soothe and rest the mind in natural scenery. Lofty hills in front and in the rear, some bare and bald, others clothed with forest to their very tops; in the background, the snow-clad peaks and spurs of the Pyrenees; at your feet a narrow valley, studded with stately trees and carpeted with green-sward; and ever in your ears, though the eye wearied with gazing, should seek repose, the rushing waters of the Gave. Surely a fitting entourage for this most gracious of all our Lady's shrines!

The waters of the Gave, how swiftly and noisily they flow, flinging themselves passionately upon the rude rocks that would stay their onward course! The murmur of the Gave has been in my ears from a boy, for I seemed to hear the rushing of its waters when in boyhood's days I lingered over the pages of Henri Lasserre's fascinating story of the wonders of Lourdes. And to-day as I sit on the bank and gaze down upon the swift stream that flings itself into the Adour to mingle finally with the waters of the mighty Atlantic, the Gave of my boyish dreams is a reality. It is something more. It is an emblem at once and a sermon—an emblem of the surging multitude of pilgrims which ever keeps streaming to the Grotto of our Lady, flowing hither from the ends of the earth; a sermon on the true purpose of life. See how this eager mountain stream, like a thing of life, runs joyously to its rest in the bosom of the great ocean! Not less surely was it meant by Nature to find there its repose than we are meant by the Author of Nature to find our repose in Him. Yet we linger by the way and loiter, while the Gave leaps onward, oh, how swiftly and how surely! to its goal and the home of its rest.

But the Gave has not always been at this point the deep, narrow, noisy stream that it is to-day. Once it roamed at will over its rocky bed, making for itself a wider and more spacious pathway. Now stout stone walls fence it in and confine it to a narrow channel, and it frets and foams as does the wild beast of the forest when imprisoned behind iron bars. In these hot July days, too, the Gave runs deeper and swifter, fed by the melting snows of the Pyrenees. But on that February day, forty-two years ago, it was a feeble and mild-mannered stream. Bernadette and her two little companions crossed the main stream by the stone bridge. But a narrow side channel still separated them from the Grotto in the rocks of Massabielle, where was plenty of the drift wood they were in search of. Stooping down slowly to pull off her shoes and stockings with a view of wading this stream, Bernadette heard a noise as of a sudden gust of wind. "It was a calm grey day, and not a twig of the poplars was stirring, yet she felt certain that she had heard the rush of air. She stooped down again, and again the mysterious current startled her. This time the child looked up towards the niche-shaped cave. To her amazement a clear bright light issued from the aperture, in the midst of which stood a woman more wondrously beautiful than any one Bernadette had ever seen, or could have imagined. She was clad in white, with a long white veil falling over her shoulders; a blue scarf encircled her waist and reached to her knees, and upon either bare foot was a gold-coloured rose." I am quoting from my little book. But the story has been often told and is trite now, though it can never be commonplace.

The number of pilgrims who visit Lourdes yearly is estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand. They come from every country under the sun. The two ends of America are wide enough asunder, yet the fact of our being from the same continent is a real bond between ourselves and our fellow-pilgrims from Brazil, whom we meet here at the shrine of our Lady as we met them at Paray le Monial and again in the audience chamber of the Vatican.

* * *

LOURDES, SATURDAY, JULY 21.

Every day since our coming here has been for us a day of prayer, and, at the same time, a day of rest—rest for body and for soul. There is something in the very atmosphere of Lourdes which inspires devotion and invites repose. Every morning the pilgrims assist at Mass in the Grotto and many receive Holy Communion. We all of us take our places, too, in the procession of the Blessed Sacrament, and at night, in the torch-light procession. This morning at ten o'clock we had Solemn High Mass in the Grotto, with a Canadian as celebrant, Canadians as ministers at the altar, and Canadians as singers. The service was, of course, in the open air, and very solemn and impressive it was. While we joined in the chant of the Mass, the wind in the trees around about us seemed to sing an accompaniment, and the hoarse-sounding Gave lent its deep bass voice as it sped on its way to the ocean.

To-morrow at eleven o'clock we bid adieu to Lourdes. With Lourdes our pilgrimage ends. At Paris, where we are due Monday evening, our pilgrim party breaks up. Some will stay there for a season, others will sail from Liverpool on the following Thursday, and yet others will visit parts of Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, or of France itself, before turning their steps homeward. Of this number is the present writer. But here at Lourdes, as I have said, our pilgrimage ends. And so from Lourdes, from this sweet shrine of Our Lady by the sounding waters of the Gave, let me send after its fellows this last leaf from

THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM.

JOTTINGS OF A TRIP IN SCOTLAND.

Leaving Liverpool with its din and smoke behind, we begin our journey by rail, through the northwestern part of England toward the Scottish border. It is near the end of July, and the weather, for England, is hot. But coming as we do direct from the stifling heat of Paris, we find it cool by comparison. We are travelling by fast express, and can catch but passing glimpses of the towns and hamlets, the broad farms and comfortable homesteads, of Old England. Now we are dashing through one of the many manufacturing towns with which the land is studded. There are long rows of red brick houses, with here and there a huge chimney belching forth black smoke. The next moment we are once more in the open country. On either hand as far as the eye can reach, are great stretches of farmland and green pastures where cattle are grazing. The grain is ripening in the fields, and ever and anon there comes, through the open window of the car, the sweet savour of new-mown hay. As we go further north the country grows more rugged. Dark ravines open at our feet, and shaggy hills frown down upon us. By three o'clock we have passed Carlisle, once the great stronghold of England against the fierce incursions of its warlike neighbour to the north. Soon after we cross the border and find ourselves on Scottish soil. It is the land of our fathers—

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,—

a land of stirring memories and teeming with romance. It is not without emotion, therefore, that we enter it for the first time. Nor does the dense Scotch mist into which we run before reaching Edinburgh damp our enthusiasm in the least—though we should not be able to say as much for our persons were we exposed to it but for a moment.

We spend the Sunday in Edinburgh. That droll Frenchman who writes under the pen-name of Max O'Rell, defines a Scotchman as one who keeps the Sabbath and everything else he can lay his hands on! Well, at any rate he keeps the Sabbath, and that is more than many a Frenchman does. For the people of Edinburgh the Sunday is still emphatically a day of rest. To a Protestant gentleman from Toronto who had just come from Paris himself and put up at the same hotel with us, we remark upon the contrast between the Parisian Sunday and the solemn quiet of the Scotch Sabbath. "Quite so," he says, "but you should have been here yesterday while the Labor Parade was passing through the streets. You would have seen one after another of the men dropping out of the procession in a state of beastly intoxication. In all the time that I was in Paris I saw no single instance of such drunkenness." He had come away from Paris greatly edified, and was leaving Edinburgh utterly disgusted and horrified at what he had seen. Sobriety was more to him than Sunday observance. And yet human frailty may account for drunkenness, and palliate it at least in part. But the violation of the Sunday has its root cause, it is to be feared, in a spirit of contempt for the ordinances of the Christian Religion.

Edinburgh is not only the capital of Scotland, but the queen of Scottish cities. There are few finer cities, indeed, in all the world. Its broad and well paved streets are kept scrupulously clean. The buildings, almost all of them of granite, are tall and stately. And the site with its picturesque setting of hills is superb. On one of these hills, west from Prince street and Scott's Monument, stands the historic Castle like a grim sentinel guarding the approaches of the City. Climbing the hill and entering by the draw-bridge, we see, among other interesting relics of the past, the Chapel of the saintly Queen Margaret, and stand in the room where the ill-fated Mary Stuart took refuge after the murder of Rizzio, and where was born James the Sixth of Scotland and the First of England. In another room hard by we gaze upon the ancient Regalia of Scotland, "worthy of a nation's pride and jealous preservation."

The run from Edinburgh to Glasgow by rail is made in a little more than one hour. Our route lies through Lanarkshire, famed for its coal mines and iron foundries. Glasgow, with a population of over one million, is the second city of the Empire. Unlike Edinburgh, it has no pretentions to beauty. Still, it has some fine streets and very beautiful parks. It contains, too, not a few notable buildings, and there are in and around it many places of great historic interest. Its water supply, brought from Loch Katrine, thirty miles distant, is not surpassed perhaps by that of any other city in the world.

Early in the morning we leave Glasgow for Oban by boat. Steaming down the Clyde, we get a good view of the docks and of the ships both great and small that are a-building on either bank. A few miles down the river is Douglas Castle, and a little beyond, on the summit of a rock 260 feet in height, rises Dumbarton Castle, famed in Scottish story. We touch at Greenock and Dunoon, and thence make for Rothesay, the capital of Bute. On our left, as we near the Bute shore, we see Mount Stuart House, the seat of the Marquis.

Leaving Rothesay, the steamer runs up the Kyles or narrows (from the Gaelic caolas, a strait) of Bute, round the northern end of the island, and down the other side towards Ardlamont Point on the mainland. The scenery on this strait is very fine, wooded mountain, loch, and glen blending their varied beauties into one picturesque whole. Rounding Ardlamont Point, we steer straight for the harbour of Tarbert, on the coast of Kintyre. Away to the south, and but dimly visible in the haze, is the island of Arran. From Tarbert we proceed up Loch Fyne to Ardrishaig, 180 miles from Glasgow, at the head of the Crinan Canal. This canal, which connects Loch Fyne with Loch Crinan, and is nine miles in length, runs, for a great part of the way, along the base of forest-clad hills.

By this time, unluckily for us, it has begun to rain heavily, which mars our enjoyment of the rest of the trip to Oban. As the boat stops for the opening of the locks of the canal, we hear people on shore talking in Gaelic and realize that we have left the Lowlands behind. In spite of the rain two little barefooted girls and a little boy who has shoes on (shame on him!) follows us from lock to lock, selling milk by the glassful to the passengers. The children are quite brave at first, and stare at us, as much as to say, "What do we care what these English strangers say or think of us." But the moment I speak to them in Gaelic, they grow shy of me, and the poor little girls look as if they were ashamed to be seen in their bare feet.

Leaving Crinan, the western terminus of the canal, we have on our right the mainland of Argyle; on our left are the islands of Jura and Scarba. Between the two is the famous whirlpool of Corryvrechan, the roar of which may be heard at a distance of many miles. Away in the west, beyond Ross of Mull, lies far-famed Iona, with Ulva dark and Colonsay

And all the group of islets gay
That guard famed Staffa round.

Presently we descry Dunollie Castle, once the chief stronghold of the Lords of Lorn, and soon after land in Oban.

Oban has been called the Charing Cross of the Highlands. And such it is in the sense of being the great distributing centre for tourists and travellers by rail or boat. But in every other sense how unlike is this quiet little town, with its cosy harbour and crescent beach, where the wavelets play at hide-and-seek with the pebbles, to the bustling railway station in the heart of the biggest and busiest of all earth's cities! During the summer months this cosy harbour is crowded with pleasure yachts from all parts of the world, and the hotels that line the pebbly beach are thronged with tourists from every land.

For Oban is a dainty place
In distant or in nigh lands,
No town delights the tourist race
Like Oban in the Highlands.

So wrote the late Professor Blackie, himself a frequent visitor in his day to this charming resort on the shore of the western sea.

At Oban in the early morning we take the 'Gael' steamship for far Gairloch in Rosshire. Dunollis Castle is on our right as we steam out of Oban Bay and make for Lismore Light, on the extreme southern end of the island of that name. Thence our way lies through the Sound of Mull to Ardnamurchan Point. The scenery along this Sound, where you have the mountains of Mull on the one hand, and on the other those of misty Morven, is surpassingly grand. Here on the Morven shore, in Ardtornish Castle, ancient seat of the Lords of the Isles, is laid the opening scene of Scott's well-known poem, which begins with the lines:

"Wake, maid of Lorn," the minstrels sung.
Thy rugged halls, Ardtornish, rung,
And the dark seas thy towers that lave,
Heaved on the beach a softer wave,
As 'mid the tuneful choir to keep
The diapason of the deep.

Near the other end of the sound is Tobermory (Mary's Well), the chief seaport of Mull, a very pretty town, in whose land-locked harbour ships of any tonnage find securest anchorage. This port has for us a very special interest, as we have reason to believe that from hence our grand-parents sailed in the dawn of the century to make for themselves a home, beyond the stormy Atlantic, in what was then the wild woods of Nova Scotia.

All day long, from early morn till set of sun, we follow our sinuous course through the sounds and lochs and bays of this western sea, calling here or there to land or take on passengers. After leaving Torbermory while rounding Ardnamurchan Point, and until we gain the shelter of towering Scaur-Eigg, a perpendicular cliff some five hundred feet high at the southwestern extremity of the island of that name, we are in the open Atlantic, with no land to the west of us nearer than America. North of Ardnamurchan lies Moidart, where Prince Charlie landed on the 25th of July, 1745, and whence after many wanderings and hair-breadth escapes he sailed, on the 20th September of the following year, a hopeless and broken man.

From Eigg we cross over to Arisaig. Judging by what one can see of it from the deck of a steamer, it is far from being as fertile as the district that has been named after it in Nova Scotia. But perhaps there is no other spot on the western coast of Scotland where the view landward and seaward is so varied and so magnificent.

After landing passengers at Arisaig, we steam along the coast of Morar on the mainland, having on our left the islands of Eigg, Rum, and Canna, and in front of us the southern extremity of Skye. Soon we enter the Sound of Sleat, and passing through the Kyle of Lochalsh, hug the eastern or inner shore of Skye till we reach Portree. It is a perfect day. The sun shines brightly, and the face of the laughing waters is gently fanned by the summer winds. And the scenery is as grand as it is diversified. Leaving Portree (King's Port), so-called from having been visited by James V. of Scotland while cruising round these isles, we enter once more the Sound of Raasay. On the Skye shore, near the little island of Holm, is to be seen the entrance to a cave famed as one of the hiding places of the unfortunate Prince Charlie. Presently we pass out of the Sound of Raasay and enter the Minch. On the left, beyond the northern promontory of Skye, some of the Hebridean Islands are visible in the dim distance. Behind us the mountains of Skye rise in gloomy grandeur. As one gazes upon them, there comes to one's mind these words of MacCrimmon's Lament, done into English by Sir Walter Scott:

Farewell to each cliff, on which breakers are foaming,
Farewell to each dark glen in which red deer are roaming;
Farewell lovely Skye, to lake, mountain, and river—
Return, return, return, we shall never.
(Cha till, cha till, cha till sinn tuille.)

Gairloch has a fine hotel—with prices to match. It is a charming place, this quiet hamlet by the sea, but lonely withal. For here, away up north, one has that sense of isolation, of being cut off from the great world, which is itself twin-sister to the feeling of loneliness.

We leave Gairloch early in the morning for Inverness, travelling by coach for 30 miles to Achnasheen (Field of the Fairies) and thence by rail. In the first five miles the road runs, part of the time, through a fine forest of larches, which seem to be related to our juniper tree, but are very tall and stately. On emerging from the wood and beginning the descent of a steep hill, we come of a sudden upon a loch which seems to surpass all the Scottish lochs in the wild and rugged grandeur of the scenery along its shores. It was some such sight as here greets our eyes that inspired Sir Walter's muse to sing,—

Stranger; if e'er thine ardent step hath traced
The northern realms of ancient Caledon,
Where the proud Queen of Wilderness hath placed,
By lake and cataract her lonely throne;
Sublime but sad delight thy soul hath known,
Gazing on pathless glen and mountain high,
Listing where from the cliffs the torrents thrown
Mingle their echoes with the eagle's cry,
And with the sounding lake, and with the moaning sky.

For where more fittingly than here by Loch Maree, on some lonely mountain peak, could the Queen of Wilderness set up her throne? Here, in sooth, are pathless glen and mountain high and torrents flung from cliffs. And the very spirit of Desolation seems to brood over the place. You may travel miles on this loch without seeing a single human habitation. Steep mountains, bare of trees and even of vegetation, shut it in on all sides. The loftiest peak in Ruadh Stac Mor, which rises to a height of 3,309 feet; but there are several other peaks almost as high. Half way up the loch is a summer hotel for tourists, where Queen Victoria stayed a week something more than a score of years ago. Over against this hotel, near the other side of the loch, is a wooded islet, called Isle Maree, on which may be seen the ruins of a monastery, "in days of yore," says our guide book, "an oasis of learning in the desert of heathenism." Tradition has it that the waters of a well on this little island (mayhap another Tobair Moire or Mary's Well!) cured insanity—a tradition which the gentle Quaker poet Whittier has embalmed in these lines:

Calm on the breast of Isle Maree
A little Well reposes:
A shadow woven of the oak
And willow o'er it closes,
And whoso bathes therein his brow,
With care or madness burning,
Feels once again his healthful thought
And sense of peace returning.
Life's changes vex, its discords stun,
Its glaring sunshine blindeth;
And blest is he who on his way
That fount of healing findeth!

I suspect that Loch Maree is an English corruption of the Gaelic Loch Mairi (Loch Mary or Mary's Loch). The monks were ever and everywhere devout clients of the Blessed Mary. It is not at all unlikely, therefore, that the community of monks who anciently made their home in this romantic spot named both the loch and the little isle on which they built their monastery after their Heavenly Patroness.

On leaving Loch Maree the road follows the bed of a brook for some distance up a dark glen. On either hand are "rising mountains red with heather bells," on the slopes of which the hardy Highland sheep are grazing. Once the summit of the ridge is gained, it is down hill to Achnasheen, where we take the train for Inverness. Our way for several miles lies through a wilderness, but all at once we come upon a lovely strath, in as high a state of cultivation as any district we have seen in the Lowlands or even in England. It looks all the more beautiful by contrast with the barren and desolate region through which we have just passed. The name of it I cannot for the moment recall. But the valley itself as I saw it, with the bloom of summer upon it, and the light of the westering sun, is vividly present to my imagination.

Inverness, at the mouth of the River Ness, is, after Edinburgh, the handsomest city in Scotland. Prof. Blackie sings its praises in the following sonnet:

Some sing of Rome, and some of Florence; I
Will sound thy Highland praise, fair Inverness;
And till some worthier bard thy thanks may buy,
Hope for the greater, but not spurn the less.
All things that make a city fair are thine,
The rightful queen and sovereign of this land
Of bens and glens, and valiant men, who shine
Brightest in Britain's glory roll, and stand
Best bulwarks of her bounds—wide-circling sweep
Of rich green slopes and brown empurpled brae,
And flowering mead, and far inwinding bay,
Temple and tower are thine, and castled keep,
And ample stream, that round fair gardened isles
Rolls its majestic current, wreathed in smiles.

Scotland, as a glance at a map of the globe will show, is several degrees farther north than Nova Scotia. Up here at Inverness, during the first week of August, the twilight lasts till after 10 p.m. Towards the end of June, when the day is at its longest, the sun does no more than dip for a few hours below the horison, and at no time of the night does its light fade away altogether from the northern sky.

Four miles from Inverness is Culloden Moor. But we visit not that "field of the dead" so fraught with saddening memories to every Highlander.

Leaving the capital of the Highlands, we go by boat to Fort William through the Caledonian Canal. This passage is sixty-two miles long. There are twenty-four miles of canal, and thirty-eight of natural lake, namely, Loch Ness (24 miles), Loch Oich (4 miles), and Loch Lochy (10 miles). On these lochs and along the stretches of land between them the scenery is of surpassing beauty. On either side is a range of purple hills rising in places to a great height. Now they close in about us as if to dispute our passage. The next moment they fall back and form into line in the rear, keeping ward over the great highway of waters that cleaves the land of the Scottish Gael in twain and weds two seas together. And now Ben Nevis (4,406 ft.) looms afar off on the left, lording it over all the hills. At his feet and under his very shadow stands Fort William, known to the old folk as An Gearristan. Along the plain below rolls the Lochy River till it empties its waters into Loch Linnhe. Those glens that lie at the foot of the mountain range northeastward from Ben Nevis are Ruaidh and Spean, along the rivers of the same name. And this is Lochaber, "synonym for an exile's wail." Children we of those sad-eyed exiles, is it any wonder that our hearts beat more quickly as we gaze on the heather-clad hills now rising before us? Even we, of the third generation, still feel within us something of their heart-hunger for the old home they loved so well—the heart-hunger which found a voice and still finds an echo in that saddest of sad refrains,

Lochaber, Lochaber, Lochaber no more,
We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more.

The Highlands, and the islands on the west of Scotland, are to-day but sparsely populated. A hundred years ago these lovely straths and glens were filled with people. Even the braes and moorlands, now so bare and barren, yielded a frugal livelihood to a hardy race of men whose wants were few and tastes most simple. To-day whole districts are given over to sheep and deer.

In Highland glens 'tis far too oft observed,
That man is chased away and game preserved.

So wrote the Hon. John Bright, in blunt but honest English fashion. More pathetic is the tale of desolation as told in Gaelic verse—in lines of exquisite tenderness and beauty—by one who is a native of those glens and "to the manner born"—one who has in our own day successfully wooed the Highland Muse "'mang the bonnie Highland heather"—Macleod, the spirited bard of Skye. I quote two or three stanzas from his poem, Anns a Ghleann 'san Robh Mi Og:

Tha na fardaichean 'n an fasaich
Far an d'araicheadh na seoid,
Far'm bu chridheil fuaim an gaire,
Far'm bu chairdeal iad mun bhord;
Far a fhaigheadh coigreach baigh,
Agus anrach bochd a lon;
Ach cha'n fhaigh iad sin's an am so
Anns a' ghleann's an robh mi og.

Chaochail maduinn ait ar n-oige
Mar an ceo air bharr nam beann,
Tha ar cairdean 's ar luchd-eolais
Air a fogradh bhos us thall;
Tha cuid eile dbuibh nach gluais,
Tha'n na cadal buan fodh'n fhod,
'Bha gun uaill, gun fhuath, gun anthlachd,
Anns a' ghleann's an robh iad og.

Mo shoraidh leis gach cuairteig,
Leis gach bruachaig agus cos:
Mu'n tric an robh mi 'cluaineis
'N am 'bhi buachailleachd nam bo—
'Nuair a thig mo reis gu 'ceann,
Agus feasgar fann mo lo,
B'e mo mhiann a bhi's an am sin
Anns a' ghleann's an robh mi og.

The song has been done into English, or rather into mixed English and broad Scotch, but it has lost somewhat in the rendering. The foregoing stanzas run thus in the translation:

Now in ruins are the dwellin's,
Where ance lived a gallant clan;
Their's was aye the friendly welcome,
Their's was aye the open han';
There the stranger and the puir
Found a place at the fire-en';
Now alas! there's nane tae greet them
In my bonnie native glen.

Like the mist upon the mountain
Youth's glad morn of promise died,
And our kinsfolk and acquaintance,
They are scattered far and wide;
Some of them are sleepin' soun'
Neath the shadow of the ben,
That were ance baith leal and hearty
In their bonnie native glen.

But now fare ye weel each fountain,
Each sweet dell an' grassy brae,
Where fu' aft the kye I herded,
In my boyhood's happy day.
When life's gloamin' settles down,
An' my race is at an en',
'Tis my wish that death should find me
In my bonnie native glen.

Wherever you travel in the Western Highlands you hear Gaelic spoken. And ever as it strikes upon your ears, there arises within you—at least if you happen to be a Highlander yourself—the question, Will the old tongue live on here amid the bens and glens that have echoed with it since immemorial time? Or is it doomed to die out in this its ancient home? It is hard to say. For my own part, I believe Gaelic will be spoken in the Highlands so long as there are Highlanders there. But I don't know how long that will be. Certainly they are far fewer to-day than they were at the beginning of the last century. And the country is becoming more and more a mere summer resort for tourists and sportsmen. As matters stand at present there is no future for the Highland youth in their Highland home. On growing up to manhood and womanhood, they drift into the cities of the Lowlands, or cross the ocean. And ever as they go, their sad hearts echo the wailing notes of MacCrimmon's Lament, or Lochaber No More. I wish I could share the confidence in the ultimate repeopling of the Highlands that is expressed—perhaps rather than felt—by the Skye bard already quoted, in the following lines:

'S bidh fhathast a cairdean
Mar bha iad bho chian,
An' duthaich nan ardbheann
An aite nam fiadh;
Gu curanta' laidir,
Gu blath-chridheach fial,
'S an comhradh gach la
Ann an canan nam Fionn.

With the Gaelic language there also survives in the Highlands the hospitable spirit for which Highlanders, and all Celts indeed, are noted wherever they are found. But while the people there give of their Highland cheer to all who visit them, they have a particularly warm place in their hearts for "muinntir America," their kinsmen from across the seas.

Leaving Fort William, we go by boat on Loch Linnhe to Oban. The boat calls at several places, among them Ballachulish, at the entrance to Loch Leven, whence we get a glimpse in the distance of Glencoe. Even on this bright summers day the narrow pass, hemmed in by frowning mountains, looks gloomy and dark—fitting theatre for the black and fearful tragedy that was enacted there.

From Oban we return to Glasgow through the Trossachs, part of the way by rail, part of the way by boat on Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine, and part of the way by coach between the lochs. The whole country through which we pass is classic ground, familiar to every lover of Scott. To describe the scenery of the Trossachs, therefore, after the exquisite word-painting of it in prose and verse that we have from the pen of Sir Walter, were as "wasteful and ridiculous excess" as

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To add a perfume to the violet.

As I write these last words the solemn bells are tolling the death-knell of our beloved Queen. The whole Empire mourns, and the grief is heartfelt, for all own and feel to-day the truth of the lines written by the worthiest poet laureate of the long and glorious reign that is now ended,

"Her court was pure; her life serene:
God gave her peace, her land reposed;
A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen."

ROME.

A CHRISTMAS REMINISCENCE.

It is not often I am in a reminiscent mood. Even should the mood come upon me, I can seldom indulge it. In this work-a-day world the cares and duties of the present crowd out the memories of the past. But ever as the blessed season of Christmas comes round the mind is in a measure freed from the tyrant grasp of the present. And at the approach of this festival mine loves to go back, swiftly overleaping the barriers of space and time, to the dear old City on the Tiber, where I spent five of the happiest years of my life. I can remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the day when first I set foot in Rome. It was toward the end of October, 1879. The sun shone out brightly from the deep blue of the Italian sky, and the soft, balmy breath of summer still lingered in the air. From early morning we had traversed a land of almost ideal loveliness, now skirting the shores of the sparkling Mediterranean, now dashing past villas and vineyards where the air was laden with the fragrance of the vintage. The sun was slowly sinking in the west as we passed Civita Vecchia, the seaport of Rome, and sped on our way through the dreary waste of the Roman Campagna. Soon the Alban Hills loomed up in front, while the line of sea-coast stretching away on the right was fast fading from the view. There, where the Tiber flings its tawny waters into the Mediterranean, once stood the City of Ostia, the ancient seaport of Rome, facing, as every student of Virgil knows, in the far distance, Carthage, Rome's most dreaded rival while yet she was "dives opum studiisque asperrima belli."

And now we are within the city walls, the train draws up to the depot, and I step forth, a stranger indeed, yet not with the feelings of one who sets foot in a strange city: for Rome, though force has made it the capital of United Italy, is and always will be the capital of Christendom, the centre from which radiate the lights of Catholicity over all the earth, and the home of the pilgrim from every land.

One who goes from America into Europe realizes that to have crossed the Atlantic is not merely to have left one part of the habitable globe and gone into another. It is a passing from the New World into the Old, in almost every respect a different world from the one that is left behind. And in no place as at Rome is it brought home to one who crosses the ocean that the Atlantic is not the only gulf that divides these two worlds. Rome is the typical city of the Old World, or rather is the Old World in miniature. There all its most striking characteristics meet as they do in no other European city. There you may study old world customs and the old world life in its many phases, old world art and architecture, and above all those old-world monuments and ruins around which gather a thousand historical associations. Here rises the Palatine Hill, the original site and centre of the embryo mistress of the world, where tradition places the dwelling of Romulus, and where later stood the gorgeous palace of the Caesars, whose ruins still attest its old-time grandeur. Below is the Roman Forum which once rang with the eloquence of Cicero, and traversing it from north to south, the Via Sacra or Sacred Way. At one end of the Forum is the Mamertine Prison, a dark and dismal underground dungeon, where kings led captive by pagan Rome were strangled or starved to death, and where still exists the spring which, according to tradition, St. Peter, imprisoned here under Nero, miraculously caused to flow in order to baptize his jailers. At some distance to the south stands the Colosseum, nearly one-third of a mile in circumference, and originally containing seats for 87,000 spectators. Here, in the arena, the scene of gladiatorial combats, thousands of Christian martyrs fought the good fight and won the crown. A quaint prophetic saying, which dates from the 8th century, has it that

While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand,
When falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall,
And when Rome falls, with it shall fall the World.

But I should never end if I were to speak of all the monuments of both Pagan and Christian Antiquity that make Rome the connecting link between the ancient and the modern world.

The Rome of to-day is not the Rome of twenty years ago. The tourist who wandered and mused among the ruins in and around it then would scarcely know it now, so vast is the change that has come over it. Your matter-of-fact modern man, who scowls at antiquity and lives in and for the present only, would say that the change has been greatly for the better. Streets have been widened and straightened, numberless new ones have been opened, and the wide space east and south of the Esquiline Hill, once studded with venerable ruins, is now occupied by rows of huge brick buildings, inferior in make and unsightly. In a word, the old Rome, amid whose magnificent ruins still abode the genius of Antiquity, has all but disappeared, and the new Rome, a third-rate modern city, shorn of much of its historical interest, has usurped its place. "Rome in twenty or thirty years," wrote Mr. Frederick Harrison recently in the "Fortnightly Review," "has become like any other European city—big, noisy, vulgar, overgrown, Frenchified and syndicate-ridden."

Rome, Rome thou art no more
As thou hast been!
On thy seven hills of yore
Thou sat'st a queen.

Newman had written of it, on visiting it for the first time in the early thirties of last century: "And now what can I say of Rome, but that it is the first of all cities, and that all I ever saw are but as dust (even dear old Oxford inclusive) compared with its majesty and glory?" It has certainly since then lost much of its charm for the tourist and the antiquarian. But the majesty and glory that so impressed Newman—these no spoiler's hand can pluck from the brow of the queenly city on the Tiber.

It is not merely the glamour antiquity throws around it that makes Rome a centre of attraction. In the wondrous works of art gathered into it from every side, in the number and magnificence of its churches and shrines, in the prestige it possesses as the capital of the Christian world for eighteen hundred years, it stands peerless among the cities of the earth. Anything like a detailed account of the art treasures in the Vatican alone would fill volumes. Almost every church in Rome, too, and every palace, has its works of art, its paintings, mosaics, and sculptures, of priceless value. And as for the churches, no words can fittingly describe them. "They could not have been in any place but Rome, which has turned the materials and buildings of the Empire to the purposes of religion." The exterior, save in the case of the large basilicas, is not striking; their beauty, like the glory of the king's daughter, is within. St. Peter's, of course, stands apart from and above them all, a world of wonders in itself. The first visit does not reveal its vastness nor the exquisite grace and delicacy of its proportions. It is only by visiting it again and again that one can, so to speak, take it all in, if indeed one can ever do so. There is this peculiarity about it, too, that it has what, for want of a better word to convey the idea, I am tempted to call a climate of its own. In winter, when Rome is swept by the tramontana, a penetrating and chilling wind which blows for days at a time from the snow-capped Apennines, making life scarce worth living in the fireless apartments of the Roman dwellings, you will find warmth and comfort within St. Peter's. And in vain will you seek amid the shady groves of the Roman villas for a tithe of the delicious coolness that dwells within the charmed circle of its walls all through the broiling heat of the summer months in Rome.

And what of the festival of Christmas in the Eternal City? In September, 1870, Victor Emmanuel's troops entered Rome by the breach of Porta Pia, and with their coming in the old-time Christmas and the old-time Easter went out. The faithful Romans have not had a Merry Christmas since. The Pope used to proceed in person to celebrate the midnight Mass at St. Mary Major's, where is preserved the Crib in which the Infant Saviour was laid on the night of His Nativity. With the exception of the Easter celebrations, it was the most imposing ceremony that could be witnessed at Rome in those days. The Saviour's Crib is always borne in procession through the church of St. Mary Major's on Christmas Eve. In some of the churches, and even in private houses, the scene of the Christ Child's birth in Bethlehem is represented in a wonderfully artistic and life-like way. One of these representations, which are got up mainly for the children, is to be seen in the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, situated on the Capitoline Hill, where once stood a temple of Jove. Hither we students of the Propaganda used to wend our way, during the days within the octave of Christmas, to listen to the "children preachers of Aracoeli." These little ones, from five to ten years of age, standing on a platform facing the Christmas Crib, lifted their fresh young voices in greeting and prayer to their new-born King. It recalled the scene described in Matt. 21:15-16: the children crying in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David," and Jesus saying to those who would rebuke them, "Yea, have you never read, Out of the mouths of infants and sucklings thou has perfected praise."

THE ROSES OF ASSISI.

In The Ave Maria, of February 8, 1908, the noted Danish writer, Johannes Jorgensen, tells of a visit to Assisi, and makes this passing allusion to the singular phenomenon also alluded to in The Diary of a Pilgrim: "Then there is the rose garden where the bushes are strangely flecked as if with spots of blood." When the present writer stood beside this little plot, in the early days of July, 1900, the roses were not in bloom—it was past their season in Italy—but the bushes were in leaf, of course. Strictly speaking, it is not the bushes that bear the flecks of red, but the roses and the leaves. The impression made upon one is not soon effaced. It looks for all the world as if those leaves had been sprinkled with blood. Here and there a leaf seems to have caught a drop, a few, two or three, which left a crimson stain, while most show a fleckless green. But this is not the most striking phase of the phenomenon. It has passed into a proverb that there is no rose without its thorn, though Milton, in a flight of fancy, found in our lost paradise,

Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.

But under the lovely sky of Italy and under the shadow of the Umbrian hills, in fair Assisi, famed forever as the birthplace and early home of the Poverello, grow roses without thorns. The writer felt the bushes with his hand, and proved them thornless. What is more, our little pilgrim group, of whom some have since gone on their long pilgrimage, were told on that July day, seven years ago, by the Prior of the Franciscan Monastery, a true son of Saint Francis if appearances count for aught, that time and time again was the experiment made of transplanting those bushes, and that they grew up with thorns and with stainless leaves. Here is the legend, if legend that can be called, which Nature seems to vouch for, copied from a leaflet, enclosing a spray of the rose leaves now brown with the years, which the writer brought with him from Assisi:

"One bitter winter's night, S. Francis being sorely tempted by the devil to lessen his austerities, overcame the evil one by throwing himself into a thicket of briers, and rolling himself in it till his body was all torn and bleeding. At the same moment the briers were changed into rose trees in full bloom, and a heavenly brightness shone around, and angels came to lead S. Francis to the Church of the Portiuncula, where Our Lord appeared to him in Person accompanied by His Mother and a heavenly host, and granted him the Indulgence of the Portiuncula. The miraculous rose bushes have no thorns, their leaves are stained with spots like blood in May, and can be seen in the Garden of the Friary adjoining the Portiuncula at the village of Santa Maria degli Angeli which is close to the Station of Assisi in Italy."

FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES.

DECEMBER 10, '08.

We leave New York at noon. It is a perfect winter's day—the air cold and crisp, the sun brightly shining. There are all manner of craft in the North River, or Hudson, and our big ship makes her way among them with leisurely dignity. On our starboard is Jersey City; on the port side, the buildings of Old Manhattan raise their giant forms, fearfully and wonderfully tall. Presently we pass by the statue of Liberty, and leave the great metropolis of the New World behind. A marvellous city is New York, marching forward with gigantic strides to the forefront of the world's cities. Even now it is second only to London, and in ways not a few it is first. We pass out of the roar of its traffic, away from its teeming, busy life, and the restful ocean takes us to its heaving bosom.

"Our next port of call is Boston," says one passenger to another standing near him, just as we are getting out to sea. "Not at all," rejoins the other, "this boat doesn't call at Boston." An officer of the ship, who is standing by, is appealed to, and he bears out the first speaker. The news is received with surprise amounting almost to consternation. Hardly one of the passengers knew of this change in our programme of travel. Back to Boston; it is like going back home again! But to Boston we steer our course. Off Cape Cod, miles and miles out at sea, men are fishing in their dories. We pass within fifty yards of one, but so intent is he upon his work that he does not as much as cast one look at us. After a little we pick up our pilot, and begin threading our way through the narrow entrance to Boston harbour.

* * *

DECEMBER 11.

Our ship is docked at Charlestown. We go ashore, take an "L" road car at City Square, and speedily reach Boston. Our friends in the city, to whom we bade farewell a few days before, are almost thunderstruck at seeing us. They can scarce believe their eyes. We seem to have dropped upon them from the skies, or rather to have been spirited back through space from the ocean. A few words clear up the mystery. Next morning (Saturday) we say an early Mass, and hasten back on board. But the good ship "Cretic" is in no hurry to put to sea. She lingers for a full hour beyond the allotted time. We could not have missed her if we tried.

* * *

DECEMBER 12.

It is snowing heavily as we steam slowly out of Boston harbour. We drop our pilot, and at noon have the lightship abeam. At last we are fairly under way, but so thickly falls the snow that we move along at little more than half-speed, and the steamer's whistle keeps blowing as in a fog. After an hour or two we run out of the snowstorm, and the whistling ceases. A tugboat inward bound, towing three huge barges, is the last object we descry this day, for darkness soon settles upon the scene.

This evening I sit and listen dreamily to the soft accents of the Italian tongue. One or two of the saloon passengers are Italian and the ship's doctor is a native of the land of sunshine and song. It is twenty-five years since I dwelt in that land, but those intonations strike the ear and those inimitable gestures the eye as familiarly as if it were but yesterday. What a wonderful thing is memory! How it bridges the years, and brings the dead past to life again! By it we reverse the poet's process, and "stretch a hand through time to catch" the forms of things long passed away.

"Vedi Napoli e poi Mori." This, my Italian friend tells me, is the original of the saying that runs in English: "See Naples and die." As you approach Naples, Mount Vesuvius rises in the rear, and beyond it is the little town of Mori. The original saying is, "See Naples and then Mori." But as it happens that "mori" is also the imperative of the verb "morire"—"to die," a play upon the word gives the meaning, "See Naples and then die"—as if no place else worth seeing were left in all the wide world.

* * *

DECEMBER 13.

Our first Sunday at sea, the third of Advent. We have passed from the region of snow and sleet, and the change is welcome. The morning breaks bright and clear, and as the day wears on it grows distinctly warmer. The sun shines out of a cloudless sky and the air is balmy as in a June day. While I write the thermometer out on the promenade deck shows 56 degrees in the shade. Frost and snow are things of the past—things of the land we have left behind.

Not having a portable altar, we are unable to say Mass. There are more than seven hundred persons in the steerage, mostly Italians seeking "la bella patria"—their own lovely homeland. I arrange with the captain to have a service for them at 3 p.m. The second-class saloon being too small, we hold the service under an awning on the deck. Dressed in cassock and with my rochet on—for the very first time—I kneel upon the main hatch and say aloud in Latin the Rosary and Litany of the Blessed Virgin, which they all answer in the same tongue. These people, I may remark by the way, are all taught from childhood to say those prayers in the language of the Church. Prayers over, I address them a few words in Italian, the season and the occasion furnishing a theme. Exiles are we from home, seeking a fatherland afar, and One has come down from that fatherland to raise us up and to lead us on. As we cross the sea of life, not always calm and untroubled as the one we sail to-day, we must pause from time to time to lift up our eyes and fix them on the eternal truths that shine like stars upon our pathway. We must prepare for the advent of the Sun of Justice, and from the lesser lights turn our gaze longingly to the bright morning Star that heralds His rising. Such is the sum of what I said, but I must own that it sounds much better in this English summary than it did in such poor Italian as I could muster.

* * *

DECEMBER 14.

At noon the log reads:

Lat.       Long.    Weather Remarks
41.34     56.28    Fresh gale: W. SW.
Dis. 317       SW. S. S. W., rough
quarterly sea.
Average Speed: 13.49

We have run into a storm, or it has run in upon us. "Fresh gale" means a wind blowing 50 or 60 miles an hour. But our ship is very steady. Still there is a good deal of motion—of that queer, all-round, uncertain, miserable motion so apt to induce sea-sickness. My companion, though he has been so seldom to sea, is a better sailor than I. As for me, I feel that I could very easily be quite sick if I wanted to. But I don't want to, and up to a certain point one can fight this sickness off. My chief occupation all day is fighting off seasickness. The wild winds, the wailing sea-waves, the reeling, staggering ship keep telling me it is of no use; that I had better crawl into my berth and give up the uneven struggle. But I hold out in spite of all of them. As I write this in the steamer's library at 6 p.m. the battle is still on and the issue somewhat doubtful.

* * *

DECEMBER 15.

The battle is fought and won—thanks to the abating of the storm and a calmer sea. The weather to-day is fine and warm—58 degrees in the shade. It was 68 degrees yesterday, and the mugginess of the atmosphere made it unpleasant. For me, indeed, it is never too pleasant on board ship. I have an uneasy feeling that the most one can hope for is a truce, and that the battle with sea-sickness may have to be fought over again at any moment. Under such circumstances writing is not easy.

The sea, the deep mysterious sea, with its changeful, elusive hues and its passionate moods! The dominant mood, I fancy, is melancholy. The sea lifts up its voice only to weep, and every sea-sound dies away in a sob or a wail. When the crested waves break into foam, what are the spray drops but the tears of the salt sea? It not only yields a grave to the countless millions that are buried beneath its waters, but weeps for them ever, and chants over them an unending requiem. And its loneliness is beyond words. Mid-ocean seems the native home of solitude—a solitude that the passing ship leaves unbroken. What a tale this lonely, moaning sea could tell of the men who have sunk into its depths, "unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown!" But till it gives up its dead, that tale shall not be told.

* * *

DECEMBER 16.

Late last evening I sat talking in the smoking-room with a Protestant gentleman from Minneapolis. Some years ago he visited the Holy Land, and I was interested in the account he gave of it. He does not seem to have been much impressed by the country itself or its sanctuaries. "The most beautiful sight I saw in the Holy Land," he declared with evident sincerity, "was the face of a nun." It was not the physical, but the spiritual beauty of the face that struck him and imprinted itself upon his memory. A beautiful soul beamed out from it—a soul made beautiful by close communion with God. "I will feed on God," says Alexandrine in A Sister's Story, not knowing very well at the moment what she means. But she did feed on God, and became beautiful as an angel, with that beauty which never can fade. If we would be truly beautiful let us feed on God the Uncreated Beauty, ever ancient and ever new.

* * *

DECEMBER 17.

How shall we feed on God? First by prayer. Not as completely is the fish immersed in the sea or the bird in the air as the soul is in God, for He is everywhere, and "in Him we live, and move, and are." Every time we breathe we drink in the fresh air to renew the life of the body; every time we pray, if we pray aright, we draw down the grace of God to give new life to the soul. And as when a man ceases to breathe we know that the life is gone out of him, so when a man ceases to pray we may know that his soul is dead within him. But there is another, a more literal and yet more wondrous way of feeding on God, and that is Holy Communion. "I am the Bread of Life," and again, "He who eats Me shall also live by Me." "As the hare in winter," says St. Francis of Sales, "grows white by feeding on the snow, so the soul grows white by feeding on this Heavenly Manna." The science may be at fault, but the thought is true. "It is the boast of the Catholic Church," observes Cardinal Newman, "that she can keep the young heart chaste, because she gives Jesus for food and Mary for nursing-mother." I am quoting from memory, and do not vouch for the exact accuracy of the quotation.

* * *

DECEMBER 18.

Last night we passed the first two of the Azores. These islands were discovered by Portuguese navigators about the middle of the fifteenth century, and still belong to Portugal. They number nine in all, and have a population of some 260,000. About noon we sight Pico, the third of the group, and steam by it for hours, at a distance of six or seven miles off. Though we have sunshine at sea, it is raining and misting ashore, and we fail to get a good view. However, I have counted as many as seven little villages where the snow-white cottages form into clusters on the sloping shore. These islands are of volcanic origin, and the conical peak of an extinct volcano seems to have given its name to the island we are passing by. It is visible for a moment or two, and we catch just a glimpse of it as it peeps out of a cloud. But it is a coy peak and hastes to hide itself beneath its veil of mist.

* * *

DECEMBER 19.

I have learned that the mountain we passed yesterday rises to a height of 7,460 feet, and slopes to the sea at an angle of 40 degrees. The bare head of it, uplifted above its bed of cloud, and outlined against the blue sky, with the sun shining full upon it, is still vividly before my imagination. No human eye witnessed the volcanic upheavel which cast this mountain peak up into the clouds out of the bosom of the sea. But Captain Tillard of H.M.S. "Sabrina" was eye-witness, in 1811, of the rise and extinction of an island in the neighbourhood, which reached a height of 410 feet and was swallowed up by the sea after an existence of 119 days.

For more than a week we have held our lonely way on the ocean, no sail seen, no smoke of steamer on the far horizon. The sea gulls alone bear us company, whether the same birds that followed us from the first, or fresh relays from the pastures of the deep, no one can tell. Birds of ocean, foster-children of the wandering sea, their home is on the rolling wave, their haunts no man may know. But the same Providence that feeds the sparrows on the dry land gives food to these rovers on the wilderness of waters.

* * *

DECEMBER 20.

Our second Sunday at sea. I say the Rosary and Litany in the second cabin, where there are a number of Italians. I also give a short instruction. A wee mite of a boy, with the coal black hair and dark complexion of the South, keeps eyeing me curiously the while, as if wondering how one who looks so little like a countryman can speak the language.

Ever since we got fairly away from the American coast we have had summer weather, the thermometer ranging from 50 to 70 degrees. The temperature of the water has been even higher. One day it was 72 degrees; this morning it was 62. The Gulf Stream is here at its widest. Only the short day can bring home to us the fact that we are at the winter solstice.

* * *

DECEMBER 21.

To-day the larger gulls that haunt the seashore and nest in the rocks are abroad. They are tokens that the land is not very far away. Sometime to-night we reach Gibraltar, but must lie outside till morning, for no ship can enter the port of that grim fortress save in the day.

Now that our ocean voyage is nearing its end, our thoughts turn back to the loved ones we have left behind. The uppermost feeling in my own mind at the moment is gratitude, first to God for all His goodness, and next to the many friends, whether personally known to me or not, who have so generously given of their means and freed my mind from all anxiety on that score. I feel that I owe them more than can be put in words. May the peace of God and His blessing abide with them always, and may He, in His own way and in His own good time, repay them a hundredfold.

This batch of notes was mailed at Gibraltar.

* * *

FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES

II

DECEMBER 22.

Last night we reached Gibraltar and dropped anchor in the bay. It was an impressive sight when first we came in view of land. On our right lay Morocco, on our left Spain, and the lights on either shore became visible about the same time. There are not many spots even on this goodly globe of ours where one can see two continents. The night was lovely, the air almost balmy, the stars were all out—ever so many more stars than can be seen at home—and we stood long on deck and gazed our fill at the splendour of the night. Truly the skies declare the glory of God and the firmament of heaven shows forth the work of His hands.

This morning, about 8.30, most of the first-class passengers landed in a tender. It was good to feel one's foot once more on terra firma—and surely if there is firm footing on earth it is the Rock of Gibraltar. The place I will not attempt to describe; that were quite beyond me. Enough to say, and certainly not too much, that the panorama which lies before one from half-way up the mountain—we had not time to go all the way—is one of the grandest that anywhere unfolds itself to the eye of man. And the city is full of interest. It is the meeting-place of two continents, the free mart and seaport of all nations, the most famous stronghold of the greatest empire under the sun. One could wish if one had time, to study the various types of humanity that gather here. By all odds the most striking is the turban'd Moor, with his swart features, his impassive face, his picturesque costume, his gait and carriage not lacking in dignity. We enter the principal Catholic Church, rather a fine building, and are happily able to assist at Mass. We see the Bishop for a moment, an Italian Benedictine, a native of Siena, a very genial and pleasant man. By eleven we are back on board, and by noon are steaming around Barracks Point and entering the Mediterranean.

* * *

DECEMBER 23.

We have made our best run—348 knots from noon yesterday till noon to-day. Our ship, though a splendid seaboat, is not speedy, and these two last trips has fallen behind her schedule. An expert engineer, sent down especially from London, has joined us at Gibraltar, and we are now making better time. Smooth seas, sunny skies, and a summer temperature have made this latter part of our voyage extremely pleasant, and yet we long for its end, or rather we long to reach our goal. Several of the passengers left us at Gibraltar, others joined us there. It is the way of life, which is all summed up in a coming and a going and a passing away. In truth we do but get glimpses of one another as we pass through it. How short is all that comes to an end! "We have not here a lasting city, but seek one which is to come."

* * *

DECEMBER 24.

Sardinia's snowy mountain tops fringing the
southern sky.

The line comes back to me from school days, as I gaze on those mountain-tops, bare and rugged, and snowless to-day. Sardinia is one of the largest islands in the Mediterranean. It has a population of more than 700,000. Once one of the granaries of Carthage, and later of imperial Rome, it is now in great part untilled and barren. The natives are more like Spaniards than Italians, though the island belongs to Italy. In certain districts of the interior the people speak the Latin tongue, which serves to confute the received notion—never more than a wretched half-truth, and not even as much—that Latin is a dead language. What, the language of the Church Catholic a dead language! Not while she lives, and the eternal years of God are hers.

Christmas at sea; Christmas without the wonted Christmas cheer; Christmas far from home and friends. But so were Mary and Joseph on that first Christmas night in Bethlehem, far from home and friends. And, please God, we are going to land in Naples to-morrow in time to celebrate the Christ-Mass.

* * *

DECEMBER 25.

Before daylight this Christmas morning we are on deck, where we linger most of the time till our ship is docked in Naples at 10 a.m. The approach to the city from the sea is very grand. In the gray dawn we discern the light on Ischia, which shows far out at sea. As day creeps on, the outline of Vesuvius becomes dimly visible through the morning haze. We pass some islets, then Pozzuoli and other suburbs of the queenly city. The sun is now full risen; 't is

Morn on the waters, and purple and bright

its light illuminates the lovely bay, gilds the heights of Sant' Elmo and the roofs of Chiaia, which curves beneath. The docks and shipping lie further on, and beyond them rises the giant form of dread Vesuvius. Little wonder that lovers of panoramic scenery go into raptures over this scene. If it is not "See Naples and die," at any rate it is "See Naples and never-more forget." The words of the well-known boat song come unbidden to one's lips:

O dolce Napoli!
O suol beato!
Ove sorridere
Vuole il creato;
Tu sei l' impero
Dell' armonia;
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

O lovely Naples!
Favoured ground.
Where smiling Nature's
Charms abound;
The native home
Of beauty thou:
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

It takes a deal of ceremony to get a big ship like ours docked, and a deal of patience to wait on an empty stomach for the word to land. At last we are ashore, through the custom-house, and on our way to the Convent of the Soeurs de L'Esperance, No. 10 Via Santa Teresa, Chiaia. We say Mass at 11.30 a.m. in the Church of St. Teresa hard by, which, with the adjoining monastery is in the hands of the Discalced Carmelites. In the afternoon we take a walk on the esplanade, which runs along the bay, visit the Aquarium, mount the hill to Sant' Elmo, and from that commanding height gaze upon the city, the bay, and the broken ranges of mountains that stud the coast. The native band of Chiaia, a great but inharmonious concert of crowing roosters, awakens us next morning long before the dawn, and by 10.30 we are getting our last glimpse of cloud-capped Vesuvius from the window of the Romeward-bound train.

* * *

DECEMBER 26.

The country through which we pass for the first hour or two after quitting Naples does not yield in beauty or fertility even to the plains of Lombardy. Every foot of it is tilled; the tillage is intensive as well as extensive. Here the vine is trailed on great rows of trees, the wide spaces between being now green with all manner of vegetables, while the stately Italian pine lends an added grace and dignity to the landscape. As we go further north, the broad plain narrows into valleys hemmed in by bare and lofty mountains, with here a village clinging to a rocky slope, and there a lone monastery crowning a rugged crest. By noon we reach Casino, and presently admiring eyes are raised to the giddy height where the great abbey of that name, famed in story, lords it over all the land.

As straws show how the wind blows, so very little things serve oftentimes to bring racial and national characteristics into clear relief. Thus, over a plot of green in the public garden at Chiaia, I read these formidable words of warning: I TRASGRESSORI SARANNO PUNITI A NORMA DI LEGGE, which may be rendered: TRESPASSERS SHALL BE PUNISHED TO THE LIMIT OF THE LAW. We simply and bluntly say: Keep off the grass! Again, a railway ticket, on which with us are sometimes found the words, Not transferable, bears here the blazoned legend, La cessione e punita a termini di legge, that is to say, The transfer is punishable in the precise manner laid down in the law. On the other hand, the attempt of some Italian railway official to ape your bluff Englishman, in rendering a notice graven in letters of bronze on the window of our carriage, E pericoloso sporgersi—It is dangerous to put one's head out of the window, comes to grief in this ludicrous fashion, similarly cut in bronze, Don't stretch out! Ecco Roma! We have finished our journey. Monday afternoon (Dec. 29) I saw Cardinal Gotti. This (Tuesday), evening I go on retreat at the Lazarist Mission House near Montecitorio, where I made my retreat for the priesthood twenty-five years ago. Sunday (Jan. 3) is the day fixed for the consecration. There is a hastening of events, as one chapter of life draws to a close; and hastily I close this last paragraph.

* * *

FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1909.

We leave Rome by the 10 a.m. express and reach Naples at 14.30. Yesterday we came to Rome from Assisi. At Terni I bought a lunch basket which contained (1) a paper napkin, (2) a knife, (3) a loaf of bread, (4) a cake of sweetbread, (5) two slices of meat, (6) a couple of slices of sausage, (7) salt, (8) a bit of chicken, (9) toothpicks, (10) a bottle of wine, (11) an orange, (12) a piece of cheese, (13) some walnuts—all for two francs. I question whether there is any other country in the world where you could buy so much food for so little money.

A facchino, or railway porter, at Naples, plays us a scurvy trick. We hand him over our luggage at the station, and tell him we want to get a carriage to take us on board the Regina Margherita. After a moment's thought, he tells us it is but two minutes' walk, and he will take us on board for four francs—which we think rather too much, but agree to give. He leads us along dirty streets for at least ten minutes, and fetches up finally at a landing place, where he and sundry boatmen engage in a war of words, to which vehement gesticulations lend a sanguinary aspect—all calculated to impress us with the difficulty of getting to our steamer. Presently he motions us to step into one of the boats, which we, in our innocence, do in fear and trembling, while he quickly makes off. But the boatman will not budge till we have paid him four francs. Then he quietly rows us round a ship, and up to a dock, where, to our surprise and great disgust, we behold our Regina Margherita cosily moored! Two Neapolitan ragamuffins extort further tribute for carrying our traps on board. "For ways that are dark and tricks that are—vain" seems hardly the word, and I leave the reader to finish the sentence.

* * *

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21.

We awake this morning in the Strait of Messina, scene of the late frightful catastrophe. On our right, but at some distance, is the city of that name, once fair as few cities are, now a corpse, torn and disfigured, with the light of life gone out of it. Farther up the Strait, on our left, is ruined Reggio. At a first glance the ruins are not seen, but closer scrutiny, with the help of a pair of glasses, reveals them. One very large building in the upper part of the town is still on its feet. In many cases the walls are left standing, mute witnesses of the ruin within and without. I cannot discern a single church tower or steeple in all the stricken city. By ten o'clock we are off Cape Spartivento (Split-the-wind), the toe of the Italian boot, and by twelve the last of the tall hills of Southern Italy has faded away on the horizon.

Great is Italian reverence for that which has been and is, an admirable sentiment in its way, but one which tends to conserve in being things that are and ought not to be. For example. I was awakened this morning at five o'clock by a rattling noise which I took to be due to some iron fastening having become loose. I groped my way on deck, but could see nothing. Meeting one of the stewards, I asked him what made the noise, "E il temone—it is the steering-gear," he made answer, and suggested that I could get a room on the lower deck where the noise would not be heard. Going on deck after daylight I found the clatter was caused by a bolt, which kept the rod of the steering-gear in place, having too much play. The ship's smith was busied hard by with mending a windlass, and I drew his attention to the matter. He eyed me in mild wonderment, and with a characteristic shrug of the shoulders, said, "E sempre stato cosi—It has always been like that." So there you are! Hundreds upon hundreds of passengers have been robbed of their sleep by the clatter of this bolt, but what of that? The nuisance must go unabated, because—E sempre stato cosi!

P. S. I must set on record the fact that the thing has since been remedied: for the future, passengers in stateroom No —, of the Regina Margherita may rest in peace.

* * *

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22.

All the afternoon we are chased by a thunderstorm, but manage to keep ahead of it. We do, however, get the wind that goes with it, and there is a deal of motion in the ship, and a deal of squeamishness in certain stomachs. By eight o'clock we have left the storm behind, and by ten have abeam the light on a little island off Crete, or Candia, as it is also called. We think of St. Paul and the hardships he endured along this coast while he was on his way to Rome. The Cretans of his time seem to have been a pretty bad lot, for he cites "a prophet of their own" as saying that they were "always liars, wicked brutes, lazy bellies," and vouches for the truth of the indictment. But there must have been some good ones among them, for he made many converts there, and gave his beloved disciple Titus to be their first Bishop.

* * *

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23.

I've had an interesting talk with two Franciscan Fathers, one the Visitor-General of the Order, the other the well-known American author, Paschal Robinson. We are now within ten hours' sail of Egypt—Egypt old in story, of which the Sphinx is fitting emblem, land of many riddles yet unsolved. We shall reach there before dawn to-morrow.

* * *

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27.

Back on board the Regina Margherita, and on the way to Jaffa (Joppa). Early Sunday morning we land at Alexandria, say Mass in the Franciscan Church there, and at 11 a.m. take the train for Cairo, which we reach some three hours later. The distance is about 140 miles. We are traversing perhaps the most fertile tract of country in the world, along the delta of the Nile. It is one vast plain as far as the eye can see, from edge to edge of the horizon, green with growing crops of wheat and cotton. On all sides are groves of acacias and lines of stately palm, while long caravans of camels, passing parallel to the line of railway, lend an added picturesqueness to the landscape. Egypt, to the intellect a land of mystery, is to the eye a land of beauty—land of the evergreen. And yet one misses the snow-capped mountains which make of Italy, and still more of Switzerland, a fairyland of romance. Here it is always summer, and the crops keep growing perennially; as many as four crops are raised in the year. Little rain falls, and the tiller of the soil would wish it were less than that little, for the waters of the Nile irrigate the land, and it is the hot sun out of a cloudless sky that favours growth. I have said the tiller of the soil when I should have rather said the owner, who is generally a Jew or a Turk. Your Arab Fellah gets his pittance of four piastres (about twenty cents) a day, and is better off with that than he was before the English came in, when the Khedive sent his servants to take heavy toll of the ripened crops.

The Arab subdued the Copt, lineal descendant of the ancient Egyptians, and was in turn subdued by the Turk. He is a picturesque figure, with his white turban or red fez, his flowing robes, his sandalled, oftentimes bare, feet. The women are veiled up to the eyes, with a curious covering on the nose, which seems to serve no particular purpose and is certainly not an ornament. The young of the male sex are for the most part of a pleasing appearance. But with advancing years the features of these people take on a hard and somewhat repulsive look, half of submission, half of hopelessness, not unlike that which one sees in the eyes of that much abused beast of burden, the ass, which for six decades of centuries has borne the whips and scorns of his master, man. It is the fatalism of the race that finds expression in that look—the feeling that it is of no use kicking against the pricks of a relentless destiny. And so the Arab goes his way, bearing the burden of life sadly but submissively. His whole philosophy is summed up in the one word malesh (a as in "ma," e as in "edge," both vowels long drawn out,) which is forever on his lips: "It doesn't matter"—nothing matters in a world where so much is amiss and so little can be mended. We spend two days in Cairo, during which we visit Matarieh, Old Cairo, the citadel and famous mosque of alabaster, the museum with its mummies, and the pyramids. At Matarieh is the well of sweet water which gushed forth, tradition has it, when the Holy Family came into Egypt, and the sycamore which gave them shelter. The present tree is more than three hundred years old. At Old Cairo is shown the site of the cottage in which dwelt the Holy Family. It is in the crypt of an ancient basilica, the style of which bespeaks the fifth or sixth century. The place is in the hands of the Schismatical Copts; it was the daughter of the Coptic priest who unlocked the door for us. In Old Cairo one sees the Arab in the primeval environment of the unchanging East. All is primitive here. Bedouin and Jew, camel, donkey, and goat move along pell-mell, jostling one another in the narrow, crooked, foul-smelling streets. I would not advise a visit to the market-place just before dinner—it might spoil one's appetite. There is some very ancient dirt in Old Cairo—and some that is not so ancient. Newman says somewhere that no dirt is immortal, but he is speaking of another sort of dirt, and, anyhow, he never set foot in this Egyptian town, laved but washed not by the waters of the Nile.

In striking contrast to the lowly ass, is that other beast of burden, the lordly camel. With what lofty disdain it sniffs the air as it looks down upon its mean environment—pigmy man included. It is a proud creature—proud even of the hump on its back. It has been tamed by man after a fashion, but not subdued, and its eyes belie the obedience that it outwardly yields to its puny master.

* * *

ROME, MARCH 9, 1909.

We returned from the East a couple of weeks ago, and are now getting ready to leave for home. We are to sail from Southampton for New York on the 31st. Of our visit to the Holy Land I write nothing now; I may later, but life is uncertain. Of Egypt I might have written more, but my notes are lost, as ill luck would have it, and I write from memory. Had not those notes been lost—in some such way we used to put it in boyhood's days when spinning sgialachan by the fireside—this letter had been longer.

THROUGH SPAIN.

Two things led me to leave the "Saxonia" at Gibraltar, and journey through the Spanish peninsula. I wanted to go to Lourdes, and I wanted to drink in the memories of St. Teresa, Spain's chiefest glory, at the fountain-head. At Algeciras, right across from Gibraltar, I set foot for the first time on the soil of Spain. The train for Ronda was waiting, and I stepped on board. The railway passes through a wild, mountainous region, rich in traces of the Moorish occupation. At Ronda I said Mass in the chapel of the Little Sisters of the Poor. One of the Sisters was from Dumfries, in Scotland, and one from our own Quebec. I asked them how they came to be in Ronda, and they said they were like soldiers and had to go where they were sent. The Little Sisters have their houses and do their Christlike work in many parts of the world. Wherever the Catholic Church is, where the Cross of Christ points heavenward, there they are at home.

* * *

Andalusia comprises the four old Moorish Kingdoms of Jaen, Seville, Granada, and Cordova. It is the most fascinating province of Spain. The scenic beauty of mountain and valley soothes the mind, while the soft languorous climate steeps the senses in repose. To the voluptuous Mohammedan Andalusia was well worth fighting for. And long he fought and fiercely ere he gave it back finally to the sons of Spain.

* * *

The region from Ronda to Seville is wonderfully fertile. So indeed is nearly the whole of Spain—land of the vine and the olive, land of corn and wheat, land of clear blue skies and brilliant sun. Seville, on the banks of the Guadalquiver, is a city of great interest, possessing a wealth of historical associations. It has passed through many vicissitudes from the time of the Romans down. The long domination of the Moors has stamped an oriental character upon it. I said Mass at the Convent of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founded by the famous Mary Ward. The Sisters are commonly known as the Loreto Nuns, and in Spain as "Las Madres Irlandesas." They teach a day school in Seville, and have a boarding school outside the city. I met one who said she was connected by ties of kinship with the family of St. Teresa. She wrote for me in Spanish a saying of the saint, which shows she was human enough to hate Seville because it was so hot: "Whoever suffers the heat of Seville with patience has done penance enough." It seems a pity the human element should have been almost wholly eliminated from our Lives of the Saints. The run of those that have come down to us, especially from mediÃ¦val times, are little more than an abstract of the heroic virtues practised by the saints and the miracles performed by them. The servants of God are set up on a pedestal so high and so far away that we feel as if we could never hope to get near to them at all. And yet they had their human side, to us intensely interesting, for, to apply in a good sense what was first written disparagingly,

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

* * *

At Seville I visited the monastery of Discalced Carmelites founded by St. Teresa. The present one was built by St. John of the Cross in a different locality from that of the original monastery, because the situation of this latter one was found to be unhealthy. Over the grille is a wooden cross erected by St. John, the faithful co-worker of St. Teresa, a man of lofty spirit kindred to her own. I was shown an autograph letter of his, bearing date March 28, 1586. The handwriting is very legible. Of St. Teresa's own relics there are the following: (1) an autograph letter, signed "Teresa of Jesus," the name being spelled as written, not "Theresa," which follows the French "ThÃ©rÃ¨se;" (2) a bit of the hair shirt worn by the saint; (3) a medicine bottle used by her in her last illness—which shows her to have been human to the end; (4) a large white woolen mantle that she wore, the mantle of her Order; (5) one of her slippers, now so richly embroidered that the original cannot be seen; (6) last and far the most signal relic of all, the autograph original of the Interior Castle, or Castle of the Soul, perhaps her greatest work. The handwriting is somewhat peculiar, and the text not easily read, because in many cases the syllables are separated. This priceless autograph is in an excellent state of preservation, bound with heavy plates of gold. It came into possession of the monastery, the nuns told me, through one of the first novices of the community, her father, a gentleman of high social standing, having received it from a Carmelite priest who was intimate in life with St. Teresa.

* * *

The Father Prior of the Discalced Carmelites at Seville, who speaks English well, having spent some years in England as a missionary, gave me a story handed down by tradition in the Carmelite Order. It shows at once the terms of loving familiarity on which St. Teresa lived with Our Lord and her ready wit. The convent at Burgos, in the north of Spain, was her last foundation. She feared to go there in mid-winter because of the cold, but Our Lord reminded her that He was the source of all warmth. The roads being all but impassable, she and her companions suffered great hardships, and at one place were nearly drowned in the waters of a stream that had overflowed its banks. Gently complaining to her Divine Spouse, she was told that these were favours He reserved for His friends. "That," she rejoined, "is why your friends are so few!" "She as very saucy with Him," said an Irish nun at Madrid, on my reciting this story. The playful sally finds its proper setting and balance in those other words of the saint that we read in her Foundations, ch. xxxi: "O my Lord, how true it is that you repay with a cross those who do you a service! But what an inestimable treasure that cross is to those who truly love you, were it but given them at once to realize its value! And yet, they would not have sought to possess themselves of the treasure, the price to be paid seeming at the moment too great." So hard is it for us to bear what presses here and now upon us, even when we are quite persuaded that every trial is a crucible for the minting of heaven's gold.

* * *

I did but pass through Madrid on my way to Avila. The city is modern, having none of the quaintness of other Spanish towns. The Loreto Nuns have a convent and school in the outskirts. Even the little tots must speak English. A course at this convent is greatly desired for their daughters by Spanish mothers since Princess Victoria came to share with Alfonso the throne of Spain.

* * *

About midway between Madrid and Avila, with great ridges of rock above and around it, stands the palace of the Escorial, built by Philip the Second, husband of Mary Tudor. It compares with the pyramids of Egypt in size and solidity. It is at once a palace, a monastery, a church, and a mausoleum. There are not in all the world more gorgeous tombs than those that here enclose the ashes of the kings and queens of Spain. In the treasury of the monastery I saw the little statue of the Blessed Virgin before which Pope St. Pius V prayed during the battle of Lepanto. Queen Elizabeth II has decked it with a crown of brilliants. In the library, among manuscripts of priceless value, are four of the autograph writings of St. Teresa, the Book of the Foundations, the Manner of Visiting Convents, the Way of Perfection, and the Life by herself. All these were collected, not without difficulty, by the royal founder of the Escorial, who died sixteen years after St. Teresa, in 1598.

* * *

Avila, famed evermore as the birthplace and home of St. Teresa, is situated in the centre of the province of that name, west of Segovia and south of Valladolid. The hill on which it stands rises out of an undulating country to the north, and, on the south, overlooks a broad plain which stretches away almost as far as the eye can see to a range of mountains known as the Sierras of Avila. The waters of the Adaja river bathe the foot of the cliffs to the west. On the southwestern slope of the hill, facing the wide extent of meadow land and the distant mountains, stands the old home of St. Teresa, enclosed within a Dominican monastery. Here one is shown the room where she was born, now a chapel in which the Blessed Sacrament is kept. Here also, but some feet under the ground—for old things have a way of sinking into the earth—, is the little garden where, a child of seven, she played at being a nun, and with her brother, four years her senior planned to seek the crown of martyrdom among the Moors. "We settled," she tells us, "to go together to the country of the Moors, begging our way there for the love of God, that we might be beheaded there." "I ran away," was the naive excuse precocious piety gave her mother, "because I wanted to see God, and one cannot do that without dying."

* * *

Avila is little changed since Teresa de Ahumada and Rodriquez de Cepeda stole softly along its cobbled streets and left its lofty portals behind, in the gray dawn of that summer's day, some four hundred years ago. The stones, since worn by many feet, are the same that they trod; the stout walls that defied Moorish assault still look proudly down upon the stranger that enters at the gate. Outside the walls are two religious houses which are fragrant with the memories of St. Teresa. One is the Convent of St. Joseph, the other the Monastery of the Incarnation. The latter stands on a hill a few hundred yards to the north of the town. There Teresa first made her vows, and there she lived for twenty-seven years, three of which she was Prioress. Among her relics there are (1) a little water jug, (2) a crucifix borne by her when she went forth to found new convents, (3) the key of her cell, (4) a document concerning the dowry of a religious, signed by the saint and the four nuns who established with her the new foundation. I sat in the chair, by the side of the grille, where St. Peter of Alcantara and St. Francis Borgia conversed with her on spiritual subjects. It was there that a nun, happening along one day, found herself and St. John of the Cross raised above the ground in an ecstasy of contemplation. The quick-witted Teresa put it all on her companion. "See," she said, "what comes of talking with Father John!"

* * *

St. Joseph's of Avila, now known as the Convent of St. Teresa, is on the east side, just outside the walls, but within the town limits. It was the saint's first foundation, the beginning of the Reform. Here are several relics, among others a tambourine on which the saint used to play. Her body lies incorrupt at Alba de Tormes, where she died. The morning I went to say Mass at St. Joseph's, I was accompanied by two English ladies, a mother and daughter, Anglicans both, very High Church, and very much interested in all that related to St. Teresa. They knelt to the Blessed Sacrament on entering, and assisted at Mass with every mark of devotion. We afterwards spoke with the nuns at the grating. They showed us the relics of their holy foundress, and bade us be sure to visit the chapel built by her in connection with her first foundation. I had told the mother the night before of the sweet odor I perceived when, at the Escorial, the Augustinian Father had opened the glass case that contained the four autograph writings of St. Teresa. Just as we entered the chapel I felt the same sweet odor, and asked the mother if she perceived it. "Yes," she said, "but it is a very elusive odor." A nun at Seville had spoken to me of the odor exhaled by the relics of the saint, and had said that some perceived it but others didn't, and that even to the same person it was perceptible at times, at other times not. It seemed to me something like the odor of incense, and yet I am quite sure it was not that. I was much impressed with the fact that it was the self-same odor I perceived in those two widely distant places.

* * *

At the hotel in Avila I met an American lady who had not visited her native land in five years. She was so taken with Europe, she said, that she thought she should never cross the Atlantic again. Perhaps the recent terrible happenings may have made her change her mind. The conversation turning on St. Teresa, I said I looked upon her as being, after the Blessed Virgin, the greatest woman saint that ever lived. My American friend believed she must yield the palm to St. Catherine of Siena. And truly the latter may contest the palm in the outer world of action. But I was thinking rather of the inner world of the spirit, where piety rears "a building of God, a house not made with hands." No one has thrown clearer or more copious light upon the things of that inner world than the author of "The Way of Perfection" and "The Castle of the Soul." For the rest, "star differs from star in brightness," and it is not for us, short-sighted and dim of vision as we are, to say which shines with the greatest lustre. Stars there are, too, in the firmament of the Church that have never swum into our ken. We shall see them when we have passed hence, even as those who pass to the other side of the globe behold the Southern Cross.—Mrs. Hemans's lines on that brilliant constellation come to one unbidden: they are put in the mouth of some son or daughter of Spain:

Thou recallest the ages when first o'er the main
My fathers unfolded the ensign of Spain,
And planted their faith in the regions that see
Its unperishing symbol emblazoned in thee.

Shine on—my own land is a far distant spot,
And the stars of thy sphere can enlighten it not,
And the eyes that I love, though e'en now they may be
O'er the firmament wandering, can gaze not on thee!

* * *

On leaving Avila I visited Valladolid. To me the most interesting place there was the Scots College, once a home of the Jesuits and their house of studies in the days of the great Suarez. Here many of the men who kept the torch of faith burning in the Scottish Highlands during the dark night of persecution received their education for the priesthood. The Very Reverend Alexander MacDonald, V.G., who died at Mabon, Cape Breton, in 1865, left Valladolid for Lismore, Scotland, in 1816, as the college records bear witness. It was from him I got in baptism the light of faith.

* * *

I slept at San Sebastian on my way to Lourdes. Of my visit to that famous shrine I write elsewhere.

LOURDES REVISITED.

VICTORIA, B.C., AUGUST, 1914.

I visited Lourdes again in May of the present year. Much water had passed under the old stone bridge that spans the Gave since last I gazed on that swirling stream, and listened to the hoarse music of its voice. Lourdes has grown a great deal in these fourteen years. The old town has widened its bounds on the right bank of the river, and on the left the low meadow land is covered with shops and hotels. These, indeed, may be said to make up the town. In the shops, as I also noted when last I was there, the wares are almost wholly of a devotional character—a fact that gave rise to the following incident. The joke that gives it point is at my own expense.

I left my soap at Saint Sebastian, the last town in Spain ere you cross into France. It may be needful to tell the reader that the traveller in Europe has to carry his own soap. I wanted to buy that necessary article in Lourdes, but did not know where to get it. The stores that lined the streets on either side seemed to offer nothing but beads, medals, statues, etc. What was worse, I could not for the life of me recall the French word for soap. I tried to get at it through the Italian "sapone." Cutting off the final vowel, I entered the nearest store, and boldly asked for "sapon." The salesmaid at first looked puzzled. But on my repeating the order, her face broke into a smile of comprehension. Quickly she sped to a corner of the store, and thence brought me a tiny statue of St. Paul! "Sapon," no doubt, sounded more like "Saint Pol" than like the elusive "savon" that I had tried in vain to get hold of. Going into another shop, where a window bore the legend "English and German spoken," I asked for soap. They told me the girl who was to wait on English-speaking customers had not yet joined the staff. I inquired in Italian if they knew that language, and to my great relief was answered in the affirmative, and directed to a little shop down a near street, where I bought an excellent piece of soap that is still in my possession.

Man has wrought many changes in Lourdes. Only the works of God remain unchanged. The Gave flows merrily on, singing its way to the sea. Round about are the eternal hills, which change not. The grotto in the rocks of Massabielle still looks out over the hurrying river, even as Our Lady, from her quiet niche, smiles down upon the ever flowing and ebbing multitude at her feet. How mighty has been that tide of pilgrimage since last I knelt before the statue of Our Lady there! Day by day, month by month, year by year, it keeps renewing itself, flowing ever onward like the leaping waters of the Gave.

I reached Lourdes on the eve of Saturday, May 10, and stayed there over Sunday. The great Swiss national pilgrimage was there, in eight trains; a pilgrimage from Metz in two trains; a mixed pilgrimage from Strassburg, in two trains; the seventeenth pilgrimage from Namur in three trains; the ninth national Bavarian pilgrimage in two trains; and the ninth Austrian, also in two trains. There were in all some fifteen thousand pilgrims, of many nations and many tongues. But one was the faith that drew them thither; one the devotion. And one was the hymn they sang in unison in the marvellous torchlight procession that night. I stood watching it as it wound its way down the great oval pathway through the meadow of Lourdes. The spire of the stately basilica that stands over the Grotto, the grand faÃ§ade, and the Church of the Rosary beneath, were all ablaze. Then ten thousand pilgrims, a very torrent of moving lights, poured into the pathway, circled slowly round it, swaying and singing as they passed along. The sounds that rose upon the night air, under the listening stars, were as the voices of the sea.

A thought that saddens comes to me as I write these words, after three short months. Many, many of the men who walked side by side in that procession have ere now met face to face on European battlefields. Man is part beast, and part angel. The angel is of God, the beast of the earth, earthy. And the beast that is in man, true to its nature, fights its fellows; the angel can but weep over the fallen and the slain.

What a sight that was of sick and suffering humanity before the statue of Our Lady in the rocks of Massabielle! It seemed as if all the ills that poor human flesh is heir to were brought together there. One had not the heart to ask favours for oneself, so piteous was the spectacle of so much misery unrelieved. For out of the thousands that yearly seek a cure at Lourdes but few are made whole. Yet all are renewed in spirit, and strengthened to bear their ailments with Christian resignation. It is not that they want faith; it is rather that God does not will to free even those who have faith from all evil here below. "It is appointed unto man once to die." Through many tribulations, through the gates of death itself, we must enter into the Kingdom of God, Kingdom of endless ages, whereon, as St. Augustine so beautifully expresses it, "sits the untroubled light, and the peace of God that passeth all understanding." Meanwhile in patience we shall possess our souls.

A year ago one came to Lourdes, a girl from a town in France, sick beyond all human hope of recovery. She had a complication of maladies, including consumption in its last stage. Her doctor, an unbeliever, deemed it madness in her to undertake the long journey. But go she would. He told her, if she were cured, he himself would go with her next year to Lourdes. They were both of them there the Sunday I was there—she to thank Our Lady for the wondrous favour, he to ponder upon the superhuman power that wrought it, and to find, let us hope, healing and peace for his soul.

In a corner of France, amid the foothills and under the shadow of the Pyrenees, Lourdes lies sheltered with its holy shrine. Afar it lies from the madding strife that now ravages and reddens with blood many a fair field that was white unto harvest. Let us pray Our Lady that the war may soon be over—that He who chid the wild waves on the sea of Galilee may now stay the fierce onset of angry passions, and bring a great calm.

A FEW MORE STRAY LEAVES AND TRACES.

The passage from New York to Gibraltar took twelve days. The "Saxonia" is slow, but sure and steady. There was little sea-sickness, and less cause for it, but small-pox broke out in the steerage our first day at sea. The child—for a child it was that showed the dread symptoms—was at once placed in the isolation hospital. We all had to be vaccinated, and the "Saxonia" steamed into the harbour of Funchal, Madeira, flying the yellow-jack. There was, however, little fear of infection among our fellow-passengers in the first cabin, as became apparent the night before we made port. There was a dance on the deck, which we were all invited to join. Conspicuous on the list of dances that lay before each passenger as we sat down that evening to the dinner table was "the vaccination waltz!" Next morning a pathetic little wooden box, roughly carpentered, was landed at Madeira. It contained the remains of the little child which had died in port—not of small-pox, which had turned out after all to be chicken-pox—but of two hard-boiled eggs administered by a fond mother during convalescence. So at least the story ran on board ship, though I fancy it was just made up to free us the more completely from apprehension.

Madeira is one of the loveliest islands of the sea. The waters around it are of the deepest blue, and its sloping fields of the richest verdure. Funchal, the capital city, is on the shores of a winding bay. The houses spotlessly white, the roofs red-tiled, form a pleasing contrast of colour with the green of the fields and the tropical trees around about them. Madeira belongs to Portugal. The inhabitants are almost all of them Catholics, and very devout. The storm of persecution that so lately burst over the mother country has spared this distant daughter in her sea-girt home.

Quitting the boat at Gibraltar, and passing by rail through Spain and the south of France, I reached Rome before the middle of May. Rome is greatly changed since I knew it first, and changed, I am free to own, for the better. New streets have been opened, old ones straightened and widened, and all the streets are fairly well kept. The city has taken over the magnificent Villa Borghese, and turned it into a park, to which access is given, out of the very heart of Rome, from piazza, Barberini, along a broad highway, across the Pincian Hill. The deep valley beyond is bridged by a lofty embankment. No city is more favoured than Rome in its parks and fountains.

Rome is greatly changed, too, spiritually, and for the better. There is more of devotion in the churches; more of respect, or at least of outward respect, for the pilgrim in the streets. In Rome ecclesiastical things are pretty much as they have always been. There is a saying familiar to the theologian, Communia vilescunt—common things are held uncommonly cheap. What so common as the priest in Rome! None so poor as to do him reverence. Even a bishop on occasion does not fare much better. Apropos of this I have been told a story, which to quote the well-worn Italian saying, Se non Ã© vero, Ã© ben trovato—if not true, is a clever take-off, and may serve to point a moral.

Last winter there was a grand function in the Sixtine Chapel. The Holy Father was there, and the place was packed with people. They kept pressing forward in their eagerness to get near the Pope. At last the papal guard turned their backs to the multitude, and held them there. A belated Cardinal tried to force his way through, but couldn't. Taking one of the guard by the shoulder, he told him who he was and that he had to get by. "Oh, pardon me, your Eminence," cried the soldier, greatly taken aback, "I thought you were only a Bishop!"

The public consistory of May the 28th, viewed simply as a pageant, was well worth waiting for. Cardinals and bishops, in their scarlet and purple robes, lined the front seats, and the elect Cardinals, in gorgeous panoply, brought up the rear of a long procession. The ambassadors to the Holy See and the heads of the old noble families of Rome, were conspicuous in seats specially reserved for them. But what struck one as without parallel in so august an assemblage was this singular circumstance: a peasant from Riese sat in the throne of Peter, and three other peasants from Riese, two sisters and a niece, who bore about them all the marks of their peasant ancestry, occupied the place of honour in a tribune hard by. It was the apotheosis of democracy. The like had never been seen at the Papal Court, at least since the swineherd Sixtus, the fifth of that name, refused to receive, when dressed as a fine lady, the mother whom he afterwards welcomed when she came back to him in her peasant costume.

It is not easy to gain admittance to a papal consistory, and thereby hangs another tale. From immemorial time the noble Roman families have a sort of prescriptive right to a large number of admission tickets, which they use in part themselves, and in part, it is said, offer for sale in the hotels of Rome. These are eagerly bought up by tourists and travellers, who are largely Protestant. Hence it comes to pass that while a bishop often cannot get a ticket for an attendant priest, hundreds of Protestants and unbelievers hold prominent places at the consistory. The story is of the time when Pasquino (whence our English "pasquinade") entertained the Romans with his clever satirical skits. They took the form of cartoons, and were placed during the night at the foot of a statue to which all Rome was wont to take its way to amuse itself of a morning. After one of the public consistories, this is what greeted the eye of Rome. Two young men are hurrying to the Vatican. Some curious passer-by bids them the time of day, and would know why they hasten so. "We are on our way," they say, "to the Vatican, to the consistory." "But where is the use of your going; you can't get in." "Oh, that's all right," rejoin the confident pair, "we turned Protestant yesterday!"

On leaving Rome I visited Assisi, fraught with memories of St. Francis and St. Clare, Loreto, also, with its Holy House, and from Ancona crossed to Tersatto, near Fiume, where the Angels first set down the House of the Virgin when they came with it over the sea. I recrossed the Adriatic to Venice in an Austrian boat. Four of us slept in one small stateroom, packed like sardines. I could barely squeeze into my berth, and passed the night in dread lest the big burly German (known to be such by his gutturals) who occupied the upper berth should fall through and quite flatten me out. My sympathies have always been with the under dog, and henceforth will be more than ever—for I was the under sardine!

We came to Venice in the early morning when the newly risen sun had turned everything into gold. There she sat a queen upon the waters. Small wonder that one Joseph Sarto should have pined, and pines still, in his prison-palace of the Vatican, for this old home of his on the sea, which it is his inclement destiny never more to set eyes on. Venice is a city without streets. Instead there are canals and corridors—canals where glide the swan-like gondolas, and corridors between the houses, so narrow that people living on opposite sides may shake hands across.

While I sat writing the last paragraph the life of Pope Pius the Tenth was slowly ebbing away. He was passing to the better world, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. He had fought the good fight, he had kept the faith. He had laboured while yet it was day, knowing that the night cometh when no one can labour more. His was a truly simple and apostolic life. He had a single eye to the glory of God and the good of his fellow-man. If ever there was one who could say that he sought not the office, but that the office sought him, he was the Pope whose loss we mourn. He has done an enduring work for God and the Church, and has left an inspiring example of a life untainted with worldliness and fragrant with faith and good works. Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him!

I spent a night in Domodossola just beyond the beautiful Lago Maggiore, in the Italian Alps. Here the Rosminian Fathers have a college for boys, largely attended. A unique feature of the museum is a room filled with labelled specimens of the different kinds of stone taken from the great Simplon tunnel—an almost endless variety. Beyond the Simplon, on the Swiss side, the train, which is driven by electricity, passes along the side of a precipitous mountain. An Alpine river winds its way two thousand feet below. From the window of the train I caught a glimpse of a flying aeroplane, about midway down. Far beyond on the other side the eye rested on great fields of untrodden snow. The valleys of Switzerland are for the most part so narrow that it is easy to get a good view of the wonderful mountain scenery.

At Berne I had just time to pay a visit to my old acquaintances—I dare not say friends—the bears. There are as many as seven of them now in the underground enclosure across the Aar river, the cubbies that I saw on my first visit having grown into bears. I bought one or two specimens of the beast in wood, and saw many more that would have made interesting additions to my former repertoire—bears painting, bears playing cards, bears playing the piano, bears working in wood, bears smoking long German pipes, bears nursing sick bears, and bears rejoicing in the birth of cubbies!

From Berne I passed to Strassburg, from Strassburg along the banks of the Rhine to Cologne, and from Cologne to Aix-la-Chapelle, known to me from schooldays as a place where peace treaties were signed. Peace then brooded on the land, a land of plenty, smiling with promise of a rich harvest. But on every hand were soldiers, and the whole nation appeared to be cast in a military mould. Whatever the outcome of the terrible war into which Europe is plunged to-day, the future historian will record and lay due stress on this significant fact, that Germany led the world in war-like preparation, and that other nations did but strive to keep pace with her.

The return voyage, on the Empress of Britain, was almost without incident. One day of storm we had, in mid-ocean, when our big ship was tossed about and great seas broke over her. A day or two later, on the banks of Newfoundland, an iceberg was sighted almost directly ahead. It looked ghostlike as it loomed up out of the haze, and the air for miles around was chill as winter. I left the ship at Rimouski, about sunrise of a July morning, close to the spot where her sister ship went down a few weeks before with almost every soul on board. At Rimouski I took an eastbound train to my old home, feeling, as I never felt before, the force of Sir Walter's undying lines:

Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand.

[Transcriber's note: The material in French without accents is as printed, as are any odd and unusual spellings.]

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Table of Contents

- STRAY LEAVES

- THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM

- JOTTINGS OF A TRIP IN SCOTLAND.

- ROME.

- THE ROSES OF ASSISI.

- FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES.

- FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES

- FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO.

- THROUGH SPAIN.

- LOURDES REVISITED.

- A FEW MORE STRAY LEAVES AND TRACES.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE