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heaven just yet. As for telling Nell that it can never be, I'm a great deal too fond of her for that."

"Then why not make your arrangements for marrying at once?" "'Tis easy to talk, my good fellow, but there are difficulties in the way which you could hardly understand. In the first place, I ought to send her to school. Could I seat her at my table to talk to my friends with such an accent as that?"

Peter sighed with bitter impatience; and thought of Nell's sweet voice and her pleasant girlish talk which, to him who knew no better, was the prettiest sound in the world. How gladly would he have listened to her accent all his life. But his own interests were put aside just now, and Nell's were at his heart and on his tongue. He smothered his disgust and replied:

"If Nell has to go to school, it's the sooner the better. There's no need to delay about that."

"But my mother would have to help me in arranging about it, and she must be told before anything else can be done."

"Then go and tell her at once.'

Jack shrugged his shoulders. "She will kick up such a confounded fuss about my ears. And I am so exceedingly happy as I am." "But she is not happy," said Peter, his wrath beginning to rise again.

The result of this conversation was that Jack promised to disappear from Killowen next day in order "to see about” making arrangements towards hastening his marriage with Nell. And he kept his word.

"I don't know rightly what it is he has gone to do," said Nell to Kitty, as she helped her little friend to iron the long-flounced petticoats belonging to Mrs. Flamborough, the very rich and mighty lady who lived in that beautiful mansion which Kitty had admired with so much enthusiasm, away among woods and gardens beyond the pretty little village, some miles off, at the foot of the bay. "There's something on his mind that he has to get settled; but it won't be very long till he's back."

"Where is he gone-to England ?" asked Kitty.

"Yes, I suppose so," said Nell, sighing to think of how little she really knew about the matter.

After this came on a long succession of wet dreary days, when the gray shore of the bay was washed with rain as well as surf, the seagulls picked their steps over the shining shingle, and the curlews rode in on the white waves and shrieked with delight at the hurlyburly and confusion of storm and drizzle and mist. The flame on Nell's hearthstone burned brightly all the time, and Kitty could still manage to come darting along the causeway with an empty, inverted clothes-basket over her head and shoulders by way of umbrella, and to hold the usual dearly-loved chat with Nell in the intervals of the clear-starching which was so difficult a labour in such weather as this. For a long time the chat was pleasant on these occasions; Nell was not much of a letter-writer herself, and did not expect to hear a great deal about Jack till his return. Peter had vanished from the

Point also, and Kitty had left off talking about him, contenting herself as she sat, her little brogues crossed before the fire, with watching her friend admiringly as she tripped about the house, speculating on her future, and wondering much as to the extent of her affection for her absent lover.

"I wonder does she love him as true, as true as death!" thought Kitty. "Would she work for him and die for him-as I would do for Peter! But here, startled by the boldness with which this thought had put itself before her, the little girl sprang to her feet and made a great rattle with the tongs to frighten it away.

Days lengthened into weeks, and a good many weeks went past, and there was no letter from Jack nor tidings to tell of his coming back to Killowen. Nell's sweet face began to look strange and scared, and she shunned the neighbours' questions, and kept herself close in her house. "I didn't bid him hurry-there's no call for haste," she would say, with a laugh, when people spoke to her with condolence in their faces. Nevertheless, the days were long and the wind was dreary, and Nell found her customary tasks irksome, and her heart sore, and, do what she would, she could not keep the thought from rising up in her mind, "What if he has gone away and forgotten me, and I shall never see him again ?"

Five or six weeks passed away, and the rain had ceased, and the early spring had begun to tip all the grassy places on the mountain side with vivid green. Fin-ma-Coul, as he lay in kingly rest along the skyey crags, was sometimes seen wrapped in draperies of crimson and purple, and crowned with the sun, whereas, the winter through, he had been swathed in a misty shroud which hid him from all mortal ken. The shingle was dry and white, the larks soared and sang, fishermen were mending their boats, and Kitty brought a huge bunch of primroses as a present to Nell, stars of pale gold, nature's largess which she had found under the hedges whereon were hung to bleach the all-important flounces of the mighty Mrs. Flamborough.

On one of these sweet, young, soft-shining days, while Nell's heart was heavy and sore, a handsome carriage and pair pulled up on the high road above the Point, and a liveried servant came down the little budding-hedged lane, and all along the causeway, passing every cottage till he came to Nell's.

"Is this where Mr. Bartholomew Mulligan, the coastguard, lives ?" asked the servant. "The Hon. Mrs. Flamborough wishes to speak to his daughter."

"This is where he lives," said Nell, "and I am his daughter; but Mrs. Flainborough does not know me, and perhaps you make a mistake. Mrs. Flamborough's laundress lives a little way further on."

The servant looked doubtful, and went away; but in a few more moments another step was heard approaching the door, there was a rustling of silks and a fluttering of shawls, and a tall splendid-looking lady stepped into the house.

"I am Mrs. Flamborough," said the lady.

SONNETS

ON THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE OF THE NEW CHURCH OF ST. PATRICK'S COLLEGE, MAYNOOTH.

I.

THE PAST.

NOT vain the faith and patience of the Saints!

Not vain, sad Isle, thy many-centuried woes!

Thy day was tempest-cradled; but its close
Is splendour; and the shattered forest's plaints
In music die. No dull repining taints

The ether pure of memory's realm, that far
Extends, like some long tract left waste by war,
Some tract which eve with peaceful purple paints.
Long time thy priests, my country, were thy poor:
The Cross their book, they raised the Sacrifice
In ruined chancel, and on rainy moor:
Behold, the great reward is come! Arise,
Fane long desired! Beneath thy roofs of gold
Throne the new rites-the creed and worship old!

FA

II.

THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE.

ALSE peace, false hopes, no more the nations mock:
The founts of the great deep up-burst, a flood-

O'er it the thunders roll; the vapours scud:

Its cliffs are realms which every watery shock
Drags to the abyss successive, block on block:
O'er their own graves the high-built empires nod:
Alone, unshaken, stands the Church of God,
Sole-throned upon her adamantine Rock.
But, lo! across the gloom a beam shoots forth!
Strong watch-tower of old times, that light is thine!
Thy woes are past. Lamp of the pagan North,
Shine forth again! 'Tis God who bids thee shine!
Isle of the Saints, thy task is thine once more,
To lands self-doomed Saint Patrick's faith restore.

III.

THE NOBLE REVENGE.

HE nations stood around thee, frowning some,

Tome coldly pitying when thy head lay low!

On them what good for ill wilt thou bestow,
When Babel mourns, and Salem hath o'er-come?
In Faith's eclipse when earth lies cold and numb,
When pride hath reaped the fruits she helped to sow;
When anarch Peoples, hurled from wealth to woe,
In vain deplore their vanished Christendom;
When from the nether night, his penal prison,
By spurious Science loosed, the Apostate Angel
Lifts his red Bond, and claims the astonished lands,
(No God predicted, but a Fiend, new-risen)
And downward spurns his foul, disproved Evangel-
Raise thou that Cross, and bind the murderer's hands!

IV.

RELIGION'S GIFT TO THE NATIONS.

IRELAND! the lawless chid thy lawlessness

Save thou the accuser from the lawless doom,
Strengthening God's law its throne to re-assume
In hovels low and lordly palaces.

Ireland! the ignorant scoffed thy ignorance :-bless
With spiritual light the scorner! Lift that gloom
Which turns false greatness to a gilded tomb :-
Bid Freedom's sons their Fathers' Faith confess !
Behold, the Nations also live by Truth:
The soul of knowledge is the light divine:
That halo circled Oxford once." Maynooth!
The "meek usurper's" forfeit crown be thine!
She boasts the Learning new: with thee endure
The creed unchanged;-the heart-sick Nation's cure,

DE

V.

THE FOUNDATION STONE.

ESCEND, strong Stone! into my country's breast:
Child of the sea-beat cliff, or skyey height,

Descend, well-pleased, into the eternal night;
Amid the eternal silence make thy rest!
Descend in hope, thou high, prophetic Guest!
For God a covenant upon thee doth write :
On thee His pledge is graved in words of might
Plain as those mandates Ten, by Him impressed,
While Sinai's peaks made answer, thunder-riven,
On the twinned Tablets of the Hebrew Law.
This day the future with the past is wed;
The undying promise with the greatness dead;
Ireland this day her ancient pact with Heaven
Renews in godly triumph, loving awe.

AUBREY DE VERE.

* The old motto of the University of Oxford was "Deus illuminatio mea."

VOL. IV.

THE AGGRESSIONS OF SCIENCE.

UTHORITY when used intolerantly is almost certain to provoke

A an inquiry into its claim to be obeyed. We are apt to think

it the most justifiable ground of resistance, that the power against which we rebel has been unlawfully established, and exercises a jurisdiction which it has usurped. It is, perhaps, this natural feeling of opposition to a power which has become oppressive that prompts us to question the right of modern science to speak authoritatively in the things of Faith. That the majority of the scientific writers of the present day have manifested a spirit of determined hostility to the teaching of the Catholic Church is a fact which few who are conversant with the scientific literature of the time will deny. By a combination of circumstances, which it would be interesting to examine, the leaders of modern progress, those who are considered the best representatives of the intellectual advancement of the age, are generally outside the Church and decidedly adverse to her. Of course the enemies of Catholicism discover in this phenomenon a proof that the Church is the enemy of enlightenment, and enslaves the minds of her followers. Perhaps we may be able at another time to suggest an explanation of this fact less injurious to the dignity of the Church, and more in accordance with the title of patron of learning which she long held. For the present we are concerned with this fact merely, inasmuch as it explains the anti-Catholic, and, very often, antiChristian tone which pervades the literature of modern science. This spirit of irreligion manifests itself in various ways. At one time it is expressed in terms of measured and formal contempt for the dogmas of Faith; at another, in wild and reckless theories directly opposed to the teachings of revelation, built upon faulty deductions and vague analogies, and in which the "bold thinkers" of the day indulge without concerning themselves about the fears or hopes which their doctrine may excite or destroy.*

We are not of the number of those who would restrict the legitimate liberty of scientific research. We are so confident of the truth of the teachings of our Church, that the attempt or even the wish to safeguard her doctrines by obstructing the unlimited discovery of natural truth, seems to us an absolute want of faith in her infallibility. Truth is never opposed to truth; the dogmas of Faith being true, no scientific discovery can ever imperil their integrity.

This profession of our sympathy with the progressive sciences will secure us against the reproach of being hostile to the cause of true advancement, and will perhaps ensure for our remarks an indulgence which some friends of science might otherwise refuse them;

* See the concluding remarks of Mr. Darwin in his second volume on the "Dcscent of Man."

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