you, Reverend Father," said Laurent, smiling, "you have never asked me to read or say anything for you but such things as we could both take pleasure in. My uncle himself might recite the psalms for you, or that hymn of Peter Damiani, or St. Francis' canticle; and I am sure he would, if he knew you as well as I." The monk smiled at the idea of his seeking spiritual consolation from Henri Arnaud.

"I am afraid, my son, that if I were to fall into that gentleman's hands, I might have some chance of what is called the crown of martyrdom. And, indeed, I could not much blame him," added the minister, under his breath.

to me.

"No, indeed, Reverend Father; especially if he knew how good you had been He can be as gentle and kind as a woman; and I am sure you would find that you thought alike about a great many things. You yourself are not more kind and charitable in visiting the sick and the afflicted, nor more self-denying and self-forgetful where others are concerned. I am sure," continued Laurent, with a sigh, "both he and my father, and many of the other pastors, did quite as much as some of the saints in that way, but they did it just as a matter of course, and no one ever thought of worshipping them. To be sure, they did not go out of their way to be miserable."

"You would not believe in that-not in self-denial and mortification of our evil desires? Think what you say, my son." "Dear Father, you know if I talk, I must say what I think."

"You do indeed seem to have a most inveterate habit of telling the truth," remarked Father Francis, rather dryly; "but it is not likely to spread far enough to do much harm. What were you going to say?"

"Dear Father, you will think I am a heathen if I say what I had in my thoughts and you are tired."

"Never mind. What was it?"

"I was only thinking that all these stories of self-torture I read of in the lives of the saints, seem to me so perfectly unchristian."

66

My poor child," said Father Francis, half smiling, "what a world of legends and stories they must have put into your hands." And then the monk thought within himself that his absent brother, Gerome, was an "idiot."

"Yes, Father, it was all I had to read, and one must do something; and beside, I had a life of St. Francis, and two or three other such books from my uncle." "From your uncle?" said Father Francis, surprised. "How did that happen?"

Laurent did not like to repeat his uncle's remark that the lives of the saints, always supposing the reader to be a rational being, were the best possible supporters of Protestant doctrine.

"O, he wished me to see the other side, what it really was; and I can't help it, they did disgust me and make me so angry, and sorry for the poor souls altogether. My uncle said that ever since Christianity came into the world, people have always found it easier to try to work out their own way to heaven by one hard road and another, than just to trust Christ, and go in at the door-which door he is-and that it is easier to keep thinking about one's own soul all the time, and devising new methods of suffering, than it is to go quietly along, doing the duties God gives us to do, and following Christ's example, and being unselfish and good and courageous, from day to day. He said Anne Monastier, who supported her poor lame brother and his two little motherless children by her own hard labor, and yet contrived to help her sick neighbors, and was always cheerful and gentle and patient, was nearer to God than St. Theresa, torturing and starving herself, in heaven one day and in hell the next, thinking how she felt and counting her ecstasies and agonies. And in her life, and in that of St. Francis, they undergo such anguish and miserythat story of St. Francis' five wounds— O, Father, it seems to me like the cannibals. The idea that our blessed Lord would come and drive nails into the living flesh of one that was seeking him in sincerity; and that he would go walking about on them, and enduring all that anguish, for no earthly good! Why, it

makes out our Saviour to be like one of the American Indians I have heard of, that torture their prisoners. I am sure no one ever lived in God's presence, or felt more entirely his union in Christ than my own dear father; but it was a comfort to him, and not a misery. Such afflictions as God sends us we can bear with patience, and draw nearer to Him even in suffering; but to go out of our way to seek miseries for the good of our souls,' and to throw oneself in the way of death when there is no need of it, 'to obtain the crown of martyrdom,' seems self-seeking to me instead of self-denial. Christ says, 'come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' I don't believe poor St. John of the Cross, when he had gone down to the last depths of self-torture and abasement, had any harder life than my dear uncle; and I fancy he might have found it more difficult to keep his temper and be always kind and unselfish, if he had all the parish to think of, and the children to teach and provide for, as my uncle and aunt had, than he did, even in all he inflicted on himself. My uncle says that the simplicity of Christ is just the hardest thing for humanity to understand, and that they are always putting up ladders to climb up some other way.'

"0, my son, what shall I do with you?" said the priest, more anxious, as it seemed, for this incorrigible Protestant's bodily safety than for the salvation of his soul.

"But would you not reverence the saints?"

"Some of them I would, as we do our own martyrs, but as men and women like ourselves, who were faithful to their Master; but I would not make idols of them, nor magical charms out of their relics and garments. Why it was only yesterday"-and here Laurent, who had been sober enough hitherto, looked a little inclined to laugh.

"What is it, my son ?"

"Nothing much, Father, only brother Boniface asked me if I couldn't snip off a little bit of your girdle or your habit, when you didn't know, and give it to him, for you were such a holy man he was sure it would cure his toothache."

"And what did you tell him?" asked Father Francis.

"I told him he had better ask you himself;" and then he asked me if you were not a saint; and I told him I thought so, of course, for I do."

66

Ah, my dear child, you know nothing of me," said the father, sadly; and then he added, with a little quivering smile, "Did you ever see or hear of a saint that was cross ?"

"Ever so many," said Laurent, promptly. "There was Brother Thomas. He would fast and pray, and scratch himself with thorns, and then come out of his cell and scold the novices like anything, and quarrel with dear Father Paul; and how he did use me when I was shut up! But that is not your pattern of saintship! O, how like an angel you seemed when you came to me that day, and laid your dear hand on my head."

"My child, if I had only come to you before, and in all his weakness and suffering the poor little fellow's first thought was that I should not find fault with Father Paul," said the minister, holding Laurent's hand in his own.

"I am sure I shall always be thankful to your Superior, who sent you out of the city," said Laurent, who was inclined to respect the Minister-general for the resolute good sense with which he had managed Father Francis.

Had that distinguished official, however, guessed the true relation between Laurent and his protector, had he known that the barbet was Henri Arnaud's nephew, and still an obstinate heretic, he would have put him out of the way with

The scapular is celebrated in a certain Irish ballad, for this reason:

"Now he who wears the scapular shall have a rich reward, For if he has the toothache, he'll never have

it hard."

The Emperor Hadrian died at Baix, but his remains were afterwards brought to Rome by his successor Antoninus, and placed within his own magnificent tomb. It also received the ashes of Antoninus, of Marcus Aurelius, of Commodus, and of Septimus Severus.

For two centuries this superb mausoleum appears to have remained undisturbed. In the year 423, under Honorius, it became a fortress. Precopius, who saw it in the sixth century, affirms that even then, notwithstanding its warlike appropriation, its beautiful decorations were left inviolate. After that period, we read that it shared in all the reverses, defeats, and triumphs of Rome; becoming in turn the stronghold of Goth, Greek, and Roman powers; an abode for emperors and for popes, and a refuge in times of saintly peril for the holy Fathers of the Vatican,-and its dungeons, alas, the abode of countless wretches, who, in those dark cells which tell no tales, met with a violent death, or pined in hopeless anguish, with no ray of light to cheer, no human voice to gladden their miserable existence! In one of these dismal cells, it is said, the lovely, ill-fated Beatrice Cenci was immured. Ah! the list of names, whose unhappy owners have peopled these dungeons, is a long one! Among them were popes, and kings, and the sons of kings, who, in turn, passed by a bloody path from their earthly honors.

In all these centuries the Castle of St. Angelo has met with as many alterations and additions as it has reverses and successes; in fact, if its walls could speak, we should have the finest epitome of the history of Rome from the days of Hadrian ever yet produced. The first story, with its massive foundations, are all that remain of the original tomb built by the Emperor Hadrian. Alexander VI. erected the upper portion in 1500, and built a strong bulwark of travertine around it; this he called the " Torre Borgia.” In 1644 the Pope Urban VIII. placed the fortress in the state in which we see it to-day, except that Benedict XIV. replaced the marble statue of the Archangel Michael, which crowned the

summit, by the present colossal figure in bronze, depicted in the act of sheathing his sword.

There is a legend connected with this statue. In the sixth century, during the pontificate of the good St. Gregory the Great, a fearful pestilence raged throughout all Rome. To invoke the mercy of Almighty God to stay this dreadful plague, the illustrious Pontiff, taking the miraculous image of the blessed Virgin Mary in his hand, with naked feet and clothed in sackcloth, proceeded in sole:nn procession to St. Peter's. Just as the procession crossed the Elian Bridge, (Ponte St. Angelo.) a glorious vision of the Archangel Michael appeared to St. Gregory, standing upon the summit of the fortress, in the act of sheathing his sword, in token that the Eternal Father, appeased by the pious supplications of his vicar on earth, would stay the pestilence which was desolating Rome. And so it proved; for not only did the plague instantly cease its ravages, but even the se who were at the gates of death were instantaneously healed! A chapel was first erected and dedicated to St. Michael on the spot where he had appeared to the good pope; this was superseded by a marble statue of the saint, which, having been injured during some of the many bombardments, the bronze statue which now surmounts the fortress, was erected by Benedict XIV. From this legend the "Castle of St. Angelo" derives its name.

Of all its splendid and majestic adornments which rose at the command of the Emperor Hadrian, not one is left. We are told they were used as projectiles in times of warfare. When Belisarius was besieged in this castle by the Goths, he ordered the soldiers to tear the splendid statues from their base, and hurl them down upon the heads of the besiegers. The celebrated "Barberini Faun," now in Munich, was one thus cast down, and centuries later was recovered from the moat. The twenty-four superb Phrygian columns, which so gracefully circled the summit of the mausoleum, were removed to adorn the basilica of St. Paul's without the city walls.

Alexander VI. built the covered gal