by this relaxation of ancient severity, since abundant opportunity is now afforded of obtaining from the convict, full confessions of guilt, and he is allowed that leisure for religious preparation, which to a man of his abandoned habits, must be of such vital moment on the verge of entering into another state of being. About a month then after the trial, a day is fixed for the execution; and Tresham who has an appetite for scenes of novelty and excitement, and has a mind for once in his life to observe the demeanour of a man about to perish on the scaffold, joins at an early hour of a gloomy December morning, the swelling tide of population which a morbid curiosity is impelling towards Newgate. By means of a written permission from one of the sheriffs, he is enabled to gain admittance to the interior of the gaol, and by dark, damp, and chilly passages, through which the clank of bolts, and the slamming of huge iron-bound doors, strike upon the ear with a sound that seems to freeze the heart, follows a number of other persons, bent upon the same errand as himself, into what is called the Press-room-a dismal chamber containing no other furniture than a large deal table or dresser, upon which at a later period of the day, the body of one, now full of life, will probably be deposited previously to its being shovelled at midnight into an unhonoured and ignominious grave. Along the bare walls of that desolate apartment, are ranged the throng of strangers, who have come to witness the proceedings, and whose half audible whisperings are suddenly hushed by the entrance of Mr. Cope, the governor of Newgate, who exclaims "Silence, gentlemen, the unhappy man is coming!" a minute afterwards, attended by the sheriffs in full court costume, to do honour as it were to the grim solemnity, and supported by turnkeys, the wretched culprit is introduced. He advances to the middle of the room, and casts around him a glance half vacant, half imploring; the executioner and his attendant approach, and with a kind of horrible gentleness of manner, unloose the neck handkerchief, and unbutton the shirt collar of the miserable victim, tucking the former article of apparel within his waistcoat in a careful and odious spirit of foresight, included as it is to be with the rest of the clothes in the hangman's baleful perquisites. The hands of the criminal are then fastened, and all is ready for the fatal procession. The doomed wretch heaves a sigh, which appears to proceed from the very innermost recesses of his soul, and of which the long drawn breath seems charged with unutterable anguish and dread. He raises his eyes to heaven, and as with faltering voice he utters the words "O Lord have mercy upon me!" Tresham

feels that he can never forget the expression of that upward glance, the convulsive contortion of the face, the glazed look of despair! but the words "all is ready" have been pronounced, and opening his prayer book, the reverend ordinary, with solemn intonation, commences the reading of the burial service. The prison bell tolls the knell of death, and along the cold dreary passages, the procession marches at a funeral pace. It reaches a postern door which opens upon the foot of the gallows, and the deafening yells of the ruffian mob welcome the appearance of the murderer, as he totteringly ascends the fatal platform. Tresham, who has walked in the rear of the "cortège," obtains but an imperfect view of the final catastrophe. But as he stands in the back ground, straining his eyes to peer through the postern door, the small dimensions of which afford but a very circumscribed view of all that is passing outside, he hears a tremendous shout, which announces the termination of the awful tragedy.

C.

REFLECTIONS SUGGESTED BY THE FEAST

OF ST. LAWRENCE.

"In die Sabbata, intra Octav. Festi Sancti Laurentii."

MANY a year has now rolled on since first it became a cherished feeling of

my bosom to look back with sentiments of awe and veneration upon the earlier martyrs of the Church. I have admired the enthusiasm of their charity, I have almost envied their self-devotion,-and my whole soul has glowed within me in reading the records of their heroism amid the accumulated torments of their varied martyrdoms,—my imagination had formed to itself, as it were, a picture gallery, hung with the portraits of a Clemens, an Ignatius, a Polycarp, a Pothinus, an Irenæus, and a Lawrence, with hundreds of others, the victims of their burning zeal and love. Upon these I was wont to gaze in fancy, as

there fell upon my softened imagination the mellowed light reflected from the tradition of nearly two thousand years. Yet in this gallery, these portraits of my own collecting then wanted to me one interesting feature-I could not then appropriate them to myself as family portraits. In vain I endeavoured thus to identify myself with them. I coldly reasoned in the abstract that they were Christians, and so was I. Nay, warming my bosom with feelings glowing with something of their own enthusiasm, I bethought myself of Him who died upon the Cross. I claimed Him as my saviour-and were they not His martyrs? Was not here a bond of brotherhood which would entitle me to the fondest embraces of these elder children of the Faith? Alas! it would not do. I paced my imaginary gallery,-I again and again admired the portraits drawn by the pencil of my imagination, and clothed in the diversified colours with which the varied circumstances of their deaths had arranged them; but still they were to me only the pictures of heroes,-of Christian heroes indeed, venerable in their piety, admirable in their patience, calm in their resignation, and glowing in their love. They engaged my esteem, they received the homage of my warmest commendation, they awakened even my tenderest sympathies; but the full warmth of my soul's affections was not there. I admired them as more than men; but all my efforts were vain to realize towards them the instinctive love of brethren. They were without me, they were above me. A secret consciousness reminded me they were CATHOLICS; and I, though for many a year I had abjured the name of Protestant, could not, however, bring myself to adopt that modern fiction which usurps the name of Catholic, while connected with schism, and dissevered from the presiding chair of Catholic communion.

Such were my feelings, when contemplating those worthies of Christian antiquity a year ago. With what different emotions, this last St. Lawrence's day, did I ascend the hill that leads to a retired chapel in the village of * *, which, under the invocation of Our Blessed Lady, rejoices in the daily celebration of the sacred mysteries, according to the rites of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

*

St. Lawrence was one of those holy martyrs who especially engaged the enthusiasm of my early years, from the time that an acquaintance with the treasures of ecclesiastical history made known to me the resplendent excellencies of his exalted character. Cold indeed would be that bosom which would not throb with livelier pulsations, quickened

by the ardour of his burning charity for the poor; or would not warm into an intenser glow at the affection of his zeal, when, in recollection of his diaconal office, he longed to bear a self-devoted part in that sacrifice which his holy bishop, Pope St. Xystus, was called upon to offer of himself as a victim to the faith. Chilled would be every kindlier feeling of that breast which could not sympathise with him in the excruciating torments of his martyrdom, and rise even to a pitch of enthusiastic admiration at contemplating, in the illuminated record of his sufferings, the calm heroism with which he bore them, thus triumphing in the might of his Lord over the cruel ingenuity and malice of his tormentors. What new feelings, however, did I not find awakened within my bosom, in recalling to my recollection that, as a Catholic, I was privileged to be his brother;-that while entering somewhat into a sense of his agony, I can now identify myself with his triumphs, and plead an interest in his intercession. "Yes," said I to myself, "I am a Catholic. We are members of the same church,-sheep of the same fold,-children of the same father, as heirs of the same promises." And then came upon my mind the consoling, the absorbing thought, that I am in communion with that very Church of which St. Lawrence was archdeacon,—the Church of Rome, that Church which was saluted by St. Ignatius, bishop of the patriarchal see of Antioch, as the presiding Church, nrıç kai pокаnтαι. Then did I feel how cold, how cheerless, how unsatisfying, is the theory of the Anglican, who, connected with that tremendous schism which has drawn down upon itself, in their just severity, the terrible censures of St. Peter's chair, is thus severed from that Church which can boast a long line of martyrs of every grade and every rank, commencing with a St. Peter and a St. Paul, and commemorating in her venerable rites her Linus and her Cletus, her Clemens and her Xystus, her Lawrence and her Chrysogonus. These are her glorious champions, who, unseen by mortal eyes, encircle her ramparts as with walls of fire; and in the glowing transports of a love inflamed by uninterrupted years of blessed enjoyment of the beatific vision, shed down upon her children the reflected warmth of a fraternal charity which emanates from Him who is the central source of love. Built upon the foundation-rock of her St. Peter, strong in the protection of those battlements which her martyrs, as so many living stones, have themselves reared up around her, and cemented in their blood,-she can well bid defiance to the assaults which the unhappy armies of the aliens may make upon her, and which

have hitherto only recoiled upon themselves in shame, confusion, and disgrace.

With what new feelings of delight do I now walk in my picture gallery, hung round with so many family portraits, all sharing in the common lineaments of a family likeness, yet at the same time distinguished by those characteristic features which mark the peculiarity of each. Were my pencil practised, and the tone of my colouring sufficiently warm, with what pleasure would I take a copy of each portrait in this ancestral hall of my imagination, thus glorying in a descent and relationship with the Fisherman and the Tent-maker, as beyond all that titled celebrity or accumulated wealth can boast. And as to excellency of family descent, I here carry mine beyond the proudest pretensions of the worldling, since eighteen hundred years is no small time to rear the stem of the genealogical tree.

A year ago I was, as it were, a wanderer, without a proper name. This year, grafted on the stock of Catholicity, I have found a home in the Church, a father in her priesthood, and brethren in her canonized saints. Placed as within the gothic niches of the venerable pile of her time-honoured edifice, circled with a halo of glory streaming amid the dim obscurity of ancient days, they shed a hallowed light upon the young enthusiasm of my boyish years; and connecting the present with the past, they lend to the sober reality of Christian triumphs that charm of energy, devotedness, and high-bearing amid danger, which serves to rivet the enchained imagination upon the pages of romance. Now, in the sobered calm of maturer years, I hail them as my brethren. I walk with greater confidence, supported upon the arms of their friendship, and from their lips and example would draw fresh lessons of wisdom, humility, and love.

DEO GRATIAS.

W. S. S.