order to see who abuse, they put him up to auction in "Indeed, it is not at all to my mind that the boys should wander the country in that way. It's nothing but pure beggary; and, besides, it is strictly forbidden by the police." "But I don't see why it should be forbidden, if the lads go about quietly, and do harm to no one. They are real Christian songs that they sing, that can only edify pious hearts." "I have nothing to say against the carols, but only against the disorderly conduct of some of these 'Star Boys."" "That should be restrained, certainly; but an old proverb says, We should not throw out the baby along with the bath-water' reject the good with the bad. I am just as much against an equality of that kind as against the 'equality' the French brought us in the '90." The master gave in at last, saying, "Well, if Andrees is really an honest lad, perhaps there is no harm in the matter. But you must not take it ill of me, comrade, that I am rather doubtful on the subject. I always think of what I promised before the Highest at Christel's baptism, and which I must hold to. My hand, as well as yours, must do its best for him." with its full grain, shone golden in the sunbeams. Their desire to wander forth there was by no means checked by the thought that all this beauty and richness was past for the present, and that snow would be just as cold in the plain as in their woodland village. The year 1834 had been a year of plenty-like one of the fat years which follow each other by sevens, but seldom indeed anywhere but in Egypt-and so they hoped that down there in the plain they would find a Joseph who at God's bidding would have an open storehouse for them. At last they both were wearied out, and fell asleep; but even in their dreams they were with the "Star Boys," far away from their father's cottage. Two days sufficed to prepare the boys for their expedition. On Monday it was seen that their father's trust in God was not a vain one. Though last week they could not sell one broom in the neighbouring villages, to-day they had not been out two hours before they found good sale with the countrywomen. This appeared very astonishing to the young folks, but not at all so to father Flinner: it was by no means the first time that he had received wonderful help in time of need. Everything else, too, went according to the boys' wishes. Their Aunt Apollonia of Annweiler, sister of their dead mother, at their desire gave them the promised shirts; and Uncle Klund kept his word about the star. They themselves glued together their tall caps of coloured paper in the master's workshop. They had also been industrious in practising the carols. So on Wednesday morning Christel and Friedel, with their comrade Andrees, stood ready, as fully equipped "Star Boys," to take leave of their father. The woodland villages of Westrich are the special home of the so-called "Star Boys," who, from the be "But have you got a star?" said the master, turning ginning of Advent till Epiphany, wander the country by kindly to the boys. And when they said "No," he promised to make them a real beauty. threes, to represent the wise men of the East, singing real folk-songs of the birth of the Saviour. They come before the houses, or into the farmyards. The one who carries the star spins it round, full in view, and they begin their carols. When they pause, a gift is bestowed on them, for which they then return thanks in another verse. During all this talk, time had passed so quickly that it was now bed-time, and father Flinner and his boys went home, after Master Klund had read their evening prayer from his book of devotions. But that night sleep was long of coming to the eyes of the boys. They turned and tossed on their bed, for their minds were too full of their project to let them sleep. Sometimes they conned over the necessary preparations; sometimes they imagined themselves already in one of the villages of the Gäu. Their child-like notion of the poverty of Christ, as they sung of it, being made the means of gaining their bread, was lost sight of in the desire which took hold of them to see more of the world than the mountain villages where they had carried their father's brooms for sale. They had often looked down longingly to the fertile plain between the mountains and the Rhine. They had gazed over the Gäu, as it is called, when in early summer the wind rippled the waving fields of corn, and the rape in full bloom looked so bright in the sunlight; or when in harvest the heavy-headed wheat, bending | be spun round by a touch of the hand. Grave father Flinner could not forbear a smile when he saw his boys in their disguise, though he had often enough before seen the dress of the "Star Boys." They had pulled Aunt Appel's white shirts over their clothes, and had lent Andrees an old one that he might do the same. On their heads were tall caps covered with stripes of white and coloured paper. Besides that, the brown gipsy had touched up his complexion with soot, for there must always be a black man among the "three kings of the East." The others had only given themselves beards with burned cork. Christel carried a money-bag, which he hoped to bring home full; Andrees had a large linen bag at his side, to hold any provisions that might be given them; and Friedel bore the wooden star, which was stuck upon the top of a stick, and could "We are ready now, father," said Christel, who was now to be called Kaspar. Andrees was Melchior, and Friedel, Balthazar; for Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar are the names under which the wise men of the East travel in all the legends of the Pfalz. "Then go, in God's name, my sons. Take good heed, so that you may come back to me with a good report. Keep God ever before your eyes and in your hearts; and have a care that you indulge in no sin and do not break With these words father Flinner gave each his hand; and with a hearty "Adieu, father!" the two brothers and Andrees went out at the door, and set off merrily down the road. CHARLEY'S DILEMMA. HARLEY BRIGHT sat on the door-step | Fannie. "You know God sends blessings on the just late one evening, looking very dissatisfied. This was rather unusual, for he was such a good-natured, merry little fellow, that at school he was as often called "Bright Charley," as Charley Bright. "Why, what's the matter with my boy?" asked his Aunt Fannie, as she came up the steps with a basket of fresh-gathered flowers. Nothing much, Aunt Fannie," was the reply. But Aunt Fannie evidently saw that all was not right. Drawing his attention to her pretty flowers, Charley became interested in their tasteful arrangement, and his warm heart soon lost its reserve. "Aunt Fannie," said he, after a little pause, " what is the use for anybody to try to do right? This morning all the boys were going fishing, and Mrs. Phifer told Frank he might go; but Mrs. Brown told Rob that he was too little, and he must not go. Rob stole off and went with the boys; and while he and Frank were fishing together in the boat, they were overturned, and came very near being drowned. Now, one boy minded, and the other didn't, and they both got a ducking just the same. That's just the way all the time, and I don't see any sense in it!" and unjust; the bad, worldly man fares just as well as his good neighbour, and sometimes better. But mark this, Charley: the result will be different. As for Frank and Rob, I happened to know something about their case. Frank went home with a good conscience, for the accident was an unavoidable one, and he was not in fault. Rob went home sad and guilty, and his mother punished him severely for his disobedience. I was at Mrs. Phifer's when Frank came in dripping, with streaks of mud on his face; and his mother actually drew him to her bosom while he told his story, and kissed him repeatedly as she thanked God for sparing his life. Now, I've no doubt Rob's mother loves him just as dearly. But instead of both boys deserving or receiving the same, Frank will go to bed to-night peaceful and happy, and poor little Rob will go repentant, I hope; but there is a great stain on this day for him. Don't you see, Charley boy, that though good people and bad people may seem to get the same reward, that it really isn't so! Time will show." And as Aunt Fannie and Charley went in to tea. she whispered to him, "God sees us every day, and every minute of the day. We ought to do right for his sake, and the rewards and "Well, I'll tell you what I think of it," said Aunt punishments will take care of themselves.' "THOU GOD SEEST ME." HE way to my school led across the river by a bridge. The river had frozen early in the season, and many schoolboys would cross the stream on the ice. My mother thought the ice was not safe, and told me not to cross it. The next morning I came, with another boy, to the crossing place. "Come, John," said Robert to me, "let us cross on the ice." "No; I do not want to go," said I. "Why not?-ah, I know; you are afraid of your mother! Never mind her whims-come along; I would not be such a coward." Oh, what a struggle I then had in my mind! I was ashamed to be called a coward; I knew the ice was strong, and I thought it was strange that my mother should tell me not to go. While this struggle was going on in my mind, Robert cried again, "Come along; your mother cannot see you, and I will not tell of it." Then rose the thought which saved me "Thou God seest me." "Robert," said I, "if my mother cannot see me, God can-I will not go." So saying, I turned and went by the bridge to school; and that was a happy day. I went home at night feeling happy. I never was more glad to see my mother than that night. Now, dear children, would you be happy, remember always to obey your parents. The disobedient child is always unhappy. And when your parents cannot see you, remember that God can. Let the truth ever be impressed upon your mind, "THOU GOD SEEST ME.” ON PILGRIMAGES: POLITICAL USES—FRANCE. BY THE REV. J. A. WYLLIE, LLD. ORN-OUT soils, which no longer are able to nourish plants fit for the use of man, may nevertheless yield weeds in plenty. It is so with France. Its soil has ceased to produce patriotism; but it still retains the power of producing pilgrimages. Miracles, legends, holy shrines, and troops of dotard devotees, spring up upon it in abundance. Once France was a land of genius-of genius versatile, penetrating, playful, trenchant, and beautifully imaginative: now its sun is set; its fire is smothered under the monk's hood, or only breaks out in lurid and destructive flashes in the Communist's torch and the mountebank's harangue. The race of legislators, historians, poets, and warriors, that made France glorious in days gone by, is at an end. Their names live only in history they have no successors; nor has their greatness perpetuated itself in the enduring monuments of their country's, institutions and morals; and however mournful, it is nevertheless true, that though the French people were this hour to become extinct, and pass utterly away from their place in Christendom, and though the land they have so long occupied were to become empty, no one interest connected with the religion, the liberty, the literature, or the progress of the world, would thereby vitally suffer. There would be a terrible gap, a solemn silence at the heart of Europe; that would be all. A nation of thirty millions that could be lacking, and yet so little missed, must have sadly run down. This reflection inspires one with no very sanguine anticipations as to what Providence may have in store for that people. The outburst of Popish superstition which the present year has witnessed in France, has, we daresay, taken most people by surprise. They were taught to believe that Romanism was dying in that land, and they waited to see it borne to the tomb, with Philosophy, if not Protestantism, following its bier, and acting the part of chief mourner. Instead of a burial, there comes a revival. The moribund superstition starts up with all the mustiness of the Middle Ages upon it, but with all the vigour of a second youth; and in a somewhat gruff tone it bids both Philosophy and Protestantism stand aside and make way for it. But extraordinary as this may seem, there is nothing in the least extraordinary in it. No miracle has been wrought. The laws of the world have not been suspended to permit this apparition from the Middle Ages to come back upon us. What has happened is simply the result of causes which have been some time in operation. What are these causes? The lesson of 1848 was not thrown away upon the Jesuits. They had been reposing confidently upon the world's immobility. Since our fathers fell asleep, said they, or rather since they died on the scaffolds of the Revolution, the world has been shaken by no such shock as that of 1789: that was an abnormal conyulsion; it occurred once, but will not occur over again; we shall have no such second earthquake; the era of 1789 cannot come back; the easy-going times of our great-grandfathers have returned, and may be expected to continue for some centuries. So the priests in France, and throughout Popish Christendom, reasoned. But the convulsion of 1848 upset all these reasonings. They saw that the Revolution was not an abnormal fit, but a chronic distemper, destined to recur at regular intervals in the future; and therefore they must not rest on the surface, let it look ever so solid,-they must dig down, and plant the foundations of their system in the lower depths, so that when the next convulsion should come, it might stand, and be, perhaps, the only fabric left standing. NEW TACTICS. Accordingly, the first moment the skies cleared up after the tempest of 1848, the Jesuits set | to work to get hold of the conscience and heart of the youth all over western Christendom. In addition to old and stereotyped agencies-in use in the Romish Church from time immemorialthey pressed into their service a variety of modes of working of recent device. They did not disdain to borrow a leaf from Protestantism. They knew how widely the Sabbath school had been worked in Protestant lands, and with what results. They did not delay a day in adopting the same machinery for propagating the faith of Rome. They opened Sabbath classes everywhere. The present writer chanced to traverse Italy and France at the period now referred to, and had an opportunity of witnessing the new tactics. These he found in vigorous operation in Rome, in Venice, in Paris, and in other great cities. When the service in the cathedral had ended, the youth of both sexes were gathered into church, ranged in classes of tens and twenties, each under a lay or clerical teacher; and there they stood, with the little catechism in hand, occupying the vast expanse of the cathedral floor, and answering the interrogatories of their masters. Rarely could the youth forming these classes read: they were not taught their letters, on purpose that they might be shut out from books, and be entirely in the hands of the priest. They were taught their catechism by rote from their teachers' lips; and in the same way were trained to repeat hymns to the Virgin, prayers to the saints, and initiated into all the mysteries of the Romish system, so far as it was judged fit to indoctrinate them therein. To this was added early communion, early confession, the education of thousands of young women in convents, and all the other appliances which that Church adopts to stunt the intellect, bend the will, enthral the conscience, and nourish a blind belief in superstition. The boys and girls of that period are the men and women of the present day. Hence the extraordinary spectacle-extraordinary only when not explained-of the grand-children of the men who dragged the priests of France to the scaffold, following the priest wherever he chooses to lead them; bowing down to kiss his feet, or the sacred heart, or to worship anything that he tells them deserves their veneration. The priest may be excused, surely, if with a pardonable vanity he marshals on the streets and highways those whom, with great pains and art, he has fashioned to his purpose. They are the trophies of his victory over his age and over his country. PILGRIMS BECOMING CRUSADERS. But Rome does not generate enthusiasm only that it may run to waste, like vapour blown into the air. She has always a practical end in view, and never fails to find fitting work for the masses she has fanaticized. An age of pilgrimages has generally been followed by an age of crusades; in other words, of persecutions. The men and women who set out for the Holy Sepulchre in the character of pilgrims, were easily transformed into warriors giving over to recite their paternosters, they began to shout, "Death to the infidels! The crowds whom St. Dominic led to the shrines in the south of France, after having their devotion stimulated by canticles, relics, and priestly benedictions, returned with fresh ardour to burn the dwellings and kill the persons of the Albigenses. Sixty thousand fell victims in the town of Beziers alone. The state of Europe at this day, happily, does not permit of the literal imitation of these historic precedents; but may it not be possible to bring back a state of things that may admit of it? and beyond doubt the pilgrimages of France are intended to help towards this end. "How will these pilgrimages end?" asks the New York Tablet. "Thus far these pilgrims do but pray and say their beads, confess their sins, and receive holy communion; "-very silly were it all to end there, thinks the Tublet; but that is only the beginning,-prayers and beadtelling are but a means to an end. And so the Tablet goes on to ask, "Can it be that the pilgrims of peace may somehow be transformed into ranks of warriors against those who hold the Faith captive? Can it be that the hands of those who hold rosaries to-day, may yet in 1 battles soon to come wield swords for Faith and Church and God?" With what fondness does the Tablet gloat over the picture, soon it hopes to become a reality! "Such things have happened," it exclaims-sanguine all the while that they will happen again. "But whatever may be the result of this awakening of Catholic faith, these pilgrims are a grand proof of the enthusiasm that still throbs in Catholic hearts. The faith that seemed to sleep is suddenly aroused, and confronts this age in all the glory of its strength and simplicity." THE COUNT DE CHAMBORD. The first and immediate object to which these pilgrimages have respect, and which they are designed to further, is the restoration of Henry V. This miserable spawn of royalty, who believes himself the vicegerent of God in the second place for the first he must ever reserve for his master, the Pope-and who thinks that he will regenerate society by simply waving a white flag above it, is the tool and nominee of the Jesuits. His elevation to the throne of his ancestors is the first step to the realization of the Jesuit programme. That programme, at this hour, is a long and a grave one. They have the world to put all right. But first they must mount the throne in the person of the Count de Chambord. This would give them the arms, the treasures, and the whole appliances of the kingdom of France, which they would energetically wield for "the salvation of society," as their phrase is. Such an aquisition might well console them for the loss of the petty sovereignty of the Roman States. It would afford them the means of recovering that sovereignty, and much more besides. Undoubtedly it would stir them up to make the attempt; and the very attempt would infer great disasters to Europe, and many woes to France. The late Professor Kortum of Heidelberg, in his lectures on the Condition of France during the Second Empire, made the following pertinent remark: "By this time the French have exhausted all possible forms of government. They have in turn had a kingdom, a republic, and an empire; and then again another kingdom, another republic, and another empire. Should they abolish the Second Empire too, the only thing that re mains for them to introduce would be a Papacy." Twenty years ago, when this sentiment was uttered by the sarcastic scholar, it elicited not a little laughter from the audience. Now, however, the dictum is likely to become a tangible reality; for the day that sees Henry V. on the throne of his ancestors, sees France a Papacy, and a Papacy of the worst type, a kingdom of Jesuits --for the real King of France would be the General of the Jesuits. Already these holy deeds of pilgrimages have borne fruit, and fruit of the kind so ardently contemplated by those who have planned and fostered them. The prayers offered at the shrines visited have not been in vain. Some months ago the Univers edified its readers by informing them that the fall of M. Thiers was an answer to these intercessions. It is something to know that the toil and sweat of these holy palmers-it was in the dog-days they made their journeyhave not been thrown away, but that, on the contrary, they have reaped the substantial reward of hurling from power an anti-Jesuit ruler. And if they can cast one politician down, why may they not lift another up: why may they not install the man who stands so unflinchingly by the divine right, and the white flag, and the unrestricted power to do whatever the Jesuit shall bid him? THE CRUCIFIX OF ST. SALVATOR. We know not whether the images of France have yet spoken to any of their votaries commanding them to elect the Count of Chambord as King, but as wonderful things have happened in former times; and sure we are, that were the rumour to go abroad that some one of these wooden deities had opened its lips and found articulate speech, there is faith enough in France at this hour to credit it. In the cathedral church of St. Salvator in Spain, there was an old image of Jesus Christ crucified, which lay behind the choir in a small chapel filled with lumber. Nobody took the smallest notice of that image. There was an exception, however, to the general neglect, in the case of a devout prebend or canon of the church, whose wont it was every day to kneel down before it, and pray fervently to it. His plight was not unlike that of the image: he |