all!" cried Agnes, her tears falling abundantly on her sister's head. "Oh, sister! let us kneel together, and say once more the prayers that we said in the days of our childhood. We were children then!we are children still! We will tell our heavenly Father that we are sorry for our sins, and He will not refuse us his pardon and his love."

Twined in each other's arms, they knelt together, and Agnes prayed aloud. It was years since Isabel had heard that voice, the very tones of which were full of piety and love; it was years since a thought of grace, a hope of pardon had entered her soul, and now, with the prayer of her innocent childhood ringing in her ears, and the repentant love of a Magdalen burning in her bosom, full of fear for the future and remorse for the past, she clasped her sister more tightly in her arms, and sobbed aloud.

"Leave me not, sister,-desert me not! Oh, save me from this life of sin, and the God of the sinner and the saint reward you for the deed!"

Agnes folded her sister in her arms.

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My sister, I will never forsake you, until I see you restored to God and his holy Church! I leave you no more!"

The priest now recalled them to their father's chamber, he was about to administer the last awful rights of religion to him. Marie assisted in lighting the candles which her religious sister had now brought from the convent; but Isabel fell prostrate on the floor. How could she venture to look upon the Holy of Holies?-she, whose life had been full of sin! The priest recited a short prayer aloud, and then, with a heart full of contrition and joy, the dying man received from his hands the awful sacrament of the body and blood of his Saviour and his Judge. Afterwards the priest anointed him with holy oil upon the eyes, mouth, &c. praying aloud that the sins he had committed through each of the senses might be forgiven in virtue of the sacrament of extreme unction. The poor penitent wept with joy through. the whole of this most consoling rite, and answered every prayer in a voice tremulous and broken by emotion. The lights were extinguished, but still the priest remained

by the bed of death, and prayed audibly for mercy and grace towards the departing soul. He ceased, and at a sign from her father, Agnes raised her sister, and led her towards his bed. The dying man raised himself up with difficulty, and extending his hand towards them, he said:

"My children, whom I have wronged, before God and his saints, I entreat your pardon."

The words were apparently intended for both, but Isabel felt them to be addressed in a peculiar manner to the injured innocence of her own soul, and bending over his withered hand, she murmured softly,

"God bless you, father."

"Thank you, my child. I die content." A smile was upon his lips as he sank back upon his pillow. Then turning towards Agnes, he whispered,

"Remember this unhappy child."

He closed his eyes, and a shadow, as of death, fell upon his face. The priest saw that the hour was come, and rising up he read that awful recommendation of the departing soul to the mercy of its Creator, beginning,

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Depart, Christian soul," &c. Ere his voice had ceased, the man was dead; and kneeling down he cried out aloud, "From the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord! Lord, hear my voice," &c. And thus, in prayer and supplication, he passed the night by the corpse of the repentant sinner.

The sisters stood beside the grave of their father,-Agnes in the garb of religion, Isabel in the mourning of the world.

"And here we part, my sister," said Agnes. "We part, but it is to meet again. On earth in spirit at the foot of the cross. In heaven, I trust, on the bosom of our Saviour."

Even as she spoke the priest who had attended at her father's death-bed came and took Isabel by the hand.

"My child," he said, in a kind but solemn voice, "am I indeed to understand that you have determined to forsake your evil ways, and to repent of your sins?"

Isabel fell upon her knees.

"With all my heart and with all my soul I do repent of them, father! Would to God that all those whom I have scandalized

by my life could be witnesses now of my shame and sorrow!"

"I believe you, my child!" The good father hesitated for a moment. I have spoken to the superior of the Bon Pasteur,' and she will gladly receive you. You are now, for a time, at least, about to retire from the world, and in prayer and supplication to ask pardon for your sins. But there is one who has a claim upon you. You may see her once more before you depart."

The unhappy girl covered her face with her hands, and her whole frame shook with her violent emotion. It was but for a moment; then removing her hands, every trace of emotion vanished from her calm, pale face. She said, in a tone of quiet resignation,—

"No, my father, the child of sin shall never again bring gladness to the eyes of her mother. I shall see her no more. I commit her to God and Agnes."

"She shall be cared for," said Agnes, in a solemn voice.

The sisters embraced once more; then Isabel drew her veil tightly over her face, and followed the priest.

There is a convent at Angers, and the holy sisters who are professed within its walls have devoted themselves to the noblest work of which the human soul is capable to the protection and reclaiming of the forsaken sinner. Others have devoted themselves to the preservation and instruction of innocence, which naturally awakens pity and love in the human heart; but these noble beings have given their lives, their fortunes, their talents, their very souls, to the reformation of those whom the world indeed has rejected with scorn, but whom Christ once suffered, in the person of Magdalen, to sit at his feet. He who reads all the secrets of the human heart can alone understand the merit of these holy sisters, who, with their pure hearts and spotless reputations have devoted their lives to continual contact with coarse ignorance and vulgar crime. He alone can appreciate their sacrifice and reward it, and truly He does reward it, even with the hundred-fold He has promised to his servants on earth.

Yes! the sister of the "Good Shepherd "

lies down at night upon her humble pallet, the prayers and blessings of the rescued sinner falling like softest dew upon her heart. She rises in the morning to teach those to pray who never prayed before, to engrave the sweet lessons of love and hope upon hearts that but for her had grown hard beneath the influence of crime, desperate beneath the scorn of that world which had lured them to error. The consciousness of many souls rescued through her means from a life of crime, is a charm to make the rough path she has chosen pleasant to her feet; and, at the hour of her death, who shall say these grateful spirits may not surround her bed, like ministering angels, bidding her soul go forth without fear to meet that Judge, whose sorrows she had so often soothed in the sorrows of his poor, whose heaven she had so often made glad, with the joy that angels feel over one sinner doing penance. It was to this blessed retreat from sin and sorrow that the good priest brought Isabel; and as the gates of the convent closed upon her, she felt she had no wish upon earth but to spend the rest of her life in bewailing her sins at the foot of the cross.

Years passed away and the sisters had not met. The one continued in her blessed vocation to hang like an angel of peace over the bed of disease, and to breathe words of contrition and love over the frozen heart of the sinner. The other had entered the order of the Magdalens in the "Bon Pas teur," and had thus devoted the remainder of her days to mourning over the errors of her early youth.

It happened one day that a young novice who had been sent on her daily duties under the care of Sister Agnes, was taken so seri ously ill, that the latter was obliged to ask shelter for her in the convent of the "Bon Pasteur," near which they chanced to be at the time. There she was received with all love and kindness, and a surgeon was sent for, who, upon seeing her, instantly declared that a few hours must terminate her existence. Sister Agnes whispered a few words to the superior, who replied in a tone of deep commiseration, "Poor thing, poor thing! she shall be sent for directly."

A priest now came and administered the last sacraments of the Church to the young girl, and as he went through the awful forms of extreme unction, a look of heavenly joy was upon her dying face. Perhaps at that moment her good angel was suggesting to her the sweetest consolations that the soul can know in the awful hour of its departure from this world. Perhaps he told her that those eyes which the priest now anointed with holy oil, had ever been closed upon the vanities of this world,that those ears had ever been open to the voice of distress,-those feet been often wearied in seeking its abode,—those hands been ever employed in administering to its wants, those lips been only unclosed to instruct its ignorance or to console its afflictions. Well might her soul rejoice in the anticipation of those blessed words, "What you have done to the least of my brethren, you have done even unto me." Since, in the midst of her deep humility, she could not but feel that those senses, for the sins of which the priest was even now imploring pardon, and which by others are so often made the agents of crime, had been used by her but as ministering angels to the sorrows of her Saviour in the persons of his poor.

So thought those who knelt around her bed ; so thought one who lay prostrate at the half open door, and who, in the depths of her humility, deemed herself unworthy to enter the chamber where a saint was about to depart to the espousals of her Lord! The lights were extinguished, the prayers were said, and then Sister Agnes bent over the dying girl, and whispered something in her ear. A shadow fell upon that angel face; it seemed as if she had

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been disturbed in a dream of heaven. then she looked at the sister with a smile of acquiescence.

Agnes approached the door and led to the bed side the tottering form of the Magdalen who had been prostrate there. Isabel gazed for one moment upon the holy face of her child, and struck by an awful idea of her sanctity, she fell on her knees and whispered softly, "Spouse of Christ, pray for and bless thy mother."

The girl sat upright in her bed, every feature of her face bright in the holy exultation of her soul, and falling into the arms of her mother, she cried out,—

"Mother! my mother! we shall meet in heaven!"

They laid her back upon the pillow, but she was dead. Isabel hid her face in the coverlet, while they read the prayers for the spirit gone to judgment. The rest of the assistants now departed, and the mother was left alone with the corpse of her child. One of the nuns soon came to seek her. She rose, imprinted one last kiss upon those lips, where a happy smile was lingering still, and then she followed the nun, her arms folded meekly on her bosom. Agnes met her at the door-she drew her sister towards her, they gazed wistfully upon each well known face, then they fell into each other's arms, and lifting up their voices, they wept aloud. It was but for a moment: Agnes withdrew, and the sisters met no more upon earth. But their souls were often blended together in prayer; and in patience and humble hope they awaited the day when they should meet once again upon the bosom of their Lord-that guiltless and that pardoned one! M. C. A. Feast of St. Catharine of Sienna.

VOL. II.-No. 9.

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These words of the modern Pierre de Montreuil are, alas! too true. How different the structures now erected for the worship of the Most High God, from those venerable piles which the faith of by-gone ages has left as standing proofs of the unity of spirit which animated the children of the Christian Church.

"Formerly," says Pugin, "the word church implied a particular sort of edifice, invariably erected on the same principle; it might be highly ornamented, or it might be simple; it might be large or small; lofty or low; costly or cheap; but it was arranged on a certain regulated system. Churches built hundreds of miles apart, and with the difference of centuries in the period of their erection, would still exhibit a perfect similarity of purpose, and by their form and arrangement attest that the same faith had instigated their erections, and the same rites were performed within their walls."

What was then the style which the whole Christian world had adapted to the dwellings of the Son of God? The Gothic or pointed architecture, which was formed from a fusion of the Norman and Saracenic styles, and which attained its highest degree of purity and perfection in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This Christian style was then formed in the bosom of the Church; it was, therefore, modeled to suit our sacred rites, for which the monotonous

symmetry of the Pagan orders was utterly unfit.

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But, some persons will observe, if this style be essentially Christian (I understand Christian,” in the sense it had before the dawn of that age of light, the sixteenth century, gave it its many different, nay, even opposite meanings), why did not the Christian metropolis adopt it for its own buildings? The answer is easy. When the Roman hydra crouched at the feet of the disciples of the Galilean fishermen, the temples existing were converted to the purposes of the new faith, and the others subsequently built were modeled after these. Besides few were the crusaders from the Papal territory, and the pointed style was introduced in a great measure by these pilgrim soldiers; for if we pass over to Lombardy, we will see that, though in the midst of the much admired productions of the Greek and Roman schools, the Milanese Christians thought the style which their knights had vaunted, well adapted to the erection of one of the richest piles that ever graced fair Italy, and we even find Sienna giving its name to one of the varieties of this truly Christian order.

But many and deeply rooted are the prejudices existing against the style; some the result of the discoveries, made by the philosophic expounders of the Gospel, of the ignorance, barbarity and superstitions of the old Catholics; others caused by some monstrosities erected by modern architects and christened Gothic. Here I will quote the writings of almost the only architect who in this century of enlightenment ever surmised that the non-reformed Christians knew what they were doing.

"It is very probable," says Pugin, "that many well disposed persons have been led to approve, or at least tolerate these miserable erections from a mistaken idea that nothing could be accomplished in the

Now pointed style under an immense cost. so far from this being the case, this architecture has decidedly the advantage on the score of economy, it can be accommodated to any materials, any dimensions, and any locality.

The erroneous opinions

formed on this subject, are consequent on the unfortunate results attending the labors of those who when about to build in the pointed style, take some vast church for their model, and then, without a twentieth of the space, or a hundredth part of the money, try to do something like it. This is certain to be a failure. Had they on the contrary, gone and examined some edifice of antiquity, corresponding in scale and intention to the one they wish to erect, they would have produced a satisfactory building at a reasonable cost. Some persons seem to imagine that every pointed church must be a cathedral or nothing. This has even been cited as a reason why the proposed new Catholic Church at York should not be Gothic on account of its vicinity to the cathedral. Nothing can be more absurd no one would think for an instant of attempting to rival the extent or the richness of that glorious pile; but were there not above thirty parochial churches anciently in York? and did the builders think it expedient to depart from Catholic architecture in the design, on account of the stupendous cathedral? Certainly not. There were many buildings among them, and small ones too, equally perfect and beautiful for the purpose for which they were intended as the minster itself. Architecture to be good must be consistent. A parish church, to contain a few hundred persons, must be very differently arranged from a metropolitan cathedral; and if this principle be understood, and acted upon, the Catholics of York may erect an edifice suitable to their present necessities, which would not be unworthy of William de Melton or Walter Skirlaw.

"Churches must be regulated in their scale and decorations (as was formerly the case) by the means and numbers of the people; it being always remembered that the house of God should be as good, as spacious, as ornamented as circumstances will

allow. Many an humble village church of rabble walls and thatched roof has doubtless formed as acceptable an offering to Almighty God (being the utmost the poor people could accomplish) as the most sumptuous fabric erected by their richer brethren. Every thing is relative; a building may be admirable and edifying in one place which would be disgraceful in another. As long as the Catholic principle exists of dedicating the best to God, be that great or little, the intention is the same and the result always entails a blessing."

Thus we see that costliness is not the sole merit of this style, which independently of the feelings of religious awe it excites in our hearts, saves a considerable expense by the very principle on which it is founded, viz: that "the severity of Christian architecture is opposed to all deception."

"The two great rules for design," says Pugin, "are these-first, that there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction or propriety secondly, that all ornament should consist of enrichment of the essential construction of the building. The neglect of these two rules is the cause of all the bad architecture of the present time. Architectural features are continually tacked on buildings with which they have no connexion, merely for the sake of what is termed effect; and ornaments are actually constructed instead of forming the decoration of construction, to which in good taste they should be always subservient.

"In pure architecture the smallest detail should have a meaning, or serve a pur pose; and even the construction itself should vary with the material employed, and the designs should be adapted to the material in which they are executed."

That these principles have been strictly carried out in the Gothic style, a study of the different parts of a pointed building would soon prove; but that study is not at present our object.

Here then in a few words may we draw the contrast between the Christian and the Pagan styles. The former constructs the essential parts and beautifies them: the latter builds its ornaments, though in some