ancient monuments and monumental inscriptions. Some of the specimens selected are extremely striking and impressive, especially when contrasted with the tawdry though elaborate compositions of more modern times. Mr. Neale does not shrink from avowing his anxiety for a return, not alone to the olden simplicity, but to the faith which inspired it, and to which it owes its beauty and significance. He is afraid that the form " Orate pro anima," though sanctioned, nay adopted, by some of the great divines, would hardly meet with general acceptance; but "why" he asks, "not restore Cujus animæ propicietur Deus? or Cujus anima cum Deo? or Cujus animæ et omnium fidelium defunctorum misereatur Deus? or, again, the prayer Jesu fili Dei miserere mei, or Sancta Trinitas, Unus Deus, miserere nobis ; or, in plain English, Jesu mercy!"— (p. 230.)

Nothing could be happier than his description of a procession in a Gothic cathedral. He is speaking of what he saw in Amiens.

"I can almost fancy that I see it now, as I saw it for the first time, on much such an evening as this. The stupendous height of the vaulted roof; the rich foliage of the piers; the tall lancet arches throwing themselves upwards; the interlacings of the decorated window-tracery; the richness of the stained glass; the glow of the sun-light on the southern chapels; the knotted intricacies of the vaulting ribs; the flowers and wreaths and holy symbols, that hung self-poised over the head: the graceful shafts of the triforium; the carved angels, that with outstretched wings keep guard over the sacred building; the low, yet delicately carved choir-stalls; the gorgeous altar, faintly seen beyond them; the sublime apse, with its inimitably slim lancets, carrying the eye up higher and higher through the dark cloister-gallery, through the blaze of the crimson clerestory to the marble grandeur of the fretted roof; lights and carving and jewels, and gold, and the sunny brightness of the nave, and the solemn grayness of the choir; these all are but accessories to the scene. The huge nave-piers rise from the midst of a mighty multitude; the high-born lady; the peasant mother, with her infant; the grey-headed labourer; the gay bourgeoise; the child, that knows only the sanctity of the place; the strong man and the cripple; the wise and the unlearned; the great and the small; the rich and the poor; all meet as equals. The sweet music floats along from the choir; the amen bursts from the congregation. Now the organ, at the westend, takes up the strain, sweetly and solemnly, like the music of far off angels, and as the holy doors open, pours forth the hymn The banners of the King come forth.' White-robed boys strew the way with rose-leaves; there is the gleaming and the perfume of silver censers; there are the rich silver crosses and the pastoral staff; there is the sumptuous pall that covers the Host; there is an endless train of priests with copes and vestments bright as the hues of a summer sunset, gemmed with the jewels of many lands, lustrous with gold, and chased with flowers, and wreaths, and devices of pearl; but each and all bearing, though in different forms, that one symbol, the cross.

Right and left the crowd part as the train passes, and as the pall is borne by, every knee is bent, every head bowed. And now the soft breathings of the organ die away; voice, and clarionet, and flute take up the hymn. The banners of the King' move statelily down the nave; and in every pause of the strain, not a sound is to be heard save the silver chime of the falling censer chains. Now they enter the north aisle: now they bear up again towards the choir: now they wind among its chapels: fainter and fainter arises the holy hymn as they recede eastward; now with faint and mellowed sweetness it steals from the distant shrine of our Lady; now it is silent, and the organ takes up the note of praise."-pp. 253-5.

But far beyond this glowing picture, all gorgeous as it is, we prize the honest and kindly testimony to the devotion of the worshippers, with which he concludes.

"Theophilus. And does the devotion of the worshippers equal the splendour of the worship?"

"Cath.-Undoubtedly. We have lately heard, in an archidiaconal charge, the assertion, that in the Romish church, the people gaze on the official devotions of another and do nothing for themselves. I hope this is only ignorance.” -pp. 255.

We shall add one other extract of a different kind, but singularly beautiful both in thought and expression. It is a description of the most touching of all scenes,--a burial at sea.

"It was that of one, who after vainly seeking for health in a more genial climate, was returning to England in the hope of lying among her own people. But we yet wanted three days of making our own land when it pleased God to call her to himself. It was a still summer evening that I committed her to the deep. The sea was calm and peaceful: the sun almost rested his broad red disk upon the waters, forming a path of glory to himself upon the face of the ocean like a road for happy spirits to a better world; the soft hills of Portugal were blue in the distance, the air was mild and balmy: it was just the scene that seemed as if the world had never known and never could know grief; and there, while the vessel was held on and off, were the mourners clustering round the gangway; there were the weather-beaten sailors with some feeling even in their iron countenances; there was the union-jack, the only mark of respect we could give; then came the solemn service, and at the sad words,' We therefore commit her body to the deep,' the splash of the waters and the gurgling of the waves over that which was committed to their trust— not given to their possession. For who but could feel that to be Christian burial, when the waves had been stilled and trodden by our Redeemer, when the bodies of so many of his saints have been committed to them, and when one day they must of necessity give up their dead ?"—pp. 232-3.

And here we must reluctantly cease. From those which we have hitherto given, an idea may be formed of the lighter portions of the Hierologus. Its

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more solid chapters will well repay a careful and leisurely examination. It can hardly be possible but that these studies will lead to a better appreciation of many great Catholic truths which have been the object of ignorant scorn or bigoted misrepresentation. Of their own nature, too, they are essentially progressive, and every advance is valuable, not only for itself, but for the ulterior results to which it leads. Mr. Neale "feels sure, that when once churches are built or restored so as to be equal to them of olden times, when we have gilded and frescoed roofs and walls, rood screens burning with gold, rich deeply-tinted windows and encaustic tiles, the poverty of our present vestments will become intolerable." We are equally sure that the want will not cease there, that the cravings after the true and the beautiful will not be satisfied even with this advance. Men will not long remain with these forms under their eyes, before they begin to examine seriously how far they possess, how far it is possible within the pale of the Anglican Church to possess, the realities which they represent ;-how far the Anglican Church, as at present constituted, herself attempts to do it? They will begin to enquire whether this "movement," as it is called, is in reality a movement of the Church, and not merely an unauthorized proceeding of private individuals; and to speculate how it is that, while the clergyman of one parish is "decidedly Catholic in his views," a devoted advocate of chancels and east-end altars, a stickler for altar plate and candlesticks, and even an admirer of roods and rood-screens ; yet his neighbouring clergyman-equally a minister of the Church, equally approved and sanctioned by the bishop--looks upon all these things as silly forms, if not dangerous novelties; and what is still more important, denounces to his people as "damnable and idolatrous" the very doctrines which these forms are meant to symbolize and embody? The question will arise, no matter how ingeniously it is mystified, how is it possible that the Church can really hold these as her own doctrines, and yet, in a matter which every other Church claiming to be called Catholic considers essential, leave to individuals, whether clergy or laity, to adopt them or not at their own pleasure; and even impose upon all a body of articles which cannot, without a process of grammatical torture which it is difficult not to call dishonest, be forced into a construction compatible with the belief of them? It will be remembered before long, when the first flush of novelty is over, that this sudden passion for antiquity is of very recent origin, and of very precarious tenure; that there are no canons to guard, no Church authority to enforce it; that it has but little stability beyond the enthusiasm or caprice of those who have forced it into popularity, and that there is no guarantee either in the constitution of the Church, or in the formularies which she imposes, against a relapse into the same feelings and the same usages which existed twenty or thirty years ago, when vestries and rural deans were content to "putty up" the holes in the rickety deal table used for the communion service (p. x,) and when a pulpit or reading desk for the parson's wife, was to be seen vis-à-vis to that in which

the parson himself officiated! (p. 243.) It is perfectly plain that no amount of external decoration, no degree of exactness in restoring the ancient forms, will ever afford any such security. At the time when

"From their holy faith and their ancient rites, her people fell away,"

the external appointments of the English Church-the matèriel, so to speak, of Divine worship-was all but perfect;-certainly far nearer to perfection than all the resources at the command of the present generation of the lovers of antiquity could ever hope to bring it. And yet, when once the bond of unity was severed, and the allegiance to the successor of Peter discarded, how long did the splendour of ceremonial, and the imposing array of external symbols, and the solemnity of public worship, avail as a bulwark to protect the faith with which they had from immemorial ages been associated, or rather identi fied? For a few short years it remained as of old. But the storm came, and the flood rose; and if the weak bulwarks which the established forms presented, had the effect of checking its onward course for a moment, it was but to delay, without averting, the threatened ruin; and the fatal torrent, concentrating its strength by the interruption, gradually swelled beyond the feeble barrier, till at length, overthrowing every obstacle, it swept away all-the ancient faith and the ancient rites,-the symbols and the reality, the substance and the form,-in one common, and, to human power, irreparable ruin.

Nor need we remind Mr. Neale, that in the England of that period every thing was unfavourable to the progress of the innovation. The Catholic doctrines were then the public creed of the English Church: there was nothing in the whole circle of English life,-religious, social, and political,-which did not perfectly harmonize and assort with their spirit. The very courtesies of every-day life, the forms of ordinary salutation, were Catholic in their tone. Men were habituated, from their youth upwards, to hear Catholic language, to witness Catholic usages, and, as it were, almost to breathe a Catholic atmosphere. The truths they were required to believe were constantly brought before their eyes, and kept alive in their memories by a thousand palpable and obvious forms. How completely is the picture now-a-days reversed! And if these forms, all perfect as they were, could not avail to keep England Catholic when she was and had for ages been so, how much less hope that a feeble imitation of them can now restore her Catholicity, after three centuries of rampant and unbridled Protestantism?

Alas, when England tore herself from the side of the parent Church, she madly cast away all the precious privileges of membership,—the holy faith, the sanctifying practices, the sublime and majestic ceremonial. Those of her members who would now regain them, must re-attach themselves in the bonds of obedience to the venerable Mother, under whose arm England enjoyed them in the olden time. Until this is done, all the rest is unavailing. He is but a sorry leech who would close the wound while the barb still remains unextrac

ted. And they who, while her formularies remain Protestant, and her members, and even ministers, fearlessly profess the most Protestant opinions, place their trust in stately churches, with an array of so-called Catholic appliances, -chancels, and choir-stalls, and altar-plate, and copes and crosses,—are but realizing the idea mournfully suggested by Mr. Faber, in his Foreign Churches they have "made to themselves an illuminated transparency—a soothing sight for quiet times--and sat before it so long and so complacently, that they venture to call it a Catholic Church."

From the [London] Catholic Magazine.

THE LIFE OF ST. GENEVIEVE, PATRON SAINT OF PARIS. That divinely inspired canticle which our blessed Lady, filled with the Holy Ghost, poured forth in thanksgiving for the especial and selecting love of God manifested towards her, in choosing her to be the mother of our divine Lord, breathes throughout an ardent love of humility and an admiration of God's favour exhibited towards the lowly, in elevating and exalting them to the seats of the Mighty in His Kingdom. Warmed by a theme so much in unision with her own feelings of deep humility, she dwells in glowing language on this, as the distinguished characteristic of the Kingdom of Grace. While the high and the haughty are passed by, the meek, the modest, and the lowly, are lifted up from their obscurity and enthroned in seats of glory. Such, too, were the prophetic intimations of an Anna, when, as in prophetic vision, looking through the vista upwards of a thousand years, she saw the hand of Omnipotence stretched out to transfer the child of poverty and humiliation from the noisomeness of dunghill, and set him with princes-the princes of his people. As is also recorded in one of the Psalms, selected by the Church for her vesper chant. Such is, indeed, the glory of the kingdom of Christ; when the eye of faith, purged from the film drawn over it by mundane humours, is given to look within the veil, and behold the blessed Court of Heaven filled with triumphant martyrs and confessors clothed in the dazzling array of Heavenly glory. What a countless multitude does it there see; how resplendent with radiance, and beaming with all the benignancy of celestial blessedness, who here on earth trod the path of poverty, and walked in the valley of humility, from the fisherman of Galilee elevated upon the princely Throne of the universal Vicariate of Christ's Kingdom, to the shepherdess of Nanterre exalted to the Patroness of Paris, the proud city of the West, the capital of France, the seat of empire, of arts, science, of civilization, and of taste.

At Nanterre, on the banks of the Seine, about two leagues from Paris, was