"Come in, now.

What

her home. will Uncle Carl say to all this, I wonder?"

Uncle Carl did not say much, when, the children having been sent out to play, the elders drew their chairs closer around the still standing tea-table, and listened intently to Dick's story. The others received it with many exclamations and much wiping of eyes; but the stolid German smoked his big pipe and looked, or tried to, as if he had known it all before.

"I'll know before this time tomorrow if it's the same," said Dick, when the reading was finished, and many conjectures had been put forward and discussed.

"It is the strangest thing ever was heard of," exclaimed Mrs. Alaine, "that he should meet you so often and not know who you were!" "With your mother's name, too," added Mrs. Stoffs.

"Perhaps, after all, he is not so ignorant," suggested Dick. "It may be that it was on account of my name he made so much of me."

"I think he must be devoured with remorse," Mrs. Alaine said forcibly, "whenever he thinks of his beautiful wife."

"This Mrs. Brandon couldn't hold a candle to her," added Mrs. Stoffs. "I never saw her," said Dick.

"She was very pretty," explained Carl, speaking unexpectedly.

"Pretty!" cried Mrs. Stoffs, in great surprise.

Pretty!" repeated Mrs. Alaine, with great contempt.

not look as if she could say boo to a goose, and yet she ruled the whole house; it was her extravagance that ruined the poor man.

"I think it was his own dishonesty," said Carl.

"O Uncle Carl!" remonstrated Rose, "right before Mr. Richard."

'We don't know yet that he has anything to do with 'Mr. Richard,' as you call him; but I'd say it, if need were, to the man's own face. His wife may have been a little, tyrannical, extravagant fool; but the more fool he for letting her take other men's money out of his purse."

Indeed, Carl, that's a thing they'll never say of you," responded his wife, laughing. "But now come away, and let Mr. Dick get some rest, for I suppose he'll be off by daylight."

"I shall, indeed," said Dick.

"Well, good-night! Mr. Dick, you must not let these things keep you awake; if you find your family out, it may be the last time you will sleep under our roof.”

"If I thought that, Mrs. Stoffs, I should seek them with with a heavy heart; but nothing can make that so but death, can it?”

"Go to bed, good people," grumbled Carl; "all your noise makes my head ache."

He went up with Dick and had a long conversation with him, after the rest were asleep.

"Go find Dr. Heremore, of Wiltshire, unless there comes to be no doubt that he is gone away, or dead,”. were his parting words; he is better worth seeking than any other. You will need money, and you shall

Carl.

"Well, indeed, if you call such a baby pretty, I give up!" said Mrs. Stoffs. "Why, Mr. Dick, she did

few gold pieces which Mrs. Stoffs, in the sanctuary of her own room, had hurriedly and gladly brought out from countless rags, all tied up in an

old stocking, at her liege lord's command, for this purpose.

Dick promised to do his best, shook hands silently all around,

enough for this."

"Then do not spend mine, but take it with you for fear of accident. Good-night; do not be fooled by anything Mr. Brandon may say-he's an artful one--but find out all you can about your grandfather; remember that."

So Dick was left to pass a sleepless, fevered night, filled with the strangest fancies, and perplexed by a thousand fruitless conjectures. At the first glimmering of daylight he was up, and, after making a show of eating the substantial breakfast his kind friends had prepared for him, turned, without being able to say more than a word or two, to leave. Dood-by," said Trot, sliding down from her chair, with her bib on, and her face not over clean, to get his parting kiss, as well as to put in a reminder for his return. "What 'oo bing Trot from the 'tore?"

"What do you want, Trot?" asked Dick, lifting her up.

"Me wants putty tat," she answered "dear 'ittle titten !" with animation ;

had ready to throw after him, at last heard the gate close behind him, and was alone on his way to the little yellow station-house.

"He'd better be alone," Rose had said when something had been said privately about accompanying him. "He has a great deal to think about, and he can do that best while he is walking in this fresh morning air.”

"O mamma!" she said, when Mrs. Alaine stood beside her, after Dick had passed out of sight, "O mamma! if Mr. Brandon should take it angrily!"

"You may be sure he will not," replied Mrs. Alaine, "he is so broken down, he will be very thankful to find a son like our Dick who will be worth so much to him. He is the most selfish man ever lived, Mr. Brandon is."

THE church and the world have been filled with expectation for more than a year. When the catholic bishops were gathered at Rome to celebrate the eighteenth centenary of the martyrdom of St. Peter, and for the solemn canonization of saints, the Sovereign Pontiff declared the necessity of a general council, and an nounced, at the same time, his intention to convoke it at an early date.

The bull of indiction has already appeared. On the twenty-ninth day of last June, the feast of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, the Holy Father, by letters addressed to all the bishops of the Christian world, fixed the date of the future council, and summoned the Episcopate of the Catholic Church to Rome. Since that time, by two truly paternal letters, the Holy Father has invited the Greek Bishops, and our separated brethren of all the protestant communions, to profit by the future council to undertake again the work of reunion, already several times attempted by the church, but which has always been frustrated by the misfortunes and the evils of our day. So it is no longer merely a hope. The first act necessary for the holding of the council is accomplished. The apostolic letters, known already throughout the world and received everywhere with joy, even amid the infatuations and the bitter woes of the present time, have stirred the hearts of the people. All look again to Rome. Even her enemies are attentive as well as astonished, and they feel that a great event is going

to happen. And truly that which is soon to come to pass at Rome, and in the church, is a rare and solemn fact, a fact of sovereign importance, perhaps even the greatest event of the century. Let no one feel surprised at this language. I am well aware that events of immense importance have marked the beginning and the course of the nineteenth century. Profound revolutions have passed over it, and even yesterday we have seen one of the oldest thrones of Europe toppling over. Enmities and wars have disturbed nations. The old and new world are forced to meet the same difficult problems. Yet in this century there is something superior to worldly ambition and the interests of political passions. It is the spiritual interests of the people, and those supremely important questions, whose solution brings peace to the soul, and tells us of the eternal destinies of humanity. It is for such purposes as these that the Catholic Church calls her bishops to Rome. True it is that the church appears to many men as being of little importance; she seems to occupy only a small place in modern society, so small, indeed, that modern politicians have recommended that she should no longer be taken into consideration. Yet the church is, and must remain, the most noble power of the world, because she is the spiritual power; and Rome, the centre of this power-Rome which will soon within her walls these great sessions of catholicity-will be always, ac

see

cording to the words of the poet, "the most beautiful and the most holy of things beneath the sun". Rerum pulcherrima Roma.

What then is the Catholic Church, and what is this council which is going, within a few months, to present so grand a spectacle to the world? I propose to follow the example of my venerable colleagues, who have, in France and in the different parts of Christendom, published pastoral instructions on this subject. I will recall to your minds what an ecumenical council is, to which, for a long time, we have not been accustomed. I will state the motives, inspired from on high, which have induced the Holy Father to take this step, which is the most considerable and extraordinary of the pontifical government. Then we shall see if there is any foundation for the alarm that the announcement of this act has caused among certain badly disposed or feebly enlightened minds: finally, I will make known what we, bishops, priests, and faithful, have the right to expect.

I.

THE COUNCIL.

"God," says Bossuet, "has created a work in the midst of us, which, separated from every other cause and belonging to him alone, fills all time and all places, and bears everywhere in the world the impression of his hand, the stamp of his authority: it is Jesus Christ and his church."

There exists, then, in this world, above all human things, though at the same time most intimately connected with them, a spiritual society, an empire of souls. An empire of a different and divine order, more heavenly than worldly, and yet an empire really here below, a complete

society, having, like every other so ciety, its organization, its laws, its action, its life. A society not built up by the hand of man, but by God himself. It does not require the approval of any human being; for its mission is as sacred as its source, and it draws from it all its essential rights. A pilgrim in this world and a divine stranger, as Bossuet has somewhere said, and yet a sovereign, the sovereign of souls, where she has an inviolable sanctuary. She does not encroach upon the temporal powers, neither will she abdicate at their suggestion her divine rights. She is happy to meet with their approval, and she does not disdain their alliance; but she knows, when it is necessary, how to do without them. She does not impede their terrestrial mission, nor will she consent that they should interfere with her career. universal society is God's church, which knows no limit of time or barrier of space; she is the treasurehouse of celestial goods, charged to communicate evangelical truth to men until the end of time; and, for this reason, as well as by her origin and her growth, she holds in a world which she alone has civilized, a place which no other power will ever fill. Yes, this marvel exists upon the earth; among all human, temporal, limited, and constantly changing governments, there is this spiritual society, this government of souls, extending everywhere, immutable, without boundaries, and which is called the Catholic Church.

A

If we examine her construction more closely-and we must do this if we wish to understand the meaning of the most solemn of her acts, the Ecumenical Council-we shall see with what divine art Jesus Christ has proportioned the means to the end. It is a part of our faith, that the Son of God has given to men, not

for a time but for the whole duration. of time, "for all days, even to the consummation of the world," a collection of truths, of commandments, and of sacred ordinances. The Christian society that our Lord called his church, ecclesiam meam, has the guardianship of these divine revelations. A visible society, because religion should not be an occult thing; and perpetually visible, because perpetuity has been promised to it; in short, a universal society, because all men, without exception, are called and admitted within her fold.

But the divine revelations could not be transmitted unaltered for ages, if they had been subjected to changing and capricious interpretations of private judgment; therefore it was indispensable that the doctrinal authority should be sovereign, that is to say, it must be infallible. An authority cannot be sovereign in matters of faith, and demand an interior assent, without being infallible. This it was that the divine Founder of Christianity has wished to do, and really did, when, giving to the apostles their mission, he pronounced these words, the last which have fallen from his lips: "As the Father has sent me, I send you. Go then and teach all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and teach them to observe all the commandments that I have given to man: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." Such is, then, the essential character of the church; it is a doctrinal authority, providentially infallible by the divine assistance, in all things revealed by God.

Such

It is easily seen how unity is born of this infallibility; not an accidental unity, but a necessary and permanent unity, because the principle of unity is permanent in the church.

The principle of unity, and besides this, a centre of unity, was among the indispensable conditions of a church thus founded. It was necessary that a teaching church, spread throughout the world, should have a head, a centre, a chief, in order that it might be united in a single and distinctive body. Jesus Christ has not neglected this necessity; for among his disciples he chose one whom he invested with certain special privileges, to whom he entrusted, according to his divine expression, "the keys of the kingdom of heaven," whom he called the rock, the foundation-stone of the edifice, whom he commanded "to confirm his brethren in the faith," whom he called the pastor of the sheep as well as of the lambs, that is to say, the shepherd of the entire fold.

This is the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. In order to place a perpetual check upon time, which destroys all things, and in order to give the necessary support to the human mind, which is ever changing, it was, indeed, necessary that a religious society should be thus constructed. But a divine hand was required to constitute a society of this kind, which was composed of frail men; and these grand characters of unity and authority, in perpetuity and in catholicity, are in the church as the shining seal of the powerful hand which has established it. Thus it remains firm among men, and even in spite of universal change. In vain is the natural restlessness of the human mind shocked at the dogmas of our faith, and heresies succeed to heresies ;* this constant movement cannot affect her firm constitution ; she will remain, as says the apostle, "the pillar and ground of truth" —Columna et firmamentum Veritatis.

.*