thou art now so let and hindered by the straits that surround thee? How shall thine eye be able to pierce the veil of the sanctuary, and bathe in the splendour of eternal light?

Thou shalt indeed so bathe: for to this end thou wert created. Thou wert made for GOD, though born a stranger to him. Yet in the fulness of time, there was a spirit moved over the face of the waters, as powerful, yet more in mercy, than that which brooded over material creation, and by virtue of HIM, who hangs on the Rood over the sanctuary, that font was blessed, which gives thee purity again and baptismal reconciliation with GOD's offended justice. For from HIM who hung upon the Rood, all graces flow; from HIм the sacraments have virtue; the hand of man in consecrated orders has its might; the angels have ministry, and the saints have glory. From HIM, thou hast a MOTHER to plead for thee; angels to watch thee; saints and confessors to pray for thee; the Church to guide thee; the sacraments to cleanse and sustain thee; the devout to help thee; the poor to dig the mine of charity for thee; and the afflicted to wash the gold of corporal mercy in thy behoof.

"Animula, vagula, blandula,
Pallidula, rigida, nudula"-

Poor, trembling, cowering soul, wouldst thou have more? Yes! thou hast more,-for, through HIM, thou hast HIMSELF to feed thee!

But though all these are vouchsaved to the soul here, yet would they have been so given were the fulness of fruition to be perfected here? Alas! her time is not yet come. She shall, indeed, one day bathe in the brightness of eternal light, but it shall be after she has put off the weeds of flesh, after she has passed through the barren wilderness of her worldly pilgrimage, and entered

A new version of this beautiful fragment is wanted. That by Pope, beginning

"Ah! fleeting spirit-wandering fire,"

correct and chaste as it is, yet by being confined within a recurring measure of four lines, has lost much of the simplicity and wildness of the original. The want of diminutives of endearment in our language, and their abundance in the ludicrous sense, is certainly a stumbling block in the way of attempting to naturalise the above; but still we think it capable of being rendered vernacular, and more near the original than the version of our own classic. If we were asked to point out one to attempt this, we should name the Author of the " Lyra Ecclesiastica," whose facility of versification, refined taste, middle-age schooling, and good well of old English, give every likelihood of making a successful version of this, unquestionably the most touching fragment of all Western antiquity.

by the strifeful passage of the valley of the shadow of death. Therefore it is that she still striveth, that she still hath need of such abundant help in her days of contest, that she is so plentifully provided with weapons of defence from Heaven's armoury, that angels shield her, and saints cheer her on; that she sows in tears, to reap in joy; that she lays up treasures in heaven, that are gathered on earth; and which shall assuredly be her's, when she shall be called to put on the renovated garb of glory that shall be given her; changed, indeed, but still the same; seeing that the wounds of her passion shall shine like the stars, and the scars of her martyrdom be as precious in the sight of the whole court of Heaven, as the wounds of her Blessed Redeemer are adorable to angels, and saints, and men.

But, non progredi, regredi est. The soul may sit in silence and meditate; she may stand and watch; but sitting or standing, her course must still be directed towards GOD. Her course must still be directed by the SPOUSE, whose BRIDE we have seen standing before us in array of beauty but as the bride moveth in her mystical body, so also the soul must follow the bride. Non progredi, regredi est. In her silence, like one that sitteth in a ship, she must still move on; she must still watch and meditate; yea, as we have seen, while she sleepeth, her heart must still keep watch. For "with the thoughts in which you go to sleep," saith St. John Chrysostom, "with the like you will wake." Give thy last thoughts to the world, and mammon shall claim the like from thee on the dawn of consciousness. Give thy last thoughts to thy crucified Redeemer; sign thy breast with the holy sign; say, "in manus tuas, commendo spiritum meum ;" and with the return of day, thou shalt find that thy first thoughts are of JESU; thy first action, the making the sign of the cross on thy heart; and should death have called thee away in sleep, thou shalt awake to find that thou hast, indeed, commended thy soul into the hands of a most merciful Lord!

The soul shall then learn what her fleshly continent now forbids. She shall then see that splendour of Eternal Light which is revealed only when the veil of death has been withdrawn. Meanwhile, as one of the mystical body, she moveth on, and so to perfection, and the consummation of all. Let us pause, then, and prepare the way for higher thought; let us see a saintly line moving along towards that end; let us look on them, as symbols of a brighter and more exalted succession; and since we cannot speak but by corporeal images; so let us see in the solemn processions of the Church, as they pass before us, but images and symbols of that wondrous line which it has taken ages to pass, and

yet when passed, is but a faint reflection of that higher order, which goeth on in heaven for all eternity. Some of those are types of that honour which is due to HIM from whom all our best gifts flow,-who came down from Heaven,-who is, as his bride after him, without variableness, and in neither of whom is there change or shadow of turning; some walk in honour, some in thankfulness; some move along in holy imprecation; some in hope; some in sorrow, and some, though tearful, yet in joy; but in all and each we shall see typified, and as a preparation for, that higher and more worthy line, which we shall yet with God's blessing behold, ere we leave this our seat of meditation in THE PORCH; to enter ourselves into the more solemn nave.

Bearing this in mind, let us open the book of experience.

It was a beautiful evening in the month of June; the sky was clear, and of that dark azure hue that told that the air had none of the chilly north in its balm ;-that we were, indeed, in a southern climate.

It was the day on which the feast of CORPUS CHRISTI was celebrated in Bordeaux. The streets of the old capital were thronged; from the windows and balconies of the houses, drapery and tapestry were hung, or they were adorned with wreaths of flowers or green boughs. The pavement was strewed with foliage, and in places where the adorable Victim was to pass, it was literally ankle-deep in roseleaves. We had but the day before landed, after a six days' sail, from a country where religion had no rites; whose service had no attractions; whose doctrine had no symbolical language, to speak to the silence of the heart; whose form had neither room for imagination to dwell in, nor scope for devotion to spread her wings therein. The fairest and best gifts of GOD, all that elevate and support the soul of all that raises him intellectually above the brutes that perish, were there held vain and useless, if offered for GOD's service, as if it were only the dregs of human intellect that should be consecrated to GOD, and all that by a right direction might elevate his soul should be degraded to the service of lust, or vanity, or empty pride. Music, that soars on wings of inspiration to heaven, was there given to pander to the frivolities of life, and the merest dregs given to the service of Him who implanted in the heart of man those gifts, to the end that they should be restored, after cultivation, to Him again. Architecture racked the brain, and new orders arose, to prove that even invention, when it springs from the gratification of human or national vanity, can produce only deformity. There painting, shorn of its heavenly end, flourished but to minister its degraded art, to commemorate on the

man;

canvas, the pride and bad taste of its supporters; and sculpture, that might have idealised by single figures the chain of GoD's mysteries of redemption, instead of our blessed Redeemer, or his holy Mother,instead of the angels of GOD and the saints of heaven,-fell a slavish imitator of the impurity and sensual figments of a heathen people, who were in a measure so far excusable, that they did it in blindness, and that the light of salvation had never spread its beams on their benighted polity.

In a land so barren, and so void of food for holy thought, we had been but six days before, and had alighted in one which of old had been true, but which, after a long void of haply worse desecration, was, by GoD's favour, again restored to holy faith, and to the public celebration of its moving mysteries.

We shall never forget, when as a stranger we walked the festive streets, we heard for the first time the solemn strain of devout music rise in the tranquil air. It was the procession in honour of, and bearing along THE BODY OF OUR LORD through the city. Troops of acolytes, like winged angels, led the way; and little girls, beautiful in their girlhood, scattered sweet flowers as they went. The holy banners of the Cross and of our blessed Lady floated over all; the solemn clergy followed, and from glowing censers clouds of sweetest incense filled the air with rich perfume: from innumerable voices rose canticles of jubilee and praise; and last of all, borne by a venerable prelate, under a canopy of silk enwrought with gold, came the blessed BODY OF OUR LORD; for whose honour and glory all these best gifts of GOD to man had been consecrated, as so many offerings to his adorable presence. And wheresoever the BLESSED HOST went, the faithful knelt devoutly ;-like waves of the sea, as He passed they fell and rose, and the noise was as the rush of many waters. What the emotions were when the benediction was given from the Reposoir;—when the Tantum Ergo and 0 Salutaris Hostia rose in the open air, that was redolent with incense, those only can tell who have had the pleasure of witnessing the like solemn rites as these, and under the like circumstances.

In the green valleys of England, when all was smiling in the pride of our lusty summer, when the roses and gay flowers showed forth in all their bravery, such processions, in honour of the blessed body of our Lord, were once common. By God's mercy, in the inclosures of some of our colleges, and in the residences of some of our nobility and gentry, we have seen a glimpse of the ancient bravery restored. May we not look forward to the time when such solemn rites shall once more be

common ; when the lordly and the low, in one common bond of poverty of spirit, shall again meet together to give glory to their common Lord, in the one faith; when the twofold revulsion of a false ascendency on the one hand, and negative dissent on the other, shall be neutralised, and both shall be joined together in the firm union of God's one holy Catholic Church, whose loadstar is the Cross; where GOD met MAN in hypostatic union in the person of our Redeemer JESU.

But there are yet other processions which the Church sets before us, for our improvement, instruction, and edification. Let us turn then to a vast and dimly-lighted abbey ;-let us look and listen, as the solemn line of holy monks walk processionally round their hallowed aisles; see them, with downcast eyes, following the processional Cross, on which, at the foot of our Lord's Rood, stands Mary and the beloved disciple— those two links that bind us, as it were, in kinship with our GOD; hear, how with downcast look, and countenance full of recollection and holy joy, they lift up the devout litanee of intercession, as they move round the holy sanctuary, into which, as into a garden enclosed, the pure only are privileged to enter. Hear how their voices rise and fall-how one speaks, and many respond; hear how the sound echoes in the highpitched roof, and seems to linger in the rafters, among the imagery whose praises have been sung, whose intercessional prayers have been entreated, whose invocation has been solemnly implored. In our old abbeys and conventual churches such scenes were once common,in the new abbeys and conventual churches which are Now arising we may shortly see the same. But when shall the glories of those noble piles which in our land now lie desolate, hopelessly and painfully useless to their present possessors, be given again to the worship for which alone they were erected, and for which alone they are suitable? Alas!" Melius fuit occisis gladio, quàm interfectis fame; quoniam isti extabuerunt consumpti a sterilitate terræ." (Lament. Jer. 4, 9.)*

*Indeed, to our minds, there is nothing so saddening as a visit to Westminster Abbey. There is an incubus over everything; the fees; the incivility of vergers; the hurrying round in a mixed and incongruous party; the longing after a moment's glance at beauties which are either entirely concealed from one, or from which one is heartlessly driven; the scoffs and jests which one is compelled to hear from the party to which, like the victims of the Italian tyrant, one is bound; the impossibility of seeing or conceiving the pile as a whole; the ever-present feeling of iron gates and threepenny fees;-all these, together with the barbarisms of the modern monuments, and the paltriness of the modern ornaments, make a whole of extreme wretchedness." -From the Ecclesiologist, a periodical published by the Cambridge Camden Society.