of Schenk Rudolph von Vargila, reached Bamberg with Lewis' bones. The depth of her love for him was displayed in striking connection with her Christian resignation. When the chest containing his remains was opened in her presence, she exclaimed: “I thank Thee, O Lord, that Thou hast heard my entreaties that I might see the bones of my husband and weep over them. * * I would have resigned all the honors of the world to save him. * * But now I would not give a hair of my head to call him back against Thy decree." In accordance with the wish of the Bishop, she accompanied the corpse and was present at its deposition in the vault at Reinhardsbrunn. Here the bold eloquence of Rudolph succeeded in forcing the Landgrave Henry to recognize the rights of Elizabeth and those of her children. As regards the Prince he failed to do him complete justice. He became, however, reconciled to her, allowed her an annual settlement of 500 marks, with the possession of Marburg, which had been given her at her marriage, and permitted her to live at Wartburg and Kreuzburg.

But notwithstanding her life was passed here in her former poverty, the longings of her heart were fixed upon something else. She believed she could not secure the salvation of her soul, in castles nor in the enjoyment of affluence, but as a recluse, or in some such position pleasing to God. Thereupon happened that which Conrad, who had been ordered by the Pope to take her in special charge, in consequence of his communications concerning her, re-. ports: "With many tears she entreated me for permission to go from door to door as a beggar. When I hesitated she said, 'I will do it, I will do it, you cannot prevent me.' On Good Friday, 1229, in the Franciscan chapel at Eisenach, in the presence of some cloister-brethren, she laid her hands upon the altar, and took a solemn vow, renouncing the present and the past, her own will, all the splendor of the world, and all that which the Saviour of the world orders us in the gospel to resign. When she wished to renounce her estates, I prohibited her, partly on account of what was due her husband (this is not to be understood as referring to money due, but masses for the repose of his soul), and partly on account of her ability, with their aid, to support the poor."

This act, the last which she performed at Wartburg,-the close of her former life and the gradually matured fruit of her spiritual development, was the prolific focus of a new epoch of her activity. In order to enjoy her self-imposed duties, she withdrew, according to Eisentrud's statement, at Conrad's command although he says that it was against his wish (these contradictory statements manifestly refer to different times) to her estate of Marburg, to the extreme border of the country, which, separated from the mountain

that gave it its name, was then a small parish belonging to the village of Upper Weimar.

Here, at a distance from court and secular life, at first still surrounded by her children and maids, she sought to attain through Conrad's directions that spiritual perfection which was the goal set before her. Rejecting a residence at the castle but followed even here, as Eisentrud declares, by her maids, she took refuge in Wehrda, a village near by. A house is still shown there, where she is said to have lived, and they tell you how she was accustomed to go thence to a church situated on a hill in the neighborhood. The fact is, that there was a castle with a species of colonnade, under whose steps she lived, striving to protect herself, with branches against the rays of the sun. Here she prepared for her little household whatever food she could obtain, and endured the heat of the summer, and the annoyances of smoke and wind with great cheerfulness. In the neighborhood of Marburg, probably in the region of the Square, west of the Elizabeth Church, there was a lowly cottage built, as many still are there, of wood and clay ;-of this she took possession. Here she lived in the grey garb of the Sisters of St. Francis, undertaking the most menial domestic duties, especially engaged in the nursing of the sick poor, in whom she recognized Christ, with a devotion and cheerfulness that caused her malevolent relatives to say "that she had soon forgotten her husband." Never satisfied with giving, she collected [the year is uncertain]all the poor from the whole neighborhood of Marburg, ordered that they should be arranged in companies in a place pointed out, and that no one should leave under penalty of punishment. Then she went through their midst and divided among them a sum equal to her annual income. After receiving this gift, those in good health departed, while the infirm remained behind. Once more she gave these money and bread, and when the evening had come and the moon shone bright and clear, she exclaimed, "Come, now, let us enjoy ourselves." Fires were then kindled, and the poor were made so happy, that they sang together, she being as cheerful as the rest. Her charities were, however, not all of a transient nature as this. Collecting all the jewelry she had formerly worn, adding her entire estates, even stinting herself in her daily meats, she succeeded in securing means for the foundation of a Hospitalthe nucleus of that now existing in Marburg-which she placed in the hands of the German nobility, for fear that it might be destroyed by her relatives at some future time. Then she established one of the two great attractions of the later history of Marburg; the other resting upon the lively remembrance of what she was herself, of that spiritual efficiency which has a partial expression in the glorious Gothic church erected over her grave.

If the external conduct of the King's daughter, who had literally made herself poor for Christ's sake, made such a deep impression upon the popular memory,-if they never can forget how she devoted herself in the Hospital to nursing and washing (they still show the spring where she used to wash)-how much deeper an impression must be made at the recital of the severe labors she underwent in her struggles for her soul? Conrad, in accordance with instructions received from the Pope, became not more gentle but more severe in his treatment of Elizabeth; after she had deprived herself of her own will, this deprivation was pushed to the greatest extreme. As before mentioned, he had forbidden her to come into contact with the leprous. When he learned that she had taken a young woman, afflicted with the leprosy, into her house, made her bed, fed and washed her, he punished her with his own hand. "God pardon me," he writes, "I punished her severely." For minor violations of his command she received strokes on her cheeks, for greater severe castigations; all this she endured willingly, thinking of Christ who had suffered both, and saying once after she had been chastised: "As a bulrush in a stream is sometimes bent down and then raised up again, so is it necessary that a person should be humbled and then made glad." Particularly attractive is the account given by her maid Irmengard, " that weeping never disfigured her face, that her tears seemed to spring from a bright and joyous source." She once said herself of those whose faces were disfigured by weeping: "It seems to me as if they wished to terrify God: why cannot they give God, what they have, with joy and cheerfulness ?"

It is, however, not denied, that she had learned from Conrad to be severe towards others. A young girl remarkable for her beautiful hair, having unwittingly transgressed at the table a command given her, was deprived of her hair without any hesitation; and yet the order must have been given in a kindly tone, as we see that the party punished continued attached to her family. She scourged a woman whom she heard did not go to confession, without a similar happy result.

Some of Conrad's other modes of procedure must have cut her heart more deeply than his blows. She was obliged to give up her children; then she had to surrender her maids, so that she might be advanced on the road to perfection, and then Conrad replaced them by a reformed nun and a deaf widow, who belonged to the nobility and the two made her life grievous, inasmuch as they pretended to be friendly to her, while behind her back they repeated all her little faults to Conrad, even if she gave away to a poor person more than they thought right. And all this was done, so that she might the more certainly gain a victory over impatience!!

Indeed she was patient, and possessed, in addition to it, of many other great and astonishing qualities. When she prayed her eyes sparkled. On one occasion she prayed for the recovery of a youth in his presence, at his request, so heartily and fervently, that he exclaimed: "Oh arise, I can not stand this fervent glow any longer." Her love for God was so all-absorbing, that on that account she forgot all the wealth of the earth. Once she said to her maids: "The Lord has heard my prayer-I look upon all my worldly possessions, which I once loved, as dung. May God be my judge, if my children are more to me than those of my neighbor. To God I have given them; let Him do with them what He pleases. Contempt, calumny and scorn are sources of pleasure; for I have nothing but God."

Thus was actually attained what the spiritual longing planted in her soul desired, what Conrad labored to secure, what Pope Gregory advised in his Epistolary communications! The grey sister Elizabeth, the Princess in the patched gown, standing by the bedside of the sick or washing dishes, had renounced the world, while her spirit was lost in the contemplation of heavenly regions.

But the strength of her body had gone also. During November 1231, Lewis' widow lay upon her-death bed in the 24th year of her age. After she had heard a sweet sound as though the voice of a little bird from the wall, which she hummed then to herself, she passed away, strengthened by the sacrament from the altar, as though in a gentle sleep.

A phenomenon probably unequaled; thoroughly pious, modest, cheerful, full of love to God and man. But by her death-bed we must acknowledge, that she was a sacrifice to the ecclesiastical powers of the age; torn from her family, even from her first-born -the son of an exemplary Prince and his rightful successor, torn from her fatherland which was plunged from prosperity into dismemberment. We have one saint more, but- -one true Princess and Mother less!

MONEY WELL SPENT.-"The first piece of money," said a gentleman, "that I ever had I spent for a book. It was the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' I well remember how pleased I was. The pictures, the reading, the blank leaves, were mine, and my name was written on one of the blank leaves at the beginning. That book laid the foundation of my library. All the pence my uncle gave me, I saved for books. Every book I bought I longed to read, and that prevented my time as well as money from being wasted; for the books which I bought I consulted older friends about, and they were worth reading; and I would say to every boy and girl, 'Do not foolishly spend all your pocket-money in other things, but lay the foundation of a good library with it.'"-S. S. Visitor.

THAT LINE FENCE.

Old farmer Smith came home in a miff
From his field the other day,

While his sweet little wife, the pride of his life,
At her wheel was spinning away.

And ever anon, a gay little song

With the buzz of her wheel kept time; And the wrathful brow is clearing now,

Under the cheerful rhyme.

"Come, come, little Turk! put away your work And listen to what I say;

What can I do, but a quarrel brew

With the man across the way?

"I have built my fence, but he won't commence To lay a single rail;

His cattle get in, and the feed gets thin,

I am tempted to make a sale!

"Why John, dear John, how you do go on! I'm afraid it will be as they say!"

"No, no, little wife, I have learned that strife In a lawyer's hand don't pay.

"He is picking a flaw, to drive me to law,

I have heard that he said he would;

And you know long ago, the law wronged me so,

I vowed I never should.

"So what can I do, that I will not rue,

To the man across the way ?"

"If that's what you want, I can help you haunt
The man with a spectre gray!

"Thirty dollars will do to carry you through,
And then you have gained a neighbor;
It would cost you more to peep in the door
Of a court, and much more labor.

"Just use your good sense-let's build him a fence,
And shame such thoughts out of the fellow."
They built up his part, and it sent to his heart
Love's dart, where the good lay mellow.

That very same night, by the candle light,
They opened, with interest, a letter;

Not a word was there, but three greenbacks fair
Said the man was growing better.

-Clyde Hawthorne.