IT has ever been the end and aim of Holy Church to symbolize the heavenly by the earthly: to use the beauty and majesty of this world, in leading on her children to the yet unseen glory of the many mansions prepared for them in the next. She has pressed into her service the precious things of land and sea; she has hallowed that which had otherwise been abused to worldly pomp; "she has dared to 'inherit the earth.'" She leaves not the snowdrop, in its spotless loveliness, to return with a smile from its laurel hedge shelter the faint caresses of a February sun; it must deck the High Altar of the gray Chancel, when we commemorate her Purification, who was herself pure beyond the daughters of Eve. She will not allow the budding softness of the palm to give life and joy to the April hedge; it must be for the solemn procession of those, who go forth with the Gloria, laus, et honor, to celebrate the last entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem. The lily may not hide itself in the modest garden bed; we need it when we hold High Festival on St. Margaret's Day; it is the flower of virgins, the symbol of the pure in heart. The rose, that at morning peeped from the rustic trellis, ere noon helps to deck the choir, wherein the deeds of the Prince of Apostles are chanted by the full band of priests.

So with gold and silver, and the gems of the mine: they blaze in the Chalice and the Paten, they are curiously wrought in the mitre and the clasped cope; they glitter in the pastoral staff and processional Cross. So with the work of the needle; the hanging, the frontal, the corporal, and the veil, all exercise the patient skill of the artist, all occupy the quiet hours of the convent. The deep forest gladly gives up its treasures;

the oak, that might have battled with the waves, or carried some royal armament to conquest and worldly glory, receives a more peaceful and more happy lot in the high roof of the minster. The cedar and the pine, the chestnut and the beech, the beauty of Lebanon and the pride of Carmel, all come up to the sanc'tuary, and make glorious the restingplace of the Lord's feet. The mountain delights to yield block after block for the rising wall; the spicetree its sweetness for the lighted censer; the silk-worm its labors to deck the altar; for that the elephant gives up his ivory spoils; for that the bee toils all day long in the recesses of suminer flowers, well deserving thereby the care bestowed on it by the inhabitants of the Western Ocean's loveliest island, who will not destroy the insect that labors for Holy Church.

Thus, then, the spoils of nature come to her; thus her children gladly offer for her service the best and the brightest of God's gifts. Why? but in some faint degree to set forth that land which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard; to allure the wanderer from the riches of earth, by means of those very riches; to impress on the enemy's gold the stamp of the King of kings. Faint, indeed, are these efforts; in spite of them all it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive the good things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Faint, indeed, they may be, and yet useful. Some of the wise and the holy sons of the Church have called out the principle still further, and have made a covenant with their eyes, that in beholding the pleasant things of creation each should be, as it were, to them a Sacrament of the new heaven and the new earth.

For a sacramental life is the proper life of a Catholic; he delights in multiplying to himself these holy signs, knowing that, of a surety, the antitype will exceed the type, as much as a substance does its shadow. It may be, indeed, incomprehensible to us, as we gaze on some mountain prospect, where the glorious form is heightened by the majestic light and shade, how there can be a world which will render such scenes unworthy of a thought; or how, such a one existing, our soul, already filled to the full with the influx of beauty, could endure more.

And yet what earthly river but becomes more beautiful, when it typifies to us the river of the water of life, clear as crystal? What jutting peak, when it calls to the mind the True Rock? What mountain range, when it pictures to the eye of faith the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills?

The traveller, as he gazes on these things, thanks God for such earnests of heavenly beauty; they are lighted for him with a ray far exceeding that of the noonday sun, though the man of the world has no share in his delight; a ray from that eternal glory, which gives splendor to the abodes of the blessed.

Nor is it to the eye alone that these emblems speak; they appeal, as powerfully and as sweetly, to the ear. Nay and perhaps more powerfully, because more really; because there is not only a likeness, but a sameness, in the thing signifying and the thing signified. All that we hear of the harpers harping with their harps, of the new song, of the voices like the sound of many waters, seems to bring heaven in this respect, nearer earth, than in any other. For, as the poet has not ill said,

"All that we know they do above,

Is that they sing and that they love." And doubtless, music has always been privileged by God to have a power over the soul that no other material influence ever claimed;

whether, as in the case of Saul, by expelling unclean spirits from the breast, or by inviting, as in that of Elisha, more blessed tenants to be its inhabitants.

Therefore I know not whether, to those for whom I write, it ought to be a sweeter or a more solemn thought, that there is so wide a difference between the study of music, and that of all the other feminine arts and accomplishments in which they are engaged. The needle and the pencil may indeed be devoted to the service of the earthly church; by the one may the shrine be adorned, or the poor of Christ clothed; by the other may the buildings of more Catholic ages be held out for the imitation or reverence of our own. But these things, which are of the earth earthly, cannot be carried beyond the grave.

It is not so with music. In learning that, you are learning an art which will endure as long as love, and that is forever.

That study which is everlasting is surely to be treated with all awe. Debased it may be, and prostituted to earthly passions, and social frivolity; it was not made for such things. Its fountain is still pure; it is where Cherubim and Seraphim are; it is one of the delights of heaven; it is one of the sciences of the "well-adventured."

To its fountain it of necessity must tend: it is a miserable force which enchains it to earth: this is not its home, this can never be its rest. We may link it, in unholy marriage, to secular or sensual ideas, but God made it for himself, and that which he hath joined together let no man put asunder.

And perhaps the heavenly strains, which are the voice of the Church Triumphant, may not differ so widely in kind, however much in degree, from those of the Church Militant.

Celestial may be but the transfiguration and glorification of terrestrial music. From the former the latter may have acquired more

than we know. It is certain that the antiphonal system of chanting was of no earthly devising; St. Ignatius had it immediately by inspiration. Palestrina constantly affirmed that his compositions were only his memories of that which, during sleep, he heard the angels sing.

It may well be, also, that on those whom he has raised up to show what music is, he bestowed only a portion of that harmony which is the endowment of his glorified servants; even as the four Living Creatures in Ezekiel each contain the four attributes which are proportioned, one by one, to those of the Apocalyptic Vision.

Is it to debase our ideas of that Blessed World, the comparing it thus with this? I trow not. Rather it is to exalt our appreciation of that in which we dwell, and with which we are engaged. Our Blessed Lord, who knew what was in man, ever by the seen led him on to the unseen; not judging that the former would detract from the latter; rather that this would ennoble that.

And we may well imagine that Holy Church, when she seized the treasures of form and color, would

not leave those of sound untouched. She taught that most lovely of instruments, the human voice, to utter melodiously her Lord's praises; she bade wind and stringed instruments to bear their part with it; she invented the majestic organ, that should, like an ocean of harmony, pour out its billows of sound, dashing on roof and window, shattering itself on pier and clerestory, rolling along the pavement, and shaking, like an earthquake, the great cathedral. She hung, halfway between earth and heaven, her musical bells; she taught how to welcome in the festival by modulated chime; how to ask a prayer for her departing child; how to ring out a peal of victory as his corpse, conveyed with cross and banners, entered the resting-place of Christian soldiers; how to rejoice over the bridal, how to solemnize the baptism; how, in the sweet Angelus, to call the thoughts of lord and peasant, of laborer and merchant, for a few short moments from the cares of this world to the repose of the next; how, finally, by a silence more eloquent than music, to hallow the solemn hours that our Lord was in the earth.

AT St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City, on Tuesday, 27th ult., a spectacle was witnessed unprecedented in America. We refer to the ceremonial of imposing the beretta upon Cardinal John McCloskey, the most Reverend Archbishop of New York.

It was a solemn and a significant ceremonial. It was a testimonial on the part of the Sovereign Pontiff of his high appreciation of the personal worth and of the eminent piety, prudence, efficiency, and zeal of the venerable and distinguished prelate who was thus honored. But it was also much more. It evidenced the just estimate of his Holiness of the importance and greatness of this great country, and of the freedom from interference, on the part of our national government, enjoyed by the Church in the United States. Still more, it was a public recog

nition by the Holy Roman Pontiff of the strength and growth of the Catholic Church in the United States. It was, in this view, an honor conferred upon the faithful of this country; and as such, it should be received by them, and acknowledged as forming an additional incentive to grateful devotion to the Visible Head of the Church, and to the interests of Catholicity.

In the short space allowed us in these notes we can only hint at, not describe the splendid and impressive ceremonial. It was grand and edifying, apart from all its other features, in the extraordinary number of Archbishops, Bishops, and eminent Very Reverend and Reverend Priests, that were congregated from all parts of the United States to assist at it. We could not but feel, as we looked upon them, how greatly God has prospered

the Church in our country. But a few years ago, Catholics were but a handful of the population of the United States. Now they are counted by millions, and the prelates and priests by thousands. If the Church continues thus to grow in the future as in the past-and God will cause it to grow if its members, prelates, priests, and laity, continue faithful-the beneficent influences of our holy religion will multiply and increase, to the salvation of millions who are now unenlightened by the true faith, and the prosperity of our common country.

Besides the members of the episcopate and priesthood, very many distinguished private citizens, non-Catholic as well as Catholic, were also present.

The ceremonial proper of imposing the beretta took place at the close of a Solemn High Mass, as follows:

Archbishop Bayley ascended the altar and took his position on the Epistle side. The Papal Ablegate, Mgr. Roncetti, then advanced and delivered to him the Brief of his Holiness Pius IX, empowering Archbishop Bayley to impose the beretta. This was handed by the Archbishop to Rev. Dr. McGlynn as Lector, who read it aloud to the Archbishop and assembled prelates and clergy. The Ablegate then proceeded to the stand, upon which the red beretta had been placed, and taking it therefrom, delivered it to the Archbishop, whom he then addressed in a Latin discourse.

The Brief of the Holy Father, constituting Archbishop McCloskey Cardinal, was then demanded, and handed to the Rev. Dr. McGlynn as Lector, who read it.

Archbishop Bayley then first responded in Latin to the address of the Ablegate; and then turning to Cardinal McCloskey, made to him, also in Latin, a suitable and beautiful address. At the close of his address, Archbishop Bayley approached the Cardinal, and reverently placed the beretta upon his bowed head.

Cardinal McCloskey, having thus received the beretta, made addresses, first to the Archbishop and Bishops and priests in Latin, and then to the assembled laity in English. After this he intoned the Te Deum, which was taken up by the choir. Meanwhile the Cardinal, accompanied by his Vicar-Generals and the Master of Ceremonies retired to the Sacristy, where he was arrayed in the gorgeous robes of the Cardinalate. Towards the close of the Te Deum he reappeared in the full dress of his office, and ascended the altar, where he gave the Blessing to the assembled multitude.

THE Prussian government persists in its wicked war upon the Church. With the recent legislation, depriving bishops and priests

of the yearly grants hitherto made them, the readers of the RECORD are, doubtless, familiar. These grants represented a portion, and only a small portion, of the revenues annually accruing from church property, which the State has previously appropriated. To withhold them is, therefore, not only dishonest, but also sacrilegious,

The last act of hostile legislation is in the form of a bill, which the Diet, of course, will pass, closing all the convents and religious houses in Germany, and confiscating their property. The bill also proposes to declare the schismatics, who call themselves "Old Catholics," entitled to a share of Roman Catholic churches, cemeteries, and revenues proportionate to their numbers as compared with the true Catholics.

The German penal laws-for that in effect they are now cover every possible act which priests or bishops can perform in relation to their flocks. A bishop cannot ordain, or confirm, or issue a pastoral address, nor can a priest baptize a child, or solemnize a marriage, or hear confessions, or say mass, or administer the last rites of religion to the dying, without subjecting himself to -fine and imprisonment.

Not satisfied with endeavoring to subjugate the Church within the territorial limits of the German Empire, the German government is persistently endeavoring to force other countries to engage in like wicked attempts. The latest effort in this direction was made in the shape of a demand upon the Belgian government to prevent the free expression of sympathy on the part of Belgian Catholics with their persecuted brethren in Germany. Belgium was selected as the country against which this demonstration was made, for two reasons. First, it is one of the smallest, and, in a military and numerical point of view, one of the weakest countries of Europe. It could, therefore, be threatened with less danger than some others; and was supposed to be more likely to yield to the demands made upon it. Secondly, it was believed that, even if the demands were not complied with in the form in which they were made, the demonstration would strengthen the Liberals of Belgium, and perhaps enable them, by a change of the ministry, to obtain control of the government, and thus secure legislation hostile to the interests of Catholicity in Belgium.

Providence, however, has prevented this by means which he has often employed in times past, by causing some of the enemies of the Church to oppose others of its enemies. The independence of Belgium is guaranteed by several European powers, among others by England; and England cannot, in self-defence, permit Belgium to become subordinate to Prussia. Nor can