deprived of this temporality, at the very moment when the malice of the politicians of Europe was directed against the Church governed by him. And this, for the evident purpose of making the supernatural assistance accorded to his pontiff the more manifest and palpable. Truly is his prophecy fulfilled, qui habitat in calis irridebit eos, et Dominus subsannabit eos. Any one having faith, and observing this great accumulation of sins, cannot but shudder in reflecting on the effects of the Divine indignation. And any one not having faith, but believing simply in the existence of a God who is the vindicator of natural justice, must admit, that this general contempt of public and private honesty will certainly draw upon Europe a terrible chastisement. It requires no extraordinary faith to make us comprehend that the cruelties of Russia, for instance, against the Poles, who are proscribed and outlawed, simply because they are Catholics, and desire to remain such, cry to heaven for vengeance; as do likewise the barbarities of Prussia, in utter contempt of the liberty of conscience of fourteen million German Catholics; as the beastly and cowardly violence of Switzerland, which places the glory of its civil liberty in enchaining the religious liberty of its citizens who are faithful to the Roman Catholic Church. These are iniquities which are open to the most unqualified condemnation, not only of the believers in Jesus Christ, but of any man who has not trampled his sense of what is just and fair under foot. crimes violate the code of the Gospel, that of nature, the right of God, and of the people. But We might speak in particular of the culpability of Catholic states; of an Italy which re-echoes the antichristian sentiments of Prussia; of a Spain which has just inflicted a mortal blow on that religious unity, which has hitherto been her glory, and of a France, which, notwithstanding that the hand of God has been upon her for the last six years, with the view of recalling her to her duty, still permits grave disorders and crimes, an obstinacy in acknowledging that the hand of God has touched her, which excites our compassion. we will conclude. These remarks are too theological. Not progressive enough! Reader, they are founded on the reality of those things which suffer no change, no regressions, no progressions. They were always, as they are, and will be, the revelations of God, and the laws of nature. As there cannot be two Gods, nor two Christs, nor two faiths, nor two Decalogues, nor two human natures, so there cannot be two contradictory justices, nor two contradictory virtues. Hence, it is useless for people to flatter themselves that God will bring himself to consider as just that which is unjust; as virtuous and meritorious, that which is punishable and dishonest. The new code will never be admitted among the codes of the Lord; the virtues of Europe in her new code are great sins in the eternal codes of God, and must be expiated, as he is most just. ST. PATRICK AND OSSIAN. 'TWAS thus the Fenian bard began, Thy boasted God hath placed his chair." PATRICK. See'st thou the sky, which broad and grand Which towers so high and spreads so far, That radiant sphere, all pomp and gold, Of his great hall whom I adore. The stars that burn when night prevails Where, throned above the highest height, Traverse the forest, frowning high, Thou hear'st him in the crashing roar, When down the heavens the tempests pour; Thou hear'st him in the voices loud That clamor in the thundercloud; He's clearly heard when, armed with fire, The tempest wakes old ocean's ire; He's likewise heard when, hoarse and hoar, The madd'ning billows lash the shore; And in the silence of the night, When golden planets, calm and bright, Are circling round the glowing pole, But, though his realm is broad and grand, OSSIAN. It was not so with noble Finn, And Finn would never ask them why. The blackbird's song, that, sweet and clear, And give me back the rapturous cry, And thrilled with life the trembling grounds,- They loved the chase; they loved the song, And knightly conflict, stern and long, And, hadst thou known those knightly men, I ask not heaven; I will not try, PATRICK. 'Twas God who gave thy comrades might ; 'Twas God who framed those fields of light. He shed those sunbeams through the air, And draped the trees with blossoms fair. Despite their valor, power, and bloom, The mission of that sylvan muse? Kneel down and join those hands in prayer,— A seraph's voice is warbling there. The wondering bard grew still and pale; He stood aghast, in mute surprise, With trembling lips and streaming eyes; Was speaking to the bard of earth In tones so thrilling, sweet, and clear, For He who fills unbounded space And, spreading through the empyrean wide, As in some bower, retired and coy, And lo! the old man knelt and prayed, And now the bard above the sky One of the noblest traditions in the world is that of Ossian, "son of daring Cumhal." He was beguiled into the magic land of eternal youth by the enchanting beauty of the fascinating queen of Tir-na-n-og, in whose rosy bowers, intoxicated by her immortal loveliness, he spent, in the delights and dalliances of love, nearly two hundred years. He finally got tired of this land of enchantments, because, when gazing from "Magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas in fairy-land forlorn," he could not see Erin. His love of Ireland surpassed his affection for his mistress, and he broke away from the enchantress. When he reached his native country he found St. Patrick zealously engaged in preaching to "the Scots believing in Christ;" and the bard accompanied the Apostle in his devious excursions through the grassy hills and romantic vales of "matchless Erin." In these two men-the Irish minstrel and the Catholic missioner-we have an epitome of the history of Ireland. They are the incarnation of two ideas which appear embodied in these representative individuals. Ossian is the type of the warlike Celts, who, ever marching from West to East, are found battling, retreating, fighting, or conquering, in those great marauding expeditions which for so many ages harried the entire surface of Europe. Ossian the bard represents these warlike Celts, whose metropolis was Eire, but whose expeditions were world-wide. Alexander meets them on the Danube, Cæsar encounters them on the Rhone, and St. Paul addresses them in Galatia. Speaking of one of these Celts an Irish manuscript says: “Agus aibhlichthear ar Daire Sirchreactach cor gabhastair neart iarthair Eorpa, agus a deiread eolaich, cor gabh an domhan uile." "And it is boasted concerning Daire, that he obtained sway over all the west of Europe, and some of the learned say that he won the whole world." St. Patrick represents the Christian era of Irish history. He is a type of scholars and missioners, the martyrs and philosophers, and great schoolmen who obtained for Eire the honorable epithet of insula sanctorum et doctorum. He represents the pious fervor as Ossian represents the martial ardor of ancient Erin, a nation which was alternately sacerdotal and military, “now priest, now soldier. Fionn McCumhall resided at Allen, in the County Kildare. In Macpherson's Ossian this chief is described as residing in the "hall of Selma," under the name of Fingal. But we may well pardon this inaccuracy for the sake of the magnificent description Macpherson gives us in Carric Thura of Fionn's return to his hall from some military expedition: "Let a thousand lights arise to the sound of the harps of Selma! Let the beam spread in the hall, the king of shells is returned! The war of Crona is past like sounds that are no more! Raise the song, O bards, the king is returned with his fame," etc. This quotation gives us a lofty idea of the majesty of Fionn's residence, which Macpherson terms Selma, but which was really Allen, in the County Kildare. Livy's description of the Celts in general is perfectly applicable to the Fenians in particular: "Their lofty forms, their long, reddish hair, their vast shields, their long swords, the war songs they intoned when closing with the enemy, their loud shouts and the horrible clangor of their arms when beating their shields in the manner of their country, everything about them was calculated to fill their enemies with confusion and terror.' " That angels sometimes assume the appearance of birds is an idea familiar to the readers of Irish hagiography. We read in Adamnan's Life of Columkille, that one day a monk, armed with an axe, quitted his monastery and sallied forth to cut wood in the adjacent forest, where he was tempted to suspend his toil by the ravishing sweetness of a strange song-bird that, perched on the tree above his head, charmed his ear by its melody, and secured his attention by its brilliancy of plumage. He lost a whole hour in listening, and then resumed his axe and went on with his work. When his task was accomplished he tied up his fagots, threw them on his back, and plodded homewards to the monastery. He found its appearance strangely altered and its inmates entirely unknown to him. He gazed on them with astonishment, and they perused him with equal surprise. In answer to their questions he told them his story. He had quitted the convent that very morning; had been three hours in the forest, and had cut the fagots with which his shoulders were burdened. It appeared, from the chronicle of the monastery, that a monk of his name had disappeared a hundred years previously and had never been since heard of. This was the monk in question. He had spent a hundred years in listening to the warblings of an angel, and had deemed it only a single hour. VOL. XII.-2 |