at their own charge for the service of the Church: and immediately before the Reformation, many of the greater monasteries were so many nurseries of learning; and the superiors of them very learned themselves, and promoters of learning in others. Such was Kidderminister, Abbot of Winchelcomb; Goldwell, Prior of Canterbury; Voche, Abbot of St. Austin's; Wells, Prior of Ely; Holbeach, Prior of Worcester; Islip, Abbot of Westminister; Webbe, Prior of Coventry, and many others. I do not hereby apologize for the laziness of the Monks in the middle ages, but maintain, that both in and after the time of Edgar, and immediately before the Reformation, they deserve a contrary character to what the historian giveth of them; and that even in the worst times they were far from being enemies and opposers of learning, as he would have it believed."

-p. 187, line 7. "About the end of the eighth century, the Monks had possessed themselves of the greatest part of the riches of the nation, the best part of the soil being in such ill hands, it was the interest of the whole kingdom to have it put to better uses."- Burnet.

"Such high figures of rhetoric, and hyperbolical expressions, were better reserved for harangues, and do not well agree with history. The end of the eighth century was the year of our Lord eight hundred, at which time very few monasteries had yet been founded, nor had the Monks then in all appearance gained possession of a hundredth part of the riches of the nation. Afterwards, indeed, they increased exceedingly in number, riches, and possessions, especially in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries; but after all, upon a just account they will not be found even in title to have possessed above a fifth part of the nation: and considering that long before the Reformation they were wont to lease out their lands to laymen, for easy fines and small rents, as Bishops, Deans, and Chapters now do; it may be truly said that they did. not possess in reality the tenth part of the riches of the nation.

"Then, for that other charge, that the best part of the soil of the nation being in such ill hands, it was the interest of the nation to have it put to better uses, it is altogether erroneous. From the beginning to the end none ever improved their land and possessions to better advantages, by building, cultivation, and all other methods than the Monks did, while they kept them in their own hands and when they leased them out to others, it was the interest of the nation to have such easy tenures continued to the great number of persons who enjoyed them. To this may be added that they contributed to the public charges of the nation equally with the other clergy; and the clergy did always contribute in proportion above the laity—so that we cannot find to what better uses these possessions have been since put: save only that inconsiderable part of them, which remains to Bishopricks, Cathedrals and Schools founded by King Henry VIII.”

-p. 189, line 1. "The Monks became lewd and dissolute, and so impudent in it, that some of their farms were let for bringing in a yearly tribute to their lusts."-Burnet.

"God forbid that any professors of Christianity, much less the greatest pretenders to it, should be guilty of such monstrous wickedness, or that any one should believe it of them without evident proof. This accusation is taken from Fuller's Church History, who relateth no more than one example of this kind, and that of a Convent, not of Monks, but of Canons Regular (of Waltham,) not upon his own knowledge, but the single testimony of a most notorious lying villian, Stephen Marshal; and after all is so ingenuous, that he professeth himself to disbelieve it. On the contrary, our author suppresseth his authority, and brings no other testimony; raiseth the number from one to many, and delivereth a dubious matter as a truth most certain. Surely if the Monks had been guilty of any such things it could not have escaped the knowledge of their visitors, who searched and divulged all their faults with the utmost industry nor could it have been unknown to Bale, brought up among them, nor omitted by him in his English Voltaries,' wherein he hath set himself to defame the monastic order, and the unmarried clergy, with insatiable malice: nor would instances of it be wanting in those many Leiger-books' of the monasteries still remaining, wherein they registered all their leases, and that for their own private use."

-p. 174, line 47. "The use of the Scripture in the vulgar tongue continued for several ages, till the state of Monkery arose, and then it was not consistent with their designs, nor with the arts used to promote them, to let the Scriptures be much known.”—Burnet.

"The order of Monks is now extinct in England, so that whatever may be said against them, there is no danger of a reply from them; yet still so much respect is owing to the readers, as not to impose anything upon them which hath not at least the appearance of truth. That this accusation will not have to those who know with what industry the Monks, in many nations, but more especially here in England, translated the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue. We have the names left of seven English Monks who, before the conquest, translated the Scriptures, or some part of them, into the Saxon tongue. After the conquest we do not find so many translations made, but of those which were owing to the Monks as to the Secular Clergy."

-p. 241, line 45. "Battel Abbey was represented to be worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, so was Christ Church in Canterbury, with several other houses."-Burnet.

"The Historian doth not tell us by whom they were thus represented, for that would have marred all the history, and have relieved the reputation of these monasteries-not by the visitors surely, for the acts of their visitation of these places do not remain. The credit of the whole matter rests upon the authority of a vile pamphlet published soon after without a name, pretending to relate the enormous wickedness discovered in the Monasteries of England at their suppression. From this pamphlet Stevens transcribed these stories into his "Apology for Herodotus," and from them Fuller took them into his

"Church History," from whom our Historian received them. But Fuller is so ingenuous as to own from whence he took them, and to add that he thinks it not reasonable to believe such heinous accusations upon so slender testimony. We have some reason to reflect upon the accusation which our Historian brings against Dr. Heylin, that he never vouched any authority for what he writ, which is not to be forgiven any who write of transactions beyond their own times! I fear that upon computation it will not be found that our author hath vouched any authority for so much as the third part of his history; and is especially deficient in those passages which tend to defame the memories of other men; in which, above all others, justice and charity would require that sufficient, or at least some, testimony be procured. But to return to Battel Abbey, and Christ Church in Canterbury; I am not much concerned for either, yet, being willing to do justice to all men, I will not conceal that the accusation appears very improbable to me as far as Christ Church, Canterbury, is concerned in it, since I am well assured that Dr. Goldwell, the Prior of it, who had governed it 23 years before the dissolution, was a learned, grave, and religious person; and that when it was founded anew, it is not to be supposed that Archbishop Cranmer, employed by the King therein, would have taken into the new foundation any person so scandalously wicked; yet twelve Monks were taken into it, which exceedeth the number of just persons to be found in Sodom at the time of its destruction."

And yet this, forsooth, is "History," and its author the "great Historian of the English Reformation."

CANISIUS.

From the Catholic Telegraph.

The year 1521 is a memorable one in the history of the church. While Luther was throwing off the mask in the Diet of Worms, a young Spanish Cavalier, who had previously dreamed of nothing but war and gallantry, moved by the spirit of God, suspended no inglorious sword at the altar of Mary, renounced worldly joys, and commenced those austerities that were one day to give to the earth and heaven a Saint Ignatius of Loyola. On the 8th of May, of the same year, Nimeguen gave birth to another Saint, Peter Canisius, who was destined to become one of the most indefatigable athlete of the ancient faith, in Germany. The Holy See is now occupied with his canonization, and we therefore present this sketch of his life to our readers.

Canisius was one of those men who never falter in the practice of piety. His first toy was a good book, his first word a prayer. He was sent, young,

to school, to Cologne, which was already infected with heresy. The newreligionists had an infernal talent for seducing youth; they first intoxicated their unsuspecting dupes with flattery, and pleasure soon finished what vanity had begun. Canisius was plied with the same arts, but they could not succeed, for his humility surpassed his talents. The name of a priest, remarkable for his piety, learning, eloquence and charity, who had just arrived at Mayence, was one day mentioned to him and the virtuous student immediately left Cologne to visit him. That priest was Lefevre, the first of the remarkable band that formed the nucleus of the Society of Jesus, in Paris. It is needless to say what were their mutual greetings, their conversations, their holy projects and their fervent prayers. Canisius performed the spiritual exercises, and as he was one of those men whose sublime devotion leads them to consecrate to God alone, heart, mind and body without reserve, he gave all the worldly wealth he possessed to the poor, and became a member of the Society of Jesus. “At that time," says Bossuet, "crime, turpitude, and apostacy notwithstanding, there were christians in the world."

One does not become a Jesuit per saltum. The Protestants boasted of the learning of Luther, apparently unconscious that they thus indirectly lauded the discipline of the Catholic schools in which it had been acquired. The design nearest the heart of St. Ignatius, after forming most saintly priests, was to form most learned theologians. Canisius girt up his loins, like a man, and strenuously laboured to attain this double perfection of his calling. He prepared for study by prayer, and prayer taught him how to study. Truth profited, in the intervals of both, by his eloquence. Scarcely was he ordained priest, when he began to preach from city to city, every where reclaiming the victims of religious error and reconciling the sinful to God. In the midst of these apostolic labours, he published the best edition that has been ever given of the Alexandrian Fathers, and we find him at the early age of twenty-six years, legate of a German Cardinal in the Council of Trent. From Trent, where he passed an entire year, Canisius went to Rome. Saint Ignatius was then solicited by the king of Naples to found a college at Messina. To make sure of the disposition of those whom he destined for this purpose, Ignatius addressed certain questions to his disciples. The responses of all were in favour of obedience. "I am equally ready," said Canisius "to remain here, to go to Sicily, or to India, or any other part of the world, whether my venerable father and master in Jesus Christ may judge proper to send me. If Sicily be my destination, I protest that whatever employment-gardiner, cook, porter, scholastic, or professor, even though it should be in some department of science with which I am not acquainted-is assigned me, I shall try to learn it and acquit myself of it properly." Canisius was sent to Messina as Professor of Rhetoric. But soon there was need for his services in Germany, where heresy was continuing its ravages, and he therefore left Messina without a murmur, for Ingoldstadt, as he had left Rome for Messina, and would have left Europe for

Japan, and life for martyrdom. And this spirit was that of all the Jesuits. Xavier, as any of his brethren would have done, left Paris for India, and laboured there for twenty years, to his death, without asking, or desiring to return to friends, or to country, because he was doing good where he was.

We cannot keep pace with Canisius in his incessant labours in Vienna, where he published his celebrated Catechism which was translated into most of the languages of the entire world; of which there were upwards of four hundred editions in one hundred years, in Prague, Augsburgh, Trieste, Rome, Innspruck, Cologne, Mayence!

At the least sign from his superiors, or the slightest intimation of any spiritual necessity which it was in his power to relieve, whether sick or tired, or dearly occupied with some literary labour, he mounted his horse and away. Journeys were not then performed as they are now, in various parts of Germany. He had to cross lonely and desert mountains, swim rivers, wind slowly and painfully through torrents and ravines, and put up with uncomfortable lodgings after a day's toil and hunger, often too the enemy occupied the pass and he had to risk it with a proscribed character and name. No matter. The sooner the better. The Redeemer laid down his own life for his sheep and forgets not those who do the like. Sometimes the pious missionary was received as an angel from heaven and his journey was changed into a triumph, at other times, the mob pelted him with stones and mud. It was all one to him. He proceeded with the same serenity of soul, preaching two or three times a day, instructing the ignorant, comforting the afflicted, reclaiming the profligate and counselling the pious. Canisius, invited, welcomed, venerated everywhere by the good, refused honours, wealth and dignities, or exerted the influence forced upon him only for the benefit of those in need, and preserved nothing for himself but the modesty of an angel, the power of an apostle and the guilelessness of a child. As docile as a novice to the will of his superiors, when they ordered him to write, he took up the pen, when they bade him cease, he laid it aside with the same admirable simplicity. It was thus he undertook to reply to the centuriators of Magdeburgh, a work of immense labour, which he in part accomplished, notwithstanding frequent in terruptions by other and more urgent duties. He was never idle, never long in the same place. When enfeebled by old age and infirmity he cheerfully abandoned the residence, he might have liked best, for those that were less agreeable, and the occupations which recreted his mind, for those that tended rather to accelerate the decay of nature. The only part of the time whose employment was invariably the same was that which he devoted to God. He daily consecrated five hours, and towards the close of his life, seven hours, to prayer. He prayed not all this time, for himself alone. In his numerous pilgrimages and apostolic journeys he had met with the erring, the sinful and the unhappy. He remembered them at the altar, he offered for them a portion of his own sufferings, and he imposed on himself every day for the conversion of heretics some new austerities.