was necessary to clothe the children who were brought to her almost naked; and her whole life, which was a long one, was a series of the most heroic acts of charity."

Is there any thing in ancient history as affecting as this?— any thing capable of extorting tears so pure and so delicious?

CHAPTER IV.

FOUNDLING-HOSPITALS -LADIES OF CHARITY -ACTS OF BENEFICENCE.

LET us listen for a moment to St. Justin the philosopher. In his first Apology, addressed to the emperor, he thus expresses himself:-"It is a common practice, in your empire, to expose infants; and there are persons who afterward bring up these infants for the business of prostitution. Among all the nations subject to you, we meet only with children destined for the most execrable purposes, who are kept like herds of beasts, and upon whom you levy a tribute. . . . . And yet those who abuse these little innocents, besides the crime which they commit against God, may chance to abuse their own offspring. . . . . As for us, Christians, detesting these enormities, we marry only to bring up a family, or we renounce matrimony to live in chastity."

....

Such, then, were the hospitals which polytheism erected for orphans. O venerable Vincent de Paul, where wast thou? Where wast thou, to address the ladies of Rome as thou didst thy pious countrywomen who seconded thy benevolent designs?" Now, ladies, see if you can, in your turn, forsake these little innocents, to whom you have become mothers according to grace after they had been abandoned by their mothers according to nature." But in vain shall we look for the man of mercy among the votaries of an idolatrous worship.

1 Hist. de la Nouv. France, livre v.

2 See pp. 60, 61.

The age has forgiven Vincent de Paul for being a Christian. Philosophy has been seen to weep over his story. Every reader knows that, though at first but a shepherd's boy and afterward a slave at Tunis, he at length became a priest illustrious for his learning and his good works. It is known that he was the founder of the Foundling-Hospital, of that for the aged poor, of the hospital for the galley-slaves at Marseilles, of the Congregation of Priests of the Mission, (or Lazarists,) of the parochial fraternities of Charity, of the Companies of Ladies for the service of the Hôtel-Dieu, of the Daughters of Charity, who attend on the sick, and, lastly, of the retreats for such as are yet undetermined in the choice of a state of life. Whence does charity derive all her institutions, all her foresight ?1

St. Vincent de Paul was powerfully seconded by Mademoiselle Legras, who, in conjunction with him, instituted the Daughters of Charity. She had likewise the superintendence of a hospital of the name of Jesus, which, founded for forty poor persons, was the origin of the general hospital of Paris. As the emblem and the reward of a life of incessant toil, Mademoiselle Legras desired that on her tomb should be placed a little cross with these words-Spes mea. Her injunctions were fulfilled.

Thus pious families, in the name of Christ, disputed the pleasure of doing good to their fellow-creatures. The wife of the Chancellor of France and Madame Fouquet belonged to the congregation of the Ladies of Charity. They had each their day to visit, instruct, and exhort the sick, and to speak to them in a familiar and pathetic manner concerning the things necessary for salvation. Other ladies received the alms of the charitable. Others again had the care of the linen, furniture, and different articles for the poor. Some author informs us that more than seven hundred Calvinists returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church, having recognised the truth of her doctrines in the excellent fruits of a charity so ardent and so widely extended.

1 When we reflect that St. Vincent was the thaumaturgus of charity in modern times, and that his life and character have made him venerable, not only among Catholics, but in the eyes of the world at large, it cannot but appear singular that as yet we have no life of this apostolical man in English, worthy of the name. T.

2 This admirable society, still vigorously engaged in works of mercy all over the world, was commenced in 1633. T.

Ye sainted women,-De Miramion, De Chantal, De La Peltrie, De Lamoignon, your works were the works of peace! The poor accompanied your coffins. They took them from the bearers that they might themselves carry your remains. Your funerals reechoed their sighs, and a stranger would have supposed that all the benevolent hearts in the world were buried with you in the grave!

We shall conclude this article on the Christian institutions in favor of suffering humanity with an important remark.1 We are assured that on Mount St. Bernard the sharpness of the air injures the organs of respiration, and that a person seldom lives there longer than ten years. Thus, the monk who retires to its convent may nearly calculate the number of days that he has to spend in the world. All that he gains in the ungrateful service of men is a foreknowledge of the moment of death, which is hidden from the rest of mortals. We are told that the nuns of the HôtelDieu have habitually a slow fever which consumes them, and which proceeds from the vitiated atmosphere they breathe. The monks who reside in the mines of the New World, at the bottom of which, amid eternal night, they have founded hospitals for the unfortunate Indians,-these men also shorten their lives. They are poisoned by the metallic effluvia. Lastly, the fathers who shut themselves up in the infected slave-prisons of Constantinople devote themselves to the most speedy martyrdom.

The reader will forgive us if we here suppress all reflections. We confess our incapacity to find language worthy of acts so sublime. Tears and admiration are all that is left us. How much are those persons to be pitied who would fain destroy religion, and who relish not the sweetness of the fruits which the gospel brings forth! "Stoicism," "Stoicism," says Voltaire, "has produced but one Epictetus; and Christianity forms thousands of such philosophers, who know not that they are so, and who carry their virtue to such a length as to be ignorant of possessing any."

1 See note VV.

2 Corresp. Gén., tome iii. p. 222.

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CHAPTER V.

EDUCATION.

Schools, Colleges, Universities, Benedictines, and Jesuits.

To devote one's life to the alleviation of the sufferings of mankind is the first of benefits. The second is to enlighten them. Here again we meet with those superstitious priests who have cured us of our ignorance, and who for ten centuries buried themselves in the dust of the schools to rescue us from barbarism. They were not afraid of the light, since they opened to us the sources of it. They were anxious only to impart to us those precious stores which they had collected at the hazard of their lives among the ruins of Greece and Rome.

The Benedictine, who had studied every thing,-the Jesuit, who was acquainted with the sciences and the world, -the Oratorian and the professor of the university,-are perhaps less entitled to our gratitude than those humble friars who devoted themselves throughout all Christendom to the gratuitous instruction of the poor. "The regular clerics of the pious schools1 undertook, out of charity, to teach the lower classes reading, writing, arithmetic, and book-keeping. They likewise taught not only rhetoric and the Greek and Latin languages, but in the towns they also kept schools of philosophy and theology, scholastic and moral, mathematics, geometry, and fortification. When the pupils have finished their lessons, they go in troops to their homes under the superintendence of a religious, lest they should waste their time in playing in the streets."

1 Founded by St. Joseph Calasanctius about the beginning of the seventeenth century. T.

2 Helyot, tome iv. p. 307. Of all the institutions for gratuitous instruction to which Catholic charity has given birth, that founded in France by the venerable Father La Salle is the most conspicuous. It originated in the middle of the seventeenth century, and its members are known under the name of Brothers of the Christian Schools. From a statistical account published in 1842 we

Simplicity of style is always pleasing; but when it is united with simplicity in conferring benefits, it is equally admirable and affecting.

After these primary schools founded by Christian charity, we find learned congregations bound, by the express articles of their institution, to the service of letters and the education of youth. Such are the religious of St. Basil in Spain, who have not less than four colleges in each province. They had one at Soissons in France, and another at Paris-the College of Beauvais, founded by Cardinal Dorman. As early as the ninth century, Tours, Corbeil, Fontenelles, Fulda, St. Gall, St. Denys, St. Germain d'Auxerre, Ferrière, Aniane, and Monte Cassino in Italy, were celebrated seminaries. In the Netherlands the clergy of the common life were employed in the collation of original works in the libraries and in restoring the text of manuscripts.

All the European universities were founded either by religious. princes, or by bishops or priests, and they were all under the direction of different Christian orders. The famous university of Paris, whence the light of science was diffused over modern Europe, was composed of four faculties. It dates its origin from the time of Charlemagne,-from that barbarous age when Alcuin the monk, struggling alone against ignorance, formed the design. of making France a Christian Athens. Here a Budæus, a Casaubon, a Grenan, a Rollin, a Coffin, a Lebeau, taught; and here were formed an Abelard, an Amyot, a De Thou, and a Boileau. In England, Cambridge produced a Newton, and Oxford boasts of her Friar Bacon and her Thomas More, her Persian library, her manuscripts of Homer, her Arundelian marbles, and her excellent editions of the classics. Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland; Leipsic, Jena, Tübingen, in Germany; Leyden,

learn that at that time the congregation had 642 schools, chiefly in Europe, with 171,500 scholars. Since that period these numbers have increased. They have several establishments in the United States. There is a similar institute in Ireland, which has a large number of schools. T.

1 Fleury, Hist. Eccles., tome x. p. 34.

2 Instituted in the fourteenth century. T.

3 Fleury, Hist. Eccles., livre xlv.

4 Our author would have been more correct if, when speaking of Oxford, he had said nothing upon the subject of classics, but had praised that university for her copious and invaluable treasures of Oriental and other manuscripts. S.