tenary year, have no other desire than to see the stream of gratitude broaden and deepen into a mighty river. To the Sacred Heart of Our Lord, to the "Queen of the Society of Jesus," our grateful prayers arise. During the dark days of the Suppression devotion to them was ardently cherished as the sure means of bringing the Order back once more to life. So now, we trust, it will be the mainspring of renewed activity. Our thanks must likewise be poured forth at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiffs who have so consistently aided our efforts. That Pius VII., seeing by the incessant waves of irreligion which beat against his throne, should act as we have seen him act, tells of a fatherly interest which the Society gratefully records. "The Society is necessary to the Pope," once wrote the Vicar of Christ, with an exaggeration born of good will. We re-echo to-day with the simplicity of heartfelt conviction, "The Pope is necessary to the Society."

EDWARD KING, S.J.

MAHOMET II. IN THE BLACHERNÆ PALACE

SONNET

ALONE the Turk stands in the palace hall
Where Desolation's hand has set her seal,
Where ev'ry glance fresh ruin doth reveal,

Where hollow echoing his footsteps fall.
Where ruled the Cæsars, like a heavy pall
Hangs the spent silence, while there seem to steal
Shades of the mighty dead as in appeal

Against him, round each stripped and shivering wall.
E'en in his hour chill grows the Conqueror's breast;
He feels how transient splendour, sway, and state,
Since perished thus e'en proud Imperial Rome,
And speaks: "Behold the owl hath built her nest
In Cæsar's palace, and the spider's mate

Her curtain waves where emperors had their home!"
JOHN J. HAYDEN.

AUGUSTA

THE asp had slain the Serpent of Old Nile;
In shame the Burgonet of men lay dead;
From Roman eye doomed Lepidus had fled,
And all the golden constellations smile

On thee, Octavius, Emperor alone,

In shadow, of the boundless hosts of men ;
And would'st thou choose, ensign of triumph then,
One moon, to hallow Rome's imperial throne?

'Neath mantle blue, and snow-white veil, she went
Unknown along the paths of Palestine,
A Jewish girl, Augustus, and 'twas thine
The mandate that to Nazareth was sent,

Bidding the maid, in wintry day to come
To Bethlehem, her father's ancient land.
She came, disdaining not thy proud command,
And coming, blessed King David's earliest home.

And who art thou to-day, Octavius, who?
The school-boys' theme, to be forgotten soon;
They scorn the tale of thy Augustan moon;
How few have conned thy very name, how few?

Cæsar, this golden month's no longer thine.
Another name of majesty has come,
Another sovereign rules imperial Rome:
A peerless princess of a nobler line.

Empress of this fair world, resplendent maid!
To thee alone belong the harvest sheaves,
And all the gifts of August earth receives
And gives thy children for their toil repaid.

The ample sapphire dome with clouds of snow,
The azure summer sea with myriad smiles,
The golden tasselled corn the reaper piles,
The hymn of harvest-home, proclaim that now

Thy triumph-day, Assumption, is anon,
When all the Twelve assembled once again
To see thy face. But no! 'tween joy and pain,
They view the flower-filled casket; thou art gone

To reign with Him and live. Thou did'st not die
And leave us orphans utterly; but still,
The land must mourn thy going. Every hill
Must lose its lustre, and all creatures sigh.

The singing birds will leave us, all the trees
Put on their sad embroidery, for the leaves
Shall quit their pomp of verdure, Nature grieves;
And he alone may smile who hopeful sees

Thy throne above the stars, 'mid golden sheen
Encompassed by the angel host, who bring
Their empress to the King Supreme and sing:
"Hosanna evermore unto our Queen."

The painter and the poet strive in vain
To limn or chant what no man can descry.
We can but charm the children's inmost eye,
And so we trust the toil is not in vain.

W. F. POWER, S.J.

[The epithets applied, in the two first lines to Cleopatra and Anthony are those which the author of "Cymbeline" uses of them. Of course the reader knows that Cæsar Augustus gave his name to the sixth Roman month or moon, but as it contains Our Lady's great feast, we give it to her.]

IN

AN IRISH SUMMER COLLEGE

N these months when many combine pleasure and duty, it may not be without interest to describe one of the Summer Colleges, where one can find health and learn to be an Irishman—the ideal of mens sana in corpore sano, as it should be in Ireland.

Where was it? On a peninsula ; its name, were it written, would at once tell you that. A broad tongue of land, high and rock-bound, shields a broad bay from the ocean; one side is

clay and sand, where the sea has broken in and made the huge bay that lies between the peninsula and the real coast-line. On the bay-side, standing a hundred paces from the sand cliff and the strands below, was the college. It had once been some kind of public building, an orphanage, an asylum, or a reformatory. It was now an Irish home, where in summer grown-ups learned the language they should have learned long before at their mother's knee by their own hearth. For the rest of the year it was a school where boys would be "at college" and yet grow ever in the Gaelic spirit and the Gaelic tongue.

How the charm of that spot could work into the soul! Beyond the bay were the high, white cliffs, stretching far away to where the light-house blinked at dusk; inland were the mountains "each lifting its head above the other's back," and farther away to the west, rich green fields and clustering woods, where the South's soft beauty lay across the swelling hills.

Climb up the hill and walk through the furze and bracken of the dry turf on top. There below you lay the Atlantic. Now it rent itself uneasily on the jagged reefs, now it rolled leisurely in and lapped the smoother rocks. Down from you to the waves was stretched the hillside, clad in the gold russet and purple of August. It was a good thought to plant an Irish college in such a country-side. The bright memories of class and leisure hours. bring many back to refresh their love for Irish scenery infused with the spirit of Gaeldom. These summer colleges have been so cunningly placed that those who sacrifice holiday-seeking to nationality need not sacrifice their much-needed rest.

that

The open, where one could see the fields and the bay, was the school-room, save when the rain came. And the teaching was as refreshing as the school-room. There was wonderfully ingenious teacher, the Fear Mor. Very few know his real name, but this soubriquet, which, let us explain for the non-Gaels, is ordinarily reserved for the Satanic Majesty, described his tall, though rather consumptive build; he was a zealous Catholic and a zealous Gael, and was universally beloved. In class he never had recourse to English, but stimulated interest by all sorts of suggestive methods. For instance, cailini's hats would teach the meaning of positive, comparative, and superlative, with the word deas (pretty). A proferred arm and a mock departure from the class would teach a host of words connected with going and coming and walking. A passing funeral, the intrusion of a dog, the overloading of the sky, were the occasions for new object-lessons.

It requires skill to teach efficiently a class of adults by methods which at first sight seem appropriate only for the Kindergarten. Indeed, many had a prejudice against the method, but the first lesson was enough to stimulate a hearty appetite for more. The same method was applied in most of the classes, though, of course, varying with the personal character of the teacher, some were too formal, others were delightful, and "quizzed" home the dryest verb paradigms. To realise how masterly the teaching was, and how difficult the method, one had only to attend the last hour every evening when those seeking teaching diplomas gave practical demonstrations. Few were successes, some were passable imitations, a large number were failures.

The work is in itself not light from 10.30 till 2.0 p.m., with a half-hour's break at 12, and from 4 to 6, there is a round of classes-conversation, writing, texts, grammar. The last hour for this particular season was divided between singing and teaching lessons. There were two classes that one would never lose the dictation class and the singing. The dictation followed the mid-day break and filled the half hour before one. Then "Micky" was the master of the situation. Micky defies description on paper; a pencil sketch would be the nearest approach to justice. He was the sceulaidhe, the official storyteller. Somewhere in the engravings in the first editions of Lever's works there is a figure like Micky. Micky was an oldish man, a son of the soil, an Irish speaker from his cradle. He had been across the Atlantic, and had sharpened his own native wit by knowledge of many men and many cities. He was somewhat stooped and walked with a slouching gait. His expression was slow-witted until he became warm in talk. At 12.30 Micky faced the assembled college to tell a story; the head master was merely his secretary. Micky always gave his stories, however traditional the core might be, a local and a personal flavour. His big arms swung at times into gestures; he shuffled from one foot to the other at paragraphs; and his old cap, usually grasped by both hands as they hung before him, would occasionally accompany one hand in a gesture. His best efforts were his favourite exclamations, O Dia le m'anam (God be by my soul), and his Homeric trick of repetition; in one story the principal character was always referred to as Seaan O'Cealleachain, even if the references were but a few words apart; no one could withhold the laughter that grew with every repetition of the sonorous rhyming. Micky was always available for talk, and he often created a diversion in the open-air class;