to me came my brother Neill, whom I had seen last at Dun Brolchain, and took me on his shoulders where I hung limp. He bore me to an outhouse at the back of the Long House and laid me down. When I spoke to him he started, for he had thought me drunk. Then said he pointing to the door, 'Fly, Malcolm, silently, and look not back upon your steps.' I guessed there was evil work ahead, and shouted treachery!

But Neill sprang at me and grappled with me. That accursed wine had numbed my limbs though my head was clear. I could do little against him. Over and over we rolled upon the floor, now Neill uppermost, now I, and had he not been my brother he would have finished me. As it was, he bound me tighter than he need and forced me to silence. Then he dragged me out with him, and as I left the clachan I saw a house burst out in flames and heard much shouting. Said Neill, 'It is the death fire of the renegade, MacDonald Terreagh.' A little farther on he unbound my arms and left me, saying, 'Get home and come not back. MacLean and his men are prisoners, and but for me you'd share their fate. I have risked much for you. Even now I may be missed.' But I crept back unknown to him, and watched till near the dawn. The house where MacDonald Terreagh had lodged was burned to the ground. I make no doubt, from what Neill said, he perished in it. When the first morning sounds began I fled away through the heather to Loch Gorm. Had I been an hour later not one of us would have won home here."

He stopped, and there arose in that hall a storm of words and angry cries against Sir Angus MacDonald, but Allen MacLean's eyes shone with a wicked light. He wished MacDonald had gone a little farther. But he knew how to act a part, and none was louder than he in lamenting the fate of MacLean or in threats of vengeance.

Yet all the while he was listening to a demon whispering in his ear: "If Sir Lauchlan was dead instead of prisoned, there would be but Hector between you and the chieftainship. Young Kenneth does not count."

"

"But," he answered the tempter, 'MacDonald will not take Sir Lauchlan's life while his best loved brother lies here a hostage. Coll MacDonald is in the way."

Then an evil smile crossed his face as a bold thought flashed upon him. His cunning mind seized on it at once, and began to map out the details of a treacherous plan blacker and crueller than MacDonald's.

It is not good for a man to lie directly in the path of another man's ambition, especially when he lies, as Coll MacDonald did, beneath that other's foot. The car of Juggernaut could not crush more surely.

That evening as Coll MacDonald sat in his prison chamber beside his untouched supper, there came to him the mother of Sir Lauchlan MacLean. He had heard what had befallen in Mulindry, and had been occupied with serious thoughts all day. He felt he was in the gravest danger, and had little longing to hang from Duart battlements to rot and shrivel under the eyes of the men of Mull.

He expected taunts from Lady MacLean, but the cresset brought into the room by her attendant showed him a sorrowful face with nothing of anger in it, and instead of threats he heard petitions and promises mingled with a tale, in which Allen MacLean's name figured often, of a fast coming crisis that would involve the houses of Islay and Mull in deadly strife. What was uppermost in his mind when Lady MacLean at length left him, was that a struggle in Islay would mean danger to Grace MacDonald. His own peril which he now judged to be even more desperate than he had at first supposed affected him not half so much.

(To be continued.)

GOD IS LOVE

(Translated from the German of Father Opitz, S.J.,
by S. L. Emery.)

GOD is love!" Let church-bells ring it

Over wood and field and sea.

"God is love!" Let all men sing it

In ecstatic jubilee.

But, in one place o'er all others,

Sounds it clearest-there where He

Gave on Calvary His Mother,

All men's Mother now to be.

LOUVAIN AND ITS UNIVERSITY

By REV. H. V. GILL, S.J.

O most people Louvain is but a name which stands for culture, learning, Catholicity; but to some the name recalls many a happy day and well-loved friend.

It

is true that when we look back through the years it is, thank God, the pleasant things which stand out most prominently. We forget the days of home-sickness, the loneliness which even kind friends cannot remove at once. These things are part of life, and the very faculties and qualities which enable us to appreciate and value kindness, friendship, and sympathy must necessarily imply the possibility of suffering. For could we value the newer friendships, or learn to respect and honour a strange people, did we not first love our own? To the writer the name of Louvain brings up many a happy day and valued friendship; many a day of arduous work and pleasant companionship; the walks through the old town with its narrow streets and beautiful old churches; the stately Hôtel de Ville, with its thousand statues; St. Pierre, the fine old church, affectionately supported by many an estaminet and cigar shopSt. Pierre with its noble pulpit, gorgeous tabernacle, priceless stained glass, its altar of Our Lady, the Sedes Sapientiae, where the new made Doctor of Divinity went to pay his homage to the Mother of his Master; the University with its pillared hall and well-stocked library, its reading-room where so many an hour was spent over thick folio or modern pamphlet: all this and more comes to mind. And now the word reaches us that Louvain is destroyed-destroyed by the act of a ruthless soldiery. Could any cause, could any excuse, we ask ourselves, justify such a deed?

Louvain has been called the Oxford of Belgium. It might with greater truth, be compared to Cambridge. The same sleepy atmosphere of "cultured ease" characterised both places. The slowly moving Dyle is not a more sleepy river than the Cam, and is about as narrow. Louvain has a greater reputation for the sciences, law, Oriental languages than for classics. In this, too, it resembles Cambridge-though I

believe the classical men of the latter seat of learning would be slow to admit the classical superiority of the rival place. However this may be, Louvain was with reason proud of her ancient University with its great history and noble traditions.

The Catholic University of Louvain was not a State-aided institution. It has lived and flourished on the generosity of Catholics, and in this, too, it resembles the older Universities of England-in which, alas, the generous foundations of a John Fisher and a Margaret Beaufort are put to uses very different to those which their charity and piety had intended. Only five years ago the whole learned world assembled in this old town to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the restoration of the University, which had been suppressed from 1797 to 1834. On that occasion the representatives of the great Universities of the world were proud to receive Louvain degrees, and be enrolled in the list of honorary members of the University. Our country was honoured, too, for the present Vice-Provost of Trinity College was one of the most welcomed guests-and let there be no objection in the back of our minds, that perhaps Trinity College only stood for a section of our people. Distinctions in questions of nationality do not appeal to foreigners as clearly as to us. In Louvain on that occasion Trinity College represented the learned of Ireland, and as such was honoured. And it is right that Ireland should have been honoured by the University of Louvain, and it is right that Ireland should honour and love Louvain and its University, for the ties which bind Ireland to Louvain are very strong and very close.

Throughout Europe, between the eleventh and the end of the fifteenth centuries, there arose on all sides Studia Generalia, which, according to the erudite Dominican, Father Denifle, were schools which opened their doors to all those who were desirous of attaining learning. The members of each school formed themselves into a corporation for teaching, and thus arose "Universities" approved by the Popes and enjoying special privileges granted by them.

According to Denifle, during the Middle Ages fifty-six Universities were founded, all in communication with the Holy See. Forty-six of them had their letters of foundation direct from the Popes, and amongst them was the University of Louvain, which received its brief from the hands of Pope Martin V. in the year 1425. The history of the University may be divided into two periods. The first was from 1425-1797,

during which period the University profited by the increasing power of the rulers of Brabant, and many of the various sovereigns and princes whose careers are associated with the history of Belgium. The Dukes of Burgundy, Princes of Hapsburg, Austria, and Spain may be mentioned. We are told that more than forty colleges received students, who were also grouped, as at Paris, into different nations. During this period the reputation of the University was chiefly associated with the faculties of Law, Philosophy, and Theology. Amongst the famous names we find those of Justus Lipsius, Baïus, Jansenius, and Lessius. The sciences also flourished. Unfortunately, however, political disputes arose between the University authorities and the Government towards the end of the eighteenth century on account of the action of the Emperor Joseph II., who wished to impose his own royalist theories—and the Belgians are not a kind of people on whom it is easy to impose anything against their will. The University had a final victory in this dispute, only to meet with a storm which was for a time to overwhelm it. In 1792 the Netherlands were occupied by the troops of the French Republic. The University was suppressed; its scientific property fell into the hands of its spoilers: the whole institution was for the time ruined, and was extinct until its resurrection in 1834.

It was during this first period that the strong ties between Ireland and Louvain were formed. The earliest Irish community which settled in Louvain seems to date from the year 1601, when the Irish Franciscans were in possession of a house near the Church of St. Jacques, in which their young students lived. Up to that time the Irish Franciscan students were scattered through the different convents of Spain, Italy, France, and Belgium. Florence Conry, the Archbishop of Tuam, obtained, between the years 1606 and 1609, from Philip III. a foundation for a convent, the first stone of which was laid by Albert and Philip, the Governors of the Netherlands. In the seventeenth century there was as many as forty members in the community of this convent. The highest authorities. tell us that no Franciscan college maintained with greater zeal than this the character of the Order, as expressed in their motto, Doctrina et sanctitate. The list of the names of the professors of the College of St. Antony justifies this praise, and these Irishmen in company with their Belgian brothers were on this account known as brown Jesuits!

It is interesting to recall the fact that in 1616, when the