pray ?' he retorted, and added with an oath: She shall not marry that prig Stretton.'

"Well, I drove Ralph's carriage to the appointed place at the time arranged, and very soon Constance and Ralph appeared. The girl did not look happy, and glanced round her fearfully ere she entered the carriage. Ralph was in boisterous spirits.

Show your capabilities, old man,' he cried as we started. The night was dark, the horses fresh, and I-by no means a good driver-excited. At a sharp curve on the road one of the animals took fright and sprang to one side. The other horse kicked and plunged, and an instant later both were off at a mad gallop. The inevitable catastrophe came."

"Well," Charlie Mansfield said, after a longish pause, " what happened?'

"The horses backed at a bridge and they and the carriage went over. The horses were killed, my right foot was sprained, and Constance Clifford lay like one dead. She had been hurt internally, we learned later. Suddenly she stirred, and cried out for a priest."

"And Ralph ?" Charlie questioned.

"Was injured too-how much I did not understand. It was then his right hand was smashed and bruised. The girl kept moaning and crying for a priest, and I recollected that about a mile off there was a cottage where a sick priest resided. I said so, and, a minute later, Ralph had lifted the girl in his arms, and with supernatural strength carried her to the roadway. It was a thinly populated part of the country and he carried the girl to the priest's door. How he accomplished the feat God knows. But he did it, and poor Constance Clifford lived to make her confession to the priest who out-lived her only one week. Her injuries were fatal. I saw her as she lay on a couch in Father Eadley's sitting-room, with her wonderful golden hair scattered round her dead face, and though thirty odd years have passed I can see her still.

Ralph had swooned away once he had consigned the girl to the care of the priest's housekeeper, and he never looked on her again, for her people, naturally enough, would not admit him within their doors. He had a couple of interviews with Father Eadley, and after these his face lost something of its frozen horror. The priest told him of the girl's resignation to her fate and of her faith and hope in God.

"Think of her as in heaven and among the blessed,' the

dying priest said, ' and think of what her life would have been with you, and thank God for the mercy shown her.'

"

What else Father Eadley said I never heard, but two months later Ralph became a Catholic, and later on he joined the Cistercian monks. His injuries prevented him from being admitted to the priesthood. As I have said, I only saw him once after he became a Catholic, but he spoke long and freely and was reconciled to the death of Constance.

God have mercy on us both,' he said reverently. 'I shall always feel remorseful to be sure. That you can understand, but, thank God, I can pray for Constance, and she in heaven will pray for me. Good-bye, old friend, and God bless

you.'

'So that is the story," Charlie commented.

"Yes," Colonel Trevor said, "and, though I have never desired to become a Catholic, yet I hold strong views on mixed marriages; and I believe Ralph and Constance would have both been miserable had their marriage come about. What did you say, Charlie?"

Oh, you know there are a few Irish labourers round the Hall, and I rather think "-Charlie paused-" I think I shall build a church for them, and their priest could often pray for Brother Basil and Constance."

Colonel Trevor smiled gravely: became a Catholic," he said.

I shouldn't wonder if you

GOOD THINGS WELL SAID

1. It is extremely difficult to gauge the wear and tear of work that we are not used to do. Every man is apt to think his neighbour has an easy time of it.—Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick.

2. No one of ordinary intelligence will refuse to admit that he is mortal; and yet a great many people behave as if their life in this world would probably be everlasting.—The same.

3. A man's joys are not taken away by his conversion, they are only changed.-St. Augustine.

4. Do not make conditions with God; He is our master, our king, our father, our all; let us think how to serve Him well, He will think how to give us good terms.-St. Francis de Sales.

5. I never knew a man in my life who could not bear another's misfortune perfectly, like a Christian.-Pope.

6. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.-George Eliot.

7. There never did and never will exist anything permanently noble and excellent in a character which was a stranger to the exercise of resolute self-denial.-Sir Walter Scott.

8. For every good deed of ours the world will be the better always. And perhaps no day does a man walk down the street cheerfully and like a child of God, without some passenger being brightened by his face, and unknown to himself catching from his look a something of religion.-R. L. Stevenson.

9. Love and sacrifice are never separated. A soul which thinks it can love, without being willing to sacrifice itself, is blind indeed, and completely deceived by the "father of lies." The thirst for sacrifice is the touchstone of sanctity.-Fr. Arsenius, O.F.M.

10. At the moment of death, what avail the offices we have held in life, the honours we have enjoyed, the praise, the friendship and the esteem of men? So many we have known are now dead, yet of none of them has it been said: He is happy, for he was a man of lofty intellect; he is happy, for he was a deep philosopher, a deep theologian. No, but we have said: He is happy, for he was a true and holy religious.-The same.

II. Temper is so good a thing that we should never lose it.— Anon.

12. Life is like a nutmeg grater-you have to rub up against the rough side of it to accomplish anything."-Anon.

SOME NEW BOOKS

1. Index to the Works of John Henry Cardinal Newman. By Joseph Rickaby, S.J., B.Sc. (Oxon.) London: Longmans, Green & Co. (Price 6s. net.)

66 6

Father Rickaby tells us that this book is neither a Concordance nor an Onomasticon:" It is meant to be a guide to Newman's thought, to the changes of that thought, or, as he would have said, to the development' which his thought has run through, from the first public utterances of the Fellow of Oriel to the last words of the aged Priest of the Oratory." This index, therefore, enables us to see at a glance the difference between his views as expressed, say, in his Oxford sermons, and those which he preached as a Catholic. For instance, turning to the heading, God, Existence of, we find the following statements with their proper reference : We believe in the existence of God, though it can be proved also '; ' not pleasant to inquire into the proofs in a catechetical instruction; popular proofs: 'conscience and our personal history,'' suffice for our believing in God, though there was no external world'; ' argument from external world dangerous, because it tells us nothing about sin'; 'no article. in the whole Catholic faith more mysterious' ;-—two manners of assent to the being of a God, notional and real; 'physical phenomena taken by themselves; apart from psychological phenomena, apart from moral considerations,'-so taken the question is whether physical phenomena logically teach us or logically remind us of the being of a God';-' were it not for this voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist, or a polytheist when I looked into the world.'"

This extract must suffice as a sample of the detailed nature of the work. Its accuracy and utility can only be judged by those who have occasion to make what we may call a professional use of it in their study of Newman's works. Father Rickaby deserves the thanks of all students of Newman for having placed this book at their disposal.

2. Meditations and Devotions. By John Henry Cardinal Newman. New Impression. London: Longmans, Green & Co. (Price 3s. 6d. net.)

Most of those who know this collection of Cardinal Newman's

Devotions are familiar with a volume of unusual form,-which is, we believe, technically described as Narrow Crown, and which was published in 1893. In this new edition we are presented the more usual octavo form. No change has been made in the text. We can cordially recommend this excellent collection to those who may not have become acquainted with it already. The whole is divided into three parts: I. The Month of Mary; II. Stations of the Cross; III. Meditations on Christian Doctrine ; these titles representing the general nature of the matter of each part.

3. A volume. of familiar essays on clerical topics to which its author, the Rev. Arthur Barry O'Neill, C.S.C., has given the name Priestly Practice, has been published by the University Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, and we think it will prove popular not only on the other side of the Atlantic but on this also. A priest who puts it on his shelves-and reads it-will be doing himself a good turn. It is meant for the ordinary, average priest-for what Father O'Neill calls "a sort of clerical counterpart of that familiar lay figure, the man in the street"; and it deals with practical subjects in a practical way. There are some very good essays or chapters on the Mass, the Office, and on daily meditation, chapters on preaching, on reading, and the employment of time, on health and its importance in the ministry and the means to preserve it. A chapter entitled "The Priest as Book Censor " contains recommendations for the priest who is called upon, as so many are nowadays in this age of universal reading, to advise the faithful upon what books they may safely read and what they had better avoid ; and, naturally, his principal recommendation is to consult the book reviews of our Catholic magazines and of well-edited Catholic papers. Father O'Neill is AssociateEditor of the Ave Maria, a fact which prepares one for the shrewd and trenchant judgments he passes on various writers of modern fiction as well as for the bright and readable style in which his essays are written. The price of the volume of 250 pages is one dollar.

4. The Absolution of Recidivi and of Occasionarii. By the Rev. David Barry, S.T.L. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd. (Price Is. net.)

Readers of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record will be well aware of the vigorous controversy, on the subject which gives a title to this work, recently carried on in its pages between Father Barry and Father Edward Masterson, S.J. In the present pamphlet Father Barry has reprinted the articles which he contributed