TO-MORROW'S SUN-RISE.

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Vesper Vigil of the Resurrection.

HE radiant smiles which beam from the Church's countenance on this eve of the Spouse's resurrection, and the trickling tears of joyfulness which like pearly pendants adorn the cheeks of this mother of genial dews, the flowery decorations of her altars, the snowy, spangled garments of her ministers, resemble the effulgence which gilds the western hills with its streaming splendours, and after the gloom of a clouded day, smoothes the rugged brow of night, and cheers the drooping spirit with the sustaining hopes of the glorious effulgence of to-morrow's sunrise! The jubilant anthems, and hymns of harmony, and thrilling alleluias from the chorus of all who have vocal powers, which echo through her domes at the close of the life and sufferings of our blessed Lord, are like the parting lays of nature's artless songsters of the grove, pouring forth their praises for the day-light now departing. Look towards Monte Mario! See! the western atmosphere is ruddy, all glowing with vermillion, as if the palace were lit up for the reception of the vivifying luminary, after completing his diurnal course round our terrestrial orb ! His apparently increased disk displays a countenance of increased benignity, and his dazzling brilliancy is moderated. He stands at the porch on the confines of evening, to look back on the children of toil and warfare, who without his light would have dwelt in darkness and in the shadow of death. He takes a last glance over that land which would be desert, arid, and without whose beaming "the fig-tree would germinate no blossom", or the vine bear no fruit", the valleys would spring no flowers, or "the fields yield no meat"-the mellow loads of the orchard's branches

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would yield no floods of deliciously acidulous cider, the seed of gold would never reach maturity, or diamonds of the purest water would scintillate no sparkling brilliancy. But under the auspicious reign of his genial splendours, the tropics teem with fruitfulness, tinted with brilliant colours, and the chilly lands of arctic regions are filled with marrow and fatness!" He looks back with complacency over that land, where during his day's journey he moistened, fructified, matured, illumined, beautified, and rendered fragrant, all things by his universally diffusive radiance, by the odour of his ointments, "nec est qui se abscondat a calore ejus !" Oh! how strikingly emblematic of the circumstances which attend the 'setting of the Sun of Righteousness, whose holy word during his life darted effulgence through distant realms of darkness, in comparison with whose dazzling lustre the brightest beaming of the sun in his meridian glory, is but as a darksome shade or opacity itself! He is the great vivifying principle, "the quickening spirit", "the resurrection and the life". He is a well of salvation, who irrigates the arid soil with copious floods of waters springing up to eternal life, which moisten and invigorate the drooping plants of virtue. He is a "fire" whose genial heat cherishes them, develops their blossoms, and ripens their fruit to maturity-" nec est qui se abscondat a calore ejus", and without his reflected radiance "the pearl of great value" would never shine! His transit through life, it is true, was shrouded in the veil of His humanity, and obscured by abjection, humiliation, and sufferings. But these were as vernal clouds, floating reservoirs of delicious dews, exhalations from the ocean of His mercies, wafted by the breathing of His spirit over the spiritual kingdom in the springtime of our salvation, to descend in balmy distillations, and drench

HE DEPARTS IN SPLENDOUR

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arid souls in copious torrents of graces and draughts of inebriating spiritual consolations, "flumine voluptatis tuæ potasti eos", "Thou hast drenched them in torrents of delights!" But the sufferings of this life bear no proportion to the glory which is to come. Even on this evening the faint accents of the Church's joyfulness indicate that He is leaving, and contribute to the glory of His departure and to the splendours of His sun-setting. See! they look like those attenuated distillations of folding vapours in yon western sky, which add to the resplendent glories of the setting luminary. During the day they were opaque, and obscured his brilliancy, but oh! now they seem rocks of sapphire, quarries of amber, pendent in ether, and poised before the sun's dazzling disk, they seem glowing and transparent like amethysts before a lamp, and their outline curves and edges are shining as with cornices of burnished gold, surpassing those on the banks of the Nile or Bosphorus, on the mosques of Cairo or Constantinople, and in their diversified forms there appear gardens, palaces, fountains, and balustrades, spires and arched domes, resembling what we read of the architecture of the celestial Jerusalem! Oh! have the clouds really opened

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on this eve of Easter and given me a glimpse of heaven! Oh! if sufferings bring me there, they bear no proportion to that weight of glory which is revealed in me thing have I desired, that I shall require,-that I dwell all the days of my life in the house of the Lord! Better Lord, is one day in thy house than a thousand spent in the tents of sinners! At this season our hearts are inebriated with a torrent of delights, and the ordinary channels of heaven's graces overflow, and overwhelm our souls with the most nutritious and efficacious graces. The Nile periodically overflows the ordinary boundaries of its

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LIKE A GIANT FROM HIS BED.

fertilizing waters, and as then the Egyptian plains teem with fatness and corn, and as groves of olives and acacia flourish in verdure, and as the acanthus developes its leaves, and glowing colours, and odoriferous fragrance, under the fertilizing influences of the Nile; so, under the torrents of mercies overflowing from Christ's plentiful redemption at this Paschal time, the roots of faith and hope and love are cherished by the holy unction of his holy spirit, his entire spiritual kingdom yields flowers of virtue, whose fragrance ascends in the odour of sweetness, and bears abundant harvests of heavenly fruits! In this garden of holy Church I may hope to be "as a tree which is planted near the running waters", as a fruitful olive-tree in the house of God”—Ps. li., and my name be written in the book of life. "Olivam uberem pulchram, fructiferam, speciosam vocavit Dominus nomen tuum"-Jerem. ii. 16. "The Lord called thy name a plentiful olive-tree, fair, fruitful, and beautiful.

The glorious stream,
That late between its banks was seen to glide,
With shrines and marble cities on each side,
Glittering, like jewels strung along a chain,—
Had now sent forth its waters, and o'er plain
And valley, like a giant from his bed
Rising with outstretch'd limbs, superbly spread".

Easter's Aurora.

RETIRED to repose last night with my soul replete with the sentiments of the august mysteries, Iwith which the ceremonies of the last three memorable days were so influential in impressing them, and anxious for the celebration of the

NOT LIGHT NOR DARKNESS.

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I arose

great climax-the resurrection on the morrow. at a very early hour from "sleep, death's twin sister”. A mysterious, awe inspiring stillness prevailed in the Eternal City! Activity, the din of a crowded population, and echo herself, and the vibrations of sound, weary of their recent exertions, still lay motionless, absorbed in slumbers. The castle of St. Angelo and old Father Tiber seemed like the weired spectres of ancient Rome, to come out of Adrian's mausoleum, to roam about and revisit the ancient city of the Cæsars, and recall the endeared reminiscences of the ancient Capitol and the Forum, of emperors, generals, sieges, and the triumphs of the eloquence of Cicero, and how Horatius kept the gate! and how mighty Cæsar fell! There was a species of twilight, neither night nor day, but that neutral ground which forms the confines of both, where the twins Vesper and Aurora love to loiter in sisterly affection, till light or darkness relentlessly order their separation. The sky was colourless and dim, but it was not darkness, but seemed like the wan and placid corpse of light, which had just died of inanition. The monochrome of night was just blending its outline in imperceptible gradations and softenings off, with the white light of morning. Sin and the cross seemed contrasted. They seemed emblematic of the proximity of the late eclipse and darkness at the Crucifixion, and the approaching glories of the Resurrection. The moon, which shone brightly during the night, now like an exhausted lamp suspended from the azure concave dome, was paling languidly away, overwhelmed in the morning effulgence of the rising regent luminary of the day, and was like the types and figures of the Old Law, which dimly lit the way for the patriarchs and prophets now vanishing before the Gospel light, and the fulfilment of the promise of