Rome to the rescue! where art thou?
Loose from the leash thy blood-hounds now.
Dost thou not hear the "still small voice,"
Whispering afar o'er hill and glen.
Its mission," Sinful souls, rejoice!
"Glad tidings to the sons of men ?"-
Loosed they are all, the Sorbonne's pack,
Skilful and trained to find the track.
Swift to the search they eager press;
They scour all Livry's wilderness,
From cot to cot, from home to home-
Here, stands the signet-mark of Rome,
The patron saint, the tinsel shrine-
Pass on-there's safety in the sign.
There, praise ascends and prayer is poured
From peasant lips, to God the Lord;
"Tis heresy then here the man
Perchance his daring work began.
Yet here he lurks not-farther on!
Go where the light of life has gone.
Hark! how that infant lisps with awe
The precepts of Jehovah's law.
Peace, babe, thy accents will betray
Thy good instructor's onward way.
List! heard ye not that old man say

Thy rod and staff shall be my stay, And in thy statutes, day and night, Shall be thy servant's sole delight." There sounds the Galilean speech ; The foe is surely near;

Within our grasp, within our reach—

Arrest we his career.

Their toils at length successful laid,

The Hermit is a prisoner made.

His journeyings o'er, his pilgrim-feet
Stand still before the judgment-seat.
Now man of God, be strong-be strong.
Thy foes' dark triumph lasts not long.
The Sorbonne frowns upon thee now,
The wisdom of the wise-but thou
Wiser than these thy teachers art,*
God's precepts ruling in thy heart.
No mercy had such court to give,
No voice to bid the Hermit live ;
But one fierce cry: Prepare the fire!
The pile is heaped, the blaze shines bright;
France, witness thou that funeral pyre !
Higher in burnings rise and higher;
Far up to heaven they now aspire,
And in its records write,

With pen of that consuming flame,
The Hermit's world-forgotten name.

Psalm cxix. 99.

A. N.

I had trembled to the latest moment lest Juliet should reclaim her Bible, that royal gift so cherished by her earliest friend, bequeathed to herself with so much hope, and expectation, and fervent prayer: but I need not have feared-she was now minding earthly things-her treasure was in them, and there her heart was also. Our parting had been full of sad affection, full of uncertainty on my part, of gratitude on hers for all my recent efforts; but neither by word or look did she revert to more distant memories, and with the strange mingling of triumph and depression which I have described, I concluded they were obliterated for ever.

Musing on all this, one day, not long after her departure, my eyes happened to light upon this gorgeous volume, lying apart and untouched as it had remained since the hour its owner had sorrowfully resigned it into my hands; yielding to a momentary impulse, I arose, and removing it from its resting-place, unclasped the covers, and laid it open before me on my desk. I performed this movement almost mechanically, my thoughts full of her to whom the book belonged, and again relapsed into a reverie in which she still held the uppermost place. Gradually I found my mind perplexed with contradictory feelings; early associations

and more recent intellectual pursuits awakening a sympathy with that free spirit of inquiry which dawned at the Reformation, and which, since then, has existed in many an honest and enlightened member of the Romish church, even while shrinking from pursuing it to its full length.* I asked myself, was this free spirit compatible with the blind obedience I had exacted? I felt how completely it differed from the principle I had enforced; and, as I mentally reviewed the whole course of my late proceedings, I involuntarily exclaimed, "Have I stifled the voice of truth: have I in reality preferred darkness to light, and extinguished the lamp that was already kindled in an anxious and inquiring heart?'

As these reflections intruded, my eyes rested on the page before me; it was open at that closing record, the last chapter of the gospel of St. John; and suddenly my wandering gaze was arrested by those words, the last impressive admonition of that great Shepherd of His sheep, "Feed my lambs." I started at a sentence thus directly in unison with my recent thoughts; and, following the sacred narrative, again I paused at the renewed exhortation, "Feed my sheep ;" and yet again the third time, even as the repentant disciple had been grieved, so was my heart within me wrung, as I read once more that injunction repeated, " Feed my sheep.” The whole affecting scene seemed to return in all its vividness, smiting me to the very dust; while illumined by a ray of light divine, those gentle sentences of forbearing love, arrayed themselves before my consciencestricken spirit, in characters more appalling than the glowing handwriting on the wall. Yes, at that moment,

* Vide D'Aubigne's Hist. Reform. Vol. iv. p. 111.

I felt myself weighed in the balance and found wanting; the sincere language of my heart would have gladly been, "Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee," but I dared not venture to utter it in the face of that violated command: a heavy sense of disobedience, of unfaithfulness, of trust betrayed, weighed upon my spirit, and, burying my face upon the accusing page, I wept, like that heart-stricken disciple" bitterly."

Father Eustace paused, and opening the Bible at this passage, placed it in my hand as he silently pointed to the words; then, in a low sad tone, continued, 'Long years have passed since then, but the traces of those tears have never been obliterated from that pagefrom this heart. "Feed my lambs"-oh, how had I fulfilled that commission? by wresting from one of those little ones the word of eternal life; by feeding her on ashes instead of the living bread which came down from heaven; deceiving her heart and turning it aside: I read and wept-and still at every word the Holy Spirit seemed more and more to reveal Himself, awakening within my heart a sense of its deep transgression, of the dishonour I had done unto that Holy name, the injury I had inflicted on her who was now gone astray even as a sheep without a shepherd, wandering in vain search of the green pastures she had lost.

'I read and wept-and, at length, those tears were blessed the stony heart was smitten, the living waters gushed forth; from day to day I perused this sacred volume with increasing light and hope; and, although while I rejoiced in its soul-reviving words, a neverdying memory of her from whom they had been wrested would arise to cloud my new-found joy: still with it sprang a conviction, that a time would yet arrive when, rejoining that deceived one, I might implore her