SAINT CHRISTOPHER

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this strong man, who knows not yet the way to worship, but has found the way to serve Me."

One night he heard the voice of a Child, crying in the darkness and saying, "Christopher! come and bear me over the river!"

Christopher went out and found the Child sitting alone on the margin of the stream; and, taking Him upon his shoulders, he waded into the water. Then the wind began to roar, and the waves to rise higher and higher about him, and his little burden, which at first seemed so light, grew heavier and heavier as he advanced, and bent his huge shoulders down, and put his life in peril; so when he reached the shore, he said, "Who art thou, O Child, that hast weighed upon me with a weight as if I had borne the whole world upon my shoulders?"

The little Child answered, "Thou hast borne the whole world upon thy shoulders, and Him who created it. I am Christ, whom thou by thy deeds of charity wouldst serve. Thou and thy service are accepted. Plant thy staff in the ground, and it shall blossom and bear fruit!" With these words the Child vanished away.

The most effectual prayer is a coin put for God's sake in the poor-box.

-Austin O'Malley.

SAINT CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA

ELIZA ALLEN STARR

ELIZA ALLEN STARR, a noted American writer and art critic, was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, August 29, 1824. She had, in childhood and youth, all the advantages to be gained by a cultured home, and the conversation of the educated people who visited her father's house. When about twenty years of age she was sent to Boston for the purpose of enlarging her opportunities for learning. Here she began to investigate the claims of the Catholic Church and in time was received into the fold. She devoted her life to the work of good art and the great and good thoughts expressed by art. Her interpretations of the works of the great Masters were most profound, yet so simply and clearly expressed that she has made their messages understood and loved by thousands.

She has written and published the following books: "Songs of a LifeTime" (poems); "Patron Saints"; "Pilgrims and Shrines"; Christian Art in our Own Age"; "Archangels in Art"; "Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin"; "What we See"; and "The Three Keys." The last-mentioned book is a monumental work containing descriptions of Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican in Rome. In the year 1885 Notre Dame University, Indiana, conferred on her the Latare Medal. In the year 1900, Leo XIII. sent her a beautiful medallion of the Immaculate Conception as an expression of high regard for this valiant daughter of the Church, who had done so much to foster love and appreciation for art.

Miss Starr died in Durand, Wisconsin, September 7, 1901.

The setting sun of an African November, in the year of our Lord 307, flooded the city of Alexandria with a glory more of heaven than of earth. Two Greeks of the Musæum walked, side by side, the length of the noble portico where

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the philosophers and scholars of all nations, for six hundred years, had delighted to breathe the evening air as it floated in from the Mediterranean Sea. Around them lay the gardens of this royal seat of learning. Within sight was the Pharos, or light-house of white marble, on which fires were kept burning constantly, to guide the sailors into the great harbor.

More majestic still rose before them, encrusted with the beautifully veined marbles of Western quarries, the temple of the god, Serapis. More than two hundred years before, on the feast day of this god, the holy evangelist, Saint Mark, had been dragged along the paved streets of this idolatrous and wicked city and had been thrown outside the gates to die.

By a succession of events, too extraordinary for any but the Divine eye to foresee, this Alexandria; this seat of pagan philosophy, had also become a center of Christian doctrine, Christian morality, and of the profoundest Christian learning. Paganism struggled fiercely with its supernatural conqueror, and even when vanquished in fair scholastic combat never deigned to acknowledge its defeat.

The two learned Greeks, Myron and Caranus, were discussing a new order sent them from the emperor.

"To be called to meet a Christian scholar, if there be one, would be insulting enough; but to spend time and learning upon a woman, is hardly proper for us."

"You must remember," replied Myron, "that the Lady Catherine is a princess and that she is called learned. She is said to be beautiful and possessed of charming manners."

The men continued talking about the order which the emperor had given, that forty of the philosophers of Alexandria should, on the morrow, discuss with Catherine the truths of Christianity. It was, indeed, a strange order, as Caranus, the Greek had said, to ask a young girl to defend her faith against forty learned men.

Catherine, at the age of eighteen, was a prodigy of learning, for she had been educated by the successors of Pantænus of Alexandria and of his disciple, Saint Clement.

The morning after Myron and Caranus had been talking of Catherine was the one appointed for her to meet the philosophers. When she entered the grand hall where she was to combat pagan wisdom, the long array of learned men, the large number of curious spectators, and the presence of the emperor, all for a moment seemed to embarrass her. Soon she was at her ease and quietly took her place.

The rich garments of the princess were not put on for the occasion, only a white robe of woolen cloth hanging in graceful folds reaching to the ground. Her eyes were not cast down, but fearlessly looked at her opposers.

Each philosopher carried his roll under his robe, but no manuscript was concealed in the sleeves of Catherine's tunic. It was plain that she remembered the promise made by our Lord when He said: "But when they shall deliver you up, be not anxious how or what to speak, for it shall be given you in that safe hour what to speak."

The emperor spoke: "We have sent for you, Catherine,