ISHMAEL'S SON

But from men's wicked wrath I fly,
No gold, no gilt is mine,

Save this, my little Infant's robe
I give to thee, for thine."

A snowy little robe it was,

Of finest linen wrought

With all the quaint and graceful skill
To Temple maidens taught.

And from its spotless folds there came
A fragrance sweet and rare

Of Eastern myrrh and frankincense,
That filled the desert air.

A moment, by this gracious gift
From grief and tears beguiled,
The Arab mother placed the robe
Upon her dying child.

And lo! the little leprous form
With sudden rapture thrilled,
As if some blessèd flood of life,
Its parched veins had filled.

Soft flushed the little ashen cheek,
Bright grew the death-dimmed eye,
While from the rosy lips there came
A low, sweet, happy sigh.

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And breathless with the wondrous joy
That swept her woman soul,

The mother clasped her leprous babe,

Made fair and sweet and whole!

Long years had passed; 'twas that dread Noon

That shuddered into Night,

As though pale nature dared not gaze

On Calvary's cruel sight.

Beside the Cross where Christ our Lord
The world's redemption won,

On lesser gibbets fiercely writhed
Old Ishmael and his son.

With foaming cheek and staring eye
And shrieks that rent the air,

Old Ishmael, the robber chief,

Gave voice to his despair.

But wistfully the son's dark face

Turned to the thorn-crowned Brow; "Lord, we have sinned, our doom is just, But sinless all art Thou.

"Long years ago my mother taught
My lips to bless Thy name,
And told, how to our desert tent,

The Child called Jesus came.

ISHMAEL'S SON

Thou who didst cure the leprous babe,

I believe, I hope in Thee.

When Thou shalt to Thy kingdom come.
O Lord, remember me."

And Jesus turned His dying eyes
Upon the sin-bowed head:
"This day with me in Paradise,

Friend, thou shalt be," He said.
And lo, the spotless robe of grace
The contrite thief had won,
And first redeemed by Jesus' Blood,
Was fierce old Ishmael's son!

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Good habits are the soul's muscles-the more you use

them the stronger they grow.

-Austin O'Malley.

I love my books. They are companions dear,
Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere;
Here talk I with the wise in ages gone,

And with the nobly gifted of our own.
If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind,
Love, joy, grief, laughter in my book I find.
-Francis Bennoch,

THE EASTER VISION OF THE BROTHER

SACRISTAN

SUSAN L. EMERY

MISS SUSAN L. EMERY is a convert to the Catholic Church. She was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and after graduating from the high school there she pursued her studies at a boarding-school in Greenfield, Massachusetts. On leaving school, she taught private pupils for some time, and then became assistant editor of the Young Christian Soldier, in New York. After her conversion she devoted herself for a long while to parish work in her native place, and has been for a number of years on the editorial staff of the Sacred Heart Review of Boston. Her writings have also appeared in the American Catholic Quarterly, Donahoe's Magaziue, the Catholic World, the Ave Maria, Harper's Magazine, and other periodicals. She writes both prose and verse, and has compiled an “Every Day in the Year Book," from the spiritual writings of St. John of the Cross.

All along the Connecticut valley the snows were melting in the mild spring air; up in the balmy heavens the robin and lark sang clear; in the woods the trailing arbutus was blooming as fragrant and fair as its Plymouth Rock sisters beside the sea; and the sturdy little hepatica and frail windanemone nodded joyously to each other, for the happy days had come. Do we think the birds and flowers know nothing about Easter? Oh, anybody can see them keep it, who has eyes to see it! All nature is singing glad anthems to tell that Christ is risen with the spring.

In the great city the stately churches were flooded with

VISION OF THE BROTHER SACRISTAN 155

melody from organ and flute and viol, and the surpliced choirs chanted glad and gay, "Alleluia! Alleluia!" Magnificent altars were ablaze with manifold brilliant tapers, while glorious white lilies bent their fragrant chalices toward the one fairer chalice which the Precious Blood of the Risen Redeemer made more wonderfully fair than any pen can sing or pencil paint.

In the famous Jesuit church of the Gesu, famed throughout the old primatial city for its decorations of extraordinary loveliness, men said one to another: "Brother Rodriguez has surpassed himself to-day. The church was never so divinely beautiful before." And at High Mass the good Brother, hidden in a secluded nook behind the pulpit, looked with dim and dazzled gaze at the grandeur. It had grown to its perfection slowly, all night, under his practised eye and skillful hand, straight from his artist brain and holy heart of love; and he prayed beneath his breath:

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My risen Jesu, this is all for Thee. Surely I never worked like this before. All praise to Thy Sacred Heart! Is any church of Thine to-day more beautiful, and hast Thou any Sacristan more favored and more glad than I, unworthy though I be?"

A strange thing happened then to Brother Rodriguez, the like of which in all his long and arduous career as Sacristan had never before befallen him. Already, that day, he had served three Masses and he had been awake all night besides; but that was nothing unusual. Then, as usual also, he had crept for High Mass into that quiet corner where no