quence, and radiant with the light of science. The first Jesuits were men mighty in word and work, endowed even with the gift of miracles, like unto the first Apostles, and that for a similar purpose,-to bear testimony of the truth before the heretic and the unbeliever, and to establish the authority of God's Church on earth. 7. Animated with the spirit which descended on Ignatius during his lone night-watch in the chapel of Our Lady of Montserrat, the Jesuits were everywhere seen in the thickest of the contest, then raging all over Europe, between truth and religion on the one side, and error and heresy on the other. Wherever the Church needed their powerful succor, wherever human souls were in danger, there were the sons of Loyola seen, with lance in rest, to rescue and to save. The burning plains of Africa, the idolatrous countries of Asia, the wilds of the New World, and the swarming cities of old Europe, all were alike the scenes of the Jesuits' herculean labors. 8. They taught, they preached, they guided the councils of kings, they knelt with the penitent criminal in his cell, they consoled the poor man in his sorrows and privations, they traversed unknown regions in search of souls to save, they ate with the Indian in his wigwam, and slept on the cold earth, with only the sky for a covering, and often, very often, they suffered tortures and death at the hands of the ruthless savage. East, west, north, and south, the earth has been saturated with their blood, and Christianity sprang up everywhere in the footprints washed with their blood. 71. EDUCATION. DIGBY. 1. THE ancients say that the essential things in the education of the young are to teach them to worship the gods, to revere their parents, to honor their elders, to obey the laws, to submit to rulers, to love their friends, to be temperate in refraining from pleasures-objects not one of which the moderns would think of entering into a philosophic plan of education; since it is notorious that with them the direction of the energies and passions is always excluded from it. 2. The moderns have determined, practically at least, that the whole of education consists in acquiring knowledge, and that the only subject of deliberation is respecting the mode best calculated to further that end in the shortest time, and with the least possible expenditure. With them, the person who can speak or argue on the greatest number of subjects, with the air of knowing all about each of them, is the best educated. 3. The moderns generally applaud that system of public education which nourishes what they call a manly spirit, by which the boy is made bold and insolent, and constantly ready to fight or contend with any one that offers the smallest opposition to his will; which makes him resemble the son of Strepsiades returning from the school of the Sophists, of whom his father says, with joy, "In the first place, I mark the expression of your countenance: your face indicates at once that you are prepared to deny and to contradict. Yours is the Attic look." 4. Hence, many of their young men are like those who were disciples of the Sophists, of whom Socrates says, they were fair and of good natural dispositions-what the moderns would term of polished manners, but insolent through youth. The rules given to youth for conversation, in his treatise on the manner in which men should hear, approaches nearer to the mildness and delicacy of Christian charity than, perhaps, any other passage in the heathen writers. He inculcates what approaches to its modesty, its patience, in attending to others, and waiting for the voluntary self-corrections of those with whom they converse, and its slowness to contradict and give offence. 5. But all this falls very short, and indeed can yield not the slightest idea, of the effects of education upon the young in the ages of faith, when the Catholic religion formed its basis, and directed its whole system in all its objects, manners, and details "The soul of the child," says St. Jerome, "is to be educated with the view of its becoming a temple of God. It should hear nothing but what pertains to the fear of God. Let there be letters of ivory," he continues, "with which it may play-and let its play be instruction. No learned man or noble virgin should disdain to take charge of its instruction." 6. These observations will have prepared us to feel the beauty of the following examples :-We read of St. Blier, that while a child he gave admirable signs of piety and grace Nothing could be imagined more sweet, benign, gentle, and agreeable than his whole manner: he seemed like a little angel in human flesh, who used to pray devoutly, visit holy places, converse with saints, and obey the commandments of God with the utmost diligence. 7. Christine de Pisan says of Louis, duc d'Orléans, son of King Charles V., that the first words which were taught him were the Ave-Maria, and that it was a sweet thing to hear him say it, kneeling, with his little hands joined, before an image of our Lady; and that thus he early learned to serve God, which he continued to do all his life. And Dante, in the "Paradise," commemorating the youthful graces of St. Dominic, says of him, "Many a time his nurse, on entering, found That he had risen in silence, and was prostrate, 8. The old writers love to dwell upon the description of this age. Thus the young Archduke Leopold of Austria is described as having the looks, as well as the innocence, of an angel; and it is said that the mere sight of him in Church used to inspire people with devotion. The young St. Francis Regis, while at college at Puy, was known to all the inhabitants of the town under the title of the Angel of the College. There might have been seen a young nobleman employed in collecting the poor little boys of the town, and explaining to thom the Christian doctrine! What school of ancient philosophy ever conceived any thing like this? 10 72. EDUCATION-continued. 1. In the first place then let it be remembered, that the mind of the young must ever be devoted either to an idea or to sense,—either to an object of faith (and youth is peculiarly qualified for possessing faith), or to that visible form of good which ministers to animal excitement. If the citadels of the souls of the young be left void of pure and noble images, they will be taken possession of by those that are contrary to them; if not guarded by the bright symbols of beauteous and eternal things, error and death, moral death, with all its process of intellectual degradation, will plant their pale flag there. 2. As with the intellectual direction, so it is with the manners and intercourse of youth; for these will ever be directed after one of two types-either by the spirit. of sweetness and love, or that of insolence and malignity. All systems of education that are merely human, and under the guidance of rationalism, will never nourish and fortify, when they do not even recognize and extol the latter; for being formed on merely natural principles, all that belongs to man's unkindness will have free scope to be developed within their dominions; and, therefore, disobedience, dissipation, the will and ability to oppress weaker companions, will entitle the youth, who has sufficient tact, to know how far precisely these qualities may be exercised with the applause of animal minds, to the enviable character of possessing a manly spirit. He will discover, too, that his father has only one desire respecting him, like that of Jason in the tragedy, whose sole prayer for his sons is, that he may see them grow to manhood, well nourished and vigorous, that they may be a defence to him against his enemies. 3. In studies also, emulation will be carried to an excess, which renders the youthful mind obnoxious to all the worst attendants of ambition, so that under these modern systems, while education conduces to victory, their victory, as Socrates says, will often undo the work of education. 4. Plato had so sublime a sense of just education, that he acknowledges, that the good when young, will appear to be weak and simple, and that they will be easily deceived by the unjust and he, too, would not allow the young to acquire that knowledge of the world, which was so carefully excluded from Catholic schools-but which is now thought so essential to children. 5. He is only good who has a good soul; which he cannot possess who has a personal acquaintance with evil." 6. Are we disposed to question this proposition! Hear what Fuller acknowledges, "Almost twenty years since," says he, "I heard a profane jest, and still remember it." 7. The old poet, Claude de Morenne, acknowledges in one of his pieces, that he had read certain poems in his youth, which had done an injury to his imagination and his heart, which nothing could repair. This is the dreadful effect of renouncing the ancient discipline. Such is the stain which reading of this description impresses upon the mind, that the moral consequences seem among those which never may be cancelled from the book wherein the past is written. 73. ST. AGNES. TENNYSON. A. TENNYSON, the present poet laureate of England, is a popular and voluminous writer. He has a rich yet delicate taste in the use of language, and a descriptive power unparalleled by any other living poet. 1. DEEP On the convent-roof the snows My breath to heaven like vapor goes; The shadows of the convent-towers Still creeping with the creeping hours Make Thou my spirit pure and clear Plato de Repub., lib. ifi. |