Still more difficult is it to preserve that solemnity and decorum that are fitting in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, when such things are possible, in this penitential vigil, as the performance of selections from popular themes, played, not as a setting to any hymn, but merely as a solo.

After midnight it is permitted to make the stations for the second day in the church. The prayers are recited aloud, the congregation standing and kneeling as for the Stations of the Cross. During the intervals between the three stations it is very difficult to keep awake. The dim light of the church, illumined by one oil lamp, the cramped position either kneeling or sitting, added to bodily fatigue, all conduce to somnolency. The people of the district who make this pilgrimage year after year, have a device for warding off sleep which they are generous in sharing with those whom they observe to nod. They go about the church offering large canisters of snuft which, on a trial, we found to be excellent and most efficacious in restoring mental activity. If our fatigue were such that we could not frame any words of prayer, we could at least fix our eyes upon the Tabernacle and occupy our minds with fitting thoughts.

Dawn came on apace. Through the open doors at either side of the high Altar we could faintly distinguish the outline of the hills in a grey-green mist, and as the moments passed the waters of the lake became visible in their leaden hue which, as the sun rose, lightened and brightened into fairy tints. Half-past four clanged out in rapid strokes as the bell swung to and fro, and a stir passed over us and shook off the drowsiness of the preceding night as we prepared to hear Mass at five o'clock.

We were exempt from all stations on the second day, having already made them during the night, but such is the devotion of the pilgrims, so anxious is everyone to avail of this great indulgence, that few take more than a short rest and then begin again the order of the prescribed exercises. On this day the pilgrims go to confession. This takes place in St. Mary's Church, a fine edifice at the other side of the island. For confession a ticket must be obtained, and for this ticket a charge is made of one shilling. Of course money is required not only for the support of the clergy who minister to the pilgrims, but also for the upkeep of the churches and buildings which no doubt suffer considerably from winter storms. Yet it might be possible to impose this necessary payment in some other way, such, for instance, as an addition to the small amount charged for maintenance (four and sixpence for three days), or as a tax when landing on the island.

On the third day pilgrims leave the island, having made the

three requisite stations in the early morning, and received Holy Communion. But although it is permitted to leave, the fast may not be broken till the hour when, though we may not hear it, the bell rings out over the waters of Lough Derg, and summons other pilgrims to their penitential rule.

Mere words can never give any adequate idea of the faith and pious perseverance of the pilgrims to Lough Derg. The church is filled at every hour of the day, thronged with worshippers, each one of whom acts and prays as if he or she were alone. Some are moving around making the Way of the Cross, prostrating themselves at every station, seeing nothing but the representation above, heedless of everyone and of everything else. We noticed particularly numbers of young men, dressed in the accepted garb of sportsmen, some with trophies of athletics dangling from their watch chains, yet barefooted and carrying themselves with all the humble demeanour of pilgrims. As one enters the church, a chorus of voices is heard praying aloud on every side. Groups of friends and families gather together on the benches, close to the altar-rails, in corners, or kneeling on the earthen floor to recite aloud the Rosary or the Way of the Cross. It is an unique and touching spectacle and cannot be witnessed anywhere else, save, perhaps, at Lourdes M. C. KEOGH.

N HOUR WITH CANON SHEEHAN

N his latest work Canon Sheehan gives us a delightful potpourri of all things literary, philosophical, and emotional. The title, which at first seems a strange one, is a Latin word, meaning "ornamental additions to a principal work;" the principal work in this case is the author's well-known selection of his own thoughts and jottings, Under the Cedars and the Stars.* In Parega, its companion volume, he presents us with his apparently inexhaustible afterthoughts illustrated, so to speak, with

*Does not the title Parerga (Greek rather than Latin) refer by contrast to the author's more serious duties and studies?-ED. I. M.

frequent snapshots of the different types of character he has come across, and with many beautiful word-paintings of sea and landscapes, which prove the author to be an ardent and observant lover of Nature. He can lift from her face the Irisveil, and, like the poets, he has the art of enhancing all things with the "light that never was on sea or land."

Let us glance cursorily at the book under three aspects, and glean a few of the author's reflections in his triple capacity of an observer of Nature, a literary critic, and a philosopher.

Unlike the majority of poets he prefers Autumn to Spring, and in a quaint simile calls it the "gentle grey friar" that comes to us so quietly, so solemnly, without noise or laughter except the soughing of gentle winds through the changing foliage of the trees." Yet he does not disallow the beauties of each other season, and when the light of the firmament is shaded by the great artist hand and the days narrow to a slit of twilight, when all living things have vanished as if by magic from the flower-beds and shrubs, he can appreciate the great silence of Winter. To him it seems a kind of worship-a solemn latreia in the temple of Nature. Early Spring is " the delectable queen and fay," sending her avant-couriers far and wide across the yearning land-crocus and purple primula, snowdrops and daisy, and all the pretty things that hid away from the rude embraces of Boreas.

Always some apt comparison brings Canon Sheehan's thoughts home to us with forcible reality, for instance when he speaks of the shortening days being "drawn in gradually but swiftly, as you would close up the folds of a camera or the joints of a telescope," or again, where he likens the trees and shrubs in May, hung with pink and white blossoms, to the trees and shrubs as seen in a stereoscope standing out with vivid distinctness. Possessed with the rapture of the sea, the author gives us such a thrilling storm drama as surely disproves his own statement that "no poet has yet embodied his dream of the sea."

To summarize Canon Sheehan's verdict on all the men of letters he summons up before our mind's eye would tax even a skilled pen. To Tennyson alone he devotes some twenty pages, to the Sage of Chelsea and to Swinburne a dozen or more each. The two Titans," Shakespeare and Jean Paul Richter; the mighty colossus l'uomo ch'e stato in inferno; Goethe," the great Pagan;" Hawthorne, "the most reserved and therefore the most revered of modern writers; " Herder, Schiller, Carducci, and legions of others pass us in rapid review, and in a flash each stands revealed by the light of a clear unbiassed judgment.

Nor is it merely as writers they are introduced to us, for we also make personal acquaintances with them and occasionally get a glimpse into the inner working of their lives and characters, notably so in the case of Carlyle. His history is traced. from the early heroic days made glorious by struggle and strain, and through the gradual emergence from every kind of Cimmerian gloom and adamantine opposition into the light of public recognition, until the pitiable anti-climax comes, and Carlyle degenerates into craven servility on the one hand and futile defiance on the other.

Of Tennyson Canon Sheehan says that, like Turner, he creates an atmosphere all his own, that as a consummate word-painter and etcher he has had no equal, but that he never touches great sublimities. True, "he had, like even the prosaic Wordsworth, his moments of glorious inspiration and we owe him some of our most perfect lyrics ('Tears, idle tears,'' Break, break,' etc.) but most of his verses show marks of the file and chisel. In the In Memoriam,' for instance, he lays down his mosaic bit by bit, and we miss the lyrical madness' of Shelley, whose bird-like song is not fitted between bars nor subdued by keys, but wells forth in a flood of music under the divine inspiration."

Swinburne, we are told, is our modern Greek. Supreme melodist of the language,magician who makes music as of heaven out of the discordant elements of the English tongue, master of alliteration; artist of antithesis, he remains after all but a preacher of sensuous paganism and a skilful portrayer of subtle and suggestive passion. Forty years ago it was dogmatically decided that his poems should not be read; this verdict remains to-day, and only a few such as "Child-laughter," and "Elegy on the Death of Barry Cornwall" have "by their purity of conception escaped through the meshes of anathema as a singingbird will find his way through the meshes of a net." The rest of Swinburne's work is marked with the red and ochre of an auto-da-fè.

Wordsworth is recommended as an opiate for tired nerves and wearied brainworkers. Meditative and restful he soothes the world-worn, but he is lacking in virility, and as we regain. strength his philosophy begins to pall. Michael Angelo and Dante seem to Canon Sheehan the Moses and Aaron of the pilgrimage of humanity through the desert-the Calpe and Abila pointing to the vast ocean of eternity beyond the narrow inland sea of time. Shakespeare, he confesses, affords him far less pleasure than Milton, Shelley, or Wordsworth. "With all his intellectual vastness he is too coarse, too exclusively human ❞—

of the earth, earthy. In this respect his dramas are the exact antithesis of Dante's. Essentially concrete in his art he is a historian rather than a poet, and he was never a Michael Angelo that could create. His supreme merit lies in his perfect delineation of character, but only a very few amongst his heroines answer our ideas of what is sweetest, gentlest, and best in womanhood.

As a philosopher, Canon Sheehan has many lessons to impart, and his very kittens, "Lu" and "Ju," can discourse words of wisdom! The great need of the age would seem to be Christian Idealism" the only fulcrum with which an Archimedean spirit can move and lift the human race," and what we have furthermore to acquire is the art of looking "through other eyes than ours." To the lack of this-" the rarest of rare talents"the author ascribes all the racial and social prejudices that have wrought such sad havoc to humanity and more especially the deplorable failures of Primary Education in dealing with "the child, the Enigma."

Apropos of childhood he has many touching things to say, and so vividly does he conjure up the vistas of its fairyland that with them, he brings us back the thrills of youth and “ the wild freshness of morning."

He preaches the gospel of work-ceaseless work, ohne Hast aber ohne Rast,-work the elixir of life, the one thing that, whilst it accelerates our moments, yet sends them gloriously freighted to eternity. Another favourite theme of his is Pity, infinite Pity-that final answer to the eternal enigma. But perhaps it is the solution of the great problem of Suffering we most require of our philosophers: we need at least their helpful thoughts to tide us over our anguish. Here Canon Sheehan soars rather high. For him there is no problem, only a Law of Being, and he bids us learn from the altruism of Nature how, through the mysterious agency of suffering, we all subserve some vast and unknown purpose in God's universe. Just as the toxin in the veins of an afflicted beast reveals some secret to the eye of a scientist, so may our human anguish be contributory to some supreme science-some synthesis of all earthly sciences. When all is said, however, there remains no philosophical talisman for sorrow, save that final hope of suffering humanity, things have an end."

From the above gleanings may be guessed what a wealth of language and ideas is to be found in Parcga. It is a work of endless variety, and like a mutuscope its pictures are ever changing.

As the bee passes lightly from flower to flower, never tarrying