Empire, formed of naught but encroachments, and tracing its recognised origin, to the apostasy of that felon knight, Albert of Brandenburg.

The complicities that rendered such a thing possible, have received their chastisement. Be then God's Justice at last satisfied! O Boniface, cry out with us, unto the God of armies, for Mercy. Raise up in the Church, servants of Christ, powerful in word and work, as thou wast. Save France from anarchy; and restore to Germany a right appreciation of true greatness, together with the Faith of her ancient days.

JUNE 6.

SAINT NORBERT,

BISHOP AND CONFESSOR.

THE helpful influence of the Holy Ghost is more and more multiplied, along the Church's path. It seems as though he would show us to-day, how the divine. power of his action is not crippled by lapse of years: for here we have, twelve centuries after his first coming among us, miracles of grace and conversion quite as brilliant as those that marked his glorious descent upon earth.

Norbert, in whose veins flowed the best blood of emperors and kings, was, from the very breast of his mother, Hedwige, supernaturally invited to a nobility loftier still yet did he devote, to the unreserved enjoyment of pleasure, three and thirty years of a life that was to number but fifty in all. The Holy Ghost at length hastened to the conquest. There bursts a sudden storm, a thunderbolt falls right in front of the prodigal, throwing him to the ground and making a frightful chasm, between him and the point whither, a moment ago, he was hastening in pursuit of new vanities that needs must fail, as all others had done, to fill the hopeless void in his heart. Then, in the very depths of his soul resounds a voice, such as Saul once heard on his way to Damascus : "Norbert, whither goest thou?" Like another Paul

he replies: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" He is answered: "Depart from evil and do good; seek after peace and pursue it." Twenty years later, -and Norbert is in heaven, seated amidst pontiffs, upon a glorious throne, and all radiant with that special brilliancy, that distinguishes the Founders of the great Religious Orders, when they have reached

the eternal Home.

Deep are the traces left by him on earth, of his few years of penitential life. Germany and France receive his preaching; Antwerp is delivered from a shameful heresy; Magdeburg is rescued by this her Archbishop, from the irregularities that were sullying the House of God: such are his works; and though these alone would have sufficed to a long life of holiness, yet they are not the only titles, nor the most brilliant which Norbert has to the Church's gratitude. Before being called, against his will, to the honours of the episcopate, this once gay courtier, made choice of an uninhabitable solitude amidst the forests of the diocese of Laon, wherein to devote himself to prayer and to the maceration of his flesh. The renown of this holy penitent gained rapidly; and Prémontré soon beheld her swampy marshes invaded by a vast multitude, formed of the fairest names of picked nobility, pressing thither to learn the science of salvation, from the lips of the saintly anchorite. There too, did Our Lady show to him, in vision, the white habit wherewith his disciples were to be clothed; and Saint Augustine, in like manner, delivered to him his own Rule. Thus was

founded the most illustrious branch of the Order of Canons Regular. They add to the obligation of solemnising the Divine Office, the austerities of an uninterrupted penance; and devote themselves, moreover, to the service of souls, by preaching and the administration of parishes.

In the foregoing century, the episcopacy and papacy had been raised by the monks, from out the reach of feudal servitude; and Norbert was now raised up, to give the needed completion to their work. Although, on principle, the monastic life excludes no sort of labour useful to the Church, the monks could not (however numerous they might be) quit their cloisters, in order to undertake charge of souls. Yet, great were the wants of the lambs of the flock, at that time, for many unworthy pastors of secondary order, slaves to simony and immorality, still continued to lead astray the simple laity. The religious life was alone capable of raising the priesthood from such degradation, whether on the pinnacles of the hierarchy or amongst the lowest degrees of sacred Orders. Norbert was the man chosen by God to effect, in part at least, this immense work and the importance of his mission explains the sublime prodigality wherewith the Holy Ghost multiplied vocations to his standard. The number and rapidity of foundations, permitted succour to be promptly and everywhere afforded. Even into the far East did the light of Prémontré reach, almost at its first dawn. In the eighteenth century, notwithstanding the devastations of the Turks and the ravages of the pretended Reform, the Order, divided into twenty-eight provinces, still contained, in nearly each one of its houses, as many as from fifty to one hundred and twenty Canons; and the parishes that continued under their care, might be counted by thousands.

Nuns, whose holy life and prayers are the ornament and aid of the Church militant, occupied from the very beginning, the place deservedly their due in this numerous family. In the time of the founder, or soon after his death, there were more than a thousand of them, at Prémontrè alone. Such an incre

dible sum gives us an idea of the prodigious propagation of the Order, from its very origin. Norbert moreover extended his charity to persons, who like Thibault Count of Champagne, would gladly have followed him into the desert, but who were retained by God's will in the world; he thus made a prelude to those pious associations, which we shall see Saint Francis and Saint Dominic organising, in the thirteenth century, under the name of "Third Orders."

The Liturgy thus condenses the life of this great servant of God: