ask for a temporary asylum where she may recover her strength; the other seems to fix her abode irrevocably. Or, if the two texts speak of the same dove, I would say of the first that, trembling and pursued, wounded and miserable, she has no ambition beyond the clefts of the rock; but as she grows stronger in her retreat, and feels that she can take her flight, the thought comes into her mind that she can raise herself to higher regions, she flies to the crest of the rock, and finding there a commodious place to build her nest, she establishes herself there, saying, "It is good for us to be here."

What then is signified here by the summit of the rock, the sides of the hole's mouth? I should not dare to explain this symbol, if the royal Prophet had not suggested to me the explanation I desire.

"The sparrow," saith he, " hath found her an house, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, even Thy Altars, O LORD of Hosts." As if he had said, "That which the house is to the sparrow, and the top of the rock to the swallow, where she may build her nest, are Thy Altars to' me, O LORD;" and so, "Leave the cities, and dwell in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth," i.e., "Leave the ways of the world, quit the lower places of the earth, O ye who are no more of this earth; let the dead bury their dead, but mount ye to the lofty regions of the Altar; it is there that your heart and your flesh will rejoice, for the dwellings of the LORD of Hosts' are supremely amiable.""

Yes, this cleft in the top of the rock, where the dove builds her nest, is none other than the tabernacle of GOD. The Holy Eucharist is, as it were, the summit of the rock, which is CHRIST. If we consider, O LORD JESU, the love which Thou bearest to us, the Eucharist is the summit of Thy love; if we consider the graces with which Thou overflowest us, the Eucharist is the summit of Thy grace; if we speak of the happiness Thou causest us, the Eucharist is the summit of our happiness. As the sparrow finds her an house, and the swallow a nest for her little family, Thy Altars, O LORD, are the summit where I long to fix my rest.

For a long time, it is true, I have done nothing but hide myself in the wounds of the SAVIOUR, as in the clefts of a rock. I have meditated on the sorrows of JESUS crucified, I have laved myself in His precious Blood.

But because I humbled myself beneath the depths of His Passion, I heard a voice saying unto me, 66 Go up higher;" and I flew even to the summit of the rock. There is the nest that I desire; there is the mountain where it is good to rest; there the habitation where I will dwell, for I have chosen it for ever.

Of the third dove the Royal Prophet speaks when he says "Oh, that I had wings like a dove, that I might flee away and be at rest.”

This last dove asks neither a refuge nor a nest. She takes wing, she flies, she reaches a repose which is not of this world. Doubtless at the summit of the rock she found the nest that suited her: but there she was still upon earth, and as man is born to labour, so the bird is created to fly. Soon she feels herself smitten with an intense desire for Heaven. In the nest where she has been abiding her strength has increased, her wings have enlarged. She takes wing, she flies, and returns not any more, like unto that dove which Noah at the end of the deluge let loose from the ark, which flew away and returned no more.

What does this last image teach us, but the flight which the soul takes at last, when, separated from the body, it flies unto Thee, O GOD, and seeks repose in Thy bosom? O happy flight! O blessed repose! Ah, doubtless the Holy Eucharist is worth more than all that is on the earth; worth more than all pleasures, honours, or riches; worth more than all the graces of GOD that can be received in this world. But the Eucharist is not Heaven, for it represents to us JESUS CHRIST under a veil, but Heaven shows Him to us openly. The Eucharist requires faith and love, Heaven demands love only.

But then, who shall give us wings to fly to heaven and be at rest? Ah, let us say it untroubled,-Death; Death only. Death, so full of anguish for him who believes not, but so consoling and so sweet for us who have

chosen our habitation at Thy Altars, O LORD of Hosts! Death, which gives us so much more than it takes away, which removes us from this world that passeth away, from the vanities that have deceived us, from the pleasures that have seduced us; but which gives us the wings of the dove, to fly away and be at rest.

R. H. N. B.

LETTERS FROM WILDBAD. I.

MY DEAR F

Here we are, safely arrived at our destination, Wildbad. We accomplished our journey very well, having fine weather nearly the whole time.

Before telling you anything about Wildbad itself, I must describe our journey to you. It is one about which so much has been written, that I undertake the self-imposed task with some diffidence. If I fail, therefore, pray forgive me.

We arrived in Rotterdam on the morning of Ascension Day, at about 11 a.m., having had a much longer time on board the steamer than was necessary for crossing, as we had to anchor four hours off the bar at the mouth of the river (the bar can only be crossed halfan-hour before, and half-an-hour after, high-water,) and these hours were more unpleasant than all the rest. There were some amusing people on board, and among them a captain in the army, his wife, and a dear little girl of seven. They were going to Toeplitz for his health, as he had had some two or three years ago a severe attack of paralysis, and though now much better, he can hardly even walk with the help of a stick. In the evening my friends went to the large Church, and there heard, or rather saw, (for they did not understand Dutch,) an ordination of missionaries who were to be sent out to India. At six o'clock on May 7th, we started in one of the steamers of the NiederlandischeDampfschiff Rhederei, called Lourens Janzoon Coster. VOL. VI. (N. 8.)

L

These steamers do not draw more than 1 feet of water, and they are therefore very long in proportion to their width, in order to be better able to bear the weight of the engines, which are powerful.

It was a lovely morning, though the wind was southeast, and from this we were sheltered by what I should, with my English ideas, have called a greenhouse, but which the Germans call a pavilion. In this they had kindly arranged a couch for me raised on a box, so that I could lie and watch the banks as we glided by. We were no sooner on board than we felt in a foreign atmosphere, for who should be walking about in front of us but the Herr Conducteur, with a long pipe, which reached down to his knees, and from the time when we first saw him, till he disappeared at Coblenz, we never once saw him without either a cigar or this pipe, and sometimes both.

There were very few people going up the river, which made it very much pleasanter for us, for we had more space and less smoke. I could well imagine that in the summer, when many people are travelling, these steamers would be most disagreeable. There was a Krankes Fräulein and her father on board, Dutch people, and most pleasant. The poor girl had been ill all the winter, and the immediate consequence was, that her little dog got no walks, and he had grown so fat that he could with great difficulty hop over the step into the pavilion. We made acquaintance with them; they were going up the Rhine as far as Boppart, there to stay awhile, and then on to Baden-Baden, and possibly Wildbad.

We had a very clean little cabin with three berths in it. It certainly was not large, but comfortable and airy. My uncle had, on our first morning, a long talk with a Dutch landowner and brickmaker, yeoman, I suppose, we should have called him in England. He was very intelligent, and told us a good deal that was interesting about Holland. When land is let, one of the conditions of the lease is, that the tenant keeps up all the dykes, and sees that all the sluices are in good order. Should he fail in fulfilling this condition, he is deprived of his land, and becomes a degraded man. There are no very

rich and no very poor people in Holland, and consequently no poor-rate, each family supports its own aged and infirm, and poverty is considered as a sign of idleness. Just before reaching the town of Bommel, and on an island of the same name, we passed the Castle of Lövestein, where Grotius was imprisoned, and from whence he escaped in March, 1621. He was allowed to have a chest to convey his books and linen to and from his prison. At first this box was very strictly examined, but his guards, finding nothing to excite their suspicion, gradually relaxed their vigilance: on this his wife laid a plan for Grotius' escape. She bored some holes in the chest, and placed her husband in it, so that his very guards took him out of the castle-great must have been her anxiety. The plan, however, succeeded perfectly, and Grotius reached Paris in safety. Madame de Grote was not long detained in prison after her husband's escape, and when released, she hastened to rejoin him.

In the afternoon we passed Nijmegen, a most disagreeable, dirty place. There were some gensd'armes drilling on the quay, and they contrasted, in our minds, most unfavourably with the smart Prussian officials whom we saw at the next town at which we stopped. There was, however, one thing in which we rejoiced at Nijmegen, and this was a slight pretence of a hill close by the river; near its brow and half hidden by the trees which cover it, are the fragments of a church, and a very perfect circular chapel, which are the only remains of the Castle of Valkenhof, said originally to have been built by Julius Cæsar, and afterwards a favourite residence of Charlemagne.

On crossing the frontier of Holland and Prussia, marked by the little town of Lobith, two guns were fired from our boat; the first, a farewell to Holland, and the second, as the Herr Conducteur, (long pipe and all,) informed us was a salute to the " Kaiserlich-König von Preussen." As far as I have gathered from different conversations which I have heard, the general feeling about Prussia, so far as the swallowing up of the small independent states is concerned, is decidedly favourable; the only objection being that Prussia should have been the instrument,