children) wrote to the Government that it did not seem consistent with the dignity of a democratic citizen to follow the universal custom to take off his hat on meeting the Emperor. 'However,' said he, the Emperor met me in the street, and saved me the trouble of deciding the question, for he took off his own hat to me. I suppose he saw I was a stranger.'" In the "Handbook for Northern Europe," the author, speaking of the Nicholas Gate of the Kremlin, which it is customary to pass bareheaded, says: "Many Englishmen have made a point of honor of walking on as if ignorant of the custom, until stopped by the sentinel." We have sometimes asked members of the Established Church whether they conformed on some occasion with this or that innocent Catholic usage, and have been answered with a smile or a sneer,-" Not I." But this sort of behavior is neither wise nor amiable.

Mr. Palmer was not troubled, like so many of his countrymen, with any pious horror and pity of the icons of the Russians. He thoroughly embraced the doctrine of the communion and the invocation of saints, and had no scruples at all about addressing them with direct, poetical, rhetorical, and spiritual invocations; not, as he very accurately expressed it, " as if they were naturally or bodily present to hear us, but as speaking to them only in Christ and in God, who may give us for our addresses the same benefit as if the saints were naturally present to hear." There can be no doubt that this spiritual wisdom, on his part, was among the many causes which led on to Mr. Palmer's entering ultimately the true Fold, and thus obtaining a grace far beyond any which communion with Eastern patriarchs could have procured.

Before quitting the neighborhood of Moscow, the traveller first visited the Monastery of the Resurrection or New Jerusalem (Voskresensk), founded by the Patriarch Nicon. It is very prettily situated on a hill, with groves around, and a winding river. It was an object of peculiar interest; its sacred buildings were a model of the holy places at Jerusalem. "The approach is by a long avenue of trees; its walls are from twenty-five to thirty-five feet high, and rise finely out of the hill, with eight or nine good-looking towers at intervals, and another of rather fantastic appearance, higher than the rest." There one may visit, as it were, all the holy places, contained under one roof, to which pilgrims resort in Jerusalem, without departing from the neighborhood of Moscow.

The bitter climate of Russia, its long winter and intense frosts, has not deprived it of all natural beauty. When we read this highly intelligent traveller's description of Gortilitsa, a seat which once belonged to the Empress Elizabeth, we well imagine it the fondling of more genial suns and more balmy winds. "The house,

or houses, connected by a verandah, were surrounded by a very large court with a tuft of garden or shrubbery in the middle. The gardens on the other side were in English style, with a deep valley, a trout stream, cascades, fountains, grottoes, and lakes-— sometimes three visible at once-hills and woods. Nothing could be prettier. . . . . The day before my arrival they killed a huge bear, shooting him as he was splashing the water into his face in the lake. The hills all round the village were covered with beds. of strawberries, which the villagers take to St. Petersburg in great quantities to sell. The woods also abound with them wild."

We must now draw towards a conclusion our abstract of this most interesting journey. Mr. Palmer had-as Cardinal Newman well knew a rare power of building on a slender foundation a magnificent superstructure of brilliant matter. It was on the 24th of July, 1841, that, having taken leave of all his Russian friends in the most friendly manner, and having received from many members of the Synod the strongest assurance of the pleasure they had derived from his visit and conversations, Mr. Blackmore, also, having delivered to him his translation of Mouravieff's "History of the Russian Church" to revise and publish in England, he left for his home, by way of Lubeck and Hamburg, and was in Oxford once more a few days after reaching England. We need not apologize for concluding with an extract from a sermon preached in New York by the late Dean Stanley on All Saints' Day, 1878. The defective character of his theology is admitted, but he was a man of greatness of observation and reflection, and the passage will be found strikingly illustrative of Mr. Palmer's book. He was speaking, according to his wont, of the four Churches of Christendom, and extending yet more widely the tripartite division of Mr. Palmer in his Oxford days. "We know," he said, "how in a family we sometimes see four brothers or cousins, each of the most different character from the other. We might wish sometimes that they were all exactly alike, but God has made them different, and it is their very difference which makes them to be of use to each other. One of them is much older than the rest, grave, perhaps stiff and reserved, unwilling to move; looking at the more eager sports and pursuits of the younger members of the family calmly, kindly, forbearingly; not adding much to their amusement, or advancement, or instruction, but telling them from time to time a word of wise counsel, and telling them of the manners and customs of the good old times, which, but for his tenacious memory and older years, would be quite forgotten. That is the position of the ancient Eastern or Greek Churches, which are found in Asia, Egypt, Greece, and Russia. They have for many hundreds of years done but

little for the knowledge or activity of the world. But they represent, more than any other set of Christians now existing, the usages of older days. They have handed down to us creeds and ancient forms which without them would have been lost. They look upon all younger Churches more kindly and gently, perhaps, than any of those younger Churches look upon them and on each other. They are quite unlike us. We never could adapt ourselves to their religious customs, nor they to ours. But for that very reason we can regard them with respectful gratitude; and the very remoteness of their position and their manners from us makes us feel more forcibly the examples of Christian wisdom and Christian faith which we may find amongst them. Such was the answer of the Eastern Patriarchs in a letter sent to the Pope of Rome: Let us love one another in order that we may be able with one accord to worship God.' Such was the letter of the Patriarch of Constantinople a few years later: 'Let us approach the subject which you bring before us by historical methods.' Such, in the great empire of Russia, was the good old Archbishop of Moscow who died some few years ago. Such was the character of the Russian Admiral Kornileff, whe fell in the siege of Sebastopol. We see, in all these, features of the same Christian family as ourselves, yet with a peculiar primitive expression, a quiet strength, which we could hardly have found outside of those old Churches. That is the eldest brother of our household." No reader can be misled by the doctrinal error of this passage, after all that has been said of the long and deplorable schism of the Greek Church.

A GRANDDAUGHTER OF JOSEPH DE MAISTRE.

Vie de la Mère Thérèse de Jésus (Xavérine de Maistre), par M. l'abbé Houssaye. Terminée et publiée par Mgr. Charles Gay. Paris: Oudin, éditeur.

IN

1882.

N the life before us St. Augustine's commentary on the Psalmist's words, audi, filia, et vide, seems to be fully borne out. A true intelligence of the truths of the faith breeds piety and spiritual sight after a manner compatible with this world of exile, and on these grounds the granddaughter of Joseph de Maistre of Catholic fame. could claim that exuberance of understanding which is early produced in a household where reign faith's powerful traditions. Whether strong natures are born or made is a point which still awaits treatment and development, and whether without that early atmosphere of sound teaching, and hardy nurture in the belief of things unseen, Xavérine de Maistre would still have been the remarkable character which she was, is a question involving the vast subject of native worth as opposed to the outward influences of training and education. However that may be, to the soil must, in great part at least, be attributed the excellence and beauty of the flower.

Marie Xavérine Joséphine Ignace was the tenth child of Count Rodolph de Maistre, son of Joseph de Maistre, the well-known Catholic champion. At the time of her birth, on April 17, 1838, her father occupied the post of governor of Nice, and it was accordingly to the ancient cathedral church of Sta. Reparata in the old town that she was carried, when four hours old, for holy baptism. In privileged lives more especially the child is the measure of the man. The two prevailing sentiments of Xavérine's childhood were love of God and love of penance. The former intensified her natural affections, whilst the latter was the germ which contained the future immolation of Carmel. She seemed, indeed, to love God spontaneously, without any of that painful process which is apt to make souls who are striving after divine delights inaccessible and cold to human affection. Her biographer recounts at one and the same time her devotedness to her mother and her extraordinary acts of penance. Whilst she would leave her play to seek out some heavy burden for her shoulders which should remind her of the Cross, and wear freshly gathered roses with their thorns in her dress, she would also impose upon herself the mortification of not looking at her mother for several hours

together. One Good Friday, noticing that all her family were practicing mortification in some way or other, she was quite distressed to be alone doing nothing. Our Lady, to whom she confided her trouble, gave her an inspiration in accordance with which the child passed a portion of the night in prayer holding her hands crossed over her head. The thought of Our Lord's sufferings pierced her to the heart, and at times caused her tears to flow. On one occasion, a priest who saw her thus, as he thought, silent and preoccupied, administered a sharp reprimand for her sulkiness. Xavérine bore the correction without excusing herself, and was consoled interiorly by grace.

The traditions which Joseph de Maistre had bequeathed to his posterity were worthily perpetuated in Count Rodolph's family. Xavérine's sisters were chosen souls whose lives were guided by the light of faith, and amongst them Francesca, the eldest, was an extraordinary example of penance, one of those whose whole being speaks of little else but Jesus Crucified. Her place would have seemed to be in a convent, yet she had tried her vocation and failed. As a compensation for the religious life she undertook terrible penances, the traces of which she bore on her pale and emaciated countenance. It was to Francesca that the Comtesse de Maistre entrusted the care of Xavérine's first Communion, which great act the child accomplished on March 25th, 1847, that is to say, before she was quite nine years old.

Readers of those delightful pages entitled "Correspondance Inédite de Joseph de Maistre," will remember the aspirations of his daughter Constance and the Count's own preference for the sublime feminin. She afterwards married the Duc de Laval-Montmorency, who was consequently brother-in-law to Xaverine's father. When in 1848 Count Rodolph left Nice, he established himself for a time at Borgo, the Duke's magnificent seat in North Piedmont. It was there, on June 20th, that Benedicta de Maistre married Count Medolago Albani, thus making the first breach in the family circle. Her departure from home seems not to have left too great a vacuum in Xavérine's heart, for in her sister Philomena she found an entire community of age and tastes, a sympathy as perfect as may be enjoyed here on earth. After some struggle with herself she determined to share Francesca's arduous work of visiting the poor, and with the impetuosity of her nature she added practices of supererogation to the sacrifice itself. She was not contented with merely going to them. In order to obtain abundant grace for them she would put little pebbles into her shoes, or thorns, which drew blood, into her stockings. Her independence of character asserted itself both at study and at play. She did not like books, and it was only her love of God which made her faithful to