Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 4, April, 1886

Ah, but there was my sweet little St. Sulpice girl, with her nurse, or companion. How lovely she was! Her white hat and blue feather, beautiful blue silk, trimmed with costly white lace, her buttoned gloves, and dainty parasol, spoke most eloquently of the change in her circumstances. But to me she seemed just the same.

"Then you have not forgotten St. Sulpice," I said.

She shook her head and her lips trembled a little.

"It was so awful before we came away!" she said, with a shudder. "They took St. Sulpice for the soldiers, and they killed the nuns and shot the good priests, and, it seemed as if everybody was dead or dying. Oh, how we did fly for our lives!"

"But you are very happy now?"

"Yes; I have a governess, and I am studying English; but I shall always love my dear, dear France, and I would go there again, but poor Père and Mère Bouve are gone, and their little child. If they could only have come to England with me!"

"And does your aunt stay in America long?"

"Till the next September. Oh, how I felt when I saw you on the street! I knew it was you. To-morrow we go to Cape May, and I shall never see you again."

"Oh, yes, you will. I shall come over to England next summer."

The child's eyes brightened.

"Will you?" and she threw her arms round my neck in true French style, and declared that she loved me.

I hope I shall see my little one of St. Sulpice again. If anybody meets an English family at Cape May, with one of the loveliest little girls in the world, I have no doubt she will answer to the name of Marie.

THE DONKEY

Mine is not a common donkey at all, living upon thistles and weeds, or any rubbish he can pick up on the roadside; he is an aristocratic donkey, and eats, and sleeps, too, sometimes, in a lordly dining-hall, where kings and princes have dined. And where does he live? you will ask. In a beautiful old ruined castle in the Isle of Wight – Carisbrook Castle, the place of imprisonment of poor King Charles I., and the scene of his gentle daughter Elizabeth's early death. Within the ruined walls of that grand old castle does my friend, the donkey, live.

Many must have heard of the wonderful well at Carisbrook, which is so deep no one can draw the water up, so that they are obliged to have a donkey to do it. And it is done in this way: there is an enormous wheel, with steps inside, and the donkey goes in, and by walking continually up the steps turns the wheel, and so draws up the water. And this was the work Jacob, for that is the donkey's name, had to do for many years. But he has long since retired from public life, being very old, and his place has been supplied by a younger donkey; Jacob having nothing to do now but eat, sleep, and amuse himself.

We were having a little picnic at Carisbrook, the children and I, not long ago, and Jacob took an immense interest in all our proceedings. The children were greatly delighted with his friendly way of receiving us, and fed him with biscuits and buns, which he seemed to enjoy very much. He even drank some tea out of a saucer, and ate up all the pieces of bread we left. In fact, Jacob's and our own appetites were so good that there was nothing left of our feast, excepting half of a large pat of butter, which we never supposed Jacob would touch, and were much amused on looking round to see him quietly eating up that, too, and licking the plate well afterwards so as not to lose a bit.

He is a very fat little creature, and his hair has grown quite long and soft, like a young donkey's. Evidently his lazy life agrees with him, though, I have no doubt, he has done his fair share of work, and quite deserves to pass a peaceful, happy old age.

As I am on the subject of donkeys, I must tell about a very clever one I heard of a few days ago. She lives somewhere in Ireland, and she and her little foal were turned into a field where a very deep ditch had been dug. And one day some men who were at work in the next field saw Viva, the mother donkey, come toward them in a great hurry. She came close up to the hedge, braying loudly, and seeming much distressed. At first they took no notice of her, but she would not go away, and continued to bray until one of the men went to her, and then she started off in the direction of the ditch, and there he found the poor little foal, which had tumbled in. Fortunately it was not hurt; but if the mother had not been so sensible, it must have died, for it could not possibly have got out.

It is the fashion to consider donkeys stupid, ill-tempered, and obstinate, which I do not think quite just. They are often obstinate, certainly, but they are generally made so by constant ill-treatment. How often one sees a poor little donkey staggering along with a load a great deal too heavy for him, and being beaten and abused the whole time because he can scarcely draw it! Donkeys after a time get so accustomed to being incessantly beaten that it has no effect, excepting to make them turn obstinate and sulky. And I do not believe they are either by nature; for a donkey that is really well brought up, and has always been kindly treated, is not at all obstinate. He will trot or canter when he is required to do so, just like a pony, is good-tempered and gentle, and altogether a different animal from his unfortunate poor relation, who has been kicked and beaten and dragged at from his babyhood upwards.

And to say that donkeys are stupid is quite a mistake, for many are extremely clever. I knew an old one – I think he must have been thirty at least – that could never by any means be kept in any field or out of any garden that he chose to enter. And as he much preferred nice green vegetables to his legitimate food, he was constantly trespassing, and his owners were continually in trouble about him. He would always find some means of either opening a gate or getting over the hedge. The only place he could be kept in was the village pound, to which he often paid a visit. He was, as may be fancied, quite a nuisance in the village, and every one was truly thankful when he was found dead one morning. It was said he died of old age; but as he had made many enemies by his numerous depredations, I should not wonder if some of them had to do with his sudden end.

HOUNDS

Two hounds belonged to a gentleman in Lancashire, and he, wishing to make them a present to a friend, sent them to Kilkenny, the place where he lived in Ireland. But the hounds apparently did not like their new quarters, and, no doubt, missed their old master; for after a few days they disappeared, and could not be found or heard of, until at last their master got a letter from their former owner in Lancashire to say that the hounds had returned to him. It was afterwards discovered that they had gone to the North Vale in Dublin, jumped on board a steamboat, which fortunately was going to England, and had found their way to their old home.

Some dogs take offence very easily. I know one absurd, diminutive creature, who has the greatest dislike to being talked about, and directly he hears any one mention his name even, he gets up and walks out of the room in the most dignified way possible, looking round all the time, as much as to say, "How dare you talk about me?"

Another dog belonging to a friend took great offence because he could not have his own way. He is a nice old dog, very old and quite blind, and has always lived with the same master, to whom he is quite devoted, accompanying him everywhere, and at night keeping guard on the mat at his bedroom door. A short time ago his master went on a visit to a house about sixty miles distant from his own home, and as usual his old favorite went with him. When night came, the old dog, having found out his master's room, posted himself, as he had always been accustomed to do, at his door. But the servants of the house, not knowing his ways, drove him downstairs. The next day the dog was gone; but was heard of soon afterwards, having returned to his own home. He had taken offence at not being allowed to sleep where he liked, and had found his way back, in spite of the distance and his blindness.

THE CALIFORNIA ROADRUNNER. (Geococcyx Californianus.)

A very singular and yet a very little known bird is the roadrunner chaparral cock, or, as it is known in Mexico and the Spanish sections of the United States, the paisano.

It belongs to the cuckoo family, but has none of the bad habits by which the European cuckoo is best known. It is a shy bird, but is not by any means an unfamiliar object in the south-western portions of the United States and in Mexico. Sometimes it wanders up into middle California, but not often, seeming to prefer the more deserted, hotter, and sandier parts of southern California, and from there stretching its habitat as far east as middle Texas.

It is not by any means a brilliantly colored bird, although some of its hues are very beautiful. The prevailing color of the roadrunner is olive green, which is marked with brown and white. The top of the head is blue black, and is furnished with an erectile crest. The eyes are surrounded by a line of bare skin.

It is not a large bird, being seldom twenty-four inches long, with a tail taking more than half of that length. The tail, indeed, is the most striking feature of the bird, being not only so very long, but seemingly endowed with the gift of perpetual motion, since it is never still, but bobs up and down, and sidewise, too, into every possible angle, and almost incessantly.

But while its tail is most striking, its legs are most remarkable, being not only long and stout, but wonderfully muscular, how muscular nobody would be able to imagine who had not put them to the test.

A traveller in Mexico tells of going out with his ranchero host to hunt hares with a brace of very fine hounds. Going over a long stretch of sandy plain, relieved only by pillars and clusters of cactus, the Mexican called the attention of his guest to an alert, comical-looking bird, some distance from them.

With the remark that the gentleman should see some rare coursing, the Mexican slipped the leashes of the straining hounds, which sprang off as if used to the sport, and darted after the bird. For a moment it seemed to the stranger a very poor use to put the dogs to, but he was not long in changing his mind.

Instead of taking wing, the bird tilted its long tail straight up into the air in a saucily defiant way, and started off on a run in a direct line ahead. It seemed an incredible thing that the slender dogs, with their space devouring bounds, should not at once overtake the little bird; but so it was. The legs of the paisano moved with marvellous rapidity, and enabled it to keep the hounds at their distance for a very long time, being finally overtaken only after one of the gamest races ever witnessed by the visiting sportsman.

The roadrunner, however, serves a better purpose in life than being run down by hounds. Cassin mentions a most singular circumstance among the peculiarities of the bird. It seems to have a mortal hatred of rattlesnakes, and no sooner sees one of those reptiles than it sets about in what, to the snake, might well seem a most diabolical way of compassing its death. Finding the snake asleep, it at once seeks out the spiniest of the small cacti, the prickly pear, and, with infinite pains and quietness, carries the leaves, which it breaks off, and puts them in a circle around the slumbering snake. When it has made a sufficient wall about the object of all this care, it rouses its victim with a sudden peck of its sharp beak, and then quickly retires to let the snake work out its own destruction, a thing it eventually does in a way that ought to gratify the roadrunner, if it has any sense of humor. Any one watching it would say it was expressing the liveliest emotion with its constantly and grotesquely moving tail.

The first impulse and act of the assaulted snake is to coil for a dart; its next to move away. It quickly realizes that it is hemmed in, in a circle, and finally makes a rash attempt to glide over the obstruction. The myriad of tiny needles prick it and drive it back. The angry snake, with small wisdom, attempts to retaliate by fastening its fangs into the offending cactus. The spines fill its mouth.

Angrier still, it again and again assaults the prickly wall, until, quite beside itself with rage, it seems to lose its wits completely, and writhing and twisting horribly, buries its envenomed fangs into its own body, dying finally from its self-inflicted wounds. After the catastrophe, the roadrunner indulges in a few gratified flirts of its long tail and goes off, perchance to find its reward in being run down by hounds set on by men.

John R. Coryell, in Scientific American.Man is hard to satisfy. Poverty is the only thing he can get enough ofPOWER OF THE "LORD'S PRAYER" AND THE "HAIL MARY."

In 1836, while connected with the Church of St. Roque, I was for a long time engaged in giving catechetical instruction to the children; not only the ordinary catechism, but what we called, and what is still called, catechism of perseverance, at which young persons of both sexes attended until their marriage.

One day I was called upon to solemnize the marriage of one of these young persons, who was very pious; she had most assiduously followed our instructions until the hour of this great engagement; her betrothed was a practical Catholic, so that it was one of those marriages which we can bless with hope and consolation.

Ordinarily an exhortation is given on these occasions; I said a few words according to the custom, and I still remember that while speaking I had a distraction; it was caused by a tall man, at least six foot high, who stood erect while every one else was seated, looking at me with a fixed, intense gaze, and, as he was one of the first witnesses at the ceremony, he stood scarcely three steps from me. This proximity, his great height, his original manner, and his fixed look, had, as you may readily understand, attracted my attention, for a moment, and then I cast the impression aside. After the ceremony all retired, and I thought all was finished; far from it. At five o'clock the next morning my bell was rung by the bridegroom, who came in great haste to summon me to a dying man, his uncle, the same tall man who had so singularly distracted me the previous evening. He was quite aged, seventy-four years old; he had taken cold at the wedding ceremony, and the physician declared he could not live. I started immediately, and as we went along the street, I asked, "Was your uncle a good Christian?" – "He was a good man; but we fear that he neglected his religious duties." – "Has he any idea of his dangerous condition?" – "Yes, he is fully sensible of it." – "Does he wish to see me?" – "Yes, when we saw that he was struck by death, we asked him if he would not like to see a priest, and he did not refuse. After a moment he said 'bring me the one I heard yesterday; he pleased me, and he will arrange my affairs.'"

The bridegroom informed me that his uncle had come from the country to attend his wedding, and he was then at a hotel in a cross street. (I have never since passed that hotel without emotion.) We entered, and I was left alone with him. Before me lay this poor old man dying. I approached, and he immediately held out his hand. There was something very frank and noble in his manner. "I am going to die," he said, "and I wish to do whatever is done at such a time. I am seventy-four years old, and for sixty years I have not been to confession. At fourteen I enlisted; I have been in all the wars of the Revolution and the empire; I have never thought of God during all the time, and I know not why. I now feel that I ought not to leave the world before being reconciled to Him, just as if I had always known Him." Touched by his frankness and his extraordinary sincere expression, I replied, "I will aid you to know Him, and God will aid us; such things are easy for those of an upright, candid heart." But it was not so very easy, after all, and you will readily perceive. When, by the assistance of many questions, I had finished his confession for him, "Now," I said, "I'll give you a penance." – "What is that? I have not the least idea of it." And, in truth, he had not the first idea of religion, of the Sacrament of Penance, or any other Sacrament… A poor, dying man, whose hairs were bleached by the snows of fourscore winters, was passing from earth without having a single idea of Christianity; merely an instinct prompted him to wish for a reconciliation with God before his death.

I explained the meaning of penance and said: "You suffer very much; offer your sufferings to our Blessed Lord, and that will enable me to give you an easy penance; you need only say the 'Our Father' and the 'Hail Mary.'" He looked at me for a moment with the most intent and piercing gaze, for, although so exhausted by age and sickness, he had a most extraordinary energy in his eye, and said "'Our Father,' 'Hail Mary!' What do they mean? I have never heard anything about them." Yes, this was the state which the poor miserable man had reached; seventy-four years old and he had forgotten even the prayers that infants in their mothers' arms lisp in childish accents. Religion was utterly obliterated from his soul! There remained nothing, nothing! I cast a look toward heaven, and I felt that a miracle was needed to bring back the pastor to enlighten his darkened soul.

"You ought to know, that those prayers are the most beautiful in religion. I will assist you; I will say them myself; you will say them afterward with me, and then you will find all you have lost."

Kneeling down by his bedside, and holding his hand in both of mine, I commenced. He let me say the two or three first invocations of the "Our Father," but when I said, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them who trespass against us," he suddenly pressed my hand, and as one arousing from a long sleep he exclaimed, "Oh! I remember that. Yes! I think when I was a little boy my mother taught me something like that. Will you please commence it again?" I recommenced it and then instantaneously, from the depths of his soul, across his darkened mind, and from far away in his early childhood – across seventy-four years – across all those wars and all those battle-fields which had passed over his life and effaced from his soul all ideas of religion, came back to this old soldier the remembrance of his mother, and the prayers she had taught him when a little boy, and he commenced unaided to recall the words. One by one I saw them leave his soul, as if they had all been engulfed, and were now rising to the surface. At each sentence he interrupted himself: "Oh!" he exclaimed, "I remember – 'Our Father who art in heaven' – yes, indeed, that is it – 'Hallowed be Thy name' – that is it again! – I remember it all now! – 'Thy Kingdom come.' – Yes, yes, I remember I used to say all that – oh! isn't that prayer beautiful!" And when he came to the words "Forgive us our trespasses," – "Ah," he cried, "above all the rest, I remember that – those are the words that brought all the rest back to me; my mother used to make me say that whenever I did anything wrong." And in this manner he finished the "Our Father;" then he asked to say it with me, and seemed never weary in repeating it over and over.

"But," he exclaimed, "is there not another? Oh! yes, now I remember, my mother said there was a Blessed Virgin – stop – I must find that prayer also! But it won't come back. Say it to me so that I can remember, all about it." And when I repeated the first words, he interrupted me with a joyful cry, "Oh! yes, that is it, 'Hail Mary!'" And then, without waiting for me to take the lead, he continued, "full of grace, the Lord is with thee," and all the words seemed to flow miraculously from his soul, and with tears flowing down his cheeks, he repeated, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us poor sinners, now and the hour of our death."

Behold in this old man the power of the prayers which a pious mother had taught him in his childhood! Precious germs deposited in his soul, and a long time deposited there – but, thank God, they were there – and at the supreme moment, under a favorable ray of Divine grace, they burst forth to support him in his last hours, and to open for him the gates of a happy eternity! He never wearied in saying them, but continued constantly repeating them.

Finally, seeing that he was fatigued, I left him promising to return as soon as he had taken some repose. And I did return very soon, for I was most anxious to give him Holy Communion. He received the Viaticum with the most lively faith: all had been revealed with those two prayers. I had nothing more to teach him.

Bishop Doupanloup

"In this world there is nothing dearer to God Himself than the soul of a little child made to His own likeness and to His own image, born again and sanctified by the Holy Ghost. Innocent, those little ones are the nearest to Him of His servants upon earth, numbered among His saints. And they are the most exposed to all manner of peril in this loud and lordly world that passes them by, and accounts them to be cyphers in its reckoning, and legislates for them as if they were flocks in a field, or chattels, or property. Precious in God's sight, little barefooted, bareheaded children that pass through the streets have each an Angel Guardian, and yet they are surrounded by all the perils that prowl and make havoc in the cities where we dwell. The offspring of all the animals of the lower creation, almost as soon as they come into this world, are able to care for themselves; but man, who is the highest, and noblest, and like a god himself, is the most helpless. And, therefore, in that helpless infancy and tender childhood, those who cannot care for themselves, are committed to our guardianship." —Cardinal Manning.

Uneasy rests the foot that wears a corn

Lenten Pastorals

In Dublin, on Sunday, March 7, Archbishop Walsh said: With singular unanimity the leaders of all parties in the State have come at length to recognize the pressing need of a substantial construction of that system of government under which we at present live. So much is certain; but beyond this all is shrouded from our view in the uncertainty of the future. The minds of many among us are agitated. All around us are heard expressions of anxiety, and the fears and hopes of those who speculate as to what the next few weeks may bring forth. Amid all this uncertainty it is our special duty to turn to the throne of the Almighty and all-wise ruler of the universe in earnest supplication, that the light of the heavenly wisdom, by which kings reign and lawgivers decree just things, may not be wanting to those statesmen and public men by whom the momentous issues now raised will have to be decided, and on whose prudence in council, or action, in the public Senate of the empire provision to be made for the future protection of so many and such vital interests in spiritual, no less than in temporal, order must so largely depend.

From Galway it is learned that the pastoral read there contained this expression: "Let us ask that wretched tenants who find it impossible to meet their engagements at the present, and who are threatened with eviction from their humble homes, may be allowed at least a few months' respite until they can profit by the legislation which just and enlightened statesmanship will devise for their relief, and for the lasting peace and prosperity of Ireland."

Speaking at Lismore, Archbishop Croke said, that when he next had the pleasure of passing through the town, he hoped that the Irish cause would have wonderfully progressed, and that the great statesman, Mr. Gladstone, would have not only permanently and satisfactorily settled the land question, put an end to evictions and restored the Irish soil to the Irish people, but would have also carried through Parliament the changes now at hand, which would lead to the restoration of an Irish Parliament.

The Working Men. —New York Sun: "Never before in the history of labor in this country was it so united, and, consequently, so powerful. Its cohesion and unity of action are unexampled in the annals of trade organizations. Therefore, at this, of all moments, we say beware! Be moderate and be temperate. The true interests of the employer, if he be wise, are identical with your interests, and see to it now that no misuse of victory lead you to change places with the oppressor."

Notes on Current Topics