heart. To my friend here," turning Poor fellow! The meshes of matri to me, “we are indebted for this joy." mony will soon environ him, and his Thereupon the old man shook hands old haunts will know him no more! with me and thanked me, and pressed Ah, well! we should not throw stones at Maurice and myself to call upon him him who precedes us, for our own turn on New Year's Day. We promised. may come soon. The penalty attached Turning to our patient, we found she to Maurice's act of forgiveness will not, had sufficiently recovered to admit of I know, be hard to bear. He will withher going home alone. After cordially thanking us for our kindness, she took her departure. Returning home that morning I could not help felicitating myself on the part I had played in the reconciling of two hearts. Maurice's gladness was no more fervid than my own. "We must keep our promise, Maurice," I said, "and call on the old gentleman; and, who knows, he may have a daughter." "If he has, Barry, we shall not be rivals, I assure you." "You can't tell, Maurice, you haven't seen her yet." When he did see her on New Year's day his fate was sealed. out doubt survive the marriage day. Lest I should envy Maurice's good fortune, I wisely kept in mind not his wooing, but the introduction to it, and turned to sonnet-making. Here is the result. If, in thy heart, the fire of hate doth burn, Arise, and toward the new-born Saviour turn; Silence is the element in which great how much dearer are thy purposes and things fashion themselves together; duties; what wreck and rubbish have that at length they may emerge, full those mute workmen within thee swept formed and majestic, into the daylight away when intrusive noises were shut of life, which they are henceforth to out! Speech is too often, not as the rule. Not William the Silent only, but Frenchman defined it, the art of conall the considerable men I have known, cealing thought, but of quite stifling and and the most undiplomatic and suspending it, so that there is none to unstragetic of these, forbore to babble conceal. Speech, too, is great, but not of what they were creating and pro- the greatest. Speech is silvern, jecting. Nay, in thy own mean silence is golden; or, as I might rather perplexities, do thou thyself but hold express it, speech is of time, silence thy tongue for one day, on the morrow of eternity.—Carlyle. OBITUARY. JAMES LYNCH. Few men The community has lately sustained | financial risks as the exigencies of the a severe loss in the death of Mr. times demanded, he always shunned James Lynch. But a few days since unstable ventures and investments of his mortal remains were borne to inter- doubtful honor. The loftiest sense of ment attended by the solemn rites of justice marked his daily intercourse the Christian Church and the fullest with men, and he never departed from expressions of a sincere regret. He a conscientious discharge of his responwas a man of generous feelings and sibilities. He was successful in trade; expansive views, a Catholic devout but his was a success earned by perand strictly observant of his duties, sistent effort and intelligent manageand a promoter of all wise and ment. He never shirked labor. He charitable undertakings. For half a courted it indeed, and his, like many century he has led a good and use- another life, has proved that in the ful life among us. A favorite with all strength of the endeavor lies the who enjoyed his acquaintance, and well surety of a favorable issue. known to the public through his good were as ready with those little social offices and his manifold services in amenities which so well become the the advancement of worthy interests, man of business, and it was through he was eminently qualified to figure in his suave and sweet disposition that a high sphere and in the discharge the friendships of his life were made of greater trusts. But with character- so lasting. Nor was he distant or istic modesty he shunned the world's applause and felt sufficient reward in the supreme satisfaction of having done his duty well. His principles of life were severely chaste, and he carried them with him into his business transactions and his dealings with public interests. Utterly incapable of dishonesty or the dishonorable scheming of the men of the markets, he left behind him in the commercial community a record without blemish. While cheerfully assuming such severe with his inferiors in social standing. He permitted no vain restriction of rank to trench upon his native goodness of heart; but carried through the triumphs and vicissitudes of his life an unchanged simplicity of habit and an easy grace of manner. He was not a man of very varied attainments, but, what was better, he had sound, practical common sense. His judgment was profound, and prejudice never impaired or perverted it. He was familiar with most subjects of local interest, and the wisdom of his views counsel ever ready. None came to was more than once evinced in the him in behalf of a good cause who went perfection of their accomplishment. away empty-handed. With his ample Mr. Lynch was not a man to hurry to means some of our noblest institutions conclusions and forsake them a readily. were supported, in their early weakness; and from his mature judgment came many a wise suggestion for their conduct and sustenance. He always was cautious and discreet in forming opinions; but, though not at all capricious, he was ever ready to defer to a higher authority than his own. When the scheme of founding the There were many beautiful traits in New York Catholic Protectory was his private character which escaped broached, he entered heart and soul the world's scrutiny, but which were into the undertaking. The building not lost to the eager and observant fund was swelled by his contribuminds about him. He was a good tions, and whenever any subsequent husband and a kind father. In his exigency called for it, he was never inner life there were no defects to mar laggard in responding. In the very the pureness of his character. With inception of the institution, before loyalty he fulfilled all the parts to which, there was any earnest of its success in God's grace, he had been called. to rely on, none coöperated more It is as instructive as it is grateful, to glance over a life like his. It might not have been an eventful, but it was a busy life-a life consumed in the discharge of God-given trusts and in the practice of exemplary virtues. And it was also an active life, just such a one as wisdom suggests for youth's emulation. It can be recorded in a few lines, but its enduring results would fill pages. willingly with the Board of Management and the Rector, Brother Teliow, in bringing their plans to an early fruition; and when the success of the enterprise was assured, no one experienced a profounder satisfaction. Such was the life of James Lynch, a life devoted in an especial way, it would seem, to the noblest acts of Christian charity. He indeed was hoarding up treasures "where the moth cannot consume." Born in Ireland in 1805, he came at an early age to this country, and soon began business as a grocer. After a lingering illness Mr. Lynch fairness of his dealings and his business died on Sunday, Dec. 15, at his resisagacity built up for him an extensive dence. His funeral obsequies were The trade, and after thirty years of untiring largely attended, and all with whom he activity he retired with a comfortable had been intimate hastened to testify fortune. Since that time he has been the strong sense of personal bereaveassociated in numerous enterprises of ment they experienced in his loss. a benevolent character. Wherever he His good deeds still survive, and will, saw real want he hastened to relieve we are assured, be a copious source of it. His purse was ever open, and his merit to his soul. EDITORIAL COMMENTS. out the story of their past wanderings, and from his ministrations arise refreshed, with God's promise of victory animating their breasts. Not with vague promises to one's self of reform and amendment should the New Year be entered upon. These bubble res our eyes from them, and the golden opportunities we should be hoarding to turn to great avail are squandered in senseless and idle aims. It is only by calling God to support our frail humanity that we are strengthened to persist. The invocation of His mercy and His aid should be the New Year's first duty; that, a good confession, and the receiving of the Lord into our hearts, should be its earliest as they are its most fruitful offerings. Depend upon it, the new leaf we we turn can only remain unsullied through God's grace and our own invocation of it. There is a class of complacent people in this world with aspirations which never get beyond the limit of good resolutions, who will mark the coming year by "turning over a new leaf in their lives" destined to be an exact reproduction of the old one. They have become so inured to defeat and disappointment that if by any accident they stum-olutions of ours break the moment we move bled out of their slothfulness into some evidence of actual improvement, the result to them would be an unexpected and startling one. As the consciences of these people cannot be altogether silenced, they content themselves with promises of amendment which at the outset they feel will never be allowed to disturb their sluggish serenity. Not to these will a New Year bring food for anxious thought and serious reflection. But there are those who, remembering the past, face the future with troubled souls. They look back upon their lives: and all the profitless resolves and unfulfilled tasks pass before them and they feel how futile are the hopes and plans We have noticed no more curious instance of men. And these earnest men and women of the inconsistencies that torture the mind stand upon the threshold of the New Year of the unbeliever, and the utter abasement to almost tired of high resolves, half tempted which he subjects his reason than that which to go on in the old paths, from whose ways appears in John Stuart Mill's autobiography. they have so often fruitlessly endeavored to In writing of a life as frigid and severe as depart. We cannot harshly blame those the analysis to which he submits it, Mr. Mill among them who have only their own weak makes the startling admission that he has natures to rely upon, whose cravings for made to himself a deity of carnal mould, and sympathy and strength cannot go beyond that through the years of his manhood he the narrow limits of the world around them. has bent down in adoration before an idol Their despondency only goes to show how of clay. Singular as it may appear, this vain are all mere human attempts to rescue animated reasoning machine, this man dead the soul from bondage. We may resolve as to human joy and human sympathy, has we will, but without divine grace we cannot prostrated a glorious intellect and a mind make our lives serve an enduring purpose mighty though erring, in stupid worship of goodness and virtue. Catholics, high and before an inferior being. He does not seek low, can commence the New Year with hope- to conceal or evade his infatuation. He ful hearts. Not from the uncertain voices of glories in his idol, for it is—his wife. Honor, men shall they receive the inspiring promise of love, and esteem are household words, and better life. High or low, there is an assur- we know their meaning while we respect ance in their souls that if they only will it, the it. But Mill's regard for his wife was not future for them can be made fruitful with bles- a sentiment such as these are. It was an sings. At the foot of the priest they may pour intense religious feeling, an adoration-not unmixed with superstition-of the woman stupidity of gossip, and if by some chance whom he regarded as the most highly gifted the mention of a grave theme should intrude, of beings. He claims that to her he is in- there is a helter-skelter to avoid it. debted for all that he is, for his reason, for his opinions, almost for his being. Living he defers to her views and surrenders to her his own intelligence, and he bends his brow to earth before her urn when dead. Learned people call these doings by queer names. But if they are not the symptoms of stark lunacy we know not what to call them. Rousseau, another godless man, had his goddess. But even his wild devotion affords no parallel to frenzy of this kind. Rousseau had deep, burning feelings. But Mill was only the simulacrum of a man. Passionless, frigid, mechanical, with his humanity trained out of him in childhood, babbling Greek roots almost in his cradle and writing philosophy when boys of his age were blundering through the rule of three, he had an existence unlike our own plodding, every-day life. He abandoned everything for reason, and now he admits that he has flung that down as a votive offering at the feet of an ordinary, commonplace woman. The strange inconsistency of so profound a mind has afforded a nine-day conundrum for magazine writers to guess out. But to us it is simply a proof of the paradoxical truth that the incredulous are the most credulous. The brutal sans-culotte who blasphemes God must have his degraded Goddess of Reason. Why should not Mill, whose cold mind seemed never to have reverenced the Almighty's power, bow himself down before a mere woman and make his love for her his only religion? If one were to judge of the education and refinement of the American people by the character of their social amusements, the verdict would be far from favorable. Heedless frivolity and the excitement of the dance usurp the place of higher pleasures. The parlor has become a ballroom in miniature, with its inexorable music, its terpsichorean extravagances, and of course its senseless twaddle. Every species of entertainment that could refine the manners and recreate the mind is sedulously ignored. Boisterous humor and senseless wit are the only condiments that season the nauseous Most people fancy that one must become ridiculous to be amusing, and in view of this they avail themselves of all kinds of haphazard resorts to draw a laugh out of the company. With excruciating ingenuity they distort words into grotesque shapes and keep their small wits a-fishing for bon-mots till they become borish. Others again-and they constitute a numerous class-approach rational amusement unawares, but they never reach it. They like music, they have a relish for reading of a dramatic or declamatory kind. More too, they can tolerate a sober subject if it be only spoken of in a cursory way. But that is all. They never for a moment entertain the idea that the parlor can be made as amusing and instructive as the theatre, opera, or lecture-room. For them it is only a spot where, according to society's code, a few dull moments must be passed in assumed enjoyment. This is a flaw in our ethics which needs mending. Our amusements must be in keeping with our reputation as an intelligent people. The little observances which give tone and color to our social life must alter their complexion. The parlor must have other uses than those to which rapacious dancers and the gossip-mongers apply it. You go to the opera to hear good music, you repair to the theatre and lyceum almost nightly. Save yourselves the trouble. Stay at home and encourage there a taste for rational enjoyment. Have your songs, your readings, and your recitations there; give family entertainments; invite your friends to take part; and rest assured that you will do more to elevate society and give it a loftier sentiment and purer ethics than half the reformers and agitators of the day. Let you not fancy that rational amusement is no amusement; that it is at best a straitlaced, tedious, bluestocking way of passing time. It is nothing of the sort. It debars no other innocent pleasures, it trenches upon none of the approved practices of society. It only gives a home true enjoyment and makes the entertainment of one's friends what it now is not, an agreeable and grateful duty. |