and his hard-driven horse was stum- Satisfied with his scrutiny he stuck bling in the snow. A great fear came the bridle round a door-post and resumed his burning turf. over him, bold as he was and an awful, doubt as to his whereabouts. Many and many a wayfarer had been lost among the hills and left only his bleaching bones to tell of his sufferings and death. The thought gave him energy. He urged his weary horse fiercely onward, and dashed through the darkness and the driving sleet with a burning brain and benumbed limbs. On, on, through the white solitude he galloped. His hands and feet were frozen stiff, his face was thick with ice, a strange stupor was coming over him. On still. He felt his senses leaving him, a chill shot through all his blood; then he seemed to be hurled through the air, to see a burst of flame dance in his eyes and then he was thrown at the door of an old mountain cabin, senseless. His horse had seen the light, had dashed toward it and sprang through the open door, flinging the rider down behind him. "It didna come be its ainsel," said Sandy, and issuing forth into the storm he waved the torch above him and peered all around. "He, ha! wha's this ain?" he cried, as the light fell upon Robert Graham lying senseless in the snow. "Puir body," he continued, bending over the prostrate youth, "puir body." Then, stretching out two muscular arms, he raised Robert from the ground and bore him in. Before long the genial warmth recovered him; but his head had been cut by the fall and he suffered severely. "Where am I?" he cried, as he became conscious of his queer surroundings." "In Sandy McCauliff's," replied Sandy himself, who then told him how he had come there. "Are you living here alone, Sandy?" asked Robert when he had finished. "No," said the mountaineer, with a sad shake of his head, "but I soon will be." "God be gude to us," cried a queer, spindle-shanked old man, leaping from his seat beside the fire. "Here's the Then he told the young man that deil amang us." And with that he behind the screen in the corner, his caught up a square of blazing turf to brother was lying at death's door. hurl at the travel-worn charger that stood shaking the sleet from his head in the door-way. "Stop a wee, Sandy. It's naething but a puir brute beestie," said a thin, piping voice from the corner. Sandy gave over his hostile design, and grasping the bridle, looked hard at the horse as if to convince himself He told him that even now they were waiting for a priest to deliver the last rites of the Church to the dying man, for these were families of mountaineers who had preserved the old faith down to the present day. "You don't mean to tell me that you expect a clergyman to venture out in this storm?" Robert Graham said. of the authenticity of the apparition "Deid we dae," replied Sandy, and to guard against any deception" and Father McLeod's nae the man whatsoever. t' break his word." Robert was smiling to himself at the idea of any man keeping such an engagement on a night like this, when he heard a sudden tramp at the door, and a small, shaggy pony ambled in with a man upon it dressed in black and enveloped to the eyes in a wrapper. He was covered with snow and sleet, but did not seem a bit discommoded as he uncovered his head and shook the wet from his long, black hair. He was a thin, pale man, with a gentle face and a quiet winning smile. With a salute to Robert he turned to Sandy and inquired about the sick man. The latter, he was informed, was past recovery. He had languished for weeks in this homely mountain cabin, attended by his uncouth but devoted brother, and now he believed that all hope was fled. how strong must be the faith, how warm the zeal of its members, whom it seemed to animate as with a divine inspiration! Robert's strong trust in his early teachings for once was shaken. He doubted if, after all, these Catholics would be such horrible, worldly-minded people as he had been taught to believe them. Here was an argument that conflicted very fairly with his old tutor's statements. Surely there must be more in this ardent zeal, this implicit confidence, this tender, trustful love for religion, which even the poor unlettered mountaineer seemed to share with the clergyman. There was Agnes Stuart, too. How could she ever give herself to a degrading superstition? "Ah, my esteemed preceptors," said Robert to himself, "I fear your logic carried you beyond facts." and poor Sandy joining in the responses. For a moment Robert hesitated, and then, giving way to an impulse he could not control, he knelt down upon the earthy floor and for the first time he joined his voice in supplication with the once hated Church's prescribed form of prayer. Then the priest retired behind the His reverie was now interrupted by screen and Robert, with an instinctive a low, murmuring sound. It was the delicacy, moved over to the further priest reading prayers for the dying, corner. While he sat there he gave himself up to thought. Certainly he had food enough for it: his strange adventure, his queer companions, and above all, the indifference of the priest to wind or weather when called to the discharge of his duties. He fancied a Catholic's, joined it too in repeating the indignation of the divines of his own creed and acquaintance did any one but hint at their taking such a journey with such a purpose. And then he came to ponder on the merit of this self-sacrificing man, and above all on his trust in the faith whose sacraments he came to deliver even at the peril of his life. Must there not be in it something higher and holier than he had ever dreamt of? Must it not have So Robert Graham learned that winbeautiful principles and inculcate the ter night. Over the blazing fire of practice of the highest virtues? And turf he sat and chatted in the good Providence works in strange ways. There were martyrs who converted the executioners by whose hands they died, sinners whom saints brought to truth, and saints confirmed in faith by sinners. God's ways are wonderful, and lead through many a devious turning. priest's company. The whole current, "Bob Graham had a new and more of his generous nature set toward the severe attack of the blues." He "cut" noble sower of the Word, who shunned the society of his rollicking companions no danger in discharge of duty, and and for awhile lived in most hermitmade his life a constant sacrifice for like retirement, as they thought. these humble people's good. He saw "What chances that young madcap threw away," some said; "his rich old uncle will never leave him a shilling." But these prophets of ill-omen were About six months afterwards his relthe love in which the mountaineer and atives were thrown into a state of nerhis dying brother held the man; he vous excitement and holy indignaeven caught a little recital from Sandy's tion by hearing that he had become a lips, hushed by the good priest's pres- convert to Catholicism. ence, of how the latter had spent an ample income to supply the frequent wants of his poor flock; and within him a new impulse stirred. He would know more of this faith; he would doomed to disappointment, for the study its doctrines, learn its principles, gruff but good-hearted old uncle was and trust to God to rightly direct him the first to send for "Nephew Bob," in the course to take. after his marriage with Agnes Stuart; and although the old fellow could never reconcile himself to becoming a Catholic he was desperately unwilling to disown his Papist relatives. The next day he did not leave the mountains as had been his intention. For a whole week he abided with the good priest in his modest habitation, and there he saw what the practice of good So his hard-shell cousins, who had precepts really meant. When, however, charitably shown up Bob's apostasy he returned to his friends, who had been in its worst colors, found out. Not much alarmed by his continued absence, one of them was made a penny richer and had restored young Lord Athol his when the old man died; and what was favorite horse, they found out, as Rob-worse, they heard Robert confirmed as bins of the guards again said, that the sole heir. Burke, no superficial reader of men | cast off the fear of God, which in all and books, says, in one of his immortal ages has been too often the case, and, pamphlets, that "he can form a tolera- the fear of man, which is now the bly correct estimate of what is likely to happen in a character, chiefly dependent for fame and fortune on knowledge and talent, both in its morbid and perverted state, and in that which kind." is sound and natural. Naturally, such case; and when, in that state, they come to understand one another, and to act in corps, a more fearful calamity cannot arise out of hell to scourge man men are the first gifts of Providence to No man is free who cannot comthe world. But when they have once mand himself.—Pythagoras. UPON THE SEA OF GALILEE. BY JAMES B. FISHER. Upon the sea of Galilee, Upon the sea of Galilee, The storm blew out at early night, And called for aid to Him whose breath Across the sea of Galilee, The angry sea of Galilee, Came One of presence mild and sweet. Far from the sea of Galilee, Professor Paul Broder is a young posed, and on Mr. Case's objecting to Catholic gentleman residing in Be- the expense, the Professor offered to loit, a graduate of Notre Dame Uni- bear the whole of it. At this, Mr. versity, and "reckoned among the Case, finding his opponent meant busimost solid and wealthy men of the ness, backed out entirely. The next place." He is in the habit of supply- issue of the Free Press contained Proing the editorial articles of the Beloit fessor Broder's reply to Case's calFree Press, but being on one occasion umnies, in which, item by item, each absent from the city for some days, one was so clearly exposed and refuted his place was temporarily taken by that the professor carried the whole Mr. Case, a Methodist preacher. This public over to his side. The Methoperson seized the opportunity to make dists themselves went even farther the Free Press the mouthpiece for sun- than the general public, and announced dry violent attacks upon Catholics and to Mr. Case that his career among their religion, and to challenge any them might as well terminate without one to meet him openly, and contra- further delay. The Catholics of the dict his statements if they could. On town have just been having a picnic at his return home, Professor Broder, which Professor Broder delivered an learning the state of affairs, called at address on True Education, which drew once upon Mr. Case, and inquired how both Protestant and Catholic hearers, soon he could attend to the discussion and at which Mr. Case's ministerial he had opened in the Free Press, and successor occupied a seat on the plathow he proposed to carry it on. After form with the Professor. A few days some talk, Professor Broder proposed after, several of the most respectable the Methodist church as a suitable Protestants of the city called on Proplace, and that each should speak for fessor Broder and requested a copy half an hour, or an hour, as best suited. of his address for publication, as they Mr. Case objected to such a use of his fully agreed with his views regarding church. The City Hall was then pro- the necessity of a religious education. |