ture of the universe, and of the unerring hand that guides the planets in their path. When we know that a ray of light may in a second travel eight times around our globe, with a speed a hundredfold outstripping the lightning, and that some of the stars are so distant that it may take centuries for their light to reach us, this knowledge, by pushing back the boundaries of visible space, enlarges our idea of the grandeur of creation, and of the insignificance of the material man, so that it has now become a proverb 'the undevout astronomer is mad.' So the modern theories of the indestructibility of matter and of force teach a new analogy of religion, and point to the necessary immortality of the soul. And, again, the generalisations regarding matter and motion and life, if they be true, only raise within us a higher appreciation of the grandeur, simplicity, and the harmony of those laws which the Creator has enacted for the government of the universe. From such a point did Father Burke regard the progress of scientific truth, feeling assured that every new discovery that was really true would be but another evidence of the power and goodness of the Creator.

"Next, he was essentially an Irishman-Irish as intensely, as purely as the native music he loved so much. The same variety, the same plasticity marked his character. At one time joyous, wild, and buoyant as a planxty, at another grave and measured as the tread of men marching to battle; at another time instinct with that tender melancholy which has sprung from the sad history of our fatherland, which is so typical of our finest music, and often is interwoven as a sombre thread into the sparkling texture of our brilliant strains. And I even think he felt this analogy himself, for I never heard anything from his lips more beautiful than his recitation of that poem in which Moore has married to immortal verse one of our most touching airs in praise of native music. I had often read the poem with admiration, and often heard it sung by not unworthy voices, but never did I feel the full proportions of its beauty until I heard it read by Father Burke with a rhythm that was beyond all poetry, and a cadence that was more than music.

"I have said that Father Burke was, of all things, an Irishman, and in nothing was he more so than in his voice and accent. Someone said that an Irishman should carry his honour and his brogue unsullied to the grave. Father Burke did both. I believe it is the fashion to deride our brogue. I have heard two natives who had it meted out to them in full measure-Daniel O'Connell and Thomas Burke. In no other form of the language could I find a medium more perfectly adapted to sustain and reflect the full freight of thought that it bore upon its brimming tide. It seemed capable of all forms of expression, and for my part, if I could, I would not change it for the dialect of Lancashire, or Yorkshire, or even Somersetshire. No, I

would not barter it for the most accomplished drawl of a west-end drawingroom, or the cold, pedantic primness of Oxford or Cambridge. The metal may be vulgar, but it is genuine, and I would not gild it to an English tone-I would not electro-plate it with a foreign accent. In the hands of O'Connell and of Burke it was a weapon brilliant, strong, and flexible as a Toledo blade; brilliant enough to glitter in a pageant, strong enough to smite an enemy to the death, but withal so flexible that it might be wound like a girdle round the zone of some proud beauty. There are some men, and you have heard many of them, who from their mode of action seem to think that language is the master of thought and not its minister. They recite their tedious litanies of words, to which, I confess, I can rarely attach a meaning. I suppose they trust to the genius of their audience to attach some sense to what is in itself bereft of meaning. Far otherwise it was with Father Burke. He seemed to care little for the form his words took. As you listened, you felt that a stream of thought, beautiful and pure, came welling up from perennial sources within, from the deep reservoirs of his large heart and his bright intellect. As the thought rose unbidden to his lips, it formed itself to language not cast into any mould of art, but of itself spontaneously crystallized into forms of beauty, luminous as a crystal, many-hued as the light of a prism, pure and chaste as the 'icicle that hangs on Dian's temple.' It is almost a pity that he was so careless of literary reputation. Posterity would have gained much i he had more carefully elaborated his sentences, and spent more of the labour of the file on the forms he created. But he was so earnest in his work that if our successors may complain that he was a spendthrift of his genius, we at least have gained by his unmeasured prodigality. The tone of reverence with which he spoke of sacred things, the compassion with which he yearned o help the needy, the fond entreaty with which he strove to win back the erring, the authority with which he pronounced the doctrines of the Church, were as various as the stops of a grand organ whose keys quivered beneath the touch of a master-hand.

"His voice was like all instruments,

Now like a lovely flute,

And now 'twas like an angel's song,
Which makes the heavens be mute.'

And then to this diapason of music was added a dignified and expressive action, every gesture dramatic-dramatic I mean in the higher sense, I mean when not alone the tongue and lips speak, but the eyes, the limbs, the frame itself, became so many translators of thought and ministers of language. So wonderful was his power in this way that I believe those who did not understand the language he spoke, could almost follow the colour of his thoughts as we can trace out the tint of the sea-weed beneath the wave of the ocean.

"I have already spoken of the way in which he read a song of Moore's on native music, and there now comes back to my ear the reality which he gave the lines. When he spoke of the gale that sighs along the banks of oriental flowers, I could almost hear its whisper in my ear, and feel its perfumed breath upon my cheek; and I thought of the poet of poets, whose mind had condensed into shape and form the viewless air, and who saw that " chartered libertine, the wind," as it rushed through the petals of the violets, stealing and giving odour, like some generous freebooter of old, who robbed and rieved, but yet gave largesse of his booty.

"One image of Father Burke constantly recurs to me. It was when he was pleading the cause of those noble women who have devoted their lives to the reclamation of the erring-by the alchemy of holiness converting gross impurity into perfect purity. He described the prayer of the holy for the unholy ascending to heaven for the sinner, and as he lifted up his hands and eyes aloft you knew that he saw the whitewinged prayer soaring upward to the sapphire footstool of the throne of God, and saw it returning again, bearing a double freight beneath its dovelike wings-the double message of peace for the penitent and for the merciful mercy. But that voice is now silent; the lips on whose accents we hung are cold clay; the hand that warned from danger and pointed to the right path lies folded and lifeless over a heart that has ceased to beat. The silver chain of his eloquence is broken, but yet he is not dead. Once did he proclaim in ringing accents the charter of immortality-non omnis moriar—I will not altogether die. And he has not altogether died. Into many a crushed and wounded heart did he pour the balm of consolation, and that balm has exhaled like a fragrant cloud on high, returning to the comforter a hundredfold the precious essence with which he salved the wounds of his suffering brethren. To the blind he gave vision, and they now have their eyes turned towards heaven with the fervent prayer that he who opened their eyes to the light, may himself enjoy life eternal. He will not die so long as the Order he illustrated and the Church he served so faithfully remain. He will not die so long as Irishmen can remember the champion who defended their faith and fatherland against the libeller of their country and their creed. He will not altogether die, but he will live that life of lives which has been promised by One who is ever faithful to his word, for he was a man who loved God above all things, and his neighbour as himself."

Mr. Denny Lane, in one of these eloquent periods, refers to Father Burke's disregard for the tricks of rhetoric, for everything but the apostolic effectiveness of his discourses. He was far more like to O'Connell than to Sheil. One is surprised to hear how effective Sheil was, even at the moment, with his shrill voice and his literary eloquence, more fitted to be read than heard, You could not imagine O'Connell doing what Sheil is known to have done for his oratorical fame. Mr.

Maurice Lenihan, in some interesting reminiscences, which he published several years ago in his Limerick Reporter, states that at the outset of his journalistic career it was his fortune to report one at least of Sheil's speeches in this fashion: He and the orator spent the night after a great Catholic meeting, Sheil walking up and down, and dictating from memory the speech he had delivered, or ought to have delivered. Without this care to secure adequate written record of his spoken words Sheil's fame would be much more of a mere tradition than it has yet become. O'Connell never took such pains, nor Father Burke, whose sermons were not made to be read, but to be heard, and from his own lips. The Dublin correspondent of the Weekly Register, Dec. 16th, 1882, giving an account of Father Burke's appeal in St. Francis Xavier's Church, Gardiner-street, Dublin, on behalf of the Sisters of Mercy, of Perth, in Australia, says: "It is very difficult to give an idea of any sermon of his on paper, for it is not alone what he says, but his manner of saying it, that casts a spell upon his audience, and excites an enthusiasm that spreads through the multitude like a flame."

In this sermon he half-unconsciously quoted Tennyson: "Oh! for the touch of a vanished hand." We have heard that in an ecclesiastical retreat he recommended the habitual study of poetry as a help to vividness and elevation of language. In giving this counsel he assured his reverend hearers that he practised what he preached. "Pray that I may have unction in my preaching," he said one day to a young friend. This availed more than the qualifications truly ascribed to him: "A dignified presence, graceful and vigorous action, and a fine baritone voice rich in musical intonations."

We may add here a few remarks of Father Lilly, Provincial of the Dominican Order in the United States, who was interviewed on the occasion of Father Burke's death:

"He saw everything by intuition, and never lost sight of a single salient point in his discourse. Give him a few leading thoughts and all else was clear. In his younger days he used to write out his sermons, though I, for one, could never imagine him sitting down at a table and patiently setting down his fiery thoughts on paper. He did so once here, when he was invited to deliver an eulogy on St. Patrick. But in the pulpit he found his own imagination more potent than the penned panegyric, which had cost him so many hours of labour, and, trusting in his own ready rhetoric, he electrified the congregation by a spontaneous outburst of eloquence. He was a born orator; he had a grand, sonorous, baritone voice, a fluent delivery, and a splendid action; he possessed a large fund of information, a store of wonderful resources, and an inimitable readiness in applying them; his dramatic power was marvellous, and as a word-painter I have never seen his equal. One series of his sermons, entitled 'Groupings of Calvary,' delivered in Holy Week, were the most perfect specimens of unpremeditated oratorical art that I have ever heard. He was a sound theological student, and was thoroughly grounded in the doctrines of St. Thomas. The thousands who came to hear him preach were enthralled by a sort of magnetic power; they surrendered themselves, for the time, to the sway of his resist.

1ess oratory, and kept so quiet that I assure you you could hear a pin drop in the midst of the crowded church. He appealed entirely to the heart, enforcing his doctrines by a clear delivery and a use of gestures that were as little studied, and yet as effective as his language. His memory was remarkably retentive; he knew every hymn in the Breviary by heart, and could repeat the Office of the Dead' from beginning to end. I am sure, also, that he knew Moore's 'Melodies' by heart. He did a vast amount of work during his life. At a retreat given by him in St. Joseph's Convent, Ohio, I have heard him preach three times a day for nine days, and the sermons were as finished as the best of his productions. There was nothing remarkable in his personal appearance. He was above the medium height; his forehead was low, his complexion dark; in his clear, piercing eyes were the only indications of the great genius that was in him."

In a former volume of our Magazine we went out of our way to quote a sample of Father Burke's verse, "The Irish Dominicans." A slight specimen of his written, as distinct from his spoken prose, may be found at page 260 of the fifth volume of Duffy's Hibernian Magazine (April, 1864). It was evidently dictated by friendship. It is a warm review of the poems of a young Cork man, who did not long survive the happiness of publishing his poems in a volume, brother to Father Condon, O.P., so well known and so much beloved in Limerick. This article, which we assign to the illustrious Dominican on his own confession-not volunteered-begins with these words: "The book before us calls back the remembrance of the dear child of genius just dead-God rest her soul!-Adelaide Procter."

Our last relic of the great Dominican must be an account of his last moments, given in a private letter, which we found in an American newspaper, copied from the Cork Examiner :

"Our dear Father Prior, as you have heard, is gone to his rest. As morning dawned on the Feast of the Visitation, his pure soul passed to the embraces of Jesus and Mary. The preceding morning, about seven o'clock, he received for the last time the Sacraments of the Holy Church. It was most touching to hear the aspirations of love and faith which he uttered as the ciborium was uncovered and our Divine Lord exposed. In accents that betokened his lively, active faith he would every moment say: 'O my Lord and my God!' 'O my dear Lord!' And then, turning to the Father Sub-prior and his devoted children, who sadly knelt around the bedside of their dying Father, he asked, in words of deep humility, their pardon, as well as that of all the members of the Order, and of all whom he had offended. During the Sunday he lingered on. A faint hope comforted us-it might pass away; but as the shades of evening began to dim the brightness of the day we were told that the end of our dear Father was fast drawing near.

"About nine o'clock we retired to bed: our eyelids would fain rest, but the thought that death was about to close those joyful eyes and seal the lips that only lisped for God, disturbed our repose. About three in the morning rapid knocks sounded on the doors of our cells and a Brother entering exclaimed: To the Prior's cell.' All was over-the end had come our Father had gone to join the angelic choirs. The consciousness of his eternal happiness calmed our sorrow. Nevertheless the scene was penetratingly sad. There lay the remains of one whom we loved as a father.

"The recollection of the pleasant hours he devoted to recreation with his poor children came to our minds; his wit, the laugh and fun his genuine humour evoked, the effort he would make that we might be happy; but, above all, the spiritual influ