The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-26 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY E'rENING, DECEMBER 26, 1860.

shore, and a considerable strengthening of the
existing defences immediately surrounding Ports-
mouth, or the inner lines of defence. With regard
to the fortifications surrounding the town of Ports-
mouth, the Commissioners report " that the major
portion of the works are entirely useless." This
may also be said of some of the works recuitly
constructed, and the Commissioners also report that
they strongly disapprove the mode in which Fort
Victoria, at Sconce Point, erected to defend the en-
trance by the Needles Passage, has been constructed.
The evidence given before the Commission on the
subject of booms, or floating barriers, to throw
across the passage between the Noman and Dean
shoals, or at the Needles, was very inconcluive,
but the publication of the evidence has attracted
much attention among scientific men, and a Mr.
Austen, C.E , a gentleman who has had consider-
able experience in engineering works under Sir
Morton Peto and other eminent firms, has prepared
models of a plan by which he proposes to effectu-
ally close and defend any similar passage, and that
shall give free ingress and egress to the strongest
tideway, and that the cost of the construction shall
be about £l,OOO per gun, the cost of a sailing
frigate. This gentleman proposes to arm his
structures with Mr. Lynall Thomas's gun, or a
similar weapon. The models appear to be simple
in construction, possess a large platform for the
working of their guns, and are so constructed as to
give the least possible resistance to the rush o f a
tideway. All parts liable to be struck by shot or
shell present the end grain of the wood, in a like
manner to the surface of a wooden pavement, and
are coated with iron plates on a scale of 6 inches.
The portion cf the special estimated sum named
by the National Defence Commission for the
defence of the United Kingdom set apart for Ports-
mouth amounts to £2,800,000.

selves. (Cheers.) lam a Volunteer to testify my
high approbation, humbly though it be, to the credit
and honour of the captain of your corps whom you
honour—respected and admirable in all the private
relations of life, and devoting his time, at the sacri-
fice of other serious and important avocations, for
the welfare of the 12th regimental corps of the
Essex Volunteers. (Cheers.) And what a cause,
gentlemen, is it ? Why, it is that simply of defence ;
no one can be fairly and justly annoyed. I can
remember in my early days, at the University of
Cambridge, that there was no objection raised by
the authorities to Messrs. Angelo coming down to
reach us the art of fencing; there was no objection
raised to that remarkably celebrated well-formed
Eaglishman, Jackson, teaching us the art of self-
defence—(laughter)—a man who, I remember, was
stripped by request of the Prince Regent, to show
what an Englishman was made of, in the presence
of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, the King of
Prussia, Marshal Blucher, and the Hetman Platoff.
We became self-reliant, but not therefore prepared
to stop every Englishman we met in Cambridge,
although it did sometimes happen that we knocked
down the first bargee who crossed our path.
(Laughter.) So I say with reference to apprehen-
sions from foreign Powers, why should such exist ?
No offence is intended. We are annoying to no
one, but we are prepared to meet every one.
(Cheers.)
The cup having been presented to Captain
Sparrow with a highly complimentary speech from
Lieutenant Courtauld,

Mr. Du CANE, M.P., addressed the meeting. In
proposing " The Army and Navy" the hon. member
said.—" I cannot help thinking that we have learnt
during the last few days one especial subject for,
congratulation connected with this toast. We
must all congratulate ourselves that through the
firmness and courage displayed by Lord Elgin and
Sir Hope Grant, and that gallant allied band under
their command, our far distant friends the Chinese
have been brought to their senses, and that
which this time I trust will be a solid
and durable treaty has been for rally ratified
under the walls of Pekin. (Cheers.) We do not
know the terms as yet, and the former
violation of the treaty of Tientsin, combined
with the recent sad episode of the death of our two
gallant countrymen, Capt. Brabazon and De Nor-
man, has taught us that too much reliance is not to
be placed on the faith of a Chinaman. (Hear, hear.)
But if I have no faith in the Chinese, I have faith
in the salutary horror they have evinced of our
Armstrong guns—(hear, hear)—and I will never
believe that without some strong guarantees for
indemnification as regards the past and better
behaviour as regards the future, the sword of the
soldier has ceded the vantage ground to the pen of
the diplomatist." (Hear, hear.) The hon. gentleman,
in subsequently responding to the toast of " The
County Members," observed—" I could almost have
wished to have appeared before this gathering in
some more military capacity than that of a plain
member of Parliament ; for I know it may be said
that the duties of a Parliamentary representative
are not incompatible with those of an officer of a
Volunteer corps, and that the present House of
Commons affords signal instances to the contrary.
But I thought, I can assure you, somewhat deeply
on this subject, and I have long ago come to the
conclusion that, whatever other amusements it may
be lawful for M.P.'s to indulge in, playing at sol-
diers is a game that benefits neither the player nor
those with whom he plays. If you wish to be an
able and efficient officer or member of a Volunteer
corps, you must make up your mind for hour after
hour of hard drill and rifle practice; and above all
it appears to me that you must make up your mind
to be a permanent fixture for many months of the
year in the neighbourhood in which your corps is
established. (Hear.) I have watched somewhat
attentively the progress of this great movement as
it affected those members of the House of Com-
mons who have taken a leading part in it ; and I
may mention one name that I think never ought
to be mentioned in connection with this cause
without a burst of enthusiasm—l mean Lord Elcho.
(Loud cheers.) Lord Elcho is a nobleman of very
high talent and varied attainments, and he had
earned for himself a position of no mean importance
in the House of Commons—of no mean importance
both as a debater and a man of business. If any man
could do two things at once, I think he could, but he
has been obliged almost entirely to relinquish that
position, many will say, to assume a more glorious
one in connection with this movement. I became
thereby convinced that so long as I am honoured
With the confidence of a majority of this consti-
tuency I had better act, save so far as an honorary
membership is concerned, on the favourite English
principle of non-intervention. I did not rise for
the purpose of making a long speech, and if I had
done so, I should be somewhat puzzled to find a
subject. Politics, we all know, are most strictly
and properly forbidden; of agriculture during the
last few months you have had enough, and more
than enough; even Garibaldi has retired into pri-
vate life and. the future intentions of the Emperor
of the French are as much a mystery to the world
at large as the Road murder. (Laughter.) We
now hear on all sides inspiriting martial music, and
patriotic exhortations to Form, form, Riflemen
form.' I trust the day may never come when
another well known military air may be more in
vogue—l mean, The soldier tired.' (Hear.) I
confess I thing that as time goes on some means
besV.es what you have at present in this county
may be desirable to keep the steam up to its pre--
sent high pressure, and, if I may be allowed to
make the suggestion, I would say why not follow
the example other counties, and set on foot in
Essex a county rifle association ?'' (Rear.)
Mr. T. S. WESTERN. M P., responded on behalf
of the "Members for the &SCA and
in the course of a brief address, said,—" There was
a time when liberal politicians viewed with jeal-
ousy any increase in the land forees of this
country; when a standing army was not seldom
spoken of as a standing menace to liberty ; but the
stanchest Liberal may well unite with the stanchest
Conservative in hailing the creation of our army of
Volunteers. (Hear, and applause.) Drawn from
the ranks of civil life, and continuing to bear his
part in all the duties and social interests appertain-
ing to his position, the gray-coated or green-coated
rifleman may well be considered as suspected by
nobody of being dangerous to freedom—(hear, hear)
—and, although perhaps at the present day one
cannot contemplate the possibility of a despotic
Government—if Huai a calamity should ever betel
us, if sneh a Government should ever threaten us, I
am sure it will not ho among the Volunteers that it
will look for its tools. (llear, hear.)
Several other toasts were given in the course of
the evening.

Her Majesty, through Mr. Sidney Herbert, the
Secretary of State for War, has, after the necessary
preliminary inquiries, been pleased to accept,
through Lord Fortescue, the Lord Lieutenant of the
comity, the services of the Artillery Corps connected
with the D2vonport Dockyard, which are to
.be
termed " the 12th Devon Volunteer Artillery." The
number of men belonging to the Dockyard Volun-
teers is about 200, and to the Keyham Steamyard
nearly 100. Mr. T. Knight is honorary secretary
at Devonport, and Mr. Curry at Key ham. An effi-
cient band (21 each) is attached to each corps. For
shot practice these volunteers will have the use of
the guns in Plymouth Citadel, and for shell practice
the battery at Picklecombe Point, Mount Edg- '
cumbe.

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PASTORAL LETTER OF CARDINAL WISEMAN.

The following pastoral from his Eminence Car-
dinal Wiseman was read in all the Roman Catholic
churches and chapels of the archdiocess of West-
minster on Sunday last, being the fourth Sunday of
Advent :

Nicholas, by the Divine mercy of the holy
Roman Church, of the title of St. Pruden-
liana, Cardinal Priest and Archbishop of
Westminster :
To our dearly beloved brethren and children in
Christ, the clergy, secular and regular, and faithful
of the said diocese.
Health and benediction in the Lord.
The Word of God, the co-equal, Son of the
Father, eternal, infinite, God Himself, taking our
human nature, with all its iniaeries, except sin and
corruption, maimed, nevertheless, and subject to
pain and to sorrow, coming among us as a helpless
infant, as a poor outcast, as an unknown, unheeded,
neglected, despised babe of poor parents, presents
Himself vividly every year at this season to our
wonder and admiration. And is this all? Oh, no,
far from it. It is to our love—our inmost, tender-
est, purest love—that He offers Himself as the most
special object. To an adoring love, if we please,
but to a love unmixed v'ith reproach, with fear,
with anxiety. Happiest indeed and sweetest of all
the Church's holydays—Easter may be more glori-
ous, Ascension more triumphant, Whit • Sunday
more mystical ; but Christmas-day is the day of
simplest affection, of most untroubled confidence,
most human feelings when looking towards God,
or rather looking into His very face, gentle and
loveable as that of an infant, in the first visible
radiance of His incarnation.
Hence has this festival worked its way into our
very social institutions ; it excites a charity for the
poor, more wanted indeed at this period, yet inti-
mately connected with it, or rather inspired by it.
It is not a winter charity, or a New Year's
charity, but Christmas charity, which clothes
the naked, feeds the hungry, warms up many a
cold garret with its fuel ; which penetrates the
prison and the workhouse, to regale their inmates
with Christmas fare. It is this season, the coldest
of the year, which warms again affections chilled by
separation, by conflicting interests, by strange mis-
understandings; which draws close once more bonds
relaxed by worldly cares, or by the formation of new
ties, straitens them for a season, and gathers round
one family hearth the disjointed members of one
house as they were in earlier and happier days, like
yousg olives round the father's table, like unanxious
children about the joyful mother—matrenr.filiorum
letantem.
Christmas is thus the love-feast of the Christian
calendar, endowed by the force of domestic affection
and social institutions with power enough to have
resisted every Puritanical and unloving effort to
efface it, with so many other commemorations of
Divine mercy. It remains a holiday because of the
very intensity of its sweet love ; for ao other festival,
as we have said, brings more directly and unre-
proachingly to our hearts the charity of God, " The
benignness and humanity of God our Saviour ap-
pearing to us."
And we have seen how instructively this
sense of our Lord's great charity to us inspires
imitation and the gratitude which he loves
best, the repayment iu kind to those who
need our help. Oh, how slight, how insig-
nificant is all that we can do to mark our sense
of this charity to us, of that fathomless, immeasur-
able, dimensionless love and unspeakable goodness
which, being one with His infinite wisdom, is an
abyss the depths whereof angels cannot reach, in-
comprehensible to their intelligence, inexplicable to
their hearts. The treasures of this immense good-
ness have been unstintedly lavished upon us, giving
not only riches where before was poverty, but lite
where was death, light where was darkness, happi-
ness where was wretchedness, bliss where woule
have been woe, God where would have been the
wicked fiend, glory with the One on high where
would have been infamy and torture with the
other. It has not been a diminution of evil,
or an increase of good that the charity of
God has brought or given by the incarna-
tion ; but it was the substitution of positive good
for positive evil (if we‘may so popularly speak),
the transition from one extreme to its very opposite.
What can we do, in imitation of this excessive
kindness and love, that can be worth His acknow-
ledgment—how much less His acceptance ? If His
goodness had not come to our assistance even here,
how helpless would have been our condition ! We
must have sunk into hopelessness and remained
contented with bare utterance of thanks. How
simple, however, the method which He adopted !
He knew that we should easily understand how
everything, slight though in itself, nay, worthless,
which touched Himself, would receive infinite value
in the eyes of those that loved him gratefully. And
this He gave us power to make our poor charity
do. " Clothe the poor," Ho said, " and you clothe
Me. Feed the hungry, and you feed Me. Give
but a cup of cold water to one of my thirsting little
ones and ye have quickened Me." How simple, and
yet how noble ! How easy, and yet how sublime,
this sanctification of kindness—this aithost deifica-
tion of humanity !
If, then, the love of Jesus Christ was most pro
fuse to us when He was made flesh and first dwelt
among us, and was, in fact, the germ of all His love
—if in proportion to His love ours ought to be in
return—if, in fine, this, our thankful love should
be exhibited, as He wishes, towards His poor
brethren and curs, let our Christmas be one of out-
pouring mercy, overflowing generosity, exuberant
charity, towards all who need our assistance !

But what class of poverty and misery can pnt
forward a more prominent claim by association with
the mystery of love now specially brought before
us ? For surely it is natural for us, when looking
for His image in the indigent or afflicted, to study
those many resemblances of His sufferings which
are to be found on earth„ and select such as best
suits the particular for for our devotion.

St. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, found a poor
man covered with sores and ulcers from a foul
leprosy which afflicted him. Moved with com-
passion, anxious to relieve him, she had him borne
upstairs, and finding the Royal bed nearest at
hand, placed him in it, and there nursed. him,
The King suddenly returned home, and was soon
informed by envious courtiers of the loathsome
spectacle that awaited him in his chamber. Angry,
he drew his gentle and holy Queen thither, and
drew aside the rich curtains, and what he did find ?
The figure of Our Lord, lying in it, with the thorny
crown on His Lord, His body bruised, cut, and la-
cerated by blows and scourges, and His hands
pierced by nails; and he worshipped instead of
reproaching, and begged pardon instead of reprot-
intr. For he saw now what his saintly Queen had
all along seen with herlinnocent eyes, that the sick,
the sore—those tossed on the hospital bed, ulcera-
ted within or without—those who moan with pain
or writhe in agony, are the truest types to us of
Jesus, their friehd and lover, scourged at the pillar
or racked on the cross for Vie love of us. St. Eliza-
beth saw Him in that leper, and thought no bed
too soft, too white, too dainty, for that lovely image
of her dear Lord. Thus, dearly beloved children in
Christ, when you wish thus to requite your
Saviour's love to you in passion and death, ought
not your grateful affection naturally to turn to
those indeed more lowly beds, where day and night
so many of your poor brethren and sisters and little
ones are nursed by devoted imitators of that saint
in the hospital which bears her name ? Ought you
not to feel as though the alms-box which solicits
your charity for this holy purpose were fastened to
the trunk of our Saviour's cross, below His blessed
feet, rather than to the door of a poor dwelling in
darksome London.

Or, again, do you read in the Annals for the
Propagation of the Faith the touching accounts of
recent martyrdoms, far, far away in the Eastern
world. young women and old men, tender boys and
venerable ecclesiastics, torn by scourges, pierced
with lances, fastened to crosses, tortured even like
the heroes of the first three Christian centuries ? If
you do, and rightly feel honour and love towards
those your brethren, do you not behold in them
more than images, repititions of our blessed
Lord's own torments ; and, if so, do you not run
at once to send your charity where it so imme-
diately reaches Him whom these represent so
truly, by pouring it into the coffers of that ad-
mirable institution which, under the name just
quoted, directly ministers to the relief of those poor
afflicted, but most honourable of the Church's
children ?

But, if our Divine Redeemer is thus represented
to us in the sublimest and most awful of His ap•
pearances on earth, He stands before us living day
by day, in the more ordinary forms of suffering..
" The poor ye have always with you." How beau-
tiful this His word ; how cheering, how consoling.
Yet it was not understood by thew who heard it—
by Magdalene any more thun by Judas ; but to the
children of the kingdom. They have reached their.
maturity, and they say—" Upon me personally you.
will not be able, like this faithful woman, to lavish
Hpiketirtrd and alabaster, but the price of these you
will be at any time able to give to the poor who
will represent me."

In fact, do you wish to relieve the destitute in
this bleak season and city, to give a home to those
who lay their weary heads on stone doorsteps, or
huddle together for warmth in the mud of dry river
arches,—do you wish to give but a small coin to one
who cannot pay the smallest just claim to him P
Do you long to fill the hungry and faint after long
fast? And do you strive to cheer your charity by
the thought that these forlorn, abject, and ragged
creatures can in any way receive your alms as with
Christ's outstretched palm and speak blessings on

you in His dear name P Oh ! surely yes ; do so
and fear not. " The foxes have their holes, yet as
Son of Man hath not where to lay His head !"
Who more like Him than the houseless poor. A
penny is demanded of him for toll, and so empty is
his purse that he must needs send Peter back to
his renounced occupation of fisherman to obtain,
though miraculously, what was needful. Then how
like to Him the utterly destitute and penniless !
And, finally, whom but angels will you resemble
when you feed the hungry,—those angels who,
when Jesus hungered after long fast, spread a table
for Hihi in the wilderness P
If, again, you wish to sustain the efforts of honest
industry, to give work to those who would gladly
undertake it, to cheer on the languishing but virtuous
household by the kind visit and apparently casual
order which leaves no sting or shame of discovered
struggles and patient endurance, surely we can
transtuSe these good works in mind and
intention to the humble workshop of Nazareth,
and honour in the industrious, though unsuccessful
poor the inmates of that humble but happy home.
Nevertheless, we do not seem as yet to have reached
that special class of poor who best represent Jesus
in Bethlehem, a child laid on straw, in a stable on
a manger, left by the world to suffer, sometimes to
die. Surely the orphans of either sex may put for•
ward here a high pretension .and advance good
claims to be His representative! Jesus lies before
us a little child, and such is the orphan who wants
our charity; Jesus is poor and destitute, and such is
our little one when first he needs it. Jesus is
desolate—cut off from the world, and is there
a creature more destitute than the orphan re-
turning from its parents' pauper funeral to what
was once its wretched home—now not even that ?
In one respect the likeness would be complete, but
for the greater misery of such a child. Our Lord
never had one whom He could call His father
upon 'earth. In this respect He was the type of
the orphan child, and may well transfer to us a
father's duty to him. He had, indeed, from the
beginning, the love and attendance of the tenderest
of mothers, and He had the affectionate care, equal
to any parent's, of the most affectionate of foster-
fathers. Alas ! had the poor orphan in London
always one, even the second of these, deprived often
of both parents, perhaps in cmnpany of several little
brothers and sisters hapless as himself, he ,nay for
a time be tossed from the precarious support of one
relation to another, till at length he is allowed to
drop into the oblivion of the union, where he grows
up a lonely youth who prays not for his unknown
parents' souls.

There are among the poor heroic exceptions to
this sad history ; we find constantly the poorest
relations struggling manfully to keep their rela-
tions' or even friends' children from this terrible
fate, but a melancholy experience teaches us that
many, very many, fall through this utter helpless•
ness into those abysses of perdition. And, strange
to say, even in this we can trace a resemblance
to the lot to which our Divine Redeemer was doomed
by a malicious world. Herod is described as having
sought his life in singular words :—" Mortui sunt,
querebant animam pueris." "They are dead," it is
written, " who sought (literally) the soul of the
child." Yes, Herod sought to take away the life of
the body of the Holy child. Many strive to take
the soul's life from our poor orphans ; and observe,
Herod did not threaten and bluster, nor did he use
violence at first. No, all was gentle and respectful;
he loved, nay, he worshipped the child whom he
was about to destroy. " When you have found him
tell me, that I also may come and adore him." Such
were his words to the wise men of the East. The
crafty false friend ; the hypocritical destroyer of all
that was best on earth, had not God foiled him !
And it is always with smooth words and kind looks
that the little orphan is claimed for destruction.
"I will educate and support him," a benevolent
patron or rich relation would most winningly say.
But one condition is inexorably added—he must
be put into a Protestant institution; the
child's soul must be the purchase-money of
charity. " Let me have your child," whispers a
truly well-meaning, kind-hearted lady to the
sickly mother or burdened kinswoman, " and I
will make a lady of her ; she shall want for
nothing." In what religion will she be brought
np P "Of course not in the Catholic." Always
the same—it is the child's soul that is begged for.
And if this be refused the poor thing is flung back,
remorselessly, to the risk of losing its earthly life.
And it is even batter so.

It may be thought that, after all, if our orphans
are placed in the receptacle for varied misery pro-
♦ided by the nation, though their existence may
be solitary their religion at least will be safe under
the guarantee of the law. Would to God it were
so ! It would be difficult to frame a law in favour
of Catholic children which the craft or the power
of petty Herods will not elude or violate.

We have learnt how, by vexatious delays, intri-
cate correspondences, harassing denials, and put-
ting to proof of uneducated relations, by the divi-
sion of jurisdiction between boards and committees,
and by no end of paltry excuses and mean eva-
sions, months and years can be dragged over till a
child's affections have been weaned from a sister, or
its mind poisoned against the only inheritance of a
mother. No, they are far from dead who seek the
souls of our children. We earnestly hope that
not another Session of tly3 Legislature will be
allowed to pass over without a united and power-
ful and a universal effort of all Catholics to redress
this crying evil, and lay bare this mystery of ini-
quity to the detestation of the fair and the honest.
But this is not our present scope.
The only real effectual remedy is to secure to
ourselves, as far as we can, the education of our
own poor orphans. To snatch the very babes from
the danger of sucking in poison with their very
milk, we have an excellent charity under the
invocation of the Immaculate Conception ;
but the especial object of your charitable
contributions to-day is the education of
Catholic orphans in the two noble establish-
ments of North Hyde and Norwood—the first for
boys, under the fatherly care of Brothers of Mercy;
the second under the maternal direction of the
Sisters of our Lady of the Orphans. Both'are doing
their work efficiently ; both are worthy of your
utmost support.

Your contributions on .26th February last added
£135 to the funds of each orphanage. A full state-
ment of the accounts of that at North Hyde will
be made public at the beginning of the ensuing
year. The number of boys at present in the institu-
tion is 70, being an fnsrease to the amount of 19 in
the establishment during the current year. There is
ample space to accommodate 100 boys, but frequent
applications for the admission of poor destitute
orphans are refused through the want of means to
support them. At the Asylum of Our Lady of the
Orphans at Norwood, the accounts of which are
published with the pastoral, there are in all 203
orphan girls, of whom 74 are from the diocess of
Westminster, 15 of this number being maintained
by the diocesan collections. Here, too, although
the vacancies which occurred during the year were
immediately filled up, no less than 59 orphans have
been refused admission, either for want of room or
of funds to support them. Now, to you who are
lich we say, make this your great Christmas cha-
rity.. Draw near to our Lord's humble resting
place, to His bed of straw, and offer him your gifts.
The kings bring him gold and spices, the shep-
herds lay before him the:fruit of their flocks. Do
you come before him with far more welcome
offerings. - Bring to Him many little ones
like Himself, souls more precious to Him
than gold, lambs more tender than the
firstlings of Abel's flock. Better than in any mirror
will He see His own likeness reflected in the inno-
cent looks of these dear children, when thus by
your charity brought close to Him. And a happy,
thrice happy Christmas awaits you if you bless it
by this charity.

And not to the rich alone do we speak. Yon
honest sons of toil, stuut and fearless in your inde-
pendent industry, take intoyour powerful clasp the
desolate orphan. Let him share your honourable
gains, nay, work expressly for him. Put aside a
mite of your earnings. Give him, if you can, a few
hours of extra work, and happy may you also be
if, in the course of many years, y ou shall have saved
or given enough to rescue but one child from the
detestable workhouse, as it generally proves for our
little ones. How noble you will appear one day,
and how you will hold up yuur head before Your
Judge, if you bear in your arms triumphantly be.
fore Him one living image of Him, more like Him
than any painted or sculptied portrait as He was
on his first Christmas-day on earth, all innocence,
' all love. And you pale and sinking followers of
Mary, scarcely able to fight against poverty and
ill-health, faint not in your work of charity. Nurse
still your poor friend's child ; lend it some of your
scant warmth ; divide with it your hardly-earned
bread. You are nursing and feeding the infant
Jesus and bringing eternal blessings upon your
last hour, though bitter with the feeling that your
adopted child will he soon a second time an orphan.
But no; the charity of
your brethren and sisters,
aroused this day, will come to your succour, will
snatch your little one from perdition, and ease your
pillow of one anxiety. The lonely Babeof
Beth-
lehem will bless you in your parting moment. And,
dearly beloved, may He bless you all; Him
your give
your love at this holy season by your abundant
charity to His poor orphans, and He will give you
happy homes and much devotion to Him and rich
spiritual graces. " Orphuno to eris adjutor," "Thou
shalt be the orphan's helper," says the prophet to
God Himself. Be ye like to Him, like to the Father,
that lie may recognise in you the image of Him-
self' gracious, and benevolent, and merciful; while
His
infant Son • •
sees Ms own likeness in the help-

less innocents on whon.the at 'aibu.tes of 'God ale
lavishd..
Thee blessing of God des/Tim) 'monk you, andabide
with you for ever. Amen.
Given in Westminster this fou.rth Sunday of
Advent, December the 23d, 1.800.
N.,. Card. Archbishop of WEB
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