The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1875-09-19

WHICH, nave IoN GU iuiS slnce, anu iost aSnlle.
"Of Algiers." in sight of the grave of that
great African Church which produced St. Au-
gustiDe, st. Cypriau and Tertullian is the date
of "The Patient Church in which, in spite of
all appearances TO the contrary. the writer, re-
lying on the promise of Christ. looked forward
to the ultimate victory of the Church, and
which begins
:" Bide thou thy time
Watch with meek the race of pride and crime;
Sit in the s@n And be ,d the s.i jest
othou to ~se% is Is pedssd asd ss ei Sissers sway
Bide thou the victor's day
On December 25th, 1882, Mr.. Newman caught
characteristic that the first thought which it
inspired to the most finished classical scholar
of his day in Oxford. was not of Thucydides.
not even of Homer, but of "the Greek fathers
Fall'n Greece the thought of holier days
In my sad heart abides;
For sons of thine in truths first hour
We're We're tongues a and Weapons of his power
Our fathers and our guides.
All thine is Clements varied page;
And Pio1ysius ruler sage;
And sanity Basil's purpose high
To smite imperial heresv,
And cleanse the altar stain.
From thee glorious Preacher came,
With soul of zeal and lips of fame,
A courts marty guest;
Aud thine, y iuexhaustive racet
WA Was grace
With Pauls own mantle blest"
At Corfu, the narrative of Thucydides
brought to his mind the thought which he
worked out in the sermon on The Individual
ity of the Soul" pu blshed six years later, aud
IN which he says "All who ever gained
name in the world, all the mighty men of war
that ever were, all the great Statesmen, all the
crafty counsellors, all the scheming asprants,
all the reckless adventurers, all the covetous
traders, all the proud voluptuaries. are still in
being, though helpless and unproht able. Ba-
| laam, Saul, Joab, Ahitophel, good and bad,
wise and ignorant, rich and poor, each has his
separate place, each dwells by himself in that
sphere of light or darkness which he has pro-
vIded for himself here. What view this
sheds upon history! We accustomed to
read it as tale or fiction, and we forget that
it concerns immortal beings who cannot be
swept away, who are what they were, however
| this earth may change" The germ of that
sermon is contained in the lines beaded " Cor
cyra," January 9th, 1888
The LyrG contains somo beautiful and we'll
known lines:
| - Did we but see.
%hsn life e., frs, 9Pspd how , our JonIney lay
yisw @ GarseTss sI S as we one day sh1 BE-
The youthful spirit though bold for Jesus sake.
| But thou dear Lord
While traced out bright WHICH were to come
Didst spare me, and withhold thy fearful word;
nG me es SLar ny eaT f sad am gi1d1s fGsP1
They headed, d" Our Future What do,
thou knowest not now but thou shalt know
| hereafter" 1t gives them new interest to
| ma Cn8G bney were composed at Ire tOntane,
| the spot of the martyrdom of st. Paul
! The verses called DAY Laborers," composed
| while waiting at Palermo for passage home,
| show the authors deep sense of having a work
to do. They are headed, " And He said, 1t is
| finished: -
One only, of Gods messengers to man,
Finished the work of grace which he began;
List, Christian warrior thou whose soul is tain
TS rid Tx 0shsF Of Of, her chain
Begins the work and thou
| Thy lot shall be the grave"
| We have insisted the peculiar value of
| the poems written during this short tour, (the
| only one of the kind in which the illustrlous
author has INDUCED himself,) because it
adds new and special interest compost
tions which, even when published without
any such interest," attained a wide and deserved
celebrity. He seems at the time to have felt
| that that tour was to be the only distraction
of the kind in a life of toll and that he was
enriching himself with images of beauty
| (worthy, as he says, in itself rather Of angelic
than mortal eyes) which were to last him for
many long year:
Store them in heart! Thou shalt not faint
Mid did eSmiDg eSnd n pains I" and fears sId ,,n+
| For fourteen trial years"
That the remembrance has been fresh and keen,
| we see in the lines on " Heather Greece"
written in 1856, and first pu blished in that ex-
quisite volume Calistd:
Where are the Islands Of the blest
| They stud the -EGean sea;
And W here the deep Eysian rest
II haunts the vale here Peneus strong
| POuTs his ince ssant stream along,
While craggy ridge and noun tain bare
| Cut keenly through the liquid air,
| And in their pure tiDts arFayed,
Scorn e,rths green robes which change and
fade
And stand in beauty undecayed,
| Guards OF the bold and free"
! 1t is worth notice that the pregnant lines on
" The Sign of the Cross" were written before
the author lefC Oxford, and while he was as yet,
as he expressly tells us, SO iguorant of Catholic
doctrine that even when writing at Palermo,
! just before he returned home, he says: " l
began to visit the churches, and they calmed
my impatenCe, though did not attend any
services l knew nothing Of the presence of
the blessed sacrament there"
We might liuger equally upon many poems
which equally deserve it, bat pass on to those
written since the author n Catholic.
Among these are not to be reckOned the trans
! lations from the Latin Hymns of the Breviary,
which were made {" in lS36-S." There are a