There in the little church outside

How beautiful and white
His lovely marble statue stands
With face so kind and bright!
With hand outstretched as if it would
Upon my head be laid,
Saying, My little Eva, come,

And do not be afraid."

And in the class room, when I glance
About me now and then,

It gives me such delight to see
The Sacred Heart again.
With Blessed Margaret Mary there,
My patroness so sweet,
Kneeling absorbed in holy prayer
At Jesus' sacred feet.

And now I hear it is to you

I owe all these and more.
Oh! then how gladly do I come
To thank you o'er and o'er
In my name and in all our names
For all your kindly thought

If only I but knew the way
To thank you as I ought!

But you'll excuse my childish words,
And well I know indeed

Our Lord will thank you yet Himself
For every generous deed.

He would not have the little ones

Kept far from Him apart

How richly He'll reward all those
Who lead them to His Heart!

What consolation is contained in these last simple lines for the friends of Sister Mary Stanislaus when they reflect how perfectly, how perseveringly, and with what unselfish devotedness this amiable, holy, and gifted woman yielded to that entreaty of our Divine Redeemer: "Suffer the little children to come to me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Not of these only but of such as these; and she was such-pure and innocent, gay, simple and affectionate as a child to the last.

A PHILOSOPHER.

JUNE'S days of benison,

And the hawthorn was white;
The first meadow was mown,
The cuckoo had ta'en flight.

There were roses in the sun,
There were roses in the shade;
But the lily stood alone,
Like a proud, matchless maid.

Flecked was the garden walk
With gold and with grey;
I heard the rooks talk
In a tree far away.

I had smiled last year
For sake of these things,
For sun and wine-sweet air,
And fluttering of wings.

But now-could I find
Delight in merry June,
While she was lying blind
In sleep that came too soon?

With outstretched, brown palms,
A beggar from the road
Came asking for an alms,
For love of the dear God!

Withered was he and old,
But under the white hair
His brow was broad and bold,

And honest as God's air.

Face like an ancient ruin,
And eyes, the crevices
That let heaven's blue in;
No hind was here, I wis.

Meat and white bread

Were pleasant to his mouth,

Milk was sweet as mead

In a hot day's drouth.

THE SISTERS OF ST. LOUIS IN IRELAND.

THERE may be among our readers some who are capable of

making a mistake which I remember noticing in Limerick newspaper a good many years ago. The editor grouped under the head of Foreign Intelligence some little event that had occurred at a convent of St. Louis-thinking that this was a convent in the great American city of St. Louis, Missouri, whereas it was the convent of the Sisters of St. Louis in the town of Monaghan.

This is the mother-house of the Order in Ireland, established some forty years ago. The Sisters are now doing their holy work also at Ramsgrange in Wexford, Middletown in Co. Armagh, and Carrickmacross, besides one or two new foundations just begun or on the point of beginning. Nevertheless, after forty years of excellent work in Ireland, this Institute is, we suspect,

not very generally known outside the sphere of each individual convent. It is one of the many holy things that we owe to that land of contrasts, the Eldest Daughter of the Church.

The founder of this Order was the Abbé Bautain, a gifted Frenchman whose literary and religious career might in some respects remind us of the Italian, Father Antony Rosmini, founder of the Institute of Charity.

Louis Eugene Mary Bautain was born in Paris, February 17th, 1796. He was ordained priest in 1828; and in 1839 he became Director of the College of Juilly, which had been in existence for more than two hundred and fifty years. We cannot attempt here any account of him as a philosophical writer, but only in connection with our present subject.

Soon after his ordination he became acquainted with the Baroness de Vaux, cousin to the Empress Eugénie and a woman of exceptional talent. She helped the Abbé Bautain in many of his benevolent works, and after the death of her husband became the first Mother Superior of the little Congregation of Les Dames de St. Louis at Juilly. From this small village the Community sent forth colonies to many other parts of France. The rule followed by the Sisters is that of St. Augustine. They engage, according to the needs of various places, in almost every variety of works of charity-boarding-schools, reformatories, hospitals, day-schools for rich and poor, visitation of the sick, etc.

The Foundress of the Order, as far as Ireland is concerned, may be said to be the remarkable woman who was known in her early life as Priscilla Peale, in her religious life as Mother Genevieve. As her name suggests, she was not a native of Ireland. She was born in Chichester Place, Gray's Inn Road, London, on the 20th June, 1822. Her parents, Samuel and Sara Beale, were Protestants, respectable religious people that seem to have foliowed in all simplicity the light given to them. Priscilla was the eldest of thirteen children. One of her sisters, who became Mrs. Middleton, used to give this account of her position in the little household. "She would gather us all around her-her younger brothers and sisters-and make us repeat for her our daily lessons to prepare for our governess. She was kind to us younger ones, and we loved her dearly."

Mr. Beale had considerable house property; but unfortunately he indulged in a taste for building on speculation, which ended

Priscilla's

in heavy losses and even undermined his health. education was received chiefly at a school in Marylebone kept by sisters named O'Rourke. Notwithstanding this Irish name, we are told that the only Catholic of the family was the eldest sister, whom Mrs. Middleton describes thus :-" A sweet gentle woman, -"A no bigger than a child, and a cripple almost from her birth, yet with a face so full of love and resignation to the Divine Will that, once seen, it was never forgotten." We mention her thus particularly because her influence must have, perhaps unconsciously, helped to make her pupil a Catholic in the end. What is told us of Priscilla Beale's school-days makes us believe that she was very solidly educated and highly accomplished; and she afterwards turned all her gifts and acquirements to excellent account.

She worked all the harder from knowing that her father's circumstances made great economy necessary; and with this view she devoted all her energies to the education of her younger brothers and sisters. Her father died in March, 1847, aged 52, having been a helpless invalid for several years. Priscilla then put into execution a plan that she had long meditated for lightening her mother's burden. She determined to leave the home where she was so much beloved and which she loved so dearly.

66

The first situation that she procured was in Cork. Happy journey!" she often said in after life. "Had I not come to Ireland, I should never have been a religious nor probably ever a Catholic." This recalls a remark made by another convert, Miss Bessie Rayner Parkes, now Madame Belloc. In her account of her "First Acquaintance with Ireland and Mrs. Atkinson " (IRISH MONTHLY, Vol. 23, page 22) she writes :-"It is often asked of converts how they became Catholic, what influence carried them over that great gulf which opened in the sixteenth century— a gulf so deep and so hard to pass. To this question I have never made but one answer-'I was converted by Ireland.'

Mrs. Atkinson's name-clarum et venerabile nomen-reminds me that she was the first to pay a literary tribute in Ireland to the Founder of the Congregation of which we are giving an account. She devoted more than one of her essays in The Irish Quarterly Review to the Abbé Bautain and his literary and apostolic works.

The piety of the Catholic family with whom she resided in