offered also a marc of gold. The king makes but one offering now, and this he makes after his coronation and enthronement, during that part of the ceremony called the communion. The first offering used to be made "in fulfillment of the commandment of Him who said: Thou shalt not appear empty in the sight of the Lord thy God." The Protestant kings seem to be more desirous of appearing well in the sight of the people than in the sight of the Lord God, for the Lord Chamberlain of England promptly removes the pound weight of gold which the king pretended to offer. By this pretty device, the king, after the offering, is no more empty in his own sight than he was before. A novelty was introduced into the Protestant coronation service, to wit, the presentation of a Bible. This ceremony dates from the crowning of William and Mary. Immediately after the coronation of the king and queen, the celebrant, taking a Bible from the altar, carried it to the seated king and queen, and presented it to them, with these words: "Thus said the Lord of old to his peculiar people by the hand of his servant Moses. When thy king sitteth upon the throne of the kingdom, he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and to keep all the words of this law to do them, and that he turn not aside to the right hand nor to the left; to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children. And accordingly afterward, when they made Jehoash King, they not only anointed and crowned him; but they gave him the Testimony also, that is the Book of the Law of God, to be the rule of his whole life and government." "To put you in mind of this Rule, and that you may follow this example, we present you with this book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is wisdom; this is the royal law; these are the lively oracles of God. Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this book, that keep and do the things contained in it. For these are the words of eternal life; able to make you wise and happy in this world, nay, wise unto salvation, and so happy for evermore, through Faith which is in Christ Jesus, to Whom be glory for ever. Amen." By the time of Queen Victoria's coronation this preachment had wholly lost the first paragraph and the two leading clauses of the second. "Our gracious queen "-thus it began-"we present you with this book, the most valuable thing that this world affords," and continued to the end as quoted above. To-day, probably owing to the increasing Protestant doubt as to whether there is, or ever was, a veritable Bible; and, should there be one, how estimable or disestimable a Protestant king dare hold it to be, the original, verbose, puritanical sermon has been curtailed until it reads: "Our gracious king, we present you with this book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is wisdom; this is the royal law; these are the lively oracles of God." Could it be that he who reads a King James bible now, or those who hear the words of the revised version, and keep and do the things contained in either edition, are no longer blessed, as they were in the days of William, or of Victoria! Are the words of either volume no longer words of eternal life? Are they now less able than ever to make one wise and happy in this world, nay, wise unto salvation? From the unsparing manner in which this original feature of the Protestant coronation service has been clipped and carved, one can guess at the liberality displayed by variable and varying reformers when editing and re-editing the Catholic prayers which, most prudently, the earlier designing renegades tried to carry over into the Anglican coronation liturgy. Many of the changes were not only deceitful but also insensate; many of the prayers, or parts of prayers, retained, openly contradicted the new doctrines professed by kings, lords, and parsons. As coronation succeeded coronation, new attempts were made to weaken the evidence afforded, even by the remnants of old forms and prayers preserved, that, for a thousand years, the faith of the English people was none other than the faith held and taught by the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church from the beginning and everywhere—a faith which the English people would not have ceased to profess had not perjured and greedy kings and nobles conspired to rob their fellows of the ennobling religion of Jesus Christ, in order the more securely to rob them of castles, houses, lands, cathedrals, abbeys, churches, convents, chalices, patens, crucifixes, aye, of any and every sacred thing of profitable use or commercial value. Here we are reminded of the warning words written in the Capitularies of Charlemagne. "We know of many kingdoms and kings that fell, because they plundered churches, and laid waste, stole, alienated or destroyed their property, from bishops and priests, and worse still, from their churches they stole, and gave to enemies. which account neither strong in war were they, nor steadfast in their plighted word, nor were they conspicuous as victors; but many were wounded and many died with their backs turned to the enemy, and On kingdoms and territories they lost, and worst of all, the Kingdom of Heaven, and they were cut off from their heritage and so remain.” One, and only one, immortal King there is, almighty and sempiternal; King of kings and of peoples, Judge of the living and the dead; Judge whose judgments are unsearchable; King whose ways are past finding out. His justice is never partial, and it is unfailing. His judgments no mortal shall judge, though prophets may foretell. Vivat Rex-the glorious King to whose Cross, ages ago, Canute fastened the royal crown of England. JOHN A. MOONEY. HOMEWARD. WHEN in infant bud Lay life's flower unfolden, Gifts didst give me golden. Placed his heart in mine Gift exceeding measure, Of Thy Godhead's treasure. Now from out my hand Love that Thou hast lended Comes Thine angel splendid. Hark! his awful tread, And his pinions trailing! See! his aureoled head Lights the house of wailing! 'Tis mine hour of dole ; Pity me, O Mary! On his trembling soul If I draw grief's breath, I am only human. Reconciled to death Ne'er was man or woman. Never fled above Soul from fond soul grieving But rebellious love Questioned the bereaving. Death's bright angel yet At the grave's dark portal. Home to Thee, O Father! From his sacred dust Lilies shall we gather. From the dust we love Faith and Hope upspringing, Lift our hearts above, Comfort to us bringing. Gentle was my dear, Soul of stainless splendor ; Therefore, all the year Tend him, all things tender! Yea, for sure I know Where his dust reposes Violets will blow And the summer's roses. There shall April come To her gentle lover, And the gold bees hum Where the flowers bend over. Close to him shall creep Crickets in the grasses, Singing to his sleep Golden midnight masses. And in heaven above Larks shall warble o'er him : "Safe with Christ, our Love, Weep not nor deplore him!" VIATOR. BOYLE OF THE NOBLES. REHEARSING "The History of Ireland as told in her Ruins," at the Cooper Institute, New York, in April, 1872, Father Tom Burke, the great Dominican orator, said of the beautiful abbeys that stud the hills and valleys of Ireland: "These silent and in ruins, tell most eloquently their tale. To-day the stone may be crumbled, the wall decayed; the clustering ivy may, perhaps, uphold the tottering ruin to which it clung in the days of its strength, but "The sorrows, the joys of which once they were part, Still round them like visions of yesterday throng. "They are the voices of the past; they are the voices of ages long gone by. They rear their venerable and beautiful gray heads high over the land they adorn; and they tell us the tale of the glory or of the shame, of the strength or of the weakness, of the prosperity or of the adversity of the nation to which they belong. They tell of the sanctuaries where the hunted head of the Irish patriot found refuge and a place of security; they tell the Irish historian of the national councils formed for state purposes within them. These venerable walls, if they could speak, would tell us how the wavering were encouraged and strengthened, and the brave and gallant fired with the highest and noblest purpose for God and Erin; how the traitor was detected, and the false-hearted denounced; and how the nation's life-blood was kept warm, and her wounds were staunched by the wise councils of the old friars. All this, and more, would these tell, if they could speak; for they have witnessed all this. They witnessed it until the day came-the day of war, the sword, and blood-that drove forth their saintly inmates from their loving shelter and devoted themselves to desolation and decay." But of all the ruins of Ireland none speaks more eloquently of the past than the Cistercian Abbey of Boyle in the ancient district of Moylurg, in the north of Roscommon. Mellifont indeed, the mother-house of the Irish Cistercians, antedates it by some years and was projected on a more sumptuous and magnificent scale, while Cashel of the Kings and the venerable ruins of Clonmacnois on the Shannon, carry us back to a more primitive and more militant Ireland. But of all that makes for the characteristic features |