to be sent anywhere to meet a sudden emergency, make for the time this most interesting house their home.

In a dark, narrow street in close proximity to the Pantheon-in a street that, in its unlikeness to some other parts of the city, reminds one of the Paris of history-is situated the College of S. Geneviève. This is This is the chief educational establishment of the order; the other being that of the school of the Immaculate Conception at Vaugirard-a village on the southwest side of Paris.

In concluding this chapter in the life of what, next to holy church itself, must ever be considered the most wonderful organization that the world has ever seen, I cannot do better than append a brief account of the character of the work done in these two houses.

The Ecole S. Geneviève, founded in the year 1854, proposes for its object the preparation of youths for admission into the various professional colleges in France. That the work is a success may be seen in the fact that, in 1872-1873, sixty-four students were actually admitted from thence to the military academy at St. Cyr, while twenty-three more were declared "admissibles"; that the same school sent sixteen boys to the Ecole Centrale, to be educated as engineers, seven to the Ecole Navale, and twenty-three to the Polytechnique; and, lastly, that, exclusive of these, many more have been admitted into other similar establish

ments in Paris or elsewhere. The aggregate number of students appears, from the statistics put into my hands, to exceed four hundred and fifty.

The present rector of S. Geneviève is the immediate successor of the Père Ducoudray; and it is a noteworthy fact that three out of the five men killed under the Commune were connected with the school: the other two being PP. Cauber: and Clerc. The services of the lastnamed father must have been extremely valuable; for, previous to his admission to the Society of Jesus, he had been for many years a naval officer.

The school of the Immaculate Conception, at Vaugirard, is perhaps as perfect a specimen of its kind as can be found in Europe.

At the present moment, there are upwards of six hundred and forty boys, representing the flower of the French beau monde, receiving at this institution a sound high-class education.

On his entrance, the scholar is at first put through an elementary course, out of which he is drafted into the sixth form, from which he rises to the third, and then completes his education by successive courses of classics, rhetoric, and philosophy.

Thus, to an outsider and to a passer-by in Paris, appears the work of that grand order whose aim we believe to be no less than the motto they have adopted:

Ad majorem Dei gloriam!

IN all the great cities of the Old World, the cathedral is the nucleus round which gathers the social life of the community. It is a national monument, a historical representative; it keeps in its tombs records more precious to the nation than those treasured in archives and libraries; it is identified with the city's success or failure, and often bears visible marks of this sympathetic life in its trophies or in its ruins. Of old, the principal church of a city became the mirror of the people's individuality; it took on the form that best expressed the people's genius; it was an index to the national character. If this is so with other churches, it is perhaps even more strikingly true of S. Mark's in Venice.

This unique church, the S. Sophia of the West, and the inheritrix par excellence of Byzantine treasures, is one that, to our fancy, makes a deeper impression on the stranger than S. Peter's at Rome. To describe it technically; to speak of its uneven floor and crowded, heavy pilasters; to enumerate its columns, and analyze the color of its mosaics, is simply a desecration, besides inevitably implying an untruth. Criticism cannot be anything but an afterthought, even though genuine admiration should not be the first impression of the visitor. A spell is laid upon you at the very outset, and an indescribable feeling of reverence steals over your every sense as you tread the dusky aisles. We have always found it most satisfactory, in visiting either churches or cities, to

slowly drink in the spirit of the place, rather than rush into a dissection of its detailed sights; and we are persuaded that this slow, receptive method is the only way in which to enjoy travel of any sort.

Thus, for instance, S. Mark's became so woven in with our daily life that, without being able to give a single date or statistical fact concerning it, we were yet entirely penetrated with its peculiar beauty, but, above all, by its silent influence.

We went there every morning to early Mass-which, by the bye, is the only way to see a beautiful church on the Continent. You grow to love it, to know its

every corner, to feel its peace, to be quite at home in it, to look out for the sunbeam throwing its line of gold over some particular spot on the marble floor, or for the red glow of the sunset to illumine some favorite mosaic. Then, too, you begin to know your fellow-worshippers, and to expect the clamorous hum of devotion with which this old man tells his beads, or to be disappointed if you fail to see the old beggar-woman crouching behind the ponderous door, and stretching out her hand with a ready blessing for the daily alms. S. Mark's is one of the most peaceful churches in Europe; silence seems natural to it, and not even a great ceremony appears to create any stir there. The midnight Mass, which, by a singular exemption from the ordinary rule, takes place on Christmas eve, at five o'clock in the afternoon (this and the Christmas Mass at Vienna are the only such exceptions), is cele

brated with great pomp, and the music is not too full of repose; yet the spirit of the church seems serenely unaltered, and the great brooding silence hangs over the echoes of the pageants, hushing them till the mind. wanders away so far from their earthly presence that it is hardly more conscious of them than a man standing on a high mountain would be of the suppressed hum of the city lying at his feet. But another solemnity have we witnessed in this church much more congenial to its spirit, and indeed the most impressive of all Christian ceremonies-the office of Tenebra. S. Mark's is never lighted by anything save the golden lamps of its distant shrines, and the tall columns of wax on the high altar. The service on the three evenings of Holy Wednesday and Thursday, and Good Friday, is generally after dark, and every one brings his own light—a cerino, or coil of waxen taper -by which to read his book. This will barely suffice for two persons to read by, so that, from the gallery where we were stationed, we could see the church sown with stars, like the heavens at midnight; while, in the various fantastic recesses above and below our own, called galleries, glimmered a score of similar fitful lights. The attendance was small, and the beauty of the sight thereby increased. The chant, coming from below as the invisible choir breathed out the solemn lamentations, had a weird, stilling effect, like that of the sighing of the wind among the pines, suggesting everything that was strange, faraway, and desolate.

We had heard the Miserere of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and likened it to what one might dream the angels to have sung while Christ hung on the cross of Calvary; but this-the same service, the same words, almost the same chant-seemed rather what the

watchers round the sepulchre might have whispered amid their sobs, as they left the sacred body of their dead Lord on the evening of the first Good Friday.

Among the few people whose faces were near enough to be recognized were some of our acquaintances of the Venetian salons. They wore the customary dress, black gowns and lace veils falling gracefully around them. One was a great beauty by night, though what looked a soft, cream-colored complexion then would look sallow by day. She was the daughter of a Jew, married to a nominal Catholic, but an actual atheist, and herself practised no religion whatsoever. Here she was, with her beautiful, hopeless eyes fixed on the religious ceremonial with a sort of weary, hungry, perplexed look, while a friend tried earnestly to interest her in the spirit of the ritual.

Don Carlos and his family were there too, he and his brother being mere boys at the time, and more occupied by the care required to keep the cerino from burning down too low than by the solemn ceremonies at which they were assisting. The daily life, if one may so call it, of the Venetian Basilica has, however, more power to charm the memory than its hours of splendid show. We like best to think of it almost empty and quite silent, its high altar seldom used, and its Lady Chapel, Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, and altar of the Crucifix quaintly propped up against. the corner of the pilaster, surrounded by the few worshippers whose faithful instincts bid them haunt the same spots day after day. In the early morning, you enter the seemingly deserted church. No hum of prayer is heard; hardly a human form is in sight. Suddenly, to the right of the high chancel, the sound of a little

bell is heard, and, from the winding path that leads through chapels and pillars from the sacristy, a priest appears, vested for Mass, and accompanied by his server. From hidden corners rise up silent forms that join his train, and follow him to the altar which he has chosen; a devout congregation is quietly collected, and crowds round the rails, outside and inside, or, where there are no rails, presses up to the priest's very feet, and often impedes the server's movements. The latter is not always very reverential, however, and his motions sometimes savor of abruptness; but the people are too simpleminded to be shocked. When the bell should be rung, the boy ensconces himself at the side of the altar, and pulls a string attached to a bell high up above his head; and here, as in most Italian churches, the Domine non sum dignus is not distinguished by a bell at all. Another feature of S. Mark's is the collector. At every Mass, he comes round, rattling a box in the face of each person, and crying, in a monotonous tone, "For the poor, my brethren," or, " For the souls in purgatory "; and, as there are many collectors, and the succession of Masses at each of the three or four altars is uninterrupted, it may be judged whether this simple and erratic style of collecting is not rather an infliction than otherwise; yet somehow it fits in with the spirit of the place. S. Mark's contains no pictures; that is, no masterpieces of those whom the world recognizes as the kings of their art. SS. Giovanni e Paolo, the Jesuit church, that of the Frari, and many others, are rich in these treasures; but San Marco has its matchless mosaics, combining Scriptural, historical, and allegorical subjects of colossal dimensions, with the most fanciful arabesques and purely decorative tracery. The

colors, both in the interior, where the low arches seem lined with the golden glow of an everlasting sunset, and on the outer porch, where figures of vast size and groups of bold conception strike the eye, are almost as brilliant to-day as they must have been a thousand years ago.

If there is no chef-d'œuvre of modern art, there is nevertheless something more suggestive to the Catholic mind. The "picture" we grew to love most in all Venice was no Titian or Paul Veronese, nor even a Bellini (though the latter have the fragrance of Beato Angelico about them); but a brown Byzantine Madonna, hidden behind crowns and necklets of heavy gold, and enthroned in a deep, receding shrine— a temple of blazing gems under the massive, overhanging arches of S. Mark's. The face, as revealed in the unadorned prints of it sold all over Venice, is very beautiful, the features severely regular, and the expression one of infinite majesty and calm.

We know more than one of these sombre masterpieces of unknown artists, which no one admires, because no one, as a rule, sees them, but which, though overloaded with precious metals to the detriment of their beauty, and branded contemptuously by sightseers as mere "miraculous images," are yet very pure models of ancient art, and most interesting relics of early Christianity. For instance, there is one at Warsaw in universal veneration all over Poland, and whose grave, dignified, and grandly serene cast of features raises it as a work of religious art far above the portraits of simpering maidens, buxom peasants, or gorgeous sultanas whom the world. has recognized for nearly four hundred years as the type of the Mother of God. Russia is rich in these

Byzantine pictures, and the Greek Church holds them in as great honor as the Catholic.

We seem to have wandered out of Venice, somehow, in this gossip about unrecognized pictures; but the mention of Byzantium in reality brings us back to the lagoons, for it is as familiar to the Venetian as his own republic. Indeed, one would think that Venice had no civilization before she invaded Constantinople in 1204; for everything of any value, artistic or historical, is always traced up to this date. As it is impossible to create a new Venice, so it would be to build a new Basilica of San Marco; the city of the Evangelist stands alone in history, and its cathe

dral alone in art. dral alone in art. It has the rare merit of suggesting nothing if not Christianity; it is more individual than S. Peter's, and less associated with pageants and festivals; it is no mere imitation or adaptation of the forms of pagan art; it suits the purple sky and brilliant atmosphere of the South, yet without jarring on the sense of the Christianity to whose use it is dedicated; and, if its style is less symbolical than the Gothic, it is at least less servile than the Palladi