a gentleman of known probity and patriotism, who has taken great pains to collect and verify the facts. We believe he has drawn out a full narrative of the awful occurrence. During the same eventful period, a yeoman in the Protestant army shot a priest dead with a pistol. Some time after, he blew out his own brains with the same weapon. A brother of his secured the pistol, and some years later committed self-murder with it. Their mother now got possession of the fatal instrument of divine vengeance, and flung it far into a deep pond. There was still one surviving brother, and he, as if impelled by some stern fatality, never rested till he had fished it up again unknown to his mother. He scoured it clean, and made it fit for use. He kept it by him till his hour was come; when he inflicted on himself the same fate with it as his brothers had done before. Perhaps modern medical jurists will call this by some learned name; they may say it was an "epidemic monomania;" we will venture to be sufficiently old-fashioned to call it THE CURSE OF SACRILEGE. Only one word more. The shop-windows of London have long been full of chalices and ciboriums, and other sacred vessels, the sacrilegious spoils of Spain. A blessing will alight on those and their houses, who have rescued them at whatever cost from further desecration, and have restored them to their proper place and use. But as to the many who have covered their side-boards with them, and like Balthassar, display them to their guests on their days of sensual feastings, we will only say to them, "ipsi viderint.” ON . PRAYER AND PRAYER-BOOKS. ART. VI.-1. The Garden of the Soul. Derby, 1842. 2. Catholic Hours; or, the Family Prayer-Book. Third edition. 1841. 3. The Catholic's Manual of Private Devotion. Third edition. 1839. WHILE preparing to lay before our readers such remarks as the publications before us suggest, a twofold scene presents itself to our imagination. On the one side, we seem to ourselves to behold a venerable sanctuary, be its country and character what it may; whether the dark and awful precincts of the holy house at Loreto; or the silver crypt in which St. Charles Borromeo lies enshrined; or one of our own ancient pilgrimages, the chapel of St. Cuthbert or St. Thomas, restored to its ancient beauty and splendour. Around the object of common veneration are scattered various suppliants; not marshalled into ranks by vergers' wands, but, as greater earnestness or greater humility, as pious curiosity or desire of concealment, prompts, nearer or more afar; some in the bright glow of burning tapers, or of sunbeams streaming through richly-stained window; some half-veiled in the mysterious shadows of clustered pillars or secluded nooks. There we see the Belgian matron, hooded and cloaked in her dark flowing drapery, a breathing, but motionless figure-a living Van-Eyck; on another side we have the German peasant, with arms outstretched, as though on a cross, in deep and earnest supplication; further back we find the Swiss pilgrim, leaning on his staff, as, rosary in hand, he kneels with hoary head and flowing beard bowed lowly down; and in front of all, and pressing on nearer to the shrine, the Italian, in the bright attire of the Abruzzi, kneeling as though reclining backwards, in the attitude of Canova's Magdalen, with her hands clasped upon her knees, and her glowing upturned face streaming with tears. On the other side is another scene. The altar and its appurtenances are finished in the best style of most approved upholstery; the tightly-fitted carpet is well covered, to secure its holiday freshness; the marbling and graining are unexceptionable in colour and in varnish. Here, too, are worshippers; the Parisian dame reclining on her tall chair priedieu, with her silver-mounted prayer-book, the English seat-holder surrounded by all the luxury of worsted-worked cushions, and morocco-bound books of devotion. It is far from our intention to make any invidious comparison between the actors in the two scenes: or even to insinuate that the second class may not be as devout and as fervent as the first. On the contrary, habit has so much influence on even our most sacred duties, that we believe that the people first described would be as unable to pray, and be as cold in their supplications, were they placed amidst the soft accompaniments of the others' prayers, as these would be if dropped down, alone and unsupported, on the cold pavement of an old Gothic church. But somehow or other, the eye and the thought seem to find a spectacle more akin to the avowed purpose of both scenes, in the outward bearing and appearance of those who compose the first. If the painter desired to represent |