THE STREAM OF THE DESERT.

Upspringing in the desert wild,

In peace a crystal fountain rose,
And to its waters countless tribes
Draw near that it may heal their woes.
In growing power it rolls along
A mighty flood, where navies ride
Armed with the spear and shield of truth
To guard the treasures of the tide.
The sun shines on it from his throne,
The queen of heaven on it streams
Her soft and pearly floods of light,
The bright star in its bosom gleams.

In peace, far from the murmuring shore,
The sheltered isles upon it rest,
Like jewels on a virgin's brow,
Or children on a mother's breast.

Upon its smile the lilies feed,

The roses glow with love's own fire,
And healing winds their fragrance bear
To stir meek souls with pure desire.
And on it flows, and still must flow
Until it clasps the willing world
With healing arms, and sin and wrong
Shall to their dark abodes be hurl'd.

And all to whom that water comes

Shall live when time's thick veil is riven;

And, wafted by the breath of love,

Shall gain the calm eternal heaven.

Milwaukee.

FIDELIA.

"Beautiful verses, Father C," exclaimed O'Moore, as he finished the last line. "Put them down, by all means, for the next number."

"How are you pleased, Mr. O'Moore, with our friend W's article on Ancient Music?" enquired Father Carroll.

art.

"Perfectly enraptured with it, Rev. Father. It is a worthy tribute to that beautiful Our warmest thanks to the author for this his first contribution, with an assurance that his offerings shall be ever welcome to our table. He wields a pen too able and too graceful to remain idle; and if we may venture to suggest a theme worthy of its power, it would be that the author pursue the same beautiful subject during the period of modern history-to trace the progress of harmony and song, since the time when they were first dedicated upon the Christian altar."

"Is that your promised review of Longfellow's Hiawatha?" enquired Mr. Oliver, pointing to a roll of paper which lay before Mr. O'Moore.

"This is my review of that beautiful poem," replied O'Moore, holding up the roll. "But I regret that it is too lengthy for insertion in the present number, and must necessarily be deferred to the next."

"Here is a book," said Mr. Oliver, "which politeness alone would induce us to consider, since it is the production of an English lady, the daughter of a peer, and a maid of honor to the queen."

"And what is it all about?" asked Mr. O'Moore; "some new perfectionist novel, full of tender feeling for a clique, and of bitterness for every one outside of the charmed circle?"

"By no means. It is a book of travels through the United States."

"Travels in the United States by an English woman?" exclaimed O'Moore; "away with it then! we have had enough of Trollopes and Martineaus for the rest of our existence. For my part, I am heartily sick of their flippant wisdom and voluble abuse.”

"Had yo ot better ascertain the spirit in which it is written ?" said Father Carroll, who had been turning over the leaves, during the conversation. "Here is a passage, for example, which strikes me as wonderfully fair and liberal, for a Scotch woman and a Protestant. It refers to a local institution, of which all classes and sects are justly proud.

"Mrs. W.-took me this morning to see Mount Hope, a lunatic asylum, managed by above twenty Sisters of Charity, who reside at a house in a very pretty situation, overlooking the city and the neighborhood. The sisters act under the direction of an excellent Protestant physician-Dr. Stokes. No bigotry upon either side mars Christian labor: love, cheerfulness, comfort and industry alleviate and bless the inmates of Mount Hope. A library of suitable and amusing books, objects of natural history, music, handiworks, are all at the disposal of the inmates; and though some must be under restraint, it is a restraint of the kindest and gentlest description.'

"I do not see that we have reason to complain at least of that passage."

"I am sure I beg the lady's pardon with all my heart; she is very far from being a Trollope or a Martineau. But how is it about other things?"

"As for style,” replied Mr. Oliver, "there is not much of that, since, as she tells us herself, the letters were written hastily and published without revision. Hence we must not be too severe upon her for defects of this kind. She seems to be a bustling, active, good-humored lady, with a passion for natural history, especially botany, and a great fondness for sketching picturesque scenes. These tastes she indulges by rambles in all sorts of wild places, though she entertains a true feminine horror of snakes. She hunts up the scientific men, wherever she goes, and they manifestly make a pet of her. She is quite delighted when Agassiz tells her that some fossils she has collected in Florida, are interesting as showing a green sand formation in a place not heretofore known to possess it. A wonderful command of temper too she possesses, for when a soldier in Havana knocks over a flower pot containing a new fern, which she has carried in her lap all the way from Florida, she does not abuse him for a horrid wretch,' but freely forgives him, on account of the rueful face with which he regards the ruin he has occasioned, and makes some very sensible philosophical reflections on the occasion. Neither does she lack courage, since in the face of no little opposition (one literary individual of positive opinions refusing to edit her book for her), she stoutly vindicates the South from the calumnious aspersions of Englishmen and abolitionists. Indeed the South seems to have taken a strong hold on her affections. She finds the men there handsome and more dignified, the women sweeter and more polished, than at the North. She gives proper credit to the self-sacrifice, and habitual good-nature of the slaveholder, qualities of which those who have never lived among them are not willing to acknowledge the existence. In doing this she by no means abnegates her nationality. She remains fervently British to her very heart's core, applauds the sentiment of her female travelling companion, who would not marry an American, if he were the President himself, and thinks that only the fear of starvation would induce an Englishman or woman to fix themselves for life in America.' This gives value to her warm defence of the peculiar institution,' and satisfies me that it is honest.

6

"Writing in haste, of course, she does not escape amusing mistakes. She mis-quotes names, and makes the usual blunders of Britons in our geography. Thus in a little table of our nicknames, she calls Philadelphia, the Key State and the Quaker City. Among the bleak hills of Rockbridge county, in January, she records a frosty night as a rare occurrence in Virginia. She rattles away at a prodigious rate, and is a vigorous partizan. She is deeply interested in the gubernatorial election of New York, and sympathises strongly with Mr. Seymour. In endeavoring to convey to her friends across the water some ideas of our party designations, she tells them that the American Democrat designates enlightened, consistent principles; the whig, narrowminded, bigoted Republicanism.'

"Altogether, however, making all allowances for her proneness to take sides, her zeal and her haste, I think she has produced a readable, and very fair and honest book about America."

THE THIRTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MOUNT HOPE INSTITUTION.-We have received the Thirteenth Annual Report of this truly humane Institution, from our esteemed friend, Dr. Wm. H. Stokes, Attending Physician. Mount Hope, we may state, for the information of our distant readers, is an institution for the relief of persons afflicted with mental derangement, and located in the vicinity of our city; that the patients are nursed by the Sisters of Charity, who own the institution.

The Report commences with a general statement of the movements of the patients for the year ending January 1st, 1856. On the 31st of December, 1854, there were in the house 147 insane patients; 56 males and 91 females. During the year ending 31st of December, 1855, 95 were admitted; 49 males and 46 females, making an aggregate of 242 in the institution during the year. During the same period, 120 were discharged; 59 males and 61 females; leaving on the 31st of December, 1855, 122 patients; 46 males and 76 females. Of those discharged, 26 had recovered; 61 were improved; 19 were unimproved; 1 eloped, and 14 died.

We are happy to find, that this Institution, devoted to so benevolent, humane, and useful a purpose as that of administering to the wants and necessities of this most afflicted class of our fellow men, continues to maintain its high reputation for the successful cure of insanity. As each year rolls round, it is seen quietly but efficiently moving on in the fulfilment of the high purposes to which it is consecrated. It continues to enjoy, as the Report states, to a degree commensurate with the highest expectations and wishes of its warmest friends, the favorable consideration of the community in which it is situated, and from the number of patients collected within its walls from remote sections of the Union, its guardians possess the most ample and gratifying assurance of its wide-spread reputation abroad.

The Report proceeds to descant at some length on the benign principles and humane spirit which have been so conspicuous in modern times no less in the planning, organizing and managing asylums for the insane, than in the medical and moral treatment of the unfortunate subjects of this malady. But notwithstanding the vast improvements made in this field of philanthropy, and the general amelioration manifest in the condition of the insane, yet is the remembrance of the cruelties practiced under the old system far from being obliterated from the public mind. Insane hospitals are not yet divested of that deep-rooted prejudice which has sprung from the harshness and inhumanity prevailing in them up to the time of the advent of St. Vincent de Paul and Pinel. Many persons continue to invest them with a peculiar feeling of superstition and horror. But this feeling is gradually being dispelled as the community becomes more enlightened in regard to the real character of such establishments at this day, and the nature of the treatment now pursued for the relief of the insane. Antiquated notions and long established impressions are rapidly giving place to sounder views on this subject. And more than half this horror will be destroyed, and the chances of recovery increased, whenever the whole community can look upon the insane as upon other invalids, suffering under a disease as curable in the early stage as many others; and can believe that, when restored, an individual who has been thus afflicted, is as worthy of confidence and respect, and as capable of resuming his position in the world, as though he had recovered from a fever or other affliction, in which the manifestations of the mind had been temporarily deranged. The public will then be made to understand that an Insane hospital is only a place prepared by enlightened benevolence for the treatment of these affections, requiring as they do a greater diversity of means, and more varied and expensive arrangements than are available in the ordinary hospitals, or at their own homes. We trust, therefore, that the day is not distant when the advantages of these institutions will be generally appreciated, and that all will be ready to admit, that, in a well conducted asylum alone, can be concentrated those diversified influences, moral and medical, which are essentially necessary for re-establishing and re-invigorating the enfeebled and disordered mind.

The Report proceeds to state, that at Mount Hope moral influences are brought to bear upon the patient the moment he crosses the threshold. This real treatment begins from the moment he enters the asylum. The aspect of the place, the first faces he sees, the first words addressed to him, the first day, almost the first hour spent in the asylum modify all the impressions made upon him afterwards. Patients frequently allude to these things long afterwards. One of the very first measures adopted here in all cases, is to administer a warm bath, and then to clothe them in clean and comfortable apparel. Their clothes, often ragged and dirty, torn and soiled in violent struggles before arriving,

are removed. This early attention to their physical comfort and satisfaction, accompanied with other marks of care and kindness, often serves more than all things else to imprint a favorable impression on the mind of the patient, and tends to reconcile the most timed to all the strangeness of a lunatic asylum. After the bath, some good food is supplied him, and generally partaken of eagerly. By such means the confidence of the patient is early acquired, and he is disarmed of those insane suspicions which have been rivited on hím by the harsh treatment and galling restraint previously resorted to. With the most considerate kindness on the part of the Sisters, and an earnest zeal that never wearies in the labor of alleviating human suffering, and with their characteristic gentleness, is this mild and benignant system seen to pervade all the operations and arrangements of the house. Here nothing is neglected, or thought too trivial to deserve attention. The clothing, the diet, the exercises, the occupation, the amusements, the arrangements about the bed-rooms, the corridors and day-rooms, the encouragement given to the desponding, the indulgence shown to the wayward and fretful, the care bestowed upon the imbecile and helpless, all these things are here brought into active play and daily exercise, for the special benefit of its inmates. We have in these words strikingly displayed the blessed fruits of true Christian love and charity brought into active exercise in alleviating this most disastrous of all human maladies. Here the law of humanity and kindness pervades every department, prompts every duty, and governs the conduct of every one to whom is committed the care of the patients. The Sisters themselves perform all these duties; they constitute the nurses, and administer to the wants and necessities of the afflicted inmates. It is the only institution for the insane in this country, where the Sisters of Charity perform these anxious and responsible duties. And no doubt they possess for this important and delicate task, qualifications of the highest order. By long experience and practice, they must have acquired a superior aptness in regulating the conduct of patients of this class, in controlling the excitement, în restraining the waywardness, and removing the mental depression from the minds of the afflicted subjects that here surround them. To discharge properly and faithfully these duties must indeed demand a rare combination of qualities. Attendants on the insane must necessarily be subjected to many circumstances well calculated sorely to try the patience of the most self-possessed and self-denying Christian. How important therefore, that these poor sufferers should be under the care and guardianship of persons actuated by the pure motives and exalted principles of the Sisters of Charity.

Passing on from this subject we find in the Report numerous statistics presented in a tabular form of a highly interesting character. Under the head of the supposed causes of insanity in the 242 cases under treatment the last year, some cautionary and very judicious remarks are thrown out on the danger of overtaxing the mind. Several cases have seemed to be attributable to this cause-hence it observes: "When it is shown what an extensive influence strong mental exertion, and the undue excitement of the passions exert in producing insanity, a most salutary warning is given against over-exertion of the mind, against a too eager ambition after wealth or the honors of life. They point out to mankind the superior advantages of moderation in the pursuit of knowledge or of gain, or of whatever the energies may be directed to. To men of science and of the various professions, they teach the danger of persisting in employing the brain without allowing it needful rest and relaxation. Insanity, in its various forms, is by no means an unfrequent result of an over-worked mind. The histories of the many victims to intellectual toil raise a warning voice against taxing too far the powers of the mind. For unfortunately, manifold instances are annually presented to us of men of this class, in whom a short maniacal attack is but the precursor of an old age of mental imbecility. . . . . To avoid this dread calamity it is only necessary to labor in humble subjection to the laws of our mental and corporeal wellbeing. Thus the mind, far from being enervated by action, rather gathers strength, and in accordance with the order of Divine Providence, undergoes that healthy and progressive development which fits it for usefulness."

Having thus noticed at considerable length the prominent topics touched upon in this Report, we are obliged to omit any reference to the means of occupation and recreation provided for the patients. We shall conclude therefore by calling attention to the plan proposed for extending relief to a very deserving class of indigent insane. "We refer to those stricken with this sad affliction whose circumstances are limited, such as mechanics and others, on whose exertions the support of a family has depended. Generally speaking the little savings of such are soon exhausted in the effort to pay the expenses of their board and medical attendance. Often these cases after a few weeks trial of treatment are withdrawn, because of the utter inability longer to maintain them at the institution. How many are there every year of this character, who perhaps in a very brief period more might be perfectly and permanently restored to reason! and how vast the amount of good that would be conferred by the establishment of a fund for their benefit and relief! We earnestly present to the benevolent these unfortunates as

legitimate and deserving objects upon whom to bestow their fostering care and offerings of charity. No better method could be adopted, we conceive, for the relief of this worthy class of insane, than the endowment of free beds by individual or associated bounty, as has been long the practice in European cities. Accordingly we present this as a favorable form in which individuals or societies_may_contribute to the means of good which this Institution is calculated to accomplish. Three thousand dollars would maintain a free bed or apartment perpetually or as long as the Institution exists, and this apartment so endowed would always be designated by the name of the donor. For this sum bequeathed to the Asylum, the giver would enjoy the happy reflection that by means of his generous bounty, some son or daughter of affliction would as long as the establishment continues its career, be receiving all the advantages it is capable of conferring, for their restoration to reason.

THE LECTURE OF THE MOST REV. ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.-We had intended to insert entire, in the present number, the Lecture of the Most Rev. Archbishop of New York, delivered in this city on the 17th ultimo. Since then, however, it has been widely circulated throughout the country by the numerous Catholic journals, and its contents by this time are doubtlessly familiar to most of our readers. This precludes the necessity of inserting it at length, or even of taking from it any lengthy extract. There is one point in the lecture, however, to which we would call the attention of our readers, as it may serve to furnish them with the means of refuting an absurd and silly charge, so often brought against their Holy Church.

We have heard it reiterated time and again, that Catholicity cannot endure the broad light of free investigation; that whenever it is brought in contact with a free government, liberal principles, and an untrammeled press, it diminishes and falls to decay; that the Catholic Church is only suited for a monarchial rule, that the clergy and the bishops seek to retain the people in ignorance, as the best means of keeping them attached to their faith; that Catholics cannot be trusted in their loyalty to republican institutions. The illustrious Prelate clearly demonstrates the absurdity of these charges by the simple recital of the unparalleled prosperity of the Church in this free land, since the period when our government was moulded into its present form-her vast increase in numbers and efficiency, and the grandeur of her institutions. "Within the period to which I have referred, says the Archbishop, "the adherents of the Catholic religion have evinced no special love for that state of society in which their enemies pretend they prosper best. If any say you love darkness, point to your colleges. Was it the love of darkness that stimulated a poor population to establish those institutions of learning? If any say you are disloyal to the country, point to every battle from the commencement of the country, and see if Catholics were not equal in the struggle, and as zealous to maintain the dignity and triumph of the country as those with whom they fought! Nor was it in the contest with Great Britain alone, against whom it is supposed we have a hereditary spite, but against Catholic Mexico, they fought with an equal courage. Although they aimed the point of the sword at the breast of their brother Catholics, they aimed it not the less, and in every contest they endeavored to maintain liberty as well as right. Courage is one thing and engaging in the contest is another. And when allusion is made to their social qualities, may you not point as an answer to the fact that when pestilence and plauge had spread their dark pall over your city, they were ready to go with others into the glorious work of charity and humanity; and, if necessary, sacrifice their lives to mitigate pestilence and disease.'

Again speaking of the various elements of increase of Catholicity in this country, the learned Prelate uses the following language:

"A third element is that of Conversion, and so far as it is a test question, here is a true test; whether or not Catholicity can compare with any other denomination of Christians, where there is neither popularity on the one side nor prejudice on the other. It is the number of conversions; for while many speculate, and admit, with expressions of gratitude, that the Catholic Religion is useful and beneficial to mankind, they say that, in her regions of despair and darkness, it never can bear the test of light in the presence of equal education. And here is the test: when I say Conversions, not in boastful terms, but which we ascribe to the Almighty, I mean those of American birth, freemen who love freedom, who would not sacrifice legitimate freedom while embracing Catholicism -and who, understanding both sides of the question, have not hesitated to make sacrifices of worldly interests and advantages for what purpose? to bear testimony to the truth which they had examined and which came under their notice, and by an act of simple faith embraced. Not worldly motives. And here is the field and theatre, the sphere, on which, it was said, it could not stand!”