Life. Only sin can do that-grievous sin unrepented, unconfessed, unforgiven. Even we, poor sinners, the worst of us, are dear to the Heart of our Lord. Every one of us has as personal a share in His Heart's love as St. Paul had, when he said, "Jesus hath loved me and hath delivered Himself for me." Jesus lived and died, not for mankind in general, not for mankind in the abstract, but with a personal love for each of His poor creutures, for each of us individually and by name. And to each of us He puts the question that he put to St. Peter: "Lovest thou Me ?" God grant that we may be able to answer truthfully, but with humble fear: "Lord, Thou knowest all things-Thou knowest that I love Thee."

But we must prove our love, as Jesus has proved His love. He died for us: we must live for Him. Our life must correspond with our faith, especially our faith in that most overwhelming manifestation of our Lord's love to which Father Faber refers in one of his hymns, when he speaks of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

as

A Heart that has a Mother and a treasure of red blood,
A Heart that we can pray to and feed upon for food.

One of the surest signs of the sincerity of our devotion to the Heart of Jesus will always be the frequency and fervour of our Holy Communions. The Sacred Heart reveals itself most clearly in Its deepest disguise, the Blessed Eucharist. There at least, the daring words of a greater Oratorian* are true :

That even Omnipotence will not do more.

"What more could I do for My vineyard and have not done?" Nothing, Lord. You have given us all, for You have given us Yourself. Let not all this love be wasted upon us! Let it not be all in vain. May Jesus, in the sacrament of His love, be for us through life what we hope and pray He will be in death-our true Viaticum, our food for the journey, supporting us during our journey through this world, and then at our journey's end placing us safe at last in our eternal Home, where the veils of sacrament will be withdrawn, and we shall love and bless for ever our loving Lord and merciful Redeemer face to face and heart to heart.

Cardinal Newman.

ས

M

PEDRO MELENDEZ

FOUNDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA *

ELENDEZ, the greatest admiral of his day, was sent from Spain to colonize Florida. He had lately lost an only and most beloved son, who had been wrecked on the Florida coast, and he had returned to Spain to beg the royal permission to sail to the rescue of the last scion of his ancient and illustrious house. He clung to the hope of finding him with the French pirates, or among the Indians. It was this hope that induced this distinguished officer to accept the commission of colonizing the new province, and it is sad to have to relate that he never found any trace of this dearly loved

on.

Melendez was one of the brightest ornaments of the golden age of Spain, as the reign of Charles V was usually styled. None of his successors equalled Melendez. "To him," says an admirer,, "Spain owes a monument; history a volume; and the muses an epic." It is related that in early youth Melendez saved the life of Charles V. He was one of the splendid retinue that accompanied Philip II to England. He commanded the vessel in which the King sailed to marry Queen Mary Tudor-a marriage so inauspicious for the bride and her island-kindgom.

Philip had not yet been publicly declared king. It was after the marriage ceremony, July 25, that Bishop Gardiner announced, while still in his own Cathedral, Winchester, that the Emperor, Charles V, to make his son, as yet only Prince of Spain, a more equal match for the bride, a Queen Regent, had resigned to him the Kingdoms of Naples and Jerusalem, 1554. No mention is made of the American possessions.

When Philip, arrayed in robes of black velvet, with collar of beaten gold studded with diamonds, stood up to plight his troth, Melendez was in attendance between his royal master and the maiden majesty of England. The royal pair were

* The oldest city in the United States.

married by Queen Mary's friend, Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, England. The chair on which Queen Mary sat is still shown in the old cathedral, in which, no doubt, so devout a Catholic as Melendez offered many a prayer for the full restoration of England to the true faith.

A few years later when Queen Mary, who had once been betrothed to Charles V, learned, as he had done, the nothingness of earthly grandeur, and died in a poor Franciscan habit, her eyes fixed ecstatically on the Sacred Host elevated in Mass, which was offered for her happy translation from the miseries of earth to the glories of heaven, no doubt our pious admiral would be in spirit at this truly heavenly death-bed, and follow the daughter of Katharine of Aragon to the cloister of West, minster Abbey, where her ashes were laid with such pomp and ceremony. For Mary was first cousin and daughter-inlaw to his early patron and friend, the renowned Charles V and wife to his royal master, King Philip.

In 1565, St. Augustine was founded by Melendez, and named from the saint on whose feast he sailed into its harbour, August 28. Many missionaries accompanied him. Soon after, the Pope, St. Pius V, issued a brief to Melendez to excite his zeal for the conversion of the Indians, 1569. Like St. Teresa and many other holy personages, Pedro Melendez was born at Avila, "the city of knights." He had had a stirring career before he became the colonizer of Florida. Under Philip II. he rose to the highest rank in the Spanish navy, then the finest in Europe. He brought out twelve Franciscans and four Jesuits to work for the conversion of the savages. In the very year in which Melendez laid the foundations of St. Augustine, St. Francis Borgia, third General of the Society of Jesus, sent out Fathers Martinez and Roger, and Brother Villa Real, to labour on the Florida mission.

These were all men of high sanctity. On the eve of his departure, Father Martinez said to a holy friend of his: "O Father, how I long to shed my blood at the hands of the savages, for the faith, and bathe with it the shores of Florida!" His holy ambition was gratified. He was murdered by the Indians, near St. Augustine, 1566. He was noted for his rare ability and wonderful sanctity, as indeed were most of the early Fathers. The scholarship of Columbus often stood him

in good stead with his wayward children, the Indians. On one occasion he obtained astonishing command over them by predicting an eclipse of the moon. Father Martinez was the first Jesuit that entered the territory now known as the United States.

The first Mass was said September 8th, 1565, on a spot still called El Nombre de Dios, the Name of God. Here a shrine was built in which was placed a beautiful statue of the Blessed Mother nursing her Divine Child, called Nuestra Señora de la Leche, Our Lady of Milk. We may say here, parenthetically, that early in the eighteenth century one Colonel Palmer and several Englishmen and pagan Indians from Georgia, made a raid into St. Augustine, plundered the church, carrying off church plate and votive offerings, and destroyed the fine library of Greek and Latin fathers, etc., which the clergy had collected at an expense of over six hundred pounds. One of the soldiers took the image of the Infant Saviour from the arms of the statue of Our Lady and gave it to Colonel Palmer, who dashed it to the ground.

In the following year Colonel Palmer was slain on the very spot on which he threw the holy figure. Our readers will be glad to know that Nuestro Señora de la Leche is still a place of pious pilgrimage in St. Augustine.

But to return to Melendez. In every way this celebrated governor was indefatigable in his efforts to promote the prosperity of Florida. He was sometimes recalled to Spain, always to the detriment of his colony. His relations with the natives were most kindly. If they showed any disposition to embrace the Catholic faith, he sent to their aid the most fervent missionaries. It may well be said that Melendez was, in some sense, the apostle of St. Augustine as well as its founder.

The sonorous Spanish was the first European tongue spoken on the American Continent and in the adjacent islands. The new apostles came in robes of brown or white or black or grey, with hood or cowl or bare-headed. They were with the navigators or they went before them. The achievements of these daring pioneers to-day seem almost fabulous. They penetrated forests and surmounted innumerable obstacles-crossed

* See O'Shea's History of the Catholic Church in America.

rivers, climbed mountains, without bridges, roads, or guidesbore heat and cold, thirst and hunger, and all in the hope of saving souls, sometimes of their enemies.

Melendez was recalled to Europe to assume command of the famous Spanish Armada, but died before it sailed. Had the great admiral lived to command the Invincible Armada, history might have a different tale to tell of the result. His last recorded wishes were that he might go back to Florida and spend whatever remained to him of life in saving the souls of the poor Indians. He closed his remarkable and edifying career in the fear and love of God, at Santanda, Spain, on the feast of the Stigmata of his beloved St. Francis, September 17, 1574.

It soon became expedient that priests conversant with the English language should be sent to Spanish America. Several colleges were founded on "The Peninsula " for Irish students, through the liberality of Philip II and the exertions of many Irish Jesuits. The chief was in Salamanca: "The Royal College of Irish Nobles." Similar institutions for Irish exiles were founded at Rome, Seville, Madrid, Lisbon, at Paris, Nantes, Bordeaux, and in the Netherlands.

Referring to the Irish exiles at Salamanca, 1593, we make an extract from a letter the King wrote to the authorities

"As the Irish scholars have left their own country and all they possessed in it, for the service of God and the preservation of the Catholic faith, and as they make profession of returning to preach, and suffer martyrdom, if necessary, I am certain you will become their benefactors," etc.-Yo el ReyI the King.

These exiles not only provided priests for their home, but also for many parts of Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, as the names show: O'Reilly, McKenna, Walsh, Hassett, Cleary, etc., so that the King's charity had its reward in their usefulness to his own colonies.

M. A. CARROLL