There is a story told of St. Philip Neri which a Frenchman, Tournemire, versifies as follows, under the name of "Une Pénitence Efficace "

Une femme, cédant à ses pieux remords,

A saint Philippe un jour vint avouer ses torts.
Son penchant le plus vif était la médisance:
Ce vice invétéré troublait sa conscience.
"D'une telle habitude il faut, ma chère sœur,
Vous défaire à tout prix, lui dit son confesseur.
Voici, pour vous guérir, pour apprendre à vous taire,
Une peine efficace, un moyen salutaire :
Que ne ferait-on pas pour vaincre le péche ?
Achetez une poule au plus prochain marché ;
Puis, allant devant vous au sortir de la ville,
Tout le long du chemin plumez la volatile.
N'ayez hâte surtout, docile à cet avis,
Malgré votre désir, de rentrer au logis
Que la plume n'en soit tout-à-fait enlevée,
Y compris le duvet. Votre tâche achevée,
Venez m'en rendre compte ici même à l'instant,
Comme à Dieu dont je suis l'humble représentant."
Notre Eve, admirant fort cette étrange ordonnance,
Se soumit volontiers, parfit sa pénitence,

Et revint demander au sage directeur

Et le mot de l'énigme et le calme du cœur.
"Ma sœur, lui dit le saint tout en louant son zèle,
A ma prescription je vous trouve fidèle';
Mais vous n'avez rempli que la première part;
Il vous reste encor l'autre à finir sans retard.
C'est un dernier effort que de vous je réclame :
Cele fait, je réponds du salut de votre âme.
Retournez, sans changer votre direction,
Où l'on vous a vendu la poule en question.
Ramassez avec soin, et jusqu'à la dernière,
Les plumes qu'en marchant vous semâtes à terre."
-Mais ce n'est pas possible, ô Jesus! Maria!
S'écria tristement la pauvre Hortensia :

Comment songer, mon père, à retrouver ces plumes ?
Ce serait m'exposer en vain à mille rhumes.
J'ai, plumes et duvet, au hasard tout jeté :
Le vent ne l'a-t-il pas dans les airs emporté ?
-Mais, reprit-il d'un ton de sainte vehemence,
Qu'est-il de plus semblable à votre médisance?
Tous vos malins propos, débités à dessein,

Qui vont de bouche en bouche attaquer le prochain,
Qui comme autant de dards à la pointe acérée,
Dirigés contre lui d'une main assurée,

Portent à son honneur des coups très dangereux;
Ces discours imprudents, rapports pernicieux,
Que la vengeance souffle et que la haine guide,
Sont-ils moins qu'un duvet entrainé dans le vide ?
Ces traits piquants, épars, comment les ramasser ?
Allez en paix, ma sœur, et tâchez d'effacer
Ce que votre conduite a d'aussi téméraire :
Dieu n'exige de vous qu'un repentir sincère.

An Irish-American lady, Mrs. Mary E. Mannix, whose name is very pleasantly familiar to magazine readers in the United States, has told this legend of St. Philip in English for the readers of the Ave Maria; but, true to her sex, the culprit with her is not Hortensia, but a nameless man. She was hardly judicious in choosing blank verse for such a theme, even though it is very good blank verse.

One came to Philip Neri, head bowed down
In self-abasement, striking loud his breast,
His eyes bedewed with penitential tears.
"Father," he said, once in an evil hour,
Not many days gone by, in jealous hate
Of one I judged my enemy to be,

I suffered my unhallowed thoughts to frame
And tongue to speak a vile malicious lie.
The slander filled its lengthened measure well;
Passed him with scornful brows or stood aloof
They who of old had been his closest friends,
And I rejoiced to see his face grow pale
And his lip tremble as each insult fell.
Awhile I hugged the evil spirit close;

Revenge was sweet, and hatred held its own.

But soon my better angel bent his head,
Shedding soft tears upon my hardened heart;
Then from these eyes the midnight blindness fell,
And in a burst of penitence and pain

I saw my crime in all its hideousness;
But when I sought to call it home again,
Alas! though black and foul it had gone forth
I knew it not in very truth for mine,

Hailed and caught up and hurled as it had been
By eager friends who call such monsters toys-
¡Father, what shall my great atonement be?

How can I unto him whom I have wronged,
And unto God whose truth I have deformed
Make reparation for this mighty sin?"

One moment paused the saint, his gentle eyes
Turned on the culprit with reproachful look,
Reproachful, yet compassionate and kind,
As sanctity must ever look on sin.

At length, with slow and serious voice, he said:
"My son, go thou into the market-place,
Take thence a bird the archer has brought down,
With dead, limp feathers waiting to be plucked;
Take these between thy fingers, one by one,
Gazing not in thy walk to right or left,
Marking not which way this one floats or that,
But still pursuing thy appointed way,
Until the dead bird in thy hand lies bare ;
Then backward turning, stooping in thy path,
Uplift each tiny feather lying low,

Missing not one from out the scattered shower;
Then will thy sin return to thee disarmed,
Powerless as when its poison lay undrained,
Then will thy reparation be complete."
"Father," the penitent replied, aghast,
"How giv'st a task to do which mortal man
May never compass within mortal bonds?
What like a birdling's feathers, airy, light,
Weightless upon the heaving, floating breeze?
What like the autumn wind as swift and strong
What like that wind to spread itself afar
Where sight and touch can reach it nevermore ? "
"Thou sayest well," the patient saint replied,
"And thus the breath of slander, wafted far

Into the market-places of the world,
Beareth its scent of plague, its poison touch,
On waves that widen and return no more
From the vast sea of everlasting death."

Even so, good friends and neighbours, everyone,
Read we the page, con we its lesson well;

And, while we seek its moral otherwhere,

Take heed lest haply it may touch ourselves.

Another American writer tells the same story of this 'efficacious penance," but does not mention St. Philip Neri. The old newspaper from which I take the lines does not name the author either.

A woman to the holy father went,
Confession of her sin was her intent;

And so her misdemeanours great and small,
She faithfully to him rehearsed them all;

And, chiefest in her catalogue of sin,

She owned that she a tale-bearer had been.
And bore a bit of scandal up and down

To all the long-tongued gossips in the town.
The holy father for her other sin

Granted the absolution asked of him;
But while for the rest he pardon gave,
He told her this offence was very grave,
And that to do fit penance she must go
Out by the wayside where the thistles grow,
And gathering the largest, ripest one,

Scatter its seeds; and that when this was done
She must come back another day

To tell him his commands she did obey.
The woman, thinking this a penance light,
Hastened to do his will that very night,
Feeling right glad she had escaped so well.
Next day but one, she went the priest to tell ;
The priest sat still, and heard her story through,
Then said, "There's something still for you to do:
Those little thistle-seeds which you have sown,
I bid you go re-gather every one."

The woman said, "But, Father, 'twould be vain
To try and gather up those seeds again;
The winds have scattered them both far and wide
Over the meadowed vale and mountain side."
The Father answered, "Now, I hope that from this
The lesson I have taught, you will not miss :
You cannot gather back the scattered seeds,
Which far and wide will grow to noxious weeds;
Nor can the mischief once by Scandal sown,
By any penance be again undone."

And now the useful lesson has been repeated often enough. We ought to have it off by heart by this time. At least let us take it to heart, dear reader.

W. L.

SPRINGTIME

OVER my head are the green branches waving,
Gay little sunbeams peep laughingly through;
Silvery brooklet the bright pebbles laving

Steals from the heavens a glint of their blue.

Five paces from me with dimpled hands dabbling,
Blithe in the waters that dance at his feet,
Frolics my darling, his merry voice babbling,
Mocketh the thrushes with music more sweet.

Fresh he is still as the leaves above playing,
On whose young beauty no blemish is seen,
Hot summer sunshine nor wind's breath decaying
Having yet injured their wonderful green.

Gazing awhile at the tiny brook yonder

Pebbles I count 'neath the clear wavelets' rollThus at its will may my loving glance wander Right through his innocent eyes to his soul.

Ah! but the brooklet will swell to a river,

Baffling in depth e'en the keenest of eyes;
Gold in the sunshine these green leaves will quiver,
Losing their freshness 'neath passionate skies.

Aye, and my babe, in the future, too surely,
Graver will grow, and (it may be) less fond.
Will his gaze meet mine as frankly, as purely?
How shall I fathom the spirit beyond ?

Manhood's strong passions the heart will claim duly,
Now fair and placid as new-fallen snow-

Evil to conquer is honour? Yea truly,

Yet it were better no evil to know.

M. E. FRANCIS.