and grace to solace the agitated heart, to say a little word that will lighten distress and trouble, or calm some poor doubting spirit, beaten about to and fro by perplexity. Our worst troubles are those we bring on ourselves by our own foolishness, taking wrong views of things. If we come across a poor sister in such a state as that, we must not say, 'Never mind! It is her own affair; it is no business of mine. Let her knock her head against the wall if she likes.' No! we must apply the soothing little word of kindness that will heal the sore, cool the fire, mollify the hardness of her poor heart. Patience consists in three points. First, patience in our words, shown chiefly by silence. Secondly, patience in our looks, by forming our faces to gentle and kind looks, not cross or forbidding looks. Thirdly, patience in our thoughts by sweetening them to kind and good thoughts of others."

Father Kelly practised what he preached, and especially during the many years that he was Superior in four different houses, knowing how much the well-being of the community depended on him. As was said of one who appreciated Father Kelly fully, "he was gentle, unobtrusive, kind." He left people alone whenever he was able to do so. Sixty or seventy years ago, there appeared in a magazine a brilliant little sketch, "Mrs. Newington"-a fussy mistress of a family who imagined nobody could do anything as well as herself, who interfered in the work of every one of her servants, and came signally to grief in consequence, on the occasion of her great dinner-party. Father Kelly was by no means a Superior of the Mrs. Newington type. As has been remarked of Brassey and other great organizers of labour, he trusted and loyally supported each of his helpers in his own department of duty. He was exquisitely thoughtful about the feelings of all, high and low, and he was a true father to all his children.

It was probably during the first Christmastide of his Clongowes Rectorship, that he wrote to one of his former spiritual children :

"You are afraid I may forget; but no !-my angel guardian may seem, sometimes, to sleep on folded wing, but he watches all the while. I wish you a happy Christmas, and a whole handful of blessings from the Crib. If you heard the nice sermon I preached to the boys the night before they left for their Christmas holidays! Valedictory, Te Deum, etc. I told them it would be nice to decorate their homes with holly and green leaves-but I knew a still nicer decoration. Decorate them by

your gentleness, your amiability, your sweet temper, your obedience, your unse'fishness, etc. It might almost have done for religious!—even for religious in the Bethlehem or Noviceship house. I hope you are very good and faithful to all my teaching. Keep a firm heart. I have a great many anxieties; pray for me well on Christmas day. God bless you."

It was during the time of his Rectorship, probably towards the end of it, that he wrote to one who felt it a great trial not to be under his spiritual care :

"I know God will give you a good share of His prec ous gifts. Keep up your heart, my child, and adore His will; it is better than anything we could lay out for ourselves, no matter how good. And now, for this month of June, offer yourself up to His Sacred Heart for anything that He wishes, and join me in a little prayer and visit' each day. Dear old times, when I used to try to say good and nice things to make you all happy and good. God bless you, my dear child."

On the 29th December (1882, or 1883), he wrote to one who, after serving under him on the Clongowes staff, had gone abroad for his theological studies:

"I must not 'et Christmas and the old year pass without writing to you, and acknowledging your too kind and most welcome letter. You did not indeed abuse my patience by your long letter. It was most interesting and most welcome, and I hope you will not be discouraged from writing again by my tardiness in replying. I will be better next time. It was a great pleasure and happiness to me, to know that I had contributed to make your life here happier. You well deserved anything I could do to make you happy, and I assure you I miss you very much. All miss you, but myself more than any. I am glad you are among such kind friends, and where there is so much charity and union."

September 10, 1884, he wrote to the same correspondent :

"The general expectation, which lasted up to the last hour, that I hould be changed from this, and relieved of my weighty burden was disappointed, and I find myself beginning my fourth year."

But after that fourth year he was released, and in September, 1885, he again settled down in St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, Dublin, from which his next flitting was to be Glasnevinward and Heavenward.

(To be continued.)

UNFRUITFUL

My life is tangled like the winding vine
That twists about the hedge its sinuous length;
Now this bright knot of Autumn berries grasps,
And now a tender-limbed green sapling clasps
With withering strength.

Ah, tell me, is one's life from Heaven sent
To fashion as one wills? Some vines do grow
In sunny vineyard and return good wine,
And some about the hedges wildly blow.
I from the path myself my way have bent,
In empty hedge my fruitful juices spent-
What shall I yield the Vintager divine?

ABOUT HAPPINESS

NE of the supreme facts of conscious rational life is the universal desire for happiness. One of the duties of

life, in a certain broad sense the one duty of life, is to form a true idea of happiness, and then to strive to realize the ideal. It is a favourite trick of the Enemy of the human race, or rather it is the policy of the devils and of the wicked men who in various ways oppose God's reign and propagate evil, to pretend that those who obey the law of God go against their own happiness, whereas these alone are wise friends to themselves and secure their own happiness-certainly in eternity, and often in time, as far as temporal happiness does not interfere with the happiness that is eternal.

The most convenient way of saying what it seems good to say about happiness, will be to let my remarks be suggested by certain observations on the subject which I have thought worth preserving, according as I met them from time to time in various quarters. For instance, here are a few sentences from Charlotte Brontë, which I shall quote, in order to object to them. "No mockery in this world sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato to be planted in mould and tilled. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of heaven. She is a divine dew, which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels gently dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of paradise." True enough, like most things, when understood in sensu sano but in spite of the first of these sentences it is quite possible to cultivate happiness, to cherish a happy disposition, not merely by keeping the conscience pure but by training the mind to dwell on the bright and cheering, and to shun what is unnecessarily and unprofitably gloomy and painful. Sir John Lubbock seems to hold, in opposition to "Currer Bell," that happiness can be cultivated, and even taught, when he writes "I cannot but think that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the duty of happiness, as wel as on the happiness of duty."

VOL. XXXIV-No. 394.

Q

The reader has been already warned that this is not to be an orderly disquisition on happiness, but only a chain of quotations on the subject, with a few words of commentary now and then. That prolific writer, "Anon."-whom I, before my teens began, chose as my favourite poet; thinking it was a proper name, like Mr. Hannon-to him is attributed the saying," Many in the world run after felicity like an absent-minded man hunting for his hat, while all the time it is on his head." Anon." also is the only authority I can give for the following bit of wisdom. "Happiness has been defined as having things; better, as having what you want; better still, as being able to do without what you want."

"

I am not sure that this last saying, which defines happiness as "having things," was intended to allude to the etymology of the word. Happy and mishap come no doubt, from the same root, whatever that may be. But this idea of "having things" turns up again in a somewhat similar context. There was a note in Anthon's Sallust, which has lurked in my memory for more than half a century: "Whiter's etymology of this word is very ingenious. Ave or have is nothing but habehave, possess, riches, honours, health.'' As if our greeting to our friend was to wish him all good, by wishing him to possess riches, and honours, and health. But one might possess all those and not be happy. Even the pagan Epictetus had higher thoughts. "Happiness does not consist in acquiring and possessing, but in not desiring; for it consists in being free."

There are two excellent little shilling books, Who said That? and Who wrote That? Few of us would answer those questions correctly if put concerning these lines :

"All who joy would win must share it—
Happiness is born a twin."

What more unlikely source for this amiable sentiment than Lord Byron? We are less surprised at hearing a sentimental writer like Bernardin de Saint Pierre, author of Paul and Virginia, say the same thing in prose : " One secures happiness for oneself only by endeavouring to secure it for others." Or the French poet, Delille, "Happiness is his who makes others happy."

Work for work's sake is as vain as art for art's sake. Carlyle's gospel of work does not seem to have secured much happiness