Delaporte reproduces in abbreviated form an apologue which also tempts to free translation,-" The Splendid Godmother " (La Marraine Magnifique). Two poor peasants are in great distress; they cannot find a godmother for their infant; the priest is waiting, but no one will accept so humble a responsibility. Suddenly appears a lady clad in black and deeply veiled, who offers her services to the poor couple. Thus she addresses them :

I will hold him at the font;

Care he shail not know, nor want,
Pain, nor grinding poverty.
Palaces shall be his dwelling

Halls of light and jewelled splendour
Sun and moon and stars excelling.
Yet his heart shall still be tender
For the lowly mother, father,

For the dear ones that abide
Till the sundering veil divide, -

Till his earnest prayer shall gather

The beloved to his side.

The parents hear and believe; they entrust their infant to the stranger's arms; the baptism is accomplished; but straightway after

To the sun he scarce had known

Gently closed the little eyes;
Softly ceased the little breath.
Godmother has brought her own

To a home beyond the skies;

For the Godmother was-Death.*

Turning back from parables to realities, we must notice the chapter on "Martyred Children," where, among narratives no less touching, figures the story, extracted from the bloodstained annals of the Society of Jesus in Japan, of the Blessed Ignatius, or "Ignatiolus" Fernandez. Here is Father Delaporte's version, drawn from the Nocturns of the Breviary:

"It was the 22nd day of September, 1622, afterwards called 'the day of the great martyrdom.' On that day fifty-two Christians were put to death, and thirty thousand Christians had hastened from all sides to the hill of Nangasaki, the place

* Pages 183-4.

or (one might well say) the altar of sacrifice. Among the victims were twenty-two religious of different Orders; twelve being of the Society of Jesus-at their head Father Charles Spinola. Having in an animated discourse exhorted the Christians to perseverance in the Faith, he perceived at the extremity of the band of confessors Elizabeth Fernandez, who had once given him hospitality. He asked her where was the little Ignatius, whom he had baptized. The child was there, hidden by a pile of wood from the eyes of the missionary. The courageous mother raised him up in her arms. She had dressed him in his finest clothes. 'Father,' she said, 'here he is, happy to die with me. I offer up to God what I hold most dear in the world, my life and my son.' Then, turning her eyes to the child, she continued: 'Here is the Father who made you a child of God, and gave you a life far preferable to that which you are about to sacrifice. Ask his prayer and his blessing.' Little Ignatius obeyed, with bended knees and folded hands. At this scene a cry of pity arose. There seemed danger of an angry outbreak among the multitude; so the executioners set at once about their hideous task. Three or four heads, severed by their axes, fell at the feet of the child; but he did not weep or tremble. Without manifesting horror or shedding a tear, he beheld the murder of his beloved mother. Then, understanding that his own turn had come, he of his own accord stretched out his neck to receive the stroke of the executioner."

No wonder our author was moved to dedicate his work to this little hero and glory of childhood, who, with his maturer companions, was raised to the altars of the Church by Pius IX. May he and all the child-saints, his compeers, conspire to send blessings on author and readers of a book which celebrates them so happily!

G. O'NEILL

AMEN CORNER

IX.-CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS ON THE SACRED HEART

N

EW YEAR'S greetings are said to be valid during the whole month of January, and the glow of Christmastide has not yet completely faded out of our hearts. The following thoughts, therefore, are still in season; but they would have been more seasonable a month ago, and we should suppose them to have been printed then.

Child, give me thy heart" (Prov. xxiii. 26). This was the entreaty which Almighty God addressed to His poor creature, man, a thousand years before Jesus was born at Bethlehem. But now that " a child is born unto us and a Son is given to us,” in these Christmas days, kneeling before the Crib, man may dare in turn to address to God the same prayer: "Child, give me Thy heart. Melt this hard heart of mine, O Babe of Bethlehem! Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like Your own."

Let us strive to bring home to our hearts and minds, as closely and as vividly as we can, some of the motives that urge us to believe more firmly, to adore more profoundly, and to love more ardently and more tenderly our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ under the most pathetic symbol, memorial, instrument and organ of His love, His ever adorable Heart.

Devotion to the sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the most effective means of infusing into our hearts the true spirit of Christmas, the true spirit of Christianity. It is much more than a mere 'devotion" in the sense in which that word is often used to denote a peculiar exercise of piety which is not at all of obligation, but which may be profitably employed by many devout souls. Some indeed of the authorized emblems and practices by which the faithful show their special love for the Sacred Heart are mere devotions in this narrower meaning of the term; and these, while we must respect them as being approved and encouraged by the Church, we are at perfect liberty to use or not to use according as they suit our character and our circumstances. But the substance of this devotion may be said to belong to the very essence of Christianity, so

directly does it spring from devout and earnest meditation on the ineffable dogma of the Divine Incarnation, so closely is it wound up with the loving worship of our Lord's sacred humanity.

That loving worship, all our love and all our adoration, must ultimately be referred to the Person of the Eternal Word became incarnate for our sake. The object of our love and worship is always the same, the Son of God made flesh, “Jesus Christ yesterday and to-day and the same for ever" (Heb. xiii. 8); but in these latter times we have learned to think of Him in this special way as showing to us His divine Heart, that throbbing Heart of flesh and blood which suffered and was pierced for us and which symbolises the love that made Jesus do all this for our sake-the love which is as human and as personal as the love of a father for his children, of a friend for a friend-the love of a true human heart which is also the Heart of God.

And, therefore, it would be wrong to imagine that there is need of a peculiarly tender heart to appreciate duly the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, or that this Devotion is fit only for the more sensitive nature of women, for holy nuns, for persons cut off by disposition or vocation from the hard, cold, commonplace world of ordinary life. No, every true Christian heart, whether man's or woman's or child's, is tender enough for the tenderness of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart. For what is it but another device for exciting in our hearts what ought to be the master passion of every real Christiana living, loving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; above all, a living, loving faith in the love wherewith Jesus has loved us and loves

What is it but another security against incurring that awful malediction of St. Paul: "If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema" (1 Cor. xvi. 22).

The mystery of mysteries is that the Infinite and Eternal and Almighty God should not only tolerate our love but yearn for it, beg for it, demand it. What pains He has taken to secure our love! Even if Jesus Christ had never lived and died for us, even if the Son of God had never become the Son of Mary, even if the world had never been lost, or, being lost, had been redeemed in some other manner-if there had been no Christmas crib, no Babe of Bethlehem nestling in Its young Mother's arms-even so, we should still have been bound to love with our whole hearts and with our whole souls and with

our whole minds and with all our strength the great God who made us, although then He might seem to be far away. But He did not remain far away; He came nearer to us. In the depths of the eternal councils the Son of God said, "Behold I come." And in the fullness of time He came as the Child of Mary to live a life of poverty and suffering and to die a death of agony and shame. He showed His love for us in a thousand ways by word and deed through all the touching vicissitudes of His mortal life, but most of all at the beginning and at the end.

At the end He accepted eagerly what He Himself had fixed as the supreme test of love: Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friend."

Jesus laid down His life for us whom sin had made His enemies. Nay, even after death He would verify literally in Himself that which is the most exaggerated, the most extravagant expression of a devoted human love: "I would give my heart's blood for you." Jesus not merely said this but did it. Fulfilling one of the minutest particulars of prophecy, He poured out for us the last drop of His heart's blood when the spear of the centurion pierced His side as He hung dead upon the Cross.

But this was at the very end, whereas at this Christmas season the Church rather turns our hearts and minds back to the beginning of that marvellous life of divine expiation. And at the beginning what do we see?

He wore no robe of glory bright,
To make me all His own
He hid His majesty and might
And showed His love alone.
A child upon a mother's knee-
Was e'er a gentler art?

He made Himself in all like me,

That He might win my heart.

He did not woo with stores of gold

Or gems of purest ray,

But gently did the robe unfold

That o'er His bosom lay.

And lo! a thorn-crowned Heart was there,

Bathed in a soft, bright flame,

And writ in red upon it were

The letters of my name.*

Yes, the name of every one of us is written in the Heart of Jesus; He holds us all in His Heart. God forbid that any of our names should be blotted out for ever from that Book of

* Probably by Father Coleridge, S.J.