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call forth from their gray and ivied ruins that cover the green bosom of Ireland; we are about to go back up the highways of history, and, as it were, to breast and to stem the stream of time, to-day, taking our start from the present hour in Ireland. What have we here? It is a stately church-rivalling-perhaps surpassing-in its glory the grandeur of bygone times. We behold the solid buttresses, the massive wall, the high tower, the graceful spire piercing the clouds, and upholding, high towards heaven, the symbol of man's redemption, the glorious sign of the cross. We see in the stone windows the massive tracery, so solid, so strong, and so delicate. What does this tell us? Here is this church, so grand, yet so fresh and new and clean from the mason's hand. What does it tell us? It tells us of a race that has never decayed; it tells us of a people that have never lost their faith nor their love; it tells us of a nation as strong in its energy for every highest and holiest purpose, to-day, as it was in the ages that are past and gone for ever.

THE CURSE OF IGNORANCE.1

Now, first of all, consider that the greatest misfortune that Almighty God can let fall upon any man is the curse of utter ignorance, or want of education. The Holy Ghost, in the Scriptures, expressly tells us that this absence of knowledge, this absence of instruction and education, is the greatest curse that can fall upon a man; because it not only unfits him for his duties to God, and for the fellowship of the elect of God, and for every godlike and eternal purpose, but it also unfits him for the society of his human kind; and, therefore, the Scripture says so emphatically 'Man, when he was in honour" (that is to say, created in honour), "lost his knowledge." He had no knowledge. What followed? He was compared to senseless beasts, and made like to them. What is it that distinguishes man from the brute? Is it the strength of limb? No! Is it gracefulness of form! No! Is it acute sensations-a sense of superior sight, or a more intense and acute sense of hearing? No! In all these things many of the beasts that roam the forest exceed us. We have not the swiftness of the stag; we have not the strength of the lion; we have not the beautiful grace of the antelope of the

1 From a lecture on "Catholic Education."

desert; we have not the power to soar into the upper air, like the eagle, who lifts himself upon strong pinions and gazes on the sun. We have not the keen sense of sight of many animals, nor the keen sense of hearing of others. In what, then, lies the difference and the superiority of man? Oh, my dear friends, it lies in the intelligence that can know, and the heart which, guided by that intelligence, is influenced to love for intellectual motives, and in the will, which is supposed to preserve its freedom, by acting under the dominion of that enlightened intellect and mind.. For, mark you, it is not the mere power of knowing that distinguishes man from the brutes, and brings him to the perfection of his nature. It is the actual presence of knowledge. It is not the mere power of loving that distinguishes man from the lower creatures. No. For if that love be excited by mere sensuality, by the mere appeal to the senses, it is not the high human love of man, but it is the mere lust of desire and passion of the brute. It is not the will that distinguishes man in the nobility of his nature from the brute; but it is the will, preserving its freedom, keeping itself free from the slavery and dominion of brute passions, and answering quickly-heroically-to every dictate of the high, and holy, and enlightened intelligence that is in man. What follows from this? It follows that if you deprive him of intelligence or knowledge, if you leave him in utter ignorance and withdraw education, you thereby starve, and, as far as you can, annihilate the very highest portion of the soul of man; you thereby dwarf all his spiritual powers; you thereby leave that soul, which was created to grow, and to wax strong, and to be developed by knowledge-you leave it in the imbecility and the helplessness of its natural, intellectual, and spiritual infancy. What follows from this? It follows that the uneducated, uninstructed, ignorant, dwarfed individual is incapable of influencing the affections of the heart with any of the higher motives of love. It follows that if that heart of man is ever to love it will not love upon the dictate of the intelligence, guiding it to an intellectual object, but, like the brute beast of the field, it will seek the gratification of all its desires upon the mere brutal, corporeal evidence of its senses. What follows, moreover? It follows that the will which was created by the Almighty God in freedom, and which, by the very composition of man's nature, was

destined to exercise that freedom under the dictate of intelligence, is now left without its

proper ruler, an intelligent, instructed intellect; and, therefore, in the uninstructed man the allegiance of the will--and its dominionis transferred to the passions, desires, depraved inclinations of man's lower nature. And so we see that in the purely and utterly uninstructed man there can be no loftiness of thought, no real purity of affection, nor can there be any real intellectual action of the will of man. Therefore, I conclude that the greatest curse Almighty God can let fall upon a man is the curse of utter ignorance, unfitting him thereby for every purpose of God and every purpose of society.

First then, my dear friends, I assert that want of education, or ignorance, unfits a man for his position, no matter how humble it be, in this world and in society. For all human society exists amongst men, and not amongst inferior animals, because of the existence in men of intelligence. All human society or intercourse is based upon intellectual communication, thought meeting thought; intellectual sympathy corresponding with the sym-, pathy of others. But the man who is utterly uninstructed; the man who has never been taught to write or to read; the man who has never been taught to exercise any act of his intelligence; the poor, neglected child that we see about our streets-growing up without receiving any word of instruction-grows up, rises to manhood, utterly unfit to communicate with his fellowmen, for he is utterly unprepared for that intercommunion of intelligence and intellect which is the function of society. What follows? He cannot be an obedient citizen, because he cannot even apprehend in his mind the idea of law. He cannot be a prosperous citizen, because he can never turn to any kind of labour which would require the slightest mental effort. In other words, he cannot labour as a man. He is condemned by his intellectual imbecility to labour merely with his hands. Mere brute force distinguishes his labour; and the moment you reduce a man to the degree and amount of mere corporeal strength, the moment you remove from his labour the application of intellect, that moment he is put in competition with the beasts; and they are stronger than he; therefore he is inferior to them. Take the utterly uninstructed man; he it is that is the enemy of society. He cannot meet his fellowmen in any kind of intellectual intercommunion. He is shut out from all that the past tells him in the history of the world; from all the high present interests that are

pressing around him; from all his future he is shut out by his utter destitution of all religious education as well as civil. What follows from this? Isolated as he is-flung back upon his solitary self-no humanizing touch; no gentle impulse; no softening remembrance even of sorrow or trouble; no aspiration for something better than the present moment; no remorse for sin; no consolation in pain; no relief in affliction; nothing of all this remains to him: an isolated, solitary man, such as you or I might be, if in one moment, by God's visitation, all that we have ever learned should be wiped out of our minds; all our past lost to us; all the hopes of the future cut off from us;-such is the ignorant man; and such society recognizes him to be. If there be a man who makes the state, and the government of the state, to tremble, it is the thoroughly uninstructed and uneducated man; it is the class neglected in early youth, and cast aside; and utterly uninstructed and undeveloped in their souls, in their hearts, and in their intellects. It is this class that, from time to time, comes to the surface, in some wild revolution, swarming forth in the streets of London, or the streets of Paris, or in the streets of the great continental cities of Europe; swarming forth, no one knows from whence; coming forth from their cellars; coming forth from out the dark places of the city; with fury unreasoning in their eyes, and the cries of demons upon their lips. These are the men that have dyed their hands red in the best blood of Europe, whether it came from the throne or the altar. It is the thoroughly uninstructed, uneducated, neglected child of society that rises in God's vengeance against the world and the society that neglected him, and pays them back with bitter interest for the neglect of his soul in his early youth.

NATIONAL MUSIC.

What shall we say of the power of music in stirring up all the nobler emotions of man? The soldier arrives after his forced march, tired, upon the battle-field. He hopes for a few hours' rest before he is called upon to put forth all his strength. The bugle sounds in the morning, and this poor and unrested man is obliged to stand to his arms all day, and face death in a thousand forms. The tug of

1 From a lecture on "The National Music of Ireland."

war lasts the whole day long. Now retreating, now advancing, every nerve is braced up, every emotion excited in him, until at length nature appears to yield, and the tired warrior seems unable to wield his sword another hour. But the national music strikes up; the bugle and the trumpets send forth their sounds in some grand national strain! Then, with the clash of the cymbal all the fire is aroused in the man. Drooping, fainting, perhaps wounded as he is, he springs to his arms again. Every nobler emotion of valour and patriotism is raised within him; to the sound of this music, to the inspiration of this national song, he rushes to the front of the battle, and sweeps his enemy from the field.

Thus, when we consider the nature of music, the philosophy of music, do we find that it is of all other appeals to the senses the most spiritual; that it is of all other appeals to the soul the most powerful; that it operates not as much by the mode of reflection, as in exciting the memory and the imagination, causing the spirit and the affections of men to rise to nobler efforts, and to thrill with sublime emotions and influences. And, therefore, I say it is, of all other sciences, the most noble and the most godlike, and the grandest that can be cultivated by man on this earth.

And now, as it is with individuals, so it is with nations. As the individual expresses his sense of pain by the discordant cry which he utters; as the individual expresses the joy of his soul by the clear voice of natural music; so, also, every nation has its own tradition of music, and its own national melody and song. Wherever we find a nation with a clear, distinct, sweet, and emphatic tradition of national music, coming down from sire to son, from generation to generation, from the remotest centuries-there have we evidence of a people strong in character, well marked in their national disposition-there have we evidence of a most ancient civilization. But wherever, on the other hand, you find a people light and frivolous-not capable of deep emotions in religion-not deeply interested in their native land, and painfully affected by her fortunes-a people easily losing their nationality, or national feeling, and easily mingling with strangers, and amalgamating with them there you will be sure to find a people with scarcely any tradition of national melody that would deserve to be classed amongst the songs of the nations. Now, amongst these nations, Ireland-that most ancient and holy island in the western sea

claims, and deservedly, upon the record of history, the first and grandest pre-eminence among all peoples. I do not deny to other nations high musical excellence. I will not even say that, in this our day, we are not surpassed by the music of Germany, by the music of Italy, or the music of England. Germany for purity of style, for depth of expression, for the argument of song, surpasses all the nations today. Italy is acknowledged to be the queen of that lighter, more pleasing, more sparkling, and, to me, more pleasant style of music. In her own style of music England is supposed to be superior to Italy, and, perhaps, equal to Germany. But, great as are the musical attainments of these great peoples, there is not one of these nations, or any other nation, that can point back to such national melody, to such a body of national music, as the Irish. Remember that I am not speaking now of the laboured composition of some great master; I am not speaking now of a wonderful mass, written by one man; or a great oratorio, written by another-works that appeal to the ear refined and attuned by education; works that delight the critic. I am speaking of the song that lives in the hearts and voices of all the people; I am speaking of the national songs you will hear from the husbandman, in the field, following the plough; from the old woman, singing to the infant on her knee; from the milkmaid, coming from the milking; from the shoemaker at his work, or the blacksmith at the forge, while he is shoeing the horse. This is the true song of the nation; this is the true national melody, that is handed down, in a kind of traditional way, from the remotest ages; until, in the more civilized and cultivated time, it is interpreted into written music; and then the world discovers, for the first time, a most beautiful melody in the music that has been murmured in the glens and mountain valleys of the country for hundreds and thousands of years. Italy has no such song. Great as the Italians are as masters, they have no popularly received tradition of music. The Italian peasant (I have lived amongst them for years)—the Italian peasant, while working in the vineyard, has no music except two or three high notes of a most melancholy character, commencing upon a high dominant and ending in a semitone. The peasants of Tuscany and of Campagna, when, after their day's work, they meet in the summer's evenings to have a dance, have no music; only a girl takes a tambourine and beats upon it, marking time, and they dance

to that, but they have no music. So with | forays, were always accompanied by their other countries. But go to Ireland; listen to the old woman as she rocks herself in her chair, and pulls down the hank of flax for the spinning; listen to the girl coming home from the field with the can of milk on her head; and what do you hear?-the most magnificent melody of music. Go to the country merrymakings and you will be sure to find the old fiddler, or old white-headed piper, an infinite source of the brightest and most sparkling music.

harper, or minstrel, who animated them to deeds of heroic bravery. Even when the Danes came sweeping down in their galleys upon the Irish coast, high on the prow of every warboat sat the scald, or poet-white-haired, heroic, wrinkled with time-the historian of all their national wisdom and their national prowess. And when they approached their enemy, sweeping with their long oars through the waves, he rose in the hour of battle, and poured forth his soul in song, and fired every How are we to account for this? We must warrior to the highest and most heroic deeds. seek the cause of it in the remotest history. Thus it was in Ireland, when Nial of the Nine It is a historical fact that the maritime or Hostages swept down upon the coast of France, sea-coast people of the north and west of and took St. Patrick (then a youth) prisoner; Europe were, from time immemorial, addicted the first sounds that greeted the captive's ear to song. We know, for instance, that in the were the strains of our old Irish harper, celeremotest ages, the kings of our sea-girt island, brating in a language he knew not the glories when they went forth upon their warlike | and victories of heroes long departed.

WILLIAM FRANCIS BUTLER.

A VIEW OF THE PRAIRIE.

(FROM "THE WILD NORTH LAND.")

On the 27th of April I set out from Hud

which avoids the Great Cañon at the farther end of which the Peace River becomes navigable for a canoe.

We crossed the river once more at the scene of our accident two days previously; but this time, warned by experience, a large canoe was taken, and we passed safely over to the north shore. It took some time to hunt up the horses, and mid-day had come before we finally got clear of the Hope of Hudson.

[Major W. F. Butler is a native of the county Tipperary, where he was born in 1838. At twenty years of age he was appointed to an ensigncy in the 69th Regiment, and rose rapidly, becoming captain in 1872; major, 1874; and deputy-adjutant-quartermaster-son's Hope to cross the portage of ten miles, general, head quarter-staff, 1876. He served with distinction on the Red River expedition, and acted as special commissioner to the Saskatchewan Territories in 1870 hnd 1871. While in command of the West Akim native forces during the Ashantee war, he was honourably mentioned in several despatches of Sir Garnet Wolseley. In 1874 he received the order of companionship of the Bath. While in North America he collected materials for his two well-known works, The Great Lone Land and The Wild North Land. Akimfoo, the History of a Failure, gives a very vivid account of an attempt made by Major Butler to induce some of the natives to join with the English troops in an attack upon Coomassie, which endeavour did not prove successful. All his works are characterized by a picturesque, and occasionally highly eloquent style. He becomes particularly captivating when describing startling adventures or depicting beautiful natural scenery. Major Butler married, in June, 1877, Miss Elizabeth Thompson, the well-known painter.]

The portage trail curved up a steep hill of 800 or 900 feet; then on through sandy flats and by small swamps, until, at some eight or nine miles from the Hope of Hudson, the outer spurs of the mountains begin to flank us on either side. To the north a conspicuous ridge, called the Buffalo's Head, rises abruptly from the plain, some 3000 feet above the pass; its rock summit promised a wide view of mountain ranges on one side, and of the great valley of the Peace River on the other. It stood alone, the easternmost of all the ranges, and the Cañon of the Peace River flowed round it upon two sides, south and west.

Months before, at the forks of the Athabasca River, a man who had once wandered into these wilds told me, in reply to a question of mine, that there was one spot near the mouth of the Peace River Pass which commanded a wide range of mountain and prairie. It was the Buffalo's Head.

Nine hundred miles had carried me now to that spot. The afternoon was clear and fine; the great range had not a cloud to darken the glare of the sun upon its sheen of snow; and the pure cool air came over the forest trees fresh from the thousand billows of this sea of mountains. The two men went on to the portage end; I gave them my horse, and, turning at right angles into a wood, made my way towards the foot of the Buffalo's Head.

Thick with brulé and tangled forest lay the base of the mountain; but this once passed, the steep sides became clear of forest, and there rose abruptly before me a mass of yellow grass and soft-blue anemones. Less than an hour's hard climbing brought me to the summit, and I was a thousand times repaid for the labour of the ascent.

I stood on the bare rocks which formed the frontlet of the Buffalo's Head. Below, the pines of a vast forest looked like the toy-trees which children set up when Noah is put forth to watch the animals emerging from his ark, and where everything is in perfect order, save and except that perverse pig, who will insist on lying upon his side in consequence of a fractured leg, and who must either be eliminated from the procession altogether, or put in such close contact to Mrs. Noah, for the sake of her support, as to detract very much from the solemnity of the whole procession.

Alas, how futile is it to endeavour to describe such a view! Not more wooden are the ark animals of our childhood than the words in which man would clothe the images of that higher nature which the Almighty has graven into the shapes of lovely mountains! Put down your wooden woods bit by bit; throw in colour here, a little shade there, touch it up with sky and cloud, cast about it that perfume of blossom or breeze, and in Heaven's name what does it come to after all? Can the eye wander away, away, away until it is lost in blue distance as a lark is lost in blue heaven, but the sight still drinks the beauty of the landscape, though the source of the beauty be unseen, as the source of the music which falls from the azure depths of sky. That river coming out broad and glittering from the dark mountains, and vanishing into

yon profound chasm with a roar which reaches up even here-billowy seas of peaks and mountains beyond number away there to south and west that huge half dome which lifts itself above all others sharp and clear cut against the older dome of heaven! Turn east, look out into that plain-that endless plain where the pine-trees are dwarfed to spear-grass and the prairie to a meadow-patch-what do you see? Nothing, poor blind reader, nothing, for the blind is leading the blind; and all this boundless range of river and plain, ridge and prairie, rocky precipice and snow-capped sierra, is as much above my poor power of words, as He who built this mighty nature is higher still than all.

Ah, my friend, my reader! Let us come down from this mountain-top to our own small level again. We will upset you in an ice-rapid; Kalder will fire at you; we will be wrecked; we will have no food; we will hunt the moose and do anything and everything, you like,--but we cannot put in words the things that we see from these lonely mountain-tops when we climb them in the sheen of evening. When you go into your church, and the organ rolls and the solemn chant floats through the lofty aisles, you do not ask your neighbour to talk to you and tell you what it is like. If he should do anything of the kind the beadle takes him and puts him out of doors, and then the policeman takes him and puts him indoors, and he is punished for his atrocious conduct; and yet you expect me to tell you about this church, whose pillars are the mountains, whose roof is the heaven itself, whose music comes from the harp-strings which the earth has laid over her bosom, which we call pine-trees; and from which the hand of the Unseen draws forth a ceaseless symphony rolling ever around the world.

MY SHIPMATES.

(FROM THE GREAT LONE LAND.")

A trip across the Atlantic is now-a-days a very ordinary business; in fact, it is no longer a voyage-it is a run, you may almost count its duration to within four hours; and as for fine weather, blue skies, and calm seas, if they come, you may be thankful for them, but don't expect them, and you won't add a sense of disappointment to one of discomfort. Some experience of the Atlantic enables me to affirm that north or south of 35° north and

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