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Vol. IX.—No. 22.
THE CATIOLIC NERALD. .
IS PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY BY
M. FPITHIAN,
No. 61 North Second Street, Philadelphia.
Terms.—Three Dollars per annum, payable half yearly
tn advance. Five Dollars will be received for 2 copies, or 1
copy for two years. All arrearages must be settled prior to
ordering a paper to he discontinued: © All Communications,
except from Agents, or Subscribers enclosing remittances,
must be post paid, and addressed ‘To the Editor of the
Catholic Herald, Philadelphia, Pa.”
DPoctryp.
For the Catholic Herald.
GIVE PRAISE TO GOD.
Give praise to God! A heart-felt praise
To Him, who rules avove;
Ilis pure, unerring holy. ways,
Are full of peace and love.
Give praise to God with’all our hearts, .
Raise high the bymn of joy ; .
‘The rapture which His grace imparts,
Is free from all, alloys .
Give praise to God! . Let mind and soul,
The tumbte an:hem swell ;
And ceaseless let the tribute roll,
Our grateful thanks to tell. a
Give praisé to God! Letall unite,
His wond'rous ways toring,"
Who reigns supreme ’mid regions bright,
Creation's Lord and King.
Philadelphia, May, 1841. NIK
Although the month of May is now past, and, therefore,
the following extract’ from the London Yabl.t, of the 4th
ult, may seem a little out of time, it will not be regarded
by any of our readers as out of place, |
‘This day is the first of May; the. beginning of a
month dear to us from nature ; from poetry, which has
its foundation in nature ;_and from religion, the utter-
ance of which is poetry. Dear to us all is the month
of May; the softest. and most delicious season of
spring ; the time of the bursting forth of flowers and
blossoms 3 the time when is covered up beneath a rich
vesture the naked desolation of winter; the time when
a new life runs through all:nature, animate: and inani-
mate, when the body is stirred with a fresh youth, and
the mind receives a new impulse, and hope descends
to us from heaven to gladden and to cheer. .
Dear is the month of May to all the lovers of poetry,
and of those ancient poets by, whom. its praises have
been sting., Dear especially to the lovers of our ‘old
Catholie bard, Chaucer, who sings of this month, with
all the unrestrained enthusiasm and. overflowing joy-
ousness aud affection of childhood :—
“ Audas for me, though that I know but lite,
On bookes for to read I me delight, |’
And to them give I faith and full ‘credence, *
“ And in mine beart have them in reverence
So heartily, that there is game none
‘That from my bookes maketh me to gone,
But it be seldom on the holy day ; .
Suve certainly when that the month of May
Js comen, and I hear the jowles sing,
‘And that the flowres 'ginnen for to spring—.
Farewell my book and my devotion.”
But dear above all is this holy month to those who
imbibe the spirit of the church, which has dedicated it
to our Blessed Lady ; those who to the love of nature,
throngh which Goa speaks to us of Hope, and to the
love of poetry, by which He lifis ts above the base-
ness of worldly life, and the love of Mary, through
whom THe hath sent down to us the [Tope of immorta-
lity, and of whom He made Himself the Son ‘that we
might no longer lie down embruted in a sordid iniqui-
ty. Well indeed did the church dedicate the month of
hope to her who is the Mother of Hope; the month of
renovation to her who is the Mother of our renewing ;
iladelphia, Thursday, June 3, 1841.
the month of budding and unrifled blossoms and fresh
untainted verdure, to her who is the Flower of Virgins
and the’ Mother of Pority. » Well, indeed, did the
church onsecrate this month with a new and holier
beauty ; a beauty which speaks to all, learned and un-
learned, citizen and rustic ;;which touches the heart of
the devout poor man, dwelling in pent-up and noisome
cities more deeply than the power of nature and the
reverence for books can touch the heart of him to whom
the love of Mary is unknown. .
Listen fora moment how all true poets, to whom
the month of May bas been dear, have delighted to
dwell upon the praises of her whom all generations
shall call blessed. [lear Wordsworth, how beautiful-
ly he speaks of her, though-the natural current of his
own thoughts is chilled by the coldness of an imper-
feet faith ; and he, too, evidently yearns after practices
which he fondly believes to be unlawful :—
“ Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
Without the least shade of thought so si allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
Purer than foum on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at day-treak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast:
Thy Image fa!ls to earth. Yet some I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
‘As toa visible power, in whieh did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Gf Mother's love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!
Tear Chaucer, singing with a more entire devotion,
and giving utterance to feelings in the grouncs of
which he has a most assured confidence.
M
“Thou maid and mother, daughter of thy sen,
Thou well of mercy, sinful soules eure,
In whom that Gad of bounty chosé to won ;*
Thou humble and high over every creature,
Thou ovbledst so far forth our nature,
That no disdain the maker bad of kind,
His Son in blood and flesh to cluthe and wind.
“ Within the cloister blissful of thy sides
Took mannes shape the Eternal Love and Peace,
‘That of the Trine compass Lord and Guide is,
Whom earth and sea and heaven ont of release,
Aye herein ;t and thou virgin wemmelese}
Bure of thy body (and dwellest maiden jure)
"The Creator of every Creature.
“ Assembled in thee magnificence,
With mercy, goodness, and with such pity,
‘That thou that art the sum of excellence,
Not only helpest them that praisen ther
But often time of thy benignily
Full freely, e’en thatmen thine help beseech,
Thou goest before, and art their lives leech.”
PROTESTANT TRAVELLERS IN CATIIOLIC
‘ COUNTRIES.
The following is part of a crifique, from the Tublet, on a
new work by Mr. Emerson, Tennent, M.'P., for Belfast,
who has been lately in Belgium, and has just favoured the
world with a notice of the important event, in the shape of
an octavo volume, entitled, ¢ Belgium, and the Belgians.’
We have already adverted to the singular gosd taste
which impelled Mr, ‘Tennent, when composing a book
for the instruction of Irishmen, to indulge in, sneers_ at
their religion, It would not be quite fair in us to con-
clude without adducing some passages in corroboration
of our remarks, the circulation of mischievous observa-
tions by a Catholic journal not being one of the main
objects of his publication. «In the description ,of the
cathedral at St. Bavo, in Ghent, we find the following
sentences :— -, . . Ge
Round. the altar are also some tombs of the former
prelates of Ghent, amongst which, that by Duquesnoy
of the Bishop Triest, is regarded as the finest piece of
sculpture inthe Netherlands, ‘The mitred dignitaries
* Won; dwell. + Herein; worship, — $ Wemmeless; stainiess.
Whole Number 438,
each repose upon his sculptured, sarcophagus, or knee
with clasped and upraised hands : .
*Sceming to say the prayer when dead,
_ That, living, they had never said.’ .
This citation has the meritof being gratuitous... Mr.
Tennent cannot see the effigy of a Catholic Bishop
without accusing all defunct Catliolic Bishops of hav-
ing abstained from prayer. Setting aside all reflections
concerning that tolerance and charity which Protestants
assume to be proper) to themselves, we’ woul ask,
whether Kselgium is the country to suggest such an ac-
cusation ?, It would be incorrect to state that the mo-
ral condition of a people may be gathered from the mo-
rality of ils clergy : but we apprehend that the morality
of its clergy may be salely inferred from the morality
ofa people. .A'clergy may be pious and the people be
fidels; but, assuredly, a pious people will never to-
lerate a clergy thatis impious, either dogmatically, or
practically. Standing in one of the noblest monuments
of human piety ever reared, in a country in which the
abundance of such monuments cannot fail to surprise
the stranger, and gazing upon the sepulchres of-several
prelates whose throne was in that cathedral, Mr. Ten-
nent was led to the conclusion that they were all ‘pre-
tenders to devotion. The Belgians who raised these
edifices, and who erected memorials of these prelates,
were men signally impatient of misrule; they were the
most enterprising men of their age,——for their. means,
as intelligent as the men of any age; they were dis-
tinguished for morality and social virtue ; they were
remarkable for chastising the insolence of tyrants 5 and
the genuineness and fervour of their religious feelings
are not impugned even by the member for Belfast; yet,
according to him, the chief dignitaries of their ebureh
were hypocrites. A brave army is not wont to submit
to the command of a coward ; the citizens of London
do not nominate insolvents to the magistracy; and as
liule is it likely that the pious and upright men to whow
Belgium is indebted for’ the sublime churches with
which it is filled, permitted them.to be polluted by the
presence and ministry of the vilest of all hypocrites,
the priest that simolates piety. ‘To charge a clergy-
man of any church with hypocrisy, save on goo
grounds, is as vile an act es to slander a woman, and so
Mr. Tennent would say were the clergyman an Angli-
can; but let him be a Catholic, and death itself shall
not protect him from calumny. © Mr. ‘Tennent’s hatred
of Catholie prelates is indeed comprehensive; ' where he
is powerless to injure.the living, he descends to the
tomb to outrage the dead. When the severity of win-
termakes wolves rabid with hunger, they are said to
emerge from the forest, and to rifle the churchyard of
newly interred bodies; Mr. Tennent’s bulimy exceeds '
even this; he can feast on a skeleton. :
The next and last passage to which we- shall draw”
attention, is well worthy of notice, for it proves Mr.
Tennent to be as bitter an enemy of his religious friends
as he has been shown to be of his political associates.
The honourable gentleman is in the church of St. Paul
at Antwerp:
‘The congregation was assembled for vespers when
we entered the church of the Augustines, to sce Ru-
bens’ picture of ‘Phe Marriage of St. Catherine.’ It
is quite opposed to all our Protestant feelings of the
decorum and reverence due to the solemnity of public
worship, to see the indifference, and almost rudeness
with which the valets-ce-place conduct their parties of
sight-seers around a church, regardless of its most im~
pressive ceremonies, brushing past the altar in the fult
blaze of its panoply, and disturbing the devotions of all
who may interrupt their view of a picture. It was al~
most painful to listen to the ‘cant of eriticism,” amidst
the chanting of anthems, clouds of incense, and the so-~
Jemn pealings of the organ, but it appeared to excite
no such feeling in those around us.» Withus, however,
in England, the outward solemnity of public worship
is increased by the impression that it is the fervent anc
simultaneous outpouring of the hearts of a whole mul-
titude ; whilstin the Catholic churches, except the
few minutes occupied in the repetition of the mass, the
act of worship is individual and apart, and performed
almest by rote, at any hour of the day, from sunrise to
evening. The parties, whom I shrunk from intetrupt
ing,-as we slinped past their liule prie dieu ‘chair,
seemed to feel noching whatever at the inirasion, but