THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1900

We leave Montreal in a great downpour of rain—a perfect deluge. In spite of the rain, there are many gathered on the pier to see us off. There is mutual waving of handkerchiefs, and exchange of farewells. The rain descends in torrents, type and token of God's manifold blessings, so at least we pilgrims are fain to look upon it. As our ship frees herself from her moorings, and glides into the stream, one fond pilgrim is overheard remarking that Montreal is weeping over our departure. And such copious tears as they are, too!

Last evening at eight, we all met at the Cathedral, St. James's, to assist at Pontifical Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The great church, modelled on St. Peter's at Rome—one-half of its length and one-eighth of its cubic contents—was thronged. The Archbishop gave the Benediction, and afterwards from his throne addressed the pilgrims in French. He looked every inch of him a Bishop, and spoke with great dignity and sweetness, in a rich, clear voice. He seems well fitted to rule the Church of God in Mary's City—the great Catholic city of Montreal, which, with its grand churches, its splendid educational and charitable institutions, makes the pilgrim prouder of his Faith and of his country.

We reach Quebec at 7 p.m. Carriages—cabs, caleches, and vehicles of all sorts—are in readiness to convey the pilgrim party to the Chapel of the Ursulines. Here for the first time in Canada Mass was offered in honour of the Sacred Heart. The Ursulines of Quebec were founded by the Blessed Mary of the Incarnation—the first religious foundation in Canada. They are a cloistered Order. From behind their gratings the nuns sing, in their sweet voices, the Benediction Service, which is preceded by a stirring address in French to the pilgrims. At nine we are back on board. There are ringing cheers from the shore, and hearty cries of bon voyage. On the ship, many of the pilgrims join in singing a French chanson, with its lively chorus, "Bon soir, mes amis, bon soir!" Scarcely has the last note died away when the ship's bugler breaks out in the familiar strains of Auld Lang Syne. We slip our moorings, and are off.

Down the river we glide swiftly in the stillness of the night. On either bank is a fine stretch of fertile land studded with picturesque villages, and dotted with the houses of les habitants. Now it lies as if asleep, wrapped in the mantle of night. We see but in shadowy outline the Laurentian hills, rising out of the darkness. What a majestic river is this St. Lawrence! There is nothing like it in America—in all the wide world. The scenery on the Hudson is very picturesque in places, and somewhat more varied, perhaps. But one misses there the fine expanse of open country, with its setting of mountains, and the river itself lacks the breadth and grandeur of the St. Lawrence.

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PENTECOST SUNDAY, JUNE 3.

Nine or ten pilgrims have joined us at Quebec. We are now ninety-two in all, including twenty-three priests. There is also another priest on board, who is not a pilgrim. It is the feast of Pentecost, and all the priests say Mass. There are Masses all the morning at two altars—such altars as men hastily improvise on board ship—from 4.30 to 10. The space between decks, forward of the saloon, has been turned into a chapel. Around about most of the pilgrims have their staterooms. At the seven o'clock Mass, celebrated by Father Pichon, S.J., director of the French section of the pilgrimage, the Veni Creator is sung with fine effect. Some of these French Canadian priests and several of the lay pilgrims, too, have splendid voices, trained in the music of the Church.

In the afternoon we assemble in our chapel to sing the vespers of the day. Several of the lay pilgrims, men and women, lend their voices, and the ship resounds with the strains of the divine psalmody, the Veni Creator, and the Magnificat. What fine voices these French Canadians have, and how well they know the chant of the Church! Even the lay pilgrims sing the psalms and hymns in Latin, recite with us the Litany of Loreto in Latin, and seem to understand every word of what they sing or say.

In the evening at eight there is service in English. We sing two hymns:—Nearer My God to Thee, and, Come Holy Ghost. Many of the French priests and lay pilgrims join us in singing. Father Kavanagh, S.J., director of the English-speaking pilgrims, gives an instruction on the mission and work of the Holy Ghost. This is followed by the Rosary in English, and Night Prayers in French. Every day we say the Rosary together, in French at 3.30 p.m., and in English at 8.30. Every day, too, hymns are sung to our Blessed Lady, the Ave Maris Stella and her own canticle of the Magnificat being our favourites.

All day long we steam down the St. Lawrence, hugging the southern bank. Early in the afternoon, the mountains of St. Anne are seen in the distance. They rise to a height of from two to three thousand feet, back of the hills that border on the river. Their summits and shoulders are white with snow. It forms a pleasing contrast to the blue of the river, and the green of the fields that lie at their feet. By this time all trace of tears has been wiped away from the face of the June sky, which smiles benignantly upon us. It is glorious weather.

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MONDAY, JUNE 4.

We have passed Gaspe, and are in the Gulf. To the south, Bird Rock is dimly seen. Our passenger list—already a long one—has received an addition during the night. Two birds, the smaller a sparrow, boarded the ship, most likely before we were yet fairly away from land. They are objects of much interest to their fellow-passengers. The larger bird, which the sailors take to be "a howl" (as one of them expresses it), proves, on closer and more careful scrutiny, to be a hawk. Jack-tar is not an ornithologist. His acquaintance with the feathery tribe seems to be confined to a few aquatic birds, such as seagulls and Mother Carey's chickens. As for land birds, it is probable that he doesn't even "know a hawk from a handsaw," much less from "a howl."

The presence of the birds on board gives rise to not a little speculation. Why hath the sparrow left its cosy nest and the hawk its home on the dry land, to roam over this waste of waters? Some say that the birds are stealing a free passage to Newfoundland. Others, sagely taking into account how ill-assorted the pair are, reach a more likely solution of the puzzling problem. The hawk, they say, sallied forth in the early dawn to find itself a breakfast. The sparrow was already abroad on similar mission bent. Chased by the pirate of the air, and having a natural dislike to become food for its hungry pursuer, instead of getting something to appease its own hunger, it sought refuge on the passing ship, closely followed by its foe. As we near the coast of Newfoundland the birds leave us and fly landward. But whether the smaller was inside the larger bird, when land was reached, is still matter for speculation to the other passengers of the Vancouver.

By 10.30 a.m. we are abreast of Cape Ray. As we steam by Channel, otherwise known as Port Basque, we descry the massive hulk of the Elder-Dempster liner, Montpellier, wrecked here some weeks ago. Even the good ship Vancouver might be cast away on these cruel rocks, as was her sister ship, the Chicago, on the rocks of Kinsale. This is the thought that comes to one's mind as one gazes on the stranded ship. But the smiling June sky, radiant with sunshine, chases it quickly away, and we breathe a prayer to the heart of Him who rules the wind and the waves.

We are now fairly at sea, and our ship has made her first bow to the Atlantic rollers. This token of homage old Neptune claims, nay compels, from every ship that presses upon his bosom and feels the throbbing of his mighty heart. And full many a one of those who go down to the sea in ships, is, in like manner, made to pay tribute, and never a one but grudges the payment. But the theme is too painful to dwell upon.

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TUESDAY, JUNE 5.

A little before noon Cape Race is on our larboard quarter, and in an hour or two more we catch our last glimpse of Terra Nova. The weather is still fine, and the sea comparatively smooth. At 9 p.m. a large number of the passengers gather in the saloon to hear a lecture on the causes that led to the war in South Africa. The lecture is by the Rev. Mr. Philips, an Anglican minister, who has spent seven years as missionary among the blacks and half-breeds of the Transvaal. He arraigns the Boer Government severely for its treatment of the natives. The truth of what he says is confirmed by Father Kavanagh, in seconding the motion for a vote of thanks at the close of the lecture. He remembers quite well when a boy at Stonyhurst hearing the Jesuit Fathers, returned from South Africa, recount what they saw and heard of the oppression of subject races by the Boers. "The tale they then told," he says, "has been retold here to-night." Precisely at 11 o'clock the sound of the whistle warns us that we have at last run into the inevitable fog. The dismal tooting is kept up at intervals of one or two minutes during the rest of the night.

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6.

A good deal of motion in the ship; fewer passengers at the breakfast table. Still Masses are celebrated from 5.30 to 8, and several of the priests and lay pilgrims receive Holy Communion. In the afternoon, fogs again steal upon us. They gather around our ship, these mists of the mighty Atlantic, and envelop her as with a shroud. They come and go at intervals during the afternoon, forcing us to slow down and at times come to a standstill, so great is the danger of collision with an iceberg or an incoming ship. There is nothing for it but to wait for the fog to lift with such patience as one can command. We pace the deck, or withdraw to our staterooms and there listen idly to the murmur of the waves as they beat against the ship, or brood on the mystery of the sobbing sea.

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THURSDAY, JUNE 7.

From noon yesterday till noon to-day we have covered 316 nautical miles, and are now a little more than half way across from Quebec to Liverpool. The log reads at noon: Day, 7; lat., 30.06 N.; long., 38.36; distance run, 316 miles. Remarks: Moderate winds, choppy sea. The reader will please bear in mind that this is from a ship's log, and that the "remarks" are to be understood in a strictly nautical sense. These "moderate" winds of ours would pass on shore for something between a very stiff breeze and a moderate gale. And as for "choppy" seas, the Atlantic is not exactly a pond, though sometimes irreverently described as such by the fellow who has never crossed it, and this choppy sea makes our big ship reel and tumble about like a man slightly more than "half seas over." There is a deal of sickness in consequence. Some are unable to leave their beds. Others manage to crawl on deck, but only to lie there in chairs, silent and sullen, or mope about with a most woe-begone appearance. Even your genial rover of the seas, who has been across a score of times and assures you that he is not the least bit sick, is not half so gay and talkative as he was yesterday and the day before. You see there are degrees and stages of seasickness, and one passes through a great variety of less or more painful experiences before the last stage is reached. Over that final act of the nautical drama (which to the heartless onlooker is too often comedy, but to the chief actor, or rather sufferer, is in the last degree tragic) we willingly let the curtain fall. Many drink sea-water, glass after glass of it, and believe that it relieves them, or keeps them from falling sick, as the case may be. I fancy I can hear some one say as he reads this that the remedy is worse than the disease. But I am quite sure that the one who says so has never been seasick—perhaps never been to sea—in his life.

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FRIDAY, JUNE 8.

This morning, in spite of the rolling of the ship, Masses were said and several of the pilgrims received Holy Communion. There are but few English pilgrims; including cleric and lay, not more than a dozen out of the ninety-two. I say English rather than English-speaking, and in contradistinction to French, as many of the French pilgrims speak English fluently.

There is little to break the monotony of a sea voyage. One day is just like another. You wake in the morning, rise, go through the same little round, turn in at night. Each day you seem to be just where you were the day before. The same voices call out to you "from the vasty deep." The same sea-waves lift their crested heads, shake their flowing manes, and sport and gambol in all the wild abandon of their unbridled freedom. And your vision is ever bounded by the same narrow horizon. Anything is welcome that breaks this sameness, the passing ship, or even the seagull that wings its way over the water. We have met few ships. The smoke of a steamer—of two of them, indeed,—was descried yesterday morning, and about sundown a big ship under shortened sail was seen beating her way to windward.

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SATURDAY, JUNE 9.

One pilgrim, who has been well enough up till now, is so squeamish to-day that he dare not write even half a dozen lines for fear of consequences. This "leaf," therefore, is all but blank.

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TRINITY SUNDAY, JUNE 10.

The sea still runs "choppy." It has been our worst night since we came on board—"rocked in the cradle of the deep," but with no gentle hand. The rocking continues this morning, and Mass is said by Father Pichon and one or two other priests under considerable difficulties. In the afternoon vespers are sung in the saloon, and in the evening, after the Rosary, there is a sermon in English by the Rev. Father Sloan, Pastor of Fallowfield, in the diocese of Ottawa. This is a very distressing day to many of the passengers. There is longing for the repose of smooth waters, and from four in the afternoon eager eyes are scanning the distant horizon, in front of us, for a sight of land. At six it is sighted—a vast rock in the form of a cathedral, known as the "Skelligs," and by ten we are steering straight for the Fastnet Light which flashes its welcome rays upon us at intervals of a few seconds. The anger of ocean is fast subsiding, the stars are out, and the Irish moon looks down upon us from a cloudless sky. It is the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, and to-night, as in all the nights since His creative hand hung those orbs in space, "The heavens proclaim His glory, and the firmament of heaven shows forth the work of His hands."

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MONDAY, JUNE 11.

I have spoken of Masses said under difficulties. There are difficulties and difficulties. While I was serving Father Kavanagh's Mass at 8 o'clock this morning, voices pitched in a high key came from a stateroom hard by. This is what the voices said—needless to say the owners were neither pilgrims nor of the household of the faith:

Male voice: "Open the porthole."

Female voice, from an adjoining stateroom, shrill, as if in anger: "Do you command? Are you 'boss'?" (The bedroom steward alone may open the porthole).

Male voice: "Mine is open."

Female voice (sarcastically): "Don't fall through."

We are now in St. George's Channel. On our right, but not in view, is the coast of Wales. On our left the coast of Ireland is plainly visible. With a pair of glasses we can see cottages, churches, and the green, green fields of Erin. We shall be in Liverpool about ten o'clock to-night. There I will mail this batch of "leaves" which have at least the merit of continuity. Others to follow will necessarily be scattered and disconnected—stray leaves blown about by every wind of travel.

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PARIS, MONDAY, JUNE 18.

We reached Liverpool a week ago to-day. It was about ten a.m. when we entered the Mersey, having been detained by fog for some time at the mouth of the river. The famous docks of the city, stretching for six miles on the left bank of the Mersey, as you enter, were lighted with electricity, presenting a brilliant spectacle. At ten the next morning we were on our way to London by the Great Western R.R., which runs through some of the finest parts of England. Rural England, at least what we have seen of it, is highly cultivated and very beautiful. The country traversed by the Great Western trains, from Liverpool to London, is one vast park—great grassy plains on either hand, with here a river, and there occasionally a mountain, and everywhere rows of trim hedges and the majestic oaks of Old England. We pass through smoky Birmingham, and from the railway catch a glimpse of the twin towers of Christ's Church, Oxford, both places fraught with reminders of the illustrious Cardinal Newman.

In London, we stay for the greater part of three days. Our hotel is hard by Westminster Abbey. We visit the famous abbey more than once, and each time with mingled feelings of admiration and sadness—admiration for the noble temple itself, and sadness for the change that has come over it, and the uses to which it is put. The hour is half-past ten in the morning and the Canons of Westminster are chanting their office. Decorous and sweet is the music of their voices, but it grates upon the ear as one thinks of those old monks of St. Benedict, who so often here offered the Holy Sacrifice, and made the vast edifice resound with far other and more solemn music in the centuries long gone by. Here rest the sainted bones of Edward the Confessor, in the magnificent shrine prepared for them by the founder of the abbey, Henry III, in the thirteenth century. Yonder is the tomb of the ruthless Cromwell, and a few steps beyond it, Charles Darwin, naturalist and agnostic, lies in death. Over against the monument of the martyred Mary Queen of Scots, rises that of her royal cousin and murderess, Elizabeth. The place is full of these painful contrasts, though fragrant still with memories of its glorious past—a past which, however, bids fair to renew itself, at least in a measure, for England and her people. Is it not a token of this "second spring" that the Faith which built Westminster Abbey, and which people once fondly thought was dead and buried in England, past all hope of resurrection, is now building an even more spacious temple to the Most High, not many hundred yards from the historic abbey, the new Catholic cathedral of Westminster.

Back of what was once the high altar of the old abbey is the Coronation Chair, with, beneath it, the historic Stone of Scone, on which the Scottish Kings used to be crowned for long ages before the days of Bruce. Now the monarchs of England sit in the chair on the day of their coronation. Queen Victoria sat in it twice, once when the diadem of the greatest empire of the earth was placed on her girlish brow—she was still in her teens—and a second time, sixty years after, on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. One other, more youthful, but of low degree, sat in the royal chair since—aye, and slept in it too, so our guide tells us. A boy from the neighbouring schools was dared by his mates to spend a night alone with the bones of the mighty dead, and the ghosts of the Royal Chapel. He did so, slept in the Coronation Chair, and boylike cut his name and the record of his nocturnal exploit in the wood on which Royalty has been enthroned since the days of the First Edward. Many are the sights of London. But we pilgrims are not sightseers, though of course we do not travel with our eyes closed. During the two or three days that we were in London, several places of historic interest were visited, among others the famous Tower. As for myself, I went not much about, having spent in all six days in London on the two former occasions that I was in the city. I paid a visit to an old classmate of mine in the Propaganda, who is now Canon Gildea, rector of St. James's, in Spanish Place. From him I learned that there are altogether about one hundred Catholic churches in London, most of them somewhat small of size, and that they are so situated that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered up every Sunday within ten minutes' walk of any Catholic home in the vast city. On the Feast of Corpus Christi I assisted at the Solemn High Mass and Procession of the Blessed Sacrament in the Brompton Oratory. The church of the Oratory is easily the finest Catholic church in London. It is modelled on the great church of St. Philip, in Rome, and is distinctly Roman in every detail. Here Newman preached those thrilling sermons which drew Thackeray away from his novel writing and Macaulay from some favourite haunt in the literary circles of the city. The echoes of that wondrous voice seem still to linger in the place. Newman's figure in white marble, larger than life, fronting the street that runs by the Oratory, arrests the steps of many a passer-by.

Between England and France, the distance is not great, if you reckon it in miles, but it is leagues and leagues if you measure it by differences of race and national characteristics. The English Channel, with its swift tide and fretful sea, severs two entirely different peoples. We cross from Folkestone to Boulogne-sur-Mer. Boulogne is a quaint old-world town, and a favourite resort of tourists. We make but a short stay, and push on to Paris. Our way lies through an undulating country, well-wooded and well-watered, with here and there a great stretch of pasture-land, where flocks of sheep are grazing and shepherds with their dogs are keeping watch. This part of France does not appear to be as highly cultivated as are the parts of England that we have seen; but the scenery is more diversified. By ten o'clock at night the electric light on the summit of the Eiffel Tower is visible afar, and we know that we are nearing Paris.

We arrived in Paris last Friday night. We leave it next Wednesday morning. What shall I say of the City on the Seine, the gay and brilliant capital of France? I will say frankly that I don't like it—that I would rather live in London with its dullness and fog, than live in Paris with its gaiety and sunshine. Why? Well, perhaps because I am dull myself, at least in the sense of not being gay—certainly not because I love the fog, for I do dearly love the blue sky and the light of the blessed sun. Perhaps, again, it is because I don't understand the French tongue or French ways as I understand the English tongue and English ways. But most of all, I think, what I dislike about Paris is its godlessness. The evidences of it are on every hand. The Londoner has at least the good sense to hide his irreligion, if he is irreligious. At any rate, he does not wear the badge of his irreligion in the streets. The Parisian, who is irreligious, parades his irreligion and seems to glory in his shame. I have seen less of London than of Paris—too little of either, indeed, to enable me to form a just idea of their condition. But certainly the latter city seems to be the more godless of the two.

Religion there is in Paris, and piety, too, much more of it, I have no doubt at all, than there is in the city on the Thames. But it hides itself in church and home; the stranger in the streets sees little of it. Take the matter of Sunday observance. Public opinion and the law in London make people respect, at least outwardly, the Lord's Day; public opinion and the law in Paris make people do the very opposite, at least as far as the force of custom and example and the spur of business rivalry can bring this effect about. Last Sunday in Paris almost all the shops were open, and people went about their work as on an ordinary week day. Paris does not keep the Sunday, though many Parisians doubtless do. Is there no warrant for the inference that Paris has ceased to be Christian?

This is a land of contrasts, and Paris is emphatically a city of contrasts. Piety and godlessness, virtue and vice, are here more sharply contrasted than in any other city on earth. "If the devil reigns in Paris, God is, perhaps, better served there than anywhere else; good and evil alike find their supreme expression; 'tis Babylon and Jerusalem both."

In the grand churches dwells the deepest piety; godlessness is rampant without. We are in Notre Dame Sunday, during the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament. What a splendid spectacle! The music how heavenly! Boys with angel voices make the stately edifice ring with the grand old chant of the Church. Troops of boys and girls, the boys with lighted torches in their hands, the girls clothed in spotless white and bearing great bunches of roses which shed their fragrance far, march in the long procession. At the end, the Eucharistic Lord, from His throne over the high altar, blesses the assembled multitude. It is all so solemn and so soulstirring. We pass out from the church, deeply moved. The street is almost blocked with worldly traffic, and men—two soldiers and two civilians—are playing cards under the very shadow of Notre Dame.

Sunday morning, the pilgrims went in a body to Montmartre—the priests to say Mass, the lay pilgrims to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion. The basilica which the piety of Catholic France has erected to the Sacred Heart on Montmartre is truly a splendid structure. Built on a lofty eminence, it dominates the city which seems to lie quite at one's feet. Five thousand boys from the seminaries of France received Holy Communion at Montmartre that morning. As one watched tier after tier of them at the high altar eat of the Bread of Life, with every mark of piety and devotion, one felt that there was hope for the future of the Church in France. And yet at least to human seeming, how gloomy is the outlook! One of the lay pilgrims, a very devout French-Canadian, told me after we left Montmartre that morning of a talk he had with a Parisian matron the day before. She had two children—the regulation number, for in France, as statistics show, the deaths all but exceed the births. She sent them to Mass, she said, though she did not go herself, remarking that no harm would come of their going. She sent them to the godless State school, because they would not get on so well in the world, she thought, if they went to the Christian Brothers' school. There is reason to fear that many of the mothers of France are to-day like this Parisian dame—solicitous about the things of this world, and neither knowing nor caring for the things that are above.

At dinner, in the restaurant at Boulogne on Friday, only meat was served. We asked for fish, but could get none. At lunch, in our own hotel here at Paris the same evening, again no fish. True, the railway restaurant at Boulogne and the hotel at Paris cater to the travelling public. But do not the French themselves travel? And if, in travelling, they eat fish on Friday, will not fish be forthcoming when asked for? I have said that Paris does not keep the Sunday—at least the Sunday rest; I fear that France does not keep Friday, or keeps it but very indifferently. I speak as one less wise and under correction. But putting this and that together, I cannot but conclude that there is a dreadful decay of faith in France. It does not seem possible that the France of the Catholic Missions, the France of our Lady of Lourdes, will be lost to the Church. But if she is to be saved to God and Church, it will be so as by fire. Another chastisement, cutting deeper into the nation's life than that of 1870, must first bring to her knees, and to the very dust in penance, the Eldest Daughter of the Church.

I am at the end of my chapter, and not a word about the Exposition. I have visited the grounds but once, and then viewed them from the Eiffel Tower, midway to the top. The buildings, which stand on both banks of the Seine, are certainly very grand. They seem to be more spacious, upon the whole, than were those of the Chicago Exposition. But they do not stand by themselves and apart, as was the case in Chicago; you do not get one impression of them, so to say; nor is the sight so beautiful as was that of the White City on the shores of Lake Michigan. The view to be had from the Ferris Wheel at Chicago was, I think, finer than that which you get to-day from the Eiffel Tower at Paris. I am speaking only of what is to be seen of the Exposition from without. But what of the Paris Fair from within? That you must learn, if at all, from some one else. I paid but a flying visit to one of the buildings, and saw a variety of things of which I have now but a very confused notion. I have no faculty for seeing things, as your enthusiastic sightseer has, and can find no sort of pleasure in the process. To me it is all a weariness of spirit—and a weariness of the flesh into the bargain. Non satiatur oculus videndo, says the Wise Man—the eye is not sated with seeing. To which one may add, in view of the special circumstances of the case, sed fatigatur corpus ambulando—but the body is fatigued with walking.

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GENEVA, SUNDAY, JUNE 24, 1900.

We left Paris last Wednesday morning, and arrived at Paray le Monial a little before six in the afternoon. All day we traversed a land of great fertility, rich in grain fields, for the most part open and level, in places picturesque. The season here is at least six weeks earlier than at home. Already the grain is ripe or fast ripening in the fields, and the people are busily at work making their hay and gathering in the harvest.

Paray le Monial is situated on the banks of a small stream, in the Department of Loire-et-Saone, in the very heart of France. It is a town of not more than 4,000 inhabitants, quiet with the quietude of all country places, quaint with the quaintness of almost all of the old-world towns. No smoke of factories darkens its sky, no sound of worldly traffic is heard in its streets. You hear instead the song of birds in the morning, the pealing of bells, and all day long the pilgrim's hymn. A deep peace, a sweet and restful tranquility, broods on the place which the Prince of Peace, the Lord of the Sacred Heart, has chosen for His sanctuary.

The Chapel of the Sacred Heart, attached to the Convent of the Visitation, must seem commonplace enough to the ordinary traveller. It is small of size, and, as seen from without, very plain, very unpretentious. Within is a wealth of votive offerings from every land. Consecrated banners, wrought in silk and gold and richly embroidered, are ranged around the walls, and the light of many lamps falls upon the high altar where Our Blessed Lord revealed His heart to the lowly Visitandine, and whence He still dispenses His grace.

All day Thursday and far into the night pilgrims keep pouring in from all parts. All night long the Chapel is open, and the stream of incoming and outgoing pilgrims is as the flow and ebb of a mighty sea. At two in the morning of Friday, Feast of the Sacred Heart, the Masses begin. They continue at all of the eight altars until ten, at most of them until twelve, yet not one-third of the priests in Paray le Monial with the great International Pilgrimage can say Mass this day in the sanctuary of the Sacred Heart. They must needs go elsewhere, to the basilica, to other churches or chapels.

At ten o'clock Solemn High Mass is celebrated in the basilica, the Vicar-General of Paris being the celebrant. The Bishop of Autun, Cardinal Perraud, occupies the throne on the gospel side, for Paray le Monial is in his jurisdiction. In the sanctuary are several prelates and dignitaries, among others Arch-bishop Corrigan of New York, and as many priests as can find standing room. The church is literally packed with pilgrims, yet many thousands have been unable to gain entrance. In the nave, directly in front of the main altar, are ranged the banners of the various pilgrimages, some thirty or forty in all—I cannot give the exact number. Hither they have been borne by pilgrim bands from all quarters of the globe, from many countries of Europe, from Asia, from Africa, from America, North and South, and from the islands of the far Pacific Ocean. Conspicuous among them is our own Canadian banner, with its almost life-size image of Our Lord revealing His Sacred Heart in the centre, and ranged along the borders the heroic founders of the Church in Canada, Laval, Champlain, Maisonneuve, Breboeuf, Mary of the Incarnation, Marguerite Bourgeois, and the foundress of the Ursulines of Quebec. A little beyond is unfurled another American banner, which proudly claims a place here to-day by a right peculiarly its own. It is the banner of Catholic Ecuador, the Republic of the Sacred Heart. Inscribed on it, in letters of gold, which first were written in blood, are the words of the martyred President, Garcia Moreno, as he fell by the hand of the assassin, Iddios ne meure—God dies not. At the Credo all are on their feet, and the priests in the sanctuary and in all parts of the basilica pilgrim voices from many lands sing in unison the time-honoured Confession of the Faith "once delivered to the saints"—in the chant of the Church and in the language of the Church, the Creed of the Church Catholic and Apostolic. It is a most impressive and most solemn scene, one never to be forgotten.

Thursday night the pilgrims made the Way of the Cross by torchlight in the great garden adjoining the basilica. The garden itself was brilliant with lights, and at each station the arch-priest attached to the basilica delivered a discourse in French, of some five or ten minutes. In the intervals between stations the vast multitude joined in singing the hymn of Catholic France, with its pleading refrain, Sauvez, Sauvez la France. On the afternoon of Friday the basilica was again packed to hear the sermon of Father Couper, one of the first preachers of France, and to assist at the International Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart. It was indeed a red-letter day in the City of the Sacred Heart. From earliest dawn the streets were lined with pilgrims in picturesque costumes and gay with banners, the Papal colours and the banner of the Sacred Heart ever holding the place of honour. As the sun went down and darkness fell upon the scene, the celebration was brought to a close by a great torchlight procession through the streets.

That night, in the hotel of the Sacred Heart hard by the Chapel of the Visitation, the Canadian pilgrims were introduced to General Charette, sometime leader of the Pontifical Zouaves, and Admiral Cuverville, of the French Navy. Both made short speeches brimful of Gallic fire, and of loyalty to the Sacred Heart and to Holy Mother Church. O that France had many such high-souled, God-fearing men among her leaders and councillors!

There were many pilgrimages at Paray le Monial, and many people represented there. But it is quite safe to say that the pilgrimage which represented the Catholics of Canada cut the greatest figure and claimed the greatest share of attention. This it owed not to its numbers; numerically it was one of the smallest. Nor was it the rank or dignity of its members that won it a foremost place: it was made up of plain priests and humble lay people, many of them from the remote rural districts of the Province of Quebec. But the Catholics of France saw in the vast majority of the pilgrim band that gathered round the Canadian banner the descendants of the men and women who went forth from France three centuries ago to found a new France on the banks of the St. Lawrence. And as they heard them sing their hymns in French to airs that have been familiar to generations of pious Frenchmen, and saw how they still hold fast, with unswerving fidelity, the Faith of their Fathers, the Faith of Old France, their hearts went out to them as they went out to the members of no other pilgrimage there. Most of all was this made manifest yesterday morning as we gathered in the sanctuary at Paray le Monial to sing for the last time before leaving the hymn of the Canadian pilgrims. Mr. Rivet, organizer of the pilgrimage, who has a rich, strong and most musical voice, sang the solos, and all joined in the chorus. The emotion of many present found vent in tears, and copies of the hymn were afterwards eagerly sought for. This particular hymn, one of two, was composed while we were in London, by a French Canadian Sister who has entered a convent there. I subjoin a copy of it, with an English translation, which one who looks at it without reading might mistake for verse, but which is really only a rude rendering into English, line for line and almost word for word, of the original:

Cantique des Pelerins Canadiens a Paray le Monial.

(AIR: PITIE, MON DIEU.)

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

Hymn of the French-Canadian Pilgrims at Paray le Monial.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

* * *

We reached Geneva last night and are leaving to-morrow morning for Berne. Geneva is a beautiful city, situated at the head of the lake of the same name. The atmosphere is wonderfully clear here to-day and the sun shines out of a cloudless sky. Afar off—though it seems not far, it must be some score of miles away—the snowy summit of Mont Blanc is distinctly visible. All around are Alpine peaks. The city is full of historic interest. Here Calvin preached his gloomy creed and ruled with an iron rod. Here, too, the very opposite of Calvin in every way, that sweetest and most lovable of Saints, Francis of Sales, wielded episcopal authority over a devoted flock. His spirit seems to breathe in the peace and calm of this June day. One can even fancy that one hears the accents of his gentle voice calling his sheep away from earthly pastures to heavenly ones, guiding them ever onward to the Great Shepherd of the sheep, in the fold upon the everlasting hills.

* * *

LUCERNE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27.

The parts of Switzerland that are capable of cultivation seem to be even more fertile than the parts of France that we have passed through. Both the hay and grain crops are heavier, at least this year, and the vine thrives marvellously on the hillsides of this beautiful and romantic land. For beautiful it is and romantic, this land of bright-blue skies, and snow-capped mountains, and leaping cataracts, and sylvan glades, and smiling valleys.

We spent Sunday at Geneva, and stayed two or three hours at Berne Monday on our way to Interlaken. Berne is the national capital. Its most notable buildings are the Federal House of Parliament and the Lutheran Cathedral. The latter dates from the beginning of the 15th century, and to this day bears about it tokens of the Faith that first set it up. Berne is the German word for "bear." The city takes its name "de bellua caesa," as an old monument bears witness, from a bear having been slain on the site where it stands. Thence the bear is the emblem and heraldic decoration of the Swiss capital. You can't turn in any direction without running across the figure of a bear. The poor beast is drawn in every conceivable shape and tortured into every conceivable attitude. One is reminded of the fable of the Lion and the Man, as told by Newman. There are bears couchant, bears passant, and bears regardant. There are old bears and young bears, big bears and little bears, bears climbing trees, bears standing on their hind legs, bears hugging each other, and bears making faces at each other. And to crown all, the city maintains four huge live bears and several young ones in an enclosure about twelve feet below the level of the ground. They are shown to every visitor who crosses the stone bridge that spans the Aar river, on the banks of which Berne stands.

Interlaken, as the name implies, is situated between two lakes. It is an ideal summer resort, a very paradise of tourists. It is hemmed in by mountains on every side. On the east, Jungfrau lifts her snowy summit to the skies. Jungfrau (pronounced yungfrau) is German for virgin. And a tall virgin she is, this Maiden of the Snows, ever holding her head erect some 13,000 feet above the level of the sea. She always wears her white mantle, and for apron a great glacier. On the evening of our arrival she had on a cap of cloud, and some time during the night further shrouded herself in a veil of mist. Nor would she lift it as we went away, eager though we were to catch a glimpse of her morning face.

Between Interlaken and Lucerne the scenery is uninterruptedly grand. Mountain, lake, and Alpine river quickly succeed one another, but without sameness. The most remarkable feature of this route is the over-mountain railway. The train climbs an Alpine hill from 1,200 to 1,500 feet in height, and makes its way down on the other side. Our train was divided into three sections, each section of which was pulled by a powerful locomotive. The wheels revolve on cogs set in the rails. At one time the train is on the very edge of a precipice, with a sheer descent of several hundred feet; at another, an overhanging cliff threatens to fall down on top of it and smash it into atoms. Now it seems to be on the verge of dropping into a lake hundreds of feet below; the next moment the dense Alpine forests hides even the heavens from one's view. It is a thrilling experience, and one feels a sense of relief once it is fairly over.

* * *

ROME, JULY 6TH, 1900.

It is more than a week since last I put pen to paper. We were then at Lucerne, amid the eternal hills. We are now in the Eternal City. Into this short space much has been crowded—too much even to touch on here or give in barest outline. There is the sublime scenery of the Alpine Passes between Lucerne and Como, with the passage through the great tunnel at St. Gothard's. There is Milan with its marvellous Duomo, "a dream in marble," as some prose poet has pictured it. There is the vast plain of Lombardy, stretching for miles and miles from the foot of the Alps to the Mediterranean, the garden of Italy, as Italy is the garden of Europe. Then there is Venice, Queen of the Adriatic, the city of doges and of gondolas. The doges are dead; we visited the church where monuments in marble and in bronze enshrine their ashes and perpetuate all that now remains of their former greatness—a fugitive and fitful memory. The gondolas are still there, with their graceful, swan-like shape and movement—just such as they were in the days when the Republic of Venice was mistress of the seas. There, again, is Padua, with its shrine of St. Anthony, whose incorrupt tongue still witnesses to the power with which this "trumpet of the Gospel" heralded Christ and Him crucified. There, too, is Loreto, with its Holy House, where the Word was made Flesh—a most gracious shrine. Lastly, as we hasten Romeward, midway between Ancona and Rome, amid the Umbrian hills, yet another shrine draws us to itself—Assisi, where live the memories of St. Francis and the spirit of St. Francis—live, too, as fresh and fragrant as are the blood-bedewed roses that bloom on thornless bushes in his garden, where he fought the good fight against temptation and won for the men of all time the Pardon of the Portiuncula.

Those of us who spent Wednesday in Assisi did not reach Rome until a late hour that night. Imagine our surprise and almost consternation when we were told that all the pilgrims were to be received in audience by the Holy Father at eleven the next (yesterday) morning. We had counted on being at least a day or two in Rome before the audience took place, and we were not ready. We ran about for two or three hours in the morning, buying medals, etc., to be blessed—I with no little difficulty, getting English gold for the cheques containing the Peter Pence offering of our diocese, some two thousand one hundred and fifty francs. By eleven o'clock we are at the Vatican, and half an hour afterwards Pope Leo enters the Sala Clementina, borne on a chair, amid the 'evivas' of the assembled pilgrims. There are two pilgrimages, the Brazilian, ranged along one side of the great hall, and the Canadian along the other. First the Pope receives the Brazilians, then the Canadians. He is carried in his chair right around the hall, in front of the pilgrims who line the sides. To each he gives his hand to kiss; to each his blessing and some gracious token of tenderness—a word, a smile; to all, at the close, the Apostolic Benediction. Pope Leo is of course changed since I saw him last, sixteen years ago; the white hair is scantier and whiter still, the lines on the face are deeper, the hands are more tremulous, the voice has lost its resonance. But the light of the coal black eye is not dimmed, there is more of pathos in the voice, and the whole face has melted into tenderness. There has come into it a gentler and more winning look, which one likens to the mellowness of ripe fruit when it is ready to drop from the tree. This fruit is surely meet to be gathered, one says to oneself, yet none but the Master's hand may pluck it from the stem.

The scene in the Sala Clementina, at the close of the audience, as the aged Pontiff blessed the pilgrims, I will not attempt to describe. I shall never forget it, and no one who was there ever can forget it. When the Pope raised himself on his chair and stretched out his hand to give the Apostolic Benediction, there was a stillness as of death throughout the vast hall—a stillness soon broken by sobs, for tears filled the eyes of all that were there, and many wept aloud. The first words were spoken in distinct though somewhat low tones, but as the last words, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, were being uttered the Holy Father himself broke down completely. The voice grew husky with emotion, the eyes closed, and great tears rolled down the aged cheeks. Leo XIII felt that he was blessing for the last time these faithful children of his from the two Americas, and we felt that never in this life should we look upon his face again. I must close abruptly, without as much as one word about Rome itself- -Rome to which I have come, not merely as a pilgrim from afar to a holy place of pilgrimage, but as a son comes to his mother after long years of separation. For Rome is to me the mother of my soul.

* * *

GENOA, FRIDAY, JULY 13.

We left Rome Tuesday at 2 p.m., after a stay of six days, which was all too short. For one could spend months and months in Rome and still not see a tithe of what is worth seeing, or even begin to be weary of a place so rich in all that sages have thought and poets have dreamed of and artists have wrought and martyrs have bled for and saints have loved. We leave Rome with regret; feeling as all must feel in whom there is a spark of Divine Faith, that it is the City of the Soul, to which, in the words of the poet, "the exile of the heart" must forever turn.

The run from Rome to Florence is made in five or six hours. Florence, the city of flowers, is built on both banks of the Arno. It is a beautiful city much frequented by tourists. It is the birthplace of many of Italy's greatest sons, of Dante, of Michael Angelo, of Galileo. Here Savonarola lived and preached and wielded an influence more potent than that of any civil ruler. We saw, in one of the palaces of the Medici, the chapel where he spoke his last words to his brother monks, just before he was led out to be burnt at the stake in the Piazza of the Signoria, hard by. Here, too, first saw the light of day one who was the opposite of Savonarola in many ways, the sweet and gentle Philip Neri. Rome, the city of his adoption, of which he became the second Apostle, is still filled with the fragrance of his saintly life.

From Florence we come by rail to Pisa, and thence the same day to Genoa. From Spezia to the latter city, the railway, skirting the shores of the Mediterranean, is one series of tunnels. In the intervals between tunnels we catch glimpses of as beautiful and picturesque scenery as one could wish to gaze upon—a background of hills, rising in many places abruptly to a great height, sloping vineyards, groves of olive, clusters of fruit trees, and, in front, the waters of the Mediterranean, clear as crystal and mirroring in their depths the fleecy summer clouds that float in the blue above. Over all, like a great dome over Nature's own Cathedral, is the sky of Italy.

"Genoa la Superba"—Genoa the Superb—the Genoese call this city by the rippling Mediterranean, and well they may. It is, indeed, superb. In its marble palaces could be entertained to-day, in princely fashion, all the princes of the earth. It is the richest city of the peninsula, the great mart of the Mediterranean, the Liverpool of Italy. From the harbour, where float the flags of all nations, the city resembles a vast amphitheatre, tier upon tier of tall buildings rising one above another. Even the urchins in the street are proud of this queenly city. In the higher part of the town, away up among the hills, near the marvellous Campo Santo, a group of them stood talking rapidly, and to me unintelligibly, in their own Genoese dialect, as we passed by. "Che linguaggio parlate voi altri?" I asked somewhat bluntly. "Noi," says one of the number, with a sweep of the hand which took in the other members of the group, and then pointing proudly with his finger to his breast, "Noi siamo Genovesi—We are natives of Genoa."

That Campo Santo, by the same token, is one of the wonders of the world. Truly the dead of Genoa dwell in marble halls, and this city of the dead is a miracle in marble. Every monument is a work of art. The pose of that figure, how graceful and natural! Those faces in marble and bronze, how life-like are they! The dead seem to live in them again, and to look down at you with their solemn eyes from the other world.

Quieti et Memoriae—you meet it everywhere, this terse and beautiful epigraph. Recalling the memory of some dear departed one, it breathes a prayer for that rest after which the human heart ever hungers here below—that rest which we look for "where beyond these voices there is peace."

For full nine hundred years, from 900 to 1,800, Genoa maintained herself an independent Republic. Already six centuries had rolled over this Old World Republic when the boldest of her sailors embarked at Palos on his voyage of discovery. "Were it not for him we might all of us to-day be—Indians," is the curious thought that comes to one of the pilgrims as he gazes on the massive monument, near the railway station, which bears the legend in huge letters:

A CHRISOFORO COLOMBO LA PATRIA

Ah, those might-have-beens of an unborn past! It is bootless to speculate upon them.

LOURDES, JULY 19, 1900.

"Lourdes is a small town in the diocese of Tarbes, Hautes Pyrenees, picturesquely situated on the right bank of the river Gave." I quote the words from a booklet which purports to be "A Short Account of the Apparitions and Miracles at Lourdes." We arrived here from Toulouse about five o'clock on the afternoon of the day before yesterday. It had been a very hot day in the cars, but all covered with sweat and dust as we were we went straight in procession to the Grotto of Our Lady, without waiting to go to our hotel. There, on our knees before the statue, which smiles down sweetly upon us, as did erstwhile the Virgin Mother for whom it stands, upon the simple peasant girl of the Pyrenees, we recite the Rosary and sing the Magnificat. All about us throngs are kneeling in prayer, and there are signs of a subdued excitement, for just five minutes before our arrival a young girl who had suffered severe injuries by a fall three years ago, and was carried thither in her little carriage, a few hours before, was seen to rise to her feet and walk. But neither before nor after the cure did she report at the Bureau des Constatations Medicales.

The words that I have quoted at the head of this page were written twenty-four years ago by an English priest who visited the shrine. Were he now writing he would no longer say that Lourdes is a small town. The old town of Lourdes is, indeed, small, just a bit of a village in the Pyrenees. But the new Lourdes that has sprung up as if by magic on the banks of the Gave, over against the famous Grotto, has pretensions to rank as a city. It has its banks, its public buildings, its electric cars, rows upon rows of stores, though the wares are almost wholly of a devotional character, hotels and boarding houses without number, and a population of about ten thousand souls. And yet twenty-six years ago, just two years before our English priest wrote his account, there was not, as an old inhabitant told us, a stone upon a stone of the modern, and, for the most part, handsome buildings that one sees to-day.

Nature has lavished her charms on this favoured spot. Nothing is wanting of all that can please the eye or soothe and rest the mind in natural scenery. Lofty hills in front and in the rear, some bare and bald, others clothed with forest to their very tops; in the background, the snow-clad peaks and spurs of the Pyrenees; at your feet a narrow valley, studded with stately trees and carpeted with green-sward; and ever in your ears, though the eye wearied with gazing, should seek repose, the rushing waters of the Gave. Surely a fitting entourage for this most gracious of all our Lady's shrines!

The waters of the Gave, how swiftly and noisily they flow, flinging themselves passionately upon the rude rocks that would stay their onward course! The murmur of the Gave has been in my ears from a boy, for I seemed to hear the rushing of its waters when in boyhood's days I lingered over the pages of Henri Lasserre's fascinating story of the wonders of Lourdes. And to-day as I sit on the bank and gaze down upon the swift stream that flings itself into the Adour to mingle finally with the waters of the mighty Atlantic, the Gave of my boyish dreams is a reality. It is something more. It is an emblem at once and a sermon—an emblem of the surging multitude of pilgrims which ever keeps streaming to the Grotto of our Lady, flowing hither from the ends of the earth; a sermon on the true purpose of life. See how this eager mountain stream, like a thing of life, runs joyously to its rest in the bosom of the great ocean! Not less surely was it meant by Nature to find there its repose than we are meant by the Author of Nature to find our repose in Him. Yet we linger by the way and loiter, while the Gave leaps onward, oh, how swiftly and how surely! to its goal and the home of its rest.

But the Gave has not always been at this point the deep, narrow, noisy stream that it is to-day. Once it roamed at will over its rocky bed, making for itself a wider and more spacious pathway. Now stout stone walls fence it in and confine it to a narrow channel, and it frets and foams as does the wild beast of the forest when imprisoned behind iron bars. In these hot July days, too, the Gave runs deeper and swifter, fed by the melting snows of the Pyrenees. But on that February day, forty-two years ago, it was a feeble and mild-mannered stream. Bernadette and her two little companions crossed the main stream by the stone bridge. But a narrow side channel still separated them from the Grotto in the rocks of Massabielle, where was plenty of the drift wood they were in search of. Stooping down slowly to pull off her shoes and stockings with a view of wading this stream, Bernadette heard a noise as of a sudden gust of wind. "It was a calm grey day, and not a twig of the poplars was stirring, yet she felt certain that she had heard the rush of air. She stooped down again, and again the mysterious current startled her. This time the child looked up towards the niche-shaped cave. To her amazement a clear bright light issued from the aperture, in the midst of which stood a woman more wondrously beautiful than any one Bernadette had ever seen, or could have imagined. She was clad in white, with a long white veil falling over her shoulders; a blue scarf encircled her waist and reached to her knees, and upon either bare foot was a gold-coloured rose." I am quoting from my little book. But the story has been often told and is trite now, though it can never be commonplace.

The number of pilgrims who visit Lourdes yearly is estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand. They come from every country under the sun. The two ends of America are wide enough asunder, yet the fact of our being from the same continent is a real bond between ourselves and our fellow-pilgrims from Brazil, whom we meet here at the shrine of our Lady as we met them at Paray le Monial and again in the audience chamber of the Vatican.

* * *

LOURDES, SATURDAY, JULY 21.

Every day since our coming here has been for us a day of prayer, and, at the same time, a day of rest—rest for body and for soul. There is something in the very atmosphere of Lourdes which inspires devotion and invites repose. Every morning the pilgrims assist at Mass in the Grotto and many receive Holy Communion. We all of us take our places, too, in the procession of the Blessed Sacrament, and at night, in the torch-light procession. This morning at ten o'clock we had Solemn High Mass in the Grotto, with a Canadian as celebrant, Canadians as ministers at the altar, and Canadians as singers. The service was, of course, in the open air, and very solemn and impressive it was. While we joined in the chant of the Mass, the wind in the trees around about us seemed to sing an accompaniment, and the hoarse-sounding Gave lent its deep bass voice as it sped on its way to the ocean.

To-morrow at eleven o'clock we bid adieu to Lourdes. With Lourdes our pilgrimage ends. At Paris, where we are due Monday evening, our pilgrim party breaks up. Some will stay there for a season, others will sail from Liverpool on the following Thursday, and yet others will visit parts of Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, or of France itself, before turning their steps homeward. Of this number is the present writer. But here at Lourdes, as I have said, our pilgrimage ends. And so from Lourdes, from this sweet shrine of Our Lady by the sounding waters of the Gave, let me send after its fellows this last leaf from

THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM.