ever seeking by prayers, acts of kindness, and letting fall in season solemn words, and lending books, and offering suggestions in conversation, as if in play, to effect the conversion of hearts to truth; and in fact her plainness moved them more than eloquence. She looked like truth; as we read of that wife of Claude Aynard Romanet, she wished every one to be sanctified and blest; and she never omitted an occasion of rendering persons of all conditions service with that intention *. All her projects for those she did a kindness to were based on the wish to facilitate their arrival at the summum bonum, namely, the knowledge and worship of God. She ever thought of their souls; and when obliged to have recourse to physicians she thought more of things of eternal interest, than of what she wanted for herself. When speaking to infidels, her words seemed like music to their souls; and when she would apologize for speaking to them on such a subject, they would pray her to continue; and she used to get them to promise that they would say the Memorare and the Paternoster. Neither was she indifferent to the fate of those who lived in distant regions. The first notice in the English language of the work of the Propagation de la Foi was given and published at her instigation. Whatever had reference to faith commanded her whole heart. On setting out on her last journey, a few days before her death, she said, "Take that book with you," alluding to the work of Cardinal Wiseman on the connexion between science and revealed religion. And when some one said it is only a work for Protestants, "Take it," she replied, "it is a fine work for all." It was sent with the rest, and taken up after her death by one who knew not how it came on the table, but who, in the agonies of the days that ensued, could read no other book-thus, even after her departure, proving herself "the anchor of his purest thought, the nurse, the guide, the would-be guardian of his heart and soul—of all his moral being." People did not praise her, or talk of her, or write about her, or call her a confirmation of Plato's theory that beauty is in the mind, or indulge in metaphysical subtleties to account for their opinion of her character, writing * Idée de la véritable Piété en la Vie de Demlle. Marguérite Pignier, femme de Claude Aynard Romanet. as philosophers to more celebrated women-for the truth was, every one seemed to feel instinctively that already she belonged to a region of more lofty serenity, to which the clouds of such eulogies could not ascend, or which, if they were to reach her, would be dissipated as so much smoke and vapour. In truth, she often had the air of an angel that had somewhat lost its way in coming on our earth of agitation and lies. I will not of course dare to say that in her you had one to whom, in regard to faith, you could never find an equal, either among the Scythians or in the places of Pelops οὔτ ̓ ἐν Σκύθησιν οὔτε Πέλοπος ἐν τόποις. But she shall be dignified with this high honour, to declare that from observing what was evident and almost visible, one cannot conceive her thoughts and ways when in the presence of God in heaven as being different from what they were when on earth every hour in the bosom of her family. If one may be permitted to speak on such a theme poetically, one might say with truth that her presence exercised the sort of influence which is ascribed to the daisy in the familiar lines, "A hundred times, by rock or bower, Ere thus I have lain couch'd an hour, Some study rare, some brief delight, Or stray invention. "If stately passions in me burn, And one chance look to thee should turn, I drink, out of an humbler urn, A lowlier pleasure; The homely sympathy that heeds The common life our nature breeds; "When, smitten by the morning ray, I see thee rise alert and gay, Then, cheerful' bride,' my spirits play D An instinct call it, a blind sense, Coming one knows not how, nor whence, Well, such are, as it were, the first tracings that we make in the Chapel of St. John. The figure of an individual stands out prominently, but so as to convince those who have seen the original that they convey an exact copy, a fac-simile. Let us proceed to observe the lesson which such an example imparts for the instruction, not alone of a few saunterers under Gothic arches, but of mankind. I love science, I love intelligence, but, adds a deep contemplatist, "I love still more faith-simple faith." Who shall estimate, viewing the subject on which side he will, from domestic peace and joy to the happiness and stability of empires, -who shall estimate the value of that singleness of eye with which the whole body is full of light; of that faith which is a total act of the soul, the whole state of the mind, following, as Sir Thomas Brown says, "the great wheel of the Church, by which the person moves, not reserving any proper poles or motion from the epicycle of his own brain?" The first lessons in the divine school of the youthful world, were assigned to the cultivation of the reason and of the will, or, as Coleridge says, rather of both as united in faith. "What is commonly called," says a member of the French Academy, "the faith of the charcoal-burner (la foi du charbonnier) imparts to the earth more consolations, virtues, and even understanding, than result from many voluminous treatises and their commentaries. I am far from concluding that it may not be sometimes necessary or useful to aspire at becoming learned in matters of religion; I * Mme. Swetchine. only infer that when once penetrated with fundamental truths, and the duties which they impose, it is better not to consume in long researches a time which would be better employed in prayer and good works. Our imperfect studies might conduct us to certain half-acquirements, sources of error and pride. There are studies which heat the head and cool the heart. It is not well to have a taste for contentious discussions, transforming the Gospel into a book of metaphysics. When we say, 'Deliver our minds from doubts,' we should add, 'and from subtleties.' Christianity," he continues, "explains all the events of life. If the Christian succeeds in a project, he thinks that the supreme goodness encourages his intentions and favours his efforts. If he fails, he receives as a trial, or as a chastisement, the reverse which he experiences. These explanations can only shock the pretended philosophers. They distrust, say they, a system which has an answer for every thing; they would be right, if it were only a system imagined by themselves; but this comes from on high, and we confide in it as the word of its Divine Author*." "Yea,” saith an enlightened physician, quoted by Coleridge, "there is but one principle which alone reconciles the man with himself, with others, and with the world; which regulates all relations, tempers all passions, and gives power to overcome or support all sufferings, and which is not to be shaken by aught earthly, for it belongs not to the earth, namely, the principle of religion. This elevation of the spirit above the semblances of custom and the senses to a world of spirit, this life in the idea, this it is which affords the sole sure anchorage in the storm, and at the same time the substantiating principle of all true wisdom; the satisfactory solution of all the contradictions of human nature, of the whole riddle of the world. This alone belongs to and speaks intelligibly to all alike, the learned and the ignorant, if but the heart listens . . . for it is an immutable truth that what comes from the heart, that alone goes to the heart; what proceeds from a Divine impulse, that the godlike alone can awaken." "En vain vous trouvez Dieu dans un froid argument, Toute raison n'est pas dans le raisonnement. * Droz, Pensées sur le Christianisme, 12. Il est une clarté plus prompte et non moins sûre Et qui, de notre esprit enfermant l'horizon, Est pour nous la première et dernière raison.” We shall observe later, in very minute and interesting details, how all this was verified in Jane Mary. De Maistre says, "there is nothing so difficult as to be only one." This unity formed one of her most remarkable characteristics. Her whole life was like one act, such consistency reigned in all her actions and words; and yet with what an exquisite sense of humanity were these high principles exercised! With a mind antipodal to the pagan, you would have thought her the most natural person you ever conversed with, and withal the most tender. As an instance of what Saint-Beuve calls the Christian euphonism, Saint-Beuve cites the phrase of the Abbé de Rancé when, while wishing to give advice to his somewhat weak, old, and sick friend, the Abbé Nicaise, he avoids pronouncing in his ears the word death, and only says to him one should have these sentiments, particularly "when we are nearer feeling the happiness which results from having loved them," meaning when we are nearer the tomb. The ancients, when alluding to death, used to say, "si quid minus feliciter contigerit;" to persons of faith alone it belongs to improve the delicacy of this expression, and say, "si quid felicius contigerit." Horace said of death, "in æternum exilium," while the Christian says, 66 return to our eternal country;" there lies all the difference. Of the value which she attached to faith, it would be difficult to speak so as not to appear exaggerated. It was not from having formed a philosophic estimate of its nature, and as if from knowing with the metaphysicians, that "the understanding in its utmost power and opulence culminates in faith, as in its crown of glory, at once its light and its remuneration." It was not that she had arrived at this conviction by the scientific process, which led Ozanam, the corrector of the tables of logarithms in 1670, to declare that he would not understand religion otherwise than as the people understand it, adding that "it belonged to doctors of the Sorbonne to dispute, to the Pope to pronounce, and to a mathematician to go to Paradise by a perpendicular |