A True Story of Christmas Gifts, by J. F. Fitzgerald... An American Sodalist, by D. M... "God's Ways Not Ours," by E. Carmel Hendry... The Rosary of the Regiment... A Perfect Gentleman, by L. W. Reilly.. Blind Jimmy, by Father J The Indian Children and the Prairie Fire.. The Dying Laundress... A Change of Heart at Ninety. The Captain and the Missionary. "Taste and See," by E. Carmel Hendry.. Lost and Won, by L. W. Reilly... A Child's Idea of Heaven. A Nineteenth Century Job.. An Unfulfilled Promise, by E. V. N. The Two Xaviers, by M. C. Bitner.. A Russian Burial... A Kootenais Indian's Deathbed.. A Young Teacher's Experience.. The Girl Who Saw Our Lord, by Eleanor C. Donnelly. In Partnership with God. A Boy and a Lawyer, by M. C. Bitner.. An Insult to the Cross.. A Tale of Twin Brothers, by M. C. Bitner. The Soldier Son, by E. V. N.. Poor Little Paul, by Charles Austin... A First Friday Incident, by J. C...... MISCELLANEOUS. The Way to be Happy.. 1 33 65 97 129 161 193 225 257 289 321 353 4 21 36 41 50 68 89 91 100 109 132 141 150 164 185 196 201 228 234 239 252 260 264 283 292 296 324 332 350 356 28 58 88 ..84, 114 167 .180, 214 189 191 299 315 345 351 EVE VERYWHERE, in the Church's praying, we hear the touching appeal— Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison. It is in the Mass and the Holy Office; and all the Litanies begin and end with its sweet cadence. It echoes again and again the heart's appeal for pity on its own weakness and defilement. Lord, have mercy ! Christ, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! With The words Kyrie eleison, as our readers know, are borrowed from the Greek. the exception of invocations chanted by the choir during the adoration of the Cross on Good Friday, they are the only Greek words in use in the Offices of the Latin Church. How they came to be introduced is not so easy to tell. The very early Liturgies, as they are called,—the order, that is, of celebrating the Holy Mass and other Church Offices, received from the Apostles and the early Fathers, from St. James and St. Mark, St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory the Great-all give the Kyrie eleison a prominent place. An appeal for mercy and indulgence, so brief and pointed, so like a sigh rising from a repentant heart, Copyright, 1891, by Rev. R. S. Dewey, S. J.] 1 was well adapted for use by all the people. It recalled to the early Christians, as it does to us, how the two blind men of Jericho cried out, saying: O Lord, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us; and how Jesus, having compassion on them, touched their eyes; and immediately they saw and followed Him.' It was an echo, too, of the heartbroken mother's prayer: Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David, my daughter is grievously troubled by a devil; and of the touching petition of the ten lepers: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Faith, which made the early Christians realize the spiritual blindness from which they had been delivered and the spiritual leprosy-the leprosy of sin-from which they had been cleansed, filled their hearts with thankfulness. But at the same time it made them feel their entire dependence on Him Who had redeemed them to God in His blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation. Thus the Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison—“ Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy”—came to be the favorite prayer of the people. 4 We have in an ecclesiastical writer an account of a procession in which the people, as they passed on, chanted alternately three hundred times, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison. It is said to have been introduced into the Holy Mass by Pope St. Sylvester, about A. D. 320. In the beginning, even up to the 9th century, the celebrant repeated it until his devotion was satisfied, while the people or the choir answered. In the 12th century the present usage of repeating this invocation only nine times was already established. A very interesting testimony to the hold the Kyrie had on clergy and people is found in the 3d Canon of the 2d Council of Vaison, held in 529. "And since the sweet and exceedingly wholesome practice has been introduced, as well in the Apostolic See as in all the Oriental and Italian provinces, of saying Kyrie eleison very often, with great tenderness and compunction, it hath pleased us, under God's favor, that this so holy a practice should be admitted in all our churches, at Matins and in the Mass and at Vespers." In the time of Charlemagne in France, about the beginning of the 9th century, we find that during the funeral office the 1 St. Matthew, xx. 31–4. St. Luke, xvii.13 2 St. Matthew, xv. 22. 4 Apocalypse, v. 9. Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison. 3 people, if they did not know the Psalms, were directed to repeat in turn-the men, Kyrie eleison, the women, Christe eleison. When recited alternately-Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison-our appeal is to the Ever Blessed Trinity; the first Kyrie to the Father and the last to the Holy Ghost, while the Christe is of course addressed to Christ, the Son, the God-Man— the One Anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows." By the word Kyrie, which means Lord, we represent to God that He is our Lord, our Master, that we belong to Him, that we are of His fashioning, that we depend on Him wholly; that life and death, and the goods of this world and the goods that await us, as we hope, beyond the grave, are His to bestow. By the eleison, "have mercy," we humble ourselves before His Infinite Majesty because of our sins, and we crave indulgence, pity, compassion. 6 Then the Christe eleison comes to lift us up again. The Christ, that is, the Word made Flesh, the Incarnate Son of God, it reminds us, is one of ourselves. Christ is true God and yet true Man, our God and yet our Brother, to Whose compassionate Heart knowing and making allowance for the weaknesses of our own hearts no prayer of ours is or can be indifferent. The Kyrie eleison is thus an appeal to the Blessed Trinity, an appeal for mercy. When we use it devoutly, as we always should, we produce acts of faith, of hope, and of charity, of humility and compunction. We invoke God by the titles which express the claims we have that are strongest to move Him: that we belong to Him as to a Lord and Master, that we belong to Him again as to our Redeemer, and that we look to His Holy Spirit to make us holy. This beautiful prayer should therefore be often on our lips. At least, when in the Mass or during the Litanies we hear it spoken, we should repeat it as the Church would wish it repeated, in the spirit of the lepers or of the blind men of Jericho, in a spirit of humility and confidence. Never will it ascend to God from a heart thus disposed without bringing down an abundant blessing of mercy and of strength. HE twenty-third day of December, 1862, in one of our TH beautiful Southern cities, turned out to be a cold winter's day. The snow lay two feet on the ground and was hard frozen. The sky had been leaden all day; and the wind swept in fitful gusts through the streets. Everything outside seemed to combine to make as dreary and desolate a day of it as possible, notwithstanding the fact that Christmas was only two days off. I had been indoors all day, putting the finishing touches to some Christmas presents-little paintings and embroideries—and had been so busy that I scarcely heeded the weather. But now, |