It was quite impossible that these changes or innovations could take place without a certain amount of , to use the theological expression, amongst the brethren. We are a conservative race, and our conservatism has been successful in that matter of moment,—the of the faith and the purity of our people. It is difficult, therefore, to see the necessity of change, to meet the of the times, and the higher demands of the nation and the race. Yet we have been forewarned a hundred times that we cannot put new wine into old bottles, and that a spirit is stirring amongst our people that must become unbridled and incontinent if not guided by new methods and new ideas. This is not intuitive wisdom on my part. It is gathered slowly and painfully amongst the thorns of experience.  
But I cannot say I was too surprised when, one morning, an old and most valued friend called on me, and revealed his anxiety and perturbation of spirit by some very deep remarks about the weather. We agreed wonderfully on that most topic, and then I said:—
 
"You have something on your mind?"
 
"To be with you, Father Dan," he replied, assuming a sudden warmth, "I have. But I don't like to be ."
 
"Oh, never mind," I replied. "I am always open to fraternal correction."
 
"You know," he continued , "we are old friends, and I have always had the greatest interest in you—"
 
"For goodness' sake, Father James," I said, "spare me all that. That is all subintellectum, as the theologians say when they take a good deal for granted."
 
"Well, then," said he,—for this interruption rather him,—"to be very plain with you, your parish is going to the dogs. You are throwing up the sponge and letting this young man do what he likes. Now, I can tell you the people don't like it, the priests don't like it, and when he hears it, as he is sure to hear it, the won't like it either."
 
"Well, Father James," I said slowly, "passing by the mixed about the dogs and the sponge, what are exactly the specific charges made against this young man?"
 
"Everything," he replied . "We don't want young English mashers coming around here to teach old priests their business. We kept the faith—"
 
"Spare me that," I said. "And don't say a word about the famine years. That episode, and the of the Irish priests, is written in Heaven. We want a Manzoni to tell it,—that is, if we would not prefer to leave it unrecorded, except in the great book,—which is God's memory."
 
He a little at this.
 
"Now," said I, "you are a wise man. What do you want me to do?"
 
"I want you to pitch into that young fellow," he said, "to him and make him keep his place."
 
"Very good. But be particular. Tell me, what am I to say?"
 
"Say? Tell him you'll stand no innovations in your parish. innovetur, nisi quod prius traditum est. Tell him that he must go along with all the other priests of the diocese and conform to the general regulations,—Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. Tell him that young men must know their place; and then take up the Selva, or the Fathers, and prove it to him."
 
"God bless you!" said I, thankfully and . "You have taken a load off my heart. Now, let me see would this do."
 
I took down from the dusty shelves a favorite little volume,—a kind of Anthology of the early Fathers, and I opened it.
 
"We'll try the sortes Virgilianæ" I said, and read slowly and with emphasis:—
 
"At nunc, etiam sacerdotes Dei, omissis Evangeliis et Prophetis, vidimus comœdias legere, amatoria Bucolicorum versuum verba cantare, tenere Virgilium, et id quod in pueris necessitatis est, crimen in se facere voluptatis."
 
"That's not bad," said my hearer, critically, whilst I held the book open with horror and . "That applies to him, I'm sure. But what's the matter, Father Dan? You are not ill?"
 
"No," said I, "I'm not; but I'm slightly disconcerted. That strikes me between the two eyes. What else have I been doing for fifty years but thumbing Horace and Virgil?"
 
"Oh, never mind," he said, airily. "Who wrote that? That's extreme, you know."
 
"An altogether wise and holy man, called St. Jerome," I said.
 
"Ah, well, he was a crank. I don't mean that. That sounds disrespectful. But he was a reformer, you know."
 
"A kind of , like this young man of mine?" I said.
 
"Ah, well, try some sensible saint. Try now St. Bernard. He was a wise, gentle ."
 
I turned to St. Bernard, and read:—
 
"Lingua magniloqua—manus otiosa!
Sermo multus—fructus nullus!
Vultus gravis—actus levis!
Ingens auctoritas—nutans stabilitas!"
That hit my friend between the eyes. The were inauspicious. He took up his hat.
 
"You are not going?" said I, reaching for the bell. "I am just sending for Father Letheby to let you see how I can cuff him—"
 
"I—I—must be going," he said; "I have a sick-call—that is—an engagement—I—er—expect a visitor—will call again. Good day."
 
"Stay and have a glass of wine!" I said.
 
"No, no, many thanks; the is young and rather . Au revoir!"
 
"Au revoir!" I replied, as I took up my hat and gold-headed and set out to interview and reprimand my curate. Clearly, something should be done, and done quickly. There was a good deal of talk abroad, and I was supposed to be sinking into a condition of senile . It is quite true that I could not challenge my curate's conduct in a single particular. He was in all things a perfect exemplar of a priest, and everything he had done in the parish since his arrival contributed to the of the people and the of religion. But it wouldn't do. Every one said so; and, of course, every one in these cases is right. And yet there was some secret in my mind that I should do violence to my own conscience were I to check or forbid Father Letheby's splendid work; and there came a voice from my own dead past to warn me: "See that you are not opposing the work of the right hand of the Most High."
 
These were my doubts and as I moved slowly along the road that led in a manner around the village and skirted the path up to the school-house. I woke from my unpleasant reverie to hear the gentle of voices, moving as in prayer; and in a short bend of the road I came face to face with the children leaving school. I had been accustomed to seeing these wild, bare-legged mountaineers breaking loose from school in a state of , leaping up and down the side ditches, screaming, yelling, panting, with their elf-locks blinding their eyes, and their bare feet flashing amid the green of grasses or the brown of the ditch-mould. They might to drop me a courtesy, and then—anarchy, as before. Today they moved slowly, with eyes modestly on the ground, three by three, and all chanting in a sweet, low tone—the Rosary. The centre girl was the coryphæus with the "Our Fathers" and "Hail Marys"; the others, the chorus. I stood still in amazement and challenged them:—
 
"I am happy to see my little children so well employed. How long since you commenced to say the Rosary thus in common?"
 
In a twinkling the solemnity vanished and I was surrounded by a group.
 
"Just a week, Fader; and Fader Letheby, Fader, he tould us of a place where they do be going to work in the morning, Fader, and dey all saying de Rosary togeder, Fader; and , Fader, we do be saying to ourselves, why shouldn't we, Fader, say de Rosary coming to school, de same as dese Germans, Fader?"
 
"That's excellent," I said, running my eyes over the excited group; "and have you all got ?"
 
"I have, Fader," said one of the coryphæi, "and de oders do be saying it on their fingers."
 
"I must get beads for every one of you," I said; "and to commence, here, Anstie, is my own."
 
I gave a little brown-eyed child my own mother-of-pearl beads, mounted in silver, and was glad I had it to give. The children moved away, murmuring the Rosary as before.
 
Now, here clearly was an innovation. Wasn't this intolerable? Who ever heard the like? Where would all this stop? Why, the parish is already going to the dogs! He has played right into my hands. Yes? Stop the Rosary? Prevent the little children from singing the praises of their Mother and Queen? I thought I saw the face of the Queen Mother looking at me from the skies; and I heard a voice saying, prophetically: "Ex ore infantium et lactantium perfecisti laudem propter inimicos tuos, ut destruas inimicum et ultorem." Clearly, the fates are against me.
 
"Father Letheby was not at home, but would be back presently. Would I take a chair and wait for a few moments?"
 
I sat down in a comfortable arm-chair lined with the soft rug that first my housekeeper's . I looked around. Books were strewn here and there, but there was no or untidiness; and, ha! there were the first signs of work on the white sheets of manuscript paper. I wonder what is he writing about. It is not quite honorable, but as I am on the war path, perhaps I could get here a for scalping him. Notes!
 
"November 1. Dipped into several numbers of Cornhill Magazine. pleased with an article on 'Wordsworth's Ethics,' in the August number, 1876.
 
"November 2. Read over Sir J. Taylor's poems, principally 'Philip van Artevelde,' 'Isaac Comnenus,' 'Edwin the Fair,' the 'Eve of the Conquest.'
 
"Comnenus.—Not much the doubt
Comnenus would stand well with times to come,
Were there the hand to write his ,
Yet is he in sad truth a faulty man.
But be it said he had this honesty,
That, undesirous of a false ,
He ever wished to pass for what he was,
One that much, and oft, but being still
bent upon the right,
Had kept it in the main; one that much loved
Whate'er in man is high respect,
And in his soul did
To be it all: yet felt from time to time
The littleness that clings to what is human,
And suffered from the shame of having felt it."
"Humph! This is advanced," I thought. "I wonder does he feel like Com............