WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 138, 24 December 1875, Page 15

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

To go to church and bend your knees in prayer without duiny so in spirit is a. Pharisaical righteousness which .seems to have souio exactitude, but Avhich draws from Jesus Christ this just reproach : — " This people honoreth Me A\ith their lips, but their heart is far from mo." Tt is a false righteousness. — liosMief. I Among the satisfactory results of the travels in South America i of Pius IX., avc may safely reckon tho vindication of the memory of Christopher Columbus, a man hitherto so entirely misrepresented and uncoiwprehended by Protestant historians. Tho history Avritten under the axispices of his Holiness, by Count Rosselly do Lorgues, publishes the heroic virtue and religious motives of this immortal discoverer, who has been treated as an adventurer, showing that lie Avas even more of a good Christian than a great navigator. A boy of five years avus " playing railroad"' Avith his sister of three and a half. DraAving her upon a foot-stool, he imagined himself both engine and conductor. After imitating the puffing noise of tho steam, he stopped and called out, " Ncav York," and in a moment after, " Taterson,' 3 and then "Philadelphia." Bis knoAvledge of towns Avas now exhausted, and .the next place his cried " Heaven." llis little sister said eagerly, " Top., I dess I'll dot out bore." Here is a true story of a certain earl now living, Avho in a, miser, and hoards bank-notes. Being at his banker's one day, lie happened to take out his pocket-book, in which Avas a ten thousand pound Bank of England note. "Why, my lord," said tho astonished banker, " are you aAvarc that there are only two other such iiotob in circulation ?" " I ought to he," Avas the quiet reply, " for I have got them both framed and glazed at home." A Leuacy to thk Pot'H.— -The ' Fanfulia,' no great authority., states that the late Emperor Ferdinand of Austria has left tho Pope a legacy of 10,000,000 florins, Avhich has already been paid at tho Vatican The Emperor has bequeathed also to the Pope all the ornaments and sacred vessels uf his chapel, and must valuable crystals, and rare china services.