The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 29, 26 July 1923, Page 53

The Family Circle

BOYHOOD DAYS. Oil! our merry boyhood days, When the heart is young, And through wood and winding ways, Hope’s glad hells are rung; Then on hill and smiling lea, Nature’s kiss is fair, Wayward wills go laughing free, With joy everywhere. Oh ! our blissful boyhood days, Bright as mountain rill, That Dawn’s fairy-wand arrays, In gay robes that thrill. What are hours, or days, or years, When the skies are blue? When smiles are undimmed with tears, And all hearts are true? Oh! our happy boyhood days, When time is a dream, Tinged with brightest rainbow rays, Fringed with pleasure’s gleam ; Then the mountain heights look grand, Far-off vales smile fair, And on Life’s wide fairy-land. Falls no shade of care. Oh ! our hopeful boyhood days, Spent ’mid dreams and ilow’rs, Fancy’s castles then we raise With cloud-piercing tow’rs. Though the world has gone all wrong, Right; yet might shall smite, With our laughter and our song, We will set all right. Ah! our bless’d boyhood days, On Time’s true, stern hands, All too soon we sadly gaze, At their last gold sands. Yet those days best of our years! Were not lived in vain, If they through our manhood fears, Cheer us on again. —C. John Fa her Catj.en. CATHOLIC CHURCH TO LAST FOREVER. A non-Catholic correspondent who considered the condition of his own Church shaky recently asked the London Catholic Times what is the prospect that the Catholic Church will last for the guidance and instruction of man. “The Testimony of the Fathers on the point,” said the Times, “is plain and abundant. * Not for a brief period,’ says St. Augustine, ‘ was the Church to exist on this earth, but the Church will be her© till the end of the world. . . The Church shall not be conquered shall not be rooted up; nor give way before any trials whatever till the end of this world shall come and out of this temporal dwelling-place we be received into that eternal one.’ ” “ £ Unbelievers think,’ he says elsewhere, ‘ that the Christian religion will last for a certain period in the world and will then disappear. But it will remain as long as the sun- —as long as the sun rises and sets; that is, as long as the ages of time shall roll, the Church of God, the true Body of Christ on earth, will not disappear.’ As to the perpetuity of the Cktholic Church, our correspondent can make his mind easy.” FLOWERS OF THE DEVOUT LIFE. The Scribe with Light-tipped fingers. The lives of Irish saints are remarkably rich in wonders. These very wonders , are themselves wonderful in

- that they present features which are quite unknown, or, at least, arc very rarely to be found in the lives of saints of other lands. A French writer, M. Henry do Varigny, referring recently to the voyages of St. Brendan— who once kept Easter on the back of a whale—says: “Let us take his legend not as being more or less an historical document, but as though it were a text in which is reflected the thought and psychology of the period which gave it birth.” 1 he,so words are very applicable to several incidents in the hie of another holy Irish personage, Mari anus Scottus, who ended his life at Ratisbon, and notably do they bear on the pretty story we are about to relate. Beneath the embellishments of the legend may be discerned deeds, traditions, habits of life which claim their place in the history of ideas and customs. Like many another Irish monk, Marianus, who died about 1080, was a most industrious writer. If, even now m our own day, so many great libraries—not only in Ire land. and England but also in continental Europe are possessed of numerous Irish manuscripts, it is the patient labor of these scribes from beyond the sea that this is due. After many wanderings for the love of Christ, Marmnus reached Ratisbon to stay for good, and there he became the guest of the nuns of the monastery of the lower town (Niedermunster), who quartered him in a. small cell where in peaceful seclusion ho spent the rest of his days, for the use of the, pious widows of the town he occupied Ins time in transcribing portable copies of the Psalms—the usual prayer-book of that day— as well as other Biblical texts and liturgical books for the poor clergy of the place. He worked not only by day but far into the night, and it was the custom, when twilight failed, for a Sister to bring him a lamp for his night work. But once it fell out that the good nun forgot this duty. Marianus, who as a recluse never left his cell, could not go in search of a lamp himself, nor had he a bell or any means whereby he' could communicate his plight to other inmates of' the convent; but, far from being upset by his misfortune' he quietly went on writing in the dark. Suddenly it occurred to 1,111 to raise Ins left arm by resting the elbow on the table and to open wide his hand. No sooner was this dene than the divine mercy permitted three of his lingers to glow and to emit as much light over his worktable “as three lumps could not have done,” says his biographer. • The forgetful nun had already gone to bed before she bethought herself of her neglect. She at once arose and accompanied by two or three of the Sisters, hurried on tiptoe to the cell of the holy old man. But great was the surprise of them all when through the slit of the door they ■saw streaming bright rays of light. Still greater was their u oncer when they had assured themselves that the Imht vhich flooded the cell more brilliantly “than the midday sun proceeded from the very fingers of Marianus. The hagiographer who relates this prodigy adds that the nuns, trembling with excitement, went hurriedly to the abbess to report what they beheld, and he further 'tells ' us that the news of the miracle spread rapidly on the morrow among the clergy and good townsfolk of Ratisbon. V ■ In the Vienna Library is a. very fine manuscript of th Epistles of St. Paul written by the hand of Marianus ScotUS of Ratisbon. Let us imagine it was over the leaves of this very codex that fell the brilliant light from the scribe's improvised lamp.— Gougand, in the Catholic, Jiullctin. '' FACE TO PACE. If to taste Thee, Lord, is so wondrous sweet, Through the veils of Faith, as I kneel at Your Feet Uith a throbbing heart and a. burning soul, In the mystic vision of Love’s great goal— If the glimpsing flash of Thy tender "grace Holds me, a captive before Thy sweet Face And Thy glorious Presence so hidden and frail Sends a flood of joy from the Host’s pure veil, 0, how can I dream of the sweetness untold ’ v ' When earth’s mists have fled and Thy Glory behold When I open the arms of my love-thirsty soul To drink and be filled— not in part, but in whole ml Thy Smile ant] Thy,Voice, once unseen and unheard Envelop me—shroud me—MY LORD AND MY GOD * Margaret L. Cunningham.

HER WAY OF KNOWING. , An old farmer handed in a telegram-form at the market post-office, containing nothing but the address and eight , strokes. “But surely you are going to send a message?” said the counter-clerk. “No, that’s all right, miss, he replied. “If them strokes comes out the same at the other., end my missis’ll know as I shall be home at eight o clock. Her can’t read or write, but her can count, so just see as you puts the proper strokes in.” SILENCED. A newly-married couple were entertaining their friends and amongst the guests was one whose continued rudeness made him objectionable to the rest of the company. His conduct, although almost unbearable, was tolerated for some time, until at supper he held up on his fork a piece of meat which had been served to him, and in a vein of intended humor remarked “Is this pig?” “To which end of the fork do you refer?” asked a quiet-looking man sitting at the other end of the table. THE REASON WHY. “This is George the Fourth,” said an exhibitor of waxworks, pointing to a. very slim figure with a theatrical crown on his head. “I thought he was a very stout man,” observed a spectator. “Werry likely,” replied the man, sharply, not approving of the comment of his visitor, “but if you’d been her? without wittles half as long as he has you’d be twite as thin.” SMILE-RAISERS. Customer (referring to the slackness in trade) : “You’re very quiet to-night.” New Assistant; “Well, ma’am, I never was one of the chatty sort!” <7 Passenger (in a hurry): “I want a ticket lor the last train to London, please.” Facetious Booking Clerk; “You aren’t going to live as long as thatare you, sir?” V Salesman; “A velour hat, madam — size would your husband take?” She (buying his birthday present): “Let me see— I really don’t know—but he takes 16 in collars; so I suppose his hat would be about 19 or 20.” A schoolmaster picked up a penny in the playground. Later, when all the scholars had assembled, he asked: “Has any boy lost a penny?” After a short pause a small boy held up his hand. “Please, sir, I did.” “Ah, Tom Jones, and where did you lose it?” “Please, sir, where you found it!” ' s? “How long have you lived in this village?” asked the man from the city. The oldest inhabitant was tired of answering questions. “You see that hill ever there,” he said.- “Well, when I first came here that hill was simply a hole in the ground.” «? A young woman of heroic build met a man who had known her father and mother. As he gazed at her the light of memory came into his eyes. “Let me see,” he mused, “which side of the house do you resemble most?” “Sir,” she cried in accents far from mild, “I don’t resemble the side of any house.”