stifle the testimony which the poor have always rendered to him on thy account. Wield, against these ministers of hell, the two-edged sword, wherewith it is given to the Saints to avenge God in the midst of the nations: treat them as thou didst the heretics of thy day; make them either deserve pardon or suffer punishment, be converted or be reduced by heaven to the impossibility of doing harm. Above all, take care of the unhappy beings whom these satanic men deprive of spiritual help in their last moments. Elevate thy daughters to the high level required by the present sad circumstances, when men would have their devotedness to deny its Divine origin and cast off the guise of religion. If the enemies of the poor man can snatch from his deathbed the sacred sign of salvation, no rule, no law, no power of this world or the next, can cast out Jesus from the soul of the Sister of Charity, or prevent his name from passing from her heart to her lips: neither death nor hell, neither fire nor flood can stay him, says the Canticle of Canticles. Thy sons, too, are carrying on thy work of evangelization; and even in our days their apostolate is crowned with the diadem of sanctity and martyrdom. Uphold their zeal; develop in them thy own spirit of unchanging devotedness to the Church and submission to the supreme Pastor. Forward all the new works of charity springing out of thy own, and placed by Rome to thy credit and under thy patronage. May they gather their heat from the Divine fire which thou didst rekindle on the earth; may they ever seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, never deviating, in the choice of means, from the principle thou didst lay down for them of "judging, speaking, and acting, exactly as the Eternal "Wisdom of God, clothed in our weak flesh, judged, "spoke, and acted." JULY 20. SAINT JEROME EMILIAN, CONFESSOR. SPRUNG from the powerful aristocracy which won for Venice twelve centuries of splendour, Jerome came into the world when that city had reached the height of its glory. At fifteen years of age he became a soldier; and was one of the heroes in that formidable struggle wherein his country withstood the united powers of almost all Europe in the League of Cambrai. The golden city, crushed for a moment, but soon restored to her former condition, offered her honours to the defender of Castelnovo, who like herself had fallen bravely and risen again. But our Lady of Tarviso had delivered him from his German prison, only to make him her own captive; she brought him back to the city of St. Mark, there to fulfil a higher mission than the proud Republic could have entrusted to him. The descendant of the Emiliani, captivated, as was Lawrence Justinian a century before, by Eternal Beauty, would now live only for the humility which leads to heaven, and for the lofty deeds of charity. His title of nobility will be derived from the obscure village of Somascha, where he will gather his newly recruited army; and his conquests will be the bringing of little children to God. He will no more frequent the palaces of his patrician friends, for he now belongs to a higher rank: they serve the world, he serves heaven; his rivals are the Angels, whose ambition, like his own, is to preserve unsullied for the Father the service of those innocent souls whom the greatest in heaven must resemble. 66 66 "The soul of the child," as the Church tells us to-day by the golden mouth of St. John Chrysostom, "is free from all passions. He bears no ill will "towards them that have done him harm, but goes "to them as friends just as if they had done nothing. "And though he be often beaten by his mother, yet "he always seeks her and loves her more than any one else. If you show him a queen in her royal "crown, he prefers his mother clad in rags, and "would rather see her unadorned than the queen in magnificent attire; for he does not appreciate ac"cording to riches or poverty, but by love. He seeks "not for more than is necessary, and as soon as he "has had sufficient milk he quits the breast. He is "not oppressed with the same sorrows as we, nor "troubled with care for money and the like; neither "is he rejoiced by our transitory pleasures,_nor "affected by corporal beauty. Therefore our Lord 'said, Of such is the kingdom of heaven, wishing "us to do of our own free will what children do by "nature."1 66 Their Guardian Angels, as our Lord himself said, gazing into those pure souls, are not distracted from the contemplation of their heavenly Father: for he rests in them as on the wings of Cherubim, since baptism has made them his children. Happy was our Saint to have been chosen by God to share the loving cares of the Angels here below, before partaking of their bliss in heaven. The following detailed account is given by Holy Church: 1 CHRYS. in Matth. Hom. Ixii. al. lxiii. Hieronymus, e gente patricia Emiliana Venetiis ortus, a prima adolescentia militiæ addictus, difficillimis Reipublicæ temporibus Castro Novo ad Quarum in montibus Tarvisinis præficitur. Arce ab hostibus capta, ipse in teterrimum carcerem detruditur, manibus ac pedibus vinctus; cui omni humana ope destituto beatissima Virgo ejus precibus exorata, clemens adest, vincula solvit, et per medios hostes, qui vias omnes obsederant, in Tarvisii conspectum incolumem ducit. Urbem ingressus, ad Deiparæ aram, cui se voverat, manicas, compedes, catenas, quas secum detulerat, in accepti beneficii testimonium suspendit. Reversus Venetias, cœpit pietatis studia impensius colere, in pauperes mire effusus, sed puerorum præsertim misertus, qui parentibus orbati, egeni et sordidi per urbem vagabantur, quos in ædes a se conductas recepit de suo alendos, et Christianis moribus imbuendos. Per eos dies Venetias appulerant beatus Cajetanus, et Petrus Caraffa postmo Jerome was born at Venice, of the patrician family of the Emiliani, and from his boyhood embraced a military life. At a time when the Republic was in great difficulty, he was placed in command of Castelnovo, in the territory of Quero, in the mountains of Tarviso. The fortress was taken by the enemy, and Jerome was thrown, bound hand and foot, into a horrible dungeon. When he found himself thus destitute of all human aid, he prayed most earnestly to the Blessed Virgin, who mercifully came to his assistance. She loosed his bonds, and led him safely through the midst of his enemies, who had possession of every road, till he was within sight of Tarviso. He entered the town; and, in testimony of the favour he had received, he hung up at the altar of our Lady, to whose service he had vowed himself, the manacles, shackles, and chains which he had brought with him. On his return to Venice he gave himself with the utmost zeal to exercises of piety. His charity towards the poor was wonderful; but he was particularly moved to pity for the orphan children who wandered poor and dirty about the town; he received them into houses which he hired, where he fed them at his own expense and trained them to lead Christian lives. At this time Blessed Cajetan and Peter Caraffa, who was afterwards Paul IV., disem barked at Venice. They commended Jerome's spirit and his new institution for gathering orphans together. They also introduced him into the hospital for incurables, where he would be able to devote himself with equal charity to the education of orphans, and to the service of the sick. Soon, at their suggestion, he crossed over to the Continent and founded orphanages, first at Brescia, then at Bergamo and Como. At Bergamo his zeal was specially prolific, for there, besides two orphanages, one for boys and one for girls, he opened a house, an unprecedented thing in those parts, for the reception of fallen women who had been converted. Finally he took up his abode at Somascha, a small village in the territory of Bergamo, near to the Venetian border, and this he made his headquarters; here, too, he definitely established his Congregation, which for this reason received the name of Somasques. In course of time it spread and increased, and for the greater benefit of the Christian republic it undertook, besides the ruling and guiding of orphans and the taking care of sacred buildings, the education both liberal and moral of young men in colleges, academies, and seminaries. Pius V. enrolled it among religious Orders, and other Roman Pontiffs have honoured it with privileges. Entirely devoted to his work dum Paulus Quartus, qui Hieronymi spiritu, novoque instituto colligendi orphanos probato, illum in incurabilium hospitale adduxerunt, in quo orphanos simul educaret, atque ægrotis pari charitate inserviret. Mox eorumdem hortatu in proximam Continentem profectus, Brixiæ primum, deinde Bergomi, atque Novocomi orphanotrophia erexit: Bergomi præsertim, ubi præter duo, pro pueris unum, et pro puellis alterum, domum excipiendis, novo in illis regionibus exemplo mulieribus a turpi vita ad pœnitentiam conversis, aperuit. Somaschæ demum subsistens, in humili pago agri Bergomensis ad Veneta ditionis fines, sibi, ac suis ibi sedem constituit, formamque induxit Congregationis, cui propterea a Somascha nomen factum: quam subinde auctam et propagatam, nedum orphanorum regimini, et Ecclesiarum cultui, sed ad majorem Christianæ reipublicæ utilitatem, adolescentium in litteris et bonis moribus institutioni in collegiis, academiis, et seminariis addictam sanctus Pius Quintus inter Religiosos Ordines adscripsit, caterique Pontifices privilegiis ornarunt. Orphanis colligendis in |