ciosissimi adolescentis dignata est, et ex ejus ore has voces audire meruit: Quid adeo fruendi cupiditate teneris? quid tot lacrymis gemitibusque diffunderis? quid tam crebro meis altaribus suppliciter admoveris? quid tot laboribus corpusculum tuum infringis? cum ipse tibi semper adhæream. Tu gemma nobilis, noveris te in diademate capitis mei esse e gemmis primariis unam. Anno tandem quingentesimo octogesimo septimo purissimam animam in sinu colestis Sponsi, quem unice dilexerat, exhalavit, et a sancto Gregorio Turonensi in basilica beatæ Mariæ, ut optaverat, sepulta fuit. 66 by an apparition of Christ under the form of a most beautiful youth; and she heard these words from his mouth: "Why art thou consumed by so great a longing to enjoy my presence? Why dost "thou pour out so many tears "and sighs? Why comest thou as a suppliant so often to my altars? Why dost thou "break down thy body with so many labours, when I am always united to thee? My "beautiful pearl! Know that "thou art one of the most "precious stones in my kingly 66 66 66 66 66 crown. ." In the year 587 she breathed forth her pure soul into the bosom of the heavenly Spouse who had been her only love. Gregory of Tours buried her, as she had wished, in the church of St. Mary. Thine exile is over, eternal possession has taken the place of desire; all heaven is illumined with the brightness of the precious stone that has come to enrich the diadem of the Spouse. O Radegonde, the Wisdom who is now rewarding thy toils, led thee by admirable ways. Thy inheritance, become to thee as a lion in the wood spreading death around thee, thy captivity far from thy native land; what was all this but love's way of drawing thee from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards, where idolatry had led thee in childhood? Thou hadst to suffer in a foreign land, but the light from above shone into thy soul, and gave it strength. A powerful king tried in vain to make thee share his throne; thou wert a queen but for Christ, who in his goodness made thee a mother to that kingdom of France, which belongs to him more than to any prince. For his sake thou didst love that land become thine by the right of the Bride who shares the sceptre of her Spouse; for his sake, that nation, whose glorious destiny thou didst predict, received unstintedly all thy labours, thy unspeakable mortifications, thy prayers and thy tears. O thou who art ever queen of France, as Christ is ever its King, bring back to him the hearts of its people, for in their blind error they have laid aside their glory, and their sword is no longer wielded for God. Protect, above all, the city of Poitiers, which honours thee with a special cultus together with its great St. Hilary. Bless thy daughters of SainteCroix, who, ever faithful to thy great traditions, prove the power of that fruitful stem, which through so many centuries and such devastations, has never ceased to produce both flowers and fruit. Teach us to seek our Lord, and to find him in his holy Sacrament, in the relics of his Saints, in his suffering members on earth; and may all Christians learn from thee how to love. Not far from the sepulchre of St. Laurence, on the opposite side of the Tiburtian Way, lies the tomb of St. Hippolytus, one of the sanctuaries most dear to the Christians in the days of triumph. Prudentius has described the magnificence of the crypt, and the immense concourse attracted to it each year on the Ides of August. Who was this Saint? Of what rank and manner of life? What facts of his history are there to be told, beyond that of his having given his blood for Christ? All these questions have in modern times become the subject of numerous and learned works. He was a martyr, and that is nobility enough to make him glorious in our eyes. Let us honour him then, and together with him another soldier of Christ, Cassian of Immola, whom the Church offers to our homage at the same time. Hippolytus was dragged by wild horses over rocks and briars till his body was all torn: Cassian, who was a schoolmaster, was delivered by the judge to the children he had taught, and died of the thousands of wounds inflicted by their styles. The prince of Christian poets has sung of him as of Hippolytus, describing his combat and his tomb. PRAYER. Da, quæsumus omnipotens Deus: ut beatorum Martyrum tuorum Hippolyti et Cassiani veneranda solemnitas, et devotionem nobis augeat, et salutem. Per Dominum. Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that the venerable solemnity of thy blessed martyrs, Hippolytus and Cassian, may contribute to the increase of our devotion, and promote our salvation, Through Christ our Lord, &c. AUGUST 14. VIGIL OF THE ASSUMPTION. WHAT is this aurora before which the brightest. constellations pale? Laurence, who has been shining in the August heavens as an incomparable star, is well nigh eclipsed, and becomes but the humble satellite of the Queen of Saints, whose triumph is preparing beyond the clouds. Mary stayed on earth after her Son's Ascension, in order to give birth to his Church; but she could not remain for ever in exile. Yet she was not to take her flight to heaven until this new fruit of her maternity had acquired the growth and strength which it belongs to a mother to give. How sweet to the Church was this dependence! A privilege given to her members by our Lord in imitation of himself.1 As we saw, at Christmas time, the God-Man carried first in the arms of his Mother, gathering his strength and nourishing his life at her virginal breast: so the mystical body of the Man-God, the holy Church, received, in its first years, the same care from Mary, as the divine Child our Emmanuel. As Joseph heretofore at Nazareth, Peter was now ruling the house of God; but our Lady was none the less to the assembly of the faithful the source of life in the spiritual order, as she had been to Jesus in his 1 Carnalia in te Christus ubera suxit, ut per te nobis spiritualia fluerent.-RICHARD. a S. VICTORE, in Cant. Cap. xxiii. Humanity. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Ghost and every one of his gifts rested first upon her in all fulness; every grace bestowed on the privileged dwellers in the cenacle was given more eminently and more abundantly to her. The sacred stream of the river maketh the city of God joyful, because first of all the Most High has sanctified his own tabernacle, made her the well of living waters, which run with a strong stream from Libanus. Eternal Wisdom herself is compared in the Scripture to overflowing waters; to this day, the voice of her messengers traverses the world, magnificent, as the voice of the Lord over the great waters, as the thunder which reveals his power and majesty: like a new deluge overturning the ramparts of false science, levelling every height raised against God and fertilizing the desert. O fountain of the gardens hiding thyself so calm and pure in Sion, the silence which keeps thee from the knowledge of the profane, hides from their sullied eyes the source of thy wavelets which carry salvation to the farthest limits of the Gentile world. To thee, as to the Wisdom sprung from thee, is applied the prophetic word: I have poured out rivers. Thou givest to drink to the new-born Church thirsting for the Word. Thou art, as the Holy Spirit said of Esther, thy type: "The "little fountain which grew into a river, and was "turned into a light, and into the sun, and abounded "into many waters."2 The Apostles, inundated with divine science, recognised in thee the richest source, which having once given to the world the Lord God, continued to be the channel of his grace and truth to them. As a mountain spreads out at its base in proportion to the greatness of its height, the incomparable |