the Gentiles, and the glory of Gentium: et gloriam plethy people Israel. Glory, &c.

ANTHEM TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy.

Our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope, all hail!

To thee we cry, poor banished children of Eve;

To thee we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping, in this vale of tears.

Turn, then, most gracious

tra, illos tuos misericordes Advocate! thine eyes of mercy

oculos ad nos converte;

Et Jesum benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exilium ostende; O clemens, O pia,

O dulcis Virgo Maria. . Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix.

B. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

OREMUS.

Omnipotens, sempiterne Deus, qui gloriosæ Virginis Matris Mariæ corpus et animam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici mereretur, Spiritu Sancto co-operante, præparasti: da ut cujus commemoratione lætamur, ejus pia intercessione ab instantibus malis et a morte perpetua liberemur. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. R. Amen.

. Divinum auxilium maneat semper nobiscum. R. Amen.

towards us;

And, after this our exile, show unto us the blessed Fruit of thy womb, Jesus; O merciful,

O kind,

O sweet Virgin Mary!
V. Pray for us, O holy
Mother of God,

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

LET US PRAY.

O almighty and everlasting God, who, by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, didst prepare the body and soul of Mary, glorious Virgin and Mother, to become the worthy habitation of thy Son: grant that we may be delivered from present evils and from everlasting death, by Her gracious intercession, in whose commemoration we rejoice. Through the same Christ our Lord. R. Amen.

V: May the divine assistance remain always with us. R. Amen.*

Then, in secret, Pater, Ave, and Credo.

* In the Monastic Rite this

R. Et cum fratribus nostris absentibus. Amen.

response is as follows:--

R7. And with our absent Breth-
Amen.

ren.

PROPER OF THE SAINTS.

JULY 8.

SAINT ELIZABETH,

QUEEN OF PORTUGAL.

IN the footsteps of Margaret of Scotland and of Clotilde of France, a third Queen comes to shed her brightness on the sacred Cycle. Born at the southern extremity of Christendom, where it borders on Mussulman lands, she was destined by the Holy Ghost to seal with peace the victories of Christ, and prepare the way for fresh conquests. The blessed

name of Elizabeth, which for half a century had been rejoicing the world with its sweet perfume, was given to her, foretelling that this new-born child, as though attracted by the roses which fell from the mantle of her Thuringian aunt, was to cause these same heavenly flowers to blossom in Iberia.

There is a mysterious heirship among the saints of God. The same year in which one niece of Elizabeth of Thuringia was born in Spain, another, the Blessed Margaret of Hungary, took her flight to heaven. She had been consecrated to God from her mother's womb, as a pledge for the salvation of her people, in the midst of terrible disasters; and the

hopes so early centred in her were not frustrated. A short life of twenty-eight years spent in innocence and prayer, earned for her country the blessings of peace and civilization; and then Margaret bequeathed to our Saint of to-day the mission of continuing in another land the work of her holy predecessors.

The time had come for our Lord to shed a ray of His grace upon Spain. The thirteenth century was closing, leaving the world in a state of dismemberment and ruin. Weary of fighting for Christ, kings dismissed the Church from their councils, and selfishly kept aloof, preferring their own ambitious strifes to the common aspiration of the once great body of Christendom. Such a state of things was disastrous for the entire West; much more, then, for that noble country where the Crusade had multiplied kingdoms as so many outposts against the common enemy, the Moors. Unity of views and the sacrifice of all things to the great work of deliverance could alone maintain in the successors of Pelayo the spirit of the grand memories of yore. Unfortunately these princes, though heroes on the battle-field, had not sufficient strength of mind to lay aside their petty quarrels and take up the sacred duty entrusted to them by Providence. In vain did the Roman Pontiff strive to awaken them to the interests of their country and of the Christian name; these hearts, generous in other respects, were too stifled by miserable passions to heed his voice; and the Mussulman looked on delightedly at these intestine strifes, which retarded his own defeat. Navarre, Castile, Aragon, and Portugal were not only at war with each other; but even within each of these kingdoms, father and son were at enmity, and brother disputed with brother, inch by inch, the heritage of his ancestors.

Who was to restore to Spain the still recent

traditions of her Ferdinand III.? Who was to gather again these dissentient wills into one, so as to make them a terror to the Saracen and a glory to Christ? James I. of Aragon, who rivalled St. Ferdinand both in bravery and in conquests, had married Yoland, daughter of Andrew of Hungary; whereupon the cultus of the holy Duchess of Thuringia, whose brother-in-law he had thus become, was introduced beyond the Pyrenees; and the name of Elizabeth, changed in most cases into Isabel, became, as it were, a family jewel with which the Spanish princesses have loved to be adorned. The first to bear it was the daughter of James and Yoland, who married Philip III. of France, successor of St. Louis; the second was the grand-daughter of the same James I., the Saint whom the Church honours today, and of whom the old king, with prophetic insight, loved to say, that she would surpass all the women of the race of Aragon.

Inheriting not only the name, but also the virtues of the "dear St. Elizabeth," she would one day deserve to be called "the mother of peace and of her "country." By means of her heroic self-renunciation and all-powerful prayer, she repressed the lamentable quarrels of princes. One day, unable to prevent peace being broken, she cast herself between two contending armies under a very hailstorm of arrows, and so forced the soldiers to lay down their fratricidal arms. Thus she paved the way for the happy event, which she herself was not to have the consolation of seeing the re-organisation of that great enterprise for the expulsion of the Moors, which was not to close till the following century under the auspices of another Isabel, her worthy descendant, who would add to her name the beautiful title of "the Catholic." Four years after Elizabeth's death, the victory of Salado was gained by the united armies of all Spain