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in honor of the Blessed Virgin, on Mount Tersatt, in Dalmatia, where the Holy House of Nazareth is supposed to have paused in its miraculous journey to Loreto. When invited to officiate at the dedication, however, he waived the honor in favor of one who was considered his great political rival, but who had ever remained his dear brother in Christ, Bishop Stadler, the upholder of the Austrian element in Bosnia.

It was Bishop Stadler who pronounced the funeral panegyric on the Bishop of Djakovo when he was laid to rest, in the Cathedral of his own foundation, amidst the tears of a nation and in the presence of numerous representatives from neighboring states and of envoys from several crowned heads of Europe.

The orator took for his text the motto of the deceased prelate, the motto to which he had so faithfully adhered: “All for Faith and Fatherland," and showed that this valiant son of the Church had accomplished so much, because he was essentially, and beyond all else, a man of prayer.

"I have always loved, beyond any human converse, that which solitude procured me face to face with my Creator."

BRUGES.

BY ELLIS SCHREIBER.

B

RUGES, a city "from whose towers (to borrow the words of Matthew Arnold) still breathe the enchantments of the Middle Ages," can boast high antiquity, an eventful history, great prosperity, and importance in the past. From a very early date, probably from the time of the Romans, there stood, about nine miles west of Ghent, a fortified camp or castle on a small oblong-shaped island, formed by the confluence of the river Boterbeke with the Roya, and a broad moat connecting the two streams, in the northwest corner of Flanders. This lonely, desolate spot, hemmed in by forest and marsh, was little more than a dismal waste. Cæsar mentions it as a barren, unhealthy land, and Eumenius says of it that the land seemed to float on the ocean, and when trodden on quaked underfoot. Its name of Brugge, or Bruggestock, was perhaps taken from the brugge, or heather and undergrowth which surrounded it, or from the brigge (bridge) whereby it was approached. Some chroniclers say that the fort was erected in the fourth century to protect the bridge, the ancient seal of the city being a castle and bridge. Hard by the fort, on the mainland, was a small sanctuary, supposed to have been built by St. Eligius in the seventh century; tradition asserts that on the site of that chapel St. Saviour's Church now stands.

Towards the close of the year 630, as is recorded in a life of St. Amand, Bishop of Bourges, by one of his disciples (Boll. Acta SS. vi. Feb.) that prelate, having journeyed to Rome, was praying before the tomb of the Apostles, when suddenly he heard the voice of St. Peter, bidding him return to Gaul, where he must preach the Gospel. So impressed was he by the reality of the command, that he instantly set out for the North, and presently reached Sens. There he was told that there was a country beyond the Scheldt called Gand, where

dwelt a wild people who had forgotten God and worshipped trees; so rude was this land, and so fierce its inhabitants, that no missionary dare venture thither. "This must be the field," quoth Amand, "which St. Peter would have me till," and, with a small band of followers, he landed on the further side of the Scheldt. The newcomers were received with unmistakable signs of hostility by the settlers around the fortress of Brugge; the saint himself was seized and plunged into the river. This so terrified his companions that they fled in dismay; but Amand fearlessly continued the work he had begun, and in course of time won the confidence of the people, many of whom he baptized, and whose idol temples he destroyed. For thirty years he remained in that district, teaching and preaching and enduring all manner of hardships. Presently he was joined by other missionaries. Churches and monasteries were built, the land was brought under cultivation, villages and small towns were formed. Several of these towns in the neighborhood of Bruges claim as their founder one or other of the missionaries who at that time evangelized the country. In the eighth century St. Boniface and St. Walburga are said to have visited Bruges, the former founding a church in honor of our Lady, the latter the parish church which bears her name. Already in the seventh century Bruges had a civic organization of its own, and appears to have been a place of some importance.

Charlemagne secured the tranquillity of Germany by subduing the Saxons. Some of these Saxons, however, settled in Flanders. This accounts for the difference of language in the northern and southern provinces; in the former Flemish, in the latter Walloon is the vernacular. The early governors of Flanders, appointed by Charlemagne and his successors, bore the title of Forester, because they had charge of the vast forests about Bruges. They had also to defend the coast against the Normans, who made descents, ravaged the country, and left a trail marked by the ashes of towns and villages, the ruins of churches and monasteries. So much were these ferocious pirates dreaded that the Brugeois added a petition to their litany: "From the fury of the Northmen deliver us, O Lord." The title of Forester was changed to that of Count on the appointment of Baldwin Bras de fer, who carried off and married the fair Judith, daughter of the King of France.

He was the first of the long line of Counts of Flanders, whose power was gradually augmented as Bruges, their chief town, extended its limits and increased its commerce. Thither Emma, the widow of Canute, went to live when driven from England. Entering as an exile, she quitted it later in triumph when her son, Hardicanute, who had joined her at Bruges, was elected King of England.

In the eleventh century Arwulf, Bishop of Soissons, was sent to preach to the Flemings, and to convert the then Count. Arwulf was the means of transforming him from a cruel, warlike ruler to a peaceful, devout Christian. The Bishop's labors and those of the monks of the Benedictine Abbey of Oudenburg, which he founded and where he died, completed the civilization and evangelization of Flanders. During the rule of Charles the Good a famine desolated the land. The Count daily fed a hundred destitute poor in Bruges; and on being reproached for this liberality, answered: "I know how needy are the poor and how selfish the high born." He was murdered while kneeling in the Church of St. Donatus; his body was left lying in the desecrated edifice until one of his servants wrapped it in a winding sheet and placed four candles round it. The assassin was hurled to death from the Church tower.

During the reign of Thierry of Alsace, who for forty years ruled well and wisely, St. Bernard came to Bruges preaching the crusade. "Worn with fasting and mortification," says an ancient writer, "pale, seeming scarcely to live, the saint's appearance moved men almost as much as his words." Count Thierry more than once took up the sword of the crusader; on his return from one of these expeditions he brought to Bruges a treasure which has had no little influence on the artistic and religious development of this city, which for centuries has attracted and still attracts to it thousands of pious pilgrims. When Thierry was about to leave Jerusalem, his brother-in-law, Baldwin III., King of Jerusalem, gave him, as a guerdon because of the valor he had displayed, a crystal vial in which was a crimson fluid, said by tradition to be some drops of the Precious Blood of Christ, collected by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus when they washed the blood-stained body before laying it in the sepulchre. Thierry received, on his knees, the sacred relic, which was closed by gold stoppers; but he said a rough

soldier like himself was unworthy to be the bearer of so sacred a treasure. So he hung the silver chain attached to it round the neck of his chaplain, Abbot Leo of St. Omer, who had accompanied him to Palestine. The Abbot never parted with it night or day until, on the evening of April 7, 1150, he reached the gates of Bruges. News of the treasure having reached the city, crowds came out to meet him, and with solemn pomp the relic was transferred to the custody of the Court chaplains, four of whom were appointed to guard it, after it had been deposited, in the presence of the Count and all the magnates of Bruges, in the chapel of St. Basil, which Baldwin of the Iron Hand had built. The earlier history of this precious relic is veiled in mystery, but from the day when it was brought to Bruges its story is unbroken.

Count Thierry was away on another and a last expedition to the Holy Land when St. Thomas of Canterbury, forced to fly from England in consequence of having resisted the king's encroachments on the rights of the Church, landed in disguise near Bruges, and placed himself under the protection of the Count's son, Philip, who was governing Flanders during his father's absence. The King of England sent letters demanding that the Archbishop should be given up, but no heed was paid to them. Philip was then building a Church at Crépy, and the fugitive Archbishop asked to what saint he intended to dedicate it? Philip answered: "To the first martyr." "The first of those who were martyred or of those who shall be?" rejoined Thomas with a significant smile. The Church was not yet finished when the Archbishop was murdered in the cathedral of Canterbury, and to him it was dedicated. Many traditions connected with the saint linger in the vicinity of Bruges.

In 1203 Count Baldwin IX., with the chivalry of Flanders, assembled in the Church of St. Donatus at Bruges to receive the cross before starting on the fourth crusade. The Bishop of Tournay presided at the ceremony; taking a linen cross embroidered with gold, he fastened it on the Count's right shoulder, saying: "Take this sign of the cross in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, in memory. of the Passion and Death of Christ." Baldwin was elected Emperor of Constantinople, where he died, leaving only two young daughters as his heirs. King Philip Augustus, of France,

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