remarkably well suited to the convenience of preachers; no echo whatever, and hardly any reverberation. A row of arches forms a semicircle behind the chancel, and separates the aisles from the nave, while sustaining the gallery. There, invisible behind an upper row of smaller arches, the novices pray and chant during the evening Benediction. Above and behind the high altar, within a niche as large as two or three of the gallery arches, stands a great white statue of Marie-Immaculée, with a crown of star-shaped gaslights over her head. This, when the gas is turned on for some grand festival, the aisles being illuminated with many coloured lamps, and the sanctuary all ablaze with pyramids of tapers, presents an appearance which is strikingly picturesque.

On entering the Residence we notice a peculiar air of calm-call it monastic gloom if you are worldly-minded. that pervades the whole place. All is silent. The sun shines dimly through ground-glass windows and Venetian blinds at the end of a long stone-paved corridor down-stairs. No one is there but one or two priests, walking to and fro noiselessly like shadows, saying their Breviary. First and second floor: corridors ditto, shadows ditto; more of the Venetian blinds and less of the sunlight. All the novices occupy the third storey; the Pères de Résidence alone live below. They are old or middleaged for the most part; authors, confessors, preachers getting their Lent, Advent, and Mission sermons ready, and aged men 'preparing themselves for death," as the Status (or annual register) used to put it, I am told: Pater X., parat se ad mortem. Now adays, however, they would prefer to write simply scnex after the

.

name; but parat se ad mortem is an occupation. and senex is not. As everything in the chapel bore witness to opulence and taste, so everything in the Residence testifies to cleanliness and affluence. The tokens of affluence, however, stop short at the threshold of the Fathers' rooms; those of cleanliness go further. You will find in their cells-large indeed and airy enough-only a few almost indispensable objects: A writing-desk, a lamp, a small bronze crucifix, a prie-Dieu, two, or sometimes even three rush-bottomed chairs, a curtained bedstead in a recess, a broom peeping out from a corner, and a wash-hand stand; no carpets, flowers, mirrors, pictures, or curtains. No luxuries, in a word. All that is not strictly necessary is strictly prohibited.

The

But we are visiting the Novitiate, not the Residence. Let us accordingly go up-stairs to the third floor, a few minutes to four A.M. All is dark in the passage. A light is suddenly struck. bell must ring at four precisely, as the novices, like the rest of the Society, have seven hours of sleep allotted to them; and the Frère Réglementaire is getting up betimes in order to begin his day's work. This is no sinecure; for I have reckoned that he rings the bell thirty-five times in seventeen hours. It sounds and at the first " ding-dong" a series of jumps on to the floor is heard in reply.

For the bell is the voice of God, as Ignatius says; and as no novice would have thought of rising without leave one instant before, so no one would, even for a second, hesitato to obey the divine call. The Frère goes down the passage with a lighted queue-de-rat in his hand, and successively lights one lamp in each room, saying

as he passes. Domino!" to which each and all, hurriedly dressing, washing, or shaving, reply from behind the curtains, "Deo Gratias!" Haste must be made, for all these operations, besides that of carrying dirty water to the sink, must be performed in twentyfive minutes, in order to leave five minutes free for a visit in the private chapel to the "Master of the house."

Here they come,-and first of all the most fervent and saintly amongst them, Brother Seraphicus, as the novices playfully call him. It is 4.15: so he will pay a visit of a quarter of an hour. Alas! Seraphic Brother, I am afraid a shorter visit would have been preferable; you have neglected more than one duty to get these extra ten minutes. One shoe is badly laced; your tooth-brush is dry; and even your hands might be whiter. Mon Frère, with all your ferver, you will never be a son of Ignatius: that old Saint has a military liking for tidiness and order. In two years you will leave the Novitiate, to become a good pious priest, but never a Jesuit. Now go in and sigh, and lean your head on one side, languishing with burning love for "Jésus Hostie !" that is very well in its way, but discipline must be main

tained.

All

Second on the list comes another young Brother, half French and half Irish, of quite another type, rather dry in his orisons, and not at all given to soaring in mystic contemplation. He cannot even fancy St Peter during the Meditation, without thinking of an old tar, with a "south-wester" on his head, and a short black pipe in the corner of his mouth. But he is irreproachably neat in all

Here comes at last the rest of the Community, all stepping lightly on tiptoe, as the "Master of the novices" has ordered. Were they fifty together, they must all walk along in this fashion,-which looks rather ridiculous, but is meant to inculcate respect for silence. All hurry towards the sink, carrying each in his hand the requisite vessel. Rectors, Provincials, nay, even Generals, are also bound to this rule of "self-help," and not novices only; unless, indeed, they are too much engaged, and then a laybrother does the work.

Five-and-twenty minutes have elapsed; all novices coming henceforward to the chapel must kneel down outside the door, not to disturb the others,-and there is often a whole string of them outside, when a long walk on the previous day has made thein so sleepy that they are not able to do everything both speedily and well. For besides their outward occupations, their mind has all the time to be busily at work. They must take their morning resolution for the day-what evil specially to avoid, and what virtue to cultivate: and then there is the Meditation to be thought about; and they must offer the coming day to God.

All this not unfrequently delays

them.

The hour strikes; the novices all trip up-stairs-for the private chapel is on the second floor-to meditate from 4.30 to 5.30. The subject was given out the day before, and is taken from the Exercitia Spiritualia. Leaving the novices to kiss the ground in the presence of God, and then to work out the different heads, we may remark that some of them take advantage of this hour to practise a most painful kind of penance, insupportable to not a few. They remain all the time absolutely motionless on their knees. Now, in England, immobility would signify little; but are in France, and in the south of France, where the utmost cleanliness fails to keep a house clear of fleas, at least in summer. Novices are forbidden to wear sackcloth on account of their health; but the crawling, tickling sensation, here there everywhere- and then the sharp unexpected bite, is a great deal worse, and more irritating-Experto crede! I had to give it up very soon, and as the slightest movement was enough to frighten the torturers, it was not difficult to keep them off.

The Meditation coming to an end, pens run over paper during a quarter of an hour devoted to the Review. This part of the exercise, considered so essential a part of the Meditation by St Ignatius that he will on no account suffer it in any case to be set aside, is a mental glance or survey of the hour that has just gone by. The grand principle of practical reflection on the Past, with a view towards progress, is brought to is brought to bear on the Meditation; whether it has been successful or not, and why, is noted down in the "Spiritual Journal." The beds

are then made, and this is no easy task. If the furniture of the Fathers down-stairs seemed to be the acme of simplicity, that of the novices is the acme in very deed. We pass over the want of fire (supplied in cold weather by a box of hay or a foot-bag), of a washhand stand, of a prie-Dieu, and even of matches. The bedstead consists of two trestles, across which three or four deal boards are laid; the bed is a mere sack filled with maize-straw, covered with sheets and blankets. The art of the bed-maker is to give this a decent and neat appearance

and he succeeds. See, an Ancien de Chambre-a novice of the second year, appointed in each room to instruct the new-comers-is giving a lesson. He shows how the ends of the counterpane must be symmetrically folded together, with what care every straw that falls should be picked up, and how the bolster-ends, covered with the sheet, can be made to assume an artistic form. Art too should appear in the folding of the white curtains, that must hang gracefully over their iron rods; and often does the Frère Admoniteur— the Master's organ and representative-come round to see that all is in perfect order. Often, too, beds not sufficiently neat are pulled down to be made up again; and sometimes, it is hinted, this is done merely as a trial of patience.

Again the bell rings, and again the novices troop away-to Mass, this time. One Brother, rather sulky and stubborn-looking, with a high forehead and a dull eye and complexion, comes in late; he was intent on doing something else, and would not put it by at once. And the Rule insists on complete, instant, and joyful obedience. A bad omen, Brother, if at the

boiling-point of fervour you give neither. Besides, you were (a most irregular thing indeed !) looking out of the window a few days ago; hankering, perhaps, after the world you have left. You will remain in the Society just as long as the Frère Séraphique-and what will become of you afterwards, I cannot tell.

Mass is said in the little private chapel, carefully waked, orns mented with red hangings, white window-curtains, and plentifully gilded all round. It smells a little too inuch of paint. A statue of the Immaculate Virgin and another of St Stanislaus stand to right and left before the sanctuary; but the paint makes them too lifelike, and their immobility too deathlike, not to offend æsthetic taste. Another figure produces a widely different impression. in, or rather below the altar is a deep recess, with a large sheet of glass before it. By the dim light that shines through the glass, we can perceive a palo, a deadly pale wax figure, reclining on a couch, clad in the toga pretextu, and with a palm in his hand. By his side stands an earthenware phial, and the inscription: ADON • PUER IN PACE. Enclosed in the waxen mould is the skeleton of some unknown child-martyr, thus exposed to veneration in a inanner sufficiently realistic to strike, yet not crude enough to repel. Before this shrine the novices kncel nearly the whole tine of the service. The attitude generally considered the most correct is as follows: Head slightly bent forwards, neither to right or left; eyes cast down; body straight as an arrow; face sereue; hands folded or clasped. This attitude is recommended at all times, nututis mutandis, according to the dictates of commonsense. An assistant in a college

could hardly be required to sec "with downcast eyes" what his hundred boys are about.

These details may be looked upon as minutim unworthy of the genius of Loyola, and reducing every. Jesuit to the station of a mere actor. Waiving that question (as also the other one which it includes, viz., whether "all the world" is not "a stage," as a contemporary of Ignatius scems to think), 1 can only state that he considered his 'Rules of Modesty' to be of supreme importance. His idea was Jesuita, alter Jesus: and he wished his disciples to inuitate the exterior of Jesus. And, iustead of leaving this imitation to the judgment of his followers themselves, each man copying his own ideal, Ignatius thought it best to lay down directions for them according to the nodel he had in his own mind. IIis soldierlike love of order and uniformity amply accounts for this; but thero are other reasons. Our Master, in a lecture on the subject, once used words to the following effect: "There are two converse methods. One is, Sanctify the exterior by first rendering the interior man holy; the other, Render the interior holy by previously sanctifying what is exterior. Be a saint, and you will by degrees come to look outwardly like one.

Take care to act out

wardly like a saint, and you will gradually become one. Which plan is the best? All depends on circumstances; both may be used' with great profit; but, given our position of men that have to appear much in public, the latter system is preferable for us." All this, of course, does not come naturally to a novice, and this straining after "molesty" is frequently one of the inost disagreeable spectacles ono can see when

in a bad humour, and the most laughable when in a good one.

After Mass, until half-past seven, the novices read a commentary upon Holy Scripture. But let it not be thought that they may choose the commentary which they prefer, or the part of the Bible they like best. They have to submit their preferences to the Master, and he chooses for them. So likewise for all the books read in the Novitiate; so likewise for everything else. From the moment they rise till the time when they stretch their limbs in bed, they are under obedience-drilled all day long. The lesson of selfdenial is taught them, not by a few great sacrifices, but by a continued series of trifles to be given up. Obedience is incessantly prescnt, in season, and, one might think, out of season too. See the novices going down into the refectory; it is a fast-day, and all of them must pass by the Master, standing at the door of his room. Why? Because they must ask permission to take the frustulum, a morsel of bread allowed by dispensation to all who fast. if they do not wish to avail themselves of the dispensation? They must also ask leave not to avail themselves of it! "We," said a Capuchin friar to me one day, "we have severer penances than you; and yet you have more to endure. One can little by little get hardened to the scourge, but not to never doing one's own will." Perhaps the good Capuchin was right.

And

After breakfast, work; travaux manuels. It is not the Admonitor who commands here, but the Frère Directeur des travaux. Novices must, from the very beginning, learn to obey their companions, so as to have less difficulty in doing the same in after-years; and if

Superiors are afterwards strongly advised to give hints and counsels, rather than orders and commands, it is quite the contrary now: the Directeur des travaux has to say: Go there, and they go; Do this, and it is done. Novices, being extra fervent, can support without so much danger an extra dose of obedience; and besides, O Ignatius, hast thou not learned, when yet a soldier of the world, that the strength of cannons is tried by firing them with extra charges?— so, each novice goes and humbly asks for work.

There is plenty to do. Sweeping rooms and passages and garden paths; waxing the floor of the private chapel-terrible work!— down in the cellar, drawing wine, or up in the garret cleaning shoes; or out of doors, digging; or within, laying the table for dinner: not one novice is unemployed. Some are sitting in the lectureroom, to learn the way of making rosaries, disciplines, haircloths, and those chains whose sharp points enter into the flesh. A dozen or more are working under the superintendence of a strict, morose, lantern-jawed Brother, who has a little of the Buonaparte type in his face, and a good deal of sombre obstinacy in his character; he will remain in the Society only five years, making himself generally disliked, and brooding over imaginary wrongs done to him. corner are two of the youngest Brothers, one of whom sometimes glances at the other full slily, and then shakes with suppressed laughter; for that other is engaged upon an awful girdle, at least six inches broad, ordered for penitential purposes by some tough old Father. All this is very pleasant to see; but the sly Brother is a trifle too friendly, though perhaps he does not know it as yet; it is

In a