their destination about two o'clock in the night, just one hour before the death of her on whose account they had come such a journey. Father O'Shane—poor old gentleman!—suffered terribly; had his ears frostbitten, and two of his fingers frozen. But no matter; a soul was to be saved, and that consideration alleviated all his sufferings, and rendered him dead to every thing—cold, pain, watchings, hunger, thirst, and weariness; nay, even death itself was but a trivial, inadequate price to be paid by a mortal man to gain an immortal soul to Christ and eternal happiness.

"'Tis an awful night, reverend sir," said O'Leary. "I fear we can't go ahead."

"What matter, O'Leary," said Father O'Shane, "as we reached in time? What is this night and all its violence compared with the sufferings of a poor soul in the next world? All I regret is that you did not send me in the sick call sooner. All is well, however; she was perfectly conscious, and, I hope, worthily received all the rites of religion. Hold up! you will rest well to-night, your conscience at ease, after having been engaged in such a meritorious act of charity."

In nothing does the church of God manifest the divinity of her origin and mission more than in the care which she bestows on her children, the adopted brethren of Jesus Christ, at the awful hour of death. She reserves all her good things for this her last service to her children. She sends her keys there, to the bedside of the dying man, to open to him the gate to the calm and peaceful walks of justification. She sends her oils thither, too, to anoint the Christian gladiator for his last and final struggle with his powerful enemies. She sends her divine manna, to strengthen him and sustain him for the trying and unknown journey; and she sends the music of her sweet hymns and litanies to cheer him on, and the light of indulgences and benedictions to guide his soul, illumine his understanding, and shed the rays of their heavenly reflection on the difficult passage that he has to traverse. And this food, these blessings, gifts, and graces, she has ready for all repentant sinners without exception, be they the inmates of the true fold, or straying without the boundaries of the city of God; be they the timorous souls who are already washed, or the negligent, who have followed the hard ways of the world. If, in her other functions, the spouse of Christ is "terrible as an army set in array," "fair as the moon, and beautiful as the setting sun," in this, her last office at the death bedside, she is all mercy, tenderness, and goodness. O, how cold, selfish, and intolerable would life be, if the Catholic church was not present, on all occasions, with the graces, blessings, and consolations of Christ!

"O Lord, if it be thy will, deprive us of every thing—riches, health, renown, pleasure; but never leave thy creatures, thy inheritance, thy children, without the consolations of thy church! O Lord, the many sheep that are here not of thy fold gather and bring in speedily, that there may be but one fold and one Shepherd, as thou thyself hast foretold." Thus prayed this pious priest of God, after having added another strayed sheep to the fold of his divine Master; and his soul was at peace.

For two days the storm continued unabated, the whole country becoming like an undulating ocean of snow. Drift snow, mountain high, was accumulated in the valleys between hills; whole herds of sheep and cattle were suffocated; and the bodies of several teamsters, whose teams were overset, were dug out lifeless from under the drifts by the men who had assembled with their ox teams and shovels to open the interrupted communication with the city.

Father O'Shane bemoaned his fate in doleful terms; the more so as Sunday was approaching, when he feared he should be absent from his congregation; and he also regretted that he had it not in his power, according to his promise to the widow O'Clery, to visit her next day, and provide for her poor orphans among the benevolent of his flock. And, well aware of the character of the hard-hearted Van Stingey, he shuddered for the fate of the children.

The apprehensions of the good priest were not groundless; for no sooner was the body of Mrs. O'Clery consigned to its narrow, cold habitation, than the official, assisting the children into the sleigh that had borne their mother's body to the tomb, drove off in a rapid trot towards the poorhouse.

"Have we far to go yet, sir?" said Paul, thinking that the "county house" was something different from the much dreaded poorhouse. "I am afraid Bridget will perish with cold, sir."

"No fears of her; she's hardy, I guess."

"Yes, sir, but her dress is so very light."

"Well, she can pull that ere buffalo around her."

"Ou, hou, hou!" cried Bridget, breathing on her little bare hands, which she kept pressed to her lips.

"I hope, sir, you are not going to take us to the poorhouse," said Paul; "we don't want to go there. The priest that attended my mother—God rest her soul!—told us he would provide for us."

"Indeed! How can he do so?" said Van Stingey.

"Why, sir, I don't know; but perhaps he will write to my uncle, who is a vicar general in Ireland, and he will send us money to take us back home."

"Is your uncle in the British sarvice, then, and a general in the army?"

"No, sir, but he is a priest next to the bishop in station in the church."

"That's it, eh? Wal, I guess you better not talk of going back, any how. You must live here in this free country, and learn to be a man and a Christian—a thing you could not be at home, in the old country."

"I beg your pardon, sir," replied Paul; "the very best Christians are in Ireland, which was once called the 'Isle of Saints,' when all the people were Catholics; and where I came from, even now, they are all mostly Catholics. There are in the whole parish but two peelers, the minister and his wife, and the tithe proctor, or collector of tithes; in all, five Protestants."

"You are a lad, I see," said the official, as he dismounted from the sleigh and ordered the children to enter their new home.

"O, woe, woe, woe!" cried they, as they found themselves admitted as paupers, and enclosed within the precincts of the terrible poorhouse. "O Lord, what will we do?" cried they. "O sir, don't keep us here, or send word to the priest first. I will go to his house, myself," said Paul.

"Shet up, ye little fools!" said the official; "this is a better place nor ye think. Ye ain't going to get no potatoes, nohow, but something better than ye ever were used to. Take these young 'uns to the stove in the kitchen," said he to an under official. And the sobs and groans of the destitute orphans were drowned in the uproarious rumbling of the gong that called the officers of the establishment to dinner, it being now noon.

The repugnance of the Irishman to the poorhouse is proverbial. Neither prison, dungeon, nor death is invested with greater horror, in the minds of the peasantry of Ireland, than this institution. Solely founded, as they are told, for their special use and benefit, there are instances, countless, on record, where the affectionate mother has thanked Heaven, when by fever, plague, or hunger it deprived her of her darling infant, rather than that it should become an inmate of the poorhouse!

"Is not this prejudice unreasonable and strange?" it will be asked. "And why is it that the Irishman shuns and abhors an institution which his English neighbor enjoys and petitions to enter?" The reasons are numerous, and the difference in the feelings of both obvious and palpable. It must be first remarked, that the Irish are a traditional people, and remarkably conservative of the customs and usages of their ancestors. They look back into the history of their country, or consult their fathers and grandfathers, and in vain look back for the existence of a poorhouse, or any necessity for its existence, before the advent of the "godly reformation" and the established church in their