'St. Patrick's Day. OH! who that has not wandered far Which still surround his fancy there? Though distant from our native shore, Still, Erin, we must think on thee. That does not own the magic sway That tempts the generous patriot soul To celebrate our Patrick's Day? No nation e'er at freedom's shrine To cheer our own lov'd native isle, Yes, Erin, raise thy drooping brow, And wreathe it with the shamrock green; And raise thy hopes on Patrick's Day. Thy gallant sons have nobly bought In freedom's cause they nobly fought, Then sing, my harp! and speak, my soul! The wish we'll speak is-"ENGLAND'S FALL!" RT. REV. DR. ENGLAND. Who is St. Joseph? ST. TERESA shall tell us; listen to her words; she is giving the experience of her own life: "I took for my patron and lord the glorious St. Joseph, and recommended myself earnestly to him. I saw clearly that this my father and lord delivered me out of this and other troubles of greater importance, touching my honor and my soul. He rendered me greater services than I knew how to ask for. I cannot call to mind that I have at any time asked him for anything which he has not granted; and I am filled with amazement when I consider the great favors God has granted me through this blessed saint, and the dangers from which he has delivered me, both of body and soul. "To other saints our Lord seems to have given grace to succor men in some special necessity; but to this glorious saint, I know it by experience, He has given the grace to help us in all things. Our Lord would have us understand that as He was subject to Joseph on earth (St. Joseph bearing the title of His father, and being His guardian, could command Him), so now our Lord in heaven grants all his petitions. "I have asked others to recommend themselves to St. Joseph, and they too know the same thing by experience. "I used to keep his feast with all the solemnity I could. "Would that I could persuade all men to be devout to this glorious saint; for I know by long experience what blessings he can obtain for us from God. I have never known any one who was really devoted to him, and who honored him by particular services, who did not visibly grow more and more in virtue; for he helps in a special way those souls who commend themselves to him. It is now some years since I have always on his feast asked him for something, and I always have it. If the petition be in any way amiss, he directs it aright for my greater good. "If I were a person who had authority to write, it would be a pleasure to me to be diffusive in speaking most minutely of the graces which this glorious saint has obtained for me and for others. But I ask for the love of God, that he who does not believe me will make the trial for himself, when he will find out by experience the great good that results from commending one's self to this glorious patriarch, and in being devout to him. "Those who give themselves to prayer should, in a special manner, always have great devotion to St. Joseph; for I know not how any man can think of the Queen of the Angels, during the time she suffered so much with the Infant Jesus, without giving thanks to Joseph for the services he rendered them then. He who cannot find any one to teach him how to pray, let him take this glorious saint for his master and he will not wander out of the way."-"St. Teresa's Life," by herself, c. vi. "Go, then, to Joseph, and do all that he shall say to you:" Go to Joseph, and obey him as Jesus and Mary obeyed him; Go to Joseph, and speak to him as they spoke to him; Go to Joseph, and consult him as they consulted him; Go to Joseph, and honor him as they honored him; Go to Joseph, and he grateful to him as they were grateful to him; Go to Joseph, and love him as they loved him, and as they love him still. However much you love Joseph your love will always fall short of the extraordinary love which Jesus and Mary bore to him. On the other hand, the love of Joseph necessarily leads us to Jesus and Mary. He was the first Christian to whom it was said, "Take the Child and His Mother!" This lead a father of the Church to say, "You will always find Jesus with Mary and Joseph." Terrible Earthquakes. SINCE the earthquake in Lisbon, in 1755, and the volcanic shocks. in the Japanese Islands, a few years ago, no disturbance of the earth's surface has occurred to equal, in its destructive consequences, that which took place on Feb. 23 throughout the portion of Europe which extends through the Italian "Riviera" and the southern portions of France, the region that, for generations, has been recommended as the most salubrious, for invalids, of all the territories bordering on the Mediterranean, and which, since the luxurious reign of Napoleon III. made the baths at Cannes and the adjoining districts "fashionable," has been frequented by the pleasure-seekers of Europe, and by not a few of our American tarists, "who follow the crowd" wherever they go, without a thought of using their own judgment, in the pursuit of recreations or novelties, for which they are eventually compelled to pay very dearly. In the face of this disaster our own recent experience of the Charleston earthquake b comes insignificant, both as to its destructiveness and consequences. Whole villages in the Italian mountains have been obliterated, and their inhabitants either buried in the ruins. of their houses, or severely injured in escaping from them. Cities, like Nice and Genoa, were so severely shaken that churches, theatres, and public buildings fell i.. ins; and for several days, even up to the end of last week, hundreds of thousands of people were camping, as best they could, in the parks, the fields, the open spaces, and even in the cemeteries, dreading to re-enter their tottering houses. The total loss of life, so far as can be learned, is estimated at over two thousand, while the wounded are reckoned to reach as high as five thousand, many of the destroyed villages not having a house left undemolished. The earthquake shock extended from Genoa, all through the lower portion of the Italian peninsula, to the south of France, where it was sensibly felt in the mountain regions. Its influence was even perceptible in the Physical Laboratory, at the United States Signal Office, in Washington, where the sciesmoscope, which has been in use since the Japanese disturbances, recorded at 7 hours 33 minutes A. M., 7.50 meridian time, Feb. 23, the arrival at that point of the shock of the earthquake that had occurred in France and Italy. A rough calculation gives about five hundred miles per hour as the velocity of this transmission of the impact of the earthquake,—a force ten times greater than that of one of our most violent wind-storms. Undulations of the earth were noticed at Catania, in Sicily, at the foot of Mount Etna. It is reported that at Bussana, a village of eight hundred inhabitants, successive shocks levelled nearly every house, and one-third of the people were buried in the ruins. Not one of the one hundred and six communes in the populous province of Porto Maurizio escaped injury. The villages built on terraces, on the sides of the Italian hills, were almost all destroyed. Hundreds of the houses at Nice are tottering and ready to fall. The earthquake was strongly felt at sea. Off Genoa it woke sailors from their sleep, and the inhabitants of the city fled in terror from their houses to the ships in the harbor. Altogether it has been a time of horror in that portion of Europe so long regarded as one of the favored spots of Mother Earth. We, here in America,- even with the few ills of which we are so apt to complain,- should regard ourselves, in comparison, as being specially favored by an All-wise Providence, not only in our terrestrial quietude, but in the sum-total of our political and social surroundings. Irish-American. The Want of of Religion Among Politicians. SOME of our secular exchanges have very pertly remarked the absence of any mention of God or religion, in all the letters of condolence received by Mrs. Logan on the death of her esteemed husband. Of many hundreds of such, received from eminent politicians all over the United States, only two referred in any way to God, and both these employed the consoling expression and appeal to Him alone who can comfort at such a time. These two letters contained the phrase, "May God comfort and sustain you." No earthly greatness can console earthly affliction, and only God can sustain human nature in its hours of deep distress. However, the fact remains to show the departure of religion from the minds of our great politicians, who rely solely on their own efforts and human aid for their success in this life, while they leave all thoughts of the life to come to other days and unknown occurrences after death. The great hero whom the country regrets so much and whose life was spent in his country's cause was born of humble Irish parents, who if they lived would regret more than any one else the loss of their son, and his dying without the consolations of religion, which of all others can render death a happy termination of a well-spent life. The same is true in almost every case where the children of Catholic parents depart from the religion of the father. They become ignorers of all religions, yet many piously inclined Protestants are ever engaged in striving to weaken the faith of Catholics, while facts prove their success does not improve either the individual or their church membership. Times are greatly changed now in their religious aspect from more primitive days in our country's history, when every public document that was issued. from the hands of our great men began and ended under the protection of a wise and benign Providence. Is it our too great prosperity that has wrought the change? or is it any mark of prosperity to abandon God in the works of life? When our forefathers drank in the little erudition obtainable in the log school-house, and that under the most trying circumstances, they had their heart imbued with religious instructions, which under the present advanced state of secular education in the free schools of the day, seem to be totally disregarded, and which to our minds accounts for much of the irreligion of our public men of to-day. It is by no means a good omen of the future of our country, to have its destinies repose in the manipulations of an irreligious set of officials, many of whom proudly boast of their freedom from religious restraint and their independence of God and man, except at the approach of an election, when the biggest of them crave for the votes of constituents, and profess themselves followers of the religion most predominant among their constituents, only for election purposes. Catholic Progress. Infanticide in India. THIS horrible practice existed from the earliest period in India, though in all nations, before Christianity shed its light upon them, the sacrifice of a child to some grim idol has prevailed; and even in Scotland so late as the early part of the ninth century an Earl of Caithness is said to have offered up a human sacrifice to Odin. Without referring to the long legend in support of female infanticide, the first official intimation the government had of it in India was about 1789, when Mr. Duncan, afterwards governor of Bombay, informed Lord Cornwallis that he had discovered it to be "no unfrequent practice among the tribe of Rajkoomar, to destroy their daughters by causing the mothers to refuse them nurture." By the humane exertions of Mr. Duncan and Major Walker, every means were taken to suppress this crime at Benares and among the people of Cutch and Kattywar; though, when urged on the subject, they had the effrontery to say, "Pay our daughters' marriage portions, and they shall live." In the Koran we find this crime referred to thus among the Arabs. "And when any of them is told of the birth of a female his face becometh black, and he is deeply afflicted; he hideth himself from the people, because of the ill tidings which have been told him, considering within himself whether he shall keep it with disgrace, or whether he shall bury it in the dust." Mr. Duncan was inclined to pay for the lives of the girls, but the Court of Directors at once declined, on the plea that other tribes would |