The Earth, all prostrate, to the Clouds complains-- The Clouds invoke the Heavens-" Collect, dispense 2. He speaks;—and to the clouds the heavens dispense With lightning speed their genial influence : The gathering, breaking clouds pour down the rains, To fill Earth's dreariest wilderness with flowers, Where thorns and thistles curse the infested ground, And trees of life, forever fresh and green, Flourish, where only trees of death have been; In light, joy, freedom, be the spirit shed. 3. "Cease!"' Thus, in thy grace, O God, Thyself make known, Then shall all tongues confess Thee God alone! THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL.-Croly. "And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and He will dwell with them. And they shall be His people; and God Himself with them shall be their God."-APOC. xxi. 3. King of the dead! how long shall sweep Two thousand agonizing years Has Israel steeped her bread in tears; ! Flight, famine, shame, the scourge, the sword! 'Tis done! Has breathed thy trumpet b. ast, No banner purples in the sky; The world within their hearts has died; Two thousand years have slain their pride! The look of pale remorse is there, The lip, involuntary prayer; The form still marked with many a stain— By the swart Arab's poisoned shore, The gatherings of earth's wildest tract- What strength of man can check its speed? They come the Nation of the Freed; Beneath His wheel Back rolls the sea, the mountains reel! Even for this hour Thy heart's blood stromed! They come !-the Host of the Redeemed. 2. What flames upon the distant sky? And, now, as nearer speeds their march, Scenes! that the patriarch's visioned eye Whose sceptre shakes the solid globe, Whom shapes of fire and splendor guard? There sits the Man, "whose face was marred,' To whom archangels bow the knee The weeper in Gethsemane ! Down in the dust, aye, Israel, kneel; THE CHURCH THE MISTRESS OF KNOWLEDGE.-Lacordaire. We have already seen, gentlemen, or rather have faintly perceived, that the Church possesses the highest rational certainty, since she trusts for support to ideas, to history, to morals, and to society, to an extent unexercised by any other teaching body; and this assures tc her here below, the empire of persuasion. It only remains, then, for us to treat of her moral certainty and infallibility. 2. The certainty or moral authority of a teaching body results from three conditions, which furnish for that body and for those whom it teaches the proof that it is in affinity with truth, and that it dispenses that truth with exactitude and reverence. These three con ditions are, knowledge, virtue, and number. 3. Knowledge is the first condition of certainty or moral authority; for how is it possible to be certain of that which we do not understand, and how can we understand that which we do not know? When men know, on the contrary, the more they know the more they possess for themselves and for others a guarantee from error. Knowledge is the eye which perceives, scrutinizes, compares, and reflects, which watches for and seizes the light, which adds to past ages the weight of new ones: it is the patient sentinel of time, and |