YOUNG LADIES' READER.

LESSON I.

THE WORK OF WOMEN IN THE CHURCH.

1. WE hear much said, and not a little is written, in the United States and England, about the exclusion of woman from spheres of action for which her natural aptitudes fit her equally with man, and in many cases render her superior to him; of her imperfect education, and, in many cases, the inferior position which she is forced to accept in society. 2. Strange that we hear no such complaints in Catholic society, or from Catholic women! Is it because they have been taught to hug the chains which make them slaves; or that they are denied the liberty of speech; or that their lips are closed by arbitrary authority? Not at all. The reason is plain. Women, no less than men, are free to occupy any position whose duties and functions they have the intelligence or aptitude to fulfil. They have the opportunities and are free to obtain the highest education their capacities are capable of receiving. This every Catholic woman knows and

21

feels, and hence the absence of all consciousness of being deprived of her rights, and subject to oppression and injustice.

3. One has but to open his eyes and read the pages of ecclesiastical history to be convinced that in the Catholic Church there has been no lack of freedom of action for women. Look for a mo

ment at the number of sisterhoods in the Church, some counting their members by thousands, all under the government of one head, a woman, and elected by themselves. Others again, each house forming a separate organization, with a superior of its own, elected for a limited period. In fact, there is no form of organization and government of which they do not give us an example, showing a practical ability in this field of action which no one can call in question.

4. Then, there is no kind of labor, literary, scientific, charitable, mechanical, in which they may not engage, according to their abilities and strength. Who shall enumerate the different kinds of literary institutions, schools, and academies under their direction?

5. Who shall count the hospitals, the orphanages, the reformatories, the asylums, and other similar institutions where they have proved their capacity to be above that of men? All roads are open to woman's energies and capacities in the Church, and she knows and is conscious of this freedom; and, what is more, she is equally aware that whatever she has ability to do will receive from the Church encouragement, sanction, and that honor which is due to labor, devotion, and genius.

6. Few great undertakings in the Church have been conceived and carried on to success without the co-operation of woman. The great majority of her saints are women, and they are honored and placed on her altars equally with men. It is not an unheard-of event that women, by their scientific and literary attainments, have won from Catholic universities the title of Doctor. Saint Teresa is represented as an authorized teacher, with a pen in hand and with a doctor's cap. REV. I. T. HECKER.

LESSON II.

UNDER THE VIOLETS.

1. HER hands are cold; her face is white;
No more her pulses come and go;
Her eyes are shut to life and light:
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
And lay her where the violets blow.

2. But not beneath a graven stone,

To plead for tears with alien eyes;
A slender cross of wood alone
Shall say that here a maiden lies
In peace beneath the peaceful skies.

3. And gray old trees of hugest limb

Shall wheel their circling shadows round,
To make the scorching sunlight dim

That drinks the greenness from the ground,
And drop their dead leaves on her mound.

4. When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, And through their leaves the robins call, And, ripening in the autumn sun,

The acorns and the chestnuts fall,
Doubt not that she will heed them all.

5. For her the morning choir shall sing
Its matins from the branches high,
And every minstrel-voice of spring,
That trills beneath the April sky,
Shall greet her with its earliest cry.

6. When, turning round their dial-track,
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass,
Her little mourners, clad in black,
The crickets, sliding through the grass,
Shall pipe for her a requiem mass.

7. At last the rootlets of the trees

Shall find the prison where she lies,
And bear the buried dust they seize
In leaves and blossoms to the skies :
So may the soul that warmed it rise!

8. If any, born of kindlier blood,

Should ask, What maiden lies below?
Say only this: A tender bud,

That tried to blossom in the snow,

Lies withered where the violets blow.
O. W. HOLMES.

LESSON III.

VOCATION.

1. MOTHER MADDALENA stood with her arms folded, and listened this time without interrupting Fleurange. Standing thus motionless in this place, at this evening hour, the noble outlines of her countenance and the long folds of her robe clearly defined against the blue mountains in the distance, and the violet heavens above, the mother might easily have been taken for one of the visions of that country which have been depicted for us and all generations. The illusion would not have been dispelled by the aspect of her who, seated on the low wall of the terrace, was talking with her eyes raised, and with an expression and attitude perfectly adapted to one of those young saints often represented by the inspired artist before the divine and majestic form of the Mother of God.

2. "Well, my dear mother, what do you say?" asked Fleurange, after waiting a long time, and seeing the mother looking at her and gently shaking her head without any other reply.

3. "Before answering you," replied she at last, "let me ask this question: Do you think it allowable to consecrate one's self to God in the religious life without a vocation?"

"Assuredly not."

"And do you know what a vocation is?" said she very slowly.

Fleurange hesitated.

"I thought I knew, but

you ask in such a way as to make me feel now I do not."