was level as formerly, and covered with ashes and sulphur. In the floor of the crater, straight below us, was a large round hole, exactly in the middle, out of which there was a constant hissing and gurgling. A yellow-brown mass seemed to be cooking and steaming inside. On the other side below, in the crater, stood a new mountain of ashes of regular form, which almost reached to the top of the highest reef. From the mouth on the top of this cone, which seemed to be only composed of ashes, came the thundering and cracking and the eruptions, during which the entire mouth of the crater seemed continually to tremble.

To get so close to the volcano to look, as it were, into its chimney, had quite a peculiar attraction. It looked magnificent, as the thousands of clods and fragments came rushing out, as just so many black rockets, rose in the air, and separated high up, in order to fall back into the abyss, or to be hurled over the walls of the crater. Yet I was seized with a slight shudder when a couple of fragments fell close to the spot where we had hitherto stood, on the declivity near the lava fountain. Here, above, we were out of the reach of the rain of stones. Danger would only be incurred if

one rashly stepped into the crater over the pointed cliffs. Then the crust of lava or ashes would break, and one would go down and never be seen again. One would be killed in a moment by the hot fumes of the sulphur. Every one should, therefore take good care not to forget the direction of the wind, lest, when the vapors surround him, he might jump some feet deeper into the crater.

The fumes were at last too strong for us, and in a few steps we were safe again. Then we went jumping and running and sliding down the mountain, the last reward for the troublesome ascent. The people at the halting-place called out to us their good wishes, and the guide who was with our horses quickly brought out fresh shoes, as those my companion had on her feet were not worth much. The horses, after their rest, brought us quickly to the breakfast and good Capri wine at the "Diomed," and three hours later we were again in Naples. When we came out of the San Carlos, about midnight, and Vesuvius was doing his best to fire and to lighten, he no longer seemed to us nearly so threatening and terrible. We had seen the great lord when close to him.

ON how many hearts will these words find an echo? "Waiting for something to turn up." We all know what it means in some shape or way. To me it is the saddest, weariest thought imaginable; to some it has brought despair and madness. How many weeks, months, and years have been endured and fretted away "waiting for some

thing to turn up!" The poet's words about "hope springing eternal in the human breast" give a clue to the enduring power that enables us thus to go on "waiting," although the "something" keeps ever receding, and eluding the grasp of the anxiously stretchedout hand.

Let us look for a few minutes into

the home of a certain family, fitted by intelligence and education and honesty of purpose to do the work of life creditably. Great sacrifices had been made to prepare those fine bright youths for the battle of existence. There they are, with all their early fire and ambition, ready to fly at a moment's notice to any sort of work. They have friends and introductions, surely "something will turn up." And they "wait," and their little five-year old brother "waits," too, for the toys he is to have when the "something" turns up; but it seems very long to "wait," and at last the poor little fellow only looks at the toy-shop and says, nervously, "Mamma, has Robert got a 'swation' yet?" But they live on bravely, leaning upon hopes kindled by the promises of friends who were just the sort of people to hear of "something."

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At last health and spirits begin to wane; the clothes, obtained to make an appearance when "some thing should offer," are getting shabby, and the home income, already far too small for the family wants, seems to have shrunk into something less than it used to be. Do you think these lads have sat idle and listless by the fireside simply waiting?" Not at all; their "waiting," poor fellows, has consisted in many a long trudge, and many a carefully penned letter, to ask for employment. The work was long in coming, and the "waiting" was disastrous. The boys went wrong, the father died mad, the poor mother (she was a foreigner of noble birth; I remember her as a bride in her orange blossoms and ancestral diamonds) dragged out her days in extreme poverty, and fever at length released her weary soul.

There is a lodger in the top back room of a poor but decent house. He is a tall, pale man, apparently a gentleman, but very poor. He passes much of his time indoors, but

takes no meals at home. Perhaps he too is "waiting." He always seems anxious for the postman's knock, and generally, after the receipt of a letter, goes out, probably to post a reply, or call somewhere, in the hope that for him at last "something has turned up." Who can tell what are his privations, his weariness, lost chances, and uncertain future?

There is the lawyer, the doctor, with their cultivated intellect, high notions of duty and refined manners.

How many of these, with and without family cares, are growing prematurely old with the same sad thing, "waiting for something to turn up!" Men and women know it equally.

A ladylike woman of middle age took a house in our neighborhood a year ago. She evidently had friends of position, for during the season I saw several handsome equipages at her door, and from the manner of their occupants towards my neighbor, it was easy to see that she was well known too, and probably loved by them-but, excepting a few arrivals and departures, the house has had no inmates but the lady and her two servants. I lately heard through an agent that the house was to be disposed of by let ting or sale, and this induced me to make a few inquiries.

I learned that the lady has been. a governess. After long years of toil, she has sunk her all in furnishing a house, hoping, through her many friends and by advertisements to obtain boarders, and so maintain a home. But no one seems to require the accommodation she has to offer, and she has been for a year vainly "waiting for something to turn up."

We can imagine how drearily the weary months have passed for that once active woman-how she has compelled herself to be patient, to sit day after day, nicely dressed, "waiting."

And her nights-how many sleepless ones! And now, poor soul, if she had no capital to depend upon through this long stagnation, she must be sold out, and turn again into the bleak world, and toil as formerly, but at a discount; for she is now neither young nor strong, and will at once be rejected by many as "too old." We cannot tell what loving hopes and plans were in her mind when taking her house, possibly to make a shelter for poorer sisters now abroad, or the little children of another. Her scheme has failed, and she is probably penniless and broken-hearted. We know, too, of a house, where the father is out of employment, and the anxious, toiling mother

WHEN the Spaniards discovered South America they saw, amongst other plants new to them, a climbing shrub, having from two to three fruit-bearing flowers, unlike any they had ever seen. One day a priest was preaching to the Peruvians, or aboriginal inhabitants, amidst the wild scenery of their native forests. His subject was the Passion of Our Lord. His eye suddenly glanced at this curious flower, which hung in festoons from the trees overhead, and like St. Patrick with the shamrock, he saw with the eye of a Saint a vivid picture of the sad story of Calvary. The rings of threads which surround the cup of the flower, and which are mottled with blue, crimson, and

white, suggested the crown of thorns, stained with blood, to his mind, tutored by meditation; the five anthers, on the stamens, represented the five wounds; the three styles, the nails which fixed Our Blessed Lord to the Cross; and the singular column which rises in the centre of the flower, were made to bring before the minds of these wild savages the harrowing scene of the Second Sorrowful Mystery of the Most Holy Rosary.

So, without Bibles or books, did this holy man instruct his converts on the Passion; and to this day our beautiful creeping garden flower is called "The Passion Flower." In all languages it bears the same

name.

THE CHRISTIAN CEMETERY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY; or, The Last War Cry of the Communists. By Monseigneur Gaume, Prothonotary Apostolic. Translated from the French by Rev. Richard Brennan, A. M., with a Preface by Very Rev. Thomas S. Preston, V.G. New York and Cincinnati Benziger & Bros., 1874.

The Angelus in the Nineteenth Century and The Sign of the Cross in the Nineteenth Century, together with the book before us, are sufficient indicators from their very titles that Monseigneur Gaume is the preacher of the poetry of spirituality to a materialistic age, but they do not tell with what incisive penetration, beauty of sentiment, and theological accuracy he fulfils his labor of love. The satanic propagators of free thought, subversive of all religious principles and all Christian practices, have in their efforts to divorce the soul from God pursued it from the cradle to the grave, in their eager endeavor to prevent religious influences from gaining an ascendency over it. The present volume is a sacred philippic against those infidel teachers who would banish all religious services from the funeral ceremony, as they have from the marriage rite. We regret that space and time will not permit us to give a lengthy detail of the sentiment of this truly beautiful work, revealing, as it does, the holiness of a Christian's body glorified in our risen Lord, and subjected to so many sacred ordinances and sacramental rites, as well as to the sacredness of that hallowed ground of the consecrated Christian cemeteries to which the body is consigned as kindred dust. The place which cemeteries hold in the Christian dispensation is also considered historically. In these days when the paganish system of cremation is assuredly gaining ground in the minds of our infidelity tutored people, such a book comes most opportunely. We are writing this review on the newly law-established festival of Decoration Day, and as we pen these lines, the music of the military bands which accompany our soldiers to the decoration of their comrades' graves with flowers, reminds us that even Protestantism has not been able to root from the heart the natural instincts of the dignity of our corporeal dust; how much higher

then must be the Catholic's regard for those human ashes, regarded in the supernatural glance of faith, and how deeply incumbent upon the children of the Church by a modest and duly restricted respect for the soulless clay, and the cemetery where it is en-hrined, to counteract the attempts of wicked men to depreciate the immortal casket of the immortal soul to a mass of material corruption, thus depriving it not only of its tribute of respect after death, but sanetioning even in life the indulgence of those degrading passions to which the natural flesh is heir.

Jules Verne is an author ranking high in the estimation of many cultivated lovers of literature. He occupies the same position to French letters that Offenbach does to French music, being light, graceful, and humorous in style, and frothy in burlesque. Prof. Roth, whose name is so familiar to our citizens as to need no introduction, has been, to quote his own words, "fairly fascinated" with Verne's writings, and believing them just the thing" for American readers, has determined to present the English speaking public with a translation superior to those already given.

"The Baltimore Gun Club" is the first of the series. In addition to the abovementioned characteristics, inherent in all Verne's works, this one possesses the additional merits of familiarity in its author unusual for a European with American localities, and the characteristics and peculiarities of our people through all their sectional diversities. Indeed, the book is so thoroughly American in tone, and has been so admirably and naturally translated, that we are at a loss to imagine how it could have ever been at home in its native land, or felt at ease in speaking with its mother tongue; and yet, withal, it preserves the individuality of its native "Frenchiness," combining it so charmingly with the originality of its adopted country as to make it one of the sprightliest and most genial of companions, es

pecially in the "light reading" hours of the approaching annual heated term.

Prof. Roth's excellent preface so ably portrays the author's style, that we will merely say that the plot, if plot it can be called, relates how a certain club of damaged military and scientific martinets in Baltimore, started during the rebellion for the purpose of inventing all sorts of wonderful killing machines of the genus artillery. Finding that the proceedings of April 9th, 1865, at Appomattox CourtHouse, Virginia, had put a stop to their occupation, they were in danger of dissolution by natural inactivity, when their president startles them by calling a general meeting, and proposing to them to direct their engineering energies and abilities towards the organization of a projectile railroad to the moon. The rést of the work narrates the history of the attempt, with what a result we will not anticipate for the reader, for all good Americans are supposed to have the pride and welfare of their country sufficiently at heart, to take an interest for themselves in studying the solutions of all problems emanating from the inventive genius of the Yankee cranium.

THE FRENCH PRISONER IN RUSSIA. Translated from the French by a graduate of St. Joseph's, Emmittsburgh. New York Catholic Publication Society, 1874. Received through P. F. Cunningham & Son.

GLORY AND SORROW AND SELIM; or, The Pacha of Salonica. Translated from the French by a graduate of St. Joseph's, Emmittsburgh. New York Catholic Publication Society, 1874. Received through P. F. Cunningham & Son.

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We hope that we are casting no unmerited disparagement upon our writers, when we say that we can always more safely recommend translated Catholic books than those from the pens of our native Catholic penmen. Not that the morality or sentiments of the latter are generally dangerous; we would by no means insinuate such an opinion; but that they utterly fail to convey the truths they seek to enforce upon the reader's mind, with that charm of diction or originality of thought which are SO naively blended in the works of transatlantic authors. Especially is this true of juvenile books. Young people are both poets and philosophers; their minds must be reached through the medium of the senses captivated by the magic wand of

fancy. A fairy tale will impress upon them many a wholesome truth, where a sermon or prosaic instruction would find its occupation fruitlessly gone. Herein lies the merit of such books as the two enumerated above; a literary grace which seems to be the particular prerogative of French writers, arising from a simplicity of character, of which we practical Americans cannot boast. The illustrations which embellish these stories must add very materially to their effect, both as handsome publications and as a means of quickening the interest of our young readers in the stories themselves, which put in an appearance, as the lawyers say, most opportunely, at the commencement and holiday season when “premiums " are at a premium.

DE ABSOLUTIONE PARENTIBUS, QUI PROLEM SCHOLIS PUBLICIS SEU PROMISCUIS INSTITUENDAM TRADUNT NE

GENDA NECNE, SPECIMEN, QUOD JUDICIO VENERABILIS CLERI AMERICANI ET EARUM REGIONUM, IN QUIBUS SCHOLARUM PUBLICARUM SEU PROMISCUARUM VIGET SYSTEMA, AD PROMOVENDAM PRAXIS UNIFORMITATEM, SUBMITIT, A. KONING'S CONGREGATIONIS SS MI REDEMPTORIS. IN COLLEGIO ILCHESTERIENSI EJUSDEM CONGREGATIONIS ADS. CLEMENTIS S. THEOLOGIE AC SS CANONUM PROFESSOR. BOSTONIE: TYPIS PATRICII DONAHOE, 1874. Received through Cunningham & Son.

We gladly recommend to the clergy and episcopacy this specimen; it being, as its title and the language in which it is written import, intended especially for them. The open discussion and the importance of the subject on which it treats, only serve to render its publication more important and most timely. It bears the approbation of several bishops and the Very Rev. Superior of the Redemptorists.

THE LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS of THE ORDER OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL, by David Lewis. New York Catholic Publication Society, 1874. Received through Cunningham & Son.

Love of the cross is the surest mark of the Christian's love for God; the imposing of the cross is the most certain sign of God's love for the Christian. This we know is an incomprehensible doctrine to our ease-loving and corrupt pleasureseeking age, and we therefore hope that this beautiful life of the great spiritual