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FREDERICK W. FABER 
 
Zbc XaftesiOe Series of Bngliab IReaMnge 
 
 SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM THE WRITINGS OF 
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER 
 
 Edited with an Introduction and with Notes 
 AND Questions 
 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 AINSWORTH & COMPANY 
 
 1904 
 
■ f 1' 
 
 Vifd Oo^m ffe(!«(ved 
 
 SEP 16 J904 
 _Oooyrtfht Etrtry 
 
 GLA33 ^ XXe. Na 
 
 > 0©PY B 
 
 Copyright 1904 
 By AINSWORTH & COMPANY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 If ever a writer turned language j;o " sweet uses/' 
 that writer was Faber, " Friend of the weary heart 
 in search of God." He quite captivated the cold 
 English heart and kindled a beam of enthusiasm 
 that shone far and near. No other author has been 
 translated into different tongues so extensively or in 
 so brief a time. His popularity is world wide. 
 
 Yet in many homes, especially on this side of the 
 Atlantic, his name has come only to be respected as 
 a stranger, not to be loved as one of the " dear fa- 
 miliars." Unknown is his inimitable art of making 
 hard ways easy, dark ways lightsome ; of pouring 
 out upon the shivering world a flood of sunshine, 
 warming it to a glowing love and a reverent joy in 
 beholding the benign serenity, the queenly majesty 
 of truth in its beauty and strength. 
 
 That the genial influence of this happy writer 
 may be early and deeply felt, " Father Faber " is in- 
 cluded in the series of simple and brief studies 
 drawn from Catholic sources, now prepared for the 
 youth of our schools, which, we feel confident, will 
 meet with the hearty approval of all who are en- 
 gaged in the noble work of training the young mind 
 and forming the heart to virtue. 
 
 The Compiler 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction 9 
 
 The Cherwell Water-Lily r 21 
 
 The Styrian Lake: 
 
 The Lake ^^ 
 
 The Legend ^^ 
 
 Church Matins • • ^7 
 
 Margaret's Pilgrimage 43 
 
 Earth's Vespers - 4 
 
 Prose Selections : 
 
 Mariazell " ^ 
 
 The Angels ^6 
 
 The Shepherds ^^ 
 
 The Cavalcade from the East 62 
 
 The First Fountains of Devotion to the Blessed 
 
 Mother ^^ 
 
 Kind Words • • ^o 
 
 The Marriage Feast of Cana 72 
 
 Loss of Time ^^ 
 
 Science and Grace 7 
 
 The Daily Cross ^8 
 
 God's Triumph in the Repentant 80 
 
 Quotations from Faber ^^ 
 
 Notes and Questions ^9 
 
 7 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Frederick William Faber (1814-1863) 
 
 [From the "Life and Letters of Frederick Wm. Faber' 
 by Bowden.] 
 
 Frederick William Faber was the son of Thomas 
 Henry Faber, Esq., whose family was one of those 
 who took refuge in England on the revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. He was born 
 on the twenty-eighth of June, 18 14, at the Vicarage 
 of Calverley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He 
 was baptized on the twelfth of August, in the parish 
 church ol St. Wilfrid. 
 
 From his earliest years Frederick 
 His Early Faber gave promise of remarkable 
 Life power of mind, and his talents were 
 
 carefully fostered and developed by 
 his parents, both of whom were persons of consider- 
 able ability. 
 
 The power and peculiarity of his character mani- 
 fested itself at an early age. Ardent and impulsive, 
 he entered upon everything, whether work or play, 
 with eagerness and determination ; and whatever he 
 took up was invested with an importance which led 
 
 9 
 
10 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 him to speak of it in somewhat exaggerated lan- 
 guage. Those who watched with pleasure the devel- 
 opment of the remarkable gifts with which he was 
 endowed, predicted a successful career for the eager 
 and earnest boy. 
 
 One of the principal ingredients in his character 
 was the poetical element, the development of which 
 was materially assisted by the beautiful scenes in 
 which his infancy and childhood were passed. It 
 was his chief delight to wander, for the most part 
 
 alone, among the hills and lakes, his 
 His Love of rambles sometimes extending over two 
 Nature or three days. He describes himself 
 
 in " the golden hours of school-boy 
 
 holidays," as — 
 
 "Thoughtful even then because of the excess 
 Of boyhood's abounding happiness ; 
 And sad whene'er St. Stephen's curfew bell • 
 Warned me to leave the spots I loved so well." 
 
 At Oxford, we are told, his prepossessing ap- 
 pearance, his remarkable talent, and gifts of con- 
 versation made him a general favorite. Innocence 
 
 and joyousness of life were his at this 
 At Oxford period, and his friends bear testimony 
 
 to his blameless manners and the pu- 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER li 
 
 rity of his life, " which by the grace of God he pre- 
 served unstained." 
 
 When he came into residence at Oxford, his rehg- 
 ious ideas had assumed a very definite shape. How 
 deeply the truths of religion possessed his mind 
 appears from his hymn, " The God of My Child- 
 hood," which expresses a continual sense of the 
 presence and providence of God. It also refers to 
 the teachings of his mother, — the sweet and won- 
 drous things on which he loved to dwell, — and gives 
 evidence of her love for him in this verse : — 
 
 "They bade me call Thee, Father, Lord! 
 Sweet was the freedom deemed, 
 And yet more like a mother's ways 
 Thy quiet mercies seemed." 
 
 From the time of his arrival at Oxford, he at- 
 tended the services at St. Mary's, and soon became 
 an enthusiastic admirer of The Rev. John Henry 
 Newman, then vicar of that church; and whom, 
 after years of prayer and study in the pursuit of 
 truth, he followed into the Catholic Church, " whose 
 glory it is that she could equally satisfy the mighty 
 intellect of the one and the sensitive heart of the 
 other." 
 
12 SELECTIONS PROM FABER 
 
 By his conversion to the CathoHc faith, Faber's 
 Hfe was divided into two parts, widely distinct in 
 character. For thirty-one years he belonged to the 
 Church of England, and though his 
 Breaking religious opinions underwent various 
 of Ties changes, he did not withdraw from her 
 
 service until the moment when his con- 
 nection with her was severed. Oxford was his home 
 for many years, and the object of his most affection- 
 ate reverence. His friends were chiefly of the Trac- 
 tarian party, of which he became one of the most 
 zealous adherents. 
 
 These ties were broken by his conversion. It 
 made him a stranger to the University, which he 
 regarded as a mother, and to those whose confidence 
 and love were among his dearest enjoyments. Only 
 a few of his immediate friends took the same step 
 as himself, and even from those he was separated 
 by circumstances in after times. The second period 
 of his life was spent principally in the foundation 
 and government of the London Oratory. There he 
 found his true vocation ; it was a work after his own 
 heart, and his labors in it were abundantly blessed. 
 It was to him, as he once wrote, " the happiest place 
 out of heaven." 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 13 
 
 Faber's influence extends far beyond his native 
 land; his works have been translated into many 
 
 European languages ; his words sink 
 His into the heart and have moulded the 
 
 Influence character of Catholics everywhere ; his 
 
 voice brings comfort ^to the mourner, 
 courage to the faltering, peace to the troubled, 
 strength to the weak. His humility is a standing 
 reproach to our vanity and self-conceit; his tender- 
 ness and forbearance contrast painfully with our 
 roughness and impatience ; his penances in the 
 midst of a life of continual physical suffering, shame 
 our cowardly self-indulgence ; but above all, his zeal 
 for the glory of God, his thirst for souls, and his 
 devoted charity have left us an example which is 
 ably summed up in the words, " He served Jesus 
 out of love." 
 
 Thus passed a rarely beautiful life of devotion 
 to sacred duties, charity to fellow-men, and physical 
 
 sufferings — a laborious life of writ- 
 His Death ing, preaching, composing, lecturing, 
 
 guiding of souls, and directing of the 
 Oratory until his peaceful and edifying death in 
 
 1863. 
 
 From the beginning of his literary career it was 
 recognized that Faber was a poet. When he con- 
 
14 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 fided to Wordsworth his intention 
 Wordsworth's to enter the ministry, the poet re- 
 Dictum pHed, "I do not say you are 
 wrong; but England loses a poet." 
 His " Hymns," many of which are found in nearly 
 every collection of sacred lyrics, represent, in their 
 heavenward aspiration and spiritualizing influence, 
 the poet's eminently Christian spirit and deep con- 
 cern for his soul's salvation. He published two vol- 
 umes of poems, called respectively, 
 Faber's "The Cherwell Water-Lily " and 
 Works " The Styrian Lake," so named be- 
 cause '' The Cherwell Water-Lily " 
 and " The Styrian Lake " are the initiatory poems. 
 Another poem of great beauty, and his most preten- 
 tious, bears the title, " Sir Lancelot." It is drawn 
 from mediaeval sources, and is unusually rich in 
 symbolism. Among his numerous prose works are 
 "All for Jesus," "Growth in Holiness," "The 
 Blessed Sacrament," " The Creator and the Crea- 
 ture," " The Foot of the Cross," " Spiritual Confer- 
 ences," " The Precious Blood," " Bethlehem." 
 
 Faber's merit, and the chief excellence of his writ- 
 ings, consist in this : that he deals with man in his 
 relations with the Creator and with the channels of 
 grace established by the Creator. There is an under- 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 15 
 
 current of purpose moving along in silence, but 
 with irresistible force, collecting and harmoYiizing 
 the vast wealth of thought and imagery that floats 
 through his richly endowed mind, till 
 it asserts itself in a powerful effort to 
 lift man up out ot the plane of his 
 fallen human nature into the sphere of 
 the supernatural, and to place him 
 nearer his God by bringing heaven and earth to- 
 gether in a closer bond of union. — Brother Asarius. 
 
 The Anglican Church, in losing Faber, lost one 
 of her most zealous ministers ; but, at the same time. 
 Catholics throughout the English-speaking world, 
 in gaining him, gained one of the sweetest singers 
 of the Church's mysteries, her sacraments, her 
 saints, her ceremonies, and her glories. ... So 
 beautifully does he sing at times that it would seem 
 as though in him heaven and earth came nigh, and 
 he heard the waves of time as they pulsed on the 
 shore of eternity. — Ibid. 
 
 In his hymns commemorating the saints, the poet 
 makes them our companions ; he strikes the bonds 
 of harmony and unison between them and us ; his 
 words inspire confidence in them; and we feel the 
 
1 6 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 intimate union there is between heaven and earth. 
 But it is in speaking of the Queen of Saints that the 
 glow in his heart especially shines in his verses. 
 Some of his best and strongest flights are in praise 
 of the Blessed Virgin Mary. His devotion to her 
 is unbounded. He knows that such great love is 
 displeasing to his fellow-men outside the Church. 
 But hear how beautifully he pleads his case : — 
 
 " But scornful men have coldly said 
 
 Thy love was leading thee from God; 
 And yet in this I did but tread 
 The very path my Saviour trod. 
 
 " They know but little of thy worth 
 
 Who speak these heartless words to me; 
 For what did Jesus love on earth 
 One half so tenderly as thee ? " 
 
 — Brother Azarius. 
 
 The Civilta Cattolica considers " The Foot of the 
 Cross " one of the best books ever published on the 
 Dolors of Mary, and styles Faber the eloquent 
 writer of ascetical works, which unite the most 
 mystical devotion to the most profound theological 
 meaning. 
 
 Many of the characteristics of Faber's writings 
 appear on the surface; but there are others which 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 17 
 
 only a thoughtful investigation will discover. His 
 intimate knowledge of the human heart and its 
 workings is seen in all his books, but more especially 
 in '* The Foot of the Cross," which treats of suffer- 
 ings, as well as in " Growth in Holiness," and the 
 " Spiritual Conferences," which display a remark- 
 able famiHarity with the ingenuity of men in deceiv- 
 ing their consciences. — John Edward Bowden. 
 
 " There is not a page of Father Faber, whether 
 it be severe or sparkling, in which we do not dis- 
 cover the saint, the man who never wrote or put ^ 
 forward a single line to recommend himself." — Le 
 Monde, Jan., 1864. 
 
THE 
 CHERWELL WATER-LILY 
 
THE CHERWELL WATER-LILY 
 
 The poem selected for study is one of the author's 
 most popular poems. It was written in the first 
 year of his undergraduate life at Oxford, and gave 
 the title to a collection of poems, published in 1840. 
 
 The poem is descriptive, being a vivid pen-picture 
 
 of the Cherwell River and its historic setting under 
 
 the magic glow of a summer sun- 
 
 ^, _, . set. It is a poetical effusion of 
 
 The Class of 
 
 . -, Faber's heart, so sensitive to the 
 
 the Poem 
 
 physical and moral beauty around 
 
 him. 
 Through lines suggestive of historic events and 
 places, through glowing pictures of nature and 
 
 vivid descriptions of sound, the 
 The Purpose message of filial love and duty 
 
 rings clear and resonant, and the 
 purpose of the whole comes to us with irresistible 
 force in the lines : — 
 
 '* Emblem of truth thou art to me 
 Of all a daughter ought to be ! 
 How shall I liken thee, sweet flower! 
 That other men may feel thy power, 
 
 21 
 
22 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 May seek thee on some lovely night 
 And say how strong, how chaste the might, 
 The tie of filial duty." 
 
 The poem is characteristic of Faber's writings. 
 " Unity of thought and feeling pervades all this 
 
 gifted soul penned." There is a chaste 
 The Style simplicity of thought and diction in 
 
 keeping with the beautiful lesson 
 taught him by Flora's loveliest daughter — 
 
 " Fair Lily ! thou a type must be 
 Of virgin love and purity ! " 
 
 Iambic tetrameter is the prevailing meter. With 
 a few exceptions, the poem consists of rhyming 
 
 couplets, and may be divided into 
 The Verse four-line stanzas, or as it appears in 
 
 the Book of Poems, into three longer 
 stanzas, each dealing with objects distinct from the 
 others. The first division deals with the sunset on 
 the romantic Cherwell; the second is a beautiful 
 reflection on wild flowers and the hidden lessons 
 they unfold; and the third is a graphic description 
 of the water-lily, and a vivid impression of the les- 
 son it conveys. Like his great teacher, Wordsworth, 
 Faber could say, 
 
 " To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that oft do lie too deep for tears." 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 23 
 
 THE CHERWELL WATER-LILY 
 
 I 
 
 Bright came the last departing gleam 
 
 To lonely Cherwell's silent stream, 
 
 And for a moment stayed to smile 
 
 On tall St. Mary's graceful pile. 
 
 But brighter still the glory stood 
 
 On Marston's scattered lines of wood. 
 
 The lights that through the leaves were sent, 
 
 Of gold and green were richly blent; 
 
 Oh! beautiful they were to see. 
 
 Gilding the trunk of many a tree. 
 
 Just ere the colors died away 
 
 In evening's meditated gray. 
 
 Sweet meadow-flowers were round me spread, 
 
 And many a budding birch-tree shed 
 
 Its woodland perfume there; 
 
 And from its pinkly-clustering boughs, 
 
 A fragrance mild the hawthorn throws 
 
 Upon the tranquil air. 
 
 Deep rung St. Mary's stately chime 
 
 The holy hour of compline time, 
 
 And, as the solemn sounds I caught 
 
 Over theMistant meadows brought, 
 
 I heard the raptured nightingale 
 
24 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 Tell, from yon elmy grove, his tale 
 
 Of melancholy love, 
 
 In thronging notes that seemed to fall 
 
 As faultless and as musical 
 
 As angel strains above : — 
 
 So sweet, they cast on all things round 
 
 A spell of melody profound. 
 
 They charmed the river in its flowing. 
 
 They stayed the night-wind in its blowing. 
 
 They lulled the lily to her rest. 
 
 Upon the Cherwell's heaving breast. 
 
 II 
 
 How often doth a wildflower bring 
 
 Fancies and thoughts that seem to spring 
 
 From inmost depths of feeling! 
 
 Nay, often they have power to bless 
 
 With their uncultured loveliness. 
 
 And far into the aching breast 
 
 There goes a heavenly thought of rest 
 
 With their soft influence stealing. 
 
 How often, too, can ye unlock, 
 
 Dear Wildflowers ! with a gentle shock, 
 
 The wells of holy tears. 
 
 While somewhat of a Christian light 
 
 Breaks sweetly on the mourner's sight 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 25 
 
 To calm unquiet fears ! 
 Ah ! surely such strange power is given 
 To lovely flowers, like dew, from heaven; 
 For lessons oft by them are brought. 
 Deeper than mortal sage hath taught. 
 Lessons of wisdom pure, that rise 
 From some clear fountains in the skies ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Fairest of Flora's lovely daughters 
 That bloom by stilly-running waters. 
 Fair Lily! thou a type must be 
 Of virgin love and purity! 
 Fragrant thou art as any flower 
 That decks a lady's garden-bower. 
 But he who would thy sweetness know, 
 Must stoop and bend his loving brow 
 To catch thy scent, so faint and rare 
 Scarce breathed upon the summer air. 
 And all thy motions, too, how free. 
 And yet how fraught with sympathy ! — 
 So pale thy tint, as meek thy gleam 
 Shed on thy kindly father-stream! 
 Still, as he swayeth to and fro, 
 How true in all thy goings. 
 As if thy very soul did know 
 
26 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 The secret of his flowings. 
 
 And then that heart of Hving gold, 
 
 Which thou dost modestly infold, 
 
 And screen from man's too searching view 
 
 Within thy robe of snowy hue! 
 
 To careless men thou seem'st to roam 
 
 Abroad upon the river. 
 
 In all thy movements chained to home, 
 
 Fast-rooted there for ever: 
 
 Linked by a holy, hidden tie. 
 
 Too subtle for a mortal eye. 
 
 Nor riveted by mortal art. 
 
 Deep down within thy father's heart. 
 
 Emblem in truth thou art to me 
 
 Of all a daughter ought to be ! 
 
 How shall I liken thee, sweet flower! 
 
 That other men may feel thy power. 
 
 May seek thee on some lovely night. 
 
 And say how strong, how chaste the might, 
 
 The tie of filial duty. 
 
 How graceful too, and angel-bright, 
 
 The pride of lowly beauty! 
 
 Thou sittest on the varying tide 
 
 As if thy spirit did preside 
 
 With a becoming, queenly grace. 
 
 As mistress of this lonely place; 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 27 
 
 A quiet magic hast thou now 
 
 To smooth the river's ruffled brow, 
 
 And calm his rippHng water: 
 
 And yet so deHcate and airy, 
 
 Thou art to him a very fairy, 
 
 A widowed father's only daughter. 
 
THE STYRIAN LAKE 
 
THE STYRIAN LAKE 
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Where the Styrian mountains rise 
 Close to Mariazell/ lies 
 Buried in a pinewood brake 
 A most beautiful green lake. 
 Lizard's back is not so green 
 As its soft and tremulous sheen; 
 Hermit's home on Athos' hill 
 Cannot be a place more still. 
 Styria is a wondrous land, 
 Special work of beauty's hand, 
 And it is the nook of earth 
 That is with me in my mirth, 
 A real Eden, whence I borrow 
 Food for song and calm for sorrow. 
 Most I love that placid lake, 
 Buried in the pinewood brake. 
 There the little pool was laid 
 Quiet in the pinewood shade. 
 When the Roman hosts were come 
 
 1 See " Mariazell," page 51. 
 
 31 
 
32 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 To the woods of Noricum. ^° 
 
 Emperors rose and tribunes fell, 
 
 Earth was governed ill or well ; 
 
 There was famine, there was war, 
 
 And sedition's dreadful jar, 
 
 And man's lot became so dreary ^s 
 
 That the earth grew old and weary. 
 
 But this way there came no breath 
 
 Of calamity or death. 
 
 They pierced not through pinewood brake 
 
 To the little Styrian lake. 3o 
 
 All the changes which it saw 
 
 Were by the harmonious law 
 
 And the sweetly pleading reasons 
 
 Of the four and fair-tongued seasons. 
 
 Pearly dawn and hazy noon, 35 
 
 And the yellow-orbed moon, 
 
 And the purple midnight came 
 
 Through those very years the same. 
 
 The lake had all its own free will, 
 
 So it was translucent still. '♦^ 
 
 Blessed earth! O blessed lake! 
 
 Shut within thy pinewood brake. 
 
 Angels saw thee in thy glee, 
 
 Of the Roman Empire free ! 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 33 
 
 Then Romantic days came on; ^s 
 
 Nature still as calmly shone 
 
 On the fragrant pinewood shade 
 
 Where the Styrian lake was laid. 
 
 Earl with belt and knight with spur, 
 
 These made no unwonted stir so 
 
 In the green and glossy deep 
 
 Nor woke the echoes from the steep. 
 
 II 
 THE LEGEND 
 
 So eleven ages fled 
 
 Since the Lord rose from the dead, 
 
 Maker of this little lake, 
 
 Moth and bird and pinewood brake. 
 
 Hither for the love of Mary ^ 
 
 Came a gentle missionary. 
 
 With an image of black wood 
 
 From an ancient limetree hewed, 
 
 Shaped for her, the Mother mild. 
 
 Blessed Mary with her Child. '* 
 
 With the Image to the dell 
 
 Came the gift of miracle, 
 
 Shrined within a sylvan Cell. 
 
 Far away mid cultured bowers 
 
 Rose St. Lambert's convent towers, '5 
 
34 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 The Martyred Saint, who bravely stood 
 
 Against King Pepin ; and his blood, 
 
 By the lewd Alpais slain. 
 
 Ran in Liege street like rain. 
 
 Out from yon Cistercian home ^^ 
 
 This kind-mannered Monk hath come 
 
 With St. Mary and her Child 
 
 So to hallow the green wild. 
 
 Not the moon when she o'ertops 
 
 Lofty Seeberg's ragged copse, ^s 
 
 Not the stealthy breath of spring 
 
 Up the woodlands murmuring, 
 
 Drawing after it a veil 
 
 Of thin green across the dale. 
 
 Not so welcome, moon or spring, 2° 
 
 For the quiet gifts they bring; 
 
 Advents, though they be of bliss. 
 
 They bear not a boon like this, — 
 
 Blessed Mary and her Son 
 
 Deep into the woodlands gone. 3S 
 
 One poor Monk, a beadsman lowly, 
 
 With gilt vessels rude but holy, 
 
 And a power of miracle 
 
 Shed into the whispering dell. 
 
 Lodged within and screened apart ^o 
 
 In the forest's dusky heart. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 35 
 
 Now amid the woodmen nigh 
 
 Marriage is a blissful tie, 
 
 And around the infant's birth 
 
 Is a light of Christian mirth, ^s 
 
 And the Monk can breathe a breath 
 
 On the anxious face of death. 
 
 Life is drawn within a ring 
 
 Of most peaceful hallowing. 
 
 Charities and virtues rise ^° 
 
 With all household sanctities. 
 
 While meek hymns and praises flow 
 
 From the hermitage below; 
 
 And the little bell is rung 
 
 When the blessed Mass is sung, ss 
 
 All, a blameless incense, given 
 
 From the pinewoods into Heaven, 
 
 From the shaggy Styrian dell 
 
 Of St. Mary of the Cell. 
 
 Thus for full a hundred years 
 
 Simple joys and simple fears 
 
 Compassed some Cistercian brother. 
 
 Beadsman to the Blessed Mother ; 
 
 Till it chanced that far away 
 
 In the drear Moravia, ^^ 
 
 Margrave Henry dreamed a dream, 
 
 Where the Mother-Maid did seem 
 
 60 
 
36 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 To heal him of his sore disease 
 
 In a cell amid green trees, 
 
 And the visionary lines, 70 
 
 Pictured Styria's rocks and pines, 
 
 And the Margrave saw the lake, 
 
 And the open pinewood brake. 
 
 So he came with trusting soul, 
 
 And St. Mary made him whole. 7S 
 
 Costly church with tower and bell 
 
 Rises in the sylvan dell, 
 
 Arching o'er the antique cell. 
 
 Now in long and gorgeous line 
 
 Emperors crowd unto the shrine, ^° 
 
 Peers and ladies and proud kings 
 
 Kneel there with their offerings ; 
 
 Silken banners bright and brave. 
 
 Through the dusky pinewoods wave. 
 
 And the peasants of far lands ^5 
 
 Come with wild flowers in their hands, — 
 
 All come here to Mary's haunt 
 
 With a sorrow or a want. 
 
 Yet I ween the shaggy dell 
 
 Witnessed worthier miracle, ^o 
 
 When the woodmen of the place 
 
 Were transformed by inner grace ; 
 
 And from their wild manners grew 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 37 
 
 Flowers that feed on heavenly dew; 
 
 And soft thoughts and gentle ways 9S 
 
 Could beguile their rugged days. 
 
 Love of Mary was to them 
 
 As the very outer hem 
 
 Of the Saviour's priestly vest, 
 
 Which they timorously pressed, ^°° 
 
 And whereby a simple soul 
 
 Might for faith's sake be made whole. 
 
 Ill 
 CHURCH MATINS 
 Oh how beautiful was dawn 
 On the Styrian mountain lawn, 
 When the lights and shadows lay 
 Where the night strove with the day! 
 And I saw the little lake 
 Like a black spot in the brake. 
 And the silver crescent moon 
 Of the greenwood month of June, 
 In the sky there was a light 
 Which was not a birth of night, 
 A stealthy streak and pearly pale, 
 Like a white transparent veil; 
 But a mist o'er Salza's bed 
 Hovered like a gossamer thread; 
 
38 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 And I saw the glorious scene ^s 
 
 Every moment grow more green, — 
 
 Day encroaching with sweet Hght 
 
 On a fairy-land of night. 
 
 Blessed be the God who made 
 
 Sun and moon, and light and shade, ^° 
 
 Balmy wind and pearly shower, 
 
 Forest tree and meadow flower, 
 
 And the heart to feel and love 
 
 All the joys that round us move ! 
 
 Blessed be the Angels bright, *5 
 
 Ordering the pomp aright, 
 
 Ministrants of winds and showers. 
 
 Ruddy clouds and sunset hours. 
 
 Blessed be the God who made 
 
 From the earth by dreadest laws 3o 
 
 Sparkling streams that cleanse and shine, 
 
 Making little babes divine, 
 
 And the grape's red blood, and bread 
 
 Laid upon the Altar dread; 
 
 Symbols, more than symbols, urns 35 
 
 Where a Heavenly Presence burns. 
 
 Veils that hide from loving eyes 
 
 Jesus in His strange disguise. 
 
 Making earth to be all rife 
 
 With a supernatural life. ^o 
 
45 
 
 SO 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 39 
 
 Sweet into the morning dim 
 
 Rose the happy pilgrim's hymn, 
 
 The sweet song and plaintive greeting 
 
 Of the weary pilgrims meeting; 
 "All hail in thy sylvan tent, 
 
 Mary, fairest Ornament!" - 
 
 Mother Mary ! 'tis a thing 
 
 Soothing as the breath of spring. 
 
 In the quiet time to hear 
 
 This wild region far and near 
 
 With the very accents swell 
 
 Of the Blessed Gabriel. 
 
 'Tis a wonder and a grace 
 
 In this uncouth pinewood place. 
 
 Mid white rocks and gloomy trees 
 
 And old Noric fastnesses, 
 To look forth and calmly listen. 
 While above the pale stars glisten ; 
 And to hear the grateful song 
 Of the gentle pilgrim-throng. 
 The old Angelic greeting, given 
 To the Virgin Queen of Heaven. 
 Hark! the Styrian vale is ringing 
 With the gentile pilgrims singing. 
 Breaking on the quiet dell 
 Slowly swings the heavy bell, 
 
 55 
 
 6o 
 
 6S 
 
40 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 And the organ breathes a sound 
 
 Into all the pinewoods round. 
 
 What a trouble of delight 
 
 There hath been the livelong night ! 7o 
 
 Mariazell! thou hast seen 
 
 Sleepers few this night, I ween. 
 
 One by one the pilgrims throng, 
 
 Coming in with plaintive song; 
 
 And in many a gaudy shed 75 
 
 Beads and Crosses are outspread. 
 
 Like the stars that one by one 
 
 Come to shine when day is done, 
 
 Still they flock with merry din. 
 
 For the valley of the Inn, So 
 
 From the Ennsland green and deep. 
 
 And the rough Carinthian steep, 
 
 From the two lakes of the Save, 
 
 And the blythe rich banks of Drave, 
 
 And the Mur's rock-shadowed floods, ^s 
 
 That shy hunter of the woods, 
 
 From the low Dalmatian sea, 
 
 And the sea-like Hungary, 
 
 And where Danube's waters pass 
 
 By Belgrade through the morass, 90 
 
 From Bavaria's sandy dells, 
 
 And the smooth Bohemian fells, 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 41 
 
 From Wurzburg and from Ratisbon, 
 
 Linz and Passau they have gone ; 
 
 And St. John of Prague hath sent 95 
 
 Worshippers to Mary's tent, 
 
 Where she waits her serfs to bless 
 
 In the Styrian wilderness. 
 
 Still they pass unheeded by; 
 
 From the village every eye ^°° 
 
 Goes with eager, anxious look 
 
 Up the Salza's tumbling brook : 
 
 No white banners yet have showed 
 
 On the great Vienna road ; 
 
 In the pauses of the ringing ^°5 
 
 They can hear no far-off singing, 
 
 And the signal hath not fired, 
 
 And the youthful groups are tired. 
 
 Yet 'twas whispered overnight 
 
 They'd leave Annaberg ere light. "° 
 
 Hark! At last the joyous song 
 
 Of Vienna's pilgrim throng: 
 
 'All hail in thy sylvan tent, 
 
 Mary, fairest Ornament ! " 
 
 Tarries the procession still? "s 
 
 See ! it winds along the hill, 
 
 Mitred prelates at its head 
 
42 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 Upon flowers and sweet flags tread. 
 Gifts from kings of foreign lands, 
 Banners worked by royal hands, ^^° 
 
 And a hundred shining things, 
 Peer's or peasant's offerings. 
 Move along the uneven ground, 
 While the distant thunders sound. 
 Ere I reached them I could hear ^^s 
 
 Filling all the forest near, 
 " Mariazell ! schonste Zier ! " — 
 Plaintive burden, that will quiver 
 In my spell-bound ear forever. 
 My dear land ! I thought of thee ; ^^o 
 
 And I thought how scantily. 
 In what thrifty rivulets, 
 Faith's weak tide among us sets. 
 And I looked with tearful eyes. 
 With an envious surprise, '^^ 
 
 Upon that huge wave that passed, 
 On the Styrian highlands cast 
 With a mighty, sea-like fall 
 From the Austrian capital. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FAEER 43 
 
 IV 
 
 MARGARET'S PILGRIMAGE 
 Now why weep ye by the shrine, 
 Ye two maidens? Wherefore twine 
 Roses red and sprigs of pine, 
 With a busy absent air. 
 Round the pilgrim-staffs ye bear? s 
 
 From Vienna with high heart 
 Ye set forward to take part 
 In the pilgrimage of grace 
 To St. Mary's sylvan place, — - 
 Three fair sisters, loveliest three, ^° 
 
 In the pilgrim company. 
 See ! encased in many a gem 
 Mary with her diadem. 
 And, sweet thought! Mother mild 
 Lifts on high her holy Child: ^s 
 
 As the pensive artist thought 
 So hath he the limewood wrought. 
 Why stand ye thus sorrow-bound, 
 While the train is kneeling round? 
 And the little Margaret too ^° 
 
 With her eyes of merry blue, 
 Wherefore is she not with you? 
 And the staff she was so long 
 In selecting from the throng 
 
44 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 In the Graben, weeks ago ^5 
 
 Ere the flowers began to blow, 
 
 And then took it to be blessed 
 
 At St. Stephen's by the priest, — 
 
 Hath it failed her, faint and weary. 
 
 In some Styrian pinewood dreary? 30 
 
 Ah ! she felt the dogstar rage. 
 
 And she fain her thirst would swage — 
 
 It was her first pilgrimage — 
 
 At a cool and brilliant spring 
 
 By the wayside murmuring. ^5 
 
 Ah sweet child! bright, happy flower! 
 
 She was broken from that hour. 
 
 They have left her on the steep 
 
 Of green Annaberg asleep. 
 
 With crossed hands upon her breast 40 
 
 Her choice staff is lightly pressed. 
 
 Margaret will awake no more, 
 
 Save upon a calmer shore. 
 
 Oh what can the sisters say 
 
 To the couple far away? 45 
 
 What will the old burgher do. 
 
 Since those eyes of merry blue. 
 
 The truest sunlight of his home. 
 
 Never, never more can come? 
 
 See! they sing not, but they gaze so 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 45 
 
 Deep into the jewelled blaze, 
 And the thought within them swells, — 
 Mary hath worked miracles! 
 And they weep and gaze alway, 
 As though they were fain to say, ss 
 
 " Mother Mary ! couldst thou make 
 Gretchen from her sleep awake ? " 
 When the gay procession passed 
 
 I knew not what sad cloud was cast 
 
 On these sisters, sorrow-laden, ^° 
 
 By the death of that fair maiden. 
 
 Sisters twain ! though now ye sorrow, 
 
 Ye shall have a calmer morrow ; 
 
 Mariazell shall become 
 
 In long years a placid home 
 
 For remembrances, and tears 
 
 Which spring not of pains and fears ; 
 
 And this pilgrimage that seems 
 
 Broken up like baffled dreams. 
 
 Then shall be a very haunt 
 
 For your spirits when they want 
 
 Of soft feeling deep to drink : 
 
 It shall be a joy to think 
 
 How the merry Margaret sleeps 
 
 Mid the Styrian pinewood steeps, 
 Safe with childhood's sinless charms 
 In her Mother Mary's arms. 
 
 65 
 
 70 
 
 75 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 V 
 
 EARTH'S VESPERS 
 Once more went I to the lake, 
 Buried in the pinewood brake. 
 Through the parting clouds the light 
 Of the afternoon was bright. 
 Beautiful and gay and green s 
 
 On my pathway was the scene, — 
 This hath been a day of joy 
 Much too simple for alloy. 
 One pure day that well may shine. 
 Like stars amid the twilight pine. ^° 
 
 Now behold ! the tranquil power 
 Of the summer-evening hour 
 Is enthroned upon the spot; 
 And the pageant cometh not 
 With the gauzy purple veil *5 
 
 Of the English twilight pale. 
 But winds o'er all the forest scene 
 With a light of faint blue green. 
 To a thousand pinetops yielding 
 Somewhat almost of a gilding. ^° 
 
 There is meaning in the face 
 Of the lake and woodland place. 
 Something heavenly there must be 
 In such deep tranquility. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 47 
 
 With meet prayer and gratitude ^s 
 
 I went from out ti:e solitude; 
 
 And to Mariazell wending, 
 
 Up the pine-clad steep ascending, 
 
 I beheld the dark clouds drooping, 
 
 Once more to the mountains stooping. 30 
 
 Yet along the ridges dim 
 
 Lay a luminous gold rim. 
 
 Such as makes me think the while 
 
 That beyond in brightest smile 
 
 Lies a very radiant shore 3S 
 
 I have visited before, 
 
 In my boyhood, or in gleams. 
 
 Shed on my far-travelled dreams. 
 
 The one woodless mountain too. 
 
 Was of brilliant golden hue, 4o 
 
 And its precipices hoary 
 
 Touched with sunset's mellow glory. 
 
 From a hollow white-mouthed cave 
 
 Rose a symbol, calm and grave, — 
 
 A broken rainbow — whose bright end 45 
 
 In the cavern did descend. 
 
 With mute stationary mirth, 
 
 Like a very growth of earth. 
 
 The dark clouds now a moment hover — 
 
 They descend — the pomp is over! so 
 
48 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 For the days exceeding beauty 
 
 There must be returns of duty, 
 
 And to Christ who thus hath given, 
 
 Sights and sounds in earth and heaven, 
 
 We must answer at the last ss 
 
 For the pageantry now past. 
 
 Hark ! how plaintively they sing ; — 
 
 Never was on natural thing 
 
 A more touching comn^entary 
 
 Than the pilgrim's Ave Mary! ^° 
 
PROSE SELECTIONS 
 
PROSE SELECTIONS 
 
 MARIAZELL - 
 
 June 30. — To-day has given us an example of 
 early rising. We had got all our sight-seeing over 
 by twelve o'clock and were ready to start, when the 
 rain came down. It continued sufficiently long to 
 prevent our leaving Mariazell in such time as would 
 give us reasonable hope of attaining any tolerable 
 sleeping-place by night-fall. So we made up our 
 minds to remain. The rain was a series of driving 
 thunder-showers, and we had in the intervals won- 
 derful sights up a savage valley, full of writhing 
 mists, now and then kindled by the sun. At half- 
 past three a walk seemed practicable. We set forth 
 and found the mountains most glorious. 
 
 All was changed. Beauty and gloom had striven, 
 and the strife was over. The serpentine mists that 
 were coiling themselves up on the tops of the woods 
 were symbols of gloom, drawing off his vanquished 
 forces. And beauty seemed to be expanding her- 
 self over the lake, and even in the pellucid depths, 
 which were of pure and sparkling green. The power 
 
 51 
 
52 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 of summer afternoon was on the hills. There was 
 that breathing stillness which is the moistened 
 earth's thanksgiving after rain — a Benedicite as 
 thrilling and as tuneful as when the winds are out, 
 and the woods and waterfalls and clamorous cav- 
 erns are swelling the outbreak of stormy praise. 
 A lake ! History, geography, politics, all, all fled ! 
 Springs of old enjoyment broke up within me, and 
 I received into the very recesses of my being the 
 whole scene before me. Then the power of summer 
 evening throned herself upon the spot. How beau- 
 tiful it was — how beautiful ! how holy ! It came 
 not with the gauzy, purple veil of radiant light 
 which clothes our English hills, but with a pale blue- 
 green, mingled almost with a kind of gilding, yet all 
 of it faint as faint could be. In silence and deepest 
 gratitude I left the place. It seemed like a message 
 from above, so significant was the intense tranquil- 
 ity. The very face of the furrowed lake was full 
 of calm meaning, of heavenly expression. I stole 
 away. The mountains beyond were again bringing 
 down the clouds, but they had those rims of light 
 along their outline which always give me the strange 
 idea that some sunshiny place is beyond which I 
 know, and love, and have visited before. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 53 
 
 In another moment the cloud came down, and 
 the pomp was over. Blessed be the Lord God Om- 
 nipotent, who reigneth! Nor was the thought my 
 own alone ; for my companion said, as it were think- 
 ing aloud, " O ye mountains and hills, bless ye the 
 Lord, praise Him and magnify Him forever " ! 
 
 I have written these lines while the impression 
 is yet warm within me. The valleys are filled with 
 muttering thunder, the organ is pealing most loudly 
 from the church, and the Ave Maria of the multi- 
 tudinous pilgrims is accompanying the sun to his 
 cloudy setting. 
 
 July I. — Still detained at Mariazell by the 
 weather. The village is thronged with thousands. 
 Early in the morning various processions arrived. 
 From hundreds of male and female voices has 
 Mary's holy name swelled along the valleys and up 
 the savage heights. It is a dark, cold, and cloudy 
 day, but no rain falling; yet the scenery is not vis- 
 ible. Strange it is amid these rude fastnesses, to 
 hear those words once spoken by the angel re-echoed 
 from every side, till the whole mountain-hollow 
 and the valleys that strike out from it, seem to send 
 up toward heaven one long and incessant " Hail 
 Mary " ! About half-past ten the Vienna procession 
 arrived, in number from two to three thousand. 
 
54 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 The bishop, the priests, the numerous banners, the 
 costly offerings, made an imposing spectacle, while 
 the kettle-drums and trumpets contended with the 
 swell of multitudinous voices. There was a con- 
 siderable congregation in the church before the pro- 
 cession entered. It is a very spacious building ; but 
 I never saw so close a mass of human beings before. 
 I went into one of the upper galleries, and looked 
 down upon them. Each had twined around the pil- 
 grim's staff a sprig of fir and some wild-flowers, 
 and very many of the women looked weary and 
 way-worn. One or two were weeping bitterly ; per- 
 haps the relatives of those who had fallen by the 
 way. Tuesday was a day of intense heat, and as 
 we came along from Vienna we pitied the poor pil- 
 grims. After climbing the high hill of Annaberg, 
 their thirst was so strong upon them that they 
 rushed, hot and fainting, to the cold mountain- 
 springs. The pilgrims wended on, but four were 
 corpses at Annaberg, and three were struggling 
 for life upon beds of sickness. 
 
 When the organ burst forth, and about three 
 thousand voices raised the hymn to the Virgin, I 
 thought the roof of the church would have been 
 lifted up. I never heard such a volume of musical, 
 really musical sound before. Then the grand mass 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 55 
 
 began, and the incense floated all around. It was 
 a bewildering sight. I thought how faith ran in my 
 own country in thin and scattered rivulets, and I 
 looked with envious surprise at this huge wave 
 which the Austrian capital had flung upon this 
 green platform of Styrian highland — a wave of 
 pure, hearty, earnest faith. — Extracts from Journal. 
 
56 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 THE ANGELS 
 
 Christmas has always seemed to all men as one 
 of the Angels' feasts. With what holy envy then 
 must they not have regarded the fortunate Gabriel, 
 waiting on Daniel, the man of desires, and inspiring 
 him with sweet precipitate prophecies, and still more 
 when he went forth on his embassies that were pre- 
 paratory to the great mystery, bearing messages to 
 Joachim and Anne, to Zacharias and Elizabeth ! but 
 most of all they envied him when he went to Naz- 
 areth at midnight, and saluted Mary with a saluta- 
 tion which was not his alone, but the salutation of 
 the whole angelic world, and then stood back a little, 
 in blissful trembling reverence, while the Eternal 
 Spirit overshadowed their young queen, and the 
 sweet mystery was accomplished. They envied 
 Michael, the official guardian of the Sacred Human- 
 ity, whose zeal devoured his unconsuming spirit 
 even as the zeal of Jesus devoured the Sacred 
 Heart. They envied Raphael, the manlike Angel, 
 the healer and the redeemer, because he was so like 
 to Jesus in his character, and made such beautiful 
 revelations of the pathos there was in God. 
 
 But they did not envy Michael or Raphael as 
 they envied the fortunate Gabriel. Oh, how for nine 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 57 
 
 months they hung about the happy Mother, the liv- 
 ing tabernacle of the Incomprehensible Creator! 
 Yet none but Gabriel might speak, none but Gabriel 
 float over Joseph in his sleep and whisper to him 
 heavenly words in the thick of his anxious dreams. 
 But when the Little Flower came up from under- 
 ground, and bloomed visibly in Bethlehem at mid- 
 night, and filled the world with sudden fragrance, 
 winter though it was, and dark, and in a sunless 
 Cave, then heaven was allowed to open, and their 
 voices and their instruments were given to the 
 Angels, and the flood-gates of their impatient jubi- 
 lee were drawn up, and they were bidden to sing 
 such strains of divinest triumph, as the listening 
 earth had never heard before, not even when those 
 same morning stars had sung at its creation — such 
 strains as were meet only for a triumph where the 
 Everlasting God was celebrating the victories of his 
 boundless love. Down into the deep seas flowed the 
 celestial harmony. Over the mountain-tops the bil- 
 lows of the glorious music rolled. The vast vaults 
 of the purple night rung with it in clear, liquid res- 
 onance. The clouds trembled in its undulations. 
 Sleep waved its wings, and dreams of hope fell 
 upon the sons of men. The inferior creatures were 
 hushed and soothed. The very woods stood still 
 
58 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 in the night-breeze and the star-lit rivers flowed 
 more silently to hear. The flowers distilled double 
 perfumes, as if they were bleeding to death with 
 their unstanched sweetness. Earth herself felt light- 
 ened of her load of guilt; and distant worlds, 
 wheeling far off in space, were inundated with the 
 angelic melody. Silent in impatient adoration, they 
 had leaned over toward earth at the moment of the 
 Incarnation. Silent, and scarce held in by the om- 
 nipotent hand of God, they pressed like walls of 
 burning fire around the Cross on Calvary. But at 
 Bethlehem the waters of their inward jubilee burst 
 forth unreproved, and overran all God's creation 
 with the wondrous spells of that Gloria in excelsis 
 which is in itself not only a beautiful revelation of 
 angelic nature, but also the worship round the 
 Thrones made for one moment audible on this low- 
 lying earth. Who does not see that Bethlehem was 
 the predilection of the Angels ? — Bethlehem. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 59 
 
 THE SHEPHERDS 
 
 How beautifully too is our Lord's attraction to 
 the lowly represented in the call of these rough, 
 childlike, pastoral men ! Outside the Cave he calls 
 the Shepherds first of all. They are men who have 
 lived in the habits of the meek creatures they tend, 
 until their inward life has caught habits of a kin- 
 dred sort. They lie out at night on the cold moun- 
 tain side, or in the chill blue mist of the valley. They 
 hear the winds moan over the earth, and the rude 
 rains beat during the sleepless night. The face of 
 the moon has become familiar to them, and the 
 silent stars mingle more with their thoughts than 
 they themselves suspect. They are poor and hardy, 
 nursed in solitude and on scant living, dwellers out 
 of doors, and not in the bright cheer of domestic 
 homes. Such are the men the Babe calls first; and 
 they come to worship liim, and the worship of their 
 simplicity is joy, and the voice of joy is praise. God 
 loves the praises of the lowly. 
 
 The figures of the Shepherds have grown to look 
 so natural to us in our thought-pictures of Bethle- 
 hem that it almost seems now as if they were insep- 
 arable from it, and indispensable to the mystery. 
 
6o SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 What a beautiful incongruity there is between the 
 part they play, and their pastoral occupation. The 
 very contrasts are congruities. Heaven opens, and 
 reveals itself to earth, making itself but one side 
 of the choir to sing the office of the Nativity, while 
 earth is to be the other; and earth's answer to the 
 open heavens is the pastoral gentleness of those 
 simple-minded watchmen. She sets her Shepherds 
 to match the heavenly singers, and counts their sinl- 
 plicity her most harmonious response to angelical 
 intelligence. Truly earth was wise in this her deed, 
 and teaches her sons philosophy. It was congruous, 
 too, that simplicity should be the first worship which 
 the outer world sent into the Cave of Bethlehem. 
 For what is the grace of simplicity but a permanent 
 childhood of the soul, fixed there by a special oper- 
 ation of the Holy Ghost, and therefore a fitting 
 worship for the Holy Child himself? Their infant- 
 like heavenly-mindedness suited his infantine con- 
 dition, as well as it suited the purity of the heavenly 
 hosts that were singing in the upper air. Beautiful 
 figures! on whom God's light rested for a moment 
 and then all was dark again! they were not mere 
 shapes of light, golden imaginings, ideal forms, that 
 filled in the Divine Artist's mysterious picture. 
 They were living souls, tender yet not faultless men. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 6l 
 
 with inequalities in the monotony of their human 
 lot that often lowered them in temper and in repin- 
 ing to the level of those around them. They were 
 not so unlike ourselves, though they float in the 
 golden haze of a glorious picture.^ They fell back 
 out of the strong light, unrepiningly, to their sheep- 
 flocks and their night-watches. Their after years 
 were hidden in the pathetic obscurity which is com- 
 mon to all blameless poverty ; and they are hidden 
 now in the sea of light which lies like a golden veil 
 of mist close round the throne of the Incarnate 
 Word. — Bethlehem. 
 
 1 Christmas Art might be profitably interpreted in connection with 
 these extracts. 
 
62 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 THE CAVALCADE FROM THE EAST 
 
 But now a change comes over the scene, which 
 seems at first sight but Httle in keeping with the 
 characteristic lowhness of Bethlehem. A cavalcade 
 from the far East comes up this way. The camel- 
 bells are tinkling. A retinue of attendants accom- 
 panies three Kings ^ of different Oriental tribes, 
 who come with their various offerings to the new- 
 born Babe. It is a history more romantic than 
 romance itself would dare to be. Those swarthy 
 men are among the wisest of the studious East. 
 They represent the love and science of their day. 
 Yet have they done what the world would surely 
 esteem the most foolish of actions. They were men 
 whose science led them to God. 
 
 In the dark blue of the lustrous sky there rose a 
 new or hitherto unnoticed star. Its apparition could 
 not escape the notice of these Oriental sages, who 
 nightly watched the skies ; for their science was also 
 their theology. It was the star of which an ancient 
 prophecy had spoken. Perhaps it drooped low 
 towards earth, and wheeled a too swift course to 
 
 1 Make a comparative study of — 
 
 "The Gospel Story " — St. Matthew, Chap. ii. 
 " The Three Kings "— Wallace's " Ben Hur." 
 "The Three Kings "—Longfellow. 
 "The Three Kings of Cologne "— E. Field. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 63 
 
 be like one of the other stars. Perhaps it trailed a 
 line of light after it, slowly, yet with a visible move- 
 ment, and so little above the horizon, or with such 
 downward slanting course, that it seemed as if it 
 beckoned to them, as if an angel were bearing a 
 lamp to light the feet of pilgrims, and timed his 
 going to their slowness, and had not shot too far 
 ahead during the bright day, but was found and 
 welcomed each night as a faithful indicator pointing 
 to the Cave of Bethlehem. How often God prefers 
 to teach by night rather than by day! Meanwhile, 
 doubtless, the instincts of the Holy Spirit in the 
 hearts of these wise rulers drew them toward the 
 star. They followed it as men follow a vocation, 
 hardly seeing clearly at first that they are following 
 a divine lead. Wild and romantic as the conduct 
 of these wise enthusiasts seemed, they did not hesi- 
 tate. After due counsel, they pronounced the lu- 
 minous finger to be the star of the old prophecy, and 
 therefore God was come. 
 
 They left their homes, their state, and their af- 
 fairs, and journeyed westward, they knew not 
 whither, led nightly by the star that slipped onward 
 in its silent groove. They were the representatives 
 of the heathen world moving forward to the feet of 
 the universal Saviour. They came to the gates of 
 
64 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 Jerusalem ; and their God did honor to his Church. 
 He withdrew the guidance of the star, because now 
 the better guidance of the synagogue was at their 
 command. The oracles of the law pronounced that 
 Bethlehem was to be the birthplace of Messias ; and 
 the wise men passed onward to the humble village. 
 Again the star shone out in the blue heavens, and 
 slowly sank earthward over the Cave of Bethlehem ; 
 and presently the devout Kings were at the feet of 
 Jesus. 
 
 It would take a whole volume to comment to the 
 full on this sweet legend of the gospel. The Babe, 
 it seems, will move the heights of the world as well 
 as the lowlands. He will now call wisdom to his 
 crib, as he has but lately called simplicity. Yet how 
 different is his call! For wise men and for Kings 
 some signs were wanted, and, because they were 
 wise Kings, scientific signs. As the sweet patience 
 and obscure hardships of a lowly life prepared the 
 souls of the Shepherds, so to the Kings their years 
 of Oriental lore was as the preparation of the gos- 
 pel. Yet true science has also its childlike spirit, its 
 beautiful simplicity. Learning makes children of 
 its professors, when their hearts are humble and 
 their lives pure. It was a simple thing of them to 
 leave their homes, their latticed palaces or their 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 65 
 
 royal tents. They were simple, too, when they were 
 in their trouble at Jerusalem, because of the disap- 
 pearance of the star. But when the end of all broke 
 upon them, — when the star left them at the half- 
 stable and half-cave, and they beheld a child of ab- 
 ject poverty, lying in a manger upon straw, between 
 an ox and an ass, with, as the world would speak, 
 an old artisan of the lower class to represent his 
 father, and a girlish ill-assorted Mother, — then was 
 the triumph of their simplicity. They hesitated not 
 for one moment. There was no inward questioning 
 as to whether there was a divine likelihood about all 
 this. They had come all that way for this. They 
 had brought their gleaming metals and rich frankin- 
 cense to the caverned cattle-shed, where the myrrh 
 alone seemed in keeping with the circumstances of 
 the Child. They were content. It was not merely 
 all they wanted ; it was more than they wanted, 
 more than they had ever dreamed. Who could come 
 to Jesus and to Mary, and not go away contented, if 
 their hearts were pure, — go away contented, yet not 
 contented to go away? How kingly seemed to 
 them the poverty of that Babe of Bethlehem, how 
 right royal that sinless Mother's lap on which he 
 was enthroned ! 
 
66 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 THE FIRST FOUNTAINS OF DEVOTION TO 
 THE BLESSED MOTHER 
 
 What is it that makes the Espousals of our Lady 
 so sweet and so fertile a source of contemplation? 
 That mystery is, as it were, a woody mountain 
 lighted up with the gold of the yet unrisen sun. It 
 is a manifold prophecy of things to come. It is 
 the preparation of that mysterious shield of secrecy 
 behind which God would place the great mystery of 
 the Incarnation. So too the Presentation of our 
 Blessed Lady is a mystery full of beauty, yet a 
 beauty which hardly can be called its own. It is a 
 lovely sight in truth to see; there is the miraculous 
 Maiden of three years old, mounting the temple 
 steps with the gravity and dignity of age, and offer- 
 ing herself to the House of God with the full use of 
 the most comprehensive and majestic intellect which 
 the world had ever known, even at that early age. 
 
 Let us mount higher still. Earth never broke 
 forth with so gay and glad a fountain as when the 
 Babe Mary, the infant who was the joy of the 
 whole world, the flower of God's visible creation, 
 and the perfection of the invisible and hitherto 
 queenless angels of His court, came like the richest 
 fruit, ready-ripe and golden, of the world's most 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 67 
 
 memorable September. There is hardly a feast in 
 the year so gay and bright as this of her Nativity, 
 right in the heart of the happy harvest, as though 
 she were, as indeed she was, earth's heavenliest 
 growth, and whose cradle was to rock to the meas- 
 ures of the whole world's vintage- songs ; for she 
 had come who was the true harvest-home of that 
 homeless world. Yet it was the mystery of the 
 maternity >\^hich made her Nativity a joy so great. 
 It also must lean forward and catch its light from 
 out the mysteries of the Sacred Infancy. 
 
 Higher still now, up to yonder primal fountain, 
 around which at this moment ^ the Church of God 
 is drawing her lines and raising her circumvalla- 
 tions, as it were, about the purest fountain of the 
 waters of Sion. Here is the living water of divinest 
 miracles, divinest redemption, divinest grace, divi- 
 nest love, our Mother's Immaculate Conception. 
 See how the whole Church is gathering round in 
 crowds to gaze into the deep liquid bosom of the 
 waters, and see the wonders of heaven and the oper- 
 ations of God faithfully and awfully imaged there. 
 
 1 Written in 1854 while the Vicar of Christ, Pius IX, was gathering to 
 the Holy City the Catholic episcopate to celebrate this most auspicious 
 event of his grand pontificate,— the definition of the Dogma of the Im- 
 maculate Conception, 
 
68 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 Countless souls are feeding highest sanctity upon 
 its unworldly freshness. 
 
 There are the doctors of the Church slaking their 
 thirst for truth at its animating streams ; and the 
 blind multitudes drink and look up, and behold! 
 their eyes are opened, and Jesus shows more beauti- 
 ful and Mary shines more brightly! and the poor 
 and the comfortless and all the careworn, high or 
 low, mitred, crowned, or bareheaded, are there, and 
 they throw the waters up into the air for joy, and as 
 they fall they make countless rainbows all over the 
 horizon of the storm-tost Church. And troops of 
 Virgins keep glad watch over its waters day and 
 night with special prayer and song. And the Chief 
 Shepherd is there, kneeling on the fountain's marge, 
 and at his sign, from all the orders of the Church, 
 rises up in stern magnificence the old Veni, Creator, 
 the prelude of the miost glorious definition of the 
 Catholic faith, one which the torment of cruel her- 
 esy has not wrung from the reluctant reverence of 
 the Church, but which is the irresistible and spon- 
 taneous outburst of doctrine and devotion, too hot 
 to be longer pent within her mighty heart. The 
 wisdom of the schools and the instinct of the multi- 
 tude have vied with each other, and who shall say 
 which was conqueror in this holy strife. O happy 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 69 
 
 they whom God has kept, Hke Simeon of old, to this 
 glad day, when Peter has bid his shepherds pitch 
 their tents and feed their flocks so high up the holy 
 mountain, and by this well of purest waters! Yet 
 it is the joy of Bethlehem which is beating in them. 
 It is not only or chiefly the sinlessness of God's fair 
 creature, but of God's dear Mother, which we are 
 greeting with such triumphant acclamation. It is 
 at the well-head of the Incarnation that we are wor- 
 shiping. These waters of gladness, we look to 
 drawing them one day out of another well, when 
 they have changed their color and had their price 
 put on them ; for they are the blessed elements of 
 the Precious Blood. — • The Blessed Sacrament. 
 
70 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 KIND WORDS 
 
 Kind words are the music of the world. They 
 have a power which seems to be beyond natural 
 causes, as if they were some angel's song, which had 
 lost its way and come on earth, and sang on undy- 
 ingly, smiting the hearts of men with sweetest 
 wounds, and putting for the while an angel's nature 
 into us. 
 
 Let us then think first of all of the power of kind 
 words. In truth, there is hardly a power on earth 
 equal to them. It seems as they could almost do 
 what in reality God alone can do, namely, soften 
 the hard and angry hearts of men. Many a friend- 
 ship, long, loyal, and self-sacrificing, rested at first 
 on no thicker a foundation than a kind word. 
 
 Kind words produce happiness. How often have 
 we ourselves been made happy by kind words, in a 
 manner and to an extent, which we are quite unable 
 to explain! No analysis enables us to detect the 
 secret of the power of kind words. Even self-love 
 is found inadequate as a cause. Now, as I have 
 said before, happiness is a great power of holiness. 
 Thus, kind words, by their power of producing hap- 
 piness, have also a power of producing holiness, and . 
 so of winning men to God. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 71 
 
 If I may use such a word when I am speaking 
 of rehgious subjects, it is by voice and words that 
 men mesmerize each other. Hence it is that the 
 world is converted by the fooHshness of preaching. 
 Hence it is that an angry word rankles longer in the 
 heart than an angry gesture, nay,, very often even 
 longer than a blow. Thus, all that has been said 
 of the power of kindness in general applies with an 
 additional and peculiar force to kind words. — Spir- 
 itual Conferences. 
 
72 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 THE MARRIAGE FEAST OF CANA 
 
 But now, as through some gateway on which 
 the sun is brightly shining, or some triumphal arch 
 hung round with braided flowers, the Procession 
 of the Precious Blood issues out of the pastoral 
 solitude of Nazareth at Cana of Galilee in the unex- 
 pected light of a marriage feast. It was as if the 
 multiplying of the human family was a joy to its 
 love of souls. With how exquisite a fittingness, and 
 with how much disclosure of his own character, did 
 our Lord make that first of his public mysteries a 
 triumph to his Mother! We know not how to ex- 
 press the glory of that feast to her. The eternal 
 counsels were anticipated at her word. The time 
 which in our Lord's mind had not come, came at 
 his Mother's will; and the first refulgence of his 
 miracles shone forth on her, and at her bidding. 
 Through her he had entered on the earth; through 
 her he entered on his ministry. With her he went 
 up Calvary; with her he mounted the Hill of the 
 Ascension. All the mysteries of Jesus are glories 
 of Mary. The Ministry is not less full of her fra- 
 grance than the Childhood of the Passion. As the 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 73 
 
 Father's work was deferred for Mary when her 
 Son was twelve, the same work was precipitated 
 for her when he was thirty. 
 
 Through this portal, then, of Cana in Galilee, this 
 Gate of Mary, as we may call it, the Precious Blood 
 issued forth from its concealment. The low white 
 houses gleamed with their flat roofs among the 
 pomegranate trees, and the broad-leaved figs, and 
 the shrubby undergrowth, while the plain below 
 was all waving with the billowy corn. The corn 
 below, even if it bore a thousandfold, was but a 
 poor figure of the harvest that Blood should gather 
 now, that Blood which shone more ruby-like than 
 the ripest pomegranate in Cana. A little water 
 from the village well was turned into generous 
 wine; but that Blood, which men will spill like 
 water, shall be the wine of immortality to all the 
 world. Now for three years the Procession of the 
 Precious Blood moved to and fro within the pre- 
 cincts of the Holy Land. One while it was upon 
 the hilltops, which look down upon the lake, the 
 lake of the Great Vocations, as we may fitly name it. 
 Another while it was winding along the paths 
 which clove the tall corn in the fields. The day saw 
 
74 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 it in the temple-courts ; the moonhght disclosed it in 
 the gray hollows of the stony mountains. It went 
 to carry blessing to the houses of the poor, and it 
 crossed the inland sea in the boats of fishermen. Yet 
 it did not move at random. Its very journeys were 
 a ritual. It was like the procession in the consecra- 
 tion of a church. — The Precious Blood. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 75 
 
 LOSS OF TIME 
 
 We have to remember that time is the stuff out 
 of which eternity is made, that it is at once precious 
 and irrevocable, and that we shall have to give the 
 strictest account of it at the last. Very few faults 
 are irreparable, but loss of time is one of those few ; 
 and when we consider how easy a fault is, how fre- 
 quent, how silent, how alluring, we shall discern 
 something of its real danger. Idleness, moreover, 
 when it has fastened upon us, is a perfect tyranny, 
 a slavery whose shackles are felt whatever limb we 
 move, or even when we are lying. It is a captiva- 
 ting bondage also, whose very sweetness renders it 
 more perilous. 
 
 But the worst feature about it is its deceit fulness. 
 No idle man believes himself to be idle except in 
 lucid intervals of grace. No one will credit how 
 strong the habit of losing time will rapidly become. 
 Meanwhile the debatable land which lies between 
 it and lukewarmness is swiftly traversed. I doubt 
 if a jealous and conscientious use of time can ever, 
 as many spiritual excellencies can, become a habit. 
 I suspect time is a thing to be watched all through 
 life. It is a running stream, every ripple of which 
 is freighted with some tell-tale evidence, which it 
 hastens to depose with unerring fidelity in that sea 
 which circles around the throne of God. — Growth 
 in Holiness. 
 
76 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 SCIENCE AND GRACE 
 
 Men of Science lead us into every nook and cor- 
 ner of the world to show us, even in the case of 
 vilest insects and the adaptation of their habits and 
 instincts to their wants and weaknesses, how full 
 creation is not only of the wisdom and the power, 
 but of the minute considerateness and tender com- 
 passion of the Almighty. We have seen precisely 
 the same thing in the spiritual world, and its super- 
 natural arrangements. All is for love; and that 
 to an extent which almost tries our faith. God 
 loves us with a surpassing love, and He longs to be 
 loved by us, and He lavishes upon us with an in- 
 credible profusion the most unthought-of means of 
 loving Him and increasing His glory. Theology 
 is the counterpart of physical science. It can tell 
 us quite as wonderful things of the angels whom 
 we have never seen, as astronomy can of the stars 
 we can never reach. The science of the laws of 
 grace is a parallel to the science of the laws of life. 
 The history and constitution of the Church is as 
 startling in its wonders as are the records of geol- 
 ogy. With the help of revelation, the Church, rea- 
 son, and the light of the Holy Ghost, Catholic theo- 
 logians have explored spirit with at least quite as 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 // 
 
 much certainty and success as modern science has 
 explored matter. Those who smile when we speak 
 so intimately of the different choirs of angels, are 
 like those who smile when they are told the bulk of 
 a planet, or that it is made of some material as light 
 as cork. The unbelief of ignorance causes the smile 
 of both. The immense intellect of man was once 
 directed upon the life of God, — His perfections. His 
 incarnation, and His communications of Himself. 
 Revelation gave it countless infallible axioms, and 
 that greatest glory of the human mind. Catholic 
 theology, was the result. The same immense power 
 is now brought to bear upon the currents of the 
 ocean and the circles of the winds, upon electrical 
 phenomena, and the chemistry of the stars, and the 
 result is wonderful enough in the system of modern 
 science ; yet hardly so wonderful, even as an exhibi- 
 tion of mental power, as are the summas of scho- 
 lastic theology. — All for Jesus. 
 
 LofC. 
 
78 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 THE DAILY CROSS 
 
 Each morning of life we begin anew. We go 
 forth from our doors to encounter a new day on its 
 passage to eternity. It has much to say to us, and 
 we to it ; and it carries its tale to God at sunset, and 
 its word is believed, and its message remembered till 
 the doom. Would it not be an unproductive day 
 in which we did not meet our Lord? For is not 
 that the very meaning of our lives? We go out to 
 meet Jesus in every action of the day; but we re- 
 quire the fourth dolor to admonish us that we must 
 rarely expect to meet Him except with a Cross, and 
 that a new one. What cross we shall meet to-day 
 we know not : sometimes we can not guess. But we 
 know that if we meet Jesus we shall meet a Cross, 
 and evening will find us with the burden on our 
 backs. 
 
 Some men meet Him, and turn away. Some see 
 Him far off, and turn down another road. Some 
 come close up, and leap down the precipice at the 
 side, as if He were a destroying angel blocking up 
 the way. Some pass by, pretending they do not 
 know Him. He has been walking cross-laden in 
 thousands of earth's roads to-day, but He has had 
 few honest greetings. Faith and love have made 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 79 
 
 some men too timid to pass Him or avoid Him, but 
 they have expostulated with Him about the cross, 
 and have wept out loud when He persisted. Some 
 follow in the sullenness of servile obedience, and 
 drag their cross, and it jolts upon the stones, and 
 hurts them all the more, and they fall, but their falls 
 are not in union with those three of His upon the 
 old Way of the Cross. Few kneel down with the 
 alacrity of a glad surprise, and kiss His feet, and 
 take the cross off His back, and shoulder it almost 
 playfully, and walk by His side, singing psalms 
 with Him, and smile when they totter beneath the 
 load. But oh ! the beauty of that day's sunset to 
 such as these ! They " constrain Him, saying, Stay 
 with us, because it is toward evening, and the day 
 is now far spent. And He goes in with them." This 
 is what we should do. Can we do it? — Foot of the 
 Cross. 
 
8o SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 GOD'S TRIUMPH IN THE REPENTANT 
 
 And heaven keeps feast for this ! ^ And the great 
 Creator takes ahiiost with avidity the leavings of 
 the workl, counting for chivalry the querulous help- 
 lessness of a sin-enfeebled soul. There is not one 
 word of reproach, one look of discontent. Coupled 
 with his extraordinary mindfulness of minutest 
 services, God is seemingly forgetful how all good 
 is but His own grace. See! His arms are round 
 that deathbed penitent. He is telling him the se- 
 crets of His love. He is sealing for him with a 
 Father's kiss the eternity of his beatitude. That 
 man will lie forever bathed in the beautiful light of 
 the Godhead! 
 
 Is this credible? Should we dare to believe it, 
 if it were not of faith ? O v/onderf ul, wonderful God ! 
 of whom each hour is telling us something new, 
 making premature perpetual heaven in our hearts ! 
 It is an old history that love makes the Creator seem 
 to put Himself below His own creatures : it is an 
 old history, yet it surprises us almost to tears each 
 morning as we wake. And yet there are men to 
 whom God is a difficulty. 
 
 1 "There shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance. 
 Luke XV. 7. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 8i 
 
 What then is the conclusion to which we come 
 about this repaying of our love by God? It is 
 simply this: In the first place, He has made His 
 glory coincide with our interests. Secondly, from a 
 privilege He lowers love into a precept, and this one 
 act is a complete revelation of Himself. Do these 
 conclusions solve the questions we have been ask- 
 ing? No, but they lead to the one answer of all; 
 only that, ending as we began, the answer is itself a 
 mystery. St. John states it; no one can explain it; 
 earth would be hell without it; purgatory is par- 
 adise because of it ; we shall live upon it in heaven, 
 yet never learn all that is in it : God Is Love. — The 
 Creator and the Creature. 
 
82 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 QUOTATIONS FROM FABER 
 
 [The following quotations have been selected from the 
 longer works of Faber. His prayerful Hymns are so well 
 known to Catholic school children that they need but turn to 
 their hymnals to find some of the most beautiful expressions 
 of his ardent love and simple devotion. However, it is not 
 unlikely that many have been hearing and singing Faber from 
 their youth, and have not been aware that it is to him they are 
 indebted for such familiar hymns as " Dear Angel ! Ever at 
 My Side," " Faith of Our Fathers," " Hail ! Holy Joseph, 
 Hail ! " " Dear Spouse of Our Lady," " O Purest of Creatures ! 
 Sweet Mother, Sweet Maid ! " " Mary, Dearest Mother," " O 
 Jesus, Jesus, Dearest Lord," and *' Jesus, My Lord, My God, 
 My All ! "] 
 
 Our many deeds, the thoughts that we have 
 
 thought — 
 They go out from us thronging every hour ; 
 And in them all is folded up a power 
 That on the earth doth move them to and fro ; 
 And mighty are the marvels they have wrought 
 In hearts we know not, and may never know. 
 Our actions travel and are veiled : and yet 
 We sometimes catch a fearful glimpse of one 
 When out of sight its march hath well-nigh gone, 
 An unveiled thing which we can ne'er forget! 
 All sins it gathers up into its course. 
 And then they grow with it, and are its force : 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 83 
 
 One day with dizzy speed that thing shall come, 
 Recoiling on the heart that was its own. 
 
 — Memorials of a Happy Time. 
 
 'Tis when we suffer, gentlest thoughts 
 
 Within the bosom spring : 
 Ah! who shall say that pain is not 
 
 A most unselfish thing. 
 
 — 'Tis When We Suffer. 
 
 Angels are round thee and heaven's above. 
 
 And thy soul is alive within ; 
 Shall a rainy day and a cloudy sky 
 
 Make a Christian heart to sin? 
 
 — ■ The Picnic. 
 
 All hope, all joy, all mortal life with such 
 
 Sweet sadness is inlaid : 
 And all things have on them from Heaven a touch 
 
 Of sunshine or of shade. 
 
 — Thirhnere. 
 
 Be docile to thine unseen Guide, 
 
 Love Him as He loves thee ; 
 Time and obedience are enough. 
 
 And thou a saint shall be. 
 
 — ■ Perfection. 
 
84 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 We paint from self the evil things 
 
 We think that others are ; 
 While to the self-despising soul 
 
 All things but self are fair. 
 
 — Harsh Judgments. 
 
 There are no shadows where there is no sun ; 
 There is no beauty where there is no shade. 
 
 — Heaven and Earth. 
 
 One Cross can sanctify a soul ; 
 
 Late saints and ancient seers 
 Were what they were, because they mused 
 
 Upon the Eternal Years. 
 
 — The Eternal Years, 
 
 [" The Eternal Years," from which the above verses were 
 taken, was a favorite poem of Newman. He had it read to 
 him many times in his last illness, and said that he preferred 
 it to his own " Lead, Kindly Light."] 
 
 Curious chance, 
 For so we name such acts of Heaven as hide 
 The order and connection of their Laws. 
 
 — Sir Lancelot. 
 
 A good deed is a prophecy of good 
 
 To him who does it. — Ibid. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 85 
 
 We justly bear the cross because therein 
 We bear the harvest of our deeds, but nought 
 Was done amiss by Him who bore it first. 
 
 — Ihid. 
 
 O there is gracious hope 
 Of true amendment in the heart that seeks 
 With sacred habit to revive the days 
 Of its lost childhood. — Ihid, 
 
 Nought is there so minute, no wish so weak. 
 But at that season it may change our course 
 And shift our stars. — Sir Lancelot. 
 
 There is no sound 
 In earth or sky one half so musical. 
 One half so moving as man's voice in prayer. 
 
 — Ihid. 
 
 No one means half the evil which he does. 
 
 We must mingle honey with our wormwood, or 
 else its bitterness will not be healthy. 
 
 Nothing is worth anything, except in so far as 
 God chooses to have to do with it. 
 
86 SELECTIONS FROM FABER 
 
 Everything our Heavenly Father does is for love. 
 
 In prayer we receive from God ; in oblation it is 
 He who vouchsafes to receive, and we are allowed 
 to give. 
 
 We shall never know the value of time till it has 
 slipped from us, and left us in eternity. 
 
 Sorrow without Christ is not to be endured. 
 
 All the mysteries of Jesus are glories of Mary. 
 
 Literature is the flower and beauty of human 
 words. 
 
 A grateful man cannot be a bad man. 
 
 To a religious mind, science is an intensely relig- 
 ious thing. 
 
 Search is the law of earth, vision the law of 
 heaven. 
 
 Kindness has converted more sinners than either 
 zeal, eloquence, or learning. 
 
 The twenty-four hours are the same to everybody 
 except the idle, and to the idle they are thirty-six. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FABER 87 
 
 Most men must have praise; their fountains dry 
 up without it. 
 
 A proud man is seldom a kind man. 
 
 Humility makes us kind, and kindness makes us 
 humble. 
 
 Kind words are the music of the soul. 
 
 Seasons of sorrow are apt to be seasons of grace. 
 
 Nothing sets wrong right as soon as geniality. 
 
 Each hour comes with some little faggot of God's 
 will fastened upon its back. 
 
 Human joy is a beautiful thing, a very worship 
 of the Creator, 
 
 Happy the man whose life is one long Te Deiim. 
 
 It is a thing of faith that God always answers 
 right prayers. 
 
 It will be a sad thing at the end of life to look 
 back on a million of wasted opportunities. 
 
NOTES AND QUESTIONS 
 
 THE CHERWELL WATER-LILY 
 
 1. Discuss the parentage and early life of Faber. 
 
 2. What led those who watched him during his early years 
 to predict a successful career for him? 
 
 3. What was one of the principal ingredients in his char- 
 acter? 
 
 4. As a youth what was one of his chief delights? 
 
 5. How does he describe himself at this time? Quote. 
 
 6. Why was he a general favorite at Oxford? 
 
 7. With what was he deeply imbued from childhood? 
 
 8. Quote a stanza from his poems in proof of this. 
 
 9. Of whom was he an ardent admirer from his entrance 
 into Oxford? 
 
 10. What resulted from the friendship that existed between 
 Faber and Newman? 
 
 11. Into how many parts may Faber's life be divided? 
 
 12. At this time what great movement claimed the atten- 
 tion of England's greatest minds ? ^ 
 
 ^ The Oxford movement dates its beginning from the year 1833. when 
 Mr. Keble preached at the University of Oxford the sermon entitled 
 National Aiostasy. Newman considered this day as the start of the great 
 religious movement, which was supported by a little band of pious men 
 of the Church of England, who, strong in genius and in prayer, unknow- 
 ingly defended many doctrines of the Catholic faith. Many of these 
 ended by making their submission to Rome. This tidal wave of thought 
 brought to the Church some of the greatest lights of the University and 
 the grandest minds of the century, as the names of Newman, Faber, 
 Ward, and Oakley prove. 
 
 " Between the years 1840 and 1852 ninety-two members of the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford and forty-three of the University of Cambridge, entered 
 the Catholic Church. Of the former, sixty-three were clergymen, and of 
 the latter, nineteen."— ^/z^^'j Church History^ Vol. III. 
 
90 NOTES AND QUESTIONS 
 
 13. What ties were broken by his conversion? 
 
 14. What does he say of his association with the London 
 Oratory ? 
 
 15. What can be said of Faber's influence? 
 
 16. What was Faber's characteristic virtue? 
 
 17. In what words does his biographer sum it up? 
 
 18. Give Wordsworth's estimate of Faber as a poet. 
 
 19. Name his finest prose works. 
 
 20. Which one is considered the finest treatise written on 
 the Sorrows of the Mother of God? 
 
 21. Name his collections of poetry. Name several of his 
 popular hymns. 
 
 22. What poems gave titles to volumes of his verse? 
 
 23. How does the " Cherwell Water-Lily " rank among his 
 poems ? 
 
 24. To what class of poetry does it belong? 
 
 25. What historic allusion is made in the opening lines? 
 
 26. Where is Marston Moor? For what noted? 
 
 A plain in Yorkshire, England, memorable for the defeat of the 
 Royalists under Prince Rupert, 1644, by the Parliamentary forces and 
 Scots under the Fairfaxes and Cromwell. 
 
 27. What is " St. Mary's graceful pile " ? 
 
 The University Church at Oxford, England. The great tower is sur- 
 mounted by a superb octagonal spire of the thirteenth century. The 
 existing choir and nave date from the fifteenth. The south porch with 
 broken pediment and twisted column is of the seventeenth century. 
 
 28. What renowned churchman preached for years from its 
 pulpit ? 
 
 29. Where is the Cherwell? 
 
 A small river in England, that flows into the Thames near Oxford. 
 
 30. Memorize the descriptive passage that pleases you most. 
 
 31. Quote the lines containing the lesson taught by the 
 poem. 
 
NOTES AND QUESTIONS 91 
 
 32. What is the style o£ the poem? The meter? The 
 rhyme ? 
 
 33. Into how many parts may the poem be divided? 
 
 34. What is described in each part? 
 
 35. What English poet may be considered Faber's teacher? 
 
 36. What contemporary of Faber also worshiped at Nature's 
 shrine? (Keble, author of "The Christian Year.") 
 
 37. What does Wordsworth say of the mission of flowers? 
 What does Faber say ? Quote. 
 
 38. Name seven other poets who have immortalized flowers 
 in verse. Read their poems. 
 
 39. Name five poets who have sung the beauty of water. 
 Name the poems. Read them. 
 
 40. Quote from the poem the lines descriptive of the night- 
 ingale. 
 
 41. What is the prevailing figure in the quotation? 
 
 42. Select a metaphor, a personification, a simile from Part 
 11. Explain — 
 
 " Lessons of wisdom pure that rise 
 From some clear fountain in the skies." 
 43. Who was Flora? Who is the fairest of her daughters? 
 
 Flora, in'the early Italian and Roman mythology, is the goddess of 
 flowers and of spring. 
 
 44. What relationship does Faber establish between the 
 river and the water-lily? 
 
 45. Enumerate the virtues of a dutiful daughter which the 
 author poetically ascribes to the water-lily. 
 
 46. How do you interpret the lines — 
 
 " To careless men thou seemest to roam 
 Abroad upon the river, 
 In all thy movements chained to home, 
 Fast rooted there forever " ? 
 
 47. Under what figure does the poet represent the flower 
 in the last ten lines of the poem? Quote. 
 
 48. Make a list of the beautiful objects and their qualifying 
 terms found in the poem. 
 
92 NOTES AND QUESTIONS 
 
 49. Which predominates, physical or moral beauty? 
 
 50. What is the moral influence of this piece? 
 
 51. Read Canto I of Scott's "Lady of the Lake," and note 
 the similarity in expression and rhythm to the first stanza of 
 "The Cherwell Water-Lily." 
 
 THE STYRIAN LAKE 
 
 I 
 THE LAKE 
 
 1. Styrian mountains. The Styrian Alps. 
 
 2. Mariasell (ma-re-a-tseF). A village in Styria, Austria- 
 Hungary, situated on the Salzabach, 57 miles southwest of 
 Vienna. It is the most renowned place of pilgrimage in the 
 empire, on account of its celebrated shrine of the Virgin 
 Mother. 
 
 7. Hermit's home on Athos' hill. A mountain at the ex- 
 tremity of the peninsula of Athos which projects into the 
 ^gean Sea. The mountain has been famous since the Middle 
 Ages for its communities of monks. 
 
 9. Styria (stir'-i-a). A crownland of Austria-Hungary. 
 It is picturesquely situated in the Alpine region, and is trav- 
 ersed by the Mur and the Drave. The Save is on its south- 
 ern frontier. It is rich in agricultural products and mineral 
 wealth. The religion is Roman Catholic ; two thirds of the 
 inhabitants are Germans. It withstood several invasions by 
 the Turks. It was united with Austria in 1192, and has been 
 in possession of the Hapsburgs since 1282. 
 
 13. A real Eden. In the Hebrew, Eden means delight, or 
 pleasure. The garden where Adam and Eve first dwelt ; any 
 delightful region or place of pleasure. 
 
 19. When the Roman hosts were come. The Roman inva- 
 sion and conquest of the country about 15 b. c. 
 
NOTES AND QUESTIONS 93 
 
 20. Noricum. In ancient geography a country of Europe. 
 It corresponded to Lower and Upper Austria, south of the 
 Danube, Salzburg, Styria, parts of the Tyrol and Bavaria. 
 
 30. The little Styrian Lake. One of the many beautiful 
 lakes which gem these Alpine fastnesses. 
 
 35. Constantine. Roman emperor, eldest son of Constantius 
 Chlorus. He was appointed Caesar at the death of his father, 
 306, and in 307 assumed the title of Augustus. His mother, 
 St. Helena, was instrumental in discovering the relics of the 
 true Cross. Here Constantine is a figurative expression for 
 Roman rule. 
 
 45. Romantic days. The Age of Chivalry. The languages 
 of Southern Europe that were based upon the Latin or Roman 
 were called the Romance languages ; the poets who wrote in 
 these tongues, sang mostly of love and chivalrous exploits, 
 hence the present meaning of the word romantic. 
 
 II 
 
 THE LEGEND 
 
 8. Lime tree. A species of handsome trees common in 
 Europe, and known as the Linden ; in America, the basswood. 
 15. 5"^ Lambert's. A Cistercian monastery. St. Lambert 
 was a native of Maestricht, and was chosen to succeed the 
 holy bishop St. Theodard in that episcopal see. This period 
 witnessed the strife and conspiracies that made victims of the 
 weak Merovingian kings. On account of the favor shown 
 him by Childeric II., Lambert was expelled from his see, in 
 which a usurper was placed. Pepin of Herstal, being made 
 mayor of the palace, set himself to repair the evils prevalent 
 in the kingdom, expelled the usurping bishops, and among 
 other exiled prelates restored St, Lambert to the see of 
 Maestricht. He had the courage to reprove Pepin and Alpias 
 for their wicked and scandalous lives, and like St. John the 
 Baptist drew upon himself the hatred of the wicked Alpias, 
 
94 NOTES AND QUESTIONS 
 
 whose friends, to revenge her, resolved on the death of the 
 holy bishop, which they accomplished September 17, 709, in 
 the city of Liege. 
 
 17. Pepin. A ruler of the Franks. 
 
 19. Liege (ly-azh). Capital of the province of Liege, Bel- 
 gium. 
 
 23. Hallow. To set apart for religious use ; to keep or treat 
 as sacred. 
 
 Wild. Anglo-Saxon. An uncultivated tract or region. 
 
 25. Copse. Undergrowth. 
 25. Seeberg (za'berg). A height near Gotha, Germany, 
 long noted as the seat of an observatory. 
 
 37. Beadsman lowly. One who is employed in praying; es- 
 pecially one praying for another. 
 
 51. Household sanctities. Virtues of the Christian home. 
 
 62. Cistercian brother. A member of the Benedictine order, 
 established in 1098, in Citeaux, France. 
 
 65. Moravia. In Austria-Hungary. Capital, Brunn. The 
 surface is mountainous and tableland, except in the south. 
 It was the scene o£ various events in the Seven Years' War 
 and the Napoleonic wars, e. g., Austerlitz, or the Battle of 
 Three Emperors. 
 
 72. Margrave. Sometimes Landgrave. A German noble- 
 man of rank, corresponding to that of an earl in England, 
 and of a count in France. 
 
 76. Costly church. The magnificent structure that marks 
 this place of pilgrimage. See the selection, " Mariazell." 
 
 Ill 
 
 CHURCH MATINS 
 
 I to 18. Descriptive of dawn in the Styrian region. Note 
 the artistic touch of the poet here. 
 
 13. Salza (salt'-sa). A river in Salzburg, forming the 
 boundary between Bavaria and Austria. 
 
NOTES AND QUESTIONS 95 
 
 52. Accents of the Blessed Gabriel. The Angelic Saluta- 
 tion. 
 
 56. Noric fastnesses. Secure retreats in the mountains of 
 Noricum. 
 
 80. The Inn. A tributary of the Danube, forming part of 
 the boundary between Bavaria and Upper Austria. 
 
 81. Ennsland. Valley of the Enns, or Inn. 
 
 82. Corinthian steep. Carinthia, a division of Austria, 
 very mountainous, and traversed from 'west to east by the 
 Drave (drave). 
 
 83. Save (save). A tributary of the Danube. 
 
 85. Miir (mor). A river rising in Salzburg, and flowing 
 through Styria and western Hungary. 
 
 87. Dalmatian sea. Dalmatia is bounded by the Adriatic 
 on the south and west. 
 
 90. Belgrade. The capital of Servia, at the junction of 
 the Save and the Danube. It has been the scene of many 
 memorable sieges by the Turks, the Imperialists, and the 
 Austrians. 
 
 93. Wurzhurg. An ancient bishopric and principality of 
 the German Empire. 
 
 Ratisbon. The capital of the upper Palatinate, Bavaria. 
 
 94. Lins. Capital of Upper Austria. 
 Passau. A city of lower Bavaria. 
 
 95. St. lohn of Prague hath sent. The pilgrims from the 
 city of Prague. 
 
 St. John Nepomucen, a native of Bohemia, is the patron of 
 the city of Prague. He was thrown from the bridge of 
 Prague into the Drave by order of the Emperor Wenceslaus, 
 because he refused to reveal the secrets of the confessional. 
 Three hundred and thirty years after his death his tongue 
 remained incorrupt, thus still in silence giving glory to God. 
 
 no. Annaberg. A town in the kingdom of Saxony. 
 
 127. Mariacell! schonste zier ! " — M'ary's cell! Most beau- 
 tiful ornament ! 
 
SEP 16 19U4 
 
 96 NOTES AND QUESTIONS 
 
 IV 
 
 MARGARET'S PILGRIMAGE 
 
 31. The dog star rage. The fervid heat of summer, fa- 
 miliarly known as Dog-days. In the remote ages of the world, 
 when every man was his own astronomer, the rising and set- 
 ting of Sirius, or the Dog Star, was watched with deep solici- 
 tude. The Egyptians watched it with mingled apprehensions 
 of hope and fear, as it foretold to them the rise of the Nile. 
 The Romans were accustomed yearly to sacrifice a dog to 
 Sirius, to render him propitious in his influence upon their 
 herds and fields. That the Dog Star, which in our latitude is 
 seen in midwinter, should be associated with the heat of sum- 
 mer, may be explained by considering that the star in sum- 
 mer is over our heads in day time. 
 
 57. Gretchen. Margaret. 
 
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