WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 175, 4 August 1876, Page 14

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

Cardinal Manning, showing how devotion to the Blessed Virgin raises womankind to their true position of dignity among men :— " I will say to women, imitate the Blessed Virgin ; and if you love „ and venerate her, her image will pass[unconsciously into the very substance of your life and heart. Imitate her true dignity, that dignity which does not consist in clamouring for rights and in running a race in the intellectual culture of men. Man and woman have a diverse perfection, and the union of these perfections, which are diverse, make up one perfection which is indissoluble. Women have a dignity and perfection of their own which no man can imitate without lowering himself. An effeminate man is an abomination, a masculine, self asserting woman is a monster. The pattern of our Blessed Mother is a pattern of womanly dignity. Woman has her sovereignty, and her kingdom is her own hearth and in the home over which she rules no man can dispute that sovereignty ; if he rise against it he is mutilating that divine law by which he rules supreme. Such was the state when God created man and'woman in Paradise, and the world has wrecked the recollection and is striving to efface the image of that two-fold perfection which rises into one. Man is the image of God ; man is the head of the woman, and the head of man is God. These are the words of the Holy Ghost. In Jesus and His Blessed Mother the first creation is not only restored but elevated to a divine perfection, and you are called to be children of the Incarnation. The highest creature in the new creation of God is a woman, and the Second Adam is God himself.

The 'Catholic Examiner' gives the following description of the riches of nature in India as seen in the valley of the Rungheet, on the descent from. Darjeeling : — " This noble river, the Rungheet, winds through a stupendous gorge, the precipitous mountains on either side stretching upwards many thousand feet, densely clothed with magnificent primeval forest. . . . It is almost impossible to describe at all adequately the exquisite and almost heavenly beauty of the scenei or the delicate coloring of the rocks and boulders on the margin of the river, which is that of porphyry and alabaster, contrasting quite etherially with the metallic green of the water. We seem suddenly to have been transported into Fairyland, and all is more like an extravagant dream than reality. Gorgeous butterflies of every hue are sailing in the air or sunning themselves on the banks, where, sitting with wings erect, they look like Dutch galiots at anchor, the most numerous among them being the large swallow-tail species, robed in black velvet, with scarlet spots on their wings and long antennae. Birds in plumage of scarlet, blue, and orange, flit among the branches of the majestic sol; and a perfectly marvellous little creature, belonging to a species of lepidopterous insect, with a vermilion body, and wings of transparent and glittering emerald, hovers above us and around us in multitudes, while the air is filled with a melodious chorus of happy creatures," Many Yankee prisoners were sent to Charleston, South Carolina, during the war. So great was their number at one time, that they were confined in the cellars of unoccupied warehouses, where the dampness and confined air rendered their imprisonment extremely dangerous to health. Many died for the want of proper clothing and food and general exposure to cold and malaria. As soon as the Catholic Bishop of Charleston knew these facts, he interested the ladies of the city in preparing bedding, clothing, and other comforts for their use, and obtained the permission of the commandant of the post to see to their proper distribution. So hostile were the people generally to any demonstrations of relief for the Yankees, that, but for the high consideration the inhabitants felt for the personal character of the Bishop, they would have accused him of political sympathy with the Northern prisoners. Scores of Protestant prisoners owe their lives to the kind efforts of this Catholic Bishop in ameliorating their condition during the confinement in the cellars of the City of Charleston. — ' Conn. Catholic*

Most Irish readers ate familiar with Charles Phillips' penegyric on the character of Washington, pronounced at a dinner on Dmas Island, Killarney. But it seems he was preceded in his eulogy by an earlier Irish admirer of the " Father of his Country," in testimony of which is quoted the annexed advertisement, which appeared in the ' Londonderry Journal * of April 30, 1783 : " Whereas, on February the 14th, 1783, it pleased kind Providence to confer on Matthew Neely, of Burnally, parish of Tamlaghtfinlagan, and county of Londonderry, a man child, whosquappearance is promising and amiable, and hopes the Being who nJtsfe caused him to exist will grant him grace. Also, in consideration and remembrance of the many heroic deeds done by that universally renowned patriot, General George Washington, the said Matthew Neely, has done himself the honour of calling the said man child by the name of George Washington Neely, he being the first child named or so called in the Kingdom by the name of Washington, that brilliant Western star."