REAL PRESENCE.

In the heart of the city that's proud and gay
A child stood begging one summer day.

The world went by but it took no heed,
For the world has never a heart to bleed

For the woes of others; it passed along,
And the child was alone in the hurrying throng.

It lingered there in the summer day
Till another beggar came by that way

Whose soul was sick with the whirl and strife
Of the mystic something which men call life.

He looked at the child: at its side he stopped
And into its hand his last penny he dropped.

Then he passed along with a half-breathed sigh
And said, 'He wanted it more than I.'

And in him as he passed my heart adored
The Living Presence of Christ the Lord!

J. S. FLETCHER.

LUCY GRAY.

OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I cross'd the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,

-The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night—
You to the town must go;

And take a lantern, child, to light
Your mother through the snow."

"That, Father, will I gladly do: 'Tis scarcely afternoonThe minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon !"

At this the father raised his hook,
And snapp'd a faggot band;
He plied his work ;-and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:
She wander'd up and down;
And many a hill did Lucy climb:
But never reach'd the town.

The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sigh
To serve them for a guide.

At daybreak on a hill they stood
That overlook'd the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.

They swept-and, turning homeward, cried,
"In heaven we all shall meet!"
-When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
They track'd the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone wall:

And then an open field they cross'd:
The marks were still the same;
They track'd them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.

They follow'd from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;

And further there were none !

-Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

ENRY VIII. ascended the throne on April 22,

H 1509, and married, a few months later, by dis

pensation granted by Pope Julius II., Catherine of Arragon, the widow of his elder brother Arthur, a lady of singular virtue. But some years after, the King, tired of his wife, who had given him no surviving male issue, and in love with Anne Boleyn, affected to have scruples about his marriage, and solicited the Pope for a divorce from Catherine, on the ground that the Papal dispensation through which they had married was invalid. The cause of the divorce was a failure, and Henry determined to take the law into his own hands. There is still in existence a letter of instruction, signed by the King, to Gardiner, the King's agent at Rome, in which it is said: "The King is loth to recur to any remedy except the authority of the See Apostolic [the Pope] if he can find there favour answering to his merits;" but he had not found the "favour" he expected-in other words, license for bigamy-so he had recourse to another remedy, his own authority.

Wolsey, to whom the King attributed the failure of his cause, was disgraced, and was charged with having violated the Statute of Præmunire by acting as Legate of the Pope. This statute was passed in 1373, during the reign of Richard II., and was intended to prevent benefices being granted by the Pope without the consent of the Crown. An arrangement was arrived at between the Papal Court and the Crown, and this statute practically passed into disuse. Each Archbishop of Canterbury was successively Legate of the Holy See, without a word of

* In connection with this subject it would be well to read also the pamphlet Mr. Collette as a Historian, by the Rev. Sydney F. Smith. Catholic Truth Society. Price Id.

+ Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII., vol. iv. n. 5270.

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objection on the part of the Sovereign. But in Wolsey's case this indictment was singularly unjust; for Wolsey had been appointed Legate at the expressed desire of the King, and had acted throughout as the King's agent, and under the King's direction. He had committed no fault save that of failure. However, Wolsey knew, better than any man, the King's nature, and that his only chance of escape was to yield. Accordingly, he pleaded guilty, threw himself on the King's mercy, and resigned all his benefices and possessions into the King's hands. He died a few months after; but the consequences of the offence with which he had been charged, and which, for reasons of prudence, he had admitted, did not die with him. By the advice of Thomas Cromwell, it was argued that the clergy, by submitting to Wolsey's authority as Legate, had become partakers of his crime, and were therefore subject to the same penalties, namely, imprisonment at the King's pleasure, and the forfeiture of the whole of their possessions to the Crown; the law officers were therefore directed to make out an indictment against the whole body of the clergy in the Court of King's Bench.

But Henry was not acting merely out of revenge, nor merely out of avarice; he was hatching a deep plot to get the whole ecclesiastical power into his own hands. Cromwell had persuaded him that the opinion of the learned on the question of the divorce was entirely in the King's favour; nothing was wanting but the approbation of the Pope: but if that approbation was not to be had, was the King therefore to forego his rights? At present, he said, England was a monster with two heads, but were the King to take the power now usurped by the Pope into his own hands, everything would be well, and the clergy, finding that their lives and possessions were at the King's mercy, would be ready enough to do his will.* Collier says: "There was more than money required of the clergy. The King, perceiving the process of the divorce move slowly at Rome, and the issue look un

* Lingard, vol. vi. c. 3.