Fainting on the steps of Our Lady of the
Mountains, he was carried to the house of one
Zaccarelli, a butcher, where he breathed his
last. "The saint is dead! the saint is dead!"
was shouted up and down the street, next day,
all over the neighbourhood. The whole of Rome
was agitated. Crowds came to Zaccarelli's house,
demanding to see the body, and forcing an
entrance. Zaccarelli resolved that the funeral
should be magnificent, and took the expenses
upon himself. The curés of two adjoining
parishes, each anxious to secure the body for
his own church, disputed in which of the
parishes Zaccarelli's house stood. The relic
market was clearly on the rise. The exposure
of the body and the interment were the occasion
of scenes of fanaticism which were only repressed
by the presence of soldiers and by the closing of
the church. The tomb was enclosed by a railing,
around which a military guard had to remain
two months, to prevent riot and scandal.

Scarcely was the holy man under ground,
when his portrait was engraved; the prints
were distributed before they were dry.
Likenesses in all sorts of attitudes were sold
by hundreds of thousands. Everything that had
belonged to him, far and near, was importunely
sought for, and treasured as precious relics.
His rags, and everything attached to his personal
uses, were torn and broken up, to be dispersed
bit by bit. The wood and stone of the places
where he used to pray, was scraped and grated;
the spout of the fountain where he ordinarily
quenched his thirst, disappeared. Pious
enthusiasm felt no remorse at pious thefts.
Labre was canonised by the voice of the people.

A number of miraculous cures followed his
death — some two hundred miracles in all. We
fail to appreciate them. One of the most
remarkable was the conversion to the Roman
faith of Mr. Thayer, an American, and a
Protestant minister. A nun in the convent of
Saint Apollonia broke a blood-vessel in her
lungs, which so weakened her that she could
take no nourishment. She invoked the venerable
Labre, and drank, with faith, a liquor in which one
of his relics had been steeped. She was cured in
an instant. That very day she joined the other
nuns in the choir, and ate her dinner without a
ny unpleasant consequences, as testified by
the lady superior and six nuns of the same
community.

In 1784, the then bishop of Boulogne-sur-Mer
solicited the beatification of the holy pauper, as
likely to afford an admirable spectacle for angels
and men. The storms by which St. Peter's bark
was subsequently assailed, postponed the
scheme till 1807. Again interrupted by new
vicissitudes, the cause was resumed in 1817;
fresh miracles had fixed attention and excited
confidence. But the matter remained in suspense
until 1847, when it was resumed under the
pontificate of his Holiness Pius the Ninth,
now reigning. On Ascension Day, 1859, the
Holy Father solemnly decreed the desired
beatification; and on the 20th of May, 1860,
the basilica of St. Peter was most
splendidly adorned, to celebrate the solemn fête
of the humble pilgrim's canonisation. If candles
could do it, the ceremony was effectual. More
than five thousand wax tapers shed their light
around; more than forty thousand persons were
present. Benoit was one of the celestial
hierarchy at last.

Poor Benoit, in the flesh, was a harmless
creature; a little vain of his dirt, a little cunning
in his devotion. But is he an example for general
imitation? In the first place, if everybody were
like him, the human race would speedily come
to an end—and would richly deserve that
consummation. Do we want any more new
saints? If we did want them, should we want
such dirty and do-nothing saints? A succession
of saints like Benoit Labre, would raise the price
of chloride of lime and sulphur ointment.

Monseigneur Parisis, who brought the saintly
bones from Rome, and who got up the meeting
and show at Arras, is the same prelate who
vainly endeavoured to exclude Protestant
children from French schools, under pain
of excommunicating the Roman Catholic
masters and mistresses who should receive
them without working hard at their conversion.
For that move, his grandeur got a gentle rebuke
from the minister; but he cares so little for it, that
he is ready to attack heresy in any form, and
almost with any weapon.

At this moment there is a hard struggle between
the French government and the Ultramontane
priesthood. On the first proposal of the religious
fêtes, authority forbade the procession to pass
through the streets, believing it intended as
a manifestation of sympathy and an ovation
for Monseigneur Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans
and libeller of the dead. Monseigneur's absence
being guaranteed, the out-door pageantry was
reluctantly permitted. But the whole affair is less
an apotheosis of a wretched ascetic than a
menace to this effect:

"Take care, you in high places, how you
press too hard on the temporalities of the Pope.
You see how we can assemble and rouse the
people; our spiritual power is not yet paralysed.
If with one dead saint we can rally around us
the devout supporters of his Holiness, with
another, perhaps, we may send you to Jericho,
and bring back our beloved Henry the Fifth."

SONNETS ON GODSENDS.

I.

STRAIGHT from the hand of God comes many a gift,
Fraught with healing and with consolation
For a world of toil and tribulation;
And yet from which we blindly shrink and shift.
As from a burden onerous to lift.
Work itself, hard, drudging occupation,
Comes in shape of blessed dispensation
To those who wisely can perceive the drift
Of such a boon to assuage the pangs of mind,
Sadness, suspense, anxiety, or worse,
Rankle from wounding words and looks unkind,
The desolation of friends' eyes averse.
Nay, e'en the anguish of a recent loss,
Akin to that was felt beneath the Cross.