her marriage with Francis the First, sent a
double heart of gold studded with diamonds,
in order that, as the inscription said, "the
hearts of the wedded might be one in God."
Joseph the Second, when archduke, sent the
same gift when he married. Pounds of gold
and silver, worked into dedicatory offerings,
travelled the narrow way among the rocks and
through the woods into the lovely valley over
which Mary-Cell, throned on a hill, sits dominant.
The wealth has been partly dissipated
by the ravages of the French, and partly by
the loss accruing from a fire which, in eighteen
hundred and twenty-seven, destroyed King
Louis the Great's church almost completely.
To rebuild it, gold and jewels had to be sold,
but there still remains, as we shall see
presently, a rich and curious treasury. Of its
contents account is kept, not only by the priests,
but also by the government of Austria—not
that there is any wide demarcation between
the two bodies.

As one approaches the spot, road chapels
and crosses recur at shorter intervals, and
a turn of the road presently reveals a
rock made to resemble Golgotha. The green
watered valley shortly afterwards is entered,
and the towers of the shrine are seen
crowning the central hill. The singing of
the pilgrims becomes more enthusiastic, and
the flags of the processions flutter in the
open sun. Processions which consist simply
of fellow-townsmen or fellow-travellers marching
in company are widely distinguished from
the solemn processions, two of which set out
in great state every year from Vienna, two
from Grätz, others from other places in
Austria Proper, Styria, Bohemia, Hungary, &c.
There are seventy of these formal pageants
which arrive regularly every year at Mary-
Cell, but of that number twenty-four all
come in the one month of August, and seventeen
at Whitsuntide.

The bodily wants and the vanities incident
to so large a fluctuating population, have of
necessity called into existence a state of life
in the immediate vicinity of the shrine that
has not a very spiritual aspect. The market
place of the hermit town consists, as may be
supposed, almost entirely of public-houses or
shops for the supply of the wants of pilgrims,
and the church itself is encircled by a Vanity
Fair as remarkable as MR. THACKERAY'S
admirable book.

Within the great church, which contains
the inner chapel, or the Caaba of this Styrian
Mecca—within the great church are hundreds
of people differing in costume, manners,
language, and occupation. There seem to be
thousands under the great roof, which is
resounding with their songs; not with one song,
for every woman or man, or every group of
associated men or women, sings independent
hymns to independent music.

Some pilgrims are lying flat upon the
ground; some cling about the altar rails and
peer through the twilight at an image dimly
seen; some walk as they sing; some kneel;
some newly arrived are engaged on cheerful
hymns of greeting to the Virgin; others about
to leave are mournfully singing farewells.
On the walls are votive tablets and inscriptions
"courteously begging" the prayers of
pilgrims for some persons dangerously ill.
There are men and women walking about on
their knees, all the while singing. There is
a fat man struggling with his weight, and
laboring to walk on his knees round the
wide church walls day after day forty times
a day, singing, while he does so, penitential
psalms.

One may know the Sclavonian groups from
the German by their accents, which are so
much softer, the people too are more impressible,
and though they may not have more in
their hearts, they show more reverence and
devotion in their faces. There is a group of
Water-Croats led by an old white-haired man
with spectacles upon his nose, who gives the
hymns out from a thumbed and soiled book
of his own manufacture, written with his own
hand. He cannot read well, or he cannot see
well; evening is closing, and a man as old as
himself stands gravely by holding a torch
near the paper. Sometimes the whole hymn
that the old Croat leads breaks down, when he
has lost the thread of it. His neighbour puts
the torch quite near the paper, and all gravely
wait till they are able to go on again. One
hymn being done, the old man is asked to
lead another. Nobody attempts to supersede
him in his office.

There are confessionals too. Sixty or
seventy priests are engaged daily in
attending to the pilgrims, and over each
confessional is an inscription stating what language
the priest there presiding speaks and
understands.

The treasury of Mary-Cell, to be viewed
under the guidance of the sacristan, is not
only a treasure house, but a museum of
antiquities. Many of its contents date from the
time of Louis the First of Hungary, and
Matthias Corvinus. The best part of the wealth
has been contributed by the Hungarians, and
to this day, next to the members of the
Imperial Court in Vienna, the most liberal
contributors of offerings to Mary-Cell are Magyar
magnates. Among the curiosities of the treasury
is a mermaid worked in gold and silver,
which the wife of Matthias Corvinus used
to wear suspended from her neck. The figure
of a mermaid has been by popular superstition
for centuries connected here with the health
of women. There are offerings in the store
that have been sent from France, Naples, and
Spain, and from Don Miguel of Portugal.
There is the bridal attire of the Duchess
d'Angoulême; and in a golden acorn is
contained the ball shot at the good Emperor
Ferdinand. There are many anonymous
gifts. Workmen have vowed to the shrine
their master-pieces. There is an egg which a
Viennese smith plated with shoeing iron