Palestrina, his native place, had risen to be the master of the choir of S. John Lateran. S. Charles, acting as one of a commission appointed by Pius IV. to decide the question of ecclesiastical music, sent for Palestrina, and giving him plainly to understand that its fate was in his hands, bade him write a Mass according to the rigorous rules laid down by the Council. In three months' time, Palestrina presented three Masses to Cardinal Borromeo. On the manuscript of one of them, which commonly bears the name of the Mass of Pope Marcellus, the words: "O Lord, help me!" traced by the trembling hand of the composer, are still legible. It was a complete success for the cause of sacred music; and Pius V., whose accession almost immediately followed it, appointed Palestrina master of his own choir, thus sanctioning the use of his music in all the churches in Christendom.

From the internal wounds of Christendom the watchful eye of its good Father was next turned upon its external foes. The May of 1565, the year preceding the accession of Pius V., had been signalized by the glorious defence of Malta, under its heroic Grand Master, Lavalette, against an overwhelming armament directed against it by Solyman the Magnificent. The politic Sultan, who carefully watched every movement amongst his Christian neighbours, had hailed with exceeding satisfaction the appearance of Luther, whom he took to be a new prophet, sent at the prayer of Mahomet, to serve as a stepping-stone for the subjugation of Christendom by the Mussulman armies. He made many inquiries concerning him, and being informed of the great divisions which he had introduced amongst the Christian nations, "This is a great man," said Solyman, "who will soon be the ruin of Christianity. I believe that God has sent him for this purpose. I am only sorry that he is not younger; if he should ever have need of me, he will find me a good and liberal lord."

Happily the rock of Malta stood between the two intended confederates. The Sultan equipped 160 galleys, bearing the flower of his troops, under the command of Mustaffa, his most distinguished captain. The fleet was led by a pirate and a renegade. At its approach the Knights, preceded by the Grand Master, assembled in their church, where the blessed Sacrament was exposed; and having received Holy Communion, they embraced each other, and hastened each to his post of duty. A prolonged and desperate defence was followed at last by the flight of the panic-stricken barbarians. But of all the inhabitants of the island, whether knights, men-at-arms, or citizens, there remained scarcely one unwounded, and not more than six hundred capable of bearing

arms.

Wearied out by the unequal struggle, and disgusted by the coldness and slackness of his Christian allies, Lavalette began to consider whether it would not be necessary to forsake a post which he had no longer forces to defend.

He resolved first, however, to make one more appeal to the different courts of Europe and to the Holy See. Two months after his accession, Pius V. replied to the Grand Master by a brief, expressing such deep sympathy, and conveying such fatherly encouragement, as fixed the hero immovably at his post. "Remain, dear son," said Pius, "at your post; decline not from that renown which has made you glorious before all nations. The Catholic king, the dignity and safety of whose kingdoms depends upon the issue of this war, will not fail you; neither will we fail you, who are ready to shed our blood for the honour of God, the Redeemer and the Saviour of the Christian commonwealth. Above all, and before all, dear son, God will come to your aid, who has but lately so manifestly assisted you. He will not refuse to send His help from on high to His own soldiers."

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Pius V. kept his word. Never to the last hour of his life did he neglect to further the great cause of the defence of Christendom against the Turks, until his efforts were crowned at last by the decisive victory of Lepanto.

To console and encourage the sinking heart of the noble Grand Master was a work more congenial with that of Pius V. than the weary endeavour to straighten the crooked policy of Catherine di Medici. By his earnest appeals to the other Catholic powers of Europe, the Holy Father had succeeded in forming a league to defend the King of France against the Huguenot rebels, who were defeated in the decisive battles of Jarnac and Moncontour; but the fruit to be gathered from these triumphs was very differently estimated by Catherine and S. Pius. Her aim was to patch up a hollow semblance of reconciliation between parties whose principles were irreconcilable; his to make Charles IX., not in name only, but in deed, the most Christian king of a Catholic and united people, and then to call upon him, as the heir of S. Louis and the eldest son of the Church, once more to lead the chivalry of Christendom against its common enemy the Turk. He aimed at nothing more, he would be content with nothing less.

Catherine's policy, the policy of the world, triumphed for the time, and issued, after S. Pius had entered into his rest, in the massacre of S. Bartholomew.

A more faithful leader was found to confront the hosts of Islam; and the wounds of France bled on till they were stanched by the hand of God himself, when the white plume

of Henry of Navarre passed from the Huguenot ranks to surmount the helmet of her Catholic King.

Meanwhile the crimes and treachery of Catherine and her associates have been freely imputed by Protestant historians to the only influence that was exerted to prevent them, to the only voice in Christendom which was invariably raised to proclaim the truth of God, to point out the will of God as the only end of man, and sanctity and integrity as the only means of fulfilling it. Among other accusations made against the Holy See is that of having forwarded the marriage of Margaret of France with the young King of Navarre, in order to attract the Huguenot chiefs to the Court and thus to place them in the power of their enemies. In our number for last October we exposed the utter falsehood of this allegation. In fact, it appears by letters from the various parties concerned, given at length by M. de Falloux, that Pius V. sent an embassy to Don Sebastian, the young King of Portugal, to exhort him to join the Christian league against the Turks, and to advise him to ask the hand of this very Margaret of Valois, as a means of inducing her brother to join it. It appears also that, finding Charles IX. obstinately bent upon giving his sister to the Huguenot prince, Pius V. was greatly afflicted, and said that no more sorrowful news could have been brought to him than this; and that the marriage was not only displeasing to him, but even unlawful. It is said that raising his left hand, which he used habitually instead of the right, to his head, he solemnly declared that he would rather die than grant the dispensation asked by the Queen-mother for this marriage. The Pope's firmness was proof against all importunities, and notwithstanding the magnificent preparations made for the ceremony, it did not take place until after his death.

The following letter was written by Pius V. to Mary Queen of Scots, in answer to her congratulations on his accession. The unbending firmness of the attitude which we have seen him assume towards Catherine di Medici contrasts strongly with the fatherly tenderness, mingled with a kind of compassionate respect, which marks his correspondence with this persecuted and calumniated woman. At the date of this letter, Mary was enjoying the brief period of reconciliation with her wayward and unfortunate husband, which intervened between the murder of Rizzio and the birth of her son.

Ever since we have heard (writes the Holy Father) of the troubles excited against you by your rebellious subjects, who are at the same time enemies of the true and Catholic faith, we have never failed to have recourse to the Lord our God with the heartfelt and fatherly affection which we justly bear to you; and fearing lest our sins should render us unworthy to be heard, we

have commended you to the intercession and prayers of a number of holy priests and religious. Gladly would we have exposed our own life for you, and we have not failed to intercede for you with our dear sons in Jesus Christ, the Catholic princes, that they would afford you assistance. Thanks to the Divine mercy and clemency, our sorrow has in some measure been assuaged by the tidings that you have been lately delivered from a pressing danger. For this mercy we have returned thanks to God, not such as we should offer, but such as the weakness of our piety permitted. And now that the weight of years and the pressing occupations imposed upon us by the interest of Christendom, hinder us from travelling to Scotland, we have thought well to send to you, as our nuncio, our dear and venerable brother the Bishop of Montreal, a man of rare virtue, wisdom, probity, and prudence, in whom you may repose full confidence, and who will render you every service in his power. Be well assured that in nothing within the limits of our power is it our will to be wanting to you in any respect; and we beseech Him, Who of His own good Providence alone, and for no merit of ours, has made us His Vicar, to add to all your royal qualities the gift of invincible courage and perseverance.

Given at Rome, 6th June, 1566.

In her answer to this letter, Mary thanks him for it in the fulness of her heart, and implores his blessing for her newborn child, whose baptism in the Catholic Church she joyfully announces, expressing a hope (alas, not destined to be realized) that God would give him grace to persevere in the Catholic and orthodox use of the Sacraments, and to bring back all her subjects to the same. A few months afterwards followed the murder of Darnley, and then the long series of misfortunes which clouded her remaining years; her captivity and forced marriage with Bothwell; her imprisonment at Lochleven, and compulsory abdication; her deliverance by the chivalrous daring of her loyal adherents; the lost field of Langside; and the fatal act of rash confidence which delivered her into the hands of a rival, destitute alike of pity and of honour. Then came the long, weary captivity, by which the royal victim, forsaken of all but God, was gradually prepared and ripened for the martyr's crown.

The Holy Father failed not to address letters of consolation to the forlorn captive, while he vainly endeavoured to induce the kings of France and Spain to unite their efforts for her deliverance. The failure of the Catholic rising in the north against the intolerable tyranny of Elizabeth, served but to rivet her chains. The best blood of England flowed on the field and on the scaffold, until the measure of the usurper's crimes was full, and the judicial sentence of the Vicar of Christ formally cut her off from the communion of Christendom, and released her subjects from their oath of allegiance. We here, of course, merely mention the fact; and do not profess to enter

on the theological questions suggested by it. The Bull of excommunication against Elizabeth was signed February 25th, 1570, and on the 15th of the following May, a copy of it was fixed on the door of the Bishop of London's palace by the daring hand of John Felton, a gallant Catholic gentleman and student of Lincoln's Inn, who expiated his act by a traitor's death. With the chivalrous courtesy which marked the bearing of so many of Elizabeth's victims towards her, as a woman and a queen, he sent her from the scaffold a ring of considerable value.

When S. Pius went to his reward, Mary was still languishing in her prison-house, Elizabeth still basking in the full glare of worldly dominion and prosperity. Was Elizabeth, then, whom he had excommunicated, really happier than Mary, whom he had blessed? The last moments of the two queens will answer the question. The meek and majestic martyrdom at Fotheringay, and the ghastly death-chamber at Richmond, where the heiress of the reformation, the offspring of the mock marriage for which Henry had bartered his own and his people's heritage of faith, lay crouched upon the floor, gazing in sullen despair at the spectre-haunted bed, to which her servants vainly besought her to return, and muttering mournfully: "I am bound with an iron collar round my neck." Alas! the priestly hands which should have loosed it, were fettered in her dungeons or withering on her city gates, and the blood-stained soul, despairing and unshriven, passed to its account.

Our space has only permitted us to take a few examples here and there from M. de Falloux's narrative of the ceaseless vigilance of S. Pius over all the nations of his fold. We come now to his last glorious conflict with the false prophet of Mecca. It is difficult in these days, when the Mussulman Empire lies an inert mass at the threshold of Christendom, to realize what was the terror of its name in the days of Pius V. Dr. Newman has drawn with a master's hand, in his Lectures on the Turks, the rise of the Mahometan power and the five hundred years of its ascendancy.

Even the taking of Constantinople (says he) was not the limit of the Ottoman successes. Mahomet the Conqueror, as he is called, was but the seventh of the great Sultans who carried on the fortunes of the barbarian empire. An eighth, a ninth followed. . . .

Then came a tenth, the greatest perhaps of all. Solyman the Magnificent, the contemporary of the Emperor Charles V., Francis the First of France, and Henry the Eighth of England. And an eleventh might have been expected, and a twelfth, and the power of the enemy would have become greater and greater, and would have afflicted the Church more and more heavily, and what was to be the end of these things? What was to be the