ward and downward movements of his apish hands: they were rhythmic and soporific. Moreover he drew a tiny vial from his cloth, and emptied its contents out upon the fire. It danced into flames as though with satisfaction. No wonder: the offering was human blood.

66

The maid spoke up as though refreshed by wine.

"A greater life rests upon the weaker," said she eagerly, a life of ardent fire. It keeps none for itself: it gives forth all it possesses, and yet pants with fever. Desire of imparting vitality consumes it. It reposes in a rapture of expectation, and seldom stirs. It is a symbol of eternal sacrifice. See! See! life breaks forth at last, radiant and happy. I see no more there is no more to tell."

:

In an instant the girl had shrouded herself once more; she collapsed upon the earth at her father's feet. All the wicks expired; the charcoal ceased to glow.

Pappoo gathered his lamps and chatty together, and wrapped them in a bundle as heretofore. With his horny foot he erased all marks of the chalked circle. He rose up and throwing his blanket over head and shoulders, bade the maid get up.

"The affair is concluded well," said he. "You will find the jewel in the ashes beneath the sitting hen. The matey placed it there. Your chicks are hatched out: two alone are addled. They were disturbed by the thief, and, dying, have long been rotten. Come daughter, follow me."

The man and maid stepped forth into the moonlit compound, and went their way. We all went quickly into the kitchen. Martin lifted its basket from above the patient hen. Her task of love was ended. Sixteen fine chickens peeped out from between her ruffled feathers. Two foul addled eggs lay beneath her, deply buried in the charcoal ashes, where lice and bones made merry with one another. Beneath the rotten eggs we found the diamond pendant!

Both ayah and butler congratulated me warmly. Warmly, also, did cook treat the soles of matey's feet. The lad's shrieks of pain were hideous: worse even than those of Pappoo's possessed daughter. I heard his piteous howls rise and fall for fully a quarter of an hour. Later on, I saw a half-mad, tortured creature, clad in a ragged cloth, his hair

matted and clammy with the sweat of anguish, writhe from his tormentor's hands and wriggle away, like some venomous half-scorched viper, into the bushes that lay beyond the kitchen. It was the last glimpse that I ever caught of the unfortunate but evil matey.

(To be continued.)

FATHER LEDÓCHOWSKI, S.J.

THE NEW General of thE JESUITS

ITHIN three weeks after the outbreak of the Great

WITH
War Francis Xavier Wernz, the late Father

General of the Society of Jesus, died, after holding
his responsible office for over eight years; and some six
months later there was elected as his successor a father bearing
the typically Polish name of Wlodzimierz Ledóchowski. He
is the eldest son of the late Antony Halka von Ledochow Count
Ledóchowski and of the Countess Josephina Zu Salis-Zizers,
a descendant of an old Swiss family. The house of
Ledóchowski for centuries gave many of its sons to Church
and State in the old Kingdom of Poland.
family home was near Sandomir, now a part of the Russian
Empire; but the fierce persecution against the Catholic Poles
of Russia drove the family to that part of Poland which was
taken over by Austria; here they were sure at least of
religious tolerance.

The original

A remarkable member of the family during the nineteenth century was the new Father General's uncle, Count Miecislas Halka Ledóchowski, Cardinal-Archbishop of Gnesen-Posen in Prussian Poland. He was bienvu with Bismarck's Government from his enthronement in 1866 till 1873. In that year the use of the Polish language in giving religious instruction in the schools was made illegal. The Archbishop withstood the ordinance, and in consequence was repeatedly fined. Con

tinuing his resistance he was imprisoned at Ostrowo in the beginning of 1874. Pius IX. showed emphatic approval of his fortitude by creating him Cardinal immediately after his arrest. The Prussian Government retaliated by going through the empty form of declaring him deposed from his See. He was kept in prison for a full two years, and on his release was forbidden to remain on Prussian territory. He immediately went to Rome and continued to rule his archdiocese from there. For "arrogating episcopal rights" he was, in his absence, sentenced three times to imprisonment by the Prussian courts. In 1885, for the sake of peace, he voluntarily resigned his See; he was appointed Prefect of the Propaganda in 1892, and continued to hold that office till his death ten years later at the age of eighty.

The newly-elected General of the Jesuits was born in Galicia on October 7th, 1866. As a young boy he was a page in the court of the ill-fated Empress Elizabeth of Austria. In 1877 he began his studies at the Theresian Academy in Vienna, where he out-distanced all his school-mates in the matter of winning prizes; on finishing his course at the academy he was awarded the Imperial Prize Gold Medal, the highest distinction that the school could confer on him. He next studied law for a year, but, feeling that he had a vocation for the priesthood, he abandoned the idea of the legal profession and entered the seminary of Tarnow in Galicia. He continued his ecclesiastical studies at the German college in Rome, and having finished his course of philosophy in the year 1889, he entered the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus in his native land at the age of twenty-three. His preparatory course was briefer than is usual in the Order. After his two years of noviceship, he proceeded to the study of theology, was ordained in 1894, and almost immediately began to fill positions of importance and responsibility. For us, it is interesting to note that he was first employed in work of a literary character. In 1896 he was attached to the Grodzka Presbytery, Cracow, as writer and church-worker, and two years later was appointed superior of the house. During his four years' stay at the Grodzka, Father Ledóchowski was an indefatigable worker not only in the ordinary ministry of a priest, but also in various literary and social

activities. He wrote many articles for the review Prozeglad Powszechny; started the publication of the Gtosy Katolickie, popular tracts on religious and economical subjects with a monthly circulation of 40,000 copies; and founded a successful Housekeepers' Association.

In 1900, only nine years after his noviceship, he was appointed Rector of the College of Philosophy and Theology at Cracow. Still higher promotion quickly followed, for on March 25th, 1901, the very day on which he took his last vows, he was chosen Vice-Provincial of Poland, and less than a year afterwards he was made full Provincial. During the four years that he held this position, he carried out many great works, among them being the establishment of a Retreat House at Czechowices. In 1906, on the death of Father General Martin, Father Ledóchowski went to Rome as an elector in the General Congregation of the Order summoned for the selection of a new General. As it proved, he himself was third on the list of those who received votes for the generalship. He was subsequently elected General's Assistant for the Provinces of Austria, Germany, Belgium, Poland and Holland, a high office which he held during the eight years' generalship of Father Wernz, and until February of this present year when he became General of the Society at the comparatively early age of forty-nine. I have been told by one who met him a few years ago, that Father Ledóchowski is below the middle size, but of sturdy build, dark of complexion, and with intellectual features. He is a good conversationalist, and writes and speaks fluently Polish, German, French, and Italian. Of the twenty-six Generals who have been elected since the beginning of the Order, Father Ledóchowski is the second Pole to fill that office. Here in Ireland we may well be interested in this point of his nationality, for the history of Poland in many ways is analogous to the history of Ireland. Both countries have had the misfortune to be the neighbours of more powerful nations, and have suffered thereby. Both have stuck to the Old Faith in spite of long-protracted persecution; and both look forward to a large share of the good which, it is hoped, will come from the evil of the Great War.

P. D.

FRANCIS SUAREZ, S.J.

By the Very Rev. RICHARD CANON O'Kennedy.

II.

T was no sinecure that the holder of a chair occupied in those days, when eminent men of all grades came to assist at the lectures of every professor of name. The Pope himself, as has already been said, honoured the young Jesuit by his assistance at the initial address. Other professors, whose lectures were not being given at the time, doctors in philosophy and theology, licentiates and bachelors in utroque Jure, crowded in; and at times the governor of the city, and the higher officials of the state and the army, in their gorgeous robes and splendid uniforms lent colour and brilliancy to the hall.

Father Henry James Coleridge, S.J., in two papers of great interest which he contributed to the Month (Jan.-June 1865), describes Father Suarez' manner of work, both in preparing for class and in writing for the Press: "He was a man of immense industry and erudition. His quotations from the Scriptures, from the Fathers, and other holy writers of the Church, are far more numerous than was commonly the case with the theologians who wrote before him. But his wonderful exactness and compass of memory made him the perfect master of his own erudition, not the slave. He so habitually thought over and digested what he had read, that it became a part of himself. He adopted the plan of dictating in class; but he always dictated from memory, without a morsel of paper before him; and he always retained the most distinct recollection of what he had dictated, no matter how long the interval had been. In the same way he dictated his books, quotations and all. He used to say that if any of his published volumes were entirely lost, he should find no great difficulty in reproducing it exactly. On his journey from Rome, though unable of course to carry books with him, he had a secretary at hand,