let, when prayers have been
punctually and neatly answered. Whenever time is a consideration, Saint
Joseph is the proper intermediary. I took a sort of pleasure in
observing the vogue he had in France, for the good man plays a very
small part in my religion at home. Yet I could not help fearing that,
where the Saint is so much commended for exactitude, he will be expected
to be very grateful for his tablet.

This is foolishness to us Protestants; and not of great importance
anyway. Whether people's gratitude for the good gifts that come to them
be wisely conceived or dutifully expressed is a secondary matter after
all, so long as they feel gratitude. The true ignorance is when a man
does not know that he has received a good gift, or begins to imagine
that he has got it for himself. The self-made man is the funniest
wind-bag after all! There is a marked difference between decreeing light
in chaos, and lighting the gas in a metropolitan back-parlour with a box
of patent matches; and do what we will, there is always something made
to our hand, if it were only our fingers.

But there was something worse than foolishness placarded in Creil
Church. The Association of the Living Rosary (of which I had never
previously heard) is responsible for that. This Association was founded,
according to the printed advertisement, by a brief of Pope Gregory
Sixteenth, on the 17th of January, 1832: according to a coloured
bas-relief, it seems to have been founded, sometime or other, by the
Virgin giving one rosary to Saint Dominic, and the Infant Saviour giving
another to Saint Catharine of Siena. Pope Gregory is not so imposing,
but he is nearer hand. I could not distinctly make out whether the
Association was entirely devotional, or had an eye to good works; at
least it is highly organized: the names of fourteen matrons and misses
were filled in for each week of the month as associates, with one other,
generally a married woman, at the top for _zelatrice:_ the leader of the
band. Indulgences, plenary and partial, follow on the performance of the
duties of the Association. "The partial indulgences are attached to the
recitation of the rosary." On "the recitation of the required
_dizaine_," a partial indulgence promptly follows. When people serve the
kingdom of heaven with a pass-book in their hands, I should always be
afraid lest they should carry the same commercial spirit into their
dealings with their fellow-men, which would make a sad