When we are attacked about practices, devotions, or corollaries of faith--"developments," in other words--do we not sometimes labor needlessly to prove that we go no further than the Fathers did, and that what we do may be justified from ancient authorities? Should we not confine ourselves to showing, even with the help of antiquity, that what is attacked is good, is sound, and is holy; and then thank God that we have so much more of it than others formerly possessed? If it was right to say "Ora pro nobis" once in the day, is it not better to say it seven times a day; and if so, why not seventy times seven? The rule of forgiveness may well be the rule of seeking intercession for it. But whither am I leading you, gentle reader? I promised you a story, and I am giving you a lecture, and I fear a dry one. I must retrace my steps. I wished, therefore, merely to say that, while the saints of the Church are very naturally divided by us into three classes--holy patrons of the Church, of particular portions of it, and of its individual members--there is one raised above all others, which passes through all, composed of protectors, patrons, and nomenclators, of saints themselves. For how many Marys, how many Josephs, Peters, Johns, and Pauls, are there not in the calendar of the saints, called by those names without law of country or age! But beyond this general recognition of the claims of our greatest saints, one cannot but sometimes feel that the classification which I have described is carried by us too far; that a certain human dross enters into the composition of our devotion; we perhaps nationalize, or even individualize, {21} the sympathies of those whose love is universal, like God's own, in which alone they love. We seem to fancy that St. Edward and St. Frideswida are still English; and some persons appear to have as strong an objection to one of their children bearing any but a Saxon saint's name as they have to Italian architecture. We may be quite sure that the power and interest in the whole Church have not been curtailed by the admission of others like themselves, first Christians on earth, then saints in heaven, into their blessed society; but that the friends of God belong to us all, and can and will help us, if we invoke them, with loving impartiality. The little history which I am going to relate serves to illustrate this view of saintly intercession; it was told me by the learned and distinguished prelate whom I shall call Monsig. B. He has, I have heard, since published the narrative; but I will give it as I heard it from his lips. CHAPTER II. THE FRENCH OFFICER'S FIRST APPEARANCE.