cock Lane, has attached to it a Magdalen Asylum, which is perfect in every respect, and well deserves a visit. The number of penitents is eighty. They are all engaged in laundry work, and are self-supporting. The washing of a large proportion of the most respectable families in Cork is done here. Passing through the ironing room, on a finishing day, the stranger would almost fancy himself in the show room of one of the London monster shops, so elegant is the display of articles of dress on every side. The appliances are all of the best and newest description; and so well is the work done, that several Protestant families are glad to send their washing to the asylum. The women are all busy and active, and apparently happy. Constant occupation, and that too of a useful kind, is a great blessing to them, as it must be to everyone industriously employed. The inmates of this asylum are kept in it for life; or as long as they please to remain. Some, when reformed, are taken out by their families, and some few obtain situations; but the great majority prefer remaining in a home, in which they at last have found peace and happiness. Each penitent has a little sleeping room to herself—a system which the nuns seem to value highly. As we pass along the fine, well ventilated corridors, these rooms appear the perfection of neatness. In each is a little altar, with pious pictures, in arranging which the penitents take special interest. In all that is to be seen in this institution, there is abundant matter for pleasing reflection. Here are eighty women, who have been rescued from the lowest depths of sin and degradation, whose lives have been a curse not only to themselves, but to all with whom they came in contact: and now they are usefully employed, and self-supporting all of them happy, and the great majority of them, as we can learn, leading most holy lives! Oh! could we but read the past history of many of these poor girls, could we but realize the terrible ordeal of want, and hunger, and temptation, so long heroically endured, but relentlessly pressing upon them until they were overwhelmed in the fatal fall;

could we but see the dark and desolate vista then opening out before them, without one gleam of human pity, one ray of Christian hope, we might indeed be able to sound the depths of that charity, which has stretched out its hand to save, and lead them back to the paths of peace and duty. All, the children of poverty; most of them, the victims of neglect and bad example from their earliest years; many of them, the prey of the heartless seducer; what should we have been, had we to pass through the same trials and temptations—what they, had they our opportunities and advantages!

On first entering, some of the penitents are troublesome, and, feeling the confinement irksome, express a wish to leave. Here the tact of the Sisters is judiciously and successfully exercised; and, in time, the poor fallen ones learn to bless the day on which they entered Saint Mary Magdalen's Asylum. The diet is excellent; and the kindness of the nuns, at the same time that it reassures the penitents, goes straight to their hearts, and leads them to turn to Him, who pardoned the public sinner, and for whose sake they have been so lovingly received and so thoughtfully provided for.

An extensive wing has recently been added to this asylum. The cost has been defrayed by the bequest of a citizen of Cork-a gentleman who led a single life, and lived penuriously, saving all he could for his charitable project. The Catholic belief in the obligation and merit of good works, carried out from the sole motive of the love of God and the love of our neighbour for God's sake, is familiar to my readers. This beneficent sentiment finds outward expression in many a work such as this just described; and, thus, attached to many a convent, we find asylums, orphanages, hospitals, and similar institutions, monuments of the faith, hope, and charity of dying Christians. There is no investment of the wealth of this world so thoroughly considered, so carefully made, as the disposition. of their means for charitable purposes by the dying; and, in the several bequests of this nature, we have abundant further proof, if

such were wanted, of the high estimation in which communities of religious women are held by those who know them best.

To this convent are also attached extensive poor-schoolsone for infants, and one for grown girls. For ventilation, comfort, and suitability, in every respect, to the purposes for which they have been built, these schools cannot be too highly praised. As happens at several other poor-schools in Ireland, many of the children come to these schools fasting, and it devolves on the nuns to provide them with food. We are shown an extensive soup kitchen, and an almonry just inside the convent gate, at which are given out food and clothing, on orders left by the Sisters with the poor families they visit in different parts of the city.

The second convent is Saint Patrick's, on the Wellington road, to which is attached an Hospital for Incurables. The cost of this building, completed now about two years and a half, was chiefly defrayed by the bequest of a gentleman, a member of the medical profession, who also left an income of 300l. a year towards the support of the patients. Here, those sufferers who are stricken by disease in its most hopeless and afflicting form, receive all the aids of nutritious diet, medical treatment, nurse-tending, air, cleanliness, and comfortable bedding and clothing, which they so much require, and which they cannot command in their own homes. But perhaps the greatest advantage of the institution is, that the patients enjoy the religious instruction and consolation especially needed by their condition, and are thereby disposed for a happy death. The hospital, airy and spacious, is situated in a healthful neighbourhood, with a southern aspect, and is surrounded by neatly planted grounds, in which the few who are able to go out can take exercise. One storey is entirely devoted to males, and another to females.

Passing through a long corridor, we enter a lofty and well ventilated ward, all the beds of which are occupied. We stand by the bed-side of one patient, suffering from cancer in an

advanced stage-and there are several such cases in the hospital. Here our ear is saluted by the low moaning of unceasing pain; we perceive the sickening heavy fetor peculiar to this most loathsome disease; we can read in the emaciated features all that is being endured by the sufferer. We have witnessed enough; perhaps it is that we are unaccustomed to such scenes-but we are glad to retire. And this, then, is the home of the Sisters! They have left the luxurious and elegant abodes of their childhood to take up their dwelling here! Amidst these sounds and sights, and in this atmosphere, they have elected to pass their days, their weeks, their months, their years, their whole lives! Under the pressure of excruciating pain, the patients will sometimes be unreasonable and petulant. Their petulance and complaints must be borne by the gentle Sister in the meek and holy spirit of her institute. The sights and sounds of human suffering are perhaps the most disagreeable of all companions; and yet these sights and sounds to her are ever present, even mingling in her dreams when she retires to snatch a brief repose. These hideous sores she must regularly dress, at least twice a day-sometimes more frequently; the opiates to alleviate pain and other medicines are administered by her hand; and it is her duty unceasingly to console the poor sufferers; to suggest pious thoughts, and especially to aid them in the last agony. Who is there that, witnessing all this, can withhold his homage from such heroic self-sacrifice, ennobled and sanctified as it is by the motive which prompts it? That motive is appropriately expressed in the motto of the Congregation-Caritas Christi urget nos.''

1 For statistics of the Irish Sisters of Charity, list of convents, &c., see Chapter XXVII.

PERHAPS there is nothing which more forcibly impresses the stranger with the power, wealth, and grandeur of the British metropolis than the aspect of Regent Street on a fine afternoon in the full season. Accompanied by a friend to whom London was new, and strolling from Portland Place to the Quadrant, at between four and five o'clock, one day in the month of May last, I felt no small degree of pleasure in pointing out to him the prominent features of the gay and splendid scene:-the dense crowd of magnificent equipages; the proud carriage horses," with their glossy coats, arched necks, and grand action; the harness and liveries, so elegant and appropriate, without being in the least over-done; the exquisite toilets of the fair occupants of the carriages; then, the throng of humbler vehicles, from the huge and crowded Metropolitan Railway omnibus down to the marvellously steered Hansom; the pedestrians innumerable, on the foot-ways; the shops, so rich, so tasteful, so attractive in their display; and, with all this dense population, this crowding of vehicles in many rows, occasionally brought to a dead-lock, no disorder, no confusion, no bad conduct; but all regularity, order, good temper, and seeming happiness! This is indeed a great and magnificent capital,' exclaims my friend; the sight is one of the marvels of the