The discovery made by Paschal after the place had been deserted was thus repeated by De Rossi after a second, longer, and more obscure period of oblivion.  The divine vision which had led the ancient Pope, according to his own account, to the right spot, was now replaced by scientific investigation.  The statements of inspiration were confirmed, as in so many more conspicuous instances, by the discoveries of science.  Cecilia had lain so near the popes, that she might, as she had said to Paschal, have spoken to him when he was in their chapel, as ad as, “mouth to mouth.”  But the questions naturally arose, Why was it that in Paschal’s time, before this chapel was encumbered with earth, it had been so difficult to find her grave? and, Why had not the Lombards, who had sought for her sacred body, succeeded in finding it?  De Rossi was able to furnish the solution.  In several instances he had found walls carefully built up in front of tombs so as to conceal them.  It was plain that this must have been done with some definite purpose; and it seems altogether likely that it was to hide these tombs from sacrilegious invaders.  The walls had been built when the faithful were forced by the presence of their enemies to desert the catacombs and leave them unprotected.  It was a striking illustration of the veneration in which these holy places had been held.  Upon examination of the floor in front of the areosolium of this chapel, traces of the foundation of a wall were discovered, and thus the Lombard failure and Paschal’s difficulty were explained.

So ends the story of St Cecilia and her tomb.  Within her church are the remains of the bath-chamber where she suffered death.  The mosaics of the apse and the arch of triumph tell of the first finding of her body; Maderno’s statue recalls the fact of its second discovery long after; and now this newly opened, long forgotten chapel shows where her precious body was first laid away in peace, brings the legend of her faithful death into clearer remembrance, and concludes the ancient story with dramatic and perfect completeness.

“The Lord discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.”

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

HAPPINESS.

  Wing-Footed! thou abid’st with him
  That asks it not:  but he who hath
  Watched o’er the waves thy fading path
  Will never more on ocean’s rim,
  At morn or eve, behold returning
  Thy high-heaped canvas shoreward yearning: 
  Thou only teachest us the core
  And inmost meaning of No More,
  Thou, who first showest us thy face
  Turned o’er the shoulder’s parting grace,
  And whose sad footprints we can trace
  Away from every mortal door!

THE PURE PEARL OF DIVER’S BAY.

When the great storms raged along the Atlantic coast, they sometimes tossed a token into Diver’s Bay.  In more than one of the rude cabins composing the fishermen’s settlement memorials of shipwreck and disaster might be found; and these memorials did not always fail to kindle imagination, and to arouse soft feelings of pity for the calamities they suggested.