in a state betwixt sleep and waking. Hortus conclusus, fons signatus, very plainly represented by means of what may be described as mural miniatures, excited my curiosity very much, but my imagination was too chaste to carry my thoughts beyond the limits of pious wonder.  I am afraid that this beautiful park has been sadly injured by the war and the Communist insurrection of 1870—­71.  It was for me, after the cathedral of Treguier, the first cradle of thought.  I used to pass whole hours under the shade of its trees, seated on a stone bench with a book in my hand.  It was there that I acquired not only a good deal of rheumatism, but a great liking for our damp autumnal nature in the north of France.  If, later in life, I have been charmed by Mount Hermon, and the sunheated slopes of the Anti-Lebanon, it is due to the polarisation which is the law of love and which leads us to seek out our opposites.  My first ideal is a cool Jansenist bower of the seventeenth century, in October, with the keen impression of the air and the searching odour of the dying leaves.  I can never see an old-fashioned French house in the Seine-et-Oise or the Seine-et-Marne, with its trim fenced gardens, without calling up to my mind the austere books which were in bygone days read beneath the shade of their walks.  Deep should be our pity for those who have never been moved to these melancholy thoughts, and who have not realised how many sighs have been heaved ere joy came into our heart.

The mutual footing upon which masters and students at St. Sulpice stand is a very tolerant one.  There is not beyond doubt a single establishment in the world where the student has more liberty.  At St. Sulpice in Paris, a student might pass his three years without having any close communication with a single one of the superiors.  It is assumed that the regime of the establishment will be self-acting.  The superiors lead just the same life as the students, and intervene as little as possible.  A student who is anxious to work has the greatest of facilities for doing so.  On the other hand, those who are inclined to be idle have no compulsion to work put upon them; and there are very many in this case.  The examinations are very insignificant in scope; there is not the least attempt at competition, and if there was it would be discouraged, though when we remember that the age of the students averages between eighteen and twenty, this is carrying the doctrine of non-intervention too far.  It is beyond doubt very prejudicial to learning.  But after all said and done, this unqualified respect for liberty and the treating as grown-up men of the lads who are already in spirit set apart for the priesthood, are the only proper rules to follow in the delicate task of training youths for what is in the eye of the Christian the most exalted of callings.  I am myself of opinion that the same rule might be applied with advantage to the department of Public Instruction, and that the Normal School more especially might in some particulars take example by it.