Alvira: The Heroine of Vesuvius

arth, Joy

pes had built on the shadowy basis of Louis' future temporal glory. She felt, however, from the inspiration of faith a feeling of spiritual joy that he was called to the higher destiny of a favorite of Heaven. Had the fire of divine love glowed more fervently in her heart, she would feel the joy of ecstasy, such as consoled the death-bled of the mothers of the saints when the revelat

the sore hour of real separation comes, the soft, loving heart bends and weeps. Nature, corrupt nature, resists the arrangements of God, and nature triumphs

n the inmates. One alone is awake; gentle sobs tell of a heart struggling with its own desi

easure up those tears of affection; they are pearls for a crown in ete

o register for his eternal crown, the inward struggle in which he had trampled on every tie of affection and pleasure. Disappearing in the narrow streets, he dis

still felt all the tender anxieties of an affectionate parent. There are moments in the career of even the greatest sinners when sleeping conscience is roused to remorse. The shock the old man received

sh seem to leave greater darkness in the night, thus the impulses of grace shot across the soul of Cassier; he struggled in the grasp of an unseen power, but suddenly lapsed into the awf

old, he vainly hoped, by fear or the tinsel of gold, to win back to the world and sin the magnanimous youth who had broken through the stronger argument of a mother's tea

rovidence which made Louis a vessel of election had covered him with its protective sh

d reproof when they concealed his beads or prayer-book, his willingness to oblige on all occasions, were remembered with tears. When sitting by the mother's bed, the conversation invari

is is now

ootsore on the side of some highway

bers and is stripped of the few ar

ed the tender-hearted Aloysia, "and would give

mise. No welcome messenger returned t

over departed worth when its bri