Give me simple conversation, books, arts, sports, and friends sincere!
Let no priest be e'er my tutor! on my brow no label written!
Coin or passport to salvation, rather none, than beg it here!

Give me air, and not a prison,--love for Heart, and light for Reason!
Let me walk no slave or bigot,--God's untrammelled, fearless child!
Yield me rights each soul is born to,--rights not given and not taken,--
Free to Cardinals and Princes and Campagna shepherds wild.

Like these Roman fountains gushing clear and sweet in open spaces,
Where the poorest beggar stoops to drink, and none can say him nay,--
Let the Law, the Truth, be common, free to man and child and woman,
Living waters for the souls that now in sickness waste away!

Therefore are these fields far sweeter than yon temple of Saint Peter;
Through this grander dome of azure God looks down and blesses all;
In these fields the birds sing clearer, to the Eternal Heart are nearer,
Than the sad monastic chants that yonder on my ears did fall.

Never smiled Christ's holy Vicar on the heretic and sinner
As this sun--true type of Godhead--smiles o'er all the peopled land!
Sweeter smells this blowing clover than the perfume of the censer,
And the touch of Spring is kinder than the Pontiff's jewelled hand!




THE EXPERIENCE OF SAMUEL ABSALOM, FILIBUSTER.

[Concluded.]