taken the first opportunity to rob upon a
larger scale.

So far, then, we have shown how in the
Clapharn nursery-grounds, Mr. Andrew
Walker still labours to get wholesome produce
from the devil's acre. We have only to add
—and it is the best possible evidence of his
success—that his few boys are considered
quite the reverse of a nuisance in the
neighbourhood. The position of the ground is,
indeed, somewhat secluded; but, the boys are
well known, and the people round about feel,
as is but human, a strong interest and
sympathy on their behalf. They are often asked
for to trim gardens of an evening, after the
work of the nursery-ground is done. It is
a common thing also for persons living near
to obtain leave to send them on errands,
and then trust them fearlessly to carry
parcels, and to bring back money. They never
break any such trust. A desperate young
rascal who was trying for the new start in
life, had been only six weeks in the garden,
when he was sent, by Mr. Walker, to get
change for a bank-note. The trial was
extreme. The person who had given the
change came in alarm to the garden, to
inquire whether all was right, but all was
perfectly right. The boy had come back
promptly with the gold and silver.

THE PATRON SAINT OF PARIS.

THERE is an aspect of Paris and the
Parisians which is little thought of by
students of France and the French, and is almost
unseen by casual visitors of the Galilean
metropolis. We can only see what we are
prepared to look at; and this aspect of the
Gallic race has been kept out of sight. Yet in
truth, Sainte Généviève is the chief religious
fact of Paris. When Jean Louis Verger, the
assassin-priest, was brandishing his
Catalonian knife near the fallen Archbishop of
Paris, in the church of St. Etienne du Mont,
he raised, amidst the confusion, an extremely
characteristic Parisian cry, which few
foreigners could understand, "Down with the
Généviévians!" "Down with the goddesses!"
Sainte Généviève is the goddess of Paris, and
the numerous persons devoted to her worship
are called the Généviévians; a class of persons
characteristic of Lutetia, the city of the Seine,
for a period embracing little short of a
millennium and a half. The legend of St.
Généviève, although not the most interesting to be
found in ecclesiastical romance, partly explains
the sway she has wielded, and the
worship she has received in Paris for fourteen
centuries.

Généviève was born at Nanterre, a village
two leagues from Paris, somewhere about the
year four hundred and twenty-two. Her
earliest years were spent in herding the
flocks of Servere, her father, and in aiding
her mother Gerence in the occupations of her
household. Saint Germain d'Auxerre, and
Saint Loup de Troyes, stopped at Nanterre
when ou their way to Great Britain, where
they were going to combat the Pelagian
heresy, which denied the necessity of grace.
The people crowded around them upon their
arrival, and begged their blessing. Saint
Germain, observing Généviève in the crowd,
called the pious and gentle-looking child
towards him. The Spirit of God revealed
suddenly to the bishop the mission of the child,
and he called her to him, and kissed her forehead.

"My daughter," said the Bishop.

"My father," answered the little girl.

"Tell me, will you consecrate yourself to
the Lord, to serve him for ever?"

"I will! Pray God to give me courage to
keep my promise."

"Have no fear," replied the Bishop. "Act
like a strong man, and God will give you the
necessary virtue."

Saint Germain conducted the infant to the
church, followed by the crowd and her
relatives, where he laid his hands upon her
head, and sang a hymn. At the request
of Saint Germain, her father promised to
take his daughter Généviève to him on the
following day. When Servere, Gerence, and
Généviève arrived at the appointed hour,
the saint asked her if she remembered her
promise.

"Yes," she replied, "I remember it, and I
hope to keep it with the help of grace."

Prior to going away, Saint Germain gave
her a copper medal with a cross marked
upon it, and begged her to wear it always,
to remind her of the consecration of her
person to God.

Généviève regarded herself henceforth as a
person set apart to God. She was never
happier than when in church. When she
saw her mother ready to go to church one
day without her, she entreated with tears to
be taken, and her mother in a moment of
impatience gave her a slap. The mother
was punished by being deprived of sight;
and her daughter cured her by bathing her
eyes two or three times in water which she
had taken from a spring, and over which she
had made the sign of the cross. This story
is the origin of the popular devotion to the
wells of Nanterre; whose waters have ever
since cured diseases of all sorts by the blessing
of Sainte Généviève.

When she became an orphan Généviève
went to Paris, where she resided with her
godmother. Mortifications, humility, chastity,
faith and charity, occupied her whole
life in that city. She prayed with extraordinary
unction; and in her earnestness, shed
an abundance of tears. Her holiness raised
up enemies who tried to persuade the
people she was a visionary, but she speedily
proved her innocence. Whenever calamities
afflicted Paris, the people flew to her for
assistance and consolation, and she advised
them well and successfully in time of war,