him and inquired, "Sir, are you the Curé d'Ars?” He replied, "Yes, my good woman!" "Here, then, is some money which I have been commissioned to give you." "What am I to do with it?" asked he. "Whatever you like," was the reply; "but you are to remember the donor in your prayers." After emptying her purse into his hands, the woman went away, without saying who she was, or who had sent her.

To the "Providence" of Ars money always came by some secret and unexpected means, at the moment when it was urgently wanted. M. Vianney often found in his little treasury important sums which he was sure he had not put there himself. He would say sometimes, with a grateful smile, "We are the spoiled children of the good God; when I think of the care that He has taken of me, when I recapitulate His goodness and His mercies, the joy and gratitude of my heart overflow on all sides."

In his boundless kind-heartedness, he gave to others as he received himself. Often did the poor come to him to lament their sorrows. He helped them when he could. Once a poor woman appeared before him with her five children, whom she had to support, and begged alms of him. "Go to my granary," he said, "and take from it as much corn as you are able to

carry away with you."

HEINRICH PESTALOZZI.

T

THE BENEVOLENT SCHOOLMASTER.

HE man, the story of whose life we are now about to relate, may with truth be called the children's friend, the poor man's protector, the father of the abandoned and of the suffering. Heinrich Pestalozzi first saw the light of day at Zurich, on 12th January 1746. His father was an oculist in that town, whose ancestors, some centuries before, had emigrated thither from the Italian Switzerland; they had attained to considerable influence and dignity in Zurich, and were distinguished by that thorough integrity, which was the special characteristic of the Swiss in those days.

Heinrich was the second child of his parents. He had a brother older, and a sister younger, than himself. From the cradle he was weak and delicate, but his feelings were easily excited, his affections were warm, his tastes and inclinations were strongly marked, and rapidly developed themselves. When he was only

four years old he had the misfortune to lose his father. He never forgot the beautiful hymn which he heard sung at his father's grave. So deep an impression did it make upon him, that he henceforth regarded music as something sacred. A thorough sense of honour and strict conscientiousness, Heinrich Pestalozzi inherited from his father, his deeply loving spirit from his mother. Of both parents he always spoke with reverence and admiration. His mother's great failing seems to have been an ignorance of economy and of household management, which, as we shall see, her son unfortunately inherited.

When Pestalozzi's father felt that he must soon die and leave his family in want and without a protector, he sent for a faithful maid-servant, who had been for several years in the family, and said to her: "Babeli, for God's sake, and for pity's sake, do not forsake my wife; when I am dead she will be ruined, and my children will fall into strange hard hands, unless through your assistance she succeeds in keeping them together." Babeli promised the dying man, "I won't forsake your wife if you die. I will remain with her till death, if she has need of me."

These high-spirited words comforted the dying father, and he closed his eyes in peace.

Babeli kept her word; she remained with Pestalozzi's mother till her death. She helped to educate the three poor orphans through all the want and distress the family had to endure, and she did so with a prudence, perseverance, and circumspection, which