There were times when he had a hundred men at work,

at the building, and fifty at the shops; but he rose to the occasion, and never failed to procure the supplies for the week, both in merchandise and money. Every Saturday night all the money was expended, but every Monday morning the work

was renewed with increased vigor and equal faith.

In three months the roof was finished; in three more the observatory was in working order, without one dollar of debt upon it. Thus it was that Professor Mitchell built his observatory, aided by the liberality and confidence of the people of Cincinnati.

For sixteen years he continued to enjoy the use of it, and became, in consequence, one of the most learned and accomplished astronomers of the age, and the one who possessed the greatest ability in bringing the sublime truths of the science home to the comprehension of the general public. He was one of the early victims of the war. Stationed in an unhealthy district of the South, General Mitchell was attacked by disease, and died before he had rendered his country the service which it was in him to perform.

DEACON PARIS, THE FANATIC.

IN all ages, and under all religions, there have been people who have thought that the best way of preparing for a better world was to make themselves as miserable as possible in this. So thought a certain Frenchman, named Francis Paris, a most devout Catholic, who lived in the city of Paris a hundred and sixty years ago. No man in modern times, I believe, has tormented himself with so much resolution and perseverance as he. Deacon Paris, born in Paris in 1690, was the eldest son of Nicholas de Paris, a man of the highest rank in the profession of the law, as his ancestors had been for two hundred years. He expected his eldest son, as a matter of course, to embrace the same vocation and inherit his business. At the age of seven, the boy, according to the French custom, was placed in a convent school, where he was noted for an extreme gentleness of manners, an excessive timidity, and a morbidly tender conscience. Timid as he was, he was once concerned in a freak of the boys, to set the school-house on fire. They heaped up straw in the fireplace, set it on fire, and ran out to see the expected conflagration. The straw, however, burned harmlessly away up the chimney, and saved the monks of the convent the expense of a chimney-sweeper. This piece of boyish folly lay like a load upon his conscience for many years, and he sought to expiate it by the severest penance. Long after he was grown up he used to exclaim, in the language of Job: "Thou writest against me bitter things; wouldst thou consume me for the sins of my youth?"

His father took him home in his tenth year, and gave him a private tutor, who proved to be a violent and cruel man. One incident will serve to show at once the barbarity of the teacher

and the cowering timidity of the pupil. The wretch, having beaten the child until he was covered with bruises, and knowing that his cruelty would be discovered as soon as the boy should be undressed, induced him to let himself fall down stairs, in order that his bruises should seem to be the result of the accident. The character of the man was soon after revealed, and he was replaced by better teachers, under whom the gentle youth made rapid improvement. But he was not a healthyminded boy; like the poet Percival, he liked to be alone, avoided the sports of his young friends, and early became a religious devotee. "Even on Sundays," says his French biographer, "he took no pleasure except in pious exercises and in prayers, getting up sometimes long before daylight to prostrate himself before God, his eyes wet with tears, and spending a long time in devotion." At the same time he was abundant in charity. He was often known to give away to beggars all the bread which he took with him to the college for his luncheon.

In France it has been the custom, for many centuries, for the eldest son to be brought up and succeed to his father's business. This is the case even with such occupations as blacksmith, butcher, carpenter, and storekeeper; and the more remunerative the vocation is, the more the custom prevails in it. Nothing was more common in France before the Revolution (and it is not uncommon now) than businesses which had descended from father to son for a century, or for centuries. When a man has no son to succeed him, he often looks out for a son-in-law, to whom he can marry his business, and thus, by one stroke, portion a daughter and keep his business in the family.

Nicholas de Paris, accordingly, intended his eldest son for a lawyer, and his younger for a soldier, never considering whether or not those professions were agreeable or suitable to them. The decided preference of his eldest son was to enter a monastery; but his family would not hear of it, and insisted on his beginning the study of the law. Being still under age, he complied with their desire, acquitted himself very well in his studies, and passed a successful examination. To distract his mind from religion, his father sent him to a riding-school for six months, and endeavored in other ways to reconcile him to the world and

the world's habits. But nothing availed. When he was twentyone years of age, and had obtained his license to practise law, he declared his unalterable determination to retire to a cloister and spend his days in prayer and meditation. His father absolutely refused his consent. The young man would not yield. After a long and violent contention, his family deemed it best to let him try for a while the life of a recluse, hoping he would soon be sickened of it; and so for several months he resided in a monastery, practising the severest austerities. Alarmed at his long absence, his father summoned him home, only to find his resolution firmer than before. The family renewed their remonstrances and their menaces. They dwelt upon the certain wealth and high rank which would be his if he pursued his father's vocation, and threatened him with the loss of his inheritance if he persisted in a religious life. Their efforts were all in vain, and, at length, the family yielded a reluctant consent, gave him a moderate pension, and installed his younger brother in the place designed for the elder. His father dying soon after, he received only a younger son's portion, which was one-fourth of his father's estate. This portion, however, was four times as much as he needed.

His first care was to disengage himself from all worldly affairs and ties. Part of his inheritance was a great mass of old family silver-plate, weighing two hundred pounds. This he sold, and divided the proceeds among the poor. He inherited also a quantity of linen and other household stuffs, which his mother, according to the custom of the time, had accumulated. The linen he gave to a number of poor priests for new surplices, and the other fabrics he divided among the poor families of his parish. Some barrels of salt also had come to him, salt being then an expensive article; this he distributed among the poor. Having thus disposed of his superfluous effects, and having remained at home long enough to see his younger brother married and settled, he went forth to begin his long-desired life of entire consecration to religion, or rather what he thought to be religion.

He retired to a village near Chartres, hired secluded apartments, and gave himself up to prayers, study, fasting, and selftorture. All day he remained alone in his room, studying

Hebrew, reading theology, and praying. He wore a hair shit next his skin, and fasted on all the appointed days most rigorously, not eating a morsel of food till sunset. On Sundays he performed, at the request of the parish priest, the humble duty of catechising the children. In winter he would have no fire in his room, and when the cold was too severe to be borne, he merely covered his feet with a hair-cloth.

He often changed his place of abode, but never his habits, except that he increased the severity of his self-inflicted torments. Being intrusted by his parish priest with the charge of the young candidates for the priesthood, he led them to practise such extreme self-denial that he was complained of to the archbishop, who was thus made acquainted with his character. Instead of reproving his ill-directed zeal, the archbishop desired to reward it by bestowing upon him the dignity of deacon, and held out to him the promise of still further advancement. The zealot deemed himself unworthy of the honor, and long refused it. His scruples being at length overcome, he was ordained, and thus acquired the title by which he is now known. Other ecclesiastical honors, though they were often pressed upon him, he always declined.

As he advanced in life his austerities increased, and he resolved at last to retire wholly from the haunts of men. First, he travelled on foot over France, seeking some monastery congenial to him. From this journey he extracted all the misery it could be made to yield, pursuing his weary way through all kinds of weather, ill-clad, half starved, and lodging in the stables of the poorest inns. But in all his wanderings he found no retreat that promised sufficient severity, and he returned to Paris to contrive one for himself. There he withdrew to a mean and secluded abode, and set about the work of torturing himself to death with renewed vigor.

It was his habit now to fast during the whole forty days of Lent as rigorously as he had been used to fast on single days, never eating until sunset, and then only bread and water, nor much of them. Toward the close of the forty days he suffered as much as his heart could wish. He would sometimes fall into convulsions, and endured horrid pangs and spasms, which he

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