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Sermons Of The
Rev. Francis A. Baker,

Priest Of The Congregation Of St. Paul.

With A Memoir Of His Life

BY

Rev. A. F. Hewit.


Fourth Edition.

New York:
Lawrence Kehoe, 145 Nassau Street.
1867.

Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1865

By A. F. Hewit,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE.

In offering the Memoir and Sermons of this volume to the friends of F. Baker, and to the public, propriety requires of me a few words of explanation. The number of those who have been more or less interested in the events touched upon in the sketch of his life and labors is very great, and composed of many different classes of persons in various places, and of more than one religious communion. I cannot suppose that all of them will read these pages, but it is likely that many will; and therefore a word is due to those who are more particularly interested, as well as to the general class of readers. I have to ask the indulgence of all my readers for having interwoven so much of my own history and my own reflections on the topics and events of the period included within the limits of the narrative. They have woven themselves in spontaneously, without any intention on my part, and on account of the close connexion between myself and the one whose career I have been describing; and I have been unable to unravel them from the texture of the narrative without breaking its threads.

I have simply transferred to paper that picture of the past, long forgotten amid the occupations of an active life, which came up again, unbidden and with great vividness, before the eye of memory, during the hours while the remains of my brother and dearest friend lay robed in violet, waiting for the last solemn rites of the requiem to be fulfilled. If I have succeeded, I cannot but think that the picture will have something of the same interest for others that it has for myself. Those who knew and loved the original, will, I hope, prize it for his sake; and their own recollections will diffuse the coloring and animation of life over that which in itself is but a pale and indistinct sketch. For their sakes chiefly I have prepared it, so far as the mere personal motive of perpetuating the memory of a revered and beloved individual is concerned. But I have had a higher motive as my chief reason for undertaking the task: a desire to promote the glory of God, by preserving and extending the memory of the graces and virtues with which He adorned one of His most faithful children. I have wished to place before the world the example of one of the most signal conversions to the Catholic faith which has taken place in our country, as a lesson to all to imitate the pure and disinterested devotion to truth and conscience which it presents to them.

Let me not be misunderstood. I do not present the example of his conversion, or that of the great number of persons of similar character who have embraced the Catholic religion, as a proof sufficient by itself of the truth of that religion. {5} I propose it as a specimen of many instances in which the power of the Catholic religion to draw intelligent minds and upright hearts to itself, and to inspire them with a pure and noble spirit of self-sacrifice in the cause of God and humanity, is exhibited. This is surely a sufficient motive for examining carefully the reasons and evidences on which their submission to the Church was grounded; and an incentive to seek for the truth, with an equally sincere intention to embrace it, at whatever cost or struggle it may demand.

It may appear to the casual reader that I have drawn in this narrative an ideal portrait which exaggerates the reality. I do not think I have done so; and I believe the most competent judges will attest my strict fidelity to the truth of nature. If I have represented my subject as a most perfect and beautiful character, the model of a man, a Christian, and a priest of God, I have not exceeded the sober judgment of the most impartial witnesses. A Protestant Episcopal clergyman, of remarkable honesty and generosity of nature, said of him to a Catholic friend: "You have one perfect man among your converts." Another, a Catholic clergyman, whose coolness of judgment and reticence of praise are remarkable traits in his character, said, on hearing of his decease: "The best priest in New York is dead." I have no doubt that more than one would have been willing to give their own lives in place of his, if he could have been saved by the sacrifice.

In narrating events connected with F. Baker's varied career, I have simply related those things of which I have had either personal knowledge, or the evidence furnished by his own correspondence with a very dear friend, aided by the information which that friend has furnished me. {6} I have to thank this very kind and valued friend, the Rev. Dwight E. Lyman, for the aid he has given me in this way, which has increased so much the completeness and interest of the Memoir. I am also indebted to another, still dearer to the departed, for information concerning his early history and family.

I trust that those readers who are not members of the Catholic communion, especially such as have been the friends of the subject and the author of this memoir, will find nothing here to jar unnecessarily upon their sentiments and feelings. Fidelity to the deceased has required me not to conceal his conviction of the exclusive truth and authority of the doctrine and communion of the holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church. The same fidelity would prevent me, if my own principles did not do so, from mixing up with religious questions any thing savoring of personal arrogance, or directed to the vindication of private feelings, and retaliation upon individuals with whom religious conflicts have brought us into collision. I wish those who still retain their friendship for the dead, and whose minds will recur with interest to scenes of this narrative, in which they were concerned with him, to be assured of that lasting sentiment of regard which he carried with him to the grave, and which survives in the heart of the writer of these lines.

In the history of F. Baker's missionary career, I have endeavored to select from the materials on hand such portions of the details of particular missions as would make the nature of the work in which he was engaged intelligible to all classes of readers, without making the narrative too tedious and monotonous. I have wished to present all the diverse aspects and all the salient points of his missionary life, and to give as varied and miscellaneous a collection of specimens from its records as possible. From the necessity of the case, only a small number of missions could be particularly noticed. Those which have been passed by have not been slighted, however, as less worthy of notice than the others, but omitted from the necessity of selecting those most convenient for illustration of the theme in hand. The statistics given, in regard to numbers, etc., in the history of our missions, have all been taken from records carefully made at the time, and based on an exact enumeration of the communions given. I trust this volume will renew and keep alive in the minds of those who took part in these holy scenes, and who hung on the lips of the eloquent preacher of God's word whose life and doctrine are contained in it, the memory of the holy lessons of teaching and example by which he sought to lead them to heaven.

Of the sermons contained in this volume, seventeen have been reprinted from the four volumes of "Sermons by the Paulists, 1861-64;" and twelve published from MSS. Four of these are mission sermons, selected from the complete series, as the most suitable specimens of this species of discourse. The others are parochial sermons, preached in the parish church of St. Paul the Apostle, New York. {8} There still remain a considerable number of sermons, more or less complete; but the confused and illegible state in which F. Baker left his MSS. has made the task of reading and copying them very laborious, and prevented any larger number from being prepared for publication at the present time. I leave these Sermons, with the Memoir of their author, to find their own way to those minds and hearts which are prepared to receive them, and to do the good for which they are destined by the providence of God. May we all have the grace to imitate that high standard of Christian virtue which they set before us, as true disciples of Jesus Christ our Lord!

A. F. H.

St. Paul's Church, Fifty-ninth Street,
Advent, 1865.

CONTENTS

MEMOIR.

Memoir.

Francis A. Baker was born in Baltimore, March 30, 1820. The name given him in baptism was Francis Asbury, after the Methodist bishop of that name; but when he became a Catholic he changed it to Francis Aloysius, in honor of St. Francis de Sales and St. Aloysius, to both of whom he had a special devotion, and both of whom he resembled in many striking points of character.

He was of mixed German and English descent, and combined the characteristics of both races in his temperament of mind and body. He had also some of the Irish and older American blood in his veins. His paternal grandfather, William Baker, emigrated from Germany at an early age to Baltimore, where he married a young lady of Irish origin, and became a wealthy merchant. His maternal grandfather, the Rev. John Dickens, was an Englishman, a Methodist preacher, who resided chiefly in Philadelphia. His grandmother was a native of Georgia. During the great yellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia, Mr. Dickens remained at his post, and his wife fell a victim to the disease, with her eldest daughter. His father was Dr. Samuel Baker, of Baltimore, and his mother, Miss Sarah Dickens. Dr. Baker was an eminent physician and medical lecturer, holding the honorable positions of Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Maryland, and President of the Baltimore Medico-Chirurgical Society. {14} There was a striking similarity in the character of Dr. Baker and his son Francis. The writer of an obituary notice of the father, in the Baltimore Athenæum, tells us that his early preceptors admired "the balance of the faculties of his mind," and that "his classmates were attached to him for his integrity and affectionate manners." In another passage, the same writer would seem to be describing Francis Baker, to those who knew him alone, and have never seen the original of the sketch. "The style of conversation with which Dr. Baker interested his friends, his patients, or the stranger, was marked with an unaffected simplicity. Even when he was most fluent and communicative, no one could suspect him of an ambition to shine. He spoke to give utterance to pleasing and useful thoughts on science, religion, and general topics, as if his chief enjoyment was to diffuse the charms of his own tranquillity. In social intercourse, his dignity was the natural attitude of his virtue. On the part of the trifling it required but little discernment to perceive the tacit warning that vulgar familiarity would find nothing congenial in him. He never engrossed conversation, and seemed always desirous of obtaining information by eliciting it from others. Whether he listened or spoke, his countenance, receiving impressions readily from his mind, was an expressive index of the tone of his various emotions and thoughts. The conduct of Dr. Baker as a physician, a Christian, and a citizen, was a mirror, reflecting the beautiful image of goodness in so distinct a form as to leave none to hesitate about the sincerity and purity of his feelings. It therefore constantly reminded many of 'the wisdom that is from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.' The friendly sympathy and anxiety which he evinced in the presence of human suffering attached all classes of his patients to him, and he was very happy in his benevolent tact at winning the affection of children, even in their sickness." {15} Dr. Baker was a member of the Methodist Church, and an intimate friend of the celebrated and eloquent preacher Summerfield. He was not one, however, of the enthusiastic sort, but sober, quiet, and reserved. He never went through any period of religious excitement himself, or endeavored to practise on the susceptibilities of his children. He said of himself, as one of his intimate friends testifies, "that he did not know the period when he became religious, so gradually was his life regulated by the spiritual truths which enlightened his mind from childhood." He had no hostile feelings toward the Catholic Church, and was a great admirer and warm friend of the Sisters of Charity, many of whom I have heard frequently speak of him in terms of the most affectionate respect. His benevolence toward the poor was unbounded, and he was in fact endeared to all classes of the community, without exception, in Baltimore. Francis Baker had a very great respect for his father, and was very fond of talking of him to me, during the first period of our acquaintance, when his early recollections were fresh and recent in his mind. Of his mother he had but a faint remembrance, having been deprived of her at the age of seven years. It is easy to judge of her character, however, from that of her children, and of her sister, who was a mother to her orphans from the time of her death until her own life was ended among them. Mrs. Baker's brother, the Hon. Asbury Dickens, is well known as having been for nearly half a century the Secretary of the Senate of the United States, which position he held until his death, which occurred at an advanced age a few years since.

Dr. Baker had four sons and two daughters. Only one of them, Dr. William George Baker, ever married, and he died without children: so that Dr. Samuel Baker left not a single grandchild after him to perpetuate his name or family—and of his children, one daughter only survives. {16} Three of his sons were physicians of great promise, which they did not live to fulfil. Francis was his third son, and the one who most resembled him in character. Of his boyhood I know little, except that his companions at school who grew up to manhood, and preserved their acquaintance with him, were extremely attached to him. One of them passed an evening and night in our house, as the guest of F. Baker, but a few months before his death, with great pleasure to both. I have also heard some of the good Sisters of Charity speak of having known the little Frank Baker as a boy, and mention the fact that he was very fond of visiting them. I am sure that his childhood was an extremely happy one until the period of his father's death. This event took place in October, 1835, when Francis was in his sixteenth year, and in the fiftieth year of Dr. Baker's life. It was very sudden and unexpected, and threw a shadow of grief and sadness over the future of his children, which was deepened by the subsequent untimely decease of the two eldest sons, Samuel and William.

Francis was entered at Princeton College soon after his father's death, and graduated there with the class of 1839. I am not aware that his college life had any remarkable incidents. He was not ambitious of distinguishing himself, or inclined to apply himself to very severe study. I believe, however, that his standing was respectable, and his conduct regular and exemplary. He was not decidedly religious in his early youth. Methodism had no attraction for him, and the Calvinistic preaching at Princeton was repugnant to his reason and feelings. Whatever religious impressions he had in childhood were chiefly those produced by the Catholic Church, whose services he was fond of attending; but these were not deep or lasting. The early death of his father, and the consequent responsibility and care thrown upon him as the male head of the family, first caused him to reflect deeply, and to seek for some decided religious rule of his own life and conduct, and finally led him to join the Protestant Episcopal communion, and to resolve to prepare himself for the ministry. {17} All the members of his family joined the same communion, and were baptized with him, in St. Paul's Church, by the rector of the parish, Dr. Wyatt. This event took place in 1841, or '42. Soon afterward, Mr. Baker formed an acquaintance with a young man, a candidate for orders and an inmate of the family of Dr. Whittingham, the Bishop of Maryland, which was destined to ripen into a most endearing and life-long friendship, and to have a most important influence on his subsequent history. This gentleman was Dwight Edwards Lyman, a son of the Rev. Dr. Lyman a respectable Presbyterian minister, of the same age with Francis Baker, and an ardent disciple of the school of John Henry Newman. At the time of his baptism, Mr. Baker was only acquainted with church principles as they were taught by Dr. Wyatt, who was an old-fashioned High Churchman. The intercourse which he had with Mr. Lyman was the principal occasion of introducing him to an acquaintance with the Oxford movement, into which he very soon entered with his whole mind and heart. In 1842, Mr. Lyman was sent to St. James's College, near Hagerstown, where he remained several years, receiving orders in the interval. During this time, Mr. Baker kept up a frequent and most confidential correspondence with him, which is full of liveliness and humor in its earlier stages, but becomes more grave and serious as both advanced nearer to the time of their ordination. It continued during the entire period of their ministry in the Episcopal Church, and during the whole subsequent life of Mr. Baker, closing with a very playful letter written by the latter, a few days before his last illness. In one of these letters, he acknowledges his obligations to Mr. Lyman as the principal instrument of making him acquainted with Catholic principles, in these warm and affectionate words: "I do not know whether you are aware of the advantage I derived from you in the earlier part of our acquaintance, by reason of your greater familiarity with the Catholic system as exhibited in the Anglican Church. {18} The influence you exerted was of a kind of which I can hardly suppose you to have been conscious; yet I am sure you will be gratified to think it was effectual, as I believe, to fix me more firmly in the system for which I had long entertained so profound a reverence and affection. These are benefits which I cannot forget, and which (if there were not other reasons of which I need not speak) must always keep a place for you in the heart of your unworthy friend."

The nature of the later correspondence between these two friends, and their mutual influence on each other, will appear later in this narrative. There are friendships which are formed in heaven, and in looking back upon that which grew up between these two young men of congenial spirit, and in which I was also a sharer in a subordinate degree, I cannot but admire the benignant ways of Divine Providence, by which those strands which afterward bound our existence together so closely were first interwoven. I had myself met Mr. Lyman, some years before this, and felt the charm of his glowing and enthusiastic advocacy of principles which were just beginning to germinate in my own mind. Soon after Lyman's removal to Hagerstown, I made the acquaintance of Mr. Baker, a circumstance which the latter mentions in his next letter to his friend in these words, which I trust I may be pardoned for quoting ——

"The Bishop's family have a young man staying with them (Mr. H.), a convert to the Church, and one, I believe, of great promise. He was a Congregationalist minister, and Rev. Mr. B. read me a letter from him, dated about a month ago, before his coming into the Church, the tone of which was far more Catholic than that of many (alas!) of those who have been partakers of the holy treasures to be found only in her bosom. Mr. B. tells me that Church principles are silently spreading in the North, among the sects. In this place, I believe that a spirit has been raised which one would hardly imagine on looking at the surface of things, though that is troubled enough."

This letter was dated April 22, 1843.

I had just arrived in Baltimore, at the invitation of Dr. Whittingham, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, and been received as a candidate for orders in his diocese. Mr. Baker, who was also a candidate for orders, lived just opposite the Bishops's residence, in Courtlandt street, and was pursuing his theological studies in private. I lived in the Bishop's house, and I think I met Mr. Baker there on the first evening of my arrival. We were nearly of the same age, and soon found that our tastes and opinions were very congenial to each other. Of course, I returned his visit very soon, and I became at once very intimate with his family. It was a charming place and a delightful circle. Francis, as the eldest brother, was the head of the house. His aunt, Miss Dickens, fulfilled the office of a mother to her orphaned nephews and nieces with winning grace and gentleness. A younger brother, Alfred, then about eighteen years of age, was at home, pursuing his medical studies. Two sisters completed the number of the family, all bound together in the most devoted and tender love, all alike in that charm of character which is combined from it fervent and genial spirit of religion, amiability of temper, and a high-toned culture of mind and manners, chastened and subdued by trial and sorrow. I must not pass by entirely without mention another inmate of the family, whose good-humored, joyous countenance was always the first to greet me at the door—little Caroline, the last of the family servants, who was manumitted as soon as she arrived at a proper age, always devotedly attached to her young master, and afterward one of the most eager and delighted spectators at his ordination as a Catholic priest.

The house was one of those places where every article of furniture and the entire spirit that pervades its arrangement speaks eloquently of the past family history, and recalls the memory of its departed members and departed scenes of domestic happiness. Dr. Baker had left his children a competent but moderate fortune, which was managed with the utmost prudence by Francis, who possessed at twenty-one all the wisdom of a man of fifty. There was nothing of the splendor and luxury of wealth to be seen in the household, but a modest simplicity and propriety, a home-like comfort, and that perfection of order and arrangement, regulated by a pure and exquisite taste, which is far more attractive. Mr. Baker's home was always the mirror of his mind. In later years, when he lived in his own rectory, although his family circle had lost two of its precious links, the same charm pervaded every nook and corner of the home of the survivors, the young and idolized pastor and his two sisters. His study at St. Luke's rectory was the beau ideal of a clergyman's sanctuary of study and prayer, after the Church of England model; with something added, which betokened a more recluse and sacerdotal spirit, and a more Catholic type of devotion. One might have read in it Mr. Baker's character at a glance, and might have divined that the inhabitant of that room was a perfect gentleman, a man of the most pure intellectual tastes, a pastor completely absorbed in the duties of his state, a recluse in his life, and very Catholic in the tendencies and aspirations of his soul.

Of Mr. Baker's family, only one sister has survived him. Alfred Baker died first. Like his brother, he was a model of manly beauty, although he did not in the least resemble him in form or feature. Francis Baker, as all who ever saw him know, was remarkably handsome. Those who only knew him after he reached mature age, and remember him only as a priest, will associate with his appearance chiefly that impress of sacerdotal dignity and mildness, of placid, intellectual composure, of purity, nobility, and benignity of character, which was engraven or rather sculptured in his face and attitude. {21} Dressed in the proper costume, he might have been taken as a living study for a Father of the Church, a holy hermit of the desert, or a mediæval bishop. He was cast in an antique and classic mould. There was not a trace of the man of modern times or of the man of the world about him. His countenance and manner in late years also bore traces of the fatiguing, laborious life which he led, and the hard, rough work to which he was devoted. On account of these things, and because he was so completely a priest and a religious, one could scarcely think of admiring him as a man. His portrait was never painted, and the photographs of him which were taken were none of them very successful, and most of them mere caricatures. An ambrotype in profile was taken at Chicago for Mr. Healy the artist, which is admirable, and from this the only good photographs have been taken; but the adequate image of Father Baker, as he appeared at the altar, or when his face was lit up in preaching the Divine word, will live only in the memory of those who knew him. At the period of which I speak, he had just attained the maturity of youthful and manly beauty, which was heightened in its effect by his perfect dignity and grace of manner. His brother Alfred was cast in a slighter mould, and had an almost feminine loveliness of aspect, figure, and character. He was as modest and pure as a young maiden, with far more vivacity of feature and manner than his brother, and a more vivid and playful temperament. There was nothing, however, effeminate in his character or countenance. He was full of talent, high-spirited, generous and chivalrous in his temper, conscientious and blameless in his religious and moral conduct. He graduated at the Catholic College of St. Mary's in Baltimore, and was a great favorite of the late Archbishop Eccleston and several others of the Catholic clergy. His High Church principles had a strong dash of Catholicity in them, and he used often to speak of the "ignominious name, Protestant," which is prefixed to the designation of the Episcopal Church in this country. {22} He was a devoted admirer of Mr. Newman, and followed him, like so many others, to the verge of the Catholic Church, but drew back, startled and perplexed, when he passed over. Two or three years after the time I am describing, he began the practice of his profession, with brilliant prospects. The family removed to a larger and more central residence, for his sake, near St. Paul's Church, where Francis was Assistant Minister. All things seemed to smile and promise fair, but this beautiful bud had a worm in it. A slow and lingering but fatal attack of phthisis seized him, just as he was beginning to succeed in his professional career. His brother accompanied him to Bermuda, but the voyage was rather an additional suffering than a benefit, and on the 9th of April, 1852, he died. It was Good Friday. He had prayed frequently that he might die on that day, and before his departure, he called his brother to him, made a general confession, desired him to pronounce over him the form of absolution prescribed in the English Prayer-Book, and received the communion of the Episcopal Church. These acts were sacramentally valueless, but I trust, without presuming to decide positively on a secret matter which God alone can judge, that his intention was right before God, and his error a mistake of judgment without perversity of will. His brother afterward felt deeply solicitous lest he might have been himself blamable for keeping him in the Episcopal communion, and grieved that he had died out of the visible communion of the Catholic Church. Still, as he was conscious of his own integrity of purpose, he tranquillized his mind with the hope that his brother had died in spiritual communion with the true Church and in the charity of God, and endeavored to aid him, as far as he was still within the reach of human assistance, by having many masses offered for the repose of his soul.

Miss Dickens died a little before Alfred, and Elizabeth Baker died some time after her brother became a Catholic, but before his ordination.

I return now to the period when Mr. Baker and all these members of his family were living a retired and happy life together in the home on Courtlandt street. I remember this time with peculiar pleasure. Mr. Baker, whom I always called Frank, as he was usually called by his friends, partly from the peculiar affection they felt for him, and also because of its appropriateness as an epithet of his character, went every day with me once or twice to prayers; and every day we walked together. When the peculiar, tinkling bell of old St. Paul's, which will be remembered by many a reader of these pages, gave notice of divine service there, we resorted in company to that venerable and unique church. It was spacious and ecclesiastical, though not regularly beautiful in its architecture. A basso-relievo adorned its architrave, and a bright gilded cross graced its tall tower. It had a handsome altar of white marble, an object of our special pride and devotion, with the usual reading-desk and pulpit rising behind it. The pulpit was a light and graceful structure, surmounted by a canopy which terminated in a cross, and having another cross surrounded by a glory emblazoned on its ceiling, just over the preacher's head. The door was in the rear of the pulpit, which stood far out from the chancel wall, and in the door was a beautiful transparency of the Ecce Homo, lighted from the chancel window, which had an Ailanthus behind it, causing a pleasing illusion in the mind of the beholder that the dirty brick pavement of the court-yard was a pretty rural garden. The chancel was large and imposing. An episcopal chair, surmounted by a mitre, formed one of its conspicuous ornaments, and two seven branched gilded gas-burners stood on the chancel rail, which were lighted at Evening Prayer, or Vespers, as we were wont to call it. In this church, the people all knelt with their backs to the altar, and facing the great door, whereat a number of us, being scandalized, determined to face about on all occasions and kneel toward the altar, which we did rigidly and in the most impressive manner, to the great annoyance of the rector, Dr. Wyatt. {24} The tout ensemble of St. Paul's Church, especially in the dusk of evening, when the lamps were lit, was to a hasty glance quite that of a Catholic church. Catholics very frequently came in by mistake, and sometimes poor people knelt in the aisles and began saying their prayers. Others inquired of the sexton at the door if it was a Catholic church, and some persons occupying seats near the door, who frequently heard his negative response and his direction to the Cathedral, were led in consequence to think, that if St. Paul's were not a Catholic church, they too had best follow the sexton's direction and go to the Cathedral. Besides the prayers on saints' days, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at St. Paul's, there was a week-day communion service once a month. Dr. Wyatt and his congregation were Church people after the type of Bishop Hobart, disposed to sympathize in a great measure with Dr. Pusey and the Oxford divines, but in great dread of extravagant innovation. The parish was very large, and included among its members a considerable portion of the élite of Baltimore society. Strange as it may seem, however, outside a certain circle of sturdy High Church families, and especially among the more worldly class, there was a prevailing sentiment that true spiritual religion flourished more in the Methodist than in the Episcopal Church.

Although the mitred chair stood in the chancel, St. Paul's was not the bishop's cathedral, and he was not able to take in it that position and perform those acts which he felt were the proper prerogative of a bishop in the principal church of the diocese. The bishops of the Episcopal Church in this country are all in the same anomalous position, without cathedrals or strictly episcopal churches, in which, according to canon law, the see is properly located, having dependent parochial churches affiliated to the mother Church. {25} They must either be rectors of parochial churches, by election of the vestry, or simple parishioners of one of their own subordinate presbyters, without the right of performing any official act, or even sitting in the chancel, except on occasions of convention, episcopal visitation, or something of the sort. The Bishop of New York was even for many years an assistant minister of Trinity Church. Bishop Whittingham was determined to remedy this evil, as far as possible, by establishing a parish, where his proper place would be conceded to him voluntarily by the rector and vestry. Accordingly the Mount Calvary congregation was formed, and began to worship in an old grain-warehouse. There we had early Morning Prayers, and Evening Prayers on every day when St. Paul's was closed; and thither might be seen wending their way, rain or shine, the Bishop with a suite of young ecclesiastics, gentlemen and ladies of the most respectable and cultivated class, and numbers of the more devout people, who found a real solace for their souls, amid the trials and labors of life, in daily common prayer to God. A little after, a more select room was obtained, decorated with a large black cross in the end window, and finally a church was built. We always met a great many of the Cathedral people, in the morning, going to and from Mass, and they were quite astonished at our piety. I have since learned that a number of them, observing the two young men who seemed to them so different from Protestants in their ways, began praying for us, and that a holy priest, F. Chakert, of St. Alphonsus', who died a martyr to his zeal in New Orleans, frequently said mass for our conversion.

In our frequent walks, Frank Baker and myself usually, by a tacit consent, took the direction of some Catholic church. Baltimore surpasses every other large town in the United States, except perhaps St. Louis, in the relative number, and in the dignified, imposing style of its Catholic churches and religious institutions. {26} It is a very picturesque and beautiful city in itself, and one of its most striking features is the exterior show of Catholicity which it presents, from the conspicuous position of the numerous Catholic edifices which are distributed through the principal parts of the town; often crowning the summits of some of the high eminences with which it abounds, so that they are distinctly visible in all directions, and their bells resound loudly for a great distance. Some of the Protestant churches also, haying our ecclesiastical style of architecture, and being even surmounted by the cross, fall into the picture as accessories, and add to the impression which a stranger taking a coup-d'oeil of the city would receive. The Cathedral, a truly grand building, though built in the Moresco style, and suggesting the idea of a great mosque in an oriental city, which had been converted by some conquering crusader into a Christian temple, with its great dome and two towers, each of which is surmounted by a gilded cross, queens it majestically over the whole city. It has the finest possible situation, on very high ground, with a spacious enclosure around it, and a modest, but very appropriate archiepiscopal residence in the rear of the sanctuary, fronting on Charles street, the principal street of the court end of the town, a little below the chaste and graceful monument of white marble erected to the memory of Washington. Near by, the Redemptorist Church and Convent of St. Alphonsus, the Convent of the Christian Brothers, the large and beautiful Convent and garden of the Visitation Nuns, the Sisters' Orphan Asylum, and the little chapel and religious house of the colored Sisters of Providence, are clustered together within a very moderate area of territory. Taking the Cathedral as a point of departure, you have at the distance of about half a mile, in the most densely peopled part of the town, St. Mary's Church, and the Seminary of St. Sulpice, with its extensive gardens of many acres in extent. More toward the suburbs, there are the Lazarist Church of the Immaculate Conception, and the large Sisters' Hospital of Mount Hope, with its extensive grounds. {27} In an opposite direction, not far from the Cathedral, is Loyola College, to which adjoins the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius; beyond these, St. John's, and still further, near the borders of the town, the quaint and interesting St. James's Church of the Redemptorists, with a German Convent of religious ladies. In another direction, St. Vincent de Paul's is seen, with its high massive tower, and in the same quarter of the town, the Carmelites have a convent and chapel, the Redemptorists another large church and convent, called St. Michael's, and there is also the large and handsome parish church of St. Patrick, with its high altar of green marble. Following the outer circle of the city toward the harbor and fort, and returning to a point in line with St. Alphonsus', we have the Church of the Holy Cross, St. Joseph's, and St. Peter's, the latter of which has a congregation composed in great measure of converts. The deep and heavy bell of the Cathedral is repeatedly heard sending forth its booming notes at different hours of the day, answered by St. Alphonsus' and St. Vincent de Paul's, while the other bells take up the refrain in the distance, and the smaller convent bells throw in from time to time, at Angelus, Vespers, or Compline, their silvery, tinkling notes. These Catholic sounds are heard at intervals from morning till night, and the bells of some of the Protestant churches join in also, on many days during the week, ringing for prayers. The Catholic traditions of Baltimore and Maryland, interwoven with their existence from the first; the memory of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, of Archbishops Carroll and Eccleston, and of many other distinguished Marylanders among the Catholic clergy, and, lastly, the large Catholic population, and the wealth, education, and social position of a large class of the members of the Church, who have always mingled freely in society and intermarried with Protestants, specially those of the Episcopal Church—all these and other causes combine to make the Catholic religion conspicuous and powerful in Baltimore, and to keep it always confronting the adherents of other religions, whichever way they turn. {28} It cannot be ignored or kept out of sight and mind. It must be battled with or submitted to. Hence, Protestantism in Baltimore, among the ultra-Protestant sects, has borne a character of unusually intense and persistent hatred to the Catholic Church; and a suppressed spirit of violence has pervaded the lower orders, showing itself ordinarily by slight insults offered to clergymen and religious, but occasionally bursting out in scenes of riot and bloodshed, in which not merely the rabble took part, but where gentlemen were also engaged, and men in high stations lent their influence and protection to shield and encourage the lawless violators of the peace.

A number of the Catholic churches here described have been built since the year 1842. The general appearance of the city, however, and the relative number of Catholic institutions, was the same. It was a very interesting place to me from its novelty, and very well known to my new friend and companion, Frank Baker. We perambulated the town and reconnoitred all its environs, penetrating into every nook and corner where there was the smallest chance of finding something to be seen. The Catholic churches underwent a repeated and thorough visitation and scrutiny, by turns. An indefinable attraction drew us to those sacred places, and made us linger and loiter in them without ever growing weary. I know now what it was. It was the power of that Sacred Presence which once drew the disciples and the multitudes after it, when visibly seen, and which now attracts the soul by its invisible charm in the Blessed Sacrament. We never went to mass or to any Catholic service, because we were forbidden to do so by the bishop. We never sought out any Catholic priests, or encountered any, except twice by accident. We read no Catholic books of controversy or devotion, never knelt to pray before the altar, and did not know or suspect where we were going. {29} But the influence of grace was acting most powerfully during those moments in which we were hanging about the altar, and unconsciously drinking in its sacred influence. Our favorite place was the chapel of St. Mary's College, and the Calvary behind it, where the clergy of the Sulpitian Society are buried. This is the sweetest Catholic shrine I have ever visited. The Calvary was not open to visitors, but for some reason we were never interfered with, although we went very often, and remained by the hour. Perhaps our guardian angels knew the future, and led us there unwittingly to ourselves. Our Lord foresaw it, if they did not, and was thinking of the day when one of the two would be there in company with all the clergy of the diocese in a spiritual retreat, and the day when the other, in that same chapel, would be consecrated to the service of the sanctuary. [Footnote 1]

[Footnote 1: Father Baker was ordained sub-deacon and deacon in that chapel, a few days before his ordination to the priesthood in the Cathedral.]

Many of those who participated in that retreat will recall the recollection of it, on reading these pages.

Archbishop Kenrick, the sage of our American hierarchy and one of its saints, that perfect model of a prelate according to the ancient type of the purest Catholic times, the pattern of ecclesiastical learning, Episcopal dignity and vigilance, apostolic zeal, sacerdotal gentleness, and Christian humility, reminding one of the character ascribed by historians to Pope Benedict XIV., sat at the head of his venerable clergy in the sanctuary during all the exercises. Of the clergymen present, some had been forty years in the priesthood, and one at least was ordained by Archbishop Carroll. Some are now bishops, or have modestly declined the offered mitre. I was then a priest, and was assisting F. Walworth in giving the retreat, and Mr. Baker was but just received into the Church. He came to visit me at the spot where we had passed so many pleasant hours in years gone by, and to pay his respects to the excellent Sulpitians by whom his brother had been educated, and to the other clergymen whose brother and associate he aspired to become in due time. {30} He was welcomed most tenderly by the warm-hearted Sulpitians, and greeted with an ardent interest and respect by the clergy and young ecclesiastics who were gathered in that sacred retreat of science and piety. Several of these good clergymen have since spoken of that retreat, which so many circumstances combined to make unusually pleasant, as among the most cherished recollections of their lives. Since I have been betrayed into this long digression by the associations connected with St. Mary's Chapel, I will venture to add one other little incident, of which I have been several times reminded by the venerable President of Mount St. Mary's College. One afternoon, just at sunset, the preacher concluded his discourse by a description of the death of a holy priest, contrasting the glory of his successfully accomplished ministry with that of the hero in the merely secular and temporal order. At the peroration, the parting beams of the sun irradiated a tall marble monument over the grave of a well-known Sulpitian priest, behind the chancel window, in full view of the audience, but unseen by the preacher, and gave an illustration of his words most affecting and impressive to those who witnessed it. It was emblematic, also, of that noble life which was to be accomplished and brought to such a beautiful close, within twelve short years, by that dear companion and friend who was just then on the eve of leaving all to follow Christ, and whose generous heart was swelling with the first emotions of his divine vocation, long since secretly inspired into him while haunting the blessed resting-place of those holy priests. But I have anticipated what was yet in the unknown and undreamed-of future, when we two ardent and enthusiastic youths were yielding our imaginations to the poetic and religious charm which was the precursor of more earnest and durable convictions.

St. Mary's was our favorite resort, but we were also impressed in a different way by the austere and monastic aspect of St. James's, where the Redemptorist Fathers, then newly established, had their convent; and I remember that we often conversed about that order with great curiosity and interest. We watched intently the building of St. Alphonsus' Church, and wandered through the sanctuary and sacristy and garden, and into the shop where the lay-brothers and other artificers were at work, occasionally, to our great delight, greeted by these good brothers, who probably took us for priests, as we were then ordained and dressed in long cassocks, with their salutation in German, Gelobt sey Jesus Christus.

Another object of great interest to us was a monument to the memory of a former pastor, in St. Patrick's Church, bearing the simple and touching inscription:

"To The Good De Moranville."

This unfeigned tribute of affection to the memory of a good and holy priest did more in a few moments to efface from my mind the effect of the calumnies I had heard from childhood against the Catholic clergy, than a volume of controversy could have done.

Mr. Baker took me also to visit the monument erected to Sister Ambrosia by the City of Baltimore. This lady, the daughter of the venerable Mrs. Collins, who died at the age of nearly one hundred years, and was one of those who welcomed Mr. Baker most warmly into the Catholic Church, and the sister of the Very Rev. Mr. Collins, of Cincinnati, was universally regarded as a saint, both by Catholics and Protestants. She had been very intimate in Dr. Baker's family, and attended his two elder sons during their last illness. She fell herself a victim to her charity in attending the sick in the hospitals, leaving the sweet fragrance of her sanctity to linger in the memories of those who knew her. We visited also the graves of those brothers of Mr. Baker whose death had produced so great a change in his character and prospects. {32} They were buried in a Methodist grave-yard, adjoining the beautiful Green Mount Cemetery. Francis had erected a marble tombstone to their memory, on which was carved a cross, and the Catholic inscription, Requiescant in pace. When I returned to Baltimore, after my ordination to the Catholic priesthood, I revisited the spot, but found the cross and prayer had been removed. When I had the opportunity of asking Mr. Baker for an explanation of this, he informed me that he had removed them of his own accord, because he thought it an indelicate intrusion on the religious sentiments and feelings of those to whom the burial-place belonged, to leave there a Catholic inscription.

Meanwhile we were studying and reading regularly. Bishop Whittingham had a very fine and extensive library, and was constantly supplied with the choicest books and periodicals of the Anglo-Catholic party. The remarkable movement led by Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman was at its height. In this country we were somewhat behindhand, and were following at some distance in the wake of the most advanced English leaders, so that the later developments rather took us by surprise. We were reading Mr. Newman's earlier works, and only partly aware of the great change taking place in himself and others. The accusation of Romanizing was treated as a calumny, and we had no thought of any thing except bringing our own Church up to what we thought to be the Catholic level, and endeavoring to establish an intercommunion between it and the Roman and Greek Churches through mutual consultation and concession, and a return to the supposed state of things "before the separation of East and West." At least this is true of us in Maryland, whatever might have been the case with a small number elsewhere. Probably the effort to make the Protestant Episcopal Church take the attitude of being Catholic was never made more earnestly and with better hope of success than in Maryland. {33} The bishop headed the movement, and, besides the clergymen already in his diocese who were ready to second him, he attracted thither a number of young men who were devoted to his person and who sympathized in his views. I have no wish to speak disrespectfully or unkindly of Dr. Whittingham. He has always been a most violent opponent of the Catholic Church, and he has seen fit, like some others of the clergy of his peculiar stripe, to break off all intercourse with those who have left his communion to join it. I do not, however, attribute to him any personal animosity as the motive for this, but merely a mistaken religions zeal. He was always very kind and generous to his young clergymen, strict and self-denying in his life, and laborious in the fulfilment of his official duties. His vigorous administration infused a new energy and activity into the Episcopal Church in his diocese, and gave a powerful impetus to what was called the "Catholic" movement. A periodical entitled The True Catholic, Reformed, Protestant, and Free, was established, under the care of Hugh Davey Evans, a learned lawyer and very able theological disputant. A college, conducted by young men trained at the celebrated St. Paul's College, Flushing, by Dr. Muhlenberg, was founded at a beautiful and extensive old country-seat, known as "Fountain Rock," near Hagerstown, and a school, called "St. Timothy's Hall," near Baltimore. The bishop and a large number of his clergy went about dressed in long cassocks; altars, crosses, frequent services, ecclesiastical forms and observances, and other outward signs and accompaniments of an approximation to Catholic doctrines and rites, were to be seen everywhere. The Protestant Episcopal Church was loudly proclaimed to be the Catholic Church of the country, and, in a word, the theory taught in the Oxford Tracts and in the earlier writings of Mr. Newman was sought to be put in actual practice. An unusual number of the clergy were unmarried men, and the project of founding a monastic order was entertained by several. {34} Those were stirring times. Of course opposition was excited in the bosom of the Episcopal Church. The Low Churchmen formed a strong and active minority in the Convention, and did their utmost to thwart the projects of the bishop. Very spicy debates took place in consequence, and as there were very able and distinguished men among the lay delegates, who brought all their legal skill and forensic eloquence into play, the sessions of the Convention were often intensely interesting and exciting. The pulpit, the newspapers, and controversial pamphlets were employed in the warfare by both sides, and the community generally, outside of the Episcopal Church, were quite alive with interest in the questions discussed.

We had a little society called the "Church Reading Society," of which Mr. Evans was president, and Mr. Baker and myself were members, where certain prayers for Catholic unity were offered, and papers bearing on the topics which interested us were read by the members in turn. The different seasons of the ecclesiastical year were very strictly observed, especially Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Holy Week. The English press was at that time pouring forth a stream of books of devotion and sacred poetry, sermons and spiritual instructions, borrowed or imitated from the treasures of Catholic sacred literature. There was a tide setting strongly backward toward the faith and practice of ancient times, and we surrendered ourselves to its influence, without thinking where it would eventually land us. We had no thought of ever leaving the communion to which we belonged. Never, in any of our conversations, did we even speak of such a thing as possible, or call in question the legitimate claim of the authority, under which we were living, to our obedience. We did not sympathize with the bishop and the larger number of the clergymen of our theological party in their sentiment of hostility and antipathy to the Roman communion. {35} The common ground taken was that the Roman Catholic bishops in England and the United States are schismatical intruders upon the lawful jurisdiction of the English and Anglo-American bishops of the Protestant succession. Bishop Whittingham maintained the stronger ground that the Roman Church throughout the world is schismatical and all but formally heretical. He retained the old spirit of vehement dislike and opposition to the See of Rome and every thing in the doctrine and policy of the church connected with the Papal supremacy, which characterized the old divines of the Church of England. He had in his mind an ideal of the primitive Church, according to which he wished and hoped that a Reformed Catholic Church should be reconstructed by the common consent of all the bishops of the world, and which should absorb into itself all the Christian sects. This idea is necessarily common to all who profess to hold Catholic principles in the Anglican communion. The profession of the doctrine of unity in one, visible, Catholic Church, of itself qualifies the isolation of any body of Christians from the great Christian family, as an anomalous and irregular condition. A return to unity or union of some kind must necessarily become an object of desire and effort. So long as one maintains that the Anglican Church is essentially Catholic, he must maintain also that the Roman Church is in some way wrong in refusing to recognize it, and that the Greek Church is likewise wrong in refusing to do so. Hence he must look on some concessions to be made by both Churches as the necessary condition of the reunion of Christendom. So far, all who profess to be "Anglo-Catholics" must agree. But when the question becomes, how much concession must be made to the Anglican communion, or how much concession must be made by her, how far the Greek Church, the Roman Church, or the Anglican Church have erred; and upon what basis of doctrine and ecclesiastical polity they are to be reformed or restored to union, the agreement is ended. {36} Each individual attributes as much or as little error and corruption to other Churches, or his own Church, as suits his own notions. Each one, or each separate clique, has a peculiar ideal of the true Catholic Church. One may regard the Anglican Church as almost perfect, and wish to bring all Christendom to imitate it. Another finds his beau ideal in the Greek Church. Another regards his own Church as very defective, and the Roman Church as the most perfect, desiring that the Holy See should only abate just enough of its claims to let in Greeks without any acknowledgment of their schismatic contumacy, and Anglicans without giving up that they are in heresy and destitute of any legitimate episcopacy.

It is impossible to draw any exact line of demarcation between the adherents of these different views. At the same time, we may say that, in a general sense, one class held the Anglican Church as paramount in its claim of allegiance, and the Church Catholic as subordinate; while the other held the Church Catholic to be paramount, and the Anglican Church subordinate. With the first class, Catholic principles and doctrines were taken hold of as a means of strengthening and exalting the Protestant Episcopal Church as such, and giving her a victory over the rest of Christendom; with the other class, they were embraced in a spirit of deep sympathy with universal Christendom, and with the view of bringing back the Protestant world to the great Christian family.

The first class alone can be relied on as devoted adherents of Anglicanism, and they only hold a strong polemical position against the claim of the Roman See to unconditional submission. The other class have their minds and their hearts open to all Catholic influences. They advance continually nearer and nearer in belief and sympathy to the great Catholic body, and great numbers of them pass over to the Catholic communion. Hence we find that almost all the bishops and dignitaries who have joined in the Oxford Movement have belonged decidedly to the first class, and have always tried to hold the second class in check. {37} The few who have belonged to the second class, such as Bishop Ives and the Archdeacons Manning and Wilberforce, have eventually found allegiance to the Anglican Church incompatible with the paramount claims of the Church Catholic, and have openly renounced it.

But while it is evident that the position of decided and determined hostility to Rome is absolutely necessary, as Mr. Newman long ago remarked, to High Church Anglicanism, it is equally evident that it is the most narrow, inconsistent, and inconsequent position taken by any class of Protestants. It cuts them off from all real sympathy and community of feeling with the great Catholic body; and although there may be a pretence of sympathy with the Oriental Church, it is a mere pretence, and a most illogical and baseless one. It cuts them off equally from all the rest of Protestant Christendom. Yet, it is only the Catholic and Greek Churches which offer a solid and substantial basis for those doctrinal and hierarchical principles which make their only distinctive character; and it is only the Protestant portion of their Church, and its close intellectual, social, political, moral, and religious alliance with the other Protestant Churches, which gives them any standing, influence, or power in the world. A man of liberal, enlarged, and Christian temper of mind, cannot live in such narrow limits or breathe such a confined air. He must have communion with something greater than the Protestant Episcopal Church. If he regards the great Catholic Church as essentially corrupt, he must sympathize with the Protestant Reformation. If the ground which, as I shall presently show, the High Church bishops maintain, is correct, then the continental Protestants were bound to come out when they did and form new churches. Where were they to get bishops? How were they to preserve the continuity of organization and the apostolic succession? The Church of England did not admonish them of the necessity of doing so. She did not proffer them episcopal ordination. {38} But she made common cause with them, and supported them in their revolt, invited them over to England, and gave them places in the English Church, sent delegates to their great Calvinistic Synod of Dort, and in other ways lent them sanction and countenance, without breathing a hint that she was a whit better than they. Arguments from Scripture and ancient authors in favor of three orders and a liturgy may be very solid and conclusive, but they are also very petty and miserable when they are made the basis of arrogant claims by those whose very existence sprang from the assumption that the universal episcopate had betrayed its trust and apostatized from the true doctrine of Christ. The learned William Palmer has seen the necessity of justifying the attitude of the continental Protestant Churches, and therefore concedes to them, on the plea of necessity, valid ordination and a legitimate constitution. An Anglican, who is a thorough and consistent opponent of Rome, ought to take common ground with Protestants. One who turns his back on Protestantism, and abjures the Reformation, ought to make common cause with Rome and the Catholic Church, even though he as yet holds the opinion that his communion is a true and living branch of the Church of Christ.

It may seem strange to those who have never studied or sympathized in the Oxford movement, that men who adopted certain fundamental Catholic principles did not at once embrace the faith and submit to the authority of the Catholic Church, but remained a long time in the Episcopal communion, or even deliberately chose it, after having passed their early life in some other Protestant sect. This seems strange to those who have always been Catholics, and equally strange to the majority of Protestants. So much so, that we have been suspected, and by many fully believed to have been all along concealed Roman Catholics, working in the Episcopal Church for the purpose of "Romanizing" it. {39} A few days before I was received into the Catholic Church, a near and venerable relative of mine said to me: "I am very glad you have become a Catholic, for I can respect a sincere Roman Catholic, but I cannot respect a Puseyite; you will now sail under your true colors. When will H. B. (a cousin of mine, who is an Episcopalian clergyman) do the same thing?"

The truth of the matter is, that we all had imbibed such an intense prejudice from our early education against the Roman Church, that we were appalled at the thought of joining her communion. When certain Catholic truths began to dawn upon our minds, it was indistinctly. To those who were bred in the Anglican Church, it was the natural and obvious course to remain there as long as their consciences would permit. To others, it was natural to look for a resting-place in that communion of which our own particular sects were only offshoots, with which educated people of English descent are so familiar through the history and literature of our native language, whose services many of us had frequently attended from childhood, and where many of us likewise had relatives and friends. It is a small matter to go from one Protestant sect to another, in itself considered, and it is no wonder that any orthodox Protestant should prefer the Episcopal Church to any of the religious bodies which have seceded from it. Besides this, there was a via media offered to us by a great body of divines in the Episcopal Church, between Rome on the one hand and Protestantism on the other, which appeared to be exactly the thing we wanted. I acknowledge that I was too easily allured by this specious pretence, and failed to examine with due care the claims of the Church in communion with the See of Rome to be the true and only Church of Christ. I do not think Mr. Baker, notwithstanding that his prejudices were far less than mine, ever gave the subject serious and careful consideration, until long after he had become an Episcopalian minister. {40} We knew too little, however, of the subject, to feel any conscientious obligations in that direction. I can truly say that I never for one moment deliberated on the question of becoming a Catholic, even when I had the fear of death before my eyes, until after I left Baltimore in the autumn of 1845. I never heard from Mr. Baker, up to that time, a word which betrayed the existence in his mind of any practical doubt about his duty in this respect. The growth of Catholic principles in our minds was gradual. By degrees, the mists of misrepresentation, prejudice, and ignorance which obscured the Catholic Church and her doctrines were dissipated and vanished. Our feelings of veneration and love for the great Church of Christendom increased. Still, as long as we were not convinced that actual communion with the Church of Rome and submission to her supremacy was necessary, jure divino, to the catholicity of any local Church, we remained firm in our allegiance to the ecclesiastical authority of our bishop. This is only an instance of what was going on in the case of many both in England and the United States. And it appears from this statement, that whereas all the disciples of the Oxford movement began on essentially the same ground, and that, one which implied strong and decisive opposition to Rome, one portion of them progressed continually, and another remained stationary or retrograded, thus producing separation and division in the ranks. What I wish to show now is, that those who progressed were logically compelled to do so by the principles of the movement itself, and that those who remained stationary, although they held a position which was necessary to the maintenance of Anglicanism, were illogical and inconsequent.

The advocates of the claim of the Church of England to be the only legitimate and Catholic Church in England, and of the same claim for the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, were obliged to make out some case against the bishops of these two countries who were under the jurisdiction of the Roman See and who proclaimed themselves to be the only lawful and Catholic bishops, sustained as they were in this claim by all the other bishops of Western Christendom. {41} The possession of the titles and temporalities of the ancient sees in England by the Established Church naturally suggested the plausible pretext that the Church of England of to-day is the legitimate successor of the Church of England before the separation under Henry VIII. Hence, other bishops, exercising episcopal functions within the dioceses of the bishops of the Church of England, are schismatical intruders, and their congregations are schismatical. The same principle was extended to the United States, on the plea that the Bishop of London had episcopal jurisdiction over the English colonies, and moreover that the Protestant Episcopal bishops were first on the ground, and had acquired possession before the "Romish" bishops, as they chose to call them, came. Now this theory is forced to answer one question: Are the bishops of France, Spain, &c., the legitimate Catholic bishops of those countries, and is their communion the true and only Catholic Church there, or not? Is this question answered in the affirmative? Then, who are the Catholic bishops in Canada, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and California? Who went first to China and India? Are the Anglican bishops in these places schismatical intruders or not? If not, why not? And if not, why are Roman Catholic bishops schismatical intruders in London and New-York? The Protestant Episcopal Churches of England and the United States pay no attention whatever to any claim of jurisdiction by the Catholic Church in any part of the world, but seek to thrust themselves in and make converts wherever they can. In order to justify this attitude, and at the same time to profess Catholic principles, it is necessary to maintain that the entire Roman communion is schismatical and heretical, and the Protestant Episcopal Church is the true and only Catholic Church, at least in Western Christendom. {42} This idea is the real animus of the Protestant Episcopate, and its highest expression is found in the opinion so common among Protestants, and held even by Mr. Newman some years after he commenced the Oxford Tracts, that the Pope is Antichrist. The charges of the English bishops, especially those delivered after the publication of the Oxford Tract No. 90, all breathe this spirit. Bishop Elliott, of Georgia, in a sermon preached at the consecration of the missionary bishops, Boone and Southgate, in St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia, in 1843 or '44, spoke of the Catholic missionaries as "dealing out death instead of life" to the heathen. Bishop Whittingham held this view, and "Tridentine Schismatic" was one of the appellations he gave to the Rev. Dr. White, of Baltimore, in a pamphlet which he published against that gentleman. In his Annual Address for 1846 he speaks of me and other converts in the following language: "The lapse of several prominent members of our English sister, and of one even in our own little band, into the defilements of the Romish communion, has but too far justified others in sounding the note of alarm," &c.[Footnote 2] The language he made use of in one of his addresses was such, that Mr. Baker, then one of his presbyters, positively declined to read it for him in the Convention, his own voice being too weak to do so. The Rev. A. C. Coxe, now a bishop, published a poem on the occasion of the ordination of the present Bishop of Newark to the diaconate, in Rome, entitled "Hymn of the Priests, to lament one of their number who has been sacrilegiously reordained a deacon, after abjuring the Catholic communion, at Rome." In contrast with this is the following, which was copied into the True Catholic for December, 1843. [Footnote 3]

[Footnote 2: Journal of Convention of Maryland, 1846, p. 25.]

[Footnote 3: Journal of Convention of Maryland, 1846, p. 383.]

Conversion Of A Popish Priest To The Catholic Church At Chicester.

The Cathedral, Sunday, October 15.

In residence, the Lord Bishop, the very Rev. the Dean, the Ven. Arch-deacon Webber, and the Rev. Charles Webber, can. res. We have to record this week one of the most interesting ceremonies ever performed within the walls of this sacred edifice, namely, the public admission of a clerical convert from the Church of Rome, into the bosom of the Holy Catholic Church in this country. The morning prayers were chanted by the Rev. J. P. Roberts, Sub-dean. The Te Deum and Jubilate was Boyce in A. At the ending of the Litany, the Bishop and the Dean proceeded to the altar, while the choir performed Weldon's Sanctus; after which (the penitent, Mr. Vignati, an Italian gentleman, who had been for two years a priest in the Romish Communion, standing without the rails) the bishop addressed the congregation in the following words:—

"Dearly beloved, we are here met together for the reconciling of a penitent (lately of the Church of Rome) to the Established Church of England, as to a true and sound part of Christ's Holy Catholic Church. Now, that this weighty affair may have its due effect, let us, in the first place, humbly and devoutly pray to Almighty God for his blessing upon us in that pious and charitable office we are going about.

"Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with Thy most gracious favor, and further us with Thy continual help, that in this, and all other our works begun, continued, and ended in Thee, we may glorify Thy holy name, and finally by Thy mercy obtain everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"Almighty God, who showest to them that be in error the light of Thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness, grant unto all them that are or shall be admitted into the fellowship of Christ's religion, that they may eschew those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."

Then was read a part of the 119th Psalm, from verses 161 to 168, with the Gloria Patri.

After which the dean read the following lesson from Luke xv.:—"Then drew near unto him the publicans and sinners for to hear Him; and the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, this man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which was lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing; and when he cometh home he calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance."

After this the nine first verses of the 115th Psalm was sung by the choir. Then the bishop, sitting in his chair, spake to the penitent (who was kneeling) as follows:—

Dear brother, I have good hope that you have well weighed and considered with yourself the great work you are come about before this time: but inasmuch as with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; that you may give the more honor to God, and that this present congregation of Christ here assembled may also understand your mind and will in these things, and that this your declaration may the more confirm you in your good resolutions, you shall answer plainly to those questions, which we, in the name of God, and of His Church, shall propose to you touching the same.

Art thou thoroughly persuaded that those books of the Old and New Testament, which are received as Canonical Scriptures by this Church, contain sufficiently all doctrine requisite and necessary to eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?—I am so persuaded.

Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth &c.—All this I steadfastly believe.

Art thou truly sorrowful that thou hast not followed the way prescribed in these Scriptures for the direction of the faith and practice of a true disciple of Christ Jesus?—I am heartily sorry, and I hope for mercy through Christ Jesus.

Dost thou embrace the truth of the Gospel in the love of it, and steadfastly resolve to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present world, all the days of thy life?—I do so embrace it, and do so resolve, God being my helper.

Dost thou earnestly desire to be received into the communion of this Church, as into a sound part of Christ's Holy Catholic Church?—This I earnestly desire.

Dost thou renounce all the errors and superstitions of the present Romish Church, so far as they are come to thy knowledge?—I do, from my heart, renounce them all.

Dost thou, in particular, renounce the twelve last Articles added in the Confession, commonly called "The Creed of Pope Pius IV.," after having read them, and duly considered them?-I do, upon mature deliberation, reject them all, as grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.

Wilt thou conform thyself to the Liturgy of the Church of England, as by law established, and be diligent in attending the prayers and other offices of the Church?—I will do so by the help of God.

Then the bishop standing, said: "Almighty God, who hath given you a sense of your errors, and a will to do these things, grant also unto you the strength and power to perform the same, that He may accomplish His work, which He hath begun in you, through Jesus Christ. Amen."

The Absolution.—Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who, of his great mercy, hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them that with hearty repentance and true faith turn unto Him, have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and bring you to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Then the bishop, taking him by the hand, said: "I, Ashurst Turner, Bishop of Chichester, do, upon this thy solemn profession and earnest request, receive thee into the Holy Communion of the Church of England, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen."

Then was said the Lord's Prayer, all kneeling, after which as follows:—O God of truth and love, we bless and magnify Thy holy name for Thy great mercy and goodness in bringing this Thy servant into the communion of this Church; give him, we beseech Thee, stability and perseverance in that faith, of which he hath, in the presence of God and of this congregation, witnessed a good confession. Suffer him not to be moved from it by any temptations of Satan, enticements of the world, scoffs of irreligious men, or the revilings of those still in error; but guard him by Thy grace against all these snares, and make him instrumental in turning others from the errors of their ways, to the saving of their souls from death, and the covering a multitude of sins. And in Thy good time, O Lord, bring, we pray Thee, into the way of truth all such as have erred and are deceived; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to Thy flock, that there may be one flock under one Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.

Then the bishop addressed the person admitted, saying: "Dear brother, seeing that you have, by the goodness of God, proceeded thus far, I must put you in mind that you take care to go on in that good way into which you are entered; and for your establishment and furtherance therein, that if you have not been confirmed, you endeavor to be so the next opportunity, and receive the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And may God's Holy Spirit ever be with you. Amen. The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your heart and mind by Christ Jesus. Amen."

Thus ended this most interesting ceremony; after which the communion service went on, at which the bishop and dean officiated. Weldon's Sanctus, B. Brown's Kyrie, and Child's Creed in G. The sermon was preached by the dean, from Luke 15th, ch. 4th, 5th, and 6th verses, of which we need not say much here, as we hope it will shortly be published by Mr. W. H. Mason, by permission of the dean, he having been requested so to do. Anthem, "O Lord, our Governor."—Kent.—Church Intelligencer.

The Roman Church is throughout the pages of the True Catholiccharged with idolatry, and in one passage which I had marked, but cannot now find one reason given why Episcopalians cannot attend Catholic services is, because by so doing they participate in idolatry. On the other hand, Protestant ministers are never required to make any such abjuration as the one above cited, on being received into the English Church. The Church of England formerly gave Archbishop Leighton episcopal ordination, he being a Scottish Presbyterian minister, and the Crown gave him jurisdiction in Scotland over the Presbyterian clergy and congregations, without requiring any reordination or any new profession of faith. So now, a German Lutheran minister alternately with an English Episcopalian, is ordained for the Jerusalem bishopric, with authority to receive under his care both English and German ministers and congregations.

Now for the inconsistency. The same reasons which prove the Church of Rome to be a schismatical, heretical, and apostate Church, prove that the English Church was the same before the Reformation, and that the Church of Christ had perished in Western Christendom, except as represented by the Lollards, Albigenses, Waldenses, and other precursors of the Protestants. There was really no true, visible Catholic Church existing, from which schismatics and heretics had separated, and to which they could return. Hence, the modern Episcopal Church derived its authority from no legitimate source in the past, and has really started de novo, like the Protestant Churches of Europe. This throws us back upon the theory of an invisible Church at once, and breaks up the idea of Catholicity.

For the same reason, the Oriental Churches must be regarded as schismatical and heretical. The Nestorians and Eutychians are condemned by the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, accepted by our Anglicans. The Greek Church is identical in doctrine with the Roman, except so far as the Papal supremacy is rejected by them. It disowns and condemns the Anglican Church as emphatically as does the Roman. Nevertheless, we find a number of the Protestant bishops subscribing the following letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople:—

Letter To The Greek Patriarch.

Binghamton N. Y., 1st April, 1844.

To the Editor of the True Catholic:

Dear Sir:-Having seen in print a copy, surreptitiously obtained, of the letter of our bishops, addressed to some of the Patriarchs in the East, I have thought it might be well to furnish an authentic copy, for permanent preservation in your valuable periodical, especially as it is a document of much importance. It is precisely as I myself, together with Mr. Southgate, presented it, accompanied by a Greek translation, to the Patriarch of Constantinople, who received it very graciously.
Yours, very truly,
J. J. Robertson.

To the Venerable and Right Reverend Father in GOD, the Patriarch, of the Greek Church, resident at Constantinople.

January 2, 1841.

The Episcopal Church of the United States of America, deriving its Episcopal power in regular succession from the holy Apostles, through the venerable Church of England, has long contemplated, with great spiritual sorrow, the divided and distracted condition of the Catholic Church of Christ throughout the world. This sad condition of things not only aids the cause of infidelity and irreligion, by furnishing evil-minded men with plausible arguments, not only encourages heresies and schisms in national branches of the Catholic Church, but is also a very serious impediment to the diffusion of Gospel truth among those who are still in the darkness of heathenism, or are subject to other false religions, or continue vainly to look for the coming of that Messiah, whose advent has already blessed the world.

The arrogant assumptions of universal supremacy and infallibility, of the Papal head of the Latin Church, render the prospect of speedy friendly intercourse with him dark and discouraging. The Church in the United States of America, therefore, looking to the Triune GOD for His blessings upon its efforts for unity in the Body of Christ, turns with hope to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the spiritual head of the ancient and venerable Oriental Church.

In this Church we have long felt a sincere interest. We have sympathized with her in the trials and persecution to which she has been subjected; we have prayed for her deliverance from all evils and mischiefs; and we have thanked her Divine HEAD that He has been pleased, amid all her sufferings, to maintain her allegiance to Him.

In order to attempt the commencement of a friendly and Christian intercourse with the Oriental Church, the Church in the United States resolved to send two of its Presbyters, the Rev. J. J. Robertson, and the Rev. Horatio Southgate, to reside at Constantinople. These clergymen are directed to make inquiries regarding the existing state of the Church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and of the other Eastern Churches; to ascertain the relations they bear to each other, and the views they maintain in regard to the Apostolic Churches of Europe and America; to answer such inquiries as may be made of them in regard to the origin, constitution, and condition of the Church in the United States; and to do all in their power to conciliate the Christian love and regard of the Oriental Church toward its younger sister in the Western world.

After some preliminary inquiries and study of the language, they will present themselves, with this epistle of introduction (by which they are cordially recommended to the Christian courtesies and kind offices of the bishops and clergy of the Oriental Church), to the Patriarch of Constantinople, inviting him to a friendly correspondence with the heads of the Church in the United States, explaining more fully the views and objects of the Church, and inquiring whether a mutual recognition of each other can be effected, as members of the Catholic Church of Christ, on the basis of the Holy Scriptures and the first Councils, including the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, in order to a future efficient co-operation against Paganism, false religion, and Judaism.

They will make it clearly understood that their Church has no ecclesiastical connection with the followers of Luther and Calvin, and takes no part in their plans or operations to diffuse the principles of their sects. They will propose to the Patriarch such aid as the Church in the United States can supply, in the advancement of Christian education, and in the promulgation of religious truth, always avoiding the points in which the two Churches still differ, and leaving the producing of a closer mutual conformity to the blessing of God, on the friendly correspondence of the respective heads of the Churches, or to a future General Council.

Leaving a further development of these points to the oral communications of its delegates, and again recommending them to the Christian candor and affection of the Patriarch and clergy of the Oriental Church, and repeating the hearty desire and prayer of the bishops and clergy of the United States for their prosperity, we remain your brethren in Christ.

Alexander Viets Griswold,
of the Eastern Diocese, and senior of the American Church.

Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk, of New York.

George Washington Doane, of New Jersey.

Thomas Church Brownell, of Connecticut.

Jackson Kemper, of Missouri, &c.

William Rollinson Whittingham, of Maryland.

Henry Ustick Onderdonk, of Pennsylvania.

At the recent visit of a Russian squadron to New York, the Protestant Bishop of New York invited the chaplains of the squadron to make use of one of his churches for the service of the Greek Church, although the offer was declined. Subsequently, Cossack priest, called Father Agapius, said to have letters from the Archbishop of Athens, came to New York as a missionary to the Greeks and Russians, and was accommodated with the use of two Episcopal churches. It came out subsequently that he was in bad standing in the Russian Church, and the members of the Greek Church in New York disowned him, when he threw off the mask, and published a letter where he avowed doctrines far from orthodox according to the standards of the Greek Church. Nevertheless, it was ostensibly as a regular priest of that Church that he was invited to make use of the Episcopal churches; as such the members of that church received him, and whatever changes or omissions he may have made in his public services, they were understood to be celebrated according to the Sclavonic and Greek Liturgies. Thus, there is no escaping from the fact, that High Mass according to the same rite used by Oriental Catholics as well as schismatics, was authorized in the Episcopal Church in New York, a great number of the clergy assisting.

The English Church bishops, beginning with the old English Nonjurors, have been always anxious for the recognition of the Greek prelates, and have made several attempts to gain it.

Soon after my ordination as deacon in the Episcopal Church, I was invited by Bishop Southgate to accompany him to Constantinople on a mission of this kind. The plan was to have a little ecclesiastical establishment in Constantinople, consisting of a bishop and a few priests and deacons. Although the bishop, who had been for some years a travelling missionary in the East, was married, he wished his clergy to be unmarried men, and selected only such as his associates. There was to be a chapel, where all the rites and ceremonies permitted by Anglican law were to be celebrated with as much pomp as possible. Sermons in the Oriental languages designed to attract the clergy and make a good impression of our orthodoxy, were to be preached regularly. A college and seminary for the instruction of young Oriental ecclesiastics were to be opened, with a strict understanding that they were not to be induced to leave their own communion. Extracts from the works of the Greek Fathers, and translations from Anglican divines, were to be published, with a view to bring about mutual understanding and agreement between the different Churches. Every thing was to be done to propitiate the Oriental prelates and clergy, and to bring about their recognition of our ecclesiastical legitimacy, and intercommunion between themselves and us. The Missionary Committee, who were hostile to this plan, would not confirm my appointment, regarding me as having too strong a Catholic bias to be trusted. Another young deacon was selected in my place, who had been known as a strong Puseyite, but who publicly renounced his opinions before he left the country, in a sermon, in which he came out as a strong Evangelical. {51} The mission was never well supported, but after a few years, fell through entirely, and the bishop is now a parish rector in New York. During a visit to New York, which I made in company with Bishops Whittingham and Southgate, at the time I was expecting to accompany the latter on his mission, I called on a very distinguished and learned presbyter, who was one of the ablest and most influential leaders of the Oxford movement. He asked me if we proposed to endeavor to change the doctrines of the Greek Church. I replied, that certainly we did propose to discuss several of these doctrines with the Greek prelates, and show them that they were not doctrines appertaining to the Catholic faith, but errors and additions made without authority. He inquired what these doctrines were. I cannot recollect how many I specified, but I am sure that the doctrine respecting the cultus of the Blessed Virgin and saints was the principal one. He replied that the doctrines I specified were established by just as good authority as any others, and that it would be impossible for us to convict the Greek Church of holding any erroneous doctrine. His arguments made a great impression on my mind at the time, and helped me forward toward the Catholic Church, although this gentleman himself remained always a Protestant.

The efforts made to cultivate the friendship of the Greek Church are very significant. Let it be observed, that the bishops who signed the letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople, both distinctly repudiate the Reformation of Luther and Calvin, and consent to waive all questions of difference between the Greek and the Protestant Episcopal Churches, until they can be decided by a General Council. This reduces the gravamen of the charges against Rome to the only point of difference which exists between herself and the Greek Church; that is, to the claim of supremacy of the Roman Pontiff. {52} This is, then, the sum and substance of the "defilements of the Romish Communion." Here lies the whole casus belli between the champions of Anglicanism and the Catholic Church. There is no hope of reconciliation on equal terms with the See of Rome and her vast communion. Therefore, a rival claim of Catholicity must be set up, and supported by every possible charge that can be made to tell against the mighty Church whose Bishop claims the dignity and authority of successor to the Prince of the Apostles. Hence the odious names of "Roman Schism," "Romanist," "Romish," "Tridentine Schism," "Popery," "Popish," and all the other party catch-words of corruption in doctrine, bondage, tyranny, idolatry, etc., which are studiously employed, in order to throw dust in the eyes of the simple and unwary. Hence the effort to appropriate the name of Catholic, and to use all the phraseology associated with it, in connection with the Protestant Episcopal communion. Rome will not abate one jot or tittle of her divine rights, or of the Catholic doctrine of which she is the principal bulwark; and she will not treat the Church of England as a branch of the Christian Church. Therefore a rival must be set up against her, backed by the power and the prestige of the English name, and, if possible, also by those of the mighty Russian Empire and the ancient Eastern Church. The Nonjurors proposed to the Eastern prelates sitting in the Synod of Bethlehem, a plan for combining against Rome under an ecclesiastical organization whose head should be the Patriarch of Jerusalem. It was scornfully rejected, together with all their other overtures. No doubt, if the Church of England and the Episcopal Church of the United States could make a combination with the Greek Church, on the basis of the Oriental standards of doctrine, it would be the most formidable rival possible to the Catholic Church. But such a union is impossible. The Providence of God does not permit heresy and schism to assume the attitude of Catholicity, but compels them to manifest their true character by disintegration. {53} And here lies another mark of the inconsistency of the theory of those who set up this claim of rival Catholicity against Rome. The Protestant Episcopal Churches, as such, do not sanction and assert in their public and official action the claim made for them by a certain portion of their members. The utmost that can be said of them is, that they affirm and exact episcopal ordination as requisite to a complete conformity to the polity established by the Apostles. They do not, however, assert, or require their clergy to believe, the necessity of apostolic succession to the being of a Church. Their standards are so constructed as to afford a shelter and a warrant to those who hold this and several other Catholic doctrines and principles. These doctrines are not, however, officially put forward as a term of communion, or a condition for ordination. The official doctrine of a Church is limited to that which it exacts by authority and under penalty of its teachers to hold and profess. It comes down to the lowest level of doctrine, which its teachers can hold, and still be reputed sound and orthodox clergymen. Now a very low Protestantism is all that even High Church bishops can exact from candidates for the priesthood or the episcopacy. "Anglo-Catholic" doctrine is nothing but the tolerated opinion of a certain party. Therefore, on these "Anglo-Catholic" principles, and according to the doctrine and decisions of the Greek Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church is schismatical and heretical, because she enforces nothing by her authority beyond Protestantism, which is heresy according to that standard of doctrine which was universally acknowledged before the "separation of the East and West," and accepted both by Greeks and "Anglo-Catholics." According to those principles, then, which would condemn the Roman Church of heresy and schism, all Episcopal Churches in the world have fallen away from the unity of faith established by our Lord, and the Catholic Church exists no more. {54} Hence, even an "Anglo-Catholic," if he would not be driven into the arms of pure Protestantism, and consort with those followers of Luther and Calvin who are disowned by Bishop Griswold and his associates, are forced to make common cause with Rome and her Catholic communion.

The progressive portion of those who were engaged in the Oxford movement saw and felt all this, and, therefore, in a strict consistency with their Catholic principles, and by a logical necessity, they advanced in a Romeward direction. It has been necessary to make this long explanation in order to show how matters stood at the time when Mr. Baker and myself were connected with the ecclesiastical movement in Baltimore, under Bishop Whittingham. The Oxford movement was then ten years old. The celebrated Ninetieth Tract, in which Mr. Newman took the ground that several Roman dogmas were permitted by the Thirty-nine Articles, and that the Articles were to be explained according to the Catholic sense of the general body of the Universal Church, had been some time published, and the controversy excited by it was nearly completed. Mr. Newman was about resigning St. Mary's, and soon after went into retirement at Littlemore. A great number of the ablest writers of his party had advanced very far beyond the position taken by the earlier Oxford Tracts, and by Palmer, Percival, Keble, and others, at the outset. In the United States, the ordination of the Rev. Arthur Carey had taken place, under circumstances of the most peculiar character, which deserve a passing notice.

Arthur Carey was a young student of the New York Theological Seminary, barely twenty years of age, of an English family, and descended from several bishops of the English Church. He was a youth of rare intellectual gifts and acquirements, as well as of the most gentle and lovely character. Bishop Whittingham, who had been his preceptor, said that he possessed the wisdom of a man of fifty. {55} In some way, the suspicions of a number of the principal Low Church rectors had been excited in regard to him, and he was subjected to a most rigorous examination for orders, in which he manifested his profound theological science and his brilliant parts, together with a magnanimity of spirit which won for him a wide-spread admiration, especially among all High Church Episcopalians. In the course of his examination, he avowed the most advanced opinions of the Oxford party, and expressed his belief in the sound orthodoxy of the decrees of the Council of Trent. He was violently attacked by some members of the examining committee, and defended by others, the majority finally recommending him for ordination. Bishop Onderdonk determined to ordain him, and was proceeding in the ceremony of ordination, when he was interrupted by two doctors of divinity in gowns, who publicly protested against the ordination, and then left the church. Bishop Whittingham urged him very strongly, after his ordination, to come to his diocese, which he declined doing. About this time, I read, in manuscript, a beautiful philosophical essay on Transubstantiation, which he wrote, according to the system of Leibniz, proving the futility of all the rational arguments urged against it. The circumstances of his ordination made him suddenly famous. He was assistant minister to Dr. Seabury, at the Church of the Annunciation, and every Sunday his sermons were reported for the secular papers, with minute accounts of his appearance, and all his sayings and doings. This publicity was insufferable to him; and in a letter of his, which I saw, he said that it made life a burden to him. His constitution was extremely delicate, and weakened by close application to study. He was a boy in years, and unable to breast the moral shock which he had received. He speedily sank into a decline, and died at sea, off the Moro of Havana, whither he had been sent for the benefit of his health, his body being committed to the deep by his fellow-passengers, who were all strangers to him, and one of whom read the Burial Service over his remains. {56} For a long time afterward, his poor father might be seen every day standing on the Battery, and gazing wistfully out to sea, with mournful thoughts, longing after the son whom he had lost. There is something in the history of Arthur Carey assimilating it to that of Richard Hurrell Froude. Each of them, in his sphere, did more than any other to arrest the anti-Roman tendency of the Oxford movement, and give it a Romeward direction. In Mr. Carey's instance, it was not the mere effect of his own personal avowal of holding Roman doctrine, but the protection given him in doing so by the bishop of the principal diocese, the directors of the General Seminary, and a large number of other bishops and clergymen, which was significant. It was this which led to the persecution of Bishop Onderdonk; and it was believed that a plan was on foot for similar attacks on the other bishops who were regarded as Puseyites.

The reader of these pages can now understand something of the nature of those stirring and exciting times in the ecclesiastical world in which Mr. Baker began his career, and of the events and questions about which we were daily conversing together. Bishop Whittingham approved of the principle of interpreting the Articles laid down in the Ninetieth Tract. On this principle, I gave my assent to them at my examination for orders, and could not otherwise have assented to them with a safe conscience. The ordination of Mr. Carey opened the way for us to go forward to the full extent of holding all the doctrines of the Council of Trent. The current of Oxford thought and literature was sweeping us in that direction. We had full access to it, and felt its power, although, as I have said, we were a good deal behind the movement, and ignorant of many things which were taking place in England. Mr. Baker was far in advance of me at the time our friendship began. He never had that feeling of hostility to the Roman Church with which so many were filled. {57} His early education, and the knowledge he had of Catholicity and of the Catholic clergy and laity in Baltimore, preserved him from that strong prejudice which I retained from the impressions of childhood, and which he aided me greatly to overcome. Neither of us ever looked on the Roman communion as heretical, schismatical, or essentially corrupt. We adopted, at first, the prevalent idea that it was in a schismatical position in England, and in those parts of the United States where we supposed the Protestant Episcopal Church had prior possession. We dropped this notion, however, after a while; and I remember well that it was a friend of ours, who was then and is now a minister of the Episcopal Church, who drove it finally out of my head by solid and unanswerable arguments. We could not agree with the bishop and his party in their anti-Roman sentiments, and disliked the offensive use of the terms "Romish" and "Romanist." We regarded the Catholic Church as composed of three great branches—the Latin, Greek, and Anglican—unhappily estranged from each other, and all more or less to blame for the separation. We did not believe in the supremacy of the Pope, in the full Catholic sense, as constituting the e essential principle of Catholic unity, or that communion with the Holy See was necessary to the very being of a Church. We did, however, come to believe by degrees in a certain Primacy, partly divine and partly ecclesiastical, as necessary to order, and the means of preserving intercommunion among all bishops. What we regarded as errors in Roman doctrine, we looked upon as much less fundamental than those Protestant errors which pervaded so extensively our own Church; we considered them much in the same light with which Bishop Griswold and his brethren regarded the peculiar doctrines of the Greek Church, as matters to be tolerated, until all branches of the Church could meet in a general council and make a final decision upon all controversies. Considering the divided and anomalous state of Christendom, we thought that both the Roman and Anglican bishops had an equally legitimate jurisdiction over their congregations, and that we were alike Catholics, and in real communion with the Universal Church of all ages and nations. {58} We thought it to be the duty of each one to remain in the communion where he had been baptized or ordained, and would have dissuaded any Episcopalian from joining the Roman communion, or any Roman Catholic from joining ours. I remember, one evening, after hearing an account given with great glee by a young man of the perversion of a Catholic, that Mr. Baker said, after the person in question had gone, "What a miserable story that was which M—— just related!" In my own little parish, there was an Irish servant-girl, whom I married to a young Englishman, my parishioner. I had no scruple in doing this, not reflecting that I was the occasion of the girl committing a sin against her own conscience. But when her mistress expressed great hopes of her coming over to our Church, and I began to think she might apply to me for confirmation, I carefully avoided encouraging the plan, and considered seriously what I ought to do if any such case should arise. Very strangely and inconsistently, Bishop Whittingham used to confirm the occasional perverts that fell in his way, although they had received Catholic confirmation. And this increased my difficulty. For I regarded an act of that kind as a sacrilege, and could not have been a party to it in any case, unless I had thought it right, according to my overstrained notions of obedience, to throw the whole responsibility on the bishop. As I have often said, we never entertained the thought of leaving our own Church. The conversation of those who talked doubtfully on this point was always most disagreeable to us both, although it was only in one or two instances that we fell in with any such persons.

Toward our own bishop we were strictly obedient. His violent antipathy to Rome and strong Anglican party spirit, joined with a timid, politic course of action toward the Low Church, ultra-Protestant party, prevented our giving him full and unreserved confidence. {59} Mr. Baker had seldom the occasion of conversing much with him. I was, however, constantly in his family, and very much in his society. I confided in him as a man of integrity, a sincere and generous friend, and a just and kind superior. But, from the first, there was a barrier which I had not expected to full and unreserved confidence, and a feeling that there was a secret and fundamental difference in our apprehension of the ideas which are contained in the forms of Catholic language. I have since discovered what this difference was, and I see now that he really believed in an invisible, ideal Catholic Church only, and in no other outward, visible unity, except that which is completed in a single bishop and congregation. This explains a remark made at that time by my father, who is thoroughly acquainted with the Protestant theology, on one of the bishop's essays; that, except his doctrine of three orders in the ministry, he was a pure Congregationalist. Mr. Newman, also, held the same view, until quite a late period in his Anglican life, as appears from his "Apologia." In Bishop Whittingham's own eyes, he was himself the equivalent of the whole Catholic episcopate. Consequently, what he and his colleagues and predecessors in the Anglican Church had decreed had full Catholic authority, and was just as final and authoritative as if the whole world had taken part in it. Hence the assertion of a despotic, exclusive authority of the Anglican Church, concentrated in his person, over everyone who acknowledged his jurisdiction. He would not permit us to attend any Catholic services, or read any Catholic books, as an ordinary thing. I read the tract of Natalis Alexander on the Eucharist, and the Life of St. Francis of Sales, in his library, before he made his prohibition. Afterward, he gave me himself a volume of Tirinus's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures; and these were the only Catholic books I read while I was in his family. I was very anxious to read Möhler's "Symbolism," but I did not; nor did I read Ward's "Ideal of a Christian Church;" because he desired me not to do so. {60} I even gave up using approved Anglican books of devotion in church, because he expressed his disapprobation of using any other book but the "Common Prayer." Mr. Baker was equally obedient with myself at that time; although afterward, when he was governed more by common-sense and a just sentiment of his own rights, he read whatever he thought proper. It was Anglican books which brought us onward toward the Catholic Church, and the attempt to live up to and carry out Anglo-Catholic principles. Those who are familiar with the Anglo-Catholic movement will understand at once what these principles and doctrines were. But for the information of others it may be proper to state them distinctly, as they were understood by Mr. Baker, and others like him, who approximated more or less toward the Catholic Church, whether they eventually joined her communion or not:

1. The visible unity of the Catholic Church.

2. The final authority of the Church in deciding doctrine, and the authority of General Councils.

3. The necessity of an Apostolic Succession, and the divine institution of the episcopate.

4. Baptismal Regeneration and Sacramental Grace.

5. The strictly sacerdotal character of the priesthood, including the power of consecrating, and of absolution.

6. The Real Presence in the Eucharist.

7. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist.

8. The propriety of praying for the dead.

9. The merit of voluntary chastity, poverty, and obedience, and of penitential works.

10. The value of ceremonies in religion, and the sanctity of holy places and holy things.

However certain persons may modify and explain certain of these doctrines, no one can deny that the general drift of the writings of the Oxford or Anglo-Catholic school, together with that of the writings of the ancient Fathers and of the earlier English divines which are translated or republished by them, was to create and strengthen a belief in these doctrines. They were allowed to be tenable without infidelity to the Anglican Church, by persons in authority and others, who were themselves lower and more Protestant in their opinions. Now, I will take for a moment the position of an Anglo-Catholic, and, upon the basis of the principles I have just enunciated, I will prove that an attitude of hostility to the Roman Church is wrong and absurd, and that the only consistent and tenable ground is that now taken by the Unionists, represented by the Union Review.

"The Latin, Greek, and Anglican branches of the Catholic Church constitute but One Visible Church, though their unity is impaired and in part interrupted by mutual estrangement. As a member of the Anglican Church, I look upon the Greek Church as essentially sound and orthodox, and, if allowed to do so, would wish to receive the sacraments, or, if a clergyman, to officiate as such, in the churches of that Rite, if I happened to be in a place where it was established. I look upon the Latin Church, whose doctrine is the same with that of the Greek Church, with the single exception of the Papal Supremacy, in precisely the same light. Whatever I may think of the extent of power claimed by the Bishop of Rome, I must allow that, in a state of perfect intercommunion between all parts of the Church, the chief place in the Catholic hierarchy and the right of presidency in a general council belong to him. It is most desirable that the Greek and Anglican Churches should be restored again to communion with the Roman Church, and all controversies respecting doctrine be definitely settled. Meanwhile, the spirit of charity ought to be cultivated, and all possible means taken to remove prejudice and misunderstanding. In the present state of confusion and irregularity, the ancient canons respecting one bishop in a city cannot be considered as binding; and therefore Roman, Greek, and Anglican congregations, formed under the authority of bishops who are in regular communion with their own branch, are equally legitimate and Catholic, wherever they may be. {62} The decisions of the particular national synods of the Anglican branch have no final authority, and are only binding so far as they declare the doctrines of the Universal Church. They are to be interpreted in the 'Catholic sense,' and are strictly obligatory only on those who have made a promise to maintain them, and upon those only in the sense in which they are imposed by authority, under censure. It is the Catholic Church, and not the Church of England or the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, of which I am a member by baptism, and therefore I have no duties to either of those ecclesiastical organizations, except such as arise out of their relation to the great Catholic body, and are compatible with the absolute allegiance I owe to its teaching and law's."

Such I conceive to be a statement of the only view an Anglican can consistently take, unless he plants himself upon the common Protestant ground. According to this, it is ridiculous for him to abstain from going to Catholic services, reading Catholic books, and cultivating the acquaintance of Catholic clergymen and lay-people. The pretence of deposing or degrading clergymen, because they pass to the communion of Rome, is an absurd and impotent attempt at retaliation. What sin can there be in going from St. Paul's Church, where the Mass is in English, celebrated by a priest of the Anglican Rite, under the obedience of the Catholic Bishop Whittingham, to the Cathedral, where the Mass is in Latin, celebrated by a priest of the Latin Rite, under the obedience of the Catholic Archbishop Spalding? How can there be the guilt of apostasy involved in such an act? How can a person "abjure the Catholic Communion" at Rome, by joining that which is confessedly the principal branch of the Catholic Church?

A person who believes in this theory of branches may say it is inexpedient and unwise for individuals to leave their particular connection, that it perpetuates the estrangement, and that it is better to wait for the time when the "English Branch" will be reunited bodily to the parent tree. They cannot pretend, however, that this is any thing more than a matter of private opinion. The only legitimate means they have for keeping their adherents from leaving them are argument and persuasion. It avails nothing to say that if free access to Roman Catholic services and books, and, in general, free intercourse with us is permitted, and the charge of schism, violation of baptismal or ordination obligations, &c., is abandoned, we shall gain over a great number of their members. What of that? Those who adopt a theory are bound to adhere to it. If this Anglo-Catholic theory has any thing in it, it ought to be able to sustain the shock of a collision. We have nothing but argument and persuasion on our side. Why should their influence be dreaded? If Catholic principles, sympathies, and practices gravitate toward Rome, let them gravitate; it is a sign that the centre of gravity is there. That the Oxford movement did gravitate toward Rome by its original force is a plain fact, proved by the number, the character, and the acts of those who have become converts to the Catholic Church. Not that their testimony is a direct proof that the Catholic Church is divine and infallible. This rests on extrinsic, objective evidence. But it is a direct proof that the pretence of the Catholicity of the Anglican communion cannot furnish full and complete satisfaction to conscientious minds that have imbibed Catholic principles. It professed to do so; but it has failed. Those who still cling to it cannot deny that the dissemination of their views generally produces in those who embrace them, at some period of their mental history, a deep misgiving respecting the safety of their position. This is not so in the Catholic Church. Catholics, who retain a firm faith in the principles of Catholicity, and endeavor to obey their consciences, never have a misgiving that they are out of the Church, or that there is any other church which has a better claim to be regarded as the Catholic Church. {64} If human reason has any certitude, if the human mind is governed by any fixed laws, if the concurrent judgments and convictions of great numbers of the wisest and best men have any value, if there is any such thing as logic, these considerations ought to have weight.

But I am weary of chasing this Protean phantom of Anglo-Catholicism through its shifting disguises, and its labyrinthine mazes. And I gladly return to the theme of my narrative.

Francis Baker was ordained deacon on the 16th of February, 1845, and in the following August was appointed assistant minister of St. Paul's Church. During the interval he was performing occasional duty in assisting the rectors of different parishes in Baltimore, under the bishop's direction. His first sermon was preached in St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, on the Sunday afternoon of his ordination day, which was the Second Sunday of Lent. On the evening of the same day he preached at St. Peter's. His text was taken from the I. Epist. John, iv. 4: "And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." It was a beautiful sermon, and perfectly Catholic in its doctrine and tone. I regret that it is not extant, for I think that if it were, it would be worthy of a place among the sermons published in this volume. In it he extolled a life of virginity in glowing language, as the means of a closer union with Christ; and its whole scope was to present the lives of those who have renounced the world, as models of the highest Christian perfection. I read prayers for him that evening, and we walked home afterward together. We separated in silence, neither of us expressing his thoughts, but both seeming to feel a kind of blank and unwilling sense of disappointment, as if dimly conscious that our Catholicity was an unreal and imaginary thing. At St. Paul's Church his eloquence took the congregation completely by surprise. {65} His quiet, unassuming character had not prepared even his friends to expect that he would manifest so much power as a preacher. From this time his reputation was fixed at the highest point, and he always sustained it. There were several very excellent preachers in the Maryland Diocese, but I believe it was generally admitted that Mr. Baker surpassed them all, and the most intellectual and cultivated people ever looked upon his sermons as affording to their minds and hearts one of the choicest banquets they were capable of enjoying. I have never known a young clergyman to be more generally and warmly admired and loved than Mr. Baker. Nevertheless, applause and popularity did not affect him in the least, and the pure mirror of his soul was never tarnished by vanity and self-complacency. Even then, his spontaneous desires and longings seemed to forecast the apostolic vocation which was in store for him. He had an ardent desire for a religious life, and was especially attracted by the character and life of Nicholas Ferrar, and by the history of the little religious community which he formed at Little-Gidding. In our walks we often conversed about the practicability of establishing a religious house which would give us the opportunity of working among the neglected masses of the people, and looked about for some suitable building for this purpose. There was a scheme talked of for establishing a monastic and missionary institute on the eastern shore of Maryland, and there were eight or ten clergymen who would have been eager to join in the enterprise if the bishop had been courageous enough to begin it. But the fear of Low Churchmen prevailed, and nothing was ever done. We very soon found that the work of "Catholicizing" the Episcopal Church in Maryland got on very slowly and miserably, through the open opposition of the Low Church party, and the dead, inert resistance of the old High Church. {66} At an early period of Bishop Whittingham's administration, the Rev. Henry V. D. Johns, rector of Christ Church, bade him open defiance, and preserved that attitude until his death, many years afterward. The bishop preached and published two remarkably learned and able sermons on the priesthood, one of which was preached at the institution of Mr. Johns. At the close of it he exhorted the parishioners to receive their new rector as their divinely-appointed teacher, and to submit to his instructions with docility. The same night, Mr. Johns preached a sermon which contained a violent attack on the bishop's doctrine, and made a solemn declaration, sanctioned by an appeal to Heaven, that he would evermore oppose that doctrine, and preach the contrary in his pulpit. This was the signal for hostilities, and a sharp controversy arose out of the affair, which was renewed from time to time, as occasion offered. The bishop made one or two more efforts to bring out his Reformed Catholicism in sermons or charges, and then desisted, seeming to be more anxious to defend himself against the charge of Popery than to attack Protestantism. In regard to the outward ceremonial of religion, the efforts made to improve it were equally feeble and abortive. There was a miserable little church in an obscure street, called St. Stephen's, with an altar something like a marble-topped wash-stand, and some curtains covered with roughly-executed symbols, such as mitres, chalices, keys, etc., where we played a little at Catholics with so much success that a good old lady said it was worse than the Cathedral. The opposition which was excited by these innocent and absurd little ecclesiological essays were such that the parish was nearly ruined, and the rector in great alarm speedily banished all innovations, and brought his chancel and his windows back to the old-fashioned style. There was a little preaching in the surplice, a little display of crosses, and a great deal of Catholic talk in private circles, and very little else. The attempt to make the Protestant Episcopal Church in Maryland exhibit herself as the Reformed Catholic Church was a most signal failure. {67} The True Catholic labored faithfully to defend Mr. Newman from the charge of Romanizing until he actually joined the Catholic Church, and then took to decrying him and other converts as much as possible. It then took up Archdeacon Manning, H. W. Wilberforce, and Marshall, loading its pages with extracts from their writings, until all these gentlemen followed Mr. Newman's example. What it did afterward, and whether it has survived until the present time or not, I do not know. The cassocks were silently and gradually dropped. Some of the young clergymen married, and took to walking sedately in the old paths, and others left the diocese. The few who could not unlearn or forget the Catholic principles they had imbibed, retired into themselves and kept quiet. And thus matters went back to their old condition of a sort of uneasy compromise between High and Low Church, on the basis of a common hostility to Rome.

I remember well the startling effect produced by the news of Mr. Newman's conversion. Whatever his modesty may induce him to say in disclaimer, he was the leader, the life, and the soul, of the Oxford movement: his genius and character had acquired for him in this country, as well as in England, a sway over a multitude of minds such as is seldom possessed by any living man. The news of his conversion was brought to Baltimore by Bishop Reynolds, of Charleston, who had just arrived from Europe. I heard it from Bishop Whittingham, one evening, after I had been to prayers in St. Paul's. I passed him on the steps and went out, and heard him say in a sorrowful tone, "Newman has gone." It went to my heart as if I had heard of my father's death. I did not wish to speak with anyone on the subject, for, although I was not prepared to follow him, yet I could not speak harshly or lightly of the decision of a man whose wisdom and goodness I venerated so highly, or endure to hear the comments of others. {68} Mr. Baker and I had no opportunity to converse together very much on this matter, or indeed on any other. Our separation was at hand, under circumstances painful and trying to both. He was confined to the chamber of his brother Alfred, who was dangerously ill with the varioloid, and, of course, could neither make or receive any visits. I was obliged to leave Baltimore a few days after, for North Carolina, by the order of my physician. I took a hurried farewell of Mr. Baker, at the door of his house, with very little expectation, on either side, of ever meeting again. He had assisted me very frequently in the duties of my little parish in the suburbs, during several months of declining health, and after my departure he continued to visit the congregation and preach for them occasionally. It was during the autumn of 1845 that I left Baltimore. At the close of the Holy Week of 1846 I was received into the Catholic Church, at Charleston, S. C., and in March, 1847, I was ordained priest by the Right Rev. Dr. Reynolds, the bishop of the diocese.

Before leaving Edenton, N. C., where I resided during the previous winter, I wrote to Mr. Baker to inform him of my intention, and I continued to write to him occasionally, receiving letters from him in return, for some months afterward. The correspondence on his part soon became constrained and formal, and at last was stopped at his request. For the three years, immediately following my ordination, I saw or heard nothing of him. I continued to hope for his conversion, and often offered up the Holy Sacrifice for that intention. By degrees, however, the thought of him passed away from my mind, and I ceased to anticipate that the broken thread of our friendship would ever be re-united. I supposed that he had become permanently settled at some halting-place between Protestantism and the Catholic Church, and would live and die contentedly in his chosen position as an Episcopalian clergyman, forgetting his earlier and nobler aspirations as among the dreams of youth. {69} For the history of his mind during this period, I am indebted to the letters which he continued to write to the bosom friend who has been already spoken of, and the information which that friend has given me personally. I am also indebted to the same source, chiefly, for the history of his progress toward Catholicity, during the entire period of seven years which elapsed before his reception into the Catholic Church. For, although I saw him repeatedly during the last three years of this period, he was extremely guarded and reserved in his language; and during our common life together, as Catholics, afterward, I never asked him for any detailed account—the subject having, in great measure, lost its interest for us both.

I have reason to believe that at the time of my conversion he had his misgivings, and indeed his first letters to me showed a disposition on his part to enter into a free discussion of the matter with me. He soon quieted these misgivings, however, and determined to throw himself heart and soul into the work of realizing Catholicity in his own Church. He even underwent a reaction which awoke a feeling of hostility to the Roman Church, and of anger against me, for having, as he expressed it, "spoiled their plans." His good and true friend of past days, who had continually encouraged and urged him on from the first to follow boldly in the footsteps of those who led the advance of the Oxford movement, would not, however, permit him to rest in this state. He was determined himself not to shut his eyes to the difficulties and perplexities of his position, and he would not allow his friend to do it. He never ceased to unbosom freely all his own doubts and disquietudes, to communicate the results of his continual reading and reflection, and to stimulate his friend to push on in the study of Catholic principles and doctrines until he had reached a final and satisfactory result. Judging from the letters of Mr. Baker which I have before me, I should think that both his misgivings about his own position and his bitter feelings toward the Roman Church gave place to a quiet resolution of adhering to the position he had taken, before Mr. Newman's conversion and that of others of lesser note had startled his repose. {70} For two or three years his letters do not indicate a disquieted mind, but are often full of hope for the prospects of the Anglican communion. By degrees a change is manifest, and it is easy to see the progress of a conviction slowly forcing itself upon him that the Episcopal Church is essentially Protestant, and all the efforts made to place her in a Catholic light and attitude a mere illusion. The workings of a mind and heart struggling with doubt and disquiet, weary of a hollow and unreal system, weaned from all worldly hopes, detaching itself from all earthly ties, and striving after the truth and after God, become more and more manifest, until at last, after seven long years, the result is reached. I have hesitated much before determining to insert a portion of these letters in this narrative. Certain motives of delicacy toward my departed friend and others would incline me to withhold them. But their perusal has seemed to me to exhibit so much more clearly than any narrative of mine could do, the transparent purity of the heart from which they emanated, and the wonderful workings of divine grace upon it, that I have judged it best to prefer the profit of those who will read this book to private feeling. Some of them, which are merely descriptive, I have inserted, because there could be no reason for withholding them, and they will give pleasure to the friends of the writer, who value every thing which came from his pen. In regard to others, which were private and confidential, I have used the utmost caution to select only those portions which are necessary to a full exhibition of the writer's gradual progress to the Catholic Church.

I will first quote some extracts from the correspondence of an earlier period, which show the first blossoms of the later ripened fruit of Catholic faith and holiness in the pure and upright soul of Francis Baker.

From Francis A. Baker To Dwight E. Lyman.

"Baltimore, February 20, 1843.

"My Dear Dwight:

* * * * *

"Of course you have seen the letter 'Quare Impedit.' Is it not very caustic? I cannot but think it defective in the non-expression of what the writer doubtless believed, the sense in which the Council of Trent's words as to 'immolation' are true. It does not sufficiently bring out the true and unfigurative sense in which the sacrifice on the altar is the same with the sacrifice on the cross.

* * * * *

"As I go on with my studies, my dear Dwight, I become more and more attracted to them, and, I hope, more and more of a Catholic. Indeed, I seem to myself to live in a different world from that around me, and to be practical I find one of the most difficult attainments. But to be frank with you, in looking forward to the future, the situation of a parish priest seldom fills my mind. I almost always look to the monastic life in some of its modifications. It is true that on the score of fitness I have no right to look forward to such privileges; but from some circumstances which you will appreciate, my heart has been drawn more entirely from the world than most persons of my age. But the future belongs to God, and I must now prepare myself for the duties which seem pointed out to me. I have not spoken to anyone else of this long-cherished desire, and, indeed, there are at present insurmountable difficulties in the way; but I do not look upon it is as so visionary a scheme as I once did.

* * * * *

"Your brother told me of his intended repairs in his church. I am delighted to hear it. It will not be long, I hope, before such is the universal arrangement of our churches. Only one thing will be lacking (if he has a cross), the candlesticks. I have come to the conclusion that we have a perfect right to them, for they will come in by the Church common-law, as the surplice did. {72} I do not suppose it would be proper for a priest to introduce them without his ordinary's sanction. I do wish a charge would come out recommending the Catholic usages. I don't give any weight to the cry of some about us, to wait for such things until Catholic doctrines are received. I cannot but think that such things would have a reflex influence on doctrine. While we are externally so identified with the Protestants, it will be hard to convince the world that we have any claims to antiquity or Catholicity. Pray use your influence to have a solid altar, and as large as may be."

* * * * *

"Baltimore, June 9, 1843. "It was a great disappointment to me not seeing you here at the Convention, and there has been going on here so much of interest to you. The Roman Council you have heard all about, I am sure. I was not present, of course, at any of their services or meetings, nor did I see any of their processions, but from all I have heard, and from what I have seen at other times, I think it must have been a most glorious spectacle. I do not think I am fond of pageantry, but it must have been heart-stirring to see the Church coming out of the sanctuary which she has in her own bosom, and going forth to take possession of the world in the name of her ascended Lord. Imagine a band of sixteen venerable bishops, with surpliced acolytes and vested priests, with their lights and cross and crosier, all chanting in murmuring responses some old processional chant; the effect of the whole heightened by the brightness of a May sun reflected from many a golden stole and glittering mitre! I am sure the sight would have set you crazy. Indeed, I feared myself that it would present an unfortunate contrast with our neat, dress-coat clergy. But our own Convention had far more of an ecclesiastical appearance this year than it ever had before. {73} The daily matins at six o'clock, the Litany at nine, and the full Mass service at twelve, all seemed as if we were suddenly transplanted into some other age of the church, when she understood and realized her heavenly mission better than in these later days. Every day after the reading of the Gospel, all joined in a solemn profession of the old Nicene faith; then the Holy Sacrifice was offered, and all were allowed to partake of the Holy Mysteries."

* * * * *

"Baltimore, June 9, 1845.
"When the ordination is appointed, if possible, I will let you know; and if you are disposed to treat me better than I did you, I should be truly glad to see you here on that occasion. At all events, my dear Dwight, do not forget to pray for me. I regret exceedingly that the advantage of the regular Ember season will be lost to me, for I feel in need of all the assistance which the united prayers of the Holy Church might be expected to procure. As soon after my ordination as may be, I wish to go to work in such a department as may be assigned me by the will of God and the direction of the bishop. I wish not 'to choose my way,' but as far as possible to submit to the direction of others, my superiors; for that I believe to be the very secret of ministerial influence. In my case, however, there can hardly be any trial of virtue in this course, for with such a bishop as God has placed over us, submission is no sacrifice. I have deliberately resolved to maintain a single life, and acquainted the bishop with my determination. I think he approved of my resolution, though he dissuaded me from taking a vow to that effect. Although I acquiesced in his advice, yet I shall consider myself from the date of my ordination pledged to preserve that state, by the grace of God. All this is strictly between ourselves, for I abhor to talk about such things. I consider this a matter, in our Church at least, of strictly individual choice, and while I have no hesitation myself in adopting the course I have mentioned, I should despise myself and think but poorly of my own motives, if I should ever think less of another for exercising differently his Christian liberty."

* * * * *

The foregoing extracts are taken from letters written before the time of my leaving Baltimore, and of course, therefore, before the thought of joining the Catholic Church had entered any of our minds. Those which follow were written at various times during the period of seven years, between 1846 and 1853, which was the period of transition in Mr. Baker's mind, ending in his conversion.

"Baltimore, July 9, 1846.
"Every thing has been remarkably quiet in Baltimore for the last month. There seems to be nothing of the excitement that for a while prevailed on the subject of 'Roman tendencies' and 'perversions.' I know not whether the 'Few Thoughts' of Mr. H., which is just published here, and which I suppose you have seen, will awaken controversy; but should suppose not, from the occasion and nature of the publication, it being merely an explanation of his own course, and written immediately on the determination to take that course. I have heard the pamphlet spoken of as 'a weak production,' as 'doing Mr. H. no credit.' Are we not too apt to speak so of the work of an opponent? Of course the essay is not a learned and systematic argument, nor does it profess to be so; but it is (as it appears to me) honest, to the point, and well expressed. I speak this of the production: as an argument, it of course resolves into the great Roman plea of Visible Unity.

"I understand that a Mr. ——, a presbyter of our Church, and alumnus of the General Theological Seminary, made his public abjuration of Protestantism in St. Mary's Chapel, on Sunday last. I suppose you have seen the account of ——'s defection. I was told, a few days ago, that —— has made up his mind to 'go;' but as it was a Roman Catholic who told me, I did not know but he might be misled. {75} Do you know any thing about it? I received, a few days ago, a letter from H. It was merely a friendly letter, without controversy, describing his mode of life, written very cheerfully and kindly. It will give me pleasure to show it to you when you come to Baltimore to see me, to which visit I look forward with great pleasure. We will then talk about all these strange events and times, and on our thoughts and feelings concerning them. Adieu, adieu, my dear friend. Let us keep close to each other; but first, close to God, and in all things obedient to His will. Again adieu, my dear, good friend."

It is easy for one who knew intimately the writer of this letter to see that his heart was sad and disquieted when he wrote it, although he does not directly say so; especially from the unusual warmth and tenderness of his expressions of attachment to his friend. About two months after he wrote it, the time came for him to pass his examination for priest's orders. The circumstances under which his examination took place redoubled this disquiet, and caused him to hesitate much about receiving ordination. In the course of his examination, he was asked if he accepted the Thirty-nine Articles. It appears that he was not able to accept the reasoning of Tract No. 90, upon which he must have gone at his ordination to the diaconate, and accordingly he replied boldly that he rejected some of the Articles, and could not in any way give his assent to them. I do not know how many of them he qualified in this way; but I know that one of them was the thirty-first, as to its second section: "Wherefore, the Sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain and guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits;" and I think, that, another was the twenty-second: "Of Purgatory," etc. {76} A discussion arose among his examiners upon the propriety of passing him. The bishop endeavored to waive the whole question, and succeeded in preventing his rejection. The rector of St. Peter's, who was the chairman of the committee, and whose duty it was to present the candidates, declined, however, to present Mr. Baker, though, with a singular inconsistency, he privately urged him to be ordained. Mr. Baker almost resolved to stop where he was, and regretted afterward that he had not done so. He suffered himself, however, to be overruled by the authority and persuasion of the bishop, and as Dr. Wyatt also excused himself from taking the responsibility of presenting him, he was presented by another presbyter, and ordained on the 20th of September, 1846. His health as well as his spirits were impaired by these troubles; and, therefore, a short time afterward he made a trip to the North, in order to recreate both body and mind, and with the hope of driving away, by change of scene, the unpleasant thoughts which haunted him. In this he was in a measure successful. He appears to have made a resolute determination to throw himself into his ministry, and to put away all doubt from his mind. He went in search of all that was attractive and encouraging in his own communion, and his letter, giving an account of his trip, shows that his attachment to it was deepened and renewed by the impression made on him by the beautiful churches, the tasteful and decorous services, and the agreeable, intellectual men of congenial spirit with himself, described by him in such a pleasing style. It was after this journey that he wrote to me, expressing a firm determination to adhere to his chosen position, assigning for his chief reason the "signs of life" which he saw in the Episcopal Church; and he soon after, as I have said, dropped his correspondence with me, as one separated from him by a barrier which was never to be passed over.

"Baltimore, November 10, 1846. "I enjoyed my visit to the North quite as much as your or my own expectations promised. I think the jaunt was in every way beneficial to me. I spent a week delightfully in New York, where a new world, as it were, of churches was opened to me, and had a most happy (what I call) heart visit to Troy. But you will expect to hear particulars. To commence with the commencement, then, what shall I say of Trinity Church? In some respects it is far beyond my conceptions. The first impression was really overpowering. It was on Saturday morning, and but for a few minutes, and it seemed to me that both externally and internally the building was most majestic and beautiful. I next saw it on Sunday morning, to great advantage. It was communion day, and fourteen priests in their surplices were in attendance (the Convention having adjourned late the night before). The church was full, but very orderly—the music grave and fine—though I confess to you (pardon my ignorance and temerity) it was not exactly as I should have liked. It seemed to me to want impressiveness or expression. It was neither soothing, nor, to me, very grand. Dr. —— preached. I never saw the Holy Communion celebrated and administered in any church with so fine effect. The scene, when the choir was filled with the worshippers waiting for their turn to receive, was truly majestic. On that day I went away with a most agreeable impression. After I had been there, how ever, in the week, and especially as I became familiar with it, I was very conscious of the great defect and coldness of the chancel. The meanness of the altar is positively too bad; and the unmeaningness of the heavy altar-screen is curious. The window is not just up my taste; but I do not think so badly of it as some do. On the whole, I think there can be no doubt that the chancel is a failure; but the nave is very fine, and the doorway, the organ-gallery, the organ, the tower, and the side-porches most beautiful. {78} On the afternoon of the Sunday, I went to Grace Church, listened to the music—exquisite of its kind—saw the images!!! looked at the church, and examined the stained windows. I cannot agree with you about this building. Certainly it has some beauties. The external appearance is very fine, and the single figure of our Blessed Lord, in the east window, beautiful; but I must say that the whole of the interior presented to me a look of finery, and an absence of solemnity, most unpleasant in the sanctuary. The windows were simply distressing. It will seem very Protestant after this to say it, but still it is true, that the church looked very like a Roman Catholic Church to me; perhaps it would be truer to say Romish, for it seemed to me in keeping with some things we call by this name. I was disappointed in Grace Church; for I went prepared to like it, from your representation, and from my confidence in your taste.

"Next in order of my seeing, but really, perhaps, first of all, is the Church of the Holy Communion. This is really a gem. I was there at evening prayer on a week-day, and I left with a grateful heart that it was granted me to worship there. I am not much of an architect, but the building seemed to me perfect. I at least had no fault to find with it. The services were read at the chancel rail. The canticles were chanted with the organ accompaniment. It was at once solemn and very beautiful. I said I had no fault to find. Perhaps that is too much. I do think there is an absence of warmth in the colors of the church, and of a certain grace and brightness about the chancel, which would be entirely obviated by substituting, instead of the present altar, a white or colored marble one of the same size, adorned with candlesticks and covered with a lace cloth. This, however, is to make it a perfect church for my eye, and I am not at all sure that I am right.

"I said Troy was the most agreeable place I had visited. You will not need to be told what it was which gave it this interest: the Church of the Holy Cross. Oh, how glorious that enterprise is! How perfectly devotional and elevating those services! I was made very, very happy by this visit. It seemed unearthly, and it seemed, too, a promise of better and holier days, a harbinger of returning glory to our depressed Church. Could you not introduce this service into the college. It is worth a very great effort. Nothing else can produce such an effect as the choral service. With the material you have, I should not think it would be impossible, and at nothing short of this ought you to stop. I formed a valuable acquaintance with, and had the pleasure of visiting all the clergy of the place, who are remarkably united, and who received me with Southern warmth and cordiality. I was at the Church of the Holy Cross as often as it was possible for me to be there, you may be sure, and left it at the last with real regret. I consider this visit alone fully repaid me for the journey."

* * * * *

From this time there is not a trace of disquietude with his position to be observed in his correspondence, until 1849. Under date of February, 1847, he writes to his friend, who, as it appears from his own declarations, was the only intimate friend he had among his brother clergymen:

"I still write now and then to H., but there is such a restriction on the freedom of thought and expression in speaking to him, that I have but very little interest in the correspondence; indeed I think it hardly likely long to continue; but from you there is no need or wish on my part to conceal any thing.

* * * * *

I long to leave St. Paul's. I do not say this to anyone here, for nothing is gained of talking; but to you I say that I am obliged constantly to fall back on the reflection that, until some other way is opened, my duty lies here. It is not on account of any disagreeables in my position; but there are peculiar dangers and difficulties attending it, and I cannot help fearing constantly that my life is too easy and too soft to please God. {80} Still I see not which way to move. I think I wish to submit myself entirely to the Divine Will. I hope it will not seem impertinent, dear Dwight, to express a hope that this coming Lent may be a season of strict discipline to us both. Oh, I need it! I cannot tell you how the sense of responsibility concerning the souls of others sometimes alarms me. I can say this to you, without hypocrisy, I trust. I need to be purged by penance very, very much, to be drawn away from pride and vain-glory, and slothfulness and self-will; these are my besetting sins; and to be stirred up to diligent study, to obedience, to humility, to labor, and to prayer. I pray that I may have the grace to fulfil the work which God has put in my heart to undertake this Lent, that He would draw me away from all things else, entirely to be united to Him. It would be a most pleasant thought that we were thus entering on this penitential season together."

The following extract from a letter of June 23, 1848, shows the interest which the writer still felt in Mr. Newman:—

"Is it not encouraging to see the stir that has been raised in England about Dr. Hampden's nomination? The secular papers all call the opposition a 'Tractarian Movement.' If they mean by this that none but Tractarians are engaged in it, it is palpably false; but in another sense it is certainly true. I see clearly in the whole matter the fruits of that movement, the greater earnestness and zeal for orthodoxy, as such, so different from what would have been exhibited a quarter of a century ago. And whom are we to thank for fixing the brand of heterodoxy upon this man; so that he cannot pass off his sophisms upon an unwary Church, but the great master to worn we once looked up, to whom God gave so clear a vision of the truth and so great a zeal to uphold it? This is the fruit of a seed sown by a hand now raised up against us, one of the many gifts by which we keep him and his great faculties in remembrance, though, alas! 'we now see him no more.'"

In one of these letters Mr. Baker speaks of his desire to leave St. Paul's Church for some other field of labor. Nevertheless, he remained there six years out of the eight years of his Protestant ministry. In 1848 he received an invitation to the Church of St. James the Less, a very beautiful and costly, though small church, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, built after the style of the English Benedictine abbey-churches, and fitted up after the manner which delights the Anglo-Catholic heart. This invitation he declined, at the request of his bishop, who was naturally loth to part with him. A proposal was then made that he should found a new parish; and this, I suppose, was the plan afterward carried out at St. Luke's. This plan was postponed from time to time on account of the precarious health of Alfred Baker. Meanwhile, he devoted himself most assiduously to his private religious exercises and to his ministerial labors. I have never known a young clergyman more universally and warmly loved and admired than he was among the people of his communion. He improved sedulously his admirable gifts for preaching, and in a diocese containing a number of excellent preachers, he attained and kept the first rank. His fastidious taste and sense of propriety led him soon to drop the long cassock, and every thing else in outward dress and demeanor which had appeared singular in the first years of his ministry. He avoided controversy and all peculiarities of doctrine in his sermons, and confined himself chiefly to those truths of religion and those practical points which could be received without question by his hearers. Aside from the pastoral intercourse which he had with his people, his life was very retired. He had the ideal of the Catholic priesthood always in view, and this encompassed his discharge of ministerial duties with many practical difficulties. He felt this particularly, as he has often said, in his visits to the sick and dying, on account of the want of the proper sacraments, and the want of a real and recognized sacerdotal relation. {82} He could not help feeling always that while theoretically he regarded himself as a Catholic priest, in point of fact he was but a Protestant minister, compelled to fall back on a system of subjective pietism, based on Lutheran doctrine, to which he had an invincible repugnance, and in which his hands were tied.

Meanwhile events were progressing in the English Church and producing their reflex action in this country. On the one hand, the Oxford movement was still going forward under new leaders, and on the other, the Protestant character of the Anglican Establishment and its American colony was exhibiting itself every day more and more decisively. The first great wave that had rolled toward Catholicity had cast up those who were foremost on its crest on the Rock of Peter. Another wave was rolling forward in the same direction, which was destined to bear on its summit still more of those who floated on the great sea of doubt and error to the same secure refuge. The first converts were given up to obloquy, and their influence in every possible way lowered or destroyed, by belittling their character, if that was possible, or, if not, by inventing specious reasons to show that the course they had taken was the result of some personal idiosyncrasy, and not the just consequence of their Catholic principles. It was stoutly asserted that the movement was not responsible for them, and that it did not of itself lead to Rome. It began again afresh with new men, new books, new projects. Again there was an advanced party; and in due time this advanced party began to move Romeward, denying as before that it would ever actually arrive at Rome. Nevertheless, many of its members, some of very high character and position, did eventually follow the earlier converts over to the Catholic Church. Others, especially those who were in stations of dignity and authority, began to recoil and retract, and call back their followers to the safer ground of the old High Church. {83} In this country there was a sad lack of earnestness and reality on the part of the majority of those who had yielded themselves to Oxford influences, and these influences were but faintly felt by the laity. Mr. Baker was, however, deeply and sadly in earnest. He had schooled himself into submission to his soi-disant Church and bishop, and resolutely determined to believe that he could think, act, and live up to Catholic doctrines and laws where he was. He had thrown himself anew into Anglicanism, putting faith in its new leaders and the old ones who remained, and confiding in the reality and success of their efforts. Long and wearily he struggled to hold out in this course, in spite of the daily increasing evidence that it was delusive and hopeless. For long years he was tossed backward and forward on the waves of doubt and uncertainty, sometimes almost gaining a foothold on the Rock, and then dashed again backward into the sea.

Most persons, whether they are Catholics or Protestants, will wonder that Mr. Baker, having approached at first, by almost a single bound, so near the very threshold of the Catholic Church, should have waited and hesitated so long before taking the final step over its border. Those who have not felt it can hardly understand the strong spell by which the system so ably advocated by the Oxford divines captivated many minds. To those who were deeply imbued with certain Catholic prepossessions, and yet not emancipated from the old hereditary prejudice against the Roman Church, it offered a compromise which allowed them to cherish their prepossessions and yet remain in the reformed Church, where they were at home and among their friends, and free to select some and reject other Catholic doctrines and usages, according to their own private judgment and taste. It pretended to give them "a Catholicity more Catholic, and an antiquity more ancient" than those of the ancient, universal mother and mistress of churches herself. {84} Once seduced by this specious pretence, there was no end to the ingenious arguments, wire-drawn distinctions, fine-spun theories, and plausible special pleading by which they were detained under its influence. The theory has infinite variations, and a flexibility which accommodates itself to every form of doctrine, from the lowest tolerated in the Episcopal ministry to the highest advocated in the Union Review. This influence on the mind and conscience is a very injurious one, and tends to disable them from reasoning and deciding, in a plain and direct manner, on broad and general principles. Mr. Baker became aware of this afterward, and regretted that he had permitted himself to be swayed so much by the authority of others instead of following the dictates of his own judgment and conscience. It is impossible for me to say whether he was dilatory in following the inspirations of divine grace or not. No one but God can certainly judge how much time is necessary in any individual case for the full maturing of the convictions into a distinct and undoubting faith. One thing I can assert, however, with confidence, and I believe that every one who reads the ensuing extracts from Mr. Baker's letters will share the same conviction: that he never deliberately quenched the light of the Divine Spirit, or refused to follow it from any worldly and unworthy motives. He sought for wisdom by study, prayer, and a pure life, and although he was slow in arriving at a full determination, yet he made a continual progress toward it; and when he reached it, he did not shrink from any sacrifice which obedience to God and his conscience required of him.

In a letter under the date of June 4, 1849, after speaking of the probability of his leaving St. Paul's, and the uncertainty he was in in regard to his future plans, which were interfered with by the ill-health of his brother, he thus writes:

"I missed you at the Convention; indeed, there are several reasons why I did not enjoy myself at that time. It seemed to me that there were but one or two with whom I had any real sympathy. There was very little done. The bishop could not be present on account of indisposition. K. read the bishop's charge. It was able, but thoroughly and strongly Protestant. The position it took was perfectly unequivocal; and it places certain people, whose position before was sufficiently uncomfortable, in a most painful predicament. He shuts us up to the very sense of the Articles and Prayer-Book, as understood by the Reformers; and tells those who cannot submit to this, who are willing not to contradict that sense, but do not believe it, he tells them very plainly that they are obliged to leave a ministry for which they are no longer competent. The charge convinces me either that we have heretofore misunderstood the bishop, or that he has fixed himself upon a new platform. He now makes the Protestant element in our Church's teaching (which is certainly the most prominent one in her history) the most authoritative and controlling. It appears to me that he might as well have said at once that the Church of England was founded at the Reformation. May God teach us what we ought to do."

I have been told by Mr. Baker that the bishop, on some occasion, sent him his charge to look over, with the request that he would read it for him at the Convention, and that he declined reading it, on account of his strong objection to the doctrine it contained. I suppose that this must have been the charge in question. I find no other letter from this date until January 9, 1850, under which date he writes at length, and begins to unbosom himself more freely than he had done before:

"There was something in your last letter which was particularly refreshing to me. It seemed like old times, and brought an assurance of sympathy when I had begun deeply to feel the want of it. You say that my letter was not so full or like myself as some others. There was a reason why it was not so, and the same reason has delayed the answer to your last kind favor. {86} I have had many painful and distressing thoughts, which I hardly knew how to express to any one; and it seemed a wrong and cruelty to grieve one's friends when every catholic-minded brother had so much to bear on his own account. Now that I have decided upon the course I will take, I can write more calmly, and with less risk of perplexing others. You will guess the cause of anxiety. My conviction of the truth and holiness of Catholic doctrines has not diminished since I saw you; my apprehension of what I hold is firmer and more distinct; my prejudice against some things which the Roman Church holds as catholic truths, but which we deny, has been shaken; and while this was enough to make my present position in some respects uncomfortable, the longing for a fuller measure of catholic privileges, the want of sympathy, the uncertainty, dissension, and mutability among us, and the awful greatness of the claims and promises of Rome, made me willing to entertain the thought of changing my ecclesiastical relations. On looking back upon this state of feeling, there was much that was wrong. I felt in many ways the results of past unfaithfulness; I was confused and perplexed; I was doubtful of my own sincerity. Sometimes every thing seemed uncertain to me. But whatever were the causes, and whatever the characteristics of my state of mind, I felt, upon a careful examination of myself that the only proper course for me to pursue was to institute a candid and diligent search into the claims of the Roman Church to be the Holy Catholic Church. All her claims seem to resolve themselves into that of the supremacy of the See of St. Peter, and I accordingly resolved to confine my investigations to that point. I communicated my determination to the bishop last week, and asked him whether I could continue to officiate while I was engaged in such a course. He thought I could and ought, and offered me every assistance in his power, in the way of books, advice, etc. He was wonderfully kind and forbearing, but firm in assuring me that investigation of the point would but end in conviction of the untenableness of the Roman claim. {87} I have felt calmer since I acted thus, and propose to enter forthwith upon the study of this question, keeping it as clear as I can of exterior matters, and pushing it, if I may, to a decision. I need not, I know, ask of you the charity to continue your prayers for the Divine blessing and guidance to your perplexed friend."

"Tuesday Night.
"You will understand, from what I have been telling you of the thoughts which have occupied my mind for some time past, how the various events in the Church during the last few months have affected me. With regard to ——'s departure, I confess it was the deepest grief to me, and, in connection with other circumstances, did much to distress and unsettle me. It is one of the most afflicting things about the present controversies, these separations between friend and friend, between master and disciple; yet I know that even this is to be borne meekly and obediently, if we cannot see it to be our imperative duty to follow those we have loved and lost; and now that I have undertaken in a rational way to satisfy myself on this point I can think more calmly of our isolation and bereavement. To return to more Protestant ground (I know that it does not suit unlearned people to say what they will do, but) I feel is impossible. My conviction of the truth of the system (in opposing and barking at which Protestantism has its life and occupation) continually increases; but I think I feel that if I could be persuaded that the Divine Will made it to be my duty to remain where I am, I could submit to all the difficulties and privations of our position uncomplainingly and even cheerfully.

"Bishop Ives's movement, so far as it was intended to introduce the general practice of auricular confession, had my unrestrained sympathy. How far he meant to go in asserting its necessity, I confess myself unable to determine; but anyhow, I think he went farther than Protestant Episcopalianism will bear him out in going. {88} It was an infinite relief to me when he came out as boldly as he did; and now that he has presented the subject anew to the Church, I feel assured that the Church will be obliged to meet the question. I confess I do not feel very hopeful as to the issue of the controversy, for it seems to me that nothing short of a miracle could dispose the mass of our people to the practice of confession. The High Churchmen will be as opposed to it as the Low Churchmen. Maryland will kick as much as Ohio. But nous verrons."

Some time after the date of this letter, Mr. Baker made a voyage to Bermuda with his brother Alfred, who was now in a deep and hopeless decline. He returned some time in the early part of the ensuing summer. One day, either a little before or a little after this voyage, I accidentally met him as I was out walking. I had returned once more to Baltimore, and was making my novitiate at the House attached to St. Alphonsus' Church. It was now nearly five years since I had seen my former friend, and three since I had received any letters from him. I was startled and pleased at our unexpected rencontre, and at the light of friendship which I saw in his face and eyes; but the pain of being separated from him was renewed. Mr. Lyman came to see me, one day, during the spring of 1850; and was much more frank and cordial in his manner than Mr. Baker, who kept a close vail of reserve over his heart until the last. I inquired of him particularly about Mr. Baker, whether he had made any retrograde movement, &c. He replied that he had rather advanced, and had become more spiritual in his preaching, advised me to visit him, and on my objecting to this on the ground that a visit might be intrusive and unwelcome, assured me of the contrary. It was through his influence that some degree of intercourse was from this time re-established between Mr. Baker and myself. A subsequent letter of Mr. Baker speaks of his visiting me, and also describes his visit to Bermuda in the following terms. The letter is dated October 24, 1850:—

"On my return from Bermuda, I found your kind and interesting letter, and felt grateful to you for the friendship which you have now continued to me for several years. I am sorry not to have seen you when you were in Baltimore, and in fact that was the only regret I felt on account of my absence from home at the time of the Convention. The Convention itself I have ceased to look forward to with any pleasure. The truth is, it always saddens me to mingle at all with the clergy promiscuously. I feel that there is so little sympathy between us, that the sense of loneliness is forced upon me more distinctly than when I keep to myself altogether. But I do not mean to write gloomily to a friend with whom I communicate so seldom, and indeed I do not complain of the want of sympathy which I feel, or blame others for it. I know that the cause of it is in myself, and I acknowledge with gratitude the great degree of indulgence, kindness, and forbearance with which I have been universally treated.

"I have felt happier lately, though I do not know why I should, for I cannot say that I have gained a satisfactory position; and when I think of dying, anxious thoughts come across me; but I have been pursuing (as my occupation allows me) my investigations into the question of the supremacy, and I wish to abide by the result, without being swayed by feeling one way or another. I have read Newman's Discourses since I received your letter. They are like all that he writes, thoughtful, earnest, holy, and deeply impressive; but I think they differ from his Parochial Sermons in having the appearance of more excited feeling, and in being more affectionate in their tone. He seems to write under a pressing anxiety to influence those he addresses, and he opens his heart more than he did of old. I think this accounts in part for an objection which I have heard brought against them, that they are not so strictly logical. {90} He seems to me possessed with that proselyting spirit which has always appeared to me to be so divine a token about the Church of Rome, as if the constant reflection of his mind was, 'What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'

"I was deeply interested in the account of your visit to H. I too saw H., but only for a moment. We met on the road, and he stopped most kindly, and we had a minute's conversation. Of course there was nothing but commonplace. I know not how he felt, but I felt very sad.

"You may imagine that I have looked with no little interest at the progress of ecclesiastical affairs in England. The secessions lately have made a tremendous excitement—more so, I really think, than those in 1845, perhaps on account of the 'present distress.'

"I have not much of interest to tell you about Bermuda. You know it is an English colony, and I saw there for the first time the workings of the English Church. In every thing except the Morning and Evening Prayer, I think we have the advantage, particularly excepting the latter. The clergy I found a hard-working set of men, frank and cordial, and very much interested and well informed in matters relating to our Church. The churches are very plain, but have a quiet, grave, soothing air about them, the clergy mostly 'High Church,' but not after our sort, and the people seemed to me to be almost entirely devoid of a Church tone and spirit, though not irreligious. Dissent is very rife, and, I fancy, influences even members of the Church. They have a noble-hearted bishop, Bishop Field, austere, self-denying, devout, hard-working, and charitable, and by his assistance they are building a very handsome church on the island; but I found that he was not popular, that even his mode of life was objected to: he was called a Puseyite. I did not preach while I was there, but I assisted several of the clergy at the services, and once at the holy communion, in which I found the omission of 'the oblation' to have a most painful effect upon my feelings.

"I was very glad to get so full and gratifying account of your church. I do indeed congratulate you on its completion. I think you have done wonders, with so many difficulties, to succeed in so short a time, and I sincerely hope that you may find your zeal and labor repaid by an increase of your congregation, and of true devotion and earnestness among them. From your description of the church I thought it must be a very magnificent edifice, quite beyond York Minster and churches of that size; and to see so famous a building, and still more to see the kind, warm friend who ministers within it, would be so great a pleasure, that you must not be surprised if some old friends should some time make a pilgrimage there."

"January 27, 1851.
"I often feel what a relief it would be to open one's heart, and to have the sympathy and counsel of a friend who can understand one's views and feelings. But it is impossible to do so by letter, because one shrinks from coolly writing down one's thoughts, which would be expressed without effort in the warmth and freedom of conversation. Since the receipt of your letter I saw H. I had determined not to seek him, but about the beginning of this month he called on me. He was kind, but the visit was not agreeable: it was awkward. I returned his visit last week, and enjoyed being in his society. I talked with him as guardedly as I could while using any degree of frankness and cordiality. I could not consent to postpone my visit to him, as I had reason to believe that his coming to see me was providential, to assist me in the matter in which I am laboring, viz., to ascertain the Catholic Church. I asked him several questions concerning the Papal supremacy, which he answered very readily and with great ability. {92} He gave me some assistance in pursuing my inquiries, and I promised to see him again before long. I came away feeling better for having been with him, and with a heavy conviction on my mind how little share I had in the blessing of the pure in heart.

"I find very little time to study. The duties which devolve upon me take so much of my attention, that I could find it in my heart to throw them up, were I not advised otherwise by the bishop. Besides, I know that it is only by humility and obedience and fidelity that we can arrive at the truth. O Dwight! again I ask your prayers in my behalf, especially for earnestness in seeking the truth, to make the holy vow, 'I will not climb up into my bed, nor suffer my eyelids to take any rest, until' I have an obedient spirit to obey God's will, directly it is made known.

"The course of Church matters is to me increasingly unsatisfactory. The anti-Papal movement has placed the Church of England on decidedly worse ground, if indeed it has not bound her to that decision, on rejecting which her Catholicity seems to be suspended. I do think that, after all that has happened, for bishops and people to be crying up the royal supremacy looks like accepting that supremacy to the full extent to which it has lately been claimed. What did you think of Mr. Bennett's course? To say the truth, I was not satisfied with his letters, though I felt a sympathy with the man. Pray can you tell me what ground there is for the assertion that Archdeacon Manning and Mr. Dodsworth have resigned and are on their way to Jerusalem?"

* * * * *

Some time after this, Mr. Baker was appointed rector of the new parish of St. Luke's, where he remained until he gave up the Protestant ministry, that is, for about two years. During his rectorship he removed to a pleasant residence near the site of the church, and employed himself in building a tasteful Gothic church, which he proposed to finish and decorate in accordance with his own idea of ecclesiastical propriety. {93} It was only partially completed at the time he left it. His next letter to Mr. Lyman, who was now progressing rapidly toward the Catholic Church, and urging forward his slower footsteps, is dated

"Tuesday in Holy Week, April 15, 1851.
"I read your letter with a great deal of emotion, and was prompted to sit down and say a word in reply immediately; but as I have gone to St. Luke's, there were some duties devolving upon me which took up my time more than is usual with me. You may be assured of my sympathy in much that you feel and express. I do think that the statements of Allies's book are of a kind which ought to make a profound impression upon us, and which ought to modify very much the feelings with which we have been taught to regard the Roman communion; and I do think honestly that our Church is at present in a miserable condition, and that no good can come of denying it. As you say, it becomes at such a time a very solemn question, in view of eternity, what we ought to do. My dear Dwight, I think I am sincere when I say that to me the way of duty seems to take pains and make such an investigation as I can into the question upon which the claim of authority rests, and to abide by the result: meanwhile to live in prayer and upon such catholic truth as we are permitted to hold, imploring God to take pity upon us, and to look upon his distracted people. H. recommended me a treatise on the supremacy by the brothers Ballerini, but I find that I do not read Latin with such facility as to reap the full benefit of the perusal of such a work at present. I have therefore taken up Kenrick on the Primacy. With regard to my duties as a minister, I have thought it right to be directed from without, and I was passive in accepting St. Luke's, which was strongly urged upon me. Surely we may hope that if we faithfully and devoutly, and in a spirit of humility and obedience, work with our intention constantly directed to God's glory and the salvation of souls, He will bless and guide us. {94} It was a comfort to me to think you remembered me and my difficulties in your Lenten exercises, and I assure you that you have been constantly remembered by your perplexed friend. I feel afraid of myself and of my own heart—afraid of taking a wrong step, afraid on account of my past sins, afraid when I look forward to the judgment of our dear Lord; and you may be sure that I find prayer my greatest comfort, the belief in the intercession of our Blessed Mother and the saints in heaven, as well as in the value of the supplications of Christians on earth, a source of real strength. Pray for me, my dear friend, that I may be enabled sincerely to appeal to God and say that His Church is the first object of my heart, and that I may be diligent and studious and obedient to His grace and to conscience.

"I see the English papers constantly, and they are full of interest. We know not what is before us; these are heart-stirring times, and we can but adore the counsel of God by which we were born in them, and anxiously seek to take the right course amid so many perplexities. I have recently read Dr. Pusey's letter to the Bishop of London. It is a very able letter, and one calculated to rouse the feelings of the Catholic-minded men in England. I confess it made me feel more hopeful.

"If it is our duty to remain where we are, it is a noble thing to be called to labor amid so many discouragements, and, surrounded by temptations, to keep the Catholic Faith whole and inviolate! Every day I feel a stronger repugnance to Protestantism, and a determination by God's help to carry out my principles consistently; but with regard to the Roman Catholic Church, I do not see how intellectually it can dispense with the theory of development, and I feel a strong suspicion of that theory. I went to see H. again, but he was in New York, and will not be back until after Easter.

"I feel that I am in a difficult and dangerous situation, but I have the comfort of knowing that I have the advice of the bishop to do as I am doing; and if I can be sure of God's blessing, by watchfulness and strictness and faithfulness I may yet be happy. I have written confidentially, and all about myself, but you will forgive me. The bell rings for prayers. Good-by."

"August 4, 1851.
"You will be anxious to know the impression made upon my mind by what I have been reading on the Roman Catholic question. On the whole, many difficulties that lay in the way have been removed, and the claims of the Roman See appear far more strongly supported by antiquity than I had ever dreamed of before. Kenrick's is, I think, a very strong book, although it has a very apologetic air; yet there was a great deal in it which seemed to me very forcible. But the book which made altogether the most decided impression on my mind was 'The Unity of the Episcopate.' The principle of unity was there unfolded in a way that was new to me, and which I think does away with a whole class of passages (and they the strongest) which are usually alleged against the Papacy.

* * * * *

"I find my greatest want to be the want of earnestness and a spiritual mind. My dear Dwight, this is not cant. I want you to pray that God would not take his Holy Spirit from me. I desire above all things to be a Catholic, and I am resolved by God's help not to give up the present investigation until I am satisfied about my duty, which at present I am not, but very, very much harassed and perplexed. May God in his good time grant us both to see clearly the way we ought to take. I saw H. a few weeks ago, and had a pleasant interview. He thinks it possible that he will leave Baltimore in September. I have sometimes felt lately as if a decision of the great question was not far off. Oh, that it may be a wise and true decision!"

A few weeks after writing this letter, Mr. Baker came very near making a decision to give up his ministry and place himself under the instruction of a Catholic priest. His conviction was not yet fully matured, or his doubts quite removed, and the wisest course would have been for him to have gone into a complete retirement for a while, in order to complete his studies, and allow his mind and conscience time to ripen into a decision. He communicated his state of mind to the bishop, and was so far overruled by him as to consent to wait a while longer, and postpone his decision. He informs his friend of all that took place at this crisis, in a long and deeply interesting letter of thirteen pages, from which I shall only make a few extracts. It is dated November 11, 1851, and is full of affection, of sadness, and of the tremulous breathings of a sensitive, delicate conscience, deeply troubled by anxiety and fear, almost ready to seek repose in the bosom of the Church, but driven back by doubt to struggle yet longer with adverse winds.

He says at the beginning of his letter:

"First let me thank you again for your expressions of kindness and affection. I assure you I thank you for them, and feel that they, together with the friendship which has lasted so long, give you a claim on my confidence and love. Nor have I been unmindful of the claim, for I have constantly thought of you, and often invoked God's aid in your behalf; and if I have not written often, it is because I am myself in great perplexity, and feel the responsibility which attaches to every word, uttered at a time like this, on subjects which concern the salvation of ourselves and others also. This was my feeling when I last wrote. I felt as if I wanted a little recollection before I could write as I wished on some points; and as I was then much occupied, I deferred writing fully until some other time. However, your letter to-day demands an immediate answer, and I proceed to give you an answer to your inquiries, and a faithful transcript of my feelings, and pray God that you may receive no injury from one who would do you good."

He states the result of his studies quite at length, summing it up in these words, which I quote as an accurate index of the degree of conviction he had at that time reached:

"The result of my thought and reading last summer was to strengthen my impression that the claims of the Roman Catholic Church on the obedience of all Christians are divine. I cannot say I felt perfectly assured."

After describing his interview with the bishop, and informing his friend that he had consented to wait, he says:

"I think I agreed to this from the fear of offending God, and from that alone. As to the frown of the world, I do not think it decided me, for I had looked the consequences of the act full in the face, and had accepted them. I was the more ready to wait, because I could not say I had no doubt of the propriety of secession."

The sequel of the letter and of its writer's history shows that this doubt was not a rational doubt, but a morbid irresolution and timidity of mind, which ought to have been disregarded. Consequently, in giving way to it, he simply fell back into a state in which he had just to go over again the same ground, and this discouraged and disheartened him, as he frankly acknowledges.

"I felt a sense of relief, partly, I believe, from having opened my mind, and partly, I suspect, at finding that the sacrifice to which I had looked forward was not then demanded. But when I considered the matter, I saw that I was just where I was before, with the whole question before me and resting on my decision. From week to week I have been willing to postpone looking my position in the face, seeking to excuse myself to my conscience by the plea of the many unavoidable demands on my time and thoughts which a new parish and a church just commenced seem to make; although I feel that the danger of such a course is that I may sink into a worldly, indifferent thing, seeking in the praise of men a reward for my treachery to God. {98} I have seen H. but once since I saw the bishop. The visit was more constrained, because I felt I ought not to betray my feelings; indeed, I would not go to see H. unless I were afraid of resisting some design which God may have formed for me—because the intercourse has not been of my seeking, and this appearance of deceit and double-dealing is dreadful to me, and makes me feel as if I were guilty.

"I have not read any thing since my interview with the bishop. My plan is to wait and seriously consider what I ought to do. I need not tell you I am not happy. I am free from many of the annoyances which distress you, as I read no R. C. papers, and scarcely any of our own, and have no associate. I strive to live by the rule recommended by Dr. Pusey, and am almost as much isolated from Protestants as if there were none in our communion. I believe most firmly in the Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Real Presence, in the Veneration of Relics, in the Mediation of the Saints, and especially of St. Mary. I constantly beseech God to hear her supplications in my behalf, and only do not invoke her because I am not sure of the authority for doing so. I believe also in Purgatory. My difficulties are on the subject of Church authority and the Supremacy. My sympathy in doctrine, my reverence for the holy men who have gone out from us, my strong prepossessions in favor of the Roman Catholic Church, which have never left me at any period of my life, and the distress among us, all draw me to Rome; but the single question I ask myself (or strive to do so) is, whether any of these things ought to decide me, and whether the point of inquiry ought not to be—What is the Church? Partly on account of my position, and partly, dear Dwight, on account of grave deficiencies and sins in myself, I feel that I am full of inconsistencies, contradictions, apparent insincerities (perhaps real), presumptuous and fearful at the same time, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, not fully persuaded in my own mind, and not bending all my energies to become so. {99} And now, my dear Dwight, I have only opened my heart to you, without at all thinking of the effect it would have upon you. Simply seeking, as in duty bound, to deal with you as a friend, I have let you somewhat into my heart—only somewhat, for I deeply feel that to a full understanding of my state of feeling, even in reference to this subject, it would be needful that I should kneel down and humbly confess (as it would be a comfort to do) all the many offenses in word and deed of a sinful and tangled life. I have humbled myself before you. I know not how it shall be hereafter between us, how differently you may soon look upon me from what you have been used to do; but, wherever you are, think of me as a sinner and a penitent, and as one who desires and needs your prayers.

* * * * *

"And now, my dear friend, I do not think of any thing else which I ought to say to you, but to reciprocate the earnest hope and the conviction that you express, that God Almighty may enable us together to have an abode here in that Ark which He has set up as the place of safety and peace in a lost world, and may give us together an entrance into His Presence forever. May He of His undeserved mercy grant it."

During the winter of 1851 and 1852, Mr. Baker was very much occupied with church-building, and also with the cares and anxieties of illness and death in his family, and his attention was thus drawn away in a measure from himself and from the question of the Church.

His next letter of interest was written in May, 1852, communicating the intelligence of the death of his aunt and of his brother:

"I have no doubt that you have thought your kind and patient letter deserved an earlier answer, but I have been greatly and particularly occupied ever since I received it When it came, Aunt E. was very ill, and our anxiety about her continued to increase until she was taken from us on the 31st of January. {100} Immediately after, dear Alfred began to decline rapidly, and after an interval of some weeks of great suffering on his part, and of watching and sadness on ours, he too was taken on the 9th of April (Good Friday). You, who knew them both, and knew what place they held in our hearts, can imagine the greatness of the bereavement, and the depth of our suffering. God has supported us mercifully, and I heartily thank Him that I have so great a solace in thinking of the character of our dear departed ones; and it is at such times that I feel the consolatory nature of the doctrine of the communion of saints, and the comfort of the practice of praying for the dead. To you, who know so much of my feelings, I will not deny that the uncertainty which rests upon the question of the Church has disturbed the fixedness of my hope and faith during this sorrowful winter, but I have not been able to advance in its investigation. I now propose to resume my studies as regularly and as perseveringly as my duties will permit. You are much and often in my thoughts, and often do I wish that I could do by you the part of a faithful friend. You always have a part in my prayers, and it would be to me a great happiness to have the assurance one day that my friendship has not been without some benefit to you. I assure you I prize it, and I feel more strongly that I have more in common with you than with anyone else with whom I communicate. I have not the heart nor indeed the time to write more."

"September 15, 1852.
"I came away from Columbia with many pleasant, affectionate thoughts about you, and grateful recollections of your kindness, and you have often been in my mind since my return. You will be glad to learn that my little jaunt was of decided service to me. I have been improving in health ever since my return, and now feel quite well. I suppose by this time you have been on to the North and have returned, and, like myself, are now quietly settled down to your duties. {101} I found my sisters much benefited by their trip to the sea-shore, and our little household has again resumed its accustomed habits. I need not tell you, dear Dwight, how glad I shall be if you will consent to come on now and pay your promised visit. You might come at the beginning of the week, and I would go and take your Sunday duties (choose a Sunday when service is all day at Columbia), and then I would return on Monday to be with you at home another week. I cannot promise to do you good, but I can offer you, at least, what you will not receive elsewhere, true and affectionate sympathy. I do most deeply feel for you in your anxieties, and in much, in very much, I feel with you. I felt when I was with you, my dear friend (now my only friend), as if the difference between us was this: that you had really come to a conclusion, while I was still of a fearful and divided mind. I felt as if there was something dishonorable and disgraceful in such a state of indecision, while there was an appearance of manliness in your boldness and determination, and I was ashamed of myself. Besides, I found myself sometimes taking the anti-Roman side in argument with you, and then I was vexed with myself for doing what I did nowhere else, and what I could not do heartily anywhere, and I seemed to myself insincere. I do not know whether you can understand me, but I want you to understand my feelings; for I do not want you to think I am insincere, and I felt so much obliged to you when you told me that you said to H. that you did not think me so. I believe uncertainty often carries the appearance of insincerity; and uncertain I own myself to be, full of sadness, full of doubt. O Dwight, what is there in such a situation to make one remain in it, if one could conscientiously leave it? What could hinder me from being a Roman Catholic but for the fear of doing wrong? I assure you, that as regards this world I have not a hope or desire, and there is nothing earthly which I could not part with this night. {102} Nothing seems to me worth living for but the knowledge of the truth and the love of God; and that position in which I feel I should be the happiest would be where I should be certain what was truth, and could live a life hidden from the world with God. I feel concerned at finding myself writing so much about myself, and in such a strain; but I think, in reading over the letter, you will understand how I came to do it, and will pardon it.

"I have been reading lately pretty systematically on the Roman question. De Maistre and Lacordaire I have finished, and will return them to you if you wish them. They are both philosophical rather than theological, and from that fact, as well as from the French way in which they are written, I think they will be less influential with persons brought up in the school with you and me. I thought the remarks of De Maistre on the temporal power of the Popes not near so forcible as those in Brownson's Review. Thompson seems to me now, as he did before, a remarkably cogent and attractive writer. I have not finished his pamphlet as yet, but feel very much interested in it. I have procured Balmez, and Newman on Anglicanism, but have not yet read them. When I was in Philadelphia I saw Mr. ——. He called on Manning when he was in London, and had a very interesting interview. M. is about to publish another edition of his book on the Unity of the Church. I should indeed like to see it, or any thing else that Came from his hand.

* * * * *

"God bless you, my dear friend; write to me fully and freely as of old, and be sure of the affection of your friend,
"F. A. B."

"Ash Wednesday, 1853.
* * *
"The general tone of your letter, too, was sad, and that also fell in with my own feelings, for you may be sure that the stirring event of the last month has not been without a great effect on me, agitated as I was before by so many serious doubts. Well, another has gone, and that the most eminent of the party with which you and I have been identified, and you and I remain asking still what we are to do! To me the question has been of late and is now one of absorbing and pressing importance, and yet I do not know how to answer it, and in my perplexity can do nothing but pray—pray, as I have done most earnestly, for direction from on high; and my comfort, dear Dwight, is to know that you also pray for me. What I want is the heart just to stand waiting God's bidding, and, when that is given, to act without delay or taking counsel with the flesh. I should so much like to see Bishop Ives's Reasons, which I suppose will in some way be published.

* * *

I received the first number of a newspaper from New York, the Church Journal (which is most vociferously anti-Roman). —— is one of the editors. By the way, —— is also connected with this paper, and ——. I felt sorry to think of what a different spirit they once were; and yet, if the Church of Rome be not what she claims to be, the position of such men as Bishop Whittingham is the right one, and ours is untenable. However, I cannot but own that I have a drawing toward the Roman Catholic communion so strong that, if I were to be without it, I should feel as if I were not myself. I have not thought it right to go by this feeling, but it is very strong, and I confess I feel envious of Bishop Ives, when I think of him in his new home—a feeling which I often have in reference to dear H., whom I loved and reverenced so truly. (By the way, H., I hear, is either at present in Baltimore, or is about coming here, to conduct a 'mission' in the Cathedral.) I often feel afraid, my dear Dwight, in writing on such subjects, of doing wrong in expressing my feelings and thoughts, and of doing you harm; but after all, it seems not improper for friends such as we are to speak without reserve, and perhaps I have done so too little.

"I have been reading a good deal lately.

* * *

The articles on Cyprian (by Dr. Nevin) were indeed most masterly, and seemed to me to express the true doctrine of antiquity as to the primacy of the Roman See. They have caused a good deal of speculation on my part. I do not see how the writer can fail to become a Roman Catholic. I did not tell you what I thought of Newman's book; it was full of power, many most capital hits and brilliant passages, and, what is better, satisfactory explanations of difficulties. The eleventh lecture seemed to me the least successful, and I own, even after reading it, the position of the Greek Church, based on a theological theory not unlike that which is advocated by Anglo-Catholics, and much the same (as Brownson seems to think) with that held by many Roman Catholics, does seem to me a difficulty. Balmez, too, I have proceeded some way with, and am much interested in.

"I thank you for Brownson very much. I have read the number you sent me, and it has set me to thinking. His positions are bold and require some reflection; and though I find in him the consistent expression of much that I think I always believed, yet he presents many new ideas to me.

* * *

"Adieu to-night, my dear Dwight. May the blessing of Heaven be with you."

This was the last of these sad epistles—these outbreathings of a pure and noble, but troubled spirit, enveloped in the obscure night of doubt, and seeking wearily for the light of truth. It was written on the first day of Lent; and when that Lent had passed by, the clouds of mist had lifted from around the soul of Francis Baker, never to return. Before he wrote again to his dear friend, the coup de-grace had been given. The blow was struck suddenly and effectually, and the news of it came unexpectedly, with a startling and almost sunning effect upon his friend, through the following brief and abrupt communication—

"Baltimore, April 5, 1853.
"My Dear Dwight:—The decision is made: I have resigned my parish, and am about to place myself under instruction preparatory to my being received into the Catholic Church. I can write no more at present. May God help you.

"Your affectionate friend,
"Francis A. Baker."

This letter was followed by another, written three days after, in reply to one from Mr. Lyman.

"My Dear Dwight:—It was cruel in me to write so briefly, but if you knew what a press of duty came upon me just at once, you would pity me, and indeed now I am in such a confusion, that it takes some courage to write a line. But, my dear friend, you have been so great a help to me, that it would be worse than heathen in me not to give you one word of explanation. I decided to submit to the Catholic Church last Sunday night, and gave in my resignation to the vestry on last Tuesday morning. I went to the archbishop, and to-morrow I make my profession in St. Alphonsus' Church, before only two witnesses, the least the rubric requires. This was in compliance with the advice of the Bishop, who did not think it well to give unnecessary publicity to the act. Plain and sufficient arguments had long enough been addressed to my mind, but my conversion at last I owe only to the grace of God. It was the gift of God through Prayers, and now I can say 'Nunc Dimittis'—for 'I believe, O God! all the Holy Truths which Thy Catholic Church proposes to our belief, because Thou, my God, hast revealed them all; and Thy Church has declared them. In this faith I desire to live, and in the same, by Thy holy grace, I am most firmly resolved to die. Amen.'

* * *

"I shall prepare for the sacraments next week, but beyond that, I have formed no plans.

"My dear Dwight, I feel that I have too long resisted God's grace, and it will be one of the sins which I must now repent of. God by His merciful kindness did not suffer me to be abandoned, as, indeed, my resistance of His grace deserved, but kindly pleaded with me, and I am now at the threshold of the kingdom of God. Come with us, dear Dwight, come; God's time is the best time. May our Lord bless you and direct you. Yours affectionately,

"Francis A. Baker."

This closes the correspondence of Mr. Baker with the dear and valued friend of his youth and manhood, previous to his reception into the Catholic Church; and I have postponed the continuation of my narrative in order to complete my extracts from it, and leave the writer to tell his own touching story to the end.

Mr. Baker's conversion was the logical sequence of his former life, both intellectual and spiritual; it was the result of the accumulating light of the eleven preceding years, concentrated and brought to a focus upon the practical question of duty and obligation. The particular events which immediately preceded it, were like the stroke of the hammer on the mould of a bell, already completely cast and finished beneath it, and waiting only the shattering of its earthen shell to ring out with a clear and musical sound. "The just man is the accuser of himself," and Mr. Baker, whose deep humility made him unconscious of his own goodness, in the first vivid consciousness that the light which had led him to the Catholic Church was the light of grace, could no longer understand his past state of doubt, and reproached himself for it, as a sinful resistance to God. It is not necessary, however, to suppose that there was any thing grievously culpable in that state of doubt and hesitation.

He was right in attributing his final decision to the efficacious grace of the Holy Spirit. But this grace was only the last of a long series of graces which had prepared him to receive it. It did not change, but only perfected his habitual disposition of mind. It produced a crisis and a transformation in his soul, but it was one to which a long and gradual process had been continually tending. It was not a miracle, or a sudden revelation. Careful thought and reading, and the assiduous cultivation of his spiritual faculties had brought him to the apprehension of all the data of a rational judgment that the Catholic Church is true. The apparently sudden moment of deliberation and decision was but the successful effort of the mind and will to come into the certain consciousness of the truth already fairly proposed, and to determine to follow it. It was a supernatural grace which made this effort successful, and elevated the just conclusions of reason to the certitude of faith. But it was not a grace which superseded reason or dispensed with the reasonable grounds and evidences of an intellectual judgment and the motives of a just determination.

Mr. Baker must have been drawing near to a decision during the whole of Lent; for his mind was evidently more deeply and earnestly bent on coming to it, when I saw him in Easter Week, than ever. He called on me on the Friday evening of Easter week, and his manner was much changed. His anxiety of mind broke through the reserve he had heretofore maintained, and instead of the guarded and self-controlled manner he had preserved in former interviews, he was abrupt and outspoken. At the very outset, he expressed his feeling that the question of difference between us was one of vital importance, in regard to which one of us must be deeply and dangerously in the wrong, and desired to discuss the matter with me fully. I suppose his intention was to see me more frequently than he had done, to open his mind more fully, and to get from me all the help I could give him in making up his mind. We had a pretty long conversation on theological points, without going into the discussion of fundamental Catholic principles. {108} The truth is, Mr. Baker had already mastered these principles, and was really settled in regard to every essential doctrine. He had no need of further study, but merely of an effort to shake off that kind of doubt which is a mental weakness, and perpetually revolves difficulties and objections which ought not to affect the judgment. The one particular point which we discussed most was in reference to some passages in the writings of St. Augustine concerning the doctrine of Purgatory—a doctrine which he had clearly stated his belief in, two years before. I answered his difficulty as well as I could at the time, promising to examine the matter more fully the next day, and to give him a written answer, which I accordingly did, but too late to be of any service to him, as the sequel will show. I left him with a strong impression that the crisis of his mind was at hand, and for that reason engaged all the members of the community to pray for him particularly. After leaving me, he called on a young lady who was very ill, and had sent for him to visit her. This young lady, who died happily in the bosom of the Catholic Church a few weeks after, had already sent for one of the reverend gentlemen of the Cathedral, and expressed to him her desire to become a Catholic, but had consented, at the request of her family, to have an interview with Mr. Baker before receiving the sacraments. When he came to her bedside, she informed him of her state of mind, and asked him if he had any satisfactory reason to allege why she should not fulfil her wish to be received into the Catholic Church before she died. He told her that he regretted very much that she had chosen to consult with him on that point, as there were reasons why he must decline giving her advice on the subject. She conjured him to tell her distinctly what he thought, and he again replied that he was not able to say any thing to her on the subject. She looked at him earnestly, and said, "I see how it is, Mr. Baker; you are in doubt yourself." Without saying another word, he left the room and the house, transpierced with a pain which he could neither endure nor remove. {109} He turned his steps toward the Cathedral, and walked around it several times, like one not knowing where to go, and then returned to his home and his study to remain in solitude and prayer, through several anxious days and sleepless nights. He was now face to face with the certainty that he dare not promise to anyone else security of salvation in the Episcopal Church. Yet, he was a minister of that Church, and was trusting his own salvation to it. To remain in such a position longer had become impossible to a conscientious man like him. Nevertheless, he went through the duties of Sunday, and again read prayers in his church on the Monday and Tuesday mornings. He had been censured for this, by some, as if he had acted a hypocritical part, but most unjustly. Certainly, if he had asked my advice beforehand, I should have told him that he had no right to do it. But the reader of this narrative will see that his own conscience had been frequently overruled on the question of exercising the ministry in a state of doubt, and on Sunday he was still in this state, undecided what to do. He did not actually give in his resignation until after prayers on Tuesday morning, and any candid person will surely admit that he was excusable, in the agitation of the moment, for thinking that it was better to fulfil the engagements he was under to his people until the last moment, when these consisted merely in reciting a form of prayer which is very good in itself, and contains nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine.

On Tuesday, the 5th of April, Mr. Baker gave a letter of resignation to the vestry of St. Luke's Church, called on Dr. Wyatt, who was the administrator of the diocese during the bishop's absence in Europe, and then went to see the archbishop. When he was admitted to the presence of this venerable and saintly prelate, he threw himself on his knees before him, and in accents and words of the most profound humility made his submission to the Catholic Church, and implored him to receive him into her bosom. {110} The archbishop, who knew him well by sight and by reputation, arose in haste from his chair to raise him from his knees, in a few warm and affectionate words welcomed him to his embrace, and begged him to be seated by his side and to calm himself. It was with difficulty that he could induce him to do so, for the barrier in his soul that had held it icebound for so long had given way: a torrent of repressed emotions was swelling in his bosom, and after a moment he burst into a flood of tears, the gentle and good archbishop weeping with him from sympathy. After a long and consoling conversation with the archbishop, he came over to St. Alphonsus' Church, which is near the Cathedral, to see me.

I was making a retreat that day, and was walking in the garden, when a message was sent me by the rector to go to the parlor to see Mr. Baker. As soon as he saw me, he said, abruptly, "I have come to be one of you." I invited him inside the inclosure, and he, fancying I misunderstood his words to imply that he was ready to join our religious congregation, answered quickly, "I do not mean that I wish to become a Redemptorist, but a Catholic." "I understand that," I replied; "let us go to the oratory and recite a Te Deum of thanksgiving." We did so, and then walked in the garden together for a short time. The first time I ever saw an expression of real joyfulness in his countenance was then. He was always placid, but never, so far as I could see, joyous, before he became a Catholic. To my great surprise, he chose me as his confessor. I left the time of his reception to himself, and he chose Saturday, the 9th of April, which was the anniversary of the death of his brother Alfred. On Saturday morning, I said Mass in the little chapel of the Orphan Asylum of the Sisters of Charity. Father Hecker, who was present, on account of the approaching mission, accompanied me to the chapel. After Mass, Mr. Baker made his profession, according to the old form, containing the full creed of Pius IV., and I received him into the bosom of the Church. {111} No others were present besides the good Sisters and their little children. He had been baptized by Dr. Wyatt, and the archbishop decided that there was no reason whatever for his being conditionally rebaptized. I performed the supplementary rites of baptism, such as the anointing with holy oil and chrism, the giving of the white garment and lighted candle, etc., at his own request, in the sacristy of the Cathedral, after his sacramental confession was completed. This sacred act was accomplished in the archbishop's library. During the week after his reception, and on the Third Sunday after Easter, April 17, he was confirmed in the Cathedral by Archbishop Kenrick, and received his first communion from his hand.

The conversion of Mr. Baker made a great sensation in Baltimore, and wherever he was known. It was announced in the secular papers, and for some weeks a lively controversy arising out of it was kept up. It was the general topic of conversation in all circles, Catholic and Protestant. The sorrow of his own parishioners, of those who had loved and honored him so much while he was connected with St. Paul's parish, and especially of his more near and intimate friends, was very great. His own near relatives, and a certain number of his intimate friends, never were in the least alienated from him, but remained as closely bound to him in affection as ever, while they and he lived. The great majority of those who had been his admirers, and who had listened with delight to his eloquent preaching, always retained a great respect and esteem for him; and during his whole subsequent life, he almost invariably won a regard from those of the Protestant community who were acquainted with him, second only to that of the Catholic people to whom he ministered. There were some exceptions to this rule, however. A few persons wrote to him in the most severe and reproachful terms. The usual pitiable charge, that his religious change was caused by mental derangement, was made by those whose wretched policy has always been to counteract as much as possible the influence of conversions to the Catholic Church by personal calumnies against the converts. {112} He was sometimes openly insulted, and much more frequently treated with coldness and neglect. Notwithstanding the respect with which so many still regarded him in their hearts, he was compelled to feel that he had become, in great measure, an alien and a stranger in the community where he had been born and bred. In a short time, his duty called him away from his native city, and, somewhat later, from his own State, into a distant part of the country. All the old associations of his early life were broken up; he had no longer an earthly home; and until his death he had, for the most part, no other ties and associations except those which were created by his religious profession and his sacerdotal office. Some six or seven persons were received into the Church soon after his conversion, three or four of whom were his parishioners; and some others may have been at a later period partly influenced by his example. But none of his intimate and particular friends were among the number, with the exception of his old and bosom friend and associate in the ministry, Mr. Lyman. His name and influence faded away, and were forgotten among the things of the past; while he, having bidden farewell to the world and taken up his cross, followed on after Christ, toward the crown he was soon to win, and was lost to the view of those among whom he had lived before, in the dust of the combat and labor of an arduous and obscure missionary career.

It is not to be supposed that Mr. Baker could hesitate long as to his vocation. He had in his youth dedicated himself to the ministry of Christ, but had mistaken a false claimant of delegated power to confer the character and mission of the priesthood, for the true one. Nine years had been spent, not uselessly; for the good example and eloquent instructions of a wise and virtuous man are always salutary; and he had been slowly preparing himself by the feeble light and imperfect grace which he had for the perfect gifts of the Catholic sacraments. {113} He was now thirty-three years of age, in the full bloom of his natural powers, with all his holy aspirations and purposes ripened and perfected, with a thorough knowledge of Catholic theology, excepting only its specially technical and professional branches, with all the habits suited for a sacerdotal life fully established. The only doubt of his vocation in his own mind was one of humility, and when this was settled by the decision of his confessor and of his bishop, his course was clear before him. He might still have chosen to remain in his own home and family while preparing for ordination. He might have remained in his native city, or in the diocese, as a secular priest, secure of the most honorable and agreeable position which the archbishop could bestow upon him, where he could have enjoyed all those domestic comforts and elegancies to which he was accustomed, together with the society of the beloved members of his family who still remained, without in any way interfering with his proposed career as a devoted priest. He chose differently, however, and from the promptings of his own soul, which instinctively chose what was most perfect. My religious brethren and myself used no solicitations to induce him to join us. His original desire for the religious life gave him a bias toward the regular clergy. What he saw of the little band of American Redemptorists, and of the mission which was given at the Cathedral, captivated his heart with a desire to become one of their number. He thought of one thing only—what was the will of God, and the most perfect way open to him to sanctify himself and others in the priesthood. His mind was soon made up on this point. He applied to the Father Provincial of the Redemptorists, who received him without hesitation. He settled his affairs as speedily as possible, and began his novitiate at once. As soon as the proper time arrived, he divested himself of all his property for the benefit of the surviving members of his family. His library he gave to the congregation, by whom it was afterward kindly restored to him, and is now in the possession of the Paulists at New York. {114} His only aim and desire, from this time forward, was to acquire the perfection of Christian and religious virtue. Forgetting all that was behind, he pressed forward to those things which were before, with a fixed aim and a steady, unfaltering step. He dropped into the position of a novice and a student so easily, and with such a perfectness of humility, that it seemed his natural and obvious place to be among the youths and young men who were with him. He was the favorite and companion of the youngest among them, and, it is needless to say, the delight and consolation of his superiors. After one year of novitiate and his profession, he continued for two years more studying dogmatic and moral theology, with the other accessories usually taught to candidates for orders. During this time he lost his amiable and excellent sister, Elizabeth Baker, to his great sorrow. Although his ordination was postponed much longer than is usually the case with men in his position, already so well prepared by their previous intellectual and moral training for the priesthood, he was not in the least impatient at the delay, and his long preparation gave him the advantage that he was ready at once to undertake all the most difficult and responsible duties of a matured and experienced priest. Besides this, he acquired that thorough and minute theoretical and practical knowledge of the ceremonies of the Church, and of every thing relating to the divine service of the altar and the sanctuary, for which he was afterward distinguished. He came out of his long retirement a workman thoroughly and completely furnished for his task, and imbued through and through with the spirit of the Catholic Church. I seldom saw him, and never exchanged letters with him, during all this period, each of us being absorbed in his own particular duties and occupations, at a distance from the other. As the time of his ordination approached, we were both of us, however, again in the same House, that of St. Alphonsus, in Baltimore. {115} It was in the summer of 1856 that he finished his studies, and, having some time before received the minor orders, began his retreat preparatory to being admitted to the three holy orders. During the retreat, his companion, F. Vogien, an amiable and holy young religious—with him and the saintly prelate who ordained them, now, I trust, in heaven—was full of dread and apprehension, often weeping, and even entreating his superior to postpone his ordination. With Father Baker it was otherwise. While I was in the church, during the evening, employed in the exercises of my own retreat, I often heard him singing the most joyful of the ecclesiastical chants in the garden, and his placid, pale face was lighted up with the radiant joy of a Soul approaching to the consummation of its holiest and most cherished wishes. He was ordained sub-deacon and deacon in St. Mary's Chapel during the week before the Sunday fixed for his ordination to the priesthood. On Sunday, September 21, 1856, he was ordained priest by Archbishop Kenrick, in the Cathedral. The Archbishop celebrated Pontifical Mass, the reverend gentlemen and seminarists from St. Sulpice assisted, and the clergy were present in considerable numbers, among them his old friend, Mr. Lyman, already a priest. Everyone who knows what the Cathedral of Baltimore is, and how the grand ceremonies of the Church are performed in it, will understand how beautiful and inspiring was the scene at Father Baker's ordination. The great church was crowded to its utmost capacity, but it was by Catholics only, drawn by the desire to see one who had sacrificed so much for their own dear faith. Father Baker, as he knelt with his companion at a priedieu, dressed in rich and beautiful white vestments, after receiving the indelible character of the priesthood, to offer up with the Archbishop the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, looked more like an angel than a man. {116} The holy and benignant prelate shed tears of joyful emotion when he embraced him at the close of the ceremony, and there was never a more delightful reunion than that which took place on that day, when the clergy met at the archbishop's table, to participate in the modest festivities of the episcopal mansion. A few days after, Mr. Lyman, Father Baker, and Myself, celebrated a solemn Votive Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Alphonsus' Church, for the signal grace we had received, in being all brought to the communion of the Holy Church and to her priesthood.

Here began the sacerdotal career, brief in time, but rich in labors and results, of Father Baker. He remained in Baltimore a few weeks, to celebrate his first Mass, and initiate himself in quiet retirement into his new priestly life and functions. The first fruit of his new priesthood was a convert to the Catholic Church, a young widow lady of highly respectable family, who was bred a Unitarian, and who had been waiting three years to be received into the Church by Father Baker. He baptized her and her two children, a few days after his own ordination. Soon after he began the missionary career, in which the greatest part of his subsequent life was employed.

It may not here be amiss to digress from the personal history of Father Baker, long enough to give some account of the nature of those missions in which he was henceforth to take so conspicuous a part, and of their introduction into this country. In doing so, I shall describe more particularly the method adopted in those missions with which I have been myself connected, without noticing any others which may differ in certain details; and this will suffice to give a correct idea of all missions, so far as their general spirit and scope is concerned.

Missions to the Catholic people have been in use for centuries in various parts of Europe. They are generally given by the members of religious congregations specially devoted to the work. The missionaries are invited by the pastor of the parish, with the sanction of the bishop of the diocese from whom they receive their jurisdiction. {117} The exercises of the mission consist of a regular series of sermons and instructions, continued for a number of days, and sometimes for two weeks in succession, twice or oftener in the day. The course of instructions, which is given at an early hour of the morning, embraces familiar and plain but solid and didactic expositions of the commandments, sacraments, and practical Christian and moral duties. The course of sermons, given at night, includes the great truths which relate to the eternal destiny of man, which are presented in the most thorough and exhaustive manner possible, and enforced with all the power with which the preacher is endowed. Several of Father Baker's mission sermons are included in the collection published in this volume, and will serve to exhibit their peculiar style and character. Frequently, the older children receive separate instruction for about four days in succession, closing with a general confession and communion. After the mission has continued a few days, the confessionals are opened to the people, and communion is given every morning to those who are prepared to receive. At the close of the mission the altar is decorated with flowers and lights, a baptismal font is erected, the people renew their baptismal vows after an appropriate sermon has been preached, and are dismissed with a parting benediction. The sacrifice of the Mass is offered up several times every morning, according to the number of priests present; and before the evening sermon there is a short prefatory exercise, which, in the Paulist Missions, consists of the explanation of an article of the Creed, followed by the Litany of the Saints. After sermon, the Miserere or some other appropriate piece is sung, and the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is given.

All this is very simple, consisting of nothing more than the preaching of the Word of God, the administration of the sacraments, and the performance of acts of worship and prayer, as these are ordinarily practised in the regular routine of the Catholic Church. {118} All that is peculiar and unusual consists in the adaptation of the preaching and instructions to the end in view, and in the daily continuity of the exercises. The object aimed at is to present in one complete view all the principal truths of religion, and all the essential practical rules for living virtuously in conformity with those truths, and to do this in the most comprehensive, forcible, and intelligible manner. The class of persons for whose benefit missions are primarily intended is that portion of the Catholic people least influenced by the ordinary ministrations of the parochial clergy, although all classes, even the best instructed and most regular, share in the benefit. All necessary available means are used to awaken an interest in the mission and to secure attendance. When this is done, continuous daily listening to instruction and participation in religious exercises prevents the impressions received from passing away, the people become more and more interested and absorbed, and are carried through a process of thought and reflection upon all the most momentous truths and doctrines, which is for them equivalent to a thorough education of the mind and conscience. The general instructions given in public are applied to the individual soul by the confessor in the tribunal of penance, as the judge of guilty and the physician of diseased and wounded consciences. Sin and guilt are washed away by sacramental absolution from all who are sincerely penitent; their souls, purified and restored to grace, are refreshed and strengthened by the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, and the debt of temporal punishment due to the justice of God is removed or lightened, in proportion to the intensity of contrition and divine love excited in the soul by its own efforts to secure the grace of God, through the indulgences conceded by the supreme power of the Vicar of Christ.

The earlier sermons are directed to the end of fixing the mind on the supreme importance of religion, and alarming the conscience in regard to sin. Afterward, special vices are denounced, particular dangers and temptations pointed out, those duties which are most neglected are brought out into bold relief, and every effort made to produce a thorough reformation of life. Toward the close, the scope and aim of the sermons are to animate and encourage the heart and will by appealing to the nobler passions and the higher motives, to awaken confidence in God, to portray the eternal rewards of virtue and point out the means of perseverance. All that can impress the senses and imagination, subdue the heart, convince the reason, and stimulate the will, is brought to bear, in conjunction with the supernatural efficacy of the word and sacraments of Christ, upon a people full of faith and religious susceptibility, under the most favorable circumstances for producing the greatest possible effect. Where faith is impaired, the effect is not so certain, and slower and more tedious means have to be adopted, with less hope of success, to restore the dying root of all religion, or replant it where it is completely dead. It is moreover certain, although it may not be evident to those who are destitute of Catholic faith, that there is an extraordinary grace of God accompanying the exercises of the mission; and this was so plain to the mind of an earnest Episcopalian clergyman in New England, on one occasion, that it led him to study seriously the subject of the Catholic Church, the result of which was that he became a Catholic, at a great personal sacrifice.

Public retreats had been given from time to time in the United States, by the Jesuits and others, before the series of Redemptorist Missions was commenced. This series, which began at St. Joseph's Church, New York, in April, 1851, was, however, the first that was systematically and regularly carried on by a band of missionaries especially devoted to the work. Since that time, the number of missionaries, belonging to several distinct congregations, has increased, and the missions have been multiplied. {120} The principal merit of inaugurating this great and extensive work belongs to F. Bernard Hafkenscheid, who was formerly the Provincial of the Redemptorist Congregation in the United States. F. Bernard, as he was always called, on account of his unpronounceable patronymic, had been for twenty years the most eloquent and successful preacher of missions in his native country of Holland and the adjacent Low Countries. Born to the possession of wealth and all its attendant advantages, but still more blessed with a most thorough religious training and the grace of early piety from his childhood, he received a finished ecclesiastical education, which he completed at Rome, where he was honored with the doctorate in theology. After his ordination, he devoted himself to the religious and missionary life in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, in which he speedily became the most eminent of all their preachers in the Low Countries. He was able to preach the word of God with fluency and correctness in three languages, besides his native tongue: French, German, and English. But it was only in the Dutch language that he was able to exhibit the extraordinary powers of eloquence with which he was endowed, and which made his name a household word in every Catholic family in Holland. His picture was to be seen in every house; the highest and lowest flocked with equal eagerness to hear him, and, on one occasion, the king himself came to the convent to testify his respect for his apostolic character by a formal visit. His figure and countenance were cast in a mould as large as that of his great and generous soul, and his whole character and bearing were those of a man born to lead and command others by his innate superiority, but to command far more by the magnetic influence of a kind and noble heart than by authority. Father Bernard brought with him to the United States, in March, 1851, two American Redemptorists, who had been stationed for some years in England, and had scarcely landed in New York when he organized a band of missionaries, to commence the English missions. {121} During nearly two years, he took personal charge of many of those missions, working in the confessional from twelve to sixteen hours every day, occasionally preaching when the ordinary preacher broke down, and instructing the young, inexperienced fathers most carefully in all the methods of giving sermons and instructions, and otherwise conducting the exercises of the mission in the best and most judicious manner. Father Bernard received Father Baker into the congregation, but soon afterward was recalled to Europe, where, after a long and laborious life spent in the sacred warfare, he is resting in the quiet repose and peace of religions seclusion. [Footnote 4]

[Footnote 4: Since the above was written, the news has been received of the death of Father Bernard, from the effects of a fall while descending from the pulpit.]

The superior of the English Missions, in the absence of F. Bernard, and after he ceased to direct them personally, was another Father with an unpronounceable name, F. Alexander Cvitcovicz, a Magyar, who was always called Father Alexander. It would have been impossible to find a superior more completely fitted for the position. Although he was even then past the meridian of life, and had been in former times the Superior-General of his Congregation in the United States, he cheerfully took on himself the hardest labors of the missions. It was not unusual for him to sit in his confessional for ten days in succession, for fifteen or sixteen hours each day. He instructed the little children who were preparing for the sacraments, and sometimes gave some of the morning instructions, but never preached any of the great sermons. In his government of the fathers who were under him, he was gentleness, consideration, and indulgence itself. In his own life and example, he presented a pattern of the most perfect religious virtue, in its most attractive form—without constraint, austerity, or moroseness, and yet without relaxation from the most strict ascetic principles. {122} He was a thoroughly accomplished and learned man in many branches of secular and sacred science and in the fine arts; and in the German language, which was as familiar to him as his native language, he was among the best preachers of his order. He designed and built the beautiful Church of St. Alphonsus, in Baltimore, although he was never able to complete it according to his own just and elegant taste. For such a man to take upon himself the drudgery of laborious missions, aided, for the most part, by young men in delicate health, incapable of enduring the hardships of old, well-seasoned veterans, was indeed a trial of his virtue. He undertook it, however, cheerfully, and we went through several long and hard missionary campaigns under his direction, until at last we left him, in the year 1854, in the convent at New Orleans, worn out with labor, to exchange his arduous missionary work for the lighter duties of the parish. Father Alexander was succeeded in the office of Superior of English Missions by Father Walworth, one of the American Redemptorists, who accompanied Father Bernard from England, and who continued in that office until, with several others, he was released from his connection with the congregation by a brief of the Holy Father, in order to form a new society of missionaries.

There has never been a finer field open to missions than the one which is found in the Catholic population of the United States, and seldom has there existed a greater need of them. The missions of St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, and his companions, were confined to villages, hamlets, and outlying districts, remote from episcopal cities and large towns. In his rules he directs his children to labor in places of this sort, because in Italy the most neglected and necessitous part of the people is only to be found there. In this country it was not so. The great need for missions lay in cities and large towns, where dense masses of Catholics were gathered, and where churches, clergy, and religious organizations of all kinds, were inadequate to the spiritual wants of the people. {123} A large part of the missionary work which has been accomplished has been, therefore, among those dense masses of the people in our largest churches and congregations, penetrating to the lowest strata, and bringing to bear a powerful religious influence upon the most uninstructed and negligent classes of the people. Some idea of the extent of this work may be gained from the fact that the missions given by the corps which F. Bernard organized, during seven years, from 1851 to 1858, were eighty-six in number, with an aggregate of 166,000 communions. They have been carried on on a similar scale, since that time, by the new Congregation of St. Paul, and by members of several older religious societies; so that, in the last seven years, the number of persons who have participated in the benefits of missions is, probably, nearly double the figures given above. There were other missions also given, during the first period, besides those enumerated, especially among Germans. It is, therefore, speaking within bounds to estimate the number of persons who have received the sacraments on missions, since 1851, at 500,000.

This is, however, much less than might have been done, if the number of missionaries and the facilities for attending their missions had been greater. Our Catholic population is a vast sea, where the successors of the apostolic fishers of men may cast their nets perpetually, without ever exhausting its abundance. In large towns, the population is so fluctuating and so continually increasing, that the work needs to be perpetually renewed at short intervals. There are also immense difficulties in the way of the poor people. The mass of them belong to the laboring class, and are, therefore, obliged to come to church very early, before their working hours, and again at night, after their work is done. They have no leisure, and can with difficulty rescue even the few hours necessary for listening to the instructions they so much need. Hence, many of them can get only as it were by snatches, here and there, a sermon or instruction during the course. In factory towns the case is worse. {124} Were it not for the accommodation usually granted by the overseers, in shortening the time, and giving leave of absence, it would be impossible to give missions to the operatives in many of our factory villages. Our modern system of society leaves out of the account the wants of the soul and the duties of religion. For many, there is even the hard necessity of working all night, and all Sunday. It is, therefore, difficult enough for our poor people to attend a mission well, when there is plenty of room for them in the church, and a good chance of going to confession without waiting longer than a few hours. Very frequently, however, in our large and overcrowded parishes, the church will not hold—even when crowded to suffocation—more than from one-fourth to one-half of the parishioners. The church is frequently filled two hours before the time of service. The porch, the steps, the windows even, are crowded, and hundreds go a way disappointed. It is easy to see what a drawback this is to the success of a mission, which requires a continuous attendance at all the sermons and instructions, and to the stillness and order in the church which are necessary to enable all to hear distinctly, and to reflect on what they hear. I have seen at least four thousand persons congregated in the streets adjacent to the New York Cathedral, besides the crowd inside.

Another difficulty lies in the vast number of penitents, and the small number of confessors. On many missions, confined strictly to one parish, there have been from four thousand to eight thousand communions; and, of course, that number of confessions to be heard within eleven days. At a recent mission of the Redemptorists, in New York, there were eleven thousand communions; and at one given a year or two ago, by the Jesuits, twenty thousand. Ordinarily, the number of confessors has been inadequate to the work. The people have thronged the chapel where confessions were heard, from four o'clock in the morning until night, often waiting an entire day, or even several days, before they could get near a priest. {125} At five in the morning, each of us would see two long rows—one of men and one of women—seated on benches, flanking his confessional. At one o'clock he would leave the same unbroken lines, to find them again at three, and to leave them in the evening still undiminished. At the end of the mission there would be still the same crowd waiting about the confessionals, and left unheard, because the missionaries were unable to continue their work any longer. More than one-half these people would be persons who had not been at confession for five, ten, or twenty years, and of these a great number had seldom been at church, and still more rarely heard a sermon. Hundreds upon hundreds of adults, of all ages, have received the sacraments for the first time upon these missions, many of whom had to be taught the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, with the other elementary articles of the Creed. I have several times, at the close of a mission, seen a row of grown-up boys seated before my confessional, of that class who roam the streets, loiter about the docks, and sleep out at night, unable to read, and scarcely able to tell who made them, much less to answer the question, Who is Jesus Christ? They had come to be instructed and prepared for the sacraments, swept in by the tide which was moving the waters all around them. Of course, they needed weeks of instruction and of moral preparation, to rescue them from the abyss of ignorance and vice in which they were submerged, and make them capable of living like rational beings and Christians. With some of them, a beginning may be made, and the germ of good planted in their souls. But many have to be left as they come, because there is no provision which can be made for their instruction. In a word, the nets are so full of a multitude of fishes that they break, and there are not workmen enough to drag them ashore. The work is too overwhelming for the number and strength of those who are engaged in it. In this respect, some missions which have been given in the British provinces, have been the most complete and satisfactory of any. {126} In St. Patrick's Church, Quebec, the vast size of the building enabled all who desired to do so to find room. Nineteen confessors were on duty, and others were appointed to instruct converts or ignorant adult Catholics. All who wished to go to confession were easily heard, without long waiting, or the accumulation of a great crowd of wearied and eager penitents pressing around the confessionals. It was the same in St. John's, where the Archbishop of Halifax and a large body of clergymen were hearing confessions constantly, although, even with this powerful aid, the missionaries broke down under the labor of preaching every day to six thousand or eight thousand persons in the great Cathedral Church, which had just been opened for service. In these places, however, the number of the people, though great, had a limit which could be reached, and the requisite number of priests were easily at the command of the bishop. In the United States, however, the work is out of all proportion to the number of priests who are either specially devoted to missions or who can be called in to aid these in their labors. The missionaries are too few to do the work alone, and the parochial clergy are too much engaged in their own duties to be able to give much of their time to additional works of charity. If it were possible to give missions simultaneously in all the churches of New York City, and if they could contain all the people, it would be easy to collect one hundred thousand Catholics together every night to hear the Word of God, and to bring from one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand to communion within fifteen days. In proportion to the population, the same results would be produced everywhere in the United States. It would require the labor of one hundred missionaries, during eight years, to give missions thoroughly to our entire Catholic population. At their commencement, however, and for some years after, there were but six or eight, and there are now, probably, not more than twenty priests continually employed in this work. {127} The necessity for it is, nevertheless, quite as urgent as it ever has been, and the benefit to be derived from it inconceivable. There are the vast masses of people gathered in our great centers of population, exposed to a thousand demoralizing influences, and most inadequately supplied with the ordinary means of grace. All that has been done for them hitherto, is but just sufficient to develop the immense need there is for doing more, and the great blessing that attends every effort to do it. Of course, the main reliance of the Church is, and always must be, upon the bishops and parochial clergy, and I have not had the slightest intention, in any thing I have said, to exaggerate the importance of the special work of missionaries. The episcopate and priesthood were established by Jesus Christ Himself, and are absolutely essential to the very existence of the Church. Religious congregations are of ecclesiastical institution, and are only auxiliary to the pastoral office. The multiplication of churches and of priests engaged in parochial duties is the most pressing need, and in no other way can the spiritual wants of the people be adequately provided for. It will be long, however, before the bishops will be able, even by the most strenuous exertions, to make the number of churches and clergymen keep pace with the increase of the population. Meanwhile, this lack of the ordinary means of grace cannot be supplied except by missions; and even where these means are amply provided, the subsidiary and extraordinary labors of societies of priests devoted to special apostolic works are necessary, in order to give their full efficacy to the ministrations of the ordinary pastors.

Besides our great towns, and their dense mass of Catholic population, there is another extensive field of missionary work, which has of late years been successfully cultivated, and which invites still further cultivation with a promise of a rich harvest. {128} I refer to the numerous new parishes found in the smaller cities and country towns and villages. Here a new phase of Catholic life and growth has commenced. The population is becoming settled and permanent. Catholics are making their way upward, acquiring real and personal property, blending with the body of their fellow-citizens, educating their children, and to a certain extent themselves belong to the second generation of Catholic emigrants from Europe, having been born and married in this country. In many instances, one pastor has two or more of these parishes to take care of. His time and thoughts are taken up with church-building and a multitude of other necessary duties. The country around is sprinkled over with Catholics, who have no resident priest among them. There is a vast amount of work to be done in instructing, confirming in the faith, bringing under religious and moral influence, and establishing in solid piety and morality, this interesting and hopeful class of Catholics. Nowhere have the missions been so complete and satisfactory as in parishes of this kind. The whole body of the people living in the place where the church is, can attend the sermons and receive the sacraments. Besides these, those living several miles away flock to the church as regularly as if they lived in the same street; and even from a great distance, numbers, who are usually deprived of the religious advantages of the Church, perhaps even have grown up without making their first communion, seize the opportunity with eagerness to come to the mission and remain for a few days, until they can be prepared to receive the sacraments of life. In Massachusetts alone, where congregations of this kind abound, the number of communions given in the Paulist Missions of the last five years, without counting those given in Boston, amounts to twenty-five thousand five hundred and thirty, on seventeen distinct missions, giving an average of one thousand three hundred and twenty-five to each congregation. These figures are a correct index to the numbers of the Catholic population in country towns throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and other portions of the Northern States.

The missions hitherto given have been intended immediately for the benefit of the Catholic people. Their incidental influence upon the Protestant community ought not, however, to be overlooked. Usually, our Catholic churches are so crowded by the faithful, that it is at least unpleasant, if not almost impossible for others to attend our sermons, especially on occasions of great interest. Notwithstanding this obstacle, thousands of Protestants have come at different times to hear the mission sermons, and there have usually been several converts on each large mission, sometimes as many as twenty, and on one mission, that of Quebec, fifty. Hundreds have been received into the Church, in this way, from all classes in society, among whom were two clergymen holding respectable positions in the Episcopal Church, which they gave up at a great worldly sacrifice. Besides actual conversions, a great effect has been produced in removing the prejudices and gaining the good-will of the community at large. The secular papers have almost unanimously spoken favorably of the missions. In many instances, the gentlemen and ladies of the vicinity have sent the choicest flowers of their gardens and hot-houses, to decorate the altar and baptismal font. Not only laymen, but clergymen have often manifested a wish to show kind and courteous attentions to the missionaries. Very seldom has any thing unpleasant occurred, or any annoyance been experienced—much less, indeed, than is encountered by missionaries in some other parts of the world from nominal Catholics. Employers have frequently lent their servants and work-people the means of conveyance to the church, or exempted them from a portion of their duties. It is impossible not to see how rapidly and generally the prejudice against the Catholic religion and the priesthood is melting away in this country. And this seems to warrant the hope that the time may soon come, when the faith may be preached to our separated brethren by means of missions especially intended for them, with rich results.

The favorable impression already so widely produced upon those who have heard Catholic missionaries preach, proves how much we have to hope for in this direction. This has caused, in one instance, which seems to demand some notice, an attempt to obviate this effect, by representing our manner of preaching as part of an artful plan of Rome, to deceive the minds of the people by presenting only a portion of the Catholic doctrine under plausible colors. After several missions had been given in Cambridge and Boston, where many Protestants of intelligence attended, and more would have willingly done so if there bad been room for them, the rector of a Boston church, who was present several times, preached and published a lecture, in which he attempted to explain the real spirit and object of the Paulist Congregation, by which the missions were given. The extent of the impression made is proved by the following passage in a note to the lecture:—

"One does not take pleasure in accumulating proofs that the Papal superstition still retains its most deplorable features; but as long as Protestant minds are imposed upon by the superficial fallacy that it is parting with these features, because its public speakers deliver admirable discourses, it seems to be necessary. Undoubtedly, the order of Paulists, is at present a very efficient arm of the Romish service in this country. Men say, 'Whatever Hildebrand, and the Innocents, and Torquemada may have done or said, such preaching as this is good for everybody.'" [Footnote 5]

[Footnote 5: The R. C. Principle: a "Price Lecture," &c. Boston. Dutton & Co. 1863 App., p. 39.]

On page 27 of the lecture, he says:

"One of the latest developments in the policy of her propagandism is the establishment in this country, with head-quarters in our chief city, of a new missionary order. {131} The Paulists are the itinerants and revivalists of that shrewd mother of adaptabilities, who, in becoming all things to all men and to all women, saw a chance in America for reaping, not so much in the field where her own fathers, like Marquette and Rasles, as where Whitfield and Maffit had sown."

Throughout the lecture, the aim of the author is to show that the sound and practical preaching of the eternal truths of religion, which he is forced himself to admire, and which was so much admired by many others, is nothing but an illusive pretence, which throws a deceitful halo over a system of superstitious formalism.

I have not introduced this topic for the sake of a theological argument, but merely in view of vindicating the reputation of F. Baker, whose sermons at Cambridge made the principal impression which the lecture was intended to obviate, and forestalling a prejudice which might cast a shade over the discourses which are published in this volume.

The author of this lecture, who has been my personal friend for thirty years, and who wrote to me on the occasion of its publication to express his hope that it might not interrupt our friendship, and all the Protestants who may peruse these pages, especially those who know me, will admit that I am both competent to explain what Catholic doctrine is, and incapable of practising any dissimulation on the subject. Those who knew F. Baker, or who may learn to know him from reading this volume, will also acknowledge that his high-toned mind was incapable of yielding to any system of driveling superstition, and his chivalrous spirit of descending to any system of artful deception by paltering with words in a double sense. I ask them, therefore, not, to accept Catholic doctrine as true on our authority, but simply to believe that the testimony I give as to the doctrine we have embraced and preached, and our views and intentions in giving missions, is true; and that the doctrine, contained in the discourses of this volume, is a veritable exposition of the true Catholic faith.

The missions were commenced and have been carried on for the purpose of benefiting the Catholic people. The sermons and instructions have been the same, in doctrine and practical aims, with those which were given in Italy and other purely Catholic countries for centuries past. The congregation of Paulists was not established by any act of the hierarchy here, or of the supreme authority at Rome. It was formed by F. Baker and three other American converts, in consequence of certain unforeseen circumstances, and without any previous deliberate plan, with a simple approbation from an archbishop, and a mere recognition of the validity of that approbation on the part of Rome. Not a word of instruction or direction as to the manner of preaching, or the end to be aimed at in our labors, has ever been given by authority, but the movement has been the spontaneous act of the few individuals who began it. It is our desire, as it must be that of every Catholic priest, to bring as many persons as possible to the Catholic faith and into the bosom of the Catholic Church. We intend, therefore, to make use of all the means and opportunities in our power to present the faith and the Church to our non-Catholic countrymen, and to promote as much as possible the conversion of the American people. The Catholic Church has the mission to convert the whole world, and intends to fulfil it; and any Catholic priest who does not endeavor to do his share of the work, is recreant to the high obligations of his office. We intend to do our part, however, in promoting this great end, not by artifice or dissimulation, not by secret intrigues or plots, by fraud or violence, by undermining or attacking the civil and religious liberty enjoyed by all our citizens in common, but by argument and persuasion, by exhibiting the Church in her beauty, by prayer and good example, and by the grace of God: We have no reserves in regard either to our doctrine or our intentions, no esoteric and exoteric teaching. We present the Church and the faith as they always have been, in all times and places, one, universal, and immutable, in all their essential parts. {133} What the Church and her doctrine are is ascertainable by all who will take pains to inform themselves, and it would be impossible for us to conceal it if we were so disposed. All that we have to fear on this head is ignorance of the real truth concerning our principles, and the misrepresentation of them by those whose knowledge of them is superficial. The author of this lecture is one of this latter class, and has hastily and without due examination put forth his own impressions of our doctrines and practices, with which he is so completely unacquainted as not even to perceive that there is any thing in them which requires any careful study or thought.

He says, p. 28: "I have heard several of these mission sermons preached. Most of them would undoubtedly be a surprise, and an agreeable one, to Protestant ears. There was a sermon on 'future punishment,' without one allusion to Purgatory." The sermon was on Hell, not on the whole subject of Future Punishment. We follow the laws of logic and rhetoric in our sermons, and confine ourselves strictly to the topic in hand; excluding all irrelevant matter. Any one who is surprised at a sermon like this, shows that he is entirely ignorant of the published sermons of our great preachers. One who supposes that the place of punishment for those Catholics who have sinned grievously, and have not truly repented before death, is Purgatory, is entirely ignorant of Catholic theology. "There was a sermon on 'Mortal Sins,' with scarcely a reference to absolution." For the same reason given above, that the preacher stuck to his subject, and the instructions on the Sacrament of Penance were given in the morning. "There was another, on the 'Close of Life,' which, from beginning to end, went to prove, in language that must have scorched every conscience not seared that listened to it—contrary to all the common Protestant impressions of Romish instruction—that there is no efficacy whatever in any or all of the Seven Sacraments to save a wicked Roman Catholic from perdition." {134} Indeed! Then these common impressions are all incorrect. The proposition which excites so much surprise is nothing but the commonest truism, familiar to every child that has learned the catechism. To admit, however, that the lecturer found himself to have been always mistaken, and Protestants generally to have been under the same mistake concerning Catholic teaching, would have been fatal. He has no such intention. There is couched, under the language of praise which he gives to the sermon, a concealed accusation that the doctrine of the sermons does not really mean what it seems, and that the old Protestant prejudice against "Romish instruction" is, after all, correct. This concealed arrow is launched in the next paragraph: "Supposing the fundamental falsehood, as a whole, to stand unchallenged, hardly any addresses can be conceived more admirably effective to a practical and useful end in the lives of the people." That is to say, there is a fundamental falsehood which destroys their admirable effectiveness to a practical and useful end. The lecturer is making out a case against us, and preparing an indictment which shall destroy the good impression we have made on Protestant hearers. He prepares the way by ridiculing the ceremonies of Catholic worship.

"But at just that point not only all praise, but all sympathy stops short. To say nothing of the dreary array of public pantomime and incantation, sprinkling and fumigation, pasteboard sanctities and materialistic adoration, which followed, and which give one a sense of momentary mortification at being a spectator at such a mixed piece of impiety and absurdity," &c.

The point at which the lecturer is aiming here clearly comes in view. All that is spiritual in our sermons, and that seems to inculcate a real and solid piety and virtue, is mere talk, or like the one genuine watch which the mock auctioneer passes around with his pinchbeck counterfeits, to deceive his dupes the better. {135} After a show of pure, spiritual doctrine, to furnish "a surprise, and an agreeable one, to Protestant ears," the poor Catholics are imposed upon with a set of outward shows and a routine of superstitious observances, which they are taught to believe will act upon them by a kind of magic charm, and secure them from receiving any damage to their souls and their future prospects from their sins.

The religious services which the reverend lecturer witnessed on the occasion referred to, consisted of the psalm Miserere, chanted by the choir, the hymn Tantum Ergo, and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. What is designated by the terms "pantomime and incantation" I am at a loss to conjecture. The "fumigation" was the burning of incense, which was also had at the High Mass recently celebrated in Trinity Chapel by F. Agapius. I think, also, that I have read in the Old Testament something about censers and incense having been prescribed by the Almighty to be used in the "pantomimes and incantations" of the Jewish ritual. "Pasteboard sanctities" puzzled me for a long time. I suppose it refers to the pictures blessed at one of the morning instructions, which the lecturer has confounded with the evening sermon.

"There were yet, beyond all that, as one pondered, appalling absences from the teaching, and more fearful elements included." These strong epithets prepare us now to await the final and telling blow. First, the "appalling absences" are specified. "Can that be the true preaching of 'the Word' where the language of that Word so seldom enters in?" The reader is requested to look over a few of the sermons in this volume, and count the scriptural texts. "Could that be the true preaching of 'Christ, and Him crucified,' where any mention of the simple gospel story was almost systematically shut out?" A mere ad captandum objection. If the lecturer had heard the Creed explained throughout, he would have heard the mystery of redemption explained in its proper place. The reader is again referred to the sermons of this volume for a more complete answer to this aspersion. {136} Now Come the "more fearful elements." These are the merit of good works, the scapular, indulgences, transubstantiation, auricular confession, purgatory, and devotion to the Blessed Virgin and Saints. The gist of the whole is contained in the following sentence:—

"Every system must be judged by its weaknesses and its errors, not merely by its better traits. They say in mechanics that the strength of a complicated piece of machinery is equal only to the strength of its weakest part. This is as true in a scheme of justification as in dynamics. Offer human nature, at its own option, various ways of securing salvation, and not more certainly will water seek the lowest spot than men will settle down to the inferior methods of escaping the pains of perdition."

What is the point of this observation? Evidently this: That we propose one way of salvation, by a truly holy life; and another way, in which, without the trouble of leading a holy life, one may save himself by a few outward observances, a mere confession of the lips, without contrition or amendment, reciting indulgenced prayers, wearing the scapular, &c. Consequently, only a few, who are of the nobler sort, will take the route of virtue and spiritual religion, while the mass will go on indulging themselves in all the sins to which they are inclined, and compound for them on the easiest terms they can make. Now, supposing this to be true, it recoils with all its force upon the one who uttered it. The whole doctrine of his lecture denies all merit to holiness and virtue, and ascribes justification solely to the personal holiness and virtue of Christ, which is appropriated by a naked act of faith. This is the Lutheran doctrine, and there cannot be a lower spot for men to settle down to, or an easier way for dispensing oneself from every thing that is painful and self-denying in the religion of the Cross. The author himself accuses (on p. 21 et seq.) nine-tenths of the New England Protestants of having slid down to such a low point that they are as bad as Romanists:—

"The first question put by about nine New Englanders out of ten, when they are urged to any particular religious duty, is whether it is necessary to their salvation, i.e. whether they shall be paid for doing it. It is essentially a Romish question.

* * *

Point to their censorious tongues, their narrow judgments, their contempt of the Lord's poor, their unlovely temper, their social and partisan prejudices, their mean dealings in business, their physical and religious selfishness: they give you to understand that sometime since they got into the ark—why should they be further converted?" Why should they, indeed, according to Luther and Calvin? Once obtain the imputation of the merits of Christ, by faith, and you have a full absolution for both the past, the present, and the future, without confession or penance; you have an inalienable right to the fruits of redemption without sacrifice or sacrament; you have a perfect righteousness and a right to an eternal reward without good works or merits; you have a plenary indulgence without even repeating "a prayer of six lines," or attending a mission; and you will go to heaven, not on the Saturday, but on the instant after your decease, without a scapular. Even the few little things that we exact from our poor, simple followers, as a price for heaven, are dispensed with. "Not more surely will water seek the lowest spot, than men will settle down to the inferior methods of escaping the pains of perdition." Let the Catholic priest tell them that they must profess the faith and enter the communion of the one true Church, at whatever sacrifice of pride, position, property, or friends, and they will find some inferior method of saving their souls and keeping this world—if they can. Let him tell them that they must confess every mortal sin, and they will settle down to some inferior method of obtaining pardon—if they can find one. {138} Let him tell them that they must do penance, fast, abstain, give alms, mortify their passions, keep the commandments, work out their salvation, and, if they would be perfect, sell all and follow Christ, like him whose doctrine the author attempts to criticise, and they will settle down to some inferior method—if they can persuade themselves that it is at their option to do so.

"What avails it," the lecturer goes on to say, "that the preaching priest tells the congregation that sacraments and saints will not save them, and omits to mention the confessional, if the confessing priest tells them, as he does in this 'book' which he puts into their hands, quoting from the 'Roman Catechism,' that almost all the piety, holiness, and fear of God, which, through the Divine mercy, are to be found in Christendom, are owing to sacramental confession?" (Pp. 30, 31.) The priest does not omit to mention the confessional, but let this pass. If there is any meaning in this query, it is, leaving aside the question about the prayers of saints, that it is of no avail to preach the necessity of inward renovation and holiness, if "sacraments" are taught to be the necessary means of grace. Yet the lecturer quotes, on p. 25, a Homily of the Church of England, which says that we obtain "grace and remission, as well of our original sin in baptism [what! saved by 'sprinkling?'] as of all actual sin committed by us after our baptism, if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to Him again." The same Church of England proposes also, at the option of human nature, along with the method of repenting by yourself, without extrinsic aid, the following "inferior method," by the confessional, which is pretty strongly urged on the sick man, as the best of the two. "Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession, the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort: Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences: And by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

Let us turn to the Catechism of the Church of England, and we shall find a little more about "sacraments," and particularly the Holy Communion.

"Qu.—What meanest thou by this word Sacrament?
A.—I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof.

Qu.—How many parts are there in a Sacrament?
A.—Two: the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace.

Qu.—What is the outward part or sign of the Lord's Supper?
A.—Bread and wine, which the Lord bath commanded to be received.

Qu.—What is the inward part, or thing signified?
A.—The body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.

Qu.—What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby?
A.—The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the body and blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the bread and wine."

There are some "appalling absences from the teaching" of this Catechism and "other more fearful elements included." There is not a word about the gospel history in it, or justification by faith only. It is all Creed, Commandments, and Sacraments. Change "bread and wine" into "accidents of bread and wine," and you have in an that I have quoted a mere repetition of the Catholic Catechism. "What avails it," then, that the Episcopalian minister tells his congregation that sacraments will not save them, when he puts into their hands this catechism? &c.

I cannot follow the lecturer through the whole bead-roll of his enumeration of Catholic practices, which he has picked out of the Mission Book and gathered up in a hasty perusal of other books of devotion, or explain every thing. They are among the minor and subordinate parts of the Catholic system, and are placed in their proper relations to the more essential parts of it in Catholic practice and instruction. {140} The lecturer has put them forward into a false perspective which distorts every thing, in order to show that they practically supplant the truth, the grace, and the morality of Christ; in order to put in a preventer which shall effectually shut off all access of our preaching of the great truths of religion to the Protestant mind. He has skillfully chosen just the very practices which are most misunderstood by Protestants, and most objectionable in their view. The chief of these, and such as are connected with Catholic dogmas, as Masses for the Dead, Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and Saints, and Indulgences, will be found fully explained in the sermons of this volume and the other volumes published by the congregation of which their author was a member, as well as in every Catholic manual. I single out, therefore, only one, and that the very one which a non-Catholic reader of the Mission Book would be most likely to stumble at, viz. The Scapular.

The author says: "I open the 'Book of the Mission,' and I find, intermixed with much that is better, such wretched directions as that *** the wearing of 'the Virgin's Scapular' around the neck (shall) guarantee the fulfilment of a promise made to one Simon Stock, an English Carmelite friar, of six centuries ago, that 'whoso should die invested with it should be saved from eternal fire.'" If this statement is to be taken in the sense of the lecturer, as a real exposition of our belief, it is very strange that we should not dispense with the confessional, as well as with preaching repentance toward God, and a holy life, and confine ourselves to the easier task of investing all Catholics with the scapular. Nothing would be further necessary then, except to keep the strings in good repair, and we might all of us take our ease, eat, drink, and be merry, while this short life lasts, secure of going to heaven at last. Human nature always settles down to the lowest optional method of escaping perdition, according to our author. {141} It is very singular, that after hearing our sermons on the mission, and then stumbling upon this account of the scapular in a book published under our own direction, he should not have thought that there was some explanation of which it was susceptible, which would give it a meaning in harmony with our doctrine, and should not have asked for that explanation. I will give it, however, unasked, lest it should seem that his objection is unanswerable.

The scapular is a small article, made to imitate a part of the religious habit, and worn as the badge of a pious confraternity affiliated to the Carmelite Order. According to the proper and ordinary use of it, it is conferred on persons intending to live a devout life, as an exterior sign of their special consecration to the service of God under the protection of the Blessed Virgin, and of certain special graces which are given through the prayers of the holy religious of Mount Carmel, to those who fulfil the conditions faithfully. These conditions are, to observe a strict chastity according to one's state, whether married or single, and to perform certain acts of devotion. It is understood that in order to be capable of receiving these graces, a person must take care to live always in the love and fear of God, and avoid all other mortal sins as well as those which are specifically renounced by the reception of the religious habit. This implies a diligent use of the means of grace, such as prayer and the sacraments. The advantage attributed to membership in the confraternity, and gained by fulfilling its conditions, is merely, additional grace to assist one to live a Christian life, and thus to escape perdition and gain heaven. The scapular is only a symbol of this, and the only consolation a person who wears it can receive from it at the hour of death is, that it is to him a badge and emblem of the holy life he has led, and of the promise of special grace in his last moments. {142} There is, besides this, the "Sabbatine Indulgence," as it is called, by which it is generally held, as a matter, not of faith, but of opinion, based on a private revelation, that a person may obtain a remission of the punishment of temporal pain in the other world, on the Saturday after his decease. Presupposing now the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, and also the doctrine of Indulgences, according to which no one can enter the first unless he dies free from mortal sin, or obtain the second fully unless he is free from every stain of sin, however small; there is nothing in this pious belief prejudicial to strictness of piety or virtue. In order to escape eternal perdition, one must truly repent of every grievous sin. In order to be free from temporal punishment, one must satisfy the divine justice for past sins already remitted, and repent of all sins whatever, even the least and most trivial. The soul can never enter heaven until its holiness is consummated. Therefore the pious belief respecting the Sabbatine Indulgence cannot, without contradicting Catholic doctrine, mean more than this: that one who faithfully accomplishes all that he promises on receiving the scapular, and earnestly endeavors to purify himself from all mortal and venial sin, may hope that the removal of the stains which his soul may have at death will be accelerated by a special grace, and that, if without this special grace he would still have some short time to suffer, it may be remitted to him, or shortened, as God may see fit.

The language of Catholic books, of devotion is often free and unguarded, and therefore easily susceptible of misunderstanding when taken out of its connection and pressed into a hard literalness by those who do not understand the Catholic system in its harmony. These books are written for Catholics, who are supposed to be instructed, and to have the practical sense of their religion which enables them to take up their meaning rightly. It is also presupposed that pastors and confessors will instruct and direct those under their charge in all matters relating to practical religion, and guard them against hurtful errors or mistakes in substituting minor and subsidiary practices of devotion for solid piety and the fulfilment of the weightier matters of the law. {143} Let anyone candidly examine into the spirit and scope of the sermons contained in this volume, and into those of the Mission Book, and he will see that those weightier matters are the ones which are insisted on. These are urged and enforced as essential with all possible earnestness; and how can it detract from the force of these exhortations, that an occasional recommendation of some particular devotions is also thrown in, which is like our Lord's counsel not to leave undone the paying tithes of mint, anise, and cummin?

Let it be remembered that the point is not now to prove the truth of the Catholic doctrine respecting the sacraments or any inferior rites, practices, or pious works. It is to refute the charge that by these things we subvert sound morality, solid and spiritual piety, and faith in Christ as the Author of grace and justification. This charge is untrue, irrespective of the question of the claim of the Catholic Church on faith and obedience. The author of the "Price Lecture" has made it without due study and examination, on the faith of the writers of the Church he has recently joined, and into whose views he has thrown himself by a voluntary effort, without waiting to mature the results of his own theological principles. He is capable of better things than this hasty and superficial lecture. Let him be true to the dying declaration of the great Anglican divine which he quotes with so much approbation (p. 6), "I die in the faith and Church of Christ, as held before the separation of East and West," and he will no longer be found in unworthy companionship with the revilers of the Roman Church. How much more dignified and noble is the position taken by such men as the great philosopher Leibniz, in the past, and, in the present, by the great statesman and champion of the truth of revelation and Protestant orthodoxy, Guizot! {144} The latter does not hesitate to avow that he considers the cause of which he is a champion essentially identical with that of the Church of Rome. I agree with him, in the sense that the whole of the Christian tradition which is found in the various Christian bodies, and which constitutes the positive and objective creed which they cling to, is all preserved in the Catholic Church. I know the doctrine of Luther and Calvin, in which I was brought up, thoroughly, and I can testify that the positive portion of it, respecting the mystery of Redemption and the inward sanctification of the Holy Spirit, I retain unchanged. I know thoroughly, also, the Church principles of Reformed Episcopacy, and I retain all these unchanged. I have found also all that true and sound rationality, or respect for human reason and its certain science, together with all that high estimate of the moral virtues, which is professed by Unitarians, in Catholic theology. I have never lost any thing or been required to abdicate any thing which I had previously acquired in the intellectual or spiritual life, by embracing Catholic doctrine but have only added to it that which makes it more integral and complete. The real question of discussion is about that which is positive in the Roman Church, in addition to that which is common to her and Protestant communions, and not about those more primary articles of the Christian creed which form the basis of all religion and Christianity. It is the question, whether the Catholic Church is really the one, only Church, founded by Christ on the Supremacy of St. Peter and his Apostolic See of Rome; and is an infallible teacher in faith and morals. We do not ask other Christians to admit this before they have examined the evidence, or been convinced by its force. We ask them simply, ad interim, to do us justice, to give us a fair hearing, to observe the rules of honorable warfare in their controversies with us, and to concede our rightful claims as Christians and as free citizens. {145} Those bigoted leaders of religious factions and their great "Fourth Estate" of unemployed clerical followers, whose occupation of hanging around the skirts of our armies is gone, and who seek to stir up a religious war, by representing Catholics as the enemies of civil and religious liberty, and the progress of the Church as dangerous to our political welfare, are beyond all reason or remonstrance. Their plans are well characterised in some of the secular papers, as more nefarious than those of the men who plotted to burn the hotels of New York. They would be better employed, and make a much more efficacious war on infidelity, if they would give missions, establish churches, and make other efforts for the instruction in some principles of religion and morality of the half-million of Protestants in the city of New York, and the other millions elsewhere, who never enter a church-door. Those Protestants who may read these pages will undoubtedly, for the most part, belong to that large class who repudiate indignantly all sympathy with men of this sort, and their schemes. And on such readers I rely confidently to judge justly and generously the pure and noble character and apostolic works of the subject of this Memoir, from his life and from his own writings. I rely on them to believe my testimony, that they will find in these a specimen of the genuine character and doctrine of the Catholic priesthood, modelled after the form proposed by the Church herself. I think they will give their approbation and sympathy to all that is done by the Catholic clergy to stem the vast and swelling torrent of impiety and immorality which threatens our political and social fabric on every side, and will acknowledge the service done to the state and society, apart from the directly religious benefit to the souls of men, by the only Church and body of clergy that has a powerful sway over great masses of the population in our country.

This long digression will, I fear, have seemed tedious, and irrelevant to the proper subject of this biographical narrative. {146} I have thought it necessary, however, as a background to my portrait, to paint the missionary work from which the life of Father Baker receives its principal value and significance. I return now to resume the thread of his personal history, which I left at the point where he was about to commence his public sacerdotal and missionary career.

Father Baker came to the assistance of the little band who were toiling in their arduous missionary labors, in November, 1856. His first mission-sermon was preached in St. Patrick's Church, Washington, D. C., on "The Necessity of Salvation." This sermon was also the last one which he ever preached, at one of the weekly services of Lent, in the parish church of St. Paul's, New York.

The debut of Father Baker as a missionary is noticed at the Records of the Missions in the following words, which were written by the faithful friend who watched over his last moments.

"The Rev. Father Baker, a convert from Episcopalianism, and most highly respected and beloved as a Protestant minister in Baltimore, had been just ordained, and came for the first time to assist at this mission. He preached the opening sermon, which gave great satisfaction to all who heard it, and a promise that he will hereafter be a truly apostolical missionary."

One pleasing little incident of this very interesting mission was, that the President and his lady gathered and arranged a beautiful bouquet of flowers, which were sent to decorate the altar at the ceremony of the Dedication to the Blessed Virgin, which took place near the close of the mission.

After the conclusion of this mission, Father Baker was sent by his superior to Annapolis, to assist the rector of the House of Novices located there (on one of the ancient manors of the Carroll family, which had been given to the congregation by the daughter of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton), in the care of the little Catholic parish in that place. {147} The other missionaries went South, for a series of missions to be given during the winter, and finding the work there too great for their small band of four, telegraphed from Savannah to the provincial, requesting him to send Father Baker to assist them. In compliance with this request, Father Baker was sent on immediately to Savannah, and took part in the mission given in the cathedral, at that time under the care of the saintly and apostolic Dr. Barry, then administrator, and afterward bishop of the diocese. There was but little episcopal splendor to be seen about the Savannah cathedral and residence at this time. Until within a few years previously to the mission, Georgia had been included in the diocese of Charleston. Dr. Gartland, the first bishop, had procured a suitable residence for himself and his clergy, and had purchased property with a view of erecting a handsome cathedral. A short time after his consecration, Savannah was visited by a destructive tornado, which destroyed the greater part of the fine old trees which formed the principal ornament of the place, otherwise injured the city very seriously, and unroofed the bishop's house. The yellow fever broke out about the same time, in a very virulent manner; and the bishop, as also Bishop Barron, who came there to assist him, fell a victim to the epidemic. These disasters, and the debts which pressed on the congregation, put a stop for a time to all efforts to establish matters on a suitable footing. After Dr. Barry's consecration, the old church was refitted and furnished in a way to make it quite respectable for the cathedral of a new diocese, and a spacious mansion was purchased for the episcopal residence. But at this time Dr. Barry was living, like a bishop in partibus infidelium, in a small and poor frame dwelling-house, containing only four or five rooms, and the clergy were putting up, in the best way they could, with rooms over the sacristy of the church. Just round the corner, an aged negro, with a long white beard, who was a Methodist preacher, might be seen sitting all the day long in the sun on a little stool, holding a cow by a rope around her horns, while she nibbled the grass which grew along the streets; and the old gentleman chatted with the passers-by, or prepared his sermons for the next Sunday, highly delighted at the friendly salutations which the fathers always gave him as they passed by. {148} Every now and then a black nurse passed along the street, carrying or wheeling the little white infant of her charge; or a troop of negro boys and their young masters, playing together with the utmost familiarity. The sunny, Southern atmosphere was vocal with the merry, free-and-easy sounds of laughing, chatting mirth, or work carried on like a play without much care or hurry, so characteristic of a city in the far South. Savannah is a very beautiful and picturesque place, where, at that time, Southern life and manners could be seen at the greatest advantage; and the novelty of the scene gave it a great zest to those of our number who had not seen it before. The clergy were, most of them, old veteran missionaries, brought to this country by the celebrated Bishop England, full of rich and piquant anecdotes of their past experience among the wild, sparsely-settled regions of Georgia and the neighboring States, related with inimitable wit and humor. [Footnote 6] The mission was still further enlivened by a visit to Savannah from Archbishop Hughes, accompanied by his amiable secretary, who were making a tour of recreation to restore the archbishop's shattered health; and from Dr. Lynch, soon after appointed to the see of Charleston.

[Footnote 6: One of these good clergymen, the Rev. Peter Whelan, during the late civil war, remained a long time among our prisoners at Andersonville, and spent four hundred dollars in gold at one time in purchasing bread for their necessities.]

This mission was, however, no play-spell for the missionaries. Besides the ordinary labor of preaching and hearing the confessions of a multitude of people, it was necessary to search out the people themselves, and bring them to church to hear the sermons. At that time, the Southern towns received the débris of foreign emigration, and were filled during the winter months by a loose floating population of Northern laborers, who were without employment at home. {149} Hence, there was a larger proportion than elsewhere of the most degenerate and demoralised class of Catholics, living in complete neglect of their religious and moral duties, and beyond the reach of the ordinary ministrations of the Church. Savannah has several suburbs and purlieus, rejoicing in the names of Yammacraw, Robertsville, and Old Fort, crowded with squalid hovels, drinking-shops, sailors' boarding-houses, and dens of thieves and smugglers, representing in a small way the scenes which Dickens delights in describing. A mission in the cathedral might be given ten times over, and the news of it never reach the denizens of these places. Accordingly, the missionaries divided the several districts between them, and undertook to beat up the quarters of sin, vice, and misery, in the hope of rescuing some of these forlorn and abandoned souls. It would hardly be safe for any one but a Catholic priest to undertake such a work, especially in the evening, and certainly no one else would have any hope of success. The work was done, however, very thoroughly, and, in consequence, the church was crowded by that class of persons who were in most need of a mission, and who had never been reached before. An immediate and extensive reformation was the result. The grog-shops were deserted, which before were filled from morning until late at night, the sound of cursing and quarrelling was hushed, the darker deeds of sin ceased, and the great mass of these poor, lost souls began to listen to the eternal truths, and to seek for the way that would bring them back to God. Many, engaged in dishonest practices, abandoned their unlawful traffic, and made restitution of their ill-gotten gains. Great numbers of those who had abandoned the sacraments, and even ceased going to church, for ten, twenty, or thirty years, came with great fervor and earnestness to confession. Some of the poor slaves also, as well Methodists as those who were Catholics, attended eagerly on the instructions of the mission. {150} One old Methodist negress was asked by her mistress, or some one else who noticed her constant attendance, if she liked the mission; to which she replied: "Oh, Lor! yes, missus; I'se bound to be there, if I can get only one eye in, every time." Another grown-up slave girl, who had never been baptized, was most anxious to receive baptism, and induced her mistress to ask me to baptize her. I was very reluctant to do it, fearing lest she might not be sufficiently instructed and prepared in her moral dispositions to begin a really Christian life, without a longer probation; and therefore refused to baptize her during the mission. After the last sermon she went nearly frantic, and made loud exclamations that she wished to be taken out of the devil's hands, and the father would not do it, but was going away, leaving her in his power. Touched by her entreaties, and finding that her mistress had taught her the rudiments of the catechism, I instructed her for some days, and endeavored to impress upon her mind especially, that if she wished for the graces of baptism and the friendship of God, she must renounce all sin and live a good and holy life. So fearful was she that she might sin, and receive baptism unworthily, that for a day before her baptism she would not speak a word to any person, not even her mistress. She refused to speak even when she was asked about her sponsors and her baptismal dress, and her whole demeanor at her baptism was like that of one oppressed with the most intense sentiment of religious awe, and of the sacredness of the promises she was making to God. It is not to be supposed that every bad Catholic was reformed, or that, of those who were really brought to a resolution to mend their lives, all of them persevered. The hydra-headed monster of vice is not killed by a blow, nor can we hope ever to exterminate sin by any means, even those which have a divine efficacy. It is a continual warfare which we have to wage, by both spiritual and moral weapons, which the free will can always resist. {151} God alone has coercive power over the spirit of man, and He will not exert it to compel him to obey His law. Temptations to sin ever beset the human will, especially in a corrupt, irreligious, and immoral state of society. The Catholic Church is not intended to be a society of saints who have already attained perfection, but a training and reformatory school for the human race. It has no means of charming or mesmerizing the human will into sanctity, and its gracious influences do not supersede the struggle for life which exists in the spiritual as in the natural world. It has all the means of sanctifying the human race, and of elevating men to the summit of possible human virtue, limited only by the extent to which the free human will co-operates with grace. It must actually produce these results on a great scale, in order to prove that it is the Church; because God would not have created it for this purpose, foreseeing its essential failure to fulfil its work and attain its predestined end. It is easy enough to show that the Church possesses this note of sanctity, correctly understood in this way. But it is perfectly true also that the free-will of man, by its failure and perversion, hinders the Church to a vast extent from exhibiting its regenerating and sanctifying power. Great numbers of individuals in the Catholic Church live and act in contradiction to their faith, neglect or abuse the means of grace, and dishonor religion by their conduct. The only means which the Church has of contending with this evil, and reclaiming these unworthy members from a sinful life, are moral means, acting on the mind and conscience. Missions are among the most powerful and efficacious of these means, and their efficacy is shown, not in eradicating sin, or liberating human nature from its intrinsic liability and propensity to sin, but in checking and counteracting its violence, and reclaiming a great number of individuals from its influence. {152} If they actually do this, if they have a perceptible influence in reforming and renovating the demoralised portion of the Catholic community, heightening the restraining power of faith and conscience among the mass of the people, and producing many permanent fruits in the increase of piety and morality, they are successful, and their value is established. It is beyond a question that they do this to an extent which can only be understood by those who are engaged in them, or who have studied their working on a grand scale.

To return to the Savannah mission. I had a good opportunity to judge of its permanent fruits when, two years afterward, I returned there, and went through the same quarters of the town where we had gone to drum up the people to the mission, in making a collection for the new congregation of St. Paul. Many of the very poorest dwellings I found neat and orderly; the pious pictures blessed during the mission hanging upon the walls; the children clean and tidy; sometimes an old man sitting at the door, reading the mission-book; the wives and mothers evidently cheerful and contented, the best sign that their husbands were sober and kind; the expressions of grateful remembrance of the mission warm and frequent; the signs of moral improvement everywhere, and the church crowded on Sunday.

It is not to be supposed that the body of the Catholic congregation of Savannah were like this lowest class I have described. I have dwelt more minutely on their condition, and the good done among them, mainly because the small comparative size of the place, and the thorough visitation which was made, brought us into a more close contact with their miseries, and enabled us to see more clearly what can be done to relieve them, than is usually the case. I have wished to show what the hardest and most repulsive part of the work of the missionary is, and to give a true picture of the nature and efficacy of the means used to raise up and reform and save the most demoralised class of the Catholic population throughout the country, and especially in the large towns, where this class is most numerous. {153} I wish, also, before resuming the particular narrative of F. Baker's life, to show what was the work for which he left the ease and elegance and attractive charm of his earlier position as an Episcopalian clergyman, fulfilling the light duty of reading prayers and preaching quiet, well-written, polished discourses for the élite of Baltimore society.

The mass of the people who were brought to the mission in Savannah by the personal visits of the fathers had never been seen in the church previously. They were the débris that the tide of emigration had deposited there, and many of them only chance-residents of the town.

The ordinary church-going congregation contained, as usual, its very large proportion of Easter communicants, with a smaller but still numerous class of devout and fervent Catholics who approached the sacraments frequently. The majority of them belonged to the humbler walks of life, although there were a considerable number whose position in worldly society was more elevated.

F. Baker arrived in Savannah, when the mission was about half over, and took his share in the labor of preaching and hearing confessions. At the close of it, after a few days' rest, three of the missionaries, of whom he was one, commenced a series of missions in one part of the diocese, and the two others began another which embraced the smaller parishes. The smaller band went to Macon, Columbus, and Atlanta, rejoining their companions subsequently at Charleston. As F. Baker went in another direction, I shall confine myself to the narrative of the missions in which he was engaged, and pass over the others, merely pausing for a moment to notice a letter written by a Protestant gentleman in Macon, to the United States Catholic Miscellany, of Charleston, as an evidence of the impression often made by missions upon the minds of candid and intelligent Protestants. The letter is as follow's:—

"In company with many of our most distinguished citizens, I have had the pleasure of hearing most of the sermons delivered, and witnessing the accompanying exercises connected with their mission, and but express the united and universal sentiment entertained, when I say that they were exceedingly interesting and instructive, and have served to dissipate many of the vulgar prejudices that hung like a mist upon the public mind, and, like a cold-damp, mildewed reason and honest judgment. Sufficient testimony of this result may be found in the fact that a number of Protestant gentlemen called upon Mr. Walworth yesterday, and urgently requested him to deliver one more sermon before his departure, which he consented to do this evening. I would send you a copy of the correspondence, but it would be too voluminous for the brevity of this letter; suffice it to say it was complimentary, no less in the act itself than in the manner in which the request was conveyed.

"I must take this occasion of expressing my gratification at the result adverted to, for though I am not a member, nor ever have been, of the Catholic Church, its piety and religious principles—the purity, integrity, ability, learning, and eloquence of its teachers and preachers—the bright links of patience, endurance, and fidelity, by which it is held to the early ages of Christianity—its unity of action, consistency of precept and practice, and conformity of theory and doctrine, as well as the great lights of intellect that have shed lustre upon it in the past and present—men whose genius has elevated them above the gloom of dying centuries to overflow history with glory—these have commended the Catholic Church favorably to my judgment; and regarding its onward progress and increasing popularity with no jaundiced sectarian eye or jealous faction-spirit, but with the extension of civilization and Christianity—I feel the pressure of no petty, vulgar prejudice in wishing it, with all other Christian organizations, 'God speed;' and if this sentiment be in hostility with Protestantism, as for myself and it I say, 'perish the connection'—'live' the enlightened liberality and intelligence of civilized and educated man.

"Yours, very truly, etc.
"Macon, December 31, 1856."

From Savannah, F. Baker, with two companions, went to give a mission in Augusta. On the pages of the Mission Records several interesting incidents of this mission are related. On the first Sunday morning of the mission, three gentlemen called on the fathers, all of whom, it appeared, were converts. One of them was called Dr. W. B., the second, his nephew, Dr. M., and the third was the overseer of Dr. B.'s plantation. This Dr. B. had been received into the Catholic Church some months previously, and had entered a Catholic church for the first time that morning. He was a man of fine and genteel appearance, with gray hair and a long, black beard, an intelligent and educated physician. So great was his excitement, and so wonderful did every thing which he saw that may appear through the magnifying glass of his imagination, that on his return home that night, at eleven o'clock, he awoke his brother and made him get up and light a fire, that he might relate the events of the day. As a sample of the proportion in which he viewed the whole, it may suffice to say that he described one of the fathers as seven and a-half feet high—at least six inches taller than the Georgia giant. The brother alluded to, also a physician and planter, made his appearance a day or two later. He was quite an elderly gentleman, with an intelligent countenance and a magnificent patriarchal beard. A painter could not find a better head for an Apostle, or for one of the ancient Bishops or Fathers of the Church than his. He was a man with an intellect like Brownson's, and full of information. He became a Catholic a few years ago from reading Brownson's Review. Since that time he has been a great champion of the Church, and, through his influence, his own family, his brother and sister, his nephew and some others, have also been converted. {156} One of the latter was then residing in Dr. B.'s own family, and was leading a most remarkably penitential life. This gentleman (a Mr. S.), of high birth and education, was formerly a lawyer, and a married man of large property. He was renowned for his courage, and had fought with one of the most celebrated duellists of South Carolina, named R. This gentleman lost his property and was abandoned by his wife. About seven years before he had become a Catholic, he lived for a considerable time with his brother, an unprincipled and ferocious man, who scarcely allowed him a bare pittance. He was dressed in rags, was barefooted, and lived on bread which he baked himself.

After a few years, when Dr. B. had become a Catholic, and opened a small chapel on his own plantation, Mr. S. appeared there one day at Mass in his miserable plight. Dr. R. invited him to stay with him, and gave him a small office to live in, and all other things requisite for his comfort. Here he had been living ever since, leading the life of a saint, and passing a great portion of his time in reading Catholic books, especially Brownson's Review, which he knew almost by heart. The Doctor said that the only thing which could excite his anger, was to hear anyone speak against Brownson, or contradict any thing he says. As an instance of his penance, I will relate how, according to Dr. B.'s account, he attempted to pass one Lent. He had been reading the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, and he endeavored to imitate their example precisely and to the letter. His whole food consisted of a small quantity of bread, and during the last three days he wanted to fast entirely, but Dr. B. threatened that, if he did, he would send a little negro for Father B., to excommunicate him. He was wasted to a skeleton, and did not recover the effects of his fasting for six months afterward. {157} On one occasion, Mr. S. found a poor, sick negro, with no one to attend him, and not contented with waiting on him and taking care of him, as he was constantly in the habit of doing for all the sick within several miles' distance, he washed his feet, and, for want of a towel, wiped them with his pocket-handkerchief. It was necessary to watch him, lest he might give away his clothes to the negroes and when he needed new clothes, they were put secretly in his way, and the old ones removed.

Others in this neighborhood, who were not yet Catholics, were so well disposed that they had their children baptized. Edgefield and the country round about was formerly celebrated for the lawless and violent character of the population, for the frequency of murders, and for the bitter prejudice existing against the Catholic Church; so much so, that a priest could not obtain the Court-House to preach in. When the elder Dr. B. became a Catholic, Dr. W. B. declared that he would burn up his wife and children and his whole house before they should become Catholics, and any priest who should chance to come near him. Another gentleman, since a convert, said that, if one of his children should become a Catholic, he would take him by the heels and dash out his brains against a stone wall. Dr. M., when he went to study medicine with his uncle, the elder Dr. B., made a vow that he would never enter the chapel and never desert the faith of his fathers; and his parents told him on leaving home that, if he became a Catholic, he should never cross the Savannah River again or see their faces. After some months, he became silent and melancholy. For a while he concealed the cause, but at last, one evening he told his aunt that he could hold out no longer, and was a Catholic at heart. Shortly after receiving his medical diploma, he determined to renounce the practice of medicine, and has recently been ordained to the priesthood.

At Edgefield a lot of seven acres was purchased in the middle of the town, for a church, to be built of brown stone, in the Gothic style. Five gentlemen had already subscribed sixteen hundred dollars for the church, and Father B. was collecting for the same purpose. There was a general inclination throughout the whole town to embrace the Catholic faith, and already there is a small band of the best Catholics in the country there—souls that have been led by the great God Himself, by the wonderful ways of His most holy grace. Dr. B. has since died, and what has been the fate of the little congregation, and of the beautiful church which was commenced, during the troubles and miseries of the civil war, I know not. They have not, however, hindered the Catholics of Augusta from completing and paying for a large and costly church, the successor of a very good and commodious edifice of brick where the mission was given.

After leaving Augusta, we went to Savannah once more, and on the 29th of January went on board the little steamer Gen. Clinch, which was afterward turned into a gunboat during the civil war, to begin our voyage by the inland route to St. Augustine, Florida. This inland route has some peculiar and picturesque features. The steamer passes down the Savannah River, with its banks lined with the green and gold orange trees, until, near the mouth, it turns into its proper route, leading through a succession of small sounds, connected by narrow, serpentine rivers, where you seem to be sailing over the meadows, usually in sight of the ocean, and quite often aground for some hours at a time. The steamer was very small and very crowded, our progress very leisurely and interrupted by several long stoppages, so that our voyage was protracted for five days. It is seldom that a more motley or singular and amusing group of passengers is collected in a small cabin. {159} Besides the three Catholic priests, who were to the others the greatest curiosities on board, we had an army lieutenant, since then the commander of a corps d'armée in the great civil war, an old wizard who was consulting his familiar spirits incessantly for the amusement or information of the passengers; a plantation doctor, a wild young Arkansas lawyer of the fire-eating type, a professor of mathematics, a crotchety, good-humored New York farmer, with very peculiar religious opinions, a young man who professed himself a universal sceptic, two or three gentlemen of education and polished manners, who were not at all singular, but appeared quite so in such an odd assemblage; and some others in no way remarkable. The cramped accommodations, the long voyage, and the usual bonhommie which prevails on such occasions were well fitted to draw out all the oddities and idiosyncrasies of the company. The spiritualist, who was an uneducated and uncouth specimen of humanity, with a great deal of native shrewdness, and a good-humored, loquacious disposition, was the center of attraction. The professor and the philosophical farmer engaged with him in a long and earnest discussion of spiritualism, which ended in his exhibiting his powers as a consulter of the spirits. Most of the passengers made trial of his skill in this respect, although his performance was the most patent of silly impostures, only amusing from its absurdity. The professor tried him sorely by asking him a question which seemed to have caused himself many an hour of anxious and fruitless thought, and which he appeared to despair of solving metaphysically: "Can God annihilate space?" The old gentleman's spirit did not appear to have investigated this question to his own complete satisfaction, for he gave him no positive answer. He was silent for a moment, with a puzzled look, evidently fearing a trap, and at last answered, "I don't know, but I guess He could if He tried; He made it, and I guess He could annihilate it." Just as the professor was going to retire to his berth, the old man took revenge by telling him that he had just been informed by the spirits that one of his children was sick of scarlet fever. The wizard left the boat at Brunswick, but as the conversation had taken a religious and philosophical turn at first, it continued in that direction, the two individuals before mentioned being the principal interlocutors. {160} We did not join much in it, as it was evidently distasteful to several of the company, who wished to read quietly or converse on ordinary topics. Before we parted, however, one of our number took the opportunity which offered itself of having a little pleasant and rational discussion with the professor and one or two others, who were really intelligent and well-informed. On New Year's Day we remained several hours at St. Mary's, Georgia, where we found the mayor of the place to be a Catholic gentleman, of Acadian descent, and were hospitably entertained at his house. The boat passed the night at Fernandina, and the next day we went out of the St. Mary's River, across a short and dangerous stretch of ocean between a line of breakers and the shore, into the St. John's, and up that romantic river, so full of historical associations. Friday evening saw us befogged above Jacksonville, and on Saturday morning we learned to our dismay that our captain was going past our landing, and on to Pilatka, which would keep us on board his miserable little craft until the next week, and prevent the opening of the mission on the Sunday. Touching for a few moments at Fleming's Island, we found friends at the little dock, who were passing the winter on the island, and who informed us that we could go from there that afternoon to our destination. We debarked accordingly, our friend the professor in company with us, and were refreshed with a good breakfast at the hotel where our friends were lodging, and a stroll around the little island. On the arrival of the steamer, the whole party went on board and proceeded to Picolata, where we took stage-coaches for St. Augustine, arriving there on Saturday evening. About halfway between Picolata and St. Augustine there is a post-house, where, in the last Florida War with the Seminole Indians, a party of travelling actors were surprised and murdered by Indians, who dressed themselves in their fantastic costumes, and in that guise made a hostile demonstration in the neighborhood of St. Augustine.

To Americans, this old town seems to have a vast antiquity, claiming as it does the respectable age of three centuries. The Catholic church here is almost as old as Protestantism, and a brief of St. Pius V., in regard to some of the religious affairs of this colony, is still extant. There are remnants of an old wall in several places, and a large fortress built in Spanish times, and called the castle of St. Marco, where you may yet see the marks of the cannon-shot fired at the invasion of Oglethorpe from Georgia. This fort might serve as a scene for the plot of a new "Mysteries of Udolfo," it is so unlike any thing modern, and so thoroughly Spanish and mediæval. It is not, however, of a sort to make one regret the past. Its dark, damp casemates look like prisons, especially one frightful dungeon, which is a cell within a cell, without any embrasure, and admitting no light or air except that which comes through the door opening into the outer casemate. This was the cell of the greatest criminals. In one of these casemates, Wildcat, the celebrated Indian chief, was once confined with a companion. Although cruel and blood-thirsty, Wildcat was a great warrior, and a man gifted with a high order of genius, an orator, a poet, and a true cavalier of the forest. On pretence of illness, he and his companion reduced their bulk as much as possible by a low diet and purgative medicines, and by the aid of a knife, which he had secreted and used as a spike by thrusting it into the wall of soft concrete, with a rope dexterously made from strips of his bed-clothes, he clambered to the high and narrow embrasure, squeezed himself through, not without scraping the skin from his breast, and let himself down into the moat. His companion followed him, but fell to the ground, breaking his leg. Nevertheless, Wildcat carried him off, seized a stray mule, and escaped to his tribe in the forest. {162} After the conclusion of the war, he went to Mexico, where he became the alcalde of an Indian village, and did his new country essential service by leading a body of Indian warriors, armed with Mississippi rifles, against a band of filibusters from the United States. Osceola, the half-breed king of the Seminoles, who was not only a hero, but a just and humane man, was also captured near St. Augustine, by treachery and bad faith, and confined in this fortress for a time, but afterward removed to Charleston, where he died of a broken heart. The great mahogany treasure-chest of Don Juan Menendez is still remaining in the fortress, and in one of the casemates are remnants of a rude stone altar and holy-water stoups, marking the site of a chapel. The fortress is kept in good preservation by our Government, and a noble sea-wall extends from it to the barracks at the other end of the town, which are established in an ancient Franciscan monastery. A great part of the old city is in ruins. The old Spanish families left the country when it was ceded by Spain to the United States, and the resident inhabitants are Minorcans, negroes, and a small number of settlers from the other portions of the United States. The Minorcans are descendants of a body of colonists, brought to Florida under false pretences by an English speculator, who enslaved them, and kept them for a long time in that state before they became aware that there was any way of escaping from it. When they did take courage to shake off the yoke, they removed to the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, where they retain their language, a dialect of the Spanish, with their ancient, simple character and habits. The illustrious Spanish names which some of them bear amused us greatly. Sanchez was the proprietor of a line of slow coaches. Suarez had charge of F. Madeore's farm, and Ximenes served Mass. The church is a large Spanish structure, built, as are most of the houses, of soft concrete formed from sea-shells. On a green in front of it stands the only remaining monument, erected in commemoration of the formation of the Spanish Constitution of 1814. {163} The tower has a chime of small bells, which are rung in a most joyous, clashing style, according to the Spanish custom, for festive occasions, and with a peculiarly plaintive peal for deaths and funerals. The cemetery is called Tolomato, which was the name of an Indian village formerly occupying its site. The ruins of an ancient mission chapel are still to be seen there, where F. Roger, a French Jesuit, was murdered by an apostate Indian chief and his warriors. After killing F. Roger, the band proceeded to another chapel, called Nuestra Señora de Leche, where they found a priest just robed for Mass. He requested the chief to allow him to say Mass, and his desire was granted, the savages prostrating themselves with their faces to the ground while he performed the holy function, lest the sight of him should soften their hearts. After Mass he knelt at the foot of the altar, and received a blow from the tomahawk which made him a martyr.

Tolomato contains also the beautiful tomb erected by the Cubans over the grave of the Rev. Dr. Varela, a learned, holy, and patriotic priest, a native of the Island of Cuba, and a member of the Spanish Cortes which established the Constitution. Banished from his native country, where his memory has always been fondly cherished, he passed the greater part of a long life as a laborious parish priest in New York, and died in St. Augustine. There is a beautiful chapel over his grave, with an altar of marble and mahogany, and a heavy marble slab in the center of the pavement, containing the simple but eloquent inscription: "Al Padre Varela los Cubanos"-The Cubans to Father Varela.

The mission in St. Augustine absorbed the whole attention of the Catholic population, who formed a large majority of the inhabitants. Great numbers of them gathered to welcome the fathers on their arrival, and whenever they went out they were met and greeted by groups of these simple, warm-hearted people, and followed by a troop of children, who live there in a perpetual holiday. {164} There was scarcely any business or work done there at any time; the climate and the fertility both of the land and water in the means of subsistence furnishing the necessaries of life to the poorer classes without much trouble. Most of these pass their time in fishing, and even this occupation was intermitted, so that on Friday there was not a fish to be found in the market. The people seemed literally to have nothing whatever to do; the fort and barracks were garrisoned by one soldier with his wife and children; the government of the place was a sinecure; the mails came only twice a week; behind the city lay the interminable, uninhabited everglade; before it the Atlantic Ocean, with its waters and breezes warmed by the Gulf Stream, and unvisited by any sails to disturb its solitude, except at rare intervals. Although it was midwinter, the weather was commonly as pleasant and the sun as warm as it is in New England in the month of June. I have never witnessed such a scene of dreamy, listless, sunshiny indolence, where every thing seemed to combine to lull the mind and senses into complete forgetfulness of the existence of an active world. To the people, however, it was one of the most exciting periods of their lives. The presence of several strange priests, the continual sermons and religious exercises, gave an unwonted air of life and activity to the precincts of the old church, and roused them to an unusual animation. Drunkenness, dishonesty, and the graver vices were almost unknown among them.

The negroes were found to be an extremely virtuous, innocent, and docile class of people. Honest, sober, observant of the laws of marriage, faithful and contented in their easy employments, which seemed to suit their disposition very well, and in many cases not only pious, but very intelligent, and exhibiting fine traits of character, they were the best evidence we had yet seen of what the Catholic religion can do for this oppressed and ill-used race. {165} One of them, a pilot on one of the steamboats navigating the St. John's River, impressed me as one of the most admirable men of his class in life, for capacity and conscientious Christian principle, I have ever met. Another, who was a freedman of the celebrated John Randolph, and for many years his personal attendant, was not only intelligent and well informed, but a well-bred gentleman in his manners and appearance.

The most interesting incident of the mission was the conversion of an ordnance sergeant of the regular army, who was in charge of the fortress. This brave soldier had distinguished himself in the Mexican war, by the recapture of a cannon which had been taken in one of the battles by the Mexicans, and by his general character for gallantry and fidelity to his duties. His wife and children were Catholics, but he himself had lived until that time without any religion. On New-Year's night, as he sat alone in the barracks, after his family had retired, he began to think over his past life, and resolved to begin at once to live for the great end for which God had created him. He knelt down and said a few prayers, to ask the grace and blessing of God on his good resolutions. His prayers were heard, and during the mission he was received into the Catholic Church and admitted to the sacraments with all the signs of sincerity and fervor which were to be expected from one of such a resolute and manly character. I wish to mention one interesting circumstance which he related to me, as showing the power of good example in men of high station in the world. He told me that the first impression he received of the truth and excellence of the Catholic religion, was received from witnessing the admirable life of that accomplished Christian gentleman and soldier, Captain Gareschè, to whose company he belonged. Many readers will recall, as they read these records, the admirable and glorious close of this officer's career on the field of battle. {166} During the Western campaign of General Rosecrans, Lieutenant-Colonel Garesché was his chief of staff. Before the battle of Stone River, he received Holy Communion, and was observed afterward alone under a tree, reading the "Imitation of Christ." During the engagement, one of the fiercest and most bloody of the civil war, he rode, by the side of his gallant general, through a storm of shot and shell, and by his side he fell, besprinkling his beloved commander with his blood, as he sank upon the field to die, and yielded up his noble life to his country and to God.

The labors of this mission were so light that it was more like holiday than work for us. The presence of a number of very agreeable and intelligent Catholic gentlemen and ladies, who were visitors in the place, and some of whom were old friends, added very much to the liveliness of the mission, and to our own enjoyment of its peculiar attendant circumstances. One of these was the Abbé Le Blond, a dear friend of ours and of all who knew him, a priest of Montreal, who was gradually dying of consumption, yet full of vivacity and activity, improving the remnant of his days by his labors of love and zeal, and his works of charity in different parts [of] the South where he passed his winters. He died eventually in Rome. Another was Lieutenant McDonald, of the British Royal Navy, and also, for some time before leaving England, a captain in the Queen's Guards, a Highland gentleman of a family that has always been true to the faith, also since deceased.

The quiet city of St. Augustine, as well as all the other scenes and places where we passed that winter on our missionary tour, has since then been visited by the desolating breath of war. Probably all is changed, and greater changes yet are coming with the new issues of peace—changes which, there is reason to hope, will advance both the religious and temporal welfare of the people. Florida may yet become a populous State, and the handful of Catholics in it swell into a number sufficient to make a flourishing diocese.

Immediately after the close of the mission, F. Baker proceeded by sea to Charleston where he met the other two missionaries who had been at work in Georgia, and commenced a mission in the cathedral of that city. His two companions were detained for a time in St. Augustine by the sudden and severe illness of one of them, and they went on a little later, returning by the same leisurely route by which they came to Savannah, and thence to Charleston, where the mission was already in progress.

Charleston possessed three Catholic churches, and its Catholic population numbered from five to six thousand. All the congregations were invited to the mission, and a large number of them did attend from St. Mary's and St. Patrick's, together with the whole body of the cathedral parish. The same work performed by the missionaries in Savannah had been gone through in Charleston, in scouring the lanes and alleys of the city to bring up the stragglers, and the great cathedral was accordingly crowded, morning and night. First of all, two hundred bright and well-instructed children received communion in a body, and afterward, through the course of the mission, three thousand adults, among whom were twenty converts to the faith.

Father Baker never, during the whole course of his missionary life, enjoyed any thing so much as this Southern tour, and especially his stay at Charleston, the most delightful city of the South. After the long seclusion of three years in a convent, which had impaired his health and vigor, the recreation and pleasure of such a trip wad most beneficial and delightful to him. The work in which he was engaged, besides the higher satisfaction which it gave to his zeal and charity, had also the charm and excitement of novelty, without the pressure of too arduous and excessive labor. At Charleston, he was already prepared by his previous experience and practice to take a full share in the principal sermons, and to give them that peculiar tone and effect which is characteristic of mission sermons, and makes them sui generis among all others. {168} All the circumstances were calculated to call the noblest powers of his mind and the warmest emotions of his heart into full play. The cathedral was large, beautiful, and of a fine ecclesiastical style in all its arrangements. The adjoining presbytery, which had been built for a convent, and all the surroundings, were both appropriate for the residence of a body of cathedral clergy and pleasing to the eye of taste. The clergymen themselves, with their distinguished head, afterward the bishop of the diocese, were men of accomplished learning and genial character, whose kindness and hospitality knew no bounds, and whose zeal made them efficient fellow-laborers in the work of the mission. The congregation itself had many features of unusual interest. Having been long established, and carefully watched over, since the illustrious Bishop England organized the diocese, containing a large permanent population of various national descent and of all classes of society, not a few of whom were converts from South Carolina families, an unusually large number of intelligent young men, trained up to a great extent under the care of the clergy, and thus giving scope and affording a field for a man like F. Baker to display his special gifts to the greatest advantage and profit—it is not surprising that he should have called out, both in his public discharge of duty and in private and social intercourse, that same warm admiration which had followed him in the former period of his life. In his sermons, he went far above his former level, and began to develop that combination of the best and most perfect elements of sacred eloquence, which, in the estimation of the most impartial and competent judges, placed him in the first rank of preachers. The present bishop of Charleston, whose pre-eminent learning and high qualities of mind are well known, pronounced one of F. Baker's discourses a perfect sermon, and the best he had ever heard. {169} The Catholics of Charleston never saw Father Baker again; but they never forgot him, and he never forgot them; for, during the rest of his too short life, he recurred frequently to the remembrance of that mission, which was so rich in the highest kind of pleasure, as well as spiritual profit and blessing.

At that time, all was peace. Sumter was solitary and silent, untenanted by a single soldier. Fort Moultrie and Sullivan's Island, and the beautiful battery and the bay were calm and peaceful, where, a few years later, all was black and angry with the terrible thunder-storm of war. Blackened ruins are all that remain of that beautiful cathedral and the pleasant home of the clergy. Some of those clergymen have died in attending the sick soldiers of the United States, and others are scattered in different places. Many of those fine young men and bright boys have left their bodies on the battle-field, or lost the bloom and vigor of their youth in the unwholesome camp or hospital or military prison. The good Sisters have been driven from one shelter to another, by the terrible necessities of a desperate warfare, whose miseries they have courageously striven to alleviate by their heroic charity. Charleston has been desolated, and the Church of Charleston has shared in the common ruin. Nevertheless, there is every reason to hope that this temporary period of desolation will be succeeded in due time by one more auspicious for the solid and extensive progress of the Catholic religion than any which has yet been seen, in that vast region where the eloquent voice of Bishop England proclaimed the blessed faith of the true and apostolic Church of Christ.

After the conclusion of the Charleston mission, F. Baker returned to Annapolis, and remained there in charge of the little parish attached to the convent, until the following September. One of his companions, the invalid of St. Augustine, went to Cuba to re-establish his health; and the other three, after giving several other missions in New York State, returned also to summer quarters.

The missionary labors in which F. Baker had been thus far engaged, were, comparatively speaking, but a light and pleasant prelude to the continuous and arduous missionary career of a little more than seven years, which he commenced in the autumn of 1857. At the very outset he was obliged to make a decision of a very grave and important matter, which resulted in a still more complete separation from the scenes and associates of his past life, and threw him more completely upon a pure and conscientious devotion to his priestly duties for the sake of God alone, as his only consolation in this world.

One of our number was at that time in Rome, for the purpose of obtaining from the chief authority a settlement of certain difficulties which had arisen, and which impeded the successful and harmonious prosecution of the missions. The question was finally settled by a separation of five American Redemptorists, by a brief of the Holy Father, from their former congregation, and the formation of the new Congregation of St. Paul, under episcopal authority. F. Baker was for the first time informed of the reasons for appealing to the decision of the Holy Father, at the mission of St. James's Church, Newark, which commenced on the 26th of September, 1857. I have no intention of exposing the history of the difference which arose between us and our former religious superiors, or of making a criticism upon their conduct. If the providence of God ordered events in such a way that a new congregation should be formed for a special purpose, it is nothing new or strange that men, having a different vocation, and whose views and aims were cast in a different mould, should with the most conscientious intentions, be unable to coincide in judgment or act in concert. There is room in the Catholic Church for every kind of religious organization, suiting all the varieties of mind and character and circumstance. {171} If collisions and misunderstandings often come between those who have the same great end in view, this is the result of human infirmity, and only shows how imperfect and partial are human wisdom and human virtue. All that I am concerned to show is, that F. Baker did not swerve from his original purpose in choosing the religious state. He had never been discontented with his state, or with his superiors. He was still in the first fervor of his vocation, and had just made a strict and exact retreat. He deliberated for some weeks within his own mind, without saying or doing any thing to commit himself to any particular line of conduct. When he finally made up his mind to cast in his lot with his missionary companions, and to abide with them the decision of the Holy Father, it was solely in view of serving God and his fellow-men in the most perfect manner. For the congregation where he was trained to the religious and ecclesiastical state, he always retained a sincere esteem and affection. He did not ask the Pope for a dispensation from his vows in order to be relieved from a burdensome obligation, but only on the condition that it seemed best to him to terminate the difficulty which had arisen in that way. When the dispensation was granted, he did not change his life for a more easy one. He resisted a pressing solicitation to return to Baltimore as a secular priest, and continued until his death to labor in a missionary life, and to practise the poverty, the obedience, the assiduity in prayer and meditation, and the seclusion from the world, which belong to the religious state. Let no one, therefore, who is disposed to yield to temptations against his vocation, and to abandon the religious state from weariness, tepidity, or any unworthy motive, think to find any encouragement in the example of F. Baker; for his austere, self-denying, and arduous life will give him only rebuke, and not encouragement.

During the entire autumn and winter of this year, F. Baker and his companions were occupied in a continuous course of large and successful missions, in the parishes of St. James, Newark; Cold Spring and Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson; St. John's, Utica, N. Y.; Brandywine, Del.; Trenton, N. J.; Burlington, Brandon, East and West Rutland, Vt.; Plattsburg, Saratoga, and Little Falls, New York. With loyal hearts we continued to obey our superiors, and fulfil our obligations as Redemptorists, until the supreme authority in the Church released us by his decree. This decree was issued on the 6th of March, 1858, and received by us on the 6th of April. After the Mission of Little Falls, F. Baker was directed by the Provincial to return to Annapolis, and although fatigued by the missions, and aware that his dispensation was on the way, yet, true to the letter to his principle of obedience, he obeyed at once. The other three missionaries passed the Holy Week and Easter in the convent of New York, in Third street, and, after receiving the official copy of the Papal decree, bade farewell to the congregation where we had passed so many happy years, and witnessed so many edifying examples of high virtue and devoted zeal, to enter upon a new and untried undertaking.

Our first asylum was the home of Geo. V. Hecker, Esq., who kindly gave up to our use a portion of his house as a little temporary convent, where we remained some weeks, saying Mass in his beautiful private chapel, which was completely furnished with every thing necessary for that purpose. The Bishop of Newark had made an arrangement to receive us under his jurisdiction, as soon as our relation to our congregation was terminated, and faculties from the diocese of New York were obtained from the archbishop. We continued to follow our accustomed mode of life, and obey our former Superior of the Missions. After a short time we gave a mission at Watertown, in the diocese of Albany, and were not a little encouraged by receiving, late on the Saturday evening before the mission was opened, the special faculties which had been obtained for each one of us at Rome, for giving the Papal Benediction. {173} The grand and spacious church of this beautiful town, which is worthy to be a cathedral from its size and architecture, was crowded by the largest number of Protestants we had ever seen on similar occasion, and a number of converts were received into the Church. From Watertown we came to St. Bridget's Church in New York, where we had one of our largest, most laborious, and most fruitful missions. This was the first one of those heavy city missions so frequent during our early career, at which F. Baker had assisted, where the crowds of people were so overwhelming, and the labor so excessive and exhausting. He went into his work with a brave spirit and an untiring zeal, and scarcely allowed himself even a breathing-spell. The love and admiration which the warm-hearted people of this congregation acquired for him was never diminished, and there was no one whom they ever after loved so much to see revisiting their church. Before the close, F. Hecker arrived from Rome, after a year's absence, bringing a special benediction from the Holy Father upon our future labors, and a warm commendatory letter from the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda. At the end of the mission we found ourselves without a home, and we remained so until the spring of the following year, dependent for the most part on the hospitality of individual friends among the clergy and laity for a temporary shelter. For a short time we were obliged to take lodgings in an ordinary respectable boarding-house in Thirteenth street, near several churches and chapels, where we could say Mass every day, without incommoding anyone. Our kind friend and generous patron, Mr. Hecker, afterward gave up to us his whole house, while his family were in the country; leaving his servants, and making ample provision for furnishing us with every comfort in the most hospitable style. During the summer, the "Congregation of Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle" was organized, under the approbation and authority of the archbishop; and arrangements were commenced for the foundation of a religious house and church, with a parochial charge annexed. {174} While we were occupying Mr. Hecker's house, two burglars entered the building one night, through a window incautiously left open, came into the room occupied by F. Baker and one of his companions, and robbed them of their watches, which were fortunately of small value, some articles of clothing, likewise not very costly, and a trifling amount of loose change; but, seeing two other men of no small stature in the adjoining room, prudently decamped, without finding a number of costly articles belonging to the chapel, although they had examined the drawer where the albs and amices were kept. None of us were awakened, and the first news we had of the midnight raid upon our territory was given by F. Baker exclaiming that his coat had been stolen. We laughed at him at first, but it was soon discovered that his intelligence was correct, and that the next house had been visited also by the robbers. This adventure gave occasion for a great deal of mirth among ourselves, and many speculations as to the probable results of an encounter with the robbers, in case we had awakened, in which fatal consequences to the latter were freely predicted. As usual in such cases, the police examined the matter, gave very sagacious information as to the mode of entrance and exit, and discovered no trace of the burglars themselves. We were only too happy that the chalice and vestments had not been carried off.

The burden which was assumed by our small community was a very heavy one. It was necessary for us to continue the missions without interruption, and at the same time to provide the means of making a permanent foundation, which could not be done without securing property, and erecting a church and religious house at a cost of about $65,000. During this time of struggle for life, F. Baker was one of the main stays of the missions, and one of the most arduous and efficient of our number in working at the collection of funds and the organization of the parish. {175} After a summer spent in this latter work, a course of missions was commenced in September, the first of which was a heavy one, in a congregation numbering 5,000 souls, at the cathedral of Providence, in which we were all engaged. The next was a retreat given to men alone, and specifically to the members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, in the cathedral of New York. F. Baker closed it with a magnificent sermon in his happiest vein, on "The Standard of Christian Character for men in the world." The following notice of the retreat, taken from the Freeman's Journal, is more graphic than any that I can give, and I therefore quote it entire, in place of describing it in my own language:—

"The retreat given by the band of Missionaries of St. Paul the Apostle to members of St. Vincent de Paul's Society, and other men of this city, closed on Sunday evening, the Rev. Father Baker preaching an admirable sermon on the characteristics of Christian perfection for men in the world. During the week that this retreat has continued, the number of men approaching the sacraments was about two thousand. The religious effects of the occasion will be great and permanent. But besides results that the Catholic faith leads to expect, St. Patrick's Cathedral has, the past week, presented a subject for thought and astonishment to the observing and reflecting man, though not a Catholic. What has gathered these crowds of busy, practical men? What keeps them kneeling, or standing quietly in solid masses, for an hour before the exercises commence? Most of these men rose from their beds at four o'clock, some as early as half-past three, and made long walks through the darkness to secure their standing-place in the church during the early instructions. They hear from the pulpit solid, distinct, earnest instructions in regard to what a man must believe, and in regard to what he must do to attain eternal life when this world is past. But whence comes this lively appreciation of truths beyond the reach of the senses, in the minds of men plunged all day long, and every day, in material occupations? {176} Here are men of the class that, in communities not Catholic, do not suffer religion to interfere with their comfort—who like best to discuss the points of their religious profession after dinner, and to listen to sermons while seated in cushioned pews. What causes them thus to stand in the packed throng of the faithful, listening to the homely details of daily duties required of them, or kneeling on the hard floor, repeating with the multitude, in a loud voice, the prayers they learned in childhood? Then, these sons of humblest toil that kneel beside them. All the heat and excitement of the "revival" failed to bring any considerable number of the corresponding class of non-Catholics to the "prayer-meetings." The latter mentioned would say that they had to look out for their daily bread, and that the rich men at the prayer-meetings did not want them any way. Here they are at St. Patrick's, by five o'clock in the morning, and either they do without their breakfast, or it was dispatched an hour or more before. These various classes of men, having attended the exercises given by the Missionaries of St. Paul, during the week, stood crowded within St. Patrick's on Sunday evening. The parting instruction of the missionaries was to stir them, by all the courage and fervor and endurance that they had manifested during the retreat, to fix higher principles and firmer purposes for the guidance of their future life—to be faithful to every duty, to their families, to society, and to themselves—to be manly in their religious observances, and generous in sacrificing for their faith and for God every attachment that brings scandal on their religion or danger to their own virtue. At the close of the exercises by the missionaries, the Most Rev. Archbishop Hughes made some remarks to the vast congregation. He said he found no necessity of adding any thing to what the missionaries, according to the special objects of their calling, had done, to cause the truths most appropriate and necessary to sink into hearts so well prepared to receive and retain them. {177} But the spectacle before him was one he could not let pass without some words expressive of his gratification. When a few Catholic young men first met in the archbishops's house to form the first Conference of St. Vincent de Paul, he had formed high anticipations of the good their association would do each other and the Catholic community at large. Here, to-night, he saw the realization of his hopes. When he reflected on the influence that must be exerted on the Catholic body, and on this great city—where, alas, there was no other religion capable of influencing and restraining men except the Catholic—by so great a company of men instructed in their religion, and fervent in its practice—he had the wish that such meetings for these exercises, might, at intervals, be repeated in all the Catholic churches in the city. He then thanked the missionaries for their labors—he knew they asked not thanks from men—but still it was due that he, in the name of those who had been benefited by their exercises, should thank them.

"This retreat for men has been, in some respects, of especial interest, and has been highly successful; and, for the complete satisfaction that it has afforded, it must be said that nothing which discreet forethought and arrangement, or affectionate zeal and assiduity could effect, was left undone by the Very Rev. Mr. Starrs, V. G. and Rector of the Cathedral."

The third mission was given at the cathedral of Covington, when the following circumstance occurred. A Protestant gentleman, who was present one evening, had a phial of poison in his pocket, with which he was fully determined to destroy his own life; but the sermon of F. Baker on the Particular Judgment made such a powerful impression on his mind that he threw away the poison and disclosed to his friends what his desperate purpose had been. From Covington, F. Hecker returned to New York, to attend to our affairs there, and F. Baker with two companions went on a tour of missions, which continued from November until Christmas, in the State of Michigan. {178} The flourishing parishes located in the pretty villages of Kalamazoo, Marshall, Jackson, and Ann Arbor, were the ones visited. The last of these missions deserves a special notice, which I extract from the "Records":—

"The pastor of the church in Ann Arbor has two congregations under his charge, one at Ann Arbor, and the other at Northfield. The latter is the larger of the two, and it was earnestly desired that we should give them a separate mission. We were told that it was vain to expect them to come to the service at Ann Arbor, and, as they were already jealous of the Ann Arbor people, if we did not give them a mission of their own, their dissatisfaction would be increased, and we should do more harm than good by our visit. We on our part would have been willing to give them a double mission; but as there was no house near the Northfield church where the missionaries could lodge, it was decided to be impossible, and we concluded that one of the fathers should go out on Sunday and announce the mission to the Northfield people, and invite them to attend at Ann Arbor. The result proved the wisdom of the decision, for the people came in from the country in crowds, thus increasing the life and animation of the mission. The weather was mild and pleasant, the nights were bright and moonlit, and every morning and evening crowds of wagons were drawn up around the church, some from ten, some from fifteen, and some even from twenty miles off. The church was crowded by five o'clock in the morning, and the congregation, not content with assisting at one Mass and the Instruction, remained until late in the morning, when the Masses were all over. In the evening, the crowd was rendered still denser by the large representation of Protestants who attended. On the last night, the crowd was so great, that not only was the church packed in every part to its utmost capacity, but even the windows were filled with young men who had climbed up from without, and the trees around the church offered a perch for those who had to content themselves with a bird's-eye view of the scene."

I have noticed this mission more particularly, because this Northfield congregation was a specimen of several Catholic farming communities with which we came in contact on our missions. The prosperity, happiness, and virtue which I have found existing among this class of our people, induce me to recommend most earnestly to all those who have at heart the welfare of our Catholic Irish population, to promote in every way their devoting themselves to agricultural pursuits in the country. It would be a great blessing if the large towns could be depleted of the surplus population with which they are overcrowded, and the tide of immigration diverted from them, to be distributed over our vast territory. This agricultural life is incomparably more wholesome, more happy, and more favorable to virtue and piety than the feverish, comfortless, and unnatural existence to which the mass of the laboring class are condemned in large cities. It is free from a thousand influences vitiating both to the soul and the body, and, above all things, better for the proper training of children. Our young men and women of American origin are deserting this agricultural life, and leaving vacant the fields of their fathers, to plunge into a more exciting and adventurous life, which promises to satisfy more speedily their desire for wealth. Let our young Irishmen, who come here to find a better field for their strength and vigor than they have at home, and those who have grown up here, but find themselves unable to get a proper field for their industry in the old and crowded settlements, come in and take their places, leave the cities, shun the factory towns, and strike into the open country. Sobriety, industry, and prudence, will secure to every young man of this sort, in due time, the position of an independent land-holder. There is a hidden treasure of wealth, health, virtue, and happiness in the soil, which will richly reward those who dig for it, and will also enrich both the country and the Church.

I may also mention with pleasure, in connection with the Ann Arbor Mission, my agreeable recollections of the polite attentions we received from the president and gentlemen of the University of Michigan. This is by no means a solitary instance of courtesy extended to us in the Protestant community. In many parts of the United States, we have received the most polite and friendly attentions, and occasionally hospitable entertainment, both from clergymen and laymen of different religious denominations, as well as a general manifestation of respect and good-will on the part of the community. Sometimes the mission has excited ill-will, and obstacles have been thrown in the way of domestics and other dependent persons attending it. But in many other cases, not only has there been no interference, but every facility has been given, by owners of factories, who have shortened the time of work and given leave of absence, and by masters and mistresses of families, who have excused their servants from their ordinary work, and even furnished them with conveyances, when they lived at a distance.

From Michigan, the missionaries returned to New York, and after New Year's, being rejoined by Father Hecker, gave a mission in St. Mary's Church, New Haven, a large and very flourishing parish, which is, however, only one of three in the classic "City of Elms;" where, thirty-five years ago, there was not a Catholic to be found, except, perhaps, one or two serving-men in wealthy families.

After this mission, I revisited several of the places where we had given missions in South Carolina and Georgia, to solicit aid for our infant community, which was given in a liberal and generous manner, worthy of those warm-hearted Catholics, who, I trust, will receive a similar return from their Northern brethren, whenever they ask for it, to enable them to repair the ruin which has been made among them by civil war.

During my absence, two missions were given by the other three fathers—one at Princeton, where the church was broken down by the throng, and whose young pastor has since joined our community: another at Belleville, which has been so beautifully described by the amiable pastor of that place, that I cannot refrain from copying his sketch:—

"At the above-mentioned place, the Rev. Fathers Hecker, Deshon, and Baker opened a mission, Sunday, February 13, which continued during a week, and closed on the evening of the Sunday following. To say that it was most successful, is too cold an expression; and to call it most impressive, beautiful, and triumphant, can give no adequate idea of its enchanting power. During the week of its continuance, the hill that is crowned by the graceful Church of St. Peter, with its tall steeple and gilded cross, marking the first of a series of eminences that rise higher and higher westward from the River Passaic, has almost realized Mount Thabor. The eager people of the country round had been beforehand preparing for the arrival of the missionaries, and no sooner did the good fathers come than the faithful people rose up in haste to meet them. Down they came, the children of old Roscommon and Mayo, from the romantic hills of Caldwell on the west, along the glades and woody slopes of Bloomfield, saluting, as they passed, their newly-built Church of 'Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.' Onward and upward, too, were hastening from the north and east, through Acquackanouck and Belleville, those who long ago left the Boyne and the Luir, the Liffey and Shannon, to cultivate the valley of the scarcely less beautiful Passaic. A thin, sparkling frost still lay upon the roads; and the crisping sounds of their hurrying feet, 'beautiful with glad tidings,' and their cheerfully ringing voices, far and near, were heard along the banks and over the drawbridge of that beautiful river—beautiful at half-past four in the balmy morning air—quivering under the hovering, waning moon, the deep-blue sky, and the twinkling stars. {182} But the people of the valley have ascended the hill from whence the loud bell of St. Peter's steeple has been awakening the country for miles around with its clear and booming sounds. They meet their brethren from Bloomfield and Caldwell, and pause for a moment before the double flight of steps leading up to the portico of the church. Every window gleams with light. The organ and choir are intoning and singing the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 'Sancta Virgo Virginum,' Holy Virgin of Virgins, pray for us.' 'I thought I was before the bell,' exclaims a young woman, just come from several miles off, as she flits hastily through the doorway to be in time for Mass. But the priest, in his shining vestments, with his little surpliced attendants, is already at the altar; and, it being five o'clock, the first Mass of the morning has punctually begun. The weather, however, at two or three other intervals of the mission, was not quite so propitious, nor the roads so pleasant; for thaws and occasional rain had softened the latter to a disagreeable extent. But this mattered nothing to the seamless robe of the Faith, which is proof against all weathers; for St. Peter's was thronged morning and evening alike while the mission lasted. Many were the expedients resorted to by poor mothers, for trusty guardians to mind the little ones during their absence at church. In several instances, a mother would charge herself with the children of two or three others; or some kind-hearted Protestant would take this care upon her. But not unfrequently the little ones were deposited in the basement of the church; and it was interesting to see the German mother place her infant in the Irish-woman's arms, while she herself hastened up with the crowd to receive communion at the altar-rail—a crowd of old and young, dotted here and there with the Hollander, the German, the French, and the English or American Catholic. {183} The morning instruction was usually given by Father Hecker, whose appearance and manner' were well calculated to cheer up the people, even to alacrity, under their daily difficulties of faithful attendance, late and early, on the mission-whether he related the anecdote of the old man, who, early in the morning, after most determined efforts to be faithful to the mission, vanquished the temptation of his warm bed, and finally succeeded in reaching the church in the teeth of a snow-storm, with inverted umbrella; or, when urging the duty of virtuous perseverance, he gave his celebrated allegory of the pike of the Mississippi, who, terrified one night by an unusual display of fireworks on its banks, vowed he would swallow no more little fishes, but afterward relapsed into his intemperate proclivities, and became worse than ever. In the evening, Father Deshon ended his most interesting instruction with the recitation of the Rosary, responded to aloud by the whole congregation. This was followed by Father Baker's sermon and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Besides the overflowing attendance of the faithful, the knowledge of the missionaries themselves being Americans and converts from Protestantism, brought hundreds of Protestants of all classes nightly, many of whom were present at every sermon; and they were as sensibly moved even to tears and audible grief, by the power and holiness of the preacher's eloquence, as the Catholics themselves. But the last night's scene will long be remembered—the renewal of baptismal vows, with uplifted hands, by the entire assemblage, which the strongly-built church somehow or other contrived to accommodate, sitting and standing in the pews, passages, gallery, and sacristy, and close around the sanctuary, to the number of some thirteen or fourteen hundred. The interior of the church was but lately remodelled and decorated, and its pale rose-colored walls and ceiling were charmingly varied by their white ornamental centers and panelled mouldings. {184} The statues of the Blessed Virgin and St. Peter at either side of the sanctuary rested on tasteful pedestals, which supported four lofty Corinthian columns and their pilasters. These pure white, fluted, and tapering columns, with their rich capitals and entablature, the altar, tabernacle, and almost life-size crucifix, the high-raised marble font and its pendent baptismal robe of snowy lace—all these, contrasted with the dark and lofty missionary cross, and the crucifixion winding scarf hung athwart it, became of an almost white and dazzling beauty, amid the innumerable lights, silver and gilded candelabra, and vases of a countless variety of natural flowers. It is a pleasing thought, that much of the plate alluded to was lent for the occasion by kind-hearted Protestants of the neighborhood, in whose estimation this mission has exalted the Catholic Church to a surprising degree. At the same time it may be said, that few or no places in the country are more remarkable than Belleville, N. J., for kind cordiality on the part of the Protestant community toward the Catholic. But the last scene, like a beautiful vision, is now over. The missionaries have given their blessing to the crowd, among whom is a Protestant young lady, who comes also to seek it before the carriage shall have borne them away. One convert was baptized on the morning of their departure. Another will be in a day or two hence. More are in reserve for this sacred rite. Upward of eleven hundred and thirty Catholics have received the Holy Eucharist; many of them old men, and many youths, who, but for the influence of the mission, would not have approached the sacraments for years—perhaps never. Young, wavering Catholics, already more than half lost to the faith, have been reclaimed and fortified. A. rich legacy of Catholic truth has been left to vanquish falsehood and error, which, in Belleville and its neighborhood, must cower for many a day before the memory of the Missionaries of St. Paul the Apostle." [Footnote 7]

[Footnote 7: New York Tablet.]

On the 20th of March, 1859, a mission was opened in St. Patrick's Church, Quebec, by the special invitation of the Administrator of the diocese. It would be easy to fill pages with reminiscences of this mission, given in a city so replete with interest of every kind, and full of pleasant recollections. The mission was a very large one; as we had seven thousand two hundred and fifty communions, and fifty converts received into the Church. It was peculiarly satisfactory, also, from the circumstance that the church was large enough to contain all the people who desired to get in, though it was densely crowded, and that the most abundant facilities were furnished to all who wished to come to confession—there being nineteen confessors, of whom fifteen were clergymen of the diocese.

The soldiers of the garrison attend this church, where they have on Sundays a special Mass and sermon from their chaplain. The Thirty-ninth Regiment, of Crimean memory, was stationed there at that time, and as many as were able to get leave, as well as a number of Catholic soldiers from the artillery battalion and the Canadian Rifles, attended the mission. Some of these Crimean veterans made their first communion, and others came to confession who had made their last confession before some one of the great battles of the Crimea. One of them, who was unable to get through the crowd after service, arrived after taps at his barracks, for which he was sent by the sergeant to the guard-house, and reported to the colonel the next morning. Colonel Monroe, the same officer who commanded the regiment in the Crimea, tore up the report and released the soldier from custody, saying that it was a shame to punish a man for going to the mission, which had done his regiment more good than any thing else that ever happened in Quebec.

We had several invitations to give missions in the British Provinces, which it was necessary to decline, and, after taking leave of Quebec, where we had received such unbounded kindness and attention, both from the clergy and laity, we gave our last mission for the season in St. Peter's Church, Troy, then under the care of Father Walworth. From Troy we returned to New York, where a small house had been rented for our use, near the site of our new religious house and church.

During the summer of 1859, the work of collecting funds, by public contributions in churches, and private subscriptions, was continued, and the building, which was to serve as a religious house, was erected; a large portion of it being thrown into a commodious and tolerably spacious chapel, which could be used as a temporary parish church for some years, until circumstances would warrant the erection of a permanent church edifice. The corner-stone was laid by the archbishop, on Trinity Sunday, June 19, in presence of an immense concourse of people. On the 24th of November, the Feast of St. John of the Cross, the house was blessed by the superior of the congregation, and taken possession of. The first Mass was said in it on the following day, in one of the rooms arranged as a private chapel. On the first Sunday of Advent, November 27, the chapel was blessed, and Solemn Mass celebrated in it by the Vicar-General of the diocese; and from this time commenced the double labors of both parochial and missionary duty. An accession to our small number of one more priest, Father Tillotson, who had been previously residing in England as a member of the Birmingham Oratory, enabled us to do this—an undertaking which would otherwise have been extremely difficult. Three of our number, of whom F. Baker was generally one, could now be spared for the missions, leaving two in charge of the parish; and by relieving one another occasionally, the labor was somewhat lightened. Within the next two years our number was further increased by the accession of two others—one of whom, F. Walworth, had been for a long time the superior of our missionary band, and now rejoined it, after a short interval, in which he had been fulfilling parochial duty as pastor of St. Peter's Church, Troy. {187} Strengthened by these accessions, we were enabled, while our number remained undiminished by death, and all were blessed with the health and strength necessary to the performance of active labor, to carry on a continuous course of missions during seven years, dating from the time of our separate organization; and at the same time to bestow abundant care and attention on our continually increasing parish. Three of these missions were given in the British Provinces—in the cathedral, of St. John's, N. B., Halifax, and Kingston, Canada, respectively; the remainder chiefly in New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, with a small number in the Western States. The details already given of previous missions are amply sufficient to give an idea of the missionary life of F. Baker, and it would be wearisome to continue them. These seven years, with the year immediately preceding them, comprise the most laborious and most fruitful portion of his too short priestly life. The number of missions given in this period of seven years was seventy-nine, with an aggregate of one hundred and sixty-six thousand communions, the same number with that of the missions of the preceding seven years. Father Baker assisted at sixty-four of these missions, and at sixteen previously given, making a sum-total of eighty. The number of converts from Protestantism registered is two hundred and sixty-three, and the record is imperfect. Two of these were Protestant clergymen—one the rector of the Episcopal Church in Scranton, Pa.; the other, the principal of the High School in Pittsfield, Mass.

It only remains now to say a few words of the virtues exhibited by F. Baker, in his missionary, sacerdotal, and religious life. Those high and noble virtues are best made known by a simple record in his deeds, and by the utterance which he has himself bequeathed in his own sermons, in which the lofty standard of Christian perfection proposed to others is a simple reflection of what he actually practised in his life.

Father Baker usually passed from seven to eight months of every year in the labors of the missionary life, and in those labors, as a member of a body of hard-working men, he was pre-eminent for the assiduity and perseverance with which he devoted himself to the most arduous and fatiguing occupations of his peculiar state. He usually said Mass at five o'clock, after which he went to the confessional till half-past seven. From nine until one, and from three until half-past six, he was in his confessional, rarely leaving it even for a moment. At half-past seven, on those evenings when he was not to preach, he gave the instruction and recited the prayers which preceded the principal sermon. A considerable part of the remaining time was taken up by reciting his office and other private religious duties, leaving but very little for relaxation, and none whatever for exercise, unless it was snatched at some brief interval, or required by the distance of the church from the pastor's residence. During the first few days of each mission, the confessionals were not opened, and the preacher of the evening sermon was always freed from its labors in the afternoon. Frequently, however, those first days were devoted to a special mission given to the children of the congregation; and F. Baker was always prompt and ready to fulfil this duty, which he did in the most admirable manner, adapting himself with a charming and winning grace and simplicity to the tender age and understanding of the little ones, and reciting with them beautiful forms of meditation and prayer, composed by himself, during the whole time of the Mass at which they received communion. The hardest part of the work of the mission, after the confessions began, was continued during from five to eleven successive days, according to the size of the congregation, and requiring from ten to twelve hours of constant mental application each day. {189} Besides this necessary and ordinary work, performed with the most patient and unflagging assiduity, F. Baker often employed all the remaining intervals of time—not taken up by meals and sleep—in instructing adult Catholics who had never been prepared for the sacraments, and in instructing and receiving converts. Wherever there was any work of charity to be done, he undertook it quietly, promptly, and cheerfully, always ready to spare others, and willing to relieve them by assuming their duties when they were exhausted or unwell, seldom asking to be relieved himself. It was never necessary to remind F. Baker of his duty, much less to give him any positive command. During a long course of missions, in which I was superior, with F. Baker as my constant companion and my associate in preaching the mission sermons, and one other long-tried companion as the preacher of the catechetical instructions, I remember, with peculiar satisfaction, how perfect was the harmony with which we co-operated with one another, without the least necessity of any exercise of authority, or any disagreement of moment.

To understand fully how arduous was the work which F. Baker performed, it must be considered that not only was his mind and his whole moral nature taxed to the utmost by the continued effort necessary in order to fulfil his duty as a preacher and confessor, but that it was done under circumstances most unfavorable to health, shut up in crowded, ill-ventilated rooms, pressed upon by impatient throngs, forced to strain the vocal organs to the utmost in large churches crowded with dense masses of people, and often obliged to pass suddenly from an overheated and stifling atmosphere into an intensely cold or damp air, and always obliged to work, for several hours in the morning, fasting. Such a life is a very severe strain upon one who has only the ordinary American constitution, especially if his temperament is delicate and unaccustomed to hardship in early life. The amount of work which F. Baker performed was not equal to that which many European missionaries are able to endure, especially those who have an unusually robust constitution. {190} But it was greater than that which St. Alphonsus himself required of the missionaries who were under his own personal direction. The average duration of a career of continuous missionary labor in Europe is only ten years, and it is therefore not surprising that F. Baker was able to continue such constant and arduous exertions, with the other duties which devolved on him during the intervals of missions, for no longer a period than eight years.

At least as far back as the year 1861, he began to suffer from a malady of the throat, and to find the effort of preaching painful. Nevertheless, he continued to perform his full share of this duty until within a year before his death. Occasionally it would be necessary to relieve him of some of his sermons; and on the last mission which we gave together, which was in St. James's Church, Salem, Massachusetts, he asked to be relieved altogether both from the sermons and the short instructions which precede them. This mission was given during the month of January, 1865. F. Baker assisted at two other missions after this, one at Archbald, in Pennsylvania, and the other at Birmingham, Connecticut, at each of which he preached four sermons. His last mission sermon was preached, February 18, 1865, six weeks before his death; which occurred on the last day of the next mission but one, given at Clifton, Staten Island—twelve years from the time of his receiving his first communion at the mission in the Cathedral of Baltimore.

In the discharge of the duties allotted to him in the parish, F. Baker labored with the same zeal and assiduity as he did in the missions. He was particularly charged with the care of the altar and the divine service in the church, for which his thoroughly sacerdotal spirit, his exquisite taste, and his complete acquaintance with the rubrics and the details of ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies, gave him a special fitness. {191} He took unwearied pains and care in providing vestments and ornaments, preserving the sanctuary and all appertaining to it in order and neatness, decorating the church for great festivals, training up the boys, who served at the altar, and directing the manner of performing the divine offices. This minute and exact attention to the beauty and propriety of the sacred ceremonies of the Church, sprang from a deep, inward principle of devotion and love to our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament, to His Blessed Mother, to the saints, and to the mysteries of the Christian Faith, symbolized by the outward forms of religion. In the performance of his sacerdotal functions, he was a model of dignity, grace, and piety. He loved his duties, and was completely absorbed in his priestly office. The august Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Altar was his life and joy; and there he derived those graces and virtues which produced their choice and precious fruits in his character and conduct.

As a preacher of the Divine Word, he excelled equally. His parochial sermons were even superior to those which he preached on the mission. He could prepare himself more quietly; the exertion was not so tasking to his physical strength, and suited better the tone of his mind, which made it more pleasing and easy for him to fulfil these ordinary pastoral ministrations than to address great crowds of people, on occasions requiring a more vehement style of oratory. His published sermons will enable the reader to judge of his merit as a preacher, although their effect was greatly increased by the impression produced by his personal appearance and attitude, and the charm of his voice and intonations. One striking feature of his sermons was the abundance and felicity of his quotations from Holy Scripture. Frequent reading and meditation of the inspired books had saturated his mind with their influence, and the apposite texts which were suitable for his theme appeared to flow from his lips without an effort. Another characteristic of his preaching was, that it appealed almost exclusively to the reason, and through the reason to the will and conscience. {192} His continual aim was to inculcate conscientiousness, obedience to the law of God, the fulfilment of the great duties of life, and a faithful correspondence to the divine grace. He never lost sight of this great end in his missionary or parochial sermons, but always directed his aim to bring sinners to a renunciation of sin, and a fixed purpose of living always in the grace of God, and to bring good Christians to a high standard of practical perfection and solid virtue. For deep speculations in theology and oratorical display, he had not the slightest inclination. He never desired to preach on unusual occasions or topics, but, on the contrary, had an unconquerable repugnance to appear in the pulpit, except where the sole object was to preach the gospel with apostolic simplicity, for the single end of the edification of the people. He was not at all conscious of his own superiority as a preacher, and never gave his sermons for publication without reluctance, or from any other motive than deference to the judgment of his superior and his brethren. He loved and sought the shade from a true and profound humility, without the slightest desire for applause or reputation. His manner was earnest and grave; at times, when the subject and occasion required it, even vehement; but equable and sustained throughout his discourse, without rising to any sudden or powerful outbursts of eloquence. On ordinary occasions it had a calm and persuasive force; enlivened with a certain pure and lofty poetic sentiment, which blended with the prevailing argumentative strain of his thought, pleasing the imagination just enough to facilitate the access of the truth he was teaching to the reason and conscience, without weakening its power, or distracting the mind from the main point. He never produced those startling effects upon his audience which are sometimes witnessed during a mission, by an appeal to their feelings; but he invariably made a profound impression, which manifested itself in the deep and fixed attention with which he held them chained and captivated from the first to the last word he uttered. {193} His eloquence was like the still, strong current of a deep and placid river, sometimes swollen in volume and force, and sometimes subsiding to a more tranquil and gentle flow; but never deviating from a straight course, and seldom rushing with the violence of a torrent.

In his more intimate and personal relations with his penitents, with the sick and afflicted whom he visited, or who came to him for counsel, and with others who sought instruction, advice, or sympathy from him as a priestly director, F. Baker was a faithful copy of the charity and suavity of his special patron—St. Francis de Sales. Pure and holy as he was himself, he was compassionate and indulgent to the most frail and sinful souls; and, without ever relaxing the uncompromising strictness of Christian principle, or mitigating his severe denunciations of sin, he was free from all rigorism toward the penitent who sought to rise from his sins by his aid. This benignity and charity attracted to him a great number of persons who were in peculiar difficulties and troubles, some of whom had never had courage to go to any one else. He spared no pains and trouble to help them, and his patience was inexhaustible. With the sick and dying he took unusual pains, visiting them frequently, and often aiding them to receive the sacraments devoutly by reciting prayers with them from some appropriate book of devotion. He reconciled a number to the Church who had been drawn away from their religion, and was particularly successful in bringing to the fold of Christ those who were without. The tokens of affection, gratitude, and sorrow which were given by great numbers at his death, were proofs how much he had endeared himself to all with whom he came in contact, and how irreparable they felt his loss to be.

Of F. Baker's religious character it would be difficult to say much, in addition to the portraiture of him which has been given in the foregoing sketch of his life. It presented no salient or striking points to be seized on and particularly described. Its great beauty consisted in its quiet, equable constancy and harmony. He had that evenly balanced temperament ascribed to St. Charles Borromeo by his biographers, and regarded as the most favorable to virtue. He had no favorite books of devotion, no special practices of piety or austerity, no inclination for the study of the higher mystic theology, no unusual difficulties or temptations, no deep mental struggles, no scruples, no marked periods of spiritual crisis and change after his conversion to the Catholic Church—nothing extraordinary, except an extraordinary fidelity and constancy in ordinary duties and exercises, and extraordinary conscientiousness and purity of life. He was detached from the world, and from every selfish passion; reserved to a remarkable degree, without the faintest tinge of melancholy or moroseness; collected within himself and in God at all times; serene and tranquil of spirit; simple, abstemious, and exact in his habits; with his whole heart in his convent, his cell, his duties, and his religious exercises.

The character of F. Baker was very much developed during the later years of his life. That passive, quiescent disposition which characterized him in his earlier career, gave place to greater decision and energy. He acquired by action a more self-poised and determined judgment, greater self-reliance, and a more marked individuality. He was no longer swayed and led by the opinions of others, except so far as duty required him to obey, or his own reason was convinced. The almost feminine delicacy and refinement which he had in youth was hardened into a robust and manly vigor, as it is with a softly-nurtured young soldier after a long campaign. He exhibited also a gayety of temper, a liveliness in conversation, and often a rich and exuberant humor and playfulness, especially in depicting the variety of strange and amusing characters and scenes with which he came in contact by mixing with all classes of men, which had remained completely latent in his earlier character, before it was warmed and expanded by the genial influence of the Catholic religion. {195} No one could have been a more delightful companion on the mission, during the intervals of rest and relaxation, than he was; and he entered into the enjoyment of the occasional recreations thrown in his way in traveling with the zest of a schoolboy on a holiday. For company he had no taste, and he could not be induced to undertake any jaunt or excursion for mere pleasure. During the summer months he would never go into the country, even for the sake of recruiting his health, but remained during the hottest months at home, where he found the truest happiness, pursuing the even tenor of his ordinary occupations. A beautiful character! A rare specimen of the most perfect human nature, elevated and sanctified by divine grace, and clothed with a bodily form which was the exact expression of the inhabiting soul! To describe it is impossible. Those who knew it by personal acquaintance will say, without exception, that the attempt I have made is completely inadequate, and, like an unsuccessful portrait, reproduces but a dim and indistinct image of the original. I do not mean to say that F. Baker was a perfectly faultless character, or that he was without sin. Of those faults, however, which are apparent to human eyes in the exterior conduct, he had but few, and those slight and venial.

Nothing now remains but to describe the closing scene of F. Baker's life. I have already mentioned that his constitution had shown symptoms of giving way under the fatigues of his missionary labors. Nevertheless, he still continued in the constant and active discharge of his priestly duties, and no solicitude in regard to his health was felt by any of his brethren, with whom these periods of physical infirmity wore an ordinary occurrence. On one Sunday, a few weeks before his death, his strength failed him while he was singing High Mass, and he was obliged to continue it in a low voice. {196} He was also unable to continue the abstinence of Lent, and was obliged to ask for a dispensation, which I believe never occurred with him before. His appearance was pale and languid, and the fulfilment of his duties evidently cost him an effort. We had been accustomed to sing together two of the three parts of the Passion on Palm Sunday, ever since the church had been opened; but, in making arrangements for the services of the Holy Week for this year, he remarked that we would be obliged to omit singing the Passion as usual. He had marked himself, however, on the schedule of offices which was posted up in the library, to preach both on Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday. His last Sunday sermon was preached on the Second Sunday of Lent, March 12. The subject was "Heaven." The Wednesday evening following, he volunteered to preach in the place of one of his brethren who was unwell, about an hour before the service commenced, and left the supper-table to prepare himself. He took for the emergency the sermon which he had first preached as a missionary, on "The Necessity of Salvation;" and this was the last regular discourse which he delivered. On the following Sunday, after Vespers, he gave a short conference to the Rosary Society; and after this his voice was never heard again in exhortation or instruction. About this time, there were several cases of typhus fever in the parish, and F. Baker had in some way imbibed the poison, to which his delicate state of health rendered him peculiarly susceptible. On the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 26, the first symptoms of illness showed themselves. On the preceding evening he heard confessions as usual, until about nine o'clock, after which he came to the room of one of the fathers and made his own confession, as he did habitually every week. The next morning he said Mass for the last time, at half-past eight, for the children of the Sunday-school. As I passed his door at half-past ten, to go down to High Mass, he met me in the corridor, and remarked that he felt too sick to go down to the sanctuary. {197} From this time he came no more again to the table or the recreation of the community, but kept his room. Nothing was thought of his indisposition, and it was by accident that his physician, who dined that day with the community, saw him and prescribed for him in the afternoon. The next day three of the fathers left the house for a mission, and bade him good-by as usual, without a thought of anxiety on either side. F. Baker remained on Sunday and Monday in the same state, dressing himself every morning, and sitting up at intervals, but usually lying on the bed, and occupying himself about some matters of business. He wrote several notes, and dictated others, some concerning the articles he had ordered for the sanctuary, and others concerning some sick persons or penitents for whom he had a special care. During this time, no symptoms of typhus had appeared, but his complaint appeared to be a slight attack of pneumonia. On Monday evening he went down by himself to the bath-room and took a hot bath, after which he kept his bed entirely. The superior of the house, who was engaged in the mission on Staten Island, came every day to visit him, and had already detected an incipient tendency to delirium, which awakened in his mind an anxiety, which, however, was not shared by anyone else. On Wednesday, however, although he retained control over his faculties, his brain began evidently to show a state of morbid excitability. He remarked that the bells of the house had a strange sound, and fancied that his breathing and pulsations were all set to a regular rhythmical measure, and gave out musical sounds. When he was alone and his eyes shut, he said that a brilliant array of figures continually passed before him, and that he seemed to be hurried away by a rapid motion like that of a railway carriage. During that evening he was more decidedly wandering in his mind, although he became quiet, and slept nearly all night. On Thursday morning the poison of typhus had filled his brain completely, and he lay in a dull, stupid state, unconscious of what was said to him, and incapable of uttering a rational word. {198} This gave place after a time to a more violent form of delirium, during which he talked incessantly in an incoherent manner, and could with difficulty be kept in a quiet position or induced to swallow any nourishment or medicine. On Friday morning the danger of a fatal termination was evident, as the disease continued to progress, and the symptoms of pneumonia were also aggravated. The superior of the house was sent for, and came over in the afternoon. Dr. Van Buren and Dr. Clarke, two of the most eminent physicians in town, were called in for consultation by Dr. Hewit, the attending physician, and information of F. Baker's illness was sent to his sister, who came immediately from Baltimore to see him. On Saturday evening the typhus fever had spent its violence, reason returned, and from this time F. Baker remained in a weak but tranquil state until his departure. He had been removed from his own room to the library, a large and airy apartment, where every thing about him was arranged in a neat, orderly, and cheerful manner, and he was attended and carefully watched night and day by his physician, his brethren, and his nurse. The violence of his fever had prostrated his strength so completely, that he was unable to resist the severe attack of pneumonia which accompanied it, and which medical skill and care were unable to subdue. The feeble vital force which still remained gradually subsided during the next three days, under the progress of this disease, although his friends continued to hope against all appearances for his recovery, and seemed almost to take it for granted that God would surely hear their prayers and spare his life. During all this time he was rational and collected, recognising all his friends, but unable to speak more than a few brief sentences that were connected and intelligible. He desired his sister to remain with him, and she did so during a great portion of the time. He expressed his perfect willingness and readiness to die, and made an effort to repeat audibly some prayers, but without success. {199} He manifested his desire for absolution by signs, and it was given to him, together with the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, on Sunday. On Tuesday, the Holy Viaticum, for which he had asked, was given him, at about half-past ten in the morning. He received it with perfect consciousness, and remained quiet, free from pain, and without becoming perceptibly worse, until one. After the fathers had gone down to dinner, he asked his nurse for his cap, which was brought to him and placed in his hand. He then asked for his habit, and said he would dress and go down to dinner with the community. Soon after, a change was observed in him by the watchful eye of the father who had been his bosom friend during their common missionary career, and who had passed so many hours of the day and night by his bedside during his sickness with more than the devotion of a brother; and several of his particular friends were sent for, that they might see him once more before he died. The two fathers who were at home, his physician, his only and beloved sister, a lady who had been his chief aid in the care of the sanctuary, and another, who was one of his converts, surrounded his bedside, where he lay, the picture of placid repose and holy calm, quietly, gently, and imperceptibly breathing his last, until four o'clock, when his spirit passed away to God, without a struggle or a sign of agony, leaving his countenance unruffled, and his form as composed as a statue. Those who saw him after death have said that, about an hour after his departure, his appearance was most beautiful, as he lay just dressed in his sacerdotal vestments, his majestic and finely chiselled brow and features as yet untouched by the finger of decay. The vestments in which F. Baker was dressed had been prepared by himself only three weeks before, that they might be ready in case of the death of one of the community. His body was placed in a metallic case, enclosed in a rosewood coffin, and laid in state in the church. {200} These arrangements were not completed until late in the night, and the people did not therefore begin to visit the sacred remains until the next morning; from which time until the sepulture, crowds of the faithful were coming to the church during every hour, both of the day and the night. Requiem Masses were said by all the priests in the house on Wednesday and Thursday. The mission at Staten Island closed on Tuesday evening. The fathers who were there were not made acquainted with the extreme danger of F. Baker, and the intelligence of his death was not sent to them until Wednesday morning, when their labors were all completed. They returned home to find the body of their late companion lying in the church, and the household and parish overwhelmed with sorrow. Usually, in a religious community, the death of a member is taken very much as the loss of a soldier is regarded by his comrades, schooled as they are to control their feelings, and to be ready at any moment to expose their lives in the discharge of their duty. But in a small band like ours, which had been through so many trials and vicissitudes in company, and where all the members had been continually in the most constant and intimate association with each other, it was impossible not to feel in the deepest and keenest manner the loss of one of our number, the first one called away during the fourteen years of a missionary life. To an infant congregation like ours, the loss of a priest like F. Baker was truly irreparable. Besides this, each one felt that his loss as a friend and brother was a personal grief equal to that of losing his nearest and dearest relative by the tie of blood. This sorrow was shared by the whole parish, by all his friends, and by the faithful everywhere in the parishes where he had preached and labored. Many letters of sympathy and condolence were sent from all quarters, and not Catholics only, but numbers of others also, who had respected the virtues of the holy Catholic priest, testified their regret at his death, and their sympathy with our loss. {201} The Rev. Dr. Osgood, a distinguished Unitarian clergyman of New York, sent a small painting representing a bouquet of various kinds of lilies, as a memorial of respect, in the name of his congregation, accompanied by a very kind note. Several other Protestant clergymen were present at the funeral services; and, indeed, the manifestations of respect for F. Baker's memory were universal.

The funeral obsequies were of necessity accelerated more than his friends would have desired, so that few from distant places were able to attend them. A few intimate friends from Baltimore, and some clergymen from places out of town, were, however, present; a large number of the clergy of New York and its vicinity; and as great a number of the faithful as the church could contain. The funeral was on Thursday in Passion Week, April 6, two days after the decease. The previous Thursday was F. Baker's birthday, and the anniversary of his conversion to the Catholic Church also occurred within the week of his death and burial. He had just completed the forty-fifth year of his age, and was in the ninth year of his priesthood. The following Sunday was the twelfth anniversary of his formal reconciliation to the Church, in the chapel of the Sisters' of Charity, in Baltimore. Early on Thursday morning, four private Masses of Requiem were said for the repose of his soul in the church. At the usual hour for High Mass on Sundays, a solemn Mass of Requiem was celebrated by the superior of the house, in presence of the Archbishop, who performed the closing rite of absolution, and a short funeral discourse was preached. The coffin was ornamented with the sacerdotal vestments, the chalice, and the missionary crucifix of the deceased, and covered with wreaths of flowers. The altar was deeply draped in mourning, and F. Baker's confessional was also similarly draped. Never did these exterior symbols indicate a more sincere and universal sorrow on the part of all who participated in them. It was a very difficult task to summon up sufficient fortitude to perform these last sad rites. {202} The voice of the celebrant was interrupted by his tears; the sub-deacon faltered as he sang the elevating and comforting words of the Epistle; the choir-boys showed in their candid and ingenuous faces their sorrow for the one who had trained them up in the sanctuary; the choir, composed, not of professional singers, but of members of the congregation, undertook their solemn task with trembling; every countenance was sad and every eye moistened, in the assemblage of the clergy who sat in white-robed ranks nearest the sanctuary, and of the laity who filled the church. I had the last duty of friendship to perform, in preaching the funeral sermon; and the wish to do full justice to F. Baker, and to satisfy the eager desire of all present to hear something of his life, enabled me to fulfil this duty with composure, and restrain the tide of emotion which I saw swelling all around me, quieted only by the hallowing and tranquillizing influence of the sacred rites of the Church, and the high, celestial hope inspired by the contemplation of a life so noble and a death so holy. The music was in the sweet, plaintive, solemn style of the true ecclesiastical chant; all the means of celebrating the holy rites of the obsequies had been prepared by F. Baker's own pious and careful hand; his own spirit seemed to hover over the spot, and a divine consolation stole gently over all. Sad as it is, there is nothing so beautiful, so soothing, so elevating to the soul, as the funeral of a holy priest, who has achieved his course and attained the crown of his labors. Many of those who were present remained for a long time after the service was completed, and some were still found there unwilling to leave the spot, at nightfall. The remains were taken from the church to St. Patrick's Cathedral, escorted by a band of young men, and followed by a train of carriages, and by others on foot, although it rained heavily; the Vicar-General recited the concluding prayers of the ritual; the coffin was placed in the episcopal vault next to that of the late archbishop; a few wreaths of flowers were placed upon it, the entrance was closed, and all withdrew; leaving the earthly form of the departed to the silent repose of the tomb.

For some days after, a portion of the mourning drapery was left on the altar, and requiems continued to be offered by all the priests of the community. Many Masses were also said by other priests in various parts of the country, and prayers offered by the people, although the common sentiment of all was, that the one for whom they were offered was already among the blessed in heaven. On Saturday evening, as we all went to our confessionals, and a large congregation of people was assembled in the church, preparing for their Easter duty, a peculiarly holy calm seemed to pervade the spot. The people were hushed and still, unusually intent upon their devotions. The penitents of F. Baker looked with sadness upon the place where, just two weeks before, he had sat for the last time in the tribunal of penance, and came weeping to some one of the other fathers to request him to take the direction of their consciences. It was a sad Holy Week; and a difficult task to us, wearied with labor, and some with watching, oppressed with a grief which time and repose had not yet diminished, to fulfil the arduous duties of the season. Our greatest consolation was in the sympathy manifested by our people, and in the proof they gave of the love and gratitude which our labors had awakened in their hearts. Easter Sunday came; the altar was superbly decorated with the choicest flowers of the season, the triumphant chant of the Church resounded as usual; but all felt that the one whose presence in the sanctuary and whose eloquent voice had given the day one of its greatest charms, was gone forever; and besides, the gloom of the great crime committed on Good Friday had overspread the whole nation, and the drapery of universal mourning had turned the city into one great necropolis. {204} The admirable pastoral letter of the archbishop on the assassination of the President was read in all the churches, giving eloquent expression to the indignation and grief which oppressed all Christian and all honest and just hearts; and never was there seen an Easter more sad and mournful, more like a day of unusual humiliation and sorrow, than that Easter Sunday; which had been anticipated as a day of peculiar joy and thanksgiving for the cessation of bloody war and the restoration of peace.

It is in just such times as these, however, that we appreciate most fully the strength and support which is given us by our holy faith, the Divine Sacrament of the Altar, and the grace of God, and that those who have given themselves to a religious life learn the inestimable blessing of their vocation, which raises them above all private and all public tribulation. A few days brought back serenity and cheerfulness to our little community, and we took new courage from the blessed death of our companion, closing so beautifully his holy life, to resume quietly and resolutely our ordinary duties, and to rely more completely on the providence of God; trusting that we had gained an advocate in heaven, and hoping to persevere like him to the end. His course was short, and his reward speedily gained. What a happiness for him that he listened to the voice of God; and, as his day was declining to its close, though he knew it not, gathered up his strength and courage to leave all and run that brief and swift race, which in later years gained for him the brilliant and unfading crown of a true and faithful priest of Jesus Christ, who had brought thousands of souls into the way of justice; and had practised himself that Christian perfection which he preached to others!

There must be many young men equally gifted, and fitted to accomplish an equally apostolic work, to whom God has given the same vocation. What hidden consequences were involved in the result of that struggle and deliberation which was the crisis of grace in the life of Francis Baker! What a loss to himself and to the Church of God, if he had proved cowardly and unfaithful! The simple question before his mind was one of personal obedience to the commandment of Christ to arise and follow Him. {205} But because of his obedience, God chose him to be the instrument of an amount of good to others which would be sufficient to enrich with merit a priesthood of fifty years. The immediate fruits of his own labors in preaching the word of God and administering His sacraments can never perish. The fruits of his example and his teaching will, I trust, continue to multiply and increase after his death in rich abundance. If the blessing of God perpetuates and extends the congregation which he aided in forming, and which, so far as we can see, could not have been established without him, his character and spirit will be perpetuated in those who will for all time venerate him as a spiritual father, and imitate him as one of their most perfect models. If he is to have no imitators and no successors, it will be because God can find none among our choice and gifted youth, who have enough of sincerity, generosity, and the spirit of self-sacrifice, to obey the inspirations of His Divine Spirit, and consecrate themselves to His glory and the good of their fellow-men. The need is pressing, the career is glorious and inviting, and the vocation of God will not be wanting. There is no hope for religion, except in the multiplication of priests animated with the apostolic spirit. If the example of Francis Baker enkindles the spirit of emulation in some generous youthful hearts; and encourages some timid, fearful souls who are vacillating between the Church of God and the interests of this world, to imitate his fidelity to the voice of conscience; the end I have had in view will be accomplished. If not, it will stand as a perpetual reproach to a frivolous and unworthy generation, incapable of appreciating and imitating high Christian virtue. And now I lay the last stone on this monument of one who was once the friend and bosom companion of my youth; afterwards my spiritual child; then my brother in the priesthood; and who is now exalted to such a height above me that my eye and my mind can no longer follow him.

Sermons.

Sermons.

Sermon I.

The Necessity Of Salvation.

(Mission Sermon.)

"Thou art careful, and art troubled about many things.
But one thing is necessary."
—St. Luke X. 41, 42.

If, my brethren, I should ask each one in this assembly what his business is, I should probably receive a great variety of answers. In so large a congregation as this, drawn as it is from the heart of a rich and important city, there are undoubtedly representatives of all the various avocations that grow out of the requirements of social life; some merchants, some mechanics, some laboring men. I should find some heirs of ease and opulence side by side with homeless beggars. Some of you are heads of families, while others are living under guardianship and subjection; and in answer to my proposed question, you would give me your various employments and states of life. You would tell me that your business is to heal the sick, or to assist at the administration of justice, or to teach, or to learn letters, or to labor. The men would tell me that their occupation is at the office, or the warehouse, or the shop, and the women would tell me that theirs is at home by the family fireside. No! my brethren, it is not so. This is not your business. Your words may be true in the sense in which you use them, but there is a great and real sense in which they are not true. {210} Trade, labor, study—these are not your employments. Your avocations are not so varied as you think they are. Each one of you has the same business. All men who have lived in the world have had but one and the same business. And what is that? The salvation of their souls. However varied your dispositions, your condition in this world, your duties, the end of life is absolutely one and the same to you all. Yes! wherever man is, whatever his position, whatever his age, he has one business on the earth, and only one—to save his soul. All other things may be dispensed with, but this cannot be dispensed with. This is his true, his necessary, his only duty. Do not think that I am exaggerating things in making this assertion. Our Divine Saviour Himself in the words of the text has taught us the same lesson—"Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary." And what that one thing is, He has taught us, in those memorable words which He uttered on another occasion—"What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" [Footnote 8] But what then, you say; must every one go into a cloister, must everyone who wishes to do his duty forsake the world, leave house and parents, lands and possessions, and nourish his soul by continual meditation and prayer? No! this is not our Lord's meaning. The end of life is indeed the salvation of our souls, but we must work this out by means of the daily employments appropriate to our several conditions. We must prepare for the life to come by the labors of the life that now is. We must bear our part in this world, but we must do so, always, in subordination to eternity, and thus we shall in some way fulfil the words of the apostle—"They that use this world, let them be as though they used it not;" [Footnote 9] that is, let them not use it in the same way that the children of the world use it, or according to the principles of the world.

[Footnote 8: St. Mark viii. 36, 37]

[Footnote 9: 1 Cor. vii. 31.]

This is enough for the salvation of most men. No one can be excused from doing so much as this. The law of God imperatively and under the highest sanctions requires this of everyone here present. This is your duty to your souls. This is your only duty. This done, all will be done. This neglected, all else will be in vain. To prove this will be the theme of my present discourse.

I will make a remark in the outset: It is important for us to bear in mind that the salvation of our souls is properly our work. The grace of God is indeed necessary in order to will, and to accomplish His good will, but without our co-operation, the grace of God will not save us; accordingly, St. Paul, writing to the Philippians, exhorts them to work out their salvation. [Footnote 10]

[Footnote 10: Philip. ii. 12.]

It is only little children, who die soon after baptism, and persons equivalent to children, who are saved by a sovereign and absolute act of divine power; with regard to all others, God has made their eternal destiny dependent on their own actions. No one of us will be saved merely because Christ died for us; or because He founded the Catholic Church as the church of salvation, and made us its members; or because He has instituted life-giving sacraments; or because God is willing that all should be saved; or because He gives His grace to us all; or because the Blessed Virgin Mary has such power with God; or because the priest can forgive sins. No one will be saved because he has had inspirations of grace, good instruction, good desires, and good purposes. Despite all this, one may be damned. For the Holy Spirit has said distinctly and strongly, "Work out your own salvation." It rests, then, with you to save your souls. The grace of God is indeed necessary. You cannot be saved without the death of Christ, or the sacraments of the Catholic Church, or the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or the absolution of the priest, or the patronage of Mary; but all these things are within your reach, they are all in your power. {212} Now, at the time of the Holy Mission, they are offered to you with especial liberality. God, on His part, has done, one may almost say, all that He could do to make your work easy to you. To make this an acceptable time, it only remains, then, that you do your part. And this you can do. However great your difficulties, however great your temptations, however strong your passions, however importunate your evil companions, may be; however deeply seated your bad habits; you can, each one can, by the help which God is now willing to render him, save his soul.

From this first remark I pass to the immediate subject of my discourse—the obligation of securing our salvation. As we can save our souls, so we ought to do it. Nay, this is our only, our all-engrossing duty; and I shall found my proof of it, my brethren, on this plain rule of common sense and reason, that one ought to bestow that degree of attention and care on any affair which it deserves and requires. Everyone feels that it would be an occupation unworthy of a man to spend his time in writing letters in the sand, or in chasing butterflies from flower to flower; because these occupations are in themselves vain and profitless. Again, anyone would feel it unreasonable, in the father of a family, to set out on a party of pleasure at the very moment that his presence was necessary to arrest some disaster that threatened his family: not because it was wrong in itself for him to seek recreation, but because a higher obligation was then urging. Now, applying these principles, on which everyone acts in matters of daily life, to the matter in question; I say that you are bound to give to the work of your salvation your utmost care and attention, because the care of your souls supremely deserves and urgently requires it. {213} Take in, my brethren, the whole scope of my proposition. There is a work of great consequence before you. I do not speak as the world speaks. The world tells you that your business here is to get gain, to build a house, to rear a family, to leave a name, to enjoy yourself. I say, no. Your business is to seek the grace of God, and to keep it. The world says: seek friends, fall in with the stream, court popularity, do as others do, act on the principles which receive the sanction of the multitude, and a little religion in addition to this will be no bad thing. I say, no. Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, masters, servants, ye great ones and ye humble ones of the earth, you are all engaged in the same enterprise. God has intrusted to each one of you a soul. He has intrusted it to you, not to another. You cannot devolve the responsibility of it on another. That is your care on the earth. Whatever cares of other things you may have, you cannot neglect that one work, you cannot interrupt or postpone it, you cannot put any thing in competition with it. If there is a question between any temporal advantages, however great, or suffering, however severe, on one side, and the salvation of your soul on the other; you must renounce these benefits, embrace those tortures. If you must consent to see your family die by inches of starvation, or put your salvation in proximate and certain jeopardy, you must see them starve first. I do not say the case is likely to happen. God rarely allows men to be reduced to such straits. But if the case should occur in the line of duty, nay, if the alternative was presented, of converting the whole world on one side, and avoiding a mortal sin on the other, we must rather consult the welfare of our own souls than that of others; and this not from selfishness, but because God has intrusted to us our own souls, and not the souls of others. {214} And how do I establish my proposition? I waive, my brethren, my right to appeal to your faith, to speak by the authority of Christ, Who is infallible and supreme, and Who has a right to challenge your absolute and instantaneous submission and obedience. I postpone the consideration of that love which we owe to our Maker, and which ought to make us prompt and willing to do His will. I take my stand on the ground of reason and conscience, and I appeal to you to say whether they do not sustain my proposition. I make you the judges. It is your own case, it is true, yet there are points in which even self-love cannot blind our sense of faith; and I ask you whether the care of our soul's salvation should not be our sovereign and supreme care in life, if it be true that the interests of the soul surpass all others in importance, and can not be secured without our continual and earnest efforts. Your prompt and decided answer in the affirmative leaves me nothing more to do than to establish the fact that the salvation of your souls is in fact so important a task. I will do so by proving three points: first, that our souls are our most precious possession; second, that we are in great danger of losing them; and third, that the loss of our souls is the greatest of all losses, and is irreparable.

Our souls are our most precious possession. My brethren, we have souls. When God created man He formed his body out of the slime of the earth. It was as yet but a lifeless form, a beautiful statue, but God breathed upon it and man became a living soul. This soul, the spiritual substance which God breathed into the body, was formed according to an eternal decree of the Blessed Trinity, in resemblance to the Divine essence; that is, endowed with a spiritual nature and possessed of understanding and free will. "Let us make man to our image and likeness," said God; and the sacred writer tells us "God created man to His own image;" and, as if to give greater emphasis to so important an announcement, he repeats, "To the image of God created He him." [Footnote 11]

[Footnote 11: Gen. i. 26.]

Man therefore is a compound being, consisting of a body and soul, allied to the material world through the material body which he possesses, and to the world above us, that is, to God and the angels, through his soul. Now, the excellence of all creatures is in proportion to the degree in which they partake of the perfections of God, who is the Author of all being and all goodness. All existing substances partake of His perfection in some degree; if they do not show forth His moral attributes, at least they reflect His omnipotence; and therefore Holy Scripture calls on the fishes of the sea, the beasts of the earth, the fowls of the air, the sun, moon, stars, earth, mountains and hills, to join with angels and men in blessing God. But the superiority of angels and souls over material creatures consists in this, that they partake of the moral perfections of God: they show us not only what God can do, but what He is. Like Him, they are spiritual beings. "Who makest Thy angels spirits and Thy ministers a burning fire," says the Psalmist. [Footnote 12]

[Footnote 12: Ps. ciii. 4.]

They are not gross substances as our bodies are, but pure, subtle, immaterial essences. They are immortal like Him—at least so as that they can never die. They do not need food nor sleep. They are not subject to decay, or old age, or death; they are endowed with understanding and free will, to know many of the things that God knows and to love what He loves; but, above all, to know Him and love Him. Hence the value of the soul is really immeasurable, and all the treasures of the earth are not to be compared to it. Take the poorest slave on earth, the most wretched inmate of the darkest prison, the most afflicted sufferer whom disease has reduced to a mass of filth and corruption, and that man's soul is more precious and more glorious than the richest diadem of the greatest monarch; nay, than all the treasures of the whole earth, with all the jewels that are hid in the mines and caves under its surface.

Our Lord one day permitted St. Catherine of Sienna to see a human soul, and as she gazed transported at its exceeding beauty, He asked her if He had not had good reason to come down from heaven to save such a glorious creature. The saint said the soul was so beautiful that, if one could see it, one would be willing to suffer all possible pains and torments for love of it. My brethren, if, when you go to your homes, you should find in your house an angel with his face as the appearance of lightning, his eyes as a burning lamp, his body as a crystal, and his feet in appearance like to glittering brass, what would you do? Would you not, like St. John, fall down before his feet and adore him? Would you not faint and fall before him, or if you were so strengthened that you could look upon the glorious vision, would you not gaze upon it with deep and loving awe? Well! such a being you will find there, when you go home. It will go hence with you. It will remain there as long as you remain there. It will come away when you come away. This bright being of whom I speak is no visitor in your house, it is an inmate, it rises with you in the morning, accompanies you through the day, is present with you when you eat, is with you in sickness and in health, in life and in death. This bright and glorious being is yours—it is more yours than any thing else in the world, it is the only thing in the world that is really yours—it is yours; poverty cannot strip you of it, death cannot tear it from you; eternity cannot rob you of it. And this being is your soul, your precious, spiritual, immortal soul. All things else will forsake you, property, family, friends; but this will never forsake you. It is yours. It is yours inalienably and for ever. Your greatest, your only wealth and treasure. Oh, inestimable dignity! We are told of some saints, who used to make an act of respect to everyone they met, by way of saluting his guardian angel, and of others that they bowed down before those whom they knew, by the spirit of prophecy, would shed their blood for the faith. {217} But have we not cause enough to honor man, in the fact that he has a soul, an immortal soul, a soul which shall one day see God? Shall we not feel an ample respect for each other, my brethren, when we think of what we are? Who could ever speak an impure word before another if he thought of the dignity of a human soul? What young man would ever dare to go to scenes where he would blush that his mother or sister should be present, if he remembered that he took his own soul along with him? Who would lie, or cheat, or steal, if he thought of his soul? A great and overpowering thought; how does it belittle all the pride and ostentation of the external world! Come, my brethren, let us go into the streets of this city and look around us. There are stately buildings and proud equipages and gay and brilliant shops—but what are all these to the concourse of human beings, the crowds of immortal souls who are, day by day, making an immortal destiny. There is the old man tottering along on his stick, there is the little child on the way to school, there is the rich lady with her jewels and costly fabrics, there is the laborer with his spade setting out to his daily toil; and each one has a soul, each one will live forever. Let us strive to take in this great thought. The tide of human beings flows on from morning to evening. New faces continually appear. They come and go. We do not know their history, their destiny; but we know that each one has a spiritual nature, is made to the image of God, is possessed of a bright and glorious soul. We shall meet them again. There will come a day when every one of the throng shall meet again every other. New populations; shall come in the place of those who now inhabit the world. The stones of the greatest buildings shall be reduced to powder, nay, the world itself will be reduced to ashes, and each soul that now lives in this city will survive in its own individuality and immortality. There are some, it is true, who do not seem as if they had souls. {218} There are women who have given themselves up to practices of uncleanness by profession, and men who habitually wallow in drunkenness and sensuality; and the conversation of such persons is so horrid and obscene, their countenance so devoid of the least trace of shame or self-respect, they seem from having neglected their souls almost to have lost them. They seem really to have become the brutes whose passions they have imitated. No! even they have souls. They cannot be brutes if they would. They are men, they are made to the image of God, and so they must ever remain. A surgeon [Footnote 13] was once called to attend a man who was afflicted with cancer.

[Footnote 13: The surgeon alluded to was Dr. Baker, and a faithful portrait of the man was taken, which was preserved in the family.]

This terrible disease had affected one entire side of the face, and had made in it the most dreadful ravages. The cheek was one shapeless mass of putrid flesh; the nose undistinguishable from the other features, the eye completely eaten out, and the bones of the forehead perforated like a sponge; but on turning the face of the man, the other side presented a wonderful contrast, being in nowise affected, and showing no trace of sickness except an excessive pallor. The countenance and features were of a noble dignity and beauty, and strikingly like the expression ordinarily observed in the pictures of our Blessed Lord. So it is with men's souls. Sin has eaten deeply into them, has deprived them of comeliness, has almost defaced the form they once had, has blinded their minds and deprived them of the interior eye; but still there remain traces of nobility, of the image of God. O man, whoever thou art, however deeply sunk in sin; I care not whether your body be as filthy as the dunghill or the sink, or your heart be the prey of every passion and the slave of every vice; you have a soul: you have indeed lost much, but you have much remaining; you have that which is of more value than all else in the world—that which is absolutely of more value than all material things; and which to you is of more value than all spiritual things, than all created things in earth and heaven. {219} You are great and noble and spiritual and immortal—you are capable of virtue, happiness, and heaven—you are like God, you resemble Him. His image is stamped upon you. And how little you realize this! Alas, you will realize it at the hour of death.

But, secondly, we are in danger of losing our souls. To lose them in the literal sense is of course impossible, for I have said that they are immortal, and will remain with us forever. It would be in some way a happiness to the wicked, if they could, in this sense, lose their souls, for it would free them from the torment of a miserable eternity. But that cannot be: the loss of our souls of which we speak is the loss of God, who alone is the sufficient and satisfying object of our affection. "Thou hast made our souls for Thee," says St. Augustine, "and they are not at peace until they rest in Thee." The loss of our souls is occasioned by sin, which separates us from God, but it is not final and irremediable until death overtakes us in this state of estrangement. The danger of losing our souls, then, is the danger of falling into mortal sin and dying in that state. Now, the danger of sinning is, in the present course of God's providence, inseparable from the possession of a soul. Free will is a high prerogative, which, while it fits us for the highest state possible, renders sin also possible. As soon as God created the angels, a large part of them rebelled against Him, and were cast out of heaven. As soon as He had made man, our first parents fell and were cast out of Paradise. It is only a rational moral being that can sin; because sin is the voluntary transgression of the Divine law, and therefore cannot be committed by any creature but one who has a will, that is, intellect and the power of choosing. Almost all the material acts of sin which men commit are committed by brutes also. {220} See the rage of the tiger, the thieving of the fox, the impurity of the goat, the treachery of the adder, the gluttony of the swine. But there are no sins in these brutes, because they have mere blind instincts. Man, however, has reason and a will, and therefore he is bound to control the instincts which he shares in common with the brutes, and his failure to control these constitutes sin. He has a soul which belongs to God, and of which God is the sovereign, and his failure to control his passions is rebellion against God, and pride. Further, as the possession of a soul renders sin possible, so the proclivity to evil, which we inherit from the fall, and the temptations of the world, render it exceedingly probable. I do not know a more striking illustration of this, than the fear which the saints have ordinarily had about their salvation. Their sense of the value of the soul; their deep knowledge of their own hearts, and of the root of evil that was in them, the weakness of man without grace, and the uncertainty of grace; have kept men of the greatest sanctity, men who have wrought miracles, who have cast out devils, who have raised the dead to life, always anxious about their perseverance, always begging of God the grace never to to allow them to commit a mortal sin. But if these reasons are enough to make saints tremble, what reasons have not ordinary Christians to fear! A chain of evil habits, unguarded intercourse with men, the constant contact with the world, how fearfully do they augment the risk of losing our souls, which all run necessarily in this world. Why, listen to the conversation of ten men, taken almost at random in this city; for half an hour walk through the city, from one end to the other; and see if the occasions of sin are not more frequent than can be uttered. This is deeply felt by men of the world themselves. It makes them despair. They say there is no possibility of saving their souls in the world. They say it is all in vain to try—that sin meets them at every step. It is not, of course, true that sin is inevitable. If it were, it would not be sin. But it is true that the atmosphere of the world is fearfully surcharged with evil. {221} There is many a home in this city, many a place of public resort, many a den of secret iniquity, many a gaming-room, and drinking-house, over which there is an inscription legible to the angels, written in letters of fire, "The gate of hell." There are many places where souls are sold daily and hourly, and oh, at what a price! Thirty pieces of silver was the price offered for our Redeemer, but the soul is often sold for one, indeed, often for something still more miserable—for the gratification of an impure passion, for the indulgence of revenge, for a day's frolic. It is true the Evil One does not carry on his traffic under its own name and openly—that it is well concealed under specious pretences; but the danger is only so much the greater. The occasions of sin are everywhere spread under our feet like traps and snares, and encircling us on all sides like nets. But even this is not the worst. The loss of God is not only possible because of our free will, probable because of the corruption of the world, but, in many cases, already certain. Men, on all sides, have lost God, and need only an unforeseen death to make certain the loss of their souls. Who can tell how many are living in a state of mortal sin, month by month, day by day, year by year? They go on securely, smilingly; externally all goes on smoothly; they are successful and seemingly happy; they have plans for many years to come; but a voice has spoken, "Thou fool, this night shall they require thy soul of thee." Oh! how many died in mortal sin last year, how many will die in mortal sin next year! It needs only a little thing, a false step, a railway accident, an attack of fever, a change in the weather, a fit of apoplexy, and they are launched into eternity without warning and without preparation—death sealing for perdition those whom it finds deprived of the grace of God. Who, I say, can wonder at this, when he looks around him, and sees how little the soul is valued? O my God! it is enough to make the heart sick. {222} Let us take a Catholic family, for I will not take things at the worst. A father has a family of children. He must send them to school or college. He finds an institution which pleases him, and he will tell you that his children are doing excellently, and that the only drawback is that the school is Protestant or infidel. Is not this to betray the souls of his own children? Sunday comes: it is true that there is the obligation to hear Mass, but some inducement offers itself to idleness or dissipation, and no Mass is heard, because it is only the soul which is injured by the omission. Monday comes: there is an opportunity of making some little gain in an unlawful way. What does it matter? We must get rich, and do like our neighbors. The sons grow up in ignorance, and spend their time mostly at the gaming-table or the place of carousal. The daughters grow up. They must be led by their mother to every scene of folly and sin, because the custom of society requires it. Easter comes: the young people do not like to go to confession, and they add only one sin more, to those with which their hearts are already charged. And then the parents die, and the children come forward to take their places, and to bring up their children in still greater neglect and laxity. Thus Catholics are trained for the world, and souls for hell; and if we take into the account the graver forms of vice, and consider how many are entirely the slaves of passion, we shall not wonder that there are so few that shall be saved. One of the Fathers, speaking of the great responsibility of the priesthood, dilates on the impossibility of a priest's being saved without great exertion and watchfulness. But if it be difficult for a priest to save his soul; what shall I say of the laity, when I consider the prevailing habits of Catholics. It hardly seems to me too strong to say, that to me it would seem a miracle for any such one to be saved. How will men attain that which they do not care for, to which they give no thought? And so it is with the salvation of the soul. Who thinks about it? Who takes any pains for it? Who makes any sacrifice for it? {223} The soul is more precious than any thing else, and yet every thing else is put before it. It is trampled on in business, betrayed in friendships, choked by domestic cares, imprisoned in the filthy bodies of the licentious, and, as it were, annihilated in the drunkard. It is forgotten, neglected, outraged, despised, ignored. It is not so much sold as thrown away. The body is cared for with the most supreme solicitude. Every pain and ache is relieved. Long journeys are undertaken to recover health that is lost or only threatened. The most celebrated physicians are sought after with eagerness. But the soul is allowed for weeks and months and years to go on in a state of spiritual death. Confession, prayer, the sacraments, means so easy, means truly infallible in their efficacy, means within the reach of all, are neglected, on pretences the most frivolous, without reason, and almost without motive. "Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes, and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people?" [Footnote 14]

[Footnote 14: Jer. ix. 1.]

The loss of our souls is the greatest of all evils, because it is irremediable. I will not go into all that this point contains. It is too great a subject for us at present. I will not dwell on all that is meant by the loss of our souls, but I will consider it simply as it is, the failure of reaching our end and destiny, and as irreparable. And to help us to realize this, I will summon as a witness one who was the first to come short of his destiny, the devil. We do not know how long it was after the creation of the angels that the devil sinned and fell; but certainly there was a time when he was a pure, bright spirit, rejoicing in the greatness of his endowments, and with a hope full of immortality. But there came a moment of darkness. He sinned: he was judged: he was cast from heaven, and he sank into hell. There he is now. He is confined in chains and darkness. The tree has fallen; and as it has fallen to the north or to the south, so must it lie forever. {224} Other mistakes may be rectified, but this never. A loss in business may be made good by greater exertions and prudence; a broken-down constitution may be repaired by art and care; a lost reputation may be recovered by integrity and consistency in well-doing; earthly sorrow may be healed by time and other objects; sin may be rooted out by penance; but the loss of the soul is an evil complete and irreparable, and brings with it an undying remorse. "A tree hath hope: if it be cut down, it groweth green again, and the bough thereof sprout. If its root be old in the earth and its stock be dead in the dust, at the scent of water it shall spring and bring forth leaves as when it was first planted." [Footnote 15] But man, when he shall be dead and stripped and consumed, I pray you, where is he? The cry of despair which the first lost soul uttered when he made the terrible discovery that he was really lost, is still ringing in the abodes of the damned, and the keenness of his misery is still unabated. Ages shall go on, the last day shall come, and an eternity shall follow it, and that cry of despair will still be as thrilling, and that anguish as new and as irremediable.

[Footnote 15: Job xiv. 7, 8, 9.]

As reasonable men, I have appealed to you: what is your decision? What does reason, what does conscience, what does self-interest say? You would not be listless if I were to speak to you of your property, your health, your reputation, but now I speak to you of your souls—your precious, immortal souls—your own, your greatest good—a good that you are in danger of losing—the good whose loss is overwhelming and irretrievable. They are in your hands for life or for death. It is said that to one of the heathen soothsayers, who was famed for his skill in discovering hidden things, a person once came with a living bird in his hand, and asked the seer to tell whether it was living or dead. The inquirer intended to crush the bird with his hand if the wise man should say it was living, and to let it fly if he should say it was dead, and thus in either case to put the pretended magician to shame. {225} But the soothsayer suspected the design, and answered: "The bird is in your hand—to kill it or to let it live." So I answer you, my brethren. Your souls are in your hands, to kill them or to let them live. You can crush them in your grasp and smother their convictions, or you can open your hand and let them fly forth in freedom and gladness. Oh, have pity on your souls! Your souls are yours. No one will be the loser by the loss of your souls but yourselves. God will not be the less happy if you are damned; the saints will not lose any of their happiness if you fail of your salvation; the angels will be as light and blissful; the earth will go on just the same as when you were on it; only you, you yourselves will feel it, and you will feel it hopelessly. Ah, then, take pity on your souls! You will one day wish that you had done it. One of the courtiers of Francis the First of France, when he was dying, said: "Oh! how many reams of paper have I written in the service of my monarch! Oh! that I had only spent one quarter of an hour in the service of my soul!" A quarter of an hour! And you have days and weeks. Oh, then, once more I beg you to take pity on your souls! If you have never before seriously taken to heart your eternal interest, at least do so now. Improve the time of this mission. It is the time of grace. It may be to you the last call, the last opportunity. Make, then, a good use of this time. Set aside the thought of other things, and give yourself to this alone. Now you have an opportunity of making your peace with God, and saving your soul. Think, now the hour has come, foreseen by God from all eternity, when, answering to the call of grace, I shall regain His favor, which, alas! I have lost too long. What shall keep me back? See what is the difficulty, and weigh it in the scales with your immortal soul. Is confession difficult? A confession before the whole universe will be more so. Is it hard to lose a little gain? It will be more so to lose your soul. {226} Is it hard to break a tie of long standing? It will be hard to break every tie, and to live in eternal desolation. Is it hard to bear the remarks of companions? But how will you bear the taunts and jeers of the devil and his angels? And those very companions who have led you to hell will taunt you for your base compliance to them. Let nothing, then, keep you back.

* * *

(Peroration. according to the circumstances.)

Sermon II.

Mortal Sin.

(Mission Sermon.)

"Know thou, and see,
that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee,
to have left the Lord thy God."
—Jer. II. 19.

In the book of the prophet Ezechiel it is related that God showed to the prophet in a vision the city of Jerusalem. It was all stretched out before him in its greatness and in its beauty. The magnificent temple was there, with its stones and spires glittering in the sun; its streets were full of people, prosperous and happy; a people who were in possession of the true religion, who had been adopted by God as His children, and over whom He had exercised a special protection. It was a beautiful sight; beautiful to the eye, and well fitted to excite the most religious emotions in the mind. But there was something that checked these feelings of pleasure and delight. God permitted the prophet to see the interior of that city. He unfolded before him the secret abominations that were practised there. {227} He showed him the idolatries and impurities to which his chosen people the Jews had delivered themselves up, and then in wrath and indignation God complained of the people and said: "The iniquity of the house of Israel and of Juda is exceeding great; and the land is filled with blood; and the city is filled with perverseness, for they have said: The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not." [Footnote 16] Then the joy of the prophet was turned in to sorrow.

[Footnote 16: Ezechiel ix. 9.]

To-night, my brethren, a vision meets my eye hardly less beautiful than that which met the eye of the prophet. How beautiful a sight is this church and this congregation! This church is raised to the honor of the true God. Its walls are salvation and its gates praise. And this congregation, beautiful as it is in the assemblage of a multitude of living, intelligent beings—where I see the old man with his crown of silver hair, the young man and the young woman in the freshness of their bloom and youth—is much more so regarded as a Catholic congregation, as professing the true faith. But tell me—for I cannot look into your hearts as the prophet did—tell me, does God see, beneath this beautiful, outward appearance, the abominations of iniquity? Does God this night see in this church some heart that is in mortal sin? Some Catholic who has renounced, if not his faith, at least the practice of his faith? Some child of passion who has swerved from the path of justice, lost his conscience and the sense of sin, and given himself to the service of the devil? Are there any here to-night in mortal sin? There may be. I will confess, and you will not think me uncharitable in doing so, I believe there are some. I know not how many, but from what I know of the world, I believe there are some here, in this congregation, whose consciences tell them they are in mortal sin. Oh! then, let me tell them what they have done. Let me show them what mortal sin is. Let me prove to them that it is an evil and a bitter thing for them to have left the Lord their God. This is my subject to-night. I will show you the dreadfulness of mortal sin: first, from its nature; secondly, from its effects on the soul; and thirdly, from its eternal consequences.

You know, my dear brethren, that we were created to love and serve God in this life, and to be happy forever with Him in heaven. God has given us this world, and our own nature, all that we have or are; and He is willing that we should enjoy the world and act out our nature. It is true, there are certain restrictions which He has given us. These restrictions are contained in His law, embodied in the ten commandments. In these commandments God has circumscribed our liberty, has put limits to what we may do; but I need not say that these limits have been so fixed, not in order to abridge our happiness, but really to increase it. So the case stands on God's part. But now, on our part, we have an inclination to disregard the limits God has put on our use of the world, and to place our happiness in the creature. The world smiles before us, and we think this or that enjoyment would make us happy. It may often happen that the very enjoyment and comfort is one which God has forbidden; but no matter, we are strongly inclined to seize it, nevertheless, and to gratify our desire in spite of the prohibition. This inclination is what is called concupiscence, and is sometimes exceedingly strong, so that it is very difficult to resist it. God has, however, always given us reason and faith, free will and grace, to enable us to overcome it. This, then, being so, you see that man stands between two claimants: the world on the one hand, inviting him to follow his own corrupt inclinations; on the other, God requiring him to restrain his passions by the rules of virtue and religion. Now, what takes place under such circumstances? Alas, my brethren, I will tell you what too often takes place. I will tell you what takes place so commonly that men take it for granted that it must be so—so commonly that the majority of men cease to wonder at it—what happens every day, every hour, every minute. It happens that men listen to the voice of passion, renounce virtue and reason, stifle grace, and turn away from God, to satisfy their desire for the creature. This is what happens daily, hourly, momentarily; and this is mortal sin, which is in its nature the greatest of all evils, considered in its relation both to God and man, as I am about to show you in this first part of my discourse.

Understand me, my brethren: the sin I am going to speak of is mortal sin. I do not say that every transgression of the law of God is mortal. You know that it is not so. You know that there some actions which men commit, which are forbidden, but by which a man does not mean really to give up the friendship of God—some sins which are not committed with full deliberation, some sins in which the matter is very small, some sins which come more from ignorance or frailty than from malice; and which God, who sees things just as they are, does not regard as grievous. He is displeased with them, but not mortally offended. He punishes them, but not with the utter withdrawal of His favor. If He did, who of us could be saved? But every sin in which the soul sees clearly that she must choose between the friendship of God and the gratification of unlawful passion—in which, with full deliberation, in full defiance of any grave precept of God or the Holy Church, she obeys the call of corrupt nature, every such sin is mortal, that, is, grievously offends God and cuts off the soul from His grace. Do you want to know what a mortal sin is? It is an insult offered to God—Almighty God. One trembles to say it, but so it is. Yes! if you have committed one mortal sin, you have insulted Almighty God. And there is every thing in the act to make the insult deep and deadly. The greatness of an insult is measured by the comparative importance of the persons between whom the offence passes. If one should come into the church and strike the bishop on his throne, would you not feel more indignant than if a common man in the street were the object of the insult? You have heard how Pius the Sixth was insulted; dragged about from place to place, until he died; and did you not feel indignant that such outrages were committed on the person of God's vicegerent? {230} Now, when you committed a mortal sin you insulted, not the vicegerent of God, but God himself. You contemned His authority and despised His greatness. Would you know Who it is Whom you have offended? Look at that mountain trembling with earthquakes, and breathing forth smoke and flame, hear the thunder roll around its head, and see the lightning flash! Mark the people, how they fall back affrighted and terrified! What is the cause of these convulsions of nature, and this terror of the people? God is speaking. He spake in Mount Sinai and the earth trembled before Him; and it is His words then spoken that you have defied, O sinner! Are you not afraid of His vengeance Whom you have offended? Open the heavens and see the angels, thousands of thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, prostrate before Him. See all the saints adoring Him—the Blessed Virgin Mary herself trembling before His greatness. And you insult Him! What are you? A creature, a dependant, a slave. What would a master do if his slave should strike him? And you, a servant, a slave, a mere nothing, have not hesitated to raise your hand against Almighty God!

And for what have you done all this? For the pleasure of sin. You have preferred a vile, temporary gratification, to the favor of Almighty God. When you sinned, there was on one side the beauty of God, the beauty of perfection, the splendor of grace, the joy of saints, peace of conscience, heaven; on the other there was the false pleasure of sin. You weighed them in the balance one with another, and, oh folly! in your estimation a moment's sin outweighed God and heaven and eternity. This is what the Almighty complains of in Holy Scripture: "They violated me among my people for a handful of barley and a piece of bread to kill souls which should not die." [Footnote 17]

[Footnote 17: Ezech. xiii. 19.]

Oh! for how small a thing it is that you have been content to lose God—a few dollars of unjust gain, human respect, the gratification of revenge, a night's debauch, a half-hour's indulgence of sinful thoughts, a forbidden word, an intoxicating glass: for this you have thrown to the winds God and heaven. What has He not done for you? He takes care of you and gives you all you have. It is He who warms you by the sun, refreshes you by the air, gladdens and nourishes you by the green field. It is He who brought you through the dangerous time of childhood, Who led you up through manhood, Who redeemed you by His blood, made you a Catholic, and gave you your parents, friends, every blessing, and the hope of heaven beyond this life, and you have grieved and hated Him. See Jesus Christ before the Jews. He has spent His life in doing them good. He has labored for them and is about to die for them. And now they spit on Him, they buffet Him, they crown Him with thorns and bow the knee in mockery before Him. Nay, O sinner! thou art the Jew who did this. Thou by thy mortal sin hast made him an object of scorn. Thou hast spit upon Him, thou hast stabbed Him to the heart. Would you excuse a son from the guilt of parricide who should strike a knife to his father's heart, and should miss his aim? So, the sinner is no less guilty of the crime against the life of God because God cannot die. If God could die or cease to be, mortal sin is that which would kill Him. You have aimed a blow at the life of your best benefactor, of your God. And this is what passes in the world for a light thing. This is what men laugh at and boast of over their cups. This is what the world excuses, and takes for a matter of course; yes, this is what even boys and girls, as they grow up, desire not to be ignorant of—that they may know how to offend God. This is sin, so easily committed and so often committed, so quickly committed and so soon forgotten. Such it is in the sight of God and the holy angels. O sinner! when you smile, often when you are rejoicing over your wicked pleasure, the heavens are black overhead, and God is angry, and the angel of vengeance stands at your side with a glittering spear, that he may plunge it in your heart. {232} While you are careless, heaven and earth are groaning over your guilt. "Wonder, O ye heavens, and be in amazement," says God by the prophet. "My people have done two evils. They have left me, the fountain of living water, and have digged out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children and exalted them, but they have despised me. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood. Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy one of Israel, they have gone away backward." [Footnote 18]

[Footnote 18: Isai. i. 2, 3, 4.]

But in the second place, mortal sin is the greatest of all evils as regards the sinner himself. Let us consider what are its effects. Ah, my brethren, some of these effects are obvious enough. We have not to go far to seek them. We know them ourselves. What is the cause of much of the sickness that affects our race? What but sin? What is it that has ruined so many reputations, that once were fair and unblemished? What is it that has destroyed the peace of so many families? It is sin. What is it that makes so many young persons prematurely old, which steals the bloom from the cheek and the lustre from the eye, and gladness from the heart, and strength from the voice, and elasticity from the gait? Ah! it is sin. Yes! the effects of sin are visible and obvious to all around us, and these external effects of sin are dreadful enough, but they are not so dreadful as the internal effects, on which I purpose particularly to dwell. Well, my brethren, I just said that the nature of a mortal sin is to turn away from God to the creature. {233} Now, its effect is to kill the soul. There is a twofold life of the soul. One is a natural life, and this it can never lose, not even in hell, since it can never cease to be; and the other is the life of grace. You know, my brethren, that in the heart of a good Christian there dwells a wonderful quality, the gift of the Holy Ghost, which we call grace. It is given first in baptism, and resides habitually in the soul unless it is lost by mortal sin. This it is which makes the soul acceptable to God, and capable of pleasing Him, and of meriting heaven. This grace was purchased for us by the blood of Jesus Christ, and is the most precious gift of God. It ennobles, beautifies, elevates, strengthens, and enlightens the soul in which it dwells: in a word, it is the life of the soul. This grace abides in the soul of every faithful Christian, the little child, the virtuous young man and young woman, the old man and the matron, the rich and the poor. Everyone who is in the state of friendship with God is possessed of this grace. He may be poor, sick, weak in body, disgusting as Lazarus was, but if he is the friend of God, his soul is endowed with the gift of grace. Now, the moment that one commits a mortal sin, the moment that a baptized Christian turns away from God to the creature, that moment his soul is stripped of this divine grace. The moment that a mortal sin is committed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, that robe of grace falls off from the soul and leaves it in its deformity and weakness. It cannot be otherwise. "Can two walk together," says Holy Scripture, "and not be agreed?" Can God remain united to the soul which has cast Him off by an act of complete and formal rebellion? Oh, no! God bears much with us, He retains His friendship for us as long as He can, He restrains His displeasure when we are weak and irresolute and tired in His service; yes, when we a little turn our heads and hearts toward that world which we have renounced, when we do things that, although wrong, are not altogether so grievous as to amount to a renunciation of His friendship: but once make a full choice between God and the creature, and God's friendship is lost. {234} You cannot reject it and retain it at the same time. God sees things exactly as they are: as you act toward Him, He will act toward you. By mortal sin you renounce Him, and therefore He must renounce you. How can I describe to you the change that takes place in that moment? It has more resemblance to the degradation of a priest than any thing else. If a priest commits certain great crimes, the Church prescribes that he be solemnly degraded from the priesthood; and nothing is more dreadful than the ceremonial. He stands before the bishop, clad in his sacred vestments, with alb and cincture, and maniple and stole, and with the chalice in which he has been wont to consecrate the blood of the Lord in his hands. Then when the sentence of degradation has been pronounced, the chalice is taken out of his hands—he shall offer the sacrifice of the Lord's body no more; the golden chasuble is taken off his back, no more shall he bear the glory of the priesthood; the stole is seized from off his neck—he has lost the stole of immortality; the white alb is torn from him— he has lost the beauty of innocence; and last of all, his hands, on which at his ordination the holy oil was poured, are scraped—he has lost the unction of the Holy Ghost. So it is in the moment that one commits a mortal sin. The Holy Scripture calls every Christian a king and a priest, because in his soul he is noble and united to God; and the soul of the meanest Christian is far more beautiful in God's sight than the grandest monarch, dressed in his richest robes, is to our sight. Well, now, as soon as a mortal sin is committed, and God departs, then the degradation of the soul takes place. The devil tears away the garment of justice, the splendor of beauty, the whiteness of innocence, the robe of immortality, which make the soul worthy of the companionship of angels, and the friendship of God. All, all are gone. Oh, how abject and wretched is such a soul! {235} Oh I how quickly will this awful change go on, and even the poor soul herself thinks not of it! And do not think this horrible history is of rare occurrence. No! it takes place in every case of mortal sin. Look at that young man. See, his air and bearing show you that he knows something of the world, and that life has no secrets for him. Still there was once a time when that young man was innocent. He was a good Catholic child, his soul glistened with the brightness of baptismal grace. God looked down from heaven and smiled with pleasure; his guardian angel followed him in watchfulness indeed, but with joy and hope. He had his little trials, but what was it all—what was poverty or sickness or disappointment? Was he not a Christian? Was he not a friend of God, was not his soul beautiful in God's sight? Such he was; but a day came, a dark and dreadful day, when a voice, a seducing voice, spoke in the paradise of that heart: "Rejoice, therefore, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes." [Footnote 19]

[Footnote 19: Eccles. xi. 9.]

He listened to that voice and he fell: he was a changed being, he had committed his first mortal sin. Oh! if he could have seen the angry frown of God, the sad and downcast look of his guardian angel. Oh! if he could have heard the shriek of triumph that came up from the devils in hell. "Thou art also wounded as well as we, thou art become like unto us. Thy pride is brought down to hell. Thy carcass is fallen down. [Footnote 20]

[Footnote 20: Isai. xiv. 10, 11.]

But he hears nothing, he sees nothing, his brain is on fire, his heart is burned by passion. The world opens to him her brilliant pleasures, and he is perverted. His tastes and thoughts are all corrupted. He does not like the sacraments any more, or Mass or prayer; his delight is in haunts of dissipation, in drinking and debauchery. He commits every mortal sin, and each deepens the stains of his soul and increases his misery. Perhaps here and there, for a while, he comes to confession, but he falls back. {236} He neglects his church, begins to curse and blaspheme holy things, and then he is a wretched being, astray from God, with God's curse upon him, the slave of the devil, the heir of hell, fair indeed without; but look within—full of rottenness and uncleanness. Oh, weep for him—"Weep not for the dead," says Holy Scripture, "lament for him that goeth away, for he shall not return again." [Footnote 21]

[Footnote 21: Jer. xxii. 10.]

Weep for that young man who has wandered away from his God. Weep for that young woman who has stained her soul with mortal sin. Weep for that old man who has let years go by in sin, and whose sins are counted by the thousand. Weep not for your child who leaves you to go to a distant land, but weep for him who is on his way to the land of eternal night, where everlasting horror inhabiteth. Weep for him who is on his way to hell. Is it not a story to make one weep? The ruin of a soul! "How is the gold become dim, the fairest color is changed, the noble sons of Sion, and they that were clothed with the best of gold, how are they esteemed as earthen vessels, and the iniquity of the daughter of my people is made greater than the sin of Sodom." [Footnote 22]

[Footnote 22: Lam. iv. 1, 2, 6.]

Once you were innocent, now you are guilty. Once you had a fair chance of heaven, now heaven is closed to you. Once, perhaps, you had rich merits laid up for heaven, you had gone through many trials, you had borne many sufferings, had achieved many labors of piety, and for each of them the good God, who never allows any good work to go unrewarded, had added many a jewel to your crown; but, alas! that crown is broken, those jewels scattered and crushed, those merits lost. And what has done this. That mortal sin! that rebellion against God, that sinful gratification, that turning away from God and loss of grace which it brought with it. Ah! my brethren, when I think of these things, when I think that Christians are falling into sin, and, for a very trifle and a nothing, losing the favor of God, I feel as if I wished all preachers should go out to the whole world and cry out: "Know thou and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee to have left the Lord thy God." I am not surprised that St. Ignatius said he would be willing to do all he did for the prevention of one mortal sin.

But, my brethren I have not as yet described the full effects of mortal sin. It immediately makes us liable to the eternal punishment of hell. That is what hell is made for. It is the prison for mortal sin. Apostates from the faith, drunkards, murderers, adulterers, the impure, the dishonest, the profane, the impious, calumniators, and all sinners "shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." The sentence of damnation is in the next life, but damnation itself begins in this. Each one of us is a candidate for heaven or hell, at this present moment. Hell is not something which is assigned to us arbitrarily. We dig our own hell for ourselves. When we first commit a mortal sin we open hell under our feet, and every time we commit a fresh mortal sin we deepen that hell. It may happen even that the sentence is passed in the same instant that we sin. Many men die in the very act of sin. The fallen angels, themselves, sank into hell the very instant they committed mortal sin, and the instant they committed the first mortal sin. You know, my brethren, that the angels were created very beautiful and powerful. There were myriads and myriads of them. They were as beautiful as Gabriel or Michael or Raphael; and yet, as soon as they committed one mortal sin, notwithstanding their glory, their beauty, their number, their splendid intellects, their power, they were hurled from the thrones of heaven; not only defaced, degraded, and dishonored by the loss of sanctifying grace, but condemned to hell, chained in everlasting darkness, waiting for the judgment of the great day. If God dealt so with the angels, surely there is nothing unjust in cutting off the days of a sinner in the very moment of sin. {238} Oh! my brethren, I will tell you what happens when one sins: the devils come and claim this soul as their own: this poor soul becomes the slave of the devil, the heir of hell and of damnation. It is not for nothing, then, that conscience makes such a terrible alarm in the soul when we commit a mortal sin. Tell me, did you not at the moment you sinned hear a stern voice speaking in the depths of your heart? Tell me, O my brethren, did you not, when you were deeply plunged in sinful enjoyment, feel a dreadful pang at your heart? Tell me, now that you stand in God's holy presence, tell me now, is there not something within you that tells you, you are ruined? What is that? Ah! that is the beginning of the remorse of the damned. That is the sting of the worm that shall never die. That is the shadow of thine eternal doom in thy soul. It tells thee that thou art the child of the devil; it tells thee that thou hast lost God, and that thou art not fit for heaven, but art an heir of hell. And it tells thee truly. If this moment thou wert to die, like Dives, thou wouldst be buried in hell. And why? For a momentary gratification of appetite? Is that what you will be punished for? No; but because, for a momentary gratification of appetite, thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, broken His law, lost His grace. Thou hast made thy choice. Thou hast chosen sin and not God, and death overtakes thee before thou hast returned to God by penance, and thou art lost; lost on account of thy sin, lost forever on account of thy sin. Go down to the chambers of hell, ask Dives, ask Judas, ask the fallen angels, ask each one who in that dark abode drags out a long eternity; ask them what it is that brought them there, and they will tell you, mortal sin. It is mortal sin that kindles that flame, that feeds that fire, that makes them burn unceasingly, and forever. Oh then, tell me! if you will not listen to reason, to God, to the angels; will you not listen to your companions lost? {239} Hearken to them as from their dark prison they cry out, "It is an evil and a bitter thing to have left the Lord thy God."

Such, my brethren, is mortal sin. Such is one mortal sin. It does not require many mortal sins to lose God's grace or incur damnation. One is enough—one final deliberate rebellion against God and his holy law.

* * *

(Peroration, according to the circumstances.)

Sermon III.

The Particular Judgment.

(Mission Sermon.)

"It is a dreadful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God."
—Heb. x. 31.

There is a moment, my brethren, in the history of each immortal soul, which, of all others that precede or follow it, is the fullest of experience: the moment after death. The moment of death is indeed the decisive moment of our history. Then the question is settled, once for all, whether we are to be happy or miserable for all eternity; but, for the most part, we do not know that decision. Many men die insensible. By far the larges part of those I have seen die, have died insensible. And even when the power of the mind remains to the last, it is extremely difficult to form any true conception of that state of things into which the soul is about to be ushered. It is difficult to conceive aright beforehand of any thing to which we are unaccustomed. Did it ever happen to you to visit a strange country, and to form anticipations of what it would seem like, and did not the reality falsify all your anticipations? Well, how much more difficult to realize those things which the soul sees immediately after death, and which are so much farther removed from our former experience! {240} According to Catholic theology, immediately after death, the soul appears in the presence of Jesus Christ to be judged—to receive an unalterable sentence to heaven or to hell. If to hell, no prayers can benefit it; if to heaven, it goes there immediately or not, according to the degree of its goodness. But it is judged unalterably to heaven or hell, the moment after death. And Catholic theologians teach that this judgment takes place in the very chamber of death itself. There, in that room, while they are dressing the body for the grave, closing the eyes, bandaging the mouth, arranging the limbs in order, that soul has already learned the secrets of the eternal world. Naked and alone, it had stood before its Judge, and heard its doom pronounced. To everyone, no doubt, even to the most pious, to those who have meditated on the truths of faith, there will be something alarming in this moment; but, oh! what will it be to the sinful Catholic? What will be the thoughts and feelings of that large class of Catholics, now careless about their salvation, who are obeying every impulse of passion, and breaking every commandment of God? This, indeed, is a difficult question to answer. There is but little in this world that can help us to portray the emotions of the lost Catholic, the moment after death; but I will not on this account desist from attempting to describe it. I will consider your advantage rather than my own satisfaction, and though I feel deeply that I shall not be able to describe the scene I undertake in anything like the colors of truth, I will undertake to do what I can.

First, then, following the soul beyond the limits of this world, I see her overwhelmed with a conviction of the reality and truth of the objects of her faith. Now, in saying that this soul obtains a conviction of the truths of faith, I do not mean to suppose the case of one who has been a sceptic in this world. The truth is, faith is so strong a principle in the heart of a Catholic, that it is exceedingly difficult to put it out or shake it. {241} And although it sometimes happens that a Catholic; from reading bad books, or frequenting the society of those who blaspheme his religion, or from becoming acquainted suddenly with some of the difficulties which science seems to present to faith, and not knowing the answer to them, or from the petty pride of seeming wiser than his neighbors, and making objections which unlearned Catholics cannot answer, may use the language of a sceptic; yet such cases are very rare, and the scepticism is not very deep. A little guidance from one who knows better, and a little humility on the part of such an objector, will set all right. But there is a kind of infidelity not so easily cured, and far more common among Catholics—a practical infidelity, an insensibility and indifference to the truths of faith. The truths of faith—I mean, heaven and hell, God and the soul—are not seen by the eye—it requires reflection to realize them; but the world, and the objects which it presents, are visible and tangible. The former are lost sight of, while the latter absorb all our thoughts. The body clamors for necessities and pleasures, and the soul, and things of eternity, are simply forgotten. It is almost the same to many men as if there were no God, no eternity, no heaven, or no hell. Really, one hardly sees in what the lives of many Catholics would differ from what they are now if there were no God, no heaven or hell. I do not mean to say that they have no faith at all, for even the heathens have some faith; or that they never think of God, for then they would be brutes; but that these things have no real hold on their minds or influence over their hearts. They never reflect. They stay away from the sacraments. They do not listen to sermons. They have no correct idea at all of the advantage they enjoy in being Catholics; in a word, they break the commandments of God on the slightest temptation, are children of this world and immersed in its cares and enjoyments. Now, one of these men meets with a sudden death. {242} He goes out in the morning—perhaps he is a mechanic—and he falls from a height. He is taken up and put in a litter hastily made, and carried home. It is apparent that life is ebbing fast. In a few minutes he becomes speechless. He has lost his sight. Ah! does he breathe at all? It is hard to say. The doctor comes in great haste. He feels his pulse, looks at him, and says, "It is all over. He has received an injury in a vital part. He is dead." Yes, he is dead. This morning he was alive and well, he was making his plans, he was talking of the weather—now he is dead. All his old thoughts and experience are all rolled back by a new set of things that are forcing themselves on his vision. He is dead. He died suddenly; but not without warning. Others have died in his home before—he is not young. He has seen wife and children die. It made him weep for a while; but he forgot it, and now his turn is come—he is dead. I will not stop to notice the grief of the friends he leaves behind. No; I will follow his soul, as it enters eternity. The voice of his friends dies on his ear—he begins to hear other voices. As he ceases to see the people in his room he begins to see other objects. Who is that, that is standing at the foot of his bed? A neighbor was standing there but just now; but this is another form, a form beautiful, indeed, but majestic and terrible. No; it is not anyone he has ever seen before, and yet, he ought to know that face. He has seen it before; it is the face his mother looked on as she was dying-the face he had often seen in Catholic churches. Yes, it is Jesus Christ. He knows it; it is the same, and yet, how different! When he saw that face in pictures, it was crowned with thorns; now it is crowned with a diadem of matchless glory. When he saw that form in the church, it was naked, and hanging on the Cross; now it is clothed with garments of regal magnificence. Yes, it is Jesus Christ! and He is looking upon him with eyes of fire. He turns to escape those eyes, and he sees there are other figures in the scene. {243} There are two figures—one at the right hand, and one at the left. Who are they? He ought to know them, for they know more of him than anyone else—they have been his companions for life. One is very beautiful—a being with golden locks and cloud-like wings—that is his angel guardian; he looks sad now, for he has nothing good to say. And the other is the black and hideous demon of hell, that crouches at his side, full of hate and malice, and triumph, too, for he has dogged the steps of this poor sinner from youth to age, and now the time has come for him to seize his prey. And now, as the sinner looks from one to another, the meaning of it an breaks upon him. Conviction flashes upon his mind. He may not have been an infidel before; but putting his past feelings by the side of his present experience, it seems almost as if he had been. Did it ever happen to you to be talking quite unconcernedly, and all at once to find that others were listening, before whom for worlds you would not have used such unreserve. Well, to compare small things with great, something like this will be the feeling of the sinner when the curtain of time draws up, and shows him the realities of eternity. The whole tide of his past thoughts and feelings will be arrested, and, with a great check, rolled back before the new set of experiences and sights that rush in on him. Oh! he will say, what is this that I see and hear? Has Jesus Christ always been so near me? Have my guardian angel and the demon that has tempted me been always in this very room? Ah, yes! it is even so. I have been living in a dream all my life, and pursuing shadows. It is true, as I learned in the catechism, and as the Church taught me, I was not made for the world or for sin, but for God. I had a soul, and the end of my being was to love and serve my Maker. He has been watching me all my days, and I have thought little of Him. I heard of judgment, but I did not give heed to it, or I placed it far off in the future; but now it is here at the door. There is my Saviour, there my angel guardian, there the demon. {244} Once I heard of these things, now I see them with my eyes. Yes, it is all true. The world did not seem to believe it, the world forgot it; but the world was wrong. The poor and the simple were right, after all, and the wise ones taken in their own craftiness. Yes, Christianity is true, Catholicity is true; I cannot doubt it, if I would, for there it stares me in the face! O, overwhelming conviction! You have heard of the answer of a self-denying old monk to a wild, licentious youth, who reproached him with his folly in living so severe a life for the sake of a hereafter he had never seen. "Father," said the youth, "how much wiser I am than you, if there be no hereafter!" "Yes, my son," replied the aged man, "but how much more foolish, if there be!" O fearful discovery, to come on one for the first time, with a strong and deep impression, at the very threshold of eternity! O miserable man! why did you not think of these things before? Why did you rush into the presence of your Maker without forethought? Now, for the first time, to think seriously, when there is no longer freedom in thought, or merit in faith. O, the folly and the misery!

But I must pass on, for these are but the beginning of sorrows. The conviction, then, that the soul acquires in the first moment of her experience in the other world is accompanied by a mortal terror. Why is Jesus Christ there? Why are the angel and the demon there? Ah! he knows well. It is to try him. Yes, he is to be tried, and to be tried by an unerring judge—by Jesus Christ. To be tried; and that is something he is not used to. He never tried himself. He never examined his conscience. He was afraid to do it, and if sometimes the thought of a hereafter intruded itself into his mind, he banished it, and thought he would escape somehow or other. Perhaps he built on the very name of Catholic, or on the sacraments, as if they possessed a magical power, and would change him at once, in the hour of death, from a sinner to a saint. {245} Perhaps he thought that God would strike a balance between the good and the evil that was in him, and pardon him for being as wicked as he was because he was no worse. Perhaps he built simply on the mercy of God. So far as he thought at all, he built his hopes on some such foundation as this. He did not know how, but he thought somehow he would get off. It is the old story. Almighty God said to Eve: "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." And Eve said to the serpent: "We may not eat it, lest we die." And the serpent said: "Ye shall not surely die." So it is; man's self-love reasons, and the devil denies. But the time has come when the deceits of sin and the devil are discovered. The sinner is to be tried. He stands as a culprit to be judged. And by what law is he to be tried? By the ten commandments, of which he has heard so often, and which he has neglected so completely. God says: "Thou shalt not break My commandments, and in the day thou breakest them thou shalt surely die." God had said: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." He had committed it. God had said: "Thou shalt not steal;" and he had stolen. God had said: "Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath day." He had broken the Sunday and neglected the Sunday's Mass. God had said: "Thou shalt do no murder;" and he had murdered his own soul by drunkenness. He had grown bold in sin, and thought that God had hidden away his face, and would never see it. And now he is brought to trial. There is no hope that his transgressions against the commandments can be hidden. The demon is there as his accuser.

"I claim this soul as mine. Look at it; see if it does not belong to me? Does it not look like me? Wilt thou take a soul like that and place it in thy paradise?" At these words the sinner looks down upon himself and sees his own soul. He has never seen it before. Oh, what a sight! As a man is horror-struck the first time he sees his blotched and bloated face after an attack of small-pox, so is he horror-struck at the sight of his own soul. {246} Oh, how horribly ugly and defiled it is! What are those stains upon his soul Ah! they are the stains of sin. Each one has left its separate mark; and to look at that soul you might see its history. There is the gangrene of lust, and the spot of anger, and the tumor of pride, and the scale of avarice. Ah! how hideous it is, and how horrible to think how it is changed, for it was once like that beautiful angel that stands by its side, all radiant with light and beauty. It has no resemblance now. The words of the demon are true; it resembles him. But the accuser goes on: "I claim this body as mine." He turns to the body, as it lies in the bed: "I claim those eyes as mine, by the title of all the lascivious looks they have given. I claim those hands as mine, by the title of all the robberies and acts of violence they have committed. I claim those feet as mine, because they were swift to carry him to the place of forbidden pleasures, and slow to go to the house of God. I claim these ears as mine, by the title of all the detraction they have drunk in so greedily. I claim this mouth as mine, by the title of all the blasphemies and impurities it has uttered. See," says he, "this body is mine; it bears my mark;" and as he speaks he points to a scar in the forehead, the remnant of a wound received in a drunken affray in a house of ill-fame. Surely he has said enough; but he is not accustomed to be believed. He has now spoken the truth indeed, because truth serves his purpose better than falsehood would have done. But he knows he is a liar, and therefore needs confirmation; so he goes on: "I have witnesses, if you want them. Shall I bring them up?" Jesus Christ gives his permission. And now see, at his word, a band of lost spirits come up from hell. Oh! how pale and haggard they look, and how they glare on the sinner as they fix on him a look of recognition. Who is that who speaks to him first, and holds out her long withered fingers to him, and says, with a horrid laugh: "I think you know me." {247} Oh! that is the poor girl he seduced. She says: "I followed thee to ruin; it is fitting thou shouldst follow me to hell." But there is another woman. Who is that? That is his poor wife; his poor wife, who had to put up with all the cruelties and violence he practised in his beastly drunkenness; who was led by want to steal, and by despair to drunkenness. She looks upon him with a blood-shot eye. "My husband," she says: "thou wert my tormentor in time; I will be thy tormentor in eternity." But who are those young people, that young man and young woman? Oh, they are his eldest children, his boy and girl, of whom he took no care; who, finding nothing but a hell at home, went out—the one to the tavern and the gaming-room, the other to the ball and the dance and the lonely place of assignation, and, after a short career of dissipation, were both cut off in their sin. They meet him, and now they say: "Father, thou didst pave the way of perdition for us, and now we will cling to thee, and drag thee deeper, who art at once the author of our life and of our destruction." Ah! has not the demon made out his case? Can there be hope for one like that? Are you not ready to condemn him yourselves to hell? But wait—perhaps he did good penance. And the Judge, turning to the angel guardian says: "My good and faithful servant, what has thou to say in behalf of this soul, which was committed to thy especial care?" The angel looks down upon the ground and sighs, and answers, "Most just and holy Sovereign, alas! I have nothing to say that can set aside the accusation Thou hast beard. All I can do is to vindicate Thy justice and my fidelity. I have given to the man all the graces Thou hast prepared for him. He was a Catholic. He had the sacraments. He had warnings. He had faith. He had many special graces. He had the mission; and I myself often spoke to him in his heart, calling him to do penance, but he never did do penance. He was careless in attendance at Mass. {248} He was seldom at the confessional, and when he did come he made his confession without a sincere purpose of amendment, and soon relapsed into his former sins, and at last he died without penance. Therefore there is nothing left for me but to resign my charge and to return the crown"—here the angel takes up a beautiful crown—"to return the crown which Thou hadst made for him, that Thou mayst place it on another brow." "Dost Thou not hear," the demon once more cries out impatiently—"Dost thou not hear what the angel says? Yes, this man is mine, has always been mine. I did not create him, and yet he always served me. Thou didst create him, and yet he has refused to obey Thee. I never died for him, yet he has been my willing slave. Thou didst die for him, and yet he has "blasphemed Thy name, broken Thy laws and despised Thy promises. Thou didst allure him by kindness, but wert not able to win his affection. I led him to hell, and found him willing to follow. O Jesus, thou Son of the living God, if Thou dost not give me this soul, there is neither truth in Thy word nor justice in Thy awards." The demon speaks boldly, but Jesus Christ suffers him to speak so, because he speaks truly; and oh, with what terror does the poor sinner hear that truth! But terror is not the only feeling that is to fill his heart. Despair is to come in, to make his misery complete. He begins to cry for mercy. "O God, mercy! have mercy, O Jesus Christ! Do not let me perish whom Thou hast redeemed. I have had the faith; oh, do not let me come to perdition! Only one quarter of an hour to do penance!" Can Jesus Christ resist such an appeal? No, my brethren, if there were a real disposition to do penance in the heart. I will undertake to say that if the devils of hell were willing to do penance, God would forgive them. But there is no penance in the other world. There is only the desire to escape punishment, not the desire to escape sin; and being out of the order of the present providence of God, which leaves the will free, there is no real conversion there. {249} Therefore Jesus Christ answers: "O wicked man, thy deeds condemn thee. Thou callest for mercy, but it is too late. The time for mercy is over! Mercy! thou hast shown no mercy to thyself, to thy wife or children. Mercy! I have shown thee mercy all the days of thy life. I sent thee my preachers, and thou didst refuse to listen. There is no mercy now but justice—and therefore I pronounce the everlasting sentence. I consign this man's soul to hell, and his body to the resurrection of damnation." Did you hear that howl? That was the devil's howl of triumph. Jesus Christ is gone. The angel is gone; and the devil goes to the body. They have not done washing it. He begins to wash too. What is he doing. He is washing the forehead; for on that forehead, the mark of Christ, the holy cross, was placed in baptism, and he is washing it out, and with a brand from hell he places there his own signet—the signet of perdition. And now the soul, feeling the full extent of her misery, cries out: "I am damned. I am damned! no hope more; not even Purgatory. Oh, I never thought it would come to this; I did but do as the others. I was no worse than my companions, and now I am lost. I that was a Catholic, I that had always a good name, and was liked by my friends. And oh, are the judgments of God so strict? What will become of my companions whom I left on the earth, wild and reckless like my self? Will they too follow me to this place of torment! Oh, why did not the priest speak of this? Alas! he did, but I would not hear. Alas, alas, it is too late now! Shall I never see Jesus Christ again? Must I forever despair?" And a voice rises from the walls of eternity with ten thousand reverberations: "Despair." Can there be any thing more dreadful still? Yes, the sinner's cup has one more ingredient of bitterness—remorse. You know what a comfort it is to be able to say, "It was not my fault, I did what I could." But the sinner will not have that comfort. On the contrary, he will say, "I might have been saved. It is all true which the angel said. {250} I was a Catholic, and had the means of salvation. I might have been saved, saved easily, more easily than I was lost. I was never happy; sin never made me happy. I sinned, and gained for myself misery even in the other world. Fool that I was, I might have done penance, and been happier after it, in time and in eternity. How little God asked of me! I had the mission, if I had but made it well. Oh, what trouble I took to be damned, and how little was required of me to be saved! Yesterday, God was ready; the sacraments were at hand, the church door open, the priest was awaiting me; but now all is closed. Oh, if I had them now!" But his complaints are silenced. An iron grasp is on his throat. The demon has his black hand on his throat and chokes him; then he puts his horrid arms around him, and hugs him as the anaconda hugs her victims. He carries him swiftly through the air: down, down they go—until at last they reach the gates of hell. They creak upon their hinges, they open, the demon enters with his prey, and casts it on the bed of flames prepared for it. Then a yell is heard throughout those dismal regions: "One more Catholic vocation thrown away, one more soul lost, one more devil in hell."

Come, let us go back to that room where the corpse is laid out. They have just finished preparing it for the grave, and all that we have described has been taking place in that very room too, and they have not known it. They have smoothed the body and laid a white cloth over it; and they say, how natural it looks. It wears the smile they remember it used to wear in youth, and that poor soul they are talking of is damned. Jesus Christ has been there, and adjudged it to hell. And this is going on every day. Wherever death takes a man, there judgment meets him. Jesus Christ meets men in all kinds of places. {251} You know how death met Baltassar. He was a drunkard, an adulterer, a sacrilegious robber; and one night, when he was drunk, and held a grand feast, surrounded by his concubines, and with the vessels of God's house on his table, a hand appeared on the wall and wrote this sentence: "Mene, Mene, Thecel, Phares;" and that night he died. Yes! in the midst of their sin; in the place where they go, Jesus Christ meets the soul, and condemns it to hell. He meets it in the grogshop, where wild companions are gathered together, and one of them falls to the ground, under the blow of a companion, and dies. There upon that spot, with those bad companions standing around, with the sound of blasphemy in his ear, Jesus Christ, unseen, meets that soul and condemns it to hell. Another is shot in the street, on his way to keep an assignation, and then and there, in the street, Jesus Christ meets him and condemns him to hell. One dies in the low hovel, where squalid vice and misery have done all they could to brutalise the inmates, and then and there Jesus Christ, in that hovel, meets the soul and condemns it to hell. Another dies in a bed covered with silken tapestry, and as he dies he sees the face of Jesus Christ looking in through the silken curtains to pronounce the sentence against him, who had made a god of this world. Another dies in prison, and there in that cell where human justice placed him, divine justice meets him, and in that prison Jesus Christ meets him and condemns him to hell. Yes, wherever death meets you, O sinner, there Jesus Christ will meet you, and there he will condemn you. It may be tomorrow. It may be in the very act of the commission of sin. It may be without any opportunity of preparation, you will stand before an inflexible and unerring Judge. Oh, then, do not delay now to propitiate Him while you can. In that tribunal after death, there is no mercy for the sinner; but there is another tribunal, which He has established, where there is mercy—the tribunal of penance. There the accuser is not the demon, but the sinner himself; and he is not only his own accuser, but his own witness against himself. There the angel guardian waits with joy, not with sorrow. There Jesus Christ is present, but not in wrath. {252} There the sentence is, "I absolve thee from thy sin," not "I condemn thee for thy sin." Oh, then, appeal from one tribunal to the other. Appeal from Jesus Christ to Jesus Christ. Appeal from Jesus Christ at the day of judgment to Jesus Christ in the confessional. And if thou wouldst not be condemned by Him when thou seest Him after death, be sure thou gettest a favorable sentence from Him now in the Sacrament of Penance. "Make an agreement with thy adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him: lest perhaps the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Amen. I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou pay the last farthing." [Footnote 23]

[Footnote 23: St. Matt. v. 25.]

Sermon IV.

Heaven.

(Mission Sermon.)

"Rejoice and be exceeding glad,
because your reward is very great in heaven."
—St: Matt. v. 12.

Some of you may remember the joy with which, after a sea voyage, you arrived at home. The voyage had been very long and wearisome. You had suffered, perhaps had been in danger. At last you heard the sailors cry "Land;" and after a while, your less practised eye began to discern the blue hills of your native country. Oh, how that sight revived you! How your sufferings and dangers were all forgotten in the thought of the welcome that awaited you at home! {253} Well, life is a voyage on the ocean of time; often a tempestuous, always a dangerous voyage; and in order to animate our courage, to cheer and console us, God has allowed us from time to time to catch a glimpse by faith of our distant home of heaven. Let us lift up our thoughts now to that happy land, the land that is very far off, the land that is wide and quiet; the celestial paradise, the home of the blessed, the city of God. I know that we cannot gain any sufficient idea of it. I know that eye hath not seen its beauty, ear hath not heard the story of it, neither hath the heart of man conceived its image; but we must do as men do with some costly jewel: turn it first on one side, then on another, to catch its brilliancy; and if at the last we fall down, blinded and dazzled by the splendors which meet us, we shall in this way at least conceive something of the greatness of those things which God has provided for those who love Him.

The Holy Scripture represents the pleasures of heaven in three different lights: first, as Rest; second, as Joy; third, as Glory. Let us, then, meditate upon them for a while, under each one of these three aspects.

First, then, heaven is a place of rest, by which I understand the absence of all those things which disturb us here. True, there is happiness even in this life, but how unsatisfactory, how fleeting! Here we are never far off from wretchedness, and never long without trouble. You go into a great city: how rich and gay every thing looks; what crowds of well-dressed people pass you! Ah! in the next street there is the dismal hovel where poverty hides its head, and the children cry for bread, and there is no one to break it to them. You are strong and healthy, and it is a strange, fierce joy for you on a cold day to struggle with the buffetings of the wintry blast; but see, the rude wind that kindles a glow on your cheek steals away the bloom from yonder sick man, whose feeble step and sharpened features tell of suffering and disease. {254} You have a happy family, and when you go home your children clamber up on your knees, and your wife meets you with a smile of affection. Alas! next door, the widow weeps the night long, and there is none to comfort her, for the young man, the only son of his mother, has been carried to his long home. And as if this were not enough, as if sickness and poverty and death did not cause misery enough in the world, men's passions, hate and envy, lust, avarice, and pride, unite to make many a moment wretched that might else have been happy. But in heaven these things shall be no more. In heaven. there shall be complete and perfect rest. The poor man will no more be forced to toil hardly and anxiously to put bread in his children's mouths—to rise up early, and late take rest; for there they shall not hunger nor thirst any more. The sick man then shall leap as a hart; he shall run and not be weary; he shall walk and not faint. The widow's tears shall be dried, for husband and son shall be again restored to her. Oh, what a day shall that be, when dear friends shall meet together, never to part again, and God shall wipe all tears from their eyes, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away; when the bodies of the saints, glorious and immortal, no longer subject to decay or fatigue or death, clothed in light, shall enter the gates of the celestial city, and shall have a right to the tree of life! And there shall be no sin there, no gust of passion, no reproach of conscience, no sting of temptation. In this life, says St. Augustine, we have the liberty of being able not to sin, but in heaven we shall have the higher liberty of not being able to sin. Brother shall not rise up against brother, neither shall there be war any more, for the former things are passed away. There shall be no strife or hatred or envy; no wrong or oppression; no unkindness or coldness; no falsehood or insincerity; but within a perfect peace, and without an unalterable friendship between all the inhabitants of this happy land, each rejoicing in the other's happiness and glory. And there is no end to these joys of heaven. {255} Here our best pleasures are alloyed by their transitoriness; but there, there is no fear for the future. No wave disturbs the deep, clear sea of crystal that lies before the throne of God. The angel has sworn that time shall be no longer, and the great day of eternity has begun. O heavenly Jerusalem! O city of God! which has no need of sun or moon to enlighten it, for there is no night there! welcome haven of rest to the poor exiles of earth! Blessed are they that shall enter thy gates of pearl and tread thy streets of gold, for thou art the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth. In thy secure recesses the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. "Blessed are they that die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord. My people shall be all just; they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, to glorify me."

But though it is easier to describe heaven as a place of rest, that is not the whole description of it. Heaven is also a place of joy, and of joy the most complete, the most pure, the most satisfying that the human heart can possess. Joy in seeing and loving God, or, as it is called, in the Beatific Vision. This it is in which consists essentially the Christian idea of heaven. I say the Christian idea, for our faith teaches us to look forward to a happiness very different from what we could have expected by nature. Of course natural reason teaches us to look forward to a future life, but it promises no other knowledge of God but such as is possible to our own natural powers when fully developed. But Christianity promises us a knowledge of God to which our natural powers, however enlarged, could never aspire. It teaches us that we shall see Him as He is—not only think about Him and commune with Him and adore Him, but actually look upon His unveiled Divinity, gaze upon Him face to face. It is not of our Lord's glorified humanity that I speak. {256} That, too, we shall see, and that will be a sight of unspeakable beauty and joy; but we shall see more: we shall look upon and into the Divine Essence. Now to our natural powers this is impossible. A blind man can know a great deal about the sun. He may hear it described, he may reason about it, he may feel its effects, but he cannot lift up his eyes to heaven and see it. So, naturally speaking, we have not the faculty whereby to see God. "No man hath seen God at any time," says St. John. "Whom no man hath seen, or can see, who inhabiteth the light inaccessible," says St. Paul. [Footnote 24]

[Footnote 24: St. John i. 18; I. Tim. vi. 16.]

Clearly there must be some great change in us, something given to us that does not belong to us as men, in order to enable us to see God, and the Holy Scripture tells us what that change shall be: "We shall be like to Him, for we shall see Him as He is," says St. John. [Footnote 25]

[Footnote 25: I. Ep. St. John iii. 2.]

We ourselves shall become divine and godlike. The human intellect shall be marvellously strengthened by a gift which the Church calls the light of glory, which shall enable us to look upon God and live. We are told in Scripture that God walked in the garden of Eden and talked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. This high companionship was broken by the fall. Man was reduced to the rank that essentially belonged to him, and was deprived of that which had been accorded to him of grace. But by baptism he acquires once more a right to that familiar intercourse with God, and in heaven he enters upon its enjoyment. For this reason heaven is called our fatherland. It is our lost inheritance recovered. There we ourselves shall be the sons of God, and God will be our Father. Think what is the relation of an affectionate son to a good and wise father. What submission with equality—what complete sympathy and community of interest—what intimate communication of thought and feeling! So, O Christian soul! shall it be between you and God. God will be your God, and you will be His child. {257} Thou shalt dwell in His home, and all that He hath shall be thine. "All things are yours, the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; for all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." [Footnote 26]

[Footnote 26: 1 Cor. iii 23.]

Yes, God himself shall be yours. You shall look around you and see His towering altitudes, and count them as your own. You shall look deep down into the depths of His wisdom and be wise as God is. You shall find yourself upborne by His power and goodness, enveloped by His glory, and adorned with His beauty. Oh! my brethren, is not this joy? Tell me, tell me, young men, tell me, children, tell me truly, one and all, what have been the happiest moments of your life? Was it the moments you have spent in sin? Was it the hour of some earthly success or triumph? Or was it not rather at some hour when God was near to you, and you felt the music of His voice and the perfume of His breath—some time when you were praying, or when you had made a good confession or communion, or when you were listening to a sermon? I know it was. I know there are times when every man has felt the words of the Psalmist: "What have I in heaven? and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth? Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever." [Footnote 27]

[Footnote 27: Ps. lxxxii. 26.]

What are all the attainments of learned men to Him who is all-wise? What are all the conceptions of genius to Him who is all-beautiful, or the moral excellencies of good men to Him who is all-holy? Yes, the thought of God is the source of the purest and highest pleasure on earth. That thought has ravished the saints with ecstasy, and made the martyrs laugh at their torments. And if merely to think about God in this life can make us so happy, what must it be to see Him in the life to come? {258} To know God and to love Him, to know Him as we are known by Him, to love Him with our whole souls, to possess Him without the fear of losing Him, to take part in His counsels, to enter into His will, and to share in His blessedness—this is a joy, perfect and supreme; and this is the joy of heaven. This is the joy offered to you. This is all-satisfying. The soul can desire nothing more. This is permanent, for heaven is eternal. This is always new, for God is riches and beauty inexhaustible and infinite. Oh, my brethren, do not envy those who were near our Lord's person when He was upon earth. I know it is natural to do so. I know it is natural to say, "If I could but have seen His face, or heard the sound of His voice;" but no! yours is a still happier lot. Do not envy Magdalene, who kissed His feet, nor St. John, on whose breast He leaned, nor the Blessed Virgin, who bore Him in her arms. Is it not permitted to the poorest and the weakest of you to see Him, not in His humility, but in his glory—to converse with Him and dwell with Him in the land of the living? Oh! blessed are they that dwell in Thy house! The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Blessed are they that hear the Word of God and do it! Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God! One would have thought that this was enough. To be free from all the trials and sufferings of this present life, and to enjoy the fullest happiness a human soul is capable of—one would think that were heaven enough, and that no more could be added. But the bounty of God has added another element to the happiness of heaven. Heaven is a place of glory—not of rest only, but of glory also. "Glory, honor and peace," says the apostle, "to every man that doeth well." Heaven is the place of God's glory, and it is also the place of the glory of the saints. Even here the good are honored —the really good. True, for a while they may be despised and persecuted, but, in the long run, nothing is honored so much as virtue. {259} During the lifetime of Nero and St. Paul, Nero was a powerful emperor, praised and flattered by his courtiers, and St. Paul a friendless and despised prisoner; now, Nero is abhorred as the wicked tyrant, and St. Paul honored by all men as the saint and hero. But this is not enough. In heaven the honor of the saints will be magnificent. God himself will honor them. This is one reason for the last judgement, that God may publicly give honor to the good. "Whosoever shall glorify me, him will I glorify," says the Almighty; [Footnote 28] and they who are saved will be admitted to heaven with respect and solemnity, as those whom the King delights to honor.

[Footnote 28: 1 Ki. ii. 30.]

This is represented to us in the description of the last judgment: "Then shall He turn to them on the right hand and say: 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'" See how He praises them. See how He honors them and makes kings out of them. They are astonished: it seems too much. They know not how they have deserved it. But He insists upon it as their right. He repeats the good actions they have done. "I was hungry and ye gave me meat, I was thirsty and ye gave me to drink. I was naked and ye clothed me." Do you hear this, my brethren? So will it be with you when you stand before God to be judged. He will hold in His hand a beautiful diadem of gold, and he will say: "This is for thee." And thou shalt be amazed and shalt say: "No, Lord, this is not for me. I am nothing but a laboring man. I am but a poor boy. I am only a servant-girl. I am not the child of the rich and great. No one ever made way for me in the street, or rose up when I came into their company." But Christ shall say: "Nay! a prince thou art, for thou hast done the deeds of a prince." {260} Then He will begin to mention them one by one—your kindness to your old mother and father—your humble confession that it was so difficult to make, and which you made so well—the time you overcame that great temptation, and resolved, once for all, to be virtuous—the occasion of sin you renounced—the prayers you said in humility and sincerity—the sacrifices you made for your faith—the true faith you kept with your husband or wife—the patience you practised in pain or vexation. Then He will show you your throne in heaven, so bright you will think it an apostle's, or the Blessed Virgin Mary's, or that it belongs to God himself; and then the tears of joy and surprise will drop from your eyes, and your heart will be nigh bursting with confusion; but He will smile upon you, and take you by the hand, and say: "Yes, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things." Then He will give thee a certain jurisdiction, a certain power of intercession; make thee an assessor in His high court of heaven, and make thee to sit on a throne with Him, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And others shall honor thee. The saints shall honor thee. The Blessed Virgin shall honor thee. Now thou honorest her, so much at a distance from thee, and callest her Lady; but then it shall be as it was when St. John and the Blessed Virgin dwelt together in one home. Thou shalt still honor her as the Mother of Jesus, and she shall honor thee as His disciple. St. Peter and St. John and St. James and St. Andrew shall honor thee. Now thou makest thy litanies to them; but then it will be as it was when Peter and Thomas and Nathanael and the sons of Zebedee were together, and Jesus came in the midst and dined with them. The saints shall be one family with thee. They will walk with thee, and sit with thee, and call thee by name, and tell thee the secrets of Paradise. And the angels shall honor thee. Now thou addressest thy angel guardian on bended knee; but then he will say to thee: "See thou do it not; I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren, who have the testimony of Jesus." And the Church on earth shall praise thee. As long as time shall last, she shall make mention of thee as one of those who rejoice with Christ in His glorious kingdom, and, clothed in white, follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. {261} Yes, and the wicked and the devils shall honor thee. Now they may affect to despise you—now they may persecute you and trouble you; but then they will be forced to do you honor, and, groaning within themselves for anguish of spirit, and amazed at the suddenness of your unexpected salvation, shall say: These are they whom we had sometime in derision, and for a parable if reproach. We fools esteemed their life madness and their end without honor. Behold how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints." [Footnote 29]

[Footnote 29: Wisd. v. 3, 4, 5.]

Such, my brethren, are the joys of heaven, or, rather, such is the faintest and poorest idea of the joys of heaven. Men seek for wealth as the means of defending themselves from the ills of life, but there is perfect rest only in heaven. Men seek for pleasure, but earthly joys are short and unsatisfactory; the pleasures at God's right hand are for ever sure. Men seek for honor, but the real honor comes from God alone. And these are within the reach of each one of you. When Father Thomas of Jesus, was dying in captivity, his friends came around his bedside, and expressed their regret that he should die, away from his home, and their hope that the King of Spain would even yet ransom him; but the holy man replied: "I have a better country than Spain, and the ransom has long been paid. That country is heaven, that ransom is the blood of Christ." The Holy Church says: "When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." Yes! by the blood of Christ, by the sacrament of baptism, the gates of heaven are opened before us. The path is straight and plain. If by sin we have strayed from it, by penance we have been recalled to it, and now there is nothing to do but to advance and persevere, and heaven is ours. {262} Will you draw back, Christian? Will you, by mortal sin, throw away that immortal crown? No drunkard or adulterer, nothing that is defiled, can enter there. There is only one road that leads to heaven—the road of Christian obedience. Will you renounce your birthright? Will you, by sin, take the course that leads you away from your heavenly home? "Oh!" I hear you say, "I will choose heaven." But, remember, heaven is to be won. "Heaven," says St. Philip Neri, "is not for the slothful and cowardly." Strive then, henceforth, for the rewards that are at God's right hand. Strive to attain abundant merits for eternity. Remember that he that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly, and he that soweth plentifully shall reap plentifully. God is not unmindful of your works and labor that proceedeth from love. Things so small as not to be taken notice of, things that happen every day, add a new glory to our mansions in heaven. With this aim, then, let us henceforth work. "Oh, happy I," says St. Augustine, "and thrice happy, if, after the dissolution of the body, I shall merit to hear the songs that are sung in praise of the Eternal King, by the inhabitants of the celestial city!" Happy I, if I myself shall merit to sing those strains, and to stand before my Lord and King, and to see Him in His glory, as he promised! "He that loveth me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." "How amiable are thy tabernacles, Thou Lord of Hosts! My soul hath a desire and a longing to enter into the courts of the Lord." Grant me this, O Lord. Give and withhold what Thou wilt. I do not ask length of days. I do not ask for earthly honor and prosperity. I do not ask to be free from care, or labor, or suffering. But this I do ask, O Lord: when this life is over, shut not up my soul in hell, but let me look on Thy face in the land of the living. Make me so to pass through things temporal that I lose not the things eternal. {263} Hail, Heavenly Queen! our life, our sweetness, and our hope! to Thee do we cry, poor, exiled children of Eve. Oh, then, from Thy throne in heaven, lift upon us, who are struggling in this world, those merciful eyes of Thine! and when this our exile is over, show us the blessed fruit of Thy womb, JESUS!

Note.—This was the last Sunday-Sermon which F. Baker preached, two weeks before he was seized with his last illness.

Sermon V.

The Duty Of Growing In Christian Knowledge.

(First Sunday in Advent.)

"The first man knew not wisdom perfectly,
no more shall the last find her out.
For her thoughts are vaster than the sea,
and her counsels deeper than the great ocean."
—Eccles. XXIV. 38, 39.

I think we Catholics, when we lay claim to the possession of the whole truth—the entire revelation imparted to the world from Christ through the apostles—sometimes forget how small a share of that truth each one of us possesses in particular. It is the Church that the Holy Ghost leads into all truth, not individuals. Each Catholic, who is sufficiently instructed, knows some truth; he knows what is necessary to salvation; but there are many things which he is totally ignorant of, many things concerning which his conceptions are inadequate or distorted. Now if this be so, it cannot but be useful to remember it, and I will, therefore, this morning, show you how it must be so, and some of the consequences which flow from it.

Each one's knowledge of truth must be more or less partial and incomplete, because it varies with each one's capacity for receiving truth. When God gave man reason, He conferred on him the faculty of receiving truth; but the degree in which this or that man is capable of receiving truth, depends upon the strength and cultivation of his particular reason. The eye is the organ of sight, but one man's eye is stronger and truer than another's. Slight variations of color or form, wholly indistinguishable by one man, are detected in a moment by another. So, one man's reason is stronger than another's. What makes the difference, is, of course, in part the diversity in natural endowments, but it is not altogether due to this cause; it is due in great measure also to cultivation. Moral dispositions, too, have a great deal to do with it; and in the case of Christian truth, the grace of God also exerts a special influence. The degrees in which these various elements are found in particular cases, are so different, that there is an almost infinite gradation in the measure in which men are capable of receiving truth. No two men can receive it in exactly the same degree. In all this congregation, where we recite the same Creed and use the same prayers, there are, perhaps, no two of us who mean by them precisely the same thing. The intelligence of each one, his past history, his moral dispositions, will determine how far the faith that is in him corresponds to the faith that is without him—the faith as it is in itself, the object of faith as it is in God. I can make what I mean plain to you by an illustration. Let us suppose a beautiful picture of the crucifixion, for instance, [is] put up in a public gallery. Men of every kind enter and pass before it. There comes a man who has never heard of Christ; he is ignorant and uneducated. He looks up and sees the representation of extremest human agony, mingled with superhuman dignity and patience. Some ray enters his mind; he pauses, is startled then passes on. Now there comes another, who is an anatomist, and he is arrested by the skill with which the body is proportioned, and the play of the muscles and nerves is exhibited. Every line is a study to him, and he stops a good deal longer than the first. {265} Then there comes an artist, and he sees in the picture something greater even. He takes in the genius of the conception, the fitness of attitude and expression, the light and shade, the tints of color, the difficulties overcome by art; and he comes and sits before it, day after day, for hours, absorbed in the study of its beauties. And another comes who is a poet, and to him it brings back the scene of Calvary. In a moment he is far away, and the sun is darkened, and the earth quakes, and there are thunderings and lightnings, and once more the Holy City pours forth its multitude to witness the death of Jesus. And then there comes a sinner. Ah! that story of love and suffering! which tells how God so loved the world, and gave His only-begotten Son, that all who believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. To him, that picture speaks of the horrors of sin, of mercy, of heaven and hell, and thoughts are awakened by it which lead him back to God. There hangs the picture, unaltered. It is just what the artist made it, neither more nor less, yet see how different it has been to different beholders.

Now, just so it is with the preaching of the truth. As we recite the Creed, as we preach to you, Sunday after Sunday, the Creed itself is indeed unchangeable, but it is a different thing to each one of us who preach, and to each one of you who hear, according to your intelligence, your past history, and your present dispositions. How can it be otherwise? Does not the very word, God, mean something different to us from what it does to a saint? Do not the words Presence of God, mean something different to you and me from what they did to St. Teresa, to whom the soul of man appeared as a castle with seven chambers, each one more sacred than the others, as you advanced into the interior, until the innermost shrine was reached, where God and the soul were joined together in a manner which human language knows not how to utter? {266} Do you not see that the doctrine of the Incarnation is something very different to us from what it was to St. Athanasius, who spent his whole life in conflict for it, who endured years of exile and calumny, the estrangement of friends, the suspicion even of good men, rather than falter the least in fidelity to that verity on which his soul had fed? Or the Real Presence—is that not a different thing to the crowd who come to church and kneel from custom, but hardly remember why, from what it was to St. Thomas, who composed in honor of it the wonderful hymns Pange Lingua and Lauda Sion, or to St. Francis Xavier, who spent nights in prayer, prostrate upon the platform of the altar? Why, St. Thomas, who has so written of the Christian faith that the Church has named him the angelical doctor, threw down his pen in hopelessness of being able to express the high knowledge of divine things which filled his soul. And St. Paul confesses, in writing to the Hebrews, that even in that primitive community, taught by apostles and living in a perpetual call to martyrdom, there were some points of Christian truth which he found himself unable to utter, "because you are become weak to hear." [Footnote 30]

[Footnote 30: Heb. v. 11.]

I know that you are Catholics, that you have the Apostles' Creed by heart, that you believe in one God in Three Persons, in the Incarnation and Death of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and in the two eternities before us; but neither you nor I know what all this implies. Our knowledge is very imperfect: we are but babes in Christ, lisping and stammering the Divine alphabet—children, wetting our feet in the waves which dash on the shore of the boundless ocean of truth.

It is good for us, as I have already said, to remember this, for it gives us at once the true method of forming an estimate of Christianity. A tree is known by its fruit, but it is by its best fruit. {267} If you have a tree in your garden bearing only a small quantity of very delicious fruit, you prize it highly and take great care of it, though many of the blossoms fall off, and a great deal of the fruit never ripens. So you must judge of the Catholic Church, by its best and most perfect fruit, that is, by the men of great wisdom and great virtue whom it produces, and not by its imperfect members. Who is likely to be the best exponent and the truest specimen of his religion, a man of prayer and study, deeply versed in the Holy Scriptures and sacred learning, or one of small capacity, little learning, and little prayer? Evidently, the former; and yet how often do men take the contrary way of judging of the teaching and spirit of the Church. They visit some Catholic country, they see some instance of popular error, ignorance, or disorder, and they say: "This is Catholicity." Or, at home, they see or hear a Catholic do or say something which gives them offence, and they exclaim: "That is your doctrine!" "That is your religion!" Now, supposing the offence they take to be justly taken, which is not always the case, what does it prove? It may prove that the rulers of the Church have not done their duty; but it may prove just the contrary, that they have done their duty-that in spite of the obstacles of ignorance and rudeness, they have succeeded in imparting to some darkened souls enough knowledge to lead them to God, though it be the very least that is sufficient for that purpose. But it does not show what the doctrine of the Church really is as intelligently understood. To find out this, you must look at men who are in the most favorable circumstances for understanding it, and they are the saints of God: St. Basil, St. Augustine, St. Francis of Sales, St. Teresa. St. Vincent of Paul.

O my brethren! how can men turn away from Catholicity? I understand how they can turn away from it as you and I express it; how we can fail to remove their difficulties, or even put new perplexity in their way. But how can they turn away from Catholicity as it is expressed by the great saints of the Church? {268 } What a divine religion! What majesty, what sweetness, what wisdom, what power! How it commands the homage of the world! What a universal testimony it has in its favor, after all! Do you know, my brethren, I believe men are far more in favor of Catholicity than we suspect. I believe half the difficulties they find in our religion are not in our religion at all, but in us; in our ignorance, in our prejudices, in our short-sightedness and narrow-heartedness. What renders the world without excuse is the line of saints, the true witnesses to the genius and spirit of the Catholic religion. And yet, even the saints themselves are not the perfect exponents of the faith, for even the saints were not altogether free from ignorance and error. To understand fully the nobleness of the Christian faith, we should need the help of inspiration itself. Did it never occur to you, my brethren, that the expressions of the prophets and apostles in reference to the light and grace brought by Jesus Christ into the world, were extravagant? "Behold, I will lay thy stones in order, and will lay thy foundations with sapphires, and I will make thy bulwarks of jasper: and thy gates of graven stones, and all thy borders if desirable stones. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord: and great shall be the peace of thy children." "Thou shalt no more have the sun for thy light by day, neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and thy God for thy glory." [Footnote 31]

[Footnote 31: Isaiah liv. 11-13; lx. 19.]

Does the Catholic Church, as you understand it, come up to these descriptions? Is Catholic truth, as you appropriate it, so high and glorious a thing as this? No! And the reason is, that you are straitened in yourselves. Your conceptions are so low, your knowledge of the truth is so partial and limited that you do not recognize the description when the Holy Ghost presents that truth as it is in itself, as it is seen and known by God.

This thought leads us naturally to another; namely, that it is the duty of each one of us to extend his knowledge of Christian truth as far as possible. There is a story told of a foreign gentleman visiting Rome, who went one day to St. Peter's Church, and, after entering the vestibule, admired its noble proportions, and returned home fully satisfied that he had seen the church itself, which he had not even entered. So it is with many persons who never pass beyond the vestibule of Christian knowledge. They never enter the inner temple, or catch even a glimpse of its vast heights and its dim distances, its receding aisles, its intricate archings, its glory, its richness, and its mystery. O misery of ignorance! which has ever been the heaviest curse of our race. O Morning Star, harbinger of eternal truth, and Sun of Justice, when wilt thou come to enlighten those that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death! Alas! this is our grief, that the true Light is come into the world, but our eyes are holden that we cannot see it. Truths, the thought of which rapt the apostles into ecstasy, truths which the angels desire to look into, are published in our hearing, and awaken no aspiration, no stirring in our hearts. We go away, to eat and drink, and work, and play. O brethren! burst for yourselves these bonds of ignorance. Do not say, I am not learned, I am not acute or profound, I cannot hope to understand much. Remember that there were some servants to whom one talent was given, who were called to account as well as those who had ten. Do what you can. A pure heart, a blameless life, and prayer, are great enlighteners. Read, listen, meditate, obey. Ask of God to enlarge your knowledge, and to teach you what it means to say you believe in Him. Ask of Jesus Christ to teach you what it means to say that He was made man and died for us on the cross; what it is to receive His body and blood; what is the meaning of heaven and hell. {270} Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light! He will make you understand more and more what it is to be a Christian. Often have I seen the fulfilment of this promise. I have been at the bedside of poor people, who would be called rude and illiterate, but to whose pure hearts and earnest prayers God had imparted so clear a knowledge of the faith, that I have felt in their humble rooms like Jacob when he awoke from sleep and said: "Indeed the Lord is in this place." [Footnote 32]

[Footnote 32: Gen. xxviii. 16.]

Men are talking about a Church of the future. They say the old Church is decrepid, her theology is obsolete, she stimulates thought no more. But we know better. The Church of the future is the Church of the past. That Church is ever ancient and ever new. Her truth is not exhausted. Men know not the half nor the hundredth part of her hidden wisdom. O the victory! when men shall understand this—when they shall come confessing to the Holy Church, as the Queen of Saba did to Solomon: "The report is true, which I heard in my own country, concerning thy words and concerning thy wisdom. And I did not believe them that told me, till I came myself and saw with my own eyes, and have found that the half hath not been told me; thy wisdom and thy works exceed the fame which I heard. Blessed are thy men, and blessed are thy servants who stand before thee always, and hear thy wisdom." [Footnote 33]

[Footnote 33: III. Ki. x. 6-8.]

Yes! the history of the Church is not accomplished, her triumphs are not yet all written. Why does she, Advent after Advent, publish again the glowing predictions of the evangelical prophet, but because she knows that they await a still more magnificent fulfilment? Take courage—the cloud that rests on the people shall be lifted off, and the burden taken away. The Ancient Church "shall no more be called forsaken, nor her land desolate." [Footnote 34]

[Footnote 34: Is. lxii. 4.]

"Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising. Then shalt thou see and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged. And the children of them that afflict thee shall come bowing down to thee, and all that slandered thee shall worship the steps of thy feet, and shall call thee the city of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One of Israel." [Footnote 35]

[Footnote 35: Isai. lx. 1-14.]

Sermon VI.

The Mission Of St. John the Baptist.

(Second Sunday In Advent.)

"This is he of whom it is written:
Behold I send My messenger before Thy face,
who shall prepare Thy way before Thee."
—St. Matt. xi. 10.

The Scriptures of the Old Testament had foretold that a special messenger should immediately precede the coming of the Messias, whose duty would be to prepare men's hearts for His reception. Now, our Lord in the text tells us that St. John the Baptist was this messenger. It is for this reason that the Gospels read in the Church for the season of Advent are so full of the sayings and doings of this saint. In Advent the Church desires to prepare us for the twofold coming of Christ—at His Nativity and at the Last Judgment; and it is natural that she should avail herself of the labors of one who was divinely appointed for the same purpose. Accordingly, from Sunday to Sunday, during this season, she bring St. John the Baptist from his cell in the desert, clad in his rough garment, to preach to us Christians the same lessons he preached to the Jewish people centuries ago. {272} It has seemed to me, then, that I could not better subserve the intentions of the Church, than by considering this morning in what the mission of St. John the Baptist as a preparation for Christ's coming specially consisted, and what practical lessons it suggests to us.

St. John the Baptist was of the priestly race, yet he never exercised the office of a priest. He was not a prophet, at least in the sense of one who foretells future events. He worked no miracles. He had no ecclesiastical position. What was he then? What was his office? How did he prepare men for the coming of Christ? The Scriptures tell us what he was. He was a "Voice" and a "Cry"—the cry of conscience, the voice of man's immortal destiny. His mission was simple, elementary, and universal. It went deeper than ecclesiastical or ritual duties. It touched human probation to the very quick. He dealt with the great question of salvation, protested vehemently against sin, and published aloud that law of sanctity which is written on every man's heart by the finger of God.

We have some remains of his sermons, from which we can learn his style. "Begin not to say," so he speaks to the Jews, "we have Abraham to our father, for God is able to raise up of these stones children to Abraham." [Footnote 36]

[Footnote 36: St. Luke iii. 8.]

See, how he sweeps away external privileges, and goes straight to every man's conscience. "The axe is laid now to the root of the trees, and every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire." Nothing but what is internal, nothing but what is sound at the core, can bear the scrutiny. He descends to the particulars of each man's state and condition of life. The people came to him and asked him, "What shall we do?" And he said: "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat let him do likewise." {273} That was a short and pithy sermon! Then the officers of the custom came and asked: "What shall we do? And he answered: "Take nothing more than that which is appointed you." Do not rob or swindle. Do not use bribery or extortion. And the soldiers asked him, saying: "And what shall we do?" And he said: "Do violence to no man: neither calumniate any man; and be content with your pay."

Such was the preaching of St. John the Baptist, pointed, direct, homely, practical: an echo of that trumpet-blast which once shook the earth, when God gave the Ten Commandments out of the Mount. And it did its work. Our Lord himself has testified to the success of St. John's mission. It prepared men to believe in Christ. It was the school which trained disciples for Christianity. They that believed in St. John believed afterwards in Christ. On one occasion the evangelist gives it as the explanation why some believed and some rejected the words of Jesus, that they had first believed or rejected the words of the Baptist. "All the people," such is the language I refer to, "justified God, being baptized with, the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and the lawyers despised the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him." [Footnote 37]

[Footnote 37: St. Luke vii. 29, 30.]

Nor is it difficult to explain how his preaching effected this result. Christ came to save sinners. In point of fact, we know that this is the reason why He has come into the world. He has come to seek and save that which was lost. He has come to heal the broken-hearted. He has come to give us a new law, higher and holier than the old, yet easier by the brightness of His example, and the graces He imparts. Now, unless a man feels the evil of sin, unless he wants to keep the law, unless he feels an interest, and a deep interest, in the question of his destiny, he does not care for Christ. {274} True, our Lord has given to the understanding proofs of His divine mission, so that belief in Him may be a reasonable act; but until the conscience is stirred up, the understanding has no motive for considering these proofs. To the carnal and careless Jews, the announcement of Christ's coming was, I suppose, simply uninteresting. In some points of view, indeed, they might have welcomed Him. As a temporal prince and deliverer, His advent would have been hailed by them, but salvation from sin was a matter in which they felt no great concern. What did they want with Christ? Why does He come at all to consciences which do not crave rest, and wills that need no strength? What need of a Saviour, if there is no sin to be shunned, no hell to be feared, no heaven to be won, no great struggle between good and evil, no eternity in peril?

But once let all this be fully understood. Let a man's conscience be fully awakened. Let him realize his destiny, above and beyond this world; let him appreciate the evil of sin that defeats his destiny; let him, if the case be so, perceive how far out of the way he has gone by his sins; and then how full of interest, how full of meaning, becomes the exclamation of St. John, as he points to Christ and says: "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world!" Let a man's spiritual nature be stirred within him; let him aspire to what is pure and high; aim at regulating his passions; struggle, amid inordinate desires and the importunities of creatures which encompass him like a flood, toward the highest good and the most perfect beauty; and, oh! with what music do these words of Christ fall on his soul: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is sweet, and My burden is light." [Footnote 38]

[Footnote 38: St. Matt. xi. 29, 30.]

It seems too good to be true. He listens, and asks, "May I believe this?" "Is there really a way through this world to heaven? a sure, clear, easy way?" He finds that his understanding not only allows, but compels him to believe in Christ: he is happy; he believes; his faith is a conviction into which his whole nature enters; it entwines itself with every fibre of his soul.

The connection, then, between the preaching of the Baptist and the coming of Christ was not a temporary one. It is essential and necessary. St. John is still the forerunner of Christ. The preaching of the commandments is ever the preparation for faith. The awakening of a man's conscience is the measure of his appreciation of Christ. Our Lord gives many graces to men without their own co-operation. Many of the gifts of Providence, and the first gifts in the order of grace, are so bestowed. But an enlightened appreciation of Christianity, a personal conviction of its truth, a real and deep attachment to it, will be always in proportion to the thoroughness with which a man has sounded the depths of his own heart, to the sincerity with which sin is hated and feared, and holiness aspired after. Christ is never firmly seated in the soul of man till he is enthroned on the conscience. "Unto you that fear My name, shall the Sun of Justice arise, and health in his wings." [Footnote 39]

[Footnote 39: St. Matt. iv. 2.]

And, here, my brethren, in this law or fact which I stated, we have the key to several practical questions of great importance.

Here we have, in great part at least, an explanation why conversions to the Catholic Church are not more frequent than they are. Surely the Catholic Church is prominent enough in the eyes of men. From her church towers she cries aloud. In the streets, at the opening of her gates, she utters her word, saying: "O children of men, how long will you love folly, and the unwise hate knowledge? Turn ye at my reproof." Her antiquity, her unity, her universality, the sanctity of so many of her children, are enough to arrest the attention of every thoughtful man. But how few heed her voice! True, here and there, there are souls who recognise in her the true teacher sent by Christ, the guide of their souls, and submit themselves to her safe and holy keeping. Altogether, they make a goodly company; but how small in proportion to those who are left behind! It reminds us of the words of the prophet: "I will take one of a city, and two of a family and bring you into Sion." [Footnote 40]

[Footnote 40: Jer. iii. 14.]

They come by ones and twos, and the mass remains behind. And what does that mass think of the Catholic Church? Some are entirely ignorant of her, almost as though she did not exist. Some have wrong ideas about her, and hate her. Some know a good deal about her doctrines, and are conversant with the proofs of them, and argue about them, and criticise them. Some are favorably inclined to her. Some patronise her. It was just so with Christ. To some He was simply unknown, though He was in their midst. To some He was an impostor and a blasphemer. To many He was an occasion of dispute, some affirming Him to be a "good man," others saying, "Nay, He deceiveth the people." To some He was an innovator on the established religion, the religion of the respectable and educated. To others, His mysteries were an offence, and the severity of His doctrine a stumbling-block. Why is this? Why is it always thus? Why are men so slow to be wise, and to be happy? I do not wish, my brethren, to give too sweeping an answer. I know there is such a thing as inculpable ignorance. I believe there are many on their way to the Church who are not suspected of it, and who, perhaps, do not suspect it themselves. I know that God has His seasons of grace and providence. I know that each human mind is different from every other, and has its own law of working, its own way of arriving at conviction. {277} But after all such deductions, are there not very many of whom it is a plain matter of fact to say that they will not give their attention to this subject? They may even have conscious doubts on their minds, and live and die with these unattended to, unresolved. It is a want of religious earnestness. Men do not ask: "What shall I do to be saved?" Or at least, they do not give to that question their supreme attention. They do not grapple with their destiny. They are indifferent to it, or hopeless about its solution. They let themselves float on, leaving the questions of the future to decide themselves as they may, and live in the pleasures and interests of the present.

Oh, fatal supineness! unworthy a rational being, defeating the end of our creation, and entailing countless miseries here and hereafter. Nothing can be hoped for from the world, till it awakes from its lethargy of indifference. Men must be men before you can make them Christians—serious, thoughtful earnest men, before you have any reason for expecting them to become Catholics. There is more hope of a conscientious bigot, than for a man indifferent to his salvation. He, at least, is in earnest. If his mind should become enlightened, if he should recognise the Catholic Church as the divinely-appointed guide to that heaven which he is seeking, there is reason to hope that he will avail himself of her blessings. He will not make frivolous objections; he will not stumble at the Sacrament of Confession, or catch at every scandalous story of immorality on the part of a Catholic, or quarrel with every minute ritual arrangement; but in a better, higher, nobler spirit, in that spirit of obedience which so well becomes a man, in that spirit of faith, in which man's reason asserts most clearly its high character, by uniting itself to and embracing the Reason of God, when he finds that the Church is the guide to his immortal destiny, he "will come bending to her, and will worship the steps of her feet, and will call her the City of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One of Israel."

And now, to turn our eyes within the Church, we can in the same way account for those dreadful apostasies from the Catholic faith which are here and there recorded in history. Mahometanism, which in numbers is a rival to Catholicity, possesses some of the fairest lands once owned by Christ. In modern times, one of the most refined and enlightened nations of Christendom, in a moment of frenzy, threw off the faith with which her history had been so adorned, and professed Atheism. Now, how did these things happen? Not of a sudden, or all at once. Men are not changed from Christians into Turks or Infidels in an hour. There must have been some secret moral history, which accounts for this wonderful change. And so there was. Men became lax in their conduct. The Catholicity they practised was not the Catholicity of Christ and the Apostles. Public morals were conformed to the standard of heathenism rather than that of the gospel—nay, sometimes outraged as much the decencies of heathenism as the precepts of Christ. It was the old story. St. John the Baptist imprisoned by an adulterous king; St. John the Baptist, conspired against and murdered by an ambitious queen; the head of St. John the Baptist, eloquent and reproachful even in death, brought in to point the jest and stimulate the revelry of a lascivious feast—this is but a figure of the treatment which conscience has received in Christian courts, and at the hands of Christian princes. Morality and decency grew out of date, and were cast aside like old-fashioned garments, and the restraints of the Law of God were as feeble as cobwebs before the power of passion. Now, what else could be the result of all this, but a disesteem of Christianity itself? True, it might retain some hold upon men's minds for a time. The fact that it was the religion of their ancestors, the fact that they were baptized in it, the beauty of its ceremonies and architecture, the soothing influence of its ordinances, the services it has rendered to civilisation, might keep it standing in its place for a time; but these considerations are not strong enough to withstand the power of hell, when it is exerted in the way of persecution, or a general apostasy. {279} "Every plant that my Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up," said Christ. [Footnote 41] It must be a supernatural motive that binds us to our faith. Christ and the Law cannot long remain divorced. A people without conscience will soon be a people without faith; and a nation of triflers only waits the occasion, to become a nation of apostates.

[Footnote 41: St. Matt. xv. 13.]

It is not, then, without a special providence of God, that in these later days the missionary orders of the Church have been multiplied. In the sixteenth century the intellectual defence of the faith was the Church's greatest need, and that was most successfully accomplished. But there is needed something more to uphold the falling fabric of modern society. Men need to be reminded of the first principles of morality. And, therefore, a St. Alphonsus appears in Naples, a St. Vincent of Paul in France; missionary orders in every land go about teaching the people, before it is too late, the very first and fundamental truths—the doctrine of repentance and good works. Here, in every age, and every country, is the real danger to faith. We speak often of the dangers to faith in this country; and unquestionably we have our special trials here. Some of our children are lost by neglect. Some grow cold in the unfriendly atmosphere that surrounds them. But the real danger to be dreaded is, that the love of the Church herself should grow cold; that a wide-spread demoralisation should take place among ourselves; that we should forget the keeping of the Ten Commandments. This, indeed, would be the prelude to our destruction. Practical morality makes a strong Church; but let morality be forgotten, and the Church, while it has a name to live, is dead. {280} And as a corpse long decomposed sometimes retains the human form until it is exposed to the air, when it crumbles into dust; so a dead Church will be blown to atoms and swept away, the first strong blast that hell breathes against it.

And, in fine, by the light of the thought which I have been endeavoring to present to you this morning, we see the means by which we ought to make sure our personal union with Christ. Christ is coming. He is coming at Christmas to unite Himself with those whom He shall find prepared. He is coming again, and the mountains shall melt before Him; for He is coming to judge the world. "Who shall stand to see Him? For He shall be as a Refining Fire, and shall try the Sons of Levi as gold and silver." [Footnote 42]

[Footnote 42: St. Matt. iii. 2, 3.]

How shall we abide His coming, my brethren I how shall we prepare to meet Him? I know no other way than that which St. John the Baptist recommended to the Jews—a true and solid conversion. Whether a man has committed mortal sin or not, whether he is born a Catholic or not, there comes upon him, if he is a true Christian, some time in his life, a change which Catholic writers call conversion. It may not be sudden. It may be all but imperceptible. It may be more than once. But at least once, there comes a time when religion becomes a matter of personal conviction with him. He is different from what he was before. A change has passed over him. He has awakened to his moral accountability. His manhood is developed. His conscience is aroused. And until that happens, you cannot count on him. He may seem innocent and pious, but you cannot tell whether it will not be "like the dew that passeth away in the morning." You cannot say how he will act in temptation. You cannot reckon on what he will be next year. Perhaps then he will draw sin "as with a cart-rope." {281} The trouble with such men is not that they sin sometimes. Alas! such is human frailty that a single fall would not dishearten us; but the real misery is, that they have no principle of not sinning. They are not preparing for Christ's judgement. Their contrition, such as it is, is intended to prepare them for confession, not for eternity. See, then, what we want!

And this is what I understand by the penance which St. John the Baptist preached. He practised it himself. It is thought that in St. John's case the use of reason was granted before birth; and when as a babe he leaped in his mother's womb, it was for conscious joy at the presence of his Lord and Saviour. And since the Blessed Virgin and St. Elizabeth were cousins, doubtless St. John and our Blessed Saviour knew each other as children. It is more than probable that they used to play together when they were boys, as the painters loved to represent them. And oh! what an effect did the knowledge of Christ have on St. John! It took the color out of earthly beauty, and the music out of earthly joy. There was with him afterward one overpowering desire—the desire of sanctity. He had seen a vision of heaven. Not because he despised the world, but because a higher beauty was opened to his soul, he went into the desert, and his meat was locusts and wild honey. One aim he had: to purify his heart. One thought: to prepare for heaven, and to help others also to prepare.

Oh, let us heed his words and example. Let us follow him, if not in the rigor of his fastings, at least in the sincerity of his penance. Be converted, and turn to the Lord your God. There is no other way of preparing for judgment. Remember what the Church says to you at the Font: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Listen to what God Himself counsels, when prophesying the terrors of the last day: "Remember the law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, the precepts and judgments." [Footnote 43]

[Footnote 43: St. Matt. iv. 4.]

The law commanded in Horeb—that eternal law of right, and justice, and purity, and truth—examine yourself by this standard; forsake every evil way and live a Christian life. Happy are they who do so! Happy and secure shall they be in the evil time. When the earth and heaven shall be shaken, and sea and land give up their dead, and the Son of Man appear in the heavens, and the Throne shall be set for judgment, then look up and lift up your head, for your redemption draweth nigh. You have been true to your conscience; you have believed in Christ; you have kept His law; now to you belongs the promise, "Then they that feared the Lord spoke every man with his neighbor, and the Lord gave ear, and heard it: and a book of remembrance was written before the Lord for them that fear the Lord, and think on His Name. And they shall be My special possession, saith the Lord of Hosts, in the day that I do judgment: and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." [Footnote 44]

[Footnote 44: St. Matt. iii. 16, 17.]

Sermon VII.

God's Desire To Be Loved.

(Christmas Day.)

"Thou art beautiful above the sons of men:
grace is poured abroad in Thy lips;
therefore hath God blessed Thee forever.
Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O Thou most mighty.
With Thy comeliness and Thy beauty,
set out, proceed prosperously and reign."
—Ps. xliv. 3-5.

The Church calls on us to-day to rejoice and be glad for the Incarnation of the Son of God. With a celebration peculiar to this Feast, she breaks the dead silence of the night with her first Mass of joy. {283} She repeats it again as the east reddens with the dawn. And still again, when the sun is shining in full day, she offers anew a Mass of thanksgiving for a blessing which can never be sufficiently praised and magnified. I have thought that I could not better attune your hearts to all this gladness and gratitude than by reminding you of one of the motives of the Incarnation. Why did our Lord become man? and why did He become Man in the way He did? I answer, out of His desire to be loved by us. There is a love of benevolence, which is content simply with doing good without asking a return. God has this love for us. Nature and reason tell us so. "He maketh His sun to rise on the good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust." [Footnote 45]

[Footnote 45: St. Matt. v. 45.]

And there is another love, the love of friendship, which seeks to be united to the object of its love. And the Incarnation shows us that God has this kind of love for man. His love makes us lovable in His eyes, and this again makes Him vehemently desire our love. This will be my subject this morning—the Incarnation, an evidence of God's desire to be loved by us.

And, first, observe, that there is no other reason given for the Incarnation which sufficiently accounts for it in all its circumstances. There are several reasons for the Incarnation. It is the doctrine of many Catholic theologians that God would have become man even if man had never sinned; that it was part of His original plan in forming the creature thus to unite it to Himself. Again, it is said that our Lord became Man in order to make satisfaction for sin. And a third reason alleged for His becoming man, is, that He might give us a perfect example. Now all these reasons are true: but neither of them alone, nor all of them together, entirely account for the Incarnation with all its circumstances. Not the first, for even if God had predetermined that His Son should become Man, irrespective of man's transgression, certainly in that case He would not have come poor and sorrowful, as He did. {284} The necessity of a satisfaction for sin accounts indeed for our Lord's sufferings in part, but not altogether; for He suffered far more than was necessary. Besides, it was not necessary for a Divine Person to have suffered for us unless it had pleased God to require a perfect satisfaction, which He was free to demand or dispense with. The desire to give a good example may be suggested as the explanation of our Lord's humiliation; but when we consider a moment, we will see that though a good man really does give a good example, he does very few, if any of his actions, for the mere sake of giving it. There are many things, then, in our Lord's becoming Man, and His life as Man, that need some further reason. What is that reason? It is His great desire to be loved by us. Suppose this, and every thing is clear. I do not mean to say that this account of our Lord's Incarnation makes it any less wonderful—it makes it more so—but it gives a motive for it all. Suppose Him influenced by an intense desire to gain our love, and then we see why He stooped so low, why He did so much more than was necessary, why he was so lavish in condescension—in a word, this is the explanation of what would otherwise seem to be the excess of His love.

Then, again, let us consider how our Lord's Incarnation is adapted to win our love. When we see means perfectly adapted to an end, we are apt to conclude that they were chosen in view of that end. Now, our Lord's humiliation is in all its parts wonderfully calculated to attract love.

His taking our nature is especially so. There is a wonderful power in blood. To be of kin is a tie that survives all changes and all times. Now, here our Lord makes Himself of kin to us, of the same blood. He is no stranger, before whom we need feel at a great distance, but our relation, of our flesh and blood.

And then as Man, He has clothed Himself with every thing that can make Him attractive in the eyes of man. He makes His first appearance in the world as an Infant, a beautiful Babe. How attractive is a beautiful child! Men even of rugged natures are softened by looking at it. A little child brings a flood of grace and light into a house. Now, to-day, the Son of God is a Babe at Bethlehem. He has the beauty of infancy, but there is also a superadded beauty, a light playing on His features that is not of earth, the light of Infinite Wisdom and Eternal Love. See, He looks around and smiles, and stretches out His hands, as if inviting us to caress Him.

In many children this beauty of infancy is evanescent, but in our Lord it was the earnest of a grace and loveliness that followed Him through life. It is evident that there was something most attractive about our Lord to those who approached Him. As He grew in stature He increased in favor, not only with God but with men. When He had attained to manhood, He was such a one that children willingly gathered around Him in the streets, and people stopped to look at Him as He passed, and men's minds were strangely stirred in them as He spoke, and the thought came into women's hearts, "How happy to be the mother of such a Son!" Who but He knew how perfectly to mingle dignity with familiarity, zeal with serenity, and austerity with compassion? Even at the distance of time that we are from His earthly life, His words reach us like the sweetest music. What other preacher can say the same words again and again, and never make us weary? Whose tones are there that linger in our ears like His, and come like a spell to our hearts in times of temptation and sorrow? Why, even scoffers have acknowledged this. The beauty and excellence of our Saviour's character have wrung a eulogium from a celebrated opponent of Christianity, and at least a momentary confession that its author was Divine.

Then, to the attractions of His character, our Lord has added the destitution of His circumstances, in order to gain our love. It is natural for us to love any thing that is dependent on us. The sick child that needs to be nursed, the helpless and depressed, the poor that appeal to us, even the bird and the dog that look to us for their food, come to have a place in our hearts. Now, our Lord, at least even in this way to win us, has placed Himself in a state of complete dependence on us. From the cradle to the grave, and even beyond the grave, He appeals to man for the supply of every want.

Think what it might have been. Think of the twelve legions of angels that are impatient to come and minister to Him. But no! He restrains them. For his swathing-bands, He will be a debtor to Mary's care. For a habitation, He will put up with the stall of the ox and the ass. The manger from which the cattle are fed shall be His cradle. St. Joseph shall bear the expenses of his early years; and when St. Joseph is gone, and He has begun His ministry of preaching, Joanna and the other holy women shall minister to Him of their substance. And at last, Magdalene shall anoint His body for burial, and Joseph of Arimathea shall give Him a winding-sheet and a grave.

I said He carried His poverty beyond the grave. And so He does. For His churches, for the glory of His altars, for His priests, for His sacraments, even for the bread and wine which shall serve as veils for His presence, He depends on us, that out of love we may minister to Him, and by ministering may love Him better.

And, further: while on the one hand our Lord thus appeals to our affections by the poverty of His condition, on the other He compels our love by the greatness of His sacrifices for us. In His Sermon on the Mount, He bids us, "If any man force us to go with him a mile, to go with him other two;" [Footnote 46] and certainly it has been by this rule that He has acted toward us.

[Footnote 46: St. Matt. v. 41.]

I have already said our Lord has done far more than was necessary to redeem us. Why, in strictness of justice, He had ransomed us before He was born. The very first act of love He made to His Father, after His conception, was enough to redeem countless worlds. But He did not then go back to His Father. He staid on earth to do more for us. He would not leave any thing undone that could be done. He would not leave a single member of His body, a single power of His soul, that was not turned into a sacrifice for us.

No doubt, if, at the birth of any child, we could foresee all it would have to suffer during its life, there would be enough to mingle sadness with our joy. But this child was preeminently a child of sorrow; and Simeon, when he took Him up in his arms, foresaw that the sad future would break His mother's heart. Yes, that little Child is the willing victim of our sins. On that little head the crown of thorns shall be placed. Those tiny hands shall be pierced with nails. Those eyes shall weep. Those ears shall be filled with reproach and blasphemy. That smooth cheek be spit upon. That mouth be filled with vinegar and gall. And why was all this? He Himself has told us: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself:" [Footnote 47] That was the hope that urged Him on. That was the key to His whole life. It was all an effort, a struggle, to gain our love.

[Footnote 47: St. John xii. 32.]

And, once more: the effect of the Incarnation has been love. We read God's purposes in their fulfilment. We see what our Lord intended in His humiliation, by looking at what it has produced. There is no doubt that the love of God has been far more general among men, and far more tender, since the Incarnation. {288} Only compare St. Antony of Padua, fondling the Infant Jesus, with Elias, covering his face with his mantle before the Lord in the cave at Horeb. Compare the book of Job with the epistles of St. Paul or St. John. God is in both books; but the Prophet sees Him through a glass darkly: the Apostles "have seen and handled the Word of Life." One of the most beautiful passages in the Old Testament, and one which approaches the nearest to the New, is the history of the martyrdom of the seven sons with their Mother in the time of Judas Machabæus. But how this story pales before the Acts of the Christian Martyrs! In these Jewish heroes we see, indeed, faith in God, and remembrance of His promises, and hope in the Resurrection; but how different is this from the glowing language of an Ignatius, who claimed to carry Christ within him; or of an Agnes, who claimed to be the Spouse of Christ, whom He had betrothed with a ring, and adorned with bridal jewels!

Nor is it only in highly spiritual people, or highly gifted people of any kind, that we see this Christian, personal love of God. The poor, the dull, the ignorant cannot understand the abstract arguments about God, but they can understand a crucifix, they know the meaning of Bethlehem and Calvary. And many an old woman, who knows little more, has learned enough to make her happy, in the thought that "God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting." [Footnote 48]

[Footnote 48: St. John iii. 16.]

Then there are children; some people complain that they find it very hard to interest them in religion. I will tell you how to succeed. Tell them the story of Joseph and Mary, and the Babe lying in a manger. Tell them about the shepherds that were watching their flocks by night, and the angels that came and talked to them. {289} Tell them about the garden in which Jesus was betrayed, and the cross on which he died, and you will see their little eyes open wide with interest. I knew a boy who, when he read the story of Peter's denial of our Lord, got up from his seat, and, with tears in his eyes, exclaimed, "Oh, mother, what made Peter do that!" And I have heard of a little boy who, when he was dying, called his mother to his side, and told her that he had kept all the money she had given him, in a little box, and when he was dead he wanted her to take it and buy a coat for the Infant Jesus. I know it was a strange, childish conceit; but it showed that our Saviour had found His way to that little boy's heart; and sure I am that when, in Paradise, he stood before the bright throne of Christ, and heard from those divine lips the praise of his short life, that legacy was not forgotten.

Yes; our Lord has found out the way to win hearts. He has succeeded. The issue proves the wisdom of his plan. As heaven fills up with saints flaming with love, He says, "Whence are these? and who hath begotten them?" Then He remembers that they are the fruit of the travail of His soul, that they were born to Him at Bethlehem and Calvary, and He "is satisfied."

The truth is, we are not so sensible of this effect of the Incarnation, because we are so familiar with it. We hardly realize how meagre men's notions about God naturally are. Of course, we know by reason the existence of God, and many of His attributes; but without revelation, these are very indistinct. We know that He is great and good and beautiful; but still there is a gulf between us and Him. Partly, no doubt, this arises from our sense of guilt. We fear God, because we have offended Him. But there is a dread of God, and a sense of distance from Him, that does not come from guilt. The most innocent feel it the keenest. I know not why, but we dread Him because He is so spiritual. He is so strange and mysterious. {290} We cannot think what He is like. We lose ourselves when we try to think of Him. There are so many things in the world that frighten us. We do not know how God feels toward us. We have a diffidence in approaching Him which we cannot shake off. Now, all the while, God is full of the most wonderful love to man. Heaven is not enough for Him. Even with the angels, it is a wilderness because man is absent. At last He resolves what He will do. He will lay aside altogether that majesty which affrights man so much. "The distance is too great," He says, "between Me and My creatures. I Myself will become a creature. Man flies from Me. I will become Man. Every thing loves its kind. I will make Myself like him. 'I will draw him with the cords of Adam, with the bands of love.' [Footnote 49]

[Footnote 49: Osee xi. 4.]

I will tell him how the case stands—that I love him and desire his love. I will tell him to love Me, not for his sake, but Mine; and when I have made him understand this—when I have gained his love; when I have healed his wound and made him happy—then I will come back, and call on all the angels of heaven, and say, 'Rejoice with Me, for I have found the sheep that I had lost.'"

Such is the enterprise that our Lord enters on to-day. He comes to tell you how He loves you, and how He desires your love. "Behold, I bring to you glad tidings of great joy, and this shall be the sign to you: you shall find the Infant wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and laid in a manger." It is a sign of Humanity. It is a sign of Beauty. It is a sign of Humility. It is a sign of Love. He speaks to you, not in words, but in actions. The cold wind whistles in His cavern, but He will not have it otherwise. David said: "I will not enter into the tabernacle of my home: I will not go up into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, or rest to my temples, until I find out a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob." [Footnote 50]

[Footnote 50: Isai. cxxxi. 3-5.]

So the new-born Saviour will not take any comfort till He has got your love. He is waiting in the manger, and until you come and take Him home, He will accept no other. The palaces of the world, and all the jewels and the gold are His, but He will have none of them. He wants to abide in your lowly house, and in your poor heart. His head is full of dew, and His locks of the drops of the night, and He knocks for you to open to Him. Oh, to-day, I do not envy those who will not receive Him. I do not envy those who are wandering about in error, and know not the true Bethlehem, the House of Bread, the Holy Church of God. I do not envy the disobedient Christian. I do not envy the indifferent man, for whom Christ is born in vain. But I praise those who make it their first care to keep themselves united to Jesus Christ. And most of all, I praise those who strive to maintain a holy familiarity with Jesus Christ; who by prayer, by communion, by self-denial, by generous obedience, return their Saviour love for love.

O my brethren, why do we grovel on earth, when we might have our conversation in heaven? Why do we set our hearts on creatures, when we might have the Creator for our friend? Why do we follow the Evil One, when He that is beautiful above the sons of men is our Master and our Lord? Why are we so weak in temptation, so despairing in trial, when we might have the peace and joy of the children of God? What more can we want? God has given us the Only-begotten Son, the Mighty God, the Wonderful Counsellor, the Prince of Peace; and how shall He not with Him freely give us all things? All we want is to recognize our happiness. When Jacob woke from sleep, he said: "The Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." So we do not realize how near God is to us. What is the sound that reaches us to-day? It is the voice of the Beloved, calling to us: "My love, My spouse, My undefiled!" Yes, my Lord, I answer to Thy call. I enter to-day into the school of Thy Holy Love. {292} I make now the resolution that "henceforth neither life nor death, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." [Footnote 51]

[Footnote 51: Romans viii. 39.]

Sermon VIII.

The Failure And Success Of The Gospel.

(Sexagesima.)

"Saying these things he cried out:
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."
St. Luke VIII. 8.

There is one measure by which, if our Lord's work were tried, it might be pronounced a failure; and that is by the measure of great immediate, visible results. The thought might come into our mind, that it is strange our Lord was not more successful than He was. He was the Son of God, no one ever spake as He did. He conversed with a great number of men—in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Galilee. He was always going about from place to place. He died in the sight of a whole city. Yet what was the result of all? On the Day of Pentecost, His disciples were gathered together in the upper chamber, and they numbered, all told, one hundred and twenty. So it is, likewise, with the Church. After all, what has she done? Put her numbers at the highest. Say she has two hundred millions of souls in her communion. What are they to the eight hundred millions that inhabit the globe. [Footnote 52]

[Footnote 52: Recent estimates of the population of the globe vary from 840,000,000, to 1,300,000,000, and of the number of Catholics from 160,000,000 to 208,000,000. Other Christians are about 130,000,000.]

And how many of her members are there who can be called Catholics or Christians, only in a broad, external sense! Has Christianity, then, accomplished the results that might have been looked for? Is it not a failure?

I will attempt this morning to give some reasons showing that Christianity is not a failure, although it has accomplished only partial results. And the first remark I make is this: that partial results belong to every thing human. Although Christianity is a divine religion, by coming into the world it became subject in many respects to the laws that govern human things. To specify one, Christianity demands attention. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Without attention, Christianity will never produce its impression on our conduct. Now, attention is a thing hard to get from men. It is one of the greatest wants in the world, the want of attention. "With desolation is all the land made desolate," says the Holy Scripture, "because there is none that considereth in the heart." [Footnote 53]

[Footnote 53: Jer. xii. 11.]

We see examples of this on every side. Take the instance of young men at college. After passing several years there, at a considerable expense to their parents, professedly for the sake of acquiring an education, a certain number of them know nothing but the names of the things they have been studying. This is the entire result of all they have heard or read, an acquisition of some of the terms made use of in science. Others have gained some confused and partial knowledge, which for practical purposes is all but useless; while those who have acquired precise, accurate, useful information, that is, who have gained any real science, are few indeed. It is the same in business. Every trade and profession is crowded with bunglers who do not know their own business, because they have been too lazy to learn it, and who grumble at the success of others who have not spared the pains necessary to become masters.

So also it is in politics. We hear a great deal about the general diffusion of intelligence in this country, and are told how the sovereign people watch the actions of public men and call them to account. Now, I suppose there is more wide-spread information on public matters in this country than in any other in the world, but what does it amount to after all? A great many read the newspapers without passing any independent judgment on their statements, while those who really shape political opinions and action are but a small clique in each locality.

This being so, it ought not to surprise us that men give but little attention to religion. If learning, business, politics, things that touch our present interests so closely, can only to a superficial extent engage the thoughts of men, will religion, which relates chiefly to man's future welfare, be more successful? In one sense, Christianity is as old as the world; for there has been a continuous testimony to the truth from the first, but it has never yet had a full hearing. How do men act about religion? Some listen to its teaching only with their ears, as a busy man in his office listens to a jew's-harp or a band-organ on the street. So Gallio listened, who "cared for none of these things." Some listen with their hearts, that is, with attention enough to awaken a passing emotion or sentiment. So Felix listened, when he trembled at St. Paul's preaching, and promised to hear him again at a more convenient season. Only a few listen with attentive ears and hearts and hands, the only true way of listening, the way St. Paul listened, when he said, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" [Footnote 54]

[Footnote 54: Acts ix. 6.]

When you say, then, that Christianity has produced but partial results, you are but saying that men are frivolous and thoughtless, that there are many who do not listen to religion, or do not listen to it with earnestness and lay to heart its practical lessons. "Wisdom preacheth abroad; she uttereth her voice in the streets; at the head of multitudes she crieth out;" but it is of no avail to the greater number, "because they have hated instruction, and received not the fear if the Lord." [Footnote 55]

[Footnote 55: Proverbs i. 20, 21, 29]

Moreover, our Lord foresaw that the success of His gospel would be but partial. We see this in the very passage from which the text is taken. There is something melancholy in the way the evangelist introduces the parable of the sower: "And when a very great multitude was gathered together and hastened out of the cities to Him, He spoke by a similitude: A sower went out to sow his seed," etc. This was the thought which the sight of a very great multitude pressing around Him awoke in the mind of our Lord: how small a part would really give heed to His words, or really appreciate them: how in some hearts the word would be trodden down, in others be choked or wither away; and this is the secret of the energy with which He cried out at the end of the parable, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." The same thought comes out in the conversation which he had afterward with His disciples, when they asked an explanation of the parable: "The heart of this people is grown gross; and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear." [Footnote 56]

[Footnote 56: St. Matt. xiii. 15, 16.]

Our Lord was as far as possible, then, from expecting that the course of things would stand still, and all men comply instantly with his preaching. Nor were His predictions respecting His Church such as to warrant more sanguine expectations of her success. {296} In His charge to His disciples, He let them know what they were to expect: "When you come into a house salute it, saying: Peace be to this house. And if that house be worthy, your peace shall come upon it; but if it be not worthy, your peace shall return to you. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another." [Footnote 57]

[Footnote 57: St. Matt. x. 12, 13, 23.]

Nor were their trials to be altogether external. "And then shall many be scandalised, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall wax cold." [Footnote 58]

[Footnote 58: Ib. xxiv. 10, 12.]

When, then, you say, See! in that country the Church has all but died out; in that country faith is weak, and the most active minds in it are estranged from religion; in that country scandals abound; in that country there was a great apostasy; that other was fruitful in heresies:—I reply, you are only verifying our Lord's predictions; you are only saying what He said before the event. If religion has not accomplished all that could be desired, it has at least done what it promised.

Nor is this all. Not only did our Lord foresee that many would reject His grace, but He acquiesced in it. His work is not a failure, because He does not account it so. What though many refuse to listen? They that will be saved, those of good will and honest hearts, they will be saved, and that is enough. He saw of the travail of His soul, and was satisfied. Our Lord shed His blood for all men; He willed seriously the salvation of all men; but since all will not be saved, He is content to give it for those who will. He "is the Saviour of all men, especially of the faithful." [Footnote 59]

[Footnote 59: 1 Tim. iv. 10.]

When He came to Jerusalem to die, looking at the city, He wept to think how many were there who knew not the time of their visitation; but that did not deter Him from marching on to Mount Calvary. When He foretold to St. Peter, before His passion, all He was about to suffer, St. Peter, with mistaken affection, begged Him to spare Himself. "Far be this from Thee." {297} How much more would he have dissuaded our Lord, if he could have foreseen in how many cases these labors and sufferings would have been fruitless. Would he not have said to Him, "O Lord! do not suffer so much, turn away thy face from the smiter, and thy mouth from gall. Do not crush Thy heart with cruel grief, or bathe Thy body in a sweat of agony. The very men for whom Thou diest will disbelieve Thee, or, believing, will disobey Thee.

Can we doubt to what effect our Saviour would have answered? "If I be lifted up I will draw all men to Me, and all will not resist Me. I shall see of the travail of My soul, and shall be satisfied."

Or I can imagine that at the Last Supper, as our Lord was about to institute the Blessed Sacrament of His body and blood, the same warm-hearted disciple laying his hand on his Master's arm, might have said, "Do not do it! Thou thinkest they cannot withstand this proof of love. But, alas! they will pass by unheeding. Thou wilt remain on the altars of Thy churches night and day, but the multitude will not know Thee, or ask after Thee, and they that do know Thee will insult Thee in Thy very gifts, will treat Thee with disrespect, and receive Thee with dishonor." But our Lord gently disregards his remonstrance, and having loved His own who were in the world, loves them to the end, and for them is contented to make Himself a perpetual prisoner of love. Oh, my brethren, our statistics and our arithmetic are sadly at fault when we are dealing with divine things. When Abraham went to plead with Almighty God to spare Sodom, he began by asking as a great matter that the city might be spared if fifty just men were found in it, and the answer was prompt and free, "I will not do it for fifty's sake." Somewhat emboldened, he came down by degrees to ten, and received the same answer, but stopped there, thinking that he could make no further demand on the mercy of God. It is a thing we will never understand, how much God has the heart of a father. {298} When news was brought to the patriarch Jacob, that Joseph, his son, was yet living, all his woes and hardships were forgotten in a moment, and he said: It is enough. Joseph, my son, is yet alive." So, all the unkindness, disobedience, unbelief of men, are compensated to the heart of Christ by the fervor of His true children, His servants whom He hath chosen, His elect in whom His soul delighteth. Weary on the cross, His fainting eye sees their fidelity and their love, and His heart revives, and He says: "It is enough." Christ accounts the fruits of His redemption great, and they are great. This is our temptation, to undervalue the good that is in the world. Evil is so obtrusive, that we are but too apt to attribute to it a larger share in the world than it really holds. How much of good, then, has been and is in the world? The Blessed Virgin, the Queen of Heaven, the perfect fruit of Christ's redemption, once walked the earth, engaged in lowly, every-day duties, like any maid or mother among us. Moses and Elias and St. John the Baptist once lived our life here on the earth; and the hundred and forty-four thousand who sing a new song before the throne of God, and the great multitude that no man can number out of all people and kindreds and tribes and tongues, clothed in white and with palms in their hands. You talk of failure! Why has not the sound of the gospel gone into all lands, and its words to the end of the world? Have not empires owned its sway, and kings come bending to seek its blessings? Have not millions of martyrs loved it better than their lives? Has not the solitary place been made glad by the hymns of its anchorites, and the desert blossomed like a rose under their toil? Is there a profession, or trade, or court, or country which has not been sanctified by moral heroes who drew in their holy inspirations from its lessons? And who can tell us the amount of goodness in every-day life, to some extent necessarily hidden, but of which we catch such unearthly glimpses, and which is the practical fruit of its principles? {299} The virtuous families, the upright transactions, the glorious sacrifices, the noble charities, the restraint of passion, the interior purity, the patient perseverance! Listen to the description which God Himself gives of the results of the gospel:

"Who are these, that fly as clouds, and as doves to their windows? For the islands wait for me, and the ships of the sea in the beginning; that I may bring thy sons from afar; their silver and their gold with them, to the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because He hath glorified thee. Iniquity shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction in thy borders; and salvation shall possess thy walls, and praise thy gates. Thy sun shall go down no more, and thy moon shall not decrease: for the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. And thy people shall be all just; they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work if my hand, to glorify me. The least shall become a thousand, and a little one a most strong nation. I, the Lord, will suddenly do this thing in its time." [Footnote 60]

[Footnote 60: Isai. lx. 8, 9, 18, 20, 21. 22.]

Now, this is the Catholic Church, as God saw it in the future, and as He sees it now. These beautiful words are true in their measure, of every diocese, of every parish, in our day. To-day, as the Holy Church throughout the world flings open her doors and rings her bells, and the crowd press in, in cities, in villages, in country places, God recognizes thousands of his true worshippers, who worship Him in spirit and in truth. We see and know some of them, but only His all-seeing eye sees them all, and only His omniscience, which foreknows the number of those who shall be His by faith and good works, can measure the greatness of the harvest of souls which He will reap at the end of the world. The Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints. {300} The Last Judgment is the victory of Christ. Then again, surrounded by the fruit of His passion, He may repeat the words which He spoke at the close of His earthly ministry: "I have glorified thee upon the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. Those whom thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them hath perished except the son of perdition." [Footnote 61]

[Footnote 61: St. John xvii. 4, 12.]

These thoughts point the way to two practical lessons, one relating to our duty to others, the other relating to our duty to ourselves.

We see here the spirit in which we ought to labor for the conversion of others. There is certainly a great deal of good to be done around us. How many in this country are out of the Ark of safety, the Catholic Church of Christ! How many in her fold need our efforts and labors to make them better! Why are we not more active in laboring for them? We say it is of no use; we have tried and failed. Those whose conversion we had most at heart seem farther off from the truth than ever. It is no use hoping for the conversion of those who are not Catholics; they are too set in their ways. Many of those Catholics, too, who were doing well as we hoped, have fallen off again, and we are weary of laboring with so little success. Oh! what a mean spirit this is; how unlike the spirit of Christ! How unlike the spirit of that apostle who made himself all things to all men that he might save some. You will put up with no failures. Christ and St. Paul were content to meet with many failures for the sake of some success. How unlike the spirit of St. Francis of Sales, who labored so hard during so many discouraging years, for the conversion of his misguided Swiss. Christ was rejected and crucified by those whom He came to teach. The apostles were despised and their names cast out as evil. And you will not labor because you cannot have immediate and full success. But some success you will meet with. {301} You may not convert the one you desire to convert, but you will convert another. You may not succeed in the way or at the time you look for, but you will succeed in some other way and at some other time. There is nothing well done and charitably done for the truth that falls to the ground. God's word does not return to Him void, but accomplishes the thing whereunto He sent it. We labor, and other men enter into our labors. But the good work is done, and the fruits are garnered in heaven. Be of great hopes, then. You, my brethren of the priesthood, dare to undertake great things for the honor of our Lord and the extension of His kingdom. Use every means that prudence and charity can suggest to gain souls to Christ. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening withhold not your hand. Labor in season and out of season. For Sion's sake hold not your hand, and for Jerusalem's sake do not rest, until her justice come forth as a brightness, and her salvation be lighted as a lamp! And you, my brethren of the laity, labor each in your place, as far as may be given you, in the same work. Blessing must come from labor, and reward from Him who has promised that "they that instruct many to justice shall shine as stars for all eternity." [Footnote 62]

[Footnote 62: Dan. xii. 3.]

The other lesson we learn is one which teaches us how to guide ourselves in a world of sin and scandal. It is no uncommon thing for men to draw injury to their own souls from the disorders around them, by making them a pretext for neglecting their own salvation, or taking a low standard of duty. One says, there is a man who does not attend to his religious duties, and makes out of this an excuse for his own neglect. "What is that to thee? Follow thou Me," is the answer of Christ. There is another who does go to the sacraments, but whose life is disedifying. He is profane, quarrelsome, untruthful, and artful. {302} Perhaps he is guilty of worse sins than these. "What is that to thee?" is again the answer: "Follow thou Me. My love, My life, my teaching is to be the rule of thy conduct, not the doctrines of others." Oh! how this cuts the way open to a solution of that question with which we sometimes vex ourselves. Are there few or many that will be saved? There are few if few, many if many. Few if few hear and obey, many if many hear and obey. Wisdom crieth aloud, she uttereth her voice in the streets; he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. One hears, lays up and ponders in his heart, like Mary, what he hears, and becomes a saint. Another hears as one who looks in a glass and immediately forgets what he saw reflected in it. Here is the distinction which produces election and reprobation, salvation and damnation. This is the practical question for each one of us: To which of these classes do I belong? This is the prayer which ought to be our daily petition: Give me, O Lord, an understanding heart, to know the things that belong to my peace, before they are forever hid from my eyes. How great the misery of passing through life slothful, careless, inattentive, and so losing the heavenly wisdom we might learn! How great the happiness of keeping the word in a good heart, and bringing forth fruit with patience! Those who do this not only secure their salvation, but they console Christ for all His cruel sufferings, for they constitute the fruit of His Passion, the success of His Gospel, the crown of Glory which He receives from the hand of His Father, the Royal Diadem which He will wear for all eternity.

Sermon IX.

The Work Of Life.

(Septuagesima)

"Why stand ye here all the day idle."
—St. Matt. xx. 6.

The parable in to-day's Gospel is intended to describe the invitations which God has given, from time to time in the history of the world, to various races and peoples, to enter the true Church and be saved. But it may be applied by analogy to His dealings with each individual soul, and our Lord's question in the text may be understood by each one of us as addressed directly to himself. Taken in this sense, it affords instruction and admonition, useful at all times, but more especially suitable on this day, when the Church first strikes the keynote of those stirring lessons of personal duty and accountability which are to be the burden of her teachings through the coming season of Lent.

And, first, it reminds us of that solemn truth, that we have an appointed work to do on earth. It is difficult for us not to be sceptical sometimes on this point. Life is so short and uncertain, man is so frail and erring, that it seems strange the few years spent here on earth should exert any great influence on our eternity. Some such feeling as this was at the bottom of the old idea of heathen philosophy that God does not concern Himself with the affairs of men, that we and our doings are of too little consequence to occupy His attention. The book of Wisdom well expresses this creed: "For we are born, say they" (that is, the unbelieving), "of nothing, and after this we shall be as if we had not been; and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, which is driven away by the beams of the sun, and overpowered by the heat thereof. And our name in time shall be forgotten: and no man shall have any remembrance of our works." [Footnote 63]

[Footnote 63: Wisdom ii. 2-4.]

But such a view of life does not agree either with reason or revelation. God, being Infinite Wisdom, must have an end in every thing which He created. If it was not beneath Him to create, it cannot be beneath Him to govern His creatures; and reason and free will must have been given to His rational creatures to guide them to their end. It is absurd to suppose a moral and intellectual being without a law and a destiny. And revelation confirms this decision of reason. It seems as if the Bible were written, in great part, to dispel the notion that God is a mere abstraction, and to exhibit Him to us as a personal God, interfering in His creation, giving to each created thing its place, and taking note of its operation. In the pages of Scripture the world is not a chance world, where every thing is doubt and confusion; but an orderly world, where every thing has its place. It is a vineyard, into which laborers are sent to gather the harvest. It is a house, in which each part has its order and use. It is a body, in which each member shares the common life, and contributes to it. It is a school, in which each scholar is learning a special lesson. It is a kingdom, in which citizen is bound to the other in relations of duty or authority. Yes, God has left a wide field for the free exercise of human choice and will. The pursuits of men, their studies, their pleasures, may be infinitely varied at their will; but not to have a mission from Heaven, not to have a work to do on earth, not to be created by God with a special vocation—this is not possible for man. He is too honorable and great. The image of God, which is traced on his soul, is too deep and enduring; his relation to God is too direct and immediate. No man can live unto himself, and no man can die unto himself. Each man that comes into the world is but an agent sent by God on a special embassy. And each man that dies, but goes back to give an account of its performance.

Do not accuse me of saddening and depressing you by thus covering man's life, from the cradle to the grave, with the pall of accountability. If God were a tyrant, if He reaped where He did not sow, if He exacted what was beyond our strength, if His service did not make us happy, if in His judgment of our actions He did not take into account the circumstances of each one, his opportunities, his ignorances, and even his frailties, then, indeed, the thought of our accountability would be a dreadful and depressing one. But while our Master and Judge is a God whose compassion is as great as His power, whose service is our highest satisfaction, who knows whereof we are made, and who in His judgment remembers mercy, the thought that each one of us has an appointed work to do is not only an incentive to duty, but the secret of happiness. There is nothing pleasant in a life without responsibility. Rest, indeed, is pleasant, but rest implies labor that has gone before, and it is the labor that makes the rest sweet. "The sleep of a laboring man is sweet," says the Holy Scripture. But a life all rest, with nothing special to do, without aim, without obligation, is a life without honor and without peace. They who spend their time in rushing from one amusement to another are commonly listless and wretched at heart, and seek only to forget in excitement the weariness and disappointment within. God has made the law, "In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread," medicinal as well as vindicative. When, then, you tell me that this world is not my all; that I have an immortal destiny, that life is a preparation for it; that the infinite truth is mine to know, the infinite beauty mine to possess; that I have a mission to fulfil; sin to conquer; duties to perform; merits to acquire; an account to render; you tell me that which indeed makes my conscience thrill with awe, but which, at the same time, takes all the meanness, the emptiness, the littleness out of life, covers it with glory, blends it with heaven, expands the soul, and fills it with hope and joy.

O truth too little known! Religion is not meant to be only a solace in affliction, a help in temptation, a refuge when the world fails us. All these it is, but much more. It is the business and employment of life. It is the task for which we were born. It is the work for which our life is prolonged from day to day. It is the consecration of my whole being to God. It is to realize that wherever I am, whatever I do, I am the child of God, doing His will, and extending His kingdom on earth. This is the secret of life. This is the meaning of the world. This is God's way of looking at the world. As He looks down from heaven, all other distinctions among men vanish, distinctions of nationality, differences of education, differences of station, and wealth, and influence, and only one distinction remains—the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not. When we look at the world, it dazzles us by its greatness, and overpowers us by its multiplicity. It is so eager and restless. It is so importunate and overbearing. Here is the secret which disenchants us from its spell. The world is not for itself. It is not its own end. It is but the field of human probation. It is but the theatre on which men are exercising each day their highest faculty, the power of free will. It is the scene of the great struggle between good and evil, between heaven and hell, the battle that began when "Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels." [Footnote 64]

[Footnote 64: Apoc. xii. 7]

Into this arena each generation has entered, one after another, to show their valor. Once the saints of whom we read in the Bible and the history of the Church were upon the earth, and it was their turn, and heaven and earth were watching them. They did their work well. {307} So penetrated were they with the great thought of eternity that some of them, like Abraham, left home and kindred, and went out not knowing whither they went; and others, like the martyrs, gave their hearts' blood for a sacrifice. And there were others who were not saints, for they were not called to deeds of heroism, but they were good men, who in simplicity of heart fulfilled each duty, and served God with clean hands and pure hearts. And penitents have come in their turn. Once they were unwise, and the world deceived them, and they followed their own will, but afterward they turned to God, and redeemed their former sins by a true penance, and died in the number of those who overcame the Wicked One. And now it is our turn. There are many adversaries. All things are ready. The herald has called our name. And as the primitive martyrs, condemned to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre, nerved themselves for the encounter by the thought of the thousand spectators ranged around, so to animate our courage let us give heed to the sympathizing witnesses who watch our strife, and who cry to us from heaven and from earth: Be valiant! Do battle for the right! Acquit you like men! Be strong!

And again, as our Lord's words in the text remind us that we have an appointed work to do, they remind us also that we have an allotted time to do it in. All men acknowledge that religion is a thing to be attended to. But when? Some seem to think that it is enough to attend to religion at Easter and Christmas, and that at other times it may be left alone. Some at still more distant intervals, when the time has been too long, and the number of sins too great, and the burden on the conscience too heavy. Others propose to attend to it in the leisure of old age, or just before they leave this world. And very many imagine that, if a man actually makes his peace with God at any time before he dies, there is not much to be regretted. How different is God's intention in this matter! "Man goeth forth, to his work and to his labor until the evening." Think of a day-laborer. {308} He rises very early in the morning, in the winter, long before it is light, and goes off to his work. He works all day until the evening, pausing only at noon, when he seeks some hollow in the rock, or the shelter of some overhanging shrub, to protect him from the cold or the heat, while he eats his frugal dinner. Now, it is after this pattern that God wishes us to work out our salvation. The Christian should work from the morning till the evening, from the beginning of life to the end of it. There is not a day that God does not claim for his own. There is not an hour over which He has resigned His sovereignty. A man who perfectly fulfils his duty begins to serve God early in the morning. In the morning of life, in early youth, when the dewdrops sparkle in the sunshine, and the birds sing under the leaves, and the flowers are in their fresh bloom and fragrance, and every thing is full of keen enjoyment, there is a low, sweet voice that speaks to the soul of the happy boy: "My son, give me thy heart." And he heeds that voice. It is time for first communion, and he has leave to go. He does not know fully the meaning of the act. It is too great and deep. But he knows that he is making [a] choice of God. He knows that God is very near him, and he is very happy. By and by the time has come for confirmation. The candidates stand before the bishop, and see, that boy is among the number. He is changed from what he was. He has grown to be a youth now. He is more thoughtful and reserved. He knows now what temptation means; he has seen the shadow of sin; he has caught the tones of the world's song of pleasure; but he does not waver; he is bold and resolute for the right, and he is come to fortify himself for the conflict of life by the special grace of the Almighty. And now time goes on, and he passes through the most dangerous part of life: he is a young man, he goes into business, he marries. There are times of fierce temptation, there are times when the objects of faith seem all to fade away from his mind, there are times when it seems as if the only good was the enjoyment of this world, but prayer and vigilance and a fixed will carry him through, and he passes the most critical period of life without any grievous stain on his soul. {309} Thus passes the noonday of his life, and he comes to its decline. It draweth toward evening. The shadows are getting long. The sun and the light and the moon are growing dark, and the clouds return after the rain. He is an old man and feeble, but there he is with the same heart he gave to God in youth; he has never recalled the offering. He has been true to his faith, true to his promises, true to his conscience, and at the hour of death he can sing his Nunc dimittis, and go to the judgment seat of Christ humbly but confidently to claim the reward of a true and faithful servant. Beautiful picture! Life to be envied! A life spent with God, over which the devil has never had any real power. But you tell me this is a mere fancy picture; no one lives such a life. I tell you this is the life God intended you and I should live. There have been men who have lived such lives, though, indeed, they are not many. But the number is not so small of those who approximate to it. Even suppose a man falls into mortal sin, and more than once, all is not lost. Suppose him, in some hour of temptation, to cast off his allegiance to God, and in his discouragement to look upon a life of virtue as a dream; yet, if such a one gathers up his manhood, if in humble acknowledgment of his sin he returns with new courage to take his place in the Christian race, such a man recovers not only the friendship of God, but the merits of his past obedience. There is a process of restoration in grace as well as in nature. Penance has power to heal the wounds and knit over the gaps which sin has made. What does the Holy Scripture say? "I will restore to you the years which the locust, and the canker-worm, and the mildew, and the palmer-worm hath eaten." [Footnote 65]

[Footnote 65: Joel ii. 25.]

Many a man's life, which has not been without sin, has yet a character of continuity and a uniform tending toward God. I believe there are many who have this kind of perfection. They cannot say, "I have not sinned," for they have had bitter experience of their own frailty; but they can say, "I have sinned, but I have not made sin a law to me. I have not allowed myself in sin, or withdrawn myself from Thy obedience. I have not gone backward from Thee. I have fallen, but I have risen again. O Lord, Thou hast been my hope, even from my youth, from my youth until now, until old age and gray hairs."

And now, my brethren, if we try our past lives and our present conduct by the thought of the work we have to do on earth and the persevering attention we ought to pay to it, do we not find matter for alarm? and does not our Lord's question convey to us the keenest reproach? "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" Yes, idle; that is the word. There is all the difference in the world between committing a sin in the time of severe temptation, for which we are afterward heartily sorry, and doing nothing for our salvation. And is not this our crime, that we are idlers and triflers in religion? What have our past lives been? What years spent in neglect, or even in sin? What long periods of utter forgetfulness of God? What loss of time? What excessive anxiety about this world? What devotion to pleasure? And are we now really doing any thing for heaven? Are we really redeeming the past by a true penance? Are we diligent in prayer, watchful against temptation, watchful of the company we keep, watchful of the influence we exert, watchful over our tempers, watchful to fulfil our duties, watchful against habits of sin? Are we living the lives God intended us to live? Can we say, "I am fulfilling the requirements of my conscience, in the standard which I propose to myself?" Ah! is not this our misery, that we have left off striving? that we are doing nothing, or at least nothing serious and worthy of our salvation? "Why stand ye all the day idle?" All the day. Time is going. {311} Time that might have made us holy, time that has sanctified so many others who set Out with us in life, is gone, never to return. The future is uncertain; how much of the day of life is left to us we know not. And graces have been squandered. No doubt, as long as we live we shall have sufficient grace to turn to God, if we will; but we know not what we do, when we squander those special graces which God gives us now and then through life. The tender heart, the generous purpose that we had in youth; the fervor of our first conversion; the kind warnings and admonitions of friends long dead; these have all passed away. Oh, what opportunities have we thrown away! What means of grace misused! "Why stand ye all the day idle?" You cannot say, "No man hath hired us." God has not left you to the light of natural reason alone, to find out your destiny. In baptism He has plainly marked out for you your work. And now in reproachful tones He speaks to your conscience: "Creature of my hand, whom I made to serve and glorify me; purchase of my blood, whom I bought to love me; heir of heaven, for whose fidelity I have prepared an eternal reward, why is it that you resist my will, withstand your own conscience and reason, despise my blood, and throw away your own happiness?"

But the words of Christ are not only a reproach, but an invitation. "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" It is not, then, too late. God does nothing in vain; and when He calls us to His service, He pledges himself that the necessary graces shall not be wanting, nor the promised reward fail. Church history is full of beautiful instances of souls that, after long neglect, recovered themselves by a fervent penance. Some even, who are high in the Church's Calendar of Saints, had the neglect and sin of years upon their consciences when they began. There is only one unpardonable sin, and that is to put off conversion until it is too late. As long as God calls, you can hearken and be saved. To-day, then, once more He calls. To-day, once more the trumpet-blast of penance sounds in your ears. {312} Another Lent is coming, a season of penance and prayer. Prepare yourself for that holy season by examination of your conscience. Refuse no longer to work in the Lord's vineyard. Offer no more excuses; make no more delay. Work while it is called to-day, that when the evening comes, and the Lord gives to the laborers their hire, you may be found a faithful workman, "that needeth not to be ashamed."

Sermon X.

The Church's Admonition To The Individual Soul.

(Ash Wednesday.)

"Take heed to thyself."
—1 Tim. iv. 16.

The services of the Church to-day are very impressive. The matter of her teaching is not different from usual. The shortness of life, the certainty of judgment, the necessity of faith and repentance, are more or less the topics of her teaching at all times of the year. But this teaching is ordinarily given to the assembled congregation, to crowds, to multitudes. But to-day she speaks to us as individuals. She summons us, one by one, young and old, and, as we kneel before her, she says to us, while she scatters dust on our foreheads, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." It is in this individual and personal character of her warning that I find its special significance and impressiveness. There is no mistaking what she means. "Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return." She separates each one of us from all others, and gives her message to him in particular. It is an emphatic mode of conveying St. Paul's admonition to St. Timothy: "Take heed to thyself."

If we take only the sound of the words, it might seem that no such admonition was necessary. For, in one sense, men attend to themselves quite enough. But, in fact, there is more than one self in a man. There is the self that is made up of our passions, our failings and disgusts, our comforts and conveniences: this is the self that speaks so loudly in the heart, and obtrudes itself so disagreeably on others. This, when indulged, is what we call selfishness, and this it is which it is one main object of religion to repress. But there is another self in a man, his true and noble self, that self which makes him an individual being, which asserts itself most distinctly in that part of his soul where it comes into closest contact with God, namely, his conscience. And this self it is very possible for men to forget. A man may be a priest and have the care of souls, and be employed in preaching and administering the sacraments, or he may be a bishop, and live an active life in governing his church, and yet he may forget himself in this sense. St. Timothy was a bishop, a sharer in apostolic character and apostolic gifts, and yet St. Paul did not think it unnecessary to give him the warning of the text. How must, then, a man forget himself whose occupation is more secular? Tell me: those eager crowds one meets with in the streets, hurrying hither and thither, do you think each one of these realizes that in some sense there is no other in the world but God and he? Or in a crowded church, on Sunday, when the preacher, in God's name, is enforcing this duty, or denouncing that vice, that woman sitting in the pew, that man standing in the aisle, does he, does she realize that the words are spoken to them individually, that it is a lesson they are to lay to heart—to practise? No! I must say what I think, that there are some who pass through life, from the cradle to the grave, almost without ever once fully awakening to their own self-consciousness; to their own individual existence, apart from the world around them; and their own individual relations to God. {314} A man may even practise his religion, may know a great deal about it, may talk about it, may listen to every word of the sermon in the church, may say his night prayers, may even go through some kind of a confession and communion, without fully awaking to these things. Paradoxical as it may seem, I believe that there are not a few men, who, of all persons in the world of whom they have any knowledge, are on terms of the slightest and most distant acquaintance with themselves.

And I will give you one proof that this is true. You know how troubled many men are in sickness, or on a sleepless night, or in times of great calamity. Some persons are greatly troubled in a storm, when the thunder rolls over their heads, and the lightning flashes in their eyes. Now, of course, nervousness, physical causes, mental laws, and social considerations, may enter more or less into the production of this uneasiness, but is there not very often something deeper than any of these? Is it not something that the man has done yesterday, or last week, or last year, and that he has never set right; some unjust transaction, some evil deed, some act of gross neglect of duty, some miserable passion cherished, some impure words spoken, some cruelty or shrinking from what is right, or falsehood, or mischief-making. It is not a matter of imagination. It is not fancy, but fact. He remembers but too well; he knows when it was done, and all the consequences of it, every thing comes up distinctly. He shuts his eyes, but he cannot shut it out. You know the clock ticks all day long; amid the various cares of the day you do not hear it, but oh, how distinct and loud it is at night when your ear catches it. Did you ever have an aching tooth, which you could just manage to bear during the excitement of the day, but which began to throb and become intolerable when all was still at night, and you had gone to bed? So the uneasiness I have denoted is a real pain of the soul, which we manage to keep down and forget, or deaden, during our seasons of business and enterprise, but in hours of loneliness and danger makes itself felt. {315} And what does this show but that you do not attend to your real self; that there is some dark corner of your heart in which you fear to look. You keep the veil down, because you know there is a skeleton behind it and you are afraid to look at it. And so you go through life, playing a part, something that you are not, with smiles on your lips and honeyed words in your mouth, laughing and jesting, eating and drinking and sleeping, working and trading, going in and out, paying visits and receiving them, seeking admiration and flattering others, while all the while, deep down in your soul, there is that nameless something, that grief like lead in the bottom of your heart, that wound that you are afraid to probe, or to uncover, or even to acknowledge.

And now, it is this deceitful way in which men deal with themselves, this forgetfulness of themselves, that makes death and judgment so terrible. Death brings out the individuality of the soul in the most distinct light. Every thing that hides us from ourselves shall then be removed, every veil and shred torn away, and only ourselves shall remain. A well-known writer has expressed this in a few short words: "I shall die alone;" and the same thought is suggested by the language of the Gospel in reference to the end of the world: "Two men shall be in the field, one shall be taken and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill, one shall be taken and the other left." One shall be taken, and he shall be taken alone—out of all the surroundings which have enveloped him here like an atmosphere, and into which he has been fitted like a long-worn garment. When our first parents heard the voice of the Lord God calling to them in the garden after the fall, they hid themselves, and Adam said: "I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." So will it be when the soul stands "before God in its nakedness, ashamed because of its guilty self-consciousness. {316} So it was with the rich man in our Lord's parable. He lived like the multitude. He had four brothers, and they were all alike. They had heard the sermons of Moses and the Prophets, but little did they think it all concerned them. But at last one of them died, and then he woke up to himself. His life is all before him. "Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things." That was the story of it. He sees it all now: he sees what a glutton, what a proud, hardhearted, avaricious man he had been; he sees what a creature of sensuality and self-indulgence he is. Very different is his judgment of himself now, from what it was when, in his purple robes, he revelled in his banqueting-hall, the air heavy with perfume, and the table flowing with silver and flowers, and the slaves bringing in the costly dishes, while Lazarus, the beggar, sat at his gates, full of sores, and hungering for the crumbs that fell from his table. And so it will be with us: awakened to a full consciousness that our relations to God are the only reality. Stripped of all the circumstances that deceived and misled and blinded us here; with conscience fully awakened, with all the consequences of sin open before me and all its guilt manifest; I shall be brought face to face with myself, with what I am, with what I have been, with what I have done, with my sins, and my self-will, and my pride. Yes, this is the real terror of death and judgment. We think its fearfulness will be in the frowning Judge, and the throne set amid thunder and lightnings. Oh, no! the Judge does not frown, He is calm and serene. He sits radiant in beauty and grace. "When these things begin to come to pass," says the evangelist, speaking of the signs of the end of the world, "then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." No! Christ is not transported with anger. He is always the same; but the way of His coming is different as they to whom He comes are different. The object is unchanged, but the medium through which we view it will be different. {317} There shall be an apparition of terror to the wicked, but it will not be Christ, it will be themselves. The face of Christ shall be a mirror in which each man shall see himself. Young man, after your career of vice and profligacy, you shall see yourself, the moral leper that you are. There the extortioner, the fraudulent merchant, shall see himself as he is, the unconvicted thief and robber; there the unfaithful husband or wife shall see themselves branded with the mark that tells their shame. The proud woman shall see there the deep stains of her soul in all their blackness, and her worldly, guilty heart, all laid bare. O sight of piercing anguish! "O hills and mountains fall on us, and cover us, and hide us from the wrath of God and of the Lamb." But no, it is not from the wrath of God and of the Lamb, that we need to be hidden, it is from ourselves. Which way I fly is hell, myself am hell. A lost destiny, an existence bestowed in vain. A life passed as a dream; capacities for happiness never used; graces refused; time gone; opportunity lost; not merely a law broken, a punishment inflicted; but I, myself, with my supernatural grace and destiny—I, with all my lofty hopes and powers—I, ruined and crushed forever: that is the hopeless, boundless misery. This is the sore affliction of the guilty after death; and it is the dread of this dismay that keeps thee trembling all thy life. But, on the other hand, for a man to face himself, to excite himself to a consciousness of his own individuality, and to a fulfilment of his own personal obligation to God, is the way to a peaceful and happy life. The Scripture uses a notable expression when describing the return of the prodigal: "He came to himself;" and in our ordinary language, when we wish to express the idea of a man's seriously reflecting on his destiny and duty, we say he enters into himself. These expressions are full of significance. They teach us that something is to be done that no one can do for us. Others can help us here, but each one for himself must make his own individual and personal election sure. {318} Each must go down into his own heart, search out all the dark corners, repent of its sins, resist its passions, direct its aims and desires. It is not a work done in a day. It is sometimes a difficult work. There are times in which it pierces to the very quick of our sensitive being, but it is the real and only way to true peace. And oh! it is true and living peace when the soul in its deepest centre is anchored to God; when nothing is covered over, nothing kept from His sight. There may be imperfections, there may be sins and repentances, but there must be, when such a course is habitual, a true and growing peace. Do not look abroad, my brethren, for your happiness. It is to be found in yourselves. Happy he who knows the meaning of that word: "My God and I." This is to walk with God like Abraham. Of this man the Almighty says, as he did of Jacob, "I have known thee by thy name." His relations to God are not merely those general ones that grow out of creation and redemption: to him God is his life, his very being, the soul of his soul.

To-day, my brethren, if I have led your thoughts in the direction I have wished, you see that each one of you has a great work to do, that he must do himself. It will not do for you that you have had a pious mother or a good wife. It is not enough that some one around you, who lives near you, or sits near you in the church, is a good Christian. It is not enough that you are a Catholic, one of the vast body of believers in the world. Religion is a personal, individual thing. All other men in the world may stand or fall: that does not affect you. Each one of us has his own independent position before God. If you are one of a family, if you live in a house with others, or work in a room with many companions, if you are one of a gang of laborers, or a clerk in an office where many others are employed, or a scholar in a school where there are many others of your age, there is a circle around you that separates you from each one of your companions. {319} If you were to die to-night, your sentence would be different from that of every other. It might be contrary to those of all the others. They might be friends of God, and you His only enemy. And the difference would be not from any outward cause, but from yourself. "I shall see God," says the prophet, "whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold and not another." [Footnote 66] And now, if your conscience tells you that there is something unsatisfactory in your character, something sinful in your conduct, it is for you to set it right, and to do it without delay. It is the first duty of Lent. The forty days of grace and penance are given for redeeming our sins and saving our souls. What, then, should be each one's resolution? I will enter into myself, not we will do this, or I will do it if my friend does, but I, myself, I will enter into myself. I will ask myself what this strange, mysterious life of mine in earnest means, and whether I am to-day advancing to my destiny. I will break off my sins, and I will pray. It is in prayer that I shall understand my duty. It is in God that I shall find myself. The solemn words of the Church shall not be uttered in vain for me: "Thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return." How many have heard that warning and are now no more. The young have died, the old, the pious, the careless, the rich, and the poor, and each has gone to his own place, the place and portion fitted to his deeds and his character. Perhaps it will not be very long before these words will be verified in me. The Mass shall be said for me, the holy water sprinkled over my lifeless form. What shall it then profit me what others have said in my favor or against me? I shall be simply what I am before God. "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" "I shall see God, whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold and not another."

[Footnote 66: Job xix. 27.]

NOTE—This appears to be the last sermon which F. Baker wrote. It was preached on the evening of the Ash-Wednesday before his death as the first of the Lenten Course of Sermons.

Sermon XI.

The Negligent Christian.

(Third Sunday In Lent.)

"He that is not with Me is against Me;
and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth."
—St. Luke XI. 23.

There are many seeds planted in the ground that never come up. There is a great deal of fruit on the trees that never comes to ripeness. So among Christians there is a great deal of good that always remains incomplete and inadequate. Who of us has not seen such? Who of us does not know such? They have some faith, some religion, but they bring no fruit to perfection. Now, what is the blight that destroys all their goodness? It is sloth, negligence, tepidity, call it what you will. Religion influences them, but does not control them. They do not reject it, but they do not obey it, at least consistently and in principle. They are languid Christians. They are not the worst, but they are not good. They seek with eagerness the pleasures of the world, and make no conscience of avoiding smaller sins, even when wilful and deliberate. They neglect the means of grace, prayer, sermons, and sacraments, with but little scruple, or approach them carelessly. They allow themselves a close familiarity with evil, dally with temptation, and now and then fall into mortal sin. So they go through life, conscious that they are living an unsatisfactory life, but making no vigorous efforts to better it. It is of such men that I would speak this morning; and I propose to show how displeasing this negligence of our salvation is to God, and how dangerous it is to ourselves.

The negligent Christian displeases God because he does not fulfil the end for which he was created. What is the end for which God created us? Certainly it is not for ourselves, for before God created us we were not, and could not have been the end for which He made us. He must have made us for Himself, for His glory. Yes, this is the end for which He does every thing, for Himself. From the very fact that we are created, our end must be to love and serve God. We are bound, then, to love and serve God, and we are bound to do it with perfection and alacrity. What kind of creature is that which renders to God a reluctant and imperfect service? Suppose a king were to appoint a day to receive the homage of his subjects, and while he was holding his court, and one after another was coming forward to kiss his hand or bend the knee, some one, ill-attired, and with slovenly demeanor, should approach and offer a heedless reverence. Would it not be taken as an act of contempt and an offence? Now, God is our King, and He holds a levee every morning and invites the creation to renew its homage. The world puts on its best array. The sun comes forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course. The mountains and hills clothe themselves in blue, and the trees put on their robes of green. The birds sing, and the waters move and sparkle. Holy and humble men of heart rise from their beds to enter on their daily course of duty and of prayer, while within the veil the spirits of the just and the ten thousand times ten thousand angels bow before the Throne of Him that lives forever. And now in this great Act of Praise, this ceaseless sacrifice that creation is offering to its Maker, there comes in the negligent Christian, cold, distracted, and unprepared to take his part. He does not kneel down to pray. He goes to work without a blessing. He does not think of God. Nay, in His very presence says and does unseemly things. Oh! is he not a blot on the scene? Is not his presence an offence? {322} In the Old Testament, God complains of the Jewish priests because they brought to Him the halt and the blind and the sick for sacrifice. He says: "Offer it now to thy prince, will he be pleased with it, or will he regard thy face?" [Footnote 67]

[Footnote 67: Mal. i. 8.]

So in like manner, negligent Christian, God complains of you. You bring to Him a "lame sacrifice," those feet of thine that stumble so often in the way of justice; a "blind" and "sick sacrifice," that heart of thine, so fond of the world and so weak in the love of God.

Yes, God requires of us all fervor and perfection—of each one of us. It is a great mistake to suppose that perfection is required only of priests or religious; it is required of every one. We are not all required to seek perfection in the same way. The married seek it in one way, the unmarried in another. The man of business seeks it one way, the recluse in another. But everyone is required to seek it in such way as accords with his state in life. "That is a faithful servant," says St. Gregory, "who preserves every day, to the end of his life, an inexhaustible fervor, and who never ceases to add fire to fire, ardor to ardor, desire to desire, and zeal to zeal." Our own hearts tell us this when they are really under the influence of the Spirit of God. Take a man at his first conversion, either to the faith or to a good life, and how fervent he is! It is not enough for him to come to Mass always on a Sunday, he will come now and then on a week-day. It is not enough for him to keep from what is sinful, he will not allow himself all that is innocent. He does not think of bargaining with God. This is his thought—that God is All, and he is a creature, and that God deserves his best, his all. By-and-by, alas! as he becomes unfaithful, another spirit comes over him. He asks: "Is this binding under mortal sin? That duty is irksome; is it a great matter if I omit it now and then?" God tells us what he thinks of such a man in the parable of the Talents. {323} When the Lord came to reckon with his servants, he that had received one talent came and said, "Lord, I know that thou art a hard man, thou reapest where thou hast not sown, and gatherest where thou hast not strewed. And being afraid, I went and hid thy talent in the earth." And his Lord in answer said to him: "Thou wicked and slothful servant! thou knewest that I reap where I sow not and gather where I have not strewed. Thou oughtest therefore to have committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received my own with usury. Cast ye the unprofitable servant into exterior darkness." [Footnote 68]

[Footnote 68: St. Matt. xxv. 24.]

Again, if fervor in our duties is due to God as our Creator, it is none the less due to Christ as our Redeemer. Oh, how strong are the words of St. Paul: "The love of Christ presseth us; judging this, that if one died for all, then were all dead. And Christ died for all, that they also that live may not now live to themselves but to Him who died for them." [Footnote 69]

[Footnote 69: II. Cor. v. 14.]

You see what his idea was—that the love of Christ was a debt that could never be paid, that it was a claim on us that pressed continually, and was never satisfied. And surely it is so. When we think at all, we must all acknowledge that it is so. Who is Christ? the Son of God, the Splendor of His Father's Glory, and the Image of His Substance. Who are we? lost sinners. And for us "He did not abhor the Virgin's womb." He did not refuse "to bear our infirmities, and carry our sorrows." He gave His body to the smiters, and turned not away from those that rebuked Him and spat upon Him. He gave His blood [as] a ransom for many, and laid down His life for sin. Was there ever love like this? While gratitude lives among men, what shall be the return given to Christ by those whom He has redeemed? Is the return we are actually making such as He deserves? {324} Was it for this that He died, that we should not commit quite so many mortal sins? Was it for this that He hung on the cross, that only now and then we should omit some important duty? Was it for this that He sweat those great drops of blood, that we should live a slothful and irreligous life? O my brethren, when I see how men are living; when I look at some Christians, and see how when Easter comes round it is an even chance whether they go to their duties or not; when I see them on Sunday stay away from Mass so lightly, or listen to the word of God so carelessly; when I see them omit most important duties toward their families; when I see how freely they expose themselves to temptation, and how easily they yield to it; when I see how slow they are to prayer, how cold, sluggish, sensual and worldly they are; above all, when I hear them give for an answer, when they are questioned about these things, so indifferently, "I neglected it," I ask myself, Did these men ever hear of Christ? Do they know in whose name they are baptized? Did they ever look at a crucifix, or read the story of the Passion? Alas! yes, they have seen and heard and read, and have taken their side, if not with Judas in his deceitful kiss, or the soldiers in their mockery, with the crowd of careless men who passed by, regardless and hard-hearted. But let these men know that their Saviour sees and resents their neglect. "Because thou art lukewarm," He says, "and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth." [Footnote 70] His soul loathes the slothful and half-hearted. Yes, slothful Christian, far different will be the estimate thou wilt make of thy life when thou comest to die, from what thou makest now. Then that negligence of thine, of which thou makest so little, will seem the crime it really is; and bitter will be the account thou shalt render of it to Christ thy Judge.

[Footnote 70: Apoc. iii. 16.]

But if it be not enough to rouse us from our torpor, to think that we are offending God, let us reflect how great is the danger which we are bringing on our own souls. A negligent Christian is in very great danger of being lost. I said just now that he falls into mortal sins now and then. It is hardly possible it should be otherwise. One will certainly fall into mortal sin if he does not take pains to avoid it. We all have within us concupiscence, or a tendency to love the creature with a disordered love, and this tendency is much increased in most men by actual sins of their past lives. Now, this principle acts as a weight on the will, always dragging it down to the earth. Fervent men make allowance for this. They aim higher than it is necessary to reach. They leave a margin for failures, weakness, and surprise. They build out-works to guard the approaches to the citadel. But with the negligent Christian it is the contrary of all this. Unreflecting, unguarded, unfortified by prayer, in his own weakness, and with his strong bent to evil, he must meet the immediate and direct temptations to mortal sin which befall him in his daily life. Is not his fall certain? Not to speak of very strong temptations which can only be overcome by a special grace, which grace God has not promised to grant except to the faithful soul—even ordinary temptations are too much for such a man. He falls into mortal sin almost without resistance.

And what is also to be taken into the account is, that the difference between mortal and venial sin is often a mere question of more or less. So much is a mortal sin: so much is not. The line is often very difficult, nay, impossible to be drawn, even by a theologian. Now, who can tell us in practice when we have arrived at the limit of venial sin, when we have passed beyond it and are in mortal sin? Will not a careless, thoughtless man, such as I have described, will he not be certain sometimes to go over the fatal line? Yes, my brethren, negligent Christians commit mortal sins. They commit mortal sins almost without knowing it. They commit mortal sins oftener than they imagine. {326} Without opposing religion, without abandoning themselves to a reprobate life, just by neglecting God and their duties, they fall into grievous sins; bad habits multiply upon them apace, their passions grow stronger, grace grows weaker, their good resolutions less frequent and less hopeful, until they are near to spiritual ruin. The wise man gives us in a striking picture the description of such a soul: "I passed by the field of the slothful man and by the vineyard of the foolish man: And behold, it was all filled with nettles, and thorns had covered the face thereof: and the stone wall was broken down, which when I had seen, I laid it up in my heart, and by the example I received instruction. Thou will sleep a little, said I: thou will slumber a little: thou will fold thy hands a little to rest: And poverty shall come upon thee as one that runneth, and want as an armed man." [Footnote 71]

[Footnote 71: Proverbs xxiv. 30.]

And what is to secure you from dying in such a state? Our Lord says, "If the master of the house had known in what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken open." [Footnote 72]

[Footnote 72: Matt. xxiv. 43.]

But he knew not, and so in the dead of night, when deep sleep falleth on man, the thief came. And so it is with death. It comes like a thief in the night. Death is almost always sudden. Sometimes it comes without any warning at all. A man is sent into eternity in a moment, without time to utter a prayer. Sometimes it comes after sickness, but sickness does not always prepare for death. The sick man says: "Oh, it is nothing; I shall soon be well." His friends say the same. If he gets worse the priest is sent for; he would like to receive the sacraments. But too often he has not yet looked Death in the face, he has not heard the dreadful truths he has to tell, he is much as he was in life, slothful and negligent. And after the priest is gone, when he is alone, at midnight, that comes to pass of which he has thought so little. {327} Death enters the room, and with his icy hand unlocks the prison of the body, whispering to the soul with awful voice, "Arise, and come to judgment." O my brethren, how dreadful, if at that hour you find yourself unready! If like the foolish virgins you are forced to cry: "Our lamps are gone out." "Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently," [Footnote 73] saith the Holy Scripture. The work of the Lord is the work of our salvation. That is the work of our life, the work for which we are created, and he, who through negligence leaves this work undone, shall hear at the last that dreadful sentence: "Depart ye cursed."

[Footnote 73: Jer. xlviii. 10.]

We come back, then, to this truth, that the only way to secure our salvation is to be not slothful in that business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Salvation is a serious work. We are not sufficiently aware of this. We seem somehow to have got in the belief that the way of life is not strait, and the gate not narrow. Certainly we feel very differently about our salvation from what our fathers in the Catholic Church felt. How many have gone out into the desert and denied themselves rest and food, and scourged themselves to blood! How many have devoted themselves to perpetual silence! How many have willingly given up wealth and friends and kindred! How many, even their own lives! Will you tell me they were but seeking a more perfect life? they were but following the counsels of perfection, which a man is free to embrace or decline? I tell you they were seeking their salvation. They were afraid of the judgment to come, and were trying to prepare for it. "Whatever I do," says St. Jerome, "I always hear the dreadful sound of the last trumpet: 'Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment.'" Now, can salvation be a work so serious to them and so trivial for us? Grant that yon are not bound to do precisely what they did, are you at liberty to do nothing? {328} If you are not bound to a perpetual fast, are you at liberty to darken your mind and inflame your passions by immoderate drinking? If yon are not required to walk with downcast eyes and to observe perpetual silence, are you free to gaze on every dangerous object, and to speak words of profanity, falsehood, impurity, or slander? If you are not required to flee from your homes, are you not required to forsake the occasions of sin? If you are not called to forego all innocent pleasures, are you exempt from every sort of self-denial? If no rule obliges you to spend the night in prayer, are you not obliged to pray often? Yes, it was the desire to place their salvation in security that led our fathers into the desert. Surely, we have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, who remain behind in a world which they left as too dangerous, and have to contend with passions which they felt wellnigh too strong for them. We must be what they were. "The time is short: it remaineth that they who have wives be as those who have not; and they who weep as they who weep not; and they who rejoice as they who rejoice not; and they who buy as they who possess not; and they who use this world as if they used it not; for the figure of this world passeth away." [Footnote 74]

[Footnote 74: I. Cor. vii. 29, 30.]

My brethren, then be earnest in the work of your salvation. While we have time let us do good, and abound in the work of the Lord. Serve the Lord with a perfect heart. He deserves our very best. Our own happiness, too, will be secured by it, for He says: "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, and you shall find rest to your souls." [Footnote 75] And to the fervent: "An entrance shall be ministered abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of Jesus Christ." [Footnote 76]

[Footnote 75: Matt. xi. 29.]

[Footnote 76: II. Pet. i. 11.]

This is my desire for you, to see you fervent Christians. I would like to know that you are anxious to assist at the Holy Mass on week-days as well as on Sundays. I would like to know that you pray morning and evening. I would like to believe that you speak with God often as the day goes on. I would like to know that you are watchful over your lips for fear of giving offence with your tongue; that you are prompt to reject the first temptations to evil; that you are exact in the fulfilment of your duties; that you are careful in confession, and devout at communion—in a word, that you are living a life of watchfulness against the coming of Christ to judgment. This includes all. This is what our Saviour enjoined on us: "Take heed; watch and pray; for you know not when the Lord of the house cometh: at even, or at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning. Lest coming of a sudden, He find you sleeping." [Footnote 77]

[Footnote 77: St. Mark xiii. 35.]

Sermon XII.

The Cross, The Measure of Sin.

(Passion Sunday)

"For my thoughts are not as your thoughts;
nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are exalted above the earth,
so are my ways exalted above your ways,
and my thoughts above your thoughts."
—Isa. LV., 8, 9.

To-day, my brethren, is the beginning of Passion-tide, the most solemn part of the season of Lent. The two weeks between now and Easter are set apart especially for the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ. Therefore the Church assumes the most sombre apparel, and speaks in the saddest tone. The actual recital of the Passion, the following of our Blessed Saviour step by step in His career of woe, she reserves for the last three days of this sorrowful fortnight. {330} In this, the earlier part of it, her aim is rather to suggest some thoughts which lead the way to Calvary, and prepare the mind for the great event that happened there. I shall then be saying what is suitable to the season, and at the same time directing your minds to what I regard as one of the most useful reflections connected with this subject, by asking you this morning to consider the sufferings of Christ as a revelation of the evil of sin.

But, it may be asked, does man need a revelation on this point? Is not the natural reason and the natural conscience sufficient to tell us that sin is wrong? Undoubtedly a man naturally knows that sin is an evil, and without this knowledge, indeed, he would be incapable of committing sin, since in any action a man is only guilty of the evil which his conscience apprehends. But this natural perception of sin is more or less confused and indistinct. Our Saviour on the cross prayed for His murderers in these words: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." He did not mean that they were ignorant that they were doing wrong, for then they could have needed no forgiveness, but that they did not realize the full atrocity of the deed. They were acting guiltily indeed, but inadvertently and blindly: And the same may be said of very many sinners. Sin is for the most part a leap in the dark. A man knows he is doing a dangerous thing, but he does not realize the full danger. He does not take in the full scope of his action, nor its complete consequences. St. Paul speaks of the deceitfulness of sin, and the expression describes very well the source of that disappointment and unhappiness which often overtakes the transgressor when he finds himself involved in difficulties from which it is all but impossible to extricate himself and sorrows which he never anticipated. It is the old story. Sin "beginneth pleasantly, but in the end it will bite like a snake and will spread abroad poison like a serpent." [Footnote 78] Oh! how many are there who are finding this true in their own experience every day.

[Footnote 78: Prov. xxiii. 31, 32.]

Tell me, my brethren, do you think that young persons who contract habits of sin that undermine their health know all they are bringing on themselves—the weakness of body, the feebleness of mind, the early decay, the shame, the remorse, the impotence of will, the tyranny of passion, the broken vows and resolutions, the hopelessness, the fear—perhaps the premature disease and death? No, all this was not in their thoughts at first. These are the bitter lessons which the youth has learned in the school of sin. He has not found out what he was doing till it was all but too late. Or that married woman who has stepped aside from the path of virtue, did she realize what she was doing? Did she think of the plighted faith broken; did she think of the horrible guilt of the adulteress, of the agony, the remorse, the deceit, the falsehood, the trembling fear of her whole future life; did she realize the moment when her guilt would be detected, the fury of her wronged husband, her family dishonored, her children torn from her embrace, her name infamous, herself forlorn and ruined? Oh, no! these things she did not realize. There was indeed, on the day when she committed the dreadful crime, a dark and fearful form in her path, that raised its hands in warning, and frowned a frown of dreadful menace. It was the awful form of conscience, but she turned away from the sight, and shut her ear to the words, and heard not half the message. And so the dreadful consequences of her sin have come upon her almost as if there had been no warning. Or that drunkard, when he was a handsome young man, with a bright eye and a light step, and was neatly dressed, and was succeeding in his business; when he first began to tipple, did he realize that he would soon be a diseased, bloated, dirty vagabond; that his children would be half naked, and his wife half starved; or that he would spend the last cent in his pocket, or the last rag on his back, in the vain effort to allay that thirst for drink which is almost as unquenchable as the fire of hell? {332} No, he little foresaw it, and if it had been told him, he would have said with Hasael, the Syrian captain, when Elisha showed him the abominations he was about to commit, "What, am I a dog, that I should do such things?" Or that thief, when he yielded to the glittering temptation, and made himself rich for a while with dishonest riches, did he then see before him the deeper poverty that was to follow; the loss of all that makes a man's heart glow and his life happy; the lies that he must tell, the subterfuges he must resort to, the horrible detection, the loss of situation, the public trial, the imprisonment? No. Of course these were all daily in his thoughts, for they were part of the risk he knew he was running; but so little did he bring them home to himself, and the suffering he was to endure, that when they came it seemed almost hard, as if a wholly unlooked-for calamity had overtaken him. So it is. Wherever we look it is the same thing. Men imagine sin to be a less evil than it really is. It is so easy to commit it, it is so soon done, the temptation so strong, that it does not seem as if such very bad consequences would come of it. So it is done, and the bitter consequences come. It seems as if the lie that Satan told to Eve in the garden, when he tempted her to eat the forbidden fruit, "Thou shalt not surely die," still echoes through the world and bewitches men's ears so that they always underrate the guilt and punishment of sin; and although the lie has been exposed a thousand times, although in their own bitter experience men find its falsehood, yet they do not grow wiser, they still go on thoughtless, insensible to their greatest danger and their greatest evil, and when they stand on the shore of time, and hear God threatening eternal punishment hereafter to the sinner, they still set aside the warning with the same fatal insensibility. {333} If they are not Catholics, they deny or doubt the existence of hell; if they are Catholics, they think somehow they will escape it.

Oh, my brethren, before you allow yourselves to act on this estimate of sin, so prevalent in the world, ask yourselves how it accords with God's estimate of sin. That is the true standard. God is Truth. He sees things as they are, and every thing is just what He considers it. He is our Judge, and it will not save us when we stand on trial at His bar to tell Him that we have rejected His standard and taken our own. What, then, is God's estimate of sin? Look at the Cross, and you have the answer. Let me for a moment carry you back to the scene and time of the Crucifixion. It is the eve of a great festival in the city of Jerusalem. It is the Parasceve, or Preparation of the Passover. On this day the Jews were required, each family by itself, to kill a lamb and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They were required to eat it standing, with loins girded, and with staves in their hands, because this feast was in memory of the sudden deliverance of their fathers from the bondage of Egypt, when God smote the first-born of the Egyptians with death, passed over the houses of the Israelites, and conducted them miraculously through the waters of the Red Sea. It was a great feast among the Jews, and always collected together a great multitude of strangers in the holy city. But on this occasion a new excitement was added to the interest of the holy city, for there was a public execution on Mount Calvary, and turbaned priests, and Pharisees with broad fringes on their garments, and scribes and doctors of the law, mingled in the throng of mechanics and laborers, and women and children, who hastened to the spot. The day is dark, but as you draw near the Mount, you see, high up in the air, the bodies of men crucified; and sitting on the ground, or standing in groups, talking and disputing among themselves, or watching in silence with folded arms, are gathered a vast multitude of spectators.

What is there in this execution thus to gather together all classes of the people? The punishment of crucifixion was inflicted only on slaves or malefactors of the worst kind, and two of the three that are hanging there are vulgar and infamous offenders. What is it, then, that gives such interest to this scene? It is He who hangs upon that cross, at whose feet three sorrowing women kneel. Read the title, it will tell you who He is. "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." Yes, this is Jesus, the merciful and kind; He who went about doing good, healing all manner of sickness, and delivering all that were possessed with the devil; He who spoke words of truth and love. This is Jesus, the King of the Jews, whom a thousand prophecies fulfilled in him and a thousand miracles performed by Him pointed out as the promised Messias: Jesus, whom the Eternal Father, by a voice from heaven, had acknowledged as His own Son. "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Why is this? Why is it that the just man perisheth? The apostle tells us: "Christ must needs have suffered." He was the true Paschal Lamb that must die that we might go free. He was the victim of our sins. Pilate and Herod and the Jews were but the instruments by which all the consequences of our sins fell upon Him who came to bear them. "Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows; and we have thought Him, as it were, a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, everyone hath turned aside into his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." [Footnote 79]

[Footnote 79: Isia. liii. 4, 5, 6.]

Yes, every sin of every kind received its special reparation in the sufferings of Christ. His mouth is filled with vinegar and gall to atone for our luxury. His ear is filled with revilings to expiate the greediness with which we have drunk in poisonous flattery. His eyes languish because ours have been lofty, and His hands and feet are pierced with nails because ours have been the instruments of sin. He suffered death because we deserved it. He was accursed, because we had made ourselves liable to the curse of God, and hell had its hour of triumph over Him, because we had made ourselves its children. Nor was it our Lord's body alone that suffered. It would be a great mistake to suppose that His sacrifice was merely external. The chief part of man is his soul. St. Leo says that our Lord on the cross appeared as a penitent. It was not only that He suffered for the sins of men, but it was as if He had committed them. The horror of them filled His soul; sorrow for the outrage they had done to the Majesty and Holiness of God consumed Him. "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death," He said. Afterward the evangelist says He began to be very heavy, and it was sinners that on the cross made Him bow His head and give up the ghost. He was not killed. His enemies did not take His life. The flood of sorrow for sin came into His soul, and overwhelmed Him. It was too much. His heart was broken. Oh, the weight of that sorrow! He bowed His head and gave up the ghost. Then sin was expiated. Then the work of man's atonement was completed. At last man had done adequate penance. At last sorrow for sin had reached its just proportion as an offence against God.

Here, I say, we have a revelation of the evil of sin. God does nothing in vain: His works are as full of wisdom as they are of power. Since, therefore, Christ died for sin, the cross of Christ is the measure of sin. {336} "From the consideration of the remedy," says St. Bernard, "learn, O my soul, the greatness of thy danger. Thou wast in error, and behold the Son of the Virgin is sent, the Son of the Most High God is ordered to be slain, that my wounds may be healed by the precious balsam of His blood. See, O man, how grievous were thy wounds, for which, in the order of Divine wisdom, it was necessary that the lamb Christ should be wounded. If they had not been unto death, and unto eternal death, never would the Son of God have died for them. The cross of Christ is not only an altar of sacrifice, but a pulpit of instruction. From that pulpit, lifted up on high, Jesus Christ preaches a lesson to the whole world." The burden of the lesson is the evil of sin. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." And yet, my brethren, the law was published afresh by Jesus Christ. Mount Calvary but repeats the message of Mount Sinai—nay, repeats it with more power. Here, indeed, God does not speak in thunders and lightnings, as He did there, but He speaks in the still small voice of the suffering Saviour. Oh, what meaning is there in those sad eyes as they bend down upon us! Oh, what power in those gentle words He utters! He does not say, "Thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness." No. He cries to a guilty people, a people who have already broken the law, and He says to them: "See what you have done. See My thorn-crowned head. See My hands and feet. Look at Me whom you have pierced. Is it a light thing that could have reduced Me to such a state of woe? Is it a light thing that could have bound Me to this cross? Me, the Creator of all things, to whom you owe all life and liberty? Who by My word and touch have so often healed the sick and released them that were bound to Satan. They say of Me, 'He saved others, Himself He cannot save.' And they say truly. Here must I hang. Not the Jews have nailed Me to this cross, but My love, and thy sins. Yes, see in My sufferings your sin displayed. See in the penalty I pay the punishment you have deserved. See your guilt in My sorrow. Look at Me, and see what sin is in the presence of the All Holy God!"

Can any thing show more than this what a mysterious evil sin is, that it is an offence against God, an assault upon His throne, an attack upon His life, an evil all but infinite? All the other expressions of the evil of sin, the cries of misery which it has wrung from its victims, the warnings which natural reason has uttered against it, the tender lamentations with which the saints have bewailed it, the penalties with which God has threatened to visit it, all pale before the announcement that God sent His Son into the world to die for it. I do not wonder that, as the evangelist tells us, the multitudes who came together at the sight of our Saviour's crucifixion returned smiting their breasts. Oh, what an awakening of stupefied consciences there must have been that day! How many, who came out in the morning careless and thoughtless, went back to the city with anxious hearts, with a secret grief and fear within they had never felt before. I suppose that even the scribes and Pharisees, who had plotted our Saviour's death, felt, for the moment at least, a guilty fear. Why, even Judas, when he saw what he had done, repented, and went and hanged himself saying: "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." And this book of the Passion has been ever since the source from which penitents have drawn their best motives for conversion, and saints their strongest impulses to perfection. Here, on the cross, is the root of that uncompromising and awful doctrine about sin—the doctrine, I mean, that sin is in no case whatever to be allowed, that even the smallest sin for the greatest result can never be permitted; that it is an evil far greater than can be spoken or imagined; that it must never be trifled with, or made light of; that it is to be shunned with the greatest horror, and avoided, if need be, even at the cost of our life—which has always been so essential a part of Christianity.

And now, my brethren, it is because men forget the cross, because their minds no longer move on a Christian basis, that they make light of sin. There is a tendency in our day to do so. Crime—men acknowledge that, an offence against law, an offence against good order. Vice—they acknowledge that, a hurtful and excessive indulgence of passion; but sin, a creature's offence against God, that they think impossible. "What! can I, a frail creature," say they, "ignorant and passionate, can I do an injury to God? I err by excess or defect in my conduct; I bring evil on myself it is true; but what difference can that make to the Supreme Being? Can He be very much displeased at my follies? Will His serene Majesty in heaven be affected because I on this earth am carried too far by passions? Can He care what my religious belief is? or will He separate Himself from me eternally because I have happened to violate some law?" Such language is an echo of heathenism, and heathenism not of the best kind, for some heathens have had a doctrine about sin which approached very near to the Christian doctrine. It is moreover, a degrading doctrine; for, while it leaves a man his intellect and animal nature, it takes away his conscience. What is that conscience within us but a witness that God does concern Himself about us—that my heart is His throne, and that my everlasting destiny is union with Him. "Every one that is born of God," says the apostle, "doth not commit sin, for he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Not that sin is a physical impossibility with him, but it is in contradiction to his regenerate nature. In order, then, to soothe yourself into the belief that sin is not so very bad, that God cannot be very angry with you for it, you have got to tear conscience from your heart, you have got to give up the good gift, and the powers of the world to come, which came upon you at your baptism; and you have to give up all the brightest hopes of Christianity for the life hereafter. Nay, more, you have got to deny the cross, to deny our Lord's divinity, to deny His sufferings for sin, and thus to render yourself without faith as well as without conscience. {339} I conclude with the affectionate exhortation of St. John the Apostle. "My children, these things I write to you that ye sin not." "All unrighteousness is sin." Every breach of the moral law is a failure in that homage, that obedience, that service we owe to God. It is a direct offence against God. It is a thing exceedingly to be feared and dreaded. A wrong word spoken or a wrong action done has consequences which go far and wide. Do not say, you have sinned, but have done harm to no one. You have done harm to God, and you have certainly done harm to yourself. Do not sin. Do not commit mortal or venial sin. Do not make light of sin. Do not abide in sin. If you are in sin now, remember at this holy time to repent and turn back to God: and if your conscience tells you that you are now in the friendship of God, oh, let it be all your care to avoid sin. Fly from the face of sin. Fly from the approach of sin. Avoid the occasions of sin. Watch against sin, and pray continually, not to be led into sin: and when your hour of trial comes, when some strong temptation assails you, then be ready to say, as the prophet Joseph, "What! shall I do this wicked thing, and offend against God?" This is that fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom. This is the happiness of which the Psalmist spoke: "Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the council of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence; but his will is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he shall meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit in due season. And his leaf shall not fall off; and all, whatsoever he shall do, shall prosper." [Footnote 80]

[Footnote 80: Ps. i. 1-3.]

Sermon XIII.

Divine Calls And Warnings.

(A Sermon For Lent.)

"Seek ye the Lord while He may be found,
call upon Him while He is near."
—Isai. LV. 6.

The Wise Man tells us that "all things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven." [Footnote 81] Certainly, it is so in the natural world. There is a time for the birds to migrate. "The kite in the air knows her time, the turtle and the swallow and the stork observe the time of their coming." [Footnote 82]

[Footnote 81: Eccl. iii. 1.]

[Footnote 82: Jer. viii. 7.]

There is a time for seeds and shrubs to grow. Seed-time and harvest do not fail. There is a busy time and a slack time in the world of commerce. There is a time for education, a time when the mind is inquisitive and the memory retentive, and it is easy to acquire knowledge; and another time, when the powers of the mind, like the limbs of the body, seem to grow stiff and rigid, and can be employed only with difficulty. But does this law reach also to the supernatural world? Has the grace of God also its seasons and its times? I believe it has; and it is to this fact, so important in its bearing on our salvation, that I wish now to direct your attention.

But you may ask me what I mean by saying that the grace of God has its special times and seasons. Are not all times alike to God? Is not God always ready to save the sinner, and to bestow the graces necessary to his salvation? Undoubtedly He is. We, Catholics, believe that God gives to every man living sufficient grace, that is, He gives him the grace to pray; and if he prays, God is ready to give him other and higher graces, which will carry him on to salvation; but, ordinarily speaking, men do not use this common grace, unless some special and particular grace is given which excites them to do so. {341} Now, it is of these special graces of which I speak, when I say that they have their times and their seasons. I refer to those Divine Calls and Warnings, those Providences, those sacred inspirations, which stir the heart beneath its surface, and bring it, for a time at least, in conscious contact with the Infinite and Eternal. These, I say, come and go. They have a law of their own. We cannot have them all the time. We cannot appoint a time, and say we will have them to-morrow, or next year. They are like the wind that blows; we hear the sound of it, but we cannot tell whence it comes and whither it goes. They are like the lightning, that shines from the east even unto the west. They come suddenly, and dart a flash of light upon our path, then they are gone. They are like the visit of Christ to the two disciples at Emmaus: as soon as their hearts began to burn within them, and they discovered who it was that talked with them, He vanished out of their sight.

Certainly there are proofs enough that such is the law of God's dealings with the soul. If we look back at our own lives, do we not see that we have had our special times when Christ visited us? our times of grace? red-letter days in the calendar of our life? I know God's grace acts secretly; and oftentimes when we are under the strongest influence of grace, we are least conscious of it. But when the time is past and over, and we look back upon it, we can see that there was a Divine influence upon us, especially if we have corresponded to it. I think each one of us, if he looks back upon the past, will see clearly the times when he has been under the impulse of some unusual movement of the mind, the result of some special grace of God. Perhaps it came in the shape of some great affliction. You had a happy home. {342} The purest of earthly joys was yours—domestic happiness, perfect sympathy in gladness and in sorrow. But death entered your abode, and the loving voice was silenced, and the kindly eye was closed. And in that deep grief, in that darkness and loneliness Christ spoke to your sinking heart, saying, "Fear not;" and you came forth out of that affliction with a new strength, with purer aims, with a quietness and peace of heart which only suffering can give.

Or, perhaps, the crisis in your history was your attendance on a "mission." You had lived in neglect of religion, almost complete. Confession was a bugbear to you. Years of sin and forgetfulness of God had hardened your conscience. But suddenly all was changed. You seemed a new man. Your faith was illuminated with a new brilliancy. Sin had a new horror. The string of your tongue was loosed, and oh, with what ease, with what fidelity and exactness, you made that dreaded confession! What comfort you derived from it! and with what energy and determination did you enter on the duties of a Christian life!

Or, it might have been in less striking ways that grace did its work. It may have been a book, a word, an interior inspiration, some of the seasons of the holy Church, holy communion, some of the lesser changes of life, a fit of sickness, a violent temptation: these may have been the instruments which God made use of, from time to time, to convey special graces to your soul. Sometimes the aim of these graces was to arouse you out of some deeply-seated habit of sin; sometimes to draw your heart away from the world to heaven; sometimes it was a call to prayer; sometimes a warning of danger: in fine, for some purpose bearing on your salvation, there they are, those visits of grace in your past life, as distinct and unmistakable as any other part of your history. When we read the Bible story of such saints as Abraham, Moses, and Elias, what strikes us as most wonderful and most beautiful is the familiarity in which they lived with God, how God drew near to them and spoke to them. {343} Now, such passages have a parallel in the history of each one of us. There are times in our lives, and not a few such times, when God draws near to the soul, when He confronts it, makes special demands upon it, addresses it no longer in general, but particularly and individually; when He says to the soul, Go and do this, Do not do that, as unmistakably as when He said to Abraham: "Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house, and come into the land which I shall show thee." [Footnote 83]

[Footnote 83: Gen. xii. 1.]

And if this be so, the mode in which we receive these divine communications must have a great deal to do with our guilt or innocence before God. We read in the Book of Judges, that on a certain occasion an angel of the Lord appeared to Manne and his wife, with a message from on high. He appeared to them in a human shape, and spoke with a human voice, and they did not know that he was an angel. It was not until they saw him ascend to heaven in the flame from the altar that they understood that they had been talking with one of the heavenly host. Then they said: "We shall certainly die because we have seen God!" [Footnote 84]

[Footnote 84: Judges xiii. 22.]

Now, there is a sense in which this exclamation is neither superstitious nor strange, as the expression, that is, of their anxiety lest in their ignorance they might have treated their heavenly visitor in some unseemly way. O my brethren, it is no light thing for God to draw near to a human soul. It is no light thing for Him to speak to us. When He speaks we cannot be as if He had not spoken. "His word shall not return to Him void." The relation between the Creator and the creature is such, that the moment He speaks our position is altered. When He calls we must either follow or refuse to follow; there is no neutrality possible.

Oh, what a thought, that if indeed God has spoken to us often in our past lives, if He has given us special calls and warnings, we must often have resisted Him! There are many of us, I fear, who have altogether too little conscience on this subject. A man comes to confession after an absence of several years. He confesses his more prominent sins against the divine commandments, but perhaps he does not even mention his failure to perform each year his Easter duty. And if the confessor calls his attention to it, he has nothing to say but, "Oh, yes, I neglected that." You see, he does not realize at all that God has been calling him from year to year, has met him again and again, and exhorted him to repent, and he has refused.

Another man hears a sermon which thoroughly awakens his conscience. He sees in the clearest light the danger of his besetting sin. His conscience is stirred, he almost resolves to break off his sin, but he does not quite come to the point, he postpones his conversion, and, after a little, dismisses the subject from his mind. Now here again, you see, is a distinct resistance to grace. The man has not only continued in sin, but has continued in sin in spite of God's warning.

Again, a person, free from the grosser forms of sin, has some radical fault of character; some fault which is apparent to everyone but himself; a deep obstinacy; a dangerous levity; an inveterate slothfulness; an overbearing temper; a domineering spirit—faults which are the source of innumerable difficulties—and he is plainly warned of these faults, but refuses to acknowledge them, strengthens himself in his self-deception, and clings to these faults as if they were a necessary part of his character. What is he doing, but frustrating the designs of God, despising His reproof, and rejecting the grace which was meant to make him so much better, so much happier, so much more useful?

Resisted grace! What is that but to withstand God to His face, and to say: I will not serve? To resist grace, what is that but to despise the precious Blood of Christ. To obtain for us those graces, the Blood of Christ and all His sufferings were given, and without them we should have been left in our sins and miseries; and so to refuse these graces is to make light of Christ's most bitter Death and Passion. To resist grace, what is that but to refuse glory. For each grace of God has a corresponding degree of glory attached to it; and, if we refuse the one, we reject the other. The truth is, we forget too much God's personal agency in our salvation. We are on earth, and God is far away in heaven. He has indeed left us His Law, and He is coming to judge us at the last day, but He is not now a present, watchful, living, speaking God to us. We forget that "He is not far from every one of us." We forget that He is about our path, and about our bed; that He watches us with the eagerness and tenderness of a mother for her child; that He intensely desires our salvation; that He pleads with us, warns us, calls to us, stretches out His Hand to us all the day long. It is nothing that He Himself tells us He stands at the door and knocks; it is nothing that He calls to us from without, saying: "Open to Me, My love, for my head is wet with dew, and My locks with the drops of the night;" we open not; we heed Him not; we hear Him not. Oh! I believe, at the Judgment Day, many a man will be appalled to see how he has treated Christ. In the description which our Lord has given us of that day, He tells us that the wicked shall say, in answer to His reproofs: "When saw we Thee hungry or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?" So, I believe, many will say: "O Lord, when did we refuse to hear Thee? When did we shut our hearts to Thy grace?" And He will answer: "When, at the voice of My preacher, you refused to forsake that sin; when, at the invitation of My Church, you refused to repent and amend; when, at the call of My Spirit, you refused to awake from your sloth, and follow after that perfection I demanded of you. In rejecting My agents, you have rejected Me. It was I; I, your God and your Saviour; I, your End and Reward, who walked with you on your way through life, who opened to you the Scriptures, and sought to enter in and tarry with you."

And, again, as resistance to grace is a special sin in itself, and a special matter about which we must render an account to God, so, when persisted in, it is the sure road to final impenitence and reprobation. Let me bring before your mind some of our Lord's emphatic teaching on this point.

Toward the latter part of our Lord's life, in preaching to His disciples on a certain occasion, He used this parable: "A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the tiller of the vineyard: Behold, these three years I came seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and I find none. Cut it down therefore; why doth it take up the ground? But he answering, said to him: Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it and dung it. And if happily it bear fruit: but if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down." [Footnote 85]

[Footnote 85: St. Luke xiii. 6-9.]

The same lesson which in this parable Christ conveyed to the ear, He addressed, about the same time, by a striking action, to the eye. As He was going from Bethany to Jerusalem, He saw a fig-tree by the wayside. "And he came to it, and found nothing but leaves only, and He said to it: May no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever. And immediately the fig-tree withered away. And the disciples seeing it, wondered, saying: How is it presently withered away?" [Footnote 86]

[Footnote 86: St. Matt. xxi. 19.]

The apostles could not fail to connect this action with the parable quoted above, and to understand them both as referring to the rejection of the Jewish people. For three years He preached to that people, warned them, and instructed them. Then, at last, when they refused to listen to Him, He withdrew from them His presence, grace, and blessing, and left them to the consequences of their unbelief and hardness of heart; left them to "wither away." {347} Listen to His lamentation over that guilty city. It is Palm Sunday. He is coming to the city in triumph. The crowds are shouting hosannas. At last, in His journey He comes to the Mount of Olives, whence the Holy City is full before His view. He looks at it; He thinks of all He has done to warn that people and convert them; He thinks of the ill success He has met with; He knows that he is going there for the last time, and that in a few days they will fill up the measure of their sins by nailing him to the cross; and, as he looked upon it, He wept over it, and said: "If thou hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are for thy peace: but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee: and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation." [Footnote 87] Behold the end! a people resisting grace, until at last grace forsakes them, and they are left to their own impenitence and hardness of heart! And behold the fearful image of a soul which has resisted grace, until its final reprobation!

[Footnote 87: St. Luke xix. 41-44.]

Yes, my brethren, this is but the fearful image of what passes in many a soul. What does the Holy Scripture say? "The man that with a stiff neck despiseth him that reproveth him shall suddenly be destroyed; and health shall not follow him." [Footnote 88]

[Footnote 88: Prov. xxix. 1.]

God does not desire the death of the wicked. God never entirely ceases to strive with man. God never leaves a man altogether destitute of grace. But then God is not bound to impart special graces; and when He finds that these graces are uniformly rejected, when he meets only a hardened heart and a will obstinately bent on evil, He withholds them, or gives them less frequently. Meanwhile bad habits increase; sins multiply; the root of sin in the heart becomes deeper and stronger: years pass on in sin, and at last death comes. What kind of a death naturally follows such a life? {348} What kind of death often, in point of fact, follows such a life? I will tell you: an impenitent death; the death of the reprobate and the lost. Perhaps the man dies a sudden death. He may die in his bed, but die a sudden death for all that; for he may die out of his senses, and unable to do any thing whatever toward making his peace with God. Or, he may die in daring rebellion against God. It is possible for men to die so. It is possible for a man who has a deep enmity in his heart to refuse to give it up at the last hour; and it does happen. It is possible for a man who has dishonest wealth in his possession to clutch it even while his fingers are cold and blue in the last agony; and that does happen. It is possible for a man who has lived in shameful sins of unchastity to refuse to dismiss the partner of his guilt, though in five minutes his soul will be in hell; and that too has happened. Or, a man may die in despair. The devil may bring the fearful catalogue of his sins before his mind, in all their blackness and enormity; the remembrance of bad confessions and broken resolutions may paralyze his will; and the dreadful record of communions made in sacrilege may complete the temptation, and the poor soul turn away from the crucifix, turn away from the priest, and die pouring forth the ravings of despair.

Or, on the contrary, he may die in presumption, in self-deceit. He may indeed go through the form of a confession, may receive the sacraments, and cheat himself into thinking it is all right, and be all the time a hypocrite, turning from his sins, not because he hates them, but because he can no longer enjoy them; and may receive the absolution of the priest only to hear it reversed the moment he gets into the presence of the unerring Judge, before whom are open all the secrets of the heart.

Death in some such form is, I say, the natural end of neglect of divine calls and warnings; and such a death is, in point of fact, not unfrequently the actual end of such a course. "For," says the apostle, "the earth that drinketh in the rain, which cometh often upon it, and bringeth forth herbs useful for them by whom it is tilled, receiveth blessing from God. But that which bríngeth forth thorns and briers, is rejected, and very near to a curse, whose end is to be burnt." [Footnote 89]

[Footnote 89: Heb. vi. 7, 8.]

And, O my brethren, if this is so, you who are putting off your conversion, putting off your return to God, to what a risk are you exposing your salvation! You say you will go to your confession at some other time. You are young; you imagine it will be easier in coming years; you think your passions will be weaker, your temptations less. But you are deceiving yourselves. You are counting on that which you do not know will ever be yours. You cannot promise yourself another year. How many who were here a year ago are now numbered with the dead! some of them as young as you are, and who a year ago felt as you do now. You count on special graces, and you have no right to count on them. You are deceiving yourselves, my brethren, you are deceiving yourselves. The freeness and abundance of grace, the cheapness of grace, if I may so express myself, deceives you. God invites, and seems to plead and to beseech you to be saved, and you think it will always be so. You think a time is coming when God will save you in spite of yourselves. You know that you are not now on the road to heaven, you know that you are living in sin, but you think somehow God will interfere and make it right. We are told in the gospel that there was at Jerusalem a pool, around which usually lay a great multitude of sick and afflicted people, waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel came down at certain times and troubled the water, and whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed. {350} So it is with slothful, negligent, procrastinating Christians. They lie in their sins, waiting for some aid which will raise them to their feet, and make them whole without any effort of their own. Vain hope! They will die in their sins. "You shall seek me," said Christ, "and you shall die in your sins." [Footnote 90]

[Footnote 90: St. John viii. 21.]

These fearful words are addressed to you, O despiser of God's grace; to you, O young man, who deferrest conversion; to you, lover of pleasure, who will not break with your idols; to you, O drunkard, who will not throw away the intoxicating glass; to you, O avaricious man, who are getting rich by fraud or by the blood of souls. "You shall die in your sins." That is the end to which you are tending. As you have despised God, so He will despise you. You shall seek Him, but you shall not find Him. You shall call upon Him, but He will not hearken. At your dying hour, every thing will fail you. Prayer will die on your lips, unused to pray. Your mind, so long accustomed to love sin, will find it hard to turn from it with true contrition. The priest, ah! the priest cannot save you. He can only help you, can only give you the consolations of religion if you are rightly disposed. And how can you dispose yourself at that dreadful hour, when your mind is filled with a fearful looking for of judgment, when all your sins, and all the graces you have rejected, rise up before your guilty conscience? Oh! meet this danger. Do not run this risk. Resist no longer the grace of God. Behold, now once more God calls you to His fear. Behold, the days have come "to do penance, and to redeem your sins." God by His Holy Church makes you another offer. "Turn unto me, and I will turn unto you," saith the Lord. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him." [Footnote 91] "To-day, then, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." Resolve to prepare for your Easter confession. If you came last Easter and have persevered, bless God, and come now. If you have fallen away, see where the error was, and learn a deeper humility, and make a stronger purpose, and come again.

[Footnote 91: Isai. lv. 7.]

And, oh if you have stayed away in former years, and are purposing to stay away this Easter, too—or if you are too negligent to have formed any purpose; if you are just floating on, heedless and careless, then know, that for all these things God will bring you into judgment, that the severest part of your account will be for graces resisted and rejected; and that you are preparing for yourselves the retribution threatened in those dreadful words: "Because I called and you refused: I stretched out My Hand; and there was none that regarded. You have despised all my counsel, and have neglected my reproofs. I also will laugh in your destruction: and will mock, when that shall come upon you which you feared. When sudden calamity shall fall upon you, and destruction as a tempest shall be at hand: when tribulation and distress shall come upon you: Then they shall call upon Me, and I will not hear: they shall rise in the morning, and shall not find Me: Because they hated instruction, and received not the fear of the Lord, nor consented to My counsel, but despised all My reproof. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and shall be filled with their own devices." [Footnote 92]

[Footnote 92: Prov. i. 24-31.]

Sermon XIV.

The Tomb Of Christ,
The School Of Comfort.

(Easter Sunday.)

"Jesus saith to her:
Woman why weepest thou?
Whom seekest thou?"
St. John xx. 15.

How full of tenderness are these words! They were spoken on the first Easter Day. This weeping woman was Mary Magdalene, she that had been a great sinner, and was converted, and loved our Lord so much. She had been at His Cross: she is now at His Tomb, with her spices and ointments to anoint His body. But our Lord's body was not in the grave. The stone is rolled away. The tomb is open, and He is not there. And yet He is not far away. Risen from the dead to a new and mysterious life, He hovers about the garden, and draws near to her as she approaches the sepulchre. At the outburst of her grief on finding the sepulchre empty, He breaks silence. "Woman why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?" These are the first words our Lord spoke after His Resurrection. They are the same words that were used by the angel a little before. They seem to be the antiphon, the key-note which Heaven has given us to guide our Easter thoughts. No tears on Easter Day. Nay, no tears any more of the bitter, hopeless kind, for Christ is Risen. St. Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Christ represents Humanity sitting in the region and shadow of death. Now to-day Christ comes forward, and speaks comfortable words to the human race. "Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?" He challenges us. "I, thy risen Saviour," He seems to say, "am thy consoler. What grief is there that I have not removed?" And is it so? Are all our real sorrows removed or alleviated by the resurrection of Christ? Yes; heavenly messengers have appeared bringing good tidings. Christ is risen. {353} "The stroke of our wound is healed. "To them that sat in the region of the shadow of death, light is sprung up." "The Day-Spring from on high hath visited us." The earth feels herself to be lightened of her darkness, and in every church in Christendom the cry is again and again repeated: "Alleluia: Praise the Lord."

It would be too long to attempt to show how every human sorrow can gather consolation from the Resurrection of Christ. All I can hope to do this morning is to show how the three heaviest troubles of our race—doubt, guilt, and bereavement—find their relief in that event.

I call doubt, guilt, and bereavement the heaviest woes of man. In regard to the first, religious doubt, many of you have had no experience. Brought up in the Catholic Church, with her teaching always sounding in your ears, you have never known what it was to have real doubts about religious truth. But there are others who have known that anguish by experience. The soul of man thirsts for truth. Deep in every man's soul is a desire for God. It may be stifled, it may be silenced for a time by passion, but there it is, that stretching forth to the Fountain of Goodness and Beauty, that longing to know Him and His will. In generous souls, in souls that are conscious of their dignity, the finding of truth is an indispensable necessity. The search for truth is an occupation that must be pursued with whatever pain and trouble, and until it be found life is really insupportable. O my brethren, I do believe that there are souls around us who hunger for truth as a famishing man hungers for food. They labor and toil harder than any day-laborer. They are like men exploring a dark and many-chambered mine. They go with stooping head, and the sweat rolls off their foreheads, and their feet stumble, and with their dim light they can see but a little way before them, and they are in danger of losing their way. {354} No doubt they learn something; for God is everywhere; God is in our hearts, and in Nature, and in men, and in books, and in the past, and we cannot look for Him anywhere without finding His footprints; but we want more than this. We want God to speak to us. We sigh for the lost happiness of Eden, where God walked with our first parents in "the cool of the day." This is what men need. They need God to reveal Himself to them, to give them certainty in religious truth, at least on the most important points. Everywhere men have been seeking this. "Oh that God would rend the heavens and come down!" [Footnote 93]

[Footnote 93: Isaias lxiv. 1.]

This is the cry of humanity, that God would speak to us and make us hear His voice. And they have sought for this voice. They have strained their ears to listen to it. They have sought it of the moon and stars as they moved through the heavens by night; they have sought it in the whispers of the grove; they have sought it at the lips of men of science and pretended religious teachers. But they have met in such sources only with disappointment or deceit. And yet that voice has always been in the world. It spoke at first feebly and low, but louder and louder as time went on, until Jesus Christ came and "spake as never man spake." He claimed to be the Son of God, taught us clearly about God and our destiny, promised His unfailing protection to His Church in transmitting His doctrine to all generations, and confirmed the truth, both of His Teaching and Promises, by rising from the dead according to His Word. To Him, therefore, belongs the glorious title: "The Faithful and True Witness, the First-Begotten of the Dead." [Footnote 94]

[Footnote 94: Apoc. i. 5.]

Eighteen hundred years have passed away, but His Word has lost none of its authority, and now this morning we can say, as to every point of the Catholic creed, with as much certainty as on the morning of the Resurrection the Apostles felt in regard to all the words of Christ—"I believe." O glorious privilege of a Catholic! "Rejoice," says the prophet, "and be glad in the Lord, O children of Sion, because He hath given to you a Teacher of Justice." [Footnote 95]

[Footnote 95: Joel ii. 23.]

Obedient to this inspired injunction, the Church requires the Creed to be sung at her great solemnities. It is not enough to recite it. No; it must be sung, sung in full chorus, accompanied with instruments of music. And fitting it is and right. Worship would be incomplete without it. Litanies and hymns are the means by which the heart does homage to God; but CREDO, "I believe," that is the intellect's cry of joy at its emancipation from the bondage of doubt. Oh, how mistaken are those who imagine that the articles of the Creed are like fetters on the mind. On the contrary, they are to us the evidences of that liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. We reject temptations against faith, as attacks on our happiness. We feel that to doubt the doctrine of faith would be to doubt the Son of God, and to doubt Him would be to discredit our own soul. Be firm, then, my brethren in faith. Remember that faith is part of your birthright and privilege as Christians. The Sepulchre of Christ is the gate to the Palace of Truth. See, the door is open. The stone is rolled away. Oh, enter and be blest. With Thomas look at His wounded side and say, "My Lord and my God!" With Magdalene fall at His feet and call Him "Master." Listen to His words and doubt no more. "Being no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, but holding the truth in charity, in all things grow up in Him who is the Head, Christ." [Footnote 96]

[Footnote 96: Eph. iv. 14.]

Again, as doubt is the bondage of the intellect, so guilt is the burden of the conscience. Who can give peace to a soul that has sinned? The prophet Micheas well describes the anxiety of such a soul. "What shall I offer to the Lord that is worthy? Wherewith shall I kneel before the High God? Shall I offer holocausts unto Him, and calves of a year old? Will He be appeased with thousands of rams? Shall I give my first-born for my wickedness, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" [Footnote 97]

[Footnote 97: Mich. vi. 6.]

Now, must we for ever go on in this uncertainty? Shall we never, after we have sinned, have again the assurance that we are pardoned? Must we go trembling all our days, and be terror-stricken at the hour of death? Are we left to our own fancyings and feelings to decide whether we are pardoned or not? Shall we never hear that sweet consoling word: "Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee?" Yes, Christ is risen. He is come from the grave "with healing in His wings." He is come as a conqueror, with the trophies of victory. Hear what He says of Himself: "I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I live forever, and have the keys of Hell and Death." [Footnote 98]

[Footnote 98: Apoc. i. 18.]

He has come back from the grave with the keys of Hell in His hand. While He was yet among men He had promised to give those keys to St. Peter and the Apostles, but it was only after His death, by which He had merited our pardon, and after His Resurrection, by which His Father had attested His acceptance of the Ransom, that He proceeded solemnly to deliver them. "Now when it was late," says St. John, "that same day" (Easter day) "Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you. When He had said this, He breathed on them: and He said to them, Receive the Holy Ghost: Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." [Footnote 99]

[Footnote 99: St. John xx. 19.]

Do you hear this, O sinner? He offers you pardon, and He assures you of it. All He asks of you is a true sorrow; all He asks is a fervent and true purpose to offend Him no more. Come, confessing your sins; come, forsaking them, and He has promised that His priest shall declare to you, in His name: "I absolve thee from thy sins." {357} He has promised to ratify the sentence in heaven. Can you doubt His power? Can you doubt His truth? No: He has risen for our justification. "What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, who shall be against us? Who shall lay anything to the charge of the elect of God? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ that died, yea also Who is risen again." [Footnote 100]

[Footnote 100: Rom. viii. 33.]

Do not look on us, the ministers of His grace, weak and frail as we are. Look at the Saviour. Look at Him dying on the cross, a ransom for our sins. Look at Him, rising from the dead on the third day, having accomplished a complete victory over our spiritual enemies, and bringing to us life and pardon. See Him in His divine power, instituting sacraments by which that life and pardon might be communicated to us. Believe His word, trust His merits, have recourse to His sacraments, and thus, "being justified by faith have once more peace with God, and rejoice again in hope of the Glory of God." [Footnote 101]

[Footnote 101: Rom. v. 1.]

Come, forgiven sinner, lift up your head, for God hath cleansed you. Be happy: be a Christian: be a man once more, for you are clothed again in the garments of innocence and sanctity. It is no incomplete and grudging pardon He has given you. Though your sins "were as scarlet," they are now as "white as snow;" though they were "red like crimson," they are "as white as wool." "He hath cast your sins into the bottom of the sea." They shall never be mentioned to you again. He has even restored to you again the merits you had acquired in days of innocence, and lost again by sin. He has "restored to you the years which the locust and the caterpillar and the mildew and the palmer-worm hath eaten." [Footnote 102] Let, then, gratitude fill your heart, let joy be written on your face, and let holy resolves for the future correspond to the mercy you have received.

[Footnote 102: Joel ii. 25.]

Yes, my brethren, Christ at His Sepulchre satisfies the intellect and heals the conscience—and He also silences another cry of human woe. It is that of which the prophet spoke when he said: "A voice was heard of lamentation, of mourning and weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refused to be comforted, because they are not." [Footnote 103]

[Footnote 103: Jer. xxxi. 15.]

Oh! it is hard to see one we love die, but is it not harder to our sensitive nature to bury them? That makes us feel what we have lost. Reason tells us that the soul is immortal, but we need something more for our comfort. The heart asks, "What is to become of the body that I loved so much?" Talk of the lifeless and speechless corpse. It is not lifeless and speechless to me. Those cold lips smile the old smile on me, and whisper in my ear a thousand words of kindness. And oh, to part with that! To lose even that sad comfort! To have the body of the dead taken away from us, is not that a grief? Such was Mary Magdalene's sorrow. "They have taken away my Lord out of the Sepulchre, and I know not where they have laid Him." [Footnote 104]

[Footnote 104: St. John xx. 2.]

She could bear any thing but that. She had borne up at our Lord's death. It was a bitter thing, but then she stood at the foot of the cross on which He hung, and she could look up at Him and see Him. She had borne up on Friday evening, for then she was busy preparing her spices and ointments. She had borne up on Saturday, for she was thinking all day of her visit to the grave next morning. But on Sunday, to go and find His body gone—never again to look upon those lips that had spoken peace to her soul; never again to kiss with affection those sacred feet,—oh, this was too much. And Mary stood at the Sepulchre weeping. But lo! what voice is that which speaks: "Woman, why weepest thou?" It is the voice of Jesus himself, of Jesus whom she mourns. Himself, flesh and blood, the very Jesus whom she had known and loved. {359} So, my brethren, as you weep at the graves of your friends, those very friends stand near you and say, "Why weepest thou?" Weep not for me. Weep not for me, childless mother! Weep not for me, my orphan child! Weep not for me, my sorrowing friend! Leave my body awhile in the grave. It is not dead but sleeps. "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall arise out of the earth. And I shall be clothed again with my skin and in my flesh I shall see my God: Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another's." [Footnote 105]

[Footnote 105: Job xix. 25.]

Touch me not yet: wait awhile, and you shall see my hands and feet, that it is I myself. "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. But every one in his own order; the first fruits Christ, then they that are of Christ, who have believed in His coming." [Footnote 106]

[Footnote 106: I. Cor. xv. 22.]

Strange it is that our comfort and joy should come out of the grave. But so it is. By the resurrection of Christ all our woes are healed. Our new life springs from the sepulchre of Christ. Christ is risen we believe. Christ is risen; we are pardoned. Christ is risen; death loses its power to separate Christians. Mourn then no longer, my brethren, it is Easter. Believe, and rejoice. Forsake your sins, and rejoice. Bury your dead in Christ, and rejoice in hope. The former things are passed away; all things are become new. "The winter is now passed; the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared; the time of pruning is come; the voice of the dove is heard in our land." [Footnote 107]

[Footnote 107: Cant. ii. 11, 12.]

It is Easter. This is that day "which the Lord hath made." This is the Lord's Passover. The Red Sea is crossed: we are delivered out of Egypt, and are marching to the promised land. It is Easter. Mary has been at the sepulchre early this morning and has seen the Saviour. Jesus has appeared in the midst of the disciples, saying, "Peace be with you." Some have known Him in breaking of bread. To some He has drawn near as they walked along and discoursed together. Some that were sad He has comforted. How has it been with each of you? {360} Has this day been a day of joy to you? Has it awakened you to new life, new hopes, new aspirations? or does it find you cold, dead to spiritual things, perhaps not even in the grace of God, and in love with your sins! Oh, at least now awake to the hopes and desires of a Christian. "The day is far spent; it draweth toward evening." Let not this glorious feast depart and leave you as you are. While angels and the Son of God are abroad on the earth, scattering grace and consolation, do not you alone remain unblest. Claim your privileges as a Christian, and, risen with Christ in baptism, seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.

And you, faithful souls who have done your duty, who have found in this Feast a joy and comfort that passes understanding, know that the gladness of Easter is but an earnest of another day, the great day of eternity, which will open on the morning of resurrection, and which knows no evening; which has no need of the sun, for God is the light thereof; when God shall wipe away all tears; and death shall be no more; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Sermon XV.

St. Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre.

(Easter Sunday.)

[Footnote 108]

[Footnote 108: The substance of this sermon is from St. Thomas of Villanova.]

"But He rising early the first day of the week,
appeared first to Mary Magdalene."
—St. Mark XVI. 9.

St. Mary Magdalene may be called the Saint of the Resurrection. She is intimately associated with that event in the pages of the Scriptures, and in the minds of Christians. Indeed, the Gospel account of the Resurrection embraces an almost continuous record of the actions of this holy woman from the Crucifixion until Easter day; and I have thought that in tracing that record this morning, while I am presenting to you the great mystery of to-day's celebration, I shall at the same time be pointing out to you the means of obtaining those graces which our risen Lord has come to impart. St. Mary Magdalene's history for these three days is a history of love. Every thing she does, every thing she says, is a proof of her love for our Lord. And the distinguishing favors our Lord bestowed on her are a pledge of what we may look for to-day, if we imitate her love.

First, then, we are told, that when our Lord was taken down from the cross, and laid in the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, she went "and saw how the body was laid." One might have thought it would have satisfied her to stand by the cross, through those fearful hours, till it was an over, and then to have returned home. No; love will see the last. She will follow on to the grave. It is true the dead bodies of our friends feel not our kindness, but still we want them treated with tenderness and care. So Mary follows the corpse to the burial, and, when it is laid in the sepulchre, she looks in to see how it is laid. Not a superficial look: no, an earnest scrutinizing gaze. She sees how the drooping head lays on its stony pillow, and how the pierced hands and feet are disposed. She makes a picture of it all in her own mind, and "then returns to the city to prepare spices and ointments." Now, there was no need at all of this. Nicodemus had come, as soon as Pilate had given the disciples possession of our Lord's body, and brought "a mixture of myrrh and aloes, a hundred pounds weight." But Mary does not care for that. Others may do what good works they choose, but she will not be cheated of hers. And what she does she will do prodigally, too. It was her way. {362} You remember how, at the house of Simon, she brought her alabaster box of ointment, and broke it, and scattered it over the feet of Jesus, so that the whole house was filled with the perfume; and how Judas found fault with her, saying, "This ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and given to the poor." Our Lord attempted then to excuse her extravagance, saying, "She hath done this against the day of MY burial." No, she would do it then, and she would do it at His burial, too. Nicodemus and "the holy women" may bring as much as they like, but she will do her part. Precious and costly shall her offering be as she can make it, not because He needs it, but because her heart is straitened to express its love. It is her pleasure to spend and be spent for Him whom she loved; and all she can do is too little.

But while Mary's love was impulsive and generous, it was obedient. "She rested on the Sabbath day, according to the commandment." Here is a test of true love. We want to do something very much; we think the motive is good; but there comes a providential obstacle in the way. We cannot do it just now. We cannot do it just in the way we want. And too often our love is not pure enough for this test. We murmur and complain, and commit a thousand disobediences, and show how much self-love had to do with our undertakings. It was not so with this holy woman. She waited all the Sabbath day. It was God's command. The seventh day was kept by the Jews with a ceremonial strictness that forbade all work; and she would keep the commandment to the letter. So not a step would she take on the Sabbath, not even to the Saviour's grave. I am sure that Sabbath was a long one to her. Never was time's foot so heavy. Never did the hours go so slow. Never were the sacred services so tedious. A thousand times she goes to the window to see if the shadows were getting long, and each time it seems to her that the sun is standing still. O loving heart! loving in what she did not do, as well as in what she did. She will not take liberties with her conscience. {363} She will not be officious or intrusive. She will not please herself on pretence of doing something for God. And so, though her heart is at the sepulchre all day, though she yearns to go thither, not a foot will she stir, not a hand will she lift, till she knows that the fitting time is come. Her love was that orderly charity of which the Holy Scripture speaks. [Footnote 109]

[Footnote 109: Cant. ii. 4.]

But the longest day has an end, and the end of that Sabbath at last arrived. The sun sinks beneath the horizon. The evening sacrifice is over. Darkness falls upon the temple aisles, and the last worshipper departs. By degrees the streets of Jerusalem become silent and deserted. It is night, a glorious night; for the full paschal moon pours down its floods of light upon the holy city. And now the good woman, laden with her ointments and spices, sets out for the sepulchre. Alone, or only with a feeble woman like herself, she goes out late at night, and whither? To a garden outside the city, where a band of soldiers keep watch over a grave, closed with a great stone, and sealed with the seal of state. Is she not afraid? Docs she not run a thousand risks? Even supposing she reaches the place in safety, will she be permitted to approach the grave? Who will roll the stone from the door? Who will dare to break the seal? O holy boldness of love! which, when a duty is to be done, asks no questions, and knows no difficulties. O love! stronger than death, despising torments and casting out fear! Here is the wisdom of the saints. Here is the secret of all the great things that have been done for God. There is a higher wisdom and a higher prudence than the wisdom and the prudence of this world. There is a trust in God which is ever regarded as daring and enthusiastic, but which God justifies, and men themselves are forced at last to applaud.

Such were the sentiments with which St. Mary Magdalene went to the sepulchre. But here a new circumstance demands our attention. She set out, we are told, "while it was yet dark." It was night, the dead of night, when she left her house, and she did not reach the sepulchre till "the sun was risen." How did this happen? The place in which our Lord was crucified was, as the evangelist tell us, "near the city." And, one reason why Pilate suffered the disciples to lay our Lord's body in Joseph's tomb was, because it was close to the place of crucifixion, and the body could be laid there before the Passover began. What, then, delayed St. Mary Magdalene so long? What is the meaning of this? so prompt and eager in setting out, so tardy in arriving? Love, again, my brethren, is the explanation. She had to pass through the city. Her road was what is called the "Way of Sorrows," which Jesus took when He was led to Calvary, and along which she had followed Him on Good Friday. How could she go fast? Every step brought its own memories. There was the house of Caiaphas. There the judgment-hall of Pilate. There the balcony at which Jesus had been presented to the crowd, clad in a purple robe and crowned with thorns. There stood the pillar at which He had been scourged, and there was the spot at which he had fallen under the weight of His cross, and it was given to Simon of Cyrene to carry. No, her course was a pilgrimage. Each step was a holy station, at which she stopped awhile to pray and call to mind the events of that dreadful morning. And when she came to Calvary, where the cross was still standing, and threw herself on the ground to kiss the sod still wet with the Saviour's Blood, the hours pass by unheeded, for Jesus hangs there again, and Mary, His mother, is by her side, and each tender word, each look of sorrow is again repeated. Love meditates. Love lingers in the footsteps of its beloved, and the shortest, sweetest hours it finds on earth are hours of prayer. What wonder, then, that Mary kneels, embracing the foot of the cross, in perfect forgetfulness of all else besides, until, as she raises her eyes to cast an adoring glance, she sees that the cross is gilded by the red gleam of the coming Easter sun—that it is already day. Thus recalled to herself, she kisses that sacred tree for the last time, tears herself from it, and hurries off to fulfil the work she had in hand.

And she arrived at the sepulchre just in time, or rather God was there to meet her to reward her love. For the moment she arrived, "there was a great earthquake, and an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and coming, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. And his countenance was like lightning and his raiment as snow. And for fear of him the guards were struck with terror, and became as dead men. And the angel, answering, said to the woman: 'Fear not you, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for He is risen, as He said. Come and see the place where the Lord was laid. And go quickly, tell his disciples that He is risen, and behold, He will go before you into Galilee. And they went out quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, running to tell his disciples.' [Footnote 110]

[Footnote 110: St. Matt. xxviii. 2-8.]

See her running from the sepulchre as fast as she had so lately run to it; for love easily changes its employment at the voice of its beloved. She had come to anoint the body of Jesus; there is no need of that now, for Jesus is alive; but still there is something to do for Jesus—to tell His disciples. Peter, James, John, and the other disciples are at home, sorrowful and fearful. He whom they loved and trusted is no more; and they, whither shall they go? Besides this, there was an additional sorrow. They had forsaken their good Master in the day of His distress; Peter had even denied with an oath that he knew Him; and they now sat depressed and anxious in that upper chamber in which so lately they had eaten the Passover with Him. But He is alive! and Mary knows it! Shall she wait to see Him? {366} No, she must go quickly and tell His disciples. "This commandment have we from God, that He that loveth God, love his brother also." [Footnote 111]

[Footnote 111: I. St. John iv. 21.]

And Mary leaves the sepulchre, leaves Christ, to go and carry the joyful news to His afflicted brethren. With nimble feet, with eager countenance, she returns to the city, seeks out the well-known house, and appears in the midst of the sorrowing group, with the exclamation: "Jesus is alive! He is risen from the dead!"

Alas! poor Magdalene! "Her words seemed to them as an idle tale." To us, familiar with the doctrine and proofs of our Lord's Resurrection, it is wonderful how slow the apostles were to believe it. No doubt, their slowness to believe is a benefit to us, because it was the occasion of multiplying the proofs. Perhaps, too, it was not unnatural; for faith does not come all at once. There is often a period between doubt and faith, a period of inconsistency; in which one is at one moment all Christian, and at another believes nothing. Certainly it was so with the apostles on Easter Day, and Mary Magdalene seems to have shared their infirmity. The apostles, as soon as they had heard the news that Christ has risen, set out for the sepulchre. When they came to the place, they found indeed the grave open, and the linen cloths, in which the Lord's body had been wrapped, lying in it, and the guard gone; but Him they saw not. Mary Magdalene accompanied them, and when she saw neither the Lord Himself, nor the angel who had spoken to her, and when she saw the incredulous looks of the disciples, she herself began to doubt. But though her faith was weak, her love was strong; and she stood at the door of the sepulchre, weeping. At least she will not give up the idea of finding the Lord's body, and carrying out her first intention of embalming it. So she stands at the sepulchre, and looks in. {367} She had looked in many times already; she had every corner of it by heart; but she looks in again. She will see the place where the Lord lay, if she cannot see Himself: and lo! this time she sees a new sight. There are two angels, in white, sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. Angels again! but this time not angels of fear, with a terrible countenance, as the first had been, but angels of comfort and peace. And they spoke to her: "Woman, why weepest thou? Why dost thou seek the living among the dead?" One would have thought it was something to see an angel, and hear his voice: but this good woman makes very little of it. No angel will satisfy her now. "They have taken away my Lord," she replies, "and I know not where they have laid Him." Is not this grief enough to have lost a Lord, a Friend, a Saviour, such as Jesus was, and not even to have so much as His lifeless body left on which to lavish her endearments. O my brethren, no created thing can satisfy the soul. I say not, though we had all the treasures of earth, but though we had all the treasures of heaven; though angels and saints were ours; though we had visions and revelations; yet all would be nothing if we had not God. Heaven would be hell without Him, and at the very gate of Paradise the soul would weep and say, "They have taken away my Lord."

But at this point a new actor appears on the scene. A man approaches, and addresses Magdelene in the same words that the angels had used: "Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?" She takes him for the gardener, and suddenly a suspicion seizing her that he might know something of the treasure she had lost, turned upon him and said: "Sir, if thou hast borne Him away, tell me where thou hast laid Him; and I will take Him away." She does not answer his question. She does not tell him whom she is seeking. For, as St. Bernard observes, "Love imagines everyone is as full of the object of its love as it is itself;" and so she says: "If thou hast borne Him away, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away." {368} No need to mention His Name. All things knew it. The sun publishes it. It is written on the leaves. The wind utters it. It is the Name that is above every name—the Name at which every knee must bow. "Tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will go and carry Him away." What, you! a weak woman! Can you carry away a heavy corpse? Yes, she can; and they that doubt it do not know how strong love is, how great a weight it can carry, what hard things it can do, and how it makes a man do what is above nature, or, rather, how, with faith and grace, it brings out the power that is in these human hearts of ours, and awakens their latent energies.

And now Jesus can restrain Himself no longer; for Jesus it is who now speaks with her. She had charged Him with taking away the Sacred Body, and she was right. He it was who had taken it from the grave. "I have power to lay it down," said He, "and I have power to take it up again. [Footnote 112]

[Footnote 112: St. John x. 18.]

Yes, it was Jesus. He had seen her tears, listened to her complaint, watched her efforts, and now the time had come when He would disclose Himself to her. He said to her: "Mary!" Oh! what voice is that? What sweet and tender memories it wakes up! The home of Bethany, the banqueting-hall of Simon, Mount Calvary, all are brought before her. She turns and looks keenly at the speaker, and one look is enough. It is He, the same—the very same who spoke pardon and peace to her soul, when first, a guilty woman, she had washed His feet with her tears. It is Jesus. He lives again. And, with her accustomed salutation, she kneels before Him, and says: "Rabboni!" which is to say, Master!

How much is expressed in this brief interview. "Mary!" It is a word of gentle reproach. Mary, dost thou not remember My words—My promise—that I would rise again? Mary,—dost thou not believe My angels, bearing testimony to My Resurrection? Mary, whose brother Lazarus I have raised from the grave, dost thou not think that I am as powerful to rise from the dead as to restore life to others? "Mary!" It is a term of affection. As much as to say: I am risen; but I am still thy friend. I do not forget the past, and now, on this glorious morning of My Resurrection, I tell thee that I know thee by thy name, and love thee with the same love with which I loved thee in the days of My sorrow'. And, "Master!" is her fitting reply. "Master of my heart, whom only I have loved!" "Master of my faith, whom now' I acknowledge as indeed risen from the dead!" "Master, whose Truth and Power I have been so slow to understand!" "Master, whom all my future life shall honor and obey!" O happy Magdalene! Her search is ended. Her tears are dried. O joy beyond all thought! She has seen Him, and talked with Him!

O my brethren, need I say more? Has not St. Magdalene preached an Easter sermon? Love is the way to keep this feast. Love is the way to faith and joy. It is the way to faith, for our Lord says: "If any man shall do the will of God he shall know of the doctrine, whether it is of God." [Footnote 113]

[Footnote 113: St. John vii. 17.]

It is said of Magdalene that she loved much because she was pardoned much; I say she believed much because she loved much. And love is the way to joy. Who are they that are truly happy on this day? They who with Magdalene have sought Jesus; they who by a true confession and a devout communion have united themselves to the risen Saviour, and conversed with him in sweet familiarity. For to them our Lord speaks and says: "Fear not, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. I am the Lord, thy Saviour, thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob. Behold My hands and feet, that it is I Myself! Fear not, Israel my chosen, and Jacob mine elect, for I am He that liveth and was dead, and have the keys of hell and death. And behold! I am alive for ever more!"

Sermon XVI.

The Preacher,
The Organ Of The Holy Ghost.

(Fourth Sunday After Easter.)

"When He the Spirit of Truth shall come,
He will lead you into all truth."
St. John XVI. 13.

I need hardly say that the words "all truth" in this promise mean all truth relating to our salvation. It is no part of our Lord's plan to teach us the truths of natural science. He leaves us to discover these by our own intelligence. He comes to teach us faith and morals—what we are to believe, and what we are to do, in order to be saved. He did this while He was on earth by His conversations with His disciples, and by His public sermons to the Jews; but He promised that this work should be carried on after His death more extensively and systematically. Thus, in the words of the text: "When He the Spirit of Truth shall come He will lead you into all truth." [Footnote 114] And again: "The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and will bring all things to your mind whatsoever I shall have said to you."[Footnote 115] It cannot but be a matter of interest to inquire in what manner this promise has been fulfilled.

[Footnote 114: St. John xvi. 13.]

[Footnote 115: St. John xiv. 26.]

I answer, the Holy Ghost leads us into all truth necessary to our salvation by the public preaching of the Word of God. If we examine our Lord's words attentively, we shall be led to the conclusion that the ministry of the Holy Ghost to which He alludes is a public ministry. His own ministry was a public one, and in promising that the Holy Ghost should carry it on and complete it, He leads us to anticipate that the ministry of the Holy Ghost would also be public. {371} And His own subsequent language shows that this is really so, and acquaints us with the way in which this ministry is to be exercised. Just before our Lord's Ascension He met the Apostles on a mountain in Galilee, and said to them: "All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." [Footnote 116] August and extensive as this commission was, it did not by itself qualify the Apostles for their great work. They were to wait in Jerusalem "till they were endued with power from on high." This "power" was the Holy Ghost which actually did descend on them at the feast of Pentecost. Here we find a company of men commissioned by Christ to teach the world in His name, and empowered by the Holy Ghost for that purpose. We find these men afterward everywhere claiming to be the organs of the Holy Ghost. Thus, at the council of Jerusalem, they did not hesitate to publish their decrees with this preface: "It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." [Footnote 117] And St. Paul tells the bishops of Ephesus, that they were placed over the Church "by the Holy Ghost." [Footnote 118]

[Footnote 116: St. Matt. xxviii. 18-20.]

[Footnote 117: Acts xv. 28.]

[Footnote 118: Acts xx. 28.]

Now, who does not see here the realization and fulfilment of the great promise of Christ which I have quoted as my text? That teaching of the Holy Ghost which was to follow His, which was to bring all things to remembrance which He had said, which was to abide forever, and which was to make known all necessary truth, was the teaching of the Apostles and their successors. It is the teaching of the Holy Ghost, because the Holy Ghost moves them to preach, furnishes them with the rule of their doctrine, and gives them their warrant and authority. In this sense it is that our Lord's promise is to be understood. It is a promise that reaches to all time. {372} It concerns us here and now. It assures us that at this day, far removed as we are from the times of Christ, across so many centuries, the Holy Ghost through the agency of the Church still brings to us the echoes of His words. He does this in the most solemn and authoritative way by those great decisions of the Church to which He sets the seal of His Infallibility; but he does it in less solemnity, less authoritatively, but more frequently, by the preaching of each individual priest. It is for this end that the priest is ordained. He is consecrated and set apart, not merely to say Mass, not merely to receive the confessions of penitent sinners and absolve them, but to publish the Word of God; and He is empowered by the Holy Ghost for this very purpose. The Christian preacher is no mere lecturer, but an authorized agent and messenger of God, to deliver to the people the will of God. It is chiefly by the ordinance of preaching, in its various forms, that the Holy Ghost carries on the work of instructing men's faith, and regulating their morals.

And here, I think, is to be found the real answer to a misconception of our principles so common among Protestants. It is very commonly said and believed that the Catholic Church wishes to keep the people in ignorance of the Scriptures. Now, this is not true. The Church does not wish to keep the Scriptures from the people. On the contrary, in all cases in which they are likely to prove beneficial she approves and encourages their use; but she does not regard the reading of the Scriptures as the necessary, or even as the ordinary mode of familiarizing the people with the Word of God. Thousands have gone to heaven who never read one page of the Bible. St. Irenæus instances whole nations who professed and practised Christianity in entire ignorance of the Divine Records. How many people in every generation are unable to read. Now, God has not made a twofold system of salvation; one for the ignorant and one for the educated. {373} No: according to the Catholic idea, for rich and poor, for learned and unlearned alike, there is one way of truth—the living voice of the preacher. This is God's way. This is the Voice of the Holy Ghost. This is the publication of the Word of God. This is the sword of the Spirit. The decree has never been revoked: "The priest's lips shall keep knowledge; and the people shall seek the law at his mouth; because he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts." [Footnote 119]

[Footnote 119: Mal. ii. 7.]

But an objection may be drawn against this high view of the ordinance of preaching, from the infirmities of the preacher himself. It may be said: You tell us that the Holy Ghost speaks by the voice of the preacher, yet the preacher is but a fallible man, ignorant of many things, liable to be deceived himself, not free from passions which may affect his judgment. May he not falsify his message? May He not dishonor it? I do not deny the fact on which this objection is founded. Undoubtedly, the preacher may be unfaithful in the delivery of his message. In the Catholic Church, however, the watchfulness of discipline, and the general acquaintance on the part of the people with the standards of faith and practice, will prevent any very serious error finding its way into the public teaching of the priest. Who supposes, for instance, that any Catholic congregation would tolerate from the pulpit a denial of Transubstantiation, or the true Divinity of our Lord, or the necessity of good works? But within a certain limit, no doubt, there may be much imperfection in the preacher, much that detracts from the purity, the majesty, and the dignity of the Word of God. What then? I affirm, nevertheless, that preaching is the great instrument of the Holy Ghost for the conversion of souls. Strange, that we should start back at every new manifestation of a law that goes all through Christianity, and even through all the arrangements of the natural world. {374} In every department of human life, God makes man His representative—man fallible and weak. The judge on the bench represents God's Wisdom and Equity, though his decisions are often far enough from that Divine pattern. The magistrate represents God's authority, though in his hands that authority is sometimes made the warrant for tyranny and oppression. So, in like manner, the preacher represents the Holy Ghost, though he does not always represent Him worthily either in manner or matter.

It is part of a plan. He who chooses man, sinful like ourselves, and encompassed with infirmities, to convey His pardon to the guilty, chooses as the organ of the Eternal Wisdom, "holy, one, manifold, subtle, eloquent, undefiled, having all power, overseeing all things, the Brightness of Eternal Light, the unspotted mirror of God's Majesty [Footnote 120] —man, with stammering lips, with a feeble intellect and an impure heart.

[Footnote 120: Wisd. vii. 22-26.]

And there is a reason in this plan. When the Church goes out to evangelize a new and strange people, she seeks, as soon as possible, to secure some of the natives to aid her in her work, who know the speech, and the manners, and the habits of thought, of those with whom they have to deal. No doubt her old, tried missionaries could furnish an instruction which would be more complete in itself, but the words of the neophyte will be better understood and received. So God, when He speaks to man, chooses as His instrument one who understands the dialect of earth. An angel would be a messenger answering better to His dignity, but less to our necessities; so He considers our welfare alone, and passes by Raphael, "who is one of the daily angels," and Michael, "who is one of the chief princes," and Gabriel, who is the strength of God, and chooses Moses, who was "slow of speech," and Jeremias, who was diffident as a child, and Amos, who was but a herdsman, following the flock—to utter His will to man. {375} The human alloy in the Divine Word, no doubt, makes it less accurate, but it makes it more easily understood. Oh! it is a mercy of God thus to disguise Himself and dilute His word. The children of Israel said to Moses: "Speak thou to us, and we will hear. Let not the Lord speak any more to us, lest we die." [Footnote 121] Who could look upon the Lord and live? Who could listen to His voice in its untempered majesty and not be afraid? "The word of God is more penetrating than any two-edged sword, reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also, and the marrow." [Footnote 122]

[Footnote 121: Exod. xx. 19.]

[Footnote 122: Heb. iv. 12.]

Do not be displeased, then, because God has sent to thee a messenger like thyself, one who speaks thy language, who shares thy ignorance and thy frailties; pardon him, forgive him his defects, strain your ear to detect in his lowly language some notes of that great message of Eternal Truth and Infinite Love, the story so old yet ever new—the love of Christ, the will of God, the end of man, grace, holiness, and eternity, those things on which depend our happiness here and our salvation hereafter.

But here I feel as if I ought to add a word or two of explanation. When I say that the Holy Ghost teaches by the voice of the preacher, I do not mean to assert that He teaches in no other way. A very great part of the preacher's message consists of truths which are already written by the finger of God on every man's natural conscience. A preacher is not required to make us understand that it is wrong to break the precepts of the moral law. Natural reason, the light that enlighteneth every man that comes into this world, tells us that. I could not but be struck the other day, as I passed two young men in the street, at hearing the honest protest with which one of them met the sophistry in which his companion was evidently trying to indoctrinate him: "What!" said he, "you don't mean to say it isn't a sin to get drunk!" {376} Indeed, it is seldom that men justify themselves for actions that are plainly wrong. They are still too full of the Holy Ghost for that. Passion corrupts their will, but does not always darken their understanding. They know the right while they pursue the wrong. But this circumstance does not make the office of the preacher unnecessary; by no means. On the contrary, it is from this that the preacher derives a great part of his power. What he says finds an echo in the hearts of his hearers. One of the strongest things that St. Paul said in his defence before Agrippa was the appeal: "King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest." [Footnote 123]

[Footnote 123: Acts xxvi. 27.]

And so when the preacher is speaking before a congregation, of justice, of temperance, of judgment to come, do you know what it is that gives him such boldness and daring? My brethren, I will tell you a secret. Perhaps you may sometimes have felt surprise when you have heard us, who have so many reasons for feeling diffident before you, so keen in denouncing your sins, so vehement in urging you to your duties. Are we not afraid of wounding your pride, of alienating your affections? No: it is in your hearts that we have our strength. We would not dare to speak so unless we knew that we had a powerful ally in your hearts—your better nature, your reason, your conscience, the divinity that is within you. It is the greatest mistake in the world to suppose that it is unnecessary to tell people what they know already. Half the good advice that is given in the world consists of the most commonplace and familiar truths, but will anyone say for that reason that it is useless? No: the fact is, it is a great help to hear our own convictions uttered outside of us. A man believes more, is more conscious of his belief, his belief becomes more distinct, more serviceable, when he hears it from another's lips. {377} What a mercy of God it is, then, in a world like this, where there are so many temptations, where there are so many evil examples, so much to draw off the mind from God, where it is so easy to obscure the line between right and wrong, that there should be an authoritative voice lifted up from time to time in warning! What a mercy, in those dreadful moments when the conflict rages high between passion and principle, and the soul, weary of the strife, is on the point of surrender, to be re-enforced by God Almighty's aid—to hear His voice amid the strife, saying: "This is the way; walk ye in it!" [Footnote 124]

[Footnote 124: Isaiah xxx. 21.]

And then it must be remembered, too, that there is much of the preacher's message that is not known to man's natural reason, consisting of mysteries deep and high, which at the best can be known only in part; and it is apparent how much it must depend on the preacher's office to keep these mysteries in men's minds, and to secure for them a place in men's intelligence and affections. The Christian Faith has always, from the beginning, been surrounded by adversaries who have attacked it, now on one side, now on another. We are apt to think it our peculiar misfortune to hear continually the doctrines of our faith disputed; but in fact such has been, more or less, the trial of each generation of Christian believers. Now, amid such ceaseless controversies, what means has our Lord left to protect and defend His people from doubt and error? The ministry of preaching. Therefore, says the Holy Scripture: "Some He gave to be Apostles, and some prophets, and others evangelists, and others pastors and teachers, that we may not now be children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, in the wickedness of men, in craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive." [Footnote 125]

[Footnote 125: Eph. xi. 11-14.]

It is the office of the preacher to declare Christian doctrine, to defend and explain it, to show its consistency and excellence, to answer objections against it, and thus to add to the power of hereditary faith the force of personal conviction. The Church has always understood this, and therefore, whenever a new heresy arises, she sends out a new phalanx of preachers to confront it by good and sound doctrine. And the enemies of the Church have always understood it, and therefore, in times of persecution, when they wished to deal the Christian faith a deadly blow, they sought in the first place, by the murder of bishop and priest, to silence the voice of the teacher. It was one of the last woes threatened against Jerusalem that the people should seek in vain for a vision of the prophet, and that the law should perish from the priests; [Footnote 126] and when in the Christian Church there shall be heard no more the message of truth, when there shall be no more reproof, no more instruction in justice, the iniquity shall come in like a flood; then shall be the abomination of desolation, and the time of Antichrist.

[Footnote 126: Ezech. vii. 26.]

Great, then, my brethren, is the dignity of preaching. It is God speaking on Mount Sinai. It is Jesus preaching on the Mount. It is the Divine Sower scattering the seeds of truth and virtue. The Holy Ghost has not left the world. In every Christian church, at every Mass, the day of Pentecost is renewed. See, the priest has clothed himself to celebrate the unbloody sacrifice. He has ascended the altar. Already the clouds of incense hang over the mercy-seat, and hymns of praise ascend;—but he stops, he turns to the people. Why does he interrupt the Mass? Has he seen a vision? Has an angel spoken to him, as of old to the prophet Zacharias? Yes, he has seen a vision. He has heard a voice. A fire is in his heart. A living coal hath touched his lips, the Breath of the Spirit hath passed over him, and he speaks as he is moved by the Holy Ghost. Listen to him, for he is a prophet. He speaks to thee from God. What is thy misery? What is thy sorrow? What is thy trial? {379} Now thou shalt find relief. Are you in doubt about religious truth? Listen, and you shall find the answer to those doubts. Are you sorely tempted to sin? Now God will give you an oracle to strengthen you. Are you distressed and suffering? Have you a secret sorrow? Now you shall receive an answer of comfort. Do you wish to know how to advance in God's love? Now the way shall be made plain before your face. O blessed truth! God has not left Himself without a witness. The world is not to have it all its own way. The teachings of Satan are not to go on all the week uncontradicted. The dream of the heathen, that there are sacred spots on earth whence Divine Oracles issue, is fulfilled. The Chair of Truth is set up for the enlightenment of the nations. "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death light is sprung up." "The earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." [Footnote 127]

[Footnote 127: Isaias ix. 2, 19.]

This subject suggests some very practical reflections. I am not unmindful that some of them concern the preacher himself. I do not forget that the thought of the high dignity of his office calls for the greatest purity of purpose and diligence of preparation; but while I remember this, suffer me also to remind you of your duty in listening to the preacher. St. Paul praises the Thessalonians because they listened to his words, not as the words of man, but as the words of God. In the sense in which the teaching of an uninspired man can be so designated, have you thus listened to the preacher's words? Has it been a task to you to listen to the sermon? Have you sought only to be amused? Have you been critical and captious? Or, acknowledging the truth you have heard, have you been careless about putting it in practice? Oh, how much the preaching of God's word might profit us, if we brought the right dispositions to the hearing of it! {380} If we came to Church, eager to know more of God, with a single heart desirous to nourish our souls with His Truth, what progress we should make! A single sermon has before now converted men. St. Anthony, hearing but a single text, embraced a saintly life. If we had such dispositions, if each Sunday found us diligent hearers of God's Word, anxious to get some new thoughts about Him, some new motive to love Him, some new practical lesson, some new help against sin, it would not be long before the effect would be visible in us all. We should make progress in the knowledge of our religion. The devil and the world would assail us in vain. Scandals and sins would become rare. Heavenly virtues would spring up. Piety would become strong and manly. And that which the prophet describes would be fulfilled: "The Lord will fill thy soul with brightness. And thou shalt be like a well-watered garden, and like a fountain of water, whose waters shall not fail." [Footnote 128]

[Footnote 128: Isaias lviii. 2.]

Sermon XVII.

The Two Wills In Man

(Fourth Sunday After Easter.)

"The spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak."
—St. Matt. XXVI. 41.

The word "flesh" here does not mean the body, but the lower or sensitive part of the soul in which the fleshly appetites reside. Our Lord is warning St. Peter of the necessity of prayer in order to meet the temptation which was coming upon him, and He tells him not to trust to the willingness of his spirit, that is, his good intentions and resolutions, because he had an inferior nature which might easily be excited to evil, and which in the hour of temptation might, without a special grace of God, drag his will into sin. {381} What our Lord is declaring, then, is the fact attested by universal experience, that there are in the heart of man two conflicting principles—inordinate passion on one side, and reason and grace on the other. This truth, though so well known, touches our happiness and salvation too closely not to possess at all times an interest and importance for each one of us; and I propose, therefore, to make it the subject of my remarks this morning.

In the first place, then, what is the source and nature of the conflict thus indicated by our Lord? Whence does it arise? How does it come to pass that there are those two principles within us? How does it happen that every child of man finds himself drawn, more or less, two contrary ways, toward virtue and toward vice, toward God and toward the devil, toward Heaven and to-ward Hell? The answer commonly given is, that this conflict we feel within us comes from the fall, that it is the fruit of original sin. But the fall, according to the Catholic doctrine, introduced no new principle into our nature, infused no poison into it, and deprived it of none of its essential elements. We must look farther back, then, than the fall for the radical source of this conflict; and we find it in the very essential constitution of our nature. Man, in his very nature, is twofold. He is created and finite, yet he has a divine and eternal destiny. He has a body and a soul, and therefore he must have all the passions which are necessary to his animal and sensible life, as well as the intellectual and moral powers which are necessary to his spiritual life. Here, then, we have, in the very idea of man's nature, the possibility of a conflict. We have two different principles, which it is conceivable might come into collision. Man's appetites and passions, no less than his reason, are given to him by God, are good, are necessary, but since his appetites and passions are blind principles, it is conceivable that they might demand gratifications which would not be in accordance with his reason and spiritual nature. {382} As human nature was at first constituted by the Almighty, any actual collision between these parts was prevented by a gift, which is called "the gift of integrity," a gift which was no essential part of our nature, but was conferred on it by mere grace, and which bound together the various powers of the soul in a wondrous harmony, so that the movements of passion were always in submission to reason. When Adam sinned, this grace was withdrawn from him; and since it was no necessary part of our nature, since it was given of mere grace, it was withdrawn from the whole human race. Hence men now find in themselves an actual conflict between the higher and lower parts of the soul. In a complicated piece of machinery, if a bolt or belt is broken that bound it together, the parts clash. Each part may in itself remain unchanged, but it no longer acts harmoniously with the other parts. So in fallen man, the bolt that braced the soul together is broken, and the powers of the soul clash together. The passions, the will, the reason, all, in themselves, remain as they were, undepraved; but they are no longer in harmony together, and man finds himself weakened by an intestine conflict. This, together with the loss of supernatural grace and a supernatural destiny, is the evil which, according to Catholic theology, accrued to man by the fall.

This conflict, then, which we find within us; this clamor of the lower nature against the higher; this propensity of the passions to rebel against reason—in other words, this proneness to sin, which is the universal experience of humanity, does not prove that we have lost any constituent part of our nature, that there is any thing positively vicious in us, nor does it prove that we are hateful to God. It proves, indeed, that we are not divine, that we are not angels, that we are not in the condition of human nature before Adam's transgression; it proves that a source of weakness, inherent in our nature, has been developed by the fall, that we need grace; but it gives not the slightest reason for supposing that our manhood has been wrecked, that the will is not free, that the reason of man has been extinguished, or that the passions are not in themselves good, and have not their legitimate sphere and exercise. {383} So true is this, that this propensity to sin remains even in the baptized. Baptism does a great deal for a man. It takes away original sin, by supplying that justifying grace which our race forfeited in Adam. It restores to man his supernatural destiny. In the language of the Council of Trent, it renders the newly-baptized "innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ, so that there is nothing whatever to retard his entrance into heaven." But there is one thing it does not do. It does not remove the propensity of the passions to rebel. And the Council uses this fact—that concupiscence remains in the baptized—to prove that concupiscence, or the propensity to evil, cannot itself be sin; and enforces its conclusion by the seal of its infallibility and the warrant of its censures, saying: "If anyone is of the contrary sentiment" (that is, declares that the incentive to sin, which remains in the baptized, hath in it the true and proper nature of sin), "let him be anathema." [Footnote 129]

[Footnote 129: Sess. V. Decree on Original Sin.]

Thus, Christianity explains the origin of this conflict in the human heart, in a manner agreeable to reason and human experience. But it does more. It reveals to us the purpose of this conflict. Why does our Lord leave us subject to this strife? The same holy Council I have quoted already, answers distinctly; this incentive to sin is left in the soul "to be wrestled with." The state of the case is this: The passions desire to be gratified without waiting for the sanction of reason, sometimes even in defiance of reason. Morally speaking, this is no evil. The passions are but blind instincts; it is the province of the will to restrain them in their proper limits, and to help her in this work she has reason and the grace of God. {384} If she fails to do her work, then she sins. Whenever sin is committed, it is the will that commits it. It is only the will that can sin. The sin lies not in the inordinate desire, but in the will's not resisting that desire. The will is the viceroy of God in the heart, appointed to keep that kingdom in peace. And herein lies the root of Christian morality, the secret of sanctification, and the essence of human probation. We speak of outward actions of sin; but all sin goes back to the will. There was the treason. "Out of the heart," says our Blessed Lord, "proceed murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies." [Footnote 130]

[Footnote 130: St. Matt. xv. 19.]

Each black deed is done in the secret chamber of the heart before the hand proceeds to execute it. Each false, impure, and blasphemous word is whispered first by the will before the lips utter it. Yes, man's heart is the battle-field. There is the scene of action. We speak sometimes of a man's being alone or being idle: why, a man is never alone; never idle. He may, indeed, be silent, his hands may be still, no one may be near him; but in that kingdom within great events are going on all the time. Angels and saints are there. The armies of Heaven and the armies of Hell meet there. Attack and repulse, parley and defiance, truce and surrender, stratagem and treason, victory and defeat—are things of daily occurrence there.

Of course, this is all very well known, very simple, very elementary, but yet there are some who never seem to understand it. They do not understand it who confound temptation with sin. This is a mistake often made, and by those too who ought to know better. If a man feels a strong inclination to evil, if an evil thought passes through his mind, or a doubt against the faith assails him, immediately he imagines that he has fallen under God's displeasure. {385} To state such an error is to refute it. Never, my brethren, fall in to this mistake. No: between temptation and sin there lies all that gulf that separates Heaven from Hell. Let the devil fill your mind with the most horrid thoughts, let all your lower nature be in rebellion, let you have temptations to unbelief, to despair, to blasphemy; yet if that queenly will of yours keeps her place, if she stand steadfast and immovable, not only have you not sinned, but you are purer, more spiritual, more full of faith and reverence than if you had had no such trial. When St. Agnes was before the heathen judge, he ordered her to be sent to the stews and thrown among harlots, but she answered: "I shall come out of that place virgin as I entered it." Yes, all the powers of earth and hell cannot make a resolute soul commit a single sin. It is said that the walls of that house of prostitution, to which the holy maiden was condemned, still stand, and form the walls of a church dedicated in her honor—a visible proof how the soul, faithful to itself and God, turns the very means and instruments of its temptations into trophies of its most magnificent victories.

Nor do those understand the nature of the Christian conflict who make strong passions the pretext for the neglect of religious duties. There are such. Their hearts are too tumultuous, their passions too strong, their virtue too weak, their circumstances too difficult; and they must wait till they become more composed, calmer, more devout, until religion becomes more natural to them. Error, dangerous as common! I tell you, Christianity takes hold of every man just as he is, and just where he is, and claims him. No doubt, a quiet temper, a tranquil disposition, a devout spirit, are valuable gifts, but the root of religion does not lie in them, but in the will. That is it. God never intended religion to be confined to the passive and gentle, and to be neglected by the strong and impulsive. You, young man of pleasure; you, man of business and enterprise; you, proud and worldly man; you, passionate woman, with your wild and wayward nature, God, this day, here and now challenges you: "Why are you not working with Me, and for Me? Why are you not religious?" {386} "Me!" you say, "it is impossible. I am sensual and avaricious, I am selfish and revengeful, I am full of hatred and jealousy, I am worldly to the heart's core." No matter: you know what is right; are you willing to do it? "Oh! I cannot. I do not love God. My heart is cold." No matter: are you willing to serve God with a cold heart? That is the question. "I cannot, I cannot. I have no faith. I cannot pray. I have not a particle of spirituality. Religion is wearisome to me, and strange. It is as much as I can do to stay through a High Mass." No matter, I say once more. Do you want to have faith? Are you willing to practise what you do believe? Then if you are, begin your work here and now. You cannot be of so rough a nature that Christ will reject you. No matter who you are and what you are, no matter what your trials have been, and what your past life, if you are a man, with a human heart, with human reason and a human will, Christ calls you by your name, and points out a way that will lead you to peace and heaven.

But least of all do they understand the nature of the Christian life, who make temptation an apology for sin; who excuse themselves for a wrong action by simply saying, "I was tempted." Far be it from me, my brethren, to undervalue the danger of temptation, or to forget the frailty of the human heart, or to lack compassion for the fallen; but it is one thing to fall and bewail one's fall, and another to make the temptation all but a justification of the fall. And are there not some who do this? who do not seek temptation, but invariably yield to it when it comes across them? who only steal when some trifle falls in their way; who only curse when they are angry; who only neglect Mass when they feel lazy and self-indulgent; and are always sober and chaste except when the occasion invites to libertinism and intemperance? {387} What! is this Christianity? To abstain from sin as long as we have no particular inclination to commit it, and to fall into it as soon as we have! O miserable man, O miserable woman, go and learn the very first principles of the doctrine of Christ. Go to the Font of Baptism, and ask why you renounced Satan, and promised to keep God's commandments. Go to the Bible and learn why Christ died, and what is the duty of His followers. Temptations come upon you in order that you may resist them. You are subject to gusts of anger, in order that you may become meek. You are tempted to unchastity, in order that you may become pure. You are tempted against faith, that you may learn to believe. That you are tempted, is precisely the reason that you should not yield; for it shows that your hour is come, and the question is whether you will belong to Christ or Satan.

Yes, my brethren, our conflict is for the trial of our virtue. It is a universal law of humanity. It was so even in the garden of Eden. In the fields of Paradise, where the trees were in their fresh verdure, and the air breathed a perpetual spring, and all things spoke of innocence and peace, there Adam had to meet this trial. And each child of man since then has met it in his turn. And Christians must meet it too. In the sheltered sanctuary of the Church, where we have so many privileges, so much to strengthen and gladden us, even there each one must abide the test. As the Canaanite was left in the promised land, to keep the children of Israel in vigilance and activity, so the sting of the flesh, the power of our inferior nature, is left in the baptized, to school us in virtue, to make us men, to make us Christians, to make us saints. This is the foundation principle of religion. He who has learnt this, has found out the riddle of life.

And now, my brethren, that I have explained to you the source of the conflict that we feel within us, and the purpose it is designed to answer, you will see what the result of it must be, how it issues in the two eternities that are before us. "He that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption; but he that soweth in the Spirit, of the Spirit shall reap life everlasting." [Footnote 131]

[Footnote 131: Gal. vi. 8.]

The Judgment Day is but the revelation of the faithfulness or unfaithfulness of each one of us in the struggle to which he has been called. Every act, every choice we make, tells for that great account. The day will declare it. Then the secret of each man's heart shall be revealed, and how that battle in his heart has been fought. Oh, what a spectacle must this world present to the angels who look down upon the solemn strife that is going on here below! There is a man who has ceased to strive. No longer making any resistance, he is led on wholly and completely by his inferior nature. The slave of sin, he hardly feels the conflict in his soul, but it is because the voice of reason and the voice of grace have been so long resisted that they have become almost silent. And there are others who have given up the pure strife, but not so determinedly, not so completely. Occasionally they have better moments, regrets for the good they have forsaken, but still they float on with the careless world. And there is the young girl taking her first step on the downward road, looking back to the father's house she is leaving, reluctant, but consenting. Then there is the penitent, who has fallen but risen again; who has learned wariness from his fall, and new confidence in God from His mercy and goodness, and who is striving by penance and prayer to make up what he has lost. And there is the man with feeble will, ever sinning and ever lamenting his sin, divided between good and evil, with too much conscience to give free reins to his passions, and too little to master them completely. And there is the soul severely tried, still struggling but almost overwhelmed, and out of the depths calling upon God the Holy and True, "Incline unto mine aid, O God." {389} And there is the soul strong in virtue, strong in a thousand victories, which stands unmoved amid temptations, like the deep-rooted tree in a storm, or like the rock beaten by the waves. Oh, yes, in the sight of the angels, this world is full of interest. There is nothing here trivial and common-place. What prophecies of the future must they not read! What saints do they see, ripening for Heaven! What sinners rushing madly to Hell! What unlooked-for falls! What unexpected conversions! What hidden sins, unsuspected by the world! Now they must rejoice, and now they must weep. Now they tremble over some soul in danger, and now they exult because the danger is over. So it is now; but when the end shall come, then fear and hope shall be no more, the conflict will be ended, the books shall be opened, and the secrets of the heart published to the universe. The struggle of life will be past, only its results will remain—two separate bands, one on either side of the Judge, the good and the wicked, those who have been true to their conscience, to reason, to grace, and those who have not.

Well, then, we will strive manfully against sin. There are untold capacities in us for good and evil. God said to Rebecca: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided out of thy womb, and one people shall overcome the other." [Footnote 132]

[Footnote 132: Gen. xxv. 23.]

So, my brethren, in each heart there are two powers struggling for the mastery—the Spirit and the Flesh. There are two sets of offspring struggling for the birth—"the works of the flesh, which are immodesty, uncleanliness, fornication, enmities, wrath, envies, emulations, quarrels, murders, drunkenness, revellings; and the works of the spirit, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity." It is for the will, with and under God's grace, to say which of these shall overcome the other. {390} Do you say that I put too much on the will? that the will is too weak to decide this fearful contest? O brethren, the will is not weak. On the side of God, and with the help of God, it is irresistible. Look at the martyrs' will. Did it not carry them through fire and sword? Did it not enable them to meet death with joy? This is our mistake, we do not know our strength. We know our weakness, but we do not know our strength. We think God is to help us, independently of ourselves, and not through ourselves. But this is not so, God helps us by strengthening our will, by enlightening our reason, by directing our conscience. We cannot distinguish between what God does and what we do in any act. The two act together. Therefore, I say, you have it in your power to resist sin, you have it in your power to become saints. No matter though your evil dispositions have been increased by past sins, you can overcome evil habits, and be what God wills you to be. Only do not be contented with a superficial religion, a religion of feelings, and frames, and sensible consolations. Go down deep, go down to the will. Let the sword of the LORD probe till it pierces even "to the division of the soul and the spirit," the point at which our higher and lower natures meet each other. Make your religion not a sham, but a reality. School yourself for heaven. Day by day fight the good fight of faith, and thus merit at last to die like a holy man at whose death St. Vincent of Paul assisted: "He is gone to heaven," said the saint, speaking of M. Sillery, "like a monarch going to take possession of his kingdom, with a strength, a confidence, a peace, a meekness, which cannot be expressed."

Sermon XVIII.

The Intercession Of The Blessed Virgin
The Highest Power Of Prayer.

(Sunday Within the Octave of the Ascension.)

"If you remain in me,
and my words remain in you,
ye shall ask whatever you will,
and it shall be done to you."
—John xv. 7.

There is perhaps no Catholic doctrine which meets with more objection among those outside the Church, than our devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Expressions of love to her, of hope in her intercession, which seem to us perfectly natural, which come from our hearts spontaneously, when they are most under the influence of Christian and holy principles, seem to them altogether at variance with Christianity. I do not believe that this comes always from prejudice, and a spirit of opposition on their part. It comes often, I am persuaded, from not understanding us. There is a link in our minds which connects this practice with other Christian doctrines, and this link is wanting in theirs; and therefore acts of devotion of this kind seem to them arbitrary and useless, an excrescence on Christianity, and even alien to its spirit. If this is the case, it cannot but be a duty and charity for us to explain, as far as possible, what is in the mind of a Catholic when he prays to the Blessed Virgin; and I shall accordingly attempt to do so this morning. Perhaps while we are thus removing a stumbling-block out of some erring brother's way, we shall be at the same time rendering our own ideas on this doctrine clearer, and its practice more intelligent.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, then, to a Catholic, represents the power of intercessory prayer in its highest form and degree.

I believe there are very few persons, indeed, who realize at all the power which is attributed to intercessory prayer in the Bible and in Christianity. The Apostles frequently exhort the Christians to whom they are writing to pray for them. They enjoined it upon them as a duty to pray for one another. What does this mean? Had not St. Paul and St. Peter influence enough with Heaven to carry their wants directly to the throne of grace? Was not the way of access to God open and easy for every one? Did God require to be reminded of the woes and wants of any child of man, by the sympathizing cries of his fellow-creatures? Was not God's own heart as large as theirs? Could any thing He had made escape His knowledge, or any sorrow fail to awaken His compassion? Or, if it did, was the intercession of Christ insufficient that any other had to be called in to supplicate? No, certainly. None of these suppositions are true. God's goodness and knowledge are infinite. He needs not to be told what is in man. He loves the work of His hands. The meanest and the poorest are in the light of His Providence. Christ's merits are infinite and universal. But after all, there stands the fact. Intercessory prayer is an ordinance of God. It is a duty to pray for others, and it is useful to have others pray for us. You may call it a mystery if you like. To me, it does not seem so very wonderful. No man lives to himself. We are not the only Christians. Many others walk alongside of us on the road to Heaven. Many are ahead of us. Many have already reached their term. Shall there be no sympathy between us? Is that principle so deeply seated in our nature to have no play in Christianity? Are we to have no interest, no feeling for each other? Or, is that sympathy to be a barren sentiment, and to have no results? God, in religion, makes use of and commands this kindness and sympathy. He makes use of it to bind all men together in a bond of love. In order to [do] this, He makes it a law that we shall pray for one another, and suspends His gifts upon its execution. {393} It is, then, to meet that nature that He has framed—it is to exalt that nature craving for sympathy—it is to give rein to charity—it is to make us always sensible and mindful of that great human family to which we belong—it is for these reasons, I conceive, that God has instituted the ordinance of intercessory prayer. But, explain it as you will, the fact cannot be denied. It is an appointment of God, and an appointment of great efficacy. It plays a large part in the history of the Bible. Elias was a man subject to like passions with us, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not for three years and six months; and he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain. Abraham prayed for Abimelech, and God healed him. When Moses prayed for the Israelites suffering under the fire with which God had visited them for their sins, the fire was quenched. In the prophet Ezechiel, God speaks as if he could not act without this intercession—as if it were really a necessary condition for the bestowal of His graces. "I sought among them for a man," he says, "that might stand in the gap before me, in favor of the land, that I might not destroy it, and I found none." [Footnote 133] St. James even seems to make salvation depend on intercessory prayer. "Pray for one another," is his language, "that ye may be saved." [Footnote 134]

[Footnote 133: Ezechiel xxii. 30.]

[Footnote 134: St. James v. 16.]

These are but a sample of the many Scriptural proofs that might be brought to show that intercessory prayer is an ordinance of God. It is one of the forms in which the goodness of God and the merits of Christ flow over upon us. By it we obtain graces from God much more easily than we could without it. And we obtain by it special graces, which we would not be likely to obtain at all without it. In this sense, perhaps, St. James meant to imply that it was necessary to our salvation. Not that it was a matter of precept to ask the prayers of this or that particular person, but that their intercession might be the condition of our obtaining graces without which our salvation would be a work of great difficulty.

But this is not all that the Scriptures tell us about intercessory prayer. They not only declare its wonderful power, but they make known to us that the efficacy of intercessory prayer depends on the goodness and merit before God of the one who offers it. I do not mean that no one should pray for another unless he is very holy. By no means. No matter how great a sinner a man may be, it is a good thing for him to pray for others, and the mercy and compassion of God, I am sure, never turn away from such a petition. But then, in such a case, it is mercy and compassion which moves God to hear the prayer. In the case of a good man praying for another, there is a sort of claim that he should be heard. Not an absolute claim, by which he can demand any thing for another, as of right, but a claim of fitness, a claim as if between friend and friend, a claim on God's bounty and generosity, which will not allow Him to turn a deaf ear to one who is faithfully striving to serve Him. The passages of inspiration which express this are very clear and very strong. "The continual prayer of a just man availeth much." [Footnote 135] There it is the prayer of a righteous man that has this efficacy. And to this agree the words of our Lord: "If ye remain in me, and my words remain in you, ye shall ask whatever ye will, and it shall be done unto you." [Footnote 136] Could words express more clearly that the power of intercessory prayer is in direct proportion to the closeness of the union which we maintain with God? And St. John reiterates the same principle when he says: "Whatsoever we shall ask we shall receive of Him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." [Footnote 137]

[Footnote 135: St. James v. 15.]

[Footnote 136: John xv. 7.]

[Footnote 137: I. St. John iii. 22.]

God's dealings, as recorded in the Bible, are in exact accordance with this rule. At the prayer of Abraham, God desisted from His purpose of destroying Sodom, because Abraham was God's friend. When the three friends of Job had displeased God by their wrong judgments and unjust suspicions, God commanded them to go to His servant Job, and he would pray for them, and him He would accept. {395} And in the prophet Ezechiel, when the Almighty would express, in the strongest possible manner, the fact that His anger was enkindled against a people and a city; that nothing, however strong, should stay its effects, He says: "And if these three men, Noe, Daniel and Job, shall be in it, they shall deliver their own souls only by their justice." [Footnote 138]

[Footnote 138: Ezechiel xiv. 14.]

As if to say: "Notwithstanding the intercession and merit of these great saints, even though they were all combined in favor of that one city, they should not avail to make Me spare such wickedness. What must be the wickedness that can force Me to withstand the power of such an appeal?"

Here, then, we have two things clearly taught in Holy Scripture. One is that intercessory prayer is an ordinance of God of great power and utility. The other is, that the degree of power this prayer has in any particular case depends on the merit of him who offers it. Who, then, shall be the favored child of man, the favored saint, who shall exercise this power in the fullest degree? Of whom it can be said literally, "Whatever thou askest of Me I will do it," because the condition of union with God is perfectly fulfilled? Who shall this be whom Holy Scripture thus clothes with this tremendous power, if it be not the Blessed Virgin Mary? My brethren, our belief in the surpassing sanctity of the Blessed Virgin is no fancy of later times. It goes back to the very beginning of Christianity. St. Ambrose wrote her praises as he had learned them from those who had received them from apostolic men. Grave, austere men, as far as possible removed from any thing like fancy religion or sentimentality, men who had suffered for the name of Christ, and even faced death in its defence, employed their art and care to coin words which might express the virtue and purity and exceeding sanctity of the Virgin Mary, as they had learned it from their forefathers. {396} And in the most ancient writings of the Church, in the Canon of the Mass, when the priest recalls by name the glorious army of Christian heroes who had gone before, always in the first place she is mentioned, the all-glorious, undefiled, immaculate Mary, Mother of God, and ever Virgin. This being so, is not her power of intercession fixed beyond dispute? Does not Scripture itself fashion out for her the glorious throne on which the Catholic Church places her? Did any remain in Christ as she did? Did His words ever so abide in any heart as in hers? Suppose a Christian who lived in the times of the Apostles, before the Blessed Virgin had gone to her rest, when she was just dying; suppose such a one sorely tried and tempted within and without; suppose him anxious about his salvation, distrustful of his own petitions, fearful of the coming storms of persecution; and suppose him in this state of mind to have read that passage of St. James, "The continual prayer of a just man availeth much," what more natural than that he should have said to himself, "I will go to ask the prayers of the dear Mother of Christ. I will ask her to use her power and influence with her Divine Son in behalf of a frail wanderer like me." And when he came into her presence and knelt before her, and kissed her hand and made his plea, and looked up to her and saw that sweet grave smile, and heard her say, "Yes, my child, when I stand in the presence of my Royal Son, and He holds out to me the golden sceptre, and says to me, what wilt thou? what is thy request? then I will remember thee!" Oh! how light his heart! Oh, how strong his soul! what a charm against sadness! what a fortress in temptation! Mary prays for me in heaven to Christ her Son! And is there any thing in this joy and confidence which reason or Christianity would condemn? If so, it must be either that intercessory prayer is not the power the Scriptures say it is, or that Mary is not the saint the Church considers her. Why, even Protestants have gone as far as this. {397} Protestants who have made the primitive form of Christianity their study and profess to accept it as their rule, as, for example, High-Church Episcopalians, have distinctly acknowledged in the seventeenth century, and in our own day, that the saints in heaven do intercede for us, and that this was the primitive doctrine of Christianity. Why, then, find fault with us for invoking the saints, and say we ought only to ask God to hear their prayers for us, as if invocation on our part were not the correlative of intercession on theirs; as if it could be right to ask a saint to pray for us the moment before he died, and wrong the moment after; as if there could be any moral difference before God between a direct and an indirect supplication for the benefit of their prayers in heaven?

Such, my brethren, is our idea when we address the Blessed Virgin for aid. It is not that we cannot go directly to God. It is not that God is not the nearest to us, and at all times accessible. It is not that, sinful as we are, we may not go with our miseries into the very presence of the Almighty. It is not that prayer to God is not the best of all prayers. It is not that we put the Blessed Virgin in the place of God. O cruel charge! It is not that we derogate from the merits of Christ. O strange misconception! But it is this—we believe in intercessory prayer. We believe that man may help his brother. We believe that Christianity is a human and a social relation; we believe that heaven is very near this earth—oh, how much nearer than ever we believed! and that in Christ we are in communion with an innumerable company of angels, and the Church of the First-born. We believe that there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over the good deeds done on earth, and that the litanies of the saints ascend over one sinner and his deeds. And we believe that this power of intercessory prayer culminates in the Blessed Virgin. We believe that she is the "one undefiled," whose way has been always in the law of the Lord. We believe that before the foundations of the earth were laid, or ever the earth and the sea were made, she was foreknown by the Almighty, spotless in purity, matchless in virtue. {398} We believe that she was the flower of humanity, the fairest type of Christianity—-and we believe, therefore, that God is as good as His word, and whatever she asks of Him, He gives it to her. This is the doctrine on which we found our devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Take our strongest language. It means no more than this: "Pray for me." You may amplify as you will, but from the necessity of the case every thing we say comes to that. Put prayer for the Blessed Virgin, suppose prayer personified in her, and you have the key to the Catholic doctrine on this subject. Strong things are said of the power of the Blessed Virgin, but so are strong things said in Holy Scripture and by holy men of the power of prayer. Whatever can be said of prayer, can be said of her. Cease, then, to misunderstand us. Acknowledge that we are but obeying Christ in praying to the Blessed Virgin. And if you will still find fault, find fault, not with us, but with God, who has instituted intercessory prayer and given such power to men.

And for you, my brethren, let these thoughts strengthen you in your confidence in the powerful intercession of the Mother of God. Our work is too severe, our difficulties are too great, for us to neglect any help God has offered us. There are many adversaries. The world, with all its seductions, passes in array before us. Why should we shut our eyes to the hosts of heaven that march unseen by our side? Why should we stay outside when we are invited to the marriage supper, and Jesus and His disciples are there, and Mary, pleader for heavy hearts, saying, "They have no wine;" and at her prayer Jesus gives them that wine that maketh glad the heart of man with the abundance of His grace and love? I have been glad to see you these bright May mornings around the altar. Persevere more and more. Your labor of love is not in vain. God's words cannot fail. His gifts are without repentance. Mary's power of intercession is as fresh this day as it was when her prayer made the miraculous wine to gush forth at the wedding feast; and until some one shall arise more blessed, more holy, nearer to Christ than she, it will remain as it is now, the highest and the most efficacious of all forms of prayer in heaven or on earth.

Sermon XIX.

Mysteries In Religion

(Trinity Sunday.)

"Oh, the depths of the riches
of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How incomprehensible are His judgments,
and how unsearchable are His ways!"
—Rom. XI. 33.

The word revelation means the discovery of something that was not known before, or the making clear something that was obscure. Now, with this idea in our mind, it may excite surprise to find how much the Christian Revelation abounds in mysteries. By mysteries, I understand truths which are imperfectly comprehended. A doctrine which contradicts reason is not a mystery it is nonsense. A doctrine which is wholly unintelligible is not a mystery: it is simply unmeaning, and cannot be the object of any intellectual act on our part. But a doctrine which is in part comprehended, and in part not, is a mystery. Now, in Christianity we meet such mysteries on every side. The Sacraments are mysteries. Grace is a mystery. The Person of Christ is a mystery. And above all, the great doctrine we commemorate to-day is a mystery. To-day is the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. To-day we call to mind that wonderful Relationship which exists in God, eternal and necessary, by which, in the undivided Unity of His Essence, there are three distinct modes of subsistence, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. {400} It seems, then, not unfitting on this day to give you some reasons why you should acquiesce in that mysteriousness of Christian doctrine, which is certainly one of its marked characteristics, and which has been urged against it as a serious objection.

And, first, I observe that mysteries are necessary attendants on religion. There can be no revelation without them. There can indeed be no knowledge without them. To a little child the earth is a plane of no great extent, and the stars are colored lamps hung in the canopy of the night. But as he grows older, he learns that the earth is very big, and that the stars are very far off, and that there are many systems of worlds above us; and now how many questions press themselves upon his mind! What is the history of this universe? How old is the earth which we inhabit? Are the stars inhabited? Science with the hard earnings of human thought and labor gives him some little satisfaction, but for every question that she sets at rest there are many new ones that she raises, and at last in every department there comes a point where she gropes, and loses her way, and stops altogether. If you light a candle in a large room it casts a bright light on the table you are sitting at, and on the pages of the book you are reading, but gives only a dim light in the distance. You see that there are pictures on the walls, but you cannot discover their subjects. You see there are books on the shelves, but you cannot read their titles. When the room was quite dark you did not know that they were there at all, and now you know them only imperfectly. So every light which knowledge kindles brings out a new set of mysteries or half-knowledges. For this reason it is that a man of true science is apt to be modest in his language. Your loud-talking philosopher, who has no difficulties, has but a very narrow scope of thought and vision. He is clear because he is shallow. But a highly educated man knows that there are a great many things he is ignorant of, and so his language is modified and qualified. {401} I believe it was Sir Isaac Newton who used to say, that in his scientific investigations he seemed to himself like a child gathering pebbles on the sea-shore. It was his vast attainments that made him sensible that Truth is as boundless as the sea. And when scientific men forget this; when they forget how much they are ignorant of; when they are boastful, over-positive, or inconsiderate in their statements, how applicable to them becomes the reproof which the Almighty addressed to Job: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? tell Me if thou hast understanding. Upon what are its bases grounded? or who laid the corner-stone thereof? By what way is light spread, and heat divided on the earth? Who is the father of the rain, or who hath begotten the drops of dew? Dost thou know the order of heaven, and canst thou set down the reason thereof on the earth? Tell Me, if thou knowest these things."

And this holds good just as well in regard to religious knowledge. Reason teaches us that there is a God, and it tells something of His Nature; but it speaks to us about Him only in riddles. God is immutable, and yet He is perfectly free: who shall reconcile these together? God is infinite, infinite in Essence, infinite in all His Attributes—try to comprehend infinitude if you can. Again, what a mystery there is in the creation of this world! What a mystery in the union of spirit and matter! Everywhere mystery is the necessary accompaniment of knowledge; and the more we know, the more mysteries will we have. If, then, God reveals to us any thing about Himself additional to that which reason can ascertain, mystery must still be the consequence. The wider the view, the more indistinct and shadowy the outline. {402} It is revealed to us that in God, without injury to His Simplicity, there is a Threefold Relationship—that the Father, contemplating Himself from all eternity, has conceived a perfect Image of Himself, and that this Image is His Son, and that the Father and the Son have loved each other from all eternity, and that this Love is the Holy Ghost—that thus the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are Three distinct, eternal, necessary Subsistences. Do not be surprised at this. Here is nothing contradictory to reason. True, it is wonderful. True, you cannot pierce it through and through. It is full of darkness. No matter. You know, when the moon comes out from behind a cloud, how sharp and well-defined the shadows become. So these darknesses of doctrine come because the light is brighter. Men talk of the simple doctrines of the gospel. There are no such things. The gospel, as a scheme of doctrine at least, is a mystery. St. Paul called it so, and so it is. It is a mystery because it reveals so much. If we did not know that God is both One in substance and Three in the mode of subsistence, our difficulties would be less, but so would our knowledge. Well does the prophet exclaim: "Verily, Thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior!" [Footnote 139]

[Footnote 139: Isai. xlv. 15.]

What, the God of Israel a hidden God! Did He not manifest Himself to the patriarchs? Did he not speak face to face with Moses? Yes, but He is all the more hidden, the more He has manifested Himself. It cannot be otherwise. God yearns to make Himself known to man, but He cannot. The secret is too deep and high. Language is too weak. Thought too slow. Reason too narrow. The very means He takes to reveal Himself conceal Him. Clouds and darkness gather around Mount Sinai as He descends upon it. The Flesh in which He was "manifested" to men serves as a veil to His Divinity. No, we cannot find out the Almighty to perfection. The time will come in heaven when by the Light of Glory our intellects shall be marvellously strengthened, and we shall see Him "as He is"—but now we see as through a glass darkly. {403} Our utmost happiness here is that of Moses, to be hidden in the rock, while the Almighty passes by and lifts His Hand that we may see a ray of His Glory. Do not complain if the ray dazzles thy feeble sight, but receive each glimpse of that Eternal Truth and Beauty thankfully, and give heed unto it, "as unto a light shining in a dark place."

But, further, mysteries are not only necessary attendants on revelation, they are really sources of advantage to us. In order to make this clear, I must remind you that Faith is one of the conditions of our acceptance with God. There was a time when men laid too much stress on faith and made light of works; then the Church had to define that works are necessary, and that there is no salvation without them. Now the contrary error is afloat. Men say: "Be moral," "Be religious in a general way, and it is no matter what a man believes." Now, this is an error as great and as dangerous as the other. "Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice." [Footnote 140] The apostles believed Christ, and were praised for it. On the other hand, those who disbelieved are reproved as being guilty of a mortal fault. "The heart of this people is grown gross: and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." [Footnote 141]

[Footnote 140: Rom. iv. 3.]

[Footnote 141: St. Matt. xiii 15.]

In like manner, when our Lord took leave of unbelieving Jerusalem, He wept over it. Now, why is this? What is there, in the act of believing or disbelieving, that is of a moral nature, that deserves praise or blame? Is not faith an act purely intellectual? I reply, faith is an act partly intellectual, partly moral. The intellect demands proof that a particular doctrine has been revealed by God, but, when that is once ascertained, faith accepts the doctrine, not because it is perfectly clear in itself, but because God reveals it. {404} Clearly, there enter into such an act many elements of morality—our reverence for God, our desire to do His Will, our humility and docility. You know it is an honor to a man for one to believe in his word, and especially for one to make ventures on the faith of his word. Just so, to make ventures on God's word is a generous, devout, and noble act. Now, it is the mysteriousness of Christian doctrine that gives faith this generous character—or rather, that makes faith possible. The obscurity of the revelation throws the weight on the authority of the Revealer. It is mystery which gives life to faith. A man is not said to believe a thing he sees. "Blessed are they," said our Blessed Lord, "that have not seen, and yet have believed." [Footnote 142]

[Footnote 142: St. John xx. 29.]

There are certain flowers that require the shade to bloom. Constant sunshine burns them up. So Faith requires the shadow of mystery. It thrives under difficulties. Abraham's faith was so admirable, because he considered not his own decrepitude, nor Sarah's barrenness, but believed he should have a son at the time appointed by the Almighty. The faith of the apostles was so pleasing to Christ because they accepted His call so readily. They might have stopped to ask a thousand questions, but they rose up without delay and followed Him.

You see, then, what I meant when I said that mysteries are of advantage to us. They enter into our probation. They are the occasion of our practising the noble virtue of faith. They are a test of moral character. Nay more, by calling into action the best principles of our nature they exalt our character. You know how it is in the world when some new and great social question is started—how everyone is affected by it. The indolent take their opinions about it from others. The prejudiced and interested judge of it according to prejudice and interest. {405} Men of principle decide it on grounds of morality. But everyone's position is in some way changed by it. So it is with the gospel. Its preaching throws men into new attitudes. "The Cross of Christ is to them that perish foolishness, but to them that are saved it is the power of God." [Footnote 143] The proud and the perverse stumble at this stumbling-stone, but men of "good will," the humble, and the loving, find it a precious corner-stone on which their faith has a solid foundation, and on which they are built up to everlasting life. So it was in the time of Christ. After our Lord had been preaching for some time, He inquired of the apostles into the effects of His preaching: "Whom do men say that the Son of Man is?" And they said: "Some say that thou art John the Baptist, and others Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets." "But whom do you say that I am?" [Footnote 144] —and Faith, undaunted by difficulties, answers by the mouth of St. Peter: "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God." On another occasion, after He had performed the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, as we read in St. John's Gospel, He taught the people the doctrine of the Real Presence in Holy Communion: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you." [Footnote 145] Now, what happened? Many were offended and walked with Him no more. It was too great a mystery. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" they said. And our Lord turned to His disciples and said—it seems to me I can see His anxious countenance, and hear His tones of sorrow as He asks the question—"Will you also go away?" And again Peter answered on behalf of all: "To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of Eternal Life." As much as to say, "Thou art the Truth; no mystery at Thy mouth can deter us."

[Footnote 143: I. Cor. i. 18.]

[Footnote 144: St. Matt. xvi. 13.]

[Footnote 145: St. John vi. 54.]

So it has been, also, throughout the history of the Church. What are all the heresies that have arisen but the scandal which the world has taken at the Christian mysteries, and what are all the decisions of the Church but acts of loyalty and submission to Him who is "the Faithful and True Witness"?

And the same thing is going on in our day. "Wisdom preacheth abroad: she uttereth her voice in the streets." [Footnote 146] The Catholic Church publishes those startling doctrines which have come down to her from the beginning, which have been held everywhere and by all—the principality of the Roman See, the Power of Forgiveness of Sins, the necessity of Penance, the grace of the Sacraments—and what is the result? The children of wisdom, they whose hearts are tender, enter her sacred fold and are blessed. But many listen and say: "It is all very well, if we could believe it. If we could believe it! And is it, then, not credible? Has not God given His revelation complete credibility? Can we not believe Jesus Christ? "God, Who in times past spoke to the father's by the prophets, hath in these days spoken unto us by His Son." [Footnote 147] "No one knoweth the Father but the Son and He to whom the Son will reveal Him." [Footnote 148]

[Footnote 146: Prov. i. 20.]

[Footnote 147: Heb. i. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 148: Matt. xi. 27.]

Jesus Christ has spoken. Miracles and prophecy attest His Truth and Authority. Can you, then, innocently refuse to listen? "Surely they will reverence my son," was the language of the father in the parable; will not God the Father Almighty look for an equal submission to His Eternal and Coequal Son? Can He speak, and you go on as if He had not spoken? Can you pick and choose among His doctrines, and take up one and reject another? No, to turn back, to stand still, to falter, is a crime. The trumpet has sounded: men are marshalling themselves for the valley of decision. Oh, take your part with the generation of faithful men, the true children of Abraham, who have "attested by their seal that God is true." Have courage to believe. Plunge into the waters with St. Peter, for it is Christ that is beckoning you on. To believe is an act of duty—of fidelity to your own intelligence, of generosity and devotion to God. {407} "Without faith it is not possible to please God." [Footnote 149] Faith is the door to all supernatural blessings. There is a whole world that exists not to a man that has not faith. Faith enlarges our thoughts, opens our hearts, elevates us above ourselves and multiplies a thousand-fold our happiness. Why do men grope in darkness? Why do they remain in ignorance, when by one generous resolve, one courageous act of faith, an act so noble, so meritorious, they might enter into that Glorious Temple of Truth that has come down out of heaven to man, might enter and dwell therein, and their hearts wonder and be enlarged? Happy those who can say with the Psalmist: "Thy testimonies are wonderful; therefore hath my soul sought them." [Footnote 150] They are wonderful—they rest for their evidence on Thy Word and Thy Truth, therefore I believe them and love them, for to believe Thee is my first duty and my highest wisdom.

[Footnote 149: Heb. xi. 6.]

[Footnote 150: Ps. cxviii 129.]

Let not, then, the mysteries of our holy religion disturb us, my brethren, but rather let them make us rejoice. For what are they but the evidences of the greatness of our religion? They do not repel, they attract us. We believe them on the authority of God, and we esteem it both a duty and a delight to do so. Neither are they all dark in themselves. Nay, they are only dark from excess of light. Each one of them has much that addresses itself to our understanding, much that enlists our affections. The angels in heaven worship the Trinity with devoutest adoration. "I saw the Seraphim," says the prophet, "and they covered their faces and cried: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts!" [Footnote 151]

[Footnote 151: Isai. vi. 3.]

Incessantly sings the Church on earth: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." There have been saints who so dwelt upon all that Faith teaches us of God, that they had to go by themselves, in quiet places, for their hearts were all but breaking with the sweet but awful sense of His Majesty. {408} Let us, too, learn to love these mysteries and meditate on them. We live in the midst of great realities. "You are come to Mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands of angels, and to the Church of the first-born, who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testament." [Footnote 152]

[Footnote 152: Heb. xii. 22, 23, 24.]

Day by day, let it be our endeavor to pierce into these holy truths more and more, that at last, like Moses, our countenances may reflect some portion of their beauty and brightness, that continually "beholding the glory of the Lord we may be transformed into the same image from glory to glory." [Footnote 153]

[Footnote 153: II Cor. iii. 18.]

Sermon XX.

The Worth Of The Soul.

(Third Sunday After Pentecost.)

"There shall be joy before the angels of God
over one sinner doing penance."
St. Luke xv. 10.

This is what theologians call an accidental joy. The essential joy of heaven consists in the perfect knowledge and love of God, and is unchangeable and eternal; but the accidental joy of heaven springs from the knowledge of those events in time which display the goodness and greatness of God. The first of these events was the creation itself, when the hand of God spread the carpet of the earth, and stretched the curtains of the heavens. {409} Then "the morning stars praised Him together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody." [Footnote 154]

[Footnote 154: Job xxxviii 7.]

After this the great historic events of the world have been successively the burden of the angelic songs—the unfolding of the plan of Redemption, the birth of Christ, the triumphs of the Church. But lo! of a sudden these lofty strains are stopped. There is silence for a moment, and then the golden harps take up a new and tenderer theme. What is it that has happened? What is the event that can interrupt the great harmonies of Heaven, and furnish the Angels with a new song? In some corner of the earth, in some secret chamber, in some confessional, on some sickbed, in some dark prison, a sinner is doing penance. He prays, whose mouth had been full of cursings. He weeps, who had made a mock at sin. The slave of Satan and of Hell turns back to God and Heaven—and that is the reason of this unusual joy. It is not that a recovered sinner is really of more account than one who has never fallen, but his recovery from danger is the occasion of expressing that esteem and love for the souls of men which always fills the heart of God and the Angels. Therefore, as that contrite cry reaches heaven, the Angels are silent, for they know that there is no music in the ear of God like that. And then, when God has ratified the absolving words of the priest, and restored the contrite sinner to His favor, they cast themselves before the throne, and break forth into loud swelling strains of ecstasy and triumph, while He Himself smiles His sympathy and joy. O my brethren, what a revelation this is! A revelation of the value of the soul. There are great rejoicings on earth when a battle is won, or upon the occasion of the visit of some great statesman or warrior, or when some great commercial enterprise is successful, but these things do not cause joy in Heaven. The conversion of one soul—it may be a child, or a young man, or an old woman—the conversion of one soul, that it is that makes a gala day in Heaven. {410} Now, God sees every thing just as it is, and if there are such rejoicings in Heaven when a soul is won, what must be the value of a soul! Let us confess the truth, we have not thought enough of the value of a soul. We have thought too much of the world, of its pleasures, of its profits, of its honors, but too little of our own souls. We have not thought of them as God thinks of them. Let us, then, strive to exalt our ideas, by considering some of the reasons why we should put a high value on our souls.

In the first place, we should value a human soul, because it is in itself superior to any thing else in the world. The whole world, indeed, with every thing in it, is good, for God made it. But He proceeded in a very different manner in the creation of the material world from what He did when He made the soul. He made the world, the trees, the rivers, the lights of heaven, the living creatures on the earth, by the mere word of his power. "God said, Be light made. And light was made." [Footnote 155]

[Footnote 155: Gen. i. 3.]

And God said, "Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind. And it was so." [Footnote 156] But when He made the soul, the Scriptures tell us, "He breathed into the face of man and he became a living soul." [Footnote 157]

[Footnote 156: Gen. i. 12.]

[Footnote 157: Gen. i. 26.]

By this action we are to understand that God communicated to man a nature kindred to his own divinity. The Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, is the uncreated Spirit of God, eternally breathing forth and proceeding from the Father and the Son; and God, when He breathed into the face of man, signified that He imparted to man a created spirit kindred to his own eternal Spirit. The Holy Scriptures, indeed, expressly tell us that such was the case: "Let us make man to our image and our likeness." [Footnote 158]

[Footnote 158: Gen. i. 26, 27.]

This likeness consisted in the possession of understanding and free will, the power of knowledge and love—the two great attributes of God himself. You are, then, my brethren, endowed with a soul which raises you immeasurably above God's material creation. You have a soul made after God's image. This is the source of your power. The two things go together in Holy Scripture. "Let us make man to our image and likeness; and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth." [Footnote 159] In the state of original innocence, no doubt, this dominion was more perfect, but even now it exists in a great degree. "Every kind of beast, and of birds, and of serpents, and of the rest, is tamed, and hath been tamed by mankind." [Footnote 160]

[Footnote 159: Gen. ii. 7.]

[Footnote 160: St. James iii. 7.]

See how a little boy can drive a horse. See how a dog obeys his master's eye and voice. See how even lions and tigers become submissive to their keepers. And the elements, often wilder than ferocious beasts, are obedient to you. The fire warms you and cooks for you, and carries you when you want to travel for business or pleasure. The wind fans the sails of your vessels, and the waters make a path for them under your feet. Even the lightning leaps and exults to do your bidding and to be the messenger of your will. Thus every thing falls down before you and does you homage, and proclaims you lord and master. What is the reason that every thing thus honors you? It is on account of the soul that is in you—the power of reason and will—the godlike nature with which you are endowed.

Yes, and your soul is the source of your beauty, too. In what consists the beauty of a man? Is it a mere regularity of form and feature? Do you judge of a man as you do of a horse or a dog? {412} No; the most exquisitely chiselled features do not interest you, until you see intelligence light up the eye, and charity irradiate the countenance—then you are captivated. A man may be a perfect model of grace in his movements without exciting you, but when he becomes warm with inspirations of wisdom and virtue, when his words flow, his eye sparkles, his breast heaves, his whole frame becomes alive with the emotions of his soul, then it is you are carried away, you are ready almost to fall down and worship. What is the reason that Christian art has so far surpassed heathen art? that the Madonna is so far more beautiful than the Venus de Medicis? It is because the heathens portrayed mere natural beauty; the Christians portrayed the beauty of the soul. And if the soul is so beautiful in the little rays that escape from the body, what must it be in itself? God has divided his universe into several orders, and we find the lowest in a superior order higher than the highest in the inferior order. The soul, then, is more beautiful than any thing material. "She is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars: being compared with the light she is found before it." [Footnote 161]

[Footnote 161: Wisdom vii. 29.]

O my brethren, do not admire men for their form, or their dress, or their grace, but admire then for the soul that is in them, for that is the true source of their beauty.

It is also the secret of their destiny. God did not give you this great gift to be idle. He gave it for a worthy end. He gave understanding that you might know Him, and free will that you might love Him; and this is the true destiny of man. You were not made to toil here for a few days, and then to perish. You were made to know God, to be the friend of God, the companion of God, to think of God, to converse with God, to be united to God here, and then to enjoy God hereafter forever. Once more, then, I say, do not admire a man for his wealth, or his appearance, or his learning. Do not ask whether he is poor or rich, ignorant or learned, from what nation he springs, whether he lives in a cabin or palace. {413} Let it be enough that he is a man, possessed of understanding and free will, spiritual and immortal, with a soul and an eternal destiny. That is enough. Bow down before him with respect. Yes, respect yourselves—not for your birth, or your station, or your wealth, but for your manhood. "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches. But let him that glorieth glory in this, that HE UNDERSTANDETH AND KNOWETH ME." [Footnote 162] Yes, my brethren, this is your true dignity, the soul that is in you—the soul, that makes you capable of knowing and loving God.

[Footnote 162: Jer. ix. 23, 24.]

And yet, there is another reason why you should value your souls, besides their intrinsic excellence—I mean, the great things that have been done for them. Do you ask me what has been done for your souls? I ask you to look above you, and around you, and under you. Oh, how fair the earth is! See these rivers and hills! Look on the green grass! Behold the blue vault of heaven! Well, this is the palace God has prepared for your abode; nay, not for your abode—your dwelling-place is beyond the skies, where "the light of the moon is as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven-fold, as the light if seven days,"—but for the place of your sojourn. This earth was made for you; and, as your destiny is eternal, therefore the earth must have been made to subserve your eternal destiny. Why does the sun rise in the morning, and go down at night? It is for you—for your soul. Why do summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, return so regularly? It is for you, and your salvation. The earth is for the elect. When the elect shall be completed, the earth, having done its work, will be destroyed. This is the end to which, in God's design, all things are tending. God does not look at the world, or its history, as we do. {414} We say: "Here such a great battle was fought;" "there such a celebrated man was born;" "in this epoch such an empire took its rise, such a dynasty came to an end." But God says: "Here it was a little child died after baptism, and went straight to heaven;" "there it was I recovered that gifted soul, which had wandered away into error and sin, but which afterward became so great in sanctity;" "in such an age it was that I lost that great nation which fell away from the faith, and in such another, by the preaching of My missionary, I won whole peoples from heathenism." I know we shrink from this in half unbelief: When it is brought home to us that this little earth is the centre of God's counsels, and our souls of the universe, we are amazed and offended. But so it is. "All things work together unto good to them that love God." [Footnote 163] All things; not blindly, but by the overruling Providence of Him who made them for this end.

[Footnote 163: Rom. viii. 28.]

Do you ask me what has been done for your souls? I answer, the Church has been established for them. Look at the Church, and see how many are her officers and members—Bishops, Priests, Levites, Teachers, Students. All are yours—all are for you. For you the Pope sits on his throne; for you Bishops rule their Sees; for you the Priest goes up to the altar; for you the Teacher takes his chair, and the Student grows pale in the search for science. That the Apostolic commission might come down to you, St. Peter and St. Linus and Cletus ordained Bishops in the churches. That the true doctrine of Christ might come down to you uncorrupted, the Fathers of the Church gathered in council, at Nice, and Ephesus, and Chalcedon, and Trent. That you might hear of the glad tidings of Christ, St. Paul and St. Patrick labored and died. For you, for each one of you, as if there were no other, the great machinery of grace, if I may express myself so coarsely, goes on.

Do you ask what has been done for your souls? Angels and Archangels, and Thrones and Dominions, and Principalities and Powers—all the hosts of Heaven—have labored for them. "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for those who shall receive the inheritance of salvation?" [Footnote 164]

[Footnote 164: Heb. i 14.]

For you the whole Court of Heaven is interested, and one bright particular Angel is commissioned to be your guardian. For you St. Gabriel flew on his message of joy to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and St. Michael, the standard-bearer, waits at the gate of death.

Do you ask what has been done for your souls? From all eternity God has thought of them, the means of salvation have been determined on, the chain of graces arranged. And the Son of God has worked for them. Galilee, and Judea, and Calvary were the scenes of His labors on earth, and on His mediatorial throne in heaven He carries on still His unceasing labors in our behalf. And the Holy Ghost has worked. He spake by the Prophets, and on the day of Pentecost He came to take up His abode in the Church, never to be overcome by error, or grieved away by sin, to vivify the Sacraments, and to enlighten the hearts of the faithful by the preaching of the Gospel and His own holy inspirations.

Why, who are you, my brethren? The woman at Endor, when she had pierced the disguise of Saul, and knew that she was talking with a king, was afraid, and "said with a loud voice: 'Why hast thou deceived me, for thou art Saul?'" [Footnote 165]

[Footnote 165: I. Kings xxviii. 12.]

[Transcribers Note: The correct reference is I. Samuel xxviii. 12.]

So, I ask you, who are you? I look upon your faces, and I see nothing to make me afraid; but faith tears away the disguise, and I see each one of you radiant with light, a true prince, and an heir of heaven. I look above, and see Heaven open and the Angels of God ascending and descending on errands of which you are the object. {416} I look higher yet, and I see God the Father watching you with anxiety, and the Son offering his blood for you, and the Holy Ghost pleading with you, and the Saints and Angels, some with folded hands supplicating for you, and others pointing with outstretched finger to the glorious throne reserved in Heaven for you.

Have you, my brethren, so regarded yourselves? Have you valued that soul of yours? Have you kept it as your most sacred treasure? Is it now safe and secure? Oh, how carefully do men keep a treasure they value highly! Kings spend many thousand dollars yearly just to take care of a few jewels. The crown jewels of England are kept, as you know, in the Tower. It is a heavy fortress, guarded by soldiers who are always on watch. At each door and avenue there is an armed sentinel. The jewels themselves are kept in glass cases, and visitors are not allowed to touch them. And all this pains and outlay to take care of a few stones that have come down to the Queen by descent, or been taken from her enemies! And that precious soul of yours, before which all the wealth of the world is but worthless dross with what care have you kept that? Alas! every door has been left open. No guard has been at your eyes to keep out evil looks. No guard at your ears to keep out the whispers of temptation. No guard at your lips to stop the way to the profane or filthy word. Nay, not only have you kept up no guard, but you have carried your soul where soul-thieves congregate. The Holy Scripture says: "A net is spread in vain before the eyes of a bird." [Footnote 166]

[Footnote 166: Provo i. 17.]

Yes, the birds and beasts are cunning enough to avoid an open snare; but you go rashly into dangers that are apparent to all but you. Sinners lie in wait for you. They say, in the language of Scripture: "Come, let us lie in wait for blood; let us hide snares for the innocent without cause. Let us swallow him up alive like hell, and whole as one that goeth down into the pit"—and you trust yourself in their power. Oh, fly from them! {417} Consider the treasure you carry. "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Will you sin against your own soul? you that are made after God's likeness; you that are princely and of noble rank, will you defile that image, and degrade yourselves to a level with the brutes that perish?

But there are others whose offence is of another kind. They let their salvation go by sheer neglect. If a man plants a seed, he must water it, or it will not grow. So the soul needs the dew of God's grace; and prayer and the sacraments are the channels of God's grace. Yet how men neglect the Sacraments! Even at Easter, when we are obliged to receive them, some absent themselves. It has been a matter of the keenest pain to us to miss some members of this congregation during the late Paschal season. You say, you have nothing on your conscience, and it is not necessary to go to confession. But is it not necessary to go to communion? Will you venture to deprive yourselves of that food of which, unless ye eat, the Saviour has said, "Ye have no life in you?" Or; you have a sad story to tell. You have fallen into mortal sin, and you are afraid to come. But do you think we have none of the charity of the Angels? Only convert truly, for it is a true conversion that gives the Angels joy, and we can give you the promise that Thomas à Kempis puts into the mouth of Him whose place we fill: "How often soever a man truly repents and comes to Me for grace and pardon, as I live, saith the Lord, who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live, I will not remember his sins any more, but all shall be pardoned him."

And to you, my brethren, who, during the Easter season just past, have recovered the grace of God, I have a word of advice to give in conclusion. Keep your souls with all diligence. Keep your souls; that is your chief, your only care. Keep them by fleeing from the occasions of sin. {418} Keep them by overcoming habitual sins. Nourish them by prayer and the sacraments. How great a disgrace, that all the irrational world should do the will of God, and you, the rulers of the world, should not do it! "The kite in the air hath known her time; the turtle, and the swallow, and the stork have observed the time of their coming; but my people have not known the judgment of the Lord." [Footnote 167]

[Footnote 167: Jer. viii. 7.]

How great an evil it is in a state when an unworthy ruler is at its head. The people mourn and languish, and at last rebel. So, when a man neglects the end for which he was made, the whole creation cries out against him. The stones under his feet cry out. The air he breathes, the food he eats, protest against the abuse he makes of them. Balaam's ass rebuked the madness of the prophet; so, when you live in sin, the very beasts cry out: "If we had souls, we would not be as you. Now we serve God blindly, and of necessity; but if we had souls, it would be our pride and happiness to give Him our willing service." All things praise the Lord;—"showers and dew;" "fire and heat;" "mountains and hills;" "seas and rivers;" "beasts and cattle." O sons of men, make not a discord in the universal harmony! Receive not your souls in vain! Serve God; "praise Him and exalt Him forever."

Sermon XXI.

The Catholic's Certitude Concerning
The Way Of Salvation.

(Fifth Sunday After Pentecost.)

"I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day."
—II. Tim. I. 12.

No one can deny that this sentiment of the Apostle is a very comfortable one. To be confident of salvation is surely an excellent and desirable thing. But the question with many will be, is it possible to attain it? {419} Now, there is one sense in which we cannot have a security of our salvation. We cannot have personally an infallible assurance that we are now and shall always continue in the grace of God, and shall at last taste the joys of heaven. Our free-will forbids such an assurance, and neither our happiness nor the attributes of God demand it. But there is another sense in which a man may be said to have a security of his salvation, viz.: that he has within his reach, beyond all doubt, the proper and necessary means for attaining that end; for if the means are certain, it is plain that in the use of those means he may acquire a moral certainty that he is doing those things which God requires of him, and a well-grounded hope of everlasting life. Such a security it would seem a man ought to be able to attain. Without it the service of God must be slavish. There can be no free and generous service where there is not confidence. When one is travelling at night on a road he is ignorant of, he goes slow, he falters; but in the broad daylight, in a road he is sure of, he walks with a free, bold step. So in religion, if we have no security that we are right, we can never do much for God. Man is not an abject being; he is erect; he looks up to heaven; he seems to face his Maker and to demand from Him to know the terms on which he stands toward Him. A confidence, then, at least of being able to secure our salvation, must be within our reach. The only question is, how is it to be attained? I answer, the Catholic has within his reach the security of his salvation, and he alone.

In order to show this to you, I must remind you of what I mean by salvation. Put out of your minds that childish idea that salvation is an external, arbitrary reward, given to some men when they die, and denied to others, as a father gives a book or a plaything to an obedient child, and refuses it to a disobedient. Salvation is union with God. We are made for God. That is our high destiny. In God are our life and happiness; and out of God our death and ruin. {420} Salvation is our union with God for all eternity, and, in order to be united to God for all eternity, we must be united to Him here. Our salvation must begin here. Now, we are united to God when our intelligence is united to His intelligence by the knowledge of His truth, and our will united to His will by the practice of His love. When I affirm, then, that the Catholic alone has the means of attaining a security of salvation, I mean that he alone has the certain means of coming to the knowledge of His truth, and the practice of His will.

I say the certain means of coming to the knowledge of His truth, for it is one thing to have a certain knowledge of a thing, and another to have only some ideas about it. We see this difference when we contrast the language of a man who is master of a science with that of one who has only vague notions about it. One possesses his knowledge—knows what he knows—can make use of it; while the other is embarrassed the moment he attempts to use his knowledge—is uncertain whether he is right or wrong—is driven to guesses and conjectures. In the same way, in religion, it is one thing to have convictions more or less deep—opinions more or less probable, to be acquainted with its history and able to talk about it—and quite another to have certainty in religion, to know that one is right. This is the assurance I claim as the special possession of the Catholic. There can be no doubt that Catholics do, in point of fact, show a much deeper conviction of the truth of their religion than Protestants. This is a matter of common observation, and the proofs of it are on every side. Officers who come back from the army tell how struck they have been with the fact that the Catholic soldiers believe their religion and carry it with them to the camp. Proselyting societies make frequent confession of the difficulty they find in undermining the faith even of ignorant and needy Catholics. Those who have experience at death-beds, know that faith is found sometimes surviving almost every other good principle, and making a return to God possible. {421} Those who are familiar with the history of the Church know that this faith is strong enough to bear the severest tests which can be applied to it; that it has often led men to despise what the world most esteems—wealth, pleasures, honor; that it sends the missionary to heathen countries without a regret for the home and the native land he leaves behind him; that, in fine, it has often led men in times past, and still at this day leads them joyfully to the rack, the stake, and the scaffold. Now, whence comes this deep and fixed certainty in religion? Is it a mere prejudice that melts before investigation? Is it a stupid fanaticism? Or has it a reasonable basis, and are its foundations deep in the laws of the human mind? I answer, Catholics have this undoubting conviction on the principle of faith in an infallible authority. There are but two principles of Christian belief, when we come to the bottom of the matter. One is the Protestant principle, viz.: that each one is to settle his faith for himself, by a study of the clear records of Christianity. The other is the Catholic principle, viz.: that each one is to receive his faith from an infallible authority. I feel as if I ought to pause here for a while to explain to you what is meant by this principle, for there exists in regard to it in some minds a misconception which does us the grossest injustice. Some persons imagine that our creed is manufactured for us by the Pope and the Bishops; that whatever they may think right and good they may decree, and forthwith we are bound to believe it. But this is an enormous mistake. The authority to which I submit myself is something far more august. It lies behind Pope and Bishop, and they must bow to it as well as I. The Pope and the Bishops are the organs of this authority, not its sources. When we speak of learning from an infallible authority, we mean that a man is to find out the truth by putting his intelligence in communication with that living stream of truth that flows down through the channel of tradition, that living word of God, that public preaching of the truth in the true Church, begun by the Apostles, carried on by their successors, confessed by so many people, recorded in so many monuments, adorned by so many sacrifices, attested by so many miracles. {422} Unquestionably, this was the mode in which men were expected to learn the truth in apostolic days. It would not have been of the least avail for a man to have said to the Apostles that his convictions differed from theirs. He would have been instantly regarded as in error. "We are of God," says St. John; "he that is of God, heareth us; he that is not of God, heareth not us. By this shall ye know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error." [Footnote 168]

[Footnote 168: I St. John iv. 6.]

Nor is there the least intimation in the New Testament that this principle was to be departed from after the death of the Apostles. On the contrary, we find that the Apostles ordained others, and communicated to them their doctrine and authority, that they might go on and preach just as they had done. And we find in the early Church that whenever a dispute arose about doctrine it was settled on the same principle, viz.: by an appeal to the tradition of the churches that had been founded by the Apostles. Thus, when a heresy arose in the second century, Tertullian confronts it by bidding them compare their doctrine with that of the Apostolic Churches: "If thou art in Achaia," he says, "thou hast Corinth; if thou art near Macedonia, thou hast Philippi; if thou art in Italy, thou hast Rome. Happy Church! to which the Apostles bequeathed not only their blood, but all their doctrines. See what she has learned, see what she has taught." [Footnote 169]

[Footnote 169: Adv. Præscr. Hær. n. 32-6.]

Such is the principle on which the Catholic Church acts to this day. Now, while the Protestant principle of private judgment in its own nature cannot lead to certainty, while in point of fact it has led only to endless dispute, until in our own day it has ended by bringing those Divine Records, which it began by exalting so highly, into doubt and contempt; the Catholic principle, which, I have stated, is the principle of tradition, is adapted to give a complete and a reasonable certainty and assurance. {423} The reasons why this public tradition of the living Church has this power are manifold. They are in part natural, and in part supernatural—universal consent, internal consistency, Divine Attestation, the Warrant and Promise of Christ; all of which are so well summed up by St. Augustine, in that famous letter of his to the Manichees: "I am kept in the Catholic Church," he says, "by the consent of peoples and nations. By an authority begun with miracles, nourished by hope, increased by charity, confirmed by antiquity. By the succession of priests from the chair of St. Peter the Apostle—to whom our Lord after His resurrection gave His sheep to be fed—down to the present Bishop. In fine, by that very name of Catholic, which this Church alone has held possession of; so that though heretics would fain have called themselves Catholics, yet to the inquiry of a stranger, 'Where is the meeting of the Catholic Church held?' no one of them would dare to point to his own basilica." [Footnote 170]

[Footnote 170: Con. Ep. Manich. i. 5. 6.]

The conviction which such considerations produce is so deep that a Catholic rests in it with the most undoubting certainty. He can bear to look into his belief, to examine its grounds; he feels it is a venerable belief. He says it is impossible that God would allow error to wear so many marks of truth. To imagine it, would be to impugn His Truth, His Justice, His Power, His Goodness. And therefore, our belief in the Catholic religion is only another form of our belief in God. The foundation of that belief is deep and abiding, for it is the Eternal Throne of God. That desire for truth which is implanted in man's nature is not, then, given only to be baffled and disappointed—here is its fulfilment. Man is not raised to a participation in Christ of the Divine Nature, to be left in doubt of the most essential truths. {424} To the Catholic are fulfilled those pleasant words of Christ: "I will not now call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; but have called you friends, because all things, whatsoever I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you." [Footnote 171]

[Footnote 171: St. John xv. 15.]

But some one may make an objection to my doctrine that certainty about truth is the result only of the Catholic principle of faith, and say: "You do not mean to assert that Protestants have no faith at all?" A Protestant may say to me: "I acknowledge that we have among us a great deal of disunion, and a great deal of doubt, but after all there are some things that are believed by some of us, that are believed without doubt, and you will not deny it." No, I will not deny it. I am glad to think that it is true. But how did you come by that belief? You did not come by it on the principle of Protestantism. The truth is, that principle never has been, and never can be carried out. Thank God, it is so. Utter unbelief would be the consequence. You have a child—a child that you love dearly. Will you wait, as your Protestantism requires you to do, till he is grown up, for him to form his religious convictions? No; if you love him, you will not. Your heart will teach you a better wisdom. You will tell him about God, you will tell him Who Christ is, and what He has done for him. You will tell him these things not doubtingly, not as if he was to suspend his judgment on them, but as true, and as to be believed then and there. And as he looks up at you out of his trusting eyes, he believes you. But how does he believe you? On the principle of a Protestant, or a Catholic? On the principle of private judgment, or on faith in an infallible authority? Surely it is as a Catholic he believes? You represent to him the Great Teacher, and his childish soul, in listening to you, hears the voice of God, performs a great act of religion, and does his first act of homage to Truth. His nature prompts him to believe you. Perhaps he is baptized, and then there is a grace in his heart which secretly inclines him the more to credit you, and he believes without doubting. He is a Catholic. {425} Yes, my brethren, there is many a child of Protestant parents who is a Catholic—a Catholic, that is, in all but the name, and the fulness of instruction, and the richness of privilege. He may grow up in this way, perhaps continue all his life in this childish faith and trust. I will not say it may not be so. But let his reason fully awaken. Let him honestly go down to the foundation of his faith and see on what it rests, and then let him remain a Protestant, and retain his undoubting assurance if he can. He cannot—a crisis in his history has come. The sun has arisen with its living heat. The flower begins to wither. It must be transplanted or it will die. One of three things will happen: either the man, finding that he has not learned all that the Great Teacher has revealed, will go on to accept the rest and will become a Catholic; or he will learn to doubt what he has received already and become a sceptic; or he will stick to the creed he has received from his fathers or picked up for himself, and doggedly refuse to add to it, thus rendering himself at the same moment amenable in the Court of Reason for unreasonableness in what he holds, and in the Court of Faith for unbelief in what he rejects. So true it is that all the faith there is in the world is naturally allied to Catholicity. If men were perfectly reasonable and consistent, there would be only two parties in the religious world. Protestantism would disappear. On the one side would be faith, certainty, Catholicity; on the other, doubt and unbelief.

Nor is this all. The Catholic has not only a certain means of arriving at the knowledge of God's Faith, but he has also the sure means of knowing what he is bound to do in order to [obtain] salvation. Christianity is a supernatural religion, and therefore it suggests many questions to which natural reason cannot give the answer. By what means can I be united to Christ? Suppose I am in mortal sin, how can I be forgiven? {426} What are the precise obligations binding on me as a Christian? Now, how distinctly, how promptly were such questions answered in the time of the Apostles! When St. Paul came to Ananias to know what he was to do, the answer was given to him: "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." In the same way in the Catholic Church of this day, when a convert asks the same question, he gets the same answer: Seek in faith and repentance the cleansing of baptism, and thou shalt be joined unto Christ. Dost thou wish to know the life thou must practise? It is written in the ten commandments and the precepts of the Church. Dost thou wish to know where thou wilt gain strength to keep these laws? In prayer and the sacraments. The Church tells you how many there are, what is their efficacy, and the conditions of their saving operation. Art thou in sin after baptism? Dost thou ask the way back to God? The Church tells thee that sorrow for sin is the way back, and that this sorrow, when it is completed by confession, and accepted by the absolution of the priest, has a sacramental efficacy. So precise are the answers of Catholicity to the important practical questions of Christianity; and the authority which, I have already said, attaches to her words, gives ease and certainty to the conscience. But how different is all this in Protestantism! How various the answers given to these questions by the different sects! Nay, how contradictory sometimes the answers given in the same sect! It would be odious to go into particulars on this subject, but I say what I know when I affirm that an intelligent Protestant cannot have faith in his Church, if he would; he may adopt a set of opinions and associate with those who hold them, but he cannot have faith in his Church as a Church. It is not long since an intelligent member of one of the most enlightened Protestant denominations told me that the members of that Church did not seem to be satisfied with it, only they did not know whether there was any other Church in the world that would satisfy them. {427} I say what I know when I affirm that there are young children in Protestant Churches who weep because they are told that God hates them, and they do not know how to gain His love. That there are numbers of young men, full of generous and noble thoughts and impulses, who are utterly destitute of any fixed Christian belief; who say they would like to believe, but they cannot. That there are multitudes and multitudes who die in this land, who die without one single Christian act, and many who submit at their last hour to take part in such acts at the request of friends, and on the chance that there may be some good in them. That there are some who openly lament that they were not born Catholics, that they might have had faith; some who rise in the night to cry to God out of the hopeless darkness that surrounds them; some who, in despair of seeing God with an intelligent faith, take up a substitute, the best of all, it is true, but still very insufficient—works of benevolence and philanthropy, and the beauties of a merely moral life; some who would welcome death itself if it would but remove their agony of doubt.

I do not say these things, my Protestant friends, if any such are present, to mock your miseries. Far from it. I know you too well. I love you too much. I say these things to lead you to truth and peace. I call to you struggling with the waves, from the rock whereon our feet have found a resting-place. I speak to you to the same effect as Christ spoke to the woman at the well of Jacob, who was a member of the schismatical Samaritan Church. You worship you know not what. We know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews. You know not what you worship. Your religion is at the best one of doubt and uncertainty. We know what we worship. We are certain we are right, for salvation is of us. We are the Israelites. To us belongeth the adoption of children, and the glory, and the covenant, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises. {428} This is the mountain of the Lord established in the last days on the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills, into which the nations flow. O you who know not this home of peace, God did not make you to be as you are, to be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, to follow blind guides, to give your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not. No, come with us and be happy. Come with us and be blessed. Come, let us go the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths, for the law shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Incline your ear unto me and you shall live—the life of faith—the life of certainty and hope. You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace. Instead of the shrub shall come up the fir tree: and instead of the nettle shall come up the myrtle tree. All nature shall sympathise in your happiness. The mountains and hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the country shall clap their hands.

And you, my dear Catholics, be not indifferent to the graces God has given you, nor slothful in their use. You have it your power to make sure your salvation. About the means there is no uncertainty. They are infallible. It is of the Catholic Church that the prophet spoke when he said: "A path shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called a holy way, and this shall be unto you a straight way, so that even fools shall not err therein." [Footnote 172] And again: "This saith the Lord God: I will lay a stone in the foundation of Sion, a tried stone, a corner-stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation." [Footnote 173]

[Footnote 172: Isai. xxxv. 8.]

[Footnote 173: Ibid. xxviii. 16.]

A way to heaven in this dark, uncertain world! a straight, a sure, a certain way! A rock under our feet under this swelling sea! O my brethren, what blessings are these! Let them not be in vain. Be not found at the last day with your lights gone out! The just shall live by faith. Live by yours. Do you wish to advance in a good life? Your faith tells you how. Does sin wage a war against you? Your faith tells you how to meet the combat. Are you in sin? Your faith tells you how to be forgiven. Correspond, then, honestly with this faith, and you may enjoy a firm hope of heaven, a hope not based on excited feelings, not claiming to be a direct inspiration from on high, but a reasonable hope, that will stay by you in adversity, and support you at the hour of death. Claim, then, your privilege. Assert the freedom wherewith Christ has made you free. Be not troubled or anxious all your days. Do your part, act up to your Catholic conscience, then lift up your heads, eat your bread with joy, and let your garments be always white, for God now accepteth your works. In this is the love of God perfected in us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment. "Wherefore, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." [Footnote 174]

[Footnote 174: I. Cor. xv. 58.]

Sermon XXII.

The Presence Of God.

(Fifth Sunday After Pentecost.)

"Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.
How terrible is this place;
this is no other than the house of God and the gate of heaven."
—Gen XVIII. 16,17.

These words were spoken by the Patriarch Jacob when he was journeying to Syria to visit his uncle. He had stopped for the night at a place which was afterward called Bethel, and as he lay on the ground with a stone for his pillow, the Lord appeared to him in a vision, and blessed him, and foretold his future greatness and increase. {430} Then, penetrated with a sense of the nearness and greatness of God, with whom he had been conversing, he rose up and exclaimed: "Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." And trembling, he said: "How terrible is this place; this is no other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven." Now, my brethren, we may make every morning and every night a similar declaration. Wherever we are, we may say: "Indeed the Lord is in this place." Every spot on earth, on which a man tarries for a moment, becomes the house of God, and the gate of heaven. You understand what I mean. I am speaking of the omnipresence of God. Reason and faith both proclaim to us this great truth of the universal presence of God. He is present by His immensity to all creatures in the universe, whether living or inanimate. When God created the world, He did not leave it to itself. He sustains it by His presence and power, and it is in Him that we live and move and have our being. He is present to our intellectual and moral being as the light of reason and the object of the will, for without Him there would be no rational or moral life. He is present with us also as the source of that supernatural life which begins in baptism and ends in the uncreated vision of the Blessed Trinity in heaven. "He that loveth Me, shall be loved by My Father; and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. * * * And My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make an abode with him." [Footnote 175]

[Footnote 175: St. John xiv. 21, 23.]

O my brethren, what a piercing thought is this of the presence of God, if we did but realize it! Think for a moment of the doctrine of the real presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. We believe that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, with His deity, His soul, His flesh and blood, is present in the holy sacrament of the altar. What consequences this doctrine has! {431} The whole Catholic ritual, the ceremonies of worship, the respect paid to churches, the bowing of the knees, the incense, the lights, the music—all flow from this. In the early ages, during the times of persecution, it was customary for Christians to take home with them the Blessed Sacrament, that they might communicate themselves in case of necessity. Imagine that such were the custom now. Imagine you were to take away with you, this day, as you left the church, and carry to your homes, the sacred host which is kept in the tabernacle. How silently would you go along the streets! With what care would you seek out a place for our Saviour's body to repose in! With what care would you go about your home as long as He remained your guest! How would your heart thrill as you reflected, on a awaking in the morning, that indeed the Lamb of God, once crucified for you, was now a dweller in your own home! Yet, if such were the case, if the Blessed Sacrament were actually kept in your houses and in your rooms, God would not be any more present to you than He is now. He is indeed present in a different manner in the Blessed Eucharist. That sacramental presence, that sweet, precious, consoling presence of the body once broken, and the blood once shed for us, is confined to the sacramental species. But the presence of the deity, the real presence of God, is just as much outside as it is inside the church; just as much with us when we are at home as when we are at Mass. Not if His footstep shook the heavens and the earth, as it will on the Last Day when He comes to judgment, would God be one whit closer to us or more present to us than He is now to everyone of us, every day, and everywhere. Even sin cannot separate us from God. We sometimes say that mortal sin separates a man from God. As a figure of speech, implying the loss of God's grace and friendship which sin occasions, this language may pass, but taken literally it is untrue. A man can never be separated from God. That would be annihilation. Even when we are in sin, even when we are committing sin, God is with us and in us, the soul of our soul, the life of our life. {432} Yes, here is a bond that can never be broken. Never can we escape that awful presence—never for a moment, here or hereafter. We shall not be more in God's presence in heaven or less in hell than we are now at this moment. God is not a God afar off up in heaven. He is here. This whole universe is only God's shadow. Every thing that is attests, not only God's creating power, but His living presence. He is in the flames and in the light, and in the pastures, in the air, in the ground, in the body, and in the soul, in the head, in the eye, in the ear, and in the heart. He is in us, and we are in Him, bathed in His presence as in an ocean, breathing in it as in an atmosphere. This is what the Psalmist expresses so beautifully: "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art present; if I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. And I said: Perhaps darkness shall cover me; and night shall be light in my pleasures. But darkness shall not be dark to thee; and night shall be light as the day; the darkness thereof, and the light thereof, are alike to Thee." [Footnote 176]

[Footnote 176: Ps. cxxviii. 7-12.]

If we thought more frequently of this, how many sins should we avoid! When a man is going to commit a crime, he takes precautions against discovery. He seeks out a secret place. He chooses a fitting hour. Vain precautions! There is no secret place on earth, no lonely spot, no time of darkness. There is a proverb among men that "walls have ears," and the counsel of the wise man is, "Detract not the king, no, not in thy thought; and speak not evil of the rich man in thy private chamber; because even the birds of the air will carry the voice; and he that hath wings will tell what thou hast said." [Footnote 177]

[Footnote 177: Eccles. x. 20.]

What is it that has impressed on men this universal fear of detection? Is it not an unconscious acknowledgment of the presence of God? Yes, we cannot shut the door against Him. We cannot leave Him out. We cannot draw the blind before His eye. "The eyes of the Lord in every place behold the good and the evil." [Footnote 178] "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee," [Footnote 179] said our Lord to Nathanael.

[Footnote 178: Prov. xv. 3.]

[Footnote 179: St. John i. 48.]

I wish you thought more of this; I am sure it would save you from many a sin. I have read of a holy man who, on hearing a person say that circumstances were favorable to the commission of a shameful sin, because no one was present, exclaimed: "What! are you not ashamed to do that before the living God which you would be ashamed to do before a man like yourself?" Even the eye of a dog has restrained men from the commission of crime—how much more ought the eye of God! Listen to the language you hear as you pass through the streets. The sacred names of God and Jesus Christ, how they are bandied about! Would men speak so, if they realized that God and Christ were then and there present? Would they insult God to His face? Suppose our Saviour were to appear to one of these men as he was pouring out his oaths and blasphemies, in the guise in which He was as He journeyed to Calvary to die for man, with sorrow in His eye, and sweat and blood on His forehead, with weak and faltering steps, and lips mute, but full of appealing love and agony; would he still go on with his dreadful oaths? No! The knee would be bent, the head would be bowed, and the very ground on which He walked would be regarded with reverent awe. Why so? Merely because he saw Him with his bodily eyes? Would it not be the same, if he were to close His eyes, and yet be aware of His presence? And is He not present to you as truly as if you saw Him, hearing each imprecation and blasphemy which you utter? {434} Oh, spare Him! spare those sacred ears; spare His majesty and His goodness, and cease to profane His holy name. Tertullian, speaking of the early Christians, says they talked as those who believed that God was listening. Let the thought of God's presence be deeply graven on your soul, and it will teach you to use the language of a Christian—at least it will cure you of blasphemy.

It will cure you also of another sin of the tongue: that is of falsehood. Lying implies a virtual denial of God's presence, as well as blasphemy. When you lie, you forget the there is One who know's the truth—who is Himself the Eternal Truth; and you act as if He knew not, or would be a party to your fraud. Every lie is, in this respect, like the lie of Ananias and Sapphira—a lie to God.

Oh! how much must God be displeased by all the sins He witnesses. It is said of righteous Lot, that from day to day he vexed his righteous soul at all the sins which he witnessed in Sodom, where he dwelt. How must the Holy God be vexed every day at all the dark deeds, the injustices, the impurities, the falsehoods, the deceits, the treacheries, the cruelties, to which men compel Him to be a witness! Is it not a necessity that Christ should come with ten thousand of His saints to take vengeance on the ungodly! Would it not seem, otherwise, that God made Himself a party to our sins by keeping silence? "These things hast thou done," says the Almighty, "and I was silent. Thou thoughtest unjustly that I shall be like to thee: but I will reprove thee, and set before thy face." [Footnote 180]

[Footnote 180: Ps. xlix. 21.]

David committed adultery in secret; but God declared to him that He would punish him before all Israel, and in the sight of the sun. So the Judgment Day will bring to light every secret thing, and manifest, in the sight of all, those hidden sins which have been committed in the presence and with the full knowledge of God. {435} They have never been hidden from God, and the disclosures of the Last Day are only the Presence and the Knowledge of God asserting and manifesting themselves to men. The thought of God, and of His Omnipresence, is thus the greatest preservative against sin.

But this is not all. The thought of God's perpetual and universal presence is our greatest strength and consolation. What a comfort it would be to have a friend, who loved us truly, who was most sincerely desirous of our welfare and happiness, who was very wise and able to help us in difficulties, never variable or capricious, but always true and faithful and trustworthy! The possession of such a friend will go as far as any thing earthly can go to make one perfectly happy. Now, each one of us really has such a friend. Such a friend? Ah! far better, far wiser, far more loving—even the good God! God, in the Holy Scriptures, represents the soul of man as a garden, in which it is His delight to walk about. What an idea this gives us of the familiarity a man may have with God. Why do not men take advantage of this loving condescension? Why do they not converse with God? Why do they not think of Him? The face of Moses shone after he had been talking to God on Mount Sinai, and our countenance would be light and joyous if we dwelt more in God's presence. Oh, to think of it! When we walk in the streets, when we sit down and rise up, there is one ever at our side—no, not at our side; but in us—our very life and being; God, the Beautiful and Good. God, Who made the heavens and the earth; the God of our fathers. God, Who has been the comfort and stay of the just in all ages, Who talked with Abraham, and went before the children of Israel in a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. God, Who gave manna from heaven, Who spoke by the prophets, and in the still, small voice on Mount Horeb; Who awoke Samuel, as he lay sleeping in his little crib in the priest's chamber, and chose David, the youth, fair and of a ruddy countenance, to be the prince of His people; and who, in these last days, hath revealed Himself in His Only Begotten Son, full of grace and truth.

He it is Who is with you and me, even from our youth unto this day. O thou who art afflicted, tossed with tempests and not comforted, what dost thou want?—what wouldst thou have? The Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting arms. Thou hast but to open thy soul, and floods of comfort and strength will pour into thee. Art thou weak? He is thy Strength. Art thou sad and lonely? He is thy Consoler. Art thou guilty? He is thy Redeemer—the God ready to pardon. Does the world allure thee? His Beauty will make its attractions pale. Is thy heart weary and inconstant? He is unfailing and unchanging. O source of strength, too much slighted! O happiness, too often blindly rejected! In the presence of God there is pleasure and life. "They that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall take wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." "For He is a covert from the wind, a hiding-place from the storm, as rivers of waters in a dry place, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." [Footnote 181]

[Footnote 181: Isai. xl. 31; xxxii. 2.]

Learn, then, my brethren, to keep yourselves in the presence of God. To forget God, what is it, but to plunge ourselves into sin and misery. To remember God, what is it, but to be strong and happy. "Walk before Me, and be thou perfect," said God to Abraham. That is the secret of perfection, the way to heaven. It is not necessary to go out of your own mind. It is not necessary to lift the eye to heaven, or bend the knee. Closer than the union of soul and body is the union between God and thee. {437} Quicker than thought is the communion between thy soul and its Maker. "Thou shalt cry," says the Almighty, "and I will say: Here I am—yea, even before thy call, I will hear, and even while thou art yet speaking I will answer." [Footnote 182]

[Footnote 182: Isai. lviii. 9; lxv. 24.]

Practise, then, attention to the presence of God. I do not speak so much now of daily prayers, and of your devotions in the church. But when you are abroad in the busy world, or in your homes, accustom yourselves from time to time to think of God. Complicated pieces of machinery require the care of an overseer from time to time, lest they get out of gear. So we must think of God from time to time during the day, and keep the powers of our soul in harmony with the will of God, lest they fall into disorder, and the work of life be hindered. It is not a work of very great difficulty. The chief difficulty lies in its simplicity. It is so much easier to pray than we think, that oftentimes we have already prayed when we are perplexing ourselves how to pray, and busying ourselves with preparing to pray. God is in us, in the very centre of our soul. He knows its most secret thoughts, and thus a simple act of the will is enough to bring us into communion with Him. To realize this is to be men of prayer, to be as happy as it is possible for us to be in this life, and to begin here that contemplation of God which will constitute our everlasting beatitude in heaven.

Sermon XXIII.

Keeping The Law Not Impossible.

(Ninth Sunday After Pentecost.)

"I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me."
—Phil. VI. 13.

If I am not mistaken, a very great number of the sins that men commit, are committed through hopelessness. The pleasures of sin are by no means unmixed. Indeed, sin is a hard master; and all who practise it find it so. {438} I never met a man who said it was a good thing, or that it made him happy. On the contrary, all lament it, and say that it makes them miserable. Why, then, do they commit it? Very often, I am persuaded, because they think they have no power to resist it. They feel in themselves strong passions; they have yielded to them in times past, they see that others yield to them, and so they come to think it impossible not to yield to them. The law of God is too difficult, they say. It is impossible to keep it. It may do for priests or nuns who are cut off from the world, or for women, or for the old, or for children, but for us who mix in the world, whose blood is warm, and whose passions are strong, it is too high and pure. It is all very well to talk about; it is all very well to hold up a high standard to us, but you must not expect us to attain it. The utmost that you can expect of us is to stop sinning, now and then, and make the proper acknowledgments to God by going to confession; but actually to try not to sin, to keep on endeavoring not to sin at any time, or under any circumstances, that is impossible, or at least so extremely difficult that, practically speaking, it is impossible. Are there none of you, my brethren, who recognise this as the secret language of your hearts? Is there not an impression in your minds that the law of God is too strict, or at least that it is too strict for you, and that you cannot keep it? If so, do not harbor it. It is a fatal error. No; it is not impossible to keep God's law. It is not impossible to keep from mortal sin. It is, I admit, impossible to keep from every venial sin, though even here we can do a great deal, if we try. Such is the frailty of human nature that even the best men, as time goes on, fall into some slight faults, only the Blessed Virgin having been able, as we believe, to pass a whole life without even in the smallest thing offending God. But it is possible for all of us to keep from mortal sin, at all times and under all circumstances. This, I think, you will acknowledge when you consider the character of God, the nature of God's law, and the power of God's grace which is promised to us.

I say the character of God is a pledge of our ability to keep from mortal sin. God requires us to be free from mortal sin, and He requires it under the severest penalties, and therefore it must be possible for us. You may say, "God requires us to be free from venial sin too, and yet you have just said we cannot avoid every venial sin." But the case is far different. A venial sin does not separate us from God, and does not receive extreme punishment from Him—nay, those venial sins which even good men commit, and which are only in small part voluntary, are very easily forgiven—but a mortal sin cuts us off entirely from God, and deserves eternal punishment. You know, one mortal sin is enough to damn a man—one single sin of drunkenness, for instance, or impurity; a cherished hatred, a false oath, or an act of grave injustice. One such sin is sufficient to sink a man in hell, and although we know very little in particular of the torments of hell, we have every reason to believe that they are most bitter, and we know that they are eternal. Now, can it be thought that a being of justice and goodness, as we know God to be, would inflict so extreme a punishment for an offence which was unavoidable, or could only be avoided with the utmost difficulty? Holy Scripture sends us to an earthly parent for an example of that tenderness and affection which we are to expect from our Heavenly Father. "If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him." [Footnote 183]

[Footnote 183: St. Matt. vii. 11.]

What would be the thought of an earthly father who laid upon his son a command which it was all but impossible for him to comply with, and then punished him with the utmost rigor for not fulfilling it? {440} You would not call that man a father, but a tyrant; a tyrant like Pharaoh, who would not give straw to the children of Israel, and yet set taskmasters over them to exact of them the full measure of bricks as when straw had been given them. Why, if you were going along the street and saw a man whipping unmercifully an overloaded horse, you would not bear it patiently. And would you attribute conduct so disgraceful among men to our Father in heaven? God forbid! Far be such a thought from us! It is not so. We must not think it. At least we cannot think it as long as we remain Catholics; for when the earlier Protestants proclaimed the shocking doctrine that though God punished men for disobeying his law, man was really unable to obey it, the Church branded the doctrine as a heresy to be abhorred of all men, as most false in itself, and most injurious to God. No; God loves his creatures far more than we conceive of: He does not desire the death of a sinner. He wills truly the salvation of all men. His goodness and mercy, His truth and justice, are all so many infallible guarantees of our ability to keep His law. He would not have given us His law unless He had meant us to keep it. He would not punish us so severely for breaking it, unless our breaking it was an act of deliberate, wilful, determined rebellion.

But there is another source from which I draw the conclusion that it is possible to keep the law of God—from the nature of the law itself. The law of God is of such a nature that, for the most part, in order to commit mortal sin, it is necessary to do or to leave undone some external act, which of its own nature it is entirely in our power to do or not to do. For instance, the law says, "Thou shalt not steal;" now, to steal, you have got to put your hand into your neighbor's pocket. The law says: "Thou shalt do no murder;" to murder, you must stretch out your hand against your neighbor's life. Nay, it requires ordinarily several external actions before a mortal sin is consummated. Thus the thief has his precautions to take, and his plans to lay. {441} The drunkard has to seek the occasion. He seeks the grogshop. Every step he takes is a separate act. When he gets there, it is not the first glass that makes him drunk. He drinks again and again, and it is only after all these different and repeated actions that he falls into the mortal sin of drunkenness. Now, here you see are external acts—acts in which the hand, the foot, the lips, are concerned, and which, therefore, it is perfectly in our power to do or to let alone. This requires no proof, but admits of a striking illustration. You have heard of the great sufferings of the martyrs; how some of them were stoned to death, others flayed alive, others crucified, others torn to pieces by wild beasts, others burned to death. Now, what was it all about? You answer, "They suffered because they would not deny Christ." Very well; but how were they required to deny Christ? "What was it they were required to do? I will tell you. Sometimes they were required to take a few grains of incense and throw it on the altar of Jupiter; that would have been enough to have saved them from their sufferings. They need not have said, 'I renounce Christ;" only to have taken the incense would have been sufficient. Sometimes they were required to tread on the cross. Sometimes to swear by the genius of the Roman emperor; that was all. And the fire was kindled to make them do these things; but they would not. The flames leaped upon them, but not a foot would they lift from the ground. Their hands were burnt to the bone, but no incense would they touch. The marrow of their bones melted in the heat, and forced from them a cry of agony, but the name of the emperor's tutelary genius did not pass their lips. Now, will you tell me that you cannot help doing what the martyrs would not do to save them from death? They had a fire before them and a scourge behind them, and they refused; and you say you cannot help yourself when you are under no external violence whatever! They died rather than lift a hand to do a forbidden thing; have you not the same power over your hand that they had? {442} They died rather than utter a sinful word; have you not as much power over your tongue as they? Indeed you have, for you control both one and the other whenever you will. I say there is no sinner whose conduct does not show that his actions are perfectly in his own power. The thief waits for the night to carry on his trade; during the day he is honest enough. The greatest libertine knows how to behave himself in the presence of a high-born and virtuous female. And even that vice which men say it is most difficult of all to restrain when once the habit is formed—profane swearing—you know how to restrain it when you will, for even the heaviest curser and swearer ceases from his oaths before the priest, or any other friend whom he greatly respects. Now, if you can stop cursing before the priest, why can you not before your wife and children? If you can be chaste in the presence of a virtuous female, why can you not be chaste everywhere? If you can be honest when the eye of man is on you, why can you not be honest when no eye sees you but that of God?

"But," someone may say, "there is a class of sins to which the remarks you have made do not apply, that is, sins of thought. You must admit that they are of such a nature that it is all but impossible not to commit them." No, I do not admit it. I acknowledge that sins of thought are more difficult to guard against than sins of action; but I do not acknowledge that it is impossible to guard against them. To prove this, I have only to remind you that an evil thought is no sin until we give consent to it. To keep always free from evil thoughts may be impossible, because the imagination is in its nature so volatile, that but few men have it in control; but, though it be not possible to restrain the imagination, it is always possible to restrain the will. In order for the will to consent to evil it is necessary both to know and to choose, and therefore from the nature of the thing one can never fall into sin either inevitably or unawares. {443} And besides, the will has a powerful ally in the conscience, whose province it is to keep us from sin and to reproach us when we do sin—so that it is scarcely possible, for one who habitually tries to keep free from mortal sin, to fall into it without his conscience giving a distinct and unmistakable report. And this is so certain that spiritual writers say that a person of good life and tender conscience, who is distressed with the uncertainty whether or no he has given consent to an evil temptation, ought to banish that anxiety altogether and to be sure that he has not consented. But suppose these evil temptations are importunate, and remain in the soul even when we resist them, and try to turn from them? No matter. They do not become sins on that account; nay, they become the occasion of acts of great virtue. It is related in the life of St. Catharine of Sienna that on one occasion that pure virgin's soul was assailed by the most horrible temptations of the devil. They lasted for a long time, and after the conflict our Saviour appeared to her with a serene countenance. "O my Divine Spouse," she said, "where wast thou when I was enduring these conflicts?" "In thy soul," he replied. "What, with all these filthy abominations?" "Yes, they were displeasing and painful to thee; this therefore was thy merit, and thy victory was owing to My presence." So that we see even here, where the danger is greatest, the law of God exacts of us nothing but what in its own nature is in our power to do or not to do.

But if you wish another proof of your ability to keep God's law, I allege the power of His grace. I can imagine an objector saying: "You have not touched the real difficulty, after all. The difficulty is not on God's side; no doubt. He is good and holy. Neither are the requirements of his law so very hard. The difficulty is in us. We are fallen by nature. We have sinned after baptism. We are so weak, so frail, that to us continued observance of the divine commandments is impossible." No, my brethren, neither is this true. {444} It is not true from the mouth of any man; least of all from the mouth of a Christian. "No temptation," says the Apostle, "hath taken hold of you but Such as is human: And God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able; but will also with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it." [Footnote 184]

[Footnote 184: I Cor. x. 13.]

The weakest and frailest are strong enough with God's grace, and this grace He is ready to give to those that need it. At all times and in all places He has been ready to give His grace to them that need it, but especially is this true under the gospel. The Holy Scriptures make this the distinguishing characteristic of the times of the gospel, that they shall abound in grace. "Take courage, and fear not," the prophet says, in anticipation of the time when Christ should come in the flesh, "Behold, God will come and save you. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free; for waters are broken out of the desert, and streams in the wilderness. And that which was dry land shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water." [Footnote 185] Such was the promise, hundreds of years before Christ, of a time of peace, of happiness and grace; and when our Lord was come, He published that the good time had indeed arrived: "The spirit of the Lord hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart. To preach deliverance to the captive, and sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." [Footnote 186]

[Footnote 185: Is. xxxv. 4-7.]

[Footnote 186: St. Luke iV. 18, 19.]

Yes, the great time has come; the cool of the day; the evening of the world; the time when labor is light and reward abundant. O my brethren, you know not what a privilege it is to be a Christian! You enter a church. You see a priest in his confessional. A penitent is kneeling at his feet. {445} The sight makes but little impression on you, for you are accustomed to it, but this is that "fountain" promised by the prophet "to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for the washing of the sinner;" a fountain that flows from the Saviour's side, and not only cleanses, but strengthens and makes alive. You pass an altar. The priest is giving communion. Stop! it is the Lord himself! the bread of angels! the wine of virgins! the food "whereof if a man eat he shall live forever." And not only in the church do you find grace; it follows you home. You shut your door behind you, and your Father in heaven waits to hear and grant your prayer. Nay, at all times God is with you, for you are the temple of God, and He sits on the throne of your heart to scatter His grace on you whenever and wherever you ask Him. Do not say, then, Christian, that you are unable to do what God requires of you. It is a sin of black ingratitude to say so. Even if it were impossible for others to keep the law of God, it is not for you. He hath not done to every nation as he hath done to you. When the patriarch Jacob was dying, he blessed all his children, but his richest blessing was for Joseph. So God has blessed all the children of His hand, but you, Christian, are the Joseph whom He hath loved more than all His other sons. To others He hath given of "dew dew of heaven," and "the fatness of the earth," but you "He hath blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ."

Away, then, with the notion that obedience to the commandments of God is impracticable—a notion dishonorable to God and to ourselves. It is possible to keep free from mortal sin—for all—at all times, under all temptations. Nay, I will say more. It is, on the whole, easier to live a life of Christian obedience, than a life of sin. I say "on the whole," for I do not deny that here and there, in particular cases, it is harder to do right than wrong; but taking life all through, one who restrains his passions will have less trouble than one who indulges them. {446} Heroic actions are not required of us every day. In order to be a Christian, it is not necessary to be always high-strung and enthusiastic. It is not necessary to be a devotee, to adopt set and precise ways, to take up with hypocrisy and cant—in a word, to be unmanly. It is just, for the most part, the most matter of fact, the most practical, the most simple and straight-forward thing in the world. It is to be a man of principle. It is to have a serious, abiding purpose to do our duty. It is to be full of courage; not the courage of the braggart, but the courage of the soldier—the courage that thrives under opposition, and survives defeat, the courage that takes the means to secure success—vigilance, humility, steadfastness, and prayer. Before this, all difficulties vanish, and this is what we want most of all. It is amazing how little courage there is in the world. We are like the servant of Eliseus, the prophet, who, when he awoke in the morning, and saw the great army that had been sent by the King of Syria to take his master, said, "Alas, alas, alas, my lord; what shall we do!" But Eliseus showed him another army—the army of angels ranged on the mountain, with chariots of fire and horses of fire, ready to fight for the servants of God, and he said, "Fear not: for there are more with us than with them." [Footnote 187]

[Footnote 187: IV. Kings vi. 15-17.]

Why should we fear? Christianity is no new thing. The path of Christian obedience is not an untried path. Thousands have trod it and are now enjoying their reward. God, and the angels, and the saints, are on our side. And there are multitudes of faithful souls in the word who are fighting the good fight, and keeping their souls unsullied. We cannot distinguish them now, but one day we shall know them. Oh! let us join them. Yes, we will make our resolution now. Others may guide themselves by pleasure or expediency; we will adopt the language of the Psalmist: "Thy Word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths." [Footnote 188]

[Footnote 188: Ps. cxviii. 105.]

We will be Christians, not in name, but in deed. Not for a time only, but always. One thought shall cheer us in sadness and nerve us in weakness, "I have sworn and am determined to keep the judgments of Thy justice." [Footnote 189]

[Footnote 189: Ibid. 106.]

Sermon XXIV.

The Spirit Of Sacrifice..

(For The Feast Of St. Laurence, Martyr.)

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, pleasing to God, your reasonable service."
—Rom. XVII. 1.

There is, my brethren, among many men who practise Christian duties to a certain extent, one remarkable want. I will call it the want of the Spirit of Sacrifice. Compare such men with any of the saints, and you will see at once what I mean. One saint may differ a great deal from another, but this is common to them all—a vivid sentiment of God's greatness and Sovereignty, of His right to do with us what He wills, and a willing and reverent recognition of that right. Now the defective Christianity to which I allude lacks this spirit altogether. It differs from the Christianity of the saints not only in degree but in kind. Not only does it fail to produce as many sacrifices as the saints made for God, but the idea of Sacrifice is completely strange and foreign to it. It bargains about the commandments of God, and, when any commandment is difficult, postpones fulfilment, or refuses it altogether. To prevent any of you from being content with so imperfect and unsatisfactory a sort of religion, I will give you this morning some reasons why you should aim to serve God in the spirit of sacrifice.

First, then, I assert that the spirit of sacrifice is necessary. God requires it of us. On this point I think some people make a mistake. They seem to think that a willingness to make sacrifices for God is one of the ornamental or heroic parts of religion, and that everyday people are not required to have it. But this is not so. The Spirit of Sacrifice is required of everyone. I infer this from the fact that an external sacrificial worship is necessary. It is frequently said that there is no religion without a sacrifice. And this is true. There never has been, nor indeed could there be, a true religion without having some external act of sacrificial worship. But why is this necessary? Not simply because we are sinners and need propitiation, for some theologians have thought that sacrifices would have been necessary, though man had never sinned. What religion requires a sacrifice for, is this—to express our sense of God's supreme Sovereignty. In a Sacrifice there is something offered to God and destroyed, thus signifying that God is the Author of Life and Death, our Creator, our Ruler, our Supreme Judge. The excellence of the Christian Sacrifice—the Sacrifice of the Mass—consists in this, that the victim offered is a living, reasonable, Divine Victim, even the Son of God Incarnate, Who by His Life and Death rendered most worthy homage to the Divine Majesty, and still in every Mass, continually, offers it anew.

This, then, is what the Mass is given us for, and this is why we are required to assist at the Mass, that we may in a perfect and worthy manner recognize God's Sovereignty and our dependence on Him. When we assist at Mass, the meaning of our action, if put into words, would be something like this: "I acknowledge Thee, O God, for my Sovereign Lord, and the Supreme Disposer of my Life and Death, and because I am not able worthily to express Thy Greatness, I beg of Thee to accept, as if it were my own, all the submission with which Thy Son honored Thee on the Cross, and now again honors Thee in this Holy Sacrifice." {449} Now, it cannot be imagined that we are required to make this profession to God without at the same time being required to have in our hearts that sentiment of God's greatness and sovereignty which we express with our lips. Our Lord did not come to suffer and die, and give His life [as] a sacrifice to the Father, to dispense us from the obligation of worshipping God ourselves, but to give to our worship a perfect example and a higher acceptability. Without our worship the Mass is incomplete. On our Lord's part, indeed, the Sacrifice of the Mass is always efficacious, for He is present wherever it is celebrated; but on our part it is empty and unmeaning if no one really fears God, submits unreservedly to Him, is willing to do all He commands, and acknowledges that all that could be done for Him is too little. A worship of Sacrifice implies a life of sacrifice. This is beautifully illustrated in the life of St. Laurence, whose Martyrdom we celebrate to-day.

St. Laurence was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome in the third century of the Christian era. As deacon, it was his office to serve the Mass of St. Xystus, who was at that time Pope. "When the persecution broke out under the Emperor Valerius, St. Xystus was seized and carried off to martyrdom. As he was on his way, St. Laurence followed him weeping and saying: "Father where are you going without your son? Whither are you going, O holy priest, without your deacon? You were not wont to offer sacrifice without me your minister, wherein have I displeased you? Have you found me wanting to my duty? Try me now and see whether you have made choice of an unfit minister for dispensing the Blood of the Lord." And St. Xystus replied: "I do not leave you, my son, but a greater trial and a more glorious victory are reserved for you who are stout and in the vigor of youth. We are spared on account of our weakness and old age. You shall follow me in three days." And, in fact, three days after, St. Laurence was burnt to death, his faith rendering him joyful, even mirthful in his sufferings.

Now, I do not look on this conversation as poetry. Times of affliction are not times when men look around for fine ways of expressing themselves. At such times words come straight from the heart. I see, then, in the words of St. Laurence the sentiments with which he was accustomed to assist at Mass. As he knelt at the foot of the altar at which the Pope was celebrating, clothed in the beautiful dress of a deacon, his soul was filled with the thoughts of God's greatness and goodness, and along with the offering of the heavenly Victim, he used to offer to God his fervent desire to do something to honor the Divine Majesty, the color sometimes mounting high in his youthful cheek as he thought how joyfully he would yield his own heart's blood as a sacrifice, if the occasion should offer. Martyrdom to him was but a natural completion of Mass. It was but the realisation of his habitual worship.

In the early history of the city of St. Augustine, in Florida, it is related that a priest, who was attacked by a party of Indians, asked permission to say Mass before he died. This was granted him, and the savages waited quietly till the Mass was ended. Then the priest knelt on the altar steps and received the death-blow from his murderers. With what sentiments must that priest have said Mass! with what devotion! with what reverence! with what self-oblation! So, I suppose St. Laurence, and St. Xystus, and the Christians of the old time were accustomed always to assist at Mass, with the greatest desire to honor God, the most complete spirit of self-sacrifice. Now, I do not say we are all bound to be as holy as these great saints. I do not even say we are bound to desire martyrdom; but I do say there is not one kind of Christianity for the saints and another for ordinary Christians; one kind, all self-denial for them, and another kind, all self-indulgence, for us. {451} I say God is to us what He is to the saints—our Creator and our Sovereign; and He demands of us the worship of creatures and subjects—the worship of sacrifice—a willingness to do all He demands of us now, and a readiness to do greater things the moment that He makes it known to us that such is His Will.

How many difficulties, my brethren, such a spirit takes out of the way of Christian obedience! It cuts off at One blow all our struggles with the decrees of God's providence. How much of our misery comes from murmurings against the providence of God! One is suffering under sickness and pain, another is overwhelmed with reverses and afflictions, another is irritated by continual temptations. No one can deny that these are severe trials; but see how the spirit of sacrifice disposes of them. It says to the sick man, to the suffering man, what Isaac said to his father Abraham on the mountain: "See, here is fire and wood, but where is the victim for a burnt offering? Here are the materials for a beautiful act of sacrifice. It wants only a meek heart for a victim, and love to light the flame, to turn the sickbed, the house of mourning, the soul agitated by temptation, into an altar of the purest worship, and the language of complaint into the liturgy of praise. Again: it sometimes happens that a man gets involved in relations of business or friendship, or becomes addicted to some indulgence, which threaten to ruin his soul, and he is required to renounce them, to give up the intimacy, to change his business, to deny himself that indulgence. The command of God is distinct and peremptory: "If thy hand or thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. And if thy eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee." [Footnote 190]

[Footnote 190: St. Matt. xviii. 8.]

How does he receive it? He says: "It is too hard." Too hard! And is it, then, only God for whom we are unwilling to do any thing hard? We must make sacrifices of some sort in life, and heavy ones, too. We cannot get rid of the necessity of making them, do what we will. The world requires them of us. Our families require them. Our health requires them. Our pleasure requires them. Nay, our very sins require them. And what we do willingly for the world, for our families, for our health, our pleasure, our sins, shall we refuse to do for the great and good God? for Christ our Saviour, who did not refuse the Cross to give us an example of the obedience we owe His Father?

Or take another example: A person who is not a Catholic finds much that is reasonable in Catholic doctrine, but makes a great stumbling-block of confession; or even a Catholic gets a dread of it, and stays away for years and years from the sacraments of the Church. Now, of course, in such cases it is only charitable to show that the difficulty of confession is very much magnified, and that, like many other things that frighten us, it loses its terror when we approach it; but, to say the truth, I always feel something like shame when I hear one trying to prove to such persons that confession is easy; partly because I know he cannot succeed perfectly, since confession is of its own nature arduous, and in particular cases may be very difficult; but chiefly, because I cannot help thinking if God Himself were to answer them, it would be in the few strong words He has used in the Holy Scripture: "Be still: and know that I am God." [Footnote 191] A creature must not parley with his maker, a sinner with his Judge.

[Footnote 191: Ps. xlv. 11.]

Yes: we shrink from the very mention of sacrifice, yet it is the spirit of sacrifice that makes all our duties easy. No doubt it is our privilege to reason about the commandments of God; and we shall often see, what we know is always the case, that they are full of wisdom and goodness; but we need in practice some principle that is ready at hand always to be used in every time of trial, in every difficulty, and that is the Spirit of Sacrifice, a profound reverence for God, an unquestioning conviction of His absolute right to dispose of us as He will. Abraham had this spirit, and therefore faltered not a moment when the command came to sacrifice his son Isaac. Moses had it, and therefore "when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer persecution with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a time." [Footnote 192]

[Footnote 192: Heb. xi. 24.]

The Christian saints have had it, and therefore they trampled on every repugnance, every attachment, when it came in the way of their perfection. And this principle is the life of the great religious and charitable orders of the Church. These institutions are a mystery to Protestants. Soon after the "Little Sisters of the Poor" were established in London, a Protestant writer, in one of the periodicals of the day, described a visit he had made to their establishment, and after giving a most interesting account of the self-denying labors of the community, he says he was curious to trace the feelings that actuated these ladies in devoting themselves to duties so apt to be repulsive to their class. He supposed that benevolence was the impulse most concerned, but, on questioning the Sisters, found that this was not the case, but that the basis of their action was a principle of self-renunciation for Christ's sake. To him such a motive had in it something strange and unnatural; but, really, this is always the sustaining principle of all high religious action. Every thing fails sooner or later but the spirit of sacrifice. This is the spirit that does great things for God, that cuts down the mountains in our road to heaven and fills up the valleys, making straight paths for our feet.

And how pleasing is such a spirit to God! Even among men such a spirit is highly esteemed. Who does not admire a generous, self-sacrificing man? In a family, who is so much loved as the one whose thoughts are all for others? Where are such tears shed as over the fresh grave of a self-forgetful friend? What makes the character of a mother so beautiful but the trait of self-sacrifice? And so before God there is nothing so beautiful as the spirit of Sacrifice. A religion which does not centre in itself, but which centres in God, that is His delight. There is nothing abject in such a spirit. To serve God is to reign. God knows our nature, and He requires of us nothing but what gives to our whole being its highest harmony. The man who has the spirit of sacrifice is a royal man. How beautiful, my brethren, is an altar! Every thing connected in our minds with an altar is beautiful. When we think of an altar, we think of sweet flowers and burning lights, and smoking incense, and a meek victim, and worship, music, and prayer. So, in the heart where the spirit or Sacrifice reigns, there are sweet flowers of piety, and flaming zeal, and the silent victim of a heart that struggles not, and the incense of prayer, and the harmonies of joy and praise. Oh, if there is a sacred place on earth, a home of peace, a shrine, a holy of holies, a place where heaven and earth are nearest, where God descends and takes up His abode, it is in the heart of the man who is penetrated through and through with the sense of God's greatness, and who walks before Him in reverence and continual worship.

My brethren, I covet for you such a spirit. I do not always find it among Catholics. I remember, some years ago, when collecting for a charitable object, I called on a man who was engaged in a large business, and asked for a contribution. He said, Oh yes, he thought highly of the undertaking, and wished to give a generous donation, say one hundred dollars. When I called for it at the appointed time, he asked me if I did not want any goods in his line. {455} They were articles of luxury, such as very few persons have occasion for, and I told him, no. Then he mentioned a rich gentleman with whom I happened to be acquainted, and asked me to secure for him his custom, intimating that this donation of one hundred dollars depended on my success. Now I do not know that this person was at all sensible of acting an unworthy part, but I think you must all feel that this was very far from the spirit in which one ought to give any thing to God; and yet, my brethren, inferior motives enter too much and too often into our religious actions. Selfishness mingles too much with our piety. Oh, how diluted, how paltry and feeble is our religion, compared with that of other times! David refused the site for an altar that Areuna offered him as a gift, saying: "Nay but I will buy it of thee at a price; and will not offer to the Lord my God holocausts free cost." [Footnote 193]

[Footnote 193: 2 Kings xxiv. 24.]

Magdalene took a box of spikenard ointment, because it was the most precious thing she had, and very costly, and broke the box, and poured it wastefully on the Saviour's head. [Footnote 194]

[Footnote 194: St. Matt. xxvi. 7.]

Those who have examined the cathedrals of Europe that were built in the Middle Ages, tell us that away up on the outside of the roof, there is found carving as rich, as beautiful, and as elaborate as that on the parts in full sight. A human eye would hardly see it once a year; no matter: it was done for the eye of God and the angels. Oh that you had such a spirit! I want you to think more of God. I want you to fear Him more deeply, and to love Him far, far more fervently. O my brethren, is the service you are rendering Him at all worthy of Him? Look at the earth and sky that He has made; look at the glorious Throne of Light from which He sways the universe, look at the Cross, look into your own hearts, and answer. "Holy things are for the Holy." "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised." [Footnote 195] "O Lord God Almighty, just and true, who shall not fear Thee and magnify Thy Name!" [Footnote 196] "As the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, and as the eyes of a handmaid are on the hands of her mistress, so our eyes are unto Thee, O Lord our God, Thou that dwellest in the heavens." [Footnote 197]

[Footnote 195: Psalm xlvii. 1.]

[Footnote 196: Apoc. xv. 3.]

[Footnote 197: Psalm cxxii. 2.]

Sermon XXV.

Mary's Destiny A Type Of Ours.

(The Feast Of The Assumption.)

"Mary hath chosen the best part,
which shall not be taken away from her."
—St. Luke x. 42.

To-day is the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To-day she entered into the enjoyment of heaven. The trials and troubles of life are over. The time of banishment is ended. She closes her eyes on this world, and opens them to the vision of God. She is exalted to-day above the choirs of angels to the heavenly kingdom, and takes her seat at the right hand of her Son. I do not mean to attempt any description of her glory in heaven. I am sure whatever I could say would fall far short, not only of the reality, but of your own glowing thoughts about her. Who is there that needs to be told that the Blessed Virgin is splendid in sanctity, dazzling in beauty, and exalted in power? But, my brethren, it is possible to contemplate the Blessed Virgin in such a way as to put her at too great a distance from us. It is possible to conceive of her glory in heaven as flowing entirely from her dignity as Mother of God, and therefore to suppose it altogether unattainable by us; and, as a consequence of this, to regard her with feelings full of admiration indeed, but almost as deficient in sympathy as if she were of another nature from us. {457} Now, this is to rob ourselves of so ennobling and encouraging a part of our privilege as Christians, and at the same time to take away from our devotion to the Blessed Virgin an element so useful and important, that I have determined, on this her glorious Feast, to remind you that our destiny and the destiny of Mary are substantially the same.

And the first proof I offer of this is, that the glory of the Blessed Virgin in heaven is not owing to her character as Mother of God, but to her correspondence to grace—to her good works—to her love of God—in a word, to her fidelity as a Christian. This is certain, for it is the Catholic doctrine that the Blessed Virgin, like every other saint, gained heaven only as the reward of merit. Now, she could not merit it by becoming the Mother of God. Her being the Mother of God is indeed a most august dignity, but there is no merit in it. It is a dignity conferred on her by the absolute decree of God, just as He resolved to confer angelic nature on angels, or human nature on men. It is no doubt a great happiness and glory for us to be men, and not brutes, but there is no merit in it; so there is honor but no merit in the Blessed Virgin's being the Mother of God. Now, if she did not merit heaven by becoming the Mother of God, how did she merit it? for it is of faith that heaven is the reward of merit. I answer, by her life on earth. It was not as the Mother of God that she won heaven, but as Mary, the daughter of Joachim, the wife of Joseph, the mother of Jesus. It is impossible to read the Gospels without seeing how careful our Lord was to make us understand this. He seems to have been afraid, all along, that the splendor of that character of Mother of God would eclipse the woman and the saint.

Thus once when He was preaching, a woman in the crowd, hearing his words of wisdom, and, perhaps, piercing the veil of his humanity, and thinking what a blessed thing it must be to be the mother of such a son, exclaimed: "Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck," [Footnote 198] but He answered immediately: "Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it." No one doubts that the Blessed Virgin did hear the Word of God, and keep it. So our Lord's words are as much as to say: "You praise my mother for being my mother; what I praise her for is her sanctity." In the same way, when they came to Him on another occasion, when there was a great throng about Him and said, "Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, seeking thee," He answered, "Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And stretching forth his hand towards his disciples, he said: Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother. [Footnote 199]

[Footnote 198: St. Luke xi. 27.]

[Footnote 199: St. Matt. xii. 48.]

External advantages, however great, even to be related to the Son of God, are as nothing in his sight, compared to that in which all may have a part—obedience to his Father's will. Perhaps, also, this is the explanation of his language at the marriage of Cana in Galilee. When the wine failed, and his mother came to Him and asked Him to exert his Divine power to supply the want, He said: "Woman, what hast thou to do with me? My time is not yet come." [Footnote 200]

[Footnote 200: St. John ii. 4 (Archbishop Kenrick's translation).]

He does not allow her request on the score of her maternal authority, but what He refuses on this ground He grants to her virtue and holiness, for He immediately proceeds to perform the miracle she asked for, though, as He said, his time was not yet come. So, too, on the cross He commends the Blessed Virgin to St. John's care, not under the high title of Mother, but the lowly one of woman. "Woman, behold thy Son." [Footnote 201]

[Footnote 201: St. John xix. 26.]

Now, why was this? Did not our Lord love his Mother? Was He not disposed to be obedient to her as his mother? Certainly; but it was for our sakes He spoke thus. {459} In private, at Nazareth, we are told, he was "subject to her," but on these great public occasions, when crowds were gathered around Him to hear Him preach, when He hung on the Cross, and a world was looking on, He put out of view her maternal grandeur, in compassion to us, lest there should be too great a distance between her and us, and we should lose the force of her example. He wished us to understand that Mary, high as she was, was a woman, and in the same order of grace and providence with us. We might have said: "Oh, the Blessed Virgin obtains what she asks for on easy terms. She has but to ask and it is done. She enters heaven as the son of a nobleman comes into his father's estate, by the mere title of blood and lineage." But no: our Saviour says: "To sit on my right hand is not mine to give you, but to them for whom it is prepared by my Father." [Footnote 202]

[Footnote 202: St. Matt. xx. 23.]

It is not a matter of favor and arbitrary appointment; not even my Mother gains her glory in that way. She must comply with the terms on which my Father promises heaven to men, and therefore the Church applies to her words spoken of another Mary: "Mary hath chosen the best part; therefore it shall not be taken away from her." Oh, blessed truth! Mary is one of us. Her destiny, high as it is, is a human destiny. And she reached it in a human fashion. She built that splendid throne of hers in heaven with care and labor while she was on the earth. She laid the foundation of it in her childhood, when her feet trod the Temple aisles. She reared its pillars when with faith, purity, and obedience unequalled, she received the message of the archangel. And her daily life at Bethlehem, Egypt, and Nazareth, her holy, loving ways with Joseph and with Jesus, her perfect fulfilment of God's law, her interior fervent acts of prayer, covered it with gold and ivory.

Then, when the blind world was going on its way of folly; while one King Herod was deluging villages in blood, and another steeping his soul in the guilt of incest, and of the blood of the Son of God; while the multitude were doubting, and Scribes and Pharisees disputing about Christ, the lowly Jewish maiden, with no other secret but love and prayer, was preparing for herself that bright mansion in Heaven wherein she now dwells, rejoicing eternally with her Son. Oh, happy news! One, at least, of our race has perfectly fulfilled her destiny. Here we can gain some idea of what God created us for. Here is the destiny that awaits man when original sin does not mar it; when co-operation with grace and unswerving perseverance secure it. The Jews were proud of Judith. They said: "Thou art the glory of Jerusalem; thou art the joy of Israel; thou art the honor of our people." So we may say of Mary: "O Mary, thou art the pride of our race. In thee the design of God in our creation has been perfectly attained. In thee the redemption of Christ has had its perfect fruit. Mankind conceives new hopes from thy success." Christ, indeed, has entered into glory; but Christ was God. Mary is purely human, and Mary has succeeded. Why tarry we here in the bondage of Egypt? Mary has crossed the Red Sea, and has taken a timbrel in her hand and sings her thanksgiving unto God. True it is that she is fleet of foot, and we are all halt and weak; but even she needed the grace of God, and the same grace is offered to us, that we may run and not faint. Listen to her song of triumph. She does not set herself above us, but claims kindred with us, and bids us hope for the same grace which she has received. "My soul doth magnify the Lord, for he hath exalted the humble, and hath filled the hungry with good things. And his mercy is from generation to generation to them that fear Him."

Another proof that the destiny of the Blessed Virgin is substantially the same with ours, is the fact that the same expressions are used to describe her glory and ours. Sometimes those who are not Catholics, when they hear what high words we use of the Blessed Virgin, are scandalized; but we use almost no words of the Blessed Virgin that may not, in their measure, be applied to other saints. It is true that the Blessed Virgin has some gifts and graces in which she stands alone—as her character of Mother of God, and her Immaculate Conception—but, as I said before, these are dignities and ornaments conferred on her, and are not the source of her essential happiness in heaven. In other respects, her glory is shared by all the saints. Thus, Mary is called "Queen of Heaven;" but are not all the blessed called in Holy Scripture, "kings and priests unto God?" [Footnote 203] Is she said to sit at the "King's right hand?" and are not we too promised a place at his right hand, and to "sit on thrones?" [Footnote 204] Is she called the "Morning Star?" and does not St. Paul, speaking of all the saints, say, "star differeth from star in glory?" [Footnote 205] Is she called a "Mediatrix of Prayer" and is it not said of every just man, that his "continual prayer availeth much?" [Footnote 206] Is she called the "Spouse of God?" and does not the Almighty, addressing every faithful soul, say, "My love, my dove, my undefiled?" [Footnote 207] Is she called the "Daughter of the Most High?" and are not we too called the "Sons of God?" [Footnote 208]

[Footnote 203: Apoc. i. 6.]

[Footnote 204: Apoc. iii. 21.]

[Footnote 205: I Cor. xv. 41.]

[Footnote 206: St. James v. 16.]

[Footnote 207: Can. v. 2.]

[Footnote 208: I St. John iii. 2.]

The glory of the Blessed Virgin, then, differs from that of the other saints in degree, but not in kind. She is not separated from them, but is one of them. She goes before them. She is the most perfect of them. But she is one of them. And for this reason, the glory of the Blessed Virgin gives us the best conception of the magnificence of our destiny. When a botanist wishes to describe a flower, he selects the most perfect specimen. {462} When an anatomist draws a model of the human frame, he makes it faultless. So we, to gain the truest idea of our destiny, must lift up our eyes to the Blessed Virgin on her heavenly throne, and say: "Oh! my soul, see for what thou art created." Think of this, my brethren, as often as you kneel before her image, or meditate on her greatness. You cannot be what she is, but you can be like her. She is a creature like you. She is a human being like you. She is a Christian like you. And her joy, her beauty, her glory, her wealth, her knowledge, her power—nay, even the mighty efficacy of her intercession—are only what, in their measure, God offers to you. "Glory, honor, and peace to EVERY ONE that worketh good; for there is no respect of persons with God." [Footnote 209]

[Footnote 209: Rom. ii. 10.]

If these things be so, what greatness it gives to human life. Perhaps, if you had lived in the times of the Blessed Virgin Mary, you would never have noticed her; or if you had known her by sight, what would she have seemed to you but a good little Jewish girl, lowly and retiring in her manners and appearance? or, later in life, a poor young woman thrust away, with her husband, from a crowded inn, or fleeing by night with an infant child or, still later, the mother of a condemned malefactor, watching his sufferings in the crowd. Herod did not know her, and the nobles of Jerusalem were ignorant of her. She was not one of the friends of the queen's dancing daughters. Even the rustics of the village of Bethlehem looked down on her. She carried no servants about with her, and had no palace to live in. But Faith tells us of angel visits, of union with God, of heavenly goodness, and an immortal crown. So, in like manner, how our life becomes grand and dignified when it is lighted up by faith! You know there are porcelain pictures, which in the hand are rough and unmeaning, but held up to the light reveal the most beautiful scenes and figures; so our common, ordinary life, rough and unmeaning as it often seems, when enlightened by faith becomes all divine. {463} There is a little girl who learns her lessons and obeys her parents, and tells the truth, and shuns every thing that is wicked; why, as that little girl kneels down to pray, I see a bright angel drawing near to her, and he smiles on her and says: "Hail! Blessed art thou: the Lord is with thee." That young man who, by a sincere conversion, has thrown off the slavery of sin, and regained once more the grace of God—"what is his heart but another cave of Bethlehem, in which Christ is born, and around which angels sing: "Glory to God in the highest, on earth, peace to men of good will." That Christian family, where daily prayers are offered, and instruction and good example are given, and mutual fidelity is observed between the members—what is it but the Holy House of Nazareth?—the Home of Jesus? Yes, good Christian, do not be cast down because you are poor, or because you suffer, or because your opportunities of doing good are limited; live the life of a Christian, and you are living Mary's life on earth. We have not, indeed, Mary's perfect sinlessness, but we have the graces of baptism, by which we may vanquish sin. We have not, as she had, the visible presence of our Lord, but we have Him invisibly in our hearts, and sacramentally in the Holy Communion. We are not "full of grace," as she was, but we have grace without limit promised to us in answer to prayer. Let us assert the privileges of our birth-right. We belong to the new creation. Angels claim kindred with us. God is our Father. Heaven is our home. We are the children of the saints—yes, of her who is the greatest of the saints. Let us follow her footsteps, that one day we may come to our Assumption, the glory of which surpassed even the power of St. John to utter. "Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is." [Footnote 210]

[Footnote 210: St. John iii. 2.]

Every thing depends an our co-operating with grace. How did the Blessed Virgin arrive at such glory? By corresponding to every grace. See her at her Annunciation. The angel comes and tells her of the grace God has prepared for her. If she had not believed, if she had not assented, what would have come of it? Why, she would have lost for all eternity the glory attached to that grace. But she did not refuse. She was ready for the grace when it was offered. She said: "Fiat," "Be it done to me according to thy word." Oh, how much hung on that Fiat! an eternal glory in heaven. So it is with us. There are moments in our lives big with the issues of our future. God's purposes concerning the soul have a certain order. He gives one grace; if we correspond to that He gives another; if we do not correspond, we lose those that depended on it; sometimes, even, we lose our salvation altogether. This is the key of your destiny—fidelity to grace. You have an inspiration from God: He speaks to your soul. Oh, listen to Him, and obey Him! To one He says: "Abandon, O sinner, your evil life, and turn to Me with all your heart." "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation!" To another, who is already in His grace, He sends inspirations to a more perfect life, a life of higher prayer and more uninterrupted recollection. Another, by the sweet attractions of His grace, He draws away from home and kindred to serve Him as a Sister of Charity by the bed of suffering; or as a nun, to live with Him in stillness and contemplation; or as a priest, to win souls for heaven. Oh, speak the word that Mary spoke: "Be it done to me according to thy word." Are you in sin? Convert without delay. Are you leading a tepid, imperfect life? Gird your loins to watchfulness and prayer. {465} Do you feel in yourselves a vocation to a religious or sacerdotal life? Rise up and obey without delay. Tomorrow may be too late. The grace may be forfeited forever. Why stand we all the day idle? Heaven is filling up. Each generation sends a new company to the heavenly host. Time is going. The great business of life remains unaccomplished. By our baptism we have been made children of God and heirs of heaven. Labor we, therefore, to enter into that rest. Mary, dear Mother, lift up thy voice for us in heaven, that we, following thy footsteps, may one day share thy glory, and with thee praise forever God the Father. Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Sermon XXVI.

Care For The Dead.

(Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost.)

"And when He came nigh to the gate of the city,
behold a dead man was carried out."
—St. Luke VII. 12.

It is not at the gate of Naim only that such a procession might be met. From every city "dead men are carried out to the grave"—nay, from every house. Death knocks alike at the palace and the cabin. It is only a question of time with him. Sooner or later he comes to all. Yes, my brethren, a day will come to each home in this parish when a piece of black crape at the door will tell the world that death has been there. Within there will be stillness and sadness, and in some darkened chamber, wrapt in a winding sheet, will lie the cold and lifeless form of some beloved member of your family—a father or mother; a wife or husband; a brother or sister; a son or daughter. After a little while even that will be taken away from you. {466} The time of the funeral will come. The mourners will go about the streets, and the dead will be buried out of your sight. I do not speak of this to make you sad. On the contrary, what I am going to say will, I know, be a source, the only real source, of comfort to you in the loss of your friends. I wish to remind you of your duties to the dead. Christianity does not permit us to bid farewell forever to our departed friends. Death, it tells us, does not sever the bond of duty and love between us and them. We still have duties toward them, and in the performance of those duties, while we are doing good to the dead, we are procuring for ourselves the best solace. What are those duties?

First: To give back the dead resignedly to God. It is not wrong to weep for the dead. It is not wrong, for we cannot help it. It is as impossible not to feel pain at such a separation as it would be not to suffer when the surgeon's knife is cutting off an arm or a leg; and, what nature demands, God does not forbid. Therefore the Holy Scripture says: "My son, shed tears over the dead; and begin to lament as if thou hadst suffered some great harm." [Footnote 211]

[Footnote 211: Eccles. xxxviii. 16.]

Do you think that poor widow of whom the Gospel speaks to-day could help weeping? She had known sorrow before, but then she had one support, a dear and only son. He was a good lad. Every body knew and loved him. But now he too is gone. It is strange that he should go and she be left behind, but so it is: there lies his body on the bier, and she is following him to the grave. See her as she goes along in her coarse black dress, bent with age and sorrow. Can you blame her for weeping, as she looks, for the last time, on that dear form? At least, Jesus did not blame her. He looked at her, and He sorrowed with her. He was moved with compassion. {467} It is not wrong, then, to weep for the dead, but we must moderate our grief, banish every rebellious thought from our heart, and mingle resignation with our sorrow. The Office which the Church sings over the dead is made up in great part of joyful psalms and anthems. After this pattern ought to be the sorrow of a Christian family, a sorrow that is not violent and noisy, a sorrow that does not pass the bounds of decency, a sorrow, I may say, mingled with joy. How different it is in some families! You come near a house and you hear shrieks the most appalling. You go in and find a woman abandoning herself to the most noisy and violent grief. Her language is little short of blasphemy. She refuses any comfort. She is weeping over a dead husband. Perhaps in life she loved him none too well. Perhaps she made his life bitter enough to him, and often prayed that some harm might happen to him, and that she might see him dead. And now she does see him dead. She will never curse him again, and he will never anger her again. He is dead; and now she breaks out into the most frantic grief, and alarms the neighborhood. She cries; she calls upon God; she throws herself on the corpse. At the funeral her conduct is still more wild and disordered. Now, what is all this? I will not say it is hypocritical, but I say it is brutish. It is not to act as a reasonable being, much less as a Christian. This is the way with some women. The only time they ever show any love to their husbands is when they are dead. Let them be: such grief will not last long. Wait awhile; before her husband's body has well got cold in the ground she will be looking around for another match.

Do not imitate such unchristian conduct. When Death enters your house, do not forget that you are a Christian. Do not indulge your grief. Call to your aid the principles of your faith. You are sad and lonely. Well, is it not better to feel that this life is a state of exile? You have lost your protector. And has not God promised to protect the orphan? You have lost such a good friend, such a bright example. {468} Well, ought you not, then, to rejoice at his safe departure? The early Christians used to carry flowers to the grave, and sing hymns of joy because the toils of a Christian warrior were ended, and he had entered into rest. Hear what the Church sings: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Will you weep because one you love is taken away from sin, from temptation, from the trouble to come? Will you grieve because he has secured for himself the Blissful and Eternal Vision of God? But you have no confidence that he was good, that he did die in the grace of God. Suppose you are uncertain on that point, is there any thing better than to go with your doubts and fears before the Holy God, and while you offer to Him your trembling prayers for the departed, to adore His Providence and say: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the Name of the Lord." [Footnote 212]

[Footnote 212: Job i. 27.]

Dry up your tears, then, O bereaved Christian. "Make mourning for the dead for a day or two," [Footnote 213] says the Holy Scripture. That is, do not abandon yourself to grief. Do not think, because your friend is gone, that God is gone, and Christ is gone, and duty gone. Do not call on others more than is necessary. Resume your ordinary duties as soon as possible—and in these duties you will find the relief which God Himself has provided for our sadness, and His Grace will accompany you in the performance of them.

[Footnote 213: Ecc. xxxviii. 18.]

Another duty to the dead is to perform scrupulously, as far as possible, their last directions. When the patriarch Jacob was dying, he called his son Joseph to his side, and said to him: "Thou shalt show me this kindness and truth, not to bury me in Egypt, but I will sleep with my fathers, and thou shalt take me away out of this land, and bury me in the burying-place of my ancestors." [Footnote 214]

[Footnote 214: Gen. xlvii. 30.]

It was not of itself a very important request; it was, moreover, an inconvenient one. Yet see how promptly and carefully it was complied with. As soon as the days of mourning for Jacob were ended, Joseph went to Pharao and said: "My father made me swear to him, saying, Thou shalt bury me in my sepulchre which I have digged for myself in the land of Canaan. So I will go and bury my father and return. And Pharao said to him, Go up and bury thy father. And they buried him in the land of Canaan, in the double cave which Abraham bought for a burying-place." [Footnote 215]

[Footnote 215: Gen. 1, 4, 5, 13.]

Would that the same piety were always seen among us! A mother dies: the last wishes that she expresses to her children are that they should be true to their holy faith and earnest in seeking the salvation of their souls, and she sends a message to an absent son, which will not reach him in his distant home till long after she is gone, begging him to be faithful and regular in his duties as a Christian. A father dies, and tells his son of a debt, strictly due in justice, but of which there is no record, and where he will find the money to pay it. A poor girl dies, and confides to some one, whom she thinks her friend, the little earnings of her hard labor, asking that it may be sent to her old mother in Ireland. Are these wishes executed? Are these children faithful Catholics? Is that boy, the object of a mother's dying tears and prayers, regular at the sacraments? Has that debt been paid? Did the sad news of the daughter's death go out to the poor mother in the old country, softened with the evidence of that daughter's piety and love? or was the money retained and squandered? What! are you not afraid to add to the sin of irreligion and injustice the crime of breaking faith with the dead? Hear what God says in the Holy Scripture: "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to Me from the earth." [Footnote 216]

[Footnote 216: Gen. iv. 10.]

The dead have got a voice, then—a voice that cries to God, that cries for vengeance against those who injure them. Pay, then, thy debts to the dead. Redeem the promise thou hast made to the dying. Fulfil thy duties as an executor or administrator with fidelity and justice. Be exact. It is a dead man thou art dealing with. Do not say, he is dead and cannot speak. Hear what the Law of God saith: "Thou shalt not speak evil of the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind: but thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, because I am the Lord." [Footnote 217] Do you understand? God hears for those who cannot hear, He speaks for those who cannot speak; and if thou makest the dead thy enemy, thou hast the Living and Eternal God for a Foe.

[Footnote 217: Levit. xix. 14.]

Another part of our duty to the dead is to treat their bodies with respect, and to give them decent burial. We do this for two reasons: for what they have been, and what they are to be. Their bodies have been the casket which held their souls, and we love their bodies for what their souls have been to God and to us. We love the eye that looked upon us with affection, the mouth that spoke to us words of truth and kindness, we love the ear that listened to our sorrows, and the hand that soothed and blessed us. We love that body which was the soul's instrument here in her works of piety and Christian charity. And we love that body for what it shall be. We see it as it will be when it springs from the grave on the morning of the Resurrection, sparkling with light, beautiful and immortal. And this is why we follow the dead to the grave. We go with them as we go part of the way home with a cherished guest. We go with them in token that the love that united us is not severed by death, but that we are still joined to them in hope and charity. Oh yes, it is right. Let the body be laid out decently; the limbs composed; the eyes closed for their long sleep. And when the time of burial comes, let all the ceremonies of the Holy Church lend their aid. {471} Walk slow; let the priest in surplice and stole go before; light the candles and hold the cross aloft; sing the sweet and solemn chant; carry the body to the church and lay it before the Altar of God; bring incense and holy water, and let there be High Mass for the repose of the soul. Fitting ceremonies! "Beautiful and touching rites! chosen with a heavenly still to comfort the mourner and to honor the dead. But alas! alas! how do we see this duty to the dead sometimes fulfilled! A Catholic is dead. It is true there are candles and holy water, but where are the pious prayers? The neighbors are gathered together, but it is not to pray. The glasses and the pipes speak of a different kind of meeting. Yes, they have come there, there to that chamber, the Court of Death and the Threshold of Eternity, to hold a drunken wake. The night wears on with stories, sometimes even obscene and filthy, and as liquor does its work, curses and blasphemies mingle with the noisy, senseless cries and yells of drunken men. Are these orgies meant to insult the dead? Do these revellers wish to make us believe that their departed friend was, body and soul, the child of Hell as much as they? So the wake is kept, and now for the funeral. The man died early in the week, but of course he must be buried on Sunday. Sunday is the worst day of the week for a funeral, because it is the day appointed for the public worship of God, and it is wrong to draw men away from the church on that day without necessity, yet a funeral must by all means be on a Sunday. And why? Because a greater crowd can be got together on that day, and the object is to have a crowd, and to make people say, such a one had a decent funeral. The family are poor, nevertheless a large number of carriages are hired, and filled with a set of people who regard the whole thing as a picnic or excursion. Some of them have already "taken a drop," and so little sense of religion have they left, that sometimes at the grave itself, sometimes in returning from it, they raise brawls and riots that bring disgrace and contempt at once on the man they have buried and the faith they profess. {472} Do you call this a decent funeral?" I say it is a sin. A sin of pride and ostentation. A sin of scandal and excess. A sin of robbery and cruelty—of robbery and cruelty toward the poor children from whose hungry mouths and naked backs are taken the extravagant expenses of this ambitious display. How much better to have a small funeral! a funeral remarkable for nothing but its modesty and simplicity, to which only the few are called who knew the dead and loved him, who follow him to his long home with serious thoughts, like thinking men and Christians, remembering that before long they must go with him into the grave and lie down beside him, and who return home to remember his soul before God as often as they kneel down to pray.

And this brings me, in the last place, to speak of the duty of praying for the dead. It is a most consoling privilege of our holy faith. Death indeed fixes our eternal condition irrevocably. "If the tree fall to the south or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be." [Footnote 218]

[Footnote 218: Eccles. xi. 3.]

But the good do not always enter heaven immediately. If the sharp process by which God purifies His children on earth has not wrought its full effect, it must be carried on for a while longer in that hidden receptacle in which faithful souls await their summons to the presence of God. And during this period our prayers in their behalf are of great avail. No part of our religion has more undeniable proofs of its antiquity. As far back as the fourth century of the Christian era, St. Cyril testifies that it was the custom "to pray for those who had departed this life, believing it to be a great assistance to those souls for whom prayers are offered while the Holy and Tremendous Sacrifice is going on." [Footnote 219]

[Footnote 219: St. Cyril, Cat., lect. v., n. 9.]

The tombstones of the early Christians attest the same practice, and St. Augustine, speaking not as a doctor, but recording a chapter of his own history, lets us into the innermost feelings of the Church of his day on this subject. In his Confessions he tells us that his mother St. Monica, shortly before her death, looked at him and said: "Lay this body anywhere, be not concerned about that, only I beg of you, that wheresoever you be, you make remembrance of me at the Lord's Altar." And the saint goes on to tell how he fulfilled this request, how after her death the "Sacrifice of our Ransom" was offered for her, and how fervently he continued to pray for her. But his own words are best: "Though my mother lived in such a manner that Thy Name is much praised in her faith and manners, yet * * * I entreat Thee, O God of my heart, for her sins. Hear me, I beseech Thee, through that cure of our wounds that hung upon the Tree, and that sitting now at Thy Right Hand maketh intercession for us. I know that she did mercifully, and from her heart forgave to her debtors their trespasses; do Thou likewise forgive to her her debts, if she hath also contracted any in those many years she lived after the saving water. Forgive them, O Lord, forgive them. * * * Let no one separate her from Thy protection. Let not the lion and the dragon either by force or fraud interpose himself. Let her rest in peace, together with her husband; and do Thou inspire Thy servants that as many as shall read this may remember at Thy Altar Thy handmaid Monica, with Patricius her husband." [Footnote 220]

[Footnote 220: St. Augustine's, Confessions, book ix., c. 13.]

Are we as faithful to pray for our departed friends, and to get prayers said for them? They wait the time of their deliverance with painful longing. They cannot hasten it themselves. They cannot merit. Their hands are tied. They are at our mercy. The Church indeed prays for these in her litanies, her offices, and her Masses, but how little do we, their friends and relations, pray for them. {474} The patriarch Joseph, when he foretold to Pharao's butler, his fellow prisoner, his speedy restoration to honor, said to him: "Only remember me when it shall be well with thee, and do me this kindness to put Pharao in mind to take me out of this prison." [Footnote 221]

[Footnote 221: Gen. xl. 14.]

But the butler, when things prospered with him, forgot his friend. So we forget our friends in the prison of Purgatory. They linger looking for help from us, and it comes not. Oh, pray for the dead. Death does not sever them from hope, from prayer, or from the power of Christ. Did not Martha say to our Lord in reference to her brother Lazarus, who was already dead: "I know that even NOW whatsoever thou wilt ask of God (in his behalf) He will give it thee!" [Footnote 222]

[Footnote 222: St. John xi. 22.]

Yes, Christ's mercy and Christ's Bounty reach even to the regions of the shadow of death. Christ has in His hands gifts even for the dead—gifts of Consolation, of Refreshment, of Quiet, and of Rest. Ask those gifts for those you love. With the widow of Naim carry your dead to the Saviour, let your tears and prayers in their behalf meet His Compassionate Ear and Eye, and He will speak to the dead: "Young man, I say to thee Arise." And the dead shall hear His voice, and shall rise up, not yet to the Resurrection of the Body, not yet to be "delivered to his Master," but to the company of the Angels, to the spirits of the Just, to the home of God, where they shall be "before the Throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His Temple, and He that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell over them. And they shall not hunger nor thirst any more; neither shall the sun fall on them, nor any heat." [Footnote 223]

[Footnote 223: Apoc. vii. 15, 16.]

I have endeavored to-day, my brethren, to speak for the dead. They cannot speak for themselves, but they live, and feel, and think. And sure I am that, if they could speak, their words would not be in substance very different from what I have spoken. They would say: "I want no costly monument. I want no splendid funeral. Still less do I wish that God should be offended on my account. I ask a remembrance mingled with affection and resignation, the rites of the Holy Church, a quiet grave, and now and then a fervent, earnest prayer. And I will not forget you in my prison of hope. I will pray for you, and oh! when the morning comes, and my happy soul is called to Heaven, my first intercession at the throne of God shall be for you, whom I loved so well in life, and who hast not left off thy kindness to the dead.

Sermon XXVII.

Success The Reward Of Merit.

(Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost.)

"What things a man shall sow,
them also shall he reap."
—Gal. VI. 8.

To judge by the complaints which we hear continually around us, we might conclude that the commonest thing in the world is for men to fail in their undertakings. Now, I admit that it is a very common thing indeed for men to fail in obtaining what they desire. There are many men who have some darling object of ambition which they cannot reach. But I do not think it is a very frequent thing for men to fail in attaining an end which they steadily aim at, and which they take the proper means to attain. I believe the rule is the other way. I believe success is the ordinary result of well-directed endeavor. I know indeed that the Holy Scriptures tell us that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favor to the skilful: but time and chance is all." [Footnote 224]

[Footnote 224: Eccles. ix. 11.]

But surely all that this means is that the providence of God, for its own purposes, sometimes interferes to thwart the best-concerted measures, and to crown feeble attempts with unexpected success. The race is not always to the swift, but ordinarily it is. The battle is not always to the strong, but when it is not, it is an exception to the rule. The rule is, that success commonly attends the employment of proper and judicious means. The experience of life proves that this is true. Let us look around and see if it is not so.

We will look first at the business world. Here at first sight a succession of the most surprising changes meets our eye. Men that were rich a few years ago are now poor. Men that then were poor are now rich. The servant and his master have changed places. If you return to the city after a few years' absence you will find the same handsome houses lining our avenues, but the occupants of many of them will be changed. The same gay carriages roll along the street, but there is always a new set of people riding in them, and they that used to ride now go afoot. What wonder is it that men have imagined Fortune to be blindfold[ed], and the ups and downs of life the chance revolutions of her wheel? But when we look closer, we see this is not the case. For the most part each fall and each success has had an adequate history. There has been a rigid bond of cause and effect. It is only a metaphor when we say that riches have wings. Gold and silver, and real estate, and most kinds of personal property, are solid and substantial, and do not melt away in a night. So, on the other hand, fortunes are not made by accident. The rich man becomes rich by aiming at it and striving for it. He does not need any extraordinary genius perhaps, but he bends his talents, such as they are, to the task. He rises early, he is constantly at his place of business, he keeps himself informed of all its details, he thinks about it. When a favorable opening comes, he takes advantage of it. {477} When a reverse comes, he is not discouraged by it. Other men would be discouraged, but he is not. Perhaps he is in middle life, perhaps he has a growing family, but he looks out for a fresh field of enterprise, and begins anew to battle with the world, and he becomes rich again. His success is owing in part, if you will, to favorable circumstances, but largely to his own energy and industry. These were the conditions, without which no amount of mere external advantages would have insured success.

Again, if we look to the world of Literature and Art, we find the same thing. Disappointed authors and artists often talk as if they were the victims of the world's stupidity or malice; as if men were unable or unwilling to appreciate them. Now, I know it is said that such things have been. There have been men of rare promise, but of a sensitive nature, who have been crushed by coldness and neglect, or by the hard and unfair criticism with which their first attempts were met. But this is far from being a common thing. The world likes to be amused and pleased. It is really interested in having something to praise. This being so, how is it possible for a man of real merit to remain long unrecognized? Who can imagine that the great masterpieces of painting, or the great poems that have come down to us from the past, could have failed to excite the admiration of men? In fact, human judgment, when you take its suffrages over wide tracts and through the lapse of ages, is all but infallible. In a particular place it may be warped by passion; in a particular time it may conform to an artificial standard; but give it time and room, and it is sure with unerring accuracy to detect the beautiful and true. It is as far as possible, then, from being the case that celebrated authors or celebrated artists have become great by accident. There may have been favorable circumstances. There were undoubtedly great gifts of nature; but there was also deep study and painful, persevering toil. {478} I have been told that the manuscripts of a distinguished English poet show so many erasures that hardly a line remains unaltered. The great cathedrals of Europe were the fruit of life-long labor. And these are but instances of a general rule. When we go into the workshops in which some of the beautiful articles of merchandise are manufactured, we see a great fire and hear the clank of machinery, and men are hurrying to and fro, stained with dust and sweat. Now, something like this has been going on to give birth to these beautiful creations in Letters and Arts which have delighted the world. There has been a great fire in the furnace of the brain, and each faculty of the mind has toiled to do its part, and there have been many blows with the pen, the pencil, or the chisel, until the beautiful conception is complete. Such men were successful because they deserved it. The approbation of the world did not create their success, it only recognized it.

I will take one more example of the rule I am illustrating—personal character, reputation. I believe, as a general rule, it is pretty nearly what we deserve. We reap what we sow. People think of us pretty much as we really are. I am not unmindful of the occasional success of hypocrites, nor of the instances, happily not very frequent, of innocent persons overwhelmed by a load of unjust accusation and calumny. Again, I know that when people are angry with us they sometimes say spiteful things which they do not mean, and when they wish to flatter us they say things more complimentary, but just as false. But notwithstanding all this, I affirm that the judgments which people who know us form of us are very nearly correct. Indeed it must be so, for we cannot disguise ourselves altogether, or for a long time. We cannot always wear a mask. An ignorant, ill-bred man may go to a tailor's and dress himself out in fashionable clothes, but the first word he speaks, and the first movement he makes will betray his want of education. {479} So, while we are trying to pass ourselves off for something else than what we are, to a keen observer our habitual thoughts and character will pierce through and discover our true selves. Even what our enemies say about us, when they say what they think, is very likely to be true. Men have no need to invent bad things about us. We have all got faults enough. They have only to seize these, exaggerate them a little, caricature them, separate them from what is good in us, and they will make a picture bad enough, but not too bad to be recognized as ours. Their description of us is like a photographic likeness. It takes away the bloom from the cheek, and the brightness from the eye, and the rich tints from the hair. It notes down each imperfection, each frown and wrinkle and crookedness of feature, and there it is, a hard, severe, but not an untrue likeness. In fact, my brethren, one of the last things I would advise any man to attempt would be to try to seem something he is not. He is almost sure to be unsuccessful. There is a law in the world too strong for him—the law of justice and truth, the law that binds together actions and their consequences, the law that attaches honor to what is good and right, and contempt to what is base and false.

Thus we see on every side illustrations of the rule that our success is in proportion to our merit. We sow what we reap. Much more is this true in regard to religion. You have observed that hitherto I have been obliged to make some qualifications, to make some exceptions in each of the instances I have brought forward. God may prevent our becoming rich, however legitimately we may labor for it, because He sees that riches would not be good for us. Or He may allow our talents to remain unappreciated, and our name to be covered with obloquy, in order to drive us to seek His Eternal Praise. But in religion our labors are sure to meet with success. There is absolutely no exception. Our success will be infallibly in proportion to our endeavors, neither more or less. {480} You know, my brethren, that a doctrine may be familiar to us, but may not always make the same impression on us. We may hear it many times and assent to it, but on some special occasion, it may enter our mind with such force, take such a lively hold of our imagination and heart that it seems new to us. This is what we call coming home to us. Now, I remember an occasion when the doctrine I have just stated thus came home to me. It was on hearing the words of St. Alphonsus: "With that degree of love to God that we possess when we leave this world, and no more, will we pass our eternity." Any thing more startling and awakening I do not remember ever to have heard. Not the thought of the pains of hell, or the horrors of sin, or the bliss of paradise, ever seemed to me so loud a call for action. All of heaven that we shall ever see, we acquire here. Perhaps you too, my brethren, have not realized this sufficiently. The truth is, I think many men act in regard to religion as children and weak-minded persons do in regard to the things of this world—they build "castles in the air." This is a very favorite occupation with some people. They spend hours and even days in it. It is a cheap amusement, and they who follow it do not usually stint themselves in the warmth and color of their pictures. The only difficulty is, to fix a limit to their imaginary splendors. They imagine themselves very rich, worth, say fifty thousand, or a hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand dollars, with beautiful houses and furniture, and all the elegancies of life. Or they imagine themselves very famous, with a reputation as wide as the world, and admiring crowds shouting their praises wherever they go. Now something like this, equally silly and unsubstantial, passes in the minds of many Christians in regard to their hereafter. They imagine that, somehow, one of these days, they will find themselves caught up to the third heaven, borne by angels to the throne of God, crowned with a jewelled crown, seated on a golden throne, with palms in their hands, to sing forever the song of the redeemed. {481} They may be now in mortal sin, they may be in the habit of mortal sin; they may be the slaves of passion, drunkards, impure, dishonest; they may be unwilling to renounce the dangerous occasions of sin; or they may not be so bad as this: they may belong to that class who have their periodic spells of sin and devotion, and are saints or sinners according to the time of the year you take them; or they may belong to a still milder type of ungodliness, those who are negligent and cold-hearted, with a host of venial sins about them, and at intervals, now and then, a mortal sin—no matter: somehow or other, by some kind of a contrivance, all—the relapsed sinner and the habitual sinner, the drunkard, the impure, the dishonest and the profane, the worldly and tepid, the prayerless and presumptuous—all are going to heaven. O miserable delusion! Does the Bible teach us this? When it speaks of a "way" to heaven, does it not mean that all must walk in that way to reach there? When it tells us that "the Judge standeth at the door," does it not mean, to judge us by our actions! Which of the saints was ever wafted to heaven in this passive way? Ah! the apostle tells us, "they were valiant in fight," they fought with the wild beasts of their passions, and put to flight the armies of hell. No: it is an enemy that hath sown among you this Calvinistic poison—yes, this worse than Calvinistic poison, for the Calvinists did but assert that a few elect were saved by a foregone decree, while this practically extends it to every one. Do not believe it. "What a man soweth that shall he reap." "He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, and, he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." [Footnote 225]

[Footnote 225: Gal. vi. 8.]

Our days are like a weaver's shuttle, and, as they quickly come and go, they weave the web of our destiny. Each step we take is a step in one of the two paths that fill up the whole field of human probation. Ask the Psalmist who of us shall see heaven, and he will answer you, "Lord, who shall dwell in Thy tabernacle, or who shall rest on Thy holy hill? he that has clean hands and a pure heart." [Footnote 226]

[Footnote 226: Ps. xiv. 1; xxiii. 4.]

Ask the Gospel, Who is that servant whom his Lord at His coming will approve? and it answers: "Even he whose loins are girt about, and whose lights are burning, as a man that waits for his Lord." [Footnote 227]

[Footnote 227: St. Luke xii. 35, 36.]

Would you know who, at the end of the world, shall reap a rich harvest? "They that sow in tears"—in the holy tears of compunction, of the love of God, and of the desire of heaven— "shall reap in joy. And he that now goeth on his way weeping and bearing good seed, shall come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him." [Footnote 228]

[Footnote 228: Ps. cxxv. 5, 6, 7.]

Let us pause a moment before we conclude to try ourselves by this doctrine. "All the rivers run into the sea;" so all our lives are carrying us on to eternity. Should our lives be cut off at this moment, of what kind of texture would they be found? "In those days," says the prophet, "Israel shall come, they shall make haste and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Sion, their faces thitherward." [Footnote 229]

[Footnote 229: Jer. i. 4, 5.]

Are our faces, my brethren, turned toward the heavenly city? Are we hastening thither, acknowledging ourselves strangers and pilgrims on the earth? These careless confessions, these heartless prayers, these darling sins, these aimless lives, this tepidity, this indifference and procrastination in spiritual things, what do they indicate? We look at the sky to judge of the weather. We read the newspapers to find out the condition of the country. We watch our symptoms to ascertain the state of our health. Ah! there are indications far more important, to which we ought to take heed. {483} Indications of salvation or reprobation, symptoms of spiritual health or decay, earnests of heaven or hell, marks of Christ or Satan. You remember the story of the old monk who was observed to weep as he sat watching the people going into church, and, being asked the reason, said he saw a man enter, followed by a black demon, who seemed to claim him as his own. So, if we could look into the spiritual world, we should see some men attended by angels who have come to "minister to them as heirs of salvation," while others are surrounded by evil spirits, "come to torment them before their time." Yes, eternity does not wait for the last day. It presses upon us now and here. Each day is a Judgment Day. Each evening, as it falls, finds us gathered at Christ's right hand, driven to His left, or wavering between the two. Why do we not take our place at once, where we shall wish to be found at our Saviour's coming? It is not very long since death took from among us a convert to our holy faith, [Footnote 230] whose life had been rich in good works, who had been a mother to the orphan, and a sister to the outcast and abandoned; and a priest, who visited her on her last illness, told me that he had said to her: "If God were now to raise you up and restore you to health, I would not know how to give you any other advice, than to resume your good works at that point where sickness compelled you to leave them off." Beautiful testimony to a holy life! Cut the thread wherever you will, it is all gold. Stop the Christian where you will, he is on his way to heaven. Be such a life ours. I have said each day is a Judgment Day: let each day merit the approval of Christ. Let our life be a constant preparation for Eternity, remembering that the only heaven the Christian religion offers us, is a heaven that is won by our labors here.

[Footnote 230: Mrs. Geo. Ripley.]

Sermon XXVIII.

The Mass The Highest Worship.

(Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost.)

"What shall I offer to the Lord that is worthy?
Wherewith shall I kneel before the High God?"
—Mich. VI.6.

Such is the question which mankind have been asking from the creation of the world. God is so high, so great, so good, so beautiful. He made us. He created us by His Word, and we hang upon His Breath. How shall we worship Him? How shall we express the thoughts of Him that fill our souls? Alas! the words of the lips, the postures of the body, are all inadequate. What shall we do? Shall we, like Cain, gather the fairest fruits and flowers, and bring the basket before the Lord? Or, like Abel, shall we take the firstlings of our flocks, and slay them in His honor? Shall we dress an altar, and pile upon it the smoking victims? Shall we make our children pass through the fire in His Name? Or, like the Indian devotee, shall we throw ourselves under the wheels of the car that carries the image of the Divinity? Such have been the ways in which men have tried to express their devotion to God, but all have been either insufficient or vain. Man's thoughts about God have found no fitting expression. A fire has burned in his heart which no words can utter. Now here, as in so many other ways, Christianity comes to our aid, and places within our reach a perfect and all-sufficient mode of expressing our devotion, a perfect worship. Do you ask me to what I allude? I answer, to the Sacrifice of the Mass.

Let me remind you what the Sacrifice of the Mass is. We Catholics believe that in the Mass Jesus Christ offers His real Body and Blood, under the species of bread and wine, to His Eternal Father, in remembrance of His Death on the Cross. Our Lord's Death on the Cross was in itself complete, and all-sufficient for the purpose for which it was undergone, and need not, indeed could not, be repeated; but His Priestly Office was not exhausted by that offering. In the language of Scripture: "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." [Footnote 231] And, "He is a Priest forever." [Footnote 232]

[Footnote 231: Heb. vii. 25.]

[Footnote 232: Ps. cix. 4.]

In what, then, does our Lord's Priesthood since His Crucifixion consist? In heaven, it consists in presenting Himself to His Father directly and immediately, to plead the merits of His Death and Passion in our behalf; but on earth it consists in representing that Death and Passion in the mystical action which we call the Eucharistic Sacrifice or the Mass; thus fulfilling the words of the prophet in reference to our Lord: "Thou art a Priest forever, after the order of Melchisedec." [Footnote 233:]

[Footnote 233: Ibid.]

The offering, then, which takes place in the Mass is the very same that was made on Calvary, only it is made in a different manner. On the Cross, that offering was made in a direct and absolute manner, it was a bloody Sacrifice; in the Mass, it is made in a mystical and commemorative way, without blood, without suffering, without death. Therefore, in order to understand what takes place in the Mass, we must go back to the Cross. What was it that took place on the Cross? You answer, perhaps, Christ shed His Blood there for the remission of sins. True: the Blood of Christ was the material cause of our Redemption, but that which gave the Blood of Christ its value, that, indeed, which made it a Sacrifice, was the interior dispositions of the Soul of Christ. The Blood of Christ, taken as a mere material thing, could never have effected our reconciliation. What does the Scripture say? "Sacrifice and oblation Thou didst not desire. Burnt-offerings and sin-offerings Thou didst not require. Then I said: Lo, I come to do Thy will O God!" [Footnote 234]

[Footnote 234: Ps. xxxix. 7, 8.]

It was by the obedience of Christ, an obedience practised through His whole life, but of which His Death and Passion were the fullest expression, that Christ, as our elder brother, repaired our disobedience. While our Lord was hanging on the Cross, He exercised every Divine virtue which the soul of man can exercise. He loved. He prayed. He praised. He gave thanks. He supplicated. He made acts of adoration and resignation. In one word, He performed the most perfect act of worship.

Well, it is just the same in the Mass. It would be the greatest mistake to think of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass as a sort of dead offering. It is living, and offered by the living Christ. Christ is the Priest of the Mass as well as the victim. It is Christ who celebrates the Mass, and He celebrates it with a warm and living Heart, the same Heart with which He worshipped the Father on Mount Calvary. It is this that makes the Mass what it is. If it were not for this, the Mass would be a carnal sacrifice, infinitely superior, indeed, to those of the Old Law, but of the same order. It is this which makes the Sacrifice of the Mass a reasonable service, a Spiritual Sacrifice.

And now you are prepared to understand my assertion that the Mass supplies the want of the human soul for an adequate mode of approaching God. As a creature before its Creator, you are oppressed with your own inability to worship Him worthily. Do you want a better worship than that which His Eternal Son offers? In the Mass, the Son of God in His Human Nature worships the Father for us. He prays for us; asks pardon for us; gives thanks for us; adores for us. As He is perfect man, He expresses every human feeling; as He is perfect God, His utterances have a complete perfection, an infinite acceptableness. Thus, when we offer Mass, we worship the Father with Christ's worship. It seems to me that the Catholic can have a certain kind of pride in this. {487} He may say, "I know I am weak and as nothing before God, yet I possess a treasure that is worthy to offer Him, I have a prayer to present to Him all-perfect and all-powerful, the prayer of His Only-Begotten Son in whom He is well pleased."

Nor is this all. Christ worships the Father for us in the Mass, not to excuse us from worshipping, but to help us to worship. You remember how, the night before our Saviour died, He took with Him Peter and James and John, and going into the garden of Gethsemane, He said to them, "Tarry ye here, while I go and pray yonder." And how, being removed from them about a stone's cast, He began to pray very earnestly, so that He was in an agony, and the drops of blood fell from His body to the ground; and how He went to them from time to time to urge them to watch and pray along with Him. The weight of all human sorrows was then upon His soul. He was presenting the necessities of the whole human race to His Father, but He would have the apostles, weary as they were, borne down by suffering and fatigue, to join their feeble prayers with His. So, in the Holy Mass, He is withdrawn from us a little distance, making intercessions for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, and He would have us kneel about the temple aisles, adding our poor prayers to His. Our prayers, by being united to His, obtain not only a higher acceptance, but a higher significance. Our obscure aspirations He interprets. What we know not how to ask for, or even to think of, He supplies. What we ask for in broken accents, He puts into glowing words. What we ask for in error and ignorance, He deciphers in wisdom and love. And thus our prayers, as they pass through His Heart, become transfigured and divine.

Oh, what a gift is the Holy Mass! How full an utterance has Humanity found therein for all its woes, its aspirations, its hopes, its affections! How completely is the distance bridged over that separated the creature and the Creator! {488} It was to the Mass that our Lord alluded in His conversation with the woman of Samaria. You remember the incident. The Samaritans were a schismatical sect. They had separated from the Jews, had built a temple on Mount Gerazin, in opposition to the temple of the Jews at Jerusalem, and there they offered sacrifices. Now, this Samaritan woman, when our Lord had entered into conversation with her, put to Him the question which was then in controversy. Which was the right temple? Which was the acceptable sacrifice? Which was the place where men ought to worship—Mount Gerazin; or Mount Sion? And how does our Lord answer her? "Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem adore the Father. The hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipper shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth." [Footnote 235]

[Footnote 235: St. John iv. 22, 23.]

The time is coming when a new Sacrifice, a new worship, shall be established, a worship of Spirit and Truth, a worship that shall put to rest the controversy between Samaria and Jerusalem, for it shall be offered in every place. What is that sacrifice? What is that worship? The prophet had foretold it long before: "From the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof, My Name is great among the Gentiles, and IN EVERY PLACE THERE IS SACRIFICE, and there is offered to My Name A CLEAN OBLATION." [Footnote 236]

[Footnote 236: Mal. ii. 11.]

And the whole tradition of the Christian Church, from the very first, tells us that this clean oblation is no other than the Eucharistic Sacrifice, a worship of "Truth," if the presence of Christ can make it true; and of "Spirit," if the Heart of Christ can make it spiritual; a worship that meets all man's wants and befits all God's attributes.

With this conception of the Mass in your minds, you see at once the explanation of some of the ceremonies attending its celebration which seem to Protestants strange and senseless. A Protestant enters a Catholic Church during the time of Mass. The Priest is at the Altar. You cannot hear what he says, he speaks so low and rapidly; and perhaps it would do you no good if you could, for he speaks in Latin; and you say: "What mummery!" "What superstition!" "What an unmeaning service!" But stop awhile. Take our view of the Mass, and see if our custom is so strange. We believe that there is an invisible Priest at the Mass, Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who offers Himself to His Father for us. You know it is related in the Old Testament, that on one day in the year the Jewish High-Priest used to enter into the Holy of Holies, which was separated from the temple by a veil, and there in secrecy perform the rites of expiation, while the people prayed in silence without. So it is at the Mass. You see the Priest lift up the Host before the people. Well, that is the white veil that hides the Holy of Holies from our eyes. Within, our Lord and Saviour mediates with the Father in our behalf. Oh, be still! Speak low! Let not the priest at the altar raise his voice, lest he drown the whispers from that inner shrine. What need for me to know the very words the priest is using? I know what he is doing. I know that this is the hour of grace. Earth has disappeared from me. Heaven is open before me. I am in the presence of God, and I am praying to Him in my own words, and after my own fashion. I am pouring out my joys before Him, or opening to Him the plague of my own heart.

Yes, the Catholic Church has solved the problem of worship. She has a service which unites all the necessary conditions for the public worship of God—a common service, in which all can join; an external service, which takes place before our eyes, which is celebrated with offerings which we ourselves supply, and by a Priest taken from among ourselves; an attractive service; and yet a service perfectly spiritual. {490} The Catholic does not come to church to hear a man pour forth an extempore prayer, and be forced to follow him through all the moods and feelings of his own mind; nor to join in a set form of prayer, which, however beautiful and well arranged, must, from the very nature of the case, fail to express the varying wants and feelings of the different members of the congregation; but he comes to join, after his own fashion, in Christ's own prayer. At the Catholic Altar there is the most complete liberty, the greatest variety, combined with the most perfect unity.

Come, then, children, come to Mass, and bring your merry hearts with you. Come, you that are young and happy, and rejoice before the Lord. Come, you that are old and weary, and tell your loneliness to God. Come, you that are sorely tempted, and ask the help of Heaven. Come, you that have sinned, and weep between the porch and the altar. Come, you that are bereaved, and pour out here your tears. Come, you that are sick, or anxious, or unhappy, and complain to God. Come, you that are prosperous and successful, and give thanks. Christ will sympathize with you. He will rejoice with you, and He will mourn with you. He will gather up your prayers. He will join to them His own Almighty supplications, and that concert of prayer shall enter heaven, louder than the music of angelic choirs, sweeter than the voice of those who sing the song of Moses and the Lamb, more piercing than the cry of the living creatures who rest not day or night, and more powerful and prevailing than the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and all the saints of Paradise together. The Mass a formalism! The Mass an unmeaning service! Why, it is the most beautiful, the most spiritual, the most sublime, the most satisfying worship which the heart of man can even conceive.

And here, too, in this idea of the Mass, we have the answer to another perplexity of Protestants. They cannot understand why we make such a point of attending Mass. They see us go to Mass in all weathers. They see us so particular not to be late at Mass. They see us on Sunday, not sauntering leisurely, as if we were going to a lecture-room, but pressing on with a certain eagerness, as if we had some great business in hand; and they ask what it all means. Is it not superstition? Do we not, like the Pharisees, give an undue value to outward observances? May we not worship God at home just as well? Ah! if it were really only an outward observance. But there is just the difference. There stands one among us whom you know not. We believe that the Saviour is with us, and you do not. We believe this with a certain, simple faith. Come to our churches, and look at our people, the poorest and most ignorant, and see if we do not. It is written on their faces. They may not know how to express themselves, but this is in their hearts. You think we come to Mass because the Church is so strict in requiring us to do so; but the true state of the case is that the law of the Church is so strict because Christ is present in the Mass. You think it is the pomp and glitter of our altars that draws the crowd. Little you know of human nature if you think it can long be held by such things alone. No, we adorn our altars because we believe Christ is present. This is our faith. It is no new thing with us. It is as old as Christianity. It was the comfort of the Christians in the catacombs. It was the glory of St. Basil and St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. It was the meaning of all the glory and magnificence of the Middle Ages. And it is our stay and support in this nineteenth century of knowledge, labor, and disquiet. Yes, strip our altars, leave us only the Corn and the Vine, and a Rock for our altar, and we will worship with posture as lowly and hearts as loving as in the grandest cathedral. Let persecution rise; let us be driven from our churches; we will say Mass in the woods and caverns, as the early Christians did. We know that God is everywhere. We know that Nature is His Temple, wherein pure hearts can find Him and adore Him; but we know that it is in the Holy Mass alone that He offers Himself to His Father as "the Lamb that was slain." {492} How can we forego that sweet and solemn action? How can we deprive ourselves of that heavenly consolation! The sparrow hath found her an house and the turtle a nest where she may lay her young, even thy altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God! Man's heart has found a home and resting-place in this vale of tears. To us the altar is the vestibule of heaven, and the Host its open door.

Yes, and to us the words of the prophet, when he calls the reign of Antichrist "the abomination of desolation," because the Daily Sacrifice shall then be taken away, has a peculiar fitness. It is our delight now to think that, as the sun in its course brings daylight to each successive spot on earth, it ever finds some priest girding himself to go up to the Holy Altar; that thus the earth is belted, from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, with a chain of Masses; that as the din of the world commences each day, the groan of the oppressed, the cry of the fearful and troubled, the boast of sin and pride, the wail of sorrow—the voice of Christ ascends at the same time to heaven, supplicating for pardon and peace. But oh! when there shall be no Mass any more, when the sun shall rise only to show that the altar has been torn down, the priests banished, the lights put out; that will be a day of calamity, of darkness and sorrow. Then the beasts will groan, and the cattle low. Then will men's hearts wither for fear. Then will the heavens overhead be brass, and the earth under foot iron, because the corn has languished, the vine no longer yields its fruit. The tie between earth and heaven is broken; sacrifice and libation are cut off from the House of God.

Such be our thoughts, my dear brethren, about the Holy Mass. I have alluded to the efforts which mankind have made to offer a worthy offering to God, sometimes to the extent, even, of sacrificing their own lives and their children. {493} While we abhor these excesses, let us not forget the earnestness which inspired their misguided devotion. And we, to whom God has given a perfect worship, a worship not cruel, but beautiful, inviting, consoling, satisfying, shall we be less devout in offering it? No! come to Mass, and come to pray. When the Lord drew near to Elias on the mount, the prophet wrapped his face in his mantle; so when we come to Mass, let us wrap our souls in a holy recollection of spirit. Remember what is going on. Now pray; now praise; now ask forgiveness; now rest before God in quiet love. So will the Mass be a marvellous comfort and refreshment to you. You know the smell of the incense lingers about the sacred vestments worn at the altar long after the service is over; so your souls shall carry away with them as you leave the church a celestial fragrance, a breath of the odors of Paradise, the token that you have received a blessing from Him whose "fingers drop with sweet-smelling myrrh."

Sermon XXIX.

The Lessons Of Autumn.

(Last Sunday After Pentecost.)

"All flesh is grass,
and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field.
The grass is withered and the flower is fallen."
—Isaias XL. 6, 7.

It is but a few weeks since you were told that the natural world has lessons of deep spiritual importance to teach us. Our Lord, as we see in the Gospel, sometimes drew the text of His discourse from the flowers of the field, sometimes from the birds of the air; and it must be evident to any reflecting mind that this was not done as a mere exercise of fancy on His part, but was the Divine Interpretation of these messages of love which from the beginning He had commissioned Nature to tell us. Nature, then, is really intended by God to be our Teacher. It is my purpose this morning, to direct your thoughts to one part of its teaching—that is, the spiritual instruction suggested to us by the season of Autumn.

Here, in the Church, where we have always the same doctrines, and the same worship, we might forget how all things without are full of change and decay, were it not that the Church uses Nature as a handmaid, and calls her within the sanctuary to adorn the Altar with her gifts. We miss today the flowers that have been so plentiful all summer, and this tells us what is going on without. The crown of flowers which the Spring brought forth to grace our Easter festival, and which were the truest type of the Resurrection, which made that feast so joyful, have all perished. The rose of Whitsuntide, the floral wealth of Corpus Christi, the white lily of midsummer, have all gone their way. "The glory of Lebanon is departed; the beauty of Carmel and Sharon." In the garden and the field, where so lately there was every kind of fruit and flower that is pleasant to the eye and sweet to the smell or taste—there are now but a few dried leaves, and the skeletons of trees and shrubs shaking and rattling in the wind. Nothing green is left except "the fir-tree and the box-tree and the pine-tree together," patiently enduring cold and snow so as to be on hand when the Holy Night comes round, and the Heavenly Babe is born, to make his humble home glad and beautiful with their green wreaths and branches. The birds that peopled the woods and made them merry with their music have gone south, leaving their summer home silent and desolate. The days are short. Clouds flit across the sky. The air is strong and keen, and men shut it out and make all warm and snug within. Yes, the little time that has elapsed, since we began to number our Sundays from Easter, has been a full cycle of being in the vegetable world. Spring has given place to summer, and summer to autumn. Seed-time and harvest have followed each other, and now the dreary winter has commenced. "The grass is withered and the flower is fallen.

And what does all this mean to us? I am sure all of you understand it well. This season speaks to us in tones that reach every human heart. It tells us that we are dying. It is strange how slow we are to realize this. I look around this church, and I see many dressed in the dark garments that tell they are mourning for the dead. In what house, indeed, is the family unbroken? Where is there not a vacant seat at the table? Who of us has not lost a friend? And yet we rarely think that we too are soon to follow them. Now, God wishes us to think of this. He tells us of it by our reason, He tells us of it by our vacant hearths and homes; He tells us of it by sermons, and by His word, but, not content with this, He makes the natural world, heir with us of the sentence of mortality, a monitor to us of this great truth. "Day unto day uttereth speech if it, and night unto night sheweth knowledge of it." [Footnote 237]

[Footnote 237: Ps xviii. 3.]

But at certain seasons He tells us of it more distinctly and in a greater variety of ways. Would you know what the Autumn teaches? Hear the Holy Ghost, Himself interpret it: "The voice said, cry; and I said, what shall I cry? All Flesh is grass and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field: the grass is withered and the flower is fallen." [Footnote 238] "In the morning man shall grow up like the grass; in the evening he shall fall, grow dry and wither." [Footnote 239] "Man born of a woman, liveth for a short time, and is filled with many miseries. He cometh forth as a flower and is destroyed; he fleeth as a shadow and never continueth in the same state." [Footnote 240]

[Footnote 238: Isaias xl. 6, 7.]

[Footnote 239: Ps. lxxxix. 6.]

[Footnote 240: Job xiv. 1, 2.]

Oh, do not require God always to speak to you in a voice of thunder: listen to Him when He speaks gently. Open your eyes and ears, and receive instruction from the sights and sounds of Nature. We are dying: the sighing winds tell us so. {496} We are dying: the falling leaf tells us how Death will soon have power over us as a leaf carried away by the wind, and pursue us as a dry straw." [Footnote 241] We are dying: the harvest-man is discharged, so "our days are like the days of an hireling, and the end of labor draweth nigh." [Footnote 242] We are dying: the short days tell us that to us "the sun and the light and the moon and the stars will soon be darkened."[Footnote 243]

[Footnote 241: Job xiii. 25.]

[Footnote 242: Job vii. 1.]

[Footnote 243: Eccles. xii. 2.]

We are dying: the earth hath already wrapped itself in its winding-sheet of snow, to foretell to us the time when, stiff and cold, we shall be dressed for the grave. We are all dying. Are you young? Well, the young are dying. Life is but a lingering death. As soon as we are born, we began to draw to our end. Every path in life leads straight to the grave. Are you old? are you sick? Ah! then, there is a voice within you which repeats the warning from without. You are not as strong and well as you once were. Time was you felt within you a fount of health and strength that defied danger and despised precaution. What a strange, fierce joy it was for you to struggle with the buffetings of the wintry blast! But, somehow, you know not how, either it was an accident or an imprudence, there came over you now and then a pain, a cough, a strange weariness, and the raw wind steals away from your cheek the bloom which once it imparted, and sends a chill to your heart. What does it mean? I will tell you. It is the shadow of mortality. You are dying. Men do not realize this. They do not realize it of themselves, and they do not realize it of others. Death is always a surprise and an accident. It is one of the things in the world on which men do not count.

It is something which has nothing to do with us until the doctor stands over us, and says we have but a few days or a few hours to live. We speak of the dead with pity, as if they were the victims of some unlucky chance which we had escaped. This ought not to be so. "It is appointed for man once to die." [Footnote 244]

[Footnote 244: Heb. ix. 27.]

Because we are living, therefore we must die. Adam in Paradise might have escaped death if he would, but since Adam's sin and our loss of integrity, the sentence of death has passed upon all. There is no reflection which a man can make more certainly true than this: I must die. The time is fixed. There shall come to me a day that knows no setting, a night that knows no dawn. The lights shall be lit in the church; the pall spread over the bier; the priest singing Mass at the altar. My body shall lie under that pall, and my name be mentioned in that Mass. From the church my body shall be carried to the grave, and my soul be happy or miserable according to the deeds it hath done on earth. I do not know when I shall die. Youth is no protection against death. Health is no protection against death. I do not know where I shall die. No corner of the earth can hide me from His summons. I do not know how I shall die, whether at home, among my friends, with the rites of the Church, with my reason, with a quiet mind—or abroad, or suddenly, or without the last sacraments, or with a heavy load of sin on my soul, or in a state of insensibility. All these things are uncertain; this only is certain, that I must die—that I must die, that my turn shall come; and others shall speak of me as I speak now of those already dead.

But some of you may say, why tell us this? Life is short at the best, why vex ourselves with thinking of that which we cannot prevent. We have got many projects in hand, many pleasures in prospect, and we do not want to paralyze our energies and sadden our days by meditating always on death. No, my brethren, I do not ask you to think of death in order to paralyze your energies, but to direct them aright; not to sadden your days, but to make them calm and tranquil. I know that a celebrated modern writer has made it a matter of reproach against Christianity that it sends men to learn the solemn lessons of the grave. {498} But surely this reproach is unreasonable. It cannot be denied that men do die. The earth has already many times seen an entire generation of her inhabitants pass away. There are many more sleeping in the ground than live on its surface. Now, if this be so, if death is an inevitable fact in our history, and a fact on which much depends—if this life is not all, but after this life there is an Eternity dependent on our conduct here, it is plain that reason requires us to think of death, and he is foolish who forgets it. Besides, the thought of death is enjoined upon us by the Almighty, as a sure means of salvation: "In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin." [Footnote 245]

[Footnote 245: Eccles. vii. 36.]

And I will say more. The thought of death really contributes to our comfort, because it is the only way of getting rid of the fear of death. Suppose you do refuse to listen to the warnings which Death suggests, are you therefore free from anxiety? Is there no trouble in your conscience? Is there nothing frightful to you in a sleepless night, or a sickbed? would you hear with equanimity that you had a hopeless disease? No, it is the coward that will not think of death, who "all his life through fear of death is subject to slavery." Act like a man. Face this King of Terrors, and you disarm him. His countenance is stern, but his words are kind and friendly. Listen to him, and you will find that he can relax his grim features and smile upon you; and there is nothing can give you such comfort, as for death to come to you with a smiling face. The sting of death is sin: be careful to avoid sin, and then at his coming you can exclaim: "O death, where is thy victory! O death, where is thy sting!" [Footnote 246]

[Footnote 246: I. Cor. xv. 55.]

Oh, it is a shame and a disgrace that Christians think so little about death. Why, death is our best friend and our wisest counsellor. A London anatomist once placed over his dissecting-rooms this inscription: "Hic mors juvat succurrere vitæ;" "Here death helps to succor life." You see the meaning. The physician takes a dead body and studies it, spends days and nights over it, repulsive as it is, in order to learn the secrets of the living frame and how to minister to its complaints. So let the Christian look at death and learn from it how to keep his soul in health, how to secure its everlasting life. It is nothing very terrible that death has to tell us now. The time will come, if we refuse to hear him now, when his words will be terrible; but now, though solemn, though calculated to make us serious and thoughtful, they need not make us gloomy. He says, you have a great work to do, and little time to do it in—time enough, but none to spare. He says to the young: Look at me, look into my face, and see the value of beauty and of pleasure. He says to the proud: Come and see how kings and beggars lie side by side in my dominion. He says to the covetous: Come, open a grave, and see what a man carries away with him when he dies. And he says to all, you must die alone; what you are, what you have made yourself, so must you appear before God, to receive a just and final sentence. This is the sermon of Death, that he has been preaching from the beginning. It never grows old. It has converted more sinners than all missionaries and preachers by any other means. It has made more saints, induced more to embrace a religious life, sent more souls to heaven than any other sermon ever did. Oh! Death is a great preacher. There is no answer to his reasonings, no escape from his appeal. He speaks not, but his silence is eloquent. He makes no gestures, but that motionless arm of his is more expressive than the most impassioned action. There is a story told of a certain man named Guerricus, which shows how powerfully death preaches. This man was a Christian, but one who loved the world too well, and one evening he strayed into a church when the monks were singing matins. {500} The hour, the place, all invited to reflection, and as he stood and listened, one of the monks came forth, and in a loud, clear voice sang the lesson of the day. It was as follows: "And all the time that Adam lived, came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and all the years of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died. And Enos begat Cainan. And all the years of Enos were nine hundred and five years, and he died. And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years, and he died." [Footnote 247]

[Footnote 247: Gen. v. 5.]

So it came at the end of every period, the same melancholy cadence, Et mortuus est, "and he died." The words rang in the ear of Guerricus. "So then," said he, "that is the end of all. The longest life ends with that record—and he died. So it will one day be said of me." And with this reflection on his mind, he went away and distributed his wealth to the poor, commenced a life of mortification and prayer, and began in good earnest to prepare to die. Happy those who after this example are led by the thought of death to enter on a really devout life! They will not be confounded in the evil day. They will not be afraid of any evil tidings. When the great prophet Elias was about to leave this world, the sons of the prophets came to tell Eliseus of it as a piece of afflicting news, saying: "Dost thou know that the Lord will take away thy master from thee to-day?" [Footnote 248] And he said: "Yes, I know it, hold your peace." So when the good Christian's last hour comes on, and sorrowing friends approach his bed to break it to him that he is dying, he can say, Yes, I know it. It is no news to me. I have long known it. I have expected it. Dying, you say. "So then," I can exclaim with St. Teresa, "the hour is come!" the hour I have so long been waiting for, the hour I have labored for, the hour that is to end my exile here, and unite me for ever to my Saviour and my God!

[Footnote 248: I. Kings ii. 3.]

I tried just now to describe to you the desolation that is now spread over the face of Nature; but a few weeks ago the scene was quite different. The fields were laden with a golden harvest, and the husbandman was gathering it in with joy. He knew that winter was coming, and he prepared for it. In the morning he sowed his seed, and in the evening he withheld not his hand. He labored in the chill, uncertain spring, and in the hot days of summer, and when autumn came, he gathered his fruits into the garner, safe from the frosts of winter. So he who thinks of death makes the most of the spring-time of life, takes care in his youth to plant in his heart the seeds of piety, and to tear up the weeds of vice, guards his soul in the storms of temptation, labors untiringly through the heat and burden of life, and, when his last hour arrives, lies down in peace, confident that he shall enter into those fruits of righteousness which, by patient continuance in well-doing, he has laid up for the time to come.

I commend these thoughts to you all, my brethren; but there are some among you to whom I commend them especially, those, namely, who are to die soon. When the captains of Israel were assembled together at Ramoth-Galaad, the messenger of Eliseus appeared in their midst and said, "I have a message to thee, O prince." And they answered, "To which one of us all?" [Footnote 249] So I feel this morning as if I had a message to some of you in particular, though I do not know who they are. The message is that which Jeremias the prophet sent to Hananias: "Thus saith the Lord, this year shalt thou die." [Footnote 250]

[Footnote 249: IV. Kings ix. 5.]

[Footnote 250: Jer. xxviii. 16.]

How many of those who were alive a year ago are now dead! How many of those who listen to me now will be dead before another year rolls round! Now, to these persons it is a question of the most pressing urgency, "Am I now as I would wish to be when I die? When Death comes, it will not wait because you are laden with sins or unprepared. It will not wait for you to send for the priest or finish your confession, or to receive absolution. At the moment that sentence is given, you must yield up your soul, in whatever state it is. Now, then, is the time to put your house in order. Perhaps you are not a Catholic. You are lingering outside the Church, with misgivings in your heart that only in her fold you can secure your salvation. Will those misgivings help you to die easily? Will those ingenious and far-fetched arguments, by which you fortify yourself against conviction now, give that peace to your soul, which the broad, strong, plain evidence of the Faith imparts to the soul of a Catholic? Would you not like, as you go out of this world, to step on the firm rock of Peter? To go hence "with the sign of faith," with the blessing of the Mother of Saints upon you, and the grace of her sacraments within your heart?

Or, you are a Catholic, but a careless one. You have the load of years of sin on your conscience. When you come to die, will you not wish to have those sins blotted out? Will you then forego as you do now those absolving words which our Lord has promised to ratify in heaven? Will you trust all to the uncertain chance of confession in that hour, or to a doubtful contrition?

Or it is a cloud of venial sins—a veil of worldliness, and selfishness, and unfaithfulness, of omissions and neglects, that darkens your soul. Do you wish to die with that veil not taken away? Do you wish to go before God as careless and as sensual as you are now? Are you spending your time as you would wish to spend the last year of your life? Oh! be diligent. The night cometh. Work while it is day. "Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly; for neither work, nor reason, nor wisdom, nor knowledge shall be in the land of the dead whither thou art hastening." [Footnote 251]

[Footnote 251: Eccles. ix. 10.]

Receive instruction. Be not of the number of those who have foolishly thrown away their salvation.

There are stories of men's passing through grave-yards on dark and stormy nights, and hearing dismal sounds, as of a restless and unhappy soul complaining of its torments. You say it is the wind. Suppose it is: may not the wind be speaking for the dead? Is not the earth for the elect? Does not Nature sympathize with man? Does not every creature groan and travail for our redemption? [Footnote 252] Did not the prophet call upon the fir-trees and the oaks to "howl" for the destruction of Jerusalem! [Footnote 253]

[Footnote 252: Rom. ix. 22.]

[Footnote 253: Zacb. xi. 2.]

Did not the sun hide its face at the crucifixon of our Lord, and the earth tremble under His Cross? And when He comes to judgment will not the stars fall from the sky and the heavens be parted as a scroll? Is not, then, that instinct of humanity right which has understood the fearful sounds and sights of Nature as Divine utterances—pictures and voices of a woe that is unspeakable and indescribable. There is a bird in South America with a cry so melancholy that it is called The Lost Soul. And Nature, that speaks there to the hearts of men by that dismal cry, tells the same story to us by the storm at sea, and the moaning and sighing and shrieking of the wind on a winter's night. What aileth thee, O sea, tossed and driven with the waves? Let the Scriptures answer. "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of majesty hath thundered, the Lord is upon many waters." [Footnote 254]

[Footnote 254: Ps. xxviii. 3:]

Why does the winter come upon us with desolation and storm? Let the Holy Scripture answer again: "The vineyard is confounded, and the fig-tree hath languished. The pomegranate-tree, and the palm-tree, and the apple-tree, and all the trees of the field shalt wither because joy is withdrawn from the children of men." [Footnote 255]

[Footnote 255: Joel i. 12.]

Yes, there are sad things in nature because there is death and reprobation among men. The days grow short out of sorrow for the lost children of God, and the wintry heavens "are black with clouds, and winds, and rain," because to many "the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and they are not saved." [Footnote 256]

[Footnote 256: Jer. viii. 20.]

THE END

Various Works By The Paulist Fathers.

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