EPISCOPI S.JOSEPH SERMONS SERMONS ECCLESIASTICAL SUBJECTS. HENRY EDWARD, ARCHBI.SHOP OF WESTMINSTER. AMERICAN EDITION. NEW YORK : THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 9 WARRF.N STRKKT. 1873- /(Jill CONTENTS. i. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD: PAGE At the Opening of the Church of the Immaculate ^Conception, Lanark, Nov. 10, 1859 . .,.',... 1 H.'. II. THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUI?? On the two-hundredth Anniversary of the Saint, at St. Ed- ward's, Westminster, Sept. 27, 18G1 , . , , 85 III. ST. VINCENTS LOVE OF SOULS: Within the same Octave . . . . , C5 IV. THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT: Within the same Octave t ..., 93 V. THE RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS: In San Carlo, Rome, 18C-1 ........ 115 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD: At the opening of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Lanark, Nov. 10, 1859. TO EGBERT MONTEITH, ESQ., OF CARSTAIRS. DEAR MR. MONTEITH, No one can feel more than I do how little worthy the following Sermon is as a statement of the great truths contained in it; and but for the wish of others, I should have rather let it pass with the day which called for it. But if it shall help to keep in your mind the happiness of a day in which you made your beautiful and noble offering to the Church of God in Scotland, or to show to so much as one of the many who, though ' not of us,' were with us that day, that the true Headship and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ over His kingdom is to be found alone in the One Church which is Catholic and Roman, I shall not regret letting it, with all its insufficiency, go abroad. Believe me always Very sincerely yours, H. E. MANNING. St. Mary of the Angelij, Bayswater, Christmas 1859. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. This is My covenant with them, saith the Lord : My Spirit that is in thee, and My words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, eaith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever. ISAIAS lix. 21. THE glory of Israel had departed, for ' the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was EO manifest vision : !l ' the prophets prophesied false- hood, and the priests clapped their hands, and the people loved such things.' 2 The illuminations of the early days of Israel were gone, the visitations of the Spirit of God were few, and the messages of the word of the Lord were seldom heard ; for ' truth had fallen down in the streets' of Jerusalem, ' and equity could not come in.' 3 The people of God were without guide and without teacher. They wandered out of the way of the Lord : Jerusalem was full of blood, 1 1 Kings iii. 1. * Jercmias v. 31. ' Isaias lix. 1*. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. the covenant of the Lord was forgotten, and the Tem- ple of the Lord was profaned. And it was at such a time, when Israel killed the prophets, and stoned those that were sent unto her, that the word of God came to Isaias, and he said : ' Thy teachers shall not flee away from thee any more, hut thine eyes shall see thy teacher, and thine ears shall hear the word of one admonishing thee hehind thy back, saying : This is the way ; walk ye in it, and go not aside, neither to the right hand nor to the left.' 4 ' All thy children shall he taught of the Lord.' 5 They shall follow no more any human teachers, hut a divine : no more, teachers that can be -removed, but one that shall be perpetual: 'for this is My covenant, saith the Lord : My Spirit that is in thee, and My word that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.' That is, there shall come a day when thou shalt have a teacher in the midst of thee who shall not err, who cannot mislead, whom thou shalt follow in safety ; for ' a path and a way shall be there, and it shall be called the holy way ; the unclean shall not pass over it ; and this shall be unto you Isaias xxx. 20, 21. * Ibid. liv. 13. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 5 a straight way, so that fools' the simple and the unwise ' shall not err therein.' 6 How, then, were these great words of the prophet fulfilled ? They were accomplished when the Word of God became incarnate, and the Spirit of God de- scended upon the Incarnate Word when ' the Word, which in the beginning was with God and was God, was made flesh, and dwelt among us,' 7 when, being manifested by His Incarnation, the Eternal Word stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, and read out of this book of the prophet Isaias : ' The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me : wherefore He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel : to the poor He hath sent Me. This day this Scripture is fulfilled in your ears.' 8 The Eternal Word of God, incarnate and anointed by the Holy Ghost, rose up in the midst of His people Israel, to be their Teacher and their Guide, and the Word and Spirit of God were re- vealed to dwell perpetually in the midst of His Church. This, then, was the first fulfilment of the prophecy ; and for three-and-thirty years the Word and the Spirit of God dwelt in Israel. Once more the word of God was heard throughout the streets of Jerusalem. There was not only a prophet, but the Lord of the prophets ; not a seer, but He by whom Isaias xxxv. 8. ' Bt. John i. 1, 14. St. Imke ir. 18, 21. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. the seers were illuminated. He was come Himself. The Eternal Truth was personally there, and the Holy Spirit of God was with Him in our manhood ; for the Son of God was incarnate, and the Holy Ghost rested upon Him. Israel then had a divine Teacher, and an infallible Guide ; and the words of the prophet were fulfilled, that He would 'set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My servant David : He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd.' 9 I ask you, then, were these words spoken to them alone ? Was this promise of the perpetuity of the Word and of the Spirit made only to the people of God of old ? Is it not also made to us ? Is it an inheritance that was cut off when the Son of God ascended into heaven ? When He went up on high to assume the royalties of His kingdom, and to reign by His eternal prerogatives over the sons of men, did the perpetuity of the covenant of the Spirit come to an end ? Are we disinherited of these promises of eternal truth ? No. ' This is My covenant : . . heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.' You, then, are the heirs of this great promise ; with you also this cove- nant is made ; you share in the perpetuity of the Ezekiel xxxiv. 23. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 7 Spirit which is in Jesus, our great High Priest and King. You share also in the word which was put in His mouth. And bow is this accomplished ? When He ascended up on high, He did not depart from His Church on earth. ' Behold, I am with you all days, even to tho consummation of the world.' 10 When He withdrew His visible and personal presence, it was replaced by a universal, supernatural, and mys- tical presence, as real, divine, and true as the pre- sence which is visible to the eye. He promised that when He ascended up on high, He would ask the Father to send another Paraclete, that He might abide with us for ever, even the Spirit of Truth. 11 He said, ' It is expedient for you that I go ; for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you ; but if I go, I will send Him unto you.' 13 It needs must be that the Son of God should depart ; for the order of the divine economy, and the succession of the divine revelations, required that ' Jesus should be glorified,' 13 before the Spirit should be given. And when He ascended up on high, He poured down the same unction with which He Himself was anointed. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost descended on His twelve Apostles, and they were quickened 10 St. Matthew xxviii. 20. St. John xiv. 1C, 17. St. John xvi. 7. " Ibid. vii. 39. 8 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. into life as one body. 14 Twelve men, united before in outward fellowship, chosen, commissioned, and empowered under the broad seal of the kingdom of Jesus to go throughout the world and subdue all nations, and to knit them together in one great unity. Nevertheless they were as yet isolated, until the Holy Spirit of God, descending on them, quick- ened them as one living body knit them together with so perfect a unity of life, that henceforth they became the one temple of the Holy Ghost, and the one organ of His voice. I. The anointing which was upon Jesus, the Son of God Incarnate, the great High Priest, the true Aaron, descended upon the skirts of His garments ; and the Apostles were therefore anointed with the sacerdotal unction which is the Spirit of Truth ; and the Word, never more to depart from them, was put into their mouth. For when that one body was con- stituted in the guest-chamber in Jerusalem, there came into existence a creation which the world had never known before. It was the fulness of the mys- tery of the Incarnation the prolongation of its pre- sence upon earth, the extension of its powers, and the creation of the mystical body. The Divine Head was in heaven, but as yet His members were not 11 Ephes. iv. 4-16. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 9 knit together on earth, until the Holy Spirit de- scended. Then the second Adam rose, as it were, out of the dust. Tho mystical presence of Jesus, Head and members, lived on earth. We read in the book of Acts, that when the Holy Ghost de- scended in the outpouring of the flames of light which crowned His Apostles, parted tongues of firo sat on each of them ; severally and distinctly they were filled ; severally and one by one they were illuminated ; the Spirit was in them one by one, and the "Word was put in their mouth. But, farther, the sacred text goes on to say, ' And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.' The whole body was knit together in one : it had a corporate existence, it was filled with the Spirit of God, and became the dwelling-place of His illumination, and the organ of His word. So that, beyond the office which the Holy Spirit of God had always accomplished upon earth the illumination and the sanctification of all the faithful, from Abel the just till the day of Pen- tecost there was another office and another work assumed on that day ; I mean, the illumination and the guiding of the Body of Christ ; that is, of a cor- porate society, as an organ through which His voico might be heard throughout the w6rld. It is the visible and corporate presence, by which the invi- 10 THE CIIUKCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. sible . Spirit of God is made manifest. The Holy Spirit , of God united Himself on that day to the mystical body of Christ, after the analogy of the Incarnation. As Godhead and manhood are united in one person, never to be divided, by the indis- soluble link of the hypostatic union, so the Holy Spirit united Himself to the mystical body on that day, never to depart from it; to be its life, guide, and voice to the end of time. The Church of God had then first its perfect fulness. It was then endowed with its supernatural prerogatives! It received from its Head the com- munication of the divine and imperishable powers which He Himself had exercised on earth. It be- came the divine teacher of the world. It had a light which could never waver, it had a voice which could never falter. It partook of the communicable attri- butes of the Spirit of God. It Avas His representa- tive. It was to be the witness, and the teacher, and the judge of divine truth upon earth. The Apostles became kings and priests, anointed teachers of the Word, guides that could not err. From that hour to this the prophecy has been accomplished. It was not for that first age alone. Its perpetuity was pledged by the prayer of the Son of God : ' I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Para- THE CHUKCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE clete, that He may abide with you for deed abide with you for a time : My abid time. I shall depart unto My Father ; but clete, whom I shall send, He shall abide with you for ever. And therefore the Holy Spirit of God, who came on the day of Pentecost to inhabit the mystical body, is in the world at this hour, in all the pleni- tude of His prerogatives, and in all the fulness of His divine office as Guide and Teacher. He dwells in the world now, teaching by the same divine and infallible voice. II. The twelve Apostles in Jerusalem were the germ and commencement of the Church of God, which, descending from the upper chamber, spread throughout the world, and knit together all nations in one faith, one baptism, one body, and one spirit. The nations of the world lost their separate existence, ajid were merged in a higher unity. The separation of their natural origin was redressed they were taken up into the supernatural unity of the kingdom of God. They became the world-wide sanctuary of the Holy Ghost, and the channel of the voice of the Spirit of Truth. The Apostolic College spread throughout all the world, and passed into the universal episco- pate. The words put in the mouths of the Apostles passed from succession to succession into the mouths 12 THE CHURCII, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. of the pastors and bishops of the universal Church. The whole world was filled with the presence of the Divine Teacher, from whom the Spirit and the Word could never depart. Therefore the Apostles when assembled in Jerusalem made their decrees in these words of divine power : ' It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things.' 15 What words are these for men to speak ! ' Who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been His counsellor ?' 16 Who can declare the mind of the Holy Ghost ? This was their prerogative, this was the endowment be- stowed on the Church of God. It could speak in the name of the Holy Ghost, because it could discern by His light, and decree by His assistance. In every age of the Church, from generation to generation, from cen- tury to century, the same perpetual presence pledges to the Church the same perpetual assistance, and endows it with that same perpetual prerogative to say, 'It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us.' There is, then, fulfilled now to you and to me this promise of the Lord by the prophet; there is now a path and a way, which is the way of holiness a way in which the simple and the unlearned shall not err. There is a voice behind our back, saying, 14 Acts xv. 23. Rom. xi. 34. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 13 * This is the way; walk ye in it,' that we turn not to the right hand or to the left. There is an infal- lible teacher among men. There is a voice speaking throughout the whole world, which they who follow E.hall follow into all truth. God has not forsaken His Church; Jesus has not departed from it. Though enthroned in heaven, He is in it still. The Church itself is Jesus teaching and reigning upon earth : by His Spirit and His Word, He is present still, and will be, to the consummation of the world. III. And where now is this Church ? If only we could find it, if only we could know where the divine voice is to be heard, if only we could discover where this organ is, all controversy would be at an end. Men would beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks ; there would be no more jangling of words, no more clash of arguments, no more battle of reasons, no more conflict of intelli- gences, no more struggles of heated wills in the arena of religious animosity. All these things would' be extinct, and the weapons of spiritual warfare would be beaten into useful implements of tillage and of husbandry for the vineyard of the Lord. Where, then, is this Church to be found? There is one sure test by which we may find it. The Apostles were united with Peter. He was first among them. 14 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE "WORD. He was the head of all. They took no separate acts apart from him. They taught no other doctrine than the doctrine of Peter. They laid no other founda- tion. All their prerogatives they held in common with him. The keys of the kingdom of heaven which they bare were given first into Peter's hands. They had stood by and heard from the lips of the Incar- nate Word Himself, anointed by the Holy Ghost: ' Thou art Peter ; and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it ; and unto thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, it shall be bound in heaven.' 17 Peter then was their head; he was their chief in that Apostolic College which, on the day of Peuteccst, was the organ of the Holy Ghost. Has he ever ceased to be so ? Who stands in Peter's place at this hour ? Is there any successor to his authority ? The whole world believed of old that Linus Bishop of Rome succeeded to Peter, when he ascended from the cross of martyrdom to the throne of his Lord ; and to Linus, Cletus. Home was the centre of that one universal Church of all nations then. This is undisputed ; it is beyond controversy. The untroubled page of history in those early days, to which some profess to appeal, attests the fact that " St. Matthew xvi. 19. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 15 there was then but one Church on earth. There was no second no other none like it, none beside it ; and the centre and head of that Church was the centre and head of the Christian world. It was the city of Eome, and in that city of Eome the See of Rome, the apostolic throne on which sat the suc- cessors of the Chief of the Apostles of Jesus Christ. No one doubts this as to history in the past; but the history of the past is supposed to lay no jurisdiction over our consciences now. Men treat history as an idle page, which they may read for their amusement, but refuse as a guide for their consciences. And yet it is indubitable that the one only Church of God, the circumference of which rested on the sunrise and the sunset, had a centre, and that centre was in Borne. Take it then as a mere matter of fact. The Divine Architect, in describing the circuit of His kingdom on earth, placed one foot of His compass in the city of Eome, and with the other traced a cir- cumference which included the whole world. The annals of the Church in succession recognise the Bishop who sat in Peter's seat as head among the Bishops of the world. I need not wear away your time by citing testimonies. Any one who will take ' the page of history may read it. I raise no claim, as yet, to anything beyond the fact. If, then, Eome 16 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. was the centre, of old, of that only apostolic body which was the dwelling-place of the Holy Ghost and the organ of His voice, what is now the centre? and which is now the Church ? What is the centre and circumference of that one Church of God which fills the nations of the world at this moment ? All the controversies of three hundred years tell us that it is the See of Rome. Nay, out of the mouth of contro- versial historians we have the assertion that for the last twelve hundred years, the Bishop of Rome, in the amplitude of his pretensions, in the vast usurpa- tion of his spiritual power, in that mighty and in- tolerable claim to universal Pontificate, has ruled by tyranny over the whole Church of God. We have then, at the beginning and at the ending, the same head and the same centre. Nor will it be difficult to connect together this long line of many links, from the martyrdom of St. Peter to the Pontificate of Pius the Ninth. If you were to see one of those vast and voluminous rivers, of which we are told that in some part of their course they suddenly bury themselves in the hollows of the earth, and then burst forth, with an exuberance of power, at some distance down their stream; would any man be held to be a reason- able being who should maintain that the river which buried itself was one stream, and the river which THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 17 burst out afterwards was another, without continuity and without identity ? Should we not at once affirm that it was one and the same mighty water forc- ing itself first beneath the earth, and then from it ? How, then, can the one only stream which flows down from the first fountain, the only Church over which this unbroken, imperishable line of Pontiffs, from the cross of St. Peter to the throne of Pius IX., have reigned sovereign and supreme, be other than the one only Church of God ? By that one long chain of Pontiffs, two hundred and fifty and more, linked in perfect continuity, connected as indissolu- bly as the generations of men and the successions of time, we are in direct contact now, through the person of Pius IX., with St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ. There was never any other Church beside it. Do we not know when every other Church, so called, came into existence ? Every other separate body had its origin at some period in that long line of history, and is marked and dated in the stream of time. We can find the very day when a Pope's Bull was burned in a city of Germany ; we can find the very hour when some late protest against the faith of the Church of God was issued ; we know the time when every separate com- munity claiming to be a church came first into being. o 18 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE VTORD. Where, then, I ask, is the promise of the prophet ? ' My Spirit that is in thee, and My word that I have put in thy inouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from hence- forth and for ever.' Has that one only Apostolic Church of God been disinherited, discrowned, un- anointed? Has the word been taken from its mouth? How can that word pass from its mouth, if the Holy Ghost has not passed from His dwelling-place ? If, as on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit of God dwells in the temple which He created for Himself, then that one body is divine ; then that one voice of God, the Holy Ghost, speaks now with the same unfaltering and infallible accents with which He spoke on that day. It follows therefore that the one organ of the Spirit of God throughout the world at the present moment is the one Church, Catholic and Roman ; that one only Roman Church ; Roman still, though it be diffused throughout the world in its vast episcopate ; Catholic still, though gathered in council, as in the upper chamber in Jerusalem ; Catholic in the person of its Pontiff; for it is the whole Church that spoke through the lips of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, when but the other day he denned to the world by his infallible voice the Im- THE CHUECn, THE SPIRIT, AKD THE Ty-OBD. 19 maculate Conception of the Mother of God. Jesus, therefore, speaks through the same body now as then ; and the endowments of the body are the prerogatives of the head ; the fulness of light and guidance which the Holy Spirit of God gave to the whole Apostolic College resided in him who was the chief of all. This is the promise of our divine Lord, when He said, ' Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you' that is, all of you 'that he may sift you as wheat ; but I have prayed for thee' that is, for Peter ' that thy faith fail not ; and thou being once con- verted, confirm thy brethren.' 18 This promise is the pledge of perpetual stability in faith ; and as the endowments of the body are the prerogatives of the head, so the illumination which is diffused through- out the whole body of the Church resides eminently in the Episcopate, but resides preeminently and above all in the chief of Bishops, the Pastor of pastors, the Vicar of the Incarnate Word Himself. Here then we have the fulfilment of the prophecy ; for what is the Vicar of Jesus Christ but the representative of Jesus Christ, the true, special, personal witness, the very presence, so to speak, of the Son of God on earth ? And as the prophecy of Isaias was accom- plished when the Son of God was incarnate and rose St. Luke xxii. 31, 82. 20 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. up to teach in Nazareth, anointed by the Holy Ghost, so His representative and Vicar now stands in the midst of the world, the true, special heir of those promises ; and on his anointed head rests the Spirit of God, never to depart, and in his mouth the word of God, which cannot pass away. He is the oracle, the organ, and the living voice through whom the Spirit of God accomplishes to this hour the pro- phecy, and the promise. 1. And now from this it follows, that the doctrines of that one Church are divine. Therefore they are not doctrines added, changed, corrupted, as men would fain have you to believe. The doctrines of that one Church of God are the doctrines of the Holy Ghost. If they be doctrines of the Holy Ghost, they are incorrupt, even as the light of heaven ; they are incorruptible even as the Holy Ghost Himself; they are primitive, for they are the doctrines which He delivered in the guest-chamber; they are pure, be- cause they have not the soil or taint of a human intellect upon them. They are transcendent, indeed ; they surpass the reason of man. The doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, of the substantial presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus, must indeed surpass the reason of man, as also does the Incarnation. If any man will not receive the doctrine of the substantial THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 21 presence of the Son of God in the Holy Eucharist, how and with what consistency does he profess to believe in the Incarnation of God? The doctrine of absolution is indeed transcendent, that a man on earth should have the power to say, ' I absolve thee from all thy sins.' But the Pharisees of old antici- pated the objection ; for when Jesus Himself said, ' Thy sins are forgiven thee,' they rose up and said, ' This man blasphemeth ; who can forgive sins but God only ?' 19 Doubtless the doctrines of the Ca- tholic Church, the doctrines of the Council of Trent, are transcendent, as they exceed and surpass the limits of the unaided human reason. And it may be that, if I began to speak of the invocation and communion of Saints, of the expiations of the world unseen, and other mysteries of a like sort, to some among you I might seem to be, as the Apostle at Athens, ' a word-sower' and ' a setter-forth of new gods.' 20 The doctrines of God bear the impress of the hand of God ; the mark and the dimensions of the hand of God are on them. If they bore the impress of a human hand, they might have been of human manufacture ; but because they bear the token and the symmetry of the divine hand which, by the Holy Ghost, gave them to the Church, their very 19 St. Mark ii. 5,7. M Acts xvii. 18. 22 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. transcendent vastness is a testimony and an evidence that they are from God. They come to us to be re- ceived by faith ; not by argument and jangling, but with the mind of a little child ; for the Son of God has said, ' I give thanks to Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.' 21 And so it is with us now. The faith of the Holy Roman Church, pure, incorrupt, incorruptible, primitive, divine, from the lips of the Spirit of God, is indeed a faith transcendent, and demanding of every one that would believe it the docile submission and child-like trust of heart and will which is due to the presence and guidance of a Divine Teacher. If men believe what they profess to believe of the perpetuity, the presence, the teaching of the Spirit of God, can they do otherwise than sub- mit themselves with docility to the utterance of a voice which is divine ? All doctrines have been disputed, cast out, disfigured in controversy, railed upon by the world; for since Jesus withdrew Himself, and the shame which fell on Him had no longer a divine personal object in the world, never was there any- thing so railed at as that one universal faith of the Holy Catholic 'and Roman Church. It bears the 81 St. Matthew xi. 25. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 23 shame of Jesus : ' You shall be hated by all men for My name's sake,' 22 has been fulfilled in the faith which we believe. And why is it so ? Because it speaks in its Master's name ; because it perpetuates His voice ; because every definition of the Council of Trent is an accent of the voice of Jesus. Therefore men gainsay it, as they gainsayed Him; but the words of the prophet stand true : ' My Spirit that is in thee, and My words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.' 2. There follows also another truth, and it is an awful one, a truth which springs from the last so inseparably and by so strong a necessity, that I dare not pass it by. If, indeed, God the Holy Ghost bt> in the midst of us, and if it be God the Holy Ghost Who speaks to us through the one Holy Catholic and Roman Church, then it imposes its doctrines on the consciences of men under pain of eternal death. It is under pain of eternal death to disbelieve that which God the Holy Ghost has revealed. To disbelieve what the Holy Ghost, through the Church of God, has taught, incurs the pain of eternal death for those who with their eyes open reject it. It is an awful St. Matthew x. 22. 24 THE CHUECH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WOED. truth, and therefore the Apostle said, ' Thanks be to God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ Jesus . . for we are unto God the good odour of Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish.' God is justified, and His truth is glorified, and the two-edged sword of His justice accomplishes its work on those that believe and on those that believe not ; 'to some, indeed, the odour of death unto death, but to the others the odour of life unto life.' 23 For the Church of God, speaking by the Spirit of God, imposes the duty of belief and of obedience in the same words which the Apostles spoke at Jeru- salem : ' It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us.' And therefore all those who can know these truths are bound to know them. God will enter into judgment with no man for that which is impossible. He will exact an account of no one for that which he could not do. He will require at the last day a reckoning from no one of that which he never heard. But wheresoever the one faith of God is preached, wheresoever the divine voice has touched the ear, the ear is open and the heart hears it, and the will is conscious, and the judgment takes effect. And more than this : we are answerable not only for what we know, but for what we might know. Whensoever 2 Cor. ii. 14-16. THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 25 the light comes within the reach of our sight, or the voice within the reach of our ear, we are bound to follow it, to inquire and to learn ; for we are answer- ahle, not only for what we can do, by absolute power now, but for what we might do if we used all the means we have ; and therefore, whensoever the Church of God comes into the midst of us, it lays all men under responsibility; and woe to that man who says, ' I will not read ; I will not hear ; I will not listen ; I will not learn ;' and woe to those teachers who shall say, ' Don't listen, don't read, don't hear ; and there- fore, don't learn.' When this divine voice comes, we must listen with our ears open, and with a flexible will and a docile heart ; lest the divine voice should come into the midst of us, and we should be found with ears that cannot hear, and hearts that will not believe. If these words are awful, they are also consoling ; for there is for the weak and for the ignorant, for the timid and for the doubtful, a sure hope of eternal life. There is a path and a way, which is called a holy way, and the simple and the unlearned shall not err therein. All they need is this : to fol- low with docility that divine voice. It is the way of truth, it is the way of grace, it is the way of the Precious Blood, it is the way of life eternal. All that, is needed is a docile submission to the voice of the 26 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. Holy Ghost ; and the voice of the Holy Ghost is to be heard here, as in all the world, from the lips of the Holy Catholic and Roman Church. This fair land of yours Nature has chosen as the mirror of her heauty. She has planted it in the north- ern seas, with its mountains fronting the western sun, and watered its valleys and plains with a thou- sand streams. The lights of heaven are poured upon its lakes and glens with an illumination and a glory, with an entanglement and a mingling of all the hues that can make earth beautiful. There is no land in all the world, which, for the softer splendours of mountain and fell, wood and stream, surpasses Scot- land. Beautiful in nature, but once still more beau- tiful in grace ! Witness the mighty churches, of which one now serves for three ; witness the roofless abbeys in the low glades and valleys of the north ; witness the Lady - chapels, where the altars of Mary were lighted of old. The beauty of Jesus and of Mary, the light and presence of the Incarnation was here. The illumination of the Word and the out- pouring of the Spirit were upon Scotland then. There was peace and there was charity, because there was truth, in those days ; there was heroism and there was saintliness, because Scotland then was within the unity of the Church of God. The word of the THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 27 prophet Isaias was accomplished in this land. But there came a time of rude change, when the union of the Spirit and the Word was broken ; when those which God had joined together were divorced by the will of men ; when the rebellious intellect of man rose against the divine voice of the Church of God, and rejected the guidance of the Spirit, because he would not bow to any teacher. Then came another change ; when men had re- jected the divine voice by the struggling indocility of their will, the word departed from their lips. They clutched at it with jealousy, and they found in their hands the written word alone : Litera occidit, spi- ritus autem vivificat. 2 * The letter that killeth was left behind, the spirit that giveth life departed. The word was interpreted no more by the light of the Holy Ghost, no more by an infallible Guide, but by the interpretations of man and the light of the human intellect. Then came contradiction, struggle, and contention, and'for three hundred years division and subdivision, the crumbling and dissolving of what once was the mystical body; so that there is now no land in all the world, save only England, which went abreast with Scotland in revolt, to be compared with Scotland for its religious disunion. And in the 2 Cor. iii. 6. 28 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. train of these divisions came uncertainty, indifference, lukewarmness, and doubt, asking, ' Who knows what is true ? whether is the truth on this side or that ? "Who can tell ? Who is the judge ?' And in the train of indifference comes infidelity, saying, ' God hath not said. Why believe this ? I will not believe that.' The spirit of unbelief is rushing in through the breach as a flood, because the spirit and the word are divided, and the Voice and the Guide are gone : for the intellect of man and the will of man have assumed the sovereignty, and raised themselves up to be their own guide and light. Private judgment has taken the place of Jesus teaching in His Church. But God has not forsaken, He has not forgotten a land He once loved so much; for all through these three dreary centuries of disunion, hid in the valleys, driven up into the mountains, and wandering in poverty, the Church has still guided the remnant of the flock. There has been the Word Incarnate upon the altar, the living word in the mouth of the pastor, the holy Sacrifice in the hands of the priest, the unction of the Holy Ghost on the one holy Church, reduced to a handful, but still living on, Catholic and Roman in its divine prophetic perpetuity. Even here in Scotland, Vicars- Apostolic, the representatives of the Holy See, the special witnesses of the Vicar of Jesus THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 29 Christ, consecrated by the Word, and anointed by the Holy Ghost, through three centuries of desola- tion have ruled the Church of God. They have or- dained and commissioned the priests of Jesus Christ, and have conferred on them the spirit of grace, and have put the word in their mouth. There has been the perpetuity of the one immutable faith and the one infallible voice, even in this land : and now, after three hundred years, when the order of all human events would require that a thing so feeble and weak should wax less and less, it is waxing stronger and stronger, it is growing mighty, it is multiplying on every side, enlarging its presence, putting on its ma- jesty, coming forth in its beauty, and exhibiting its splendour, as it does this day, in a new sanctuary reared and set apart in honour of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. The Church of God is accomplishing these things ; and why ? Be- cause the prophecy of Isaias rests upon it. This day, as in Nazareth, it is fulfilled in your ears. And there is another token now visible in this land. The saints of God, once so many and now so few, are returning. To number up the names of the saints of Scotland is rather a tax upon our ingenuity to find them than on the memory to recount them by name. The flood has gone over the earth, the record 30 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. of their names and their sanctity is gone ; but in this dearth and barrenness they are coming back once more. St. Ignatius, with his soldier spirit, always first to volunteer on the forlorn hope, always first to scale the walls of a city sevenfold strong, is here. Then comes St. Vincent, who has filled the whole world with the perfume of his name, which, like the name of Jesus, from whence its sweetness is borrowed, is as ointment poured forth. St. Vincent two centuries ago was here. In the din and conflict of Cromwell's days, when Scotland, bent under his rod of iron, lay crushed in three great battles in the midst of that time came two fathers of St. Vincent, kindled with the charity of their great saint. They came into your western islands, and they left behind them a seed which has never died, a light which has never been extinguished. And now, through the generous hospitality of one who has an eye to discern Apostles in the garb of poverty, they are invited here once more with a munificence of faith and a largeness of charity which will write his name in the hearts of generations yet unborn. St. Vincent is come to-day to Lanark, and has gathered you together here ; and with you many are mingled who are not yet of you, but who will be. He has come once more with the majestic march of THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 81 the holy Roman Church, with the same faith, the same seven sacraments, the same episcopal rule, the same pastoral staff, under which his sons went forth two hundred years ago. Once more in open day in such a day as this the holy Boman Church lifts up her tiara, and her infallible voice is heard. And therefore may be said to Scotland what Jesus said to Jerusalem : ' If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are for thy peace ; but now they are hidden from thine eyes.' 25 And as He said in the Apocalypse, ' Be mindful, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and do penance, and do the first works; or else I will come to thee, and will re- move thy candlestick out of its place, unless thou shalt have done penance.'" 6 These might well be the voices of warning to us to-day ; but they come to us also as the accents of love and invitation. If the mighty energy of the will of this great Scottish people, even here in the narrow circle of the lowlands if the mighty energy of will which has been applied to the conquest and the go- vernment of the world, which has filled the Western and Eastern Indies with its sway, which has built up the mighty Babylon a few miles off, peopled by half a million of toiling souls, who toil with a unity St. Luke xix. 42. M Apoc. iv. 5. 32 THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AXD THE WORD. of power as if there was but one will to govern and direct them, wearing themselves out, spending and being spent from sunrise to sunset for this perishing life if that will were only sanctified, and that intel- lect were only illuminated, if the unction of the Spirit of God, and the truth of the Word of God, could be once more wedded together in the spiritual nature and life of the Scottish people, what a race of soldiers, of heroes, and of saints of Jesus Christ should here arise ! And who knows what may be hereafter ? You and I shall soon pass away ; but the work begun to- day is a work that will not pass away. It has the perpetuity of the Spirit and the Word ; and when we are gone, it will multiply and accomplish itself. Generation after generation, God will make perfect His own. He will gather out His elect until the day shall come when He will be revealed with all His saints ; and out of this place there will ascend to meet Him souls whom you know not ; and bright crowns shall be won that day by those who here have toiled for them, who have prayed for them, who have given alms for them, who have offered at the altar so much as one aspiration, one desire, that the Word and the Spirit of God may come to-day into His sanctuary. The altar yonder was consecrated yesterday, on the Feast when we commemorate the dedication of the THE CHURCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD. 83 greatest Church of all the world Omnium Ecclesi- arum Mater et Magistra, as it is inscribed in front of the great Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Cathe- dral Church of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. To-day we celebrate the feast of a saint 27 who, for his tender love of the Cross, took to himself the name of An- drew, dear to Scotland and to you. Yesterday and to-day will make but one yearly festival, uniting once more in holy wedlock Scotland and Rome, in the Spirit and the Word, in the unity and infallibility of that one only Church of God, which is the presence of Jesus Himself on earth. 17 St. Andrew Avellino. II. THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VIXCENT OF PAUL On the two hundredth Anniversary of the Saint, at St. Edward's, Westminster, Sept. 27, 1861. TO THE VEEY REV. MICHAEL BURKE, SUPEBIOB OF THE FATHERS OF THE MISSION IN ENGLAND, THESE PLAIN WOEDS, THOUGH MOST UNWORTHY OF HIS GREAT PATRON AND FATHER, ABE INSCRIBED BY HIS AFFECTIONATE SERVANT IN JESUS CHRIST, H.E.M. THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. Well done, thou good servant ; because thou hast been faithful in a little, thou shalt have power over ten cities. ST. LUKE six. 17. AT this hour, two hundred years ago, St. Vincent entered into the joy of his Lord. It was this day two hundred years, as the morning broke, that, in a quiet sleep, he passed into the beatific vision ; and the life which through eighty-five long years had burned like a fire in the fragrance of charity, ascended to the Paradise of God, and shone forth as the splendour of the noon-day sun in the eternal kingdom. What a day, then, is this, not for his children alone, but for the whole Church of God, and for all who are under the action of its' benign and loving influence 1 To-day may be called a festival of charity. 33 THE APOSTOIATE OF ST. TrSCE3TT OF The Holy Father, in the midst of his sorrows and anxieties, Las remembered us and all his children in every land, and has granted to us a plenary indulgence, to increase the accidental glory of SL Tineent in this great jubilee, -which is kept with an acclaim of joy throughout the whole world. And therefore I bid your prayers most affectionately and most earnestly for the Holy Father and for the Holy See ; and I trust that not one of you will for- get in this season of grace to make a special and earnest intercession that Almighty God may corex him and it with the shield of His Presence. This parable of our Divine Lord seems to sketch out, and, as it were, to prophesy, the life, the works, and the rewards of His Saints. The purport, is you know, is this: A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return ; and his citizens sent an embassage after him, saying: We will not hare this man to reign over us. 1 Before be departed he gave to his ten servants ten pounds, to each of them one pound, and bade them trade until he came again- And when he returned, the first eame to him with wonder and astonishment at the fertility and the xaultipli- , of fbe pound the little trust committed to his BL TV sis. 12-14. THE AP03TOLATE OF ST. TKCEXT OP PAUL. 39 charge, and said, ' Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds.' 2 He said, ' Thy pound,' knowing that the power of multiplication lay in this, that it was not his, but his lord's. And the lord said, ' Well done, thou good servant ; because thou hast been faithful in a little, thou shalt have power over ten cities,' 3 that is, a share in my kingdom ; and so, in propor- tion, with the rest. Let me now make application of this to the great Saint whose jubilee we comme- morate to-day. But before I speak of St. Vincent, I must needs speak of the state of the land which gave him birth, and of the work that he had to do in it. First, then, bring to mind what was the condition of France be- fore the birth of St. Vincent. The Church of God, in the beginning, extinguished all national differences in the unity of Jesus Christ. It then, by the pro- vidence of God, took the place of the mighty empire of Rome, in which those national distinctions were only held in check by the force of arms. It kid the foundation of a new family, in which, though men spoke different tongues, they had but one heart and one mind. Christian and Catholic Europe, which grew up under the action of the Holy See and the unity of the Catholic Church, was as one household St. Luke xix. 18. Ib. x. 17. 40 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. in faith and charity ; and the national jealousies, ri- valries, distinctions, and repulsions, which now tear the world asunder, were held in check. And so it was for many centuries, until modern Europe, as we call it that is, the latter form and aspect of Europe as we see it now began to form itself by the divi- sion of races, of languages, and of kingdoms. Then national divisions became organised, and national pride grew strong, and nations, resting each one on its own centre, began to contend with the Holy See, and to strain the unity of the Catholic Church. This had been going on for centuries before St. Vin- cent's birth. It would be out of place in speaking with you, and on such a day as this, to enter into any detail about it ; all I need say is this, that for some two centuries or more, the kings and princes of Europe had been wrestling with the Vicar of Jesus Christ, endeavouring to vindicate what they called their liberties and rights, their prerogatives and cus- toms, and so to draw their kingdoms and nations under their own exclusive sway as to deprive the Vicar of Jesus Christ of the royalties which were vested in him by the Son of God. This had been attempted in no country more openly than in France ; until at last, about a century before the birth of St. Vincent, Francis I. wrung by force out of the hands THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OP PAUL. 41 of the Vicar of Christ a concordat or agreement, by which he obtained the nomination of all the Bishop- rics in his kingdom. From so slight a thing so great an evil came. The effect of it was at once to in- troduce secularity and corruption into the exercise of patronage in the highest places in the Church. The kings and princes of France nominated their favourites, their dependents, their parasites, and their creatures, to Archbishoprics and Bishoprics. Some of them were clothed with the purple of the Princes of the Church, as Cardinals ; at the same time they were ministers of state, they were diplo- matists, they were the counsellors of the king ; and they acted as if the maxim of their life was : Seek ye first the kingdom of France and its glory, putting it before the kingdom of God, before the Church of God, before the laws of the Church, and before the rights of the Holy See. France became intensely worldly, and therefore intensely corrupt. The effect of this may bo seen at once by reading the life of Cardinal De Ketz, or the life of De Eance, or the life of St. Vincent of Paul, or the life of Olier. These four books will give you a picture of the abuse of the state -patronage of France, and of the persons who were the objects of that patronage. Perhaps in no country in the world, since Christianity has been in 42 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. it, was there ever a harvest more ripe for the scourges which carne afterwards. If such was the state even of Bishops in the Church, what must have been the state of the priesthood? if such were the spiritual fathers, what must have been the sons on whose heads they laid their hands? "What was the pre- paration and knowledge of those who were ordained ? ' Impose not hands lightly upon any man' 4 were words that had little terror in the eyes of some. The consequence was, that a body of clergy grew up throughout a great part of France, perhaps without any parallel. Seminaries, which had been introduced by order of the Council of Trent, seemed to die out as lights in a poisoned atmosphere. They were no sooner kindled than they expired. The attempts made to found seminaries, in execution of decrees of the Council, had so utterly failed, that the land was without due preparation of its priesthood. The dis- cipline and life of the clergy I will not touch upon ; it is not only distasteful, but even scandalous, to speak of the priests of God when evil comes amongst them. The state of the clergy may be judged from this, that when the reformation of the priesthood of France began, the Archbishop of Paris divided his clergy into three parts : those who were sufficiently 1 Tim. v. 22. THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. 43 instructed, and whose lives were sufficiently exem- plary to continue their functions; secondly, those who might, by a course of discipline, instruction, and training, be still retained in the exercise of their ministry ; and thirdly, those who were so utterly un- fit, so hopelessly incapable, that nothing could be done with them but to teach them to live virtuously for the saving of their own souls. If such was the state of the pastors, what must have been the state of the flock ? As it descends from bishop to priest, so it descends from priest to people. Priests are the salt of the earth, and ' if the salt shall lose its savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned ?' 5 When the Church of God loses its power over society, the classes part asunder. The beautiful and vital continuity of charity, the contact of love whereby the spirit of Christianity spreads through all grades of social life, sanctifies, il- iuminates, mitigates, and unites together the rich and the poor, and all the intermediate orders of society, thereby is broken. Charity having become cold, the rich and the poor in France stood apart in open an- tagonism, with no common sympathies, no common interests ; the rich wringing out of the toils of the poor the revenues of their lands, and the poor look- ing up with jealousy and with enmity, which, if en- St. Luke xiv. 34. 41 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. mity may be pardoned, is almost excusable in them, against those who lived by their toil, and gave them no love in return. The social state, perhaps, in all countries, at that time, was bad enough ; and if I speak in this way of France, it is not to make a contrast in favour of Eng- land, for the Christian society of Europe was hardly ever more divided, or more corrupt, than at that period. In France, the rich were intensely selfish, and proud almost beyond example in any aristocracy in the world ; fenced in and surrounded by privileges which were guarded, not only by personal jealousies, but by sanguinary laws. In no Christian country were the poor in a state of greater ignorance, greater misery, and greater degradation, more wounded to the very heart, than they were in France. Such was the state of the soil which gave birth to St. Vincent. God, in His justice and providence, was preparing for it two revolutions : the one a revolution of charity, and the other a revolution of chastisement. A re- volution of charity came first, like the words of our Divine Lord to His people when He said, when these things come to pass, 'then let those that are in Judea flee to the mountains' 6 giving them an opportunity of escape and of salvation. Then came St. Matt. xxiv. 16. THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. 45 the revolution of chastisement, long delayed, full three hundred years, in the patience of God, until, in 1793, within the memory of our fathers, it broke forth in a deluge of fire and blood which ravaged France, and has made the French Eevolution a name of horror on the page of history. Such was France when Vincent received 'the pound' 7 from his Lord. How little was his beginning ! He was the son of a poor man living at the foot of the Pyrenees. His father had a few acres of land and a few cattle, and Vincent's work as a boy was to keep his sheep. When he was ten or twelve years old, he lived a life of prayer among the herds of oxen in the field. At the age of twelve, he was sent to be instructed by the Franciscans ; as if God in His wonderful providence had brought the soul whom He destined to be. the Evangelist of the poor in contact with the Saint who is the seraphic father of the poor. He learned, no doubt, his love of poverty not only from his birth, but from the poverty of St. Francis. His poverty was such that, in order to maintain him- self without burdening his father, and to continue his studies, he became an assistant-tutor in a family just removed above want. In that state he continued until tho age of eighteen or twenty, when it was deter- St. Luke xk. 16. 48 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. mined, seeing his capacity, quickness, and intelli- gence, that he should be sent to Toulouse. His father sold two oxen, and with the price of the oxen paid his journey. At Toulouse he pursued his studies for some six or seven years, and after ordination he was compelled again to become a tutor, that he might maintain himself. In that state, as domestic tutor and chaplain in a family, the most commonplace state of life we can imagine, he continued until he was about thirty -eight or forty years of age. So unmarked, so unemphatic, so commonplace were the preparations of St. Vincent's life. Then, when he was called to begin his greatest works, he almost stood alone. He had but two companions, the first Fathers of the Congregation of the Mission ; and so utterly unconscious was he that he was called to any work, that he invited the fathers of the Society of Jesus, who, with their great and ready charity, had rendered assistance in the beginning of his labours, to take up the work of which he himself was the founder. He proposed that the funds to be given to him should be transferred to them, or to some others, that they might do the work instead of himself. Then, again, in founding the Sisters of Charity, he had for his assistant one simple woman, without any- thing to mark her character, except her chanty and THE APOSTOLATE OP ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. 47 piety. She was his sole assistant. It was truly a ' very little' that was committed to St. Vincent ; we can hardly conceive a poorer outfit for so great a work. Such was he who was chosen of God and sent into the midst of a kingdom, such as I have de- scribed, to work a revolution of charity, to anticipate a revolution of chastisement, and to leave an im- pression upon the whole land and population, which endures to this day, and that, not only as he left it, but multiplied and deepened. It goes on, too, ever multiplying and deepening from age to age, and will, so long as the love of God shall last on earth ; making the name of Vincent glorious, I may say, above the Saints of God in this ; that to him was specially committed, in these latter days, the ministry of active charity to the modern society of the world. "We shall see presently how the other great Saints and servants of God, who were raised up in France, were a constellation round about him. Glorious too they were, each one of them ; but he was the central sun. And now let us look at the work he did, and how it arose in the simplicity of a soul entirely humbled in its own eyes, entirely unconscious of the great mission that God sent it to fulfil. The 48 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. first founding of the Congregation of the Fathers of the Mission arose in this way. Being on a summer visit to the estates of a great family in which he was then tutor, he found a poor man, a peasant, on the bed of death, desiring to see a priest. He heard that this man had neglected his duties for years. He went, with his accustomed charity ; and the man declared to him that he had made bad confessions for j^ears past. He said that he had a fear of re- vealing certain sins which he had committed in his youth, and that he shrunk with great repugnance from laying his soul open to the parish priest. Out of this bad confession arose the whole of the great structure of the charity of St. Vincent, the Congre- gation of the Missions; a work which, in his life- time, numbered twenty-five houses, and at this day is spread throughout Christendom. Even before he closed his eyes, it was penetrating into the four quarters of the world. All took its rise from so slight a cause. Then it was that he called in the Jesuit fathers, who came and assisted him charit- ably and zealously, until, at last, God opened his eyes to see that he was the man whom God had marked out ; that He would give him companions to do the work; and that he should leave it in no other hand, and transfer it to no other. Then again, THE APOSTOLATE OP ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. 49 when he was once about to preach at Chatillon, as he was going up into the pulpit a person stopped him, and told him that there was a poor family who were lying sick ; and prayed him, in his sermon, to say something to move the congregation to give alms. He did so ; and the effect was, that after Vespers, as he went to see the same poor family, he met people either going or returning, carrying baskets with relief of every kind. It struck him at once that this zeal needed only organisation; and he laid the founda- tion of what was called the Confraternity of Charity the pious union of lay persons, which now spreads throughout France with singular beneficence. This, again, took its rise from the simple fact of a poor family in distress. The word of God out of his mouth was, as it were, 'a fire, and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces.' 8 He spoke, and at once there was a response in those that heard: they came, and gave themselves to this office of chanty. Then, again, there was another work for which God had prepared him. He had once been a captive in Barbary, and had tasted of bondage and imprisonment. He had now become chaplain of the galleys and prisons of the kingdom ; and it was this consciousness of the misery of prisoners which moved Jer. jcriii. 29. 3 50 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OP PAUL. him to lay the foundation of bis great works of charity for the prisons in France. Soon finding that the Confraternity of Charity was too weak, too unformed, too unorganised, having no sufficient unity or perpetuity in itself, he con- ceived the purpose of his second greatest work the foundation of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity. He had but the one assistant, of whom I have spoken. And this work, which they began with so small and slender an outfit, has grown to this day to number 16,000, who -are spread throughout the world, in the East and in the West, in Christian and in heathen lands, ministering to the sick in hospi- tals, or to the wounded upon the field of battle ; who are to be seen everywhere ; whose presence surrounds them with a cloister. Now, these Sisters of Charity were founded in the beginning for eight distinct works of mercy : to visit the sick in their homes, to give them temporal relief, to stay with them during their sickness, to serve them in hospitals, to take care of foundlings, to teach children, to in- struct the ignorant, and, lastly, to receive persons for retreats. Then there came another and a greater work. St. Vincent, seeing that the evil arose chiefly from the condition of the Priesthood, was the first to introduce THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. 51 into France the complete execution of the decrees of the Council of Trent, whereby Seminaries are ordered. He divided them for the younger and for the older students, according to their age and studies. He instituted three : one for boys, who as yet had not declared their desire for any state of life ; secondly, for youths whose vocation was probably determined ; and thirdly, for those who were ready to begin their studies for the priesthood. This system has been carried throughout the whole of France ; so that I may say, with few exceptions, there is no diocese Vvithout its Seminary, and no diocese which does not reflect in its Seminary the peculiar character which St. Vincent gave it. These Seminaries were under the government of priests specially trained to direct them. More upon this subject I cannot say now; and ib would be somewhat out of place ; but the spiritual industry, the prudence in detail by which St. Vincent prepared youths for the priesthood, and supported them in their sacerdotal life after they were ordained, was such, that he may be said to be the father and founder of this system in France. There remains one other part of his work of which I will speak. He had at that time gained, by love and by veneration, an universal influence in France. He had become the Confessor of the Queen, and 52 THE APOSTOLATE OP ST. VIXCEXT OP PAUL. through her he became a member of what was called the Council of Conscience; so that he, with four others, had the distribution of the ecclesiastical pa- tronage of the Crown. He had been raised up, as it vrere, to correct the eyils of which I have spoken before. It was he, more than any ether man, who nominated the pastors and bishops of the Church of France; it was he who hindered the nomination of corrupt persons ; he it was who stood by the fountain to purify the waters from taint as they first issued from the source. By a most singular, visible, and legible providence, God had taken the poor shep- herd, into whose soul He had poured out the light of charity, and laced him in the. Council of State, which watched over the hierarchy of the French Church. And not only this ; but round about him there had gathered a constellation of other servants of God names that I need hardly now repeat. One only I will mention, because it so intimately illus- trates how God was working this secret revolution of charity, and how, by the special presence of His Holy Spirit, He was gathering out His elect in France. It is only one of many examples, but it will suffice. There was a poor woman, the wife of a tavern- keeper, cf the name of Marie de Gournay. She was a woman of prayer ; and because she was a woman TEE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. 53 of prayer she was a woman who had power with God and man. That poor woman one day saw a company of youths coming from a fair. She stopped them, and said, with tears, ' 0, how I have prayed for your conversion !' And her words had power by the Holy Ghost. They entered into the heart of one of those youths, who was about twenty. He changed his life, and came and gave himself into the hands of St. Vincent, as his director. St. Vincent trained him for the priesthood, and employed him in his missions; and that man was Olier, who was after- wards the founder of the Congregation of St. Sulpice, and of the Seminaries which spring from it. He was, in the founding of Seminaries in France, next after St. Vincent ; and, working together with him, he has left upon the priesthood of France a deeper impression perhaps than any other man, except St. Vincent himself. He was the servant of God who taught the priesthood of France the interior life of Jesus, as their pattern and example, which has made them to be what they are at this day a light to the whole Church. Now, here we see how God was preparing this revolution of charity by His Spirit in St. Vincent; and I need not dwell farther upon his works. I will only say that there were round about him many who 54 THE APOSTOLATE 0? ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. were also eminent. Some are now canonised; and some who have not been canonised by the Church were doubtless Saints. They came round about him as the sun and moon and stars in the patriarch's vision, and did homage to him, because of his greater splendour and altitude in charity and the love of God. But if he was great during his own lifetime, how great has he become since ! how great is the reward which has been given to that ' one pound' well used to that very little in which he was found faithful ! On this day, when the morning light was breaking, he entered into the joy of his Lord ; and then he saw, face to face, Him whom he had seen by faith. By the light of faith he had seen God long, and by the light of faith ho had loved God well. But what joy was his when at last his eyes opened on the beatific vision ! for the beatific vision is measured by the charity which is in the soul on earth; and the soul of Vincent had a capacity for the charity of God and man, which has made him eminent among the Saints. There are many we might put beside him ; but few are they who may be put before him. Surely, next to the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts and others, whom God knows and we know not few hearts there are in the kingdom of God who with a THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. 55 larger vision or a greater intensity behold the Vision of Peace. And then, besides his essential glory, on which he entered to-day, his accidental glory has from age to age been growing upon earth. His works have been unceasingly multiplied. I know not, I cannot give you the least outline of the extent to which they now have spread. The work of his missionary zeal had in his own day reached to Rome, and into the Campagna around the Holy City, and had penetrated into Poland, and had come north into England, into Scotland, and into Ireland, into the far East and into Egypt, into Constantinople and into Barbary. It had already attained a universality ; it has been multiplied, and has grown from age to age, from that clay to this. Among the martyrs of France, the names of the sons of St. Vincent are emblazoned in the annals of the Propagation of the Faith. The Sisters of Charity have been multiplied from age to age and from generation to generation, and at this day fill the whole unity of the Catholic world with their name. Such is the accidental glory which is perpetually increasing to St. Vincent on high ; for every act of love and faith, and hope and contrition, and every act of self-denial and of heroic virtue, done on earth by his sons and daughters, redounds to his 56 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL joy and giory in the kingdom of his Lord. He knows them all ; he looks on them all ; he fosters* them ; he prays for them; he guides them still; for he is mightier with God now than ever he was on earth. If he had a little then, he has much now, He was faithful in that little, and he reigns over ten cities ; he has received the amplitude of the prerogatives which are promised to fidelity. I might say much more; but it will suffice to add what a Bishop in France said in his day : ' It is to Vincent that the clergy of France owe their splendour and their glory.' And I may also say, it is to Vincent still that France owes its splendour and its glory ; for its glory is not its monarchy, it is not in its empire, it is not in its armies and its fleets. Its chivalry is great ; its achievements in art and science are magnificent : yet all these will perish. The glory of France is in its Church ; in the stable unity of its faith, which even now is preserving the social order of France ; in the mighty power of its priesthood; in the special miracle of grace which France alone in such exuberance possesses its al- most innumerable congregations of Religious. This is its true chivalry ; this is its true glory. If what I have said has any force, this I think has been shown, that St. Vincent, more than any, both directly THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. 57 in himself and indirectly in his impulse upon others, by that power with which he laid his hands upon the works of other men, to elevate, to organise, and to perpetuate them, may be regarded as the Founder, the Father, the Patron, and the Saint of the charity of the Church in France. And how did God specially prepare him for this? He prepared him as He prepared His prophet in Jerusalem. The prophet Ezeldel was led from cham- ber to chamber to see the abominations of Judah, the idolatries, the scandals, the corruptions, the miseries, the sufferings, the spiritual death of the people of God. He went from chamber to chamber through the hole in the wall. 9 He broke through into the sanctuary, into the Temple, into the holy of holies, and saw how the name of God was pro- faned. So God took Vincent, and gave to him first the life of the Cross a life of poverty, a life in which he knew and tasted of captivity, of scorn, of false accusation, and of a thousand other trials that He might make him the Saint of the poor, and the Saint of the sufferer, and the Saint of all those who have to bear what he called himself ' the burden of his heart' the miseries and sufferings of his brethren. He made him first to taste these things ; 9 Ezekiel viii. 7. 58 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. and through his whole active life, from the very time he put his foot upon the threshold of his lifelong toil that is, from the age of forty to the age of eighty-five he was continually afflicted by sickness and by lameness, which almost nailed him to the spot where he was. So that God, to confound our wisdom and our prudence, to humble by a signal contradiction all our modes of action, gave into the hands of a man whom He tied as it were to one spot by a burden of infirmity, such a power of charity, such a universality of direction, that he is above all the Saint of the active works of the Church. In this way, God prepared Vincent ; first, by giving him an intense perception of the spiritual and corporal miseries of mankind, and then an intense .charity for their redress ; and that intense charity contained in it two things, an exceedingly tender pity, and a perfectly irresistible and unresting zeal. Now of this I am sure, that St. Tincent would not own us if we met together to-day simply to speak his praise ; if we were to meet and part to-day without rendering to him the highest and greatest act of worship which the Church pays her Saints ; that is, a loving imitation. And what is it he asks of you ? It is to imitate him, and to do as he did. The highest veneration of the Saints of God is to be like THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. 59 tlicni ; and if we desire especially to venerate any particular Saint, then to be like him in that which made him eminent among the Saints of God. All that I can now do is to enumerate five points, so homely and so simple, in the life and character of St. Vincent, that there is not one among you who may not practise them. And first : his greatness in the kingdom of God began in this, that he was utterly unconscious he had anything great in himself. Of all thought of self, all thought of what he possessed, of what he was, of what he could do, or of what he had done, of all intentions, schemes, theories, which depend upon self, or hang upon self, he was utterly unconscious. Like our blessed Mother, who in her Magnificat glorifies and magnifies the Lord ; whose soul goes forth out of herself, because, being full of grace, she was therefore unconscious of her greatness ; so Vin- cent, being made an instrument of God for this work of charity, was unconscious that he possessed it more than other men. Next, if we wish to do anything for God, we must begin with self-mistrust ; we must begin by simply putting away all confidence in ourselves, all thought that, by skill or contrivance, by plans or modes of action depending upon pur human prudence and 60 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. natural activity, we can do any work for God. God will not accept the work which has no root higher and purer than ourselves. He accepts only the work which springs from the root which He plants in the heart hy His own supernatural grace. Then again, in St. Vincent we find an extraor- dinary humility in all the works ho had to do. He began hy teaching and confessing the peasants of the family in which he was a tutor; he hegan hy asking a congregation to send their alms to a suffer- ing family. He did the work which lay at his door, the act of charity which was immediately before him; the work which belonged to the day, or to the hour, or to the moment, or to the place, that work he did. Imi- tate him in this. The old proverb, 'Charity begins at home,' so often quoted and so little understood, means this : the first act of charity is like tho expansion of the circle in the water ; it springs from its centre, it cannot overleap the intermediate space. Depend upon it, therefore, that if our hearts conceive great thoughts of charity, if we dream of some work at a distance, while we are not doing the work of charity which lies at our very feet, it is a mere illusion. Therefore begin in your homes, begin with your own servants, begin with your own neighbours, begin with your own dependents, begin with those who arc- THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. Gl brought into immediate contact with you. Charity works as heat spreads. Heat passes through bodies that conduct it, gradually and steadily through the whole mass, spreading from the point where it begins. So it is with charity. Let your charity, then, begin in the humble works of kindness, love, and self-denial, giving up your will, or giving away what you possess for the good, corporal and spiritual, of those immediately about you. And then another mark in the character of St. Vincent was this, that though his works were so humble in their beginning, they were perfectly bound- less in their scope ; that is to say, every soul that was in need, every soul that was in sickness, every misery, every want, his heart desired and his soul yearned, as it were, to find a remedy for. And though our hands are narrow, and though our reach is short, our hearts may be large ; and if we love God, we shall not limit ourselves to that which is round about us, but we shall long and desire to do all we can, and pray for that which we are not able to do, that God may find some others better fitted and worthier to do it than ourselves. And then lastly, as he began with an utter un- consciousness of anything in himself, an utter absence of all confidence in himself, he was strong and mighty 62 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. in bis confidence in God ; for he knew that whatever is done for the glory of God must succeed. It may not succeed in our way, or in our shape, or in our time ; but be knew perfectly, that whatever is done for the glory of God, in God's own way, shape, and time, must succeed. Therefore, it was no matter to him whether a thing was apparently successful or not ; he went on steadily, without making himself anxious in the least as to the success or failure of his undertakings ; for he knew that essentially all was for the glory of God, and that it must come to pass ; when, it was no matter to him. Do you like- wise those works which are for the glory of God, and you shall have the same confidence and peace. There is no work of charity which is not for the glory of God. Even little things, small and humble as they are, may be dignified in their character by being done for His glory. And now to make an end of what I have said. While I was speaking of the state of France, I could not but think also of the state of England. England has had its shocks and its changes, and it will have more. It seems that God is preparing for us the same revolution of charity of which I have spoken. It would detain me too long to speak of it now, and perhaps I may hereafter have the time to say some- THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. 63 thing on the stats of our own land. Enough for me at present to say this. St. Ignatius had held the kingdom of France before St. Vincent was born ; and all through the time of St. Vincent's labours, he was there with his garrison around him holding his ground, until at last there came up a multitude to assist him. So in England, St. Ignatius has held our land as it were a citadel, waiting until the sup- plies come up ; watching, as we say in war, until reinforcements come. The work of St. Ignatius in England now has a glory in its proportion like the glory of the work of St. Benedict in England of old. And now, when God has emancipated His people from the iron bonds of penal laws, when He has re- stored a hierarchy to the Church, and has willed once more that the faith and order of the Catholic unity should make itself felt throughout England, now there come up the reinforcements of spiritual charity. St. Philip is come, with the sweet persuasion of his interior and secret life ; and St. Charles is come, mighty and glorious everywhere, and at all times, and in all places, and in all things, and only weak in England in his weapons and his sons ; and St. Vincent is come, and has entered into England by the north, and by the centre, and by the south. He is in London too. And though it bo but a 04 THE APOSTOLATE OF ST. VINCENT OF PAUL. ' very little' that is here, feeble, and furnished with an outfit poorer even than that with which St. Vincent began, yet that little in the hand of God is mighty ; and all that is needed is the love and the devotion of His people ; only that the faithful should be faithful, that they should be worthy of their name. St. Vincent calls on you to-day to offer to him the homage that you owe ; the homage of your prayer, that he would revive his work in the midst of us and multiply it exceedingly; and the homage of your aims, that you will give according to your power, now and always not to-day only, but hereafter, ac- cording to the law of charity which he practised, ex- plained, and commented upon ; for his life is a page of the gospel of Jesus Christ, brought home to all the states and conditions of modern society. He has taught you how, if you cannot do works of charity in your own person, to assist those that do; for if all cannot labour, all can pray. And then for you also his intercession will go up in heaven ; and of all the hands, holy and undefiled, that are lifted up before the Eternal Throne, few there are that prevail to bring down a greater benediction, not only upon his children, but also upon his clients in all the Church throughout this evil world. m. ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS: Within the same Octave. ST. VINCENT'S LOYE OF SOULS. I thirst. ST. JOHN xix. 28. ALL the words of our divine Lord have a manifold meaning, and none more so than the last seven which He uttered on the Cross. And of thoss seven, perhaps none are more full than these ' I thirst.' For our divine Lord did not only express the thirst which parched His lips in the hour of His agony, which was in itself a symhol of a deeper mystery ; He spoke also of the perpetual thirst for the glory of God and the redemption of the world, which had consumed Him in every hour of His three-and-thirty years on earth ; in a word, the thirst for souls, the thirst for the salvation of men, the thirst for the accomplishment of His passion, and the thirst for the glory of His Father. It was of this He spoke when Ho said, ' I am come to send fire upon the C3 ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. earth ; and what will I but that it be kindled 9' 1 and again, to the disciple who was about to betray Him, ' That which thou doest, do quickly ;' 2 and again to them all : 'I have a baptism, wherewith I am to be baptised; and how am I straitened until it be ac- complished ?' 3 Again and again, He manifested His impatience for the accomplishment of His passion, because it was the redemption of the world, and the revelation of His Father's glory. And this thirst for souls, which springs from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, has descended to the heart of His mystical Body ; for the heart of the Church is the Heart of Jesus. His own presence and His own charity, shed abroad in the Church, are its heart and life. The most powerful and constraining affec- tion of the Church of Christ on earth has ever been the thirst for the salvation of men. From the hour when the Apostles went out with their world-wide commission, to make disciples of all nations, bap- tising them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost from that hour the Church has been a missionary body, always sending forth its evangelists, always seeking and saving 'that which was lost ;'* going to and fro in the track of the 1 St. Luke xii. 49. * St. John xiii. 27. St. Luke xii. 50. St. Matthew xviii. 11. ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OP SOULS. 69 Good Shepherd ; sending forth its pastors to find the lost sheep of the mystical Israel of God. And this thirst for souls is nothing more than the heating and the pulse of the Sacred Heart of Jesus vibrating through His Church, perpetually replenished by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, who first came down upon the Apostles, and has descended from age to age, from succession to suc- cession, in the unction of the Episcopate, and in the consecration of the multitude of pastors. It is poured out into the heart of the priest when his ordination makes him partaker of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. The love of souls has been his mo- tive in seeking the priesthood, and it is multiplied, augmented, and kindled more and more in the hour when he receives the sacerdotal grace, and his hands are anointed in the form of the Cross, that he may offer the Sacrifice of Jesus for the sin of the world. It has been the mark of every servant of God, that he has desired to save first his own soul, and then to save the souls of other men ; for it is well and terribly said, that no priest shall enter into the king- dom of God alone. If he has saved no other soul, he shall hardly save his own ; if his life and his influence has not been such as to convert others, he shall hardly have walked in the way of penance him- 70 ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. self. If he lias not kindled others with the love of God, it is because he has not loved Him. If he has not attracted others to a life of prayer, it is because he has not been a man of prayer. If, then, he brings no other soul to salvation, how hard shall it be for that priest to enter into the kingdom of God ! The love of souls, therefore, has been the special mark of the servants and Saints of God. They have been greatly illuminated in their intellect ; they have been largely endowed with various gifts of the Holy Ghost, and with natural and supernatural perfections ; but these are not the marks which decisively distinguish them from other men. It is the unresting, insatiate thirst for the salvation of souls. This is the one in- communicable mark of the servants of God. It is a sense which other men seem not to possess a sort of sixth sense, a spiritual perception opened in their understanding, and setting fire to their heart, which other men cannot understand. They cannot conceive why it is that a multitude of men, priests and lay- men, have in all ages made themselves fools, as it were, to save souls ; stripped themselves of their wealth, abandoned their honours, left their homes, exposed themselves to perils, laid down their lives, to save souls. And what, after all, are souls ? Who has ever seen them ? The metaphysicians and philo- ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 71 sophers of the world tell us there are no such things as souls ; and yet for these intangible, invisible, and incredible things the servants and Saints of God have worn themselves away by toil, and given their lives by martyrdom. Now, the love of souls is the peculiar feature in the character of St. Vincent ; and this is the point I wish to illustrate from his life. In what, then, does the zeal for souls consist ? St. Vincent's de- scription of it is this : It is an intense desire for the glory of God by the destruction of sin, by the cleansing of every spot from the souls of men ; a desire that souls may be sanctified in all places, and at all times, and in all actions, and in all words, and in all thoughts, and in all motives, until the words of the Lord's Prayer shall come to pass ' Hallowed be Thy name ; Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.' Now this, in one description, is the zeal or the love of souls; and there is mixed into it a tenderness, an affection, a generosity, a self-denial, and a self-sacrifice, which consumes the man who possesses it, or, rather, whom it possesses. I will illustrate this by a few examples from the life of St. Vincent ; for my purpose is not to dwell upon it in detail : and I am induced to do so, be- cause I am aware that I speak to the brethren of 72 ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OP SOULS. the Conferences of St. Yincont of Paul in London, gathered together here to-day, whose work, in one word, is this to labour to save souls. First, that which may be called the second con- version of St. Vincent, or the turning-point in his life that is, the crisis which determined him to give himself for ever to labour for souls, and for the souls of the poor was this : While he was in the court of the Queen of France, there was one of her chaplains, a learned man, who was intensely and perpetually trou- bled by temptations against the faith. He was so har- assed, and driven as it were to desperation, by these interior trials, that he had no rest day or night. His life was a misery; he could hardly say Mass; he could hardly recite the Breviary; he could hardly say his prayers. At last he came and opened his case to St. Vincent. St. Vincent bade him, when- ever he was tempted, to point to Rome, and make an act of faith in the infallible Church of God. He practised this for a while, but still the temptations assailed him. St. Vincent then made a solemn offer- ing of himself to Almighty God, and prayed that this spirit of temptation against the faith might depart from his poor brother, and might enter into himself. He gave himself for him, like a man nurs- ing another in the plague. So it came to pass ; for BT. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 73 the chaplain was entirely delivered from the tempta- tions against the faith, and St. Vincent from that time was tormented by them. He, in turn, could hardly hear his own existence. After two or three years in this state of trial, he once more made an offering of himself; and that offering was to labour, living and dying, for the souls of the poor, if only Almighty God would set him free. God accepted his offering. He was entirely delivered from these spiritual trials ; and how he kept his word his whole life attests. Again, we find that St. Vincent had an extra- ordinary desire for martyrdom. He was perpetually saying ; ' I would to God that I could go to India, or to a heathen country, and that there I might en- joy the happiness of preaching to the poor heathen, and of laying down my life for the sake of Christ.' He said, when eighty years old, ' With all my in- firmities upon me, and with my legs so swollen that I cannot walk, if only I could go to India if I could only go to some heathen land and die a martyr I would go, even though I were to die by the way.' Again, when some of his Fathers were in the city of Genoa, where the plague was raging, he wrote to them, and said : ' Spare not yourselves ; spare nothing ; spare not your health ; spare not 7-1 ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. even your life ; for what is it to lay down life for the sake of Jesus, and the souls for whom He died?' Again, he wrote to the Fathers who were in Barbary, and said : ' If one soul is so precious, that we can- not refuse to give our natural life to save it, how much more precious are the multitudes of souls amongst whom you labour ! Spare not your lives, but be willing to give yourselves for the love of Jesus.' And when bowed down with years that is, some five years before his death, entirely overcome as he was with infirmities gathering heavily upon him even then he insisted upon going as companion with some of his Fathers to give a Mission, and, with his swollen and enfeebled limbs, he took part in the whole of their labours. Again, we read, he said : ' If only I could save a soul by giving myself for it, I would count that my life was well bestowed.' And he was ready, with his own life, to save not only the spiritual life of his neighbour, but the temporal life also ; for when once he saw a poor peasant followed by a band of soldiers, with their weapons drawn, to take his life, he threw himself between them, and there stood to receive the death which they were about to in- flict upon the other. And this same spirit has descended to his children; for in one of the last ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 75 revolutions in Paris, one of his daughters whose name can never be mentioned without veneration, for it is certainly written in the Book of Life, the 'So3ur Rosalie when a poor man had fled into a doorway, and armed men were following him, came, and like her father, placed herself upon the thres- hold, saying : ' If you take the life of this man, it is through mine.' In one word, I may say that St. Vincent was kindled with this love for souls to such an extent, that it was the one dominant passion of his long life. It governed him, it penetrated him through and through, it circulated through his blood, it beat in his heart, and was the one law of his existence. The whole life of St. Vincent may be summed up in it. It was seen not only in his own labours, but also in the joy he had in the labours of those whom he had gathered around him ; and not only in the labours of his own sons and daughters, but in the labours of all the servants of God. He took an intense delight in the successes of all those who were gathering in souls for Jesus Christ; as, for example, in the missions of the Jesuit Fathers, of whom he said, ' Our Fathers are only fit to bear the burdens, or to gather up the few gleanings after these great reapers in the field of our Lord.' 76 ST. VINCENT'S LOVE or SOULS. Let us now enter into this' matter a little more closely. Why are we bound to have this zeal, this thirst for the salvation of souls ? What are the mo- tives and reasons for it ? 1. And, first, what is the soul ? Have you ever appreciated what it is ? Next after God, it is the most glorious and the most precious of all heings that exist. It is the likeness of God. A soul has an endless capacity, either of bliss, which is the par- ticipation of the beatitude of God, or of an agony which the heart of man cannot conceive. Even in the little child, whom you pass in the street, there is the capacity of a sanctity, of a love of God, of a knowledge of God, and of an eternal beatitude, which they alone can apprehend who are before the Throne. Even in the poor little bare-headed, bare- footed children that perish in our streets, there is this mystery of eternal life, this immortality, and this boundless capacity for the love and the bliss of God. They may be angels, and heirs with angels, to all eternity ; or they may become devils, and companions of devils, to all eternity. And as the image of God in the soul of man is its beauty and its glory, so its darkening and distortion is its deformity and its death. If the image of God in the soul be extinguished by sin, no words but ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 77 the words of our Lord can describe its doom, ' their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extin- guished.' 5 This, then, is the first motive to the love of souls that they must be for ever in eternal life or in eternal death ; in eternal bliss, or in eternal misery ; in eternal joy, or in eternal anguish. How is it possible that we believe these things, and that wo can live so tamely, so self-indulgently, so "carelessly, and so full of self-love, squandering upon ourselves that by which we know not how many souls might be saved ? 2. Then farther. If we would appreciate the value of souls, we must endeavour to understand how God loves every several soul that He has created.- But if we do not feel the love of God to our own souls, it is not wonderful that we are not able to. appreciate the love of God to others. God has made the soul to His own image; that is, He has communicated to it all that He can bestow. There is nothing that He has kept back except His own nature ; for the nature of God is uncreated, and the uncreated nature cannot be communicated. God has therefore communicated to us all that He can of His perfections, His image and likeness. He has given us an intellect, a will, a heart fall of loving St. Mark ix. 45. 78 ST. VINCENT'S LOVE or SOULS. affections; and God so loves the creature He has made and made to the perfect likeness of Him- self that when man sinned, He gave His own Son to redeem him. Therefore St. Vincent used to say: ' My brethren, love every soul, for this reason : every soul is th'e image of God, and every soul is the ob- ject of the love of God.' 3. And then again. Every soul is purchased by the Blood of Jesus; and the purchase-price fixes its worth. If you desire to appreciate what a soul is worth, take the price of the Blood of Jesus. This is the mark which stamps it with its true value. Our Lord spoke with a divine truth when He said : '"What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?' 6 The soul of man is so inappreciable by man, that the only way for God to make us understand what a soul is worth was, that His own Son should become incarnate, and give His precious Blood for it. The ransom is the measure of its worth ; but this ransom is infinite in price, and the price of the soul there- fore exceeds all the measures we can conceive. And so St. Vincent used to say: '0, my Jesus, what brought Theo from heaven? what made Thee b<3- St. Mark viii. 38, 37. ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 79 come man ? what made Thee shed Thy Blood upon the Cross ? It was the love of Thy neighbour.' And again he said : ' Poor priest, who goest about begging for bread, and sleepesfc under the corner of the hedge, pierced through with cold, what has brought thee to this ? The love of thy neighbour.' 4. Another reason is, because every soul is in such danger of perishing because it is so easy to perish because it is so hard to be saved. Our di- vine Lord has said : * Narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it. Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat.' 7 But why is it so hard to be saved, and so easy to be lost? Because sin is so strong and so subtle, and, what is worse, so sweet. Because sin, with its seven mouths, and with its seven streams of poisonous breath, the seven mortal sins of the flesh and of the spirit, is so alluring and so intoxicating, that myriads of souls are slain by it. Because the world is so fair, so bright, and so dazzling, and sin is like a net spread over the face of the earth, that few are the feet that are not entangled in it at some time, and many are tho feet that do not escape out of the net at last. Bo- ' St. Matt. vii. 13, 14. 80 ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. cause self is so powerful and so deceitful, that few are they who are not living for self rather than for God. For 'all seek the things that are their own, and not the things that are Jesus Christ's.' 8 Be- cause many there are who will find at last that they have been living for themselves, that is, 'without God in this world.' 9 Among the sorrows of Jesus in Gethsemani, the thought of the multitudes that shall be lost was heaviest of all. Under the shadows of the olive- trees He saw before Him the countless showers of lost souls descending into the pit : and that, after all His passion, after all His agony, after all His love, to be lost eternally ; and in the anguish of that vision His sacred Blood trickled like great drops of sweat upon the ground. Throughout the whole world, among the races of the heathen, souls, created in the likeness of God, capable of knowing, of loving God, and of being crowned with glory through all eternity, are dying without light and without Christ in the world. Year by year, and day by day, and moment by moment, they are ascending up before the Judge, all seamed, and scarred, and maimed, and with the plague-spot f sin upon them; and from the presence Philip, ii. 21. Ephes. ii. 12. ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 81 of their Judge fall like the dead leaves in autumn into the outer darkness, or like the rain that comes upon the hungry sea, and is lost for ever. And this is going on perpetually hour by hour, moment by moment, and not only outside the one visible Church of God, in which alone is salvation, but in the Church itself; among those who are baptised and illuminated by the faith, and Catholic in name, among them, too, souls are dying in multitudes who may never see God, never enter into eternal life. Multitudes, so far as man sees, are being lost. Look at this great city where we are. Of the deaths that are recorded week by week, I ask you how many of these die with the last sacraments? how many of them die with acts of contrition? how many may we believe in the last day will stand on the right hand of the Judge ? And this is going on perpetually, day and night. It is so easy for men to be lost. Look back only on your own life. It has been perhaps chequered all along alternately with states of sin 'and states of grace. There have been, I daresay, in the lives of most of us, ten times, ay, and with some a hundred times, in which if Almighty God had cut us off, we must have died eternally. There have been seasons in our life sometimes for 'a whole year together, sometimes G 82 BT. VINCENT S LOVE OF SOULS. more ; for three, four, six, eight, yes, and ten years it may be when we were living in a state of mortal sin. If Almighty God had cut us off at any moment at that time, where should we have been eternally ? Salvation would have been impossible. It may be there have been seasons of mortal sin only for a day, in which, if God had cut us off before the sun went down, salvation would have been impossible to all eternity. How great, then, may be the mul- titude of the lost ! Beyond all the count the human heart can conceive are those who may die out of the state of grace. What, then, is the love of souls but this? a thirsting desire to go to and fro, be- seeching and inviting, and warning and praying men to take heed to their eternal salvation, lest at any time the day should come as a thief in the night and find them unprepared, in mortal sin, and therefore out of the grace of life eternal. Look, then, round about you in this great city; and is there one of us who believes in the worth of tho s<5ul, or the love of God, or th6 danger of being lost, or the multitudes that are lost, that can fail to feel upon his conscience the heavy weight, which St. Vincent called 'his burden and grief,' that is, the sins and miseries of souls ? 5. There is still one motive of which I would ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 83 speak ; that is, the glory and bliss of the soul that is saved the eternal joy of the soul that enters into the beatific vision, illuminated with a knowledge of God, and inflamed with a love of God, and so is united by vision and by union to the ever-blessed Trinity to all eternity. Can the heart of man con- ceive, ever so imperfectly, such bliss as this, and yet be cold, as we are cold? Is it not rather that we hardly conceive it at all ? Would it be possible to conceive it, however little, and not be set on fire so as to thirst for souls and for salvation ? "Would it be possible for men who felt this to commit a sin with their eyes open, or to be tame, lukewarm, irresolute, and undecided in their will. Think also of the joy of those who shall enter into the eternal home, where they shall find once more all whom they have loved, kindred and friends, all bonds of life transfigured, all eternal in the everlasting house of our heavenly Father; in the presence of Jesus, and of all His Saints, who have loved them while on earth, and prayed for them, and in the charity of the heavenly court have thirsted for their salvation while they were in peril in the world. Into such a bliss every soul whom you bring to the knowledge of Jesus, and to the sacraments of salvation, shall enter when it passes hence. Is it, then, possible, if men arc 84 ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. governed by motives, and if the strongest motives govern men most strongly, that we can count any- thing of worth compared with winning one soul to eternal life ? This, then, is what governed the life of St. Vin- cent. This is the explanation of the long life of eighty and five years spent in ceaseless toil. Ask for one spark of this sacred fire. Pray that you may have it but a little ; for to have it in his measure is more than we dare to ask. He was a Saint of God, and we are but sinners. Let us ask of God just such a spark of this fire of charity as poor sinners may ask to have. And now I will but add a few short words before I end. We have already seen what was the social and religious state of France when St. Vincent arose to do his work ; how it was corrupt both spiritually and morally ; how all classes of society were torn asunder and set in opposition ; and how one source of that corruption was the secularity and the weakness of the Church in France, through the power and the despotism of the state ; how the civil power had bound the Church hand and foot, so as to hinder its vigorous and saving action upon the souls of the people. It was its' jealousy against the Holy Seo ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 85 which inspired the state and the monarchy of France to bind the Gallican Church by bonds which are mis- called liberties, but were truly servitudes and slaveries. By separating it from the Holy See, as far as possible without the breach of external unity, the civil power enslaved the Church in France. It could not do its work with power, because it could not do it with freedom. Its spiritual action upon the people grew feebler and feebler from generation to generation. And it was in such a state of society, as we have seen, that St. Vincent arose. His first work was to tell the rich that they who possessed wealth and power in this world will have to give account before the judgment -seat of Almighty God for every soul that through their neglect should die without the knowledge of Christ. He told them that their money was given them as a stewardship ; that if souls died round about them in ignorance of the faith, they would have to answer for the use and application of the means which God had intrusted to them. He admonished the noble family in which he lived of the duty of teaching the peasants who tended their herds and tilled their soil. He began as our Lord did, facere et docere, both to do and to teach. He pro- pagated throughout France the sense of responsibility in the rich. Next, he taught the poor that to know 86 BT. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. God is an inheritance far better and greater than the good things of this world; he made both rich and poor to be Christians, and so he brought them toge- ther. In this way he began to redress the miseries and inequalities of society. He then taught them to see that the inequalities between classes are merely accidental; that there is an essential equality a unity between all those for whom Jesus died, and that one soul is as precious in the sight of God as another. Perhaps it may be found that the soul of the poor man is more precious in the sight of God than the soul of the rich, because more adorned with the graces of humility and poverty of spirit, of meek- ness and of gentleness. He taught men the true value of man by teaching the true value of souls, which are' to be estimated not by the light of the world, nor the maxims of the world, but by the light which falls from the eternal presence and the judg- ment-seat of God. The sentence which shall be passed at the last day, is the only measure which cannot mislead. He thus penetrated the whole of society by the extraordinary activity of his life. He quickened it with every form and ministry of mercy, by the Fathers of the Mission, and the Sisters of Charity, and the seven congregations of religious wo- men whom he either formed or organised. In every BT. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 87 diocese there was a diocesan congregation; in every parish there was a parochial confraternity of laymen united together to labour for souls. The spirit of charity went through the whole body and structure of society, organising it as it spread, and by its or- ganisation and its unity of action becoming more and more efficient and lasting. This, then, was St. Vincent's work in life ; and, as I said to you the other day, Almighty God was preparing two great revolutions for Franco ; one of charity, and another of chastisement. The revolution of charity in His mercy came first as a prelude. The revolution of chastisement came afterwards, tardily, but justly, as a punishment. A hundred years passed away before the revolution of chastisement came. If the revolution of charity, that true and only reformation, which springs from the love of God and our neighbour, had taken effect, and brought France back again to filial submission to the Holy See, and to Catholic generosity in the works and fruits of love ; if the Catholic society of France had been pervaded and matured by the spirit of super- natural charity, the baptisms of blood, in which France has been immersed in a series of political revolutions, might have been averted. Let me apply this in like manner to England. 88 ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. What we call Christendom the Christian society of Europe was the work and creation of the Chris- tian Church. For fifteen hundred years the social life of England was an integral part of the Christian and Catholic world. Three hundred years ago it re- volted. Of its own perverse will it chose to found itself upon the order of nature ; upon the power and wisdom of legislation ; upon the skill of statesmen ; and to derive its social well-being, not from the Church of God, but from the natural endowments of society itself. It professed to find the fountain of its own well-being within its own limits; and the statesmen of England have been intoxicated by the material splendour and prosperity of its great com- mercial empire, and believe at this moment that they are redressing what are called social evils, and that they are about to make the society of England peaceful, prosperous, and religious, by the action of human prudence, natural benevolence, and the like. I would to God that I may be altogether deceived ; but if I am convinced of any truth, it is this, that for the last three hundred years England has been gradually departing farther and farther from the love and from the faith of Jesus Christ, from the spirit and life of Christendom, and has been immersing itself more and more profoundly in the spirit of this ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 89 proud world, the friendship of which is enmity against God. After this I see but one result; that the revo- lution of chastisement, which, sooner or later, falls upon every nation which has separated itself from the unity of the Church of God, will, in the end, fall upon England, Whether in your day or mine, I cannot say ; how many generations hence, I cannot tell ; but as it needs no spirit of prophecy to foretell the results of axioms and self-evident laws, so we need no more than to appreciate the principles which now govern England both in politics and religion, to foretell its future. Look, first, at the condition of the classes of England ; the separation of the rich from .the poor ; at the unequal distribution of wealth ; at the un- wieldy miseries and irremediable distresses of our millions. Private charity is exhausted ; public relief breaks down ; and pauperism and hunger gain head against all we do. We were told the other day, that every week one person at least dies of actual starva- tion in London. Whether that be so or not, I cannot tell ; it is a statement put forward by those who ought to know. With all our wealth and skill and pride of government, the political powers of the world are incapable of redressing evils such as these, which are the degradations of barbarism, not the maladies 90 ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. of Christian society. There is only one power that can redress these social evils, that is, the super- natural power of charity. There is nothing for us hut the revolution of charity the action of God the return of God and His kingdom into this land, that can preserve us from the scourge which threatens us now. And who can accomplish this revolution of charity ? Only one power, which England has despised for three hundred years against which, at this moment, it is warring with all its might. Has the Established Church of England the power to redress the mise- ries and the evils which afflict the population of this country ? Not one-half of the people, even in name, profess to belong to it ; and the other half are torn and distracted, divided and subdivided, by every form of religious dissent, perpetually widening farther and farther asunder. Is the power of charity and religion working upon the masses of the population so as to penetrate them ? Is it uniting them together ? Re- ligion in England is the very wedge of division that which is splitting society in England asunder, is re- ligious controversy. There is nothing, then, to be found in the established religion, and much less in the dissenting religions of England, which can check the development of the evils we see before us. What ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 91 power can do so ? Only that one so long despised. Charity is no abstraction. It has its presence and its form on earth. It was first organised in the Catholic Church on the day of Pentecost, and has wrought throughout the world from that day to this. It has borne its fruits in a thousand Saints like Vin- cent of Paul, and contains in itself the ever-fresh and inexhaustible vigour of its youth in every land and age. In this country, after three hundred years of martyrdom and of penal laws, it has been again restored to its form and dignity. It is clothed once more in the hierarchy, which the undying See of Peter restored to England ten years ago. The whole land rose up in tumult against it, and confessed its supernatural presence by a strange enmity and fear. But just as France was organised by the charity and zeal of Vincent and his companions, who spread all over France a network, as it were, of charities, so the one only power which can ever reunite the classes of England in bonds of mutual submission and benevol- ence, is the universal action of the same supernatural charity which springs from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and is applied by the equal operation and the divine unity of the Church of God. And of this we seem to see the preludes. The Church is restoring and marshalling its Orders and l>a ST. VINCENT S LOVE OF SOULS. its Congregations. The Saints are sending their sons into England. They are taking up their positions like the columns of an army of occupation. Even the laity of the Catholic Church are uniting them- selves together, as in these Conferences, which cover the whole of London, and act with a perfect unity of operation in every place. This is the point with which I wish to end : multiply your numbers. Every parish in London may be divided into those who are so poor as to need alms, or those who, being removed above the poor, are able to give alms. Every man who is above that line, that water-mark, ought to be a brother of St. Vincent. First, multiply the members of your Con- ferences, and then mark down all the kinds and all the forms of misery such as want, ignorance, and poverty, and sin around you. Do as St. Vincent did ; mark down the evils, and Almighty God will give you the mind and the strength to find the remedies. The first thing is to make a map of our miseries, and then to find a coextensive remedy, by the organi- sation of charity, which shall spread over the whole field of the sufferings and sins of our people. Do you say that this is a great work ? Almighty God, who made the world and became incarnate, can do all things. This mighty mass of population in Lon- ST. VINCENT'S LOVE OF SOULS. 93 don is not so weighty, but that He can balance it in the hollow of His hand. He can convert it by one inspiration of His grace, and make it like unto the city of Nineveh, a city of penance unto salvation. Let us therefore have confidence ; and let us bear in mind this truth, that on the bed of death, and in the day of judgment, to have saved one soul will be not only better than to have won a kingdom, but will over-pay, by an exceeding great reward, all the pains and toils of the longest and most toilsome life. IV. THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT: Within the same Octave. THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. When he had ended the commandments wherewith he instructed his sons, he drew up his feet upon the bed, and died : and ho was gathered to his people. GENESIS xlix. 32. THE Holy Ghost in these words describes the death of the patriarch Israel ; calm, collected, and majestic a death in peace, after a long life of faith. It was he who had said, ' With my staif I passed over this Jordan, and now I return with two companies ;' 1 that is : There was a time when I was an outcast, a stranger, and in poverty; I had nothing but the staff on which I leaned ; but Thou hast multiplied to me the gifts and the possessions of life, and hast made me two companies a numerous house. Such he became in life ; and when he came to die, he was greater still. His small beginnings had great end- ings. He was the father of twelve patriarchs, and they were twelve princes in Israel ; the heads and the fathers of twelve tribes. And the twelve tribes 1 Genesis xxxii. 10. H 98 THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. "became a mighty nation, a great monarchy, of some sixteen centuries in duration. Of him, too, camo the line of the faithful ; so that he became the patri- arch of many nations, for from that lineage came the incarnate Son of God and the kingdom of God, in all nges and in all times, until the end of the world. Now this seems to set before us, in its propor- tion, the death of St. Vincent of Paul. I have said that he was like the servant who received the ' one pound,' the ' very little,' which his fidelity had multi- plied until it became a great gain. The one pound gained ten pounds, and for his reward he received authority over ten cities. So, at the end of life, Yin- cent, sitting, as it were, in calm expectation upon the threshold of the eternal kingdom, looked back over the work of his life. He remembered the time when, from the foot of the Pyrenees, as a shepherd- boy, he looked out in hope and wonder into some dim future. A great desire to serve God, with a sense of the love of God, was rising in him, without light or knowledge to know what he should be called to do. But now, as life was closing, he looked back to the time when he was a solitary captive in Bar- bary; when, under the lash of his master, he was sent to labour in the fields. Life then seemed to him all but ended. "What was there before him? THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. 99 A death without martyrdom ; a death without so much as a name to leave behind. And then again the loving providence of God changed the course of his life. lie found himself once more in France, a priest, going out to labour in the vineyard of the Lord. Yet how little were his expectations, even then ! In his own eyes he was doing nothing, and he did not venture to plan or to conceive any great enterprise of faith. Little by little, his works grew on him : they came unsought ; his companions in- creased in number ; his spiritual children multiplied beyond all hope or thought. And now, as life was ending, he found himself to be the father of a mul- titude, a patriarch surrounded by many spiritual sons, the fathers of many tribes in the Israel of God. In his retrospect he might say, indeed, that with his staff he had passed over Jordan. He had gone up from his home and his herd at the foot of the Pyrenees, bearing with him nothing but the word and the love of God, and God had multiplied him to a great family. Doubtless these were some of the thoughts, sweet and consoling, in Vincent's heart, when that long life of eighty-five years was closing in. But that of which I have to speak is not so much his consolations in looking upon the past, as the last great consummation, whereby he entered 100 THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. into the reward of his labours. Therefore, what I propose to do, is to touch very briefly on what we find recorded in the history of the last years and days of his life. And the first remark I would make is, how great were his sorrows towards the end of life ; how great in this was the conformity of St. Vincent to his Lord, the Man of sorrows ; and how peculiar some of his sorrows were. They were sorrows which could only attach to a life and a heart like his. He had lived for eighty -five years, a life extending beyond the ordinary life of man ; and from the time he had begun to labour, almost two generations of men had passed away. Therefore he had seen fall beside him, under the heat and burden of the day, first one and then another of his companions and his sons. They hud been taken from him, sometimes by pestilence, sometimes by lingering sickness ; by various forms of death ; sometimes by labour, spent and worn out in the toils of missionary life. One by one, they had been gathered from him ; he was left tarrying alone ; lingering as St. John lingered, when the Apostles, one by one, went up to receive their crown, and he was left the last alone on earth. St. Vincent was wont to say, ' Alas for me, that my pilgrimage on earth is so long drawn out !' '0 Lord, Thou drawest THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. 101 into Thy kingdom, one by one, Thy servants that are well-pleasing to Thee ; but me Thou leavest, who am the most unworthy of all. Why do I cumber the ground ? Thou leavest me in displeasure, and Thou gatherest unto Thy reward and Thy crown those who have laboured better than I.' And then, as life drew on, he lost those who, to him, were dearest, because they were the foremost and the first in his labours of charity. One of his first companions he to whom he had committed the direction and care of his spiritual family, the Sisters of Charity, who had toiled in that work for some thirty or forty years was taken from his side just as his own end was approaching. The founder also of the Sisters of Charity she who had so long laboured under his guidance was like- wise taken before him. He was left alone, solitary in the world ; God had detached him from all things, not only from kindred and from the common things of life, but now from those hearts most like his own, with whom he was united, not by the bonds of con- sanguinity, but by the much more intimate and con- straining bonds of the love of Jesus Christ. Even these, one by one, were taken away, and he was left, as it were, alone upon his Calvary, stripped of all solitary, and waiting the hour of his departure. And then observe how his long life brought with 102 THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. it a multitude of trials. Life is like a long voyage, in which we must meet with storm and with sunshine, and then with storm again ; and as we know in the regions of the sea there are zones where storms pre- vail, so, towards the end of his long life, he entered into the period of affliction. God tried him by those last great sorrows, greater than the crosses which he had borne before. All those who were united to him in the bonds of tender love, in the love of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, were taken from his side. Another point to be observed in his death is this : how great were his sufferings, I mean his bodily sufferings. We have seen that for forty-five years, almost from the very first year when he en- tered upon his active life, he had suffered perpetually by. swellings of the feet and -legs, which rendered him lame, and sometimes almost motionless. Five- and-forty long years of an irresistible zeal and irre- sistible activity were, as it were, clogged and cum- bered by the weakness of the body. He was unable to move, and was obliged to be carried to and fro on his works of love. For the last two years of his life he was literally fixed to the spot where he dwelt. His feet were ulcerated, and his knees stiff with swelling, so that he was unable even to ascend the altar to say Mass. This increased to such an extent ' THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. 108 that lio was obliged to have his poor swollen limbs suspended by a cord to the ceiling, so that by arti- ficial help he might move them. I hardly know anything more like the meditation upon our divine Lord lying upon His cross, with a crowd round about Him, and those soft breathings of inaudible words by which our divine Master made known to His Blessed Mother the agony of the crucifixion, than what we read of St. Vincent, who, when his poor suffering limbs were moved, was heard, in a mere respiration, to say, ' 0, my Saviour ! 0, my Saviour !' the only words of complaint that ever escaped him in his anguish. During all this suffering, he allowed himself no dispensations. There was an endurance in the bearing of these pains, which seems altogether su- pernatural. First of all, he would never lie upon a soft bed ; he used to require that they should move him and lay him upon a hard pallet on the ground. When his friends and his spiritual children brought him food which they thought would suit his appe- tite, he used to reject it ; yet he would taste it first, lest they should be pained at the rejection, and then ask that it might be taken from him. When the reigning Pope, hearing of his infirmities, sent him a dispensation from the recitation of Office, he de- 104 THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. clined it. In all his suffering, and in all the dis- traction which conies from bodily pain, he persevered in the recital of the Office even to the last* When he was unable to say the holy Mass in the church, he with great difficulty consented to be carried to say his Mass in the chapel of the Infirmary. He refused to accept the privilege granted to him, to have an altar erected in the chamber next his own, saying, that these were privileges so great as only to be used in extremities, and he thought himself not arrived at such an extremity as would justify his accepting them. St. Vincent was profuse in his ten- derness to others, to himself alone he was severe ; he who would relieve the least pain of any fellow-crea- ture endured his own, and rejected the alleviations and indulgences which were offered for his relief. Through all these sufferings, great as they were, he had an entire peace. It would appear as if his one thought was for others, and as if he had no sorrow for himself. Even as we read of our divine Lord, who said, 'Because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow hath filled your heart ;' 2 and again, ' Let not your heart be troubled ; in My Father's house there are many mansions.' 3 So it seemed with St. Vincent. For himself he had no thought, sava 1 St. John xvi. 6. 3 Ib. xiv. 1, 2. THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. 105 only a longing desire to depart and to be with Christ, tempered by a profound humility in the thought of his unfitness to appear before Him. We find the most beautiful traits of this spirit of tenderness to others, and of this continual watchfulness in prepar- ing himself for death, which he looked for with a great desire. Every day, after holy Mass, as soon as he had made his thanksgiving, he said the Office for those who were in the agony of death. It had been his practice for eighteen years. He had been habitu- ally united in sympathy with the dying; through his long life he had died with them day by day ; he had been continually rehearsing the preludes of his own last hour, so as to make himself familiar with it. Every night, when he lay down to rest, he pre- pared his soul as though he should never wake again. Thus it was his continual exercise to pre- pare himself morning and night for his last passage. One of the priests of his Congregation, perhaps not able to understand the greatness of his interior life, and supposing that one who had been for so many years given without reserve to external works of charity for others, might in some degree have for- gotten the preparation of his own soul to appear before the judgment-seat of God, wrote a letter to one of the community, knowing that it must pass 106 THE DEATH OP ST. VINCENT. througli the hands of Vincent, in which he expressed his hope that their reverend father "was preparing himself for his last hour. When Vincent saw the letter, instead of being offended, he sent for the priest and thanked him, begging him to say if he saw anything in him which implied that he was not prepared to give up his account. When the priest, in confusion, said that he could not presume to say such a thing, he added, ' Speak with all freedom ; if there is anything you see in me, let me know what it is, for it is easy to deceive ourselves.' He then said, ' For eighteen years I have been preparing myself for death.' To another who spoke with him of his end, he said, ' There is but -one thing which troubles me now ; it is, that we have not finished our rules,' that is, the rules of his Congregation. Such was his state of preparation ; and therefore it was, that to one who was afraid of death, and who spoke to him of the fear of dying, he answered, ' Think of death once or twice in the day, and then put the thought from you ; do not dwell upon it ; or, if you find thinking of death once or twice in the day in- spires you with fear, do not think of it at all ;'. that is to say, ' Prepare yourself to meet God, but pre- pare yourself in another manner ; for,' he said, ' the best preparation for death is a life of good works a THE DEATH OP ST. VINCENT. 107 life of humility and charity, for the salvation of souls and for the consolation of those that suffer. This is the way not to fear death ; and if, after a life like this, you are assailed with fear, place absolute con- fidence in God, and ask Him to take it from you as a temptation.' And then, lastly, his death drew near. How can I describe it ? All that I can venture to do is to narrate that which we read. First, what should we expect of one whose life was so like the life of our Lord, and whose mind was so much the mind of a little child, but that when he came to die, his death should be childlike too ? And certainly, among all the deaths of the Saints of God, I hardly know one which is marked with greater tranquillity and calm- ness, peace and sweetness, like the sleep of a little child. All his long eighty-five years, from the time when he kept his father's sheep, and among the herds of the field lived in the spirit of prayer, was the life of a child of God. He had a right to die as a child, for he had lived as a child ; and they who ' live as children of God have a right from their heavenly Father to die in His bosom, to die as the patriarch died of old, by ' the mouth of the Lord,' that is, as it were, by the kiss of the lips of their heavenly Father. But he had also another title and another right to 108 THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. die with this singular childlike peace ; for his whole life of active charity, in himself and in his spiritual children, had been devoted to consoling those who were in the agony of death. He had laboured for forty years to gain a good and happy death for others, and therefore the promise of the Holy Ghost was his ; * Blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor: the Lord will deliver him in the evil day ; the Lord help him on his bed of sorrow. Thou hast turned all his couch in his sickness.' 4 That is, like as the kind and tender nurse turns the pallet, smoothes the pillow, and makes again the bed tumbled with the pain and agony of death, so the hand of God comes at that hour to those who have been merciful in consoling the sick and tending the dying, and makes all their bed in their agony. This is their special privilege. Who, then, I ask, had a better right than Vincent to this great and last gift of God's love ? And God was faithful to His word. It was on the 25th of September (the day before yesterday, as it were), when he was in the house of St. Lazarus in the midst of his spiritual children, where he had lain motionless for two long years, that his hour came. He was found in a kind of sleep, like the slumber of a child. His attendant woke him, < Psalm xl. 2, 4. THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. 109 and his answer was, ' It is only the brother corne to call the sister,' that is, it is sleep, the prelude of death. He knew his time was come. On the 26th of September, that is, yesterday as it were, his soul began to shroud itself from this world, as it opened itself to the fulness and glory of the Eternal. As he lay sleeping in his chair, one of the older fathers of the Congregation came to him, and said, ' Father, give your blessing to all that are present, and all that are absent.' Vincent began the ordinary form of bene- diction with a loud and articulate voice ; but before he had uttered half the words his voice grew faint, and he ended his benediction as the patriarch, who, after he had given all the commandments wherewith he instructed his sons, gathered himself up to depart. Then his voice failed him. During the day, from time to time, they suggested to him words of conso- lation. But the only words which drew from him an articulate response were, ' God, come to my assist- ance ;' to which he always answered, ' Lord, make haste to help me.' These were the only words that fell from him. At last, there came a friend from a distance to tell him that the conference of priests, whom he had gathered together to meet periodically for spiritual exercises, needed to bo supported, and he asked his blessing upon them, that they might 110 THE DEATH OF ST. VIXCEXT. continue in the good spirit in which he had founded them. To this he answered, in the words of the Holy Ghost, putting thereby a seal upon his own life : ' He who hath begun a good work in you, will per- fect it unto the day of Christ Jesus.' 5 These were the last articulate words from the lips of St. Yincent of Paul. After this he fell into a sleep, and at four o'clock in the morning, as the day was breaking, at the hour when his spiritual children in all their churches were in prayer, at the very hour in w r hich, for forty long years, he had solemnly invoked the blessing of God upon the works of his life, without a sign, or a motion, or a sound, he passed into the presence of his Lord. Such was the transit of St. Yincent of Paul ; a calm sleep bare him into eternal life for death it can hardly be called; and so he ascended to receive the power and joy of his Lord. In that moment his eyes were opened to see the pre- sence of Jesus, the Sacred Humanity in the glory of the Father, the throne of the Immaculate Mother, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the bishops and pas- tors of the flock of God the Saints who had illumi- nated the Church by their light, or kindled it by their charity all the company of the elect, gathered to- gether in burning circles of glory round about tho i. 6. THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. Ill throne of the Incarnate Word. And mingled with them he saw his own spiritual children, the Fathers of the Missions and the Sisters of Charity, taken be- fore him to their joy in the two generations through which he had lived and toiled. There too he saw those who, through their preaching and instruction, had been gathered into eternal life; the harvesting of those five-and-forty years thousands and tens of 'thousands of poor and of little ones, of foundlings and of orphans, who had received the word of life and the grace of salvation from his spiritual sons and spiritual daughters. They too were round about the throne, and their voices were like the voice of many waters going up in thanksgiving and in praise before the throne of God; for he was come at last to his glory and his crown, who had been the messenger of salvation to them all. And then came to pass in him the words of the prophet Daniel, with a fulness and an amplitude, with an intensity and a splend- our, which has seldom been surpassed : ' They who are learned shall shine as the brightness of the fir- mament, and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity.' 6 The brightness of the fir- mament, and the light of the eternal stars, were tho raiment and the crown of Vincent. Seated on his Dan. xii. 112 THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. throne he has reigned from that hour, and he reigns there still, as a king hearing rule over the Israel of God. He reigns too there as a priest, who has offered the precious Blood for the redemption of the world ; he reigns there as a mediator whose prayers prevail with God ; he reigns there as a minister whose hands distribute grace ; he is reigning and will reign until Jesus comes to judgment. And his accidental glory has increased, and shall increase until time shall he no more. We are met, then, to keep a great festival to-day. Let us not depart without raising a lasting memorial of it. If you love the Saint whom we commemorate if you love him, who certainly among the Saints of God is one of the loveliest, for his life hreathed love, his steps imprinted love upon the earth; from his hands he distilled the works of love, and diffused the sweet influences of charity wherever he went ; if you love his life, if you love his works, if you desire to see them established and multiplied, I ask you to join with us at this time in erecting, in memory of this jubilee, of this bi-centenary of his passage to glory, an altar in this church, where his spiritual children, labouring for souls in this parish, may venerate his name and patronage. Send your contributions, either to the fathers of this church, or to the Sisters of THE DEATH OF ST. VINCENT. 113 Charity in this parish. A duty of gratitude rests upon you towards one who was a herald of the love of God to the world. If we desire to be his children, there is but one way to be so ; that is, by living as he lived, and dying as he died. If you desire, at the end of a long life, full, as it may be, of toil, sorrow, and anxiety, to fall asleep in the childlike death of St. Vincent, though not indeed in the overpassing mea- sure and multitude of peace which was his, then live a life of charity, of kindness, tenderness, patience, and meekness. Be able to say what he said : ' As for mine enemies, let them pluck out my eyes, so they will leave me a heart to love them.' Ask for this spirit ; love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. Such was the love of Jesus, and such the love of Vincent. Ask for it through his prayers ; pray that the charity of God may bo poured forth in your hearts by the Holy Ghost. And then, when your life draws to its end, and you look back over its toils and sorrows, there will come to you, from the sarns source, peace and an assurance of eternal life : the memory of an active life spent for His sake, and the peace of God from the fountain of all hope, the pierced side of Jesus, and the precious Blood which alone gives merit to all good works. i Y. THE RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS: In San Carlo, Rone, 1034. THE RESTORATION OF THE CHUECH OF ST. THOMAS. And of His kingdom there shall he no end. Sx. LUKE i. 33. I AM commissioned to lay before you the reasons for rebuilding the ancient Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, which stood by the side of the English College. It was destroyed by the great revolution which, at the beginning of this century, passed over Italy and Eome. First is this fact, that of all the leading nations of Europe, England alone possesses no church in Rome. The Church of all nations recognises and cherishes the Christian and Catholic nationalities, which are its own offspring. In Rome all meet as in a common home. Distinct in accent and in his- tory, they are all one ; for ' of one He hath made all nations on the earth.' The revelation of Pentecost has made them to be of one faith, though of many tongues. It is only the spurious nationalism which generates the pride of disobedience, and by thia 118 RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. both heresy and schism, against which the Church in its authority and unity arrays itself. And now that England has entered once more into closer rela- tions with the Holy See, and the concourse of our countrymen in Eome is becoming every year greater, it is necessary that there should be a church with pastors of our race and speech, for the many who though they may learn the language of other countries enough for the common uses of life never attain to such a command as is necessary for the ministrations of the Church, especially in the time of sickness, or the hour of death. There is, more- over, a sympathy of kindred, and a homely sense of charity and trust between pastor and flock of the same race and people, which is not easily found among those who have not this common bond. Already France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Pied- mont, Belgium, Poland, Sclavonia, Greece, Ireland, Scotland, Naples, Sicily, Lombardy, Venice, Lucca, Genoa, the United States, the Armenians, the Ma- ronites, the Copts, the Ruthenians, and others, have their churches in Rome. It would not be well that England alone should be absent from such a family of nations. But this is only the first, and I may say the least, motive to this work. The restoration of the RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 119 church is due to our great Martyr for his own sake, and for the cause for which he died. And it is to this that I would now ask your thoughts. The beloved disciple heard in heaven the voices of the Saints, crying : ' The kingdom of this world is become our Lord's and His Christ's, and He shall reign for ever and ever.' 1 What was this but the fulfilment of the words of promise and of prophecy spoken by the angel to the Mother of God, ' of His kingdom there shall be no end'? 2 The kingdom which Jesus founded is not from hence, as He declared, but it is here, as St. Augustine interprets ; 'Hie, sednon hinc;' founded on the earth, mingling with all the affairs of men, and directing them, both as individuals and as nations. The Church derives its authority from a fountain in the eternal world that is, from the bosom of God Himself. It is God reigning amongst men. It derives its existence from Him, so as to be a shadow of His self-existence among the creations of the will of man. It is endowed by Him with supernatural endowments, which make it suffice in all things to itself. It has an imperishable life, an indestructible outward organisation, an infallible voice, and an in- dissoluble unity, from which fragments indeed may * Apoc. xi. 15. St. Luke i. 33. 120 EESTORATION OF THE CHUBCH OF ST. THOMAS. fall ; but their fall does not impair its absolute and indivisible oneness. And by reason of these prero- gatives it is sovereign over the reason and the will of inen. It is an inadequate and superficial notion of the Church to conceive of it only in the sphere of intellectual and spiritual ideas, as an ethical and speculative philosophy for the illumination and exer- cise of the reason, with no relation to the will or to the actions of men, except so far as they are willing to listen to its counsels : a sort of mystical paradise upon earth, in which gentle, unpractical, feminine natures may converse, apart from the desti- nies of mankind and the government and course of the world. Such was the insolent advice of one who, some years ago, counselled the Vicar of Jesus Christ 'to inhabit peaceably the serene sphere of dogma,' and there, while the nations of the earth are violating the laws of God and of His Church, ' to pray, to bless, and to pardon.' Such has not been the office of the Church, nor of the Vicar of our Lord. The Church descended from the guest-chamber crowned with the sovereignty of the world. The Apostles of Jesus were constituted in one body, possessing a per- fect government in itself, independent of all human wills, and of all human authority. The Church possesses in itself a perfect freedom of^its own a RESTORATION OP THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 121 freedom of legislation, a freedom of judicial pro- cedure, a freedom of executive power. Its members p.re subject to it, not only in the matter of their faith, but of their moral conduct; not only in their rela- tions to the life to come, but also to this. It has not only a spiritual, but a civil mission to mankind. It came into contact with the empire of the world, and was declared by the supremo civil authority to be an illicit society, incapable of holding property, incapable even of legal existence. Nevertheless, in the midst of all hostile powers, it not only existed, but possessed ; not only possessed, but expanded, and subdued races, nations, and kingdoms to itself. It began to rule over its own patrimonies, and to elevate them to the highest Christian cultivation. The first Christian society known upon the earth was the creation and offspring of the Christian Church ; then followed Christian nations and kingdoms ; and finally Christendom, or the world -wide family of nations and kingdoms united in one common faith and lav;, and under one common head and father, who is not only Pastor over pastors, but even over kings ; kingly himself, but more than king, superior to all, by the character and authority of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Such is the Catholic Church : a true and proper kingdom ; not spiritual only ; but not 122 RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. earthly, yet on earth ; eternal, but also in time ; freo both by the freedom of its commission and jurisdic- tion, its doctrine and its discipline within the sphere of its supernatural office, and also by the liberation of its head from all human sovereignties, and by his supreme direction of all other powers upon earth. Such is the freedom of the Church ; and such is the source of its immunities or exemptions from many of the laws which govern the natural order of the world. But to constitute this kingdom, a divine law of suffering was ordained : ' Sine sanguinis effusione non fit remissio;' 3 'without shedding of blood there is no remission ;' and without the Passion of Jesus the kingdom of God was not to be founded on the earth. He was crowned ; but it was Avith thorns ; yet the thorns testified to His royalty. He was anointed with the royal unction of His precious Blood. Jesus the King of martyrs upon Calvary has revealed to us the law by which His power is established over the world. So it has ever been from the beginning : He has glorified Himself, His truth, and His laws by the sorrows and the sufferings of His disciples. ' The disciple is not above his master, nor the ser- vant above his Lord.' 4 ' If they have persecuted Heb. ix. 22. St. Matt. x. 24. RESTORATION OP THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 123 Me, they will also persecute you.' 5 ' Wonder not, brethren, if the world hate you.' 6 ' Know ye that it hated Me before it hated you ;' 7 and yet ' pretiosa in conspectu Domini naors sanctorum ejus.' He will not lightly suffer them to be afflicted ; not a hair of their head can perish without their Father ; and He wills it only so far as it is for the perfection of His Church. Each one has his testimony to bear, and to seal with his sorrows, it may be. with his blood. St. Stephen fell asleep under a pitiless storm of stones for the testimony of the Messias ; St. Peter and St. Paul witnessed by martyrdom to the uni- versality and unity of the kingdom of Jesus ; St. Lawrence bore witness to the sacredness of its gifts and possessions; St. John Nepomucene testified to the inviolable seal of the confessional ; St. Thomas to the liberties of the Church to the great and supernatural immunities which liberate the Church from the supremacy of all earthly power. No more luminous proof of this truth can be found than in the line of the Vicars of Jesus Christ. Forasmuch as the liberty and sovereignty, the purity and the jurisdiction of the Church are especially committed to their charge, they have had most to suffer. The world has warred against them with a special direct- Bt. John xv. 20. 1 St. John iii. 13. ' St. John xv. 18. 12-1 RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. ness and a singular concentration of its enmity. And they have withstood the world with a constancy derived from the patience of their divine Master. A line of Pontiffs has withstood a line of Csssars. The supreme civil power of the day has always found in them a limit to its aggression. The Boman, the Greek, the Lombard, the German, have found in their turn that patienco is stronger than might, and that to suffer is to reign. But my purpose is not to enter upon this wide field, beautiful, glorious, and most alluring as it is. We have a special subject for to-day the restoration of the Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and the motives of such an undertaking. To set this before you, it is necessary that we should appreciate the cause and the martyrdom of this great Saint, and see what claims it has upon us, at all times, and especially at this day. And this it is necessary to do all the more, because St. Thomas has been one of those great champions of the Church about whom men have never ceased to contend. His- torians of the world have conspired against him. He was too great, and too explicit in his condemnation of the abuses of worldly power, to escape the especial hostility of the men of this world. Even Catholic historians have, at times, written of him, if not with RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OP ST. THOMAS. 125 a hesitation, at least without the glow of enthusiastic devotion which is his due. What I purpose, there- fore, is to show that he stood and suffered for the rights and the liberties of justice ; that we owe him a singular veneration ; and that there are especial motives to urge us to manifest our devotion to him at this day. It is not my purpose, nor would it now be pos- sible, to draw out the history of St. Thomas, and of his contest with Henry II. of England. It will ba enough to remind you, in very few words, of the chief heads of the history, and the chief causes of the con- flict. St. Thomas had been seven years Lord High Chancellor of England, when he exchanged that charge for the office of Archbishop of Canterbury. He thereby exchanged one high trust for another; the one he had held of the King, the other he now held from his divine Master. No man better knew than he the nature of both these trusts, their limits and their responsibilities. No man better knew the extent both of the royal and civil jurisdiction, and of the im- munities and liberties of the Church. If the Arch- bishop of Canterbury at that day had been Theodore of Tarsus, or Lanfranc Abbot of Bee, the men of the world then, and historians and controversialists now, 126 RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. would tell us that c.n ecclesiastical education had narrowed their minds and warped their judgments; or at least, that if they were Saints, they were not jurists or lawyers, and were incapable of discerning the prerogatives and rights of the royal jurisdiction. None of these things can he said of St. Thomas, than whom no man had hetter learned, hy the practice of seven years, to know the rights and claims of the Crown and of the Church. When the guardianship of the Church in England was committed to his trust, he received it with all its liberties, of which I will recite a few, and those which were the chief objects of the hostility of Henry II. 1. First, the Church in England held its posses- sions or patrimony freely as its own. The Church, as a society divinely instituted, holds its property by the most perfect right of dominion. All other rights are similar but secondary, but the right of possession in the Church is inherently a divine right, and is the exemplar of all other rights. The Church in England at that time was, as in all Christian countries, not only a moral person or corporation in itself, but a legal person or corporation in the recognition of the public law. It held its own lands, revenues, houses, and goods, independently of all human authority. The kings of the Saxon races had generously and RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 127 abundantly offered of their possessions to the Church of God, and the faithful of every condition had fol- lowed their example. The whole of England was gradually formed into dioceses and parishes, every one of which had its endowment, which endures even to this day. If I were to begin by examples, I should weaken what I say, unless I were to enumerate all the ecclesiastical foundations of Saxon England, which is impossible. Canterbury, Kochester, Winchester, Salisbury, York, and Lichfield, with "Westminster, Glastonbury, St. Alban's, Bipon, Whitby, and Croy- land, are representatives of a whole order which covered the land. These foundations were sacred gifts of the faithful, held for God by His Church ; they were consecrated by the wills of the departed, which are protected by a peculiar sanctity. They * were oblations at the altar, or penitential restitutions to the laws of God, or vows solemnly made in times of danger or in the hour of death. They had passed entirely from the possession of the givers and of the world, to the hand which received them for the service of God. As such they were exempted from the ordi- nary burdens which fell upon the possessions of the State; but they were charged with the burdens of the ecclesiastical order, which were proportionate ; namely, the maintenance of the Episcopate, of tho 128 EESTOBATION OF THE CHURCH 01? ST. THOMAS. clergy, of the churches, and of tlie poor. They were, therefore, described as ' Vota fideliuin, pretia peccatorum, patrimonia pauperum ;' 7 vows, restitu- tions, and the patrimony of the poor ; or, as in the capitularies of Charlemagne, as ' offerings upon the altar, penances for sin, the patrimony of Jesus Christ and the poor.' The administration of these posses- sions belonged absolutely to the ecclesiastical order, and the immunity or exemption of these ecclesi- astical possessions was recognised and recorded in every code of law throughout Christian Europe, and especially in England. It was also protected by the canons of many councils in all countries, but also especially in England, where the councils of Becan- celd and Berghamsted in the seventh century, and the councils of London and Winchester in the eleventh, ordered that all who violated the property of the Church should be excommunicated. 2. A second immunity of the Church was the per- sonal exemption of ecclesiastics from all jurisdiction, except that of the Church. It is obvious at once, that in matters of the spiritual order, not only all ecclesiastics, but all men, must be exempt from civil powers, and subject to the Church alone. There is 7 De Vita Contcmpl. lib. ii. c. 9, ap. Darboy, Vie de S. Tluma Becket, vol. i. pp. 62, 66. BESTOBATIOX OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 129 no other kingdom of Jesus Christ but His Church ; there is no other divine -witness of His person or revelation, no other interpreter of His faith, no other expositor of His law, no other legislator in the spi- ritual order, no other judge of His people, whether in the internal forum of penance, or in the external forum of ecclesiastical censure. To the Bishops alone all men alike are subject in matters of the soul. But as soon as the world began to turn to God, the Christians avoided the tribunals of the un- believers, and submitted their causes to the arbitra- tion of their own brethren. The Emperors invested the Bishops of the Church with a judicial authority even in civil causes ; what was at first a paternal arbitration became a true and recognised jurisdic- tion. Gradually it was extended even to criminal causes; and finally the imperial laws ordained that the Bishops should have jurisdiction over laymen in matters spiritual and civil, but over ecclesiastics in all matters whatsoever, spiritual, civil, and criminal that is, that the clergy should be exempt from all other jurisdiction, and should be judged only by their own superiors and by their peers. These exemptions were carried by the imperial laws throughout the extent of its jurisdiction, and passed into the legal tradition of Spain, of France, of Germany, and of 130 RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OP ST. THOMAS. England. The Councils of Becanceld and of Berg- hamsted, already quoted, in the seventh century, de- clared these exemptions of the clergy from all civil judges. This immunity is recognised also in the laws of the Saxon and Danish kings, Edgar, Canute, Ethelred, and Alfred, and expressly ordered in those of St. Edward the Confessor. They were acknow- ledged and confirmed by William the Conqueror, by Henry I., and, what is to our purpose, expressly and solemnly acknowledged by Henry II. Now it is not necessary to show the Christian wisdom and the Christian justice of these exemp- tions. It would be no hard task to do so ; but for our present purpose it is enough to establish that such was at that time the public law both of the Church and of the State in England, confirmed by custom, canons, statutes, and royal oaths. Such, then, was the immunity which descended to the charge and trust of St. Thomas. Ho was not the maker of these liberties, but only their guardian, responsible to God and the Church. 3. A third immunity of the Church is the free election of its pastors. The Church as a spiritual house is built of living stones, and the choice of those stones is vital to its unity, symmetry, and solidity. The guardianship of the truth and law of Jesus Christ KESTOBATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 131 requires from those who are intrusted with it a per- fect unity of intelligence and will in all that relates to the divine deposit and mission of the Church. 'Labia enini sacerdotis custodient scientiam.' 8 St. Irenoeus says that the Episcopate possesses a special ' unction of truth.' The transmission of truth in the world is not by books, but by men ; not by parch- ments and rolls, but by living intelligences and wills formed by the Spirit of God. "Written records and formularies of faith are of little avail when the living teachers are in error, or contradict each other. For this reason the Church has been so vigilant and so exact in constituting and preserving the gradation of its orders, the choice, probation, and formation of its clergy. And this care is all the more rigorous and searching in proportion as its ministers ascend nearer to the altar, and to the twofold jurisdiction over the real and the mystical Body of Jesus Christ. By seven slow and deliberate steps His priests ascend the altar. The words, the will, and the example of the Good Shepherd are the laws of the Church in the choice of its pastors. It will suffer no power on earth but its own to create, or to constitute its ministers ; no hand but its own to form and to ordain them ; no discernment but its own to try and to judge of their Mai. ii. 7. 132 RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. fitness and of their vocation from God to bear the pastoral charge. What is its right and its duty in the choice of all its ministers, even of the lowest, is far more absolutely and supremely binding in the choice of its highest, that is, in the election of Bishops. And it was precisely in this point that the Church had been compelled to exercise its greatest vigilance and fortitude. Inasmuch as the Episcopate is the highest order, invested with the greatest privileges, endowed with the largest possessions, and in closest contact with the civil powers, it was there that the influence of the world first began to insinuate itself; and it was there also that the Church had 'always, with the most inflexible severity of principle, guarded the liberty of its elections. The later Saxon kings and the earlier Norman had both invaded this essen- tial right of the Church. The contest about inves- titure, which had agitated the whole Church in the time of St. Gregory, extended over two centuries in duration. In England it had been vigorously and successfully maintained by St. Anselm. In order to show in the fewest words the fidelity and inflexibility with which the Church had watched over this divine liberty of its constitution-, I need hardly say that in the creation of its Bishops there are three actions : the election, by which the person is freely chosen ; RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OP ST. THOMAS. 133 the institution, by which the person chosen is in- vested with his jurisdiction ; and the investiture with the emblems of that jurisdiction, the pastoral staff and ring. When the emperors and princes attempted to reserve this last action to themselves, on the plea that the Bishop by entering upon his temporal pos- sessions entered also into a new and important posi- tion in the civil order, the Church endured two cen- turies of suffering, with every form of warfare and affliction, rather than consent to imply by the lightest shadow of appearance, that the choice and commission of its pastors is derived from any fountain of right or jurisdiction but its own. The Councils of the Church, and especially those of Bari and of Borne, at which St. Anselm was present, inflicted excommunication upon all, both giver and receiver, who should violate the immunity oi investitures. Such, again, was the trust which devolved to the custody of St. Thomas. 4. Once more for I will only briefly mention two other points not only the divine law, but the light of reason is enough to show that it is essential to the Church to possess inviolate the liberty and the power of declaring judicially who do or do not belong^ to its unity and its communion. Else how could it exist ? A body which cannot cut off those who viti- ato its purity is in anarchy and dissolution. With- 134 HESTOBATION 03? THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. out the power of excommunication in its fullest free- dom of exercise, how shall these words be verified : 'Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven ; whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven' ? 9 In the ex- ercise of the power of the keys the Church owes an account only to its divine Head. To recognise any other will or law in its jurisdiction over souls would be a betrayal of its divine Master. From this juris- diction none is exempted. Persons, races, nations, princes, with all who surround them or serve them, all alike are subject to the judgment and scntenco of the Church. 5. And lastly, the liberty of every member of the Church to cast himself at the feet of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, is inalienably in every soul born again by water and the Spirit. It may cosi him his life, but he would be a martyr for the liberty of the sons of God. And if the humblest of the children of God has the inherent right to forsake father and mother, houses and lands, for Christ's sake, and to seek the presence of him who represents the Person and the authority of the Son of God on earth, especially if he suffer any wrong or affliction, much more those who bear the ministry of the Church, and are bound St. Matthew xvi. 19. RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 185 by a special bond of dependence and responsibility to their spiritual Head. If the flock may freely seek the chief Pastor upon earth, how much more the shepherds. If the laity possess an indefeasible per- sonal right to come from all parts of the world, and to kneel at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff, how much more the priests of the Church, most of all the Bishops. And yet what is this but the liberty of appeal to Rome ? a right instituted by the divine Founder of the Church, ordered by councils, and in- corporated in the public law of Christendom. The whole Church, in all its members and in all its pastors, possesses universally this right. The free relations between all its parts with the centre can never be crossed or impeded without a violation of its divine constitution ; and to judge of the necessity of such appeals musb also belong to the Church, which alone can declare, or discern, when any of its own laws, principles, or responsibilities, enter as an element in the subjects of contention. It is an inherent prerogative of its judicial power, which cannot be surrendered : nor can it depend upon any will but that of God and of His Church. To yield this would be to abdicate its divine office .as the expositor of the truth and law of Jesus Christ, in its contact with the world, and in its application 136 RESTORATION OF T HE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. to the actions of men. Above all, this must be self- evident, when the matter in dispute is the exercise of the pastoral office of its Bishops. Their conduct can be judged only by their brethren in the Episco- pate, and by the supreme Pastor upon earth. Now these five liberties or immunities of the Church of God the liberty of its patrimony, of its personal exemption, of its episcopal elections, of its powers of excommunication, and of its appeals to Rome had been for centuries recognised and freely and fully exercised in England. From time to time the Church had suffered from the violence and usur- pation of princes, of whom some were not Christian even in name : but its rights were incorporated in the whole order of Saxon England, and had been re- cognised by the most usurping of its Norman kings. And such was the liberty which the divine Head of the Church intrusted with the pastoral staff and ring to the hands of St. Thomas, to be kept without spot, inviolate, unto the day of His appearing. It would be a long and intricate task to enume- rate the acts of usurpation by which the king of England violated these liberties of the Church. It might seem also that I were speaking under the bias of indignation, and that I gave a colour and exaggeration to the facts. Happily we are spared RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 137 the task of seeking out our evidence. We have it full and concise in a document framed by the king and his advisers. No more is needed to convict him of a systematic violation of the laws of England, as well as of the immunities of the Church. The docu- ment of which I speak is the formula known as the Constitutions of Clarendon, that is, the claims of the king as proposed to the Bishops, in the council held at Clarendon, to be accepted of them as laws. They are sixteen in number. I will recite only those against which St. Thomas protested ; they are -six, and run as follows : The first, that all questions respecting the patron- age and presentation to churches should be decided before the king's courts. The third, that the clergy should be subject to the king's courts. The fourth, that no archbishop, bishop, or dig- nitary, should leave the kingdom, that is, go to the sovereign Pontiff, without the king's leave. The seventh, that no tenant or officer of the king should be excommunicated without notice first given to the king, or in his absence to his officers, that is, to obtain the king's leave. The eighth, that all appeals should lie to the king, and not bo carried to Borne without the king's leave. 188 RESTORATION OF THE C.HURCH OF ST. THOMAS. The twelfth, that during the vacancy of arch- bishoprics, bishoprics, abbeys, and priories, all the revenues should fall to the king; 'and,' as the words run, ' when it shall be necessary to provide for a vacant church, the king will call to him certain prin- cipal persons, and the election shall take place in his chapel, by his consent, and by the counsel of the persons whom he shall have commissioned ; and the person elected shall there, before he is consecrated, do homage to the king, and promise to put at his service his life, limbs, and temporal dignity, saving his order.' This last claim would have three effects : the first, that the king should have an indefinite enjoy- ment of the revenues of vacant sees. William Rufus held at one time two archbishoprics, four bishoprics, and eleven ' abbeys. The second, that he should have an indefinite power of prolonging the vacancies. The same king prolonged the vacancy of Canterbury, after the death of St. Anselm, for five years. The third, that the whole liberty of election, consecra- tion, and investiture, should be subjected to the will of the king. It is not necessary that I should make a word of comment. It is evident, under the king's own hand, that he claimed a right to violate all the immunities RESTORATION OP THE CHURCH OP ST. THOMAS. 189 of which I have spoken, and to make the Crown su- preme as the ultimate judge in all questions affecting the possessions, privileges, offices, and jurisdiction of the Church. No man better knew the falsehood of these pretensions, or the injustice of these usur- pations, than the man who, as I have said, had only ceased to be Lord High Chancellor of England to become Archbishop of Canterbury. It was evident, therefore, that concession or compromise there could be none. We can only glance over the chief passages in this great contest. But they will show how great and how glorious St. Thomas was, not only in courage and in martyrdom, but in the spirit of peace and re- conciliation. Not many months had passed since he entered upon the see of Canterbury, when the encroachments of the courtiers and officers of the king compelled him to vindicate the rights of the Church. The king, being incensed, summoned the Bishops to a council at "Westminster ; and demanded, first, that all ecclesiastics should be tried by the juris- diction of the royal courts, and next, that the ' royal customs' should be observed. These ' customs' were, in fact, the, abuses and violations of the ecclesiastical liberties, which, from time to time, his predecessors 140 EESTOEATION OP THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. had endeavoured to establish. St. Thomas stood firm ; but all his suffragans forsook him, saying, ' Let the liberty of the Church perish, lest we perish our- selves.' Nevertheless, they all, by the Archbishop's direction, with one only exception, promised to ob- serve the customs, ' saving their order.' This clause so enraged the king, that after many threats he left London. This was the first open collision. The Bishops then forsook St. Thomas. He stood alone in perfect isolation, with the certainty of a new and more formidable conflict near at hand, without help, except in God and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Day by day he was besieged by persons of all kinds, beseeching him to yield. Finally came a Cistercian Abbot, bearing, as he asserted, the recommendation of Pope Alexander that the Archbishop should yield for the sake of peace. The Archbishop had been re- presented to the Pontiff as unbending, and the causes in contest had never been truly laid before him. After a while, the king, in anger, proceeded to a farther aggression. On the 29th of January 1164, that is, this very day seven hundred years ago, the Council of Clarendon assembled. Signs of violence were openly shown, armed men filled the council-chamber, and a panic fell on all except St. Thomas. The Bishops of Salisbury and Worcester RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 141 implored hiin with tears to yield. The Earls of Leicester and of Cornwall came, declaring that the king was ready to proceed to extremities. St. Tho- mas answered, ' It would not be a new thing to die for the Church.' Then came two Knights of the Temple, one the Grand Master of the English Tem- plars, who solemnly pledged themselves that the king would not injure the Church, and that nothing more should be heard of the Constitutions, if only they were suffered to pass. Moved at last by all these entreaties and promises, the Archbishop con- sulted the Bishops, and with them went to the king, and promised to observe the ' customs,' trusting in the king's prudence and moderation. As yet the Constitutions were not put in writing. They were therefore prepared, and proposed to the council, by St. Thomas's request, the following day. Next day they were read aloud. The Archbishop objected, as I have said, to six of them. The king then demanded that he and the Bishops should affix their seals to these Constitutions, as the authoritative interpreta- tion of the customs they had promised to observe. On this, St. Thomas promptly answered, 'By the Lord Almighty, during my life-time, seal of mine shall never touch them.' Leaving the council, he rode alone, followed by his attendants, towards Win- 142 EESTOKATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. Chester. While he rode in silence, they spoke freely of what had passed. His cross-bearer was heard to say, * During the shepherd's folly, the wolf has scat- tered the sheep.' St. Thomas asked, ' To whom does this apply ?' He answered, ' It applies to you, who have to-day betrayed your conscience and your fame to the overthrow of the liberty of the Church.' The Archbishop, with great anguish of mind, acknow- ledged his weakness in having so much as promised to obey the ' customs,' not knowing what so vague a term might be interpreted to mean. He said, 'By my sins I have brought the Church of England to slavery.' At once he sent to the Pope, who was then at Sens, for absolution of this great fault, and for forty days abstained from offering the holy Sacrifice of the Altar. After fruitless negotiations, the king summoned a council at Northampton. The Archbishop was cited, not by the king, .but as a culprit, by the sheriff of Kent. The king then demanded of the Archbishop the enormous sum of 30,000 marks of silver, on various unreasonable accounts. Rumours were current that violence would be offered to him. All his soldiers and men-at-arms deserted. The Bishops all were against him. He appealed to the Holy See. Long scenes of tumult followed ; Bishops BESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 143 and barons came about him, praying him to save them by yielding, or to save himself by flight : then threatening him with spiritual or with civil censures. After long and fruitless conflict, St. Thomas de- parted, declining the judgment of the king, and placing himself and his Church under the protection of the Pope, and summoning the Bishops who had forsaken him to the presence of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. 'And so,' he said, * guarded by the authority of the Catholic Church and of the Holy See, I go hence.' He then left England for Sens, where the Pope was at that time. The Pope condemned eight of the Constitutions of Clarendon, including the six already objected to by the Archbishop, and the Archbishop excommunicated any one who should act on their authority. It was at this time, in the church of Pontigny, that St. Thomas received a foreknowledge of what was to befall him. One day, in his thanks- giving after Mass, before the altar of St. Stephen, he heard a voice saying, ' Thomas ! Thomas !' He ans- wered, ' Who art Thou, Lord ?' And our Lord said to him, ' I am Jesus Christ, thy Lord, and thy bro- ther : My Church shall be glorified in thy blood, and thou shalt be glorified in Me.' The Abbot of the house, standing by one of the columns of the church, 144 RESTORATION OP THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. heard all that passed ; but St. Thomas bound him to silence. He also, about this time, had a vision or a dream, in which he saw himself in some church de- fending his cause before the Pope, when four armed men rushed in, and with swords smote him on the head. And thus for six long years, with the certainty of martyrdom full before him, he maintained the con- test calmly and inflexibly. I pass over the violence and threats, and all the crafty and false attempts by which his enemies endeavoured to entangle or to move him. At length, a hollow reconciliation was made by the king, who would not, however, so much as give him the Idss of peace. Nevertheless, the Archbishop resolved to return to England. All who were about him warned him of his danger. At the mo- ment of embarking at Boulogne, when England was in sight, the Dean of Boulogne strove to keep him back. He answered, ' I see the land, and by God's help I will enter it, though I know for certain that death awaits me.' But I need say no more to Catholics, above all to Englishmen, to whom the name of St. Thomas of Canterbury is a household word of love and of strength, and in whose memory the vision of the martyr, in his pontifical vestments, at vesper-time, in the north transept of Canterbury, RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 145 is fresh and vivid among the chief glories of our his- tory. He stood there with his head bowed and his hands covering his eyes. At the first blow which struck him, he said, 'Into Thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit ;' and as he wiped the blood from his head, the second blow brought him to his knees. He knelt with his hands still closed, as in prayer, then sunk upon the ground, lying northward, toward the altar of St. Benedict. The last words he breathed were overheard by his cross-bearer, already wounded for his sake. They were : ' For the love of Jesus, and for the defence of the Church, I am ready to die.' Another stroke smote off the crown of the head, which had been anointed in his consecration. And here I may cease ; for it is not my office to re- cite a history, but to remind you of what we owe to the great martyr of the Church of England. He died for the rights of God, for the canons of the Church, for the law of England, for justice, and for duty, for the flock of Christ, and for the spiritual inheritance of the English people. First, I may say, that St. Thomas, by his blood, vindicated the rights of all nations, and the liber- ties of the universal Church. Roger of Croyland said of him : .' Since the age of the Apostles, there is no man whoso death has given to the Church 146 EESTORATION OF THE CHURCH 0? ST. THOMAS. a greater or more salutary victory; for though he seemed to be contending for the Churches in Eng- land, it was really the cause of the Church through- out the world for which he was in contest, as the events have proved.' 10 The seal which St. Thomas refused to. affix to the Constitutions of Clarendon, he set, in his martyrdom, to the liberties of the universal Church. In England the tide turned at once; the oppressors of the Church made their peace with it. The murderers of the martyr made reparation in a life of penance and expiation. The king walked bare- foot to his shrine, and received the penitential dis- cipline, kneeling before his tomb. The liberties for which St. Thomas died were consecrated with a new sanction, and established with a firmness which en- dured for more than a generation without a contest. The impulse was felt throughout Christendom, and a vibration spread through all the Catholic unity. It may be said that the fruits of his martyrdom en- dure to this day. The Church throughout the world at this hour possesses its liberties, often purchased by the loss of all things, but still inviolably pre- served ; in the independence of its august Head, in the free choice of its pastors, in the liberty and there- fore purity of its doctrine, in its supremacy of spi- 10 Roger Croyland, Vita S. Tlwrnce. Darfcoy, vol. i. 249. RESTORATION OP THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 147 ritual jurisdiction, and in its power of excommunica- tion. The world has more and more estranged itself from the Church ; kings, legislatures, and nations hare ceased to obey it, and have destroyed much of the Christian civilisation of Europe. But the liberties of the Church live on inviolate. The violence of re- volutions has laid bare and made all the more visible the divine laws of its constitution, as inundations which sweep the shifting soil from the strata of im- perishable rock which lie beneath. The cause of St. Thomas triumphed throughout the world; but the cause of Henry II. has triumphed since in England. And yet, even in England, the Church for which St. Thomas died survives in the fulness of the liberty with which Christ has made it free. All the imperial power of our princes, and all the cruelty of three hundred years of penal laws, have failed to extin- guish or to enslave the -Church in England. But where now is the cause of Henry II. ? After a while it revived again, grew strong, and prospered. For four hundred years the royal customs steadily en- croached upon the Church, as the sea upon the shore. The two jurisdictions contended, till the spiritual sunk under the tyranny of the so-called Eeformation. Henry II. conquered at last, and his victory was in- augurated with a solemnity worthy of his cause. It 148 RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. was a royal judgment, to which even the Councils of Clarendon and Northampton afford no parallel. St. Thomas, the Martyr of Canterbury, after four hun- dred years of honour upon the altars of Christendom, and of glory before the throne of God, was cited by the authority of the king of England to answer for high treason. The attorney-general filed a quo war- ranto information against him ' for usurping the office of a saint ;' and inasmuch as saints are poor, counsel was assigned to him at the public expense. This high judicial process issued in a sentence, that ' Tho- mas, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, had been guilty of contumacy, treason, and rebellion ; that his bones should be publicly burnt, to admonish the liv- ing of their duty by the punishment of the dead;' and, what was more to the purpose for they were of inestimable wealth, a faint expression of the love and veneration of the Christian world 'that the offerings made at his shrine should be forfeited to the Crown.' It was ordered farther, ' that he should no longer bo called or esteemed a saint.' Whether on earth only, or in heaven also, the process does not declare. ' That all images and pictures of him should be destroyed, the festivals in his honour be abolished, and his name and remembrance erased out of all books, under pain of his majesty's indignation, and imprisonment at his RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 149 grace and pleasure ;' for it was truly judged, that so long as St. Thomas the Martyr was honoured upon the altars, the liberties for which he died, and the principles which were written in his blood, could never be extinguished. And of this truth we have a twofold proof before us. One is the liberty of the Church, which at this hour, after seven centuries four of contest and three of persecution lives on indestructible in its freedom, and invokes him as the patron of the secular clergy of England. The other, the bondage, slavery, and dissolution of all that calls itself a Christian Church, under the supremacy of the English Crown. This is not the time or place to reckon up the moral and spiritual evils' which have sprung from the betrayal of the liberties for which St. Thomas died. I can but enumerate a few : first, the development of national egotism, which in Eng- land has reached its climax of isolation and of pride. The office of the Church is to harmonise all nations in one family, to subdue the excesses of national an- tagonism in the unity of the one Fold. Nationalism, in its modern sense, is the source both of schism and of heresy; and Churches, in proportion to the development of their nationalism, fall into bondage to the civil powers. What are Gallicanism, Josephism, Leopoldism, Anglicanism, but so many forms of the 150 RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OP ST. THOMAS. national spirit in its encroachment on the liberty of the Church ? In no country is this yoke, so heavy as in England ; for in none has the national spirit been more anti-Catholic, more oppressive, or more schismatical. Again, the violation of the immunities of the patrimony of the Church led at once to the sacrilege and spoliation of the sixteenth century. And this robbery of the inheritance of the poor has produced, by a direct cause, the spiritual destitution of Eng- land. Nearly one-half of its people, we are told, to use the language of its own statistical books, ' enter no place of worship ;' that is, are without pastors, and have no religion. Again, the violation of the liberties of the Church has led to a violation of its doctrine and discipline. And this has generated the spiritual anarchy, which has no example in history, and no parallel, except in America, which is the offspring of England. Again, the very basis of Christian society, which endured till the other day, has at length given way. The indissolubility of Christian matrimony exists no more in England. Divorce, borrowed partly from Judaism, and partly from the schismatics of the East, is established by the civil and so-called eccle- iastical law of the English people. RESTOEATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 151 Finally, the supremacy of the material over the moral order of the world has arisen from the viola- tion of the liberties of the Church of God. There was a time when some of the greatest monarchies had hardly a standing army; when the voice of the Vicar of Jesus Christ sufficed to arbitrate in their contentions. But now, more than four millions of men are perpetually under arms, gazing in defiance and in fear on each other's motions, waiting to ward or to strike the first blow. The world is drifting to a collision, of which all former strife is but a faint sha- dow. And wonderful and beautiful it was, the other day, to see the Vicar of Jesus Christ, to whom in St. Peter the whole world was put in charge, stretch out his hands of peace and benediction between the great armies which rend America asunder, and with the voice of the Prince of Peace call them to reconcilia- tion. None but he has been listened to; for none but he had the authority to come between the -wea- pons of their conflict. Such was once the fountain of justice and of peace to the nations of Christendom; and may be so once more. But not until the violence of the material order has learned to submit to the su- premacy of the moral order established by God upon the earth. All these moral and spiritual miseries de- Bcend from one source the usurpations of the world 152 RESTORATION OP THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. over the Church of God ; they are the scourges and the penalties of its rebellion against the kingdom of unity and justice. The stone on -which King Henry knelt when he was ah solved of his sin is still shown at Avranches. It is the threshold of the ancient Cathedral, of which not another stone was left by the great revolution. But England has repeated his re- bellion, and has not repented. The discipline which King Henry bore at Becket's tomb is a token of the chastisements which have fallen upon England. Shall they never cease ? Will England never turn to God and do penance for its pride ? When shall its great chastisements have an end its vast and sudden pro- sperity, and its deep and spreading spiritual famine ? How long shall generation after generation take up the tradition of disobedience ? Shall we never out- grow the miseries of the past ? I have a better hope, and seem to see afar off the first lights of a happier day stealing up the sky, when England shall be once more united to the kingdom" of Jesus, as brethren of one Father, and disciples of one Lord. We shall once more give to each other the kiss of peace before the altar in presence of the Incarnate Word. There is much more that should be said, but this must suffice. St. Thomas vindicated the spiritual liberties of all nations, and all nations therefore owe RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 153 to him a reparation. It is a duty of all Catholics, at all times, to honour the Martyr of their liberties ; but above all in the days in which we live ; for the contest which never ceases has been renewed with a greater intensity around the sanctuary of the freedom of the Church. The conflict of the last fifteen years has been maintained for the highest and most vital form of the immunities for which St. Thomas suf- fered. He stood for the temporal and spiritual free- dom of the Church in England : but the temporal dominion of the Holy See is the source of those liber- ties throughout the world. The storm which swept over England has turned upon its axis, and now sweeps over Italy. And nobly have the brethren of St. Thomas followed in his steps. Princes of the Church, Archbishops, Bishops, and simple priests, the cross-bearers and acolytes in this great proces- sion, have gone forth into exile and to prison for the liberties of the kingdom of God. There is also in the example of St. Thomas this especial lesson for the days in which we live. He stood against all earthly powers for those points in which the spiritual office of the Church comes in contact with the world, and is often confounded with it. He testified that even in these things the liberty of the Church is ulti- mately at stake; that they arc a providential order 154 RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. for the free exercise of the spiritual office and mission of the Church ; the frontiers which protect the centre and citadel, not only of spiritual jurisdiction, but even of the faith. It is therefore a seasonable and excellent pur- pose to rebuild in Home the Church of St. Thomas the Martyr. We cannot gather up his dust from the soil of England, nor restore his tomb in the glories of Becket's crown at Canterbury; but wo may give back to him his sanctuary in the Holy City. Of old, pilgrims wore deep paths in the lanes of southern England to visit Becket's shrine; now they will find him where he came for shelter, by the side of the Vicar of Christ. The ruin of the great revolution, which burst upon the opening of this century, destroyed his church. We owe to him a reparation. As the noble and Catholic people of France are about to restore at Tours, in reparation for the sacrileges of the past, the church of their St. Martin, so ought we to make a like reparation to our St. Thomas, the Martyr of our liberties. And we English, who are his sons, and are of one faith, will not be backward. We owe it to him for the out- rages and sacrileges of the so-called Reformation, and for all the dishonour done to him, and to the Church ho loved even to the death. We owe it RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 155 also to our brethren of the faith in every land, espe- cially in Italy. If there be a people who have sown wheresoever they go, and wheresoever their speech is known, the anti-Catholic spirit of hostility to the Holy See, its sovereignty, and its freedom, it is we English. We are debtors to the nations whom we have so long troubled with the inspirations of Henry II. and of Henry VIII., to raise our witness to the cause and to the glory of St. Thomas. The Catholics of other nations will not refuse their aid. St. Tho- mas is dear to Spain, to France, to Germany, to the Catholics of all lands to whom the Church of God is dear. There will be found everywhere, especially at this moment, both among the pastors and the flock, those who discern that the cause of St. Thomas is the cause of the Holy See, and the cause of this hour. They will unite with us in honouring in Rome the Martyr of the ecclesiastical immunities, whom the Holy See has chosen as its patron in guarding the liberties of the Church. There is a great fitness too in erecting the Church of St. Thomas by the side of the venerable College of the English in Eorne ; for within its walls were nurtured the aspirations and the fortitude of five-and-forty youthful martyrs, who, in the great persecution of England, gave their lives for the 156 KESTORATION OF THE CHUECH OF ST. THOMAS. testimony of Jesus. A simple inscription in the upper corridor records at this day their passion and their crown, and in the Church of St. Thomas they too will have their commemoration perhaps will be one day upon its altars; and St. Thomas will have here in Borne, a more glorious crown than even in Canterbury a circle of his sons martyred and crowned like himself, for the same liberties and for the same Church he loved so well. It is good in these days, when on every side the world rings with voices clamouring for the rights of man, for the rights of freedom, for liberty in every form of speech, of action, of revolution, to raise a witness to the rights of God. It is among the rights of God that He should be known in His own world, believed in, obeyed, and worshipped ; that His Church should possess inviolate the freedom and the sove- reignty which He has bestowed upon it. The rights of man and the rights of God cannot be opposed, except by the usurpations of man. God is the fountain of both ; God has harmonised them in the spiritual and temporal sovereignty with which He has invested His Church ; for His Church is His kingdom among men, the way and the foretaste of the kingdom of eternal justice. St. Thomas died for the rights of God. The witness passes to RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS. 157 his crown ; but the cause can never pass away. Prin- ciples are eternal ; and the liberties of the Church, though always violated, are always imperishable. ' Ubi Spiritus Domini, ibi libertas.' 11 The voice of the Holy Ghost through the Church redeems the world from the bondage and abuse of human wills. This conflict began from Pentecost. 12 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said to them, ' Ye princes of the people and ancients, hear. If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye.' As one said the other day, and he a successor of the Prince of the Apostles, whose name is already in the annals of this glorious conflict for the rights of God, and for the liberties of His Church, ' Simon may die ; but Peter lives for ever.' 11 2 Cor. iii. 17. 12 Tune repletus Spiritn Sancto Pctrus dixit ad cos : Principes populi et seniores, aiulite. Acts iv. 8. VI. THE BLESSED SACKAMENT THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH: At tho opoaing of St. Wilfrid's Cathedral, York, 13G4. TO THE EIGHT REV. ROBERT CORNTHWAITE, D.D. BISIIOP OF BEVERLEY, THIS SERMON, PREACHED AND PRINTED AT HIS DESIRE, IS INSCRIBED BY HIS AFFECTIONATE SERVANT, H.E.M. THE BLESSED SACRAMENT THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. The Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us. ST. JOHN i. 12. "Wn are closing a great Festival ; I do not mean of to-day alone, but of these eight days of joy in all the world. The Octave of Corpus Chr.isti ends here in- deed with a fitting and proportionate solemnity the- enthroning of Jesus for the first time in this beau- tiful and stately church. We close it, therefore, with a double joy. But in all these eight days past there has been a festival of gladness throughout the Catholic unity. From sunrise to sunset there has been a stir of joy and of triumph in all the Church of God. It has been full of the consciousness that its Divine Head is not only at the right hand of the Father, but is also here in the manifestation of His presence. The other day, when the Vicar of Jesiis M 162 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT Christ bore in his hands the Eucharistical Pres- ence of the Word Incarnate with more than bridal or royal procession, he set the whole Church in motion, and at once the same progress of the Bridegroom and of the King came forth in every land. Not in the Holy City alone, where the Word made Flesh reigns still in the fulness of His sovereignty, nor in the remnant of His patrimony which the spoiler has not as yet rent from Him ; but in poor Naples, once so joyous, now so afflicted; in Florence, the beau- tiful city, now grievously tormented ; and in Milan, the home of St. Charles, a special Saint and guardian of the Blessed Sacrament in Milan, now sorely "vexed by civil and ecclesiastical contentions ; in Turin, the sanctuary of a resplendent miracle of the Blessed Sacrament, now stained by a contemp- tuous ingratitude even there in these days the disciples have followed Jesus in the beauty and splendour of His Presence. But much more in the plains of Italy, and on the green sides of the Apen- nines, and in the sunny valleys of the Tyrol; in Catholic France, and more than all in Catholic Spain ; in poor Poland, bleeding under the weapons of the persecutor ; and in the far West, where brothers are shedding brothers' blood, and brave men are falling as grain in the reaping, or rather THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 163 as beasts at the shambles, till heaven is sick and earth is weary of slaughter in all the world, where- soever Jesus is present in the Blessed Sacrament, there in these days His disciples have followed Him, as when they walked with Him through the corn- fields and the cities of Judaea and of Galilee. Corpus Christi' is a second Feast of the Nativity ; a Christmas festival in the summer-tide, when the snows are gone, and flowers cover the earth. And whence comes all this joy but from the divine fact Avhich St. John declares : ' The "Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory' ? Morning by morning, in the holy Mass, the Church recites this great charter of its incorpo- ration and of its existence. Morning by morning it bears witness to the divine, permanent, and immut- able presence of Jesus in the fulness of grace and truth. The Blessed Sacrament is the Incarnation perpetually present, manifested to faith, and I may say, under a veil, to sense, and applied to us by the same divine power by which it was accomplished. The Word that is, the Eternal Wisdom or In- telligence of the Father, co-equal, co- eternal, con- substantial, personal, the only-begotten Son, God of God, Light of light, true God of true God, in all the infinity of the divine perfections was mado 164 THE BLESSED SACBA3IENT Flesh; assumed, that is, our manhood with body and soul into the unity of His Divine Person ; and the flesh and manhood became the flesh and man- hood of God, the root and productive principle of the new creation. From the natural Body of Jesus spring two mysteries, the Eucharistical or Sacra- mental Body, by which we are renewed in His like- ness ; and the mystical Body, or the Church, in which the Head is united by a. vital and substantial union with His members, namely, the one holy and only Church of Jesus Christ. This is the tabernacle in which He dwells, according to the word of the evan- gelist. He made His dwelling both in our humanity and in the midst of us ; and in this visible tabernacle, ever expanding in all the world, perpetual throughout all ages, He dwells under the canopy of the heavenly court, manifesting His glory in the Seven Sacra- ments of His grace, and in the infallible doctrines of the faith. And this brings us to a truth which falls in na- turally with our thoughts to-day. I mean the per- petuity of the presence of the Incarnate "Word in the Blessed Sacrament, as the basis and the centre of an order jof divine facts and operations in the world. They spring from it, rest upon it, and are united to it ; so that where the Blessed Sacrament is, they are : THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 165 where it is not, they cannot be. For example; in the natural order, the creation is the basis, and its perpetuity is the centre, so to speak, of the whole order of natural facts and operations, springing from the omnipotence of God, whereby this world was created and is always preserved. These facts and operations rest upon creation as their basis, spring from it, and observe its laws. Men believe in them, because they are sensible and palpable. They believe them to be permanent and immutable. They believe in the laws, powers, operations, activities of nature in the succession of day and night, of seasons, tides, and growths ; but they are so immersed in sense that they cannot realise, and will not believe, that there is a higher order of divine facts and of super- natural operations, more permanent, more change- less, more unerring, of which Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the creative and sustaining centre. Arid to this let us turn our thoughts for a while. The Blessed Sacrament, then, is Jesus personally present in the midst of us, seen by faith, received in substance, known by consciousness, and adored in His manifest presence. 1. And, first, it is Jesus present, both God and man, in all the fulness of His incarnate person.' As God, He was always present in the world. ''All 166 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made/ 1 ' By Him all things consist ;' 2 that is, hold together, cohere in the per- manence of their existence. From the beginning of the creation the Word pervaded all things by His essence, presence, and power. He was therefore per- sonally present, but not as the Incarnate Word is present now. His presence in the Blessed Sacrament is the fruifc of His Incarnation ; and His Incarnation is a presence distinct in kind from His presence be- fore * the Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us/ $ It is the perpetuity of the same presence as that with which His disciples were familiar in the three years that He conversed with them, and in the forty days after He rose from the dead. When He said, * I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you/ they understood Him to promise that He, the very same Who spoke with them, would return to them. And on the night of the first day of the week, after He arose from the dead, He came, when the doors were shut, suspending the laws of nature, and stood in the midst, and said unto them : ' See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see Me to 1 St. John i. 3. - Coloss. i. 17. 3 St. John i. 14. THE CEXTEE OF liniUTABLE TEUTH. 167 have.' 4 It is I, the very same Whom you have known, the same Lord and Master with Whom you have eaten, and drnnk, and conversed ; Whose words you have heard, Whose miracles you have witnessed; Whom you have seen to multiply the bread in the wilderness, and to walk upon the water ; on Whose bosom John lay at supper, and Whom you have loved as your brother, kinsman, and friend. It is I, Who am come to you again in all My personal identity, and in all the tenderness of My divins and human sympathy. It was in this sense the disciples under- stood His words, when before His ascension He said, 'Behold, I am with you all days, even to the con- summation of the world.' 5 They understood Him to promise to them a true and personal presence, which should restore all they had before possessed of near- ness to Him both as God and man. Therefore it is that Ho said, * It is expedient for you that I go ;' for the coming of the Paraclete has brought with it the universal presence of Jesus, not in one place alone, but in all the Church ; and not transiently and for a moment, but abiding unto the end of the world. It is this which has formed the centre of the visible Church on earth. It is Jesus manifested in the Blessed Sacrament : Jesus dwelling in the Taber- St. Luke ixiv. 30. * St. Matthew xxriii. 20. 168 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT nacle, over whose Divine Presence the visible Church rises in its majesty and beauty throughout the world, as the glorious minster at our side rose here, the shrine and ciborium of the Incarnate Word. In all the world the same Sacramental Presence is the centre of the same ritual of divine worship. Before it, day and night, hangs the light and witness of its perpe- tuity. Before Him all who pass bow down ; about His presence stand seven orders of ministers, to serve in degrees of approach to His person. The presence of Jesus offering Himself for us is the holy Mass. The holy Mass is the worship of the Universal Church. All springs from it, or relates to it the centre and the source of all. Such is His personal Presence. 2. I have said, He is seen by faith. St. John says, ' Tbat which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes.' 6 They saw Jesus we see Him not ; but in what did they see more than we ? They saw Jesus, and Jesus is God. They saw therefore God manifest in the stature and configura- tion of our manhood. They saw the manhood, but the Godhead they could not see. They saw His divine works ; they saw His glory the glory of His transfiguration, of His resurrection, of His ascension. 1 St. John i. 1. THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 169 But the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father is the essential glory of the eternal Son : His coequality, His infinite perfections of love, of wisdom, of good- ness, and of power ; hut these glories no natural eye of flesh could see. What they saw, we see ; with one distinction. We see His Presence, and the glory of His grace and truth ; we see His works of super- natural power, and the perpetual operations of His love. Nay, I may go farther. There are three facul- ties of sight : sense, reason, and faith ; each has its sphere. Sense, unless misdirected, is infallible in its reports. Reason elevates and corrects sense, and has a nobler sphere and range of its own, a higher realm and a wider jurisdiction. But faith is above both, elevates both, corrects both, and is supreme and infal- lible in a sphere which is divine and eternal. The Jews, who saw Jesus by sense, knew that He was man, and believed Him to be the carpenter, whose mother and sisters they knew. 7 They wondered at His words, saying, ' How' doth this man know letters, having never learned ?' 8 Sense carried them no farther. Nicodemus, by reason, knew Him to be 'a teacher come from God, for no man could do the miracles' He did, ' unless God was with him.' 9 This was a dic- tate of reason, and an interpretation of facts subject to ' St. Mark vi. 3. St. John vii. 15. Ibid. iii. 2. 170 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT sense, whereby sense was elevated to a higher truth. Peter knew Him to be not only man and a teacher come from God, but to the dictates of sense and rea- son he added the illumination of faith, which elevated both. When Jesus asked him, ' Whom say ye that I, the Son of Man, am ?' Peter answered, ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus answered, ' Flesh and blood' (that is, the knowledge which comes by sense and reason) ' hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father who is in heaven ;' 10 that is, the illumination of faith has elevated thee to this knowledge. In like manner we know the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Sense reports to us that what we see has the aspect of bread ; reason tells us that everything has its proper substance. But the sense cannot penetrate beyond the aspect. It has no cognisance of what lies beneath or beyond. Reason alone can pass the boundaries of sense. Such is the dictate and report of sense and reason upon the un- consecrated Host. But the same reason illuminated by faith knows the Incarnate Word, and His revela- tion, and His promises of presence and of power. It knows that Jesus has ordained the perpetuity of His own Priesthood, and of His own divine action where- > St. Matthew xvi. 17. THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 171 by the bread and wine pass by elevation from the order of nature, in which sense and reason dwell and reign, to the order of divine power, which is above nature, wherein faith alone is supreme. It is a dic- tate of the reason illuminated by faith to believe that what the sense still sees under the same aspect is, after the words of Jesus have been spoken, no longer what they seem, but what they are divinely declared to be. Beason, elevated and corrected by faith, knows them to be Jesus personally present in all the fulness of His Godhead and His manhood, under a veil, or aspect, which is visible to the sense, as the vesture He wore, which was not Himself, and yet was the pledge of His Presence, and the channel of virtue which went out of Him to heal those who touched so much as the hem of His garment. It is true, indeed, that we do not see the visible form of Jesus, His sacred countenance, His majestic stature, the glory of His manhood. ' In cruce latebat sola Deitas ; at hie latet simul et humanitas.' "While He was upon earth His Godhead lay hid, but His manhood was visible ; here both lie hid, and only His vesture ia revealed. When our sense and reason tell us the Blessed Sacrament is visible, then the same reason by the light of faith tells us Jesus is present, and wo behold His glory, as the Only-begotten of the Father, 172 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT the Fountain of all grace, the perpetual and divine Teacher of infallible truth. 3. But Jesus not only manifests Himself to our faith ; He also gives Himself to us as our food ; and we receive Him by His substance. There are two intellectual worlds, always in pre- sence of each other, and always in conflict : two schools of thought, two teachers contending and irre- concilable, two tendencies, and two pathways, which diverge from one another, and lead directly to or from the truth as it is in Jesus. These two worlds or schools I may call the World of Substances and the World of Shadows. The revelation of God teaches us that His omnipotence has called into existence two creations, the old and the new, and that He is always in contact, so to speak, with the works which His omnipotence has made. From this contact arise five divine facts : the Creation, the Incarnation, the Holy Eucharist, the mystical Body, the Eesurrection of the Flesh. These are all of them works and ac- tions of the divine Omnipotence. The first four are permanent and present to us. They are truths in a series, related to each other. The last four are connected by a special relation. The last three pro- ceed from the second, and are its product and its fruit. Now the Blessed Sacrament unites them to- THE CENTRE OP IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 173 gether, presupposes or prepares for them. It is the presence and application of the Incarnation, and the pledge of the resurrection of the body. The Blessed Sacrament is therefore the clasp upon this chain of divine truths, and the mystical Body of the Church is the circle which encompasses and perpetuates them in the world. The creation of a substantial nature in the beginning, the Incarnation by the union of two substances in one Person, the substantial presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the participation of His substance by His members in the mystical Body, and the substantial resurrection of our bodies from the grave ; all these are truths of the same order, resting upon the revelation of God, and taught by the Master of the school of spirit and of truth, of reality and of substance ; that is, by Jesus, the Eter- nal Truth, and by the Holy Ghost, wno dwells in His Church, and through it teaches by His divine and infallible voice. Such, then, is the school of sub- stance, or the holy Catholic Church. The school of shadoAvs has always existed by its side, sometimes has sprung up within it, but has been always cast out. In the beginning, the Docetoe denied the substantial reality of the Manhood of Jesus, and taught that it was a phantasm, an apparition, a heavenly vision ; not flesh and blood taken of His 174 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT Immaculate Mother. In the so-called Reformation of the Church, there were those who denied the sub- stantial presence of Jesus in the holy Eucharist, and taught that it is not a reality, but a memorial, a sign, or a figure. Having denied the sacramental Body of Jesus, it was but consequent that they should deny also His mystical Body ; that they should deny the visible perpetuity and visible unity of His Church, and teach that it is a body spiritual, invisible, impalpable, withdrawn from sense, hover- ing in a world unseen. It is no wonder that of their posterity should have arisen those who deny the In- carnation by denying the Godhead of Jesus. What are these but the Doceta3 of these latter days, as the DocetaB were the Sacramentarians of the first century? In their train has come a more logical and hardy unbelief; and men now deny the first truth and the last in the series the Resurrection as impos- sible ; the Creation as incredible ; finally, the exist- ence of God as undemonstrable. And so men are led away into bondage ; into the world of shadows, of unreality, of unbelief. This school reigns more or less over all who are out of the unity of the Church ; because, losing the unerring guidance of the Divine Teacher, they have none but human guides THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 175 to lead them, and human criticism upon revelation as their basis and rule of faith. When, then, the Son of God in prophecy said : ' A body Thou hast fitted,' or prepared, ' to Me,' 11 He spoke of His natural body, of the substance of our humanity. When in the guest-chamber 'He took bread, and blessed it, and said, This is My Body,' He spoke likewise of the same natural and substantial Body which He took of His Immaculate Mother. He did not say: 'This is the shadow of My body;' it is therefore the substance ; He did not say: 'This is the figure of My body;' though even so He would have declared it to be the substance, as when the Holy Ghost declared the Son to be ' the Figure of the substance' 12 of the Father. For in the world of divine realities all things arc true, not il- lusory ; real, not phantastic. So, again, when He said : ' He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me, and I in him.' 13 I, that is, as you have known Me, though in a manner you know not as yet. ' My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.' 14 But it is neither indeed, unless it be both, in substance and reality. Again ; ' As the living Father hath sent Heb. x. 5. I2 Ibid. i. 3. " St. John vi. 55, 56. Ibid. 176 THE BLESSED SACKAMENT Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me.' 15 That is, as I, the Eternal Son, as God live by consubstantial unity with the Godhead of the Father, so he that eateth Me shall live by consubstantial union with My hu- manity. 10 To deny the first part of these words is Arianism ; to deny the last is to mutilate the sense and the sequence of the divine reasoning. The life of God is in the substance of God ; the life of man is in the substance of man. To explain it in any other way is to deny its reality and truth. By the substance of Jesus communicated to us we become ' of His flesh and of His bones,' 17 and have thereby in us the pledge of a resurrection, in the substance of the body, to eternal life. These truths, as I have said, are in series ; they hang upon the same thread of the Divine veracity : the substantial Incarnation, the substantial presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the substantial regeneration of soul and body by the union of the members with their Head, the substantial resurrection of the flesh. Break this thread anywhere, and all these truths, sooner or later, disappear into the world of shadows and un- realities, of words and figures, which, driven beyond " St. John vi. 55, 50. 16 St. Hilary, lib. viii. De Trinitatc. " Ephcs. v. 30. THE CENTRE OP IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 177 the frontiers of the Church of God, hovers around the suburbs, but can never enter within its unity or endure its light. 4. The presence, then, which is seen by faith is known by a supernatural consciousness ; and that in- cludes all the powers of the soul. "We are conscious of truths, which we cannot demonstrate, because they are before all reasoning, from which all reasoning springs, and to which all reasoning in the end bears witness. We are conscious of our own existence and of the existence of God. I do not mean originally, but after these truths are known to us, by whatsoever means they are known. We are conscious of those truths which are the most intuitive or most imme- diately known ; and this consciousness signifies a higher, deeper, and surer kind of knowledge. When I say, then, that we know the presence of Jesus by a consciousness, I mean that, in addition to all the knowledge that sense and reason and faith bestow upon us, we have also a knowledge which springs from hope and from love, from communion with Him and experience of His grace and power. It is against this that the masters of false philosophy set themselves with much derision; and yet it is self-cvidently true. We may be conscious of what we know; we may know what we cannot compre- N 178 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT hend. Comprehension is not the condition of know- ledge. To comprehend anything, I must be able to circumscribe it in a definition, and to fix its bound- aries in my thoughts. But the highest truths refuse this treatment, and pass beyond the horizon of a finite intelligence. And yet they are not only true, but are the most necessary truths, of which not only there can be no doubt, but they are themselves the first principles and necessary conditions of a whole order of truths. They are transcendent because they pass beyond the comprehension of our finite intelli- gence; but they* are transcendent because they are divine, and because divine are true. For instance ; who can comprehend eternity, immensity, infinity, self-existence ? And yet God is all these ; and the knowledge of God is the foundation of a whole world of subordinate truths, both in nature and in grace. These truths pass beyond our horizon, as the path of the planets, or the vaster and incalculable sweep of comets ; yet we know these, and apprehend and con- template them with the fixed certainty of the highest knowledge. We may apprehend what we cannot com- prehend, as in eternity we shall see God as He is ; but not wholly, for the beatific vision is finite ; but the Object and Source of bliss is infinite. So it may be said of the presence of Jesus in the THE CENTEE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 179 Blessed Sacrament. The Council of Trent, with the wonderful and unerring precision with which the Church deals with philosophy when it is in contact with the dogmas of faith, declares, 'that our Saviour sits always at the right hand of the Father in heaven, according to the natural manner of existence ; but that He is in many places sacramentally present with us by His substance ; by that mode of existence which, although it can scarcely be expressed in words, nevertheless, by the intellect illuminated by faith, may be apprehended as possible with God.' 18 And what is this but what we read in the Gospel, when Jesus walked, in another form, with Cleophas and his companion to Emmaus ? They at first knew Him not, and yet their hearts burned within them. They knew Him afterwards, and were conscious of His presence. And when the disciples sat around Him in the morning light, by the sea of Tiberias, He conversed with them, and distributed to them the broiled fish and the bread which He had mi- raculously prepared. They knew Him. John had known Him from the first, and Peter had cast him- self into the sea to go to Him. Nevertheless, their sense was dazed, and their reason was overcome by the nearness of God. ' And no man durst ask Him, ConcU. Trid. Sess. xii. c. 1. 180 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT "Who art Thou ?' why should they? ' knowing that it was the Lord.' A consciousness, above all sense and reasoning, filled them with a certainty too great for words, surpassing even the bounds of intelligence ; and yet infallible and all-sufficing. 5. And lastly, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is adored in the glory of the Only -begotten of the Father ; God of God, Light of lijht, true God of the true God, ' the "Word made Flesh dwells among us, and we behold His glory,' and, beholding, we adore Him in the glory of His kingdom. This is the test by which faith is discerned from unbelief. We worship Him here, as the disciples worshipped Him upon the mountain in Galilee. But the teach- ers and the disciples of the world of shadows deny that any adoration is intended or to be given to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Either they be- lieve that He is present, or that He is not ; if He be, He is to be worshipped ; if He be not, then where is their faith ? But error convicts itself, when it would convict us. It says Catholics worship the Host, but the Host is bread ; therefore Catholics worship bread, which is idolatry. But this proves that they who would convict us are convicted them- selves of not believing either in the presence of Jesus, or in the veracity of His word. They who THE CENTKE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 181 believe in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament must adore Him in it ; they who do not adore Him in it cannot believe that He is there. The Catholic Church, which by divine faith knows and teaches the mystery of His Presence, adores Him there in all the world. It has adored Him from the beginning, it adores Him now, it will adore Him till He comes again, and sacraments shall pass away in vision. But this adoration contains the whole power of grace and truth, whereby we are sanctified ; for Jesus on the altar is the centre of all the sacraments and supernatural graces which flow from Him throughout the Church ; and the worship we offer to Him is the divine worship of God, in prayer, and praise, and thanksgiving, and oblation of ourselves in body, soul, and spirit, as to our Creator and Redeemer, our Teacher and Master, our Brother, Kinsman, and Friend. This worship admits us to a singular intimacy. We speak with Him as a friend to a friend, face to face, opening our hearts to His Sacred Heart, and conversing with God as with one who knows all we are by personal experience and human sympathy, and is infinitely pitiful and divinely tender in His love. All other sacraments arc transient, and pass with the action by which they are effected ; but the Sacra- 182 THE BLESSED SACEAMENT inent of the Altar is permanent, and sets before ns the Incarnate Word as the object of abiding con- templation. St. Paul says that ' God, who com- manded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the know- ledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.' 19 These words have a special fulfilment in the Holy Sacrament. 'We behold His glory,' both as God and Man His sanctity, justice, love, pity, and long - suffering, as God ; His humility, gener- osity, patience, compassion, as Man. He is the pattern of all perfection set before us, that by con- templation we may learn what the letter of no law can teach the perfections of the Sacred Heart ; that from it we may draw our motives as well as our measures of love to God and man ; and that by con- templating it we may be conformed to it, and by gazing on it we may grow into the same likeness. ' We all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.' 20 This has assimilated to itself the members of His mystical Body, and made them like Himself. The life of Jesus is impressed upon His servants. His saints reflect Him, each one in his way and measure ; and M 2 Cor. iv. 6. 20 Ib. iii. 19. THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 183 their conformity arises from a double power of as- similation, from contemplation and communion : contemplation, by which He illuminates and informs His servants with His own mind and example; com- munion, by which He dwells in them, pervades them with His substance, changes them into the likeness of His Sacred Heart and of His deified human will, accomplishing within them that which by faith they contemplate in Himself. All this is contained in the adoration which is offered to Jesus ever present in the fulness of His divine Personality, the King, the Lawgiver, the Teacher of His Church. In ten thousand sanctuaries Jesus offers Himself day by day to His eternal Father ; and His disciples adore Him with a service which rests not day or night, with a living consciousness of the divine power and glory of His Presence. Such, then, is the centre of the supernatural order of grace and truth in the Church on earth. It is also the fountain of all its jurisdiction and of all its divine action upon mankind. It may be therefore truly said, that where Jesus is present in the Blessed Sacrament, there is present all that God has ordained for the salvation of men. The Blessed Sacrament, then, binds together the whole order of divine facts by which we are redeemed. The In- 184 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT carnation of the Eternal Son, His exaltation to be the Head of His Church, the constitution and or- ganisation of His mystical Body, the coming and inhabitation of the Holy Ghost united by an indis- soluble and eternal union to that Body, the institu- tion of the Seven Sacraments all these are works of omnipotence, and, as I have said, divine facts per- manent- in the world and imperishable, because sus- tained by the same power from which they flow. They constitute an order, because they are related to each other, some proceeding from others, the lower depending on the higher, in the disposition of God's wisdom and power. Being an order, they constitute a perfect whole, a unity in itself. They are sustained by resting upon their centre, the Pre- sence of the Incarnate "Word, and they are incorpo- rated and enshrined in the Church, which is one, visible, undivided, and universal, the sanctuary of God among men. Wheresoever, then, this drvine order is, in the unity of His Church, there is the whole dispensation of grace through Jesus Christ, with all His sacra- ments, jurisdiction, and authority. There is also His whole and perfecb revelation, ' the truth as it is in Jesus,' without addition, dimi- nution, or change of a jot or of a tittle. For what THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 185 is truth, or the dogma of faith, but the outline or delineation of these divine facts, first each one severally, next all collectively, in the order and unity by which God has combined them together ? What are the doctrines of faith but the delineation of the Presence of Jesus, and all that flows from it on the intelligence of the whole mystical Body with the pencil of light by which the Holy Ghost traced the mysteries of the kingdom of God upon the minds of the Apostles ? The divine facts are the substance, doctrine is but the reflection, or the conformity of the human reason to the divine by the intervention of these facts of almighty power. It is not the reason which creates dogma, any more than the eye creates the imRge upon the surface of the water. It is the creation of God which reflects itself upon both the water and the eye. "We see what God has created, and by a power which God alone can bestow. So with the dogma of faith. What is the doctrine of the Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, of the mystical Body, of the Church reigning in heaven, or purifying beyond the grave, or in warfare upon earth, and consequently, of the Communion of Saints, their intercession and invo- cation, of the Seven Sacraments, including the juris- diction over souls, the power of absolution, and the 186 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT like what are all these but the outlines and reflec- tions of an order of divine facts, springing from tho Incarnation, permanent and imperishable, in which are verified the words of the evangelist, ' We saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth' ? 21 This it is which accounts for the immutability of the dogma of faith in the midst of an intellectual world of flux and change, where nothing holds its form for half a generation, or half the life-time of a man. Take for example the changeless identity of the faith which St. Paulinus and St. Wilfrid preached in York : the supremacy of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Seven Sacraments, the Sacrifice of the Altar, the Communion and Intercession of the Saints, the expi- ation of Purgatory, the honour due to the Mother of God. St. Bede, in the century after, recites all these as the faith of the Anglo-Saxon people. Pass over nine hundred years ; these same doctrines lived on in the hearts and mouths of the Catholics of England for them they contended and were mar- tyred. Pass over three hundred years again ; they are the doctrines which the successor of St. Paulinus and St. Wilfrid preaches still to the remnant of their St. John i. 14. THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 187 children. Whence comes this marvellous and super- natural immutability of dogma ? From the perpetual and supernatural immutability of the order of divine facts, which these doctrines only delineate and ex- press. The shadow cannot vary when the substance which shapes it is changeless, and the light which casts it never wavers. The divine facts are immut- able ; and their outline is cast upon the intelligence of the Church by ' the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of vicissitude.' 22 Even in the great Greek schism, which has rent itself from obedience to the Vicar of Christ, and after its schism laboured to justify it by errors which border upon heresy, even there all the conditions of truth and grace remain. In a moment, as once already in the Council of Florence, if it would but renounce its national pride, its schism, and the con- tentious if not heretical errors, which it has elabo- rated, it might be restored as a whole to Catholic unity. It has valid orders, and the presence of Jesus, and the whole order of divine facts and truths, less only by its schism and its errors. But it is recoverable, and one day may rise again as from the dead. Not so those bodies which have lost the perpetual presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacra- St. James i. 17. 188 THE BLESSED SACEAMENT ment, and mutilated the order of divine facts and the organisation of the mystical Body : for them cor- porate reunion is impossible. They are in disso- lution, and must he re-created by the same divine power. Their members may be saved one by one, as men picked off from a raft, or from a reef; but the ship is gone ; its whole structure is dissolved. There remains no body, or frame, to be recovered from the wreck. For where the Blessed Sacrament is not, all dies. As, when the sun departs, all things sicken and de- cay, and when life is gone the body returns to its dust ; so with any province or member of the Church. There was a time when the truth and grace which went out from York spread throughout the whole of northern England, and bound it toge- ther in a perfect unity of faith and communion, of Christian intelligence and Christian charity. There was but one jurisdiction reigning over all the chil- dren of St. Wilfrid, guiding them by a divine voice of changeless faith, and sanctifying them by the Seven Sacraments of grace. But in those days this grand old minster was the majestic tabernacle of the Word made Flesh. Jesus dwelt there in the divine mystery of the Holy Eucharist. His presence radi- ated on every side, quickening, sustaining, uphold- THE CENTEB OF IMMUTABLE TBUTH. 189 ing the perpetual unity of His mystical Body. Then came a change slight, indeed, to sense, but in the sight of God fraught -with inexhaustible conse- quences of supernatural loss. Does any one know the name of the man who removed the Blessed Sa- crament from York Minster ? Is it written in his- tory? or is it blotted out from the knowledge of men, and known only to God and His holy angels ? Who did it, and when it was done, I cannot say. Was it in the morning or in the evening? Can we hope that some holy priest, in sorrow, yielding to the violence of the storm then falling upon the Church, out of love to his Divine Master, removed His Eu- charistical Presence to save it from profanation ? Or was it some sacrilegious hand that dragged Him from His throne, as of old He was dragged from Gethsemani to Calvary ? We cannot tell. It was a terrible deed ; and the name of him who did it, if it be recorded, has upon it a terrible brand. But a change which wrought both on earth and in heaven had been accomplished. The city of York went on the day after as the day before. But the Light of life had gone out of it. Men were busy, as not knowing or not believing what was done, and what would follow from the deed. Next day there was no holy sacrifice offered in the minster. The Scriptures 190 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT were read there, but no divine Teacher was there to interpret them. The Magnificat was chanted still ; hut it rolled along the empty roof, for Jesus was no longer on the altar. So it is to this day. There is no light, no taheruacle, no altar ; nor can he, till Jesus shall return thither. It stands like the open sepulchre ; and we may believe that angels are there, ever saying : ' He is not here. Come and see the place where the Lord was laid.' 23 But this is not all. The change, so imperceptible to sense, in the supernatural order is potent and irresistible. The centre of the order of grace was taken away, and the whole had . lost its unity and its coherence. Separation from the visible Body of Christ is separation from the presence and assist- ance of the Holy Ghost, who inhabits it. There is no influx of His divine and infallible light into the intelligence of a body which breaks from the unity of the Church. There t is no divine voice speak- ing through it as His organ of immutable truth. Straightway it began to dissolve and go to pieces. The sinews relaxed and lost their tenacity, the joints and bands of the mystical Body parted asunder. For three hundred years it has been returning again to its dust. In the day when the Blessed Sacrament was St. Matthew xxviii. 6. THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 191 carried out of York Minster, the whole population of England was contained within the unity of the one body. Now hardly one half remains to the Church which taught the fatal lesson of separation. From generation to generation, by a succession of wast- ing secessions, divisions, and subdivisions, the flock it cannot retain when the Blessed Sacrament is no longer upon the altar, has wandered- from it and dispersed. And what has happened visibly in its external divisions of communion has wrought invisibly in the internal aberrations of its doctrines. The order of divine facts being broken through, and the sub- stance shattered, the shadow betrayed its ruin. What reflection does the Anglican Church leave upon the intelligence of the people ? If dogma be the intel- lectual conception of divine realities, what dogma is to be found where the divine realities of the sacra- mental Body and mystical Body of Jesus, His pre- sence, His sacrifice, His seven Sacraments, His infal- lible and perpetual voice, are denied ? But into this I will not enter. I have no will, on such a day as this, to speak controversially. One word is all I will say. The reformers of the Church of England took for the basis of their re- ligion, not the perpetual and infallible teaching of 192 . THE BLESSED SACRAMENT the Spirit of Jesus in His Church, but the Bible. A written book was erected in the place of the living Teacher, so as to exclude His supreme living voice. Anglican Christianity was to be based upon the Bible. But it is precisely this basis that Anglicans have ruined under their own feet. So sure is it that the Incarnate Word in the Tabernacle and the writ- ten Word in the Scriptures cannot be put asunder; they come and they go together. But it is more than time to make an end. Let it be, then, your chief work to propagate the knowledge and love of the Blessed Sacrament, not only for the sanctification of the faithful, but for the conversion of those who have been robbed of the Presence of Jesus. The people, that is the poor, of England, were innocent of the great offence. They did not remove their Lord from the altar. They were disinherited of their true birthright in His Pre- sence. They did not pull down His throne. They rose in arms, and especially in northern England, for the faith of the Blessed Sacrament. 24 I believe there is no surer instrument of their return to the 24 Iii the Pilgrimage of Grace the people from the borders of Scotland to the Humher bound themselves by oath to maintain their religion. Their standards were Christ Crucified and the Chalice with the Host. Lingard's History of England, vol. vi. pp. 254, 255. THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 198 unity of grace and truth than the manifestation of the love of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. It is a way of controversy altogether uncontroversial. It has no sharp accents, no contentious tones, no wrangling arguments. It bears witness by its own light, and preaches by its divine silence. Moreover, it is a witness for truth which contains all truth. It preaches the Incarnation, the unity, per- petuity, imperishableness, and divine immutability of the Church and of the faith ; communion with Je- sus, communion with the living and the dead, with the whole Church on earth, with the Saints in hea- ven. And besides this, it draws with its own sweet- ness, and holds by its own attraction. It convinces the intellect by its own light, and persuades the will by its own power of love ; thereby winning the soul in all its faculties, the whole man, to the obedience of faith. . He who believes in the Presence of Jesus in the Tabernacle cannot long doubt that His mys- tical Body is one, visible, indivisible, and infallible ; that its voice is the voice of Jesus, divine and change- less in every age : and believing this, he cannot linger long upon the threshold of the only Church of God among men. Thus the unity of the true fold and of the truth as it is in Jesus, is spreading o 19-1 THE BLESSED SACEAMENT once more in England, evenly and irresistibly as a circle on the waters. But if you would make other men to know and love Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, you must first be disciples of the Blessed Sacrament yourselves. You must know and love Him, then, with an especial fidelity. Make Him the support of your supernatural life in sacramental communion as often as you may ; in spiritual communion as often as you can ; in daily yisits to the Presence of Jesus, kneeling in prayer, or sitting in silence at His feet, as often and as long as the works .and hindrances of life will per- mit. Such was the source of the power and sanctity of St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi, whose festival we have begun to commemorate in the second Vespers of to-day. When she was a child, before she was admitted to holy Communion, she used to follow her mother to the steps of the altar, and creep close to her side as she received the bread of life, because, as she said, she was thereby nearer to the Presence of Jesus. And through her life of superna- tural sanctity in the cloister, she used to venerate her sisters as they returned from Communion, calling them the living tabernacles of Jesus. This habit of faith would make us to be disciples of the Blessed Sacrament, and would make it to be the support of THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. 195 our life. And then our relation to Him would be the measure and the motive of our actions. We should begin every day with Him in the morning, and go out from His Presence to our daily work ; and in the evening return to His side again before we lie down to rest. And so His words would be fulfilled in us, ' A little while, and now you shall not see Me ; and again a little while, and ye shall see Me : because I go to the Father.' 25 He is gone to the Father; and yet He is here, and we see Him, and behold His glory ; but in a little while we shall see Him as He is. Here He is veiled ; but the veil grows finer year by year ; a sense of nearness, a consciousness of relation to Him, grows so lively and so sensible, that it turns all the balance of tho heart away from the world and from self to Him, our only Lord, ' Whom not having seen you love ; in Whom also now, though you see Him not, you believe ; and, believing, shall rejoice with an unspeak- able and glorified joy ;' 26 waiting for the time when the veil shall be taken away, and you shall see Him face to face. St. John xvi. 16. 1 St. Peter i. 8. VII. THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS:. In the Redemptorist Church, Clapham, on the Feast of the Saint, 1864. TO THE REV. THE REDEMPTORIST FATHERS OF ST. MARY'S, CLAPHAM. REV. AND DEAR FATHERS, Having obeyed your desire, I publicly thro-w- on you all the blame of publishing the following pages, which appear to me not to be worthy of it. Neverthe- less, it gives me the opportunity of expressing my heartfelt gratitude, and, I may say, my filial love, to your great Saint. During the happy years I spent in Rome, his larger Theology was the text I daily studied ; and I have ever looked upon him as a witness raised up by God against the rigorism, the laxity, the formalism, and the pharisaism of this critical and I fear, in spiritual science, this superficial age. Let me add also, that there is a fact in the life of St. Alphonsus, which makes him and his sons dear to us and to our house.^ I read in his Life, that daily at table with his household, 'he took care to give food for the soul also ; each one read in turn. It was generally from the Life of St. Charles Borromeo.' 1 I hope it is by a sort of instinct that we have just ended reading, for the third time, the Life of St. Alphonsus ; and I trust that this may be a pledge of union in heart and in spirit, and of the per- petuity of the same offices of mutual charity which have subsisted between us for so many years. Commending my- self to your prayers and the intercession of St. Alphonsus, I beg you to believe me, Rev. and dear Fathers, Your affectionate servant in Jesus Christ, HENRY EDWARD MANNING. Bayswater, Feast of St. Alphonsus, 1864. 1 Life, vol. ii. p. 320. THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. He will convince tlie world of sin. ST. JOHN xvi. 8. SUCH is the work of the Holy Ghost ; by the piercing and overwhelming light of His presence to show to the world its own sinfulness, and to convict it of its guilt before God. The world in sin knew not its own sin. 'Because it liked not' that is, had no will or desire ' to have God in its knowledge, God delivered it up to a reprobate sense.' 1 In the be- ginning the light of the Spirit of God, in the intel- ligence of man, revealed the perfections of God ; and in that light man^knew himself, and the law of sanct- ity written upon his heart. But when he sinned, his heart was darkened. The light of the divine perfec- tions of purity, justice, and truth faded away; and the outline of the divine law being effaced, the con- sciousness of sin was lost. As in the darkness all colours and forms are confounded, and can be no Rom. i. 28. 200 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. more distinguished ; so when sin had darkened the world, sin itself, in all its contradictions of the di- vine nature, passed from the sight and from the consciousness of the sinful. Certain great outlines, which the lingering light of nature ever manifests, still remained ; * so that they were inexcusable ;' but the divine will and the divine law, in its breadth and purity, was hidden in the same darkness which veiled from the soul of man the perfections of God. And yet, in the darkness of the world there was still a line of light, a thread of supernatural illumi- nation, faint but clear, which, to the patriarchs and saints and penitents of the old law, revealed again the great outline of the sanctity of God, and thereby the sinfulness of their own nature. But this cast only a feeble light on either side, and did not pene- trate the nations of the world. And when this narrow stream of light spread into the revelation of God's law to Israel, it was still faint ; and the first full light of sanctity which fell upon the world came from the face of Jesus Christ. But it was not His office to convince the world of sin. He came to die for it, and to ascend to His kingdom. It was to the Holy Ghost that the office of illuminating and convincing the world was com- mitted.- And on the day of Pentecost He came to THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. 201 shed abroad upon the world the light of the revela- tion of God. The unity, the personality, the spiritu- ality, the purity, the truth, the justice of God were revealed to the heart of man ; and in this light of the divine perfections hoth sanctity and sin were perceived and understood. The world was convicted of its own sins and stains in the light of the presence of God ; not only judicially convicted, but convinced in its reason and conscience of the sins of which it was guilty in His sight. The coming of the Holy Ghost was as the rising of the sun -upon a world which sat in darkness. In His light all became visible ; not the greater sins alone, but the least, the most subtil and the most secret, in the illumination of the knowledge of God which penetrates the con- science. And this work of convincing the world of sin He accomplished first by the Apostles, Avhom He fashioned and filled with light as the instruments of His will. The same work He perpetually ac- complishes by the pastors who descend from them. The Church is God's witness against the sin of the world ; and to it He has committed two great instru- ments or documents of divine evidence and light, by which to convince mankind of sin. The first is the science or knowledge of God and of His operations, 202 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. or, as we call it, dogmatic theology that is, the faith, with its scientific elucidation, traced out to its circumference ; the other, the science of the will or law of God in its commandments, precepts, and coun- sels, or, as it is called, moral theology, or the science of sanctity and of sin. These two documents of the divine truth and will are committed to the custody of the Church, through which the Holy Ghost, by His perpetual guidance, teaches and convinces the world. And to this end He first creates for Him- self His messengers and His witnesses, the pastors and the Saints of the Church. Upon them He first works by the infusion of His light and sanctity ; and by them He works afterwards upon the world. And this brings me naturally to the subject of to-day to the great Saint and servant of God wl om we commemorate. He was a singular exampla of this divine work, both in himself and in others. He was first, in an eminent degree, a creation of the Holy Ghost in supernatural light and sanctity ; then a witness for God, and an instrument of conviction and sanctification to the souls of men. It is in this respect I would endeavour to speak of him. But it is a hard task to speak of him before his sons, to whom his mind and spirit I may say his voice and presence are household truths, and, THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. 203 as it were, a daily and hourly consciousness. Still, what I can I will do. I will therefore endeavour to trace out the perfections wrought in St. Alphonsus by the Spirit of God, to fit him for the work of con- vincing the world of sin. 1. The first and eminent grace bestowed upon him for this end was his own personal freedom from sin. They who testify against sin must needs know it; but there are two ways of knowing sin. There is the knowledge of the sinless : such as the know- ledge which Jesus had of sin ; of its deformity, its baseness, its deadliness, its deceitfulness ; of all that sin is and does, save only the guilt, which by per- sonal experience the sinless Son of God could not know. There is another kind of knowledge of sin, which comes by sinning. And this the world preaches as the knowledge necessary for those who would save others from sin. This was the moral theology of Satan in Paradise : ' God doth know, that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.' 2 The farther removed from sin, the more power the servants of God have over it. The nearer to it, the more power it has over them. To be freo from * Gen. ill. 5. 204 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. it, is the chief condition of convincing and of con- verting the world. Now, St. Alphonsus was in a singular manner and degree preserved from sin, from his first con- sciousness in childhood to the end of a life of ninety years. In the Information laid before the Holy See for the judicial process of his canonisation, it is declared, that ' the stole of innocence which he received in baptism he returned to his Creator without a spot.' 3 Again, in the office which we have recited on this festival, it is declared that he had ' a wonderful inno- cence of life, which he never sullied by a stain of mortal sin.' And his confessors, after his death, declared their belief that he had never committed a deliberate venial sin. To the end of his life Alphon- sus used bitterly to lament what he called his ' great sins.' And these were chiefly three. First, a dis- respectful word spoken to his father when he was grown to man's estate, and already in the profession of the law, at a time of life when sons believe them- selves to be free, and less dependent on a father's will. For this fault he received from his father, 3 ' Innocentiae stola in baptismo accepta Candida Creator! red- dita.' Informatio super virtutibus Yen. Servi Dei Alphonsi de Ligorio. Romae, 1806. ' Miram vitse innocentiam, quam nunquam ulla lethal! labe foadavit.' Officium de Festo S. Alpli. THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. 205 before a numerous company, the chastisement of a blow. He west to liis room, and spent hours kneel- ing in tears and prayer; and afterwards, on his knees, asked his father's forgiveness. The second was, that for a time he fell into a comparative luke- warmness, during which he went to theatres, though, as he said, he did not remember committing there any deliberate sin. Yet these he lamented to the end of his life. Lastly, when he had failed as an advocate in some law-suit, he fell into an excess of sadness and dejection, which he traced to his self- love, and to the wound of disappointed vanity. If such sins showed prominently upon his life of ninety years, it must indeed have been white and resplend- ent to give them such relief. Alphonsus, like St. Augustine, had a holy mother, to whom he traces the early horror he had for sin, and his singular preservation from it. She used to inspire him with a hatred and a fear of evil, and to take him with her to confession every week. She used to say, 'I do not wish to be the mother of children who are condemned to eternal death.' He testifies of himself in words of beautiful simplicity, at the end of his long and perilous life of labour and responsibility: 'I am a Bishop, and I ought to tell the truth. I do not remember ever having 206 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHOXSTJS. told a deliberate falsehood, even when I was a child.' 4 2. From this great innocence of life sprung an- other perfection his hatred of sin. This is always equal to the purity of the heart. It was this which caused such incomprehensible sorrow in the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the wilderness and in the garden. And Alphonsus, in all his instincts, abhorred the presence of evil with a supernatural hatred. He was wont to say: 'My God, grant that I may die rather than offend Thee.' * Sin is the only evil of which we need be afraid.' ' No sin, however slight, is a trifling evil.' To hinder sin for a day was enough to set him in activity. "When he heard of any scandal, he never delayed a moment. He would take neither food nor rest till it was corrected. Often in such times he took no food till evening. ' Things of this sort,' he said, ' admit of no delays. It is an offence against God ; and if there were but one single sin, we are bound to prevent it.' His only fear for the Congregation he had founded was, lest any sin should enter into it. All crosses and persecutions from without of which he had a 4 When some objector invited him to change a statement in Ms Moral Theology, he said : ' It would l>e to make me tell an untruth. I would rather have my head cut off than tell a lie.' Life of St. AJphonsus, vol. iv. p. 238. THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHOXSUS. 207 multitude were as nothing. He bad no fear of them. They could not touch the sanctity of the Con- gregation, and therefore could not reach its life. The only thing he feared was a stain of sin ; and so far did he carry this, that when some powerful person of the world, in Naples, would have befriended the Con- gregation, Alphonsus would not permit it, because the private life of that person was sinful. He ans- wered, ' I will never do such a thing ; let , this Con- gregation be destroyed, rather than become the occa- sion for even the shadow of any sin.' This hatred of sin breathes through all his writings and preaching. In giving instructions as to a sermon which was to be preached on the Festival of the Holy Cross, he said : ' Say something, of course, about the Cross, but the substance must be about blasphemy, hatred, impurity, occasions of sin, and bad confessions.' And again, speaking of the Feast of St. Joseph, he said : ' Let St. Joseph be praised ; but I wish sin to be ex- tirpated, that God may not be offended.' 3. From this hatred of sin sprang his zeal against it. This was the motive of his long life ; to drive sin out of the heart of man, out of the creation of God. But in this he began with himself. He was not like the pharisaic world, which drinks down its own sin like water, and is indignant, against the sins of its 208 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. neighbour. Alphonsus began with himself, with pen- ances so severe that he was compared to St. Peter of Alcantara. Innocent as he had been from his in- fancy, yet he inflicted on himself penances which to us seem excessive and intolerable. Fasts, disci- plines, 5 sleeping on the ground, uneasy postures, bit- ter herbs in his food and all these persevered in, without relaxation, until the failure of life and its powers were his habitual chastisement of self. He was most exact in the custody of his senses. Even to his old age, he would walk along the streets with his eyes cast down to the ground, lest anything should enter in and stain his soul. The vigilance with which he maintained these precautions would be judged extreme, not only by the world, but also by many who have no will indeed to sin, but have not the same instincts of sanctity as Alphonsus. Another example of his zeal against sin, is his industry in study. It was to drive sin out of the world by the most Precious Blood, and by the guid- ance of His divine law, that Alphonsus spent a long life in the study of moral theology. That the holy law of God might be more perfectly obeyed, and all that is contrary to it might be rooted out of the hearts of men ; for this he went through a toil hardly Vol. ii. p. 310. THE MISSION OP ST. ALPHONSUS. 209 surpassed among the Saints of God. Whensoever, in the exposition of the law of God, and its applica- tion to the details of human life and action, he had any doubt, he would pray and wait for weeks and even for months. He would also write to Naples, to Rome, and, above all, to the Sacred Congregations. Only a long life, like that of St. Alphonsus, could have sufficed for the work he did. He not only expounded the commandments, the precepts, and the counsels of God, but he examined all that had been said by others upon them. The works of St. Alphonsus are, I may say, a summary -of moral theology, as the great work of St. Thomas is of dogmatic ; and to. compile them, he faithfully and laboriously consulted the theologians who had gone before him. Nearly eight hundred theologians 6 were examined or con- sulted. 7 The minute, laborious, conscientious in- Life, vol. ii. p. 53-4. Hia work on Moral Theology is well de- scribed by his biographer : ' It is but an extract from the ecclesi- astical (i.e. divine) and civil laws. Where their foundations were wanting, he adopted the doctrine of St. Thomas, and supplied the remainder by the authority of theologians generally approved.' St. Alphon^us therefore acts as an expositor chiefly of others, and of the general judgments of a multitude of writers, weighed, analysed, and expressed with great patience, and exactness both of moral perception and of spiritual discernment. T F. Heilig, in his edition of St. Alphonsus published at Malines, gives the authors quoted by St. Alphonsus as 744, excluding here- tical and pagan authors. F. Haringer, also of the Congregation of the Kedemptorists, P 210 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. dustry required for such a task is not exceeded by any in the history of the Church. It was not, there- fore, without cause, or with the mere ordinary con- fidence of an upright mind, that he said : ' As to the sentiments I have advanced in my work, I have no reason to doubt the consequences of the account I must render to God.' 8 The -same zeal against sin he extended to his dealings, above all, with priests. What, reverend fathers, is the Congregation of our most holy Re- deemer but this burning zeal against sin, incorpo- rated and made perpetual, in the Church of God ? Alphonsus dealt with you as his divine Master dealt with His disciples : ' For them do I sanctify Myself; published a later edition of the Theology of St. Alphonsns, at Ratisbonne, in 1846, and gives an ' Index auctorum qui a S. Al- phonso in sna Theologia Morali et in dissertationibns inoralibua citantur.' Vol. i. cap. iv. Introductio Editoris. He gives 761 names of authors quoted. From this number he excludes the anonymous and pagan authors. Cardinal Yillecourt has just pub- lished a Life of St. Alphonsus in French, which has been revised by the Redemptorist Fathers in Rome. His Eminence says in a note to vol. iv. p. 421, 'Dans sa Theologie Morale S. Alphonse cite prfis de huit cent auteurs.' Of those whose country is given, about one-third are Italian. St. Alphonsus cites also French, German, Belgian, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Swiss, Polish, Greek, Asiatic, English, Scotch, Irish, African writers, and one American. This gives to the work a special character for breadth ; as representing his own final judgment indeed, but based upon the mind of theo- logians of all Catholic countries. Life, vol. ii. p. 80. THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHOXSUS. 211 that they also may be sanctified in truth.' 9 He first rooted sin out of his own heart, that he might then root it out of yours ; and that by you he might pursue it and destroy it from the souls of men. This is the work for which you have received such graces from the Redeemer of men, Whose name you bear. Zeal against sin, uncompromising, unrelaxing, with tender- ness to the sinful, but inflexibility against evil in all its forms and disguises, is your mission, and the end for which you exist. Such for thirty years was the work of Alphonsus, surrounded by his spiritual sons, until he was com- pelled in obedience to bear the episcopal office. As Bishop, the same zeal was manifest in every action. He would ordain no man of whose fitness he had not assured himself by strict examination. The subjects of other Bishops and the members of religious orders, who came for ordination with testi- monials of examination, he examined again. He used to say, ' I do not doubt the diligence of your superiors, nor your fitness ; but if I am to ordain you, I must know it myself.' No respect of person would ever make him swerve from this, or lay hands suddenly on any man. So likewise, in bestowing benefices, it often hap- St. John xvii. 19. 212 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. pened that rich, noble, powerful patrons interceded with him for their dependents, or nominated them for preferment. Alphonsus would admit none of them until he ascertained their fitness. Many he would never admit, because the proof of their fitness was wanting. He withstood the highest personages in the kingdom in this matter, with a boldness and freedom of speech which he always followed up by an inflexible refusal. To give any idea of his zeal for the sanctification of his priests would be to transcribe the history of his Episcopate. Towards them he was in every sense a pastor and a father, a friend and a guide, to whom they could turn in every doubt and danger of their life. There was no one so near to their hearts, none to whom their hearts were so attracted, none to whom they lay so freely open. He governed them by loving them, and by drawing them to love him again. It was in this way that his mind and spirit insensibly, but irresistibly, diffused itself throughout the clergy of his diocese. And yet his discipline over them was searching and exact, extending not only to their duties, but to their relaxations, and to the minutest points of their life. A priest is a priest always and in every, place ; the spirit of his priesthood must penetrate also into THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHOX3US. 213 bis recreations, and follow him wheresoever he may be. In the diocese of St. Agatha it was suspension ipso facto for any one in holy orders to play in public places ' at games of chance, such as cards, dice, or suchlike.' 10 He forbade acting in theatrical repre- sentations, even if the piece were a sacred one, and it were done in a private house, under pain of sus- pension if the cleric were in holy orders, and of dis- ability to receive them if he were still in minor orders. The same vigilance he extended with an especial exactness to his seminary. He was wont to say: ' Many a Bishop will be lost eternally because of his seminary.' 11 The internal discipline he administered with such zeal and minuteness, that two Bishops who visited it said : .' Mind your Bishop ; for you have got another St. Charles.' 12 St. Alphonsus knew, not only that if in the seminary or seed-plot of the priesthood any sin, or laxity, or worldliness should enter, it would grow up and spread, as a moral pes- tilence, over the whole diocese, but that if the mind and spirit of Jesus Christ were not formed in the rising priesthood, if they were lukewarm, or lovers of self instead of lovers of souls, if they were blameless themselves, and yet without a hatred and a zeal l Vol. iii. p. 72. Ib. p. 95. Ib. vol. ii. p. 72, 353. 214 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. against sin, the work of souls would not be done; sin would not be pursued and destroyed, and sinners would not be saved. He therefore used to call his seminary ' the apple of his eye, the jewel of his diocese.' Nothing seemed too much if it related to the young clergy. 'All my clergy are my crown,' he said ; ' but I depend most on the seminary to cultivate and to make morality to reign throughout the diocese.' 13 I need hardly attempt to show to what labour his zeal against sin prompted him in the pastoral care of his people. His first act on entering the diocese was to give a Mission, beginning at the cathedral church, then in all the towns of his diocese, followed by the canonical visit, which he held punctually and exactly eyery two years. His knowledge of the state of his diocese was such, that it used to be said, that either an angel or a devil used to tell him of the sins and scandals which were committed. Even when he was bedridden, he would often know by daybreak the scandals that had been committed in the night, and the sins of those that were at a distance. Instantly he would send for the offenders. Until he had done so, he could have no rest. His attendants sometimes were too slow 11 Life, vol. ii. p. 362. THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. 215 for him. He used to say : ' When a sin against God is in question, we ought to leave everything to put a stop to it.' When he spoke of any scandal, he would say : ' This is a thorn piercing my heart.' In his Life we are told, ' it is incredible how many sins he prevented, how many scandals he extirpated. Volumes would not tell all.' The perpetual burden of his preaching was against sin. Certainly, the love and the passion of Jesus, the glories and the tenderness of our Immaculate Mother, were abundantly in his mouth, as his writ- ings bear witness ; but we are told that, like as St. John in his last years went on ever repeating, almost to weariness: 'Little children, love one another,' so Alphonsus was always saying, 'My children, cease from sin ; my children, cease from sin.' But this zeal against sin was tempered by an exceeding love of sinners. In this he followed closely the words of our divine Lord : ' I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance.' ' They who are in health need not the physician, but they that are sick.' ' I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel.' Alphonsus chose for himself the worst sinners, and desired his sons to occupy themselves about the conversion of the most abandoned. It would seem as if he regarded 216 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. them as the strongholds of the enemy; that if these keys of the power of Satan could be taken, his kingdom would be destroyed. "We find therefore that he was surrounded by the lowest and most desperate of the populations where he preached. He had a special attraction for them, the cause of which is evident his singular benignity of heart. As he said, 'It is not difficult to say to a sinner: Get you gone ; you are lost ; I will not absolve you : but if we remember that such a soul was bought by the Precious Blood, we shall be horrified at such a way of dealing with it.' When he heard of the conversion of a soul, he would weep for joy. He spent a great part of his revenues in assisting the penitent, or the innocent; whose poverty exposed them to danger ; so that he was insolently reproached for it by some one, who said, that ' one must be a sinner to receive assistance from him.' He answered : * I wish to assist everybody ; but I must begin with those that are in sin.' When he was told that he was deceived, he said : * It matters little, if I can thwart the plans of the devil. It is no little gain to hinder sin even for a quarter of an hour.' Again, he said : ' If I abandon these sinners, perhaps they may fall into despair. If they commit one mortal sin less, is it not for the glory of God ?' THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHOXSUS. 217 And this benignity with sinners manifested it- self especially in two things; first, in the facility with which he gave absolution, and secondly, in tho lightness and sweetness of the penance he imposed upon them. He made the Sacrament of Penance an object not only of faith but of love ; not a carni- ficina conscientitz, a torture of the conscience, but a rest, a solace, and a joy. He used to say : ' I am ready to give my blood and my life for them ; and if they are sincere, I will help them, though I go with- out my food.' His Moral Theology is studiously designed to make the way of absolution open, easy, and accessible. In the spirit of the divine Lord, who forgave all who had faith to come to Him, not exacting of them more than the least of that which His sanctity inflexibly required; so St. Alphonsus drew to the fountains of the most Precious Blood all who had need, the most stained, hardened, and outcast, exacting of them the least which the Sacra- ment of Penance imposes as the condition of our pardon. 5. Finally, Alphonsus, for the very love he had to sinners, had a horror of the occasions of sin. He had thoroughly detected the deceit by which Satan has confounded together what I may call the divine and the diabolical rigorism. The rigorism of Satan 218 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHOXSUS. comes between the soul of the sinner and its ab- solution in the Precious Blood. The rigorism or loving severity of the Sacred Heart comes between the absolved soul and the occasions of sin by which it has fallen. When Alphonsus heard of confessors who made the way of absolution narrow and pro- tracted, he used to cry, with a kind of anguish, ' poor Blood of Jesus Christ !' But after absolu- tion, all his efforts, by way of counsel and command, were used to keep the penitent from the occasions of falling again. To some who account Alphonsus lax, his precautions against sin will appear rigorous ; so inverted and misplaced are the ideas of many. It is a spurious and miserable benignity which per- mits a penitent to go again into the midst of the same voluntary occasions by which he has already fallen ; to stain once more the white stole of his ab- solution, and to forfeit the grace which has been so hardly regained. I cannot give even an outline of his counsels against the occasions of sin. They run through all his works. No subject occurs so habitu- ally or so largely in all his writings on the spiritual life. The duty of breaking with persons, and inti- macies, trades, and professions, by which men have been betrayed into sin, returns again and again. Alphonsus wrote a treatise upon the danger of THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. 219 bad books, and involved himself in a contest with some of the ministers of government by its publica- tion. To a mind illuminated as his, the havoc made by bad books was evident as the light. The great French .Revolution, and the infidelity and impurity of the Voltairian school were then just beginning to penetrate into Italy. What would he have judged of the world at this time, and of this country, in which the plague of bad books covers the land ! Evil men, evil lives, evil examples, spread a moral pestilence openly and powerfully; but nothing spreads false- hood and evil more surely and deeply than a bad book. The Sower who sowed the seed of the king- dom ordained that His Church, by its living voice and its writings, should cover the face of the earth with truth and purity. The infallible voice of the Church, and the inspired and uninspired writings of its children, have spread the knowledge of God and of His kingdom throughout the world, and sus- tained it to this day. But the sower had no sooner reached the end of the furrow, when the enemy came, treading in his footsteps, and sowing upon the same soil the tares and the poisons of falsehood and im- purity. A bad book is falsehood and sin in a per- manent and impersonal form ; all the more danger- ous because disguised, and tenacious in its action 220 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHOXSUS. upon the soul. I do not know -which is the more dangerous, the books which are written professedly against Jesus Christ, His Divinity, His Church, and His laws, or the furtive, and stealthy, and serpentine literature which is penetrated through and through with unbelief and passion, false principles, immoral whispers, and inflaming imaginations. We are told that an index expurgatorius is impossible in such a country as this. In countries where the unity of the faith still exists, it may be possible to restrain the evil; but in such a land as this, where liberty of thought and speech, oral and written, have run to the extreme of license, it is no longer possible. Who can pull up the weeds in a wilderness ? A man may weed a garden ; but a desert must be left to its rankness. Nevertheless, the index expurgatorius may be transcribed upon the delicate and enlight- ened conscience of those who love purity and truth ; and the zeal of Alphonsus is a warning to fathers and mothers, and to all who love our divine Lord, and desire the sanctification of their own hearts. Like as Job prayed for his sons while they were feasting, lest they should commit sin, so he did not fear likewise to watch over the amusement and recre- ation of his people. He turned a company of actors out of his diocese, lest they should corrupt his flock. THE MISSION OF BT. ALPHONSUS. 221 He restrained to the utmost of his power halls, promiscuous dancing, masquing, the license of the carnival, theatres, private theatricals, and the like. Even religious feasts, attended hy the concourse of multitudes, he regarded with suspicion. He was wont to say : ' When there is a multitude, the occa- sion of sin will not be wanting.' ' Fire and straw do not do well together, especially when the devil blows on them.' 14 I quote these things, because St. Alphonsus is accused of laxity by none more than by those who would accuse him in these things of rigorism. But such was the estimate of them, which a pure soul, invested with its baptismal in- nocence, full of hatred against sin, and of the love of sanctity, deliberately formed and maturely acted upon in the full experience of life, and with the grave responsibilities of his pastoral charge. And we may believe that his instincts and his percep- tions were not far from the judgments which the pure eyes of our guardian angels form as they ho- ver over the multitude, who throng together in the crowds of worldly amusement, or even in the sanc- tuaries of religious excitement. It was not rigour, nor scruple, but the penetrating intuition of a soul full of zeal against sin, and altogether on fire for the 14 Life, vol. iv. p. 43-6. 222 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPIIONSUS. salvation of souls, which made him jealous for the sanctification of his flock. No wonder, then, that at the end of his long and toilsome life he was over- heard, when he knew not that any ear of man was near, saying : ' Lord, Thou knowest that all I have thought, said, done, and written has been for souls and for Thee.' From this supernatural hatred and zeal against sin two consequences flowed, on which I will add a few words. 1. The first was, his great power over souls. It was his special endowment in all the aspects of his life. As a confessor, he spoke with such horror of sin, that the most hardened sinner could not resist his words. He loved the confessional as the chief function of his priesthood, the deepest, most interior, and vital work for souls. He used to say, a priest who does not love the confessional does not love souls. He was the first to enter it in the morning, and the last to leave it at night. So long as his health and strength endured, he seemed to spend his life in the confes- sional and in preaching. His way of dealing with souls will be best expressed in his own words : ' The deeper the soul is plunged in sin, the more we must endeavour by kindness to pluck it from the arms of Satan, and cast it into the arms of God.' The fewest THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. 223 words from him had a supernatural power of convic- tion. A hardened sinner, who had poured out a terrible history of sin, with every sign of unconcern, was roused in a moment, at the end of his confes- sion, by these words : ' My child, what has Jesus Christ done against you?' Such was his power of softening the most hardened, that at the close of his life St. Alphonsus one day revealed that he did not remember ever sending away a sinner without ab- solving him. As a preacher the effect of his words was, if pos- sible, more supernatural. In Amalfi were two sub- urbs, inhabited by abandoned women, who were the pestilence of the town. St. Alphonsus gave a mission there. 15 Every one of them was brought to repent- ance ; and the missionaries who visited the town some years after, found that every one of them had persevered in her repentance. At Nardo, during his preaching in the church, a person fell dead from the grief of contrition ; and in the night following, three others died. 16 This wonderful power over the con- sciences and souls of men came from the energy of his simplicity. He abhorred what is called eloquence, and counted it the plague of the Church, and the sin Vol. ii. p. 92. " Tannoid, book i. c. xvi. Turin edition. 224 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. of preachers. When he heard a priest preaching rhetorically, he used to say : * Poor Jesus.' And ambitious preachers he called ' the enemies of Jesus Christ.' Though most eloquent, those who heard him thought not of him, but of what he uttered.' They were as unconscious of the preacher's elo- quence as he was himself; for the thought of God, of sin, and of judgment, absorbed both him and them. His power over souls as a Bishop could not be expressed without writing the history of thirteen years ; but it may, in the fewest words, be described by three testimonies which were borne to him while he yet lived. An official, who was always about him, and knew all his works and his labours, said : ' A hundred Bishops would not do what he did alone, notwithstanding his infirmities.' Clement XIV., in refusing the resignation of his bishopric, said : ' He can govern his diocese from his bed ;' and again : ' His shadow is enough to govern the diocese.' As a theologian, his power over the hearts of men has been ever expanding. While he was yet alive, he did more than any other to destroy and to root out for ever the two opposite plagues of Jansenism and of laxity, and, by the fervour of piety which he in- fused into moral theology, to destroy the formalism THE MISSION OP ST. ALPHONSUS. 225 of the careless and mechanical. And this power has been ever extending itself from nation to nation and church to church, from diocese to diocese, from semi- nary to seminary, from confessional to confessional. The mind of Alphonsus, and the benignity of his pastoral love of souls, has entered and conquered in every Catholic country, and at this day reigns throughout the Church. And he reigns, too, as a patriarch over the tribes of his spiritual children. In his lifetime they were comparatively few, and his last days were full of sorrow ; but now, in Italy, in Belgium, in Holland, in France, in Germany, in England, in Ireland, in America, and in the islands of the West Indies., he reigns over the hearts of multitudes, by his Rons and his sons' sons, who are the object of their vene- ration and their love. 2. The other consequence of his ardent zeal against sins is, the special enmity with which the world pur- sues his name. Surely in this a prophecy is fulfilled. 'I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed;' for who is more conspi- cuously the son of Mary than Alphonsus ? His book ' The Glories of Mary,' which unites him with St. Bernard and St. Bernardino of Sienna, has marked him out for the happiness and the honour of sharing Q 226 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. the enmity -which is levelled against the Mother of God. The world will not endure those who witness for Jesus, whom it crucified ; nor against sin, which it loves ; nor for sanctity, which it hates. In every way Alphonsus is marked out for its enmity. How could it endure the presence of a soul full of the Holy Ghost all illuminated, to know the sin of the world ; all inflamed with the love of God, to he jealous for His honour ; all dilated with an indignant contempt of the world's pretensions, and with an in- flexible and fearless zeal against the world's pride and sin ? They were natural antagonists. They are so still. The best panegyric, St. Alphonsus says, is to imitate the virtues of a Saint; and the lessons he teaches us may be briefly spoken. The festival of to- day may teach us that the world is never convinced of its sin by compromise, but only by the contrast which sanctity opposes to sin. This lesson is to be learned indeed from all the servants of God, but in an especial manner in these later ages from three who may be called the standard-bearers in the war- fare of the Church against the world : St. Ignatius, St. Charles, and St. Alphonsus. Eeverend Fathers, I do not venture to speak to you, but to your flock, who in my words will recognise that which they see THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. 227 in you, the example of your Saint and founder. To them, then, I would say, if we would convince the world of sin, we must do as men who would lift a heavy mass. They do not rest upon it. So long as they are upon it, they are powerless. As soon as they are detached from it, their power revives. They find a fulcrum at a distance, and the longer the lever and the farther they are, the greater the purchase ob- tained. So it is with those who would convince the world of its follies, its stains, and its sins. It is by contrast and by separation, not pharisaical separation, but as our great High Priest, who was ' innocent, undefiled, and separate from sinners,' that you must work upon the reason and the conscience of men. It is by love and patience, visible sincerity and tender compassion, that you must work upon the will of the sinful and the worldling. Do not hope to win the world by courting it. Do not fear to lose your hold by provoking it. Cast in your lot with the Saints who have renounced it, and laboured for it ; opposed it, but spent themselves for its redemption. Be Christian, Catholic, and Roman in the fullest, deep- est sense of these three titles of our faith. Be un- worldly and inflexible, benign and gentle as Alphon- sus was : to be this, try to live as he lived, in union with God, in the fellowship and service of our divine 228 THE MISSION OF ST. ALPHONSUS. Lord and of His Immaculate Mother. Bear your witness for the sanctity of God in the world which is around you. Fear nothing but to be found on the world's side, when He who redeemed us from it shall appear. vni. TRUTH BEFOEE PEACE: At tho Opening of St. Godric's, Durham, 1864. TO THE RIGHT KEY. WILLIAM IIOGAKTH, D.D. BISHOP OF HEXHAM AND NEWCASTLE, AND TO THE KEVEKEND THE CLEEGY, THI8 SEEMON, PUBLISHED AT THEIR DESIEE, IS BESPECTFULLY INSCEIBED, VITH THE HOPE AND PRAYER THAT THE LIGHT OF NORTHUMBRIA MAY ONCE 1IOEE SHINE OVEB ENGLAND AS BRIGHTLY AS OF OLD. TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord : and great shall he the peace of thy children. ISAIAS liv. 13. SUCH was the promise of God to Jerusalem in the time of its desolation. ' poor little one, tossed with tempests, without all comfort, 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 of desirable stones.' ' No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper : and every tongue that resisteth thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn.' 1 The Assyrian was hovering about the walls of Jerusalem. It was menaced and despised from without, and, worse than this, it was torn and divided within. Contention and blood, sacrilege and sin, stained the sanctuary and the streets of the Holy City. But a time of consola- tion was at hand. According to the promise, it came i Isaian liv. 11, 12, 17. 232 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. in the reign of peace and justice, in the days of Ezechias. But this was no more than a type and a promise of things to come hereafter of desolations more pro- found, and of consolations more enduring, than the transient afflictions and restoration of any earthly city. It foretold the day when the Church of Israel, the shadow of a substance yet to come, should be elevated by the advent of the Eedeemer, and should pass into the true and only Church of the living God, the mystical Body of His Incarnate Son. ' And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying : Behold, the tabernacle of God with men. And they shall be His people : and God Himself with them shall be their God. . . . And he took me up in spirit to a great and high moun- tain : and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God; and the light thereof was like to a pre- cious stone, as it were to a jasper-stone, as crystal. And it had a wall great and high, having twelve gates ; and in the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. On the east, three TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. 233 gates; and on the north, three gates; and on the south, three gates ; and on the west, three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. And he that spoke with me, had a mea- sure of a golden reed, to measure the city and the gates thereof, and the wall. And the city is situate four-square, and the length thereof is as great as the breadth.' 2 Such is the true fulfilment of the words of Isaias the holy Catholic Church, built upon the Eock, in all the splendour and beauty of its heavenly perfec- tions, four-square, imperishable in its life, immutable in its illumination, indissoluble in its unity, infal- lible in its voice. And because it is replenished by the influx of light from its divine Head, and guided by the perpetual assistance of His Holy Spirit, the Church is first taught of God, and is then the organ of His voice to men. Its children therefore are all taught of God, and their peace is the peace of God in the divine unity of truth. No weapon formed against it has ever prospered. Ten long persecutions have but blunted and broken the weapons of the world. No tongue has ever gainsayed the Church of God but it has been condemned. False apostles * Apoc. xxi. 2, 3, 10-16. 234 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. have come in a long succession ; but they have been confounded, and have gone their way. The accusers of the Church have been found liars. The reformers of its divine purity have betrayed their own corrup- tion ; and the false witnesses who have slandered it before the world, by their manifold contradictions have confounded and put each other to shame. In this way the Church has always been verifying this prophecy of desolation and consolation, always tossed by tempest, and then comforted ; in alternate storms and peace ; but the peace always greater than all its afflictions ; for the affliction is only for a time, but the peace abides for ever. And this law has also been already verified, and will again be verified, in England. The desolations which are upon it were not always, nor will be for ever. Your forefathers are example. There was a time when northern England was the home of Saints. There was a light and a beauty upon its hills and its wolds, its valleys and its coasts. Whitby and "Wear- mouth, Lindisfarne and Hexham, and Finchal and Durham, are dear to you, because the names of St. Aidan, St. Hilda, St. Csedmon, St. Cuthbert, and St. Godric, are written upon them. The world was tu- multuous, indeed, from without, in those days ; but the heavenly city rested on the face of Northumbria, TEUTH BEFORE PEACE. 235 and great was the peace of its children. The king- doms of Saxon England were often in conflict, war- ring upon each other; but the Church reigned, in its illumination and power, over the souls of men. It is from a Saint of your own that we have the light to see the face of the Anglo-Saxon people. In the darkness of history, St. Bede shines as a silver star bright, but all alone shedding a radiance upon this country. In his light we see a people dwelling in unity, because they were one in faith. There were no fragmentary Christianities in those days, no muti- lations of the perfect outline and disk of faith. The illumination of the day of Pentecost was upon the dwellings of the people of God. They were of one mind, in the one indivisible truth. In those days Jesus was upon every altar, in the rude cathedral, the silent monastery, the humble church by the river and by the sea. The presence of the Incarnate "Word, and the radiance which goes out from Him, pene- trated into the homes and the hearts of men. With Jesus was also His Immaculate Mother. Her image and her name were dear to all ; the old and the young called her Mother, and saluted her in the angel's words. The Church had much to suffer from with- out ; but in those days of early faith there were no contentions of Christians banded into sects, and, in 236 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. the name of religion, rending asunder the unity of truth and peace. There was, therefore, no spiritual destitution ; that is, no sheep without a shepherd, no flock scattered to and fro, without fold and pasture. All then knew their pastor's voice, and the faith which leads to eternal life. Such was northern England in those days, when the holy Catholic and Roman Church spread itself, in light and peace, upon its kingdoms. The world was rude and dark enough, but Jesus reigned in the unity of truth. They were simple and saintly hearts in those ages of childlike faith. All then worshipped at one altar, and gave to each other the kiss of peace in the holy Mass, as children of one heavenly Father and of the Immaculate Mother of God. But now are the times of our desolation. The Church is reduced to a remnant in the midst of the land. Christianity outside the Catholic Church is morselled into fragments ; the presence of Jesus is no longer upon the altar ; the old sanctuaries of the Saints are ruined and trodden down. Mary is de- throned from her dignity as mother and as queen, and her name is seldom heard, except to be cast out with coldness, perhaps with worse. Contentions are on every side, multiplying upon every article of the TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. 237 faith, from the grace of Sacraments to the Godhead of Jesus, the inspiration of Scripture, the fact of reve- lation, the existence of God. And, as a consequence of all this, inevitable and just, a spiritual destitution spreading over the face of the people ; millions of the poor of Christ, the heirs of the kingdom, without pas- tor, or sacraments, or Christian faith, living and dying ' without Christ, and without God in this world.' And now shall I ask, why was all this ? "Who brought it to pass, and how ? If I were, I should have to re-open old wounds, and rekindle old fires now dying out, if not extinct. Why should we call up our forefathers to answer to us for that of which they have already given an account before the eternal Judge ? And why add to our divisions now, by con- tending about who was guilty of the divisions then ? Is it not better to ask how may all this be healed ? Let us, if we can, forget the past, and heal the pre- sent and the future. And certainly there are at this time to be seen the harbingers of a better day. There is a craving for unity spreading on every side; a pain- ful sense that division is the source of our desola- tions ; a desire to heal them by a return to the peace of those days when men were of one faith and heart. I take this as the augury of happier times to come ; as the first white lights which steal up the sky, and TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. promise the brightness and warmth of noon. The barriers which divide men seem to be melting away ; and though there are sharp conflicts and ringing blows still to be heard, a better wisdom is pleading with men. The way to unity is peace ; but there can be no peace in a constrained or artificial unity, by tying together discordant minds with external bonds, the living with the dead. Peace, indeed, must corne first, and unity is its fruit. But before peace must come truth. ' All thy children shall be taught of God,' and therefore ' great shall be the peace of thy chil- dren.' It is truth that generates peace. Peace is a benediction, but truth is vital. He that seeks peace before truth, falls into heresy. Peace without truth is infidelity or indifference, and brings down the doom which our Lord pronounced on the Church in Laodicea : ' Thou art neither cold nor hot ; I would thou wert cold or hot : but because thou art luke- warm, and neither cold nor hot, I will cast thee out of My mouth.' 3 But peace in truth can never be attained till we have found the truth ; and truth we cannot finJ till we have submitted ourselves to a teacher who cannot err. But He must be God Himself. This, then, Apoc. iii. 15, 16. TEUTII BEFOEE PEACE. 239 ought to be our first find chief work in life : not to waste our years in wounding one another by sense- less controversies, in trying to wrest the weapons from each other's hands in contentions and strife, but to lay them at the feet which were pierced for us on Calvary, by surrendering reason and will to His divine voice, teaching through His only Church. We must be taught of God before we can be at peace one with another. My thoughts were forcibly turned the other day upon this truth, which may be called an axiom in the faith, by words which fell from one of those voices which assume to direct the public opinion of England. It was said that ' England prides itself on its piety and its freedom;' that 'earnest men will always be inquiring ;' that ' the Apostles urged in- quiry into natural religion, into the visible creation, into Scripture;' that they 'appealed to the burning curiosity and yearning after something better, which was the chief feature of their age;' that 'this is the age of inquiry; that inquiry is the rule;' and that ' the source of inquiry is doubt.' It would seem, therefore, that every man must begin in doubt, and if he be earnest, be always inquiring to the end. If this be meant of the world without faith, it is true enough. If it be meant of the Christian world, that 240 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. is of the world illuminated by the faith and Church of Jesus Christ, it is self-evidently false. They who have not the truth whole and perfect, must he always inquiring, alwa} r s douhting. Not so they who are ' taught of God.' Tertullian 4 tells us that the here- tics of his day were perpetually repeating,. ' Quserite, et invenietis ; Seek, and ye shall find.' He answered: Why seek what we have already? We have the truth; what should we seek for ? It is our inheritance ; it is the gift of God ; it comes to us unsought ; it precedes all inquiry. We know it without finding it, for we have it from our haptism. But, in addressing these that are out of its unity, indeed, the Church appeals to inquiry, and uses the same words as our divine Lord. ' Search the Scriptures ; for you think in them to have life everlasting; and the same are they that give testimony of Me.' 5 It does not there- 4 Tertul. de Prescript, adv. Harcticos, cap. ix. ' There is, then, one certain truth established by Christ, which all nations ought to believe, and therefore to seek, that when they have found it, they may believe it. But the inquiry after this one and certain truth cannot go on for ever. You must seek until you find, and believe when you have found it. And then nothing remains to be done, but to hold fast that which you have believed ; forasmuch as you believe, moreover, that nothing else is to be believed. And therefore nothing else is to be sought after, when you have found and believed that which has been established by Him.' ' No man seeks save he that has not, or has lost that which he had.' Cap. si- St. John T. 39. TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. 241 by put its own divine certainty and its own divine authority at stake ; but being conscious that the Scriptures testify of itself, as they testify of Jesus, of the Body as well as of the Head, it challenges the examination of its charter and its commission, with- out ceding or suspending for a moment the exer- cise of its divine authority. It requires faith in that divine authority. This is the first condition of its teaching. It offers the amplest explanation of its doctrines to those who believe in its divine commis- sion. But it is vain to explain the truths of revela- tion to those who do not believe them to be revealed. Therefore the Church first requires faith, and then descends into the detail of its message to mankind. But this none can do save only a teacher sent from God, and so taught by God, that its voice is identi- fied with His, and that the words of Jesus are verified, ' He that heareth you, heareth Me.' 1. Such, then, is the attitude of the Church, in the presence of the world. It affirms its message as a witness; it bears its testimony with as abso- lute a certainty in the nineteenth century as in the first ; it does not wait for the acceptance of men ; it needs no countersign to confirm its declaration. Our Lord said : ' You are witnesses of these things.' St. Luke xxiv. 48. a 242 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. ' You shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and even to the ut- termost part of the earth.' 7 St. Peter therefore writes : 'We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and pre- sence of our Lord Jesus Christ; but having been made eye-witnesses of His majesty.' 3 The Apostles were eye-witnesses and car-witnesses of what they declared. For what they testified they had a cer- tainty both natural and supernatural, both of sense and of faith. This testimony they delivered to the nations of the earth. Their witness did not lose a particle of its certainty by being diffused throughout the world. The finding of a jury of twelve men loses none of its certainty by passing into the common know- ledge, the public notoriety, the living consciousness of a people, nor by being transcribed into the records and traditions of the realm. These become corrobor- ations of the facts, contemporaneous attestations, and all but eye-witness and ear-witness of the events. So the Incarnation, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus, the personality, descent, perpetual presence, and office of the Holy Ghost, passed with the certainty of eye-witness and ear-witness into the universal con- sciousness of the Christian world. The spring be- Acts i. 8. 2 St. Peter i. 16. TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. 2-13 came a river, and the river became a sea. And, with undiminished certainty, the witness of the Apostles has descended, ever expanding in its course, through century after century, to this day. Therefore St. Augustin said, that among other motives which held him to the unity of the Church, was ' the witness and consent of nations.' ' The Apostles saw Christ pre- sent, but the Church, diffused throughout the world, they did not see ... They saw the Head, and believed concerning the Body : we see the Body, and believe concerning the Head.' 9 And this body has a lineal identity, and is a moral person ; and its continuous and universal witness is the same which was delivered in the beginning. It is the same in every century in the nineteenth as in the first. Time does not 9 St. August. Serm. ccxlii. in Diebus Pasch. 13, torn. v. 1013. The following parallel passage is too beautiful to be omitted : ' Let no one put off his fables upon you. Do not heed what the madness of heretics' (Donatists) ' clamours about this corner of the world. The Church is diffused throughout the whole earth. All nations possess the Church. Let no man deceive you. This is the true Church ; this is the Catholic. Christ we clo not see, this we do see : concerning Him let us believe. The Apostles, on the other hand, saw Him, and believed concerning it. One thing they saw, another they believed ; and we, on the other hand, see one thing, and let us believe the other. They saw Christ ; they be- lieved the Church, which they saw not : and we 'see the Church ; let us believe in Christ, whom we see not. And holding fast to what we see, we shall attain to Him, whom as yet wo do not see.' St. Aug. Serm. ccxxxviii. in Diebus Paschal. 11, Opp. torn. v. 997. 244 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. lessen its evidence ; rather it adds the accumulated testimony of ages and of races, the most remote and the most discordant in all other things, save only in the one consentient, universal witness to the Incarna- tion of God, and the presence of a divine Teacher. If, then, it were only a human and historical evidence, the witness of the Catholic Church would be the maximum of certainty to be obtained for the events and truths of Christianity. No other fact in history comes to us with such an evidence as the Christian revelation and the advent of Jesus Christ. If this be not sufficiently established by the united witnesses of Christendom, then no fact of history is to be believed as certain. Christendom is the fact in itself, present, perpetual, self-evidencing. But the Church is not only a human and histori- cal witness of revelation ; it is also a supernatural and divine. Its divine Head witnesses through it. The Spirit of God sustains and directs its testimony. The Incarnate "Word is present with it, and by it speaks to us. And we, by our intelligence, are in contact with the revelation of Pentecost, because its illumination is perpetual, and we are replenished by its light. But for the perpetual and supernatural witness of the Church, how should we know, with divine certainty, the revelation given to man eighteen hundred vears THUTH BEFORE PEACE. 245 ago ? The spring which rises on the mountain-side pours its waters upon the plain ; and they are lost if there be no channel to receive them, no aqueduct to carry them to distant cities, to slake the thirst of men. But if in the aqueduct so much as one arch ho broken, all its abundance is in vain. God has provided that the waters which came forth when the Rock was struck on Calvary should flow in a channel of divine construction, in which no arch is wanting, and none can ever be ruined by the hand of man. The whole revelation flows down to us from a divine fountain, through a channel which is also divinely constructed and sustained ; so that at this hour the Church bears its witness with the same full assurance as they who heard from the Apostles their eye-witness and ear-witness of the revelation of their divine Lord. It uses their very words : ' That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have diligently looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of Life : for the life was manifested ; and we have seen, and do bear witness That which we have seen and have heard, we declare unto you.' 10 2. And therefore it teaches also as one having authority. In the midst of the voices which torment ' 1 St. John i. 1, 2, 3. 246 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. the minds of men by disputation and contradiction, by doubt and by controversy, there is one voice, calm, clear, articulate, unchanging, which pierces through all, is heard above all, and commands atten- tion even from those who hate it. God sent His Son into the world, divided and distracted as it was by contentious teachers, that He might abolish all human usurpation over the reason of mankind, and redeem it into a divine liberty of truth. 'Where is the wise, where is the scribe, where is the dis- puter of this world ? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?' 11 The Church knows what it teaches, with a divine certainty. The illu- mination of Pentecost penetrates throughout the whole Catholic unity on earth, with a light and conscious- ness of truth. It cannot err in believing ; for God is its teacher. The radiance which fills it falls from the divine Person of the Spirit of Truth, always present with it. This is its passive infallibility, whereby the whole is pervaded, as the sea is pervaded by the light of the noon-day sun. The Bishop on his throne, the Doctor in the schools, the peasant in the fields, the little child at its mother's knee, all alike are il- luminated and sustained by the passive infallibility which replenishes the whole mystical Body. 1 Cor. i. 20. TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. 247 To this divine certainty, which habitually and passively per.vades the intelligence of the faithful, there is added the divine assistance which guides the Church in its teaching ; that is, the gift of active infallibility which sustains the whole body of its pastors, whether spread throughout the world, or congregated in council ; and also in an eminent way the person of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. St. Gregory says : ' The doctors of the faithful are the disciples of the Church.' They are first taught by a divine Teacher before they teach others, and so all alike are ' taught of the Lord.' The dogma of faith is infused into them by the light of the Church before they speak in its name; and the faithful, by their mouths, hear not the voice of an individual, but of the universal Church of all ages and of all lands. Though they are not infallible, one by one, in their pastoral office, the Church which guides them is. They must be unfaithful to it be- fore they can err ; and even then ' the ears of the faithful' would be, as of old, purer than the ' lips of the priest.' The instincts of a Catholic child would detect the novelties of human error. .Through these eighteen hundred years, some eighteen General Councils, and some two hundred and fifty Pontiffs, with divine certainty and divine 248 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. assistance, have infallibly witnessed and taught. They have taught, therefore, with authority, that is, as ' having power :' but that power is truth ; for he that has the truth has power, and none other but he. The authority of the Church and of the Pontiffs does not primarily signify an act of the will, but of the intelligence. The authority of the Church was first the authority of evidence, before it became the authority of command. The Church binds men to believe, because it is divinely guided to teach them what they are bound to believe. The will can be bound only through the intelligence. God in- fuses faith into our reason by holy Baptism, before He lays His law upon us. So with the Church of God ; because it knows the truth, therefore it binds us to believe it. The light of the Spirit of God illuminates it; therefore it says now, as in the be- ginning : ' It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us.' 12 It commands us in the name of God, because it speaks with the voice of God; and it speaks with the voice of God, because it has the mind, that is, the truth of God. 'For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him ? So the things, also, 'that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God. Now Acts xv. 28. TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. 249 \ve have received not the spirit of this world, but the spirit that is of God, that we may know the things that are given us from God.' 13 It is truth, then, that generates authority not authority that generates truth. There must be truth first, and authority afterwards ; for authority is truth convincing the intelligence with its light, and bind- ing the will by those convictions, and by the au- thority of God which pervades them. It is this that the men of the world, and chiefly in our day, can- not understand. They denounce the authority of the Church as a tyranny and a bondage. It would be as unreasonable to talk of the tyranny of science and the bondage of numbers. Truth is immutable and divine; and the Church which has the truth of God has also the power and authority of God. 3. And once more : as the Church with divine certainty witnesses and teaches, so it judges. It is the sole fountain of all judgments as to the faith ; and the last appeal, after which there is only the judgment of the last day. It alone in the world knows the revelation of God, its contents and its- limits ; and therefore it alone can judge what truths are contained in it, what is accordant, what is dis- cordant with it. If it were not for the Church, we 1 Cor. ii. 11, 12. 250 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. . should not have known that a revelation had ever been given. They who pretend to know what that revelation is, apart from its authority, or to inter- pret it against its teaching, simply convict themselves of incoherence and of unbelief. They receive the Scriptures from the Church, and yet disbelieve the Church which delivers the Scriptures to them. For it is the Church alone that testified to us the exist- ence of holy Scripture. We should not have known with divine certainty that sacred books had ever been written, much less their inspiration ; or what inspira- tion is ; or the number and names of the books that is, the canon ; or the reading and sense of the text but for the supernatural witness and discern- ment of the Church. And as no other can judge what books are Scrip- ture, so no other can judge of the interpretation of the sacred books. The Church alone knows the whole revelation, of which the Scriptures record a part, and knew it before they were written ; and it- self is, in its unity, universality, and authority, in its faith, sacraments, and action upon the world, not only the interpreter, but the interpretation. And farther, for the same reason, the Church alone can judge what is primitive, what was believed always, everywhere, and by all. For who knows TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. 251 yvhat is antiquity but that living Church, to whom intiquity is a part of its own consciousness ? Anti- quity is its own past ; but, by its identity, antiquity is present to the Church at this hour. Antiquity to the Church of Jesus Christ is to-day. The words, ' Behold, I am with you all days, even unto the con- summation of the world,' are the pledge of its per- sonal identity, its unbroken continuity, its perpetual self-knowledge, by which it knows itself, not only in the nineteenth century, but in every age upward, to the hour when it saw the lights of Pentecost, and spoke face to face with the Incarnate "Word. And therefore, with all the plenitude of illumi- nation, by which it sustains and enunciates in every age the whole revelation with all its contents, the Church alone can judge of the controversies which arise within it or against it. And it judges within the circle of its own sovereignty; permitting no mind or voice of man to intrude upon the sanctuary of its supernatural discernment. Not only philosophers and disputers, sophists and heresiarchs, but the most majestic powers of the world are excluded from its tribunals. Kings and emperors, human legislators and the supreme judges among men, to the Church are as shadows and as nothing. It weighs and ad- judicates ; it pronounces and promulgates ; it admits 252 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. of no appeal to the populace, or to the princes of the earth. It will not suffer one jot or one tittle of its judgments to be revised, or to be carried to any tribunal but its own. All its causes of faith and morals begin and end within the circle of its own unity, and are terminated by the voice of its own supernatural authority; for its judgments, by the will and by the assistance of God, are infallible and therefore final. Can anybody imagine a controversy about an article of the faith, as, for instance, whether tbo Sacrament of holy Baptism does or does not always confer regeneration upon the infant rightly bap- tised ; or whether in the Sacrament of the Altar there be or be not the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ can anybody, I ask, imagine such a ques- tion to be carried by appeal from the highest spi- ritual judge to the crown, even in Turin, tormented as it is by a spirit of schism and insubordination to the Vicar of Jesus Christ ? Can anybody for .a moment conceive that the Catholic and Roman Church, in any land under heaven, weak as it may be, and however mighty the civil power, would for a moment hesitate to accept persecution, exile, martyrdom, rather than such a denial of its supreme and divine authority in faith ? ' . TBUTH BEFOEE PEACE. 253 Can anybody imagine the reverend clergy who are here before me to be teaching contradictory doctrines as to the grace of sacraments, the exist- ence of a priesthood, the nature, visibleness, or unity of the Church ? Can any one imagine them for a moment to acquiesce, even by silence, in a system which has two kinds of doctrines, some of which are true, and others which, although not true, are le- gal ? Would they for one moment, to save all dear to them in the world, or even life itself, hold com- munion in sacred things with any, however great or powerful, who denies so much as an iota of the faith of the infallible Church of God ? And why is this, but because, being the Church of God, it is taught of God, and they are therefore penetrated and quickened by the spiritual consciousness that the holy Catholic and Roman Church, divine and im- mutable in its light and voice, is the sole witness, teacher, and judge of the integrity and purity of the revelation of Jesus Christ. , Such, then, is the promise : ' Thy children shall all be taught of the Lord.' And so throughout the world, and in every age, God has taught His people, pastors and flock, Saints and doctors, learned and unlearned, old and young, man and woman and child, all-alike, and all by one rule of faith, and by the 254 THUTH BEFORE PEACE. voice of one and the same Teacher, audible bj all, and intelligible to all. It is this unity of the d .vine voice which has generated the wo rid -wide unity of the faith ; and the unity of the faith has generated the unity of worship and of action, of communion and of peace, which binds the holy Church in one from the sunrise to the sunset. In the midst of all the tumults of men, and the persecution of these latter days, the promise is fulfilled to the letter, ' Great shall be the peace of thy children.' And after all its desolations from without, a divine hand lays again its stones in order, and builds up its walls with jasper, and keeps its bulwarks and its borders with a divine power and an unearthly peace. But though the Church is ever in safety, it is ever in the storm ; and the divine voice is always saying : ' thou tost with tempest ;' for in every age the ark upon the waters is violently carried to and fro. We live in a time marked with great events, and marked too with singular manifestations of the power of God. Fifty or sixty years ago, the Church seemed to be swept away before a triumphant infi- delity. But the infidelity is swept away, and the Church in its majesty is here. Every tongue that has risen against it has been condemned. Three hundred years of proud and contemptuous contro- TEUTH BEFORE PEACE. 255 versy has ended in the confusion of Anglican Pro- testantism. For fifteen years men have been saying the time is come at last, and the temporal power of the Pope is fallen. The floods have risen even to the parapet of the wall ; but in a moment they have swept by and are gone. The Holy See stands in the immutability of its supremacy ; and the temporal power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ that is, his inde- pendence of all civil authorities, and his supreme direction over all individuals and households, cities and nations, legislatures and kingdoms, in all matters of the divine faith and law stands four-square and immovable upon the rock where the divine hand has built His Church. ' No weapon formed against it has prospered.' There it stands, the supreme wit- ness, teacher, and judge of men, of their actions and their words, in all things pertaining to God. And as in all the world, so here in England. We at this hour are witnesses of two great opera- tions : the one, the fulfilment of the words of our divine Master, 'Every kingdom divided against it- self shall be made desolate, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.' 14 "We see the great religious fabric reared by man three hundred years ago, upon the foundation where the Church > St. Matt. -sii. 26. 256 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. once stood in this land, rent from top to bottom. The seat of the divine Teacher is empty, and His voice is heard no more. Its people are robbed of their inheritance. Their teachers and their guides are men. Human voices are clamouring in multi- tudinous discord ; for the wills and the thoughts of man, cast loose from the influences of the divine Guide, by whom they were of old held in the path of unity and truth, have scattered themselves for centuries with a perpetual divergence and a growing repulsion. The beautiful fabric of Christian faith and peace, which St. Cuthbert and St. Aidan spread over the face of Northumbria, has been rudely broken and has melted away. The glow and the fragrance which was upon the sanctuaries and the homes of northern England has faded and is gone. The times of desolation are corne back once more. But it will not be so for ever. There are already the tokens of the divine hand upon us, and the outlines of the ancient beauty are rising once more. Fifty years ago, a Bishop of the Church, in the time of its bondage and poverty, laid, with the power of a primitive faith, upon a bare hill overlooking the splendours of Durham, the first stone of a Catholic college. It was a great venture, almost a rashness, in euch days of weakness and oppression. Never- TRUTH BEFOKE PEACE. 257 tbeless it was done, and the work prospered. A col- lege rose in fair proportions ; but its founder, with all the confidence of his faith, little thought what should be the expansion of the work which he then began in poverty and straitness. At this day, this slender beginning has ascended and unfolded itself into a vastness and a splendour of which no one ever dreamed. The single college of fifty years ago has multiplied itself into a cluster of halls and chapels, of cloisters and quadrangles, for stateliness and beauty surpassing almost any modern work in England. There it stands with its three hundred students, the spiritual mother of a multitude of priests. It renews before us the creations of the Church in other days, when it reigned over the English people in wealth and majesty, possessed of lands and baronies, of poli- tical power and ancient privileges in courts and Par- liaments. Nor is this great work the only one which the Church has accomplished. In the last fifty or a hundred years, the Church in England has built and matured four noble colleges, at Ushaw, at Oscott, at St. Edmund's, and at Stoneyhurst. By the wisdom of their founders, they were placed in four distant cen- tres, that their influence might bear upon England from four several points. But if they had all been con- gregated in some one place, some one town or city, in s 258 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. the midst of England, with their stately buildings and their six hundred students, they would constitute the beginning of a university of noble and vast propor- tions. 15 'I doubt whether the Church, before the great desolation of Protestantism, while it was yet in pos- session of wealth and power, ever founded and perfected in a century four greater works than these. And by whom and in what days were they accomplished? By Catholics under penal laws, or only just emerg- ing from them ; diminished to a handful, in deepest poverty, and robbed of the patrimony which the cha- rity and piety of their forefathers bequeathed for such works as these. I know nothing to which these creations may be ascribed, save the inexhaustible and prolific power of the Church of God, which, with a boundless fertility, reproduces always the same works with the same facility and the same perfection. No other cause for it can be found, but the super- natural power of God working for the Church in its greatest desolation, once more laying its stones in order, and renewing its beauty as at the first. One last word of a more personal and local kind, and I have done. Near to the place where this church now stands was the house of a Catholic mother, who 15 This might be greatly strengthened by adding St. Ecuno's, Downside, Ampleforth, and the like. TRUTH BEFOEE PEACE. 2p9 had fixed her home in Durham, that she might more carefully watch over her son, then a boy in St. Cuth- bert's College, at Ushaw. It was more than fifty years ago, when the spirit of the English people had not yet been liberated from the possession of hatred to the Catholic faith and Church. The present gene- ration can hardly remember what was the violence of those days. The next generation will hardly believe when they read it in history. It chanced that this Catholic boy, it may be of ten or twelve years old, was detained from college, under his mother's roof. It was the moment of a parliamentary election. The house opposite to their home was the principal inn in Durham. It is now the convent of the Sisters of Mercy. An election committee was there sitting, and an election mob was gathered about the door. The spirit of party was running high, and men's blood, as is usual, was heated, and there was uproar in the street. The boy was standing at the window to see the fray. The mob caught sight of him, and assailed him with hootings of contempt, and with names' which, as they are now falling into forgetful- ness, I will not repeat. The Catholic mother, ter- rified at the increasing uproar, and fearing for the safety of her son, drew him back into the room, and out of sight. 260 TRUTH BEFORE PEACE. Again, there came a day, some fifty years after- wards, when that boy, grown to manhood, stood in the midst of a still greater tumult, which upheaved the whole of England, from its highest to its lowest, with storm and tempest against the Catholic and Roman Church. Once more he stood, hut now surrounded by his brethren in the Episcopate, higher than all, fear- less, and appealing in calm articulate voice to the common sense of the people of England as the first Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. And with these two auguries of good for the Church in northern England, I will say no more. As Lindisfarne and Durham of old sent forth apostles and evangelists over the face of Northumbria, so now Hexham and Ushaw take their place. Some three hundred priests, humble and self-denying, have al- ready gone forth hence over the north of England, sons and missionaries of peace, children of the only Church which, being taught of God, never falters in its voice, because it never wavers in its faith, but stands luminous always and changeless, ' yesterday, to-day, and the same for ever,' in the vision of truth seen by faith, the prelude of the vision of peace, which is the vision of God. IX. OMNIA PRO CHRISTO : At the solemn Requiem of Nicholas, Cardinal Archbishop of West- minster, in the Pro-Cathedral, Feb. 23, 1865. THE words prefixed to this Sermon are the well-known legend "borne by his Eminence the late Cardinal Arch- bishop of Westminster. They so truly express the unity of his life, and the consecration of all his thoughts, words, works, gifts, and sufferings to the service of his divine Master, that no others could form a fitter title to this slight outline of so great a career. In the following pages will he found a few passages which, were omitted in de- livery; and one fact inserted from the beautiful Lenten Pastoral of the Eight Eev. the Bishop of Beverley. H. E. MANNING. Bayswater, Feb. 24, 1865. OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. Let Nehemias be a long time remembered, who raised up for us our walls that were cast down, and set up the gates and the bars, who rebuilt our houses. ECCLUS. xlix. 15. IF the command of authority had not bid me speak to-day, I should not have ventured on this task. It would be a hard task to any one. It is a harder task to me than to most. It is beyond the power of any of us to speak as we ought of the great Pastor and Prince of the Church, who lies here in the midst of us. It is altogether beyond mine. I have, moreover, a farther hindrance ; the private sorrow for the loss of the truest of friends, the last in this kind I can ever have in life. But as he, in his last days, unknown to me, and when I was afar off, laid on me this command, I ful- fil it as I can. It is the last obedience I can render to him, whom it has been my happiness and my hon- our for these thirteen years very feebly but faithfully to serve. It would not, however, become me on such a day 264 OMNIA PRO CHEISTO. of public mourning to speak of any private sorrow of my own. For to whom is not this a private sorrow and a personal grief? I see before me the Bishops of the Catholic Church in England shorn of their chief glory. The light which went before them is gone out, and the strong arm which struck for them is still in death. And yet it is not only a public but a private grief also to you. On most of you that hand impressed the Epis- copal character. He was guide, teacher, and friend to many of you, who grew up around him as his dis- ciples and his sons. Of the priesthood gathered here, perhaps the greater number, either in Rome or at Oscott, learned from his lips, were upheld and guided by his voice. The hands of many were anointed by him with unc- tion of the Holy Sacrifice. Many, perhaps, would never have held out in the dangers which beset their vocation, but for his encouraging voice and his sus- taining hand. You too have .lost not only a pastor, but a father and a friend. Many here are his spiritual children in the gos- pel of Jesus Christ. They would never have known the perfect truth as it is in Jesus, but for him. Many would never have been penitents, many never Christians, but for the voice of the Good Shepherd OMNIA PEG CHRISTO. 265 which spoke by his lips. Many of you loved him as the kindest and tenderest of friends; many as a benefactor, a counsellor, a comforter. To all of us, then, it is a private sorrow. And yet it rises into something more than a personal grief. There is a mourning to-day throughout the Catholic Church in England. The Pastor who has led the whole flock in the last fifteen years is gone before us, and has left us in the wilderness. The solemn requiem is ascending throughout England for the repose of that great soul. Not in England alone, but wheresoever the Eng- lish speech is known, the name of Nicholas "Wise- man, the first Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, is a title of honour cherished and revered. And not only where our tongue is spoken, but in all languages within the unity of the Universal Church, the name and fame of our beloved and la- mented Pastor is in veneration. The other day, when he recalled me to his side, everywhere as I travelled homewards, the first ques- tion was of that precious life. They only knew that I was an Englishman ; but their first inquiry, full of sympathy and condolence, was of his state. But most of all, where he was best known and most cherished, in Rome, among the friends of his OMNIA PEO CHRISTO. youth, now princes in the Sacred College, his life was counted as of great price, and his death as the extinction of one of the brightest lights which sur- round the Holy See. When the Sovereign Pontiff knew that hope was all but gone, he lifted his hands and eyes to heaven, and said : ' This and the loss of the Archbishop of Cologne are two heavy blows to me. The Archbishop for Prussia, and the Cardinal for England, at this moment were of inestimable worth. But the will of the Lord be done.' Our private griefs, then, lose themselves, and are ennobled in this universal mourning. There will be a world-wide sorrow wheresoever the Catholic name is spread. "We are all poorer by this loss ; and the voice which has taught, cheered, elevated, and strengthened tens of thousands in every land will be heard no more on earth. Henceforth it is mingled with the voices which are eternal. "What, then, can I say ? You know all, you feel all, that can be spoken. I cannot narrate a biogra- phy, the outlines and dates of which have been during these last days in all our hands. I cannot undertake a criticism of his wonderful gifts and powers, and of the rich fertility of the mind which will fascinate us no more. It would be a cold and heartless task. OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. 267 Least of all can I pronounce a panegyric. The name Nicholas "Wiseman is a panegyric in itself. The life which' is before you in all its complete- ness, its unity, its expanding powers, its multiplying honours, its exuberant works, its calm tranquil sun- set all this, which you already know, sets before you a noble and stately picture of a great Christian, a chief Pastor of the flock, a Prince over the Church of God. What, then, is left to me ? I can but draw most faintly and hastily the out- lines of a great life. Here and there I may put in a few personal features, single touches of the beautiful colours which played about him ; and a few words from that voice, which, though we shall hear it no more, yet speaks by the accents of the past hanging in the air, or inscribed deeply in works which cannot pass away. It was but the other day we were preparing to welcome as a festival the twenty-fifth anniversary of his Episcopal consecration. The tenacity to life with which he held on, through mortal sickness and ever- returning dangers, had misled us into a sanguine expectation that the twenty -five years would run their course. But we shall celebrate it otherwise now. The act of to-day is, as it were, the vigil of 268 OMNIA PEG CHKISTO. that festival which we may keep still, but with other thoughts and with other records of his great career. For a great period it was. From 1840 to 1865 is perhaps the most pregnant and vivid period in the Catholic history of modern England since its separa- tion from unity. I am well aware that in those five- and-twenty years many devout Catholics., Priests, and Bishops, of whom some are here to-day, laboured powerfully in the work of building up in England the ruins of Catholic order. I bear this always in mind, when I speak of the career of the Cardinal Archbishop. They were around him and at his side ; some were in the field before him ; many have done great and notable works ; some had their hands upon the very same works which are identified with him. Nevertheless, they will bear a glad and generous wit- ness to my words, when I say that he towers above them all. The works of which I shall speak were not exclusively his. No ; because the works of the Church are all in common. It has one heart, one will, one strength, one arm. And yet, though not ex- clusively his, they are emphatically his ; that is, the will and providence of God us%d him as its instru- ment with special and distinguishing pre-eminence. It was in the year 1863 that the Sovereign Pontiff, speaking to me of the Cardinal, described him as ' the OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. 269 man of divine providence for England.' The words struck me as visibly exact and true. But I do not know that until now I have ever seen their full meaning. We have his life now before us, from its rising to its setting. We can trace it in all its times, in its period of preparation, in its period of active power, in its period of withdrawal from the field. And there seems to be a singular completeness about it, and a visible correspondence to the time and the country for which he laboured. His mission was to England in the nineteenth century, and to the most critical period of that cen- tury for us. The Church in England had already endured its three hundred years of desolation. The time of the liberation of the Church had come. Catholics were free once more. The Holy Sacrifice was restored with public manifestation upon the altar. The Emancipa- tion was not the beginning of a movement, but itself an effect of causes long in action, afar off and in other lands. The great oscillation to and fro, which restored so much of the Catholic inheritance in for- eign countries, began to work upon England. The horrors and impieties of the first French Eevolution had produced a reaction towards Catholic faith and Catholic piety. The tide had turned upon the Conti- 270 OMNIA PEO CHRISTO. nent, and its undulations reached our shores. When the tide turns, the tidal rivers rise. England began to feel the weight and the pressure of a broader and nobler religious spirit than was to be found in the three hundred years of its past history. The change of our polity in 1828, 1829, let loose a flood upon this country. It had been ice-bound for generations. But the thaw had set in. After the frost comes the flow, and as in the floods which inundate the land, all things are lifted, the fruits of the earth, the trees of the forest, the dwellings of men ; so it was in Eng- land, when the old tradition of three centuries gave way before the larger spirit of modern legislation. Still more ; under the surface there was a move- ment as of many contending currents, intellectual and spiritual, hardly known while as yet the old ex- clusiveness held all activity in check. These vigorous and vehement movements went on, year after year, multiplying in speed and volume. A crisis was come. Doubt, uncertainty, restlessness, great dis- content, great license of opinion, a craving for truth, unity, and peace, and withal an earnest seeking for it at all costs, absolute mistrust of the guidance and teachings of men all this, from 1830 to 1840, had been preparing a crisis in the religious life of Eng- land. ' There was no* balm in Gilead, no physician OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. 271 tbere.' Multitudes of thoughtful and earnest men .were seeking for some mind, some voice, some guide, some teacher to lead them in the way of truth and life. And as the crisis had been preparing for him, rO he had been prepared to meet it. The first stratum of his mind, if I may so speak, tvas deeply tinged by the soil in which he was born. There was about him, to the end of life, a certain grandeur of conception in all that related to the works, the creations, and worship of the Church, which is evidently from. Catholic Spain. His pious mother laid him as an infant upon the altar of the Blessed Mother of God in the Cathedral of Seville. His aims and designs for the service of the Church overleaped the measure of ordinary minds. He had been born in an atmosphere of Catholic splendour, and all his conceptions and visions of the sanctuary were as he had seen it in childhood, and as it ought to be, rather than as it is in the chill and utilitarian- ism of modern England. Upon that came another formation. The educa- tion of St. Cuthbert's College, at Ushaw, made him the solid, manly Englishman, of whom Englishmen have learned to be proud. He described himself, in a little unpublished poem which bears the marks of the heavy hand of sickness visibly upon it, as 'a 272 OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. lone unmurmuring boy,' who studied while others played, who could find no pastime so sweet as a book. The other day, a house by the roadside be- tween TJshaw and Durham was pointed out to me, into which Nicholas Wiseman was once driven by a heavy storm of rain. It was there, and at that time, that his first grave and deliberate thought of the priesthood came upon him. It was, therefore, the hour and place of his vocation. Who could have ever dreamed of the career of light of which that thought was the first spark ? But there was another and more vital formation yet to come. At the age of sixteen, he went to Rome. This was the turning-point of his life. He has often told me that in those daj^s he was a light and short sleeper ; a habit which in after years told heavily upon him. He would study through the night, sometimes he would walk to and fro in the corridors of the College. While others slept in the heat of midday, he was at his books. Great and facile as his powers were, he was a laborious stu- dent. Few men ever traded more watchfully and industriously with the talents intrusted to them. All this time, he was being fashioned for the mis- sion on which he was to go. He was gazing upon the pattern in the Mount, on the outline and the 03INIA PRO CHRISTO. 273 splendour and the beauty of the Church of God in its unity, universality, and diversity, as it can be seen only in and around the Holy See. In no other place is this lesson to be learned as in Rome. It is, under the new law, what Jerusalem was under the old the city of the Incarnation, the home of the Word made flesh, the especial patrimony of the Son of God, who reigns by His Vicar in Rome, and from thence throughout the world. Rome is the last spot which is held by Christianity in all its fulness, and in all the royalties of Jesus. Free, independ- ent, and therefore sovereign, the Holy See owns no master upon earth. It is the exclusive throne of a Sovereign who is in heaven. It is also the city of the Blessed Sacrament, which in three hundred churches fills and pervades Rome with its presence, and with the radiant fragrance of the holy Name. It is especially the home of the Blessed Mother of God. Her name and her form are to be seen in all its streets, in the palaces of the rich, in the dwell- ings of the poor, shedding abroad ' the fragrance of cinnamon and the odour of the balsam.' 1 It is the city of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, who reigns with the prerogatives which Jesus communicated to the chief of His Apostles. 1 Ecclus. zxiv. 20. T 274 OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. There Nicholas Wiseman studied for twenty years. There he dwelt under the shadow, or rather within the light, of the Pontiffs. There, too, he lived in the midst of martyrs and Saints, of whom in after life his mind was ever full. Their relics and their sanctuaries were his cherished study. And lastly, it was there that he entered into the light of the great theology, or science of God, which in Rome is in its focus, and is enunciated hy the living tradition of a language, which men count as dead, but Eome speaks as its mother tongue from the hour when the Apostles preached until this day. All this complex manifestation of the Divine pre- sence, surrounded by beauty and splendour, by the visible witnesses of the prerogatives of Jesus, of the diversity, fertility, unity, universality of the Church seen from its centre all this constituted the pat- tern which impressed itself indelibly and in all its fulness of outline and detail upon his reason and imagination. It was then and there that he conceived the great idea, vision, dream call it what you will of the conversion of England, and then that he offered him- self to it. As h.e has often told me, he would go by night into the chapel of the English College, and all alone pour out his heart in prayers and tears, OMNIA PRO CHBISTO. 275 full of aspirations, and of a firm trust ; of prompt- ings to go, but of fear to outrun the bidding of our divine Master. He was wont to offer himself, and to pray that, if needed, he might be called ; if not needed, that he might never do anything unbidden. It was then that he drew up a series of Latin prayers for the conversion of England, which have been used until late years, day by day, before the Blessed Sacrament, in the chapel of the English College. Perhaps there is hardly anything in his life which has so called down upon him the reproach of a visionary and a dreamer, over -sanguine, unprac- tical, and self-deceiving. Let us examine what the conversion of England means ; for we shall have to speak of it again before we have done. What was it but the burning desire to see the country which he loved so well once more in union with all the dis- ciples of Jesus in the unity of His kingdom ? He longed to see all religious controversies extinct, all bitterness turned into sweetness, all divisions healed, all the miserable rents in households reunited in the unity of faith and the bonds of peace, all his coun- trymen kneeling before the same altar, embracing one another in the kiss of peace ; all the strifes and variances of life softened and mitigated by the law of 276 OMXIA PRO CHRISTO. love and the mutual bonds of Christian brotherhood. There was nothing very unreal in all this ; nothing very aggressive, or hostile, or intrusive in such a prayer and in such a purpose. On what was it founded but on faith in the revelation of God, in the words, God ' would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth ;' and on hope that God would once more revive His work in the midst of our days, rising into confidence that what God wills He can do ; that in one moment, as He breathed upon Rome, and the empire turned towards Him like the rivers of the south, so He may again call to the Spirit from the four winds to blow upon the valley of the dry bones, and they shall stand upon their feet and live? It was founded also on charity, on the love of God and of Jesus, and of the souls for whom Ho died, which makes sin and un- belief, schism and heresy, more piercing and agonis- ing than wounds which rend the flesh. There was surely nothing in this desire and prayer that a good man ought not to cherish ; nothing for which a Chris- tian, if he be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, is not * bound to pray ; and to promote not only by word and deed, but even by the sacrifice of life. Such, then, were the desires which burned within him, and such the ultimate form with which Spain OMNIA PKO CHEISTO. 277 and England and Rome bad progressively invested Ins soul ; the measures of which, natural and super- natural, in a signal degree surpassed the stature of ordinary men. It was at such a moment that Nicholas Wiseman appeared in England. He had indeed in 1835 begun to survey the field upon which the issue of battle was to be tried. He had spoken to English ears and to English hearts, and they had listened and believed. But the time was not yet. He returned for another period of retirement to Rome, and there in secret matured his purpose of apostolic charity to our country. The Sovereign Pontiff, Gregory XVI., who well knew his singular merits, as I am credibly assured, had already in secret destined him for the dignity of the Sacred College. But he had other thoughts burning within him. As he has often told me with his own lips, he offered to the Holy Father to resign the office of Rector of the English College, and the career to which it led, and to return to Eng- land for the purpose of founding a secular congrega- tion of missionary priests. One who knew him with the intimacy and love of a son, who hears me now, has told me that he received from him the following statement : 'One day,' he said, ' having to wait at the Sapienza for the Hebrew lecture, I went to pray in 278 03INIA PRO CHRISTO. the Church of St. Eustachio, where the most Holy Sacrament is reserved upon the altar of our Imma- culate Mother; and I thought that as the English nation, in the solemn oath imposed upon the chief personages in the State, abjures these two mysteries, it was my duty to labour for them in England.' It was about this time the Sovereign Pontiff chose him to be coadjutor to one of the Vicars-apos- tolic, and in the retreat before his consecration he wrote down a list of works which he purposed by God's help to accomplish in England. He has told me, from time to time, that each head upon the list was disappearing. In his last days, the last was morally accomplished. Then opened the active period of his life, from 1840 to 1860 twenty years of vigour and intellect, and of power in the maturity of reason and resolu- tion of will. It was a noble time, to which it would be hard to find a parallel. The first ten years of it were chiefly spent in a work for which he was eminently prepared, the intellectual discernment and appreciation of the movement and confusion into which the Emancipation had cast the educated minds of England. To this period may be referred some of his most valuable theological essays, which have, under God, led multitudes onward in the path of OMXIA PEO CHEISTO. 279 divine faith. The dream of the conversion of Eng- land began to take form and substance. Many good and prudent men looked at the same horizon, and saw no signs, no harbinger of the morrow. They treated the Bishop of Melipotamus as sanguine and visionary, whom hope had distempered. They saw nothing in England but the hard surface of the earth seared by the old storms of religious contro- versy which had furrowed the land. He saw beneath the surface, and discerned the delicate and vivid lines of new habits of thought, new aspirations after an inheritance which had been forfeited by the sin of others. At this time it was he wrote one of his most noble-hearted letters, in which, with great gen- tleness, implying but not expressing what he endured, he says : ' If one must err, if in mere tribute to humanity one must needs make a false step, one's fall will be more easy when on the side of two theological vir- tues, than when on the cold bare earth of human prudence. If I shall have been both too hopeful in my motives, and too charitable in my dealings, I will take my chance of smiles at my simplicity, both on earth and in heaven. Those of the latter at least are never scornful.' But it was the ten years from 1850 to 18CO 280 OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. which have indelibly inscribed the name of the Car- dinal Archbishop of Westminster in the annals of England. In 1850, the renewed Catholic Hierarchy in England was created by Pius IX., as the ancient Hierarchy had been created by St. Gregory I. "What the pontifical power had done once, out of the pleni- tude of its imperishable prerogatives, it did again. The Bishop of Melipotamus became the first Arch- bishop of Westminster and Cardinal Priest of the Holy Roman Church. The hurricane which swept over the land we can all remember. We remem- ber, too, the pastoral letter to his flock. But I will not now revive so much as a trace of the confusion which is year by year mellowing and sinking out of sight in the kindlier light of calmer and happier days. Let me, however, ask one question. How was it that the same race of men, who tut ten years before filled England with sarcasm when a states- man dated his letter from the castle of his sovereign, should have failed to see that no Pastor of the Church, save only its august Head, can date from within the walls of the city of Eome ? And yet such formalities, through popular ignorance, are enough in an atmosphere and in an age of prejudice to poison and pervert the minds of men. That pastoral letter, read, as I read it a day ago, OMXIA PRO CHPJSTO. 231 under the roof where the hand that wrote it lay calm in death, sounds to me as -a noble proclamation of a noble deed, uttered in language commensurate to a reality to which the history of England for twelve hundred years has nothing proportionate. It is sim- ple truth that by that act, * your beloved country has received a place among the fair churches which, normally constituted, form the splendid aggre- gate of Catholic communion. Catholic England has been restored to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firma- ment, from which its light had long vanished ; and begins now anew its course of regularly adjusted action round the centre of unity, the source of jurisdiction, of light, and of power.' Every year which has passed since then has proved this truth. What the last fifteen have begun, the next fifty will manifest with a more luminous evidence of light, order, and perpetuity. But I have no time to dwell on these things. Personal topics will be more in place, and they are more in number than I can enumerate. Still one word, before I part with the Catholic Hierarchy of England. This great Pastor of the flock knew his country when he uttered words which read now like prophecy. After a noble la- mentation on the intemperate speech of those who should have calmly reigned from the silent tribunals 282 01DJIA PRO CHEISTO. of justice, he broke out : ' When the very highest judicial authority has prejudged, and cut off all appeal from us, what resource have we yet left ? what hope of justice ? One in which, after God's unfailing providence, we place unbounded confidence. There still remains the manly sense and honest heart of a generous people ; that love of honourable deal- ing and fair play, which, in joke or in earnest, is equally the instinct of an Englishman ; that hatred of all mean advantage taken, of all base tricks and paltry claptraps and party cries employed to hunt down even a rival or a foe. ' To this open-fronted and Avarm-hearted tribunal I make my appeal, and claim, on behalf of myself and my fellow-Catholics, a fair, free, and impartial hearing. Fellow- subjects, Englishmen, be you at least just and equitable. You have been deceived you have been misled, both as to facts and as to intentions. I will be plain and simple, but straight- forward and bold. I will be brief also, as far as I can, but as explicit as may be necessary.' And he has not been deceived in his hope. I will not now attempt to recite the course of these ten years, in which the Cardinal Archbishop, surrounded by his twelve suffragans, traced out once more upon the soil of England the limits of a new OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. 283 order, into which the influx of the Universal Church, both from its centre and from its circumference, en- ters in all the fulness of infallible truth and super- natural power. It would be out of time and place to dwell upon the gradual and steady formation of thirteen dioceses, ever expanding from their centres, and multiplying every kind of spiritual life and fruit- fulness : or upon the Councils of Westminster, pro- vincial and diocesan, which have sat and legislated with the unerring instinct and plastic wisdom of the living Church of God. There is but one word T will add. In these last days, I have read again and again such words as these : ' Great beginnings doomed to a great disappointment. Lofty under- takings, and, it must be confessed, closed by a signal failure.' Not so fast, men of this world; not so lordly and confident, wise and prudent of the earth. The ploughing of December may be drenched with the rains of January, and the February snows hide all things from the eyes of men. But the sweat of the ploughman and of the sower is not in vain ; there is a life in the sod, a stature, a symmetry, an expansion, and a maturity deep down, out of sight, coiled together and yet unfolding in silence. There must yet come binding frosts, and scourging hail, and raving winds ; but the summer's sun and the autumn 28-1 OMNIA PEO CHRISTO. fruits arc sure as the march of time, the changes of day and night. You have it in an old book not much read, it may be, in these days of light : ' As the rain and the snow come down from hea- ven, and return no more thither, but soak the earth, and water it, and make it to spring, and give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, so shall My word be, which shall go forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it.' 2 And again : ' The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth ; patiently bearing till he receive the early and latter rain. Be you therefore also patient, and strengthen your hearts ; for the coming of the Lord is at hand.' 3 The conversion of England ! Do men think that we expect the twenty millions of Englishmen to lie down Protestants at night, and to wake up Catholics in the morning ? Do they so little know the calm \visdom of the illustrious dead who lies here, the centre of our veneration and of our love, as to think that he was such a dreamer of day-dreams, so unreal and fantastic in his hopes ? He was a believer like one who for a hundred and twenty years built the * Isaias Iv. 10. * St. James v. 7. 8. OMNIA PRO CHEISTO. 285 ark ; and a hoper like him who all alone entered im- perial Rome a simple fisherman, but the Vicar of the Son of God. Such were his expectations ; and when he closed his eyes upon England, he had already seen the work he had begun expanding everywhere, and the traditions of three hundred years everywhere dis- solving before it. Time is not with the Church of God. Converging lines may stretch beyond our sight, and overpass the horizon; but they must intersect at last. So with the work of grace upon the country of our birth and of our love : its deso- lations are not for ever. Thus far he saw accomplished. Much that he had pondered and intended is indeed gone with the great mind which was ever at work for the Church and for England. They who were about him in these last five years, when the weight of mortal disease began to weigh upon him, will know with what a creative fertility he was ever forming to himself new intentions for works of usefulness, charity, and piety. The last five years were like the hours of a still afternoon, when the work of the day begins to linger, and the silence of evening is near. He seemed to be resting after twenty years of active toil. It was a time of survey and of reflection ; and 236 01IXIA PRO CHRISTO. with those who were about him, he used often to go over the past, and cast up the changes he had seen. He knew too well what the work of the Church is upon men especially in a country such as this to expect great and sudden changes, like landslips or inundations. But his eye traced keenly and surely the outline of the Pattern in the Mount, which had been the rule and original in all his labour. He could see its symmetry and its proportions emerging from the spiritual wilderness around him. And he has bequeathed to you, each in your sphere, the duty of carrying onward to its perfection the work of which he was the chief master-builder. It would seem to me, that in the career of this great Pastor of the Church there are four principles or laws which he diffused in life, and has bequeathed to us in death. The first is a filial love to the Vicar of Jesus Christ. With him it was an instinct and an affec- tion. It was not merely a dictate of reason and of theology, but a love of his heart. His twenty years in Rome made the person of the Sovereign Pontiff an habitual vision to him, which governed all his life. In his book on the four last Popes, he has said Ultramontanism is not so much a peculiar form of opinion as a singular love of the Vicar of our Lord. OMNIA PRO CHEISTO. 287 This feeling he bore, in all its tenderness and devo- tion, to the person of Pius the Ninth, to whom every affection of his heart bound him. He never named him without a veneration which was perceptible to all. Next was a special love of sinners. His birthday was the festival of St. Alphonsus, to whom, as the Apostle of the Sacrament of Penance, and of the spirit of benignness to sinners, he had an especial devotion. He was formed upon the same model, and he loved the generosity of heart which our Lord enjoins in the words, ' Freely have ye received, freely give.' He expressed his own character when, to a religious who was about to give a retreat to priests, he said, ' Do all in your power to make them large- hearted and benign in giving absolution to sinners.' Thirdly, he has in all his life testified to the supremacy of faith, of doctrine, pure and inflexible as emanating from a divine Teacher, and refusing all compromise with the opinions of men. In the theo- logy of the world, doubt is held to be the legitimate pa- rent of faith. In the theology of the Church, faith is a gift of God which excludes the possibility of doubt. To have doubted is supposed by the world to be the necessary condition of perfect faith; never to have doubted is, in the ways of God, the highest maturity 288 OMXIA PEO CHEISTO. of faith. When, then, I say that our great pastor and teacher had never doubted of any article of the revelation of God, but that the infused grace of faith grew up in him and with him to a solidity and maturity which formed a part of his life, a second consciousness of his spiritual being, I do not mean that he had not faced and handled, tested and weighed, the doubts of other men. He has often told me of the period of suffering, amounting to a kind of agony, which he endured in Rome while reading the German rationalistic criticisms on Holy Scripture, through which pain he believed himself bound to pass, like Him who was his divine example, that he might succour them also that were tempted. And yet not so much as a doubt fastened on him. When he came forth from the furnace, the smell of the fire was not upon his raiment. And this adds a wonderful emphasis to one of the noblest acts of his life, when, in obedience to the pontifical law, he summoned his Chapter about his dying bed, and, vested in his insignia as a Prince of the Church, made his profession of faith, and, kissing the holy Gospels, testified that in all his life he had faith- fully held and taught, and never doubted any one of those articles, and that he desired to transmit the faith intact and inviolate to his successor. O3INIA PRO CHRISTO. 289 Lastly, he has bequeathed to our custody one more great principle most vital in these days: that is, the harmony of revealed and natural truth, and the unity of Catholic culture. The first work which made his name celebrated was the Connection of Science and Revealed Religion; and to this great thesis he remained faithful to the end. His last studies, I may say, were upon it. For some time past he had been collecting materials for a new essay upon the relation of modern sciences to faith. He had formed to himself the purpose of writing a series of Pastoral Letters, to be read from Septua- gesirna to Easter, treating of this theme as a frontier traced about the faith of his flock, which is, in these days and in this city, perpetually assailed by the specious and pretentious menaces of superficial sci- ence. At this time his voice would have been heard among us. But God has willed it otherwise. Among his last and most anxious thoughts springing from this subject was the intellectual tra- dition of the Catholic Church, and the method of teaching and of study by which that tradition of truth is kept pure and undefiled. This was but the practical application of the early principles of his youth to the last duties of his pastoral office ; and he left to us as his last injunction to preserve unsullied the streams D 290 OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. of spiritual and of intellectual culture, which, though distinct, are intimately blended in the tradition of Catholic training, and descend in the unity of the Church from age to age, refusing all intermixture or contact with foreign and alien methods of edu- cation. Such is the outline of the bequest he has left us : the love of Rome, the love of sinners, the su- premacy of faith, the purity of Catholic education. It was the school in which lie had been formed. From it he derived the completeness and equable ex- pansion of mind which gave him a signal elevation above other men. But I am conscious that hitherto I have spoken of him only as he was seen by the eye, and measured by external observation as a great Pastor and Prince of the Church. His true greatness remains to be told. It was not upon his outward form, like his pon- tifical array, but deep in the soul, hard to reach, and truly known by few. His true grandeur was not in what he knew, nor in what he did, but in what he was in the gifts and in the culture of his head and heart. Few men have, perhaps, ever been so little understood; few men so widely misunderstood. Among many kindly and generous words from other hands, it has been a strange phenomenon in these OMNIA TRO CHIUSTO. 201 last days to read the description and estimate that one public critic has made of him. It would grato upon our ears to recite it in this place. But one point I must notice. One who desired to be exqui- sitely discerning has told us, that in the exercise of his intellectual gifts he was impelled by a desire to display a universality of acquirements ; that he de- sired to be theologian, philosopher, poet, critic in art, man of science, and the like ; that all this was the result of conscious aim and studied intention. Now, nothing can be less true. The very reverse is the truth. Nothing was ever more unconscious, natural, inevitable, than the exercise of his great and versatile gifts. His works were exacted of him by his duties, drawn from him by the necessities of his state, or prompted by the simplest kindliness of heart. No man was more spontaneous and uncon- scious than he, in many of those things which have made for him a celebrated name. His works, which, when clustered together, present a wonderful com- bination of the most various and graceful intellectual gifts, were elicited from him almost without his will. His first writings, composed in Rome, were perhaps the most studied works of his life. And we have it from one who was daily at his side, that, while writ- ing his books, he would escape from the English 292 OMNIA PRO CHIIISTO. College before the morning meditation, and go to the Roman College to ask the Fathers whether he ought not, through fear of vanity, to cease from writing altogether. His work on science and revealed reli- gion was written for his students; so also the lec- tures on the Holy Eucharist. The lectures on the Doctrines and Practices of the Catholic Church were preached from this very place as a missionary. His theological controversies were forced from him by the Tracts for the Times. Fabiola, the most beau- tiful creation of his mind, was written at the request of others, to help in providing a series of Catholic popular books. His little dramas were written to amuse children at school; his popular lectures for the kindly and warm-hearted purpose of giving plea- sure to the English people. The last act of his life, by which his failing strength was over-taxed, was to prepare a lecture on a subject dear to this country. "What can be conceived more benevolent, unconscious, and unostentatious than such an exercise of such noble gifts ? He went like the sower, casting the seed as the time required ; hardly knowing how, or when, or why, save only that it was the work of his life to use his powers for the welfare and the happi- ness of others. Thus much I have thought it well to say of his intellectual gifts. But I say no more, OMNIA PRO CHEISTO. 298 because they were the least things about him. There are greater things to say. The true grandeur of his character was the most concealed. It may perhaps surprise many to be told that of all men he was the most reserved. He had the shyness of a child. There was something beautiful to see a man so highly endowed, so highly exalted, the object of the rever- ence of nations, superior by head and shoulders to those who were about him, yet as bashful as a youth. Oftentimes the very reverse was by misinterpretation imputed to him. Now here we approach the real greatness of his nature. It has been said, 'Ille vere magnus est, qui magnam habet charitatem.' And this greatness was his ; for his charity was of an antique kind, such as we read of, but seldom see. There were two classes to whom he chiefly showed it to sinners and to little children. He was in truth, as his Master before him, ' the friend of sinners.' The most fallen and lost in him found a father. It will never be known, until the day when all penitents are saved, how many owe their souls to him. But it may be said that, until he was seen like our divine Lord, hemrned-in by children, it never could be known what tenderness was in his heart. He had an exquisite attraction, a joyful playfulness, 294 OMNIA PRO CHPJSTO. an irresistible power of fascinating children by a flow of childlike mirth. There were also two other kinds of people who drew from him his special compassion the sick, and those who were finding their way towards the true fold. While in the English College in Home, the sick were his portion. By common consent, he seemed to be regarded as the perpetual nurse and mfirniarian. There are many who owe their lives to him. Some there are, to whom, when in the height of his dignity, he gave up his own room, and nursed them in his own bed, and in the end brought them back from the brink of the grave. While Eector of the English College, he used to go to hear confessions in the Hospital of Santo Spirito, and to train his students to the love and care of the sick. I well remember in the year 1888 finding him in the midst of that vast hospital, serv- ing the sick and dying. Lastly, for those who, being disinherited of the faith, were again feeling after it, he had a great and singular tenderness. He had never known what it was to have an incoherent theology or a mutilated faith. Nevertheless he could sympathise with them, watch over them, help them with the tenderest hand, wait for them with unwearying patience, and bestow OilXIA PRO CHEISTO. 295 upon them in full all the graces and blessings of the Church ; as the father restored the prodigal, run- ning to meet him, and giving again all that he had . before, and more than he had ever lost. But there is one more perfection of charity which in him was conspicuous. I never heard any one speak with such forbearance of others, even of those who deserved the severest treatment. I have watched him checking the words which were so obvious that it seemed impossible to repress them ; softening down to the utmost even the little that he was forced to say. Another grace signally marked was his humility. A soul so united in charity with God could not fail to have a profound appreciation and a luminous vision of the Divine Perfections. The singular calm and collectedness with which he acted and spoke, seemed to me to arise from the sense of the presence of God. The thought of the divine sanctity, jus- tice, and perfection was evidently with him at all times. And in the light of these attributes he saw himself not as we saw him, nor invested with the apparels of his pontifical dignity, but as God saw him always, with his heart open in secret. And springing from these was another grace, the generosity of his soul. For affliction and sorrow 296 OMXIA PRO CHBISTO. ho had always a ready sympathy, but seldom tears. Yet by a noble action, or for a high and generous spirit, he was moved at once to tears. He had an instinctive love of good, and a quick discernment of it in others. Perhaps his generosity would some- times make him believe that he saw goodness when it did not exist, and the unworthy had the bene- fit of his nobleness of heart. He had the greatest power in awakening and encouraging what was good in other men, and in setting them to work it out. He would even cast the germ of some good work into the minds of others, and then help them to develop it as if it were their own. He rejoiced in their works, and in all the good they did. One early morning in- 1860, while he was in Borne, hovering between life and death, after the ter- rific suffering he had to undergo, he said : ' I have not slept to-night, but I have been very quiet. I have spent, the time in examining myself, whether I have ever hindered any good being done. I cannot . remember that I have ever hindered any man in doing good.' A rare and noble testimony, which few men in the narrow paths of our life could bear ; much less they who are the centre of so many men and so many minds as he. But I must not run on for ever. I am not at- OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. 297 tempting a delineation of this great character, but only touching a few of its chief features. I will therefore speak only of his endurance. He was long- suffering and placable in a rare degree. The words of our divine Lord, ' seventy times seven,' were the rule of his life. If any had wounded him, he forgave as if he had never suffered. If they wounded him again and again, they would be again and again forgiven. A life so great, and so wide-spread in its contacts with men of every kind and with works so manifold and so important, could not fail of many crosses. It is the law of our Master's kingdom. They who are nearest to Him are nearest also to His Cross. They who do most for Him suffer most in His service. The service and the suffering are commensurate. It began in His own person upon Calvary. It has been perpetuated for 1800 j^ears in the line of His Vicars, suffering and reigning from the See and from the Cross of Peter. The Cathedra Petri rests upon the Janicu- lum. The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster was enveloped in the warfare which surrounds his loved and venerated chief and father, Pius IX. An Epis- copate of five-and-twenty years, almost the annos Petri, gave large room for the sorrows and tears of the apostolic life. The ' lone unmurmuring boy' be- 298 OilNIA PRO CIIRISTO. came the calm, majestic, uncomplaining Prince of the Church. And nothing can he conceived more calm &TL/1 more uncomplaining than the large and loving heart of this true disciple of the kingdom and pa- tience of Jesus Christ. This was most signally manifested in the endur- ance with which he hore for many years a mortal disease, ever advancing, consuming his strength and life. Men little thought what a secret suffering was hid under the pontifical splendour in which he seemed the very type of stateliness and power. A craving and a thirst dried up his spirit. A per- petual consciousness of restless malady made exer- tion painful through the day. Light wakeful sleep, hroken rest, over-active thought, made his nights a weariness. Yet, through all this, for long years, he laboured on under the weight of hourly suffering; only those who were nearest to him knowing what he suffered. But it was in these last five years, which may he called the time of his last purification for a better world, that his great endurance was most luminously manifested. In the year 18GO, during his last- lengthened residence in Rome, he was twice on the point of death : once by a disease which compelled the in- OMNIA PEO CHRISTO. 299 fliction of a terrible surgical operation. I was sit- ting at the door of his chamber, not knowing what was passing within. Two long-drawn breathings were all I heard when the work of the knife was done. The same has been conspicuous through this last season of death. But it is not in place that I should dwell upon these things now. Six weeks ago I left him, restored from the suffering which we thought was transient. "When we parted, he was standing at the threshold of his room in the full height of his stature, as if once more in health. And, with his benediction and embrace, he dismissed me to see him, I may say, no more. What passed in the month which followed, you already know, or in a more fitting way will know hereafter. We had so long watched him, and so long become familiar with his dangers and his recoveries, so often seen his won- derful tenacity of life, that no one was alarmed as soon as a stranger might have been. The end came at last : long looked for, and yet sudden still. He commanded me to return to him with all speed ; and I came in time to receive a gaze of recognition and his blessing, and to bear to him the Benediction of the Vicar of our Lord. What I add is the record of those who had the happiness of tending him by night and day. Through the whole of that season his mind 800 OMXIA PRO CHPJSTO. was calm, peaceful, thoughtful of others, grateful for every service, vividly alive to every intention of kindness in those about him. Once, when very ill and unable to rest in any posture, one who stood by said, ' I fear you suffer much.' He answered, ' I do not suffer at all. It would be very wrong and un- grateful in me to complain, or to call a little dis- comfort suffering. Think of poor people. I have a good bed, and everything possible done for me.' At another time he said, ' I have made it a rule for many years never to call anything pain till it is un- endurable.' Once, when an attendant endeavoured to move him so that he should not lie on the wound which the surgeon had made, he smiled and said : * It is sore enough always, and makes very little dif- ference in the pain.' He was always trying to save trouble to those about him, and always showed plea- sure in everything that was done for him; always saying how kind they were, and how well everything was done, just tasting and then refusing it when nature could endure no more. At one time it was necessary to give both medicines and food after mid- night, -while as yet it was not thought necessary or prudent to give Holy Communion by way of viaticum. This he felt most of all. He would say, ' They little know of what they are depriving me. A little fast- OMNIA PEO CHEISTO. 301 ing would tire me less than this longing.' And at another time, ' 0, how much longer am I to have patience ! how long am I to wait ! They are keep- ing me from my only consolation.' When the last days of unconsciousness began, and he was hardly able to swallow for pain, as soon as he heard the words, ' It is right to do this,' or ' You ought to take this,' he at once obeyed. He had put himself sim- ply under obedience to those about him, as a submis- sion to the will of God. When told that he must undergo another operation, he said, ' Whatsoever you think right, I submit to. If it is right, let it be done.' Believing that if the most dangerous of the operations were not performed, he would not live long, he afterwards playfully said, ' How unkind of them ! I hoped that I should have been in heaven to-night, and they have kept me out of it.' One day he was overheard to say, as he was inwardly dwelling on his own great sufferings, and on the greater suf- ferings of One who was his Master and his Model in patience : ' He showed no mercy to Himself.' When his physicians finally told him that hope was gone, he thanked them with gratitude; and from that mo- ment made his last disposition of all earthly things, and then entered into the sanctuary of God's pre- sence, from which he never again came forth. 302 OMNIA PBO CHFJSTO. To one who was always at his side it seemed as if he were always praying, rapt in the thought of God. Though still among men, the words of the Apostle were emphatically fulfilled in him : he was dead, and his life was hid with Christ in God. He had ceased to speak or to hold fellowship with us ; but a higher life had expanded itself in union with the Father of Spirits ; and about the expression of his face was a peace and a sweetness which seemed as a light shining from within. Great and noble in his life, he was greater and nobler in his death. There was about it a calmness, a recollection, a majesty, an order of perfect fitness and preparation worthy of the chamber of death, and such as became the last hours of a Pastor and Prince of the Church of God. He was a great Christian in all the deepest, largest, simplest meaning of the name ; and a great priest in thought, word, and deed, in the whole career of his life, and in the mould of his whole being. He died the death of the just, making a worthy and proportionate end to a course so great. We have lost a friend, a father, and a pastor, whose memory will be with us while life lasts. As one who knew him well said well of him, ' We are all lowered by his loss.' We have all lost somewhat OMNIA PRO CHRISTO. 803 which was our support, our strength, our guidance, our pattern, and our pride. "We have lost him who, in the face of this great people, worthily presented the greatness and the majesty of the Universal Church. He has fallen asleep in the midst of the generous, kindly, just, nohle- hearted sympathy of the people, of the public men, of the public voices of England ; a great people, strong and bold in its warfare, but humane, chivalrous, and Christian to the antagonists who are worthy to contend with it. He is gone ; but he has left behind him in our memories a long line of historical pictures, traced in the light of other days upon a field which will retain its colours fresh and vivid for ever. Some of you remember him, as the companion of your boyhood, upon the bare hills of Durham ; some, in the early morning of his life, in the sanctuaries of Rome; some see before them now his slender stooping form, on a bright winter's day, walking to the Festival of St. Agnes out of the walls ; some, again, drawn up to the full stature of his manhood, rising above the storm, and contending with calm commanding voice of reason against the momentary unreason of the people of England ; some, again, can see him vested and arrayed as a Prince of the Church, with the twelve suffragans of England closing the long pro- 804 O3INIA PRO CHKISTO. cession which, after the silence of three hundred years, opened the first Provincial Synod of Westminster. Some will picture him in the great hall of a Eornan palace, surrounded by half the Bishops of the world, of every language and of every land, chosen by them as their chief to fashion their -words in declaring to the Sovereign Pontiff their filial obedience to the spiritual and temporal power with which God has invested the "Vicar of His Son. Some will see him feeble in death, but strong in faith, arrayed as a Pontiff, surrounded by the Chapter of his Church, by word and deed verifying the Apostle's testimony, ' I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.' And some will cherish, abot fc all these visions of greatness and of glory, the calm and sweet countenance of their best and fast- est friend and father, lying in the dim light of his chamber not of death, but of transit to his crown. These things are visions ; but they are substance. * Transit gloria mundi,' as the flax burns in fire. But these things shall not pass away. Bear him forth, right reverend fathers and dear bre- thren in Jesus Christ ; bear him forth to the green burial-ground on the outskirts of this busy wilder- ness of men. It was his desire to die and to be buried, not amid the glories of Rome, but in the midst of his OMNIA PRO CHEISTO. 305 flock, the first Archbishop of Westminster. Lay him in the midst of that earth, as a shepherd in the midst of his sheep, near to the holy Cross, the sym- bol of his life, work, and hope ; where the pastors he has ordained will be buried one by one, resting in a circle round about him in death, as they la- boured round about him in life. He will be among us still; his name, his form, his words, his pati- ence, his love of souls, will be our law, our rebuke*, our consolation. And yet not so : it is but the body of this death which you bear forth with tears of loving veneration. He is not here; he will not be there. He is already where the Great Shep- herd of the sheep is numbering His elect, and those who led them to the fold of eternal lifo. And the hands which have so often blessed you, which anointed you for the altar, fed you with the Bread of Life, are already lifted up in prayer, unceasing day or night, for us one by one, for England, for the Church in all the world. X. THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST: At St. Edmund's College, on the Feast of St. Edmund of Canterbury, 1865. THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. You have the unction from the Holy One, and know all things. 1 Si. JOHN ii. 20. THESE words are like those of St. Paul to the Phi- lippians : ' Oinnia possum in eo qui me confortat.' ' I can do all things in Him who strengtheueth me.' 1 That is, Christ is the Fountain of all light and of all strength. He illuminates the soul to know all things relating to God and to His kingdom ; He strengthens the soul to do all things whatsoever that knowledge demands. Within the circle of the divine revelation and of the kingdom of God, all knowledge and power are bestowed by our divine Lord upon His disciples. St. John here says : You have an unction or anointing from the Holy One ; that is, the Holy Ghost Himself, Who dwells in you as your light. St. Paul says, all things are possible through Him who dwells in us as our strength. This Unction, which was first poured upon the PhU. iv. 15. 310 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. divine Head of the Church, has descended upon the whole mystical Body, and upon every member of the same; upon each in his own order and measure upon the Pontiffs with a perpetual divine assistance ; upon the Episcopate diffused throughout the world, sustaining it in the light of truth ; upon the Church in its Councils, preserving it from all error; upon the faithful of every tongue, who cannot err in be- lifeving, because the Church cannot err in teaching. In them the unction of the Spirit of truth becomes the universal illumination, which pervades the whole body with a consciousness of the revelation of God. Therefore St. John here says : ' The unction which you have received from Him, let it abide in you. And you have no need that any one should teach you.' That is to say, you have no need of human teachers, scribe or pharisee, disputer or philosopher ; for you have a Teacher who is divine, and He teaches you of all things, not by fragmentary and partial doctrines, but by the whole revelation of faith. For He ' is truth, and is no lie ;' no intermixture or shade of falsehood can mingle in His illumination or His utterance. The Church, then, is infallible ; and the faithful, so long as they believe its teaching, cannot err. The same Spirit which preserves the Church from error conforms the intelligence and the THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. Sll will of the faithful to its teaching. They know all things, because they receive the whole revelation by faith. In holy Baptism they receive the three graces which unite the soul with God faith, hope, and charity; and with them sanctifying grace, and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. Even in the uncon- scious infant all these are present, just as the power of reason and will are present in the soul. By these they are assimilated and conformed to the mind of the Spirit. So soon as consciousness opens, and the moral and intellectual activity of the soul begins, these graces and gifts begin to conform the soul to the infallible voice of truth. In proportion as we correspond with these lights and motions of grace, we are replenished with a fuller knowledge, and strengthened with a greater power. Even the na- tural powers of reason and will are elevated and un- folded with greater perfection, in proportion as we correspond with this supernatural grace of our bap- tism. A faithful use of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost elevates the soul to a double perfection, both in the order of nature and in the order of grace. Now of this truth we have an evident example in St. Edmund. His intelligence was evidently by nature capacious and penetrating, but much more BO by grace. It was to his supernatural illumination 312 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. that we may trace the subtilty and beauty of his mind, and to the intense spirit of piety which sanc- tified his will that we may trace his illumination. St. Edmund is an example of the power of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost in elevating and perfecting the intelligence of man. Now it is to this point in his life that I would draw your thoughts. You al- ready know his history. It is to you a daily medi- tation a living, domestic tradition. I need not, therefore, describe his life, nor even enter into the de- tail of his character. You already know the purity of his youth ; his filial love to his mother, from whom he derived his first impressions of God and His king- dom ; the piety and sweetness of his character as a pastor ; his inflexible fidelity in resisting the usurpa- tions of the royal power upon the liberties of the Church. All these, I say, are as household words to you. St. Edmund'is your patron and your father, whose life is your example, and whose prayers are your strength. I will therefore take one only point in the beautiful outline of his life ; and that is, the union of piety with his studies. We will contem- plate him as the pattern for Catholic students for the service of the altar. And this I will do for a twofold reason : the one, because this topic is most pertinent to the times in THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 313 which we live ; the other, because it has a pointed application to you. It is most pertinent to this present day ; because in St. Edmund we see the union of all science, sa- cred and secular, as one whole, derived from one fountain, and in perfect harmony and subordination to one supreme truth. This, which is the true basis of Catholic science, and the true method of Catholic study, is especially assailed in this age. All the energy and animosity of men without faith, and some- times even of men with more faith than perspicacity, is in activity to detach the sciences of the world and of society from the revelation of God. All the axes and hammers, the levers and wedges are in full play, to rend off the physical and political sciences from God, the Author of society and of all things. And this leads to the separation of the head and the heart, and sets the highest elements of man's na- ture in schism and opposition against each other, de- secrating the intellect, and darkening the affections. Against this, St. Edmund is a direct and luminous witness. What is this disintegration and dissolu- tion of the unity of truth, and this internal confusion of our nature, but the first assault of the enemy of truth ? ' Omnis spiritus qui solvit Jesum non est ex Deo; every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not 814 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. of God.' And these words are emphatically verified in the spirit of rationalistic criticism, which dissolves the hierarchy of sciences, the unity of the faith, the bonds of the mystical Body, and lastly, the Incarna- tion of God. The other reason for speaking of him as a stu- dent is its direct application to yourselves, whether you be destined for the world or for the altar. A large part of St. Edmund's life as a student was spent in secular studies, and as a layman. As such, he appeals to one class among you. The later and higher part of his academical career was in sacred study, as an ecclesiastic. As such, he appeals to you who are or will one day be priests. Now in the whole of his example there is a per- fect unity. Even as a layman, his habits of piety were such as would befit a student for the priest- hood; and yet they were such as a secular student could habitually practise. I do not, indeed, say that you can copy him to the letter; but all may follow the spirit of his example, and, in the main, even the detail. We read, then, that while he was yet a youth studying at Paris, it was his habit to go for the mid- night office to the church of St. Mery; and when the office was done, to spend the rest of the night before THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 315 the altar of our Lady; then to hear Mass at daybreak; then to go to the schools before he had broken his fast. In the afternoon he returned for Vespers ; then went to visit the poor and sick. He ate once a day ; he studied with an imago of our Immaculate Mother, surrounded by the mysteries of redemption, before him. Layman as he was, he recited daily the Divine Office, with a salutation of the five sacred wounds, and a meditation on the Passion. All this while he was studying the secular sciences, and chiefly mathe- matics. Here, then, is a pattern, far off, indeed, in perfection, to you who are destined for the world. In the midst of this life of piety and study came the event which changed the current of his life. One night, as he was studying mathematics with diagrams before him, he fell into sleep or ecstasy, in which he saw his holy Mother standing over him. She pointed to the figures upon his paper, and said, ' My son, what are these ?' She then traced upon the page three circles, in which Edmund recognised the three divine Persons in the Godhead. From that time he renounced the secular sciences for theo- logy, and with that elevation of aim, he advanced still onward and upward in the practice and spirit of piety. Such was his private life as a student; and it was to this converse with God that he owed SlG THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. the spirituality, intensity, and subtilty of intellect which is visible even in the little which remains to us * of his writing, and is traditionally recorded in his life. ' St. Edmund, then, is a pattern to Catholic stu- dents, and a proof of the intellectual development and elevation which is attained by the practice of piety, and by the sanctification of study by union with God. In his Speculum Ecclesice, St. Edmund draws out the nature and diversity of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, and their office in the perfection of the soul. What he taught he exemplified, and his life is the illustration of his doctrine. It may be truly said, that it is by the use of these seven gifts that the saints and servants of God differ from other men. The three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and sanctifying grace, are universal, and essential to all who are justified. But, though the just all manifest the presence of these graces, they may show very variously, unequally, and often very little, of the operations of these seven gifts. It is especially as they are exercised and unfolded that the soul is elevated to a higher illumination and perfection. Now, these gifts are defined by theo- logians to be spiritual powers, or faculties, by which THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 317 the soul corresponds with grace. They enable the soul to put forth its own powers, and to unite itself with the operations of the Holy Spirit. They have therefore been likened to the sails of a ship, which, when spread, catch the wind; and in proportion as they are unfolded, the soul is borne onwards, power- fully and speedily, by the Spirit of God. They are distinguished into two kinds those which perfect the will, and those which perfect the intellect. The gifts which perfect the will are three holy fear, piety, and fortitude ; those that perfect the intellect are four science and counsel, understanding and wisdom ; and these again are distinguished into two kinds : those which perfect the practical intellect namely science and counsel; and those which per- fect the speculative intellect, or understanding and wisdom. It would be too long to enter into detail. It will be enough to describe these in outline. The will is perfected first by holy fear. ' Initium sapientia3 timor Domini.' ' The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.' The fear of the Lord is the first : wisdom is the last of the seven gifts. Holy fear casts out sin and leads on to piety ; that is, the filial fear, the love of sons to a father, which is even in the blessed. It is piety which corresponds with 'the spirit of 818 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. adoption, -whereby we cry, Abba, Father.' And to this are united fortitude, courage, endurance of pen- ances, of the cross, of shame, suffering, and, if need be, even unto blood striving against sin. These three, then, perfect the will. The two which perfect the practical intellect are science, or the light by which the reason sees God in all things, and all things in God. St. Edmund, in his Mirror of the Church, says that there are four planes or fields in which God is reflected; two within, reason and revelation, or the light of nature in the intelligence, and the illumination of the Holy Ghost elevating the intelligence by a supernatural light. Two also without, the creation, and the Church, or, in other words, the world of nature, which is the first creation whereon the traces and outlines of God's being, presence, and image are inscribed in characters of goodness, wisdom, and power; and the second creation, or the mystical Body of the Incarnate Word, in which the image of the invisible God is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. It was this gift of science which enlightened St. Edmund to see God in all these four reflections of His Presence, and to behold all these lights distinct but undivided as one. The gift of counsel is the spirit of equity, dis- cernment, moral intuition of the- higher and more TIIE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 319 perfect laws of obligation, generosity, sanctity, and conformity to the mind of the Spirit. The gift of understanding is that whereby the truths of the natural and of the supernatural order are rightly apprehended, both in their definition and in their principles. Intelligence is described as the power, intus legendi, of reading the inner sense and reason of things, not the face of the world only, but its laws ; not the letter of Scriptures only, but its sense ; not the verbal traditions of theology only, but its unity and harmony, the relation of truth with truth, and the procession of one truth from another. Lastly, the gift of wisdom elevates the light of understanding by a supernatural perception of the sweetness of truth. Sapientia is sapere, to taste and to know by another sense. The Psalmist says, ' Taste and see that the Lord is sweet.' This is wisdom, or a light of the Holy Spirit, whereby divine things are at the same time seen and tasted. Such is the highest state of the soul on earth, the fore- taste of the beatific vision. Now of the first three gifts, all the martyrs, con- fessors, saints, penitents, and servants of God in 'any kind and degree, are examples. Fear, piety, and for- titude are the beginning, the middle, and end of their perfection and perseverance. 320 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. Of the last four we may take special examples from the saints and doctors of the Church. Of the gift of science, St. Gregory the Great and St. Ambrose may be taken as examples. The moral beauty of the first creation, or of the new, of the world, and of the Church, shines through all their pages. Of the gift of counsel, St. Antoninus, the pater consiliorum, and St. Alphonsus, are illustrations. In them the moral theology of the Church rises from commandments to precepts, and from precepts to the -counsels and science of perfection. Of the gift of understanding, St. Anselm and St. Thomas are witnesses. In them the intellectual science of faith and the dogmatic theology of the Church resides with a surpassing and singular order, clearness, fulness, and harmony. Of the gift of wisdom, or the union of truth and sweetness) of light and love, St. Bonaventura and St. Edmund are luminous examples. It is certain that all these exercised all the seven gifts in some measure, but not all equally ; and it was this preeminent exercise of one over the others which gave to each a special and characteristic per- fection. So is it in the life of every true Catholic student. THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 321 From whatsoever cause in nature or in grace, in t'he constitution of his mind, or by the special inspiration of God, some will correspond more fully and adequately with one rather than with another of these seven gifts ; and from this arises the diversity of theologians and doctors in the Church, dogmatic, moral, mystical, and ascetic, evangelists, teachers, and guides in the way of perfection. If, then, the use of these seven gifts be the source of light and wisdom to the soul, the loss of them is the cause of folly, and of intellectual darkness. St. Paul says of the heathens, who, 'when they knew God, did not glorify Him' as God, 'or give thanks,' that ' they became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.' An intel- lectual emptiness and darkness fell judicially upon them. 'Professing themselves to be wise, they be- came fools.' 2 Intellectual pride was punished by intellectual degradation. ' They liked not to retain God in their knowledge.' Their hearts were at en- mity with Him, and their intellect turned away from the light ; because there was neither piety nor holy fear in them, therefore science and counsel, under- standing and wisdom, departed from them. What was true then, is true always. It was true in the 8 Romans i. 21, 22. Y S22 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GEOST. times of twilight, it is true in the noontide of revela- tion. How can we otherwise account for the atroci- ties of the French philosophers in the last century, but by the sensuality which quenched the light of the Spirit of God ? The perception of God in His creatures was extinguished by the spirit of impiety and of mockery. Rousseau and Voltaire are normal examples of the darkness which falls upon intellect, howsoever subtil and cultivated, when it is sensual. The same, too, is to be seen at this day in the anti- catholic philosophy and anti-catholic politics of our time. They are anti-catholic because they are anti- christian. The revolution which is undermining the Continent is essentially infidel, if not atheistic ; and it has penetrated widely into our literature, espe- cially into public opinion. The enmity of the will against the Church and truth of God has generated the most extravagant illusions and falsehoods in minds which are both clear and capable in the things of this world. Another example of this may be taken in two writers of our own times. One is the author of the Positive Philosophy, in which not only God and His operations find no place, but law, cause, effect, and the like are rejected as figments of the brain, or metaphysical supers titions. The sum of philosophy THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 323 is to note facts and phenomena, without any inter- pretation of the reason ; that is, sense is supreme and sole. Whatsoever we can see, taste, weigh, touch, and test by chemistry that is the matter of philosophy; but the reason may not predicate any- thing as to the relations in which facts and pheno- mena stand to each other. Of all causes which are to be eliminated as superstitions, the first cause is the worst of all. Atheism is the normal state of man, and the perfection of science. This may be philo- sophy in the eyes of its disciples. To us it is reason stunted, human nature cut down to a pollard, sense without intelligence : and therefore irrational. Another form of this is in a well-known book on modern civilisation, in which society is described as the necessary sum of necessary agents, without either the free will of man or the moral government of God. Such is the world of the old creation, and the new, in the eyes of those who proceed by their own lights, in opposition to the gifts of the Holy Ghost. To them the Church has no light, no reve- lation, no divine image, the world no reflection of its Maker, the reason no radiance of God ; the world, with all its glory and beauty, has no divine intelli- gence shining through it ; no tracings of the divine hand, no agencies of the divino will. It is beautiful 324 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. but vacant, like the fair countenance of an idiot the most mournful and unintelligent of all the works of God, or, rather, the most humbling and melancholy obscuration of the perfections of our nature, and of the reflections of the divine. Such is the world, with all its aspects of wisdom, goodness, and power, to eyes and intelligences which have forfeited the gifts of science and of wisdom. And farther : as the loss of these seven gifts leads to intellectual darkness, so the obstructing of their activity leads to a proportionate loss of light. To those who are within the full light of faith, it seems inexplicable how men of capable and cultivated minds should fail to perceive its divine certainty. The condition of England at this moment is an ex- ample. The so-called Reformation has so obscured and deadened the consciousness of the presence and operations of the Holy Spirit in the Church and in the soul, and has so extinguished the sense of the supernatural order, that the majority of baptised per- sons seem to be unconscious of their baptismal grace. They have hardly so much as heard of the seven gifts. Except in the Catholic Catechism, and books of devotion, the enumeration and the names of them are hardly to be found. It is not wonderful, there- fore, that few pray for them or correspond with them. THE DISCIPLES OP THE HOLY GHOST. 825 Nay, more than this : the nature of regeneration, of the three theological virtues, even of grace itself, is little realised, and hardly understood. A universal unconsciousness of anything but the powers of nature has spread over England, and a great obscurity has risen between it and the unseen world. The objects of faith are dim, and therefore the definition of them, that is, the doctrines or dogmas which express them, are proportionately inexact and confused. Compare with the intellectual haze and mistiness of even learned Anglican writers, the intensity and reality of St. Edmund's meditations on God and the crea- tion of man ; or the most elaborate writings of the highest and best authors of the last three hundred years, such as Hooker or Jeremy Taylor, with the luminous precision of St. Thomas or of Suarcz. I know of no other way of accounting for the possi- bility of Protestantism, but by supposing that the office of the Holy Ghost had been obscured. The theory which supposes His infallible voice to be sus- pended, is so far rendered imaginable by the obscuri- ties and contradictions of those who teach it. To many it seems impossible to extend the plea of invincible ignorance to men who, with full culti- vation, abundant leisure, possession of all kinds of opportunities, contact with Catholics, Catholic books 826 THE DISCIPLES OF TEE HOLY GHOST, of every period, Fathers, schoolmen, theologians, yet remain in the fragmentary belief of Anglicanism. It seems impossible that they should read antiquity and the Councils, especially the Council of Trent, and that they should continue to deny the authority of the Catholic Church, and claim to interpret its doctrines in opposition to its world-wide voice. And yet it is easy to see, that if the gifts of the Holy Ghost be ob- structed, the light of the soul is clouded, and men may see grotesque and unreal forms in everything around them ; as travellers, when the sun is down, see all things in distortion, without distance and without truth. Erom this comes all manner of material heresy, not formal indeed, we may trust, in a great mul- titude, who are led like sheep, but nevertheless the matter is heretical. This is true not of the unlearned only, but of the most cultivated. Indeed, in them it seems as if the more they study, the farther they be- come involved in the processes of their own private judgment. Every approximation even to the doctrines of the Catholic Church strengthens, because it depends upon, the exercise of private judgment ; so that none are so far off as many that seem to be near. They are near only in the accident of particular opinions ; but afar off by the whole principle, procedure, and spirit of their minds. The gifts of holy fear and of THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 327 piety would make them docile, and afraid to go alone; the gifts of science and of intellect would have shown them the unity, harmony, and coherence of truth. It would become its own evidence ; for clearness and precision are qualities of truth, and proofs of its divine certainty. God has made submission to His Church a con- dition of knowing His truth; and without corre- spondence with the gifts of the Holy Ghost there will be no submission. The most extensive and multifarious study of Scripture, Fathers, Councils, theologians, without the living guidance of the Church and the oral traditions of its theology, will not make a disciple of Jesus Christ. We must be critics or disciples; both we cannot be; and before we can be disciples, we must cease to play the critic. The critical spirit is the antagonist of the seven gifts in all their array, from holy fear to wisdom. And this leads me back to the truth with which I began. It is the faithful use of these gifts of the Holy Spirit which makes men to be the true disciples of Jesus. By disciple is to be understood not a learner only, but a learner who is subject to disci- pline. Jesus made His Apostles to be disciples before He sent them forth as doctors. They sur- 828 THE DISCIPLES OF THE KOLY GHOST. rendered their whole will and their whole intelligence to Him, to he trained and illuminated hy His teach- ing and His grace. What He did for them, the Church does for us. Doctores fidelium, Ecclesia discipuli. The doctors of the faithful are the disciples of the Church, because the unction which is upon it teaches them of all things. They first learn to correspond with its divine voice ; and by the seven gifts of the Spirit they are inwardly conformed, both in will and in intelligence, to 'the mind which was in Chiist Jesus.' They learn to believe as the Church be- lieves, and to teach as the Church teaches. They are in perfect harmony with the living instincts of the Church, with the mind of its Councils, and the voice of its Pontiffs. Now this habit of mind, which I will call the Catholic spirit, has five signs or rules, which will be found in a true Catholic student. 1. The first sign is a loving submission to the Church; not a bare submission, which may be ex- acted by a cold intellectual necessity, or by a servile fear of judgment, but a loving submission, a joyful and thankful obedience to the Church as a divine guide ; and a generous and unreserved conformity of our whole nature and mind, intellectual and spiritual, to its guidance and direction. This is impossible to THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 329 those who look upon the Church as a human society, the creation of legislatures, the ward of royal su- premacies. But to all who know it to be the Body of Christ, inhabited by the Holy Ghost, illuminated and guided by His light and voice, the Church is an object of faith and love, the tabernacle of God among men, the nearest approach to the beatific vision and union of the soul with God. Such minds will not be content with a bare submission of outward obedience, or of silence, but will render an inward assent and affiance of the heart. They will obey not only the dogma of faith delivered by Councils, but the whole spirit and mind which pervades the discipline, wor- ship, and devotions of the Church. They will feel that to submit by constraint is no submission of the will ; to submit coldly is not the submission of dis- ciples or of sons. It would be the submission of fear or of reason not of love ; but the submission of love includes both, and springs from the gift of wisdom, which not only sees but tastes the truth. 2. A second sign is devotion to the Saints. Next to the infallible voice of the Church, there is no guidance so certain as the doctrine of the Saints. Theologians boldly say, that what the Saints unite in teaching is undoubtedly true. * The consent of tho Saints is the sense of the Holy Spirit.' Whatso- 330 THE DISCIPLES 0? THE HOLY GHOST. ever they unanimously teach must be either from the infallible guidance of the Church, or from the illu- mination of the Holy Ghost, or from the operation of His seven gifts, which in perfecting their reason and their -will upon the same forms and laws of truth conform them to each other. There are about holy minds lights and instincts which transcend our ordin- ary level. They see, even in this world, truths which are beyond our reach. How much more the Saints, in whom the spirit of sanctity abides in the largest measure. St. Philip used to counsel his penitents, in choosing books, to take those whose authors had S. before their names. In them we may find not only the dogma of faith, but instincts, discernments, intuitions in matters both near to the faith and re- mote from it, which are most salutary for our guidance. The gift of piety will conform us to the mind of the Saints, because it is the mind of the Spirit. 3. A. third sign is deference to theologians. Upon the lowest ground it may be affirmed, that when the theologians of the Church agree, no individual with- out temerity can oppose them. As a mere intel- lectual tradition, the consentient judgment of the learned must prevail over the opinion of any indivi- dual. There must be a strange self-sufficiency and vain-glory in any one who revises and corrects their THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY CHOST. 831 discernment. And this upon the mere basis of in- tellectual culture and acuteness. But there is a farther reason still. The theolo- gians of the Church, if not all canonised Saints, though many are this also, at least have used their natural gifts and powers with great diligence and fidelity, and with a more than ordinary correspondence with the Holy Spirit. They are, as a hody, an emi- nent example of the gifts of knowledge and counsel, wisdom and understanding ; and their works of spe- culative and practical theology, of dogmatic, moral, and mystical science, are the direct fruit of those four gifts. They have a claim, then, to our deference, not only on the ground of intellectual superiority, confirmed by an unanimity in some things and a wide consent in others, but also as doctors of the faithful, in whom a higher intellectual cultivation was elevated by a larger illumination. Their judg- ments and decisions cannot indeed make matter of faith, but they certainly make matter of moral cer- tainty. No one who sets himself against their united voice can be cleared of self-sufficiency and of rash- ness. The gift of counsel would restrain a Catholic student from contradicting the theologians of the Church. 4. A fourth sign of docility is a fear and suspi- CC2 THE DISCIPLES OF TH3 EOLY G2G2T. cioa of novelty. Tertulikn says, ' From the order itself it is manifest that what is first in tradition is from the Lord and true : what is afterwards brought in is foreign and false/ 3 The identity and immutability of truth is the basis of the advancing maturity of con- ception and of expression which pervades the doctrines of faith and the science of theology. But in all this there is nothing new. The same old truths are denned with new precision. The terminology may be new, the truth is as old as the revelation of faith. The Church presents to the faithful non nova sed novv not new doctrines but new exactness of definition. "Whereso- ever, then, new doctrines are introduced, as by Luther and Jansenius ; or new interpretations of Scripture, as by Calvin or Erasmus ; or new principles in philo- sophy, as by Descartes and many moderns, a Catholic "int will beware. He will know that the smallest curve may, if produced, lead to a wide deflection ; that a single philosophical error will import a series of errors into the doctrine of faith ; that one false in. the science of God is like one erroneous in a long' calculation \ and that new propwi- ticna,. though, they be attractive by their completeness or plausibility,, may carry disorder through whole tre- atises of theology. He will take his stand upon, the 1 De Prasscrijjt. cento, Hsret. c. xrd. 1 1" :! I I r . 1 _ l._ J . j 7 llil I. I IT .' E J S 7 . v ;.:;.; - ill L.: 1 ; :-;-::-. I :: depart from them for any novelties, howsoever al- hiring. This caution is all the more needful far da js ia which we hear, not from Protestants only, but eTen firom some Catholics, that the scholastic -_ "~:1. ;:: "_;- :.-_.! :"_. 1: j; . .:- ..:.:: _:;..:. .1. --_i: ;'. : :_. - dam thought, aadmaat t> JMglaoed by new methndis and a netr niUnumi of historj awl of aaUquiU, in older to kv the basis of science a 5. The fifth and last sign I wifl mention is mis- trast of self. A Catholic student wffl be confident wheresoQwr the Church has spofcpn, or the consent of Saints or of theologians goes before him; but tarn be it left to himself be will hare a wholesome utihlrw'-^f Ifa fl^n 'yTPfi'ff ? Mttpu*sfirf,ctde*Kis pntdfHtfr d*bttart to know some things, and to donbt pradentfy about the rest, is the spirit of docil- ity, And assuredly no man who knows himself will confide in Ms own light. We hare only to remember how often we bare been wrong; bow often, with all the means of knowledge about us, we have bear igno- rant or unable to see the truth ; bow oar most con- fident opinions at one time bare turned oat to be niiililj mmitmi at another ; bow fittfo wo bme oir lead, bow mndt less we haTe stedied, bow maeb less 834 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. again we have mastered ; how fragmentary and inco- herent is our best knowledge of many things ; how vast and complex is truth, hoth in the natural and supernatural order ; how un-illunainated we are, com- pared with the Saints ; how ignorant, compared with the doctors of the Church ; how narrow and darkened our individual mind is, compared with the mind of the Spirit, that is, of the Church, which for these eighteen hundred years has ' reached mightily from end to end, sweetly disposing all things.' It is im- possible for any man to realise these things without becoming less and less in his own eyes, and learning a thorough mistrust of his own powers and know- ledge. Strange inversion of truth and of the moral instincts ! Confidence in our own light is a virtue out of the Catholic unity, but a vice within it. It is the maximum of certainty to those who have no divine and infallible teacher ; it is the minimum to those who are guided by the Church of God. As the Greeks said : ' If we cannot sail, we must row ;' if we have no divine guidance by the Spirit which breathes through the Church, we must painfully toil onward by the stretch and reliance of our own strength. These, then, are the signs of the true disciples of the Holy Spirit : loving submission to the Church ; devotion to the Saints ; deference to theologians ; fear THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 335 and suspicion of novelty; mistrust of self. Such men are led by the Spirit of God, and are His sons indeed. ' As many as are led by the Spirit of God, , they are the sons of God ;' and it is by His seven gifts that He leads those who correspond with His operations onwards and upwards to perfection. This, then, is the operation of the gifts of the Holy Ghost upon the intellect and' the will. But that this operation be effectual, it is necessary that both the intellect and the will correspond to it. And for this, certain acts and habits of the soul are re- quired. The first of them is a humble and sincere cleansing of the conscience by good confession. ' The light of the body is the eye; if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome.' That is, the light of the soul is the conscience. If the conscience be pure, the whole soul shall be full of light. * The clean in heart shall see God.' A heart darkened by any impurity hides the vision of God from itself. Next is mental prayer, or the realisation of the objects of faith by the intellectual vision. This vi- sible world is so loud and intrusive, that the world unseen is visionary and powerless over men. The objects of faith need to be realised before they can be appreciated, and appreciated before their active in- fluence upon us can have a constraining power. The 836 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLT GHOST. world unseen, by habitual meditation passes into our consciousness. We live and act upon the motives of the invisible world, as the men of this world live and act upon its earthly maxims. God and His hea- venly court, the communion of Saints, the state of the departed, become certain, and if I may use the word, become sensible, to faith. A third means whereby the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the heart are unfolded into activity is the study of holy Scripture. Forasmuch as the books of Holy Writ have God for their author, there is an affinity between His gifts in the soul and His inspirations in the written word. The Scripture is the fruit and the record of those seven gifts, in their amplest and profoundest manifestation. The Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists, Martyrs, and Saints of the Old and New Laws afford luminous examples of every one of these endowments of the Spirit of God, both in the intel- lect and the will, and that in the most perfect degree and maturity. The holy Scripture, therefore, speaks with a divine voice to the soul. Every part of it is the word of God ; and every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God elicits a response from a soul in which the same Spirit dwells. The living oracle of the Church and the silent utterances of Scripture are alike the voice of God ; all else is subordinate. THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GKOST. 337 Therefore it is that the Saints have exhibited such a profound love and veneration for the written word. St. Edmund was wont to kiss the pages of the book when he opened it and when he closed it. St. Charles used to read holy Scripture with bare head and on his knees. They recognised in it the presence and the voice of the Spirit of God ; by it they conversed with Him, and by converse with Him they were ele- vated to a singular degree of interior conformity to the mind of the Spirit. To you all, as Christians and as Catholics, especially in this land and in these days, a true and exact knowledge of Scripture is of great moment ; and if to all, how much more to those of you who are to be the teachers of others, the preachers of salvation, the interpreters of the faith, the wit- nesses of the revelation of God. To you, who first receive the full illumination of the Catholic Church, and grow up in the faith as the root of your spiritual consciousness, the page of Scripture is open and full of light. You read it, not by the broken lights of private judgment, or the wavering lights of the private spirit, but in the full and steadfast illumination of the day of Pentecost, in the midst of which it was written. Study, therefore, the text of the sacred books with the closest application of all your natural intelligence, and a faithful correspondence with the z 833 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. supernatural gifts of the Spirit of Truth, whoce dis- ciples you are. He is your theologian and your guide in the science of God. Read the sacred text as the records of His teaching, the brief bu,t har- monious outlines of the world-wide enunciation of the faith. To you, all is unity, symmetry, and order; as light, which, streaming from a single point, diffuses itself in an equable and perfect radiance. The fourth and last means of which I will speak is habitual prayer for light, to the Holy Spirit of truth. Be devout to the third Person of the Holy Trinity. To know Him, His presence, personality, and power, His twofold office in the Church and in our own soul, is the condition of the perfect illumina- tion of the intellect. Without this, the intellect may be cultivated, but it will be cold and dim. The errors, low views, fragmentary opinions, distorted judgments, partial statements, ill-sounding proposi- tions, shallow appreciations, of men endowed with great natural gifts, are to be traced to an inade- quate realisation of the office of the Holy Spirit, and of His relation to their intellect and their will. Their theology is like themselves. A student who is united by the gift of piety to the light of the Holy Spirit will be implicitly a theo- logian. The degree of his explicit knowledge will THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 339 still depend on natural gifts, and their due cul- tivation ; and yet there is an infused theology in docile hearts which is seldom at fault, and often transcends the cultivation of the intellectual. Be- fore and after your studies, ask light from your divine Teacher. Then, with the page before you, preserve a consciousness of your dependence upon Him. St. Edmund was one day waiting in the schools at Paris for the coming of his .scholars. He was about to expound to them the mystery of the Holy Trinity. While they tarried, he fell into a slumber or a rapture ; and he saw a Dove descending to- wards him. It bore in its beak the sacred Host, and laid it on his lips. When he returned to him- self, he began his lecture, and all who heard him won- dered at the words of sweetness and of light which proceeded out of his mouth. It was this which gave to all he spoke its energy and power. The few brief writings which remain to us are full of the unction and the fire of the Spirit of God. We can understand, from the few words which remain to us, how the hearts of men thrilled as they heard him. What more simple, yet what more intense, than such words as these : ' If you are saved, every hair of your head shall be glorified ;' or again, ' If 840 THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. the whole world were full of fine dust, the atoms would be beyond number; and yet your soul is a thousand times more capacious than the world, and is filled with the mercies of God beyond the num- ber of all created things.' He spoke out of the consciousness of his own soul, which had lived from childhood in intimate communion with God. It was the reality of this spiritual experience which gave him power over the hearts of men. He spoke what he knew by an interior sense deeper than the intellect, more refined than all learned cultiva- tion. Such must be your preparation for the work of your life. You are called to be pastors of the flock, and you must go before the sheep committed to you, in all things; in the science of God and of the Saints, in the unction of grace and truth, in sanctity of life, in wisdom and the power of the Spirit. You are set to be fishers of men, and you must take them by the net in the sea, and by the hook let down in silence, in patient toil, and the science of charity. You are sent forth as reapers into the harvest - field, to bear the burden of the day and the heat, and to gather maniples of souls with joy for the eternal garner. To you is made the promise of the prophet : ' They that arc learned' THE DISCIPLES OF THE HOLY GHOST. 341 not in the learning of this world, but in the science of God ' shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that instruct many to jus- tice, as stars for all eternity.' 4 4 Dan. xii. 3. XI. OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN : At the Opening of the Church of St. Joseph's College of the Sacred Heart for Foreign Missions, March 19, 1868. MY DSAB FATHER VAUGHAN, 'While I am sending this "book to press, you are on the Atlantic, conducting the first band of Mission- ary Fathers from St. Joseph's College to their work among the Negroes. I therefore cannot refrain from putting into this volume the three following sermons; not for any worth in them, but_ because they were preached at your request, and because they enable me to express what we owe to you for the founding of our first Seminary for missions to the heathen. They will be, I hope, a per- manent appeal to the charity and alms of the Faithful in behalf of your great work; and perhaps some one who reads them may help to finish your church, or may found a burse for the education of a missionary. May God pro- sper you, and bring you home in safety. Believe me always Yours very affectionately in Christ, * HENRY EDWAED, Archbishop of Westminster. November 23, 1871. OUK DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. The charity of Christ presseth us. 2 Cor., v. 14 ' THE charity of Christ urgeth us ;' that is to say, the consciousness of the love of our Lord to us is our motive and our impulse to do His will. For, in their first and proper sense, these words do not signify the love that we bear to Him, but the love that He bears to us.' The personal love of Jesus Christ our Lord is the motive, the impulse, and the source of our love to Him ; it is, therefore, the constraining principle of our actions. For this cause you have consecrated yourselves and this sanctuary and the work of your future life to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is the Fountain of all Missions : of all pastoral and Apos- tolic zeal. The Sacred Heart is the true Seminary of all who evangelise the world. The chief thought, then, in our minds to-day is the love of our divine Redeemer for us ; and our first question will be : Lord, what wouldst Thou have me do ? 346 OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. The spring of our service and of our sanctification through Jesus Christ may be expressed in these few words : the personal love of our Divine Master to us, and our personal relation to Him. They who are conscious of, and governed hy, these two great mys- teries of Divine love are new creatures ; old things are passed away, all things have become new. The charity of God was poured in Baptism into our hearts by the Holy Ghost; and by the gift of the Holy Ghost we became living members of the mystical Body of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God is therefore the source of all our love, of all our inspirations, of all our actions. As the Apostle says : ' With Christ I am nailed to the Cross : and I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and that I live now in the flesh, I live in the faith of 'the Son of God, Who loved me and delivered Himself for me.' 1 That is, He has made me a living member of His Body, and He is my Head : from Him descends the light, the guidance, the inspiration, the impulse, the strength, which governs me. He lives in me. As my body lives by the soul that quickens it, so my soul lives by Christ. Now, this is the one true motive which brings us here. We are met together for a special solemnity, and for a work which is very near to our hearts. I > Gal. ii. 19, 20. OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. 347 will not say that we meet to-day for the foundation of this missionary college, because already two years are past since it began ; but to-day is its more solemn and more public opening. Let us think a moment for what purpose we are here. We .are a mere hand- ful, in this rude chapel of wood, which, because rude, is more fitting for those who are set apart for the work of foreign missions, for the raising of altars in forests and on mountain-sides, where the lonely log- hut is the noblest structure men can build for the worship of the Word made Flesh. Our motive is the love of Christ, urging us on, and urging us whither ? Out of ourselves, first, to care for the souls of others ; next, out of our own land, to care for those that are far off; out of Christendom itself, to seek those for whom He shed His blood among the heathen nations of the world. It is a portion of that impulse from heaven, by which the Church of God has been carried onward and outward, always expanding, from the day of Pentecost. If we love Him, we shall desire the con- version of all mankind. We are bound as Chris- tians, not only to pray for the conversion of the hea- then, but, according as we may, to labour for it. You in your homes, in the narrow range of your daily life, and we, not only in our country, but, if He so wills, in distant lands. We are all bound to labour toge- 348 OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. tlier, for so did the faithful with the Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus Christ: and so may^you unite with us. To this we are bound by many obligations. First, it is the eternal will of God that every creature He has made shall participate in the bliss and knowledge of His saving and eternal love. To that end, He de- sires that the knowledge of Himself, of His Incarnate Son, the Eedeemer of the world, of His precious Blood, of the Seven Sacraments of grace, of all the mysteries of Christianity, shall be spread abroad, so that the Gospel maybe known to all mankind. This, then, is His eternal will. But again ; we, as Christians, and partakers of His precious Blood, are nurtured and sustained by it day by day in the Sacrifice of the Altar. If we have partaken of the Body and Blood of Christ, the Sacred Heart dwells in our hearts ; and if so, He has in- scribed on our minds the precepts of charity, which are more deeply imprinted there than by the written letters of His command. He has said : ' Freely you have received, freely give.' A Christian with a closed heart and a narrow hand is faithless to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And again He has said : ' Give, and it shall be given to you.' As it hath been given, so give, and it shall be given to you OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. 349 again full measure, pressed down, running over. This is the law of the Sacred Heart, written on our own. But He has also laid on us an explicit command. He has said : ' Go into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.' * All power is given to Me ; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations.' 'You shall be witnesses unto Me . . . even to the utter- most part of the earth.' A command is here laid on us ; a necessity to teach all nations. It is the love of our Lord, then, which constrains us to the work of foreign missions. Upon us, as Catholics who have inherited the only faith, is laid the necessity of spreading His saving Name. To stimulate our zeal, and to put us to shame, those who have only a broken Christianity are labouring, giving alms, and denying themselves, for the purpose of spread- ing the truths they know throughout the world. To us above all this duty is imperative ; to us, as Catholic Christians, who have inherited the perfect faith, and the only Name whereby men may be saved, who know the one only Baptism for the remission of sins, the one only fold, under the one only Shepherd the narrow and only gate, the only path, besides which no other is revealed, to the eternal kingdom. Woe to us, if wo preach not the Gospel. Is it possible 850 OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. that we can rest, if we have not at least prayed for the conversion of those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death ? It has been well said, that the man who does not daily pray for the conver- sion of Israel can have little desire for the glory of the Church. The light of the heavenly kingdom has fallen upon us, while darkness is spread over His ancient people ; but there is a day coming when the light will fall again on them, and we who are in the light are bound to pray, to strive, to labour that we may hasten its coming. How can a man have the love of our Lord and of the salvation of souls, who does not pray every day that the light of salvation may be spread throughout the world among the na- tions now in darkness ? If this be true of all men, we more than all others are bound to pray and to labour for the heathen. Every motive of faith, of charity, of gratitude, binds us to this work. There is also another motive which I may add, though I admit that it is inferior altogether to those already spoken of. It chiefly appeals to us, if I may so say, as a reproof and a reproach to us. I know that the greatest missionaries of the world have been those who have partaken least in worldly power : and yet to possess worldly power, to reign over the earth, and to overshadow the nations of mankind, is OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. 851 a providential call, as it is a providential means to spread the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Though we are one people, we are of a race mingled with the blood of many nations ; we belong to a vast empire ; to an empire which has succeeded to a sway and a do- minion like that of Imperial Eome in other days. On us, therefore, lies the duty which God in His provi- dence lays upon those who have such power in trust : and although nations and empires cannot stand at the bar of Judgment, we, one by one, who share this power, have responsibilities, and we shall have to an- swer for them. God gives reward and punishment to empires in this life ; in the next, they have no personality and no retribution. Nevertheless, those who belong to them, and therefore partake of their gifts, will have a great account to give. England, great in empire, unhappy in its heresies and schisms, knows not the time of its visitation. It has spread abroad the poisons of a corrupt civilisation. Its heresies and schisms -have been carried, not only into our own colonies, but into other lands. The result has been, ruin and extermination to those whom we ought to have converted to the Kingdom of God. The evils of a corrupt civilisation have spread, and are still spreading, like a deadly pestilence. The Catho- lic Church, in these kingdoms beat down, martyred, 352 OUK DUTY TO 1HE HEATHEN. and reduced to a remnant, had in past days littla power to send missions to heathen lands. But God's ways are wonderful. In Borne of old, for three hun- dred years, the Church suffered persecution. Had it been possible for the power of man to extinguish the Church of God, it would have been extinguished. For three hundred years it was persecuted, for three hundred years it became vigorous and strong: and after those three hundred years were passed, when, wearied with slaying, emperors ceased to persecute, Christianity on the great imperial roads traversed far and wide ; took possession of the lines which Rome had prepared ; and the Church of God expanded its organisation through the world. So is it with us. Three hundred years of penal laws and persecution have swept over England, Scotland, and Ireland. If it had been possible to extinguish the Church of God, it would have been extinguished long ago : but its imperishable life has strengthened, expanded, and is more vigorous and mightier than ever. After three hundred years of persecution, the persecutor is weary. He will do nothing for the Church of God ; but he must set it free he must give it liberty : the limbs have grown too strong for bonds, and throughout the British empire the Catholic Church has spread it- self. There are more Bishops united to the Holy See OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. 853 j' tlie shadow of the British empire than are to be found united to the civil supremacy of any other crown. The Catholic Church has used it as the ma- terial preparation for its expansion, has taken pos- session of its world-wide unity, has worked under the shelter of its civil laws, making ready for a future of which we see only the beginning. But this Seminary is not for missions in the colonies. Its work is not to be confined to the limits of our possessions, nor of our empire. Its express intention is to go to those heathen lands for which England has no provision. France, in the seventeenth century, founded a humble society for foreign missions. It was the work of a few secular priests. It has at this time I know not how many missionaries how many mar- tyrs. Among the youth of France there is a fervent and devoted vocation for this work. Many are al- ways gathered together in that lowly house in Paris, awaiting their call to fill some martyr's place. If you would see the true glory of France, go to that semi- nary. Go into the room in which are laid up the relics of those martyrs. Around the walls are the vestments, the stoles, the office -books, the manu- scripts, the little personal memorials which record the name, the history, the characters of those who AA 354 OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. have laid down their lives for Jesus Christ. With these are to be seen the instruments of torture, the very weapons by which their lives were taken. All these are cherished as sacred admonitions. In that hall I have seen the young candidates for martyrdom pre- paring for their missionary work ; it may be for their crown; kneeling before these relics, commending themselves to the prayers of those whose memories are there in veneration. There is among them a beautiful and touching ceremony, whenever one of their comrades is to go forth to other lands. The missionary who is about to depart, after the holy Mass is celebrated, stands upon the step of the altar ; while the choir sings the words of the prophet Isaias : ' How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who preach the glad tidings of peace,' his com- panions, one by one, kneel and kiss his feet. Such is their farewell. The missionary goes forth, per- haps to be seen no more ; and when in after years the tidings of his martyrdom come home, there is a contest, a rivalry of charity, which of them shall have the grace and the glory to fill his place. Such a work was begun by a humble priest in France ; why may not we in England do the same ? Ireland has already done likewise. The Holy Sacri- fice to-day will be offered by one who has long been a OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. 355 member, and for some time was the head, of the first missionary college in Ireland. Out of its walls have come forth true apostles and evangelists, now labouring in foreign lands. About twenty or thirty years ago, there was a humble priest, born not far from Tara, in the very land where St. Patrick began his mission. This humble youth became first a stu- dent, then a member of a college, with hardly any prospect before him ; at last he became a priest. He then thought to offer himself as a son of St. Vin- cent of Paul : but God's Holy Spirit, Who guided him, gave him to know that he had another work, and that his work was the foundation of the College of All Hallows. In that college the work began ; it opened with one student. After three years, the founder died, at the early age of thirty - six ; but he lived to see sixty students gathered under its roof. The work was founded, and since then it has sent out no fewer than three hundred priests. Fifty Bishops are in communication with All Hallows, from all parts of the world, and their dioceses are continually helped by that seminary. And we also are not idle. Two years ago, the priest to whom my predecessor committed the foun- dation of this work, with one student and five or six of the Oblates of St. Charles, were gathered to- 356 OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. gether in this house. After two years \ve meet again. This Seminary has not indeed sixty students, but the number is growing and giving promise, and some are already in holy orders. This is the be- ginning of a work, which, as in Ireland and in Paris, depends upon God and upon your fidelity. I feel that upon me rests, I will not say the responsi- bility of assisting in it, but the happiness and the grace of having had to share in its commencement. One of my first acts of public duty was, to accept in full this work of Foreign Missions, bequeathed by my predecessor to my trust ; and, while I have life, I hope to promote it to the utmost of my strength. And now what can we do for its promotion ? As yet, it has had no expansion among us ; but it is my intention to invite the faithful who shall be in the diocese next Easter to meet together, and to lay the foundation of a society, which, I trust, under God, may spread throughout England, and of which this college may be the centre. "VVe have as yet no society i or association for the propagation of the faith among the heathen. In England, there is not as yet that which France possesses, and even Ireland has formed ; and we are debtors to our divine Lord, to bear our part likewise in this missionary work. Next Easter, then, the feast on which the power, the unity, and the OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. 857 universality of the Church will be in all our hearts, I hope we may lay the foundation of such an expan- sion of this work as shall secure its solidity and its strength for ever. I will now only ask two things from you : first, to give and to gather what alms you can for the in- crease and maintenance of students in this place. Look over the world ; there are some eight or nine hundred millions of souls, of whom not more than one -third at most are Christians. The har- vest, indeed, is plenteous. Would to God I could Bay, the fields are white for the reaping. They are not white : they are blackened and blighted. Out of this world -wide field of human misery and sin there go streaming multitudes of eternal souls, hour by hour souls that can never die, created in the image and likeness of God, redeemed in the precious Blood of the Son of God Incarnate, who never yet have heard His saving Name. Is it possible that we can refuse, or even be insensible to, such a claim as this ? Give of your alms to multiply the number of these few labourers. This little handful of stu- dents will go and join themselves to the bands of missionaries who from other lands are going forth to labour among the perishing heathen. The other thing I have to ask of you is easier to 858 OUR DUTY TO THE HEATHEN. give than alms, but more powerful with God. Say every day at least one Hail Mary, in honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Ask in faith, that through the prayers of our Immaculate Mother to the Sacred Heart of our dear Lord, this little work may, like a seed which is imperishable, be for ever and abund- antly multiplied ; that the grace of the Holy Ghost may come down upon it ; and that what we begin to- day in our weakness may be prospered by the powei of God. XII. MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OP LOVE: At the Church of the Immaculate Conception, July 16, 1871. MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. He said to him the third time : Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me ? Peter was grieved because He had said to him the third time : Lovest thou Me? And he said to Him : Lord, Thou know- est all things ; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He said to him : Feed My sheep. ST. JOHN xxi. 17. THESE are words of divine power, which have moved the world. They are also words of divine pity, which reveal the Sacred Heart of Jesus in all the tender- ness of the Good Shepherd, and in all the compas- sion of the Absolver of Penitents. Three times He asked of Peter : ' Lovest thou Me ?' for three times Peter had denied him. So tenderly and so sweetly, without an explicit word, He brought to remembrance his threefold sin of infidelity to his Divine Master. Peter, well taught by the experience of his own in- firmity, answering, said : ' Lord, Thou knowest all things ; Thou knowest that I love Thee.' He no longer made professions, he no longer spoke out of the blindness of his own self -trust; he appealed only to the Saci'ed Heart to confirm the truth of his 862 MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. words, that, faithless as he had heen, he loved his Master still. Then three times the charge was given, by which the test of love was established for ever. Let no man say he loves Jesus who has not the love of souls. Let no man think he loves the Good Shep- herd who does not love His flock. The test of our love is this : ' Feed My sheep. Feed My lambs.' I have said that these are words of Divine power, which have moved the world. They have revealed to mankind the watchful care of the Good Shepherd. They have taught us what is the law of love which binds the Shepherd to the sheep; they committed to Peter the charge of the whole flock on earth. They created the pastoral office. They imposed on every pastor the duty of laying down his life, if need be, for the sheep for which Jesus shed His most precious Blood. This commission is perpetual, yet gathered up in the hands of one the Vicar of the Good Shepherd from whom the distribution of that pas- toral jurisdiction goes forth for all time and in all places. These words, spoken in the twilight of that morning, and by the sea of Tiberias in the stillness of the solitary shore, are full of living power to this day. When our divine Lord gave to His Church the pastoral commission to make disciples of all nations, He gave to it also the love of His own MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. 363 Sacred Heart. He had said, ' I am coine to cast firo on the earth.' He cast upon His Apostles on the day of Pentecost the fire of the Holy Ghost, the fire of charity, the fire of the love of God, the live coals from the altar, the burning embers from the golden censer of the Divine Heart of the Good Shepherd. They went forth into the world to set on fire the nations of the earth with the love of God, and the love of all mankind. From that hour this sacred flame has never been extinguished. It has burned day and night in the tabernacle upon the altar, and in all hearts in whom Jesus dwells. Apostles and Evangelists, Bishops and Pastors, Missionaries and Priests of the Church of God, from that hour to this, in so far as they have been conformed to their Divine Master, have thirsted for the salvation of mankind. What, then, are the motives of this love of souls? The love of Jesus our Lord'; His own com- mandment, because it is His will ; His own example, because it is our law. Unless we love our neigh- bour as ourselves, we cannot have the love of God in us. St. John has said : ' We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the bre- thren. Ho that loveth not, abideth in death.' 1 > 1 St. John iii. 14. OG'l MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. Therefore, if the love of God be in us, the love of souls will be in us too. I speak the truth, and your consciences bear witness to me, that the love of souls, as a sensible emotion, is not often found in us. Bat the same may be said of the love of God. The sensible love of God is not to be found in- any high degree in many who love God well. We are bound to love God above all things, it is true ; but the lovo whereby we must so love Him is the love of ap- preciation, the love which measures the greatness of God according to His dignity. So also I may say of the love of souls. It is not the sensible or emo- tional love which we feel to a friend or a kinsman. It is rather a sense of duty, which makes us willing to suffer anything for their sakes. It is the effective love which will move us to do acts of charity to persons who may be remote, or even repulsive to us. For the love of souls also is a love of appreciation. We must appreciate what a soul is. And in these days, when society is breathing the cold atmosphere of un- belief, and the literature that men read, and the philo- sophy that they hear, disputes the very existence of the soul, and even of God Himself, we are bound all the more to watch and to pray that the fire of the Sa- cred Heart may be kept alive in us. We are bound, ono by one, by prayer and self-denial, to kindle, and MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. 8G5 to keep alive, the grace of love which we have re- ceived in baptism ; when ' the charity of God was poured forth into our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us.' 2 How, then, shall we rightly appreciate a soul? Measure it as the Word of God has revealed it. 1. A soul is the most perfect, the most precious wor^ of God. It is the nature which is next to His own ; it is nearest to His own glory ; ib reflects most perfectly His own beauty. There is nothing more beautiful than a soul, except God alone. Our Lord has said, that ' the just shall shine as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father.' 3 The beauty of the sun in its strength our Lord takes for an example of the beauty of the soul. The soul is the most perfect work of God, reflecting His own attributes with the greatest clearness ; reflecting His own intelligence and Hie own will : that is, He has communicated to us the power of knowing and of originating our own actions, in like manner as He does Himself. Where, then, is there to be found a work of God which for beauty, perfection, or dignity, compares with a human soul ? The little children in the street, who meet us bareheaded, barefooted, on the pathway, are every one of them created in the Image of God. * Rom. v. 5. * St. Matt. Tiii. 43. 366 MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. The holy Angels see that beauty and that dignity, though we pass them by. 2. Again : if we wish to measure the true value of a soul, let us look stedfastly until we see the red spot of the most Precious Blood upon it. Every seve- ral soul was bought by the Precious Blood of Jesus, which is infinite in price. A ransom was given for it which is infinite in value; and if the ransom be in- finite in worth, what is the worth of a soul, for which it was given ? In the appreciation of God, every soul has upon it the price of the Precious Blood of His Incarnate Son. It is the object of an infinite love ; and if a soul be infinitely loved, what must be its value ? And if the sufferings of an Infinite Person were measured, what would be the price before God of a soul for which they were endured ? The soul is dear to a. Will Infinite in benevolence, Which would die again, if need were, for its redemption. 3. And farther; let us bear in mind that every soul has in it an immense capacity for life and bliss. I say immense, because we cannot tell the measure. Infinite it is not, because the soul is finite ; but no man can conceive the measure of the knowledge of God, to which a soul illuminated by faith may reach ; no one can imagine the immensity of the love of God, to which a soul inflamed by the Holy Ghost MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. 367 may ascend; no one can imagine the perfection of will, which by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost may be attained. The souls of the little children that perish in our streets are ennobled with that capacity. They have received the inheritance of the beatific vision, of a bliss and glory which cannot be con- ceived. 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.' 4 4. Once more : if, on the one hand, a soul is in- finite in this capacity for life and bliss, it has also the same capacity for misery and death. A soul created to the image of God, capable of knowing and loving God, if it fall short of the end of its creation, if it be deprived of the vision of God for ever, no human mind can conceive its anguish for all eter- nity. It is not in our hearts to imagine this mystery of eternal pain. A stone cast into the flame suffers nothing. If a dog were cast into eternal fire, it would not have the capacity of exquisite pain which only a soul created to the image of God can know. And yet souls that are about us all day long, the millions that we see thronging this great city, are hanging between life and death. Their eternity is in the balance. One way or the other the scale must 1 Cor. ii. 9. 8G8 MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OP LOVE. incline at last. Therefore another element in the appreciation of the value of souls is this, that all day long, in every moment, souls are perishing throughout the world. We know not ho\v many tens of thousands every day are passing out from this life of sin, from the darkness of this world, into the overwhelming splendours of the Throne, where they shall he judged by their Maker and Redeemer. The condition of the heathen world is too terrible for anything but the pen of an inspired writer. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, has drawn out that picture, and has described the state of a soul without the. knowledge of God. A soul that knows not God grows rank by that very dark- ness. The soul of man without the light of the Di- vine presence becomes morally dead, distorted, and degraded beyond all that we can conceive. And such is now the state of the heathen world ; for out of nine hundred millions of souls, not one half as yet has heard the name of Him by whom alone they can be saved. Such, then, is the love of appreciation, and such are its motives. .And now let me apply what I have said to the subject before us to-day. The duty of every Christian is to labour first for the salvation of his own soul. The rational love of MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. 869 self is taken as the measure of the love of our neigh- bour. When we see the value of a soul in ourselves, \ve shall then learn to value our neighbour's soul also. You remember, when God asked of Cain : ' "Where is thy brother Abel ?' Cain, in whom the love of God was dead, answered : ' Am I my brother's keeper ?' That malicious answer was reversed when the second Adam asked of Peter : ' Lovest thou Me ?' and gave, as the test of love : ' Feed My sheep.' Every Chris- tian, then, is bound to labour according to his power for the salvation of men. Every priest, pastor, mis- sionary, father, mother, master, mistress, neighbour, friend every one who has influence, every one who, by his word and example, by the watchful use of opportunities, by the vigilance with which he can foresee and can avert the danger of others, is bound to labour, each in his place, and according to his power, for his neighbour's salvation. There are indeed various classes who demand this duty of charity of us. And first of all, the multi- tude of children whose education is committed to our charge. If we do not love their souls, we have not the love of God : if we do not love the lambs of the flock 01 ihe Good Shepherd, we have not His love in us : if we can look upon the sins of men without the emotions of charity which impel us to labour for BB 870 MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. their salvation, we have not in us the love of the Sacred Heart : if we have not pity and compassion for penitents, even in their relapses, we have not in us the patience of our Divine Master : if we have not a tender and sensitive love for the poor, so as to prac- tise some self-denial for their temporal and spiritual good; if this does not form part of our actions day by day, then the love of Jesus must be faint in us. And where there is the love of the Sacred Heart, it will go beyond the boundaries of our own country. If we have not in us the love of the heathen, because they are souls, because they bear the Image of God, and are daily perishing ; if this is not a practical mo- tive in us, the love of our neighbour at home will cer- tainly be faint also. The Church of God has been on fire from the beginning with this missionary zeal. The apostolic labours of the Church are a record of the most heroic and saintly actions the world has ever known. This zeal ought to be in every one of us. If we cannot ourselves go on foreign missions, we may send others in our stead ; but missionaries can- not go, unless we prepare the way. Every Christian country is bound by great obli- gations to spread the light of faith. But there are some that are bound more than others. There was a time when Spain had an empire from sunrise to sun- MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. 871 wet ; and Spain was then the great missionary power of the world. It penetrated into South America : it reached into the East. It did its work while the sun of imperial splendour shone upon it. Portugal, in like manner, when a widespread dominion was entrusted to it, laboured as an evangelist in South America, and also in India. The works of Spain and Portugal endure to this day. The empire of Britain has suc- ceeded to a vaster dominion. It is therefore burdened with a responsibility, for which, if empires cannot give an account, nevertheless all who belong to it will have to give a reckoning at the last day. And for what shall we have to reckon in that great account ? We are in contact with every nation upon earth. Our commerce traverses every sea, and reaches every shore; we are mingled with every race; we have learned to speak the language of every people ; we have made our home on the shores of almost every nation of the world ; we are mingled with the human race more widely than any empire that ever was, not excepting even old Rome itself. These are our opportunities, the open doors for the entrance of the truth, for which we must give account. But there is a dark side in this reckoning. What has the empire of Britain done for the faith of Jesus Christ ? If we were swept away to-morrow, what 872 MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN* A TEST OF LOVE. record would there be upon the world of the Chris- tianity of Britain ? Our people have carried their religious doubts and errors and conflicts to those unhappy races who are still without the knowledge of God. The poor Hindoo has been known to say : * I should like your Christianity very well, if I could only know what form of it to believe ; if only I could tell who among you is right ; if you would only agree among yourselves.' Again, the contact of our people with foreign races has introduced all the vices of civilisation. For instance, there is the trade in opium and in intoxicating drinks. The sin of drunkenness had once no existence in the East. It is a Christian vice. We have been justly reproached by the Hin- doo, who says : ' Wherever your British sway enters, intoxication follows it. Take away your burning spirit ; till you came among us, we knew it not. You are making a trade and a revenue of it ; and wher- ever it enters, the Hindoo perishes.' These things will be written in the records of the British Empire : and there will also be records of cruelty and of exter- mination, which make the heart sick. Such things indeed are chiefly of the past ; but shall these be the only records of our Christianity ? Shall there be no- thing left but wounds and scars ? But I can conceive that some one may say : ' We MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. 873 need everything at home. "We have thousands and tens of thousands without education. Half the popu- lation of London never go to church : perhaps half have never been baptised ; or, if they were, they live as if they never had been. Here is our heathen world. Here is our missionary work. Why, then, send missionaries into other lands ?' The answer is : If you wish to put out a fire, you have only to stifle it. Stifle the zeal of the Church, and you ex- tinguish it. Keep down the flame of the love of God and of your neighbour, and it will soon die out. This answer would be sufficient. But we have an ampler reply. Our divine Lord has promised : ' Give, and it shall be given to you ;' and therefore if I did not know how to find the means even to build a school, I would not refuse alms to send the gospel to the heathen. Be assured that the same Lord, Who is almighty, is also generous. He is able and willing to give us all we want. It is an axiom of faith, that the Church was never yet made poor by giving its last farthing for the salvation of souls. There is still another answer. It is sometimes thought, that if we establish missionary colleges in England, we shall lose the men we want at home. Not so. Let me prove this by an example. France for two hundred years has had in Paris a missionary 374 MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. college for the heathen. That college was founded in extreme poverty, in the heart of a city, of which all I have said ahout London might be well repeated. Calculating not to say grudging hearts, more under the light of worldly prudence than of simple confidence in God, might have asked : ' Is it not better to try to convert Paris, than to send the faith to the heathen ?' Out of that one house, there have already come forth many martyrs. And in the midst of their relics, they who aspire to the priesthood, and to the crown of martyrdom, form themselves in the love of the Sacred Heart. In that sanctuary they learn what theology cannot teach them. Three or four years ago, when tidings reached that house that one of their brethren had received his crown, the maple-tree in the garden was illuminated at night, and a Te Deum was sung under its branches, with nine invocations to the Queen of Martyrs. In 1862, Pere Bonard, a missionary in Corea, the night before his martyrdom, thus wrote to his friends : ' This is the last letter I shall write to you. The solemn hour has struck. Farewell ! I make appoint- ments with all of you who remember and love me to meet me in heaven. I hope in the mercy of Jesus, and I have a firm confidence that He has pardoned MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. 375 my innumerable sins. I offer, with all my heart, my hlood and my life for the love of my dear Master, and for those beloved souls whom I would have served so willingly to the best of my power.' After other words he adds : ' I beseech you to remember me before the Lord ; be sure that, as I have told you before, if He has mercy on my soul, I will not forget you for ever. ' To-morrow, Saturday, the Feast of St. Philip and St. James, the 1st of May, is the anniversary of the entrance of M. Schccffler into heaven, and I believe it is the day appointed for my own sacrifice. God's will be done. Blessed be God, I die happy. I bid farewell to all in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum. In cordibus Jesu ct Maries osculor vos, amid mci. ' Vinctus in Christo, the vigil of my death, April 30, 1852.' Tell me, if you were to receive that letter from a martyred son or brother in India, would it not kindle in your heart for the rest of your life a zeal for the salvation of your neighbour that you never knew be- fore ? Once more. Pere Dorie, after a few months' labour in Corea which is truly called the ' Mother of Martyrs,' by reason of the cruelty of its people 376 MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. was crowned with martyrdom. When the news came to his home, a Te Deum was sung in the parish church, in the presence of the Bishop of Lucon and people of St. Hilaire, with his family and friends. After the Te Deum, his brother came forward, and, in the name of his father and mother, thanked the Bishop for his charity, and for the honour shown to his martyred brother, saying : ' When he left us, we sacrificed him for God ; but we did not know how complete that sacrifice was to be. When tidings of his martyrdom came, nature for a time had its way : but we then thanked God that we had a Protector in heaven, in whose footsteps, though afar off, we all resolve to follow day by day.' Do you think, if events like these came b.iek upon us, they would not have the effect of exciting the love of God and of souls throughout England, so as to raise up, not only a body of missionaries for the Corea, but for London, and Glasgow, and Bir- mingham, and the brickfields of which we read the other day, than which nothing more terrible is to be found in heathen lands ? If this bo so, you will be glad to know that there has been founded in this diocese a College for Foreign Missions. It is not a college of this diocese alone, but of the whole of England, and for all the world. A priest whom I. MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. 877 will not commend for, if I were to do so, you miglit think that old and tried affection biassed me some ten years ago conceived the idea of founding the first missionary college in England^ The Catholic Church in England had then no missionary institu- tion. It had only just emerged from penal laws. For centuries, the Catholics of England had been wor- shipping in poverty. The Blessed Sacrament had, indeed, been reverently laid up in the Tabernacle ; but the Tabernacle had been housed in places un- worthy of the worship of God. While penal laws and their effects were upon us, it was not to be supposed that England could have a missionary college; but no sooner had the Church arisen from the depression of the past, than this House of Missions was founded. It was . one of the chief desires of the late Cardinal Archbishop. It has received the special benediction of Pius IX. It was sanctioned by all the Bishops of England, at the first public assembly of the hierarchy, apart from its Provincial Councils, since its restor- ation. It is not, therefore, as I have said, a diocesan work. It is a work of the whole of England, open to all England, and to be supported by the alms of all England. When I tell you that it began with one priest and one student, in a house that was not even hired, but lent, I shall give you one of the best 378 MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. guarantees for its future prosperity the deep poverty of its beginning. The priest who began this work went to North and South America. The alms wjiich founded the work came chiefly, not from England, but from abroad. It was Northern and Southern America, then foreign lands, and not England that laid the first stone of this college. As they have so well helped us to begin, we are bound by every obligation to carry it to its completion. It has been already begun upon a scale to accommodate seventy students. Two - thirds of it are built : the church is building, but a sum of four thousand pounds is required to complete the work. Year by year, no less than half a million of money is given in England, by those who are not of the unity of the Church, for foreign missions. They manifest a zeal for which I honour them. How much is collected, year by year, for the only missionary college we possess ? Scarcely two hundred pounds. Nevertheless, let us not lose heart. We are only in the outset ; these are our tardy beginnings. I feel confident that the words I speak now will never be repeated again. The Catholics of England at large will abundantly contribute hereafter to send to the heathen, who are perishing, the faith which God has so miraculously preserved to them in this land. MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN A TEST OF LOVE. 879 This, then, is tlie appeal I have to commit to your charity. I would ask of you three things. First, to enrol yourselves in this work. It is an association of the nature of a Confraternity of Devotion. Let each enrol himself in it, and thereby become person- ally a partaker in its works. 6 Secondly, if you are able to give, give according to your means. Lastly, if you are not able to give, pray that the hearts of others may be moved to contribute of what they pos- sess. Gather by your industry, from them, what you cannot give yourselves. There is no reason why the roll of this college should not bear the name of every one who hears me now. By becoming members of this association, you will receive the special benedic- tion which is attached to every work of charity for the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Happy are you if, when our divine Lord shall gaze upon you and ask of each one : ' Lovest thou Me ?' you are ablo to say with truth: 'Lord, thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.' The answer will then be in your hearts : ' Feed My sheep/ 6 To become a member of St. Joseph's Society of the Sacred Heart for Foreign Missions, nothing more is required than to be inscribed on the books of the Society, to pray for the extension of the kingdom of God, and to give an annual subscription towards the education of priests in St. Joseph's College, or in other ways to co-operate in the work of the Society. All the members will participate in the good works and merits of the Society. XIII. THE NEGRO MISSION: In St. Joseph's College, November 17, 1871* THE NEGKO MISSION. Tlie Spirit of tlio Lord IB npoa me, because the Lord hath anointed me : He hath sent me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up. ISAIAS Ixi. 1. MOKE than a thousand years ago, a lonely priest in the West of England, meditating in his cloister on the spiritual misery and spiritual death of the hea- then in the midst of Europe, found no rest day or night, until he had formed the resolution, and carried that resolution into effect, of leaving his home, his brethren, and the charities of life, to go over into Friesland, and there to preach the Gospel. He went forth, and failed, and turned home again. But the fire of zeal that was in him could not be extinguished. A second time he went forth into the same land, and into Thuringia and Bavaria. The hearts of the heathen opened to his voice ; and Winfrid, or Boniface, the Englishman, became the apostle and martyr of Ger- many. 384 THE NEGKO MISSION. From that day to this, men of our blood and speech, in the habit of St. Francis, St. Dominic, and St. Ignatius, and more recently in the Congregations of France, have gone forth into all the world. Men of English blood and English speech, men of Irish blood and of Irish faith, have left our shores to labour among the heathen. But England has never until now founded a Seminary for Missions to the Heathen. While England was Catholic, England had no colo- nies. It was shut up within its four seas. The New World was not known to exist ; and the East was pre- occupied, or beyond our reach. When England ac- quired its great colonial empire, it had lost the Faith. By a strange cross and contradiction of Divine Pro- vidence, while England was Catholic, it had no mis- sionary College ; and when it lost the Faith, it ac- quired sway over one-fifth of the population of the world. But the Church in England lived on like the live coal in the embers hidden among the ashes : and He who ' does not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax,' 1 in His own good time kindled again into flame the faith and charity of England. Only twenty years ago its perfection was restored to tho Church in England in the unity and authority of 1 Isnias xlii. 3. THE NEGIiO MISSION. 385 its Episcopate ; and within fifteen years of that time the Catholic Church founded its College for Foreign Missions. I think, then, we have a singular cause of great joy to-day : for, so far as I know, nothing like it is written in the annals of the Catholic Church in this land. We meet to-day to send out the first missionaries from the first seminary founded by the Church in England to evangelise the heathen world. In these last years,- we have met in this spot six times ; first, at a house hard by, where this seminary was founded. That day, two or three met together in faith of the presence of our Divine Master. Again we met in the same place, when the rude chapel, a fitting sanctuary for missionaries built with rough wood was opened. We met a third time to lay the foundation of this house. For the fourth time we met, when this house was fit to receive its students, to instal them in their home. Once more we met to lay the first stone of the church by the> side of this college. And lastly, we meet to-day to send forth from this seminary its first band of missionary fathers. God has blessed in a notable manner the small be- ginning of this work. He has so planted it in the ground, that no hand of man can root it out. That it will grow in strength and stature; that it will spread itself abroad far and wide, who can doubt ? cc 386 THE NEGRO MISSION. The mission to which these devoted men will go is a mission of an exceptional kind. This Seminary was founded, as you know, not for the ordinary work of priests in the colonies of the British Empire not for labour within the boundaries of any Christian civilisation but for missions to the heathen strictly so called. We send forth to-day these good fathers for the work of converting the negro population in the South of the American Union. At first sight you will perhaps say: This is not, indeed, within the colonies of the British Empire, but it is within the frontiers of Christian civilisation. I answer: The population to whom they go is altogether exceptional. In the heart of a Christian people there are five mil- lions of the negro race, who the other day were slaves. They may be truly said to be without pastors and without spiritual care. They are altogether an excep- tional, I might say an isolated, race in the midst of a Christian people. Therefore, the Mission of to-day fulfils to the very letter the terms for which this Semi- nary was founded. It is in very truth a Mission to the heathen, to 'the most outcast heathen ; a Mission to a population brought, it is true, within the light of civilisation, yet excluded from its inheritance. It dwells apart, in the cold air of neglect and contempt. To such a people, sitting alone in darkness, these THE NEGRO MISSION. 387 good missionaries are sent. They go, not to labour for the white population of America ; not to assist the pastors of America in labouring for the blacks within their parishes or districts. They go, bound by the vow which they will make in your hearing, to labour for the black population alone. I may describe their mission by the words of the prophet: ' The Spirit of the Lord is upon 'them.' If 'no one can say the Lord Jesus, except by the Holy Ghost,' then assur- edly no one could conceive the purpose and the will to choose this mission to the negro race, but by the Holy Ghost. If the Spirit of the Lord had not been upon them, they would not be here to-day. That they are sent by the Lord we know; for the Vicar of Jesus Christ, with a special benediction, has sent them. They go ' to preach to the meek,' to a population the most abased, outcast, down-trodden, of all the people of the earth. The Indians of the East and West, the races of Asia and America, are noble and dig- nified, compared with the poor negro. The races of Africa have been despised and trampled under foot by all nations even to this day. It is this poor, off-cast, persecuted race that these good missionaries have chosen for their special care. Truly they have been sent ' to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives.' It 888 THE NEGRO MISSION. was but the other day that they had the chains of captivity upon them. The galling scars of bondage are on the linabs of that race ; and even after their liberation that brand will be transmitted to their children's children. Finally, these good fathers go ' to preach deliverance to them that are shut up' shut up by the social exclusiveness of human pride, by a barrier which is more impenetrable than walls of stone : to abolish their spiritual bondage, and to admit them into the liberty of the children of God. Surely this is an event which appeals to all our hearts. First, because England is guilty towards the poor negro race of Africa. England, before God, is stained with the blood of the negro. England has drawn more tears, and sighs, and groans, from the heart of .the negro than any other people. Lest I should seem to exaggerate, and lest any should say that there are others, like Spain and Portugal, who trafficked in human flesh ; I answer, that for a cen- tury and a half we inflicted the slave-trade upon Africa, and that it was the English slavery of the West Indies that created this traffic in Northern America. I know nothing more blood - stained nor more horrible in the history of man than the recitals of this murderous trade : the hovering of the slave THE NEGEO MISSION. 389 ship on the coasts of Africa, the sweeping away of old and young, man, woman, child ; the chaining them between decks so low that they could not stand and could hardly sit, in crowds so thick that they could hardly lie ; without food or water to slake thirst under the burning heat of the equator, and in the suffocat- ing pestilential air of a slave-ship, where sleep was impossible, and death the only kindly voice ; festering, dying, and breeding pestilence in the stifling hold of the slaver. And when that inhuman traffic was pursued by justice on the high seas, these miser- able victims of man's cruelty and avarice were cast into the deep to escape detection, like contraband goods, along the track of flight. Horrible as is all this in its physical torments, there was perhaps some- thing more degrading, more revolting still the slave-market. Men who have seen it have described it. Men and women exposed like beasts, to be handled, tried, tested, and examined, as cattle for shambles : and not only this, but parents and chil- dren sold and rent asunder, husband and wife se- parated from each other, every bond that binds the human heart in fidelity and love and such hearts were more human, more loving, and more pure than the heart of the trader in flesh and blood coarsely and cruelly violated. Out of the Cities of the Plain, 390 THE NEGRO MISSION. on which the fire of God came down, there never was a sia more burning or more loudly crying to God for vengeance than slavery and the slave-trade. And yet we were guilty of it. We were among the chief authors of it ; and though not perhaps the first to begin it, yet for the magnitude of our share it stands at the head of our misdeeds. It was England that bequeathed the sin of slavery to its American plan- tations. We gave this plague-spot to the American Union. And there is in the Southern States at this moment a negro population, who only the other day were emancipated, equal to the population of Ireland. But as yet they are not civilised. They are not yet Christian. Such is the debt that England has to pay in charity to the negroes of Africa. It is true indeed that we have abolished the slave-trade; it is true that we have ceased to hold slaves: but that ne- gro population exists in our colonies and in North America through our sin. If there ever was a country which answers to the prophetic doom, it is England ; for it is full of gold and silver, and thyine wood, and precious stones, and wheat, and oil, and wine, and cattle, and sheep, and slaves, and souls of men. We are bound by every motive of charity to make a reparation for the cruel wrongs inflicted by our fore- THE NEGRO MISSION. 891 fathers on this suffering race. It is indeed true that England made some atonement by abolishing the slave-trade, and by paying the blood-money when it abolished slavery. America has paid a costlier blood- money and in a coin more precious than England. We gave some twenty millions of gold and silver : America has paid the lives of half a million of men. The chief cause of their fraternal war was slavery. But we owe still a reparation of Christian charity, not only to the negroes as they now exist in Ame- rica, but also to the country from which they were carried away. England, it is true, has been keeping .watch by its ships on the shores of Africa to prevent the slave-trade of other countries. But this is not enough. England owes a reparation of another kind. The slave-trade has made the name of England, and the name of Christian, hateful to Africa. We owe to Africa a reparation of Christian charity and Christian zeal. We must ask its Christian forgiveness. It is our duty to obtain from Africa our absolution from the wrongs which we have committed; and I trust that the work to which these reverend fathers go will not only be to labour among the negroes of the South, but to found in America a Missionary College like to this, in which natives of Africa may be trained to carry the faith into their own land. 392 THE NEGRO MISSION. "We are now going to send into the United States a vanguard. We are taking up an advanced and ad- vantageous position for the purpose of acting not so much upon America as upon Africa. These may seem bold thoughts, and the hopes of an enthusiast ; and yet when Winfrid went forth from his cloister in Nutsell, how little did he dream of the empire of faith which should spring up from his word ? Two centuries ago, the 'Ark' and the 'Dove' lay in the Thames, with some two hundred English Catholics on hoard, bound for our American planta- tions. They were driven from England by the cruelty of the times to find peace and liberty of conscience in a land where Christianity was unknown. How little did they think, when the 'Ark' and ' Dove' were tossing in the Atlantic, that they were the seed of a mighty empire and of a wide -spread Church. And who knows what the little beginning of to-day may be ? who can tell that there may not spring up an Apostol- ate for Africa, a Hierarchy of Bishops and Priests, to turn back the light of salvation, which from the east came westward, upon the darkened west again ? Surely there is a day of grace for Africa ; a land on which a doom of Heaven seems to weigh. It is shut out from all the world. Its impassable deserts, its pesti- lential shores, its untraceable rivers, its regions with- THE NEGRO MISSION. 393 out a track for human foot, its teeming races and unknown multitudes all these make Africa to be a land of mystery and awe. Surely the day will come when upon those who sit in darkness a light of sal- vation will arise. We have therefore to thank God who has put it into the hearts of these missionary fathers to labour for the negro and for Africa. We have to thank them also in the name of England and in our own. They are going to accomplish a part of that work of reparation and expiation for which we are all re- sponsible. We pray for them to-day, that God may accept their mission to the negroes of America, and to the people of Africa hereafter. We pray that God will accept them, and bless them for their charity and for this perfect oblation of themselves. We pray that God will accept it also in our behalf. And next, we have to take courage from their ex- ample. I have always felt, and I declare again to-day, that this seminary is a boon bestowed on the priest- hood of this diocese and of England. It is an example for us all. It calls us to detachment from home and friends and kindred and country from self and all that is soft, and sweet, and subtil, and attractive to the human heart. It warns us also to be detached from all things ; and that without 894 THE NEGEO MISSION. this a priest is little worth. They also warn us of the love we ought to bear to souls not of souls enjoying the light, and grace, and refinements of Christianity, but of souls brought down to the lowest depths of human degradation, to the outcasts among men, to whom men and even priests do not go by natural preference. They have chosen the better part. They have chosen to labour, not for a popula- tion full of human attraction, but repulsive to human fastidiousness ; repulsive, I mean, to the natural man, but attractive indeed to those who have the heart of the Good Shepherd, beautiful to eyes illuminated by faith, because they are souls for whose sake our Divine Master took upon Him our humanity, and from whom other men coldly turn away. I say, then, they set us an example of the love of souls : and God knows we have amongst us heathen souls debased and brutal- ised with all the vices of a corrupt civilisation and of an apostate Christianity. I hope all of us, young and old, will go back from this house to-day better priests, more heedless of the world and of self, more kindled with love to the perishing, more wholly given to the service of our Divine Master. We have, indeed, abund- ant need of missions in England, where one half of the population are not Christian in life, whatever they be in name. There are tens of thousands in Glasgow, THE NEGEO MISSION. 895 in Liverpool, and in London, living without Christ and without God in the world. For such souls no priest will be able to do his Master's work who has not in him the heart of a missionary a heart de- tached from the world, and inflamed with a thirst for their salvation. This is our second motive for thank- ing them while we bid them farewell, to-day. And now, dear brethren and fathers, my last words are to you. You are about to take your missionary vow, and that vow is this : that you give yourselves for ever to be the fathers and servants of the negroes. You give yourselves for ever, not to labour for the white people, but for those who are ' black, yet beau- tiful' in the sight of Him who loves them and died for them. You go to labour for them, and for them only, in the spirit of Peter Claver, who under his vow wrote these words : ' Peter, for ever the slave of the negro.' Vos estis seni servorum Dei. It is a great title that you take to-day. To you, as to His Apostles, our divine Lord says : Neminem per viam salutaveri- tis ; salute no man by the way : do not linger on your errand. You are sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ; for they are of the Israel of God, because God has purchased them to be His people. Et in guamcumque civitatem intmvcritis, ct suscipicnt vos, manducate qua; apponuntur vobis ; into whatever city 896 THE NEGKO MISSION. you enter, and they receive you, eat what is set be- fore you, and there abide until you go thence, et ibi manete donee exeatis; and go not from house to house, nolite transire de domo in domum. You are not going, dear brethren, to enter into the houses of the white man, but to dwell in the huts of the black. They are to be your hosts, and your spiritual children, unto death. Nemo mittens manum suam ad aratrum, et respiciens retro, aptus est regno Dei. No one having once put his hand to the plough, if he look back, is fit for the kingdom of God. Go, then, to this work ; consecrate yourselves to it, body, soul, and spirit; and, as Jesus offered Himself for you, so offer yourselves for Him. His oblation was perfect. Oblatus est, quia ipse voluit. His will was offered up once for all. So offer yours for ever. You go to give yourselves to save those poor souls from whom men turn away, but for whom Jesus shed His Blood. You will firmly hold to this high mission, and will turn aside from the solicitations which, perhaps, may be addressed to you in the name of charity, to labour for others who need you less. Go, then; for the Spirit of the Lord is upon you : ' the Lord has sent you to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, to preach release to the captive, and eternal deliverance to those that are shut up.' And may God, in His infinite mercy, pour THE NEGRO MISSION. 897 upon you His sevenfold spirit of charity and zeal. May He multiply your labours a hundredfold. May He give you gladness in your life, and peace in the hour of death, and a crown of glory radiant with souls bright as the stars to all eternity. XIV. ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM : A.t St. Edmund's College, on the Festival of St. Edmund of Canterbury, 1871. ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. Of His own will hath He hegotten us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of His creature. ST. JAMES i. 18. THE will of God is the love of God. Pondus vo- luntatis amor ; that which moves the Almighty will is the uncreated charity. The perfect freedom of the Creator and Redeemer of the world moved in harmony with His perfect love. This is the eternal Fountain of all things : ' Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with Whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration.' 1 God's own will is the origin of all the divine operations ; His word of truth is the instrument of His power. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made.' 2 The Word of God is the eternal Son, ' by Whom also He made the worlds.' 'And the Word was St. James i. 17. * St. Johni. 1, 3. DD 402 ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOII. made flesh.' The Incarnate Son is the* author of our regeneration by the Truth, which He is, which also \ve believe. That is to say, the means of our regeneration is the truth revealed to faith and the grace of the Spirit of God ; for ' grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.' St. James also declares the end of our regeneration : that we may be initium ali- quod creatures suce, ' some beginning of His crea- tures;' or, as the word in the original ( St. Matthew zis. 28. ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. 407 the world. Wheresoever the waters which issue from the sanctuary came, all things lived. The power of the resurrection entered into the dry bones, and they knit together, and were clothed with a new humanity, and stood upon their feet. The spiritual resurrection was accomplished in them, and the ear- nest of the resurrection of the body was given to them. Baptism is the first-fruits of the resurrection, and the resurrection is the harvest-home of baptism. Therefore it is true of the mystical Body, and of every living member : ' Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection : in these the se- cond death hath no power.' 8 And that, because the first-fruits from the dead is the life-giving Head of the Church : and because He has promised to it in Peter : ' Upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' In the midst of this death-stricken world, the Church is full of life. As the fleece of Gedeon was drenched with the dew of heaven, while all the ground about it was dry, so the Church is fresh with the waters of life in the midst of the valley of dry bones. Ever fresh, ever fruitful, its leaf shall not wither ; its four notes cannot be hid ; its supernatural endowments cannot be stayed or bound. Verbum Dei non est alligatum. Apoc. XT. 6. 408 ST. EDMUND'S HEIELOOM. The word of God, in all the liberty of its divine power, bears witness, in the midst of the false philosophies, corrupt religions, heretical perversions, to the truth as it is in Jesus. In the midst of the rankness of this world ; of the races and people who have never yet known the true God ; of the nations and king- doms who are apostate from His service and His sovereignty, the one holy Catholic Church stands in its unity of immutable truth, of supernatural sanc- tity, of inflexible authority, as a creation not of man ; independent of man ; in contact with the world, but not of the world ; imperishable and indestructible ; always suffering, never overcome ; the first-fruits of the truth, grace, and power of God. Out of the visi- ble unity of the Church are continually passing the multitudes of the regenerate, who fall asleep with the sign of faith. They go onward to the Church be- yond the grave, to wait for tLe vision of God, or to speed into His presence. These all, whether mili- tant, or suffering, or triumphant, both in grace and in glory, are first-fruits to God and to the Lamb. 4. In this we further see the dignity of Chris- tians. They are called to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the children of light, sons of God, first-fruits of mankind and of grace. St. Paul says : ' Every creature groaneth and travaileth ST. EDMUND'S HEIELOOM. 409 in pain, even till now ; and not only it, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit:' 9 that is to say, we have received the first-fruits of His power, the chief and the choicest gifts, the special and peculiar dispensation of grace whereby the Holy Ghost dwells in us as His temple, and by the law of the Spirit of life has made us free from the law of sin and death. Christians are called to be the ripe and chosen fruits of mankind ; and that, not only in the natural order, and by the faculties and powers of nature, but also in the supernatural order of faith, hope, and charity, of sanctifying grace, of the seven gifts, of the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost, of the eight beatitudes, which are the rays that shine from the Face of Jesus Christ. Christians are called to reflect His light and His likeness upon the world ; to be witnesses to Him by being like Him. What the world by its wisdom could not do; what the civilisation, and culture, and refine- ment, and philosophy of the heathen world could not accomplish, the word of truth and the new birth of the Spirit has done. The purity, chastity, humility, generosity, sincerity, meekness, mercifulness, long- suffering, charity, justice, equity of the mind which was in Jesus has elevated not individuals only, but " Romans vlii. 22, 28. 410 ST. EDMUND'S families, races, and nations the high and low, learned and simple, the old and the young to a dignity and a perfection which the world without Christ never could attain, nor so much as conceive. 'Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, what- soever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely :' 10 these are the growth of Christianity, and Christians are the first-fruits of this new creation. See, then, your dignity as Catholics, that is, as Christians perfect and complete in faith. It con- sists in three things. First, in your election. You were predestinated of His own will to he horn again hy the word of truth : ' For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren ; and whom He predestinated, them He also called ; and whom He called, them He also justified ; and whom He justified, them He also glorified' 11 that is, upon you He has put the glory of the adoption ; the glory to be the sons of God ; and if sons, then heirs heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. This election took effect upon you when you knew it not. You were passive under it. As our divine Lord has said : ' You have not chosen Me ; but I have chosen you, and have appointed you, 10 Phil. iv.-8. " Romans viii. 29, 30. ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. 411 that you should go and should bring forth fruit.' And again : ' If you had been of the world, the world would love its own ; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.' 12 This election to regeneration, to faith, to son- ship, to grace, has lifted you above all the races and nations of the world. "We can find for it no motive and no reason, except the will that is, the love of God. Why He should have chosen us rather than others, who can say ? In this we can but adore the depth of the riches and of the wisdom of God. Next, you have received the full and perfect il- lumination of faith. The whole revelation of God is yours ; not a fragment, nor a broken tradition of truth, but the whole undiminished light in its full outline and radiance, as it was revealed. You did not discover this light; it shone upon you. You have not constructed your faith piece by piece, and truth by truth; you inherited it as the heirloom of the children of God. And, lastly, you have been shaped and formed from your baptism, without knowing it, to the like- ness of Jesus Christ. As the potter lays the clay upon the wheel, and as it turns, shapes it with his St. John xv. 16, 10. 412 ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOMV hand, so from yonr earliest consciousness the grace of baptism, which you unconsciously received, has been elicited and shaped by the guidance of the Church, the counsels and charity of pastors, the Sacra- ments of grace, the Providence which has ordered all your life. These three things are gifts of God preventing the conscious action of your intelligence and will ripening you in the life of grace, and pre- paring you for your life of faith on earth, and for your reward before the eternal throne. Who, then, has made you to differ from others but the Father of lights, by Whose will you are what you are ? Such are Christians in the world; and such ought, above all, to be the Catholics of England. They have been preserved by a singular election of grace. While the whole nation fell away from the unity of the faith, or were driven by bitter and re- lentless persecution from the land, a handful, few in number and hid out of sight, was preserved. The line of the faith has never been broken ; its light has never been diminished ; the whole revelation of God, the whole word of truth by which we are born again, has been preserved inviolate. The Catholic Church in England, pure in its faith, theology, dis- cipline, devotions, hierarchy, priesthood, jurisdic- tion, is not only perfect as it was before the havoc ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. 418 of three hundred years ago, not only identical, line for line, truth for truth, feature for feature j with the faith of St. Augustine of Canterbury which was the faith of St. Gregory and of the Catholic world at that time hut it has advanced in perfection and in the unfolding of its spiritual life with the growth of the Catholic Church to this day. And while the Church in England has been ris- ing again in all the fulness and completeness of its faith, the Christianity of England has been steadily declining. The old religious tradition has been dying out. Worldliness, indifference, materialism, are spreading fast. Nevertheless in what remains, I am thankful to know how much Christian belief, Chris- tian morality, personal goodness, piety, generosity, justice, zeal, self-denial, uprightness of conscience, and fidelity to duty, may still be found. God knows I would rather believe it to be more than to be less. It is a profound sorrow to believe that the palmer- worm and the canker-worm have been eating away the Christianity of England, and that the vineyard which once was so luxuriant in leaf and fruit is now half barren and bare. I have a heartfelt and continual sorrow for the divisions and desolations of England ; for the wreck which, year by year, has been made before our eyes in all that remained of the 414 ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. surviving Christianity of our civil state ; for the un- belief, rationalism, scepticism, distress, and despair which pervades our private life, and is extinguishing the faith and the hope of multitudes. In the midst of all this stands the Catholic Church, immutable and stedfast in truth, encom- passed by a flood of errors. The speedy downward stream of unbelief has no power over it. All is run- ning to seed around it, but its fruit never withers. It holds, teaches, and believes the Creed of Nicsea and of Constantinople, of Lyons and Lateran, of Trent and of the Vatican, without wavering, or ex- plaining away of jot or tittle. And it is not only in its internal and intellectual unity that it stands in contrast with the fragmentary, conflicting, and dissolving religions of England. In the midst of the disunion, the disintegration, the crumbling away of religious systems, its visible unity stands out definite and changeless. The voice of its authority is firm, just, and temperate ; and the ans- wer of obedience is prompt, glad, and complete. Why are we not torn and divided by ritualisms and appeals, parties and protests against bishops ? We are men and Englishmen, and not Saints. We have a fund of contention in us on all things outside the sanctuary sometimes even for things not far from ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. 415 it. But it all passes away. And the holy Mass goes on the same to-day as yesterday ; and to-mor- row it will be as to-day. Why is this, but that the light and instinct of faith is mightier than all hu- man wills, and we gladly submit all private opinions and claims to an authority we know to be divine ? Surely this ' multitude of peace' is a supernatural inheritance, and of unspeakable price. And, farther, there is on every side a restless, tur- bulent swaying to and fro of minds, like the waves of a troubled sea. From every part we hear one cry : ' What is truth ? Where is it to be found ? By what test can it be known ? Is there nowhere any certainty about doctrines, about revelation, about Scripture, about Christianity, about the distinctions of right and wrong, about the freedom of the will, about the nature of the soul, about the existence of God ?' The whole idea of certainty is obscured, the principle of certainty is rejected, the possibility of certainty is denied. Not only truths of the super- natural, but of the natural order are held as doubt- ful, or set aside as impossible of proof. This plague of doubt is spreading steadily through multitudes who hold fast by Christianity, but are daily becoming con- scious of the illogical and incoherent basis on which the Reformation has placed them. In these last 416 ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. twenty years, more in number than I can count who remain, and probably always will remain, out of the true fold, have told me of the pain and burden of doubt and of uncertainty which continually weighs upon them. Others again, and they too are many, whom I remember full of Christian belief in days gone by, now believe nothing. Doubt has done its work upon them. It has stolen away their faith, and left them without Christ and without God in the world. Such is our modern England. And who has made you to differ ? Why are you calm and certain in your faith, and not in faith only, but in philo- sophy, in the truths not of the supernatural order alone, but of the natural order likewise ? It is not intellectual superiority, or power, or culture ; far from it. Quoniam litteraturam non cognovi, intro- ibo in potentias Domini. Though we may have but a slender literary culture, we have entered into the powers of the Lord. The divine tradition of the faith is under our feet as a foundation of immovable truth ; the divine voice of the Church is the guide of our reason, confirming it with a certainty there- fore divine, not only in the truths of revelation, but also in the truths of nature. We are indeed unintelligible to the men of the nineteenth century. ST. EDMUND'S HEIKLOOM. 417 We are dogmatic, impracticable, one-sided, un- conciliating, irreconcilable ; for between faith and doubt, certainty and scepticism, there can be not only no understanding, but not even a truce. The sceptics have had their day ; and, what is worse, the sophists are coming. An honest doubter is to be pitied; but a sophist is an enemy of human society. The philo- sophy of contradictions and of paradox is the lowest state of the human reason. To be in doubt, but to be in earnest, is to be respectable ; but to trifle with both truth and error is a treason against the intel- ligence and the dignity of man. Such, however, is the world in which we live, sheltered from its taint by the Catholic tradition of faith and certainty. You, then, ought indeed to be the first-fruits of Christian fidelity and Christian maturity in England. The memory of martys and confessors from whom you are descended, and of the great deeds and great suffer- ings of your Catholic lineage, or of the grace, not less than miraculous, which has brought you out of darkness into this marvellous light, and out of the turbulent sea of doubt to the immovable solidity of the Church of God all this ought to inspire you with an ardent zeal to be not in word and in name, but in deed and in truth, the first-fruits of faith ill this land. EE 418 ET. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. But what I say to you as Catholics, I say also to you still more as Catholic students. While England \s as Catholic, it formed many a school of Christian science and cultivation : above all, it created two which were called the eyes or the lights of England the Universities of Oxford and of Cambridge. They were Catholic in faith, in science, in philosophy, in . literature, in discipline, in morals. They were the first-fruits of the intellectual culture of Catholic Eng- land. Our Patron and Father St. Edmund, having been formed in the University of Paris, introduced the study of Aristotle into Oxford. He laid the foun- dation of the mental science which came down as an unbroken tradition until the other day. The Catholic University of Paris, infected and corrupted by secular and royal influences, was swept away by the atheistic revolution of the last century. The University of France has taken its place, claiming for the state the intellectual supremacy and guidance of men which belongs to the divine commission of the -Church. The intellectual and moral condition of France bears witness to the deadly evils of this fatal change. In England, the downward movement has been slower, but it is now racing in -speed. Three hundred years ago, Oxford rejected the faith and the theology of St. Edmund, but retained the philosophy he had taught. ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. 419 It still blazoned its sacred legend: Domimts illu- minatio mea. Aristotle was studied as the philo- sopher of the natural order; and Christianity, broken indeed, but still honoured, was taught as a revela- tion of the supernatural. But that exists no longer. St. Edmund's faith went first, and was replaced by a mutilated creed. St. Edmund's mental science is now gone, and is replaced by a philosophy of which its promoters acknowledge, that no student can master it without doubting of the foundations of faith. That which was given for the confirmation of faith is now the gangrene which eats all faith away. 13 And if such be the intellectual state, what is ths moral ? High and friendly authorities have told us, that in every hundred students, seventy so pass through Oxford that they cannot be said to be stu- dents : that is to say, the moral discipline fails to obtain from them such industry and conscientious study as to educate their minds. This relaxation is not so much in the intellect as in the will ; and the will is relaxed, because the collegiate and personal discipline and moral guidance of the students is fee- ble or powerless. What wonder, then, if the other day the ancient Commemoration of the University was so dishonoured by uproar, that it must either cease " Fca Note at p. 425. 420 ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. to be, or migrate to some shelter from its own sub- jects ? To all who cherish the old memories of Oxford, as bearing the first-fruits of the youth and the culture of England, these things are profoundly sad. They are indications of a decline which will make itself felt hereafter. Our national character is losing its grave dignity. The great school of respect for au- thority and for the rights of other men is the Catholic Church. Its Universities had a tradition of gravity and self-restraint, of dignity and order, which long survived the faith from which they sprung. But these too are going, if not already gone. St. Ed- mund would not find in Oxford the vestige of the University he loved. In the midst of its medieval splendours, the intellectual and moral anarchy of the nineteenth century has made its home. These things I have said to awaken in you an- other motive of thankfulness. You are here under the patronage, and, I may say, in the home of St. Edmund. You have his faith, his theology, his men- tal science, his secular studies, his devotions, his dis- cipline of spiritual perfection ; the same sacraments, the same litanies and prayers, the same loving adora- tion of- the Passion of our Eedeemer, the same filial piety to the Blessed Mother of God. If the Oxford of St. Edmund exists on earth, it is here. The Catho- ST. EDMUND'S ^HEIRLOOM. 421 lie Church, which created Oxford, has reproduced it in this place. The germ is small, indeed, hut it is perfect in its type. In England at this time there are some twelve or fourteen colleges or schools, which in the last hundred years the Church has created. They are all of one and the same type, transmitting whole and perfect the tradition of Catholic faith and Catho- lic culture, reproducing what St. Edmund studied and practised at Paris and at Oxford. If these first- fruits of the poverty and fidelity of the Catholic Church, now dispersed all over England, were con- gregated in one place, there would he no unworthy picture of the Oxford which St. Edmund knew. All these treasures of our Catholic inheritance God has preserved and renewed to us ; and upon this firm hase are huilt up the studies and the sciences which from age to age the Christian progress of rea- son and culture has attained. We are ever moving onward in natural and human knowledge, ever im- mutahle in the science of God. You therefore, as Catholics and as Catholic students, have a twofold motive for thanksgiving and for fidelity. You have also a twofold duty. 1. The first is, to offer to God the first-fruits of your natural gifts. You owe to Him the hest faculties of your intellect, and the hest energies of your will. 422 ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. These were given to you to be given back to His service; and that, not grudgingly nor with reserves, but with all your sincerity and all your strength. You owe to Him the industry of your boyhood, and the fresh vigour of your youth. Idleness, self-indulgence, squandering of time, waste of your mental and moral powers, are unworthy of those who are called to the perfect light of faith, and formed by the discipline of His grace t'o be the first-fruits of His Church. Remember that laborare est orare. Your studies are a part of your service to God. You are studying for Him. An idle youth is like a mildewed ear in the harvest-field. Be punctual to the hours of the day. Be prompt at the sound of the bell. Put your whole strength into what you are about. Lan- guid studies, roving eyes, wandering thoughts, tasks done in haste, careless learning speciously covered over, these things are infidelities to the Spirit of Grace. We study as much with our will as with our intellect, and with our conscience as much as with our will. The good and faithful servant traded to the utmost with his lord's money. Whether you be destined for the world or for the altar, St. Edmund is your example. Even as a layman, he spent half his time in prayer. When he exchanged the secular for the sacred sciences, he sought his ST. EDMUND'S HEIRLOOM. 423 illumination more from God than from books. But he is a household name and image and tradition with you. His boyhood, youth, and manhood, his unsullied purity, his filial piety to the mother who formed him for God, his zeal and .tenderness as a priest, his invincible fortitude as a Bishop of the Church of God : all these are before you as your light, encouragement, and strength. 2. You owe also to God the first-fruits of your grace. Some will give to Him the fresh and radiant of- fering of their baptismal innocence ; others will offer the humility and self -chastisement of penance; or the fortitude and hardness of good soldiers of Jesus Christ ; or the love and fervour of self-sacrifice in a life of labour for souls. Give yourselves to Him who gave Himself for you. Be generous, and He will not be outdone in generosity. He will add to you grace for grace, and sanctify you wholly. And when the great harvest-homo is gathered upon the eternal hills, He will offer you before the Throne as the first-fruits of His most precious Blood. NOTE. I HOPE that I have not used a word in tliis sermon re- specting the University of Oxford which cannot be ju."- tified by abundant evidence, beyond the reach of all objection. The present state of Oxford, both for its own sake, and for the sake of the country at large, can- not fail to be a cause of sorrow and anxiety, in which, for manifold reasons, I heartily share. The authorities on which I have relied are, Dr. Pattison, the Rector of Lincoln College, in his Suggestions on Academical Or- ganisation, with especial reference to Oxford; and Mr. Goldwin Smith, in his Reorganisation of the University of Oxford, together with the evidence of Mr. Appleton and Canon Liddon, before the Lords' Committee on Uni- versity Tests, in February last. The Eector of Lincoln states, that fully seventy per cent of the so-called ' students' at Oxford are in no sense, even in profession, students at all. He adds, that the de- grees gained by such men denote- no grade of intellectual cultivation. He describes them as ' the wealthy, luxurious, indolent, and uninterested tenants of college rooms.' ' If any proof could convince the advocates of intramural re- 426 NOTE. sidence of the futility of college discipline, such a proof might be found in the mastery which the athletic furor has established over all minds in this place. So entirely are the tutors beaten by it, that to cover the disgrace of defeat, they are obliged to affect to patronise and encour- age the evil. I know, therefore, that 011 this head I must look for no sympathy from college tutors. . . . They [i. e. cricket, boating, and athletics] have ceased to be amuse- ments : they are organised into a system of serious occu- pation. What we call incapacity in young men is often no more than an incapacity of attention to learning, be- cause the mind is preoccupied with a more urgent and all-absorbing call upon its energies. As soon as the sum- mer weather sets in, the colleges are disorganised. Study, even the pretence of it, is at an end. Play is thencefor- ward the only thought. They are playing all day, pre- paring for it, or refreshing themselves after its fatigues.' P. 316. I willingly pass over graver moral subjects, on which Dr. Pattiaon and Mr. Goldwin Smith enlarge. The latter says : ' To revive the faculty of theology, though of the utmost importance in what may be truly called a fearful crisis of religious faith, would at the same time be most dif- ficult. Anglicanism, as I have said before, has developed no theology in the proper sense of the term. . . The diffi- culty would cease, if either the world would consent to receive back the authoritative theology of Suarez and the other Catholic Doctors, or decide that theological inquiry shall be free.' The Eector of Lincoln also says : ' The faculty of NOTE. 427 theology must be considered in abeyance at present. There is indeed a scientific theology, and in the Chris- tian records of the early and later ages the amplest mate- rial for various learning and 'Critical investigation. But theology has not yet begun to exist as a science among us.' P. 319. As to the results of the Oxford system of study on those who may be regarded as students, Dr. Pattison says : 'As mental training, it is surely most unsound. It cannot be called philosophical. It is rhetoric expended upon phi- losophical subjects. It is the reappearance in education of the extra without having the whole edifice of belief shaken to the very foundation.' Qu. 490. 'He- returns to a new construction of belief after he has gone through the period of criticism and scepticism.' ' I should say. Hegel's Philosophy of History is read as carefully as Aristotle.' ' At this moment there are lectures being given, or about to be, in Oxford, on Hegel's Logic, which is one of the most revolutionary instruments that has ever been in- vented.' Qu. 506. ' As a matter of fact, a man who has criticised all ideas for several years, and then is called upon to sign a test, and state his bond- fide adhesion to certain propositions, is led naturally to avert his mrnd from any consideration of those questions at all, because they now involve a contradiction; and by instinctively making both terms of the contradiction vague, he is able to reconcile them better. There is no set purpose in all NOTE. 429 tliis; it takes place almost unconsciously.' Qu. 524. 'I believe the upsetting of his beliefs, and the entire loosen- ing of them from all their moorings, is an inevitable con- sequence of the system of education which now exists in Oxford.' Qu. 527. Being asked, 'Do you attribute this tone of thought, which has risen up so prominently in Oxford, to Jhe study of Aristotle ?' he answers : ' Scarcely at all. It arises mainly from a closer connec- tion between England and the Continent. It is really a wave of thought which has come over from Germany.' Qu. 5G1. It is therefore not surprising to read : ' Xo theology of any school is much read at Oxford. The study has been entirely uprooted by the action of tests.' Qu. 559. We may sum up this evidence with the personal tes- timony of Canon Liddon, who said : ' Cases have come within my own experience of men who have come up from school as Christians, and have been earnest Chris- tians up to the time of beginning to read philosophy for the final school, but who, during the year and a half or two years employed in this study, have surrendered, first their Christianity, and next their belief in God, and have left the University not believing in a Supreme Being.' Qu. 706. The intellectual and moral agencies which caused the mournful anarchy of the last Oxford Commemoration are here abundantly revealed. It is time that all to whom our national' name and fame and character are dear should return upon their steps, ct antigiiam cxquirero Mat r em. 430 NOTE. The Holy Sec and the Bishops of England have warned all Catholic parents, that to send their sons to Oxford and Cambridge is to expose them to the loss of their faith. The parents who so act are guilty of grave sin before God. INDEX. INDEX. AAEON, the true, 8. Abel, 9, 369. Absolution, facility of, 217. Adam, the first, 404 ; the Second, 9, 369, 405. Agnes, feast of St., 303. Agony of death, 105. Aidan, St., 234, 256. Alban, abbey of St., 127. All-Hallows College, 355. Alphonsus, St., a witness for God, 202 ; his freedom from sin, 203 ; his innocence, his mother, 205 ; his hatred of sin, 206 ; his zeal against sin, his custody of the senses, 208 ; his writings, 209 ; ordinations of, 211; his semin- ary, 213 ; his love of sinners, 215 ; his Moral Theology, 217 ; on bad books, 219 ; on the oc- casions of sin, 221 ; his power over souls, 223 ; enmity of the world against, 225. Amalfi, 223. Ambrose, St., 320. America, 151. Anglicanism, 149, 255, 326. Anselm, St., 132. Antoninus, St., 320. Apocalypse, 31. Apostles, 8, 10, 120, 201, 242, 327. Aquinas, St. Thomas, 325. Arianism, 176. Aristotle, 419. Armenian Church, 118. Assistance, divine, 247. Atheism, 323. Augustin, St., of Canterbury, 413. Angustin, St., of Hippo, 119, 205, 242. Authority, 249. Avranches, 152. BAPTISM, 11, 248, 311, 407, 411. Barbary, 49, 98. Beatitudes, the eight, 409. Becanceld, Council of, 130. Bede, St., 186, 238. Belief, duty of, 24. Berghamsted, Council of, 130. Bishops of the Church, 12, 18, 153. Blood, the Precious, 25, 78, 113, 122, 208, 216, 252, 366. Body of Christ, 9. Bonard, PSre, 374. Boniface, St., 383, 392. Books, bad, 219. Boulogne, Dean of, 144. CAIN, 369. Calvary, 101, 122, 189, 245. Calvin, 332. Cambridge, University of, 418. Canterbury, St. Angustin of, 413 ; St. Thomas of, 123. FP 434 INDEX. Cardinals',, 41. Certainty, 415. Charity, Sisters of, 46, 50, 55, 75, 86, 101. Charlemagne, capitularies of, 128. Charles Borromeo, St., 63, 162, 198, 213, 226, 337. Chatillon, 49. Christendom, 39, 48, 88, 121, 135, 146, 151. Christianity of England, 372, 413. Church, the Spirit of God in the, 5 ; presence of the Spirit in, 7 ; the illumination of, 9 ; infalli- ble voice of,'ll, 18, 31, 33, 72, 164, 173, 191, 233, 247, 310, 325; test of the presence of, 13; Eome the centre of, 15, 273 ; separation from, 17 ; Je- sus speaking in, 19 ; divine doctrines of, 20 ; hatred of, 22 ; duty of obedience to, 24, 327 ; five liberties of, 126 ; beauty of, 233 ; faith required by, 241. Clarendon, Constitutions of, 137, 141, 143. Claver, St. Peter, 395. Clement XIV., Pope, 224. Cletus, Pope St., 14. Comprehension, 178. Comte, philosophy of, 322. Conception, the Immaculate, 19, 29. Concordats, 41. Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, 72. Consciousness, 177. Conversion of the heathen, 347, 386. Corea, 376. Corpus Christi, feast of, 163. Councils, 133, 247, 327, 328 ; of Constantinople, 414 ; of Flor- ence, 187 ; of Nicnea, 414 ; of Lateran, 414 ; of Lyons, 414 ; of Trent, 21, 23, 42, 51, 179, 326-; of the Vatican, 414. Critical spirit, 327. Cromwell, 30. Croyland, Roger of, 145 Cuthbert, St., 256. DAVID, 6. Daniel, words of, 111. Decline of Christianity, 413. Deference to theologians, 330. Devotion to the Saints, 328. Disciples of Jesus, 327. Distinctions, national, 39. Divorce, 150. Docetae, 173. Docility, signs of, 328. Doctrines of the Church, 20. Dogma, immutability of, 187. Dorie, PSre, 376. Doubt, 416. Drunkenness, 372. Duty of belief, 24. EDMUXD of Canterbury, St., in- telligence of, 311 ; his purity, union of all science in, 313 ; as a layman, 314 ; habits of, 315 ; vision of, 315 ; writings of, 316 ; his gift of science, 318 ; his truth and sweetness, 320 ; his love of Scripture, 337 ; rap- ture of, 339 ; introduced the study of Aristotle into Oxford, 418. Education, Catholic, 290. Emmaus, 179. England, corrupt civilisation of, 351 ; responsibility of, 371 ; re- ligious disunion of, 27 ; in closer relations with the Holy See, 118 ; the liberties of the Church violated by her kings, 136 ; spiritual destitution of, 150 ; the faith spreading in, 194; conversion of, 274, 284; INDEX. 435 the hierarchy in, 280 ; her traf- fic in slavery, 388 ; the Catho- lics of, 412 ; the Universities of, 418. Episcopate of the Church, 12, 18, 153. Erasmus, 332. Eternity, 178, 367. Eucharist, the holy, 20, 163, 168, 172, 181. Ezekiel, the prophet, 57. FAITH, supremacy of, 290; in- fallibility of, 169 ; required by the Church, 241. Fear of God, 317. First-fruits, 402. Florence, Council of, 187. Formalism, 224. Fruits of the Holy Ghost, 409. France, nomination of bishoprics in, 41 ; the rich and poor in, 43 ; the Revolution in, 45 ; se- minaries in, 51 ; the martyrs of, 55 ; the glory of, 56, 353 ; baptisms of blood in, 87 ; the University of, 418. Francis, St., poverty of, 45. GALLICANISJI, 85, 149. Gethsemani, 80, 189. Gedeon, 407. Gifts of the Holy Ghost, 316. Glory, accidental, 38, 55. Glories of Mary, 225. God, the Spirit of, 3, 9, 18, 402, 409 ; the Word of, 5, 23, 32, 163, 166, 401 ; the Church of, 10, 16, 417, 423 ; the Saints of, 29, 408 ; consciousness of, 177 ; the truth of, 238 ; authority of, 249 ; revelation of, 313 ; image of, 76, 365, 404; will of, 401. Grace, the Pilgrimage of, 192. Greek schism, 187. j Gregory, St., 247, 413. Guide, infallible, 6. HATKED of sin, 206. Heart of Jesus, 68, 345. Heirlooms of the children of GoJ, 411. Henry II. of England, 126. Heresy, errors bordering on, 187. Heretics, madness of, 243. Holiness, way of, 12. Hypostatic union, 10. IGNATIUS, St., 30, 63, 384. Illumination, 9, 411. Immaculate Conception, the, 19, 29. Image of God, 76, 365. Immutability of dogma, 187. Incarnation, the, 5 ; fulness of, 8. Index Expurgatorius, 220. Infallibility, active and passive 246 ; of faith, 169. Instinct, 247. Intellect, 335. Irenaeus, St., 131. Isaias, 4. * Israel, 3, 233. JANSENISM, 224, 332. Jeremias, 403. Jerusalem, 3, 31, 232, 242. Jesus, Society of, 46, 48, 76. Job, 220. John Nepomuc, St., 123. Joseph, St., 207. Josephism, 149. Judge of the faith, 249. Judgment, private, 28. KEYS, power of the, 134 Kingdom of God, 8, 14. Knowledge of God, 368. LATEEAN Council, 414. 436 INDEX. Laurence, St., 123. Law of Christendom, 135. Laxity, 224. Liberties of the Church, 126. Light, prayer for, 338. Linus, St., 14. Love of souls, 70. Lukewarmness, 205, 213. Luther, 332. Lyons, Council of, 414. MAGNIFICAT, 59. Martyrdom, desire of, 73. Martyrs of Paris, 374. Mary, glories of, 225 ; home of, 273. Mary Magdalen, St., of Pazzi, 194. Matrimony, Christian, 150. Mental prayer, 335. Milan, 162. Mistrust of self, 333. NAPLES, 162. Nationalism, 39, 118, 149. Nations, consent of 243. Nazareth, 5, 20. Nehemias, 263. Negroes, conversion of, 386 ; sla- very of, 388 ; despised and per- secuted, 387 ; sufferings of, 389 ; reparation owed to, 391. Nicaea, Council of, 414. Nicodemus, 169. Nineveh, 93. Northampton, St. Thomas at, 142. Novelty, fear of, 331, 335. OBEDIENCE, duty of, 24. Oblation, perfect, 396. Olier, 41, 53. Order, the supernatural, 324. Oxford, University of, 418, 420, 423 n. PAEACLETE, 10. Paris, Missionary College of, 374. Paul, St., 24, 182, 309, 321, 408. Paulinus, St., 186. Pentecost, day of, 7, 9, 18, 201, 225, 244, 337. Peter Claver, St., 395. Peter, St., first of the Apostles, 13, 17, 170, 407. Penance, sweetness of, 217. Pharisees, 21. Philip Neri, St., 330. Philosophy, 177, 323. Pilgrimage of Grace, 192. Pius IX., 16, 266, 269, 280, 287. Poland, 162. Pontiffs, the Sovereign, 17, 247. Pontigny, St. Thomas at, 143. Prayer, mental, 335. Priesthood, 50. RASHNESS, 331. Reason, 170. Reformation, the, 147, 154, 324, 416. Responsibility, of England, 371 ; of the rich, 85. Right and wrong, 41 5. Rigourism, 217. Roger of Croylaiid, 145. Rome, centre of the Universal Church, 14 ; liberty of appeal to, 135 ; love of, 273, 290. Rosalie, Sceur, 75. Rousseau, 322. SACEAMENT, the Blessed, the In- carnation perpetually present, 163 ; the centre of divine facts and operations, 165 ; a true and personal presence, 167 ; the centre of divine worship, 168 ; known by faith, 170 ; our food, 172 ; known by a supernatural INDEX. 437 consciousness, 177 ; adoredwith divine worship, 181 ; where ab- sent, 188 ; disciples of, 194. Sacraments, the seven, 31, 164, 181, 185, 188, 412. Sacrifice, the Holy, 186, 191, 264. Saints, the, 185, 330, 336. Sanctification, 9. Scepticism, 417. Schism, the Greek, 187. Scotland, the Vicars-Apostolic in, 28. Scripture, Holy, 250, 336. Self-sufficiency, 331. Seminaries, 42, 51, 213. Sens, St. Thomas at, 143. Sense, 170. Shepherd, the Good, 362. Slave-trade, the, 388. Sin, 79; zeal against, 71, 207, 211, 225. Sisters of Charity, 101. Sophists, 417. Soul of man, 76 ; love of, 67, 70. Stability in faith, 19. Suarez, 325. Submission to the Church, 328. Sulpice, St., Congregation of, 53. Suspension, how incurred, 213. TEMPTATIONS, 73. Tertullian, 240, 332. Thomas Aquinas, St., 325. Thomas of Canterbury, St., testi- mony of, 123 ; hostility against, 124 ; protest of, 137 ; isolation of, 140 ; his appeal to Home, 142 ; vision of, 143 ; his death, 145 ; triumph of, 147, 155. Toulouse, 46. Trent, Council of, 21, 23, 179. Truth, divine unity of, 233; peace generated by, 238 ; our inheri- tance, 240; authority generated by, 249. ULTBAMONTANISM, 286. Unbelief, 28. Unction, sacerdotal, 8, 309 ; of the Holy Ghost, -28. Understanding, 319. Union, hypostatic, 10. Unity, craving for, 237 ; super- natural, 11, 243. Universities, 418. Ushaw, 257. VATICAN Council, 414. Vicar of our Lord, 120, 123, 252, 273, 286. Vincent de Paul, St., birth of, 39, 45 ; France in the time of, 41 ; boyhood of, 45 ; simplicity of, 47 ; foundation of his Confra- ternity, 49 ; the Sisters of Cha- rity of, 50 ; his work in semi- naries, 51 ; his accidental glory, 55 ; his unconsciousness of self, 59 ; his humility, 60 ; his con- fidence in God, 62 ; his zeal for souls, 71 ; his spiritual trials, 73 ; his dominant passion, 75 ; his consolations, 99 ; sorrows, 100; bodily sufferings, 102; peace of, 104 ; his preparation for death, 106; his last words, 110. Vision, beatific, 37, 83, 408. Voltaire, 219, 322. WILL and intellect, 335 ; of God, 401. Winfrid, St., 383, 392. 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