sion of certainty, consistency, stability, on the highest and holiest subjects of human thought, to have hope here, and heaven hereafter, to be on the Mount with Christ, while the poor world is guessing and quarrelling at its foot,—who among us shall not wonder at his own blessedness, who shall not be awe-struck at the inscrutable grace of God, which has brought him, not others, where he stands? As the Apostle says, “Through our Lord Jesus Christ we have, through faith, access into this grace wherein we stand, and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God. And hope confoundeth not; because the charity of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us." And as St. John says, still more exactly to our purpose, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One;" your eyes are anointed by Him who put clay on the eyes of the blind man ; "from Him have you an unction, and ye know," not conjecture, or suppose, or opine, but "know," see, "all things." "So let the unction which you have received of Him abide in you. Nor need ye that any one teach you, but as His unction teaches you of all things, and is true, and no lie, and hath taught you, so abide in Him." You can abide in nothing else; opinions change, conclusions are feeble, enquiries run their course, reason stops short, but faith alone reaches to the end, faith only endures. Faith and prayer alone will endure in that last dark hour, when Satan urges all his powers and resources against the sinking soul. What will it avail1 us, then, to have devised some subtle argument, or to have led some 1 Te maris et terræ, numeroque carentis arenæ Pulveris exigui prope littus parva Matinum, brilliant attack, or to have mapped out the field of history, or to have numbered and sorted the weapons of controversy, and to have the homage of friends and the respect of the world for our successes,-what will it avail to have had a position, to have followed out a work, to have reanimated an idea, to have made a cause to triumph, if after all, we have not the light of faith to guide us on from this world to the next? Oh, how fain shall we be in that day to exchange our place with the humblest, and dullest, and most ignorant of the sons of men, rather than to stand before the judgment-seat in the lot of him who has received great gifts from God, and used them for self and for man, who has shut his eyes, who has trifled with truth, who has repressed his misgivings, who has been led on by God's grace, but stopped short of its scope, who has neared the land of promise, yet not gone forward to take possession of it! ("Discourses to Mixed Congregations," p. 190.) INTEGRITY OF CATHOLIC DOCTRINE. THE Catholic doctrines are members of one family, and suggestive, or correlative, or confirmatory, or illustrative of each other. In other words, one furnishes evidence to another, and all to each of them; if this is proved, that becomes probable; if this and that are both probable, but for different reasons, each adds to the other its own probability. The Incarnation is the antecedent of the doctrine of Mediation, and the archetype both of the Sacramental principle, and of the merits of Saints. From the doctrine of Mediation follow the Atonement, the Mass, the merits of Martyrs and Saints, their invocation and cultus. From the Sacramental principle come the Sacraments properly so called, the unity of the Church, and the Holy See as its type and centre; the authority of Councils; the sanctity of rites; the veneration of holy places, shrines, images, vessels, furniture, and vestments. Of the Sacraments, Baptism is developed into Confirmation on the one hand, into Penance, Purgatory, and Indulgences, on the other; and the Eucharist into the Real Presence, adoration of the Host, Resurrection of the Body, and the virtue of Relics. Again, the doctrine of the Sacraments leads to the doctrine of Justification; Justification to that of Original Sin; Original Sin to the merit of Celibacy. Nor do these separate developments stand independent of each other, but by cross relations they are connected, and grow together while they grow from one. The Mass and Real Presence are parts of one; the veneration of Saints and their Relics are parts of one; their intercessory power, and the Purgatorial State, and, again, the Mass and that State are correlative; Celibacy is the characteristic mark of Monachism and the Priesthood. You must accept the whole, or reject the whole; reduction does but enfeeble, and amputation mutilate. It is trifling to receive all but something which is as integral as any other portion; and, on the other hand, it is a solemn thing to receive any part, for, before you know where you are, you may be carried by a stern logical necessity to accept the whole. ("Essay on Development," p. 154.) TRANSUBSTANTIATION. PEOPLE say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible to imagine, I grant;-but how is it difficult to believe? Yet Macaulay thought it so difficult to believe that he had need of a believer in it, of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas More, before he could bring himself to conceive that the Catholics of an enlightened age could resist the overwhelming force of the argument against it. "Sir Thomas More," he says, "is one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of Transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test, will stand any test." But, for myself, I cannot indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, "Why should it not be? What's to hinder it? What do I know of substance or matter? Just as much philosophers, and that is nothing at all." the case, that there is a rising school of philosophy now, which considers phenomena to constitute the whole of our knowledge in physics. The Catholic doctrine leaves phenomena alone. It does not say that the phenomena go; on the contrary, it says that they remain; nor does it say that the same phenomena are in several places at once. It deals with what no one on earth knows anything about ; the material substances themselves. And, in like manner, of that majestic article of the Anglican as well as of the as the greatest So much is this I Catholic Creed,—the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being? know that my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my idea of one; but when I come to the question of concrete fact, I have no means of proving that there is not a sense in which one and three can equally be predicated of the Incommunicable God. ("Apologia," p. 239.) MASS. To me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words-it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on, as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick, for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go, for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon, as when it was said in the beginning, "What thou doest, do quickly." Quickly they pass, for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed |