drink that satisfies him, it is a heavenly feast, which makes him thirst after heavenly drink.

"Yet let not the youth believe that this is all he has to do; let not even the man believe it! In earthly relations we are accustomed at last to depend on ourselves, and, even there, knowledge, understanding, and character, will not always suffice; in heavenly things, on the contrary, we are never done learning. That higher feeling within us which, on frequent examination, finds itself not once truly at home, is even oppressed by so much from without besides, that our own power hardly administers all that is necessary for counsel, consolation, and help. But, to this end, a remedy is found to be instituted for our whole life, and an intelligent, pious man is continually on the look-out to show the right way to the wanderers, and to relieve the distressed.

"And what has now been so well tried through the whole life, shall show forth all its healing power with tenfold activity at the gate of Death. According to a trustful custom, in which he has been guided from his youth up, the dying man receives with fervor those symbolical, significant assurances, and where every earthly warranty

fails, there, by a heavenly one, he is assured of a blessed existence to all eternity. He feels himself perfectly convinced that neither a hostile element nor a malignant spirit can hinder him from clothing himself with a glorified body, so that, when in immediate relation with the Godhead, he may partake of the boundless happiness which flows forth from Him.

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In conclusion, then, in order that the whole may be made holy, the feet also are anointed and blessed. They are to feel, in case of possible recovery, an aversion to touching this earthly, hard, impenetrable soil. A wonderful nimbleness shall be imparted to them, by which they spurn from under them this hollow earth which attracted them before. And so, through a resplendent circle of equally holy acts, whose beauty we have only briefly hinted at, the cradle and the grave, let them lie perchance never so far asunder, are bound together within one never-ending round.

"But all these spiritual wonders spring not, like other fruits, from the natural soil, where they can neither be sown, nor planted, nor cherished. We must supplicate for them from another region, a thing which cannot be done by

all persons, nor at all times. Here the highest of these symbols meet us, according to ancient, pious tradition. We are told that one man may be endowed with grace, blessed and sanctified, above another. But lest this should appear as a natural gift, this great grace, bound up as it is with a heavy duty, must be communicated to others by one who has authority; and the greatest good that a man can attain must be received and perpetuated on earth by spiritual heirship, yet without his being able to wrestle it out, or seize upon its possession, of himself. In the very ordination of the priest, every thing is comprehended which is necessary for the effectual solemnizing of these holy acts, by which the many receive grace, without any other act being needful on their part but that of faith and implicit confidence. And so the priest steps forth into the line of his predecessors and successors, into the circle of those anointed with him, representing Him, the great Source of blessings, so much the more gloriously, as it is not the priest whom we reverence, but his office; it is not his nod to which we bow the knee, but to the blessing which he imparts, and which seems the more holy, and

to come the more immediately from heaven, inasmuch as the earthly instrument cannot at all weaken or invalidate it by its own sinful, yea, wicked nature." *

After this impressive description of the beauty and harmony that reign in the Catholic Church, Goethe casts back a glance upon that unsuccessful attempt of the sixteenth century to have Christianity independent of the Church of Christ, and exclaims:

"How is not this truly spiritual connection shattered to pieces in Protestantism! Since some of the above-mentioned symbols are declared apocryphal, and only a few canonical; and how, by their indifference to one of these, will they prepare us for the high dignity of the other ? "

Autobiography.

XXIV.

Divine Life and Rome.

"The feelings which the heart has raised to birth,

That holy mother never will disclaim;

She is no hireling minister of earth;

They are no bastard forgers of her name."

MILNES.

CH are the answers of the Catholic Church

SUCH

to man's wants, moral and intellectual, of the heart and of the head. But one may reply: “These, after all, though intended for all men, still do not meet the wants of all, and especially of that class of souls, who would realize in daily conduct the life of Christ, in all its purity, loveliness and beauty. What says the Catholic Church to this class of souls? for we repudiate