does it prove? It proves that when movements are made among them to realize this sublime virtue, in spite of their influence and their opposition, men will soon learn to see that Popery, after all, is Christianity, that they have been grossly imposed upon, and be led to say: "And now within Thy calm and holy grove I fain would hasten on the road of Heaven; * Baptistry. XXVI. Chastity 66 'O that the vacant eye would learn to look True loveliness." HOOD. THAT says the Catholic Church to the most WE sublime and angelic virtue of chastity? Her answer is clear and explicit : "Virginity is the queen of all virtues, and most pleasing to Him who lived and died a virgin-Jesus Christ." "O that the young soul took Its virgin passion from the glorious face * Hood. Such is her language. But he who does not know what it is to have his whole soul turned heavenward, and feels not the love of "the Immortal Bridegroom who binds the soul with more than bridal ties," knows not what this virtue is. He cannot understand how a chaste life is possible. Grace is a pure and divine excitement, tending to draw and unite the soul to God, and when once it has penetrated the roots of man's passions, and gained the mastery of his affections, it withdraws him from all sensual and human pleasure to, find the purest and highest source of love and bliss in God. Hence, it finds the purest of all delights in the abnegation of sensual enjoyments and material pleasures. There are souls who have felt this, even among those who are ignorant of the true faith, one writer beautifully says: "Happy, inexpressibly happy, is the will that gives itself as a chaste bride to the Eternal." Even Milton, whom one would least suspect of extolling chastity, after his advocation of the dissolution of the marriage tie, says: "So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt; And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, And a writer of note of our own day tells us in one of our journals, that "we shall not decline. celibacy as the great fact of the time." † Do you wish to know from whence springs that spiritual might by which men like St. Bernard, when called from his solitude by the Sovereign Pontiff of the Church, made the whole earth tremble with his voice, and enkindled in the hearts of men, for succeeding generations, the fire of divine love? It was from chastity. "Thy heart has been strengthened because thou hast loved chastity." Would you wish. to know from whence springs the devotion of the Catholic priesthood in times of great calamities and epidemics, their fearlessness in attending the sick bed of the poorest and humblest * Comus. + Margaret Fuller. + Judith xv. at a moment's warning, and at the risk of contagion? It springs from the chaste soul, where burns uninterruptedly that fire which Christ came on earth to kindle, the fire of divine love. It would be useless, at this day, to attempt to show that a priesthood, unconsecrated by the vow of chastity, would be no priesthood at all; that soon it would degenerate into the common and ordinary life, not respected, and unable to demand respect. But not only do we speak of the priesthood when we speak of this virtue, but we must speak of the thousand and ten thousand virgins, of both sexes, devoted to God and the good of their fellow-men, "Who angel-wise have chosen And kept, like Paul, a virgin course, content As the Brothers of St. John of God, Christian Brothers, Sisters of Charity, of Mercy, &c., who never would or could be so without this holy vow; for this exempts them from the yoke * Lyra Apos. |