narrative, I pressed her hand, and said: "You do not know all the good you have done me. What I have heard from you this day will influence my future course more than you can perhaps imagine." She smiled, and taking a little picture out of her prayer-book, she wrote on the back of it the words, "Omnia ad majorem Dei gloriam;" and gave it me as a keepsake. HANDMAID AND QUEEN. We stand within a lonely room and bare, Which once by God's own people was possessed; The time is ev'ning, and the setting sun Who kneels in prayer: a humble maiden she, Save the pure beauty of that gentle face, That well beseems a child of David's royal race. Yea! what new radiance makes the sun grow dim? Who is the source of light. Yes in that cell, On whom our God bestows such heav'nly company. "Behold, thou shalt conceive and bear a Son- "Let it be done according to thy word, For I am but the handmaid of our gracious Lord." The deeper for her awful sanctity. Thus Mary spoke. O virtue doubly blest, Thou hadst thy dwelling in her spotless breast, By thee she gauged her own deep lowliness, And then, with thirsting heart, drank in God's holiness. Now 'mid the angels on this joyous day, She hears the world salute her Queen of May; Then, Mother, listen to my humble rhyme, SANCTITY A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. THE glorious character of sanctity as a peculiar distinction of the true Church was announced by the ancient Prophets, bestowed by Jesus Christ, and commemorated by the Apostles. By the mouth of Ezechiel (37th chapter), the Lord thus speaks: "I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. and the heathen sanctuary shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forever." In the same way that Christ prayed for unity, he also prayed for the sanctity of his flock: "I pray not (17 John) that thou shouldst take them out of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me unto the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. And not only for them do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me." We also find this essential mark of sanctity set forth by the Apostles. St. Peter, in his 1st Epistle, 1st chapter, declares that Christ has regenerated his followers, "Unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that cannot fade, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are kept by faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." In the second chapter he says: "But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people, that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." St. Paul gives similar evidence: writing to the Romans in the first chapter, he addresses, " 1o all that are at Rome, the beloved of God, call ed the Saints." Writing to the Ephe sians, 5th chapter," Christ so loved the Church and delivered himself up for it that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." When we state our proposition, that the Catholic Church solely and exclusively possesses the mark of sanctity, the mind seems to hesitate whether it shall yield to the conviction of a self-evident demonstration or glance at the bright array of testimony which makes this very proposition as positive a truth as ever yet enlightened the mind of man. Her foundation has been laid by no other than Jesus Christ; her first teachers have been no others than his Apostles; the successive pastors who have continued the work of the ministry, have sprung from no other source than the one originally and forever opened out by the Saviour, to carry the tide of doctrine and moral leg. islation, in full copiousness and purity, unto the end of time, without an addition from any tributary stream. This affirmation is so perfectly true, and so elevated above the need of argument, that even the concessions of those who wish to be esteemed our opponents, must satisfy every unbiassed mind. For, let us harass patience, by winding through every tortuous labyrinth, or passing over the extensive scenes through which ingenuity and malevolence have ever led the spirits opposed to the Catholic Churchstand with them in any age, discuss any point of doctrine-the whole of what they can say amounts to a declaration that she at some period became corrupted. In the meantime they must admit her to be the parent of Christianity, and it is to the avulsion from her bosom that they trace their origin. Thus they freely cast disgrace and infamy around their birth; they have no Paraclete illumining the skies with fiery tongues, but fling over and around their cradle the murky clouds of error and superstition. The throes of the parturient mother are represented in eight hundred years of agonizing error; the birth of the pseudo-reformation was an effort to slay the parent; their first breathing was her revilement, and their only inheritance is a scripture which must be unsafe and insecure to them, whereas they took it as they say from polluted hands. But let us leave heretics to remove that tremendous difficulty of their own creation, whilst we glory in the fact that the Church had her birth, her foundation, her first administration in sanctity. How long or short that endured we need not discuss, she was established by Christ, therefore she has the mark of sanctity. Here we might rest satisfied with the brilliant glory of original sanctity so clearly impressed upon the Church, and which fills the whole circuit of time with its effulgent light, leaving to all adversaries no existence but the dark penumbra engendered by the heavy exhalations of their dreary spirits. But perfect like the Lord, this sanctity is conspicuous under every aspect; therefore we turn to behold its eminence in the doctrines of our Church. With her alone the sacred deposit of truth has been found during so many ages, in the course of which, everything in the world has been changed, and whilst Cerenthian, Arian, Nestorian, Manichean, and various other pretending systems have been borne away by the lapse of time, her hand alone has held safe the written word of God. Ever holy has been that important record of the will of heaven, equally holy has been the institution which kept intact the holy deposit; and they who now would build their religion solely on that volume, must be well persuaded of its sanctity; but this they never would have known if the Catholic Church had not made it safe and conspicuous as the means of her instruction, the history of her origin, and thence we conclude that sanctity is thus the mark of her doctrine, associated as it has been with the very existence and preservation of divine revelation. Christ never said that he would preserve the sacred Scripture, but he most positively declared that he would preserve the teachers of his doctrines in all truth; for them alone he prayed that they might as a ministry be holy like himself. To these alone and not to the Scripture the faithful are referred for instruction under pain of reprobation. But where are those preachers to be found? Most certainly in the Church, where the very Scripture has been safely and originally found; in the Church, where alone we can touch a link of testimony passing up from age to age, until we stand before Jesus Christ saying, "Teach whatsoever things I have commanded." But some will say, "We also have the Scripture." Yes, you have it as a stolen document, but not as a sacred deposit; you have it with an assumed right of private judg ment, but not with the positive command of teaching it; you have it, and so has the Mohammedan who mingles a portion in his Koran; you have it, and so has the Brahmin, who mingles a portion in his Vedas and Puranhas; you have it, and so has the Jew, who makes it the substance of his Talmud. But the Catholic Church holds it as she ever possessed it, the original production of her teachers, a testimony for her commission, a record of the early labors of her ministry. Therefore by her original and integral right of possession in this sacred fountain of truth we establish the sanctity of her doctrine. There is sanctity in the law as it is written, there is equal sanctity in the law preached, and the same must be found in the organ of its expression. Take the whole range of doctrine in which she exercises the gift and right of teaching, and in all she is most holy, and so perfectly uniform, that not one single article presents a blemish. Indeed, this is so true, that our fiercest enemies are obliged to draw upon their power of imagination, to invent appropriate objects for their spleen. Take her canons and her catechisms, and there you find every moral precept of the law of nature, every strict command and counsel of Jesus Christ. Take her approved books of instruction, from the days of her Cyrils, Chrysostoms and Augustines, down to her Kempises, Bourdaloues and Masillons, and throughout you find the same indignant censure against vice, the same exciting motives proposed to raise glorious conceptions of every virtue. The doctrines of heretics claim for patronage the wealth, talent and respectability that fumes away its silly hour on this scene of vanity, but the Catholic Church is eloquent in praise of the widows' mite, her gospel is preached to the poor, she makes enemies by resisting the proud, and urging humility upon the arrogant oppressor. All that is calculated to make the perfect saint and useful citizen, the careful parent, and the faithful friend, is the holy effort and perpetual object of her zeal. I may produce the testimony of a learned Protestant: "Of all religions (says De Haller), the Catholic is without question the most proper to maintain a union of hearts and minds, and to preserve the internal tranquillity of states; because it is founded on obedience to legitimate authority, and not on independence of all authority; on respect and not on contempt for fathers and mothers; on the denial and not on the idolizing of self; on the reciprocal sacrifice of one for another, which is the bond of an immense community, united by the same faith and the same law, and not on a principle of hatred and isolation, and dispersion; in fine, because in its dogmas, in its morality, and in its worship, it teaches, nourishes, and vivifies without ceasing, respect for the maxims and traditions of fathers and superiors; veneration for all that is ancient, universal, perpetual, and repugnance against all separations and all fundamental innovations." (Restoration of Political Science.) Let us pass to the mysterious doctrines of faith, and upon these taken singly or collectively we behold the clearest mark of sanctity. Ample proof may be drawn from the fact, that every insult which ignorance, bigotry, and illiberality could invent is poured out against these doctrines, by men who find no principle for their arguments but error, no proof but misrepresentation, and no confirmation but wild invective. Such opposition being made-scripture and sound reasoning being abandoned-a remarkable testimony is afforded to the strength and sanctity of our faith, and a concession of the weakness of parties requiring such measures for their maintenance and defence. Our doctrines alone are reconcilable with the written word of God and human reason. They have ever been the subject of faith in an undivided church, and thus reason is safe in yielding submission to the highest authority, viz., the wise and saintly of every age and nation; also they adequately explain the sacred Scripture by the voice of a teaching ministry, whilst out of the pale of the Catholic Church, the doctrines presumed to be founded on the Scripture, are derived from the private judgment of individuals, totally unauthorized; and persons believe not what soever Christ commanded, but whatsoever their own reason suggests, and ultimately their whole doctrine is a mere human conjecture, not founded at all on the Bible. Those who are separated from us must say (according to their principles), that without the Scripture they would not have any Christian knowledge; but in the case of the Catholic, whether there be a scripture or not, he has the faith of Christ in the voice of the Church, and having this as the peculiarity of our church, we have exclusively a holy doctrine. For we must remember that, no other provision for the diffusion of his truths has been made by the Saviour except a teaching ministry independent of Scripture; this teaching is now and has always been present only in the Catholic Church; therefore she alone diffuses sanctified truth coming directly from Jesus Christ. The Saviour did not order a Bible to be written, or distributed, or read in his church; but he certainly ordered the people to be taught by a certain class of persons appointed for the work of the ministry, attended by his own abiding Spirit, which gives its influence to faith and morals in a way that never could be communicated to any written, lifeless document. Therefore the Catholic Church being the only organ of the faith in its original form as it was communicated by Christ and expressed by the Apostles, and she alone being able to trace out this gift unto the very first moment of her institution, she has the mark of sanctity in her doctrine. Moreover, examining her doctrine taken collectively shie not only holds the mark of sanctity affixed by the fact of a right of teaching, which is traced up by her alone, through the voice of her pastors, till the moment when Christ said, "Teach whatsoever I have commanded you," but she alone has her doctrine marked in the manner ordained by the Saviour. In the sixteenth chapter of St. Mark, we read the commission of teaching given to one party, and the obligation of believing to another, and then the mark was set forth in the following words, "And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover." And the Evangelist says that "the preachers went forth, the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed." Now the Catholic Church having indisputably the commencement of her existence with a doctrine that thus appeared marked, she holds exclusively that distinction of sanctity; it belongs to her alone, for, no other community that ever broke away from her pale has produced any of these signs. She holds by right of inheritance the value of these primitive signs until some new system shall divide the honor by producing a similar testimony. For which I guess we shall wait long enough. But, the mark of sanctity is the sole property of the Catholic Church, not only as regards the signs attending her first teaching in the apostolic age, but even in the subsequent ages, when her opponents would have us suppose she became corrupted. That a miraculous power is not so frequently exerted now as in the days of the Apostles is universally acknowledged, nor is it required for the benefit of the faithful, or the con |
