LIFE IN THE 
 SHADOW OF DEATH 
 
 REV. ANDREW KLARMANN, A.M.
 
 ART AND PURPOSE OF 
 LIVING 
 
 BY 
 ^ilitrmrttm, ^.^1. 
 
 Author of " The Princess of Gan-Sar," " The Trial of Jesus Christ 
 
 Before Pilate," " The Crux of Pastoral Medicine," 
 
 " Felix Aeternus," " Nizra," etc. 
 
 r 
 
 Printers to The Holy Apostolic See and The Sacred 
 Congregation of Rites 
 
 RATISBON ROME NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 1910
 
 THOMAS B. COTTER, PH.D. 
 
 Censor. 
 
 fcJOHN M. FARLEY, 
 
 Archbishop of New York. 
 
 NEW YORK, AUG. 22, igio 
 
 io^it, 1010 
 
 FR. PUSTET & CO. 
 NEW YORK AND CINCINNATI
 
 In order to live properly it is necessary that 
 we have the proper view of life. In these 
 pages the author endeavors to set before the 
 busy man a few considerations of the twofold 
 manifestation of human life, that is, of its 
 development and its decline. But since human 
 life passes for one brief moment between time 
 and eternity, as the moon in a solar eclipse 
 passes between the earth and the sun, and 
 emerges from the momentary obscuration of 
 death into the splendor of a new life, it is 
 meet to study human life in its eclipse, death, 
 particularly because death is the key to the 
 mystery of life, without which neither its 
 purpose nor its operation can be fully dis- 
 closed and closely inspected. 
 
 As the moon obscures for a little while the 
 light of the heavens from the earth, so death 
 eclipses life and its hopes for a moment, only 
 to reveal it in the newness of a nobler life, the 
 end and aim of earthly life. Eclipses are 
 mysteries to the rude tribes of the South Sea 
 
 [5]
 
 islands and death has so much become a 
 mystery to the children of civilization and 
 culture, that its very contemplation fills them 
 with horror, as the passing of a specter in 
 the night, and its meaning is made a mad 
 superstition. Yet the contemplation of life 
 in the shadow of death is necessary for the under- 
 standing and ordering of the short span of 
 time and slim impulse of energy accorded to 
 man in this world. It is an improvident 
 traveler who does not prepare for the night 
 that lies between to-day and to-morrow; the 
 night may steal from him the morrow, and 
 bring all his plans to naught. 
 
 "Whatever thou do, do it wisely, and ponder 
 the end. " 
 
 [6]
 
 n 
 
 ^Ftri 
 
 LIFE is fraught with mysteries, but not more 
 than death, the privation of life. Death 
 is not merely the absence of life: stones are 
 lifeless, but not dead. Death is the absence of 
 life in a being that should have, and had life. 
 
 But in living things, life is the total cause 
 of their being. Now the cause of the being 
 of a thing cannot be interfered with from 
 within, because nothing seeks its own destruc- 
 tion of its own accord. 
 
 Hence if life is attacked and destroyed, the 
 aggressor is an exterior agent or agency; and 
 for this reason, death is the result of destruc- 
 tive violence exerted upon a living thing. 
 
 Yet a distinction is made between natural 
 and violent death. 
 
 This distinction is fully justified. For 
 although it may seem odd that death should 
 
 [7]
 
 in % <$ 
 
 follow in the wake of life, as thunder follows 
 in the tracks of lightning, yet it is plain 
 that nature favors dissolution in things built 
 upon composition. But for a special gift 
 ,of genius, we cannot work with numbers 
 unless we resolve them into units, decimals, 
 etc., i.e., we resolve in order to compose 
 them anew, and we compose new things by 
 laying together the parts of other things. Thus 
 also does nature dissolve one thing in order to 
 compose another. From the remains of one 
 life, nature builds the dwellings of other lives. 
 
 Therefore, although death is the result 
 of violence, still it is produced according to 
 the plan of nature, and is correctly called a 
 natural occurrence. 
 
 With what is generally called violent death, 
 we have here no dealings, just as arithmetic 
 does not respect false tables. 
 
 Death, therefore, is natural, but only as a 
 defect of nature. 
 
 The factors of life 
 
 The view that certain organs are the only 
 or the chief seats of life, is obsolete. Certain 
 organs, as the brain, or the heart, are the 
 
 [8]
 
 seat of the chief activity of life, it is true; 
 a grave lesion of these organs induces death: 
 but not as though life had then lost its princi- 
 pal habitation, but because its chief instru- 
 ment has been rendered useless. It is only 
 because of the vital connection of all the 
 organs of the body that the destruction of 
 one of the principal organs drags the others 
 into ruin. 
 
 As it is, we know that life is rooted in 
 every particle of the living body, and that 
 life lends a specific organization and constitu- 
 tion to the material of which it has built its 
 habitation, for upon death follows not only 
 a change of arrangement, but speedy disso- 
 lution of the organism and its substance. 
 
 Hence, to advance another step, death 
 is a twofold dissolution: (1) a dissolution 
 of the composite, material and life; (2) a 
 dissolution of the material itself. In this 
 sense death may be said to be the annihilation 
 of material existence. 
 
 If there were need here of an explanation, 
 we would refer to the death of man, in which we 
 find the complete cessation of the life-process 
 together with corruption and lasting decay. 
 
 [9]
 
 n 
 
 As long as a man lives, waste indeed is 
 going on in his body, but not corruption; 
 decay also, but not dissolution. The cells 
 composing the body retain all through life 
 their respective constitution amid the wonder- 
 fully manifold transformations which they 
 undergo. But at the moment of death these 
 cells wither, and turn from wells of life and 
 health into poisonous pools of death. This 
 change takes place outside the confines of 
 life's power, and is material or chemical; 
 but because it is uniform and universal, it 
 too takes place according to law and order: 
 hence the violence of death is the violence 
 of nature. 
 
 But: Does nature itself violate the laws of life? 
 
 In other words: How is death to be carried 
 into a living being, prescinding, as we do, 
 from the violence of exterior agents? Does 
 death begin its work of dissolution within 
 the living subject? 
 
 Here we must make a distinction: At 
 death that which was a living being is changed 
 in two ways: (1) It loses life; (2) It loses its 
 material integrity. 
 
 [10]
 
 The loss of material integrity is consequent 
 upon death; therefore, death cannot have 
 begun its work by destroying the material 
 part. On the other hand, however, life is 
 the cause of the existence of a being as a 
 living being, and as such is itself a safeguard 
 against death. 
 
 Whence, now, is death? 
 
 Here we must look up from the works of 
 nature and ask for her designs. For life 
 itself would bear the assurance of immortality, 
 unless we would deny that a living being is 
 totally and essentially different from a being 
 dead and lifeless. And who would deny 
 it at least at the bier of a loved one? 
 For the heart teaches its lessons as emphati- 
 cally as the head. 
 
 What, then, is the condition and purpose of 
 earthly life? 
 
 All earthly lives that we know, are based 
 on matter. We find the fire of life burning 
 out in material substances; like the flame of 
 a match on a piece of wood, the flame of a 
 candle on a stick of wax, or, better, perhaps, 
 
 [11]
 
 n 
 
 like heat and glow in a bar of iron. As long 
 as the material lasts, so long will there be 
 fuel for the flame. But the material is bound 
 to be consumed by being converted into 
 energy in the form of heat or light, and into 
 smoke and ashes. Thus the very fuel is the 
 ultimate unmaking of the fire as the defec- 
 tion of its material cause. But as fuel and 
 fire, so also matter and life dwell together. 
 
 Earthly life is not only limited to and con- 
 fined within material substances, and mani- 
 fests itself through matter, but also employs 
 matter both as an instrument and as material 
 for its functions. 
 
 Hence the process of natural life is a process 
 of constant change, or, rather, exchange 
 of matter, of assimilation, separation, and 
 secretion or elimination. Life is going on 
 between current and counter-current of activi- 
 ties, the one forwarding the material aids, 
 the other disposing of the refuse; the one 
 assisting life positively, the other lending 
 aid only negatively. 
 
 If now perfect equality could be preserved 
 in the proportion of the furnished material 
 to the actual requirements of the life-process 
 
 [12]
 
 and to the secretive and separative faculty, 
 there would be no reason why the process 
 should not continue indefinitely. At the 
 same time it is evident that as surely as the 
 proper proportion between the material aids 
 t)f life and the faculties of substantial assimila- 
 tion and material separation is not preserved, 
 just so surely the process of life is open to 
 fatal disturbances. 
 
 Hence the disorders leading to that dissolu- 
 tion which is called death take their rise in 
 disorders originating not in the matter of the 
 body, but in the dispositon of the life principle 
 toward the aids of life; and that not from a 
 natural inclination toward disorder, but from 
 a lack of control over the natural appetite. 
 
 This we find to be true in the natural death 
 of man. 
 
 We will not refer to predisposition, infection, 
 contamination, etc., because these produce 
 violent death inasmuch as they destroy the 
 injured, infected, or contaminated organism by 
 an aggression from without. 
 
 Besides the disorders caused internally, 
 within the very workshop of life, so to speak, 
 there are exterior disorders, such as excessive 
 
 [13]
 
 n 
 
 heat or cold, excessive fatigue, want of timely 
 rest, want of exercise, want of stimulants and 
 tonics to be administered to an overtaxed 
 organism, and want of rest in the several 
 organs, forced to work incessantly, without 
 opportunity for cleansing and "oiling up." 
 
 All these causes and occasions work the 
 untimely breakdown of the constitution by 
 interfering with the fine mechanism of life, 
 which nature times to a most admirable 
 precision. 
 
 But although we acknowledge in man 
 the propensity toward the abuse of his 
 faculties, we are slow to burden the brute, 
 at least the wild beast, with the mischief of 
 human nature. Man is a free agent, because 
 he is an intelligent agent, who does, or should 
 do, his own thinking, choosing, selecting, and 
 applying. But because he is free, and at the 
 same time wofully ignorant and helpless 
 unless led and instructed by the more experi- 
 enced, he is liable to make mistakes, and injure 
 himself where he intends to profit, whereas 
 the brute need but follow an unbending 
 appetite to avoid error and fatalities. Still, 
 neither is in man liberty the cause of errors, 
 
 [14]
 
 nor in the brute the absence of liberty the 
 cause of freedom from errors. 
 
 There are indeed those who, lost in the 
 labyrinth of human inconsistency, would 
 deny the liberty of the will, and depose the 
 authority of the intellect, making sensitive 
 perception the criterion of truth, and sensitive 
 enjoyment the sum of human happiness. 
 
 But this error alone is more pernicious 
 than the endless variety of the errors of judg- 
 ment committable under the view of liberty 
 controlled by reason, for the fact that it 
 both denies the evident fact of intelligence 
 and liberty, as the source of morality, and 
 also involves the contradiction, that man's 
 sphere of happiness does not extend beyond 
 that of the brute, at the same time that it 
 vindicates the infallibility of the sensitive fac- 
 ulties, and, placing man on a level with the 
 brute, yet burdens him with all the failings 
 of his human nature: because the dethrone- 
 ment of intellect and will does not make the 
 blunders of man cease. 
 
 Such thinkers are very much like one who 
 for fear of death commits suicide. 
 
 Man's case is, indeed, a strange case. 
 [15]
 
 n 
 
 He resembles a clock, well regulated, wound, 
 oiled, and set in motion, and yet not keeping 
 time, stopping now and then, losing or gaining 
 on the sun, and in general giving slim satis- 
 faction as a time-piece. If we owned such 
 a clock and could assign no reason for its 
 capers, we would give it to a clock-maker 
 for inspection. Under the conditions he could 
 probably give only this decision: the clock 
 is old and the works worn down; or: the works 
 are jarred out of gear did you let it fall? 
 
 Now the race is old; but the individual 
 is as young as the first man at the same age: 
 hence the fault is in the nature of man. 
 
 In the brutes we know "instinct" to be 
 the director of the activity of life. Instinct, 
 they tell us, is all but infallible. The fact is 
 that in the sensitive kingdom we meet with 
 manifestations of intelligence that mock the 
 sagacity of man. The honey-bee constructs 
 the cells of its honeycomb with the skill of an 
 expert mathematician; the skill, foresight, 
 and diligence of the beaver are proverbial, 
 as also the indefatigable energy of the little 
 busybody of the fields, the ant. The com- 
 plicated process of evolution with the butterfly 
 
 [16]
 
 is a standing marvel; the spinning mechanism 
 of the spider, and again, of the caterpillar, is 
 too ingeniously constructed to serve even 
 the human artisan for a model. The varied 
 structure of the limbs, parts, and organs of 
 birds for the varying ways and needs of their 
 living testifies to an admirable understanding 
 of soil, food, and climate, mating, breeding, 
 and raising the young, and of the needs of the 
 various geographical fields over which they are 
 spread in the capacity of scavengers, care- 
 takers, and police. 
 
 These considerations, and many others with 
 which a lover of nature may busy himself 
 every day in the year, force upon us the two- 
 fold question: (1) Whence the destruction 
 that death works in this beautiful harmony 
 of life and its means of preservation? 
 (2) Whence the superhuman intelligence that 
 guides the beasts of field and forest? 
 
 As to the first question: Whence is death 
 in nature? we have already seen that in 
 man death results from disorders which every 
 individual born healthy could control and 
 avoid. But by this we do not wish to say 
 that even with the most scrupulous care 
 
 [17]
 
 m 
 
 man could make himself immortal. For even 
 if the exchange of the aids of life for life- 
 force or vitality would take place according 
 to the most accurate order in the process of 
 assimilation and elimination, still the ravages 
 of influences from without could not be 
 counteracted immediately and continually 
 by any powers at the command of nature. 
 The body is vulnerable in its present condition 
 and surroundings. True it is, however, that 
 human life might be prolonged indefinitely, 
 if only the body and its organs were perfectly 
 healthy from birth, and strong enough to 
 withstand the ordinary attacks of exterior 
 agencies. Under this view the long lives of 
 the biblical patriarchs should not provoke 
 wonder or serious doubt. 
 
 Moreover, the materiality of the habitation 
 of life must be taken into consideration. 
 
 Matter is inert of itself; if it is to move, 
 it must be moved. Now by the transfer 
 of motion from the motor to the matter 
 moved, a certain proportion of the force is 
 lost; so much, at least, as must be expended to 
 overcome inertia at the moment of impact, 
 before momentum assists the motor. 
 
 [18]
 
 This deduction, however, does not hold 
 for vital motion, as a living being presents 
 living, animated matter; that is, in a living 
 being here on earth the animated body is 
 part of life; hence the motion of such a body 
 is caused by life itself within the living 
 material, and not by a force moving from 
 without. Consequently there is neither in- 
 ertia nor moment of impact. 
 
 Again, in life the union of the motor and the 
 matter moved is a substantial union, effecting 
 of life and matter one indivisible being; 
 hence, neither impact nor inertia, and, con- 
 sequently, no mechanical waste of vitality. 
 
 Yet because the process of waste is flowing 
 on under the same conditions as the process 
 of assimilation, it also draws on the principle 
 of life for assistance, and therefore, is itself 
 a vital process. Life bound up in matter 
 is ever in bad company. This position is 
 the unmaking of life. Hence, even if the con- 
 sideration of life in itself would preclude 
 the idea of mechanical waste, still the fact 
 that it cannot exert its power except in 
 and through matter, suggests the idea of 
 exhaustion according to the condition of 
 
 [19]
 
 tn 
 
 such life. In living things, therefore, the 
 waste of energy or vitality is a waste affecting 
 both the principle and the habitation of life; 
 in other words, not matter alone, but animated 
 matter, as much as it is animated, suffers loss 
 and impairment through the activity of life. 
 Hence in purely earthly life, the principle 
 and the material of life go down together 
 in death. 
 
 These conclusions are confirmed by facts, 
 against which no argument may avail. 
 
 But there is also life here on earth which 
 is not purely earthly, and to which, therefore, 
 these conclusions do not apply. For although 
 even animated matter, for the reason that 
 it is matter, tends of itself to dissolution 
 and death, yet if the principle of life belongs 
 to a higher order of beings, so as to have 
 subsistence of itself, the consideration of the 
 nature of matter alone, as part of the life 
 of that composite, cannot suggest the idea of 
 dissolution. 
 
 This is proved by the following argument: 
 There is nothing in this world that bears 
 the seed of destruction and dissolution in 
 itself in such a manner as ultimately to be 
 
 [20]
 
 destroyed absolutely, or annihilated. Matter 
 can as little unmake as produce itself, for 
 production is activity, and activity pre- 
 supposes an agent preexistent. Hence as the 
 first production of matter cannot be an 
 activity of nothing, so the reduction of matter 
 into nothing cannot be an activity of matter, 
 because a thing cannot vacate its existence 
 without existing in something else, albeit 
 under different forms. The act of self-annihi- 
 lation would be completed only then when 
 activity ceases; but matter would not cease 
 to exist until the activity of matter annihilat- 
 ing itself would cease, and this activity must 
 not cease until matter ceases to exist. We 
 have here the same law that forbids a sail- 
 boat to move if the wind is produced arti- 
 ficially on the boat itself. 
 
 Hence there is no question of absolute 
 dissolution even in matter. 
 
 But matter certainly is of itself subject to 
 relative dissolution; and this alone is required 
 for the definition of waste and death. 
 
 In like manner, the union of life and 
 matter, although it be substantial, is not such 
 as to identify matter with life. This union 
 
 [211
 
 identifies life with individual, but neither 
 life nor individual with matter. Hence the 
 severing of this union does not necessarily 
 imply the destruction of life in all cases, 
 but only the dissociation of life from matter, 
 and, ultimately, the dissolution of the material 
 parts of the individual. 
 
 If we now examine the actual process of 
 life, we find that when either of the opposing 
 currents, of assimilation and elimination, 
 as typified in the circulation of the blood, 
 gains the ascendancy, a surcharge is the 
 result: in the assimilation (or conversion), 
 widening of the blood channels, imbedding 
 of the nerve-strings in fat, clogging of heart 
 and lungs with heavy or abundant blood, 
 and, in consequence, organic disorders in 
 and about these organs; in the elimination, 
 tumors, cysts, inflammations, calcifications 
 and consequent organic injuries and patho- 
 logical evils. 
 
 But in order to prevent either current 
 from gaining the upper hand and thus dis- 
 turbing the mechanism of life, it would be 
 necessary to repair instantly all damage 
 done to the organism by the assertion of such 
 
 [22]
 
 natural functions as generation, pulsation, 
 circulation and digestion, not to speak of 
 the exactions of anger, fear, hunger and 
 thirst, and fatigue. To accomplish this, every 
 individual would have to be perfect in every 
 particular. As it is, the exactions of passions, 
 heat and cold, and the like, only accentuate 
 the lability of matter and hasten its dissolu- 
 tion. But this proves that life and matter 
 are separable manifestations of existence, 
 the one in its rise pressing upon the other, 
 and must, therefore, not be identified in any 
 living substance. 
 
 Hence if there is life here on earth inde- 
 pendent of matter as to its substance, its 
 existence in matter does not necessitate its 
 downfall with matter in death. 
 
 The second question proposed is this: 
 Whence the superhuman intelligence that 
 guides the beasts of field and forest? 
 
 The intelligence manifested by the brutes 
 cannot be their own : 
 
 (1) Because it is limited to the specific 
 requirements of their lives and constitutions. 
 
 (2) Because it leaves them without resource 
 
 [23]
 
 rf 4 
 
 m 
 
 * 
 
 when the conditions of their lives undergo 
 a change not provided for in their habits 
 and instincts. 
 
 (3) Because it lacks individuality,, operat- 
 ing hi precisely the same way in every member 
 of the tribe. 
 
 (4) Because on this account it is not sus- 
 ceptible of improvement and development. 
 
 But, nevertheless, it is an intelligence. 
 Human intelligence, which is the basis of 
 our comparison because we do not practi- 
 cally know of any other intelligence before 
 we have experienced the operation of our 
 own differs radically from that which is 
 operative in the brute: 
 
 (1) Human intelligence is not limited to 
 the requirements of human life and constitu- 
 tion : in proof, witness science, art and poetry. 
 
 (2) Human intelligence points out abundant 
 resources in cases of need and necessity: 
 witness the manifold ways of procuring a 
 livelihood, etc. 
 
 (3) Human intelligence does not operate 
 in the same way at all (except formaliter) 
 in any two persons: witness the proverb: 
 "Quot capita, tot sensus." 
 
 F24]
 
 (4) Human intelligence is perfectible in the 
 individual: witness learning, reasoning, etc. 
 
 (5) Hence we speak of man as a person, as 
 one who stands to an accounting for himself. 
 
 We may indeed vindicate a different genius 
 to each species of the brutes, but we cannot 
 ascribe to each a different intellect. 
 
 In man, of course, genius means more than 
 in the brute. In man it appears as an ele- 
 vation of the mind in the direction of the 
 immaterial and universal; in brutes it mani- 
 fests itself as a leaning toward a certain mode 
 of life. This leaning is visible in each species, 
 and lends stability to the species. In man the 
 elevation of mind is so transitory that it is 
 not only not an hereditary endowment, but 
 does not even actually prevail at every 
 moment of the life of him whom it adorns. 
 Hence there is an essential distinction be- 
 tween what is called genius in the brute, and 
 what constitutes genius in man. 
 
 That the intelligence of the brutes is 
 limited to certain requirements of their lives 
 and constitutions is evident from the palpable 
 fact, that the various classes of brutes known 
 to us have never yet departed from the mode 
 
 [25]
 
 in tit 
 
 
 
 of living and the structure of their respective 
 ancestors. That they have made such a 
 departure is not to be assumed for theorizing 
 even, when the theory is set up to support, 
 not a fact, but an invention or fiction, but 
 is to be proved in contradiction to the honest 
 observations and experiments of the present. 
 The habits of the animals that we know are 
 the same now that they have been throughout 
 the ages of history; nor has archaeology so 
 far proved anything to the contrary. 
 
 Furthermore, the brute is left without 
 resource when the conditions of its life undergo 
 a decided change. How utterly helpless the 
 most sagacious ant may be made, when its 
 sagacity is put to test, may be observed 
 by any one obstructing its natural aims. This 
 seems to be a contradiction in view of the 
 enthusiastic praises sounded by some modern 
 entomologists in proclaiming the " almost" 
 human wisdom of that little lump of energy; 
 but it is none the less true. Cut off an ant 
 from its home by a stream of water, and see 
 whether it will be wise enough to ferry across 
 on a dry leaf or twig, steering its raft against 
 the current, etc. 
 
 [26]
 
 However, if we observe the ant's ways 
 carefully, we may learn that all its actions, 
 diversified though they be, are governed 
 by an inflexible instinct directing them to 
 the welfare of the species. In exercising 
 this instinct, the ant often acts as foolishly 
 as the hen brooding china eggs, if we prescind 
 from an ulterior purpose of which the ant 
 is not aware. The ant then by its instinct 
 serves the intentions of an intelligence that 
 rules and governs the world even in its 
 tiniest forms. 
 
 An instance of this inflexibility of instinct 
 is recorded by Wasmann ("Seelenleben der 
 Ameisen," page 126) as follows: 
 
 "The ants treat the larvae of the Lome- 
 chusa even at the time when they change into 
 a chrysalis in the same manner as their own, 
 and carefully bed them in a vault of clay. 
 The larvae of the ants are shortly taken 
 out of the clay, where they have already 
 spun their cocoon. But the larvae of that 
 beetle (Lomechusa} do not spin a tough 
 cocoon, but only a very thin silky web, 
 which tears the moment they are extracted 
 from the ground ; the larvae of the Lomechusa 
 
 [27]
 
 n 
 
 are then immediately reimbedded with great 
 care in another place, extracted again, carried 
 about and buried over and over again, until 
 at last they dry up and die. Most of the 
 Lomechusa larvae are killed in this way, 
 through the folly of the ants, before the 
 chrysalid transformation; but also of those 
 in the chrysalid state the ants unearth many, 
 and out of love? eat them up." 
 
 In this instance as in many others, the 
 ant employs its instinct on the correct theory, 
 but knows nothing of the foolishness of its 
 performances on account of the difference 
 of the object. It has not the faculty of 
 making a distinction on the basis of changed 
 purposes and requirements. But if the ant 
 would treat the larvse of Lomechusa as they 
 require, and not as it is wont to treat its 
 own, it would work its own extinction. 
 
 ^hus we see that He who created the ants 
 employs their instincts for their own con- 
 servation without the ants knowing that 
 they are acting wisely on His plan, and 
 foolishly on their own. For it is not the 
 design of the ant to destroy the larvse of its 
 guests; but it simply follows the instinct 
 
 [28]
 
 which guides it in the care of its own 
 larvae. 
 
 The intelligence operating through the 
 instinct of the brute marks out the same line 
 of action for every member of each tribe, 
 and indeed so consistently that even the 
 young are expert before they can be taught. 
 
 The brute does not do its own thinking, 
 unless we concede that its young are more 
 fortunate in being more generously endowed 
 with intelligence than the offspring of man. 
 Still a two year old colt has not improved 
 in intelligence and perception, whereas a 
 two year old child gives manifest proofs of 
 dawning intelligence. The reason is that 
 the brute has no moral perfection to attain; 
 hence it need not be responsible for its actions, 
 and, consequently, acts in accordance with 
 laws dictated and guarded by an intelligence 
 exterior to itself. 
 
 The " intelligence " of the brute can be 
 neither perfected nor developed. It does not 
 belong to the brute; it is only reflected in the 
 instinct. Instinct is a copyist, intelligence is 
 an author. The instinct of every animal 
 of one tribe is prearranged, and predisposed 
 
 [29]
 
 n 
 
 to the same single line of action, and limited 
 to the same means always; hence it is neither 
 perfectible, because it is fully equipped for 
 its work, nor capable of development, because 
 ever drawn toward an unchanging purpose: 
 where there is no further asking, there is no 
 further response. 
 
 The superhuman intelligence, therefore, that 
 guides the beasts of field and forest, is a 
 stranger to them. It is the Intelligence that 
 "spoke, and they were made, that commanded, 
 and they were created." 
 
 If now we know that death overtakes also 
 the brute despite its well-ordered life, we 
 know also that the order in the life of the 
 brute does not depend upon the " intelligence " 
 of the brute, but upon a power emplojdng the 
 brute for its own purposes. Therefore, decay 
 and dissolution overtake the brute according 
 to the disposition of that Intelligence under 
 whose laws the brute lives and thrives. 
 That the matter which forms part of the 
 brute is corruptible, we know only by experi- 
 ence ; there is no a priori proof for the destruc- 
 tibility of matter in any shape. Matter might 
 be, and for all we know of its nature, ought 
 
 [30]
 
 to be, indestructible; hence, if matter is not 
 incorruptible as the material part of living 
 beings, and is subject to change, dissolution 
 and disintegration we are strongly urged, 
 by the natural consideration of things, to 
 subscribe humbly to the words of Paul of 
 Tarsus, who was not only an Apostle, but 
 also a man of learning, as open-sighted as any 
 scientist of our age: "For we know that every 
 creature groaneth and travaileth in pain even 
 now." (Rom. viii. 22.) He is looking for a 
 restoration of the primitive creation: and if 
 for a restoration, also for a re-formation, a 
 reestablishment of conditions that have been 
 lost. 
 
 Corruption certainly is the beginning of 
 destruction, and a phase of decay; still 
 even unchecked corruption does not end in 
 destruction, the absolute defection of matter. 
 Hence the corruption of definite forms of 
 being not undetermined forms, such as 
 are destined of their nature to be developed 
 and to lead to higher forms, as seeds, germs, 
 etc. is not in itself a consequence of the 
 lability of matter, but is induced by an agency 
 exterior to those forms of being. 
 
 [31]
 
 in Hit jllm&Pl*i * 
 
 Hence if even such forms of life as those 
 which appear partly in matter, but principally 
 in independent life-principles, as man, are 
 invaded by death, it seems reasonable to 
 conclude that death is rather a curse than 
 a natural termination of life, in such a man- 
 ner that death is the result of nature cursed; 
 of nature striving with impaired powers after 
 its ends: as water, held up in its course, rises 
 and eddies, and at last breaks down its own 
 channel and destroys its own bed and loses its 
 course, flowing about to no purpose and going 
 to waste in the sand. 
 
 Therefore, as we have observed that in man 
 errors and mistakes in the use of the aids 
 of bodily life introduce death, when his 
 intelligence should naturally warn him against 
 abuses of any kind, so we find that in the 
 brute a power exterior to its life controls its 
 existence by regulating its relations to the 
 general order in nature according to the pur- 
 poses of its life. Death, then, is the dark 
 messenger of the Creator; and for the fact 
 that death ensues upon abuses and natural 
 frailty in man, bowing him under the influences 
 of his condition and environment, and in the 
 
 [32]
 
 brute ensues upon the defection of its pur- 
 pose, death is a curse and punishment in- 
 flicted upon the earth, the final destruction 
 of the wreck of what was made in the begin- 
 ning in power and splendor. 
 
 If this consideration throws any light on 
 the mysteries of death, it reveals the justice 
 of the heart's craving for liberation out of 
 the bondage of death, and the reality of 
 that echo in the soul, that lingers forever, 
 that does not die, but is reenforced by the 
 thought of death, of the promise of immor- 
 tality. Man must have been endowed with 
 immortality at his origin. Nor was this 
 prerogative conferred upon him like a precious 
 garment, the doffing of which would not 
 merely mean the loss of a gift superadded 
 to his nature, but, rather, degradation and 
 exposure to unnatural ills and dangers. Im- 
 mortality was woven into his flesh and spirit, 
 as the design of a flower is woven with 
 silk into cloth: remove it, and you must 
 loosen the web. The natural gifts of man 
 were shaped and fashioned upon this endow- 
 ment, so that now they are not in a normal 
 condition, but wounded, bruised, sore, dam- 
 
 [33]
 
 in tit* jHtjt&itttf uf IJmtlt 
 
 * * 
 
 aged. Immortality must have been for man 
 what fire is to the diamond, limpidity to the 
 water, bloom and fragrance to the flower, his 
 life, his glory, his heritage forever. 
 
 Death, what a monster! 
 
 Were the brutes also accorded the gift of 
 immortality ? 
 
 No. The immortality of man is a gift of 
 a higher order than it is for the brute to 
 receive and appreciate. Immortality is the 
 gift of a Father, the pledge of the favor of 
 God. 
 
 If, then, death was in the world before man 
 was made, it was not death wrought upon 
 the child of God; where there is no nobility, 
 there is no title to lose, and where there is no 
 royal Father, there is no nobility of estate. 
 But if death held sway in the irrational 
 world, it must have been the quiet passing 
 away of life at the completion of its task, 
 like ice melting into water; it could not be 
 the consequence of a gradual wearing out of 
 lives that were perfect in their own way and 
 placed in perfect conditions. The violence 
 of death entered the world through the gate 
 of rebellion. Death, as we know it, is the 
 
 [34]
 
 result of disorders visible and, per se, con- 
 trollable, and yet never brought under control 
 for the reason that disorder runs through the 
 entire order of nature, as cancer-tainted blood 
 may run through an organism otherwise 
 healthy and working well. 
 
 The disorder in the world could not come 
 from within the creation, which was preserved, 
 as it had been arranged, by the will of Him 
 who created it; and disorder, as found in 
 man, could be introduced only by the rebellion 
 of man against God. But man, the only 
 rational creature under the sun, rebelling, 
 must draw into the curse of his ingratitude 
 the irrational creation, which was made for 
 his sake. Would a father not curse the in- 
 heritance that caused his son to go astray? 
 Therefore death wiped out the signature of 
 the Great King from the title of His children 
 by adoption, after sin had effaced His image; 
 for "by sin, death entered into this world." 
 
 [35]
 
 2. 
 
 IN the foregoing consideration we took 
 for granted the proposition, that in man the 
 principle of life is independent of matter 
 for its existence. The question now pro- 
 posed for examination is this: If death is 
 the dissolution of the factors of earthly life, 
 is it not also the complete vanishing of these 
 factors? 
 
 This question is answered under the follow- 
 ing distinctions: If all the factors of earthly 
 life are perishable yes; if one of them is 
 such as to endure outside the other no. 
 
 I. The factors of life are: the body, or 
 matter, and the soul, or life proper, or the 
 life-principle. But the matter is living 
 matter, matter permeated by the activity of 
 life; the life-principle may be either depend- 
 ent or independent. 
 
 This last distinction seems to be begging 
 the question ; yet it is not. For life and matter 
 are opposites of their very nature; still matter 
 may be endowed with life, and through life 
 
 [36]
 
 with a new form of being and existence; 
 whereas life cannot be acted upon by matter 
 in any way. The form or director of a living 
 being is posterior to the induction of life; 
 not indeed in regard to time, but in regard 
 to origin. Nor does the superiority of any 
 form depend upon the quality of life. For 
 although " living is the being of living things," 
 yet it is not except by the specific form. 
 
 This can be proved by the results of biologi- 
 cal experiment and investigation: 
 
 The elements of generation are known 
 to be, in animals, the spermatozoon (living 
 seed) and the egg. These two elements 
 have life before they unite for the forming 
 of a new individual. They also have each 
 a form. In generation their life is retained, 
 but their respective forms are lost. Hence 
 the induction of the form of the individual 
 evolving follows upon the basis of preexistent 
 life. And for this reason the form does not 
 depend upon life for any of its perfections. 
 But because life, after the original forms 
 of the germs are lost, is also an ordered life, 
 and order is not established except by a 
 directing principle, the new life is elevated 
 
 [37]
 
 in tit* 
 
 to the order of those beings of which the form 
 is the exponent. 
 
 The form is no more material in the chemical 
 and atomical sense than life itself, but on 
 this account it need not be immaterial in 
 the sense that it can subsist outside of matter; 
 i.e., it may well be dependent for its existence 
 upon the matter which it now quickens and 
 informs. But being a stranger to matter in 
 so tar as it is the principle of life, no one 
 could maintain that it can in no manner be 
 independent of matter for its existence. 
 
 The induction of the form seems to be 
 a very enigmatical process; but by comparing 
 things, and testing one by the other, we can 
 obtain safe conclusions concerning secrets at 
 first apparently not to be revealed. 
 
 In parthenogenetic generation, where the 
 germ of the ovulum alone is the bearer of 
 life, it must also be the bearer of the form 
 of the new being. Life is not dormant as 
 life in this ovum, for the ovum may proceed 
 to develop of its own accord, or may be 
 fructified at any moment. But life is dormant 
 as formal life, i.e., as the life of an individual 
 after the species. The form, therefore, lies 
 
 [381
 
 dormant; for if it were not present at all, 
 it would either have to be infused by an 
 exterior agency or developed by the union 
 of the ovulum with the seed-cell; but in the 
 latter case there would not be parthenogenetic 
 generation, and in the former, we should have 
 to go back to the interposition of a power 
 above nature. Hence we must conclude that 
 as specific life is dormant in the ovum (or 
 ovule), so is also the specific form. The form 
 in rousing transforms life into the life of the 
 new being after the pattern of that certain 
 circle of beings from which the ovum was 
 derived. But this process is the most palpable 
 case of induction imaginable, and shows 
 plainly that such forms are not really 
 immaterial forms, furthering and bearing 
 independent life, but, rather, material in the 
 sense that they are bound up in matter and 
 doomed to share the vicissitudes of material 
 existence, death with and in matter hence, 
 they are the bearers of dependent life. 
 
 In the ordinary, spermatic generation the 
 induction or evolution of the form takes place 
 in the same manner. The two elements of 
 generation (sperma and ovum) in union are 
 
 [391
 
 n 
 
 the bearer of life; hence as the form follows 
 life, the two elements become the bearer, or 
 the origin, of the proper form, and of the 
 specific activity of life. 
 
 The activity of the form. 
 
 From considering the evolution (induction 
 or development) of the form, we must pass on 
 to consider the activity of the form, in order to 
 study more closely the nature of the form. 
 
 As far as we know from the process of gen- 
 eration, there is no other than independence 
 from chemical or atomical composition re- 
 quired for the relative immateriality of forms. 
 If now this relative immateriality, i.e., the 
 existence of forms not independent of matter, 
 suffices to account for all the manifestations of 
 all earthly life, we must stay our search and 
 pronounce all life-forms dependent forms. 
 
 But we meet with manifestations of life 
 that cannot be explained on the supposition 
 of the substantial interdependency of matter 
 and life, because they reach out far beyond 
 the requirements of earthly existence; and 
 of such also, at times, as indicate the very 
 subversion of the purpose of existence. 
 
 [40]
 
 No man blinds himself to the difference 
 observable between the manner of acting on 
 the part of the brute and that on the part 
 of man. The brute, as we have seen in the 
 preceding consideration, does not itself know 
 the purpose of its activity, but is guided by 
 an instinct in the power of an agency exterior 
 and superior to the brute. It would indeed 
 be marvelous if the beast would act foolishly 
 with deliberation in order to secure an end 
 the very opposite of which is the object of 
 its intention. Such argumentation is so 
 manifestly absurd, once that it is placed 
 before our eyes, that we hail it with a smile of 
 well-deserved humiliation but such argu- 
 mentation is involved in the supposition of 
 autonomic animal intelligence. 
 
 Autonomy, therefore, is one criterion of 
 the difference between human and animal 
 intelligence and operation; that is, the brute 
 is governed by an intelligence not its own, 
 man governs himself by an intelligence which 
 determines itself. The instrument in the 
 hand of that intelligence which directs the 
 brute is instinct, and the scope of that 
 intelligence, the welfare of the species, whereas 
 
 [41]
 
 n 
 
 the scope of intelligence is the welfare of the 
 individual. 
 
 Now in man, intelligence is both operator 
 and instrument, as no man may deny, unless 
 he deny his humanity; and the scope of human 
 intelligence is not only the welfare of both 
 individual and race, but also end and means, 
 and their proper relation hence, the ulterior 
 purpose of his work, and over and above all 
 this, the embellishment of life in a region 
 where the brute has never entered : in science, 
 art, and self-discipline for the sake of an 
 immaterial good, generally called virtue. 
 
 These embellishments are absolutely beyond 
 the scope of animal, and plainly within the 
 natural scope of human life; hence also 
 beyond the reach of animal instinct, and 
 naturally within the grasp of intelligence. 
 Man and beast may indeed meet on the 
 level of animal life, but not except by man's 
 descending from his hallowed height of inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 There is as much difference between animal 
 instinct and human intelligence as is found 
 between the respective natural manifestations 
 of animal and human life. 
 
 [42]
 
 Is this difference formal and essential, or 
 only material and accidental? 
 
 The difference between the manifestations 
 of animal and human life, and, consequently, 
 of instinct and intelligence, is essential, if 
 it is founded not on the subject directly 
 bearing the principle of intelligence, but on 
 the immediate object of the operation of the 
 life-principle. For if a difference were sought 
 in intelligence objectively, none could be found, 
 since both man and beast act according to 
 intelligence, man according to his own, the 
 beast according to that whose purposes it 
 accomplishes in ignorance; hence intelligence, 
 in so far as it accounts for its own operations, 
 and the operations of life, is called reason from 
 reor, I think, judge, account for; or VERNUNFT 
 from VERNEHMEN, to judge, to examine, to 
 ask an accounting. 
 
 This faculty does not appear to guide the 
 operations of the brute, nor the operations 
 (if such we may call certain manifestations of 
 vegetative growth) of such plants as e.g., irises, 
 which exhibit great "skill" in availing them- 
 selves of every advantage offering. 
 
 The reason for the lack of this faculty 
 [43]
 
 n 
 
 in the brute is that it is neither necessary 
 nor exercisable, because the intelligence 
 governing the brute comprehends at once 
 the entire purpose of the life of the brute and 
 molds the operations of this life on the plan 
 of its purpose, whereas man advances hi 
 knowledge step by step through a long and 
 tedious course of training, teaching, and 
 experience. The first is evident from the 
 fact that the young of the brutes are as well 
 acquainted with the requirements of their 
 life as the old and tried; the other, from 
 our personal knowledge and experience. 
 
 This is the common consent of the human 
 race, antedating all reasoning on this subject. 
 Animals are never "punished," i.e., subjected 
 to pain with the view to make them atone 
 for wrong-doing; suffering is inflicted on them 
 solely for the purposes of training. With 
 the same end in view they are treated kindly, 
 and their cravings and inclinations favored. 
 If, however, one inflicts pain on a beast 
 with the intention of paining alone, he acts 
 from cruelty or anger, as he who kicks at 
 the stone over which he stumbled; and if 
 one fondles and caresses a beast with affection, 
 
 [44]
 
 he acts unreasonably through a perversion 
 and degradation of the sense of attachment 
 and friendship, more unreasonably because 
 of the want of poetic sentiment, than a child 
 fondling and conversing with a doll. Some 
 there are indeed whose hearts would not 
 respond to the wailing of a hungry child, 
 but who would melt with pity for a stray 
 dog or cat. They are suffering from per- 
 version of instincts, consequent upon moral 
 obliquity. 
 
 Now, the principle of intelligence is the 
 same as the principle of life, and its immedi- 
 ate subject, animality, so that we distinguish 
 in man and beast (1) life and sensation, which 
 they have in common in the same order, and 
 (2) the principle directing life and sensation 
 in their operations, intelligence. 
 
 Sensitive life animality is in itself 
 indifferent to a higher determination; hence 
 man is an animal. But this animal man 
 acts on his own conscious initiative, on reason. 
 And this attribute distinguishes him from 
 the brute; not as if the brute acted irrationally, 
 for the brute does not act contrary to reason, 
 that is, in opposition to a fixed purpose, 
 
 [45]
 
 d T( ^Zrf v d* 
 
 th* Jplmajntt nf 
 
 > 
 
 but it acts rationally, even when it blunders 
 according to our conception of the immediate 
 result of its activity, its seeming confusion 
 being the condition of success. Yet not 
 knowing the purpose of its activity, it acts 
 on the instigation of an intelligence reflected 
 on the field of sensitive perception through 
 instinct, but not on its own conscious 
 initiative. 
 
 Hence if man is not only an animal like 
 the brute, but is man by virtue of his reason, 
 it is reason that introduces the essential 
 difference between man and beast. 
 
 Intelligence adds a new reality to the subject 
 of sensitive life: independence and insight; 
 independence of composing, and insight into, 
 and discernment of purpose. Instinct does 
 not add a new reality to life and sensation, 
 but is a passive faculty, prearranged and 
 predetermined to the impressions of the senses. 
 It can compose impressions, without abstract- 
 ing (as is evinced by the limitations placed 
 upon animal activity), in a manner similar 
 to the process of crystallization in minerals, 
 or to the forming of ice-flowers on the window 
 pane, each new composition producing an 
 
 [46]
 
 effect, new, indeed, but not above the nature 
 of the elements of composition. 
 
 Now the manifestations of life assume 
 character from the activity of the power 
 producing and directing them. This activity 
 is characterized by its tendency toward the 
 purpose of life. Hence the purpose, or 
 object, of life is also the purpose or object 
 of the power governing life : of instinct in the 
 brute, and of intelligence in man. 
 
 But the purpose of human life is, as we 
 have shown above (p. 24, ff.), essentially dis- 
 tinct from the purpose of merely animal life, 
 insomuch that the particular and material in 
 purpose and action is the natural object of 
 the life-power of the brute, and the universal 
 and abstract is the cognate object of the 
 powers of life in man. Therefore, also, the 
 governing power is essentially distinct in man 
 and beast, or, intelligence is essentially distinct 
 from the instinct. 
 
 The essential characteristic of human in- 
 telligence as compared with the instinct of 
 the brute is its freedom from subjection to 
 an exterior agency, or its autonomy. This 
 renders it independent in its own functions 
 
 [47]
 
 n 
 
 of the assistance of the senses. Hence 
 human intelligence represents independent 
 life, and makes the bearer of this intelligence, 
 the human soul, an immaterial agency, a 
 spirit. 
 
 II. But there are also manifestations in 
 the life of man which point sternly at an 
 unnatural rebellion of some faculties against 
 the dominion of the intellect. These mani- 
 festations emanate from the abuse of the 
 liberty adorning the will. 
 
 A natural faculty, such as the will of man, 
 should further rather than impede the per- 
 fection of man. If then this faculty becomes 
 at any time a danger to man's welfare, it 
 must have been impaired, or now be sub- 
 jected to evil influences that divert its energy 
 to improper uses. 
 
 Such perversion is not found in the appetite 
 of the brute. 
 
 But perversion is only a sign of liberty. 
 If the human will, would not respond but 
 to exterior evil influences, and could not 
 determine itself to action contrary to any and 
 all influences from without, or to action con- 
 sistent with either of two motives equally 
 
 [48]
 
 tike $&ui 
 
 good or equally evil in a certain respect, 
 or one good and the other evil, it would not 
 in reality be a free agent. It would be free 
 only as the weathervane that moves with 
 the wind. Such liberty is not liberty, but 
 mobility; it is passive, not active liberty, 
 unworthy of a self-conscious intelligent being. 
 
 The idea of liberty requires internal inde- 
 pendence as its basis. 
 
 But the human will is not independent 
 in such a manner as to have the power of 
 declining a response to every kind of influence, 
 or, as to be attracted beyond the power of 
 resistance by no object whatever; for under 
 this supposition it would be absolutely supreme 
 in power, as it would have to be absolutely 
 supreme in being which it is not. The 
 will being a faculty, a working power in man, 
 must act according to its proper object. The 
 proper object of the will is that which is 
 perceived to be good. Hence we find these 
 elements in mental liberty: (1) perception, 
 belonging to the intellect, (2) the formal 
 object of the will, the good, (3) the material 
 object about which the appetitive faculties are 
 exercised. 
 
 [49]
 
 The operation of the will is determined 
 indirectly by the presentation of the particular 
 object; directly, by the good in the object. 
 But the last stage of the determination 
 to action is completed within the will itself, 
 of its own power, by consent according to 
 the appetibility of the object presented, 
 after the formal object, goodness. 
 
 The presentation of the particular object 
 may be made either by the intellect alone, 
 or by the intellect and sensitive appetite com- 
 bined, or by the sensitive appetite alone, as 
 will appear below. 
 
 It is, therefore, the perception of goodness 
 in the several objects presented upon which 
 the will exercises its actions. Now, the 
 presentation is made directly by the intellect, 
 which dictates to the will; hence the will is 
 not independent of the operation and influence 
 of the intellect. Again, the objects presented 
 under the aspect of good may be good only 
 in the view of the intellect according to some 
 relation they bear to the end obtainable at 
 present (limitation of time), the intellect 
 suppressing the respect for the formal object 
 of the will, goodness for its own sake. 
 
 [501
 
 Nor is it possible that the formal object 
 of the will be always actually present to the 
 intellect, because most objects present them- 
 selves as good under the guise of the beautiful, 
 the useful, the gratifying, the just, etc. 
 
 Still, should the objects of volition present 
 themselves to the intellect in any other 
 semblance but that of evil, or the useless, the 
 intellect could not mistake the good in them, 
 because beauty, usefulness, gratification, justice, 
 etc., are good, and in reality only varied views 
 of what is good also in itself. 
 
 If an object presents itself as evil, it is 
 rejected, because it is disagreeable; if as use- 
 less, it is disregarded, because nature strives 
 to perfect itself, and whatever is considered 
 useless is declined as a burden. 
 
 Hence we conclude: Either every action 
 of man is morally good, so that it entails for 
 him no responsibility, because he is free of 
 the charge of wilful abuse; or, man is led 
 into evil against which he has no defense; 
 or, lastly, he allows himself to be deceived 
 by the appearance of goodness which appeals 
 to the intellect through a false friend or an 
 incompetent interpreter. 
 
 [51]
 
 We know, however, that not all human 
 acts are of equal value witness our courts 
 of law. Some acts we praise, some we blame, 
 with satisfaction to ourselves. This satis- 
 faction agrees either with the nature of the 
 deed, or with our view of it. Thus this 
 satisfaction may be just, but may also be 
 unjust, accordingly as our personal view 
 agrees or clashes with the nature of the deed. 
 To be just, our satisfaction must proceed 
 from the same right principle as the deed. 
 
 There must be a rule to determine the good 
 and the evil in every deed. This must be 
 applied by both the author and by the judge 
 of the deed. If one would measure a deed 
 by one rule, and another judge it by another, 
 the views of the morality of the deed would 
 differ as widely as the respective rules. 
 
 This rule is: to do what is good, and to 
 avoid what is evil. 
 
 Whence, then, the difference of views? 
 From the difference in the perception of what 
 is good. 
 
 What is good? Good is everything that 
 satisfies the orderly appetite : orderly appetite, 
 because a disordered or inordinate appetite 
 
 [52]
 
 1 
 
 is deranged, and cannot tend toward the 
 perfection which nature seeks: it is very 
 prone to make mistakes satisfying its morbid 
 cravings, and thus injuring the whole. 
 
 Is man's appetite always well ordered? 
 We distinguish intellectual and sensitive appe- 
 tite; hence also two categories of objects and 
 two kinds of good, or goodness. 
 
 The intellectual appetite is the will, the 
 sensitive appetite, the feeling. 
 
 The will stands under the direction of 
 reason, feeling is in union with the activity 
 of the senses. But the intellect also depends 
 for much of its material on the activity of 
 the senses; hence there is a field common to 
 'the operations of sense and mind, where the 
 exchange is made between the two factors 
 of human life, animality and reason. This 
 market of each single life is the imagination. 
 
 The imagination diversifies the minds in 
 this earthly condition. It makes genius, 
 talent, disposition and character, but not 
 let me say to the unwary as though the 
 imagination alone caused these diversifications; 
 no, it is merely the soil from which they 
 spring, as the plant springs from the ground, 
 
 [53]
 
 n 
 
 but according to the nature of the seed planted. 
 Many widely different plants grow in the 
 same soil, and many widely different mental 
 qualities spring from the imagination. But 
 the soil is equally capable of improvement 
 and impoverishment; the plant may be care- 
 fully nursed or neglected. Growth owes as 
 much to rain and sunshine as to the soil, 
 and bloom and fruit-bearing owe still more 
 to them than to this. 
 
 So also in the mind of man. The natural 
 intellectual faculty is the same in every 
 human being; but being bound to the service 
 of the senses, and most closely to that of the 
 imagination, it acquires its turn from these 
 sources. 
 
 But in the comparison of the plant we have 
 to place between soil and sunshine the object 
 of growth and bloom ; with the mind there does 
 not stand an object between sense and reason 
 about the perfection of which they would 
 busy themselves. Hence the object of the 
 contact of intelligence and sensation is not a 
 product different from both, but, rather, a con- 
 dition, which takes on the nature of either 
 so pronouncedly as to dominate the other. 
 
 [54]
 
 Now, there is antagonism between the 
 senses and the mind. Sense seeks its own 
 gratification to the very limit of its capacity, 
 which is surfeit. This induces the incapacity 
 for cooperation, at least momentarily, with 
 the remaining faculties, and often with reason 
 itself. This certainly is disorder. 
 
 But this process goes on from the beginning 
 under the supervision of the mind; hence, 
 if the mind is off its guard, or not ready to 
 put a check on the over-reaching tendencies 
 of sensation, it is itself at fault for the disorder, 
 and justly deserves the blame. 
 
 Therefore, the agent or author of a deed 
 or thought may consent to satisfaction accord- 
 ing to a rule which right reason cannot 
 approve and apply. For only that is good 
 for man which is sought for the perfection of 
 man; and man's perfection is measured by the 
 nobler part that makes him man, his reason. 
 
 III. It was stated above that the result 
 of the contact of intelligence and sensation 
 (or the intercommunication of mind and 
 sense) is a condition taking on the nature 
 of either so pronouncedly as to dominate 
 the other. 
 
 [55]
 
 n 
 
 If reason carries the day over sensation 
 on the battle-field of the imagination, the result 
 is not disorder, but the establishment of the 
 master's authority over the servant. Reason 
 has an advantage over sensation in this : that 
 it is not determined to action by every material 
 (single) object like the senses, but has power 
 ta determine itself and assert its independence 
 of agencies exterior to its own domain. 
 
 In explanation it may be said that the 
 senses respond to the presentation of their 
 respective objects as promptly as the sensitized 
 plate of the camera to light. There is natural 
 necessity in this response, a sort of coercion. 
 But at the same time there is no danger of a 
 mistake, provided only the organ be sound. 
 
 The intellect enjoys more liberty of oper- 
 ation, but is more liable also to self-deception. 
 And when the intellect allows itself to be 
 deceived, it misleads the will, so that the 
 human mind, the formal principle of human 
 acts, may be led, or may allow itself to be 
 drawn, into error. 
 
 But, again, the senses are free from error 
 only in the act of perception; in composing 
 their proper perception with other motions 
 
 [561
 
 of the sensitive parts, they, too, may be 
 misled as to the proper, rational purpose 
 of the whole process, i.e., of acting according 
 to human nature. 
 
 For example, the sight of a beautiful 
 woman produces at the first moment a sense 
 of gratification identical with that elicited 
 by the perception of the beautiful in any 
 object. But beauty awakens the desire of 
 enjoyment and possession of the object. 
 With many beautiful objects, indeed, this 
 desire may easily be gratified; but in this 
 case the desire of enjoyment and possession 
 must respect the various reasonable relations 
 into which woman is bound in the human 
 family. If these relations are disregarded, and 
 the desire is fostered or executed, a disorder 
 results for which not the sense of sight, nor 
 yet wholly the concupiscence of the flesh, 
 but the sluggishness of the intellect is at 
 fault, in so far as it stands idly by when it 
 should dictate its prohibition of undue liberty 
 on the basis of justice and reasonable order. 
 
 Here the impression of the beautiful con- 
 nects with sensation in a forbidden region, 
 without asking and waiting for the decision 
 
 [57]
 
 n 
 
 of reason, and thus acquires strength enough 
 to draw reason into its own disorder, and the 
 will into its own mistake. 
 
 The intellect does not act automatically 
 like the senses. For, the intellect is not im- 
 pressed by the particular in objects: what 
 we understand of earthly things is their 
 habitude toward our mind. Thus the intellect 
 perceives the beautiful in sound, color, figure, 
 etc., according to its own perception (con- 
 ception) of beauty, whereas each element 
 must address itself to a different sense: 
 sound to hearing, color and figure to sight, 
 etc. Furthermore, the intellect arranges the 
 various objects presenting themselves for 
 cognition, and thus must know them on a 
 principle common to all of the same order. 
 The senses make no selection. Lastly, the 
 intellect compares the idea perceived with 
 the laws of reason (its own laws), and accord- 
 ingly retains or rejects ideas, as naturally, 
 indeed, correct, but as morally false and 
 unfit. 
 
 Thus from the impression of beauty in a 
 woman the intellect abstracts the idea of 
 beauty only. This it may allow to react 
 
 [58]
 
 tit* 
 
 on the imagination and the sensitive parts, 
 and with this permission surrender its privilege 
 of authority: for imagination and sensual 
 motion do not abstract from the woman, 
 but, on the contrary, are very prone to 
 particularize about this woman. 
 
 Yet the intellect, knowing and recognizing 
 that beauty is not the only purpose of the 
 existence of woman, may also refer the idea 
 of this beauty to the source of all beauty, 
 the standard of all good, and rejoice in the 
 beauty of this woman as in a reflection of 
 Beauty Supreme. But it may be deceived 
 with regard to the real standard of the beauti- 
 ful and good, and hence may even now make 
 a mistake, grave in proportion as the object 
 of its comparison is remote from or dissimilar 
 to the absolutely beautiful. 
 
 Hence the condition of man exercising 
 his faculties may take on so much of the 
 flesh as to make his actions ruinous of their 
 true and natural purpose; or so much of the 
 mind (reason) as to ennoble them with the 
 prerogative of liberty and independence. But 
 in either case the decision lies with the mind 
 of man, and, therefore, in either case he stands 
 
 [591
 
 in ti ji^laisums uf 
 
 accountable for disorder as well as for order 
 in his life. 
 
 But this opens a wide gulf between the 
 mind of man and the instinct of the brute. 
 There is no correlation at all between intelli- 
 gence and instinct, except that instinct is 
 intelligence reflected in the brute from an 
 intelligence exterior to and above the brute, 
 comprehending the whole purpose of nature. 
 
 Hence, also, death means more to man than 
 to the brute, in proportion as life means more 
 to him. 
 
 [60]
 
 3. 
 
 IDEALS are the test of character. Idealism 
 consists in this, that we involuntarily compare 
 our experience with an indefinable standard 
 of beauty in our own mind, and direct 
 our aspirations toward unattainable heights. 
 Ideality is the sunshine of the soul. 
 
 Ideals are beyond our reach; and it is 
 good that they be. For whatever man cai 
 compass, assumes shape from his mode of 
 comprehension, and thus is rendered more 
 noble or less noble than himself accordingly 
 as it stands below or above him before it is 
 compassed. 
 
 It is the nature of true ideals to stand above 
 the level of things human, inasmuch as they 
 draw the intelligence and the will of man, his 
 nobler parts. But they would not attract 
 these nobler powers unless they were con- 
 ceived as ennobling and perfecting them. 
 
 Hence ideality, sought in anything below 
 the level of reason, is a perversion ; and ideality 
 sought on the same level with reason, is a 
 
 [611
 
 n 
 
 deception. For anything perfectible is per- 
 fected (brought to the completion of its proper 
 act) by something of a higher order than 
 the thing to be perfected. 
 
 For instance, sight is perfected by color, 
 figure, size (or quantity), and distance, but 
 especially and primarily by light. Light 
 acts in the same manner on the eye as on 
 the photographic plate; in fact it acts on 
 all things in the same manner, revealing and 
 reproducing itself on susceptible surfaces in 
 the object illumined. But in order to repro- 
 duce itself in the object illumined, light must 
 touch on an impressionable surface. This 
 surface is instantly changed into light, inas- 
 much as it may admit, receiving the impres- 
 sions and figures carried over by the light, 
 and turning from an unordered into an ordered, 
 or perfected surface. 
 
 In the eye the impressionable surface is 
 organized; not sensitized only, but sensitive, 
 part of a living organ adapted to receive 
 and transform the action of light, or, rather, 
 to be transformed by light into the object 
 lighting up, changing from an empty receptacle 
 to a living reproduction of the object presented 
 
 [62]
 
 under light. Now light, color, figure, distance, 
 etc., are, in relation to the sense of sight, of 
 a higher order than the blank retina; hence 
 things perfectible are perfected by things of a 
 higher order. 
 
 But here the objection may be raised: 
 " Cognitio fit secundum modum cognoscentis." 
 We know things our own way, " hence it 
 is false to say that the perfecting object is 
 higher in the order of things than the thing 
 perfectible; or, the subject and the means of 
 perfection must be in the same order of 
 beings." 
 
 To this we may answer : Perfection may be 
 considered to be twofold; one way, so as to 
 be the natural complement of the faculties 
 to be perfected; another way, so as to tend 
 beyond the natural capacity of these faculties 
 by elevating and sustaining them in a region 
 neither necessary nor opposed to their mode 
 of existence and operation. 
 
 Thus we distinguish in the act of vision the 
 instrument or organ, and the sense of sight, 
 light and the objective of light (the object 
 illumined). The instrument is the material 
 apparatus of vision considered by itself. As 
 
 [631
 
 n 
 
 such it is useless, except it be quickened by 
 life and made to be a quick organ, a sense, 
 as we know from considering the eyes of the 
 dead. The sense of vision, therefore, is the 
 eye together with or informed by life. 
 
 Now light addresses itself to the apparatus 
 alone; but this apparatus is indifferent in 
 itself to light and darkness: hence the object 
 presented to it by light, having figure, color, 
 position, etc., and not being indifferent to 
 what is necessary for its existence and con- 
 stitution, is ordered, and not as the apparatus 
 of vision, indifferent and unordered; therefore 
 of a higher order of existence than the eye 
 as the apparatus of vision. 
 
 Visional perception and the object perceived 
 are on a common level only in so far as the 
 organ of sight reacts on the presentations of 
 light, by -reproducing the image of light. 
 But they are disparate in this: (1) that the 
 mere organ is passive and unordered, whereas 
 the objective of light is ordered or configured, 
 and (2) that the sense of sight, belonging to 
 life, belongs to a higher order of being than the 
 objective of light, which is ever material only. 
 
 The same is true of intellectual perception. 
 [641
 
 For the understanding of things the intellect 
 abstracts the idea of things, the element 
 common to all of the same order; but for 
 the disposition of things perceived, the intel- 
 lect recurs on the images as presented by the 
 senses, because the senses present things in 
 the manner that they exist individually, 
 and disposition can be made only of things 
 existing separately. 
 
 Now by dispositon the intellect connects 
 things of various orders by way of com- 
 parison, disjunction, superposition. In this 
 act it is not proof against error and self- 
 deception, as has been shown above; and hence 
 it may place one thing above another much 
 superior in reality, the intellect mistaking, 
 not the image, but the idea, its own product. 
 
 Thus one giving absolute devotion to 
 anything not agreeing with the idea of the 
 Deity which is that of infinite power and 
 perfection degrades the idea of God. This 
 error flows from his attachment to the object of 
 his veneration, and not from his conception 
 of God. His error begins where his knowledge 
 begins, in the sensitive parts, which he let 
 slip from his control. 
 
 [65]
 
 TLift in Ht* j^W&imi * 
 
 *- f * 
 
 The same comparison holds with gluttony 
 and all other deviations from the rule of 
 right reason. It is not the idea of things 
 that causes perversity of action, but the 
 sensitive valuation; for the glutton knows, 
 or, at least, may readily know, that he is 
 doing wrong in indulging his appetite beyond 
 the proper measure. He perceives food and 
 drink not under the aspect of necessaries, 
 but as means of satisfying a disorderly craving 
 for the pleasures of the palate, which an 
 uncontrolled appetite prompts him to intensify 
 to very loathing. 
 
 But the same comparison holds also for 
 the good that man may accomplish. 
 
 The intellect, rightly instructed and not 
 in bondage to the sensitive appetite, places 
 all things in their proper relations. Thus 
 he who honors his parents, for example, 
 derives the idea of honor from the idea of 
 the Deity if he has not inherited it as a 
 member of well-ordered society for honor 
 supposes the acceptance of superiority. But 
 there is no superiority among men as men 
 merely. We are equal as to our being men. 
 Superiority must come by a title higher than 
 
 [66]
 
 humanity. Duty, gratitude, affection, etc., 
 are only subjective experiences, and duty 
 without authority, hence without superiority, 
 is impossible. Moreover, these titles are 
 so easily made void either by the perversion 
 of the children, or by the degradation of 
 the parents, that they form no unchangeable 
 base for honor. 
 
 Hence the idea of honor is derived from 
 a superiority unchangeable, which is an attri- 
 bute of the only Unchangeable One, God. 
 
 The intellect compares the idea of the 
 superiority of God with the idea of superiority 
 in the parents, widening out the latter to 
 the very infinity of the former: as one may 
 indeed not fill a tumbler with the ocean, but 
 yet with a quantity of the same water that 
 makes the ocean. The object of the idea is 
 infinite, but its appropriation to the mind and 
 its application are limited to the capacity of 
 the subject- and the objects compared with 
 the infinite superiority of God. For every- 
 thing true partakes in its own measure of the 
 infinity of God in so far as truth also is un- 
 changeable and imperfectible. 
 
 Therefore ideas once conceived may elevate 
 [671
 
 n 
 
 the intellect beyond the proper field of its 
 perception, and although " cognition does 
 take place according to the condition of him 
 who knows," yet it is only the act of per- 
 ception or cognition that proceeds after the 
 nature of the perceptive subject. In the 
 disposition of acquired ideas the perceptive 
 principle becomes itself an agent again, as 
 we see in human reason, which evolves new 
 thoughts not at all dependent upon psycho- 
 physical perception. 
 
 But it is independent thinking that is 
 the mark of nobility and perfection in the 
 human mind, and independent thought being 
 of a higher order than the mere operation 
 of the active intellect, it follows that also in 
 the process of thinking the faculty of thought 
 is perfected by an object of a higher order than 
 itself. 
 
 Faculties may be perfected in two ways: 
 (1) when they are reduced to the act proper 
 to their purpose, (2) when they improve 
 on that act by raising its object to a higher 
 sphere: thus the object thrown on the retina 
 of the eye is taken up by the sense of sight 
 and placed in correlation with other objects 
 
 (681
 
 of sight, then compared and associated with 
 objects the images of which are stored in 
 the imagination (association of ideas), and 
 lastly turned to practical use by the intellect 
 after it is divested of the encumbrances of 
 the material. 
 
 That the mind must return to the sensitive 
 impression, and may allow itself to be deceived, 
 points to an imperfection not natural to the 
 mind, or, rather, to a disorder in man's con- 
 stitution, a derangement of the relations 
 between sensitive and intellectual appetite 
 and perception; but that the mind may also 
 throw out its ideas on the screen of the very 
 infinite points to its primordial sovereignty 
 over sense and matter, which ranges it in 
 an order of beings independent with a partici- 
 pation in the independence of God. This 
 is the highest perfection: To reach out into 
 a flood of light and beauty, not of the earth, 
 not born of the senses, and to bathe in the 
 dawn of the Infinite. This is the source of 
 the genius of poetry, art, and philosophy, the 
 fountain-head of ideality. 
 
 Hence that secret, indefinable pining of 
 the soul for beauty unalloyed is rendered 
 
 [69]
 
 n 
 
 definite in proportion as it realizes the source 
 of all beauty, the standard of all truth, the 
 model of all art, God. 
 
 This soul cannot perish with matter; 
 it can fail, however, of the accomplishment 
 of its true purpose, happiness eternal, the 
 most wonderful realization of its longing 
 and pining, if it give itself into the power of 
 the flesh, the pleasures of the senses, that 
 drag it down from the heights, gilded by 
 eternal light, to bury it in the darkness of 
 an ignominious spiritual death. 
 
 [70]
 
 4. ^vntmtl *oU mtb 
 
 THIS subject must be opened with a dis- 
 tinction. Spiritual death may overtake man 
 as such merely, i.e., man considered in his 
 natural state as a rational animal; in this 
 state spiritual death means the barrenness 
 of the soul (comparable to the " death of 
 nature" in the cold season), a time and con- 
 dition of unfruitfulness of intellect and will 
 practically equal to death. True, this death 
 is death only metaphorically, but death never- 
 theless, a numbness of mind, for it is the only 
 natural death a spirit can die. 
 
 Again, spiritual death may overtake the 
 soul of man according to that supernatural 
 life, of which we know only by divine reve- 
 lation, but which we would sigh for, were it 
 not promised us, and, under certain conditions, 
 assured. It is the life in the everlasting 
 glory of God. 
 
 Lastly, spiritual death may overtake man 
 in that condition by which his life reaches 
 out into the Infinite, not so much intellectually 
 
 [71]
 
 in it* jl>lm&0iti 0f pr alii 
 
 * * * 
 
 as by a gratuitous elevation of the soul to 
 an order of existence established on the love 
 of Goodness Supreme. From this order, too, 
 he may fall, and actually falls, in the same 
 manner as he falls from intellectual inde- 
 pendence, by becoming enslaved in the service 
 of the sensitive appetite. 
 
 Man may know God without loving him, 
 but only then when his knowledge is domi- 
 nated by sensitive encroachment on the 
 mind. Still, even the love resulting from 
 purely intellectual apperception must not 
 be mistaken for the life-giving love of grace. 
 The Infinite and the finite are so widely 
 separated that the connecting bridge cannot 
 be built by throwing it upward from the earth; 
 it must bend earthward from heaven. Man 
 could never touch God, but God can touch 
 man; the earth cannot rise to heaven unless 
 heaven stoop down. 
 
 It is evident enough from the preceding 
 considerations that the condition of this 
 world cries out for a supreme Maker and 
 Ruler. It is evident also that any relation, 
 besides the relation of creature to Creator, 
 to be established between God and man, must 
 
 [721
 
 proceed from above. Hence, if we find any 
 relations between God and man, above the 
 relation of the maker to his handiwork, it 
 must be introduced by God. 
 
 Now our consideration of the insufficiency 
 of man in the exercise of his natural faculties 
 convinces us that man is no longer in the 
 state of original perfection, whether this was 
 concreated with or only added over and above 
 his natural constitution. 
 
 We would, therefore, conclude (1) that man 
 is a fallen creature, (2) that he is fallen from 
 a perfection not only perfecting his will and 
 intelligence in the natural order, but also 
 elevating them to an order of supernatural 
 existence, toward which even now his yearn- 
 ings, in the train of a well-ordered intelligence, 
 direct and draw him without ceasing. 
 
 The shortcomings of us all, the constant 
 struggle for independence, light, and liberty, 
 the rise and fall of nations, cannot be explained 
 except under the supposition that the human 
 race was originally destined for a purpose, 
 toward which the way has been blocked 
 by the wreckage of a fall in the beginning 
 from an estate as high as this purpose: the 
 [731
 
 n 
 
 view has been obscured by the fume and 
 frenzy of the battle raging between reason 
 and concupiscence, and the way is lost in 
 the darkness of the estrangement from God. 
 
 The best of us realize in proportion to our 
 sincerity that we long for enduring happiness, 
 pure joys, eternal life, and abundant bliss. 
 It is not happiness alone that we crave; it is 
 true, unchangeable, and complete happiness; 
 that bliss which leaves nothing to desire, no 
 voids to fill. 
 
 Yet if we take life as it is, it offers nothing 
 beyond what is perishable, transient, in- 
 sufficient, vain; and this despite the fact 
 that we feel the breath of the Infinite and 
 Eternal blowing in on heart and soul. Whence 
 else this longing, void and vain and trouble- 
 some, but for the reality of its object and the 
 possibility of its satisfaction? 
 
 There is a region, then, to which man must 
 be elevated by supernal powers, in order to 
 find security for the hope of ultimate peace; 
 a region in which the soul must be sustained 
 by a life higher than its natural spirit-life; 
 a realm of goodness, beauty, and perfection, 
 the halo about his destiny, the realm of grace, 
 
 [741
 
 the region about the throne of God. Unfetter 
 the mind, and it will rise and dwell aloft; 
 strike off the shackles of bondage to the flesh, 
 and the spirit will seek liberty, the liberty 
 of the children of light, the liberty wherewith 
 God shall make us free. 
 
 But the unfettering is not easy. By con- 
 stant wearing man may become as much 
 accustomed to fetters as to a plaster on a 
 wound. Removing them seems painful, if 
 not dangerous. Habits become a second 
 nature and concupiscence is so natural a 
 habit of man. There are those who think 
 a man less human for not failing as they 
 do themselves, who consider the flesh their 
 only cup of bliss, and are plunged into the 
 depth of unhappiness and despair when their 
 cup runs dry. Such are dead. 
 
 The worm that digs its habitation in 
 moldy soil and creeps about rottenness in 
 search of food dries up and dies in the warmth 
 and light of the sun. Even if the worm had 
 sense, it would not appreciate the glory of 
 light and the joy of air; its place is amid 
 darkness and death. It is a scavenger with 
 no mission other than to eat and die. Its 
 
 [751
 
 tt 
 
 life is bedded in the cradle of death, is part 
 of death, destructive, transitory, without a 
 purpose but that of serving in the train of 
 death. 
 
 The eagle bathing in the sun, reveling in 
 the immense flood of light and life far above 
 the toils and troubles of the throngs, thrives 
 on liberty and thrones on light. 
 
 In the nature of man, worm and eagle are 
 made fellows; a gruesome combination, and 
 very humiliating to contemplate; but true. 
 
 What the sotten drunkard is, I might be; 
 what the rottening lustling, I; what the 
 rabid murderer, the ugly miser, the filthy 
 sluggard, the insane hater, the hideous blas- 
 phemer, I. And if I am not, is it because 
 the clay is nobler, of which I am molded, 
 or my surroundings more refined, my asso- 
 ciations more select? 
 
 But there are drunkards among lords, 
 lustlings among the refined, murderers among 
 the educated, thieves among the proud, 
 sluggards among the ambitious, haters among 
 the best, blasphemers everywhere: whence 
 the difference? 
 
 The pure we find brothers and sisters to 
 [76]
 
 the lewd, the temperate to the gluttonous, the 
 upright to hypocrites, the honest to thieves; as 
 roses among thorns, flowers among rubbish, 
 life amid death, a true survival of the truly 
 fit: whence the difference? 
 
 Why do you glory in the purity of heart 
 and hand at which your brother sneers? 
 
 Why can you look into a heaven of inno- 
 cence through the eyes of a child, when your 
 brother finds nothing there as long as they 
 are pure? 
 
 Are you one of the elect, and he a castaway? 
 For what? Who made the selection? Did 
 he inherit a taint that poisoned his heart's 
 depth, and you remain free? Is he a 
 dyspeptic? But not all dyspeptics are insane 
 with the insanity of uncontrollable anger, 
 lust, greed, etc. Is he mentally unsound? 
 Then all who yield to passion are mentally 
 unsound, and impulse and passion must 
 have free sway. There are no laws for the 
 unfortunate insane. But is it possible that 
 half the world, or more, should be insane! 
 
 It is true, there have been centuries of 
 mental disease spread over whole nations, 
 periods of epidemic frenzy and error: witness 
 
 [771
 
 rf* 
 
 <i 
 
 the Flagellantes, the religious revolution in 
 Germany in the sixteenth and the political 
 and social revolution in France at the end 
 of the eighteenth century. But in these 
 periods, frenzy seized upon all the minds in 
 the same manner. 
 
 Men have been known at various times to 
 suffer from uncontrollable impulses and 
 have been pronounced maniacs; men have 
 been known to indulge strong impulses volun- 
 tarily and have been called fanatics; men 
 are even now known to be suffering from 
 "compulsory notions": but how readily the 
 physician distinguishes a " notion" from 
 mania, fanaticism from insanity, nervous 
 from mental disorders, and moral depravity 
 from mental disturbances! The jurist also 
 draws the lines of demarcation very closely 
 on wilful perversity as against physical im- 
 pairment. 
 
 If we look close into the history of the 
 epidemics of mental derangement, we find 
 so many free causes that their enumeration 
 according to importance is very difficult. 
 The French Revolution, for instance, that 
 period of inhuman frenzy, was prepared 
 
 [78]
 
 principally by the waning of the popular 
 respect for the constituted authorities, secular 
 and ecclesiastical. This decline was brought 
 about chiefly through the profligacy of the 
 nobles, the lewdness of the royal court, oppres- 
 sion, and the insidious doctrines promulgated 
 by the Encyclopaedists. The revolution burst 
 out like a volcano; it " happened" like an 
 explosion, to ease the tension of the land, and 
 then to cast its vomit abroad and inundate 
 the world with the flood of its deadly poison. 
 
 No individual was compelled to rebel; 
 but once that a dam breaks, the waters will 
 out to the slimy bottom. Such violent eruc- 
 tions from the depths of our nature bode 
 no good. The benefits of constitutional gov- 
 ernment and popular representation, which 
 that upheaval is claimed to have wrought 
 for civilization, do not at all stand in pro- 
 portion to the stain wherewith it soiled the 
 human character, and, besides, could and 
 would have been wrought a few centuries 
 earlier, had justice instead of petticoats ruled 
 the land. 
 
 It cannot be said that certain periods of 
 history are inaugurated, as it were, by periodi- 
 
 [791
 
 n 
 
 cal necessities, the race taking a stride forward 
 through a storm. Common sense is by far 
 more productive of real advancement than 
 violence. 
 
 " Wo rohe Kraefte sinnlos walten, 
 Da kann each kein Gebild gestalten." 
 
 Schitter. 
 
 These " periodical necessities" are a national 
 cry of pain, like the cry of one suffering 
 from boils and tumors: the surgeon's scalpel 
 may relieve him; but had he not contracted 
 his ills (or inherited, perhaps) through reckless 
 abuse, or through the neglect of his health 
 and comfort, he would not stand in need of 
 such violent aid. Every historical record 
 of national upheavals is the receipt" for a 
 doctor's services, or the express acknowledg- 
 ment of a chastisement duly executed. Evils 
 are not born; they grow by the destruction 
 of the good. 
 
 Hence evil tendencies, even among peoples, 
 can be prevented, checked, or eradicated; and 
 why not in the individual? If we discard 
 mental diseases as the result of diseased 
 brains from our figuring, we may safely 
 maintain that evil impulses, "compulsory 
 
 [801
 
 n&l 50**ii!t mtfr 
 
 notions," and human passions are the results 
 of neglect rather than of positive agencies, 
 for man must stand above, and not beneath, 
 the powers that strive to work his ruin. 
 
 But because evil insinuates itself amid 
 our labor in the guise of good and thus 
 parleys with reason at the moment of decision 
 for a truce, it is so difficult for us to check 
 evil inclinations. It is impossible for man to 
 decline all evil influences all the time, partly 
 for lack of endurance in the mind in the 
 incessant conflicts, partly for want of energy 
 and watchfulness to call upon against the 
 blandishments of concupiscence entrenched 
 in our warm life-blood. 
 
 And yet we feel, more than we may wish 
 to acknowledge, that it is a blotch on the fair 
 image of God to be conquered by the flattery 
 and allurements of the lower appetite : Is there 
 no redemption from this disgraceful bondage? 
 
 Paul of Tarsus, the light-bearer of the 
 Christian faith, expressed his loathing of 
 our natural disgrace very tersely: "Who shall 
 deliver me from the body of this death?" 
 (Rom. vii. 24.) 
 
 If there is no redemption, man's life is 
 [81]
 
 in tlj* ^8 Jtaitmti 
 
 vain. But there must be redemption! There 
 must be a way of reestablishing the harmony 
 of human nature. 
 
 There is through labor. 
 
 Two elements must be considered in the 
 redemption of man: (1) Reason and con- 
 cupiscence must be brought into their proper 
 relation; and this is accomplished more readily 
 by practise than by speculation. (2) Human 
 life must be ordered and directed toward its 
 proper purpose, a purpose comprising the 
 activity of both senses and intelligence; 
 and this is accomplished (a) through the 
 secure knowledge of his destiny; (b) through 
 the power to rise above the merely earthly 
 requirements of life. 
 
 These two elements are not only not 
 independent of each other, but are so inti- 
 mately united and interwoven that they can- 
 not be separated at any definite point. 
 
 We have seen above that human intelli- 
 gence reaches out to the Infinite in as far as 
 it grasps truth, which is a participation in 
 man of the character of the Infinite; hence 
 the mind, consciously or unconsciously, reaches 
 out to God. 
 
 [82]
 
 Reason easily learns, by the experience of 
 the fickleness and insufficiency of sensual 
 and sensitive enjoyment, that it must free 
 itself from the slavery of the senses: witness 
 the Stoics in proof. If a man fails to learn 
 this lesson, he fails only because he sup- 
 presses the natural activity of his mind, 
 and stifles the voice of his heart crying out 
 for happiness realizable only in ideals, the 
 reflection of the Light of God. 
 
 But as man is not born a sage, but an 
 infant helpless and ignorant, he must learn 
 to wrestle before he is required to go forth 
 to the combat. To train him is the office 
 of those in whose care lie his infancy and 
 youth. The scarred warriors of many con- 
 tests know that the battle-field is not a 
 place for the distinction of a recruit. 
 
 Skill and alertness are the equipment of 
 courage. An imprudent soldier, and one 
 unskilled in the use of arms, may do more 
 harm than good to himself and to the army, 
 despite his courage and valor. Valor is 
 born, but skill is acquired. 
 
 Thus must the mind of the young be imbued 
 with certain knowledge of the end of human 
 
 [83]
 
 n 
 
 existence, its perils, its struggles, its oppor- 
 tunities, it vicissitudes. Such knowledge, and 
 the wise practise thereof under experienced 
 guides, cannot but facilitate the orderly 
 arrangement of the higher over the lower 
 parts of our nature. 
 
 But the instruction of the intellect alone 
 is inefficient as a means of training. Sun- 
 light does not produce life in dead wood. 
 The root of all human actions is in the heart, 
 in the will. There must be very much life 
 in the soul for the light of instruction to 
 produce the steady growth, the formation 
 of character, the coloring of good-nature, 
 the fruit of unselfish labor. 
 
 The natural life of the soul, comparable 
 to the life in the plant, is the will. But the 
 will is linked, as to the intellect, so to the 
 lower appetite, which lusts against the spirit 
 as man may experience every day. Hence in 
 training man, especially the young, the master 
 must endeavor to exercise the will in the con- 
 test with concupiscence, so as to make the 
 will by degrees the sole arbiter of activity. 
 
 Still, as the will is only a natural faculty, 
 and for this reason insufficient alone to 
 
 [841
 
 elevate human actions to the level of human 
 destiny, perceived by the intellect as reaching 
 over into eternity and drawing him into 
 communion with God, man must be assisted 
 by God in such a manner and with such 
 powers as to raise him to the participation of 
 the power of God: as the material elements 
 of living beings are drawn into the operation 
 of life in order to be made living matter. 
 
 This union need not be substantial between 
 God and man, as it cannot be, because sub- 
 stantial union would destroy individuality. 
 The conception of God as the cause of all 
 being, infinite and eternal, militates against 
 a substantial union with being reflected, 
 finite, relative, as is the existence of man, 
 unless we sacrifice the individuality of the 
 man so united, and surrender the nature 
 of the man to the person of God. But it 
 is sufficient for the purposes of man's redemp- 
 tion from his natural infirmity that this 
 union be cooperative, or a union of operation. 
 
 Had divine revelation not assured us of 
 this union of grace, our reason should demand 
 it as the necessary complement and perfection 
 of our nature as it stands now, dethroned 
 
 [85]
 
 n 
 
 from its pristine glory, between life and death, 
 time and eternity. 
 
 Everyone outside this union of grace is 
 dead with a death so much the more calami- 
 tous as it renders both life profitless and the 
 attainment of its end impossible. 
 
 It must be said, too, that the real intellectual 
 life or natural independence of man is so 
 closely bound to his life in God, the life of 
 grace (by the favor of God), that the sub- 
 mission of the sensual appetite to the rule 
 of right reason cannot be induced and main- 
 tamed without the influx of the light and 
 strength of God. Our natural powers are 
 not only incompetent in themselves to attain 
 our supernatural end, but also unable to 
 endow themselves with light undimmed and 
 strength unfaltering; and the value of their 
 acts is not so great as to merit supernatural 
 reward. 
 
 Hence we conclude: (1) In man we must 
 distinguish a twofold spiritual life, the 
 natural life of the soul by intellect and will, 
 and the life of grace. The latter connects 
 our earthly existence with our last end, the 
 former dominates over our earthly existence 
 
 [86]
 
 mt& 
 
 as rational beings. This is natural, the other, 
 supernatural life. When reason is made the 
 toy of sensuality, man is virtually dead; for 
 man can truly live only as man, that is, as 
 a rational animal. If his life does not rise 
 superior to the exactions of the animal part 
 of his nature, he does not live by the mind, 
 and is in this not the better of the brute. 
 As man he is dead. (2) Although man was 
 destined originally, and now pines for the 
 union with Goodness and Truth Supreme, still, 
 in order to attain this end, his natural facul- 
 ties and their works must be elevated to the 
 supernatural order; for in order to weld one 
 piece of steel to another, both must be hot. 
 But the fire that prepares man for the weld- 
 ing is the love of God, as proceeding from 
 God, and, firing up the soul, drawing it into 
 the most intimate union with God, so as to 
 render its operations in a manner divine. 
 
 If we could separate the earthly existence 
 of man from his eternal destiny, we might be 
 allowed to think that man can redeem him- 
 self with a natural redemption, or deliver 
 himself from the incursions of the flesh and 
 the world by ordering his appetite on the 
 
 [87]
 
 in tttt ^Imfrmtf 0f -Dm Hi 
 
 i > 
 
 principles of right reason. This would indeed 
 be a life worthy of a rational being, so con- 
 stituted that it could understand the world 
 in its own way without knowing anything of 
 God. But under this supposition even, man's 
 lower parts could not be supposed to be in 
 rebellion against his nobler self. 
 
 But we have, on the one hand, the indi- 
 cations of a fatal wound in every part of 
 our nature, the lusting of the flesh against 
 the spirit, and, on the other, the view of the 
 Infinite spread before our sight. Our mind 
 commands a potency far beyond the limits 
 of the mere natural definition of intelligence, 
 i.e., self-reading, consciousness of self, self- 
 inspection. It is capable of conceptions be- 
 yond the pale of actual experience, it hears 
 the echoes of a lost paradise, it sees the 
 flashes of the even-light of heaven. It peers 
 with terror into the darkness of existence 
 beyond the grave, it revels with the pure 
 in delights not born of sense, it becomes 
 intoxicated with the fragrance blowing in 
 from a closed garden, it is made drunk of the 
 waters of a sealed well: there is a premonition 
 of angelic friendship in our love, a foretaste 
 
 [881
 
 of the bliss of the beatific vision in our 
 sacrifices. 
 
 This contrast between concupiscence and 
 spiritual independence points out the neces- 
 sity of a mediator between our actual pres- 
 ent condition and our proposed destination. 
 Without religion, the binding of man to God, 
 we cannot understand the purpose for which 
 man was placed on this earth. 
 
 The mediator is Christ, redemption is 
 made by His sacrifice, and deliverance for 
 each of us by our union with Him through 
 His grace. In Him man has found life 
 again, and resurrection. 
 
 The life that He proposes is the true life 
 of man fallen from his original integrity and 
 justice. It alone can make the earth a para- 
 dise and heaven a certainty for every man. 
 Hence the life of a Christian, a spiritual life, 
 is the only life worth living. 
 
 89
 
 THE foundation of all Christian life is faith. 
 The faith of Jesus Christ makes of the man a 
 Christian. But the double source of which 
 the water "that I will give him shall become 
 in him a fountain of water springing up into 
 life everlasting" (John iv. 14) is grace and 
 instruction. 
 
 Whether instruction come to the soul as a 
 supernatural enlightenment, or as knowledge 
 acquired by diligent and patient search into 
 the depths of the truths of salvation, the soul 
 hath need of a teacher in the school of piety. 
 
 Many saints of God had indeed an intimate 
 knowledge of the way of salvation, which they 
 had not acquired from books, but rather drunk 
 from the eloquent lips and enkindled hearts 
 of other virtuous men; others were made 
 masters in the school of sanctity through the 
 secret influence of the grace of the Holy Ghost, 
 
 [911
 
 n 
 
 i\\t 
 
 # 
 
 drawing them deeper into the mysteries of the 
 faith in contemplation, and shaping their 
 minds after the pattern of the Apostles and the 
 first Christians on and after the first Pente- 
 cost. But the greater number of the elect of 
 Christ have plodded the weary way of the 
 Cross by the constant practise of self-denial 
 and the untiring striving after perfection 
 through the love of God, according to the 
 direction of the Gospel. The fountains of life 
 for them have ever been the living streams 
 of truth issuing forth from the Sacred Magis- 
 terium (the teaching authority) of the Church. 
 
 And this is in accord with the command of 
 our divine Teacher and Master, who, when He 
 sent forth His Apostles upon the mission 
 inheriting from Him, enjoined upon them to 
 "preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mark 
 xvi. 15); and again, "Going forth, therefore, 
 teach ye all nations, baptizing them." (Matt. 
 xxviii. 19.) And St. Paul says: "How then 
 shall they call on him, in whom they have not 
 believed? Or how shall they believe him, of 
 whom they have not heard? And how shall 
 they hear without a preacher?" (Rom. x. 14.) 
 
 Instruction, therefore, in divine things is the 
 1921
 
 material basis of faith. "For the Lord fol- 
 lows His preachers : because first comes preach- 
 ing, and then the Lord comes to dwell in our 
 mind, the words of exhortation having pre- 
 ceded, and thus the truth having been con- 
 ceived in the mind." (St. Gregory, the Pope, 
 Horn. 17, in Evang.) 
 
 Instruction in divine things may aptly be 
 compared to stones which are quarried and 
 cut, ready for the builder; but they are only 
 the material for the building: so also faith 
 alone, i.e., the accepting of supernatural truth 
 on the authority of God and the Church, 
 is not the edifice of sanctity, nor the sum 
 of Christian life. For as St. James hath 
 it, "The demons also believe, and tremble." 
 (ii. 19.) 
 
 Faith must flow with its entire abundance 
 of light and warmth into every action of the 
 Christian, as St. Paul describes: "But my 
 just man liveth by faith." (Heb. x. 38.) 
 Faith must guide our understanding and our 
 will, and be the unswerving rule of our work 
 and prayer; faith must be operative, for 
 "faith without works is dead." (James ii. 26.) 
 
 Concerning faith, then, we must first bear 
 [93]
 
 n 
 
 in mind the two practical views which it 
 presents to the upright Christian, that is, first, 
 the act of faith, and second, the works of 
 faith. 
 
 The act of faith consists in the God-given 
 assent of the mind to divine truth. This act 
 is meritorious, principally by the grace of the 
 Holy Ghost, enlightening the understanding 
 and moving the will to accept the divine 
 truths; and, secondarily, by the voluntary 
 submission of the mind and heart of the be- 
 liever to the sovereign authority and veracity 
 of God. Therefore St. Paul calls the sancti- 
 fied life of the Christian a " reasonable service:" 
 "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the 
 mercy of God, that you present your bodies a 
 living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your 
 reasonable service" (Rom. xii. 1); not indeed, 
 as if sanctification by faith were wrought less 
 by the grace of God, but because it is wrought 
 also by our cooperation. 
 
 The act of faith blooms forth as a flower 
 from the Vine, which is Christ; but the works 
 of faith grow from the flower of grace, and 
 ripen like unto the fruit: "You have not 
 chosen me, but I have chosen you, and have 
 
 [94]
 
 appointed you, that you should go and should 
 bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain" 
 (John xv. 16):" for without me you can do 
 nothing" (ib. xv. 5). 
 
 In faith, therefore, we observe three stages: 
 first, the divine virtue of faith infused in 
 baptism; second, the moral virtue, or the act 
 of faith, elicited with the assistance of divine 
 grace, by the reason and the will of man; and 
 third, the works of faith, accomplished by the 
 application of the directions which faith gives, 
 to our daily occupations, and the ordering of 
 our lives. 
 
 The foundation of Christian life, then, is 
 built in this way: the material is gathered 
 and prepared through information, ordinarily 
 obtained by oral instruction; it is put in 
 order for its purpose and cemented by sancti- 
 fying grace, which disposes the soul for its 
 eternal destiny, the union with God. 
 
 Upon this foundation we must rear with 
 patience and perseverance the edifice of a 
 holy life, the temple of the Holy Ghost. In 
 as much as a builder deviates in the erection of 
 the superstructure from the lines of the foun- 
 dation, in so much he endangers the stability 
 
 [95]
 
 in Ut* ^Ju^utti u 
 
 of the whole building; thus, also, in as much as 
 the Christian haply neglects the directions of 
 his faith, in so much he would "build upon the 
 sand, and his house would fall, and the ruin 
 would be great." 
 
 Or, to apply the figure of Jesus Christ: 
 "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch 
 cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the 
 vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in 
 me. I am the vine; you the branches: he 
 that abideth in me, and I in him, the same 
 beareth much fruit: for without me you can 
 do nothing. If anyone abide not in me, he 
 shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall 
 wither, and they shall gather him up, and 
 cast him into the fire, and he burneth." 
 (John xv. 4-6.) 
 
 Now, we know that we abide in Him by 
 charity, which is sanctifying grace carried into 
 practise. But in order that we may realize 
 our union with Him, we must know Him; 
 and in order to preserve this union, we must 
 know and do His will. This knowledge both 
 of Him and His bidding is imparted to us by 
 faith. 
 
 The good-will and strength necessary for 
 [96]
 
 the practise of our faith are accorded us 
 through the life-giving influence of His grace. 
 The ordinary channels of His grace are the 
 sacraments. Grace indeed is a free gift of 
 God; so much so that we cannot even pray 
 without grace: "we know not what we shall 
 pray for as we ought." (Rom. viii. 26.) And 
 yet, with the assistance of grace, we can by 
 prayer obtain an increase of grace, which will 
 ever draw us into closer union with the life of 
 the Vine. The effect of this intercommunion 
 is holiness. The fountainhead from which the 
 life of Christ flows into the soul is charity, 
 or the active love of God. 
 
 This love of God is at the same time the 
 food and the hunger of the soul. It is a 
 living thing, that must be nourished, lest it 
 die; and it is nourished by the acts of love, 
 which underlie, or direct all our actions and 
 intentions: like our bodily life and health, 
 which waxes stronger through its own activity. 
 
 Hence whatever we do, unless we do it for 
 the love of God, directly or indirectly, is 
 fruitless; because the branch that is not 
 nourished by the life of the vine withers and 
 brings forth neither flowers nor fruit. 
 [97]
 
 n 
 
 titt 
 
 * 
 
 This love of God must be affectionate on 
 our part, as it is abundant on the part of God. 
 A cool, reasoning appreciation of God's great- 
 ness and goodness and sanctity is not a work- 
 ing love: The knowledge that fire gives light 
 and warmth does neither protect against 
 cold nor dispel darkness; this knowledge must 
 become practical in the proper direction in 
 order to be of avail. 
 
 God's love toward man is absolutely pure, 
 because it is free from the alloy of passion- 
 ateness and sensibility. For although man 
 must employ his sensitive parts and mental 
 susceptibilities in the exercise even of his 
 supreme faculties, he being a substantial com- 
 posite of mind and matter; yet God, who not 
 only possesses as qualities and faculties, but 
 is in His very substance, all the perfections 
 attributable to the Infinite Cause of all 
 things, is not only holy, but Holiness in very 
 person; not only merciful, but boundless 
 Mercy; not only good, but Supreme Good- 
 ness. God not only loves, but is the Ocean 
 of Love, from whom love wells over into His 
 creation. 
 
 The love of man compared to the love of 
 [98]
 
 God is as man compared to God: man is 
 nothing without God, and still, the image of 
 God; so also man's love, unless it be referred 
 to God, is not love at all; but in its proper 
 relation to God, it is worth so much that God 
 even desires it: "I have come to cast fire on 
 the earth: and what will I, but that it be 
 kindled?" (Luke xii. 49.) And He complains 
 bitterly through the mouth of the prophet of 
 the coldness of men toward Him: "Many 
 pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they 
 have trodden my portion under foot, they have 
 changed my delightful portion into a desolate 
 wilderness. They have laid it waste, and it 
 hath mourned for me. With desolation is all 
 the land made desolate : because there is none 
 that considereth in the heart." (Jer. xii. 10-11.) 
 Love should properly not be qualified as 
 affectionate, but it should be called "affec- 
 tion," in man; because love tends toward 
 union with its object, and things tend only as 
 long as they are separated from the object 
 toward which they tend: "For no one is 
 properly said to have charity toward himself: 
 but love tends toward another so as to be 
 charity." (St. Gregory, the Pope, Horn. 17.) 
 
 [99]
 
 n 
 
 Love, therefore, becomes the less " affec- 
 tionate " the more closely it approaches 
 its object, so that it ceases to "tend" and 
 strain, and at once begins to rest, when the 
 union is accomplished; then it is love in 
 truth: that supreme enjoyment of all the 
 good obtainable. 
 
 In God, love is more than affection in the 
 common sense of the term; first, because 
 " affection," meaning " tension" toward some- 
 thing desirable, savors of imperfection; and 
 second, because the natural object of God's 
 love is God Himself; but God is not drawn 
 toward Himself; He is in perfect possession of 
 all the goodness within Himself: like the light 
 of the sun, that renders its own source lumi- 
 nous. But the love of God is so superabun- 
 dant, being infinite as He is Himself, that it 
 overflows its own source, and engulfs all who 
 are fit; as the light of the sun illumines every- 
 thing that is susceptible of light: "The love 
 of God is poured out in our hearts by the 
 Holy Ghost who is given to us." (Rom. v. 5.) 
 God's love is an intense love that does not only 
 warm, but consumes: "But God who is rich 
 in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith 
 [100]
 
 t 
 
 He loved us, even when we were dead, hath 
 quickened us together in Christ (by whose 
 grace you are saved)." (Eph. ii. 4-5.) 
 
 From this we must learn that man, in his 
 journey through this life toward God, loves 
 God in proportion as he keeps the thought 
 of God present in his mind, striving to please 
 God in all his undertakings, and giving his 
 life course that direction which makes the 
 will and pleasure of God its purpose and the 
 possession of God its accomplishment. 
 
 The union, therefore, of the vine and the 
 branch, upon which Jesus Christ insists as 
 upon the one condition of salvation, is estab- 
 lished gratuitously by God through grace, but 
 preserved and strengthened by our coopera- 
 tion through the works of faith wrought out 
 in charity, or, for the love of God: "Thou 
 shalt love the Lord, thy God, with thy whole 
 heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all 
 thy strength, and with all thy mind." (Luke 
 x. 27; Deut. vi. 5.) "If any man love me, he 
 will keep my word, and my Father will love 
 him, and we will come to him, and will make 
 our abode with him." (John xiv. 23.) 
 
 We should note that God allows no re- 
 [1011
 
 serve. He claims our whole heart, soul, 
 strength, and mind; there is nothing left for 
 us to give to creatures, or to retain for our- 
 selves. Whatever else we may love must be 
 loved in the love of God, or for God's sake. 
 
 This is neither anomaly nor paradox; for we 
 find that in our own way we claim the same 
 right: A man who loves his vocation loves it 
 to the practical exclusion of all other vocations, 
 unless he be a "jack-of-all-trades and master- 
 of-none." Yet he may and does appreciate 
 the vocations of others, but so as not to let 
 them hinder him from the practise of his own. 
 The same holds good of conjugal, parental, 
 and filial love. 
 
 Hence, to know how to avail ourselves of 
 the means which God puts at our disposal, so 
 that we may not miss our end, is salutary 
 wisdom indeed. For even though a man may 
 harbor a vague and general desire in his heart, 
 to gain heaven, yet through want of appre- 
 ciation of the difficulties connected with the 
 achievement of his desire, he neglects the 
 constant exercise of himself in the pursuit of 
 virtue, and will, therefore, not be entitled to 
 the reward which God holds out to the "good 
 [102]
 
 and faithful servant," "for I bear them wit- 
 ness that they have a zeal of God, but not 
 according to knowledge. For they, not know- 
 ing the justice of God, and seeking to establish 
 their own, have not submitted themselves to 
 the justice of God. For the end of the law 
 is Christ, unto justice to everyone that 
 believeth." (Rom. x. 2-4.) 
 
 Now, to make this wisdom truly wisdom, 
 i.e., to practise what faith teaches us, is the 
 real life work of the Christian: "Faith, then, 
 cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word 
 of Christ. But I say: Have they not heard? 
 . . . Hath not Israel known? " (Rom. x. 17- 
 19.) And "still, you killed the Author of 
 life!" (Acts, iii. 15.) 
 
 How important is it, then, that man 
 learn the ways of truth from childhood: 
 "Suffer the little children, and forbid them 
 not, to come to me : for the kingdom of heaven 
 is for such." (Matt. xix. 14.) "All these 
 things have I kept from my youth." (Matt. 
 xix. 20.) "My son, from thy youth up re- 
 ceive instruction, and even to thy gray hairs 
 thou shalt find wisdom." (Eccles. vi. 18.) 
 
 Children must be made acquainted in time 
 [103]
 
 tt 
 
 with the mysterious world whence the golden 
 light is ever to beam upon their days through- 
 out life. The earlier this instruction is given 
 after the awakening of the mind, the deeper, 
 the more lasting, and the more pleasant will 
 be the impression, the more plentiful the fruit. 
 Iron must be hammered while it is hot, wax 
 molded while it is soft: and the human mind 
 and heart are at no time so susceptible to the 
 purifying and elevating influence of the beauti- 
 ful truths of the religion of Jesus Christ, as in 
 the early spring time of childhood, when the 
 gleam and glow of baptismal grace and the nat- 
 ural tenderness of the human heart ("Anima 
 humana natura Christiana") still linger un- 
 dimmed and pure in the soul as well as in the 
 eyes. 
 
 Hence religious schools are a necessity rather 
 than a commodity or luxury; they are an in- 
 dispensable necessity for the preservation of 
 the Christian and the Christian Church. 
 
 "Now, if it is vain to expect a harvest where 
 no seed has been sown, how can we hope to 
 have better living generations if they be not 
 instructed in time in the doctrine of Jesus 
 Christ? It follows, too, that if faith languishes 
 [1041
 
 in our days, if it has almost vanished 
 among large numbers, the reason is that the 
 duty of catechetical teaching is either ful- 
 filled very superficially, or altogether neg- 
 lected. Nor will it do to say, in excuse, that 
 faith is a free gift bestowed upon each one at 
 baptism. Yes, all baptized in Christ have 
 infused into them the habit of faith; but this 
 most divine germ, left to itself and unaided, 
 so to speak, from outside sources, 'does not 
 develop or put forth great branches'" (Mark 
 iv. 32). (Encyclical of Pius X on the Teach- 
 ing of Catechism.) 
 
 [105]
 
 2. |^iitt> la log Ife* 
 
 1. THE knowledge of his relation to God, 
 his origin, the purpose, end and final disposi- 
 tion of his life, is, therefore, not merely an 
 adornment of the other endowments of man, 
 but, rather, a necessary attainment, a natural 
 accomplishment, so to speak, the perfection 
 of his intelligence, the foundation of grace. 
 
 2.] This knowledge we acquire by devoted 
 application to the fountainheads of religious 
 learning, and we make it our own by serious 
 pondering in meditation. It is the perfection 
 of the human intelligence, because the under- 
 standing of ourselves and of the purpose of our 
 existence is wrapped in doubt as long as we 
 are not enabled to connect the two ends of our 
 being, our origin and our destiny, time and 
 eternity, matter and spirit, creature and 
 Creator, sin and grace. 
 
 3. This knowledge is the preparation for 
 grace. This is saying very much. But grace 
 presupposes nature so disposed or disposable 
 [1061
 
 as readily to correspond with the motion of 
 grace: a rusty, or an untrimmed, mechanism 
 does not answer the motive force of the 
 spring: " Where there is no knowledge of the 
 soul, there is no good: and he that is hasty 
 with his feet, shall stumble." (Prov. xix. 2.) 
 
 4. The Christian must, therefore, thor- 
 oughly exercise himself in the understanding 
 of those things which appertain to the purpose 
 of his existence. 
 
 5. Man is only a traveler here below. 
 "For we have not here a lasting city, but seek 
 one that is to come." (Heb. xiii. 14.) Thus, 
 as a traveler must know the purpose of his 
 journey, his destination, and acquaint himself 
 with the route, studying its difficulties, facili- 
 ties, and dangers, so also must the Christian 
 exercise prudence in traveling toward eternity. 
 We are prudent in all things that concern our 
 temporal well-being: why should we foolishly 
 trust to chance, when there is no chance, in 
 the pursuit of our only course from this life 
 to the unchangeable beyond? 
 
 6. For this reason we must be thoroughly 
 familiar with the very rudiments of Christian 
 doctrine, so that we may understand its 
 
 [107]
 
 n 
 
 system and scope, and hence we must master 
 that epitome of religious science, the hand- 
 book of the " Science of the Saints" (Prov. 
 ix. 10), our catechism, which supplies the 
 axiomatic truths, as it were, of the whole 
 system of theology. We must attentively 
 listen to the sermon; we should read religious 
 books, and cultivate the society of religious 
 people. But, doing all this, we must pray, in 
 order to obtain from God the fruitfulness of 
 our knowledge. It is He alone that can 
 widen and deepen our understanding of Him- 
 self and His wonderful ways; it is He alone 
 that can lay round about us the invigorating 
 atmosphere of manly piety. 
 
 7. The catechism is despised as "too mean 
 a book for a grown man to study." 
 
 A grown man need not study the catechism, 
 if he knows and understands it as well as the 
 multiplication tables. 
 
 But if an adult who has forgotten the rudi- 
 ments of arithmetic over mathematics, should 
 consider it too mean a task to take up the 
 handbook of arithmetic which he laid aside at 
 his graduation, would we adjudge him to be 
 wise? 
 
 [108]
 
 8. " Sermons suffer from an incurable de- 
 fect: sameness and monotony of theme and 
 treatment" - say the worldly-wise. 
 
 It is not the preacher that instructs, al- 
 though his labor and zeal may add force and 
 fervor to his discourse: it is the double- 
 edged sword of the Word of God which pene- 
 trates even unto the separation of soul and 
 spirit: "For the word of God is living and 
 effectual, and more piercing than any two- 
 edged sword; and reaching unto the division 
 of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also 
 and the marrow, and it is a discerner of the 
 thoughts and intents of the heart." (Heb. 
 iv. 12.) 
 
 The reason that so many sermons are in- 
 effective, lies chiefly with the hearers. They 
 come unprepared, entangled in the cares and 
 troubles of the working-day; they drag Satur- 
 day into the Sunday service. Or they boil 
 with the hurry of having done with so unprofit- 
 able an occupation as it is to them to assist at 
 the sacrifice of the Mass, which they have 
 never taken pains to understand and to 
 appreciate. If men would take their religious 
 duties as seriously as their social and civil 
 [1091
 
 n 
 
 responsibilities, or spend as much energy and 
 attention not to say, time in the study of 
 the interests of their soul, as they do in those 
 of their business; nay, if they would only 
 read their prayer-book as attentively as they 
 read their newspaper, they would soon feel a 
 new pulse rushing through their souls, a pulse 
 full of life, quickening the slothful heart with 
 a fervor hot enough to consume the sen- 
 suality of the flesh and burn out the pesti- 
 lential hatcheries of sin, greed and lust. But 
 a soul engrossed with the worry of the world 
 and the tumult of the flesh is not a fit subject 
 of the consolations of the Holy Spirit of God. 
 We must at once prepare our mind as we 
 accept the invitation to the heavenly banquet. 
 The attendance at divine services must be 
 felt as the exercise of a pleasant duty; it must 
 not come in the ragged and worn-out guise of 
 a habit. 
 
 To lay the foundation of the Christian life 
 wisely, the rubbish the thorns which suffo- 
 cate the good seed the useless cares of 
 earthly things, must first be cleared away; 
 the mind must be made free with "the liberty 
 of the glory of the children of God " (Rom. viii. 
 [110]
 
 21), throwing care and trouble upon the Lord, 
 who is strong to bear them with us: or, "are 
 not all things that he hath, in the hand of 
 God?" (Job i. 11.) "Therefore I say to 
 you, be not solicitous for your life, what you 
 shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall 
 put on. Is not the life more than the meat, 
 and the body more than the raiment? . . . 
 For after all these things do the heathen 
 seek. For your Father knoweth that you 
 have need of all these things." (Matt. vi. 
 25-32.) 
 
 Full confidence, then, in the providence of 
 God is the first virtue to be practised by the 
 disciple of Christ in his intercourse with his 
 Maker: " Every one that believeth in Him, 
 shall not be confounded" (Rom. x. 11); 
 "but the foolish things of the world hath God 
 chosen, that he may confound the wise; and 
 the weak things of the world hath God chosen, 
 that He may confound the strong" (1 Cor. i. 
 27). God prides Himself, humanly speaking, 
 on bringing the worldly prudence and the con- 
 ceit of man to naught, and to "exalt the 
 humble" (Luke i. 52), and, "whosoever shall 
 exalt himself, shall be humbled (Matt.xxiii.12). 
 [1111
 
 n 
 
 Hence, diligence in the acquisition of relig- 
 ious knowledge is necessary. 
 
 But above all things, prayer must not be 
 neglected: " Enlighten my eyes that I may 
 never sleep in death!" (Ps. xii. 4.) 
 
 Then, a deep sense of the duty resting on us, 
 to pay God homage and adoration as sociable 
 beings, in the company of our brethren, as 
 children of the great Father-God; and in 
 public, as the Lord of heaven and earth must 
 claim to be honored by His rational creatures. 
 
 We must publicly, in word and deed, ac- 
 knowledge the sovereignty of God over us as 
 His loyal subjects. 
 
 This is a solid foundation upon which may 
 be reared a solid house; and "when a flood 
 came, the stream beat vehemently upon that 
 house, and it could not shake T it; for it was 
 founded upon a rock." (Luke vi. 48.) 
 
 112]
 
 3. Caniiiir unifr 
 
 "Letting in Light" 
 
 "A double-minded man is inconstant in all 
 his ways." (James i. 8.) 
 
 A double-minded man, in the sense of this 
 pronouncement of the Apostle St. James, is a 
 doubter, according to the words of the Master, 
 from whom the Apostle learned his wisdom: 
 "No man can serve two masters. For either 
 he will hate the one and love the other; or he 
 will sustain the one, and despise the other. 
 You cannot serve God and mammon." 
 (Matt. vi. 24.) 
 
 Now a doubter in spiritual things is as one 
 hedging a bet: he has little confidence in the 
 cause which he first espoused, and, hence, 
 begins to wager against it, so as not to lose 
 much, no matter how the die may fall. 
 
 A Christian of such a disposition does not, 
 indeed, wish to break faith with God, for he 
 knows too much, at least confusedly, not to fear 
 the irremediable consequences ; but at the same 
 time he would keep faith with the world, i.e., 
 [1131
 
 with his carnal cravings, his ambitions, his ava- 
 rice : he is wavering; he is trying to serve two mas- 
 ters and makes himself a hypocrite. He says 
 hi his heart : " My lord is long a-coming": li and 
 shall begin to strike his fellow-servants, and 
 shall eat and drink wine with drunkards; the 
 lord of that servant shall come in a day that he 
 hopeth not, and at an hour that he knoweth not : 
 and shall separate him, and appoint his portion 
 with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping 
 and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. xxiv. 48, 51.) 
 
 We must understand the mission of Jesus 
 Christ. From the way of His walking among 
 men in the flesh we shall learn what must be 
 our relation to Him: "He was in the world, 
 and the world was made by Him, and the world 
 knew Him not." (John i. 10.) "He came 
 unto His own, and His own received Him 
 not." (John i. 11.) (What a dreadful ver- 
 dict!) "But as many as received Him, He 
 gave them power to be made the sons of God, 
 to them that believe in His name." (76. 12.) 
 
 Behold the distinction between the children 
 of God and the children of the world: those 
 who receive Him are taken into the house- 
 hold of God as His children by grace; those 
 [114]
 
 who receive Him not shall be left without, for 
 they "think within themselves, saying: This 
 is the heir, let us kill him, that the inheritance 
 will be ours" (Luke xx. 17), and, when called 
 to the feast of the King's son, they "neglected, 
 and went their ways, one to his farm, and 
 another to his merchandise." (Matt. xx. 5.) 
 A Christian must, therefore, candidly pro- 
 fess, and sincerely acknowledge that: 
 
 1. Jesus Christ is the son of God, true God 
 with the Father and the Holy Ghost. 
 
 2. Jesus Christ was in the world, making 
 Himself our brother by the assumption of our 
 nature. 
 
 3. Jesus Christ came to redeem the world 
 from sin and its terrible consequences: igno- 
 rance, inclination to evil, and eternal damna- 
 tion. 
 
 4. Jesus Christ redeemed the world by 
 making Himself the victim of the vengeance 
 called down upon the earth by sin. 
 
 5. Jesus Christ could have made reparation 
 for sin by an act of His will; but we would then 
 have acknowledged and realized neither His 
 condescension, nor His sacrifice and charity, 
 nor the enormity of our guilt. 
 
 [115]
 
 in tit* 
 
 6. Jesus Christ established His Church as 
 the Teacher of all nations, and the Ark of Salva- 
 tion in the universal flood of error and cor- 
 ruption. 
 
 7. He raised the standard of morality to the 
 sublimest heights, touching the very sanctity 
 of God : " Be ye perfect even as your Father in 
 heaven is perfect." (Matt. vi. 14.) 
 
 8. He marked with His own footprints the 
 only way to true happiness on earth, and to 
 everlasting happiness beyond. 
 
 9. He is constituted the Judge of the living 
 and the dead, i.e., the good and the wicked. 
 
 " Neither is there salvation in any other. For 
 there is no other name under heaven given to 
 men, whereby we must be saved." (Acts iv. 12.) 
 
 And He said: " Therefore did I say to you 
 that no man can come to me, unless it be given 
 him by the Father." (John vi. 66.) 
 
 In Particular 
 
 I. // Jesus Christ is the Consubstantial Son of 
 God, it follows: 
 
 (1) That His doctrine concerning the way 
 of truth is infallible: " I am the way, the truth, 
 and the life." 
 
 [116]
 
 His mortal enemies, who went so far out of 
 the way of the social proprieties as to accuse 
 Him of being in league with the devil, still 
 bore Him this enviable testimony: " Master, 
 we know that thou art a true speaker, and 
 carest not for anyone, for thou regardest not 
 the person of men, but teachest the way of 
 God in truth" (Mark xii. 14), tacitly admit- 
 ting thereby that their accusation was sug- 
 gested by envy and hatred. 
 
 (2) That He teaches with authority over 
 all men: "For He was teaching them as one 
 having power, and not as the Scribes and 
 Pharisees." (Matt. vii. 29.) 
 
 (3) That we must accept His teaching as 
 the rule of our lives, and the guide of our intel- 
 ligence: "Amen, amen, I say to you, if any 
 man keep my word, he shall not see death 
 forever." (John viii. 51.) "He that loveth 
 me not, keepeth not my word. And the word 
 which you have heard, is not mine; but the 
 Father's who sent me." (John xiv. 24.) 
 
 Both the work and the way of salvation 
 are come to us by Jesus Christ. 
 
 (4) That we must not put the interpreta- 
 tions of our superciliousness upon the teach- 
 
 [1171
 
 n 
 
 ing of Christ, as if His doctrine could not meet 
 the requirements of modern men and times: 
 "For whereas for the time you ought to be 
 masters, you have need to be taught again 
 what are the first elements of the words of 
 God: and you are become such as have need 
 of milk, and not of strong meat." (Heb. v. 12.) 
 
 What a stinging rebuke to the Jews, who 
 were too haughty to bear the humble doctrine 
 of the Cross! And well merited by us for the 
 supercilious airs assumed by the modern 
 scoffers at the supernatural. 
 
 (5) That we may rely with implicit con- 
 fidence, and the unalterable determination of 
 perfecting ourselves in spirit and in truth, 
 upon His guidance through the light of the 
 Gospel, and upon His promise of adding unto 
 us "all that we have need of for our earthly 
 life," if we but "seek first the kingdom of God 
 and His justice" (Matt. vi. 33) and "the king- 
 dom of God is within you." (Luke xvii. 21.) 
 
 II. // Jesus Christ was in the World, making 
 Himself our Brother, it follows: 
 
 (1) That He lived the most perfect life 
 that it is possible for man to live, an ideal 
 [118]
 
 Christian life, which we must emulate with all 
 our strength. 
 
 The perfection of things is measured by 
 their fitness; fitness, by flawlessness : the flaws 
 of spiritual life are evil inclinations which 
 corrupt our aim and object by diverting our 
 intention from God and turning it upon our- 
 selves. Therefore, given grace, the perfection 
 of life is measured by sinlessness. Christ 
 Jesus did not hesitate to face His enemies with 
 this bold challenge: " Which of you shall 
 convince me of sin?" (John viii. 46), even 
 after He had roused their fiercest hatred by 
 His merciless arraignment of their hypocrisy 
 and their blindness of intellect and hardness 
 of heart. And they answered with irrelevant 
 abuse: "Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a 
 devil." (76. 48.) He, therefore, appealed to 
 the sanctity of His life as proof of His divinity. 
 (2) That, therefore, He is become our model, 
 the pattern of all holiness. 
 
 He is not satisfied with His followers' prac- 
 tising some kind, or any kind, of piety; no; 
 He exacts the purest, the highest, the most 
 ideal: "Be ye, therefore, perfect, as also your 
 heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. v. 48.) 
 [1191
 
 n 
 
 The perfection of God is the pattern of our 
 own perfection; not only according to a cur- 
 sory statement, but by the command of the 
 Son of God. 
 
 Yet, the perfection of God is absolute 
 perfection, which we cannot attain. Our per- 
 fection must ever remain limited and relative, 
 in accordance with the limitations of our 
 nature. Nevertheless, the immensity of God's 
 own perfection is proposed to us for emulation : 
 as the streamlet is directed towards the bound- 
 less sea, lest its waters stagnate on the way for 
 the want of room at the mouth. How God 
 does honor us with this heavenly trust in our 
 ambition! 
 
 It follows: (3) that our lives are worth so 
 much in the sight of God, and weigh so much 
 in the scale of His Justice, as they bear of the 
 likeness of the life of Jesus Christ: " Every- 
 one that cometh to me, and heareth my words, 
 and doth them, I will shew you to whom he is 
 like. He is like to a man building a house, who 
 digged deep, and laid the foundation upon a 
 rock." (Luke vi. 47-48.) "But the rock was 
 Christ." (1 Cor. x. 4.) "Whosoever shall 
 fall upon that stone, shall be bruised: and 
 [120]
 
 upon whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind 
 him to powder." (Luke xx. 18.) 
 
 (4) That the likeness after which our lives 
 are to be fashioned is the likeness of Jesus 
 Christ, the God-man, who was made like unto 
 us, excepting sin: "For we have not a high- 
 priest, who cannot have compassion on our 
 infirmities: but one tempted in all things, 
 like as we are, without sin." (Heb. iv. 15.) 
 
 Therefore: Jesus Christ, by His life on 
 earth, taught us this truth as the cornerstone 
 of all true piety and holiness: TO LIVE, AS 
 
 MUCH AS WE MAY, WITHOUT SIN. 
 
 Considerations 
 
 Sin has now lost its grim aspect for the 
 children of the world, and it becomes neces- 
 sary for a true Christian to understand that 
 the one great and real evil, which God hates, 
 and excludes from the life of His Son, is sin. 
 
 But in order to avoid sin, we must undergo 
 a rejuvenation of mind and heart; we must 
 enkindle within ourselves the love of Jesus 
 Christ and of His Church, the only institu- 
 tion of salvation. The "world," however, 
 will not be rejuvenated, unless every indi- 
 [1211
 
 n 
 
 vidual is spiritually renewed, for men make 
 the world. 
 
 The social evils which we deplore have been 
 introduced by the sin of estrangement from 
 the teaching of Jesus Christ: "O Lord, God of 
 Israel, all that forsake thee shall be con- 
 founded: they that depart from thee shall 
 be written in the earth: because they have 
 forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters." 
 (Jer. xvii. 13.) 
 
 To this lament of the prophet the Vicar of 
 Christ adds his voice, strenuously exhorting 
 the world to return to Christ and "to restore 
 all things in Christ." (Pius X.) 
 
 III. // Jesus Christ Came to Redeem the World 
 
 from Sin and its Deadly Consequences, 
 
 it follows: 
 
 (1) That man cannot attain his final des- 
 tiny without the illumination of the evangelic 
 teaching, " Wherefore He saith: Rise thou 
 that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and 
 Christ shall enlighten thee." (Eph. v. 14.) 
 Hence the teaching of Jesus Christ corrects 
 the errors of human opinion and judgment. 
 
 One of the most pernicious errors that has 
 [122]
 
 stealthily crept into the minds and hearts of 
 men is the practical opinion that our souls 
 shall be saved without our cooperation, or that 
 it suffices on the part of man to live up to 
 those duties to which he is bounden under 
 pain of mortal sin: as if a man in business 
 could ever achieve success by attending to 
 those things only, the omission of which would 
 directly bring utter ruin in its train! Or, as 
 if a citizen's loyalty and patriotism were suf- 
 ficiently manifested by his fulfilling only those 
 duties toward the community, the neglect of 
 which would mean the penitentiary for him, 
 or execution. 
 
 Duty should only direct our love of God; 
 where there is no motive besides strict and 
 bare duty, there is danger of failure even of 
 the strict obligation; and there is certainly no 
 spirit of voluntary sacrifice. Is there any love 
 in such service of God, as when we tell out our 
 works to God like counting out an unwelcome 
 tax to the tax receiver? 
 
 "I think not. So you, also, when you shall 
 
 have done all these things that are commanded 
 
 you, say: We are unprofitable servants: we 
 
 have done that which we ought to do . " (Luke 
 
 [123]
 
 n 
 
 Uj* j^a&jittt of 
 
 x vii .10.) " Therefore ought we more diligently 
 to observe the things which we have heard, 
 lest perhaps we should let them slip." (Heb. 
 
 is. i.) 
 
 The servant who is content with performing 
 only the minimum of his share of the work 
 will not long retain his place, and will never 
 gain the love of his master; nor can he prove 
 by such conduct a special esteem of his master, 
 or interest in his master's household. 
 
 Thus also is the Christian adjudged "an 
 unprofitable servant" of God, if his practise 
 of religion turns only about that which he is 
 rigorously commanded to do: He soon loses 
 all taste for religious practises, or, at least, 
 performs them perfunctorily, and with that 
 lukewarmness which the Holy Ghost con- 
 demned so severely in the very rise of the new 
 Dispensation: "I know thy works, that thou 
 art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert 
 cold or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, 
 and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit 
 thee out of my mouth." (Apoc. iii. 15-16.) 
 
 Nay, even after we have done everything 
 faithfully and lovingly, we look to God for 
 our salvation by His mercy and grace. 
 [1241
 
 Besides the annual communion at Easter, 
 frequent confession and communion suggest 
 themselves to the earnest Christian, who is 
 alive to the needs of his spiritual life and 
 appreciates purity of heart and hand; besides 
 the Sunday Mass, Mass at any convenience, 
 Rosary devotion, society conferences, after- 
 noon or evening services; besides morning and 
 evening prayers, pious aspirations during the 
 day; besides the avoiding of mortal sin, also 
 the dread of wilful (deliberate) venial sin; 
 besides avoiding actual sin, also the correction 
 of evil inclinations and passions, and the flight 
 from danger and occasion of sin; and besides 
 the fear of sin, also the love of virtue and good- 
 ness present themselves, ardent charity fill- 
 ing out our souls and warming up our hearts 
 to that eager desire of serving God, which 
 animated the Apostles of the Lord, when 
 "they indeed went forth from the presence of 
 the council, rejoicing that they were accounted 
 worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus. " 
 (Acts v. 41.) 
 
 Our physical health cannot be sustained by 
 food alone, by the same food at all times, by 
 unseasoned food, by raw food: so also does 
 [1251
 
 in tit* Ji>lmi!nmt 0( IWilt 
 
 * * 
 
 the care of our spiritual health require whole- 
 some, plentiful, and aptly seasoned food, lest 
 nausea of spiritual things supervene. But 
 food alone cannot sustain health; we require 
 work and exercise, light and air in abundance, 
 and tonics or stimulants, because we are 
 working with an impaired machinery. With- 
 out the spices of life, life becomes insipid, void 
 of enthusiasm, withers and wilts and wears 
 away without an apparent purpose. Spiritual 
 and mental anemia is more prevalent than 
 physical anemia. 
 
 (2) The first remedy of nature that Jesus 
 Christ prescribed to those Apostles whom He 
 made His companions in the garden of the 
 agony was prayer. They neglected the rem- 
 edy and failed of His invitation: "And when 
 He was come to the place (Mt. Olivet), He 
 said to them : Pray, lest you enter into tempta- 
 tion." (Luke xxii. 40.) But He also applied 
 His prescription to Himself: "He fell upon 
 His face, praying." (Matt. xxvi. 39.) "He 
 went up into the mountain to pray, and spent 
 the night in prayer." (Luke vi. 12.) 
 
 There is no practise of piety which the 
 divine physician recommended more earnestly, 
 [1261
 
 or more frequently, than prayer: "And He 
 spoke also a parable to them, that we ought 
 always to pray, and not to faint." (Luke 
 xviii. 1.) 
 
 Another remedy is patience. When He 
 explained, in the parable of the sower, which 
 of the seed that had been sowed yielded fruit, 
 He taught that only that which had fallen on 
 good ground sprang up and brought fruit in 
 patience: "But that on the good ground are 
 they who in a good and a very good heart, 
 hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth 
 fruit in patience." (Luke viii. 15.) 
 
 On another occasion, when He foretold His 
 Apostles and Disciples the persecutions which 
 they were to suffer, He assured them that in 
 patience they should persevere through them 
 all and conquer, and save their souls: "But 
 a hair of your head shall not perish. In your 
 patience you shall possess your souls." (Luke 
 xxi. 18-19.) 
 
 The Apostle of the Gentiles, who had so 
 deeply drunk of the doctrine of the Cross that 
 he gloried in nothing, "save in the Cross of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is 
 crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. vi. 
 [127]
 
 in th* ^Iiitilrattt 0f iDf aHt 
 
 * _ 
 
 14), accounts his patience among the signs of 
 his apostleship, to wit: "For I have no way 
 come short of them that are above measure 
 Apostles, although I be nothing. Yet the 
 signs of my apostleship have been wrought 
 on you, in all patience, in signs, and wonders, 
 and mighty deeds." (2 Cor. xii. 11-12.) 
 He holds that his patience proves his fellow- 
 ship in that select college of the teachers 
 of Jesus Christ as conclusively as the signs 
 and wonders and mighty deeds, which he 
 wrought through the same grace that made 
 him patient; and he accords his patience 
 the first place in the enumeration of his 
 proofs. 
 
 We find patience in almost every list of 
 virtues that this Apostle presents to the early 
 Christians. 
 
 St. James commends patience in these sim- 
 ple words: "And patience hath a perfect 
 work; that you may be perfect and entire, 
 failing in nothing." (James i. 4.) 
 
 Altogether, the virtue of patience and the 
 
 practise of prayer are the key-note of the 
 
 New Testament; patience for fortitude, and 
 
 prayer for perseverance: so that Christian life 
 
 [128]
 
 is hollow mockery without them, a futile 
 attempt at sanctity, a disgrace of the Christian 
 name, giving those "who are without" an 
 occasion of what St. Paul dreaded so much, 
 that they might have something evil to tell 
 of us. "In all things show thyself an example 
 of good works, in doctrine, in integrity, in 
 gravity, the sound word that cannot be 
 blamed; that he who is on the contrary part 
 may be afraid, having no evil to say of us." 
 (Tit. ii. 7-8.) 
 
 Whence the frequent and ready ridicule of 
 Sunday piety f If our piety were genuine, 
 would those "on the contrary part" not be 
 afraid to say evil of us? True Christian piety, 
 like the fragrance of the rose, does not but 
 gladden those who become aware of its pres- 
 ence. But a pious man must be a whole man 
 all the week. Sunday Catholics are but 
 anachronistic Pharisees. We must not hang 
 away our religion with our Sunday attire. 
 What is a proper thought in church is proper 
 also at home and in business; and what it is 
 improper for us to think in our intercourse with 
 our neighbor, friend or foe, must be banished 
 [129]
 
 in ttt 
 
 
 
 on all occasions as foreign to the religion of 
 Jesus Christ and His Church. 
 
 (3) Christ must lead the way to heaven: 
 He said of Himself that He was the way, 
 the truth, and the life: He calls Himself the 
 door of the sheep: "Amen, amen, I say to you, 
 I am the door of the sheep." (John x. 7.) 
 And again : " I am the door. By me, if anyone 
 enter in, he shall be saved : and he shall go in 
 and out, and shall find pastures." (76. x. 9.) 
 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd 
 giveth his life for his sheep." (Ib. x. 11.) 
 
 Hence there is no way to heaven but 
 through Jesus Christ; i.e., no one, who does 
 not follow Jesus, shall enter. 
 
 But what does it import to follow Jesus? 
 He does not leave us in doubt; He speaks so 
 plainly that only abject faint-heartedness or 
 wicked stubbornness may mistake the sense 
 of His directions: "If any man will come after 
 me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, 
 and follow me." (Matt. xvi. 24.) Again: "If 
 any man will come after me, let him deny 
 himself, and take up his cross daily, and 
 follow me." (Luke ix. 23.) 
 [130]
 
 Self-denial is made necessary for us by the 
 unruliness of our passions consequent upon 
 original sin. Man rebelled against God, the 
 servant against the master, the child against 
 the father: wherefore it is a most condign 
 punishment that the senses, the servants of 
 the spirit, should rise in rebellion against the 
 reign of the mind. This rebellion is sup- 
 pressed within us only by the constant prac- 
 tise of self-abnegation, stopping the supplies 
 of the enemy and crippling his resources. 
 
 He promises to light up the way: "I am 
 the light of the world; he that followeth me 
 walketh not in darkness, but shall have the 
 light of life." (John viii. 12.) 
 
 The invitation which Christ, the Master, 
 extends to His followers, seems cruel. It does 
 not promise anything the flesh craves. We 
 are to follow Him in His blood-stained foot- 
 prints, bearing our cross to the crucifixion. 
 But "you call me Master, and Lord; and 
 you say well, for so I am. Amen, amen, I 
 say to you, the servant is not greater than his 
 lord; neither is the apostle greater than he 
 that sent him. If you know these things, you 
 [131]
 
 in Hit JHut&ittit 0$ 
 
 shall be blessed if you do them." (John xiii. 
 13, 16, 17.) 
 
 In order that we may profit by His invita- 
 tion, we must realize what the carrying of 
 the cross imports. 
 
 We must remember, first, that by His 
 suffering and death, the Lord showed the 
 world what punishment man deserves for his 
 infidelity to God, of which he makes himself 
 guilty by sin, for His life is the price of our 
 salvation. He assumed our guilt, and with 
 it, its penalty. Hence He invites us to a 
 warring expedition against the wickedness 
 that is our inheritance through the first sin, 
 that first rebellion of man against the sover- 
 eignty of God. 
 
 All the dangers of soul that beset us through 
 life, all the passions that draw us hither and 
 thither between Heaven and Hell, all the 
 trials and tribulations that are heaping round 
 about us, form the cross which we are bidden 
 to bear after Him. He bore these things in 
 our stead by taking upon Himself the task of 
 obtaining divine assistance for us, so that we 
 may become strong enough not to fall, or, if 
 we have fallen, that we have grace to rise. 
 [132]
 
 We must in dry words tame our anger, 
 regulate and temper our appetite, crush our 
 pride, bridle our lust, rouse ourselves from 
 sloth, vanquish greed, and, in short, learn to 
 love God above all things, and our neighbor as 
 ourselves, after the manner of men who con- 
 sider themselves, not part and parcel of this 
 world, but the reinstated heirs, beggars though 
 they now be, of the kingdom of Heaven: 
 " For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." 
 (Phil. i. 21.) 
 
 We shall become sanctified in so far as we 
 eliminate the dominion of the passions from 
 our lives. Only after the reign of reason and 
 grace, which was overturned by the first sin, 
 and is rendered more hopeless of reestablish- 
 ment by actual sin, shall be brought about in 
 our relations with God and our fellow man, 
 may we glory with the Apostle: "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 up for me." (Gal. ii. 20.) 
 
 "Go and do thou in like manner." (Luke 
 x. 37.) "For what doth it profit a man, if he 
 gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of 
 [1331
 
 n 
 
 his own soul ? Or what exchange shall a man 
 give for his soul?" (Matt. xvi. 26.) We 
 must not rest at our task of making oroler 
 within ourselves, until we have nailed the 
 "old man" fast to the cross of mortification 
 and the practise of virtue: then only are we 
 on the way to perfection. What we want, over 
 and above this, is perseverance in humility and 
 patience by the grace of Jesus Christ, " know- 
 ing this, that our old man is crucified with 
 Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, 
 to the end that we may serve sin no longer." 
 (Rom. vi. 6.) And, "Lie not one to another, 
 stripping yourselves of the old man with his 
 deeds, and putting on the new, him who is 
 renewed unto knowledge, according to the 
 image of Him who made him." (Col. iii. 
 9-10.) Again, "If so that you have heard 
 Him, and have been taught in Him, as the 
 truth is in Jesus, to put off, according to former 
 conversation, the old man, who is corrupted 
 according to the desire of error, and be renewed 
 in the spirit of your mind." (Eph. iv. 21-23.) 
 Hence it is not sufficient unto man's sanc- 
 tification, after he attains the use of reason, to 
 have received the grace of sanctification in 
 [134]
 
 baptism; this grace must be preserved, nour- 
 ished, increased, by our faithful cooperation 
 with actual grace in the performance of all 
 those things that serve to embellish our soul, 
 as their practise will redound to our own 
 honor, and to the glory of the Christian name. 
 
 An Illustration 
 
 (4) A very pertinent illustration of the 
 task of man here below is furnished by the 
 Gospel narrative of the ten servants of the king, 
 as told by the Master Himself: 
 
 " And it came to pass that he returned, hav- 
 ing received the kingdom : and he commanded 
 his servants to be called, to whom he had 
 given the money, that he might know how 
 much every man had gained by trading. And 
 the first came, saying: Lord, thy pound hath 
 gained ten pounds. And he said to him: 
 Well done, thou good servant, because thou 
 hast been faithful in a little, thou shalt have 
 power over ten cities. And the second came, 
 saying: Lord, thy pound hath gained five 
 pounds. And he said to him: Be thou also 
 over five cities. 
 
 And another came, saying: Lord, behold 
 [1351
 
 m 
 
 here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up 
 in a napkin: for I feared thee, because thou art 
 an austere man: thou takest up what thou 
 didst not lay down, and thou reapest that 
 which thou didst not sow. 
 
 He saith to him: Out of thy own mouth I 
 judge thee, thou wicked servant, thou knewest 
 that I was an austere man, taking up what I 
 laid not down, and reaping that which I did 
 not sow: and why then didst thou not give 
 my money into the bank, that at my coming 
 I might have exacted it with usury? And he 
 said to them that stood by: Take the pound 
 away from him, and give it to him that hath 
 ten pounds." (Luke xix. 15-24.) 
 
 This parable is so plain that it requires 
 little explanation. The only question that 
 might be asked is concerning the bank. Of 
 this St. Chrysostom says: "In material riches 
 the debtors are bounden simply to care-taking; 
 for they must return as much as they received, 
 and nothing else is asked from them. But in 
 the sacred teaching (in divinis eloquiis) we 
 are not only obliged to watchfulness, but also 
 exhorted to increase (them)." 
 The divine Master teaches the same obliga- 
 [136]
 
 tion by the example of the fruit tree. "For 
 now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. 
 Every tree therefore that doth not yield good 
 fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire." 
 (Matt. iii. 10.) 
 
 The life of man must be a fruitful life, full 
 of the fruits of good works; so much that we 
 learn one from another, and those "on the 
 contrary part," from us, to praise the Father in 
 Heaven for the good that is within us, accord- 
 ing to the encouraging command : "So let your 
 light shine before men; that they may see 
 your good works, and glorify your Father who 
 is in Heaven." (Matt. v. 15.) 
 
 IV. Jesus Christ made Himself the Victim of 
 the Vengeance called down by Sin 
 
 (1) "Christ redeemed us from the curse of 
 the law, being made a curse for us: for it is 
 written " (Deut. xxi. 23): " Cursed is everyone 
 that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. iii. 13), "blotting 
 out the hand-writing of the decree that was 
 against us, which was contrary to us. And 
 He hath taken the same out of the way, 
 fastening it to the cross." (Col. ii. 14.) 
 
 (2) His vicarious atonement is continued 
 in the sacrifice of the New Law, the Mass. 
 
 [137]
 
 n 
 
 This is the fountain of grace, welling over 
 with the merits of His one bloody sacrifice on 
 the Cross. 
 
 He invites us at every celebration of the 
 august mysteries of the altar to come and 
 drink, and have our fill. 
 
 (3) In the sacrifice of the Mass the merits 
 of His passion and death are applied to those 
 who are properly disposed, as a wholesome 
 draught is administered to the sick, an invig- 
 orating drink to the weary wayfarer, or the 
 exhausted warrior. 
 
 (4) Devotion at the sacrifice of the Mass 
 enkindles a new light and life in the sanctified 
 soul, and rouses the sentiments of compunction 
 in the sinner. 
 
 (5) The celebration of the Mass on Sundays 
 and holy days of obligation is the public adora- 
 tion which we owe to God, and, therefore, an 
 occasion of the public profession of our faith, 
 of our allegiance to God, and of the universal 
 brotherhood of men in Jesus Christ, "the first- 
 born among many brethren." (Rom. viii. 29.) 
 
 Those who neglect, through their own fault, 
 the exercise of this act of public worship on 
 the plea that it is commanded only by the 
 [138}
 
 Church, range themselves with the infidels 
 and publicans. "And if he will not hear the 
 Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and 
 publican." (Matt. viii. 17.) 
 
 (6) If Jesus Christ was made the victim for 
 our sins, and continues to distribute His graces 
 from the cross, why should men discontinue 
 the practical appreciation of His gracious 
 intervention, without which heaven would 
 still be closed upon us, and hell open to claim 
 the forsaken sinner? 
 
 V. Jesus Christ might have made Reparation 
 for Sin by an Act of His Will 
 
 (1) The history of the passion and death 
 of Jesus Christ is the description of His love 
 for us. For, first, He chose the terrible death 
 of the crucifixion, in order that we should be 
 moved to an earnest contemplation of the 
 horror of sin the sole reason for His awful 
 sacrifice : 
 
 "No man taketh it (my life) away from me: 
 but I lay it down of myself, and I have power 
 to lay it down : and I have power to take it up 
 again." (John x. 18.) 
 
 When Pilate, from resentment at the silence 
 [1391
 
 n * taattt xt 
 
 Ht 
 
 
 
 of Jesus at the trial, attempted to intimidate 
 Him by a threat of his power to crucify Him, 
 "Jesus answered: Thou shouldst not have 
 any power against me, unless it were given 
 thee from above. Therefore he that delivered 
 me to thee (Caiphas) hath the greater sin." 
 (John xix. 11.) "Greater love than this no 
 man hath, that a man lay down his life for his 
 friends." (John xv. 13.) "But God com- 
 mendeth His charity toward us; because when 
 as yet we were sinners, according to the time, 
 Christ died for us." (Rom. v. 8-9.) 
 
 (2) The history of the passion and death of 
 Jesus Christ is the true description of the 
 hatred of God for sin; for our sins. 
 
 God, the Father, in sending His Son for our 
 redemption, did not spare Him from any of the 
 evils attendant upon man's sojourn on earth; 
 on the contrary, the history of the life of Jesus 
 Christ, from His miraculous birth to His 
 miraculous death, as related in the simple 
 manner of the unsophisticated evangelists, 
 reveals the dreadful divine resolve of "making 
 Him like unto us" to such an extent that he 
 became the "reproach of men, and the out- 
 cast of the people." (Ps. xxi. 7.) 
 [140]
 
 He was born in a strange city, outside 
 the city, in a stall by the wayside, where His 
 ever-blessed Mother "wrapped Him up in 
 swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger; 
 because there was no room for them in the inn." 
 (Luke ii. 7.) 
 
 He was driven into Egypt by the furious 
 frenzy of Herod "the Great." 
 
 He spent His youth at Nazareth, a poor 
 and neglected little town of Galilee. "Can 
 anything good come from Nazareth?" (John 
 i. 46.) It was Nathanael who said this hard 
 word of the home town of Jesus, Nathanael, of 
 whom the Lord said: "Behold an Israelite 
 indeed, in whom there is no guile." (John 
 i. 47.) 
 
 - He lived in absolute obscurity until He 
 reached His thirtieth year. What good, we 
 think, we would have done, what name we 
 would have made for ourselves, what wonders 
 of wisdom we would have taught the world in 
 those long, dark thirty years, had we had His 
 opportunities and powers! 
 
 But He set the world the example of obe- 
 dience and humility unto self-abasement ; and 
 taught this most wholesome lesson, that knowl- 
 [141]
 
 n 
 
 edge is of no avail unless it be of God. He 
 had not come to elicit our admiration of His 
 power, but to fill us with the admiration of 
 His charity, lest we should fail to learn the 
 lesson of penance and humility. 
 
 He left His earthly home, and for three 
 years had not where to rest His head. 
 
 He most meekly endured the persecutions 
 of the evil elements in Judea, reproaching only 
 their voluntary blindness, and hypocrisy. 
 Patiently He shaped the minds and hearts 
 of His Apostles, heavy though they were of 
 understanding. 
 
 - He endured the kiss of treason from one 
 of His Apostles, Judas, and the denial of him 
 upon whom He had already begun to rear 
 the structure of His new kingdom, the Church. 
 
 He endured all the torments and abuse 
 that the exasperation of the Jewish priests 
 and the rudeness and wickedness of a licentious 
 pagan soldiery could invent. 
 
 - He was crucified, and died between two 
 thieves, thus being " reputed with the wicked: 
 and He hath borne the sins of many, and hath 
 prayed for the transgressors." (Isa. liii. 12.) 
 
 After His death He was maligned as 
 
 [142]
 
 "that seducer, (who) said, while He was yet 
 alive: after three days I will rise again." 
 (Matt, xxvii. 63.) 
 
 - But He broke the chains of death, 
 opened His own grave, or rather left His 
 sealed grave, and with one stroke of His 
 Omnipotence shattered and brought to naught 
 all the plans of His adversaries, and established 
 Himself forever on the throne of His new 
 spiritual kingdom, and in the midst of the 
 hearts of men. 
 
 - Such evils it behooved Christ to suffer. 
 One evil, however, Jesus Christ did not suffer, 
 sin. But for sin He suffered all that He did 
 suffer. 
 
 He would not bear as much as the breath 
 of sin : He elected and adorned His own Mother 
 of the thousands of maidens who had for long 
 centuries eagerly longed for this distinction; 
 and adorning her, He anticipated His work of 
 the redemption, preserving her immaculate 
 of the contamination of Adam's guilt. He 
 would rather exhaust His Omnipotence, so 
 to speak, in constructing a dwelling-place 
 for the beginning of His humanity, worthy of 
 the all-holy God, than suffer contact with sin. 
 [143]
 
 n 
 
 "Therefore, as Christ, the Mediator between 
 God and man, in assuming the human nature, 
 blotted out the handwriting of the decree that 
 was contrary to us, and nailed it to the cross; 
 so the Most Holy Virgin, united with Him in 
 the closest, indissoluble bond, bearing with 
 Him and through Him everlasting hatred 
 against the venomous serpent, and com- 
 pletely conquering him, crushed his head with 
 an immaculate foot." ("Inqff. Deus," Bulla 
 Dogm. Pii Pp. IX.) 
 
 The immaculate conception is also a fruit 
 of the Cross; the lily that bloomed among the 
 thorns, the primrose that anticipated the 
 springtide of the new dispensation. 
 
 St. John the Apostle, the loved one of Jesus, 
 who understood the heart of Jesus better 
 than any other, writes: "My little children, 
 these things I write to you, that you may not 
 sin." (1 John ii. 1.) "And you know that 
 He appeared to take away our sins, and in 
 Him there is no sin." (1 John iii. 5.) 
 
 Hence Jesus Christ, becoming the victim for 
 sin, desires to wean us from sin, and to draw 
 us unto Himself in love of God and our fellow 
 man. 
 
 [144]
 
 VI. Jesus Christ established His Church as 
 
 the only Teacher of all Nations, and the Ark 
 
 of Salvation in the Universal Flood of 
 
 Corruption and Error. 
 
 "And I say to thee that thou art Peter; 
 and upon this rock I will build my Church, 
 and the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
 it." (Matt. xvi. 18.) "He that heareth 
 you, heareth me, and he that despiseth you, 
 despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, 
 despiseth Him that sent me." (Luke x. 
 16.) "For we cannot but speak the things 
 which we have seen and heard." (Acts iv. 20.) 
 
 "Because the husband is the head of the 
 wife, as Christ is the head of the Church. He 
 is the savior of His body ... as Christ also 
 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." (Eph. v. 23, ss.) 
 
 Hence: (1) The Church is the vicegerent of 
 Christ, having taken up the mission which He 
 [145]
 
 n 
 
 laid down on Mt. Olivet at His ascension. 
 "And the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to 
 them, was taken up into Heaven, and sitteth 
 on the right hand of God. But they going 
 forth preached everywhere: the Lord working 
 withal and confirming the word with signs that 
 followed." (Mark xvi. 20.) 
 
 (2) The Church ever teaches the one whole 
 truth, as it was committed to her: " Going, 
 therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them 
 in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe 
 all things whatsoever I have commanded you: 
 and behold I am with you all days, even to 
 the consummation of the world." (Matt. 
 xxviii. 19-20.) 
 
 (3) The Church is the great family of 
 God, the mystical body of Jesus Christ, 
 the fold of the Good Shepherd, the kingdom 
 of God on earth: whosoever, therefore, does 
 not hold communion with the Church, makes 
 himself a prodigal, an amputated limb, a 
 dried up branch, a lost sheep, a guest 
 without a wedding garment; he squanders 
 his portion, he withers and dies, he is 
 held fast by the thorns to perish in the 
 
 [146]
 
 desert, he is cast forth into the darkness 
 without. 
 
 Our portion is Christ, the living body is 
 Christ, the shepherd is Christ, the King's 
 son is Christ: who does not belong to the 
 Church, does not belong to Christ; who 
 does not belong to Christ, shall be lost: 
 "Neither is there salvation in any other. 
 For there is no other name under heaven 
 given to men, whereby we must be saved." 
 (Acts iv. 12.) 
 
 God calls men from the highways and by- 
 ways, the alleys and the fences; from their 
 fields, merchandise and families, to the wed- 
 ding feast of His Son: that is, from all walks 
 of life ; for He is no respecter of persons : from 
 all that man calls his own, because man is 
 not the lord, but the steward, held to an 
 accounting unto his Lord. 
 
 Man must separate himself, at least in 
 spirit, from the world and its possessions, and 
 also from himself, lest he be separated from 
 the kingdom of God: " Blessed are the poor 
 in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 
 (Matt. v. 3.) Men must use the world and 
 its goods, its pleasures and honors, "as if 
 [147]
 
 they used it not : for the fashion of this world 
 passeth away." (1 Cor. vii. 31.) 
 
 Doing these things, we enter into the spirit 
 of Christ, of the kingdom, of the Church. 
 
 The Citizens of the Spiritual Kingdom 
 
 Two things, therefore, are requisite for true 
 citizenship in the kingdom of God: (1) 
 Adoption by grace, in baptism, for "unless a 
 man be born again of water and the Holy 
 Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 God." (John iii. 5.) (2) The "spirit of the 
 country," the love of Jesus Christ, which is 
 His spirit: "But you are not in the flesh, 
 but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of 
 God dwell in you. Now if any man have not 
 the spirit of Christ, he is none of His." 
 (Rom. viii. 8-9.) 
 
 Hence it is evident that no man living 
 separated from the Church, or living within 
 the Church only according to the external 
 communion, and not also according to the 
 internal communion, the communion of grace 
 and of the spirit, which is the spirit of Christ, 
 can attain to eternal salvation: "For all that 
 is in the world, is the concupiscence of the 
 [148]
 
 flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and 
 the pride of life, which is not of the Father, 
 but is of the world." (1 John ii. 16.) The 
 good and true disciple of Christ, then, works 
 his salvation with the Church in the spirit of 
 Christ, " flying the corruption of that con- 
 cupiscence which is in the world." (1 Peter 
 i.4.) 
 
 There are not wanting in the world those 
 who think they can hoodwink God. They 
 have a false conception of God. Their God 
 is the reflection of their own inconstancy and 
 inconsistency, and perversion. 
 
 They are, as a rule, incurable weaklings. 
 
 There are also those who pretend to hold 
 that it matters little with God whether a 
 man believes this thing or that, anything or 
 nothing, if only he "do right, and lead a good 
 life." 
 
 But, first: God can be as little indifferent 
 to the truth as a merchant to the multiplica- 
 tion table, or the surveyor to the principles of 
 mathematics: or God would not have come 
 down among His children to teach them any 
 truth at all. And God is the truth: whatever, 
 therefore, is against truth, is against God; as 
 [149]
 
 * -J s?i K. a* 1 ?HI * < 
 
 m me JPJroautt* nf Itauit 
 
 * * j 
 
 a father is solicitous about the welfare of his 
 children, that they should not only inherit his 
 possessions after him and then know it, and 
 be grateful for the gift; but that they should 
 also now enjoy his possessions, and not think 
 that they are enjoying their own, or the pos- 
 sessions of somebody else whom they owe no 
 thanks: lest they squander the goods unreason- 
 ably and unprofitably, forgetting that they 
 are under the obligation of gratitude and love 
 to their father. 
 
 So also would men neglect the duty of the 
 love of God, from which God Himself cannot 
 dispense His creature, if they were at liberty 
 to neglect His truth. 
 
 But, secondly: Error is an evil; and God 
 cannot consent to evil, because it assails His 
 sanctity. 
 
 Of course, the objection is raised that "an 
 error in supernatural truth should not be dis- 
 pleasing to God, because our knowledge of the 
 supernatural is at best imperfect knowledge, 
 since of the supernatural we can never have 
 convincing certainty: it transcends our intel- 
 ligence, which, as a natural faculty, cannot 
 establish relations with supernatural truth. 
 [150]
 
 But such reasoning teems with mistakes. 
 For (a) The supreme court of morality, from 
 which there is no appeal, is conscience. The 
 intellect may, at times, inform it falsely; 
 nevertheless its decision, whether correct or 
 incorrect objectively, is the only safe guide 
 for practise, as long as it is based sincerely on 
 the reasons presented by the intellect. Nor 
 is it a dormant power that must be roused 
 by thought or passion; it is ever awake and 
 vigilant, like the watchman in the lighthouse, 
 and is alive to the approach of danger, earlier 
 even than the intellect : it is the voice of God. 
 
 The decision, therefore, whether the intellect 
 should be satisfied with a mixture of truth 
 and error, must be asked, not from the intellect 
 against which the flesh lusteth but 
 from the infallible monitor conscience. 
 
 An intelligence clogged with the mud of 
 passion may be satisfied with the semblance 
 of truth; but conscience will claim the rights of 
 human nature despite the objections of sloven- 
 liness of thought and impudence of concupis- 
 cence, and repeat incessantly its demand for 
 justice to nature, as it is fashioned by the 
 Creator. Conscience will have truth. 
 [1511
 
 n 
 
 The man who would persuade himself of the 
 folly that errors in supernatural truth are 
 not displeasing to God, must first stifle the 
 voice of his conscience, "for with the heart 
 we believe unto justice; but with the mouth 
 confession is made unto salvation." (Rom. 
 x. 10.) "Now the end of the commandment 
 is charity, from a pure heart, and a good con- 
 science, and an unfeigned faith." (1 Tim. 
 i. 5.) "But even until this day, when Moses 
 is read, the veil is upon their heart', but when 
 they shall be converted to the Lord, the veil 
 shall be taken away." (2 Cor. iii. 15-16.) 
 
 (b) All truth, whether revealed or naturally 
 acquired, is one whole inviolable system; a 
 mistake hi a single canon of truth disturbs 
 the whole, as a mistake of addition or multi- 
 plication, etc., in arithmetic, spoils the entire 
 problem. 
 
 If one would, for example, deny the neces- 
 sity of baptism for salvation, he would deny 
 implicitly also the veracity of the Holy 
 Scriptures, the veracity, and, therefore, the 
 sanctity and the divinity of Jesus Christ, the 
 existence of a living society established by 
 Jesus Christ, the Church, into which we are 
 [152]
 
 initiated by baptism, the entire economy of 
 the redemption, which the denial of the 
 divinity of the Redeemer would make an 
 illusion, all supernatural revelation, and the 
 hope of salvation after this life: in brief, he 
 would break the chain of truth by removing 
 one link the chain would fall this side of 
 the chasm between heaven and earth, and 
 leave us hopeless wanderers on the banks of 
 the river of darkness. 
 
 (c) Our knowledge of the supernatural is 
 imperfect in two ways: (1) in that we do not 
 know all that lies beyond the visible world; 
 (2) in that our capacity is limited. 
 
 The reason for the first is that God has not 
 deemed it necessary to reveal more than will 
 avail for our salvation; the reason for the 
 second, that the truth of God shares the 
 immensity of His being, whereas our faculty 
 of .understanding is finite. We cannot gather 
 all the rays of the sun in a lens, nor dip all the 
 ocean into a tumbler. 
 
 But it is false to assert that for these reasons 
 
 we cannot have convincing certainty of the 
 
 existence and manner of the supernatural. 
 
 Some of us, for example, may not know more 
 
 [153]
 
 n 
 
 of Rome than its ancient history, its site, the 
 number of its inhabitants; we may never have 
 seen its treasures and relics, its marvels of 
 ancient architecture, its miles of subterranean 
 excavations with the cemeteries of the holy 
 martyrs: but would we, on this account, doubt 
 the existence of the eternal city and her his- 
 tory, and allow a skeptic in geography to cancel 
 the city of Rome from our maps? But has the 
 world, in the name of a free and independent 
 science, not permitted the erasure of the name 
 of God and His Son, our Redeemer, from the 
 annals of history? 
 
 (d) Supernatural truth transcends our nat- 
 ural power of intelligence; but its assertive 
 power, i.e., the guarantees which we have for 
 its genuineness, does not elude the grasp of 
 our mind : the growth of a plant, not to speak 
 of the mysteries of biology, eludes human ken, 
 like everything not dissectible, ponderable, 
 measurable, "for we know in part, and we 
 prophesy in part" (1 Cor. xiii. 9); but the 
 evident proofs of the process of life and 
 growth are so lavishly strewn about us that 
 we think we know, while we only believe. 
 And it is only the pertinent assertion of the 
 [154]
 
 existence of things about us that forces our 
 conviction. 
 
 Now the proofs of the existence of the super- 
 natural, of the fact of divine revelation, are to 
 an honest mind ("a good conscience") so over- 
 whelming that very superstition instantly 
 seats herself in state in place of Faith de- 
 throned. In the history of all ages but 
 especially in the history of our own age "he 
 who runs may read." 
 
 Would we deny the fact of a divine revela- 
 tion, we would have to condemn the better 
 part of the race as gullible dolts and arrant 
 cowards, and explain the mythologies of the 
 pagan nations as an echo without a voice, as 
 the dream of an infant, deaf, dumb and blind. 
 
 No, the vain imaginings of the mytholo- 
 gies of antiquity are in large measure the echo 
 of the ancient revelations of the Jewish 
 people, or even an echo from Paradise, and 
 also, in part, the echo of the human soul crying 
 for heaven; the memories of childhood, con- 
 fused and distorted, in the heart of the exile 
 in bondage, degraded beneath his condition, 
 and weaned of self-respect. 
 
 For its fickleness the human mind needs an 
 [155]
 
 n 
 
 infallible compass to guide it through the mist 
 and maze of evil that is ever obscuring its 
 course heavenward, and this compass is 
 Divine Revelation. 
 
 Lastly, however, we must not overlook 
 that the will of man is informed by the intel- 
 lect (reason); if, therefore, we would grant 
 immunity from eviction to an error of the 
 intellect, we should have to admit that man is 
 an irresponsible being which is absurd : for 
 even civil society regulates the relations of 
 citizen to citizen by law and ordinance. Law, 
 civil and moral, now takes the place of that 
 original integrity with which God had endowed 
 man at his creation. But, pity it is that jus- 
 tice, harmony, order and righteousness were 
 lost. It was the title of nobility that was 
 forfeited by treason against the sovereign by 
 whose graciousness it had been granted. 
 
 Therefore Christ established His Church as 
 the Ark of Salvation in the universal flood of 
 corruption and error. 
 
 Third: How can a man profess to do right 
 and lead a good life, if he ignores the injunc- 
 [156]
 
 tion of the Son of God: "Now this is eternal 
 life: That they may know Thee, the only 
 true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast 
 sent." (John xvii. 3.) To know Christ means 
 to know Him by His doctrine. 
 
 God's rights on man are prior to man's 
 rights on himself, because without God, man 
 would not exist. Man is not a sovereign, nor 
 is a nation sovereign in this sense, that it may 
 disregard the rules of justice and equity. 
 Man knows this from his inability to check his 
 own decline and death; but if man owes his 
 origin and existence to God, he owes Him 
 also obedience, submission, adoration. A man 
 cannot do right by ignoring his first duties 
 toward God. The righteousness of those 
 who "do right" without religious observance 
 is characterized in the reproof administered 
 to the conceit of the Pharisees: "For I tell 
 you that unless your justice abound more than 
 that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall 
 not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. . . . 
 Be you, therefore, perfect, as also your heav- 
 enly Father is perfect." (Matt. v. 20-48.) 
 
 If by "leading a good life" one would, 
 peradventure, understand anything but a 
 [1571
 
 n 
 
 life regulated by the will of God, the modern 
 Pharisee would have to be referred to the 
 beasts of the forest, which lead a purer life 
 than man left to his own moral resources 
 not to speak of justice. 
 
 The Church is a necessity. As the Holy 
 Ghost imprints a spiritual character upon the 
 soul of man in baptism, making man a child 
 of God, and an heir of heaven, so does the 
 Church set the seal of God upon the life of 
 her children by the Word of Truth: "But the 
 sure foundation of God standeth firm, having 
 this seal: the Lord knoweth who are His; and 
 let everyone depart from iniquity who nameth 
 the name of the Lord" (2 Tim. ii. 19); "in 
 whom you also, after you had heard the Word 
 of Truth (the Gospel of your salvation); in 
 whom also believing, you were signed with the 
 Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of 
 our inheritance." (Eph. i. 13-14.) 
 
 Flowers do not bloom in ice. 
 
 VII. Jesus Christ raised the Standard of 
 Morality 
 
 (I) The unspeakable abominations of the 
 [158]
 
 pagans must not as much as be mentioned in 
 the same breath with Christianity: "Know 
 you not that the unjust shall not possess the 
 kingdom of God? Do not err: neither for- 
 nicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor 
 the effeminate, . . . nor thieves, nor covetous, 
 nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners 
 shall possess the kingdom of God. And such 
 some of you were; but you are washed, but 
 you are sanctified, but you are justified in the 
 name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the spirit 
 of our God." (1 Cor. vi. 9-11.) 
 
 "Now concerning spiritual things, my breth- 
 ren, I would not have you ignorant. You 
 know that when you were heathens, you went 
 to dumb idols, according as you were led." 
 (1 Cor. xii. 1-2.) 
 
 St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, knew 
 the Gentiles very well: "This, then, I say and 
 testify in the Lord: That henceforward you 
 walk not as also the Gentiles walk in the vanity 
 of their mind, having their understanding 
 darkened, being alienated from the life of God 
 through the ignorance that is in them, because 
 of the blindness of their hearts; who, despair- 
 ing, have given themselves up to lascivious- 
 [159]
 
 m 
 
 tiit Jfcjtfamt vf 
 
 > 
 
 ness, unto the working of all uncleanness, unto 
 covetousness. But you have not so learned 
 Christ. . . . Give no place to the devil!" 
 (Eph. iv. 17-20.) He knew them well! 
 
 (2) The morality of the Jews, also, stood 
 in sore need of reform; not, indeed, so much 
 that the standard of moral truth, but be- 
 cause the standard of moral practice required 
 elevating. 
 
 (3) There is no need of going into the 
 details of pagan abominations, as everyone 
 knows from his own propensities, and, perhaps, 
 from his own past errors, to what lengths of 
 perversion the human heart may be drawn 
 by the insensible allurements of evil passions, 
 when it frees itself from the check of the fear 
 of God, and tosses its independence of purity 
 to the winds. 
 
 (4) Of the moral practices of the Jews in 
 general the judgment must be more lenient; 
 because the Jews as a nation never completely 
 forgot the commandments delivered to their 
 fathers, and the promises of national eleva- 
 tion made by the prophets. 
 
 Yet their service of God was so intensely 
 earthly that, viewed in the light of the New 
 [160]
 
 Testament, it compares with the sanctity of 
 the Christian dispensation as a crab-apple 
 with an olive. 
 
 The law, indeed, was good, although not 
 as yet perfected by the grace of the Redeemer: 
 11 Do not think that I am come to destroy the 
 law, or the prophets. I am not come to de- 
 stroy but to fulfil." (Matt. v. 17.) But the 
 practice of virtue without the example of the 
 divine Master was so difficult to fallen man 
 that it became a stumbling-block even to 
 Abraham, the Father of the Old Testament. 
 For, much as we may admire his sublime 
 faith, we cannot but pity the haste with which 
 he anticipated the realization of the divine 
 promise of an heir by taking unto his bosom, 
 after the fashion of the heathen kings, a ser- 
 vant girl, Hagar, to hold as a second wife. 
 
 Much as we may admire the wonderful 
 simplicity of Moses, who dared go so far as 
 to ask the Almighty God to show him His 
 face, we would search in vain among the 
 saints of Jesus Christ for a man so far ad- 
 vanced in holiness, and yet so weak as to 
 doubt, even for the fatal moment, the word of 
 God, so that he must be deprived in the end of 
 [1611
 
 his life's dream and desire: as Moses had to 
 forego the honor and joy of seeing the Land 
 of Promise, except from afar, in punishment 
 of the momentary lapse from his wonted 
 confidence in the word of God. 
 
 How terrible is the complaint of God in the 
 mouth of the Psalmist, from which the 
 prophets for six hundred years seem to have 
 taken their key: "Forty years long was I 
 offended with that generation, and I said: 
 These always err in heart. And these men 
 have not known my ways: so I swore in my 
 wrath that they shall not enter into my rest." 
 (Ps. xciv. 10-11.) 
 
 That entire Egyptian generation died in the 
 wilderness, and only the brawny children 
 raised in the desert entered into the rest of 
 the Holy Land. 
 
 Jesus Christ raised the standard of the 
 moral practice of old to the sublimest heights, 
 trusting man with the ambition of the angels: 
 "You have heard that it was said to them of 
 old: Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I 
 say to you that whosoever shall look on a 
 woman to lust after her, hath already com- 
 mitted adultery with her in his heart." 
 [162]
 
 (Matt. v. 27-28.) "You have heard that 
 it hath been said: Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor, and hate thy enemy. But I say 
 to you, love your enemies: do good to them 
 that hate you: and pray for them that per- 
 secute and calumniate you, that you may be 
 children of your Father who is in heaven." 
 (Matt. v. 43-45.) 
 
 Religious life had often degenerated, and 
 most alarmingly at the time of the advent of 
 their Messiah, into the observance of mere 
 legal formality; Christ Jesus endowed it with 
 life and substance from heaven: "Not every- 
 one that saith to me: 'Lord, Lord,' shall 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he 
 that doth the will of my Father who is in 
 heaven, shall enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven." (Matt. vii. 21.) "For from the 
 days of your fathers you have departed from 
 my ordinances, and have not kept them. 
 Return to me, and I will return to you, saith 
 the Lord of hosts. And you have said: 
 Wherein shall we return?" (Mai. iii. 7.) 
 
 The intimacy between God and the people 
 who would have been swallowed up by the 
 other nations, had God not taken them into 
 [163]
 
 His bosom, is truly pitiable for the ingratitude 
 and prudery of the Jews. From the first 
 prophet to this last, Malachy, who cried his 
 plaint into the New Testament, the reproach 
 of the ingratitude of their people is the burden 
 of their strain: " Behold I will send you Elias, 
 the prophet, before the coming of the great 
 and dreadful day of the Lord" (Mai. iv. 7.), 
 and then a dead silence in the heavens for 
 hundreds of years, foreshadowing the doom of 
 Israel! "That great and dreadful day" 
 the first Good Friday. 
 
 The New Dispensation brings Light and Joy 
 
 "Glory to God in the highest, and peace 
 to men of good-will." (Luke ii. 14.) 
 
 Jesus Christ has raised the standard of 
 morality, (1) by the fulness and purity of His 
 teaching, (2) by the sanctity of His example, 
 (3) by the sublimity of His counsels, (4) by 
 the fitness of His laws, (5) by the promise of 
 His assistance through abundant grace. 
 
 1. The Purity of His Teaching 
 
 (a) From a virgin mother He assumed the 
 flesh, setting a price on the prerogative of the 
 [164]
 
 angels of God, and making it a treasure for 
 the " vessels of clay." 
 
 (b) He never suffered the temptation of 
 the flesh to be breathed upon Himself by the 
 privileged tempter of the desert, Satan. 
 
 (c) He lived a virgin. 
 
 (d) He lavished more praise and affection 
 upon His virgin disciple, St. John, than upon 
 any other, allowing him to recline his head on 
 His breast, at that feast of the Most Sacred 
 Mystery of His Love; and hence the interpre- 
 tation by the other disciples of His prophecy : 
 "So I will have him till I come," they think- 
 ing "that that disciple should not die." They 
 believed that the Master had endowed with 
 very immortality the virgin disciple who so 
 often glories that "Jesus loved him." What 
 proofs of affection the Master must have 
 showered upon that loved one to suggest 
 such a strange distinction to the minds of the 
 others ! 
 
 (e) He assigns a distinct place to the "pure 
 of heart" among the blessed. 
 
 (f) His Apostles extolled that virtue of 
 chastity: "For I would that all men were 
 even as myself: but everyone hath his proper 
 
 [1651
 
 n e 
 
 gift from God; one after this manner, and 
 another after that." (1 Cor. vii. 7.) 
 
 (g) The Fathers of the Church, the inter- 
 preters of His doctrine, demand chastity, that 
 fragrance of all earthly beauty, as the con- 
 diment of all good works: "That the purity 
 of chasteness be in the body, and the light of 
 truth in the works. For the one cannot be 
 acceptable to our Redeemer without the other: 
 if one does the good, but does not also discard 
 the corruption of lewdness; or, another, shin- 
 ing by chastity, does not also perform good 
 works: therefore, neither is chastity great 
 without good works, nor is there any work 
 good without chastity." (St. Greg. P., Horn. 
 13, in Evang.) 
 
 (h) Hence the one virtue of all acquired 
 virtues most difficult to practise occupies 
 the place of honor in the new dispensation; 
 the one virtue which lends luster and light to 
 all the faculties of mortal man, and beauty 
 and fragrance to his words and deeds, is most 
 dearly cherished by the Master and His Holy 
 Spouse, the Church. 
 
 The Jewish and the pagan world stood 
 aghast at the revelation, a ray of Para- 
 [1661
 
 dise still gleaming in the flesh unknown to 
 them! 
 
 (i) From the estimate placed in the doc- 
 trine of Jesus Christ upon this one virtue, we 
 must make our deductions as to the sanctity 
 of the entire system. 
 
 2. The Sanctity of His Example 
 
 (a) The life of Jesus Christ was so abso- 
 lutely stainless that even his bitterest foes 
 passed His challenge unanswered: "Which of 
 you shall convince me of sin?" (John viii. 46.) 
 
 (b) The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, 
 a heathen and a profligate, was so much im- 
 pressed by the mysterious majesty of Jesus 
 Christ that he sought three times to release 
 Him; but it is only true sanctity that exerts 
 such overwhelming power over wickedness 
 and injustice. 
 
 (c) His first prayer on the cross was a 
 petition for the pardon of His executioners 
 and enemies: "Father, forgive them, for they 
 know not what they do." (Luke xxiii. 34.) 
 By this and other proofs of His sanctity no 
 less than by His patience amid the bitterest 
 suffering he convinced another pagan, the cen- 
 
 [167]
 
 turion, and wrung from him the open con- 
 fession: "Indeed this was the Son of God" 
 (Mark xv. 39), and won the confidence of the 
 dying thief. 
 
 (d) He exhausted all the solicitude of His 
 gentle heart ere he bade Judas go and execute 
 his terrible resolve of treason. 
 
 (e) He forgave Peter his threefold, shame- 
 ful denial of Him. 
 
 (f ) He enthroned charity in the souls of men 
 and dethroned selfishness, enmity and revenge. 
 
 (g) He asks of His followers a charity like 
 to His own, if they would be His disciples: 
 "Greater love than this no man hath, that a 
 man lay down his life for his friends" (John 
 xv. 13); "and when we were enemies, we were 
 reconciled to God by the death of His Son." 
 (Rom v. 10.) "By this shall all men know 
 that you are my disciples, if you have love 
 one for another." (John xiii. 35.) 
 
 Chastity, therefore, and charity are the 
 pillars which Jesus Christ reared in the tem- 
 ple of the new law, two columns, the orna- 
 ment and the strength of our faith; that our 
 hearts should be clean of the rottenness of 
 [1681
 
 carnal lust, temples of the Holy Ghost, and 
 altars of divine Love. 
 
 Chastity and charity! What a hell of sin 
 and misery you would banish from the world! 
 
 3. The Sublimity of His Counsels 
 
 (a) "If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what 
 thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou 
 shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, 
 follow me" (Matt. xix. 21.) 
 
 "Make thyself a stranger in this land of 
 death, and thou shalt have a home in the 
 mansions of my Father: forsake the earth, 
 and I will give thee heaven; empty thy heart 
 of the world, and I will fill it to overflowing 
 with a foretaste of the delight of the angels!" 
 
 (b) "The disciple is not above his master: 
 but everyone shall be perfect, if he be as his 
 master." (Luke vi. 40.) 
 
 Our Master is Jesus Christ, "the splendor 
 of the Father," the Son of God, the "Sun of 
 Justice:" what a model to imitate, what a 
 pattern to copy! 
 
 (c) "But I say to the unmarried, and to 
 the widows: It is good for them if they so 
 continue, even as I." (1 Cor. vii. 8.) 
 
 [1691
 
 in tttt $ Jm&mst 0f 
 
 * * 
 
 "There are eunuchs who have made them- 
 selves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven: 
 who can take, let him take" (it). (Matt. 
 xix. 12.) 
 
 (d) Innumerable souls have made super- 
 human sacrifice for the love of Heaven. 
 
 4. The Fitness of His Laws 
 
 (a) He reestablished the bond of matri- 
 mony on its pristine basis of indissolubility: 
 "What, therefore, God hath joined together, 
 let no man put asunder." (Matt. xix. 6.) 
 "Moses, by reason of the hardness of your 
 heart, permitted you to put away your wives, 
 but from the beginning it was not so." 
 (Matt. xix. 8.) 
 
 (b) He set the true value on childhood: 
 "Suffer little children, and forbid them not 
 to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is 
 for such." (Matt. xix. 14.) 
 
 The children's hearts are the field for the 
 good seed that bears fruit a hundredfold. 
 
 (c) He enjoined obedience to all authority, 
 both the human and the divine: "Render, 
 
 [170]
 
 therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, 
 and to God the things that are God's." 
 (Matt. xxii. 21.) 
 
 (d) He insists upon the practice of char- 
 ity throughout His teaching as upon the 
 one practice which is the fulfilment of the 
 whole law: "This is my commandment, 
 that you love one another, as I have loved 
 you." (John xv. 12.) "All things, there- 
 fore, whatsoever you would that men should 
 do to you, do you also to them. For this 
 is the law and the prophets." (Matt. vii. 
 12.) 
 
 The first element of the happiness of man 
 redeemed, in his sojourn here below, is the 
 spirit of sacrifice, self-denial, or mortification. 
 To implant this wholesome spirit in our hearts, 
 and to quicken it, the Master made laws to 
 check the ferocity of the flesh, and to elicit the 
 gentleness of the heart. These laws work 
 together unto the welfare of man on earth, 
 and unto his salvation, according to promise, 
 hereafter; therefore, the law of Jesus Christ 
 is designed to stand as a substitute for the 
 justice and integrity which we lost in our first 
 parents. 
 
 [171]
 
 in H J^lm&smt nf 
 
 VIII. Jesus Christ pointed out the Only Way to 
 
 True Happiness on Earth, and to Ever- 
 
 lasting Happiness after Death 
 
 (A Reassertion of the Last Title) 
 
 1. This earthly life is not free from suffer- 
 ing: the riddle submitted for solution to 
 every mortal is how to be happy amid the 
 sufferings of this life. 
 
 2. This earthly life is the palaestra, the train- 
 ing school for the life to come, the crucible 
 in which we are to be purified, the mold into 
 which we are cast to be modeled unto per- 
 fection. Hence the task of every mortal 
 to submit gracefully to the process of being 
 trained. 
 
 3. We are imperfect in every way; our 
 understanding is clouded by ignorance and 
 dulled by lassitude laziness the will is 
 made unstable by the looseness of its uprights, 
 reason and concupiscence; for the will is 
 bedded between these two powers like the 
 fly-wheel on its bed: if the foundation be 
 loose, the engine works unsteadily; "the flesh 
 lusteth against the spirit," and the manifold 
 passions and other evils which the flesh in- 
 
 [1721
 
 herits by the wretched fall of Adam, increase 
 the confusion of the mind, misdirect the fickle 
 will, and strengthen the power of the animal 
 in man: "Man born of a woman, living for 
 a short time, is filled with many miseries." 
 (Job xiv. 1.) 
 
 "And I proposed in my mind to seek and 
 search out wisely concerning all things that 
 are under the sun. This painful occupation 
 hath God given to the children of men, to 
 be exercised therein." (Eccles. i. 13.) "But 
 all things are kept uncertain for the time to 
 come, because all things equally happen to the 
 just and to the wicked, to the good and to 
 the evil, to the clean and to the unclean, to 
 him that offereth victims, and to him that 
 despiseth sacrifices. As the good is, so also 
 is the sinner: as the perjured, so he also that 
 sweareth truth. 
 
 "This is a very great evil among all things 
 that are done under the sun that the same 
 things happen to all men: whereby also the 
 hearts of the children of men are filled with 
 evil, and with contempt while they live, and 
 afterward they shall be brought down to hell. 
 ... Go then, and eat thy bread with joy, 
 [173]
 
 n 
 
 and drink thy wine with gladness : because thy 
 works please God!" (Ib. ix. 3, 4-7.) 
 
 What with this wailing of this sage of old 
 was there ever written description more 
 graphic of the humming cauldron of mortal 
 life! 
 
 The Master Himself did not characterize 
 the life on earth as a life without joy and 
 happiness; but neither did He make promise 
 of earthly possessions and pleasures. The 
 short span allotted to us here below did not 
 appeal to His solicitude, except in so far as 
 it serves our higher end. He directed our 
 gaze heavenward, and only when He spoke of 
 the kingdom of God, would He deign to 
 associate the children of the world with the 
 children of the kingdom in this warning: 
 that the children of God would labor and 
 suffer for His name's sake, and the children 
 of the world for the world's sake, or for their 
 own sakes. For when He extends His invita- 
 tion: "If any man will come after me, let 
 him deny himself, and take up his cross, and 
 follow me" (Matt. xvi. 24), He teaches that 
 the trials and sufferings of this life are char- 
 acteristic, indeed, of the journey toward 
 [174]
 
 heaven, but still only incidental to the spirit- 
 ual life which He calls His disciples to lead. 
 He would, however, we make little of the 
 adversities of this world, as St. Paul explains: 
 "For I reckon that the sufferings of this time 
 are not worthy to be compared with the glory 
 to come, that shall be revealed in us." (Rom. 
 viii. 18.) 
 
 As the intrepid warrior who fights for his 
 king and country does, indeed, feel the heat 
 and hardship of the battle, but disregards 
 them in view of the honor of the victory: 
 so also must we disregard the heat and the 
 burden of the day for the "reward exceeding 
 great." 
 
 Jesus Christ would connect only the eternal 
 destiny of man with his earthly discomforts: 
 "And everyone that hath left house, or breth- 
 ren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or 
 children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall 
 receive an hundredfold, and shall possess 
 life everlasting." (Matt. xix. 29.)" And you 
 shall be hated by all nations for my name's 
 sake." (Matt. xxiv. 9.) It is a comfort to 
 know that the Church of Christ is still the 
 best-hated institution on earth! 
 [1751
 
 i 
 
 Ut 
 
 
 
 "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." 
 (John xv. 19.) 
 
 The Lord knew well that persecutions would 
 arise, and that those who love Him best, must 
 suffer most. But He knew also that His 
 true disciples would learn to esteem suffering 
 a blessing, a refining fire, a source of reward 
 rather than a cause for wailing and complaint. 
 
 And His Apostles understood it well: 
 "Blessed is the man that endureth tempta- 
 tion; for when he hath been proved, he shall 
 receive the crown of life, which God hath prom- 
 ised to them that love Him." (James i. 12.) 
 
 "Wherein (in your salvation) you shall 
 greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little 
 time made sorrowful in divers temptations: 
 that the trial of your faith (much more pre- 
 cious than gold which is tried by fire) may be 
 found unto praise and glory and honor at the 
 appearing of Jesus Christ." (1 Pet. i. 7.) 
 
 "Because thou sayest: I am rich, and made 
 wealthy, and have need of nothing: and 
 knowest not that thou art wretched, and mis- 
 [1761
 
 erable and poor, and blind and naked. I 
 counsel thee to buy of me gold, fire-tried, that 
 thou mayest be made rich . . . such as I love, 
 I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous, therefore, 
 and do penance." (Apoc. iii. 17-19.) 
 
 Hence true Christian happiness does not 
 consist in the immunity from suffering, but 
 springs rather from the love of God and the 
 resignation to His holy will, which accounts 
 suffering a blessing and a mark of the special 
 favor of God. Happiness we crave with all 
 the intension of our nature, happiness that 
 would still our groaning, and enkindle our 
 hearts with the desire of showing our grati- 
 tude to the cause of our happiness: for our 
 happiness is only the mouth of the love-stream 
 surging about our hearts; the stream rises 
 without, from a source so abundantly rich that 
 it shall never cease to flow for us, unless we 
 allow its mouth to be choked, or to freeze 
 over. 
 
 Now, coldness of heart supervenes either 
 
 upon the hopeless consciousness of guilt, or 
 
 upon the silent conversion toward the things 
 
 of the world, which engross the attention, and 
 
 [177]
 
 n 
 
 divert the watchfulness of the soul: "And 
 because iniquity hath abounded, the charity 
 of many shall grow cold: but he that shall 
 persevere to the end, he shall be saved." 
 (Matt. xxiv. 12-13.) "If any man love the 
 world, the charity of the Father is not in him." 
 (1 John ii. 15.) "But the fruit of the spirit 
 is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, 
 goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, mod- 
 esty, continency, chastity. Against such there 
 is no law." (Gal. v. 22-23.) 
 
 Is the possession, or even the mere raising 
 of these fruits of the spirit, not the very source 
 of true happiness? And it is the Apostle of 
 Jesus Christ that guarantees their possession 
 through the spirit of God. 
 
 "Watch ye, therefore, because you know not 
 what hour your Lord will come." (Matt. 
 xxiv. 42.) 
 
 We must account it true profit that God is 
 so solicitous about our purification from the 
 dross of evil in the shape of perverse inclina- 
 tions, or of sin; true happiness that He holds 
 out to us from above a reward so great and 
 precious that the hope of it warms the heart 
 and quickens the blood, filling us with a joy 
 [178]
 
 that the world knoweth not; and making us 
 not only to bear adversity with equanimity 
 and calmness, but with exultation: "Now 
 all chastisement for the present indeed seemeth 
 not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but 
 afterward it will yield, to them that are 
 exercised by it, the most peaceful fruit of jus- 
 tice." (Heb. xii. 11.) 
 
 This happiness is the happiness of the 
 spirit, the nobler part of man. It differs 
 widely from the happiness of the senses, so 
 easily turned into instruments of concupis- 
 cence. The worldly-minded care not for the 
 true happiness, alone worthy of man's striving, 
 because they know it not. They seek a 
 fleeting satisfaction or delight; but this sets 
 the senses afire, inflames the heart with a 
 fever, and produces an unquenchable thirst 
 and an ever-gaping void. 
 
 The pleasures of the senses are like a sore 
 on the soul: the more one would scratch it 
 to ease its itching, the more it would itch and 
 induce new scratching; but there is no healing, 
 and the end is surfeit or death: "For many 
 walk, of whom I have told you often (and now 
 tell you weeping), that they are enemies of 
 [179]
 
 in tit* J?lm&imt ttf Boiilt 
 
 * * * 
 
 the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction; 
 whose God is their belly and whose glory is 
 their shame; who mind earthly things." (Phil. 
 iii. 19.) 
 
 Hence the love of the cross of Christ is by 
 no means incompatible with the true happi- 
 ness of the Christian: nay, without the love 
 of the cross life often becomes unbearable, as 
 the utter despondency of those demonstrates 
 who have drained the cup of sensuality to the 
 bitter dregs of disappointment and despair. 
 
 (2) Jesus Christ pointed out the way even 
 to everlasting happiness after death: 
 
 "If I shall go, and prepare a place for you, 
 I will come again, and I will take you to my- 
 self; that where I am, you also may be." 
 (John xiv. 3.) "Who will render to every 
 man according to his works; to them, indeed, 
 who, according to patience in good work, seek 
 glory and honor, and incorruption, eternal 
 life." (Rom. ii. 6-7.) 
 
 Hence as charity and chastity are the two 
 pillars erected in the temple of Christian per- 
 fection, so is patience the arch which supports 
 the superstructure; a humility ennobled with 
 the spirit of the cross-bearer Jesus Christ. 
 [180]
 
 IX. Jesus Christ is constituted the Judge of 
 the Living and the Dead 
 
 "And He commanded us to preach to the 
 people, and to testify that it is He who was 
 appointed by God, to be the judge of the living 
 and of the dead." (Acts x. 42.) 
 
 (1) There are those who wantonly disown 
 Jesus Christ, because His doctrine is opposed 
 to their works : " Behold this child is set for the 
 fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, 
 and for a sign which shall be contradicted," 
 (Luke ii. 34), and disowning Him, they would 
 discredit Him both with themselves and with 
 the world: "And they love the first places at 
 feasts, and the first places in the synagogues, 
 and salutations in the market-places, and to 
 be called by men, Rabbi . . . but wo to you, 
 Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites; because 
 you shut the kingdom of heaven against men, 
 for you yourselves do not enter in; and those 
 that are going in, you suffer not to enter . . . 
 you serpents, generation of vipers, how will 
 you flee from the judgment of hell?" (Matt, 
 xxiii. 6-7, 13, 33.) 
 
 The modern Pharisees, infidels from many 
 [181]
 
 n 
 
 ilj* 
 
 reasons, scoff at the cross with fearsome aban- 
 don, and the havoc they are working among 
 the lowly and unsophisticated is lamentable 
 indeed; "but he that troubleth you, shall 
 bear the judgment, whoever he be" (Gal. v. 
 10), and "woe to that man by whom the 
 scandal cometh." (Matt, xviii. 7.) 
 
 It is the duty of every man, therefore, if 
 he would escape the dreadful sentence of 
 eternal damnation, to construct in his own 
 soul the temple of God, to hasten the coming 
 of His kingdom, and to resist all attempts of 
 the hypocrites who would tear down the 
 temple of God, and wrest the kingdom from 
 the Son of the King. 
 
 [182]
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I. DISSOLUTION 
 
 II. THE IMMATERIALITY OP THE HUMAN SOUL 
 
 III. IDEALS 
 
 IV. SPIRITUAL DEATH AND RESURRECTION 
 
 I. THE FOUNDATION .... 
 
 II. How TO LAY THE FOUNDATION 
 
 III. CANDOR AND SINCERITY . . . 
 
 1. 
 
 Jesus Christ, 
 
 2. 
 
 Jesus Christ, 
 
 3. 
 
 Jesus Christ, 
 
 4. 
 
 Jesus Christ, 
 
 5. 
 
 Jesus Christ, 
 
 6. 
 
 Jesus Christ, 
 
 7. 
 
 Jesus Christ, 
 
 8. 
 
 Jesus Christ, 
 
 9. 
 
 Jesus Christ, 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF LIFE 
 
 the Son of God 
 
 the Brother of Man 
 
 the Redeemer of the World . . 
 
 the Victim for Sin 
 
 the Model of Penance .... 
 the Noah of the New Testament 
 the Pattern of our Sanctity . . 
 the Way to Light and Happiness 
 the Judge to Come 
 
 PAGE 
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