w ^ y^ w w • 
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 I 
 
 I
 
 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD; 
 
 UK. 
 
 THE PRICE OF OUR SALVATION.
 
 [77w Copyright is reserved.]
 
 THE 
 
 PRECIOUS BLOOD; 
 
 OR. 
 
 THE PRICE OF OUR SALVATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D.D. 
 
 TKIEST OF THE ORATORY OF ST. PHILIP NERI. 
 
 " Habet magnam vocem Christi Sanguis in terra, cum eo accepto ab omnibus 
 gentibus respondetur Amen. Hoc est clara vox Sanguinis, quam Sanguis ipse 
 exprimit, ex ore fidelium eodem Sanguine redemptorum." — .S". Augitstin, contra 
 J-austuin, 1 xii. c. lo. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : BURNS & OATES, Limited. 
 
 NEW YORK, CINCINNATI. CHICAGO: BENZIGER BROTHERS.
 
 ST 
 751 
 
 TO THE MEMBERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Confraternity of the Most Precious Blood 
 
 IN THE CHURCH OF THE LONDON ORATORY. 
 
 My dear Friends, — I have written this little Book for 
 you, and. now dedicate it to you with feelings of the warmest 
 affection. It is ten years next August, since the Holy 
 Father set up our Confraternity. Since then we have 
 enrolled upwards of thirty-eight thousand Members, and 
 a hundred and four Religious Communities. Besides this, 
 several other Confraternities of the Precious Blood have 
 been set up and affiliated with ours ; and their members 
 are also very numerous. Some others have been erected 
 in imitation of ours ; and independently of it, and are 
 successfully propagating our favourite devotion. 
 
 The meetings at the Oratory on Sunday nights testify 
 to the abundant blessing whicli our Lord has given to this 
 apostolate of prayer. Letters are arriving daily, and from 
 
 Hi Q
 
 viii DEDICA TION. 
 
 the remotest quarters of the world, eitlier asking our prayers, 
 or returning thanks for unexpected answers to prayer, oi 
 recounting signal conversions, obtained through the inter- 
 cession of the Confraternity. Of late these divine favours 
 have greatly increased ; and, while this is a fresh motive 
 for the love of God and for confidence in prayer, it also 
 deepens our feeling of our own unworthiness, and greatly 
 humbles us. The Confraternity is now so extended, that 
 the correspondence includes letters from Ireland and Scot- 
 land, from France and Germany, from Canada and New- 
 foundland, from the United States and Central America, 
 from California and Brazil, from Australia and New Zealand, 
 from the East Indies and the Chinese Missions, from the 
 Cape of Good Hope and other British Dependencies. When 
 we think of all this, we must prize more and more the 
 privileges of this grand union of intercessory prayer. The 
 success of the Confraternity is naturally an object of lively 
 interest both to you and me. To you, because it is con- 
 nected now with so many secret joys and sorrows of your 
 lives, and so many hidden imu'cies and sweet answers to 
 prayer, which are known only to yourselves : to me, because 
 it is the realising of my hopes beyond what I ever could 
 have dreamed : and to both of u.s, because it is a bumble 
 increase of the glory of our dearest Lord. 
 
 I have watched the growth of the Confraternity with 
 a pleased surprise ; and the tokens of God's blessing upon
 
 DEDICA TION. ix 
 
 it have ovenvhelmed me Avitli gratitude and confusion : 
 and I have thought Avhat I could do. Though many of 
 you are present at the London Oratory every Sunday even- 
 ing by your letters, comparatively few of you can be there 
 in person. Yet I have felt that we belong to each other, 
 and that I should satisfy my own feelings, while I should 
 be gratifying yours, if I could make some affectionate offer- 
 ing to the whole of my dear Confraternity. 
 
 Therefore I have written this little Book. I have tried 
 to tell you all I know about the Precious Blood, all that 
 many years of hard study and much thought have enabled 
 me to learn ; and I have tried to tell it you as easily and as 
 simply as I could. I thought I could not please you better 
 than by this. I thought I could not show my gratitude 
 to our Blessed Eedeemer better than by striving to increase 
 a devotion which He Himself, by His blessing on the Con- 
 fraternity, has shown to be so pleasing to Him. I believed 
 we could not repay the paternal kindness of the Sovereign 
 Pontiff, our Father and Founder, who has enriched us with 
 Indulgences, in a manner more welcome to himself, than 
 by an effort to propagate the devotion to the Precious Blood, 
 in whose honour he has established a new feast in the 
 Church of God. I know that I could not please myself 
 better, than by magnifying the Precious Blood, which of 
 all the glorious objects of Catholic devotion has been for 
 years the dearest to ray heart.
 
 X DEDICA TION. 
 
 Accept, then, this little but loving gift. Let it stand 
 as a memorial of my love of you, of your love of Jesus, 
 of the filial devotion of both of us to the Holy Father, and 
 of our united thanksgivings to our Blessed Saviour for His 
 goodness to our Confraternity, and for our salvation through 
 His blood. — Your affectionate Servant and Father, 
 
 Frederick ^Villiam Faber, 
 Priest of the Oratory. 
 
 The London Oratobt, 
 Feast of the Conversion of St. Pavl-, 
 
 i860.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PACK 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD .... I 
 
 CHAPTER J I. 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD . ... 36 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD • • • • 73 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE P.tKCIOUS BLOOD . . . .133 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD . . .196 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD .... 249 
 
 INDE.X 
 
 :99
 
 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Salvation ! What music is there in that word, music that 
 never tires but is always new, that always rouses yet always 
 rests us ! It holds in itself all that our hearts would say. It 
 is sweet vigour to lis in the morning, and in the evening it 
 is contented peace. It is a song that is always singing itself 
 deep down in the delighted soul. Angelic ears are ravished 
 by it up in heaven ; and our Eternal Father Himself listens 
 to it with adorable complacency. It is sweet even to Him 
 out of whose mind is the music of a thousand worlds. To 
 be saved ! AVhat is it to be saved 1 "Who can tell 1 Eye has 
 not seen, nor ear heard. It is a rescue, and from such a ship- 
 wreck. It is a rest, and in such an unimaginable home. It is 
 to lie down for ever in the Bosom of God in an endless rapture 
 of insatiable contentment. 
 
 " Thou shalt call His Name Jesus ; for He shall save His 
 people from their sins." Who else but Jesus can do this, 
 and what else even from Him do we require but this ; for in 
 this lie all things which we can desire 1 Of all miseries the 
 bondage of sin is the most miserable. It is worse than 
 
 A
 
 2 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 sorrow, worse than pain. It is such a ruin that no other 
 ruin is like unto it. It troubles all the peace of life. It 
 turns sunshine into darkness. It embitters all pleasant 
 fountains, and poisons the very blessings of God which 
 sliould have been for our healing. It doubles the burdens 
 of life, which are heavy enough already. It makes death a 
 terror and a torture, and the eternity beyond the grave an 
 infinite and intolerable blackness. Alas ! we have felt the 
 weightiness of sin, and know that there is nothing like 
 it. Life has brought many sorrows to us, and many fears. 
 Our hearts have ached a thousand times. Tears have flowed. 
 Sleep has fled. Food has been nauseous to us, even when 
 our weakness craved for it. But never have Ave felt any- 
 thincc like the dead weight of a mortal sin. "\Maat then 
 must a life of such sins be? What must be a death in sin] 
 What the irrevocable eternity of unretracted sin ? 
 
 From all this horror whither shall we look for deliverance 1 
 Not to ourselves ; for we know the practical infinity of our 
 weakness, and the incorrigible vitality of our corruption. 
 Not to any earthly power ; for it has no jurisdiction here. 
 Not to philosophy, literature, or science ; for in this case 
 they are but sorry and unhelpful matters. Not to any saint 
 however holy, nor to any angel however mighty ; for the 
 least sin is a bigger mountain than they liavc faculties to 
 move. Not to the crowned queen of God's creation, the 
 glorious and the sinless !Mary ; for even her holiness cannot 
 .^satisfy for sin, nor the whiteness of her purity take out its 
 deadly stain. Neitlier may we look for deliverance direct 
 from the patience and compassion of God Himself ; for in 
 tlie abysses of His wisdom it has been decreed, that without 
 shedding of blood there shall be no remission of sin. It is 
 from the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ alone that our salva- 
 tion comes. Out of the immensity of its merits, out of the 
 inexhaustible treasures of its satisfactions, because of the
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 3 
 
 resistless power of its beauty over the justice and the wratli 
 of God because of that dear combination of its priceless wortlx 
 and its benignant prodigality, we miserable sinners are raised 
 out of the depths of our wretchedness, and restored to the 
 peace and favour of our Heavenly Father. 
 
 Is hope sweet where despair had almost begun tb reign ? 
 Is it a joy to be emancipated from a shameful slavery, or set 
 free from a noxious dungeon 1 Is it gladness to be raised, 
 as if by miracle, from a bed of feebleness and suffering to 
 sudden health and instantaneous vigour 1 Then what a glad- 
 ness must salvation be ! For, as there is no earthly misery 
 like sin, so is there no deliverance like that Avith which 
 Jesus makes us free. "Words will not tell it. Thought only 
 can think it, and it must be thought out of an enlightened 
 mind and a burning heart, dwelt on for a long, long while. 
 The first moment after death is a moment which must 
 infallibly come to every one of us. Earth lies behind us, 
 silently wheeling its obedient way through the black-tinted 
 space. The measureless spaces of eternity lie outstretched 
 before us. The words of our sentence have scarcely floated 
 away into silence. It is a sentence of salvation. The great 
 risk has been run, and we are saved. God's power is hold- 
 ing our soul lest it should die of gladness. It cannot take 
 in the whole of its eternity. The least accidental joy is a 
 world of beatitude in itself. The blaze of the Vision is 
 overwhelming. Then the truth that eternity is eternal, — 
 this is so hard to master. Yet all this is only what wc 
 mean when we pronounce the word salvation. How hideous 
 the difference of that first moment after death, if we had not 
 been saved ! It turns us cold to think of it. But oh, joy 
 of joys ! we have seen the Face of Jesus; and the light in 
 His eyes, and the smile ui^on His face, and the words upon 
 His lips, were salvation. 
 
 Dut there are some who do not feel that sin is such a
 
 4 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 horror or captivity. They say it lays no weight upon their 
 hearts. They say their lives are full of sunshine, and that 
 time flows with them as the merry rivulet runs in summer, 
 with a soothing brawl over its coloured stones, and its waters 
 glancing in the sun. They say it is so with them ; and 
 truly they should know best. Yet I hardly believe them. 
 If they are happy, it is only by fits and starts ; and then 
 not with a complete happiness. There is ever an upbraiding 
 voice within. An habitual sinner always has tlie look of a 
 jaded and disappointed man. There is weariness in the very 
 light of his eyes, vexation in the very sound of his voice. 
 "Why is he so cross with others, if he is so happy with him- 
 self ? Then are there not also dreadful times, private times 
 when no one but God sees him, when he is chilled through 
 and through with fear, when he is weary of life because he 
 is so miserable, when the past weighs upon him like a night- 
 mare, and the future terrifies him like a coming wild-be^ist ] 
 "When death springs upon him, how will he die ? "When 
 judgment comes, what will he answer? Yet even if the 
 sinner coidd go through life Avith the gay indifference to 
 which he pretends, he is not to be envied. It is only a 
 sleep, a lethargy, or a madness, one or other of these accord- 
 ing to his natural disposition. For there must be an awaken- 
 ing at last; and wlien and where will it be? They that 
 walk in their sleep are sometimes wakened if they put their 
 foot into cold water. "What if the sinner's awakening should 
 be from the first touch of the fire that burns beyond the 
 grave 1 
 
 But we claim no share in any foolish happiness of sin. 
 "We are on God's side. "We belong to Jesus. Sin is our 
 great enemy, as well as our great evil. "We desire to break 
 Avith it altogether. Wo are ashamed of our past subjection 
 to it. We are uneasy under our present imperfect separation 
 from it. Our uppermost thought, no ! not mor'^Iy our
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 5 
 
 uppermost thought, our only thought is our salvation. We 
 care for no science, but the science of redeeming grace. 
 The cross of Christ is our single wisdom. Once we wished 
 for many things, and aimed at many things. Eut we are 
 changed now. Our lives are amazingly simplified, simpHfied 
 by the fear of sin and by the love of God. Our anxiety 
 now is, that all this may remain. We fear another change, 
 especially a change back again. We can think calmly of 
 no change except from little love to much love, and from 
 much love to more love. The right of Jesus to our love, 
 to our best love, to all our love, is becoming plainer and 
 plainer to us. His exceeding loveliness i? growing more and 
 more attractive, because it is revealing itself to us every 
 day like a new revelation. What depths there are in Jesus, 
 and how wonderfully he lights them up with the splendours 
 of His eternal love ! Do we not feel every day more and 
 more strongly, that we must be more for Jesus than we 
 are, that of all growing things divine love is the most 
 growing, that all idea of a limit to our love of Jesus, or of 
 moderation in our service of Him, is a folly as well as a 
 disloyalty? He was the brightness of innumerable lives 
 and the sweetness of innumerable sorrows, when He was 
 but the expectation of longing Israel. What must He be 
 now, when He has come, when He has lived, and shed His 
 blood, and died, and risen, and ascended, and then come 
 back again in all the unutterable endearments of the Blessed 
 Sacrament 1 Why are our hearts so cold 1 Why is our 
 love so faithless, and our faith so unloving ? We try, and 
 still we do not love as we wish to love. We try again, 
 and love more ; and yet it is sadly short of the love we 
 ought to have. We strive and strive, and still we only 
 languish when we ought to burn. He longs for our love, 
 sweet covetous lover of souls as He is. He longs for our 
 love ; and we long for notliing so much as to love Him.
 
 6 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Surely there must be a time and a place, when both He and 
 Ave shall be satisfied ; but the place will be heaven, and the 
 time nothing else than the great timeless eternity. 
 
 Salvation is through the Precious Blood. We will take 
 that for our study of Jesus this time. When love is humble, 
 it prays with David to be Avashed more and more from its 
 iniquity. But there is no washing away of iniquity, except 
 in the Precious Blood of our most dear Redeemer. When 
 love is bold, it prays to be set on fire with the flames which 
 Jesus came to kindle. But it is only the Precious Blood 
 which makes our heart beat hotly with the love of Him. 
 So let us take the Precioiis Blood for our study now : and 
 let us study it in a simple loving way, not so much to 
 become deep theologians, though deep theology is near of 
 kin to heroic sanctity, but that our hearts may be more 
 effectually set on fire with the love of Jesus Christ. There 
 is so much to be said, that we cannot say it all, because we 
 do not know it all. We must make a choice ; and we will 
 choose these six things, the Mystery of the Precious Blood, 
 the Necessity of it, its Empire, its History, its Prodigality, 
 and, last of all, the Devotion to it in the Church. 
 
 We must take a saint to guide us on our way. Let it be 
 that grand lover of Jesus, the Apostle St. Paul. His con- 
 version was one of the chief glories of the Precious Blood. 
 Kedeeming grace was his favourite theme. He was for 
 ever magnifying and praising the Blood of Jesiis. His heart 
 was filled with it, and was enlarged by grace that it might 
 liold yet more. After the Hearts of Jesus, Mary, and 
 Joseph, never was there a liuniau heart like that of Paul, 
 in which all other human hearts might beat as if it were 
 their own, unless it be that other universal heart, the heart 
 of King David, which has poured ilsolf out for all mankind, 
 in those varying strains of ever changeful feeling, by means 
 of its sweet psalms. St. Paul's heart feels for every one,
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 7 
 
 makes every one's case its own, sorrows and rejoices with 
 those who sorrow or rejoice, and becomes all things to all 
 men that it may save them all. Among the wonders of 
 creation there are few to compare with that glorious apostolic 
 heart. The vastness of its sympathies, the breadth of its 
 charity, the unwearied hopefulness of its zeal, the delicacy 
 of its considerateness, the irresistible attraction of its im- 
 perious love — all this was the work of the Precious Blood ; 
 and that heart is still alive even upon earth, still beating in 
 his marvellous Epistles as part of the unquenchable life of 
 the Church. It is impossible to help connecting these 
 characteristics of St. Paul's heart with his manifest devotion 
 to the Precious Blood. Let us take him then as our guide 
 amidst the unsearchable riches of Christ and the super- 
 abounding graces of His redeeming Blood. As it was with 
 the disciples as they walked to Emmaus with Jesus, so 
 will it be with us as we go along with His servant Paul. 
 Our hearts will burn within us by the way ; and we our- 
 selves shall grow hot from the heat of that magnificent 
 heart of him who guides us. 
 
 "We are then to consider, first of all, the Mystery of the 
 Precious Blood. It was one of God's eternal thoughts. 
 It was part of His wisdom, part of His glory, part of His 
 own blessedness from all eternity. You know that creation, 
 although exceedingly ancient, perhaps so ancient as to be 
 beyond our calculations, is nevertheless not eternal. It 
 could not be so. To be eternal is to be without becrinninj' ; 
 and to be without beginning is to be independent of any 
 cause or power. This is a true description of God. But 
 creation had a time at which it began, and it was the inde- 
 pendent act of God's most holy, most condescending will 
 Thus there was an eternity before creation, a vast unimagin- 
 able, adorable life, not broken up into centuries and ages, 
 not lapsing but always still, not passing but always stationary,
 
 S THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 a life which had no past and no future, because its whole 
 self was always present to itself. This was the life of God 
 before any creation, an unspeakably glorious life which we 
 can think of with love and adoration, but Avhich it is quite 
 impossible for us to understand. We shall say more of it 
 in the third chapter. Some holy persons, like Mother 
 Anne Seraphine Boulier of the Visitation at Dijon, have 
 had such an exceeding devotion to this life of God prior to 
 creation, that they have by God's order shaped their spiri- 
 tuality wholly upon it. Very often, when the troubles of 
 life vex and ruffle us, or when we are downcast and dis- 
 trustful, it would do us good to think of that ancient life 
 of God. It would fill us with quiet awe. We should feel 
 our own littleness more sensibly, and we should care less 
 about the judgments of the world. The thought of it 
 would be like a bed to lie down upon, when we are weary 
 with work or fatigued with disappointment. 
 
 Nevertheless there is a sense in which creation was 
 eternal. It was eternally in the mind of God. It was one 
 of His eternal ideas, ahvays before Him ; so that He never 
 existed without this idea of creation in His all-wise mind 
 and in His all-powerful intention. Moreover it was alwaj's 
 part of His intention that the Creator should become as it 
 were part of His own creation, and that an Uncreated 
 Person should really and truly assume a created nature and 
 be born of a created mother. That is what we call the 
 mystery of the Incarnation. It is this which makes creation 
 so magnificent. It was not merely a beautiful thing which 
 God made as an artificer, and which He set outside of Him- 
 self, and kept at a distance from Himself to look at, to 
 admire, to pity, and to love. He always intended to be 
 part of it Himself in a very Avonderful way. So that there 
 would have been Jesus and Mary, even if there had never 
 been any sin : only Jesus would not have been crucified,
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 9 
 
 and Mary would not have had any dolours. But the sight 
 of sin was also with God from the beginning, that is, 
 through all His unbeginning eternity ; and thus the Precious 
 Blood also, as the ransom for sin, was with Him from the 
 beginning. It was one of His eternal thoughts. If we 
 may dare to say so, it was an idea which made Him more 
 glorious, a thought which rendered Him more blessed. That 
 same dear Blood, the thought of which makes us so happy 
 now, has been part of God's happiness for ever. 
 
 He created the angels and the stars. How ancient the 
 angels are we do not know : though we know that spiritual 
 and material natures were created at the same moment. In 
 all ways the angels are wonderful to think of, because they 
 are so strong, so wise, so various, so beautiful, so innumer- 
 able. But they do not lie in our way just now ; because, 
 although they owe all their graces to the Precious Blood, 
 they were not redeemed by the Precious Blood. Those 
 angels, who did not fall, did not sin, and so needed no 
 redemption ; and God would not allow those who fell to be 
 redeemed at all. This makes us sometimes think that God 
 was more severe with His world of angels than with His 
 world of men. But this is not really the case. It only 
 shows us how we owe more to Jesus than we often think of. 
 The angels could not make any satisfaction to the justice of 
 God for their sins. If all the angels, good and bad together, 
 had suffered willingly the most excruciating torments for 
 millions upon millions of ages, those willing torments could 
 not have made up to God for the sin of the least sinful of 
 those angels who are now devils. If our dearest Saviour 
 had taken upon Himself the nature of angels, the case would 
 have been different. But He became man, not angel ; and 
 so His Passion, as man, satisfied for all possible sins of men. 
 The sufferings of His Passion were greater and of more 
 price than all the torments of countless angels. The severity
 
 lo THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 of God exacted more from Him upon the Cross than it 
 ever exacted, or is exacting now, from the tortured angels. 
 Thus you see God has not been more severe with them than 
 with us : only that Jesus made Himself one of us, and took 
 all our share of God's severity upon Himself, leaving us the 
 easy happiness of faith, and hope, and love. You see we 
 come upon the kindness of Jesus everywhere. There is 
 not even a difficulty in religion, but somehow the greatness 
 of His love is at the bottom of it, and is the explanation of 
 it. "Wonderful Jesus ! that Avas the name the prophet 
 Isaias gave Him. " He shall be called Wonderful." How 
 sweet it is to be so hemmed in by the tokens of His love, 
 that we cannot turn to any side without meeting them ! 
 Yet His love would be sweeter to us, if we could only repay 
 it with more love ourselves. 
 
 God made the angels and the stars. The starry world is 
 an overwhelming thing to think of. Its distances are so 
 vast that they frighten us. The number of its separate 
 worlds is so enormous that it bewilders us. Imagine a ray 
 of light, which travels one hundred and ninety-two thousand 
 miles in a second ; and yet there are stars whose light would 
 take a million of years to reach the earth. We know of 
 two hundred thousand stars down to the ninth magnitude. 
 In one single cluster of stars, eighteen millions of stars have 
 been discovered between the tenth and eleventh magnitudes. 
 Of these clusters men have already discovered more than 
 four thousand. Each of these stars is not a planet, like 
 the earth ; but a sun, like our sun, and perliaps with planets 
 round it, like ourselves. Of these suns we know of some 
 which are one hundred and forty-six times brighter than 
 our .sun. What an idea all this gives us of the grandeur 
 and magnificence of God ! Yet we know that all these stars 
 were created for Jesus and because of Jesus. He is the 
 liead and firstborn of all creation. !Mary's Son is the king
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. ii 
 
 of the stars. His Precious Blood has something to do witli 
 all of them. Just as it merited graces for the angels, so 
 does it merit blessings for the stars. If they have been 
 inhabited before we were, or are inhabited now, or will at 
 some future time begin to be inhabited, tlieir inhabitants, 
 whether fallen and redeemed, or unfallen, and so not needing 
 to be redeemed, will owe immense things to the Precious 
 Dlood. Yet earth, our little humble earth, will always have 
 the right to treat the Precious Blood with special endear- 
 ments, because it is its native place. When the angels, as 
 they range through space, see our little globe twinkling 
 with its speck of coloured light, it is to them as the little 
 Holy House in the hollow glen of Nazareth, more sacred and 
 more glorious than the amplest palaces in starry space. 
 
 God made the stars ; and, whether the earth was made 
 by itself from the first, or was once part of the sun, and 
 thrown off from it like a ring, God made the earth also, and 
 shaped it, and adorned it, and filled it with trees and animals ; 
 and then looked upon His work, and it shone forth so 
 beautifully with the light of His own perfections, that He 
 blessed it, and, glorying in it, declared that it was very good. 
 We know what an intense pleasure men take in looking at 
 beautiful scenery. When we feel this pleasure, we ought 
 to feel that we are looking at a little revelation of God, a 
 very true one although a little one, and we ought to thiidc 
 of God's complacency when He beheld the scenery of the 
 primeval earth, and rejoiced in what He saw. Tliere was 
 no sin then. To God's eye earth was all the more beautiful 
 because it was innocent, and the dwelling-place of innocence. 
 Then sin came. Why God let it come we do not know. 
 We shall probably know in heaven. We are certain, how- 
 ever, that in some way or other it was more glorious for Him, 
 and better for us, tliat evil should be permitted. Some 
 people trouble themselves about this. It does not trouble
 
 12 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 me at all. "Whatever God does must of course be most 
 right. My understanding it would not make it more right ; 
 neither could 1 do anything to mend matters, if I under- 
 stood it ever so well. Every one should keep in his own 
 place : it is the creature's place to believe, adore, and love. 
 
 Sin came. "With sin came many fearful consequences. 
 This beautiful earth was completely wrecked. It went on 
 through space in the sunshine as before : but in God's sight, 
 and in the destiny of its inhabitants, it was all changed. 
 Jesus could no longer come in a glorious and unsuffering 
 Incarnation. Mary would have to die ; and, though she was 
 sinless, she would need to be redeemed with a single and 
 peculiar redemption, a redemption of prevention, not of 
 rescue. She also, the immaculate Mother and Queen of 
 creation, must be bought by the Precious Blood. Had it 
 not been for Jesus, the case of earth would have been hope- 
 less, now that sin had come. God would have let it go, as 
 He let the angels go. It would have been all hateful and 
 dark in His sight, as the home of the fallen spirits is. But 
 it was not so. Earth was dimmed, but it was not darkened, 
 disfigured but not blackened. God saw it through the 
 Precious Blood, as through a haze ; and there it lay with 
 a dusky glory over it, like a red sunset, up to the day of 
 Christ. No sooner had man sinned than the influence of 
 the Precious Blood began to be felt. There was no ador- 
 able abruptness on the part of God, as with the angels. His 
 very upbraiding of Adam was full of paternal gentleness. 
 With His punishment He mingled promises. He spoke of 
 Mary, Eve's descendant, and illumined the penance of our 
 first parents by the prophecy of Jesus. As the poor ofFend- 
 ing earth lay then before the sight of God, so does it lie now ; 
 only that the haze is more resplendent, since tlie Sacrifice 
 on Calvary was offered. The Precious Blood covers it all 
 over, like a sea or like an atmosphere. It lies in a beautiful
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 13 
 
 crimson light for ever, a light softening the very shades, 
 beautifying the very gloom. God does not see us as we see 
 ourselves, but in a brighter, softer light. "VYe are fairer in 
 His sight than we are in our own, notwithstanding His 
 exceeding sanctity, because He sees us in the Blood of His 
 dear Son. This is a consolation, the balm of which is not 
 easily exhausted. We learn a lesson from it also. Our view 
 of creation should be like God's view. We should see it, 
 with all its countless souls, through the illuminated mist of 
 the Precious Blood. Its spiritual scenery should be before 
 us, everything everywhere, goldenly red. 
 
 This is the shape, then, which our Father's love takes to 
 us His creatures. It is an invitation of all of us to the 
 worship and the freedom of the Precious Blood. It is 
 through this Blood that He communicates to us His perfec- 
 tions. It is in this Blood that He has laid up His blessings 
 for us, as in a storehouse. This is true, not only of spiritual 
 blessings but of all blessings whatsoever. That the elements 
 still wait upon us sinners, that things around us are so bright 
 and beautiful, that pain has so many balms, that sorrow has 
 so many alleviations, that the common course of daily pro- 
 vidence is so kindly and so patient, that the weight, the fre- 
 quency, and the bitterness of evils are so much lightened, — 
 is all owing to the Precious Blood. It is by this Blood that 
 He has created over again His frustrated creation. It is out 
 of this Blood that all graces come, whether those of Mary, 
 or those of the angels, or those of men. H is this Blood 
 which merits all good things for every one. The unhappy 
 would be more unhappy were it not for this Blood. The 
 wicked would be more wicked were it not for this Blood. 
 The flames of hell would burn many times more furiously, 
 if the shedding of this Blood had not allayed their fury. 
 There is not a corner of God's creation, which is not more 
 or less under the benignant control of the Precious Blood.
 
 U THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Our Heavenly Father, then, may well call His creatures 
 to gather round these marvellous Fountains, and adore 
 His wisdom and His love. Who could have dreamed of such 
 an invention, an invention which grows more astonishing 
 the more we penetrate its mystery ? The angels wonder 
 more than men, because they better understand it. Their 
 superior intelligence ministers more abundant matter to their 
 love. From the very first He invited the angels to adore it. 
 He made their adoration a double exercise of humility, of 
 humility towards Himself, and of humility towards us their 
 inferior fellow-creatures. It was the test to which He put 
 their loyalty. He showed them His beloved Son, the 
 Second Person of the Holy Trinity, in His Sacred Humanity, 
 united to a lower nature than their own, and in that lower 
 nature crowned their King and Head to be Avorshipped by 
 them with absolute and unconditional adoration. The Son 
 of a human mother was to be their Head, and that daughter 
 of Eve to be herself their queen. He showed them in that 
 Blood the source of all their graces. Each angel perhaps 
 had thousands of beautiful graces. To many of them we on 
 earth could give no name, if we beheld them. But they 
 were all wonderful, all instinct with supernatural holiness 
 and spiritual magnificence. Yet there was not a single 
 grace in any angel which was not merited for him by the 
 Blood of Jesus, and which had not also its type and counter- 
 part in that Precious Blood. The Precious Blood, man's 
 Blood, was as the dew of the whole kingdom of the angels. 
 It would have redeemed them, had they needed to be 
 redeemed, or were allowed to be redeemed. But as it was 
 not so, it merited for them, and was the source of, all their 
 grace. Well tlien may the angels claim to sing the song of 
 the Lamb, to whose outpoured Human Life they also owed 
 60 much, though not because it was outpoured. 
 
 Nevertheless the Precious Blood belongs in an especial
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 15 
 
 manner to men. Much more, therefore, does God invite 
 them to come to its heavenly baths, and receive therein, not 
 only the cleansing of their souls, but the power of a new and 
 amazing life. Every doctrine in theology is a call to the 
 Precious Blood. Every ceremony of the Church tells of it. 
 Every sermon that is preached is an exhortation to the use 
 of it. Every Sacrament is a communication of it. Every 
 supernatural act is a growth of it. Everything that is holy 
 on the earth is either leaf, bud, blossom, or fruit of the 
 Blood of Jesus. To its fountains God calls the sinner, that 
 he may be lightened of his burdens. There is no remission 
 for him in anything else. Only there is his lost sonship to 
 be found. But the saints are no less called by God to these 
 invigorating streams. It is out of the Precious Blood that 
 men draw martyrdoms, vocations, celibacies, austerities, heroic 
 charities, and all the magnificent graces of high sanctity. 
 The secret nourishment of prayer is from those fountains. 
 They purge the eye for sublime contemplations. They kindle 
 the inward fires of self-sacrificing love. They bear a man 
 safely, and even impetuously, over the seeming impossibilities 
 of perseverance. It is by the Blood of Jesus that the soul 
 becomes ever more and more radiant. It is the secret source 
 of all mystical transformations of the soul into the likeness 
 of its Crucified Spouse. It is the wine which "inebriates" 
 the virgins of God. Out of it come raptures and ecstasies; 
 and by it the strength of faith grows even to the gift of 
 miracles. It fills the mind with heavenly visions, and 
 peoples the air with divine voices. All the new nature of 
 the man, who is "renewed in Christ Jesus," comes from 
 this Blood, whether it be his love of suffering, his delight in 
 shame, his grace of prayer, his unworldly tastes, his strange 
 humility, his shy concealment, his zeal for souls, his venturous 
 audacity, or his obstinate perseverance. Sinner, saint, and 
 common Christian, all in their own ways, require the Precious
 
 i6 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Blood each moment of their lives ; and, as the manna in the 
 mouths of the Israelites had the savour which each man 
 wished it to have, so is it with the sweetness, the variety, 
 and the fitness of the graces of the Precious Blood. 
 
 All men remember their past lives by certain dates or 
 epochs. Some men date by sorrows, some by joys, and 
 some by moral changes or intellectual revolutions. Some 
 divide their lives according to the different localities which 
 they have inhabited, and some by the successive occupations 
 in which they have been engaged. The lives of some are 
 mapped out by illnesses, while the tranquillity of an equable 
 prosperity can only distinguish itself by the lapse of years 
 and the eras of boyhood, youth, and age. But the real 
 dates in a man's life are the days and hours in which it 
 came to him to have some new idea of God. To all men 
 perhaps, but certainly to the thoughtful and the good, all 
 life is a continual growing revelation of God. We may 
 know no more theology this year than we did last year, but 
 wo undoubtedly know many fresh things about God. Time 
 itself discloses Hira. The operations of grace illuminate 
 Him. Old truths grow : obscure truths brighten. New 
 truths are incessantly dawning. But a new idea of God is 
 like a new birth. What a spiritual revolution it was in the 
 soul of St. Peter, when the Eternal Father, intensely loving 
 that eager, ardent follower of His Son, one day secretly 
 revealed to him the Divinity of liis beloved Master ! It 
 matters not, whether it were in a dream by night, or in an 
 audible voice at prayer, or in the last noiseless step of a 
 long-pondered train of thought. Whenever and however it 
 came, it was a divine revelation out of which flowed that 
 new life of his, which is the strength of the Church to this 
 day. So in its measure and degree is every new idea of God 
 to every one of us. The Precious Blood brings us many 
 •such ideas. One of them is the fresh picture which it
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 17 
 
 piesents to us of His intense yearning love of souls. If we 
 were to form our idea of God from theology, it would be 
 full of grandeur. We should have a perception of Him as 
 vivid as it would be sublime. But if, not hitherto having 
 known the Bible, we were to turn to the Old Testament, 
 and see God loving, favouring, magnifying His own historic 
 people, and hear Him passionately pleading for their love. 
 He would seem like a new God to us, because we should 
 receive such a new idea of Him. Indeed it would be such 
 an idea of Him, as would require both time and manage- 
 ment before it would harmonize with the idea of Him im- 
 planted in us by theology. Even our own sinfulness gives 
 us in one sense a broader idea of God than innocence could 
 have given. So, if we think of the almost piteous entreaties 
 with which He invites all the wide heathen world to the 
 Precious Blood, whether by the voice of His Church, or by 
 the bleeding feet and wasting lives of His missionaries, or 
 by secret pleadings down in each heathen heart, grace-solicited 
 at every hour, we get a new idea of God, and a more com- 
 plete conviction that His invitation of His creatures to the 
 Precious Blood is indeed the genuine expression of His 
 creative love. 
 
 There is no narrowness in divine things. There is no 
 narrowness in the Precious Blood. It is a divine invention 
 which partakes of the universality and immensity of God. 
 The tribes, that inhabit the different lands of the earth, are 
 distinguished by different characteristics. One nation differs 
 so much from another, as to be often unable to judge of the 
 moral character of the other's actions. "What, for instance, 
 would be pride in the inhabitant of one country would only 
 be patriotism in the inhabitant of another ; or what would 
 be falsehood in one country is only the characteristic way of 
 putting things in another. It is not that the immutablrt 
 principles of morality can be changed by national cliaracter 
 
 B
 
 l8 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 or by climate ; but that outward actions signify such dif- 
 ferent inward habits in various countries, that a foreigner is 
 no judge of them. Thus a foreign history of any people is 
 for the most part little better than an hypothesis, and is not 
 unfrequently a misapprehension from fir^t to last. But the 
 Precious Blood is meant for all nations. As all stand in 
 equal need of it, so all find it just what they want. It is 
 to each people the grace which shall correct that particular 
 form of human corruption which is prominent in their 
 natural character. The Oriental and the Western must 
 both come to its healing streams ; and in it all national dis- 
 tinctions are done away. In that laver of Salvation there 
 is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free : 
 all are one in the redeeming Blood of Jesus. 
 
 As it is with the countries of the world, so is it with the 
 ages of the world. Each age has its own distinctive spirit. 
 It has its own proper virtues, and its own proper vices. It 
 lias its own sciences, inventions, literature, policy, and 
 development. Each age thinks itself peculiar, which it is : 
 and imagines it is better than other ages, which it is not. 
 It is probably neither better nor worse. In substantial 
 matters the ages are pretty much on a level with each other. 
 But each has its own way, and requires to be dealt witli in 
 that way. This is the reason why the Church seems to act 
 differently in different ages. There is a sense in which the 
 Church goes along witli the world. It is tlic same sense in 
 which the shepherd leaves the sheep which have not strayed, 
 and goes off in search of the one that has strayed. Each 
 age is a stray sheep from God ; and the Church has to seek 
 it and fetch it back to Ilim, so fur as it is allowed to do so. 
 "We must not make light of the differences of the ages. 
 Each age needs persuading in a manner of its own. It finds 
 its own difficulties in religion. It lias its own peculiar 
 temptations and follies. God's vcik is never done in any
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 19 
 
 one age. It has to be begun again in every age. Old contro- 
 versies become useless, because they cease to be convincing. 
 Old methods are found unsuitable, because things have 
 changed. It is on this account that theology puts on new 
 aspects, that religious orders first succeed and then fail, that 
 devotion has fashions and vicissitudes, that art and ritual 
 undergo changes, that discipline is modified, and that the 
 Church puts herself in different relations to the governments 
 of the world. But the Precious Blood adapts itself with 
 changeful uniformity to every age. It is always old and 
 always new. It is the one salvation. It is co-extensive 
 with any civilization. No science innovates upon it. The 
 world never exhausts its abundance or outcrrows its neces- 
 sity. 
 
 But why should we heap together these generalities ? Are 
 they anything more than so much pious rhetoric ? Let us 
 draw nearer to the mystery and see. What strikes us at 
 the first thought of the Precious Blood 1 It is that Ave have 
 to worship it with the highest worship. It is not a relic at 
 which we sliould look with wonder and love, and which we 
 should kiss with reverence, as having once been a temple of 
 the Holy Ghost, and an instrument chosen by God for the 
 working of miracles, or as flesh and bone penetrated witli 
 that celestial virtue of the Blessed Sacrament, which will 
 raise it up at the last day in a glorious resurrection. It is 
 something unspeakably more than this. "VYe should have to 
 adore it Avith the highest adoration. In some local heaven 
 or other, in some part of space far off or near, God at this 
 hour is unveiling His blissful majesty before the angels and 
 the saints. It is in a local court of inconceivable magnifi- 
 cence. The Human Body and Soul of Jesus are there, and 
 are its light and glory, the surpassing sun of that heavenly 
 Jerusalem. Mary, His INIother, is throned there like a 
 lovely moon in the uiid-glory of the sunset, beautified rather
 
 20 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 than extinguished by the effulgence round her. Millions of 
 lordly angels are abasing their vast grandeur before the 
 ecstatic terror of that unclothed Vision of the Eternal- 
 Thrills of entrancing fear run through the crowds of glorified 
 saints who throng the spaces of that marvellous shrine. 
 Mary herself upon her throne is shaken by an ecstasy of fear 
 before the mightiness of God, even as a reed is shaken by 
 the wind. The Sacred Heart of Jesus beats with rapturous 
 awe, and is glorified by the very blessedness of its abjection, 
 before the immensity of those Divine Fires, burning visibly 
 in their overwhelming sjDlendours. If we could enter there 
 as we are now, we should surely die. We are not strength- 
 ened yet to bear the depth of that prostrate humiliation, 
 which is needed there, and which is the inseparable joy 
 of heaven. Our lives would be shattered by the throbs of 
 awe, which must beat like vehement pulses in our souls. 
 But we know the limits of our nature. We know, at least 
 in theory, the abjection which befits the creature in the 
 immediate presence of its Creator. We can conceive the 
 highest adoration of a sinless immortal soul as a worshij) 
 Avhich it could not pay to any creature, however exalted, how- 
 ever near to God. We can picture ourselves to ourselves, 
 l)rostrate on the clouds of heaven, blinded with excess of 
 light, every faculty of the mind jubilantly amazed by the 
 immensity of the Divine Perfections, every affection of the 
 heart drowned in some for ever new abyss of the unfathom- 
 able sweetness of God. We know that we should lie in 
 sacred fear and glad astonishment before the throne of Mary, 
 if we saw it gleaming in its royalty. Yet we know aUo 
 that this deep reverence would be something of quite a 
 diffcnent kind froni our abjection before the tremendous 
 majesty of God. But, if we saw one drop of the Precious 
 Blood, hanging like the least pearl of dew upon a blade of 
 grass on Calvary, or as a dull disfigured splash in the dust
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 21 
 
 of the gateway of Jerusalem, we should have to adore it 
 with the selfsame adoration as the uncovered splendours of 
 the Eternal. 
 
 It is no use repeating this a thousand times ; yet we 
 should have to repeat it a thousand thousand times, for 
 years and years, before we should get the vastness of this 
 piercing truth into our souls. We should worship one drop 
 of the Precious Blood with the same worship as that where- 
 with we worship God. Let us kneel down, and hide our 
 faces before God, and say nothing, but let the immensity of 
 this faith sink down into our souls. 
 
 If the Easter Resurrection left any red stains upon the 
 stones, or roots, or earth of Gethsemane, they are no longer 
 to be found beneath the luxuriant vegetation of the Eranciscan 
 garden there. Neither indeed if they had been left, when 
 Easter passed, could we have worshipped them with divine 
 worship; for they had already ceased to be the Precious 
 Blood. Whatever Jesus did not reunite to Himself in the 
 Resurrection remained disunited from the Person of the 
 Word for ever, and therefore, however venerable, had no 
 claim to adoration. But, had we been in Jerusalem on the 
 Friday and the Saturday, we should have found objects, or 
 rather the multiplied presence of an object, of dreadest wor- 
 ship everywhere. The pavement of the streets, the accoutre- 
 ments of the Roman legionaries, the floors of their barracks, 
 the steps of Pilate's judgment-hall, the pillar of the scourging, 
 the ascent of Calvary, the wood of the Cross, many shoes 
 and sandals of the multitude, many garments either worn or 
 in the clothes-presses, ropes, tools, scourges, and many other 
 things, were stained with Precious Blood ; and everywhere 
 the angels were adoring it. Had we been there, and had 
 been wise with the holy wisdom of our present faith, we 
 must have adored it also. But what a picture of the world 
 it gives us ! What au awful taking of a place in His owu
 
 22 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 creation on the part of the Incomprehensible Creator ! What 
 a view of God it gives us ! "What an idea of sin ! "What 
 a disclosure of the macrnificence of oi;r salvation ! The 
 Blood of God, the human Blood of the Uncreated, the Blood 
 of the Unbeginning drawn three and thirty years ago from 
 the veins of a Jewish maiden, and she, the unproclaimed 
 queen of creation, hidden in that very city in the depths of 
 an immeasurable sorrow ! Millions of angels intently adoring 
 down upon the low-lying surface of the ground, as if heaven 
 were there, below rather than above, as indeed it was, and 
 at each spot adoring with such singular concentration as if 
 the Divine Life had been broken up, and there were many 
 Gods instead of One ! Meanwhile men, tlie very part of 
 creation which this Precious Blood most specially concerned, 
 were passing through the streets, and over the ruddy spots, 
 treading on adorable things, and yet never heeding, with 
 angels beneath their sandals and yet never knowing it, com- 
 passed thickly round with mysteries the sudden revelation 
 of which would have struck them dead, and yet with the 
 most utter unsuspecting ignorance. It is hard to bring such 
 a state of things home to ourselves ; and yet it is but a type 
 to us of what we are all of us always doing with the invisible 
 presence of God amongst ourselves. God is within us and 
 without us, above, below, and around us. "SMieresoever we 
 set our feet, God is there, even if we be going to do evil. 
 If we reach forth our hands, God is in our hand ; He is in 
 the air through which our hand passes ; and where our liand 
 touches, there is God also. He is there in three different 
 waj's, by His essence, by His presence, and by His power ; 
 and in each of those tliree ways His presence is more real tlian 
 the hardness of the rocks, or the wetness of water, or the firm- 
 nes!! of the earth. Yet we go our ways as we please, sinning, 
 boasting, and committing follies, not simply in a consecrated 
 sanctuary, but in the living God. This mystery was made
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 23 
 
 manifest, by the most wonderful of revelations, in the Precious 
 Blood, when it was scattered about Jerusalem. 
 
 But we need not go to Jerusalem, we need not have lived 
 eighteen hundred years ago, to find the Precious Blood, and 
 worship it. Here is part of that awfuluess of our holy faith, 
 which makes us so thrill with love, that it is sometimes as 
 if we could not bear the fire Avhich is burning in our hearts. 
 "We actually worship it everj' day in the chalice at Mass. 
 When the chalice is uplifted over the altar, the Blood of 
 Jesus is there, whole and entire, glorified and full of the 
 pulses of His true human life. The Blood that once lay in 
 the cave at Olivet, that curdled in the thongs and knots of 
 the scourges, that matted His hair, and soaked His garments, 
 that stained the crown of thorns and bedewed the Cross, the 
 Blood that He drank Himself in His own Communion on 
 the Thursday night, the Blood that lay all Friday night in 
 seemingly careless prodigality upon the pavement of the 
 treacherous city, — that same Blood is living in the chalice, 
 united to the Person of the Eternal Word, to be worshipped 
 with the uttermost prostration of our bodies and our souls. 
 When the beams of the morning sun come in at the windows 
 of the church, and fall for a moment into the uncovered 
 chalice, and glance there as if among precious stones with 
 a restless timid gleaming, and the priest sees it, and the 
 light seems to vibrate into his own heart, quickening his 
 faith and love, it is the Blood of God which is there, the 
 very living Blood whose first fountains were in the Immacu- 
 late Heart of Mary. When the Blessed Sacrament is laitl 
 upon your tongue, that moment and that act wliich the 
 great angels of God look down upon with such surpassing 
 awe, the Blood of Jesus is throbbing there in all its abound- 
 ing life of glory. It sheathes in the sacramental mystery 
 that exceeding radiance which is lighting all heaven at that 
 moment with a magnificence of splendour which exceeds
 
 24 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 the "lowinf:f of a million suns. You do not feel the strong 
 pulses of His immortal life. If you did, you could hardly 
 live yourself. Sacred terror would undo your life. But ia 
 that adorable Host is the whole of the Precious Blood, the 
 Blood of Gethseraane, Jerusalem, and Calvary, the Blood of 
 the Passion, of the Resurrection, and of the Ascension, the 
 Blood shed and re-assumed. As Mary bore that Precious 
 Blood Avithin herself of old, so do you bear it now. It is in 
 His Heart and veins, within the temple of His Body, as it 
 was when He lay those nine months in her ever-blessed 
 womb. We believe all this ; nay, we so believe it that we 
 know it rather than believe it ; and yet our love is so faint 
 and fitful. Our very fires are frost in comparison with 
 such a faith as this. 
 
 The whole of the Precious Blood is in the chalice and in 
 the Host. It is not part : it is the whole. \Ve may well 
 tremble to think what sanctuaries we are, when the Blessed 
 Sacrament is within us. Let us think again of the innumer- 
 able stars. Let us multiply their actual millions by millions 
 of imaginary millions more. Let us suppose them all to be 
 densely inhabited for countless ages by races of fallen beings. 
 We have no figures to show the numbers of the individual 
 souls, still less to represent the multi[)lied acts of sin of all 
 those single souls or spirits. But we know this — that one 
 drop of the thousands of drops of the Precious ]jlood in the 
 glorified Body of Jesus would have been more than sufficient 
 to cleanse all those countless fallen creations, and to absolve 
 every separate sinner from every one of his multitudinous 
 sins. Nay, that one drop would have given out all those 
 worlds of redeeming grace, and yet no tittle of its treasures 
 would be spent. The worth of one drop of the Precious 
 Blood is simply infinite. Consequently no imaginary arith- 
 metic of possible creations will convey any adequate idea of 
 its overwhelming magnificence, Alas 1 the very copiousnesa
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 25 
 
 of our redemption makes our view of it less clear. The 
 very crowding of God's love causes it to have something 
 indistinguishable about it. "Who does not see that it will 
 take us an eternity to learn Jesus, or ratlier that we shall 
 never learn Him, but that the endless work of learning Him 
 will be the gladness of our eternity 1 
 
 But this is not all the mystery. It was no necessity 
 which drove God to the redemption of the world by the 
 Precious Blood. He miglit have redeemed it in un- 
 numbered other ways. There is no limit to His power, no 
 exhaustion of His wisdom. He might have reconciled the 
 forgiveness of sin with His stainless sanctity by many inven- 
 tions, of which neither we nor the angels can so much as 
 dream. There are vastnesses in Him who is incomprehen- 
 sible, of the existence of which we have no suspicion. He 
 could have saved us without Jesus, according to the absolute- 
 ness of His power. All salvation must be dear : yet who 
 can dream of a salvation wliicli should seem at once so 
 worthy of God, and so endearing to man, as our present 
 salvation through Jesus Christ? Even then our dearest 
 Lord need not have shed His Blood. There was no com- 
 pulsion in the Bloodshedding. One tear of His, one momen- 
 tary sigh, one uplifted look to His Father's throne, would 
 have been sufficient, if the Three Divine Persons had so 
 pleased. The shedding of His Blood was part of the freedom 
 of His love. It was, in some mysterious reality, the way of 
 redemption most Avorthy of His blessed Majesty, and also 
 tlie way most likely to provoke the love of men. How 
 often has God taken the ways of our hearts as the measure 
 of His own ways ! How often does He let His glory and 
 our love seem to be different things, and then leave Hinaself 
 and go after us ! 
 
 The Precious Blood is invisible. Yet nothing in creation 
 is half so potent. It is everywhere, practically everywhere,
 
 26 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 although it is not omnipresent. It becomes visible in the 
 fruits of grace. It will become more visible in the splen- 
 dours of glory. But it will itself be visible in heaven in 
 our Lord's glorified Body as in crystalline vases of incom- 
 parable refulgence. It belongs to Him, the Second Person 
 of the Most Holy Trinity, although its work is the work of 
 the whole Trinity. In its efficacy and operation it is the 
 most complete and most wonderful of all revelations of the 
 Divine Perfections. The power, the wisdom, the goodness, 
 the justice, the sanctity of God are most pre-eminently illus- 
 trated by the Avorking of this Precious Blood. 
 
 These are the first thoughts which strike us about the 
 Precious Blood. They are the ordinary considerations, which 
 our faith has made familiar to us. We shall have to return 
 to them again in a diff"erent connection ; and upon some of 
 them we must enlarge in another place. A minuter acquaint- 
 ance with Christian doctrine teaches us much more. Some 
 little of this much must be introduced here for the sake of 
 clearness, and in order that we may better understand what 
 has to follow. 
 
 The Precious Blood was assumed directly to our Blessed 
 Lord's Divine Person, from His immaculate Mother, It was 
 not taken merely to His Body, so that His Body was 
 directly assumed to the Person of the AVord, and His Blood 
 only indirectly or mediately as part of His Body. The Blood, 
 which was the predetermined price of our redemption, rested 
 directly and immediately on the Divine Person, and thus 
 entered into the very highest and most unspeakable degree 
 of the Hypostatic Union, if we may speak of degrees in such 
 an adorably simple mystery. It was not merely a concomi- 
 tant of the Flesh, an inseparable accid(!nt of the Body. The 
 Blood itself, as Blood, was assumed directly by the Second 
 Person of the Holy Trinity. It came also from Mary's 
 blood. Mary's blood was the material out of which the Holy
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 27 
 
 Ghost, the Tliird Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the arti- 
 ficer of the Sacred Humanity, fashioned the Blood of Jesus. 
 Here we see how needful to the joy and gladness of our 
 devotion is the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. 
 Who could bear to think that the matter of the Precious 
 Blood had ever been itself corrupted with the taint of sin, 
 that it had once been part of the devil's kingdom, that what 
 was to supply the free price of our redemption was once 
 enslaved to God's darkest, foulest enemy ? Is it not indeed 
 an endless daily jubilee to us, that the Church has laid upon 
 us as an article of our faith that sweet truth, which the 
 instincts of our devotion had so long made a real part of 
 our belief? 
 
 Moreover, there is some portion of the Precious Blood 
 which once was Mary's own blood, and wiiich remains still 
 in our Blessed Lord, incredibly exalted by its union with 
 His Divine Person, yet still the same. This portion of Him- 
 self, it is piously believed, has not been allowed to undergo 
 the usual changes of human substance. At this moment in 
 heaven He retains something which once was His jMother's, 
 and which is possibly visible, as such, to the saints and 
 angels. He vouchsafed at Mass to show to St. Ignatius the 
 very part of the Host which had once belonged to the sub- 
 stance of Mary. It may have a distinct and singular beauty 
 in heaven, where by His compassion it may one day be our 
 blessed lot to see it and adore it. But with the exception 
 of this portion of it, the Precious Blood was a growing 
 thing. It increased daily, as He increased in size and age. 
 It was nourished from His Mother's breast. It was fed 
 from the earthly food which He condescended to take. 
 During His three and thirty years it received thousands of 
 increments and augmentations. But each one of those 
 augmentations was assumed directly to His Divine Person. 
 It was not merely diluted by that which had existed before.
 
 28 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 It did not share in the Hypostatic Union in any lower degree. 
 The last drop of Blood made in Him by the laws of human 
 life, perhaps while He was hanging on the Cross, was equally 
 exalted, equally divine, equally adorable, with the first price- 
 less drops which He drew from His Blessed Motlier. 
 
 Our dearest Lord was full and true man. He was flesh 
 of our flesh, and bone of our bone ; and His incomparable 
 Soul, although it was incomparable, was simply and veritably 
 a human soul. Everything in His human substance was 
 so exalted by its union with His Divine Person as to be 
 adorable. Yet is was only His Blood which was to redeem 
 the world ; and it was only His Blood as shed which was to 
 do so, and it was only His blood as shed in death which was 
 to be the price of our redemption. The Blood shed at the 
 Circumcision was adorable. The Blood shed in Gethsemane 
 was adorable. If it be true, as some contemplatives have 
 seen in vision, that He sweated Blood at various times 
 in His Infancy because of His sight of sin and of His 
 Father's anger, that Blood also was adorable. But it was 
 the Blood shed upon the Cross, or at least the Blood shed 
 in the process of dying, which was the ransom of our sins. 
 Tliroughout the whole of the triduo of the passion all His 
 Blood, wherever it had been shed, and wherever it M-as 
 sprinkled, remained assumed to His Divinity, in union 
 with His Divine Person, just as His soulless Body did, 
 and therefore was to be worshipped with divine worship, 
 with the same adoration as tlie living and eternal God. At 
 the Resurrection, when His Precious Blood had been collected 
 by the ministry of the angels, and He united it once more 
 to His Body as He rose, some of it remained unassumed. 
 This perhaps was for the consolation of His IMother, or fur 
 the enriching of the Cliurch with tlio most inestimable of 
 relics. This was the case with the Blood on the veil of 
 Veronica, on tlie holy Winding-sheet, on some portions of
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 29 
 
 tlie Cross, and on the Thorns and Nails. But this Ulood, 
 which was not reassumed at the Resurrection, instantly lost 
 its union Avith His Divine Person, ceased to be wliat is 
 strictly called the Precious Blood, lost its right to absolute 
 adoration, and became only an intensely holy relic, to be 
 venerated with a very high Avorship, but not to be worshipped 
 as divine, or adored as the Blood of God. It was no longer 
 part of Himself. But the Blood in the chalice is the Blood 
 of the living Jesus in heaven. It is the Blood shed in the 
 Passion, reassumed at the Resurrection, borne up to heaven 
 in the Ascension, placed at the Right Hand of the Father 
 there in its consummate glory and beautified immortality. 
 Thus it is the very Blood of God ; and it is the Avhole of it, 
 containing that portion which He had originally assumed 
 from Mary. 
 
 Miraculous Blood is not the Precious Blood. Neither 
 is it like the unassumed Blood of the Passion. For that 
 had once been Precious Blood, and had only ceased to be 
 so through the special will of our Lord, whereby He willed 
 not to reassume it at the Resurrection. The Host has 
 miraculously bled at Mass, to reassure men's faith or to cause 
 a reformation in their lives. It has bled in the hands of 
 Jews and heretics, as if resenting sacrilege, and striking awe 
 into their souls, like the deep fear which fell upon Jerusalem 
 at the Passion. Crucifixes have sweated Blood, to convert 
 sinners, or to portend some public calamities, or to show 
 forth symbolically the ceaseless sympathy of our Blessed 
 Lord with His suffering Church. But this is not Precious 
 Blood, nor has it ever been Precious Blood. It has never 
 lived in our Lord. It is greatly to be venerated, inasmuch 
 as it is a miraculous production of God ; and it appeals 
 especially to the leverence of the faithful, because of its 
 being appointed to represent in figure tlie Precious Blood. 
 If the angel, who passed at midnight over Kgypt to slay the
 
 30 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 first-born, reverenced the blood of the Paschal lamb sprinkled 
 on the door-posts of the Israelites, simply because it was a 
 type of the Blood of Jesus, much more should we reverence 
 the miraculous Blood, which issues from the Host or from 
 the Crucifix, as a higher and a holier thing than the symbolic 
 blood of animals. Kevertheless it is not Precious Blood, 
 nor is it to be adored with divine worship. 
 
 Perhaps this is enough to say of the doctrine of the 
 Precious Blood. There are many other interesting questions 
 connected with it. But they are hard to understand ; and, 
 although no minutest detail of scholastic theology is other 
 than fresh fuel to our love of God, yet it would not suit 
 either the brevity or the plainness of this Treatise to enter 
 upon them here. How shall we ever raise our love up to 
 the height of the doctrine which we have put forth already ? 
 The Precious Blood is God's daily gift, nay rather we might 
 call it His incessant gift to us. For, if grace is coming to 
 us incessantly, save when we sleep, it comes to us in view of 
 the Precious Blood, and because of it. But who can estimate 
 the wonderf ulness of such a gift 1 It is the Blood of God. 
 It is not the giving to us of new hearts, or of immensely 
 increased powers, or of the ability to work miracles and 
 raise the dead. It is not the bestowing upon us of angelic 
 natures. It is something of far greater price than all this 
 would be. It is the Blood of God. It is the created life of 
 the Uncreated. It is a human fountain opened as it were 
 in the very centre of the Divine Nature. It is a finite thing, 
 with a known origin and an ascertained date, of a price as 
 infinite as the Divine Person who has assumed it. To ua 
 creatures the adorable majesty of the Undivided Trinity is 
 an inexhaustible treasure-house of gifts. They are poured 
 out upon us in the most lavish prodigality, and with the 
 most affecting display of love. They are beautiful beyond 
 compare ; and they are endlessly diversified, yet endlessly
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 31 
 
 adapted to the singularities of each heart and soul. Yet 
 what gift do the Divine Persons give us, which has more of 
 Their own sweetness in it, than the Precious Blood? It has 
 in it that yearning and tenderness which belong to the 
 power of the Father, that magnificent prodigality which 
 marks the Avisdom of the Son, and that refreshing fire which 
 characterises the love of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 It is also a revelation to us of the character of God. 
 Nothing on earth tells us so much of Him, or tells it so 
 plainly and so endearingly. How adorable must be the 
 exactness of His justice, how unattainable the standard of 
 His sanctity, how absorbing the blissful gulfs of His un- 
 created purity, if the Precious Blood is to be the sole fitting 
 ransom for the sins of men, the one divinely chosen satis- 
 faction to His outraged Majesty ! Yet what a strange 
 wisdom in such an astonishing invention, what an unintel- 
 ligible condescension, what a mysterious fondness of creative 
 love ! The more we meditate upon the Precious Blood the 
 more strange does it appear, as a device of infinite love. 
 While we are really getting to understand it more, our 
 understanding of it appears to grow less. When we see a 
 divine work at a distance, its dimensions do not seem so 
 colossal as we find them to be in reality Avhen we come 
 nearer. The Precious Blood is such a wonderful revelation 
 of God that it partakes in a measure of His incomprehensi- 
 bilitj'. But it is also a marvellous revelation of the enormity 
 of sin. Next to a practical knowledge of God, there is 
 nothing which it more concerns us to know and to realise 
 than the exceeding sinfulness of sin. The deeper that 
 knowledge is, the higher will be the fabric of our holiness. 
 Hence a true understanding of the overwhelming guilt and 
 shame of sin is one of God's greatest gifts. But in reahty 
 this revelation of the sinfulness of sin is only another kind 
 of revelation of God. It is by the height of His perfections
 
 '?'» 
 
 J 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 that we measure the depths of sin. Its opposition to Hi3 
 unspeakable holiness, the amount of its outrage against His 
 glorious justice, and the intensity of His hatred of it, are 
 manifested by the infinity of the sacrifice which He has 
 required. If we try to picture to ourselves what we should 
 have thought of God and sin, if Jesus had not shed His 
 Blood, we shall see what a fountain of heavenly science, 
 what an effulgence of supernatural revelation, the Precious 
 Blood has been to us. 
 
 No doubt it was partly this power of revelation which 
 made ou^ dearest Lord so impatient to shed His Blood. He 
 longed to make His Father known ; and so to increase His 
 Father's glory. He knew that we must know God in order 
 to love Him, and then that our love of Him would in its 
 turn increase our knowledge of Him. He yearned also with 
 an unutterable love of us ; and this also entered into His 
 Heart as another reason for His atfectionate impatience. 
 At all events, He lias been pleased to reveal Himself to us 
 as impatient to shed His Blood. If habits of meditation 
 and a study of the Gospels have transferred to our souls a 
 true portrait of Jesus, as He was on eartli, this impatience 
 will seem a very striking mystery. There was ordinarily 
 about our Blessed Lord an atmos]:)here of quite imearthly 
 calmness. His human will seemed almost without human 
 activity. It lay still in the lap of the will of God. It was 
 revealed to Mary of Agreda that He never exercised choice, 
 except in the choosing of sufiering. This one disclosure is 
 enough to give us a comj)lete picture of His inward life. 
 Yet there was an eagerness, a semblance of precipitation, a 
 stimulating desire for the shedding of His Blood, which 
 stand alone and apart in the narrative of His thirty-three 
 years. "With desire had He desired to communicate with 
 His chosen few in the IJlessed Sacrifice of the Mass, wherein 
 His Blood is mystically shed. He shed it in that awful
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 33 
 
 miraculous reality before He slied it upon Calvary, as if He 
 could not brook the slowness of human cruelty, which did not 
 lay hands upon Him so swiftly as His love desired. He was 
 straitened in Himself by His impatience for His Baptism of 
 Blood: and He bedewed the ground at Gethsemane with those 
 priceless drops, as if He could not even wait one night for the 
 violence of Calvary, It seemed as if the relief and satisfaction, 
 which it was to Him to shed His Blood, were almost an allevi- 
 ation of the bitterness of His Passion. This impatience is in 
 itself a revelation to us of the yearnings of His Sacred Heart. 
 The prodigality, also, with which He shed His Blood, 
 stands alone and apart in His life. He was sparing of His 
 words. He spake seldom, and He spake briefly. The short- 
 ness of His ministry is almost a difficulty to our minds. It 
 was the instinct of His holiness to hide itself. This was one 
 of the communications of His Divine Ifature to His Human. 
 Even His miracles were comparatively few ; and He said 
 that His saints after Him should work greater miracles than 
 His. Yet in the shedding of His Blood He was spendthrift, 
 prodigal, wasteful. As His impatience to shed it represents 
 to us the adorable impetuosity of the Most Holy Trinity to 
 communicate Himself to His creatures, so His prodigality in 
 shedding it shadows forth the exuberant magnificence and 
 liberality of God. During the triduo of His Passion He shed 
 it in all manner of places and in all manner of ways ; and 
 He continued to shed it even after He was dead, as if He 
 could not rest until the last drop had been poured out for 
 the creatures whom He so incomprehensibly loved. Yet, 
 while He thus carelessly, or rather purposely, parted with it, 
 liow He must have loved His Precious Blood ! "What loves 
 are there on earth to be compared with the love of His 
 Divine jS'ature for His Human ^Nature, or the love of His 
 ever-blessed Soul for His Body ? ^Moreover, He must have 
 loved His Blood with a peculiar love, because it was tho 
 
 c
 
 34 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 specially appointed ransom of the world. His love of His 
 dearest Mother is the only love which approaches to His love 
 of the Precious Blood ; and, rightly considered, is not the 
 one love enclosed within the other 1 
 
 He has continued the same prodigality of His Blood in 
 the Church to this day. He foresaw then that He should 
 do so ; and it was [lart of His love of that fountain of our 
 redemption, that He beheld with exquisite delight its cease- 
 less and abundant flowing through the ages which were yet 
 to come. There is something almost indiscriminate in the 
 generosity of the Precious Blood. It is poured in oceans 
 over the world, bathing more souls than it seems to have 
 been meant for, only that in truth it was meant for all. It 
 appears not to regard the probabilities of its being used, or 
 appreciated, or welcomed. It goes in floods through the 
 seven mighty channels of the Sacraments. It breaks their 
 bounds, as if they could not contain the impetuosity of its 
 torrents. It lies like a superincumbent ocean of sanctifying 
 grace over the Church. It runs over in profuse excess, and 
 irrigates even the deserts which lie outside the Church. It 
 goes to sinners as well as saints. Nay, it even looks as if it 
 had a propension and attraction to sinners more than to 
 other men. It is falling for ever like a copious fiery rain 
 upon the lukewarm. It rests on the souls of hardened 
 apostates, as if it hoped to sink in in time. Its miraculous 
 action in the Church is literally incessant. In the Sacra- 
 ments, in separate graces, in hourly conversions, in multi- 
 l)lied deathbeds, in releases from purgatory every moment, 
 in countless augmentations of grace in countless souls, in 
 far-off indistinguishable preludes and drawings towards the 
 faith, this most dear Blood of Jesus is the manifold life of 
 tlie world. Every ])ulse which beats in it is an intense 
 jubilee to Him. It is for ever setting Him on fire with 
 fresh love of us His creatures. It is for ever filling llim with
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 35 
 
 a new and incredible gladness, which we cannot think of 
 without amazement and adoration. Oh that He would give us 
 one spark of that immense love of His Precious Blood, which 
 He Himself is feeling so blissfully this hour in heaven' ! 
 
 Such is the mystery of the Precious Blood. It makes the 
 poor fallen earth more beautiful than the Paradise of old. 
 Its streams are winding their way everywhere all over the 
 earth. The rivers of Eden are not to be compared to them 
 for fruitfulness. Poets have loved the music of the moun- 
 tain stream, as it tinkled down the hills amidst the stones, 
 or murmured under leafy shades. Scripture speaks of the 
 Voice of God as the voice of many waters. So is it with the 
 Precious Blood. It has a voice which God hears, speaking 
 better things than the blood of Abel, more than restoring to 
 Him again the lost music of His primeval creation. In our 
 ears also does it murmur sweetly, evermore and evermore, 
 in sorrows, in absolutions, in communions, in sermons, and 
 in all holy joys. It will never leave us now. For at last, 
 when it has led us to the brink of heaven, and when, in the 
 boundless far-flashing magnificence, the steadfast splendours 
 and unfathomable depths of the Uncreated joy of God lie 
 out before us, ocean-like and infinite, that Blood will still 
 flow round us, and sing to us beyond angelic skill, with a 
 voice like that of Jesus, which when once heard is never to 
 be forgotten, that word of Him whose Heart's Blood it is, 
 Well done, thou good and faithful servant ! enter thou into 
 the joy of thy Lord ! What is the life in heaven, but an 
 everlasting To Deum before the Face of God ? But there 
 also, as now in our Te Deum upon earth, we shall have a 
 special joy, a special moving of our love, when we call our- 
 selves " redeemed with Precious Blood ; " and, as we do now 
 in church, so there in the innermost courts of our Father's 
 House, we shall only say the words upon our knees, with a 
 separate gladness, and a separate depth of adoration.
 
 ( 36 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 It is very difficult to feel as we ought to do about eternal 
 tilings. "We are surrounded by the sights and sounds of 
 this short early life. "We judge of things, if not by appear- 
 ances, at least by their earthly importance. "We cannot dis- 
 entangle ourselves from the impressions which earth makes 
 xipon us. We are forced to measure things by a standard, 
 which we know to be untrue, but which we are so accus- 
 tomed to, that we cannot even think by any other standard. 
 Eternity is simply a word to us : and it is exceedingly hard 
 to make it more than a word. Thus, when we try to bring 
 home to ourselves or to others the immense importance of 
 eternal things, and the extreme triviality of all temporal 
 things which are not simply made to minister to eternal 
 things, we find ourselves in a difficulty. Jf we speak of 
 them in common words, we convey false ideas. If we use 
 liigh-sounding language and deal in superlatives, a sense of 
 unreality comes upon ourselves, and still more upon our 
 hearers; and we seem to be exaggerating, even when what 
 we say is far below the mark. Time alone enables us in 
 .^ome degree to realise the importance of eternal things. A 
 striking expression may rouse our attention. But eternal 
 things, in order to be fruitful and practical, must grow into 
 us by frequent prayer and long familiarity. Even then we 
 fall far short of the mark. Even then we get false ideas,
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 37 
 
 and becoming used to them, are unable to substitute true 
 ones in their place. It is almost impossible for us truly to 
 realise the fact that lifelong pain or exuberant health,. ample 
 riches or bitter poverty, unintermitting success or incessant 
 failure, are matters of perfect unimportance and of absolute 
 indifference, except so far as they concern the salvation of 
 our souls. We recognise the impossibility by seeing how men, 
 who talk and believe rightly, fall far short both of their 
 faith and their words, even when they are acting up to the 
 highest standard in their power. 'We are placed in the 
 same difficulty now, when we want to realise truly the 
 necessity of the Precious Blood. It is more necessary than 
 we can say or think. What would come of being without it 
 is inconceivable by us. When we have said that, we have 
 said all we can say. So, as time alone will make it familiar 
 to us, we must say it in many different ways, and look at it 
 from many different points of view, and repeat it to ourselves 
 as if we were learning a lesson. This will enable us to gain 
 time, and will answer better than big words or unusual 
 metaphors. 
 
 The most recollected saint and the most thoucrhtful theo- 
 
 o 
 
 logian, do what they will, live in the world all day without 
 being able to realise how much, and in what ways, they are 
 indebted to God, receiving from Him, living upon Him, 
 using Him, and immersed in Him, nor how indispensable He 
 is to us. So is it in the spiritual world with Jesus. It is a 
 wonder that He ever came among us. Yet He is simply 
 indispensable to us. We could in no wise do without Him. 
 We want Him at every turn, at every moment. It is the 
 ■wisdom of life, as well as its joy, to be always feeling this 
 great need of Jesus. A true Christian feels that he could no 
 more live for an hour without Jesus, than he could live for 
 an hour without air, or under the water. There is something 
 delightful in this sense of utter dependence upon Jesus. It
 
 38 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 is our only rest, our only liberty in the world. It is the 
 bondage of our imperfection that we cannot be directly and 
 actually thinking of Jesus all day and night. Yet it is 
 astonishing how near we may come to this. Our very sleep 
 at last becomes subject to the thought of Jesus, and saturated 
 with it. It is part of the gladness of growing older, not 
 only that we are thereby drawing nearer to our first sight of 
 Him, but that we feel our dependence upon Him more and 
 more. We have learned more about Him. We have had a 
 longer and more varied experience of Him. Our love of 
 Him has become more of a passion, which, by a little efTort, 
 promises at some not very distant day to be dominant and 
 supreme. The love of Jesus never can be an ungrowing 
 love. It must grow, if it does not die out. In our physical 
 life, as we grow older, we become more sensible to cold and 
 wind, to changes of place and to alterations of the weather. 
 So, as we grow older in our spiritual life, we become more 
 sensitive to the presence of Jesus, to the necessity of Him, 
 and to His indispensable sweetness. A constantly increas- 
 ing sensible love of our dearest Lord is the safest mark of 
 our growth in holiness, and the most tran(iuillising prophecy 
 of our final perseverance. 
 
 What would the world be without Jesus'? We may 
 perhaps have sometimes made pictures to ourselves of the 
 day of judgment. We may have imagined the storms above 
 and the earthquakes underneath, the sun and the moon 
 darkened, and the stars falling from heaven, the fire raging 
 over the face of the earth, men crying to the mountains and 
 rocks to fall upon them and hide them, and in the masses of 
 the eastern clouds Jesus coming to judge the world. We 
 think it appropriate to add to the picture every feature of 
 physical tumult and desolation, every wildest unchaining of 
 the elements, although doubtless the catastrophe of that day 
 of horrors will follow the grand uniformity of a natural law,
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 39 
 
 even amidst the impetuosity of its convulsions. Yet the 
 misery and confusion of earth at tliat day will have less of 
 real horror in it than the earth without Jesus would . have, 
 even though the sun were shining, and the flowers blooming, 
 and the birds singing. An earth without hope or happiness, 
 without love or peace, the past a burden, the present a 
 weariness, the future a shapeless terror, such would the earth 
 be, if by impossibility there were no Jesus. Indeed it is 
 only in such a general way that we can conceive what the 
 world would be without Him. We can make no picture to 
 ourselves of the real horror. His Five Wounds are pleading 
 for ever at the Eight Hand of the Father. They are hold- 
 ing back the divine indignation. They are satisfying the 
 divine justice. They are moving the divine compassion. 
 Even temporal blessings come from them. They are brid- 
 ling the earthquake and the storm, the pestilence and the 
 famine, and a tliousand otlier temporal consequences of sin, 
 which we do not know of, or so much as suspect. Besides 
 this, Jesus is bound up with our innermost lives. He is 
 more to us than the blood in our veins. We know that He 
 is indispensable to us ; but we do not dream how indispen- 
 sable He is. 
 
 There is not a circumstance of life, in which we could do 
 without Jesus. When sorrow comes upon us, how should 
 we bear it without Him? What feature of consolation is 
 there about the commonest human grief, which is not 
 ministered by faith, or hope, or love 1 We cannot exaggerate 
 the utter moral destitution of a fallen Avorld without redeem- 
 ing grace. With the apostate angels that destitution is 
 simply an eternal hell. Let the child of a few weeks lie 
 like a gathered lily, white, cold, faded, dead, before the eyes 
 of the fond mother who bore it but a while ago : and how 
 blank is the woe in her heart, if the waters of baptism have 
 not passed upon it ! Yet what are those waters, but the
 
 40 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Blood of Jesus 1 'Now she can sit and think, and be thank- 
 ful even while she is weeping, and there can be smiles 
 through her tears, which, like the rainbows, are signs of 
 God's covenant with His people ; for she has volumes of 
 sweet things to think, aud bright visions in her mind, and 
 the sounds of angelic music in her soul's oar ; and these 
 things are not fancies, but faiths, knowledges, infallible 
 assurances. Even if her child were unbaptized, dismal as 
 the thought is that it can never see God, its eternal destiny 
 is for the sake of Jesus shorn of all the sensible pains and 
 horrors which else would have befallen it. It owes the 
 natural blessedness, which it will one day enjoy, to the 
 merits of our dearest Lord. It is better even for the babes 
 that are not His, that lie Himself was once the Babe of 
 Bethlehem. 
 
 iSorrow without Christ is not to be endured. Such a lot 
 would be worse than that of the beasts of the field, because 
 the possession of reason would be an additional unhappiness. 
 The same is true of sickness and of pain. What is the mean- 
 ing of pain, except the purification of our soul ? "Who could 
 bear it for years, if there were no significance in it, no future 
 for it, no real work which it was actually occupied in doing] 
 Here also the possession of reason would act to our disadvan- 
 tage; for it would render the patience of beasts impossible 
 to us. The long, pining, languishing sick-bed, with its inter- 
 minable nights and days, its wakeful memories, its keen 
 susceptibilities, its crowded and protracted inward biography, 
 its burdensome epochs of monotony, — what would this be, if 
 we knew not the Son of God, if Jesus never had been man, 
 if His grace of endurance had not actually gone out of His 
 Heart into ours that we might love even while we murmured, 
 and believe most in mercy when it was showing itself least 
 merciful ? 
 
 In poverty and hardship, in the accesses of temptation, in
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 4r 
 
 the intemperate ardours of youth or the cynical fatigue of 
 age, in the successive failures of our plans, in the disappoint- 
 ments of our affections, in every crisis and revolution of life, 
 Jesus seems so necessary to us that it appears as if He grew 
 more necessary every year, and were more wanted to-day 
 than He was yesterday, and would be still more urgently 
 wanted on the morrow. But, if He is thus indispensable in 
 life, how much more will He be indispensable in death ? 
 Who could dare to die without Him? What would deatli 
 be, if He had not so strangely and so graciously died Him- 
 self? Yet M'hat is death compared with judgment ? Surely 
 most of all He will be wanted then. Wanted ! Oh it is 
 something more than a want, when so unspeakable a ruin is 
 inevitably before us ! Want is a poor word to use, when 
 the alternative is everlasting woe. Dearest Lord ! the light 
 of the sun and the air of heaven are not so needful to us, as 
 Thou art ; and our happiness, not merely our greatest, but 
 our only, happiness is in this dear necessity ! 
 
 Nobody is without Jesus in the world. Even the lost in 
 hell are suffering less tlian they should have suffered, because 
 of the ubiquity of His powerful Blood. Yet there are some 
 nations who are so far without Him, as to have no saving 
 knowledge of Him. Alas ! there are still heathen lands in 
 this fair world. There are tribes and nations who worship 
 stocks and stones, who make gods of the unseen devils, wlio 
 tremble before the powers of nature as if they were at onco 
 almighty and malicious, or who live in perpetual fear of the 
 souls of the dead. There are some, whose sweetest social 
 relations are embittered by the terrors and panics of their 
 own false religions ; and the innocent sunshine of delightful 
 climates is not unfrequently polluted by human sacrifices. 
 Yet these people dwell in some of the loveliest portions of 
 man's inheritance. Amidst the savage, sylvan sublimities of 
 the Rocky Mountains, on the eastern declivities of the mag-
 
 42 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 nificeiit Andes, in the glorious gorges of the Himalayas, in the 
 flowery, coral islands of the Pacific, or in those natural Edens 
 laved by the warm seas of the Indian archipelago, human 
 life is made inhuman by the horrors of a false religion. Let 
 us take a picture from the banks of the Quango in the 
 interior of Africa. In speaking of the people, Dr, Living- 
 stone says, " I have often thought in travelling through 
 their land, that it presents pictures of beauty which angels 
 might enjoy. How often have I beheld, in still mornings, 
 scenes the very essence of beauty, and all bathed in a quiet 
 air of delicious warmth ! Yet the occasional soft motion 
 imparted a pleasing sensation of coolness as of a fan. Green 
 grassy meadows, the cattle feeding, the goats browsing, the 
 kids skipping, the groups of herdboys with miniature bows, 
 arrows, and spears ; the women wending their way to the 
 river with watering-pots poised jauntily on their heads ; 
 nien sewing under the shady banians ; and old greyheaded 
 fathers sitting on the ground, with staif in hand, listening to 
 the morning gossip, while others carry trees or branches to 
 repair their hedges ; and all this, flooded with the bright 
 African sunshine, and the birds singing among the branches 
 before the heat of the day has become intense, form pictures 
 which can never be forgotten." * Nevertheless he tells us 
 that they cannot "enjoy their luxurious climate," so com- 
 pletely and habitually do they fancy themselves to be in the 
 remorseless power of the disembodied souls. Around our 
 daily path, on the other hand, are strewn the memorials and 
 blessings of Jesus. There is the morning Mass, and the 
 evening Benediction. Three times a day the Angelus 
 brings afresh its sweet tidings of the Incarnation. Our 
 f;arly meditation has left a picture of Jesus on our souls to 
 last the livelong day. Our beads have to be told, and they 
 too tell of Jesus. When we sink to rest at night, His own 
 
 * Travels, i>. 441.
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 43 
 
 commendation of His Soul upon the Cross prompts the 
 words which come most natural to our lips. Tliink of those 
 poor heathen, wandering Saviour-less over their beautiful 
 lands, — wliat if we were like to them 1 And what, perchance, 
 would they have been if they had had but half our grace ? 
 
 There are many who call themselves after the name of 
 Christ who are yet outside tlie Church of Clirist. Theirs is 
 in every way a woeful lot. To be so near Jesus, and yet 
 not to be of His blessed fold ; to be within reach of His 
 unsearchable riches, and yet to miss them ; to be so blessed 
 by His neighbourhood, and yet not to be savingly united 
 with Him, — this is indeed a desolation. Their creed is 
 words ; it is not life. They know not the redeeming grace 
 of Jesus rightly. They understand not the mysterious dis- 
 positions of His Sacred Heart. They dis-esteem His hidden 
 Sacraments. They know God only wrongly and partially. 
 Their knowledge is neither light nor love. Everything 
 about Jesus, the nearest accessory of His Church, the faintest 
 vestige of His benediction, the very shadow of His likeness, 
 is of such surpassing importance, that for the least of these 
 things the whole world would be but a paltry price to pay. 
 The gift of being in the true Church is the greatest of all 
 God's gifts, which can be given out of heaven. We cannot 
 exaggerate its value. It is the pearl beyond price. Hence 
 also the woefulness of being out of the Church is not to be 
 told in words. I doubt if it is even to be compassed in 
 thought. "What then, if we had so far lost Jesus, as to be 
 out of His Church ? Unbearable thought ! yet not without 
 some sweetness, as it makes us feel more keenly how indis- 
 pensable He is to us, and what a merciful good-fortune He 
 has given us to enjoy. 
 
 But even inside the Church there are wandering Cains, 
 impenitent sinners who have gone out from the presence of 
 God and wilfully abide there. They have lived years in
 
 44 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 pin, and. the chains of sinful habits are heavy upon them. 
 They have resisted grace a thousand times, and it looks as if 
 the divine inspirations were weary of whispering to hearts 
 so deaf. Kothing seems to rouse them. They never advert 
 to God at all. Their conversion must be a perfect miracle. 
 They are obdurate. They are living portions of hell, moving 
 up and down the earth. It is only by God's mercy, and. 
 through the merits of Jesus, that we are any better than 
 these obdurate sinners. Yet we rightly thank God, even 
 while we tremble at the possibility, that He has prevented 
 our falling into such a state. What then if we were like to 
 these ? What if we were numbered among the hardened and 
 impenitent? AVhat if we were now even what we ourselves 
 may have been in past years, before the strong arm of the 
 Sacraments was held out to us, and we had the grace to lay 
 hold of it, and let it draw us safely to the shore ? Yet if we 
 were any of these, heathens, or heretics, or obdurate sinners, 
 we should still be far better off than if there were no Jesus 
 in the world ; for all these classes of men are blessed by 
 Jesus, are visited by His grace continually, and are for His 
 sake surrounded by hopeful possibilities of which they them- 
 selves are not aware. How unspeakably dreadful then our 
 life would be without Jesus, when to be a heathen or a 
 heretic is a misery so terrible ! 
 
 But surely we have said enough to show the necessity of 
 Jesus. Let us look at the world without His Precious Blood. 
 In the early ages of the earth, while the Primitive traditions 
 of Eden were still fresh and strong, and when God was from 
 time to time manifesting Himself in supernatural ways, the 
 «'orld drifted so rapidly from God that its sins began to 
 assume a colossal magnitude. There was a complete confu 
 sion of all moral laws and duties. There was such an 
 audacity in wickedness, that men openly braved God, and 
 threatened to besii'ge heaven. He sent strange judgments
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 45 
 
 upon them, but they would not be converted. Scripture 
 represents to us very forcibly by a human expression, the 
 terrific nature of their iniquity. It says that the Eternal 
 repented of having done -what He had eternally decreed to 
 do, repented of having made man. At length the divine 
 justice opened the floodgates of heaven, and destroyed all the 
 dwellers upon earth, except eight persons ; as if the issue of 
 evil could not otherwise be staunched. This is a divine 
 manifestation to us of the nature and character of evil. 
 It multiplies itself. It tends to be gigantic, and to get 
 from under control. It is always growing towards an open 
 rebellion against the majesty of God. Everywhere on the 
 earth the Precious Blood is warring down this evil in detail. 
 Here it is obliterating it : here it is cutting off its past 
 growths, or making its future growth slower or of less dimen- 
 sions. There it is diluting it with grace, or rendering it 
 sterile, or wounding and weakening it, or making it cowardly 
 and cautious. Upon all exhibitions of evil the action of the 
 Precious Blood is incessant. At no time and in no place is 
 it altogether inoperative. Let us see what the world would 
 be like, if the Precious Blood withdrew from this ceaseless 
 war with evil. 
 
 It is plain that some millions of sins in a day are hindered 
 by the Precious Blood : and this is not merely a hindering 
 of so many individual sins, but it is an immense check upon 
 the momentum of sin. It is also a weakening of habits of 
 sin, and a diminution of the consequences of sin. If then, 
 the action of the Precious Blood were withdrawn from the 
 world, sins would not only increase incalculably in number, 
 but the tyranny of sin would be fearfully augmented, and it 
 would spread among a greater number of people. It would 
 wax so bold that no one would be secure from the sins of 
 others. It would be a constant warfare, or an intolerable 
 vigilance, to preserve property and rights. Falsehood would
 
 46 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 become so universal as almost to dissolve society ; and the 
 homes of domestic life would be turned into the wards either 
 of a prison or a madhouse. We cannot be in the company 
 of an atrocious criminal without some feeling of uneasiness 
 and fear. We should not like to be left alone with him, 
 even if his chains were not unfastened. But, without the 
 Precious Blood, such men Avould abound in the world. They 
 might even become the majority. We know of ourselves, 
 from glimpses God has once or twice given us in life, what 
 incredible possibilities of wickedness we have in our souls. 
 Civilisation increases these possibilities. Education multi- 
 plies and magnifies our powers of sinning. Eefinement adds 
 a fresh malignity. Men would thus become more diabolically 
 and unmixedly bad, until at last earth would be a hell on 
 this side the grave. There would also doubtless be new 
 kinds of sins and worse kinds. Education would provide 
 the novelty, and refinement would carry it into the region of 
 the unnatural. All highly refined and luxurious develop- 
 ments of heathenism have fearfully illustrated this truth. A 
 wicked barbarian is like a beast. His savage passions are 
 violent but intermitting, and his necessities of sin do not 
 appear to grow. Their circle is limited. But a higlily 
 educated sinner, without the restraints of religion, is like a 
 demon. His sins are less confined to himself. They involve 
 others in their misery. They require others to be offered as 
 it were in sacrifice to them. Moreover, education, considered 
 simply as an intellectual cultivation, propagates sin, and 
 makes it more universal 
 
 The increase of sin, without the prospects which the faith 
 lays open to us, must lead to an increase of despair, and to 
 an increase of it upon a gigantic scale. AVilli despair must 
 come rage, madness, violence, tumult, and bloodshed. Yet 
 from what quarter could we expect relief in this tremendous 
 suffering? We should be imprisoned in our own planet.
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 47 
 
 The blue sky above us would be but a dungeon roof. The 
 greensward beneath our feet Avould truly be the slab of 
 our future tomb. Without the Precious Blood there is no 
 intercourse between heaven and earth. Prayer would be 
 useless. Our hapless lot would be irremediable. It has 
 always seemed to me that it will be one of the terrible things 
 in hell, that there are no motives for patience there. We 
 cannot make the best of it. Why should we endure it? 
 Endurance is an effort for a time : but this woe is eternal 
 Perhaps vicissitudes of agony might be a kind of field for 
 patience. But there are no such vicissitudes. Why should 
 we endure then? Simply because we must; and yet in 
 eternal things this is not a sort of necessity which supplies a 
 reasonable ground for patience. So in this imaginary world 
 of rampant sin there would be no motives for patience. For 
 death would be our only seeming relief; and that is only 
 seeming, for death is anything but an eternal sleep. Our 
 impatience would become frenzy ; and, if our constitutions 
 were strong enough to prevent the frenzy from issuing in 
 downright madness, it would grow into hatred of God, Avhich 
 is perhaps already less uncommon than we suppose. 
 
 An earth, from off which all sense of justice had perished, 
 would indeed be the most disconsolate of homes. The 
 antediluvian earth exhibits only a tendency that way, and 
 the same is true of the worst forms of heathenism. The 
 Precious Blood was always there. Unnamed, unknown, 
 and unsuspected, the Blood of Jesus has alleviated every 
 manifestation of evil which there has ever been, just as it is 
 alleviating at this hour the punishments of hell. What 
 would be our own individual case on such a blighted earth 
 as this ? All our struggles to be better would be simply 
 hopeless. There would be no reason why we should n(jt 
 give oui-selves up to that kind of enjoyment, which our cor- 
 ruption does substantially (ind in sin. The gratification of
 
 48 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 our appetites is sometliing ; and that lies on one side, while 
 on the other side there is absolutely nothing. But we should 
 have the worm of conscience already, even though the flames 
 of hell might yet be some years distant. To feel that we 
 are fools, and yet lack the strength to be wiser, — is not this 
 precisely the maddening thing in madness 1 Yet it would 
 be our normal state under the reproaches of conscience, in a 
 world where there was no Precious Blood. "Whatever relics 
 of moral good we might retain about us would add most 
 sensibly to our wretchedness. Good people, if there were 
 any, would be, as St. Paul speaks, of all men the most 
 miserable : for they would be drawn away from the enjoy- 
 ment of this world, or have their enjoyment of it abated by 
 a sense of guilt and shame ; and there would be no other 
 world to aim at or to work for. To lessen the intensity of 
 our hell without abridging its eternity would hardly be a 
 cogent motive, when the temptations of sin and the allure- 
 ments of sense are so vivid and so strong. 
 
 "What sort of love could there be, when we could have 
 no respect? Even if flesh and blood made us love each 
 other, what a separation death would be ! "We should com- 
 mit our dead to the ground without a hope. Husband and 
 Avife Avould part with the fearfullest certainties of a reunion 
 more terrible than their separation, ^Mothers would long to 
 look upon their little ones in the arms of death, because 
 their lot would be less woeful than if they lived to ofi"end 
 (!od with their developed reason and intelligent will. The 
 sweetest feelings of our nature would become unnatural, and 
 the most honourable ties be dishonoured. Our best instincts 
 would lead us into our worst dangers. Our hearts would 
 have to Icsarn to beat another way, in order to avoid the dis- 
 mal consequences which our affections would bring upon our- 
 selves and other.-. ]I>it it is needless to go further into these 
 harrowing details. The world of the heart, without the
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 49 
 
 Precious Blood, and with an intellectual knowledge of God 
 and His punishments of sin, is too fearful a picture to be 
 drawn with minute fidelity. 
 
 But how would it fare with the poor in such a world 1 
 They are God's chosen portion upon earth. He chose poverty 
 Himself, when He came to us. He has left the poor in His 
 place, and they are never to fail from the earth, but to be 
 His representatives there until the doom. But, if it were 
 not for the Precious Blood would any one love them ? 
 "Would any one have a devotion to them, and dedicate his 
 life to merciful ingenuities to alleviate their lot ? If the 
 stream of almsgiving is so insufficient now, Avhat would it be 
 then 1 There would be no softening of the heart by grace : 
 there would be no admission of the obligation to give away 
 in alms a definite portion of our incomes : there would be no 
 desire to expiate sin by munificence to the needy for the love 
 of God. The gospel makes men's hearts large ; and yet even 
 under the gospel the fountain of almsgiving flows scantily 
 and uncertainly. There would be no religious orders devoting 
 themselves with skilful concentration to difrerent acts of 
 spiritual and corporal mercy. Vocation is a blossam to be 
 found only in the gardens of the Precious Blood. But all 
 this is only negative, only an absence of God. Matters would 
 go much further in such a world as we are imagining. 
 
 Even in countries professing to be Christian, and at least 
 in possession of the knowledge of the gospel, the poo-r grow 
 to be an intolerable burden to the rich. They have to be 
 supported by compulsory taxes ; and they are in other Avays 
 a continual subject of irritated and impatient legislation. 
 Nevertheless, it is due to the Precious Blood that the 
 ]>rinciple of supporting them is acknowledged. From what 
 we read in heathen history, even the history of nations 
 renowned for political wisdom, for philosophical speculation, 
 and for literary and artistic refinement, it would not b«
 
 50 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 extravagant for us to conclude, that if the circumstances of 
 a country were such as to make the numbers of the poor 
 dangerous to the rich, the rich would not scruple to destroy 
 them, while it was yet in their power to do so. Just as 
 men have had in France and England to war down bears 
 and wolves, so would the rich war down the poor, whose 
 clamorous misery and excited despair should threaten them 
 in the enjoyment of their power and their possessions. The 
 numbers of the poor would be thinned by murder, until it 
 should be safe for their masters to reduce them into slavery. 
 The survivors would lead the lives of convicts or of beasts. 
 History, I repeat, shows us that this is by no means an 
 extravagant supposition. 
 
 Such would be the condition of the world without the 
 Precious Blood, As generations succeeded each other, 
 original sin would go on developing those inexhaustible 
 malignant powers which come from the almost infinite 
 character of evil. Sin would work earth into hell. Men 
 would become devils, devils to others and to themselves. 
 Everything which makes life tolerable, which counteracts 
 any evil, which softens any harshness, which sweetens any 
 bitterness, which causes the machinery of society to work 
 smoothly, or which consoles any sadness, — is simply due to 
 the Precious Blood of Jesus, in heathen as well as Christian 
 lands. It changes the whole position of an offending crea- 
 tion to its Creator. It changes, if we may dare in such a 
 matter to speak of change, the aspect of God's immutable 
 perfections towards His liuman children. It does not work 
 merely in a spiritual sphere. It is not only prolific in 
 temporal blessings, but it is the veritable cause of all 
 temporal blessings whatsoever. We arc all of us every 
 moment sensibly enjoying the benignant influence of the 
 Precious Blood. Yet who thinks of all this? Why is the 
 goodness of God so hidden, so imperceptible, so unsuspected?
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 51 
 
 Perhaps because it is so universal and so excessive, that we 
 should hardly be free agents, if it pressed sensibly upon us 
 always. God's goodness is at once the most public of all 
 His attributes, and at the same time the most secret. Has 
 life a sweeter task than to seek it, and to find it out 1 
 
 Men woiild be far more happy, if they separated religion 
 less violently from other things. It is both unwise and 
 unloving to put religion into a place by itself, and mark it 
 off with an untrue distinctness from what we call worldly 
 and unspiritual things. Of course there is a distinction, 
 and a most important one, between them ; yet it is easy to 
 make this distinction too rigid, and to carry it too far. 
 Thus we often attribute to nature what is only due to grace ; 
 and we put out of sight the manner and degree in which the 
 blessed mystery of the Incarnation effects all created things. 
 But this mistake is for ever robbing us of hundreds of 
 motives for loving Jesus. AVe know how unspeakably much 
 we owe to Him : but we do not see that it is not much we 
 owe Him, but all, simply and absolutely all. We pass 
 through times and places in life, hardly recognising how the 
 sweetness of Jesus is sweetening the air around us, and 
 penetrating natural things with supernatural blessings. 
 
 Hence it comes to pass that men make too much of natural 
 goodness. They think too highly of human progress. They 
 exaggerate the moralising powers of civilization and refine- 
 ment, which, apart from grace, are simply tyrannies of the 
 few over the many, or of the public over the individual soul. 
 Meanwhile they underrate the corrupting capabilities of sin, 
 and attribute to unassisted nature many excellences which it 
 only catches, as it were by infection, from the proximity of 
 grace, or by contagion, from the touch of the Church. Even 
 in religious or ecclesiastical matters they incline to measure 
 progress or test vigour, by other standards rather than that 
 of holiness. These men will consider the foregoing picture
 
 52 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 of the world without the Precious Blood as overdrawn and 
 too darkly shaded. They do not believe in the intense 
 malignity of man when drifted from God, and still less are 
 they inclined to grant that cultivation and refinement only 
 intensify still further this malignity. They admit the 
 superior excellence of Christian charity ; but they also think 
 highly of natural philanthropy. But has this philanthropy 
 ever been found, where the indirect influences of the true 
 religion, whether Jewish or Christian, had not penetrated 1 
 We may admire the Greeks for their exquisite refinement, 
 and the Komans for the wisdom of their political moderation. 
 Yet look at the position of children, of servants, of slaves, 
 and of the poor, under both those systems, and see, if, while 
 extreme refinement only pushed sin to an extremity of foul- 
 ness, the same exquisite culture did not also lead to a social 
 cruelty and an individual selfishness which made life unbear- 
 able to the masses. Philanthropy is but a theft from tlie 
 gospel, or rather a sliadow, not a substance, and as unhelj)ful 
 as shadows are wont to be. Nevertheless, let us take this 
 ])hilanthropy at its word, and see Avhat the world would be 
 like, with philanthropy instead of the Precious Blood. 
 
 We will take the world as it is, with its present evils. 
 What amount of alleviation can philanthropy bring, suppos- 
 ing there could be such a thing without the example and 
 atmosphere of the gospel ? In llie first place, what could it 
 do for poverty 1 It would be dismayed by the number of 
 the poor, and appalled by the variety and exigency of their 
 needs. All manner of intractable questions would rise up, 
 for the solving of which its philosophy could furnish it with 
 no simple principles. Men would have their own work to 
 do, and their own business to attend to. It is not conceiv- 
 able that mere philanthropy should make the administration 
 of alms and the ministering to the poor a separate profession ; 
 and self-devotion upon any large scale is not to be thought
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 53 
 
 of except as a corollarj'' of the doctrine of tlie Cross. Thus, 
 while the ahns to be distributed would necessarily be 
 limited, and the claims almost illimitable, there would be 
 no means of proportioning relief. Unseen poverty is for the 
 most part a worthier thing than the poverty which is seen : 
 but Avho would with patient kindness and instinctive deli- 
 cacy track shamefaced poverty to its obscure retirements'? 
 The loudest beggars would get most, the modest least. The 
 highest virtue aimed at in the distribution of alms, and it is 
 truly a high one, would be justice. Thus it would come to 
 pass that those, who by sin or folly had brought poverty 
 upon themselves, would obtain no relief at all : and so 
 charity would cease to have any power to raise men above 
 their past lives, or elevate them in the scale of moral worth. 
 Eccentricity is a common accompaniment of misery; and 
 that which is eccentric Avould hardly recommend itself to 
 philanthropy, even if it did not seem to be a proof of insin- 
 cerity. Christian charity can only sustain its equanimity by 
 fixing its eyes upon a higher object than the misery which 
 it relieves. What is not done for God in this matter, is 
 done but uncertainly as well as scantily, and soon wearies of 
 the unlovely and exacting poor. It is only the similitude of 
 Jesus which beautifies poverty. Works of mercy are not 
 attractive to hearts untouched by love. Moreover, no slight 
 amount of the beneficence of Christian charity resides in its 
 irregularity. Coming from the impulses of love, it has an 
 ebb and flow which make it like the seeming unevenncss 
 and inequalities of outward providence ; and this, which 
 reason would account as a defect, turns out in practice a 
 more real blessing than the formal equality and periodical 
 punctuality of a merely conscientious and justicedoving 
 benevolence. Philanthropy must have a spliere, a round, a 
 beat. It must of necessity have in it somewhat of the 
 political economist, and somewhat of the policeman. It
 
 54. NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 must never allow individual S3''mpathies to draw off its atten- 
 tion to the public welfare. Its genius must be legislative, 
 rather than impulsive. Sudden misfortunes, a bad harvest, 
 a commercial crisis, a sickly winter, — these things would 
 sadly interfere with the calculations of philanthropy. If 
 the amount of self-sacrifice is so small, when we have 
 the example of our Lord, and the doctrine that alms redeem 
 souls, and the actual obligation under pain of sin to set aside 
 a portion of our incomes for the poor, what would it be if 
 all these motives were withdrawn ? 
 
 Let us consider bodily pain, and the agency of phil- 
 anthropy in alleviating it. An immense amount of the 
 world's misery consists in bodily pain. There are few 
 things more hard to bear. It is one of our unrealities that 
 we write and speak lightly of it. "VVe think it grand to do 
 so. We tliink to show our manliness. But the truth is, 
 there are few men who could not bear a breaking heart 
 better than an aching limb. There are many points of view 
 from which bodily pain is less easy to boar than mental 
 anguish. It is less intelligible. It appeals less to our 
 reason. If the consolations of moral wisdom are of no 
 great cogency to hearts in sorrow, they are of none at all to 
 those whose nerves are racked with pain. Mental suffering 
 has its peculiar extremities. To the few probably they 
 exceed the extremities of bodily agony ; but in the majority 
 of cases they are less intolerable ; and in all cases most 
 intolerable when they have succeeded in deranging the 
 bodily health, and so added that suffering to their own. 
 Moreover, the excesses of mental anguish, while they visit 
 chiefly the rarer and more sensitive minds, are always of 
 brief duration : whereas it is fearful to tliink of the heights 
 to which bodily torture can rise, and of the time extreme 
 torment can last, Avithout producing either insensibility or 
 death. But what can philanthropy do for bodily pain ?
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 55 
 
 Every one, whose lot it is to lead a life of pain, knows too 
 well how little medical science avails to alleviate this par- 
 ticular kind of human suffering. It may do much in the 
 way of prevention. Who knows ? For the pain we might 
 have had, but have not had, is an unknown region. Let 
 us give medical science the benefit of our ignorance. But, 
 as to the pains which we have actually sufTered, how often 
 have they refused to abate one tittle of their severity at the 
 bidding of science ! When they have done so, how slowly 
 have they yielded to the power of remedies, and how often 
 have the remedies themselves brought new pains along with 
 them. The pains, which the human frame has to bear from 
 various ailments, are terrible in their number, their variety, 
 and the horror which attaches to many of them : over this 
 empire, which original sin has created, how feeble and how 
 limited is the jurisdiction of medical science ! Yet what 
 could philanthropy do for bodily pain, except surround it 
 with medical appliances and with physical comforts 1 Let 
 us not underrate the consolation of the large-minded wisdom, 
 the benevolent common-sense, and the peculiar priestly 
 kindness of an intelligent physician. It is very great. 
 Neither let us pretend to make light of the alleviations of 
 an airy room, of a soft bed, of well-prepared food, of a low 
 voice and a noiseless step, and of those attentions which are 
 beforehand with our irritability by divining our wants at 
 the right moment. Nevertheless, when the daily pressure 
 of bodily pain goes on for weeks and months, when all life, 
 which is not illness, is but a vacillating convalescence, what 
 adequate or abiding consolation can we find, except in 
 supernatural things, in the motives of the faith, in union with 
 Jesus, in that secret experimental knowledge of God which 
 makes us at times find chastisement so sweet 1 
 
 It is the characteristic of mental sufToring to be for the 
 most part beyond the reach of philanthropy. Every heart
 
 56 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 knows its own bitterness. Tliat part of a mental sorrow, 
 which can be expressed, is generally the part which rankles 
 least. The suffering of it depends mainly on feelings which 
 belong to individual character, feelings which can hardly be 
 stated, and which, if stated, could not be appreciated, even 
 if they Avere not altogether misunderstood, AVho has not 
 often wondered at the almost invariable irritation produced 
 in unhappy persons by set and formal soothing 1 There is a 
 pity in tlie tone of voice which wounds rather than heals. 
 The very composure of features aggravates us by making 
 us feel more vividly the reality of our grief. "\Ve have long 
 since exhausted for ourselves all the available topics of con- 
 solation. iS'ot in gradual procession, but all at once like a 
 lightning's flash, all the motives and wisdoms, which occupy 
 my imsuffering friend an hour to enumerate, were laid hold 
 of, fathomed, and dismissed, by my heart, which sufTering 
 had awakened to a speed and power of sensitiveness quite 
 incredible. Job is not the only person who has been more 
 provoked by his comforters than by his miseries. Even the 
 daily Avear and tear of our hearts in common life cannot be 
 reached by outward consolation, unless that consolation 
 comes from above, and is divine. Philanthropy, with the 
 best intentions, can never get inside the heart. There are 
 sufferings there too deep for anything but religion either to 
 reach or to appreciate ; and such sufferings are neither ex- 
 ceptional or uncommon. There are few men who have not 
 more than one of them. If we take away the great sorrow 
 upon Calvary, how dark and how unbcaral^le a mystery does 
 all sorrow become ! Kindness is sweet, even to the sorrow- 
 ing, because of its intentions : it is not valuable because of 
 its efficacy, except when it is the graceful minister of the 
 Precious Blood. 
 
 I reckon failure to bo the most universal unhappiness 6n 
 earth. Almost everybody and everything are failures,
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 57 
 
 failures in tlieir own estimation, even if tlioy are not so in 
 the estimation of others. Those optimists, wlio always think 
 themselves successful, are few in number, and they for the 
 most part fail in this at least, namely, that they cannot per- 
 suade the rest of the world of their success ; and this is in 
 itself the most provoking of failures. Philanthropy can 
 plainly do nothing here, even if it were inclined to try. But 
 philanthropy is a branch of moral philosophy, and would 
 turn away in disdain from an unhappiness, which it could 
 prove to be unreasonable, even while it acknowledged it to 
 be universal. It is simply true that few men are successful ; 
 and of those few it is rare to find any who are satisfied with 
 their own success. The multitude of men live with a 
 vexatious sense that the promise of their lives remains un- 
 fulfilled. Either outward circumstances have been against 
 them, or they have been misappreciated, or they have got 
 out of their grooves unknowingly, or they have been the 
 victims of injustice. What must all life be but a feverish 
 disappointment, if there be no eternity in view 1 The 
 religious man is the only successful man. Nothing fails 
 with him. Every shaft reaches the mark, if the mark be 
 God. He has wasted no energies. Every hope has been 
 fulfilled beyond his expectations. Every effort has been even 
 disproportionately rewarded. Every means has turned out 
 marvellously to be an end, because it had God in it, who is 
 our single end. In piety, every battle is a victory, simply 
 because it is a battle. The completest defeats have some- 
 what of triumph in them ; for it is a positive triumph to 
 have stood up and fought for God at all. In short, no life is 
 a failure which is lived for God ; and all lives are failures 
 which are lived for any other end. If it is part of any man's 
 disposition to be peculiarly and morbidly sensitive to failure, 
 lie must regard it as an additional motive to be religious. 
 Piety is the only invariable, satisfactory, genuine success.
 
 58 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 If philanthropy turns out to be so unhelpful a thing in 
 the difficulties of life, will it be more helpful at the bed of 
 death 1 Death is the failure of nature. There is no help, 
 then, except in the supernatural. Philanthropy cannot help 
 us to die ourselves ; nor can it take away our sorrow for the 
 deaths of others. "Without religion death is a problem and 
 a terror. It is only by the light of faith, that we see it to 
 be a punishment commuted by divine love into a crown and 
 a reward. The sense of guilt, the uneasiness in darkness, 
 the shrinking from the unknown, the shapeless shadows of 
 an unexplored world, the new panic of the soul, the sensible 
 momentary falling off into an abyss, the inevitable helpless- 
 ness, the frightening transition from a state of change to one 
 of endless fixedness — how is philanthropy to meet such 
 difficulties as these ? Trulj', in the atmosphere of death all 
 lights go out except the lamp of faith. 
 
 But we have spoken of the actual miseries of life, and the 
 condition we should be in, if we took the consolations of 
 philanthropy instead of those of the Precious Blood. This, 
 however, is in reality not a fair view of the case. Great as 
 the actual miseries of life are, the Precious Blood is continu- 
 ally making them very much less than they otherwise would 
 be. It diminishes poverty by multiplying alms. It lessens 
 the evil of pain, and to some extent even its amount, by the 
 grace of patience and the appliances of tlie supernatural 
 life ; not to speak of miraculous operations, occurring per- 
 haps hourly upon the earth, through the touch of relics, 
 crosses, and other sacred objects. The amount of temporal 
 evil which would otherwise have come upon the earth, but 
 is daily absorbed by the Sacrament of penance and by the 
 virtue of penance, must be enormous. In the case of mental 
 suffering, besides the many indirect alleviations brought to 
 it Ijy the Precious Blood, we must remember the vast world 
 of horrors arising from unabsolved consciences, horrors which
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 59 
 
 the Sacraments are annihilating daily. Failure is indeed 
 the rule of human enterprise, and success is the exception. 
 Yet there are numberless counterbalancing blessings Avon by 
 the interest of the Mother of God, by the intercession of the 
 saints, by the intervention of angels, by the Sacrifice of the 
 Mass, and by the sacramental residence of Jesus upon earth, 
 which would not exist but for the Precious Blood. Finally, 
 as to death, whatever light is cast upon it is from the Blood 
 of Jesus. Were it not for Jesus the dark hour would be 
 darkened with an Egyptian darkness. It has something of 
 the glory of a sunset round it now, and the glory is the 
 refulgence of the Saviour's Blood. 
 
 But, in this world, manner is often a more substantial 
 thing than matter. We often care less for the thing done 
 than for the manner in which it is done, less for the gift 
 than for the way in which the gift is given. Now let us 
 picture to ourselves au imaginary philanthropic city. Its 
 palaces shall be hospitals, hospitals for every form of disease 
 which is known to medical science. Its business shall not 
 be politics, but the administration of benevolent societies. 
 Its rich population shall divide and subdivide itself into 
 endless committees, each of which shall make some human 
 misery its specialty. Its intellect shall be occupied in devis- 
 ing schemes of philanthropy, in inventing new methods and 
 fresh organisations, and in bringing to perfection the police, 
 the order, the comfort, the accommodation, the pliability of 
 existing beneficent institutions. The strangest successes 
 shall be attained with the blind, the deaf and dumb, and 
 the insane. IMoreover, in this city, which the world has 
 never seen, the philanthropy shall be the most genial and 
 good-humoured of all the philanthropies which the world has 
 had the good fortune to see. Yet who that has ever seen the 
 most estimable, easy-going, and conscientious board of Poor 
 Law Guardians can doubt, but that, on the whole, consider-
 
 6o NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 able dryness, stiffness, -woodenness, theoretical pugnacity, 
 benevolent pertinaciousness, vexatious generalisations, and 
 irritable surprise at the unmanageable prejudiced poor, would 
 characterise this philanthropic city? Misery cannot be 
 relieved on rules of distributive justice. Masses will 
 not organise themselves under theories. Hearts will not 
 attain happiness through clear convictions that they ought 
 to be happy. Individual misery has an inveterate habit of 
 dictating its own consolations. The most openhearted bene- 
 factors would be met by suspicion. A needy man can out- 
 wit most committees. Machinery for men gets soon choked 
 up by multitudes, and for the most part blows up and 
 maims its excellent inventors. There are few who can handle 
 a large army ; yet that is easy work compared to the question 
 of the management of the poor. Moreover, when the best 
 men have done their best, there always remains that instinct 
 in the poor, which makes them see only enemies in the rich ; 
 and that instinct is too strong for the collective wisdom of 
 all the philanthropists in the world. 
 
 I am far from saying that Christian charity is j)erfect, or 
 that the duties of Catholic mercy, whether monastic or 
 secular, leave nothing to be desired. Everywhere the scanti- 
 ness of tlie alms of the rich is the standing grievance of the 
 priest. Everywhere the breadth and activity of human 
 misery are baffling and outrunning the speed and generosity 
 of charity. Nevertheless, I verily believe that one convent 
 of Sisters of Charity, or one house of St. CamiUus, would do 
 more actual, more successful work, in a huge European capi- 
 tal, tlian would be done in tlio whole of such a })hilanthropic 
 city as we have been imagining. Out of tlie love of Jesus 
 comes the love of souls ; and it is just the love of souls which 
 effects that most marvellous of all Christian transformations, 
 the change of philanthropy into charity. Jesus with the 
 Samaritan woman at the side of Jacob's well, or with the
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 6i 
 
 Magdalen in the pliarisee's house, inspires a spirit totally 
 different from that which animates tlie most benevolent 
 philosopher. It is a spirit of supernatural love, a spirit of 
 imitation of Jesus, a spirit of gentle eagerness and affec- 
 tionate sacrifice, which gives to the exercise of charity a 
 winning sweetness and a nameless charm which are entirely 
 its own. The love of individual souls is purely a Christian 
 thing. No language can describe it to those who do not 
 feel it. If men see it, and do not sympathise with it, they 
 so mistake it that they call it proselytism. Tliey attribute 
 to the basest motives that which comes precisely from the 
 very highest. Indeed from a political or philosophical point 
 of view those things, which are the most Christlike in 
 charity, are the very things which men condemn as mis- 
 chievous, if not immoral. In their view harm is done by 
 treating men as individuals, not as masses. Alms are 
 squandered. Unworthy objects get them. The misery 
 which punishes vice is the object of love, as well as that 
 which comes of innocent misfortune. Charity cares too little 
 about being deceived : it is too impulsive, too irregular, too 
 enthusiastic ; above all, it does not make the tranquillity 
 and well-being of the state its sole or primary object. Evi- 
 dently, then, the manners and gestures of ciiarity in action 
 are wholly different from those of philanthropy in action. 
 The one succeeds with men, and the other does not ; and 
 the success of charity is owing to the spirit which it imbibes 
 from the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Here are many words to prove a simple thing ; and a 
 thing which needed no proving. But it brings home to us 
 more forcibly and more in detail the necessity of the Pre- 
 cious Blood. But, after all, the grand necessity of it is the 
 necessity of having our sins forgiven, the necessity of loving 
 above all created things our most dear God and Father. 
 Let us think for a moment. The depth of summer silence
 
 62 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 is all around. Those tall chestnuts stand uji, muffled doAvn 
 to the feet with their heavy mantles of dark foliage, of 
 which not a leaf is stirring. There is no sound of water, no 
 song of bird, no rustling of any creature in the grass. Those 
 banks of white cloud have no perceptible movement. The 
 silence has only been broken for a moment, when the clock 
 struck from the hidden church in the elm-girdled field, and 
 the sound was so softened and stifled with leaves that it 
 seemed almost like some cry natural to the woodland. We 
 do not close our eyes. Yet the quiet of the scene has carried 
 us beyond itself. What are time and earth, beauty and 
 peace, to us 1 What is anything to us, if our sins be not 
 forgiven ? Is not that our one want ? Does not all our 
 happiness come of that one want being satisfied 1 The 
 tliought of its being unsatisfied is not to be endured. Time, 
 so quiet and stationary as this summer noontide, makes us 
 think of eternity, and gives us a shadowy idea of it. Eut 
 the thought of eternity is not to be faced, if our sins be not 
 forgiven. But an eternal ruin — is that a possible thing? 
 Possible ! yes, inevitable, if our sins be not forgiven. The 
 loss of another's soul is a hideous thing to contemplate. It 
 l^roadens as we look at it, until our head gets confused, and 
 God is obscured. It is a possibility we turn away from : 
 what then can Ave do witli the fact? We think of the 
 sorrows and the joys of a soul, of tlio beautiful significance 
 of its life, of its manifold loveliness and generosity, and of 
 all the good that glittered like broken crystals amidst its 
 evil. IIow many persons loved it ! How many lives of 
 others it sweetened and brightened ! How attractive often 
 in its good-humoured carelessness about its duty ! God loved 
 it : it was the idea of Ilis love, an eternal idea. It camo 
 into the world with His love about it like a glory. It swam 
 in the light of Ilis love, as the world swims in radiance day 
 and night. It has gone into darkness. It is a ruin, a
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 63 
 
 wreck, a failure, an eternal misery. Sin ! "What is sin 
 that it should do all this ? Why was there any sin ? "Why 
 is sin sin at all? We turn to the majesty of God to learn. 
 Instinctively we lift up our eyes to that noonday sun, and 
 it only blinds us. Sin is sin, because God is God. There 
 is no getting any further in that direction. That soul, some 
 soul, is lost. Wliat we think cannot be put into words. 
 But our own soul ! That soul which is our self 1 Can we 
 by any amount of violence think of U as lost 1 No ! our 
 own perdition is absolutely unthinkable. Hope disables us 
 from thinking it. But we know that it is possible. We 
 sometimes feel the possible verging into the probable. We 
 know how it can be lost, and perceive actual dangers. We 
 know how alone it can avoid being lost ; and in that direc- 
 tion matters do not look satisfactory. But it must not be 
 lost : it shall not be lost : it cannot be lost. The thought 
 of such a thing is madness. See then the tremendous 
 necessity of the Precious Blood. Those heartless chestnut 
 trees ! how they stand stooping over the uncut meadows, 
 brooding in the sunshine, as if there were no problems in 
 the world, no uneasiness in hearts ! They make us angrj-. 
 It is their very stillness which has driven us on these 
 thoughts. It is their very beauty which makes the idea of 
 eternal wretchedness somewhat more intolerable. Yet let 
 us be just to them : they have also driven somewhat further 
 into our souls the understanding of that unutterable necessity 
 of the Precious Blood ! 
 
 IIow precious is every drop of that dear Blood ? How 
 far more wonderful, than all that the natural world contains, 
 is each one of those miracles which it is working by thou- 
 sands every day ! How would creation be enriched by one 
 drop of it, seeing that infinite creations could not attain to 
 the value of it ; and how wouhl the history of creation be 
 glorified by one manifestation of its omnipotent mercy !
 
 64 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 What are we to think then of its prodigality ? Yet this 
 prodigality is not a mere magnificence of divine love. It is 
 not simply a divine romance. It would indeed be adorable, 
 if it were only so. But to my mind it is even yet more 
 divine that this prodigality should itself be an absolute 
 necessity, and, therefore, in the majestic calmness and 
 equability of the divine counsels, no prodigality at all. 
 
 We have thought of the world without the Precious 
 Blood ; let us think of it now with only partial or inter- 
 mitting access to its saving fountains. 
 
 Man fell, and God's justice was blameless in his fall, 
 God's mercy strove to hinder man from falling. And yet 
 he fell. God did everything for man, short of destroying 
 liis liberty. The very act of creation was a magnificence of 
 mercy. But the creation of man, not in a state of nature, 
 but in a state of grace, w-as a glorious love which could 
 proceed only ivtmi a grandeur as inexhaustible as that of 
 God. INlan fell, and God was justified. Adam's descendants 
 might have found themselves hanging over the dread abyss 
 of eternal woe. They might have felt in themselves a 
 violent propension to evil which only just stopped short of 
 an actual necessity. The prospect before tliem would have 
 been terrible, and yet they would not have one intelligent 
 word to say against it. If their minds were not darkened, 
 they would have seen that not the justice only, but even 
 the love, of God stood unblemished in the matter. Never- 
 theless, how unbearable the prospect ! Earth would be 
 almost worse than hell, because it would be hell without tlie 
 miserable peace of its irrevocable certainty. It would be 
 worse, in the same way that a hopeless struggle is worse 
 tlian the death wliich follows. Truly there might still be 
 liope, but then it would be such a hopeless hope ! Now let 
 us suppose that God in the immensity of His compassion 
 should tell men, in this extremity of wretchedness, that He
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 6 
 
 3 
 
 would assume their nature, die for them upon a cross, and 
 purchase for them by His Precious Blood the inestimable 
 grace of baptism. They should have another trial given to 
 them. They who had blamed Adam should have a chance 
 of their own. They should be regenerated, spiritually born 
 again by the most stupendous of miracles. They should be 
 justified, and sanctified in their justification. The guilt of 
 original sin should be altogether remitted to them. Not a 
 shadow of it should remain. Even their liability to temporal 
 punishment for that sin in purgatory should be remitted. 
 God's justice should be satisfied in full. But the grace of 
 baptism is far more than this. It restores us to a super- 
 natural standing. It makes us God's adopted children. It 
 does not only rescue us from hell, and leave us to spend an 
 eternity of mere natural blessedness by the streams and 
 among the fruit trees of some terrestrial paradise. It en- 
 titles us to possess and enjoy God for ever. Moreover this 
 Sacrament stores our souls with most mysterious graces. It 
 infuses celestial habits into us, and endows us with those 
 unfathomable wonders, the gifts of the Holy Ghost. No 
 miracle can be more complete, or more instantaneous, or 
 more gratuitous, than the grace of baptism. 
 
 This, then, should be the work of the Blood of God : and 
 no more than this. Yet would it not seem to men to be an 
 outpouring of the most superabounding love ? Would it 
 not open to the wisest of men new depths in the character 
 of God, and be a new revelation of unsuspected goodness in 
 Him 1 The most ardent and expansive of the angelic intelli- 
 gences might have contemplated God for ages and ages, and 
 yet their unassisted science would never have dreamed of 
 such a mystery as the Incarnation, of such a redemption as 
 the price of the Precious Blood. Yet does it not make us 
 tremble to think of no more grace after baptism 1 ^Munificent 
 IS is that justifying grace, an invention only possible to a 
 
 E
 
 66 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 goodness whicli is simply infinite, what, with our experience 
 of ourselves and our knowledge of others, would be our 
 dismay if that one glorious access to the Precious Blood 
 were the only one allowed to us 1 Surely a more frequent 
 access to it, while it is on God's side a marvellous extension 
 of a gratuitous indulgence, is on our side nothing less than 
 an impei'ious necessity. 
 
 Blessed be the inexhaustible compassions of the Most 
 Hifrh, we have incessant access to the Precious Blood. Our 
 seeking of our own interest is made to be the glory of God. 
 Our eager supply of our own needs is counted as an act of 
 sweetest love to Him, the more sweet the more eager it shall 
 be. Yet it is difficult to bring this gracious truth home to 
 ourselves, unless we put imaginary cases of a more restricted 
 use of the Precious Blood. It would be a great thing to be 
 forgiven once more after baptism ; whereas we are being 
 endlessly forgiven ; and with as much facility the thousandth 
 time as we were the first. No greater amount of attrition is 
 needed to make our thousandth absolution valid than was 
 required for our first. It would be a huge mercy if almost 
 all sins were capable of absolution, but some few were 
 reserved as unpardonable after baptism. Even this would 
 seem to the angels a wonderful stretch of the divine forbear- 
 ance. What then must it be to have no sins, and no 
 reiteration of sins, exempted from the jurisdiction of that 
 dear ransom of our souls? At first sight it looks as if such 
 an inveterate compassion lowered the character of God, and 
 impaired the lustre of His exceeding sanctity. In this 
 matter, as in others, God must be loved in order to bo 
 understood. It is the heart which must illuminate the head. 
 Accustomed as we are to the free participation of the Blood 
 of Jesus, how terrible seems the idea of men going about 
 the world, visible portions of hell, because they have com- 
 mitted some sin exempted from absolution ! To have met
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 67 
 
 Cain upon his passionate wanderings over the unpeopled 
 earth would have been less terrible ; since we are not 
 forbidden to have hope for him. But here, again, this in- 
 cessant pardoning, this repetition of absolution, this endless 
 sprinkling of our souls with the Precious Blood, — is it not a 
 necessity to our happiness, a necessity to our salvation 1 
 Astonishing as is the prodigality of the Blood of Jesus, 
 could any conceivable restriction have been endured 1 It 
 would have been something more than a diminution of our 
 privileges : it would have been a bar to our salvation. 
 
 But let us suppose no sins were exempted from the 
 pardon of the Precious Blood ; but only that that price of 
 our redemption was hard to get. God might have willed 
 that it should only be obtained in Jerusalem, and that dis- 
 tant nations must seek it by long and painful pilgrimage. 
 Of a truth it would be glad tidings to a sinner, that at the 
 eastern end of the Mediterranean there was a mysterious 
 guarded well which contained some of our Saviour's Blood ; 
 the touch of which forgave sin to those who possessed certain 
 inward dispositions, but only forgave it on the spot, in 
 Jerusalem itself. Most willingly would the children of the 
 faith undergo the toilsome pilgrimage, rather than endure 
 the miserable weight of sin. Yet what would happen to 
 the sick, who were too weak to go ; or to the aged, who had 
 delayed too long ; or to the dying, who have nothing before 
 them but despair 1 1 low would it fare with the sorely 
 tempted poor, if absolution cost so dear 1 Shall the rich, or 
 the young, or the robust only be forgiven ? What misery 
 and disturbance also would there be in the social relations 
 of life, while multitudes were evermore impulsively pouring 
 themselves out of their homes in caravans of pilgrimage ! Or 
 what an intolerable inhumanity would prisons be, if the law 
 of man could secure the eternal as well as the temporal ruin 
 of its olienders 1 Still even this single well at Jerusalem
 
 68 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 would be a mercy of God so great, that it would be incre- 
 dible, unimaginable, unless it were revealed. Or, again, we 
 might have to gain access to the Blood of our Redeemer by 
 going through considerable bodily pain, or passing some 
 severe ordeals. No one could complain of this. It would 
 be a mercy beyond the uttermost mercies of human law. 
 Oh does it not make us weep to think then of our own care- 
 lessness, and backwardness, and dilatory, lukewarm indiffer- 
 ence to that most dear Blood which we can have always and 
 everywhere ? "We have come to slight God's mercies because 
 His amazing croodness has made them to be so common. 
 We have not even to seek the Blood of Jesus. It comes to 
 us : it pleads with us : it entreats us to accept it : it com- 
 plains ; it waits ; it knocks ; it cries out to us : it all but 
 forces itself upon our acceptance. 
 
 But all this mysterious condescension of God is not the 
 needless outburst of an excessive love. Alas for our shame 
 that we should have to say it ! it is a downright necessity 
 for our salvation. Look at the innumerable confessionals of 
 the Church, at the hundreds of daily deathbeds, at the 
 countless retreats of suffering poverty. Is the seeking for 
 the Precious Blood what it ought to bel N"<iy, do men's 
 liearts soften at its tender, eloquent pleading? Have not 
 sinners to be constrained to come to Jesus ; and even of 
 those who are constrained to come to Him, how many are there 
 who will not let Him save them ? One saint speaks of souls 
 flocking daily to perdition like the flakes of a snowstorm, 
 blinding from their multitude. Another tells us of visions, 
 in which she saw souls trooping constantly into the gates of 
 hell, like the rabble of autumnal leaves swept into thick 
 eddies by the wind. Yet not a soul gets there before whom 
 the Precious Blood has not stood again and again, like the 
 angel before Balaam's ass, and tried to drive it back. If 
 then, when all access is so easy, and when persuasion mounts
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 69 
 
 almost to compulsion, souls are so backward in having re- 
 course to the Precious Blood, what would be the case if any 
 of these imaginary difficulties of ours were allowed to come 
 in the way 1 Alas ! so it is, that it is necessary to salvation 
 that our salvation should be easy. 
 
 Let us tease ourselves Avith one more imaginary case, and 
 then we will have done. To many persons the great burden 
 of life is the secret of predestination ; and most men have 
 at times felt the uncertainty of salvation as a weight upon 
 their spirits. To a good man whatever increases this un- 
 certainty is a grave misfortune. Without a private revela- 
 tion, no one can at any time say absolutely that he is in a 
 state of grace, not even although he may just have received 
 absolution in the best dispositions in his power. Neverthe- 
 less he feels a moral certainty about it, which for all practical 
 purposes is as good ;is an assurance. We are not then 
 always absolutely certain that the Precious Blood has been 
 applied to our souls in absolution. But whence is it that 
 we derive that moral certainty which is our consolation and 
 our rest ? From the fact that, when properly received, the 
 operation of the Precious Blood is infallible. What an un- 
 happiness it would be, if this were not so ! The power of 
 the Blood of Jesus is never doubtful, its work never incom- 
 plete. Moreover God has gathered up its virtue in a very 
 special way into certain Sacraments. He has made its 
 application almost visible. He has tied its miracles as it 
 were to time, and place, and matter, and form, so as to 
 bring us as near to a certainty of our being in a state of 
 grace as is compatible with His laws and our own best 
 interests. If we could be no more sure that we had validly 
 received absolution in confession than we can be sure we 
 have ever made an act of perfect contrition, we should be in 
 a sad plight, and go through our spiritual exercises and our 
 inward trials in a very downcast and melancholy way. Our
 
 70 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 state would be, at least in that one respect, something like 
 the state of those outside the Churcli, who are not living 
 members of Christ, nor partakers in His saving jurisdiction 
 in the Sacrament of penance. If the Precious Blood had 
 been shed, and yet we had no priesthood, no Sacraments, 
 no jurisdiction, no sacramentals, no mystical life of the 
 visible unity of the Church, — life, so it seems, would be 
 almost intolerable. This is the condition of those outside 
 the Churcli ; and certainly as we grow older, as our experi- 
 ence widens, as our knowledge of ourselves deepens, as our 
 acquaintance Avith mankind increases, the less hopeful do 
 our ideas become regarding the salvation of those outside 
 the Eoman Cliurch. We make the most Ave can of the 
 uncovenanted mercies of God, of the invisible soul of the 
 Church, of the doctrine of invincible ignorance, of the easi- 
 ness of making acts of contrition, and of the visible moral 
 goodness among men ; and yet what are these but straws in 
 our own estimation, if our own chances of salvation had to 
 lean their weight upon them 1 They wear out, or they 
 break down. They are fearfully counterweighted by other 
 considerations. AVe have to draw on our imaginations in 
 order to fill up the picture. They are but theories at best, 
 theories unhelpful except to console those who are forward 
 to be deceived for the sake of tliose they love, theories often 
 very fatal by keeping our charity in check, and interfering 
 with that restlessness of converting love in season and out 
 of season, and that impetuous agony of prayer, upon which 
 (jod may have made tlie salvation of our friends depend. 
 Alas! the more familiar Ave. ourselves become with the 
 operations of grace, the further Ave advance into the spiritual 
 life, the more Ave meditate on the character of God, and taste 
 in contemplation the savour of Ilis holiness, the more to our 
 eyes does grace magnify itself inside the Church, and the 
 niore dense and forlorn becomes the darkness whicli is spread
 
 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 71 
 
 over those outside. Yet, not indeed to this state, God for- 
 bid ! but to a painful partial resemblance of it should we 
 be brought, if God's tender considerate love had not as it 
 were localised the Precious Blood in His stupendous Sacra- 
 ments. Truly the Sacraments are an invention of love, yet 
 are they not also as truly a necessity of our salvation, not 
 only as applying the Precious Blood to our souls, but as 
 enabling faith to ascertain its application ? Would not the 
 divine assurance of our salvation be a very heaven begun 
 on earth 1 Yet the Sacraments are the nearest approach 
 to such a sweet assurance as the love of our Heavenly 
 Father saw to be expedient for the multitude of His 
 children. 
 
 The Precious Blood, then, is the greatest, the most un- 
 deniable of our necessities. There is no true life without it. 
 Yet, and it very much concerns us to bring this home to 
 ourselves, all creation could not merit it. Necessary as it 
 is, it is in no way due to us. It is not a right. God's love 
 towards us had been a romance already. It was wonderful 
 what He had done to us. It is almost incredible even now 
 when we think of it. "We know the unspeakable tenderness 
 of our Creator, how placable He is, how soft of heart, how 
 prone to forgive, how easy to be persuaded. We know that 
 the needs of His creatures plead with Him more eloquently 
 than we can tell. Yet no necessities could have claimed 
 the Precious Blood, no merits could have won it, no prayers 
 could have obtained it. In truth no created intelligence of 
 angels or of man could have imagined it. 
 
 Were heaven to be filled with saints in endless millions, 
 as holy as St. Joseph, the Baptist, or the Apostles, and were 
 their holiness allow^ed to merit, not in millions of ages could 
 their united merits have earned one drop of the Precious 
 Blood. If all those starry spirits in the godlike realm of 
 angels had consented to sink their grandeurs in the penalties
 
 72 NECESSITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 of hell for thousands of revolving epochs, or even had they 
 consented to be annihilated in sacrifice to the justice of God, 
 never could they have merited the Precious Blood. If all 
 the merits, graces, gifts, and powers of our dearest Mother 
 had been possible without the Precious Blood, they might 
 have ascended as sweet incense before God for ever, and yet 
 in no possible duration of time could they have merited the 
 Precious Blood. Not all these together, saints, angels, and 
 Mary, with all their glorious holiness, growing yet more 
 glorious in endless ages, could have bought one drop of Pre- 
 cious Blood, or merited that mystery of the Incarnation, 
 whose wonderful redeeming power resides in the Precious 
 Blood. Oh how this thought overwhelms my heart with joy, 
 — to have to rest upon the free sovereignty of God instead 
 of my own wretched littleness, to be always thus thrown 
 upon the gratuitous magnificence of God, to be for ever and 
 for ever owing all, and such an all, to Jesus ! Merciful 
 God ! this is the joy of earth which is nearest to a joy of 
 heaven !
 
 ( 73 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 The life of God is very vast. It is a thing to be thought 
 rather than to be spoken of, nay, to be seen in the mind 
 rather than to be thought. It is very vast. It seems to 
 grow vaster every day. We kneel down before it in our 
 prayers, as a man might kneel to pray on a great seashore. 
 God lies before us as an ocean of infinite life. "We kneel 
 upon the shore. But behind us rolls the same great ocean. 
 Suddenly it is at our right hand and on our left. We look 
 upwards, but the sky is gone. An ocean rolls Avhere there 
 was sky, when we first knelt down to pray. The boundless 
 waters stretch above us like a living canopy. The shore on 
 which we kneel gives way. It is no shore. We are kneel- 
 ing on the waters. The same eternal ocean rolls beneath us. 
 We are hemmed in on every side by this ever-blessed ocean 
 of infinite being. How full it is of burning life, how master- 
 ful, how soundless, how unchangeable ! 
 
 The life of God is very vast. I feel it overawing me more 
 and more, as I go on thinking of it. God is very simple. 
 He is simply God. He is to be adored in His simplicity. 
 His perfections are Himself, and He is simply all His per- 
 fections. His perfections are not manifold. Tliey are but 
 one. He is Himself His only perfection. His attributes are 
 our ways ot looking at Him, of speaking of Him, of wor- 
 shipping Him. His perfections are not separate from each
 
 74 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 other, nor from Himself. We cannot comprehend so simple 
 a simplicity. We have not purity of understanding sufficient 
 to apprehend so infinitely pure an idea. It is on this 
 account that we take the idea of God to pieces in our own 
 minds, and contemplate and love and worship Him from a 
 thousand points of view. We have no other way of dealing 
 with the incomprehensible. Speaking then of the divine 
 perfections in this sense, it appears to me that none of His 
 attributes call forth so much worship in my heart as His 
 life. His life amazes me ; and yet it melts me with love. 
 He seems to me least like an infinitely perfect creature, 
 when I contemplate Him as life : and when He is least like 
 an infinitely perfect creature, He is most like the indescrib- 
 able God. That view of Him is less distinct than many 
 others : but it apj)ears to my mind more true on that very 
 account. 
 
 The life of God is very vast. This is the thought which 
 comes to me when I put before myself the empire of the 
 Precious Blood. The life of God is blessedness in His own 
 Self. It is the joy of His unity, the fact of His simplicity. 
 Once He was without creatures ; and the calm jubilee of 
 His immutable life went on. There could be no impulses 
 in that which had had no beginning. His life started from 
 no point, and reached to no point ; therefore it could have 
 no momentum : that is a created idea. He was imperturb- 
 able bliss. What can be more self-collected than immensity? 
 His infinite tenderness comes from His being imperturbable, 
 though at first sight there seems to be contradiction between 
 the two. When He was without creatures, they were not a 
 want to Him. His unbeginning life was unspeakably cen- 
 tered in Himself, and so went on. He became, what He 
 had not been before, a Creator. ])Ut no change passed upon 
 Him. All His acts had been in Himself before: now Ho 
 acted outside Himself. But no change passed upon Him.
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 75 
 
 Hitherto all His acts, which were the Generation of the Son 
 and the Procession of the Holy Ghost, had been necessary : 
 now His creative acts were free. Still no change passed 
 npon Him. Still the calm jubilee of the nnbeginning life 
 went on. As it was before creation, so it was after it, a 
 jubilant life of unutterable simplicity. These are things we 
 can only learn by loving. "Without love they are merely 
 hard words. God worked, and then God rested. Yet crea- 
 tion had been no interruption of His everlasting rest. 
 Nevertheless that Sabbath of God, of which Scripture tells 
 us, is a wonderful mystery, and one full of repose to toiling, 
 seeking, straining creatures. What was that seventh day's 
 rest] To the untoiling Creator preservation is as much an 
 effort as Creation, and quite as great a mystery. But even 
 creation, the evoking of being out of nothing, was not sus- 
 pended. Human souls are for ever being created, created out 
 of nothing. Perhaps new species of animals may be so also. 
 AVhat then was His rest 1 Perhaps it is only another name 
 for that expansive love, which as it were arrested itself to 
 bless its beautiful creation out of its extreme contentment and 
 ineffable complacency. 
 
 Still the vast life of God goes on. He was free to create ; 
 and He made His creation free. Perhaps those two things 
 have much to do with each other. He made Himself an 
 empire outside Himself, and crowned Himself over it, the 
 kingliest of kings. God is very royal. Eoyalty is the seal 
 which is set on all His perfections, and by which we see 
 how they are one. He enfranchised His empire, and then 
 began to reign. Still there was no change. His free people 
 dethroned Him. Oftentimes now in the depth of prayer 
 the love of His saints beholds Him sitting in dust and ashes 
 an uncrowned king, as it were piteously. But all this is 
 embraced within His vast life without a shadow of change. 
 It was part of the eternal idea of creation, that one of the
 
 76 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Divine Persons should assume a created nature. The 
 Second Person did so. He has carried it to heaven, and 
 placed it in the Bosom of the Holy Trinity for endless 
 worship. This has displaced nothing. The vast life goes 
 on. Ko pulse beats in it. No succession belongs to it. 
 No novelty happens to it. The Precious Blood of the Son's 
 Human Nature would have been a pure beauty, a pure 
 treasure of God, an unimaginable created life, if there had 
 been no sin. But there was sin, and the destiny of the 
 Precious Blood was changed. But there was no change in 
 the divine life. The Precious Blood became the ransom for 
 sin. The Precious Blood had to conquer back to God His 
 revolted empire. It had to crown Him again, and to be 
 His imperial vicegerent. What stupendous mutabilities are 
 these ! Yet there is no change in the vast life of God. Its 
 very vastness makes it incapable of change. It has no 
 experiences. It goes through nothing. It cannot begin, or 
 end, or suffer. It works M-hile it rests ; and it rests while it 
 works ; and it neither works nor rests, but simply lives, 
 simply is. adorable life of God ! blessed a thousand 
 thousand times be Thou in the darkness of Thy glory, in the 
 incomprehensible sweetness of Thy mystery ! 
 
 To us the Precious Blood is inseparable from the life of 
 God. It is the Blood of tlie Creator, the agent of redemp- 
 tion, the power of sanctification. Moreover, to our eyes it is 
 a token of something which we should call a change in God, 
 if we did not know that there could not be change in Him. 
 It seems to give God a past, to recover for Him some- 
 thing which He had lost, to be a second thought, to remedy a 
 failure, to be a new ornament in the Divinity, a created joy 
 in the very centre of tlie uncreated jubilee. The empire of 
 the Precious Blood is due to its position in the history and 
 economy of creation, or, in other words, to its relation to the 
 adorable life of God. It seems to explain the eternity
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 77 
 
 before creation, inasmuch as it reveals to us the eternal 
 thoughts of God, His compassionate designs, His primal 
 decrees, and His merciful persistence in carrying out His 
 designs of love. It makes visible much that in its own 
 nature was invisible. It casts a light backward, even upon 
 the uttermost recesses of that old eternity. Just as some 
 actions disclose more of a man's character than other actions, 
 so the Precious Blood is in itself a most extensive and 
 peculiarly vivid revelation of the character of God. The 
 fact of His redeeming us, and, still more, the way in which 
 He has redeemed us, discloses to us His reason for creating 
 us : and when we get some view, however transient and in- 
 distinct, of His reason for creating us, we seem to look into 
 the life He leads as God. The light is so light that it is 
 darkness ; but the darkness is knowledge, and the know- 
 ledge love. 
 
 We are to speak of the empire of the Precious Blood. 
 But we must first see in what its royal rights are founded. 
 The Precious Blood ministers to all the perfections of God. 
 It is the one grand satisfaction of His justice. It is one of 
 the most excellent inventions of His wisdom. It is the 
 principal feeder of His glory. It is the repose of His purity. 
 It is the delight of His mercy. It is the participation of 
 His power. It is the display of His magnificence. It is 
 the covenant of His patience. It is the reparation of His 
 honour. It is the tranquillity of His anger. It is the 
 imitation of His fruitfulness. It is the adornment of His 
 sanctity. It is the expression of His love. But, above all, 
 it ministers to the dominion of God. It is a conqueror and 
 conquers for Him. It invades the kingdom of darkness, 
 and sweeps whole regions witli its glorious light. It humbles 
 the rebellious, and brings home the exiles, and reclaims tlie 
 aliens. It pacifies; it builds up; it gives laws; it restores 
 old things ; it inaugurates new things. It grants amnesties ;
 
 78 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 and dispenses pardons ; and it wonderfully administers the 
 kingdom it has wonderfully reconquered. It is the crown, 
 the sceptre, and the throne of God's invisible dominion. 
 
 I said its rights were founded in its relation to the life of 
 God ; and its relation has to do especially with that which 
 is kingly and paternal in the character of the Creator. The 
 dominion of God is part of His invisible beauty ; but the 
 Precious Blood is the scarlet mantle of His eternal royalty. 
 God became a king by becoming a Creator. It was thus 
 He gained an empire over which His insatiable love might 
 rule. We are obliged to speak of creation as if it Avere a 
 gain to Him who has all fulness in Himself. He created 
 because of His perfections, because He was God, because He 
 was the infinitely blessed God that He is. Temporal things 
 came into existence because there were eternal things. Time 
 is a growth of the ungrowing eternity. Nature is very 
 beautiful, whether we think of angelic or of human nature. 
 Created nature is a shadow of the Uncreated nature, so real 
 and so bright that we cannot think of it without exceeding 
 reverence. Yet God created neither angels nor men in a 
 state of nature. This is, to my mind, the most wonderful 
 and the most suggestive thing which we know about God. 
 He would have no reasonable nature, even from the very 
 first, which should not be partaker of His Divine Nature. 
 This is the very meaning of a state of grace. He as it were 
 clung to His creation while He let it go. He would not 
 leave it to breathe for one instant in a merely natural state. 
 The very act of creation was full of the fondness of maternal 
 jealousy. It was, to speak in a human way, as if He feared 
 that it would wander from Him, and that His attractions 
 would be too mighty for the littleness of finite beings. He 
 made it free ; yet He embraced it so tliat it should be 
 next to impossible it should leave Him. He gave it liberty, 
 yet almost overpowered its liberty with caresses the very
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 79 
 
 moment that He gave it. Oh that Majesty of God, wliich 
 seems clothed with such worshipful tranquillity in the 
 eternity before creation, how passionate, how yearning, how 
 motherlike, how full of inventions and excesses it appears in 
 the act of creation ! 
 
 God lost nothing by the fall of angels or of men. Yet, in 
 our way of thinking, how great must have been the loss to 
 a love Avhich had longed so passionately to keep His crea- 
 tion with Him ! It was gone now. That mysterious gift 
 of liberty had been too strong for that other mysterious 
 tenderness of creating us in a state of grace. There was 
 nothing of failure, or of disappointment, or of frustrate love 
 in all this. But how there was not we cannot telL We 
 know that the vast life of God went on the same in its 
 unshadowed, unimpeded gladness. Yet to our ignorance it 
 seems as if the Creator would have to begin all over again, 
 as if He would have to pause, to collect Himself, to hold a 
 council of His attributes, and either to retire into Himself or 
 begin afresh. None of these things are compatible with 
 His everlasting majesty. They are only our ways of ex- 
 pressing those divine things which are unspeakable. But 
 what is before us ? By an excess of tenderness, which only 
 grows more amazing the longer we think of it, God had 
 cloistered His creation in the supernatural state of grace. 
 The cloister was broken. Almost the first use of angelic 
 and human freedom had been sacrilege. What will God 
 do 1 Creative love has no mutabilities. Mercy itself shall 
 find out a way to satisfy justice, rather than that this dear 
 creation shall be lost. Time shall not be a grave in which 
 eternal ideas shall be buried. The lost shall be found : the 
 fallen shall be raised : the ruined shall be redeemed. The 
 original idea of creation shall be ro-instated, witliout the gift 
 of freedom being withdrawn. The everlasting scheme of 
 divine love shall be inaugurated again in all the plenituda
 
 8o THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 of divine power, with all the splendour of divine wisdom, 
 only illustrated now even more than before Avith the flames 
 of divine love. The act shall be the act of God, the act 
 equally of all the Three Divine Persons. Yet it shall be 
 appropriated to One of Them, to the Second Person. The 
 instrument shall be a created thing, not created only for the 
 purpose, for it would have been even if sin had not been : 
 but it shall be a created thing whose value shall be simply 
 infinite, because of its belonging to an Uncreated Person. 
 It was the Precious Blood. 
 
 One of the ways in which God chiefly makes Himself 
 known to us, is by His choices. Choice reveals character ; 
 and, when we know the character and excellence of him 
 who chooses, the choice enables us both to understand and 
 appreciate the object chosen. Thus, when God chooses the 
 weak things of the world to confound the strong, and the 
 foolish things to confound the wise, He makes a very broad 
 revelation to us of His character. He discloses principles of 
 action quite alien from those of creatures, and never adopted 
 by them except from supernatural motives, and in conscious 
 imitation of Him. "We know also that the things in ques- 
 tion are in themselves weak and foolish, because He chose 
 them on that account. In the same way, when He chooses 
 persons for some great and high end, His very choice 
 endows them with gifts proportionate to their work and 
 dignity. We have often no other means of judging except 
 His choice. It is tlius that we measure the immense holi- 
 ness of the Apostles. It is thus that we learn the incom- 
 parable sanctity of the Baptist. It is by comparing God's 
 choice of him with the office he was to fill, that we come to 
 see the glory and the grandeur of St. Joseph, and to con- 
 template with reverent awe the heights of a holiness to 
 which such familiarity with God was permitted. We are 
 astonished that familiarity should be the characteristic of
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 8r 
 
 devotion to a saint so high, and yet we perceive that it 
 must be naturally the special grace of a devotion to one, 
 who outdid all others in the spirit of adoration because he 
 outstripped all others in tender familiarities with God. It 
 is thus also that we gain some idea of the beauty and 
 splendour of St. Michael, one of the foremost jewels in the 
 crown of God's glorious creation. Thus, also, the choice of 
 God is the only measure by which we can approach to any 
 knowledge of His Immaculate Mother, As her office was 
 inconceivable either by angel or by saint, unless it had been 
 revealed, so also is the immensity of her holiness. The 
 choice of God lights up vast tracts of her magnificence, and 
 shows us also how much there is left for us to learn and to 
 enjoy in heaven. The grandeur of her office is infinite, as 
 St. Thomas says, and the omnipotence of God could not 
 create a grander office ; what then must be the infinity of 
 her grace 1 It is God who chose her, the God of number- 
 less perfections, of illimitable power, and of lavish muni- 
 ficence. His choice tells us that the mighty empress of 
 heaven was adorned with the utmost participation of the 
 divine splendour, of which a creature was capable. What 
 regalia must they be, which come out of the inexhaustible 
 treasures of God, and which are chosen for her whom He 
 chose eternally to be His blessed Mother ? So, finally, we 
 get our idea of the worth of the Precious Blood by seeing 
 the end for which the Creator chose it. It is an idea Avhich 
 cannot be put into words, or be estimated by human figures. 
 If we may dare so to speak, God chose it as the auxiliary 
 by which He would save Himself in the day of battle witli 
 the powers of darkness, when the battle was going against 
 Him, and when He vouchsafed to appear as if put to His 
 last resource. I know not how else to state that choice ot 
 His, and the circumstances under which He made it, which 
 cover with such dazzling splendour the redeeming ]'>lood of 
 
 F
 
 82 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. ' 
 
 Jesus. It had to save a falling creation, which God had 
 hindered His own omnipotence from saving, because He had 
 conferred upon it the gift of freedom. 
 
 It is hard to breathe in heights like these. We have 
 climbed the mountains of God's primal decrees, and have 
 penetrated to those first fountains of creation which lie far 
 up in the solitude of eternity. It is difficult to breathe in 
 such places, amid such lonely sublimities, in such divine 
 wildernesses where the features are so unlike those of earthly 
 scenery. Let us then rest a while, and think of our own 
 poor selves. Of what avail to us is all this magnificent 
 election of the Precious Blood, its astonishing relation to 
 the immutable life of God, its intrinsic dignity in the plans 
 of the Creator, and the fearfulness of its resplendent beauty 
 as the sole successful auxiliary of the God of Hosts, unless 
 it is the one joy of our lives that we ourselves are its happy 
 conquest ? "What use is it to us that it looks as if it had 
 rescued the Creator from failure, if it does not ransom us 
 from sin 1 "What does it matter to us that it makes wonder- 
 ful harmony between God's seemingly opposite decrees, if it 
 does not make sweet peace between our Heavenly Father 
 and ourselves 1 The Precious Blood saved God an empire ; 
 and He has given it that empire for its own. It is tlie one 
 thing needful for ourselves, that we should belong to its 
 empire, and be happy beneath its rule. One sin forgiven, 
 one sinful habit brought into subjection, one ruling passion 
 uniformly tamed, one worldliness courageously kept down, 
 — these are more to us than the theological glories of the 
 Precious Blood. Indeed these glories are chiefly glorious to 
 us, in that they tell us more and more of our dear God, that 
 they widen our minds and deepen our hearts to make more 
 room for Him, ami that they heat the furnace of our love 
 seven times hotter tlian it was before. Theology would be 
 a science to be specially impatient with, if it rested only in
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. S3 
 
 speculation. To my mind it is the best fuel of devotion, 
 the best fuel of divine love. It catches fire quickest ; it 
 makes least smoke ; it burns longest ; and it throws out 
 most heat while it is burning. It is the best fuel of love, 
 until the soul is raised to high degrees of mystical contem- 
 plation ; and then, as if to show how needful it was still, 
 God infuses theological science even into the ignorant and 
 youthful. If a science tells of God, yet does not make the 
 listener's heart burn within him, it must follow either that 
 the science is no true theology, or that the heart which 
 listens unmoved is stupid and depraved. In a simple and 
 loving heart theology burns like a sacred fire. 
 
 But, if this is the relation of the Precious Blood to Crea- 
 tion, in what relation does it stand towards the Incarnation 1 
 This also we must consider. The Incarnation of One of the 
 Three Divine Persons was part of the original idea of Crea- 
 tion. It expresses in God the same mysterious and adorable 
 yearning, which was manifested in His creating angels and 
 men in a state of grace. If there had been no sin, still the 
 Second Person of the Holy Trinity would have been man. 
 Jesus Christ was eternally predestinated to be king of angels 
 and of men, the sovereign of all creation in right of His 
 created nature, even if there had been no fall, and no re- 
 demption. I am repeating what I have said before, but I 
 must do so in order to be clear. As God in His Divine 
 Nature was the Sovereign Lord of all creation, so Jesus in 
 His Created Nature was to be the King of kings and Lord 
 of lords. He would have come and lived amongst us. He 
 would have been born of the same blessed and most dear 
 Mother. But His Bethlehem and His Nazareth and His 
 Jerusalem would have been very different. He would have 
 had no Egypt and no Calvary. He might perchance have 
 dwelt longer with us than Three-and-Thirty years. But all 
 the while, wherever He was, He would have been radiant as
 
 84 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 on the summit of Mount Thabor, the beauty and the glory 
 streaming out from Him incessantly. He would have had 
 no Passion, no Resurrection ; and perhaps He would not 
 have ascended till the Day of Doom. He would have had 
 the same Sacred Heart, the same Precious Blood. His 
 Blood would have been a living joy to Him, a beauty and a 
 joy to all creation. Perhaps His Blood would still have 
 been the wine of immortality to His elect. It might have 
 been still the Blood of the Eucharist. There midit have 
 been the Sacrament without the Sacrifice. It might have 
 been the chalice of His espousals with the soul. As some 
 theologians say there might have been Communion before 
 the Incarnation for the saints of the old covenant, if God 
 had so willed, much more might it have been so with the 
 impassible and glorious Incarnation, had there been no sin. 
 The Precious Blood might still have been the sacramental 
 fountain of eternal life. But it would not have had the 
 office of ransoming the Avorld from sin. Sin came ; and by 
 its coming it did to the Sacred Humanity of the Incarnate 
 Word what it also did to the uncreated ]\Iajesty of God. 
 It deprived it of its kingdom. It laid waste its empire. It 
 miserably uncrowned it. It left Him only the unfallen tribes 
 of angels to rule over. It threatened to frustrate the Incarna- 
 tion, and to take the chiefest jewel out of His Mother's diadem, 
 the jewel of her sinlessness. As sin had dared to impede 
 divine love in the matter of Creation, so did it dare to hinder 
 divine love in the matter of the Incarnation. In one case it 
 tried to infringe the eternal dominion of God ; in the other 
 case it strove to destroy the kingship of His created nature. 
 As with Creation, so with the Incarnation, it was the Precious 
 Blood which saved the kingdom. A change, as we are obliged 
 to call it, came over its destinies. It should be created pas- 
 sible, and not impassible. It should be endowed with a suf- 
 fering life. It should flow out of a sufToring Heart, and should
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 85 
 
 Bustaiii a suffering Body. It should be selected by the Holy 
 Trinity, for reasons inscrutable to us, inscrutable perhaps 
 because we know so little about life, to be the solitary ransom 
 for sin. If we knew the secret of life, we might perhaps know 
 many new things about the Precious Blood. The wisdom of 
 God beheld innumerable fitnesses in this mysterious choice. 
 We can adore them, even though we do not know them. 
 Thus the Precious Blood was to conquer back His kingdom for 
 Jesus, and to secure the jewel of sinlessness for His Mother's 
 diadem. Thus Jesus owed to His Precious Blood, His kincr- 
 dora and His Mother. Yet this Blood, what is it but the own 
 life of Jesus 1 Tlius was sin frustrated without the creature's 
 liberty being forfeited. Thus did darkness war against light; 
 and what came of it was, that, through the Precious Blood, the 
 original idea of Creation was even beautified, without any 
 change in the Unchangeable. These are the relations of the 
 Precious Blood to Creation and the Incarnation. These are 
 its titles of royalty, — that it reinstated the dominion of God, 
 and that it restored the kingdom of Jesus. 
 
 Let us pause for a moment to make an act of loving 
 reparation to the immutability of God. We have had to 
 speak of Him with the infirmity of human words, as if His 
 plans had failed, or His counsels had been altered. But we 
 must not let any such idea rest on our minds. How it is 
 that He did not change we cannot see : but we know that 
 He did not ; and we adore His blissful immutability. God 
 changes His works without changing His counsels, says St, 
 Augustine. But the change is in creatures, not in Him. 
 Time cannot change Him, because He is eternal : nor place, 
 because He is immense. He cannot change within Himself, 
 because He is perfect. He cannot be changed by anything 
 outside Him, because He is almighty. His life is absolute 
 repose, beatitude, simplicity : and in all this there can be no 
 change. The very necessity, which compels us to speak of
 
 86 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 God as if He changed, only brings home to us more forcibly 
 the perfection of His tranquillity. Let us then boldly offer 
 to His love these ignorant words : and, while they enable 
 us to understand somewhat of the peculiar office and grandeur 
 of the Precious Blood, let us lovingly adore that unchange- 
 ableness of God, which has lain for all eternity more un- 
 wrinkled than a summer sea, and will lie to all eternity, 
 with almost infinite worlds round about it, and yet have 
 neither current, stream, or pulse, or tide, or wave, with no 
 abyss to hold it and with no shore to bound it, with no 
 shadow from without and no throbbing from within. 
 
 Now that we have endeavoured to show the place, which 
 the Precious Blood holds in the counsels of God, with refer- 
 ence both to Creation and the Incarnation, let us, before we 
 advance any further, see how the Holy Scriptures speak of 
 it, and how completely their language is in harmony with 
 our theolog}'. "We will content ourselves with putting the 
 texts together, as we find from experience that many persons 
 when a special devotion to the Precious Blood is urged upon 
 them, were not at all aware of the stress which the inspired 
 writings lay upon it, but have rather regarded it as merely a 
 convenient figurative expression to sum up and represent the 
 mysteries of redemption. 
 
 Then Jesus said to them : Amen, Amen, I say unto you : 
 Except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His 
 Blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My 
 Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life : and I 
 will raise him up in the last day. For My Flesh is meat 
 indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My 
 Flesh, and drinketh !My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him. 
 In Him, says St. Paul, it hath well-pleased the Father, that 
 all fulness should dwell, and through Him to reconcile all 
 things unto Himself, making peace through the Blood of 
 His cross, both as to the tilings on earth, and the things
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 87 
 
 that are in heaven. Christ, being come an high priest of the 
 good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle 
 not made with hand, neither by tlie blood of goats, or of 
 calves, but by His own Blood, entered once into the Holies, 
 having obtained eternal redemption. For, if the blood of 
 goats and of oxen, and the ashes of an heifer being sprinkled, 
 sanctify such as are defiled, to the cleansing of the flesh, how- 
 much more shall the Blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost 
 offered Himself unspotted unto God, cleanse our conscience 
 from dead works, to serve the living God? ISTeither was 
 the first testament dedicated without blood ; and almost all 
 things, according to the law, are cleansed with blood ; and 
 without shedding of blood there is no remission. It is 
 necessary therefore that the patterns of heavenly things 
 should be cleansed with these ; but the heavenly things 
 themselves with better sacrifices than these. We have, 
 therefore, brethren, a confidence, in the entering into the 
 Holies by the Blood of Christ, a new and living way 
 which He hath dedicated for us through the veil, that is to 
 say, His I'lesh. We are come to the sprinkling of Blood, 
 which speaketh better than that of Abel. The bodies of 
 those beasts, whose blood is brought into the Holies by the 
 high priest for sin, are burned without the camp : wherefore 
 Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people by His own 
 Blood, suffered without the gate. St. Peter speaks of us as 
 elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto 
 the sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling 
 of the Blood of Jesus Christ. St. John says, The Blood of 
 Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. This is He 
 that came by water and Blood : not by water only, but by 
 water and Blood : and it is the Spirit which testifieth, that 
 Christ is the truth ; and there are Three who give testimony 
 in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and 
 these Three are Une : and there are three that give testi-
 
 88 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 mony on earth, the spirit, and the water, and the Blood ; 
 and these three are one. Tiie Ancients in the Apocalypse 
 sung a new canticle, saying : Thou art Worthy, Lord, to 
 take the book, and to open the seals thereof : because Thou 
 wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God in Thy Blood, out 
 of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast 
 made us to our God a kingdom and priests, and we shall 
 reign on the earth. And one of the Ancients answered and 
 said to me : These that are clothed in white robes, who are 
 they? and whence came they? And I said to him, My 
 lord, thou knowest. And he said to me. These are they 
 Avho are come out of great tribulation, and have washed 
 their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. 
 Therefore they are before the throne of God, and the Lamb, 
 which is in the midst of the throne, shall rule them. And 
 I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying ; Xow is come salva- 
 tion, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the 
 power of His Christ : because the accuser of our brethren is 
 cast forth, who accused thein before our God day and night ; 
 and they overcame him by the Blood of the Lamb. And I 
 saw heaven opened, and behold ! a white horse : and He 
 that sat upon him was called Faithful and True ; and with 
 justice doth He judge and fight ; and His eyes were as a 
 flame of fire, and on His head were many diadems ; and He 
 had a name written, wliich no man knoweth but Himself ; 
 and He was clothed with a garment sprinkled with Blood ; 
 and His name is called the Word of God : and the armies 
 that are in heaven followed Him on white horses, clothed 
 in fine linen Avhite and clean ; and He shall rule : and He 
 liath on His garment and on His tliigh written, King of 
 kings and Lord of lords. Again St. I'aul says. The chalice 
 of benediction, which we bless, is it not the uoiniiiunion of 
 the Blood of Christ? 'Now in Christ Jesus, you, who some- 
 times were afar olf, are made nigh by the Blood of Christ.
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 89 
 
 St. Peter says, "We know that we were redeemed with the 
 Precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and unde- 
 iiled, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, 
 but manifested in the last times. St. Paul also speaks of 
 the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the 
 great pastor of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the 
 Blood of the everlasting testament. To the clergy of 
 Ephesus St. Paul speaks of the bishops who rule the Church 
 of God, which He hath purchased with His own Blood. To 
 the Romans he speaks of the redemption that is in Christ 
 Jesus, whom God hath proposed to be a propitiation, through 
 faith in His Blood, to the shewing of His justice, for the 
 remission of former sins, through the forbearance of God. 
 Christ died for us : much more therefore, being now justified 
 by His Blood, shall we be saved from wrath through Him. He 
 speaks to the Ephesians of our being predestinated unto the 
 praise of the glory of God's grace, in which He hath graced 
 us in His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption through 
 His Blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of 
 His grace. Similarly to the Colossians he speaks of the 
 Father having delivered us from the power of darkness, and 
 translated ns into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in 
 whom we have redemption through His Blood, . . that in 
 all things He may hold the primacy. St. John in the pre- 
 face of the Apocalypse delivers his message as from Jesus 
 Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first-begotten of the 
 dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth, who hath 
 loved us, and washed us from our sins, in His own Blood, and 
 hath made us a kingdom, and priests to God and His Father, 
 to Him be glory and empire for ever and ever! Amen.* 
 
 * S. John vi. 54, 56. Col. i. 20. Heb. ii. 14, ix. 7, x. 19, xii. 24, xiii. 
 II. I I'et. i. 2. I John i. 7, v. 6, 8. Apoc. v. 9, vii. 14, xii. ir, xix. 13. 
 I Cor. X. 16. Eph. ii. 13. 1 Pet. i. 19. Heb. xiii. 20. Acts xx. 28, 
 Uom. iii. 25, v. 9. Eph. i. 7. Col. i. 14. Apoc. i. 5.
 
 90 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 He, who desires to attain to a deep and fervent devotion 
 to the Precious Blood, cannot do so more readily than by 
 taking the foregoing texts of the Holy Scriptures for tlie 
 suhjects of his meditations. They will carry him, and very 
 gently, far down into the mind of God. They will infuse 
 into him a more tender and a more ardent love of the Person 
 of the Eternal Word, while they will also increase his rever- 
 ence for the Sacred Humanity. They, like all Scripture 
 words, will bring forth fruit a thousandfold in his heart, 
 ^leanwhile, with reference to our present train of thought, 
 the reader will observe how frequently and in what a strik- 
 ing way the mention of the Precious Blood is coupled by the 
 Holy Ghost with the idea of kingdom, empire, and primacy, 
 how carefully the eternal determination and foreknowledge of 
 the Precious Blood is kept in sight, how it is put forward 
 as the making of an offering, tlie restoring of his creatures, 
 to God, and finally how it is to St. Peter, our Lord's Vicar 
 upon earth, that we owe the title of Precious as applied to 
 his blaster's Blootl I cannot but believe that many men 
 will feel their devotion to the Precious Blood increased as a 
 special devotion, when they see the wonderful teaching of 
 the Bible on the subject brought into one view. 
 
 There are of course many ways in which the Precious 
 Blood establishes the empire of Jesus. We may illustrate 
 the matter sufficiently for our purpose by selecting three of 
 them. Conversion, Sanctification, and the Building up of the 
 Church. We shall liave to speak more at length of Con- 
 version in the next chapter. We shall treat therefore very 
 briefly at present of these three things, and chiefly from one 
 point of view, namely, tlie contrast and comparison between 
 them and the act of Creation. 
 
 We have then to remember that it is the office of the 
 Precious Blood to reconquer for God an empire which sin 
 lias wrested from Him, and to govern and administer this
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. qi 
 
 empire in proportion as it reconquers it. Its royal rights, 
 while they are the gratuitous appointments of God and flow 
 from His eternal choice, are also based on the double relation 
 of the Precious Blood to Creation and the Incarnation. Its 
 relation to Creation makes it the rightful representative of 
 the Dominion of God. Its relation to the Incarnation makes 
 it the natural vicegerent of the Kingdom of the Sacred 
 Humanity. 
 
 To us fallen creatures Conversion is the most interesting 
 divine act of which we are able to take intimate cognisance. 
 It is an act going on in the world at all moments, and which 
 must happen to every one of us, either in the waters of 
 baptism, or out of tliem, if we are to be saved. Moreover, 
 it is an act which may be repeated several times in each 
 individual soul. It is to our supernatural being what Crea- 
 tion is to our natural being. The one calls us out of nothing- 
 ness into life ; the other out of darkness into light. The 
 one makes us citizens of earth ; the other citizens of heaven. 
 By the one we are entitled to pi eservation, and all the numer- 
 ous means, appliances, and consequences of life : by the other 
 we have a right to claim sanctification, and all the numerous 
 means, appliances, and consequences of grace. The creation 
 of our souls was the work of an instant. God willed tlie exist- 
 ence of our souls, and exactly of such souls as He had fore- 
 seen and chosen to be our peculiar selves from all eternity. 
 There was no process. He willed and it was done. Where 
 there had been nothingness, there was now a human soul, a 
 soul beautiful in its indestructible simplicity, beautiful in its 
 complicated life. The sum of existences had been swelled 
 by one ; and that one had now to f ultil a strange, difficult, 
 varied, romantic destiny which would go on to be eternal. 
 Conversion, on the other hand, is a process, and often a very 
 long one. Sometimes whole years of life go to its prepara- 
 tion. Ten thousand circumstances, sweetly constrained by
 
 92 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 the paternal tenderness of God, gradually converge upon 
 some pre-deterrained hour and minute. IMisfortunes are sent 
 to prepare the ground, to plough it up with rude troubles, 
 to soften it with silent weeping, or to break it to pieces 
 through the kindly action of the frost. Happiness comes 
 from God like an angel, to exorcise evil spirits from the 
 mind, the temper, or the heart, and to clear tlie way for 
 more supernatural operations. Accident, or seeming acci- 
 dent, also has its function in this work. Chance books, 
 chance conversations, chance meetings, frequently accelerate 
 the process, and not seldom hurry it at once to its conclusion. 
 If only we could see them, we should discover that the 
 graces, which precede conversion, are for number, variety, 
 strangeness, unexpectedness, and kindliness, among the most 
 wonderful works of God and the most touching ingenuities 
 of His love. Yet while the process of Conversion contrasts 
 with Creation in that it is a process at all, it also resembles 
 it in being really instantaneous. The actual justification of 
 a sinner is the work of an instant. "We see this in the bap- 
 tism of infants. But also in grown-up people the transition 
 from the enmity of God to His friendsliip, from a state of 
 sin to a state of grace, takes place in a moment. One 
 moment, and if the soul left the body, it must perish eter- 
 nally ; another moment, and if sudden death came, salvation 
 Avould be secure. The cliange from the formless abyss of 
 nothingness, to the fresh, complete soul is not more instan- 
 taneous than the justification of a sinner. "Wliat has gone 
 before has been merely preparatory. It might weigh in 
 judgment as ground for abating the severity of punishment; 
 but it could not avail to alter that slate of the suul which 
 death has rendered fixed, certain, and irrevocable. 
 
 God condescends to put Himself before us as effecting 
 Creation by a word. Ho spoke, and it was done. Let light 
 be, and light was. Thus Creation is eirected by the most
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 93 
 
 simple of all agencies, namely, by a single means, and that 
 means not a work, but a mere word. The Precious Blood, 
 on the other hand, effects its creations in Conversion by a 
 multiplicity of means, of means which are often repeated, 
 often varied, often intensified, often newly invented for fresh 
 cases, and often quite peculiar to the individual case. There 
 is nothing in the world which the Precious Blood cannot 
 make a means of grace. Even sin, though it cannot be a 
 means of grace, can be constrained to do the ministries of 
 grace, just as Satan is made the reluctant bondsman of the 
 elect, and is forced to jewel their crowns with the very 
 temptations he has devised for their destruction. !N"everthe- 
 less in this respect also Conversion is like Creation. It is 
 like it in its choice of means, though not like it in its sim- 
 plicity. For the Precious Blood also chooses words for its 
 instruments, as if in honour of that Eternal Word whose 
 human life it is. The Sacraments are its ordinary modes of 
 action, as we shall see later on ; and words are the forms of 
 the Sacraments, without which their peculiar miracles of 
 grace cannot be wrought. Divine words are the chosen 
 instruments of production in the supernatural, as well as in 
 the natural world. 
 
 It is one of the glories of the act of Creation, that there 
 is no semblance of effort about it. It is the free act of God, 
 but it is hardly an act in the sense in which we commonly 
 use the Avord. It is an act in a much higher sense, a simpler 
 and yet a more efficacious sense. It is an act without effort, 
 without succession, without processes. It is an act such as 
 befits the perfections of the Most High. His power did not 
 rise up, as it were, to do it, nor His Avisdom deliberate about 
 it, nor His love grow to it. Nothing went out of Him to 
 the act, nor was the tranquillity of His life quickened by it. 
 Conversion, on the contrary, has all the look of effort about 
 it. Nay, effort is not the word, I should ratlier have said
 
 94 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 agony. The Precious Blood working its way out of our 
 Blessed Lord's Body in the sweat of Gethsemane, the slow 
 painful oozings from the Crown of thorns, the rude violence 
 of the sprinkling at the Scourging, the distillation of the 
 Blood along the streets of Jerusalem and up the slope of 
 Calvary, the soaking of His clinging raiment, the four wells 
 dug hy the cruel nails ehbing and flowing with the pulses 
 of His feeble life, the violation of the silent sanctuary of 
 His Dead Heart, to seek for the few drops of that precious 
 treasure that might be left, — all these are parts of the effort 
 of Conversion. IN'either is there less look of effort in the 
 Conversion of each single soul : more with some, and less 
 with others. In most instances the Precious Blood seems 
 to return to the charge again and again. Here it fails, there 
 it succeeds. Now its success is hardly perceptible, now it is 
 manifest, striking, and decisive. The Precious Blood tries to 
 convert every one, just as it was shed for every one. Multi- 
 tudes remain unconverted, and are never won back to the 
 kingdom of God. With them the battle has gone against 
 grace. Even in defeat the Precious Blood triumphs. It 
 gains glory for God ; but it is in ways which in this life we 
 cannot even put ourselves into a position to understand. It 
 can boast also of decisive victories, of great strokes of grace, 
 of hearts carried by storm, of saints made at once out of one 
 heroic deed. But these are not the common cases. With 
 most hearts it strives, and pleads, and toils ; then it seems 
 to intermit its labours, as if it were fatigued ; it retires from 
 the heart as if in despair. Once more it returns to its task, 
 and occupies itself with incredible patience in minutest 
 details, often working underground, and in circuitous ways. 
 Not seldom it retires again, as if now completely baffled ; 
 and, finally, when least expected, it leaps upon its prey from 
 afar, and triumphs as much by the suddenness, as by the 
 impetuosity of the onslaught.
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 95 
 
 Look at that soul, almost the richest booty it ever won in 
 war, the soul of St. Paul. What long years there were of 
 religious antecedents, what a blind generosity of misdirected 
 zeal, what a fidelity to unhelpful ordinances, what a prepara- 
 tion for humility in that cruel persecution of the faithful, 
 what a prelude to apostolic fervour in that furious partisan- 
 ship of the conscientious Pharisee, what an insensible draw- 
 ing nigh to the Gospel through the very perfection of his 
 Judaism ! Tlien follow St. Stephen's prayers, and things 
 are coming to the best with Saul when they are at their 
 very Avorst. Yet Stephen's prayers are not so much attack- 
 ing him as circumventing him. Then the heavens opened 
 at noonday, and the glorified Eedeemer overwhelms him 
 with sudden light, and blinds him, and flings him. to the 
 ground ; and the blood of Stephen, which had cried aloud 
 to the Blood of Jesus, is sweetly avenged by the heart of 
 Paul being cleansed by that atoning Blood, and sent ouc 
 unto all nations to be the special preacher of that Blood 
 Avhich had so glorified itself in his Conversion. Yet, while 
 there is such a seeming contrast between Creation and Con- 
 version in this matter of effort, there is also a close com- 
 parison between them. There is in reality no effort in the 
 operation of the Precious Blood. It only needed to let itself 
 be shed. It only needs now to let itself be outpoured. Its 
 touch is health, life, resurrection, immortality, and glory. 
 Its sole touch is its sole work. It never touches but it 
 changes. It needs but to touch once in order to make its 
 spiritual change complete. If it seems to add, to repeat, to 
 retouch, to deepen, to broaden, to improve on itself, all tliat 
 comes from another part of its character. It is no sign of 
 want of power, no necessary expenditure of artistic labour, 
 no demand of experience, no consequence of more mature 
 reflection. 
 
 The absence of contrivance is another splendour of the
 
 96 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 divine act of Creation. No plan was laid. No gradual 
 train of thought reached the grand conclusion. No pro- 
 visions were made, no preparations finished, no materials 
 collected. There were no preliminaries. There was no 
 change in the Ever-blessed Agent. "Without any prelude, 
 and yet with a tranquillity which admitted not of sudden- 
 ness, God created. There was no model for Him to go by. 
 There was no law to constrain Him. He had never done a 
 free act before. This was His first. Yet it affected not 
 His immutability. From all eternity the Son was being 
 born of the Father ; from all eternity the Holy Ghost was 
 proceeding from the Father and the Son. But these were 
 necessary actions. They were tlie inward life of God. 
 Creation was a free act, an act which He was free to do, 
 or to leave undone, without altering His perfections. He 
 acted. He created. The consequences are stupendous. 
 They are endless. They are beyond the comprehension of 
 the highest angels. With all these consequences God 
 Himself is most mysteriously mixed \\\x There is His 
 concurrence witli all created actions and movements, the 
 intricacies of His never-halting providence, the Incarnatiou, 
 the Divine Mother, the Fall, the Precious Blood, the Church, 
 the Sacraments, the Economy of grace, the Doom, the Wail 
 of hell, the Jubilee of heaven. Yet He acted out of His 
 adorable simplicity. He put Himself in no attitude to 
 create. He made no movement. Ho contrived nothing. 
 He spoke, but His utterance broke not the everlasting 
 silence ; and at His voiceless word all was done. There is 
 no calm in the universe like the calmness of the act by 
 which the whole universe Avas created. There was not a 
 stir in the life of God when a niilli<jn times ten million 
 angels sprang into beautiful existence, and a million times 
 ten million material worlds leaped up like fires out of a 
 void aby.-s, where a moment before neither abyss nor void
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 97 
 
 had been. Thus there was no history in the act of Creation- : 
 whereas in each Conversion there is a marvellous, orderly, 
 yet entangled history. There is a look of contrivance about 
 the Precious Blood. It was to be got from Mary's heart. 
 Her heart was to be hindered, by a strange miracle of 
 anticipation, through the very virtue of the unformed 
 Precious Blood itself, from coming under the law of sin. It 
 had to pass into the life of Jesus, and to multiply in His 
 veins to the full supply of manhood. The methods, by 
 which it was to be shed, were all to be contrived, with 
 times, places, quantities, and circumstances befitting them. 
 It had to be looked after during the triduo of the Passion, 
 and its restoration to the Body of our dearest Lord contrived, 
 After all this, further contrivance was needed concerning 
 the methods of applying it to the souls of men. Its im- 
 petuosity had to be in order. Its prodigality had to submit 
 to law. What an immensity of divine contrivance went to 
 all this machinery ! Yet in itself the Precious Blood 
 operates with as little contrivance as effort. In the matter 
 of contrivance, as in the matter of effort, Conversion emulates 
 the simplicity of Creation. The brief word of a Sacrament 
 is enough to work its huge miracle upon the unresisting 
 soul of the infant at the Font. Nay, with the most obdurate 
 sinner it can by its first grace accomplish the entire work 
 of sanctity, and raise him into a saint at once without any 
 of the sweet insidious contrivances, with which the gentle- 
 ness of redeeming love so often surrounds the operation of 
 the Precious Blood. Conversion can be masterful as well 
 as tender. 
 
 He that is eternal grows not weary. Eternity itself is 
 endless, unbeginning rest. Eternity before Creation is but 
 the name of the life of God. But the Eternal rested after 
 Creation. He had an unimaginable sabbath, in which He 
 rested from the works that lie had made. There is no 
 
 G
 
 98 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 sabbath yet for the Precious Blood. Its creative work upon 
 the earth is incessant, increasing as the multitudes of the 
 tribes of men increase. There is no end to its activity day 
 and night. It starts each epoch and each century ■ with 
 renewed ardour and redoubled vif^our. It becomes more 
 abundant and more energetic in the Church on earth, in 
 proportion as the Church becomes more populous in heaven. 
 Yet it has a sabbath too, even while it toils. It rests in 
 the glorified Heart of Jesus in heaven. It rests upon that 
 mediatorial throne, whereon the Sacred Humanity has been 
 exalted. The souls of the righteous worship it on high 
 with everlasting lauds; and the angels, prostrate in adora- 
 tion, sing canticles in its honour all through the nightless 
 (lay of that radiant land above. It rests in Jesus. It is 
 His life, His love. His jubilee, and His repose. This is its 
 sabbath-life in heaven, while its industry is so divinely 
 vigorous and fertile upon earth. But the sabbath of Crea- 
 tion is also a time of working, while it is a time of rest. 
 Xot only is the continuous preservation of all things and the 
 fulfilling of all created things with the divine concurrence 
 an almost illimitable extension and ongoing of creation, but 
 new souls of men are literally created out of nothing every 
 moment of time. Yet still in some mysterious sense God's 
 sabbath is unbroken. Thus Conversion like Creation has 
 its sabbath, even while it works. When the grand Doom 
 lias come and gone, who can tell into what a sabbath the 
 rest of our dearest Lord shall deepen? 
 
 If Conversion is the conquest of the empire of the 
 I'recious Blood, Sanctification is its goverinnent of that 
 which it has conquered. Sanctification is to Conversion 
 what Cosmogony is to Creation. It is the dividing up, and 
 dispensing, and setting in order, and adorning what has 
 already been created out of nothing. Or, again, it is to the 
 work of justification what, in natural things, the preservation
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 99 
 
 of life is to the evolving of life out of nothing. It was the 
 Holy Ghost, who fashioned the Precious Blood out of the 
 immaculate blood of Mary. He was the Fashioner of the 
 Sacred Humanity. To Him that work is specially appro- 
 priated. He also is especially, and by appropriate office, our 
 Sanctifier. It was to Him that Jesus left His Church. 
 "What our Lord Himself had been during the Three-and- 
 Thirty Years, the Holy Ghost began to be in some peculiar 
 manner from the day of Pentecost. Jesus Himself has 
 returned to abide in His Church in the Blessed Sacrament ; 
 but He abides in it as it were beneath the administration of 
 the Holy Ghost, which He Himself appointed. The Precious 
 Blood, which the Holy Spirit fashioned, is now the same 
 Spirit's instrument in the great work of sanctification. As 
 tliat Blood was the love of the Son's Sacred Humanity', by 
 which He offered His atonement to the Father, so is it the 
 love of His Sacred Humanity, by which with sweetest 
 affectionate ministries He subserves the sanctifying office 
 of the Holy Ghost. By the Precious Blood the Son Himself 
 became Redeemer, while by the same dear Blood reparation 
 was made to the Father's honour as Creator, and to tlie 
 Holy Spirit's tender love as the Sanctifier of creation. He, 
 who in the Holy Trinity Avas produced and not producing, 
 became fertile by the Precious Blood. 
 
 AVas there ever any such fertility as that of the Holy 
 Ghost 1 The leaves of the trees, the blades of the grass, the 
 matted entanglement of tropical herbs in the moist forest, 
 the countless shoals of the living inhabitants of ocean, the 
 swarms of insects which in hot regions blacken the sun for 
 miles as if they were sand-storms, — these are but types of 
 the fecundity of the Holy Ghost in the operations of grace. 
 We never can do justice to the magnitude of the world of 
 angels. The poor child, who has no notion of money but in 
 pence, would be bewildered if he were called upon to deal
 
 loo THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 with gold, and to count liis gold by millions. So we in 
 earthly things are accustomed to dimensions, and to numbers, 
 on so dwarfish a scale, that even our exaggerations will not 
 raise our ideas to the true magnitudes and multitudes of the 
 world of angels. The countless myriads of individual spirits, 
 the countless graces which are strewn all over the breadth 
 of their capacious natures, the colossal size of those graces 
 as compared with those of human souls, the inconceivable 
 rapidity, delicacy, and subtlety of the operations of grace in 
 such gigantic intelligences and such fiery affections, — these 
 considerations, if well weighed, may give us some idea of 
 the fruitfulness of the most dear sanctifying Spirit. Every 
 one of those graces was merited for the angels by the Precious 
 Blood. Converting grace they never had ; for they never 
 needed a conversion ; and to those who fell no conversion 
 was allowed. If we think also of the multitude of souls, 
 the sum of successive generations from Adam to the un- 
 certain Doom, if we try to bring before ourselves the variety 
 of vocations in the world, the strictly peculiar needs of each 
 single soul and the distinctive characteristic shape of the 
 holiness of each single soul, then the multiplicity of the pro- 
 cesses of grace prolonged perhaps over half a century or 
 more, we shall see that the arithmetic of even human graces 
 is amazing. Through the instrumentality of tlie Precious 
 Blood the Holy Ghost is everywhere and always making all 
 things productive of sanctity in some measure and degree. 
 Sanctification may be called the production of heavenly 
 beauty in the world. It is the filling of nature with the 
 supernatural. It is the transforming of the human or 
 angelic into the divine. It is the engraving of the image of 
 God upon every piece and parcel of the rational creation. 
 It is the brightening and the beautifying of creation. It is 
 the empire of light stealing upon the realm of darkness, 
 swiftly, slowly, variously, with beams and splendours, with
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. loi 
 
 transformations and effects, more marvellous than those of 
 any lovely dawn upon the mountains and forests of the' 
 earth. It is the especial and appropriate office of the Holy 
 Ghost, with the universal and invariable and inseparable 
 agency of the Precious Blood. Thus every process of Sanc- 
 tification, while it is an outpouring of exquisite love upon 
 creatures, is also a passage of mutual love between Jesus 
 and the Holy Ghost. Our Lord's words in the Gospels 
 indicate to us something of the unspeakable jealous love of 
 the Sacred Humanity for the Eternal Spirit. Our dearest 
 Saviour, whose very office and occupation it was to forgive 
 sin, was unlike Himself when He excepted from this amnesty 
 the sin against the Holy Ghost : unlike Himself, yet true to 
 some depth of holiness and love within Himself. On the 
 other hand, it was to be the office of the Paraclete to bring 
 Jesus to mind, to fill the memory with the sweet words He 
 had said, to keep the Thirty-three Years alive on earth for 
 ever, to be for ever testifying of Jesus, and for ever complet- 
 ing and adorning the work which He had come on earth to 
 do. Thus, as in theology the Holy Ghost is named the 
 Kiss of the Father and the Son, the Son and the Holy 
 Ghost kiss each other in the Precious Blood. All Sancti- 
 fication is the love of the Holy Ghost for the Sacred 
 Humanity ; and every operation of the Precious Blood is a 
 tender adoration of the Holy Ghost by the Created Is'ature 
 of our blessed Lord. 
 
 But we should soon sink out of our depths in mysteries 
 like these. We will pass on to the third of the principal 
 ways in which the Precious Blood reconquers for God the 
 empire of His own creation, and establishes the kingdom of 
 Christ, — the Building up of the Church. To continue our 
 comparison with Creation, — as Conversion represents the act 
 of Creation, and Sanctification the work of Cosmogony, so 
 the Building up of the Church is parallel to those changes
 
 I02 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 in the face of Creation made by the lapse of time and the 
 agency of the natural laws of the universe. The alterations 
 of the bed of ocean, the deposits of mighty rivers, the 
 crumbling of the rocks, the devastations of the earthquake 
 and volcano, the elevation and subsidence of the earth, the 
 spreading of the sandy deserts, the mutations of climate from 
 other and less normal catastrophes, — all these things have 
 altered the face of the earth, made it more habitable, and by 
 deciding its physical geography have gone far to decide its 
 history and to locate the centres of its civilisation. So is it 
 witli the spiritual earth through the vicissitudes of the 
 Church. The Church is the work of the Precious Blood. 
 It was made by it, cleansed by it, adorned by it, propagated 
 by it, and kept glorious by it. The Church is that portion 
 of Creation purchased by the Precious Blood out of alien 
 possession, recovered from unjust holding, redeemed from 
 slavery, conquered from enemies. The salvation of indi- 
 vidual souls is dependent upon the Church. Hence the 
 Building up of the Church is one of the grandest works of 
 the Precious Blood. Tlie conversion of nations, the history 
 of doctrine, the holding of councils, the spread of the epis- 
 copate, the influence of the ecclesiastical upon the civil law, 
 the freedom of tlie Holy See, the papal monarchy of past 
 ages, the concordats of the present day, the filial subordina- 
 tion of Catholic governments, — all these things alter the face 
 of the spiritual world. Every one of them is a vast fountain 
 of God's glory, an immense harvest of souls, a prolific source 
 of human happiness, and the antidote to a thousand evils. 
 Above all things, the honour, the freedom, and the empire 
 of the Holy See are the works of the Precious Blood, The 
 Church is the body of Christ ; and nowliere are the linea- 
 ments of our dearest Lord, His l)eauty. His persuasiveness. 
 His strange commingling of gladness and of woe, so faith- 
 fully expressed as in the Head of His Ciuirch. Hence it is
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 103 
 
 that the joyousness of the saints ebbs and flows with the 
 vicissitudes of the Holy See. Hence it is that the most 
 secret mystics are affected by the fortunes of distant Rome, 
 like the wells that dry and fill again in hidden sympathy with 
 an earthquake in some remote quarter of the world. 
 
 In quiet times good men can love the Vicar of Christ, and 
 look at him as their venerable father and monarch, ruling 
 over all the best affections of their hearts, with a loyalty 
 ■which the hereditary sovereigns of the earth can never 
 obtain, and which is a far more heavenly thing than a 
 patriot's love of the land which gave him birth. But when 
 the clouds gather round the Sacred City, when the pressure 
 of self-seeking potentates again begins to crucify our Lord 
 afresh in the person of His Vicar, when the coils of diplo- 
 macy twist themselves round Peter's throne, when well-nigli 
 all the world, schism, heresy, unbelief, ambition, injustice, 
 and Catholic states world-tainted, league together against the 
 Lord's Anointed, then to the saints the face of Christ's Vicar 
 becomes like the countenance of his Lord. It grows more 
 majestic in abjection. The anguish on it is divine. It is 
 more worshipful than ever, at the very moment when it is 
 calling out our tenderest love and our keenest sympathies. 
 This too is a time rife in victories to the Precious Blood. 
 Kome is saved, and man lias not saved it. They were bear- 
 ing the papacy out to burial, and lo ! a glorious resurrection ! 
 When deliverance was furthest off, then it came. 
 
 But these great historical triumphs are not the only 
 victories of the Precious Blood in evil days. It wins many 
 in the secrets of hearts. The spirit of the age is for ever 
 tainting the minds and hearts of the elect. There are few 
 wlio do not end by going with tlie multitude, few who are 
 not imposed upon by the pompous elation of science, by the 
 juvenile pronouncements of an improved literature, by the 
 complacent self-glorifications of temporal prosperity, and by
 
 104 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 the pretensions to an unparalleled grandeur which each 
 generation makes as it struts out upon the stage of life. It 
 is fine to innovate ; it is refreshing to be audacious : it is a 
 cheap victory to attack : it is comfortable to be on the same 
 side with the loud-voiced world around us. Few men have 
 clearly ascertained their own principles. They admit into 
 their inconsequent minds wandering ideas of the times, 
 without seeing that they are in reality hostile to the holy 
 things which occupy the sanctuary of their hearts. Hence 
 they get upon the wrong side, specially in middle life. It 
 is not youth so much as middle life that falls in this way. 
 While the generosity of youth makes early life to err in 
 questions of degree, the same generosity keeps it incorrupt 
 in questions of kind. It is the egotistical self-importance of 
 middle life, which makes apostates, reformers, and mal- 
 contents. It is then that men get upon the wrong side. 
 They fight under wrong banners. They frustrate the pro- 
 raise of their better years. They become out of harmony 
 with the Church. From that hour their lives are failures. 
 They grow querulous and contentious, peevish and captious, 
 bitter and sour. Tlieir old age is extremely solitary ; and it 
 is a great grace of God if they do not die on the wrong side, 
 they who seem to have been raised up to be the very fore- 
 most champions of the right. Now it is bad times which 
 open men's eyes. Tliey see then how the spirit of the age 
 has been nigh to deceiving them, how they mistook its loud- 
 ness for wisdom, and how near they were to losing the 
 simplicity of their devotion in the unhelpfulness of an intel- 
 lectual demonstration, which has passed away, and has done 
 as little, and is remembered as much, as the popular novel 
 of a season. !Many are the victories of disenchantment 
 which the Precious IJlood gains in times like tliose. Souls, 
 that are won back to the old ways and the anti(]uo fashions, 
 may yet be saints, whose promises of holiness must soon
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 105 
 
 have been withered, cankered, or dispersed in the vanity of 
 modern attempts and innovations. 
 
 N'ay, though we may be unable to see it, we cannot doubt 
 that there are triumphs of the Precious Blood in the spread 
 of heresies, in the schism of kingdoms, and in similar catas- 
 troplies of the Church. Souls seem to perish, and it is hard 
 to bear. But the life of the Church is very vast, and is 
 ruled by immense laws ; and when her Spouse comes at the 
 end, the Precious Blood must needs present her to Him " a 
 glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such 
 thing." * We must remember always, therefore, tliat the 
 Church is the empire of the Precious Blood, and that that 
 Blood will be the law of its life, and will govern it, not at 
 all in the world's way, not at all in the spirit of an age, but 
 altogether after its own spirit and altogether in its own way. 
 Souls soon lose themselves, who chafe because the Church 
 is not wise with a worldly wisdom. 
 
 But we should have a very imperfect notion of the empire 
 of the Precious Blood, if we did not take into account the 
 chief methods by which it does its work. We have seen 
 some of the principal ways in which it spreads its empire ; 
 let us now see the means by which it spreads it. These 
 means are the Sacraments. 
 
 It is difficult to describe the Sacraments. If an angel 
 were to bear us from this globe which we inhabit, and carry 
 us to some distant star, which God may have adorned as a 
 dwelling-place for some other species of reasonable creatures, 
 we should be struck with the novelty and peculiarity of the 
 scenery around us. Some of its features might remind us 
 of the scenery of earth, although with characteristic differ- 
 ences ; while other features would be entirely new, entirely 
 unlike anything we had ever seen before, either in colour, 
 form, or con^positiou. Tliis is very much the effect produced 
 
 * Ejih. V. 27,
 
 io6 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 upon us Tvheii we come to learn the catholic doctrine about 
 the Sacraments. It introduces us into a new world. It 
 gives us new ideas. It is more than a discovery ; for it 
 amounts to a revelation. The Sacraments are part of the 
 new world introduced into creation by the Incarnation of 
 the Eternal "Word ; and therefore are an essential part of 
 creation as it was eternally pre-ordained by God. Yet they 
 are quite distinct from any other province in creation. The 
 Sacraments of the Old Law Avere but shadows of the Sacra- 
 ments of the Gospel. The Sacraments of the New Law are 
 created things wliich have been devised and fabricated by 
 our Blessed Lord Himself. The Eucharist was foreshadowed 
 by the Paschal Lamb : the Sacrament of Order by the con- 
 secration of priests ; and Penance by the legal purifications 
 of the tabernacle. There Avas no shadow of Confirmation, 
 because it is the Sacrament of the fulness of grace, and so 
 can belong only to the gospel dispensation. Neither was 
 there any shadow of Extreme Unction, because it is the 
 immediate preparation for the entrance of the soul into 
 glory ; and there was no entrance into glory for any human 
 soul till Jesus had risen and ascended. Neither could 
 Matrimony be a Sacrament under the Old Law, because the 
 Word had not yet actually wedded our human nature ; and 
 the sacramentalily of Marriage consists in its being the figure 
 of those transcendent nuptials of the Sacred Humanity. 
 
 "What then shall we call these Sacraments 1 They are not 
 persons, yet they seem to be scarcely things : I mean that 
 they seem to be something more than things. "We want 
 another word for them, another name, and cannot find one. 
 They are powers, lives, shrines, marvels, divine hiding-places, 
 centres of heavenly power, supernatural magnificences, en- 
 graftings of heaven upon earth, fountains of grace, mysterious 
 efficacies, marriages of matter and spirit, beautiful complica- 
 tions of God and man. Each Sacrament is a species by
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 107 
 
 itself. Each has some specialty, "which is at once its excel- 
 lence and its mystery. The pre-eminence of Baptism con- 
 sists in its remission of original sin and of the pains due to 
 it. The pre-eminence of Confirmation resides in the vast- 
 ness of the succours of actual grace which it brings with 
 it, as we see in the fortitude which it conferred upon the 
 Apostles, and which the Eucharist had not conferred. The 
 Sacrament of Penance can claim the privilege of being the 
 most necessary of all Sacraments to those who have been bap- 
 tized, and of the capability of reiterated remission of mortal 
 sin, which Baptism cannot claim. Extreme Unction excels 
 Penance in the greater copiousness of its graces. The ex- 
 cellence of Order consists in its placing men in the singularly 
 sublime state of being domestic ministers of Christ. Matri- 
 mony has a glory of its own in its signification of the union 
 of our Lord with the Church. The pre-eminence of the 
 Eucharist resides, as St. Thomas says, in the very substance 
 of the Sacrament, seeing that it is as it were the Sacrament 
 of all the other Sacraments, the centre of them, the cause 
 of them, the end of them, and the harmony of them. All 
 are because of it, and are subordinate to its amazing 
 supremacy. 
 
 These Sacraments were designed by our Lord Himself, 
 and were instituted by liim with varying degrees of detail 
 as to matter and form in various Sacraments ; and yet saving 
 their substance, He has given His Church very extensive 
 power over them, because they are so intimately connected 
 with its unity. "We see the exercise of this power in the 
 bread of the Eucharist, in the impediments of Marriage, and 
 in the varieties of Order in the Latin and Greek Churches. 
 The Sacraments are institutions which illustrate at once the 
 magnificence of God's dominion over His creation, and also 
 the capability of creatures to be elevated by Him to astonish- 
 ing sublimities far beyond the merit and due of nature ; and
 
 loS THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 this elevability of creatures is one of the most glorious mani- 
 festations of the liberty of God.* 
 
 The Sacraments are not mere sij,ni3 of grace, but causes of 
 it. They cause grace in us physically by the omnipotence 
 of God "which exists in them as if it were their own proper 
 virtue and energy ; for the omnipotence of God exists so 
 specially in the Sacraments, that, if by impossibility, God 
 were not omnipresent, He would nevertheless be present in 
 the Sacraments. The Sacraments cause grace physically, 
 just as our Lord's Blood, shed long ago, cleanses us from our 
 sins, physically, not morally only, and just as His Resurrec- 
 tion and Ascension cause our resurrection and ascension 
 l)hysically, by an energy and a force which God has appro- 
 
 * There are certain differences of opinion in theology, which seem to 
 keep quiet in tlieir own subject matter, and not to control other opinions, 
 in sejiarate departments of theology. But tliere are, on the contrary, 
 opinions, often of seemingly little or merely local importance, which 
 draw along with them a man's whole theology. Among these, liardly 
 any is more remarkable than the opinion we may form on the subject 
 of what theology chIIs " potentia obcdieiitialis." I mention this here, 
 because in the exposition of the doctrine of the Sacraments, given in the 
 text, I have taken pains to use no expressions whicli shall be unfair to 
 those who hold the moral operation, and not the physical operation, of 
 the Sacraments. Amicus has beautifully shown that both the theories, 
 ecjually though differently, magnify the grandeur of the Sacraments. If 
 the physical theory attributes to thom a more marvellous operation on 
 the recipient, the moral theory attributes to them a more mysterious 
 action upon God Himself. I wish to observe also that, although there 
 is a manifest sympathy between the Scotist doctrine of the Sacraments 
 and the Scotist doctrine of potentia obcdientialis, the connection is not 
 necessary. It is a matter of sympathy rather than of logic. A man, who 
 holds the moral theory of the operation of the Sacraments, lies under 
 the same obli^;ation of explaining his jxjtcntia obcdientialis, as one who 
 liolds the pliysical theory. Tiiis Amicus has candidly jxjinted out. The 
 doctrine of potentia obcdientialis is to me tlie part of Scotus' system 
 which is most hard to receive. St. Thomas' doctrine of potentia opens 
 out a view of creation much more deep and philosoi)hical from this 
 point of view, while, when we come to look at creation fiom the ]>oint of 
 view of the Incarnation, Scotus seems to be much more deep and philo- 
 Boj)hical than .St. Thomas. Perhaps the views of the later scholastics on 
 potentia obcdientialis are still more philosophical. I would venture to
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 109 
 
 priated to them.* The Sacraments also cause grace in us 
 morally, by representing to the Father the merits of Christ's 
 Passion actually accomplished, and so doing a sort of holy 
 and irresistible violence to God, and thereby procuring for 
 us more abundant, and at the same time very special, 
 succours of grace. Both these methods of causing grace 
 bring vividly before us the unspeakable majesty of the 
 Sacraments, and enable us to estimate the grandeur of the 
 merits of our dearest Lord : but perhaps, of the two methods, 
 the honour of Jesus is most concerned in the Sacraments 
 causing grace physically, because it is more intimate to Him 
 so to cause it,t and in many other respects more divine and 
 
 recommend a special study of this question to students of theology, as 
 oue which particularly gives unity and consistency to the multitude of a 
 man's theological tenets. See Ripalda, De Ente Supernaturali. lib. ii_ 
 and especially Disputations 40 and 41. Haunoldus, Controversiae Tlieo- 
 logicae, lib. iv. tract ii. cap. i, controversia 2. Amicus, the latter part 
 of Disp. iv. de Causalitate Sacramentorum, and all Disp. ve de Potentia 
 Obedientiali, and Disp. vi. Quae entia et ad quos effectus elevari possint. 
 Viva, the whole of Disp. ii. de Causalitate Sacramentoi'um ; and the 
 other great theologians in loco. But in connection should be read also 
 the different writers de Angelis the treatment of the question. An 
 creatio communicari possit creaturse obedientialiter, and its cognate ques- 
 tions, which are to be found under the de principio productivo Angelo- 
 rum : or, in some theologians, under De Deo, especially De Dei cognos- 
 cibilitate, or De Beatitudine, or De Hominis creatione, or De Opificio sex 
 dierum. I would especially mention the De Deo of Francis de Lugo, 
 Disp. vii. De ente supernaturali in communi, and Disp. viii. De variis 
 divisionibus entis sui)ernaturalis : and likewise the loth and nth Dispu- 
 tations in Arriaga de Sacramentis. There are also some interesting 
 things in the huge work of Castaldus, the Dominican, De Potestate 
 Angelica, and in Arriaga's Physics. 
 
 * Viv.a. Pars. vii. Disp. ii. q. 2. 
 
 f Sicut Caro Christi habuit virtutem instrumentalem ad faciendum 
 miracula propter conjunctionem ad Verbum, ita Saciameiita per conjunc- 
 tionem ad Christum crucifixum et passuni. S. llioiiuis. Quodlihct. 12, art. 
 14. Theology suggests three ways in which the Sacraments may confer grace 
 l)liysically, — per virtutem obedientialem cum concursu omnipotentias, per 
 qualitatem supernaturalem intriiisecani, jier omnipotentiam specialiter 
 inexistcnteni. In the text the third method lias been adojjted in harmony 
 with the views of Viva ; but tlie theological discussion of the question 
 lias been uvoided r.s unfit for the popular character of this Treatise.
 
 no THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 more excellent. But these are questions too difficult for us 
 to enter upon here. It is enough to say with St. Chrysostom 
 that the way in which the Sacraments confer grace is above 
 the power of an angel to tell, or with St. Gregory Nyssen 
 that the grace of Baptism transcends human understanding. 
 Such language could hardly be used of the merely moral 
 efficacy of the Sacraments ; and, as Viva observes, if the 
 fires of Purgatory and Hell act upon the soul physically in 
 real and marvellous ways, it is at least congruous to suppose 
 that the instruments of the Divine Mercy shall enjoy the 
 same privileges as the instruments of the Divine Justice. 
 ]jut the Sacraments not only confer sanctifying grace and 
 infuse habits of virture, both physically and morally : they 
 also confer a certain special sacramental grace, which is 
 peculiar and distinct in each Sacrament. It is difficult to 
 explain this sacramental grace ; but it seems to be a special 
 power to obtain from God, by a certain right founded upon 
 Ilis decrees, particular assistances and kinds of grace in 
 order to the fulfihnent of each Sacrament. Moreover it 
 belongs to the grace of the Sacraments that certain of them 
 impress what is called a character, or seal, or signet, on the 
 80ul. The nature of this character is involved in mystery ; 
 but the most probable interpretation of it is that which 
 describes it as a natural similitude of the Soul of Jesus, 
 likening our souls to His, and imparting hiddenly to our 
 souls a resemblance of His, hidden in this life, but to be 
 divulged with exceeding glory hereafter. This is a beautiful 
 tliought, and fdls us full of a peculiar love for the dear 
 Human Soul of Jesus. Lastly, the grace of Sacraments sus- 
 ])ended or dormant has a marvellous power of revival, which 
 cMihances the mystery and the magnificence of these strange 
 and unparalleled works of God. 
 
 But our clearest idea of the Sacraments is that which we 
 gain from Hugh of St. Victor and the elder theologians.
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD, iii 
 
 They are the making visible of invisible grace. In tlieni 
 the Precious Elood has clothed itself in visible forms. In 
 the matter and form of the Sacraments it has put on its 
 l)riestly vestments, of unearthly fashion, and of manifold 
 -significance. Indeed the grace of the Sacraments is the 
 very physical grace, which was in the Soul of Jesus, repli- 
 cated, as theology speaks, that is, repeated again and again 
 in us, and repeated in us by means of the Precious Blood. 
 Many theologians have held that all the grace, which is in 
 any of us, was first, physically, really, and locally, in the 
 Soul of Christ ; so that our grace is, most literally and most 
 affectingly, a derivation from the abundance of His grace. 
 How near does this exquisite doctrine seem to bring us 
 to our dearest Lord ! * Do the forms, the fashions, and 
 varieties of these sevenfold sacramental garments, in which 
 the Precious Blood clothes itself, tell us of its mysteries, its 
 nature, or its character 1 Doubtless they have deep mean- 
 ings, and are symbolical of its genius ; but Ave are unable to 
 decipher them. They are hieroglyphics of some hidden 
 wisdom of God. But we see so much as this : that the 
 Sacraments are the actions of Christ. He instituted them 
 as INIan ; and thus they are the going on of the Thirty-Three 
 Years upon earth. This is the clearest and the truest view 
 of these marvellous portions of creation. Let us now see if 
 we have not learned enough of their theology to meditate 
 practically upon them in connection with our subject. 
 
 The Sacraments are then, as we see, in a very special 
 sense the vases of the Precious Blood. They are the means 
 by which the Precious Blood is ordinarily applied to tlie 
 
 * Some eminent theologians have even lidd that of two Cimmuniona 
 of eciuul fervour, one by a hiyman, and one \<y a jiriest, tlie priest's Com- 
 nauiiou would merit more, because of his conjuuctiou with our Blessed 
 Lord as His domestic minister. In like manner the special efficacy of 
 our Lady's prayers is attributed precisely to her conjunction with our 
 Lord as IJis Mother.
 
 112 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 souls of men. They are the most characteristic features in 
 the economy of grace. They are the most striking memorials 
 of the love of Jesus ; and a knowledge of them is most 
 necessary to a right understanding of redemption. This is 
 not the place for entering further upon the doctrine and 
 definition of the Sacraments. My readers are doubtless 
 sufficiently familiar with tlie teaching of the Church upon a 
 subject of such constant practical importance, and what has 
 been said in the foregoing pages will enable them to call to 
 mind at least its most prominent features. But it is very 
 needful for our present subject that we should make some 
 reflections upon the Sacraments, rather in the way of medita- 
 tion than of doctrine. We cannot do justice to the Precious 
 Blood of our dearest Lord, unless we have a true spiritual 
 discernment, a loving admiration, and an immense esteem of 
 the grandeur, riches, and sweetness of the Sacraments. In 
 an ascetical point of view, I hardly know anything upon 
 which I should lay greater stress in these days, than a fer- 
 vent devotion to the Sacraments. 
 
 The Sacraments are the inventions of God Himself. 'No 
 creature could have devised them. I do not believe that 
 without revelation the most magnificent intelligence of the 
 angels could have imagined such a thing as a Sacrament. 
 It is a peculiar idea of God. It represents a combination of 
 His most wonderful perfections. It conveys to us in itself 
 quite a distinctive notion of God. "We already know God 
 as the unbeginning God. We know II im also as the God 
 of nature and as the God of grace. These are two different 
 disclosures of Him to us. So the knowledge of Him as tlie 
 God who devised the Sacraments is another disclosure of 
 Him. It adds many new ideas of Him to the other ideas of 
 Him wliich we possessed before. We should in some re- 
 spects liave thought differently of God, if there had been no 
 Sacraments, from what we think now. Tiiis is a great deal
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 113 
 
 to say. It confers upon the Sacraments a most singular 
 dignity, or rather it expresses in an intelligible manner that 
 singular dignity which belongs to them. Moreover God not 
 only invented them, but He invented them for the most 
 magnificent of purposes. He invented them, that by their 
 means especially He might impart His Divine Nature to 
 created natures, that He might justify sinners, that He 
 might sanctify souls, that He might unite to Himself the 
 race whose nature He had condescended to single out and 
 assume to Himself. If they are His own invention they 
 must be works of unspeakable excellence ; for the least of 
 His works is excellent : but, if they were meant also for 
 purposes so dear to Him and of such an exalted character, 
 who shall be able rightly to imagine the excellence of these 
 Sacraments ? Furthermore, they are very peculiar inven- 
 tions. They do not follow the laws of nature. They even 
 superadd to the laws of grace. They are things apart, almost 
 belonging to an order of their own. They are apparently 
 without parallel in all creation. I know of nothing else to 
 which I could liken them. They come out of some depth 
 in the unfathomable wisdom of God, which does not seem to 
 have given out any other specimens of itself. They are 
 emanations of some abyss of His magnificence, which has 
 only opened once, to give them forth, and then has closed, 
 and rested. As matter and spirit, as nature and grace, are 
 samples of God's beauty, tokens of ineffable realities in Him, 
 manifestations of His invisible treasures, so likewise are the 
 Sacraments. They invest God with a new light in our 
 minds. They are some of His eternal ideas, the more 
 imperiously demanding our devout study, because we have 
 no others like them, no others which we can uso as simili- 
 tudes or as terms of comparison. My knowledge of God i.« 
 not only increased in degree, but it is extended in kind, by 
 my knowledge of a Sacrament. 
 
 H
 
 114 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Strictly speaking, we do not call tlie Sacraments miracu- 
 lous. They have laws of their own. So perhaps have 
 miracles. But the laws of the Sacraments are revealed to 
 us. Their action follows rules, and is, under fitting circum- 
 stances, invariable. Their order and immutability are two 
 of their most striking features ; and this distinguishes them 
 from miracles. They are processes ; and in this also they 
 are unlike what we popularly term miracles. But so far as 
 they are wonder-working, so far as their results call fortli 
 our astonishment, so far as their effects are beyond the 
 power of nature, so far as their completeness and their in- 
 stantaneousness are concerned, so far as the revolutions 
 they accomplish and the transmutations they make are 
 beyond the strength of common grace, so far as their success 
 is in their secret divinity, — so far we may call their opera- 
 tion miraculous. It is certainly in the highest degree 
 mysterious. Their use of matter seems to point to a philo- 
 sophy of matter and spirit far deeper than any which has 
 yet been taught. It awakens trains of thought which carry 
 us rapidly into speculations which are too high for us, yet 
 which give us now and then unsystematic glances into the 
 secrets of creation. The forms of the Sacraments betoken a 
 mysterious grandeur in language, reminding us of God's 
 peculiar way of working by efficacious words, a characteristic 
 which doubtless is connected in some hidden manner with 
 the Eternal Generation of the Word. Tlie invisible sacer- 
 dotal power which is necessary to the validity of so many 
 of the Sacraments is another of their splendours, while the 
 Sacraments which do not need it imply that latent priest- 
 hood which aljides in all Christians, and which is an emana- 
 tion of our Saviour's own priesthood " after the order of 
 ^relchiscdec." The jurisdiction required for tlie administra- 
 tion of so many of the Sacraments, and especially for valid 
 absolution, is a participation in those regal powers which
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 115 
 
 belong to the kingdom of Clirist, to the Cluirch in its char- 
 acter of a monarchy. The power of tlie Church itself to 
 limit the validity of a Sacrament, as in the case of reserved 
 sins in Confession, and of impediments in Matrimony, is 
 another feature in the Sacraments, which enhances their 
 mysterious character, while it exalts that lordship of the 
 Sacred Humanity of Jesus which has been so copiously 
 imparted to the Church. All these things are points for 
 meditation, which cannot fail to fill the soul with reverence 
 and love, and to unite it more closely with God, by making 
 us feel how the natural is hemmed in with the divine, and 
 with what awful reality we are always lying in the arms of 
 God, with our liberty held up, secured, and at once impri- 
 soned and set at large, by all this exuberance of supernatural 
 interventions. 
 
 The grace of the Sacraments is another subject for pious 
 wonder. The special grace of each Sacrament peculiar to 
 itself, and accomplishing a peculiar end, is a marvel in itself. 
 Just as the sun brings out the blossoms, and paints their 
 variegated leaves in parti-coloured patterns, though the 
 whole leaf is supplied with the same sap through the same 
 veins, so does the Sun of justice work in the special graces 
 of the Sacraments. How He determines them to such 
 various effects is a secret hidden from us. The Sacraments 
 have probably spiritual laws of their own, which are neither 
 gratuitous nor arbitrary, but founded in some intrinsic fitness 
 of things, Avhich results from the character of God. The 
 special grace of each Sacrament seems to be almost a visible 
 approach of God to the individual soul, to accomplish some 
 particular end, or confirm some definite vocation, or interfere 
 in some distinct crisis. It is not His usual way of working. 
 It is not merely a general augmentation of sanctifying grace, 
 an infusion of livelier faith, of keener hope, or of more burn- 
 ing charitj'. It is something more intimate between God
 
 ii6 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 and the soul, more j^ersonal, more full of reference to the 
 individual case. Again, we must not omit to reflect on the 
 inexhaustibleness of the grace of the Sacraments. It takes 
 an immense heroism like martyrdom to come near to the 
 grace of a Sacrament. Even martyrdom does not supersede 
 Baptism or Confession, if they can be had. No one can tell 
 how much grace lies in a single Sacrament. In a single 
 Communion lies all grace ; for in it is the Author and Foun- 
 tain of all grace ; and, if the theological opinion be true, 
 that there is no grace in any of His members which has not 
 actually been first in our Lord Himself, then all the grace of 
 all the world lies in one Communion, to be unsealed and 
 enjoyed by the degree of fervour which we bring. The saints 
 have said that a single Communion was enough to make a 
 saint. Who can tell if any created soul has ever yet drained 
 any single Sacrament of the whole amount of grace, which 
 was contained in it simply by virtue of its being a Sacra- 
 ment? I should be inclined to think, from manifold analo- 
 gies both of nature and of grace, that no Sacrament had ever 
 been duly emptied of its grace, not even in the Communions 
 of our Llessed Lady. 
 
 No Sacrament is content to confine itself to the conferring 
 of its special grace. There is always an exuberance about 
 it, giving more than is asked, doing more than it promised, 
 reaching further than was expected. This is a characteristic 
 of all God's works. His magnificence is confined in every 
 one of them, and is for ever bursting its bounds, and 
 carrying light, and beauty, and fertility, and blessing, far 
 beyond the shrine in which it had been localised. But the 
 Perfection of God, which above all others the Sacraments 
 appear to represent, is His magnificence. They belong to 
 this Attribute in a very special and peculiar way. Hence 
 here is about them a redundancy of grace, a prodigality of 
 jiowor. n profusoness ami lavislnifss of lienfilictiim, Avhich go
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 117 
 
 beyond the ordinary laws of the world of grace. Moreover, 
 besides this exuberance, there is an agility about the Sacra- 
 ments which is most worthy of note. Sometimes, if need 
 be, one will do the work of another. Those, wliicli have no 
 office to communicate first grace and jiistify the sinner, will 
 do so under certain circumstances. Communion will forgive. 
 Extreme Unction will absolve : not ordinarily, but when 
 there is necessity for it, and the fitting dispositions. We 
 cannot think without surprise of this power of transforming 
 themselves, and of passing into each other and supplying 
 for each other, which within certain limits the Sacraments 
 possess. Furthermore, the rivers of grace in the Sacraments 
 never run dry. Consider the multitude of Sacraments 
 administered daily in the Church. Picture to yourself the 
 wonderfulness of grace and its supernatural excellence, and 
 then imagine the quantity of it drawn out of the eternal 
 fountains for the wellbeing of the world. It is an over- 
 whelming thought. Grace is not only more abundant in 
 the Sacraments, and more nimble, but it is also more sure, 
 more invariable, more victorious. It is also more patient. 
 Grace waits longer inside the Sacraments than out of them. 
 They seem to detain it, to hold heaven down upon earth 
 with a sweet force, and so to multi^^ly the occasions and 
 prolong the opportunities of men. 
 
 The character, which some of the Sacraments confer, also 
 belongs to their grace. It is a revelation to us of the 
 divine impetuosity and energy of the Sacraments. Amid 
 the ardours of heaven, and in the dazzling splendours of the 
 ]ieatific Vision, the mystic signets, the inexplicable char- 
 acters of the Sacraments, three in number, as if adumbrating 
 the Three Divine Persons, shine fortli as distinct beauties, 
 and brighten through eternity. Tlie character of Baptism is 
 as it were the finger-mark of the Eternal Father on the soul. 
 The character of Order glistens hke the unfailing unction of
 
 ii8 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 the priesthood of the Eternal Son. The character of Confir- 
 mation is the deep mark, winch the fires of the Holy Ghost 
 burned in, the pressure of His tremendous fortitude, which 
 was laid upon us, aud yet we perished not, so tenderly and 
 so gently did He touch us. In the wild fury of the tempes- 
 tuous fires of hell the same characters glow terribly. They 
 are indestructible even there, fiery shames, intolerable dis- 
 graces, distinct fountains of special agony for ever and for 
 ever. 
 
 To these reflections on the grace of the Sacraments we 
 must not fail to add a due consideration of the doctrine of 
 intention. "What things can be more purely divine than 
 these Sacraments 1 Yet see how sensible they are to human 
 touch ! It is as if the veij delicacy of their divine fabric 
 made them more liable to human impressions. They are 
 jealous of their powers. They do not need our active 
 co-operation, so much as our permission. They require 
 obstacles to be removed, but not assistance to be conferred. 
 They work, as we say in theology, by the force of their own 
 work, not by the energy of the recipient. This is their 
 peculiarity. It is this which distinguishes them from other 
 means of grace. They have reason to be jealous of so 
 magnificent a distinction. Yet, in spite of all this, they are 
 so sensitive to the touch of our fervour, that they unlock 
 fresh and fresh graces according as we press them, as if, in 
 their love and their likeness to God, they were delighted to 
 be pressed, to be solicited, and to be importuned. They are 
 also so delicate and so susceptible that they are at the mercy 
 of our intentions. The very thought of this makes us 
 tremble. Wc could almost wish it were not so. To be so 
 fragile, while tln'y are so exceedingly strong, is not this a 
 surprise and a perplexity, not seldom too a sorrow and a 
 dread 1 It seems to show that they are purely things of 
 heaven, exotics upon earth, or Aveapons of omnipotence
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 119 
 
 becoming brittle when they are phmged siKklenly among 
 human actions. Baptism can justify the child whose reason 
 has not dawned. Extreme Unction can deal with the relics 
 of sin in a sinner who lies insensible. Such independent 
 power have these masterful Sacraments. Yet are they in 
 bondage to our intention. They must be human acts, if 
 they are to be divine ones also. They are not mere charms, 
 or spells, or sleight of hand. They have magic about them, 
 but it is only that magic of incredible love in which God 
 has clothed them with such resplendent beauty. Nothing, 
 as I think, demonstrates the divinity of the Sacraments 
 more evidently than this exquisite sensitiveness to human 
 touch. 
 
 Now look out upon the great labouring world, the world 
 of human actions and endurances. It is not possible to 
 measure the influence which is being exercised upon the 
 world at this moment by the Sacraments. They are pene- 
 trating the great mass of mankind like the network of veins 
 and arteries in a living body. They are being the causes of 
 millions of actions, and they are hindering the consequences 
 of millions of other actions. They are weaving good, and 
 unweaving evil, incessantly. The roots of great events, 
 Avhich grow up and tower in history, are perhaps fixed in 
 some secret Sacrament or other. The silent and orderly 
 revolutions of the Church are often moulded in them. 
 Society would hardly credit to what an extent it is held 
 together by them. The influence of a single reception of a 
 Sacrament may be handed down for generations ; and the 
 making of the destinies of thousands may be in its hands. 
 At this instant by far the greatest amount of earth's inter- 
 course with heaven is carried on, directly or indirectly, 
 through the Sacraments. There is a vast wild world of 
 sorrow upon earth. But over great regions of it the 
 Sacraments are distilling dews of heavenly peace. In tho
 
 I20 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 underground scenery of hidden hearts they are at ■work, 
 turning wells of bitterness into springs of freshness and of 
 life. They are drying the widow's tears, raising up unex- 
 pected benefactors for the orphan, nerving the pusillanimous, 
 softening the desperate, rousing the torpid, crowning those 
 who strive, and doing all things for those who die. As the 
 animals came trooping to Adam to be named, so mortal 
 sorrows are coming in herds at all hours to the Sacraments 
 to receive the blessing of the second Adam. Somewhere or 
 other at this moment a Communion may be giving a voca- 
 tion to some youthful apostle, who in after years shall carry 
 the Gospel to populous tribes in the Asian uplands, or 
 throughout the newly - opened river system of neglected 
 Africa. Crowds in heaven shall owe their endless bliss to 
 that one Communion. 
 
 But the world of human joys is not much less vast than 
 the world of human sorrows ; and the Sacraments are there 
 also, purifying, elevating, sanctifying, multiplying, super- 
 naturalising multitudes of these blameless delights. Yet 
 there is a difference between their action upon sorrows and 
 their action upon joys. They make no sorrows. They 
 cause no mourning. They create no darkness. Whereas 
 they are for ever creating gladnesses. Splendours flash from 
 them as they move, and their splendours are all jubilees. 
 They are fountains of happiness to all the earth. They 
 cover even the monotonous sands of life with verdure, and 
 make the desert bloom, and crown the hard rocks with 
 flowers, and beautify with their softness the sternest soli- 
 tudes. Who can tell what songs of human goodness are 
 being sung this hour in the car of God, because of the joyous 
 inspirations of the Sacraments? Of a truth human joy is a 
 beautiful thing, a very worship of the Creator. Out of 
 Himself there is no beauty like it, unless it be the jubilee of 
 angels. But the joys which the Sacraments have sanctified,
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 121 
 
 and still more, the joys which the Sacraments have gendered, 
 who can tell how sweet they are to the complacency of our 
 Heavenly Father 1 
 
 It is to be thought of, also, how the Sacraments embrace 
 and compass human life in their mysterious number seven. 
 Man's life is a pathetic thing. There is no dulness in any 
 biography of earth. Each life has many turns. "Within 
 the soul common vicissitudes are not without romance. 
 Supernatural things greatly increase the romance of life. 
 Even calmness and uniformity are like sunset skies, full of 
 noiseless plays of light, and scarce perceptible shiftings of 
 gold-red clouds, which change the splendour we know not 
 how. Yet is there in all human lives a like recurrence of 
 like vicissitudes. It is this which blends them into one, 
 although they they are so various. It is like the burden of 
 the song, which chimes in with equal fitness whether the 
 verse be one of gladness or of sorrow. The things that are 
 common to all men are more touching than those which 
 happen only to some. They are fountains of deeper feeling. 
 They are more touching because they are more natural. 
 They are diviner visitations, because they are more general. 
 It is these things upon which the Sacraments fasten with 
 their instincts of love. The times, the vocations, the states, 
 the crisis of human life, these are all clasped together by the 
 sevenfold baud of Sacraments. If we think of all these 
 things we shall own that it is no exaggeration to say that 
 their mere existence makes all creation different from what 
 it would have been without them. 
 
 But who can speak worthily of the Sacraments 1 The 
 Eucharist gives us a measure of their grandeur ; and is it 
 not an immeasurable measure ? "Would that men would 
 study more the science of the Sacraments ! Devotion would 
 be greatly increased thereby. The peculiar hatred, with 
 which the author of heresy pursues what may be called the
 
 122 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 sacramental principle in our lioly fuith, is a token to us of 
 the stress which we ourselves ought to lay upon it. Hardly 
 anywhere is theology more deep than in the matter of the 
 Sacraments, They give us more intimate glimpses of God 
 than almost anything else, and especially of the ways of 
 God, those ways by which we seem to know Him, to recog- 
 nise Him, and to realise Him. We should know much less 
 of the capabilities of human actions, their limit and their 
 reach, the point at which grace is grafted on them, and 
 their comportment under the pressure of divine things, if it 
 were not for our knowledge of the Sacraments. That human 
 actions can be the matter of a Sacrament is surely a truth 
 full of philosophical import as well as of theological signifi- 
 cance. The union of freedom with sustaining and impell- 
 ing grace, — where is it so marvellously illustrated as in a 
 Sacrament ? 
 
 Moreover, a devotion to the Sacraments is very needful 
 for the times in which we live. The spirit of the age must 
 necessarily affect both our theology and our asceticism. 
 Under its depressing constraints we shall be tempted to 
 sacrifice the supernatural to the natural, the passive to the 
 active, and the infused to the acquired. Theology will be 
 allured to merge into metaphysics. Devotion will be con- 
 sidered a vocation, priests a caste, and theology a private 
 professional training. The substance of the old Condemned 
 Propositions about spiritual direction will be adroitly re- 
 newed. j\Ien will sneer at perfection in the world. Educa- 
 tion will be bidden to throw off what it will be taught to 
 consider the last relics of its monastic trammels. Men will 
 chafe at the condemnatii)n c)f books, and indeed at all acts 
 of intelleeludl authority on the jiart of the Cluirch. The 
 study of dogmatics will be discouraged. The whole theory 
 of Condemned Propositions will be disliked. A discontent 
 witli the existing Cliurcli, or at least a want of cordial for-
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 123 
 
 •ward sympathy witli it, Avill grow up, Avliile the Avickedness 
 of "the respectful silence" of Jansenism will be renewed.' 
 The sovereignty of the Church, the pope's temporal power, 
 and the hallowed truths enshrined in canon law, will provoke 
 impatience as obstinate things which will not die although 
 their hour of death has come. The mystical side of the 
 Gospel will become more distasteful Avhile it grows less 
 intelligible. Heroism will have to rank lower than the 
 ordinary attainments of conscientious piety. The privileges 
 of the Church will be less esteemed, and heresy less hated. 
 The Sacraments will count almost for nothing in a man's 
 system. The influence of the Incarnation will be far less 
 recognised and acknowledged in the world ; and a modern 
 mixture of Judaism and Pelagianism will take possession of 
 many minds to the grievous disadvantage of Christian Per- 
 fection. Such is the spirit which will try to waylay souls 
 on their road to Calvary or to Thabor. Such was not the 
 temper or genius of the saints. Such, by the blessing ol 
 God, will not be ours, if we foster in ourselves a deep, a 
 tender, and an intelligent devotion to the Sacraments. I 
 repeat, as I said before, that, in an ascetical point of view, I 
 hardly know anything upon which I should lay greater stress 
 in these days, than a fervent devotion to the Sacraments. 
 
 Now these Sacraments are simply the machinery of the 
 Precious Blood. They are the means by which it first con- 
 quers, and then keeps what it has conquered. They are, 
 under ordinary circumstances, the conduits by which it is 
 conveyed to the souls for whom it was shed. They are 
 God's system for dispensing it. We should have, not only 
 an inadequate but an absolutely wrong notion of the empire 
 of the Precious Blood, if we did not see it as working and 
 circulating through the Sacraments. They are the grand 
 features of its Empire. They are its method of government, 
 which expresses its character and suits its disposition. It is
 
 124 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 the Sacraments which hinder it from being a past historical 
 expiation for sin. B}^ them it is always truly flowing in the 
 Church. K'ay, by them it is for ever being shed afresh within 
 the Church. Possibly there might have been Sacraments, 
 even if man had needed no redemption. But it seems as if 
 there would hardly have been Sacraments, if there had been 
 no Incarnation. The Sacraments, while they express a most 
 wonderful part of the Divine Mind, seem also to imply the 
 Precious Blood. They might have carried the glorious life 
 of the Incarnate ^Yord into the lives of His fellow-men in 
 mysterious comminglings and engraftings, even if there had 
 been no fall. But, if there had been no Precious Blood, we 
 cannot conceive of the Sacraments, The nuptials of matter 
 and spirit might have been celebrated in other ways : yet 
 not in these particular ways which now make up our idea of 
 Sacraments. Anyhow, according to the economy of redemp- 
 tion, the Sacraments form the system by which the Precious 
 Blood traverses the whole Church, gifts it with unity, and 
 informs it with supernatural energy and life. We cannot, 
 even in thought, disjoin the Sacraments from the Precious 
 Blood, or the Precious Blood from the Sacraments, without 
 changing in our minds the order and establishment of God. 
 
 But we have not spoken sufficiently of the vastness of the 
 empire of the Precious Blood. Let us look for a moment at 
 its extremes. On the one hand it includes tlie firstfruits of 
 creation, and on the other hand the refuse of creation. The 
 firstfruits of creation are those flowers whom our Lord 
 gathers in the pure fragrance of their first blooming. The}- 
 are the souls of infants, in whom as yet reason has not 
 dawned, but whom the water of Baptism, our Saviour's 
 Precious Blood, has justified and crowned. These are the 
 succ&ssors of the Holy Innocents, those first Cliristians who, 
 baptized in blood, went to adorn with their infancy the 
 Churcli Triumphant, first in Abraham's Bosom, and then in
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 125 
 
 the heaven of heavens,— the first martyrs, whose blood was 
 at once the prophecy and the prey of the Precious Blood of 
 Jesus, which had already preluded its shedding in the 
 mystery of the Circumcision. Those, Avho form the refuse 
 of creation, are they whom God has cast off for ever. They 
 lie in outer darkness. Their exile is eternal. Yet even 
 there we find the energy of the Precious Blood. Incon- 
 ceivable as are the severities of hell, they are less tlian 
 rigorous justice would exact. They are so, precisely because 
 of the Precious Blood. Before the days of Peter Lombard 
 the generality of theologians held, that, as time went on, 
 there were some mitigations of the fierce punishments of 
 hell. They sank after a while to a lower level There 
 Avere expiations, which were only temporal and not eternal. 
 There were condonations, within certain limits. Peter Lom- 
 bard, as St. Tliomas himself says, innovated upon this teach- 
 ing, and St. Thomas followed in his steps. In recent times 
 Emery of St. Sulpice revived the older traditions, but with- 
 out making much impression upon the schools. Suffice it 
 to say that, if, independent of all hell being below the rigour 
 of justice because of the Precious Blood, there were any 
 such mitigations as the elder theologians believed, they also 
 came without a doubt from the empire of the Precious Blood. 
 To it alone can they be due, if they exist at all. 
 
 There are saints in heaven. They are the heights of the 
 Church of Christ. There are newly converted sinners upon 
 earth. These are the lowest depths in the happy land of 
 redeeming grace. But the light upon those mountain-tops 
 is the glory of the Precious Blood, and the sunshine in those 
 valleys is the kindness of the selfsame Blood. There are 
 sutierers in purgatory, dwelling in a mysterious region of 
 pain and quietude, of patience and of love. They live 
 beneath the earth, yet are upon their road to heaven. Their 
 land is vast and populous. It is a territory won from hell
 
 126 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 by the Precious Blood, and its pains made uneternal. It 
 is a detention, not an exile, a detention which is a marvel- 
 lous artifice of mere}', one of the many compassionate devices 
 of the Precious Blood. There are sufferincrs on earth, suffer- 
 ings by which hearts are cleansed, sins swiftly expiated, 
 merits rapidly accumulated : sufferings in which grace comes, 
 sufferings which are likenesses of Jesus, sufferings which 
 are secret loves of God. These earthly sufferings also the 
 Precious Blood alleviates, illuminates, sanctifies, crowns, 
 glorifies, and knows how to render so delectable, that they, 
 who have drunk deep of the Precious Blood, get a strange 
 new nature, and thirst for more suffering still. Thus both 
 these extremities of suffering, beneath the earth and on it, 
 belong to the empire of the Precious Blood. If we look 
 outside ourselves, we see everywhere the empire of the 
 Precious Blood stretching away in interminable vista. The 
 whole Church is its legitimate inheritance. Her jurisdiction 
 is the law and order of the Precious Blood. The priesthood 
 is its army of officials. The Catholic hierarchy is its venerable 
 administration. The lofty tiara, that most sovereign thing 
 on earth, gleams with it, like the polar star of nations. The 
 Blessed Sacrament, multiplied a hundred thousand times, 
 is its own adorable self, its Heart-fountain, and its Five 
 Free "Wells, worshipful in its union with the Godhead, the 
 beautiful amazing Created Life of tlie Uncreated Word. If 
 we look within ourselves, there is still the selfsame empire 
 of the Precious Blood. There is the character of Baptism, 
 its still unexhausted grace, its titles unforfeited or re-con- 
 ferred, its infused habits, its heroic Spirit-gifts. There are 
 the footprints of so many Absolutions, tlie abiding fragrance 
 of such reiterated Communions, perhaps the character of 
 Order and its fearful powers, perhaps the mysterious traces 
 of Extreme Unction, certainly the signet of the Holy Ghost 
 in Confirmation, and nameless graces, nameless vestiges
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 127 
 
 where Divine Feet have gone, and -where Divine Virtue 
 still resides. There also is that most innermost sanctuary ■ 
 of the soul, which so few reach on this side of the grave, 
 the secret cabinet where the Holy Trinity dwells blessedly, 
 in the very centre of our nature, up from whose secret re- 
 cesses joys shall one day break and flow, such as we never 
 dreamed of, such as would look to us now far beyond the 
 possibilities of our nature. All this, outside us or within us, 
 is the empire of the Precious Blood. 
 
 But it is only in heaven, that its supremacy is tranquil 
 and complete. We must mount thither in spirit, where we 
 hope one day to mount in all the jubilee of an incredible 
 reality, if we would see in its full grandeur the royalty of 
 the Precious Blood. Countless saints are there, various in 
 the splendours of their holiness. They are all kings now, 
 who once were serfs, but were redeemed by the Precious 
 Blood. They are the children of many generations, the 
 natives of many lands. They were of all degrees on earth, 
 and in their fortunes the diversity was endless. But they 
 were all bought by the same Blood, and all own the lord- 
 ship of that Blood in heaven. When they sing their songs 
 of praise, songs of a human sweetness which the angels 
 greatly love, they sing of the Lamb slain and of the triumphs 
 of His Blood. When their potent intercessions win hourly 
 graces for their clients who are still struggling upon earth, 
 it is their desire to spread the empire of the Precious Blood, 
 Avhich throws such loyal intensity into their prayers. Shall 
 they forget their Ransom, whose freedom is their endless 
 
 Cast your eye over that outspread ocean, wliose shores lie 
 so faintly and far off in the almost infinite distance. It 
 gleams like restless silver, quivering with one life and yet 
 such multitudinous life. It flashes in the light with intoler- 
 able magnificence. Its unity is numberless. Its life is
 
 128 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 purest light. Into the bosom of its vastness the glory of 
 God shines down, and the universe is illuminated with its 
 refulgence. It is an ocean of life. AVho can count the 
 sum of being that is there 1 Who but God can fathom its 
 unsearchable caverns'? What created eye but is dazzled 
 with the blazing splendour of its capacious surface? It 
 breaks upon its shores in mighty waves ; and yet there is no 
 sound. Grand storms of voiceless praise hang over it for 
 ever, storms of ecstatic lightning without any roll of thunder, 
 whose very silence thrills the souls of the human saints, and 
 is one of their celestial joys, — that deep stillness of unsound- 
 ing worship. This is the world of angels. There too the 
 Precious Blood reigns supreme. The angels have needed 
 no ransom. Amid their almost countless graces there is no 
 redeeming grace. But there is not a grace in all that sea of 
 grace wdiich was not merited for tliem by the Precious 
 Blood. They too owe all they are, and all they have, to 
 its blissful royalty. Tliey too sing anthems in its praise, 
 though not the same anthems as the liedeemed. Jesus is 
 Head of Angels as well as men ; and it is as Man that He is 
 Head of angels. Thus the whole of that marvellous world 
 of glorious intelligence, profound gladness, gigantic power, 
 and beautiful holiness, is a province of the empire of the 
 Precious Blood. 
 
 Who can doubt its sweet constraints over the immaculate 
 heart of ISlavy ? She is queen of heaven and earth. Far 
 and wide her empire stretches. Its boundaries are scarce 
 distinguishable from those of the Precious Blood itself : so 
 closely and so peacefully do the two sovereignties intertwine, 
 Mary holds sway over the Precious Blood. It does her 
 bidding, and she commands Avith a mother's right. Yet she 
 too is a subject of the Precious Blood, and rejoices in her 
 subjection. Out of her very heart that Blood first came ; 
 and out of that Blood came also her immaculate Conception.
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 129 
 
 It was the very office of her Divine jNIaternity to minister 
 that Elood ; and it was that Blood which from all eternity 
 had merited for her the Divine ]\raternity. It was the 
 Precious Blood which made her suffer ; but it was the Pre- 
 cious Blood also which turned her suffering into dignities 
 and crowns. She owes all to the Precious Blood, to whom 
 the Precious Blood owes its very self. Yet the river is 
 greater than its fountain. The Precious Blood is greater 
 than Mary ; nay, it is greater by a whole infinity, because 
 the waters of the Godhead have assumed its uncommingled 
 stream unto themselves. Mary sits upon her throne to 
 magnify the Precious Blood. Her power is used for the 
 propagation of its empire. Her prayers dispense its grace. 
 Her holiness, which enchants all heaven, is the monument 
 and trophy of that victorious Blood. 
 
 Shall it rule also over the Divine Perfections 1 Behold 
 that inexorable justice, which an infinite holiness stands by 
 as assessor ! Can endless worlds of mere creatures satisfy 
 those claims, or appease that adorable wrath ? Yet the Pre- 
 cious Blood has done it. A mercy that is limitless, and a 
 justice that is insatiable, — will not sin set these attributes 
 at strife? "Who shall be peacemaker in such unspeakable 
 debate 1 The Precious Blood ! Justice and mercy have met 
 together, and have kissed each other in the Precious Blood. 
 How shall the decrees of the Creator comport with the con- 
 tinued liberty of the fallen creature ? The Precious Blood, 
 heavenliest of inventions ! has found out a way. The un- 
 changeableness of God shall condescend to wait upon the 
 mutabilities of the fickle creature, and yet its own repose be 
 all the more glorified the while ; for this too shall be one of 
 the secrets of the Precious Blood. If greater good conies 
 out of evil, it is through tlie alchemy of the Precious Blood. 
 If all the Divine Perfections combine in some resplendent 
 work of the Most Holy Trinity, whether it be Creation,
 
 I30 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Redemption, or the Blessed Sacrament, it is the Precious 
 Blood in which the combination has been made, and which 
 the attributes of God delight to magnify, while it with its 
 adoring ministries is magnifying them. If any of the Divine 
 Perfections will come down from heaven, and walk amidst 
 the nations of men, and give light, and scatter peace and 
 healing as it goes, it first puts on the vesture of the Precious 
 Blood, in order that it may not slay but make alive. Justice 
 is occupied in crowning saints. ]\Iercy is for ever traversing 
 its empire as if in pure delight at its immensity. Holiness 
 is adorning its infinite purity with the little sanctities of 
 feeble and imperfect souls. Immutability is hourly adapting 
 itself to the changeful needs of innumerable hearts. Omni- 
 potence is putting itself at the disposal of created weakness, 
 as if it were some generous beast of burden serving a master 
 whom it could so easily destroy. Eternity is busy commut- 
 ing time into itself. Love changes its eternal name, and 
 only calls itself by the name of the Precious Blood. All 
 these marvels belong to the empire of the Blood of Jesus. 
 The peace of God is all activity to do the work of that 
 dear Blood. The self-sufTiciency of God is toiling as if 
 nothing could suffice it, except the salvation of its creatures. 
 All this is the sovereignty of the Precious Blood. Nay, 
 the dread sovereignty of the Everlasting King seems to be 
 for ever passing into the Created Kingship of the Precious 
 Blood. 
 
 Inside the Unity of God, within the life of the Threefold 
 ^Majesty, even there we find the tokens of the Precious 
 Blood ; even there it seems to rule. The Son, who has 
 assumed it, owns the gladness of its love. The Holy Ghost, 
 who fashioned it at first, and now works with it His sanc- 
 tifying work, broods dovelikc with complacency upon its 
 deeps. The Eternal Father chose it as the one thing to 
 appease Him ; for He too owns the mastery of its exceeding
 
 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 131 
 
 beauty. It seems, if with becoming reverence we may say 
 so, to have widened His Fatherhood, It has added fresh 
 treasures to those inexhaustible treasures which He had in 
 His Eternal Son. But these are thoughts for silence rather 
 than for words. May His infinite Majesty pardon the free- 
 doms which the ignorance of our love has been taking with 
 His perfections ! It is of His own goodness that we cannot 
 help loving, even while we tremble. 
 
 There is one corner of creation, where the empire of the 
 Precious Blood is not wliat we would have it be. It is our 
 own hearts. Yet is it not our one work to subject ourselves 
 to it in all things 1 We desire to have no instincts, but the 
 instincts of the Precious Blood. We wish to esteem nothing, 
 but as the Precious Blood esteems it. It desires nothing so 
 much as to be loved. We desire nothing so much as to love 
 it. Why then is it that our weakness and our want of 
 courage so sadly keep our grace in check 1 Alas ! we are 
 inverting the right order of things. We are ruling the Pre- 
 cious Blood by limiting its empire. It longs to rule over 
 us ; it longs with a masterful sweetness. The day shall 
 come when its longing shall be satisfied. Neither shall it 
 be a distant day. For Ave will begin this very day to love 
 and serve our dearest Lord as we have never loved and served 
 Him heretofore. Always and in all things shall His Blood 
 rule and guide us. Its rule is blessedness even upon earth. 
 It shall rule, not our spiritual life only, but all our temporal 
 circumstances. It shall rule our love of those we love, and 
 it shall make our love of them a doing to them spiritual 
 good. How shall we die unless at that moment the Pre- 
 cious Blood is reigning in our hearts? If it rules us not 
 then, we are lost for ever. But how shall we better secure; 
 its empire at our deaths, than by establishing it over our 
 lives ? The past will not do. Jesus must be more victorious 
 in our souls, more a conqueror, and more a king. Oh, that
 
 132 THE EMPIRE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 the Precious Blood might so work in our hearts that hfe 
 should seem to have only one possible gladness, the gladness 
 of having Jesus to reign over us as King! Grace ! Grace ! 
 Avould that we were altogether conquered ! But we will be 
 of good cheer ; for the time is coming when we shall be com- 
 pletely and eternally vanquished by victorious love.
 
 ^53 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 "Why is it so hard to be at peace in life 1 Why do httlo 
 things, and such very little things, trouble us 1 "VVe came 
 forth from God, Avho is the Father of peace : why then are 
 we so restless 1 We are but winging our flight over this 
 narrow gulf of time, and the great eternity is already in 
 sight : why are we so full of volatile distractions 1 Even in 
 our flight God still holds us in His Hand ; why then do we 
 flutter so ? It is strange we cannot lie still even in the 
 Hand of God. It is because our minds are at once so active 
 and so wandering. They need continual occupation. They 
 require to be fed incessantly with images, Avhich they con- 
 sume rapidly, and are insatiable. It is this which makes a 
 contemplative life so difficult. It is this need of images. 
 Our minds are restless if they do not see a thousand varying 
 objects before them in constant motion, with light and 
 colour upon them. Tliey are fatigued with stillness. They 
 pine when they are kept to one thought, to one object. 
 They sicken even of one range of thought, one class of 
 objects. The weary sea, with its monotonous clash of waves, 
 is not more restless or more mobile than our minds. Here 
 is tlie grand difficulty of prayer, the fixing of our minds on 
 the object of our worship. Most of the things which are 
 hard in the spiritual life, are hard because of the unity, the 
 simplicity, the concentration of mind, which they require or
 
 134 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 im|)ly. The chief power of the workl over us arises from 
 our having given it possession of our minds. It would be a 
 much less difficult task to dislodge it from our hearts, if we 
 could only once expel its images from our minds. Satan's 
 power over the heart comes from his power over the inind. 
 Here then is the universal work of everybody's spiritual 
 life, either the getting rid of images or the changing of 
 them. 
 
 Now the first of these processes is a very difficult one, 
 and belongs to a high region of the spiritual state, with 
 which we have nothing whatever to do just now. The 
 second, the changing of our images, is more within our 
 reach. In fact we must absolutely reach it, if we are to be 
 devout at all. Our hearts will be what our minds are. If 
 our minds are full of images of the world, we shall never be 
 weaned from the Avorld. If they are full of images of self, 
 we shall never conquer our self-love. If our minds will 
 never rest, unless endless processions are for ever winding 
 their way across them, then let us have our j)rocessions 
 religious ; let our images be of God, of Jesus, of Mary, and 
 of heavenly things. I do not say this is altogether easy to 
 do ; but it is comparatively easy ; and moreover it must be 
 done. Let me refer to childish things, for our example. 
 \Yhon sleep was coy and would not visit us, when the pains, 
 or the sorrows, or the excitements of childhood banished 
 slumber from our eyes, they used to tell us, at least among 
 the hills of the north, to make a picture in our minds, and 
 to count the very Avhite slieep as they passed across the very 
 green slope of the mountain-side : and so of a truth sleep 
 was often won ; and tlio opiate at least was innocent. In 
 later years, when the sense of jiain was keeping the mind 
 awake, sleep has been wooed after a somewhat similar 
 fashion. AVe fdled our minds with images ; only, books 
 and travels made them of a more ambitious and complicated
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 135 
 
 sort. We bent o;:r minds on placid objects such as we 
 knew to be somewhere on eartli that night. We looked 
 down the golden green vistas of tropical forests, or on the 
 calm shores of very solitary shining seas, or on the perfumed 
 shrubby tangles of islets in the ocean, or on some dusky 
 glen which a cataract fills with silence by deadening all 
 other sounds except its own : and so also sleep has come. 
 It were better to have thought of God, and so have rested. 
 Still we may learn a lesson from our success. It is even so 
 with the restlessness and perturbation of our minds in the 
 spiritual life. If we will shut our eyes to the world, and 
 make pictures of heavenly things, and watch the Thirty- 
 Three Years of Jesus, or the Mysteries of Mary, or the 
 flights of angels, or the panoramas of the Four Last Things, 
 or the figurative pageants of the Divine Perfections, pass 
 studiously before our inward sight, then that sweet, facile, 
 rapid, undistracted prayer, which is the soul's sleep, the 
 soul's renewal of its vigour, will soon come to us. An 
 oblivion of the world, less and less disturbed by dreams, 
 will steal over us ; and we shall taste the gift of peace. 
 
 This is not the highest of spiritual ways ; I know it well. 
 Yet is the highest one fittest for you and me ? Are we yet 
 in such a state that we should strive to banish all imaLres 
 from our minds, and think only of the indistinct and form- 
 less majesty of God ? We know not what God may do 
 witli us in time. One thing, by His help, we have resolved 
 upon. It is tluit we will not stand still, neither will we be 
 contented with any grace, with any degree of love. All life 
 \ong we will advance. Daily will we climb higher. Con- 
 stantly will we trim the fires of our love, and make them burn 
 more ardently. We know not, therefore, what God may do 
 with us in times to come. Lut for the present we must 
 endeavour to cast one set of images out of our minds by 
 introducing another set. So shall we fill our minds with
 
 136 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 God continually, and be delivered from the burden of self, 
 and from the thraldom of the world. 
 
 Our present task, then, is to marshal a Procession of the 
 Precious Blood, with all its various yet kindred images, 
 through our minds. It shall be to us like the defiling of 
 soldiers over the mountain passes. The bravery of war 
 shall add to the beauty of the scenery, and the scenery shall 
 set off the bravery of war. Far off we shall see the glittering 
 pomp, and then again so near that the martial music shall 
 strike upon our ears. Here the light shall fall upon it in 
 all its beautiful array, and there the clouds shall obscure its 
 path and the crags appear to swallow up the pageant. Much 
 we may see which we cannot understand : but much also 
 which we can both understand and love. From first to last 
 it all tells of Jesus. From first to last it is a thing of God. 
 Xay, we must not be strange to it ourselves. "We too must 
 fall in with the Procession. We must climb with it, as 
 part of its life, its beauty, and its music, until we are lost 
 to sight among the cloud-covered mountains of eternity. 
 Our soul longs for rest. It would fain seek some peaceful 
 solitude, where the sights and sounds of the world cannot 
 intrude. It yearns to repose itself on God in the vigilant 
 sleep of prayer. How shall it attain its end ? "We read in 
 the Book of Esther, that when King Assuerus could not 
 sleep, "he commanded the histories and chronicles of former 
 times to be brought him," and they read them before him. 
 tSo may we have the history and chronicle of the Precious 
 Blood brought to us. It will make music in our ears, like 
 the reading of a famous ancestry to the high-born and the 
 royah It will bo a picture before our eyes, like a procession 
 emerging out of that lirst dark eternity of God, winding 
 over the picturesque inequalities of time, and re-entering the 
 second illuminated eternity of God, up which we see in a 
 vista of confused gorgcousness, as those who look through
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD, i^j 
 
 the doorway of some vast cathedral, and behold the banners 
 waving, and the masses of gold and colour all tinted with 
 the hues of the painted windows, moving slowly in indis- 
 tinct progress to the distant starry altar. If with this 
 pageant we can fill our minds, for a time at least the hold 
 of the world upon us will be loosened. The things of God 
 will interest our hearts, and many acts of divine love will 
 flow from us, as from a fountain. Let us then turn aside 
 from the images of earth, and rest awhile, and watch this 
 venerable Procession, 
 
 To what shall we dare to liken the mind of God ? With 
 what shapes of allegory shall we venture to clothe that in- 
 finite eternal object, which is the fountain of all our destinies? 
 To us it looks like some tremendous chain of mountains, whose 
 sublimities are inaccessible, whose heights are hidden always 
 in the darkness, whose shapes are not the shapes of earthly 
 scenery, whose sound and silence are alike terrible, and yet 
 whose sides are always clad in the beautiful repose of radiant 
 licrht. But it is a chain of mountains which has onlv one 
 side, one descent. None has ever climbed those heights, nor 
 ever shall But we know that, if they were surmounted, 
 there would be no descent upon the other side. A vast 
 table-land stretches interminably there into the boundless 
 distance, an unbcginning, uncreated land, of which faith 
 alone, itself a supernatural virtue, can report ; and it reports 
 only, together with some few facts, the unchanging peace of 
 awful sanctity, which is the life and joy of God. That is 
 the land of the Divine Decrees. There is the cradle of 
 Eternal Purposes, which were never younger than they are 
 to-day, and needed no cradle, because they had neither be- 
 fjinnincr, growth, or chan<:c. In the trackless distances of 
 that nameless upland have we ourselves been hidden from 
 all eternity ; so that in some sense our nothingness is 
 tlothed in the robes of God's eternity. In those untravelled,
 
 138 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 unimaginable plains the Divine Perfections have been 
 tranquilly occupied Avith us in unbeginning love, an unbe- 
 ginning love whir-h does the work of everlasting justice. 
 In those fastnesses, round which a glory of impenetrable 
 darkness hangs, lie the living mysteries of Predestination, 
 of the Divine Permissions, and of that unnamed perfection 
 out of which the gift of Freedom to creatures came. It is 
 a land before whose misty regions we bend our knees in 
 breathless adoration, in prayer which ventures not to clothe 
 itself with words. A sacred horror fills our souls, as we 
 think of the irresponsible power which reigns there, of the 
 mightiness and the celerity of that all-absorbing will, of the 
 resistless march of that all-devouring glory, of the unfathom- 
 able abysses of that incomprehensible secrecy, of the un- 
 swerving exactions of that appalling sanctity, and of that 
 amazing plenitude of life to which no creations have been 
 able to add, and which no incarnations could intensify. If 
 the mysteries which we know to lie there undivulged are 
 so tremendous, what may we not conceive of other grander 
 mysteries which are simply iinimagined ? Yet one thing Ave 
 know of that pathless Avoild of the Mind of God, pathless 
 because neither reason of man nor intelligence of angel has 
 ever Avandered there, pathless because God Himself tra- 
 verses it, not Ijy any process of remembrance or discourse, 
 but always possesses it in simple act, — one thing Ave know 
 of it, and cling to; it is that everywhere its vastest 
 solitudes, its furthest-Avithdrawn recesses, are all resplen- 
 dent Avith the most tender justice, and are all beautilied by 
 the omnipotence of love. Nothing is small to a God so 
 great : it is this thought Avhich renders so vast a majesty, 
 not tolerable only, but so sweetly intimate and so intensely 
 dear. 
 
 Over then those fertile deserts, fruitful thoucrh nothinji 
 grows there, unpeopled but Avhere all is life, coming out of
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 139 
 
 the interminable dark distances we behold the Procession of 
 the Precious Blood emerging. We could not see its starting- 
 point, if it had had one. But it never had. In the Mind 
 of God it was an unbeginning Procession of created things. 
 It went forth from His power, and it returns into His love. 
 The Precious Blood is the crowned king of all His decrees. 
 All other creation sprang from it in prolific, multitudinous 
 diversity, and it is for ever fetching creation back to the 
 Creator. We see it only as it were through dazzling mists. 
 Yet it seems to come with banners flying, whereon the names 
 of the Divine Perfections are emblazoned. The Divine 
 Decrees hover above it like glorious clouds, which are dark 
 from their exceeding luminousness. All the Types of created 
 things appear to follow in its train. Onward it comes, so 
 like an uncreated splendour, that it is hard to think it a 
 created thing. We kneel to worship, because faith, like a 
 herald, proclaims it as it comes, as the Created Life of an 
 Uncreated Person. Ages of epochs hang like shapeless mists, 
 about the long Procession, as if there were even in eternity 
 some divisions which would seem to us like time, or as if 
 eternity were thus striving to make its length and its 
 endurance visible to mortal eyes. The whole of that 
 illimitable country is somehow covered with the Precious 
 Blood. It is like the spirit of the place, or at least the 
 atmosphere which hinders its being mere darkness to our 
 view. The light is coloured by it. The darkness is thick- 
 ened by it. The silence makes it felt; and, if there be 
 any sound, it is the sound of that Blood lapsing in its 
 channels. 
 
 Now it has reached the edge of that boundless upland, 
 Nov/ it stands revealeil upon tlie heights, which face down 
 upon creation. It passes from the region of bright bewilder- 
 ing mists, mists which bewilder the more because they are 
 so bright ; and it emerges into light amidst created things.
 
 140 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Or rather, to speak more truly, it conies, the Procession of 
 Divine Decrees, the pageant of the Precious Blood, to that 
 invisible, imperceptible point in eternity, when time should 
 fittingly begin. At once a whole universe of fairest light 
 broke forth, as if beneath the tread of those Decrees, as if 
 at the touch of that Precious Blood. It was but an instan- 
 taneous flash, the first visibility of the invisible God ; and. 
 there lay outspread the broad world of angels, throbbing with 
 light, and teeming with innumerous and yet colossal life. 
 The brightness that silvered them was the reflection of the 
 Precious Blood, From it and because of it they came. Out 
 of it they drew their marvellous diversity of graces. Their 
 sanctities were but mantles made of its royal texture. 
 They beautified their natures in its supernatural streams. It 
 seemed as if here the Procession halted for a moment ; or 
 perhaps it was only that the sudden flash of light looked 
 like a momentary halt. The new creatures of God, the 
 first created minds, the primal off'spring of the Uncreated 
 !Mind, were bidden to fall in, and accompany the great 
 Procession. Oh, it was fearful, — that first sight outside 
 the immense serenity of God ! Then truly, too truly, there 
 was a halt, as if homage and obedience were refused. There 
 is a gleam as of intolerable battle, and a coruscation of arch- 
 angelic weapons, and Michael's war-cry, echoing the first 
 created cry, among the everlasting mountains. A third of 
 that creation of purest light has refused to adore the Human 
 Blood of the Incarnate Word, and is flung speedily into the 
 dread abyss ; and the ranks close in, and the unfallen light 
 now beams more resplendently with its thinned array than 
 ever it beamed before the fallen fell ; and onward the 
 Procession moves. 
 
 To our eyes it has a firmer footing when it comes among 
 material things. It is a material thing itself. It has passed 
 the world of angels, who are now following in its train.
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 141 
 
 Suddenly, on its advance, or even before it has advanced at 
 all, another universe springs up to life, the immense universe' 
 of matter. Perhaps there Avas hardly any gulf between this 
 creation and that of spirit. But it was a new manifestation 
 of the Divine Perfections. In some respects it was more 
 Avonderful than the creation of spirit, because its product 
 Avas less like anything in God. It was a Avider thing than 
 spirit, and perhaps more various. It carried God further 
 out of Himself. It Avas a longer reach of His perfections. 
 It Avas a more unexpected thing than spirit. Yet it Avas in 
 some Avay older in the decrees of God. It AA'as the creation 
 in Avhicli His predilections lay. It Avas here that He had 
 selected the created nature Avhich He would assume to Him- 
 self. It should be a nature, neither Avholly material nor 
 AvhoUy spiritual, but Avhich should bridge the interval 
 betAveen the two. It A\'as a creation also which should be 
 more under the dominion of time. It should be left tu 
 ripen through long epochs for human habitation. ^Material 
 life should be tried in a gradually ascending scale. Tiie 
 la^Avs of physical nature should be alloAved to operate for 
 long successions of periods upon the huge masses of matter. 
 Moreover, God Himself, by a series of secondary creative acts, 
 Avould set in order and adorn in a sequence of six divine 
 days the matter, Avhich in one instant, Avithout succession. 
 He had evoked from nothingness. IMoreover, alongside the 
 secular mutations of matter, God would move in a series of 
 unresting creative acts. Age after age, every hour of every 
 day, Avould He call up from nothing beautiful souls to tenant 
 the new bodies perpetually budding forth and groAving upon 
 the earth. So that this creation of matter Avas in all 
 respects a very peculiar and notable creation, not to be 
 thought meanly of because of its manifold imperfections, 
 but to be deeply studied and reverently admired as the 
 locality and material of the Incarnation. It Avas noAV to this
 
 142 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 point that the Precious Blood had come, to a world which 
 was as it were its natural home. The Types of created 
 things, which had surrounded it from the first, now suddenly, 
 as if at some divine command, spread themselves out in 
 front. "With lightning's speed they flew in showers of 
 golden fire into the vast realms of space created to contain 
 them. It was like a vast swarm of locusts gleaming, now 
 lonely, now in troops, in the distinct blackness of space. 
 Orbs, and pairs of orbs, and brotherhoods of orbs, and hosts 
 of brotherhoods of orbs, sprung off exultingly on their 
 immense careers. It was a scene that looked to be one of 
 wild terrific power, of ruin rather than of creation : only 
 that on closer view there was such unstriving peace, such 
 harmony among the unimpeded crowds of worlds, such a 
 magnificent gentle self-confidence of order, that it was amaz- 
 ing to behold. Minerals and vegetables, solids and fluids, 
 shone in families with hitherto uncovered types, which had 
 come from the exhaustless beauty of the Maker. It was all 
 so ponderous and yet all so light, so multiplied and yet so 
 simple, so profuse, yet so economical, so free and yet loving 
 law so strangely, that we could never weary of admiring this 
 spectacle of the material creation. It was created also 
 expressly as the equipage of tlie Sacred Humanity, It was 
 formed upon its model. It was in intimate relations with 
 it. The Precious Blood was beneath the jurisdiction of its 
 laws, even while it was advancing like a lawful king and 
 like a heavenly conqueror. Verily the Divine Decrees are 
 coming now in sight of their magnificent conclusion. 
 
 For a long while the road of our Procession has lain over 
 lonely worlds, now in lifeless chaos, in heaps of mineral ruin 
 or in fantastic crystal shapes, now clamorous with life which 
 to our eyes, used to other types, seems portentous and 
 uncouth, now througli periods of glacial cold, when life died 
 out, and then again tlirough epochs of steaming heat when
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 143 
 
 life was almost strangled in the green density of colossal 
 verdure. Order glows beneath the feet of the Procession, 
 as if the earth were beautified by its advance : when, all at 
 once, in a mountain-girdled garden of this uncentral planet, 
 there are seen amid the shades two startling shapes, shadows 
 to the angels they would seem, shadows of Jesus and Mary, 
 Avhom those blessed spirits had been allowed to gaze upon in 
 the Divine Decrees. Xow from out eternity that beautiful 
 patient pomp has reached so near to us, has reached the 
 father and the mother from whom we ourselves are sprung. 
 But why does it linger on the banks of Eden's fourfold 
 river? AVhy does it not rather come on with quickened 
 step, quickened by love to meet us, the children of cen- 
 turies still far on, Avho are so yearning for its coming? 
 Alas ! there are mists covering the mountains. There are 
 rude winds Avaving the boughs of Eden, and displacing its 
 quiet foliage. The powers of evil, through mysterious per- 
 mission, are breaking up out of their dark imprisonment. 
 There is a stir among the angels. The faces of the Divine 
 Decrees aie clouded. Tlie Procession has halted, not in con- 
 fusion, yet abruptly. Man also has sought himself, and has 
 used liis liberty against the divine dominion. The beautiful 
 paradise is overcast with shades. The rivers brawl more 
 hoarsely in their beds. There are sounds of tempests among 
 the mountains. The quiet beasts are seized with a panic 
 Avhich they do not comprehend. Yet there is no suddenness 
 of God's glorious anger now, as with the angels. It is as if 
 there were heavenly deliberations, as if mercy were pleading 
 against justice, and staying the uplifted arm. Those two 
 liuman faces, the likenesses of Jesus and of Mary, are sweet 
 to the eye of God even in their fall. That look of human 
 sorrow and of human penitence, why should it be so avail- 
 ing? AVliy should He pause to look at it, and as if to 
 let it work upon Him, when He dashed in pieces with so
 
 144 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 summary a -wrath tlie surpassing beauty of those countless 
 ancjels 1 It is the Precious Blood itself which seems to 
 interfere. It glows with unusual light. The splendour of 
 it appears to clothe the justice, and the mercy, and the 
 sanctity of God with a glory which to our eyes makes those 
 perfections softer, Avhile it also makes them more resplen- 
 dent. A kind of glorified sadness, yet also of well-pleased 
 love, comes over all countenances in that Procession ; and 
 it looks even more divine. Now angels join the ranks, 
 bearing new banners in their hands, emblazoned with mys- 
 terious symbols. They are the emblems of the Passion. 
 The vision of the blissful Mother passes into the Queen of 
 dolours ; and the Incarnation forsakes the white brightness 
 of Tabor for the unutterable gloom of Calvary. Yet the 
 human sadness beautifies it all. That Precious Blood was 
 human from the first ; and now that those two human faces 
 of Adam and of Eve have joined it, and have not only 
 joined it but called forth new possibilities in its nature, 
 there seem, if we may dare to say it, a more congruous 
 loveliness, a more harmonious unity, in the wonderful Pro- 
 cession. But it turns away from the mountainous frontiers 
 of Eden, and advances slowly over the expanses of the 
 untilled earth. 
 
 Men built cities for themselves, because they had instincts 
 of the heavenly city which was above ; and Damascus was 
 llie first city which they built, the first Jerusalem of the 
 I'recious Blood. Then for four thousand years the ever- 
 widening and ever-lengthening Procession wended on. They 
 were four thousand years of those grand vicissitudes which 
 form the traditions and religions of all tlie nations of the 
 earth. There was a murder and a martyrdom just outside 
 tlie gates of paradise. The first brother shed his brother's 
 blood, and the hitherto unpolluted earth cried aloud to God. 
 Yet, rightly considered, that elder brother was not the first
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 145 
 
 to shed fraternal Blood ; Adam had ah'eady shed the Blood 
 of his Elder Brother, who should also be his Son, in Eden 
 itself ; and now Abel, like another St. Stephen, was the 
 martyr of the Precious Blood, and went to dwell, himself 
 the first inhabitant, in the peaceful expectation of the limbus 
 of the Fathers. They were wild scenes, amidst which the 
 Procession had now to move. The glorious science of Adam 
 faded from the minds of men. The patience of God seemed 
 at last worn out, and the deluge came. But the Precious 
 Blood, with its retinue of angels, was everywhere on the 
 face of the angry waters. It w^as not only in the ark with 
 the chosen eight. It was cleansing countless souls among 
 the drowning. It was shriving them upon the high hilltops. 
 It was uttering brief but victorious prayers out of their souls, 
 as they sank like stones into the depths. That Flood Avas 
 a stern mission. Yet the Precious Blood was a marvellous 
 missionary, and a glorious harvest of souls was garnered, 
 with Abel and the primeval saints, into the limbus of the 
 Fathers. But the new earth grew colossal sins. It was like 
 the time when the steaming soil had grown the gigantic 
 ferns of the coal-beds. The cries of the hunters filled the 
 glens, and the animals fell off from human-kind in terror 
 and alarm. Had God's judgments only quickened the fer- 
 tility of sin 1 Truly a singular portentousness of sin answered 
 to a singular immensity of mercy. Multitudes banded to- 
 gether to build a high tower to reach to the low-seeming 
 heavens ; but their tongues were confounded, and they could 
 no longer sing the same songs in the Procession. Still 
 everywhere that Procession was reflected ; for their religion 
 and their worship were nothing but bloodshedding and 
 prayer. 
 
 It would take too long to tell all the travels of the 
 Precious Blood during those wistful ages, while it Avas at 
 once a pilgrim and a warrior, an explorer and a king, a con- 
 
 E
 
 146 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 queror going up to take possession and a victim led fortli to 
 sacrifice and to be slain. We know of it by the tents of 
 Abraham on the Chaldean plains. It was Isaac's evening 
 meditation in his pastoral fields. Jacob dreamed of it in the 
 dark nights upon the lonely wolds of Mesopotamia. Job 
 sang of it Avonderfully amid the ruddy clifis of the Stony 
 Arabia. Moses shed the glory of it over the gravelly desert 
 and round the haunted sanctuaries of Sinai. It shone like 
 moonlight over Palestine, and it was the dim but sufficient 
 litrht of all the rest of earth. The time of sunshine was 
 not come. It was a voice of minstrelsy in the heart of 
 David, ravishing the world. It was the sun behind the 
 clouds of prophecy, making them to glow with such a 
 crimson glory. The temple at Jerusalem was its well-head ; 
 but its tricklings reached to the newest peopled island in 
 the far Pacific. It had made tlie limbus of the Fathers 
 populous with the accumidated generations of the saints. 
 Ancels cannot tire. Yet there was a look of Aveariness 
 about the long Procession. It went slowly, was often silent, 
 and was manifestly travel-stained. Sighs took the place of 
 songs. Hearts made faces beautiful by the intensity of their 
 desires. Yet on many countenances there was an air of 
 doubt which mingled sadly with their wistfulness. Every- 
 where there were bands of brave Machabees, whose hearts 
 could be unmanned by no captivity. Lut the greater part 
 of men marched on like slaves going towards the land of 
 their foreign bondage, rather than pilgrims to their homes. 
 Nevertheless, in the foresight of the shedding of that Blood, 
 grace took possession of those four thousand years, and 
 delighted itself in incessant victories, victories that were 
 not confined to the clioscn race of Israel. 
 
 But now a great and sudden change comes over tlie aspect 
 of our Procession. It is not so much a cliange in the retinue 
 of the Precious Blood, as it was in the case of Adam and
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 147 
 
 Eve : this time it is a marvellous change in the Precious 
 Blood itself. It has prepared all things for itself in secret : 
 but its preparations have been hidden nij'steries. The souls 
 of Joachim and Anne have been adorned -with unusual 
 graces. The yearnings of the saints in Israel have burned 
 ■within them until their hearts have hardly been able to 
 endure the fire. The instincts of all the earth have grown 
 uneasy, as if some unwonted thing were coming upon nature. 
 In secret the Precious Blood has done a work which may 
 vie with the great work on Calvary. It has effected the 
 Immaculate Conception, wherein heaven was opened, and 
 such abysses of grace poured out xipon the earth, that the 
 accumulated graces of the four thousand years of human 
 historj', and even the worlds of grace with which the angels 
 were so munificently endowed, were as drops to the ocean 
 compared with the grace of the Immaculate Conception. 
 Beautiful as an unexpected sunrise, seen suddenly as we 
 turn out of the dark defiles of a mountain-pass, was the 
 Nativity of Mary as the Procession of the Precious Blood 
 came all at once into its visible effulgence. Perhaps there 
 is not among the divine mysteries one of such unblemished 
 gladness, of such unmixed joy, as the Nativity of our Blessed 
 Mother. It was like Bethlehem, withoutt hose grave fore- 
 shadowings of Calvary which give to Bethlehem such pathetic 
 solemnity. The birth of Mary was like a mystery of the 
 unfallen world. It was the sort of mystery unfallen worlds 
 would have, and its feast the sort of feast unfallen souls 
 would keep. Swiftly the Procession advances. The shapes, 
 the figures, and the symbols of the pageant seem to furl 
 themselves one by one, while the Precious Blood assumes 
 the distinct features of an actual Human Life. It is more 
 heavenly now, because it is more earthly. Its actual creation 
 renders yet more visible those uncreated perfections out of 
 which it ppraiig. It is more manifestly a glory to be
 
 148 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 worshipped, now that it can be seen in the Face of the 
 Infant Jesus. 
 
 But who can tell the beauty of that Precious Blood, as it 
 moved about the earth with slow human movement during 
 the Three-and-Thirty Years ? Saints rapt in ecstasy may 
 see, and haply may in part understand, a spiritual loveliness 
 ■which they cannot express in words. Like other artists, ■ 
 their conceptions are mostly above the level of language. 
 But to us the Thirty-Three- Years are an indistinct wonder, 
 distinct enough to fix us in admiration, and to make our 
 hearts burn with love, but indistinct so far as understanding 
 goes. There is something in our Lord's mysteries, which is 
 akin to the Divine Perfections. They are best seen in 
 indistinctness. An indistinct view seems to teach us more 
 than a distinct one. We see more truthfully, if not more 
 clearly, when our view is less defined. When our view is 
 distinct, it is like a beautiful picture or a beautiful poem. 
 It pleases and soothes ; it elevates and chastens ; it sobers 
 and refines. It fills us full of sweet thoughts, noble sym- 
 pathies, and heavenly imaginations. But it is not the 
 repose of prayer. It is not the heat of the mystical life. 
 It is not the swiftness of spiritual growth. It only unites 
 us to God in a distant or a circuitous way. The saints 
 perhaps may see these mysteries clearly, and yet at the same 
 time with such a view as transforms their souls, and unites 
 them to God in the crowning grace of the divine espousals. 
 To them, a spiritual beauty may be always a spiritual grace. 
 Yet even to contemplatives there is for the most part more 
 of heavenly and supernatural operation in an indistinct view 
 of the Divine Perfections and of the Mysteries of Jesus, 
 tliau in a distinct one. We only desire to know, in order 
 tliat we may increase our love. To love is better than to 
 know. Indeed it is itself a higher knowledge, 
 
 Horn, then, at the point of Bethlehem, the Procession of
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD.- 149 
 
 the Precious Elood comes out into a light too strong for lis 
 to see the details of its magnificence. It is too near to us 
 to be seen except in detail, and its details are too bright to 
 be distinct. Like all the works of God, it hides itself by 
 coming close up to us. This will oblige us to speak of it in 
 a subsequent part of the chapter from a different point of 
 view, rather as of a Life, than as of a Procession. Never- 
 theless it moved in fairest pomp along those Three-and- 
 Thirty Years of visible, earthly, human life. Now and then 
 it apjDeared upon the highways of the world, and in the 
 streets of cities ; but for the most part it haunted sequestered 
 retreats of its own, and it haunted them with mysterious 
 delays. It bore its banners furled. No voice of song, but 
 the low strains of the INIother's Magnificat, were heard in its 
 encampments. A saint, whose very soul was part of the 
 silence of heaven, alone guarded it for nearly all its appointed 
 years. For thousands of years the world had looked for its 
 manifestation ; and now behold ! that manifestation was a 
 concealment. Before it came, it was a palpable pageant of 
 history. When it came, it melted, as a cloud melts in the 
 sunshine, into the more substantial reality of a divine 
 mystery. It hid itself in jNIary ; and we see it for an 
 instant passing in unwonted haste over the uplands of 
 Judea. We hear it in the tones of Mary's voice. We taste 
 it in the sweetness of her chosen words. By the light of 
 Joseph's lantern we catch a glimpse of it at midnight on 
 the floor of a cave at Bethlehem, where shepherds gaze in 
 silence, and oriental kings are kneeling to adore, while the 
 angels, who that night could not be so silent as their God, 
 sing high up in heaven as if they feared lest their jubilee 
 should wake the earth, and divulge the secret of their King. 
 In the courts of the great temple we see the humble pomp 
 of its dear Candlemas, a sort of childish anticipation of its 
 second triumph on Palm Sunday more than thrice ten years
 
 ISO THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 hereafter. It moves along the sandy depressions and stone- 
 sprinkled troughs of the desert, not in a glorious caravan of 
 merchants laden with the gold and jewels of India, or with 
 the drugs and gums of Araby, but in a timid pilgrimage 
 with Joseph and with Mary. It hides amidst the bulrushes 
 of the Egyptian river, as the cradle of the Hebrew lawgiver 
 had hidden centuries ago. Once more it wound its way 
 across the desert. Its Pilgrimage was one of three now, 
 whereas seven years before it seemed only to be of two, 
 itself being nothing more than the alternate burden of the 
 foster-father and tlie moilier. The Eoy can walk now, 
 though the sands weary His Feet with their burning, and 
 the pebbles bruise Him with their liardness. But the thorns 
 of the acacias and the prickles of the salt-plants pierce Him, 
 and His Feet leave a faint line of red behind them, which 
 angels adore and recognise as the veritable Procession of the 
 Precious Blood. 
 
 As if impelled by its kingly instincts, it drew near its 
 own lawful palace in Jerusalem ; and then, as if glad of an 
 excuse to hide itself afresh, it turned aside through fear of 
 a usurping king, and sank, like a bird whom the hawk has 
 been pursuing, into that hidden bowl of mountain-meadows, 
 which men call Nazareth. Here it disappeared, like a river 
 which has gone underground. There was a long halt of 
 three-and-twenty years. Occasionally, when tlie crowding of 
 the feasts gave greater facilities for its disguise, it went over 
 the steep patlis to its sacred metropolis, and worshipped in 
 Die temple amidst the multitudes. Once very notably it 
 appeared there, five years after the return from Egypt ; and 
 its voice was heard in the Jewish schools ; and its beauty 
 looked out of boyish eyes into the hearts of old men and 
 wise scholars and profound interpreters, and puzzled them 
 with its loveliness, which needed a more spiritual interpret- 
 ing than they could give. This was a moment in the Pro-
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 151 
 
 cession of the Precious Blood, of all moments the most diffi- 
 cult to understand ; for it seemed to turn away from that 
 fountain in jNIary's heart, round which it had been flowing 
 in rings that seemed to draw nearer at every circuit. Eut it 
 had this time only fetched a wider circuit that it might 
 better turn, and flow straight back into its fountain, and live 
 hidden there in indistinguishable distinctness for eighteen 
 years of another childhood, which the strength of size and age 
 only adorned with more tender ministries, and only graced 
 with a more beautiful docility. Even the appearances, the 
 looks, the outward shows of divine mysteries are full of sig- 
 nificance. In this staying behind at Jerusalem it seenis as 
 if the Eternal Father and the mortal Mother were beckoning 
 the Procession of the Precious Blood difi'erent ways, and as 
 if in the end the Creator had given way to His chosen crea- 
 ture. This is the look of that secret parting of the Boy of 
 twelve at the gate of Jerusalem. 
 
 But now, as through some gateway on which the sun is 
 brightly shining, or some triumphal arch hung round with 
 braided flowers, the Procession of the Precious Blood issues 
 out of the pastoral solitude of Nazareth at Cana of Galilee 
 in the unexpected light of a marriage feast. It was as if 
 the multiplying of the human family was a joy to its love of 
 souls. "With how exquisite a fittingness, and with how much 
 disclosure of His own character, did our Lord make that first 
 of His public mysteries a triumph of His I\rother ! "VVe know 
 not how to express the glory of that feast to her. The 
 eternal counsels were anticipated at her word. The time, 
 which in our Lord's mind had not come, came at His 
 Mother's will ; and the first refulgence of His miracles shone 
 forth on her, and at her bidding. Tlirough her He had 
 entered on the earth : through her He entered on His 
 Ministry. With her He went up Calvary : with her He 
 mounted the Hill of the Ascension. All the mysteries of
 
 iS2 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Jesus are glories of Mary. The Ministry is not less full of 
 her fragrance, than the Childhood or the Passion. As the 
 Father's work was deferred for j\Iary when her Son was 
 twelve, the same work was precipitated for her when He 
 was thirty. 
 
 Through this portal, then, of Cana in Galilee, this Gate 
 of Mary, as we may call it, the precious Blood issued forth 
 from its concealment. The low white houses gleamed with 
 their flat roofs among the pomegranate trees, and the broad- 
 leaved figs, and the shrubby undergrowths, while the plain 
 below was all waving with the billowy corn. The corn below, 
 even if it bore a thousandfold, was but a poor figure of the 
 harvest that Blood should gather now, that Blood which 
 shone more ruby-like than the ripest pomegranate in Cana. 
 A little water from the village well was turned into generous 
 wine ; but that Blood, which men will spill like water, shall 
 be the wine of immortality to all the world. Now for three 
 years the Procession of the Precious Blood moved to and fro 
 within the precincts of the Holy Land. One while it was 
 upon the hill-tops, which look down upon the lake, the lake of 
 the Great Vocations, as we may fitly name it. Another while 
 it was winding along the paths which clove the tall corn in 
 the fields. The day saw it in the temple courts; the moon- 
 light disclosed it in the grey hollows of the stony mountains. 
 It went to carry blessing to the houses of the poor ; and it 
 crossed the inland sea in the boats of fishermen. Yet it did 
 not move at random. Its very journeys were a ritual. It 
 was like the procession in the consecration of a church. Its 
 movements have a meaning, and make up a whole. Whether 
 it goes round the walls with the bunch of hyssop, or writes 
 alphabets on the ash-strewn floor, or clusters in seeming con- 
 fusion round tlie yet unconsccrated altar, there is a symbol 
 and a law in every posture. So was it with the sinuous 
 wanderings of the Precious Blood in Palestine. Like tho
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 153 
 
 course of the Israelites in the desert, it had a pattern to the 
 eye of God_ and betokened some hidden wisdom, which we 
 are imable to decipher. It was beautiful beyond words, 
 beautiful beyond our comprehension. It had no ornaments 
 Its figurative pageantry was gone. The words of life were 
 its only music. It was now neither like a pilgrimage, nor a 
 march. There was nothing to which it could be compared. 
 It was a Countenance which moved to and fro, intensely 
 human because it was more than human, smiling, weeping, 
 looking downcast, adoring, speaking, clad in wonderful anger, 
 bonnd in placid sleep, pale, weary, meek, submissive, yet 
 unspeakably commanding. All human expressions gathered 
 there, save one, and that was the expression of surprise. 
 Sometimes in His words there was what sounded like a tone 
 of surprise, escaping plaintively from some wounded love 
 within His Heart. But on the vastness of His mind nothing 
 like surprise could dawn, nor any perplexity pass upon the 
 serenity of His Face. To see that Face was a heaven to the 
 pure and good ; and when the heart came to fear too much, 
 because the beauty of the Face was so reverend, its likeness 
 to the Mother's face confused it sweetly with earthly things, 
 and enabled the heart to repose on its divinity. Thus the 
 Procession came to Olivet and Calvary. 
 
 Who can gaze steadily on the intolerable brightness of 
 that Procession now, all flashing with a crimson light which 
 blinds the eye of the Beholder 1 As, when we gaze upon 
 the sun, we seem to see it double, and the two orbs quiver 
 in our wounded eyes Avith a vermilion haze, so is it with 
 the Precious Blood amid the mysteries of the Passion. It 
 appears double. There are two Processions instead of one. 
 One is all shame, and suflering, and defeat. We might 
 almost have said disorder ; but there is something so vener- 
 able in its disgrace, something so imposing in the tranquillity 
 of that Countenance, that there is order and self-mastery in
 
 154 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 its abasement. The other Procession is all triumph and 
 exultation. Eager mercy hurries to and fro. Hidden coun- 
 sels of the Eternal open their banners for the first time, 
 and wave them joyously ; and the jubilant silence of the 
 angels is so intense that we might almost dream we heard it, 
 as some strain of music in which the complainings of blame- 
 less envy mingled with the impassioned notes of self- forget- 
 ting victory. How dark the stains looked in the moonlight 
 that silvered the olive-tops of lone Gethsemane ! How the 
 red rain spotted the pavements of Jerusalem, like those 
 portentous showers of blood which pagan history records 
 with fright ! How red the streams looked upon the white 
 Body, and then how black ; and how the eclipse, which came 
 on and hid it all, made the spectre of it burn with a fiery 
 reality in our eyes, because we knew so certainly and so 
 exactly what the darkness contained ! At the foot of the 
 Cross also the Blood itself looks double ; for, if the Face of 
 Jesus was like the face of INIary, now the tears of ^Mary are 
 like the Blood of Jesus. They were tears of blood, and of 
 the very blood which had been the fountain of the Precious 
 Blood. 
 
 Then a change comes over our Procession. The Blood goes 
 alone. It is no longer in the Sacred Heart as in its living 
 tabernacle. It is no longer mantling in the Mary-like Face. 
 It is apart and uncompanionetl now ; and by itself is abso- 
 lutely adorable. The souls of men have got the Soul of 
 Jesus to themselves beneath the eartii, where it is brighten- 
 ing the caverns witli the Beatific Vision. The love and 
 piety of men have tended the Body, embalined it, and laid 
 it in the tomb. To whom shall the Blood belong? Even 
 to those for whom only it was not shed in expiation, to thoie 
 for whom only it was not a ransom, to the multitudes of the 
 delighted angels ! "Who can tell their jubilee in that brief 
 but sole possession of the ransom of mankind 1 Thoy are
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 155 
 
 sentinels over it, where it la}-. On the Iwrd stones of the 
 street and on the stained plants of Calvary, on the accoutre- 
 ments of the soldiers and on the garments of the great 
 Mother, in the dry dust of Olivet and on all the instruments 
 of the Passion, they kept watch and ward, and adored the 
 Precious Blood. Mary saw them, and blessed them in their 
 deed. Through the Friday night, and the Saturday, and 
 till the Sunday dawned, they sang their voiceless songs 
 in those low-lying crevices of earth, finding their heaven 
 amid the dust of men's feet. Then they raised each drop 
 with touch of reverent fear and tremulous abasement, and set 
 it up as a grand thing of beauty and of worship, and went 
 in unimaginable procession to the sepulchre. Who can tell 
 how they marshalled that pomp upon the earth, nor how 
 like it was to that simultaneous order of the Incarnation, of 
 which theology teaches such marvellous things, nor how like 
 it was to the Chalice which Jesus Himself had consecrated, 
 as it were an external Sacred Heart, on the Thursday night, 
 nor how like it is now to the daily separation of the Blood 
 in the Chalice of the Mass 1 Alongside of the Soul returned 
 from limbus, and enjoying the same Divine Union, as the 
 Soul, the Precious Blood re-entered the Sacred Heart, filled 
 with the sounds of life its silent halls, and poured the 
 glorified beauty of an immortal human life over every sacred 
 Limb, efi'acing all vestige of the Passion, save where it 
 gathered itself up and burst forth into five roseate suns in 
 the Hands and Feet and Heart, suns whose exuberant radi- 
 ance is causing unsetting day this hour in the farthest 
 extremities of heaven. But that separate procession, that 
 exclusive keeping of the Precious Blood, is a glory and a 
 pride of the angelic kingdom, which their songs will tell of 
 to all eternity. 
 
 Green Nazareth was not a closer hiding-place than tlie 
 risen glory of the Forty Days. As of old, the Precious
 
 /56 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Blood clung round tlie sinless Motlier. Like a stream that 
 will not leave its parent chain of mountains, but laves them 
 incessantly with many an obstinate meandering, so did the 
 Blood of Jesus, shed for all hearts of men, haunt the single 
 heart of Mary. Fifteen times, or more, in those Forty Days, 
 it came out from under the shadow of Mary's gladness, and 
 gleamed forth in beautiful apparitions. Each of them is 
 a history in itself, and a mystery, and a revelation. Never 
 did the Sacred Heart say or do such ravishing things as 
 during those Forty days of its Eisen Life. The Precious 
 Blood had almost grown more human from having been 
 three days in the keeping of the angels. But, as it had 
 mounted Calvary on Good Friday, so now it mounts Olivet 
 on Ascension Thursday, and disappears into heaven amidst 
 the whiteness of the silver clouds. It had been but a 
 decree in heaven before, a divine idea, an eternal com- 
 passion, an inexplicable complacency of the life of God. It 
 returns thither a Human Life, and is throned at the Right 
 Hand of the Father for ever in right of its inalienable union 
 with the Person of the Word. There is no change in the 
 Unchangeable. But in heaven there had never been change 
 like this before, nor ever will be again. The changes of the 
 Great Doom can be nothing compared to the exaltation of 
 the Sacred Humanity of the Eternal Word. The very wor- 
 ship of the glorious spirits was changed, so changed that 
 the angels themselves cannot say how it is that no change 
 has passed on God. Somehow the look of change has 
 enhanced the magnificence of the divine immutibility, and 
 has given a new gladness to their adoration of its unspeak- 
 able tranquillity. 
 
 For a moment nothing on earth is visible. The white 
 light of the Ascension has dazzled our eyes. We see a con- 
 fused splendour, and nothing more. It is but for a moment ; 
 and tlien, more wonderful than ever, the Procession lies out-
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 157 
 stretched before the vision of our minds. It is no longer 
 
 O 
 
 single. It is not even double, as it was on Calvary. It is 
 treble now. Girdled with amazing refulgence, it lills all 
 heaven. Ui^on earth, breaking away beyond the confines 
 of Palestine, it is visible in all nations of the globe, and 
 crossing the broadest seas. Everywhere it is traversing the 
 plains, scaling the mountains, and penetrating the sanctu- 
 aries of the wilderness. The Procession in repose above is 
 like the Procession of the Thirty-three Years. It is the 
 actual life of the Precious Blood. The Procession below 
 is the omnipresence of its power, the outstreaming of grace 
 from its treasuries, faith's veritable application of the Precious 
 Blood to the souls of men. This last is like the Procession 
 of the four thousand years before the Incarnation, only that 
 it has now sacramental realities of its own, and looks back- 
 ward to the past, not, as that other Procession, forward to 
 a future. The third Procession is not one, but manifold, 
 and multiplied incessantly. Swifter than the sunbeam, from 
 out the opened heavens the Precious Blood is flowing upon 
 the altars of the Church. It is filling innumerable chalices 
 at the same moment in the most distant places. The Sacred 
 Heart, which is its natural tabernacle, is halting in countless 
 tabernacles of human artifice, or is being borne about the 
 fields and streets to the dying by the anointed servants of 
 our Lord. This last Procession is not less actual than the 
 one which is in heaven. It lives the same glorified life. 
 It is but one life, and the same life. This is the threefold 
 vision of the Precious Blood, which avc see when the 
 radiance of the Ascension has passed away. The one in 
 .heaven ministers in unknown mj'steries to the I\[ajesty of 
 the Father. The one that moves over the earth is the 
 minister of the Holy Spirit, who guides and rules the 
 Church. The mingled activity and rest of the Blessed 
 Sacrament is the human life of the Eternal Son Himself,
 
 1^8 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 haunting the earth whicli lie loved so dearly as to redeem 
 it with His Blood. So the glory of the Holy Trinity satiates 
 itself upon the Precious Blood. 
 
 The Upper Koom of Pentecost is another Bethlehem. It 
 is the birthplace of the Church. There is the same Mother 
 as in the midnight cave. But, instead of Joseph, there are 
 apostles. Instead of angels' songs in tlie quiet midnight, 
 there is the rushing wind of tlie Eternal Spirit ; and His 
 Hery tongues instead of the wintry brightness of the stars. 
 From that Upper Room the Procession seems to start again. 
 Not that the Precious Blood had left the earth, even at the 
 Ascension. The whole of those ten days it lay, in real 
 sacramental presence unconsumed, on Mary's immaculate 
 heart as on a reposoir. But it is not our present purpose to 
 dwell upon the analogies between Bethlehem and the Room 
 of Pentecost. We must still follow our Procession. From 
 the day of Pentecost we can see its course onward for ages. 
 The scenery of history is more varied than even that of 
 geography. It has its bleak mountains and its cultivated 
 lands, its valleys and its plains, its forests and even its 
 deserts, its cities and its solitudes, its beautiful maritime 
 borders and its grey expanses of melancholy wold. Across 
 all this various scenery the Procession of the Precious Blood 
 moves on, sometimes a single pomp, sometimes multiplied 
 into many pomps, then again reuniting in one, or again 
 sending forth a branch which sliines for many a league and 
 then disappears gradually or at once, as if the earth had 
 diunk it up, as the sands drink the rivers of the desert. 
 Still its course is i)lainly onward, from the east to the west ; 
 and its metropolis is changed, from Jerusalem to Rome. Its 
 jiageantry is more magnificent than ever. The choirs of 
 angels still attend it ; but its sacred vessels arc borne by a 
 resplendent human hierarchy, which is a copy of the liierar- 
 chies of heaven, and an emanation of tlie eternal priesthood
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 159 
 
 of Jesus. At its hedd moves the never-dying Peter, the 
 prince of the apostles and the vicar of his Lord, ^vhile 
 by his side moves evermore the glorious St. Micliael, the 
 captain of the hosts of God and the famous zealot of His 
 honour. So multiplied are the symbols and the blazonries 
 of Mary, that we might sometimes take it for a procession 
 of our Lady. But then again, from its more solemn pomp, 
 and more austere observance, we perceive that it is in truth 
 a Procession of the Pdessed Sacrament. Above it all, in a 
 glory of sweetest light, hovers the Eternal Dove, Avho has 
 come to be to the Church what Jesus was to His disciples 
 during the Three-and-Thirty Years. Beautiful Spirit ! He 
 has clothed the Procession with His beauty. He has shed 
 over it the whiteness of His holiness. He, who fashioned 
 the Sacred Humanity after His own model of Mary's loveli- 
 ness, has imprinted the thousand-fold expression of the like- 
 ness of Jesus upon the Church. So the Procession moves 
 on, bearing on high the strange heaven-invented vessels of 
 the Sacraments, and attended with this amazing equipage. 
 
 It fits all times. It harmonises with all scenery. Its 
 bravery does not flaunt the twilight of the catacombs, while 
 it is in equal keeping with imperial courts. It illuminates 
 ages Avhich else were dark, and the eye rests reposefully 
 upon its placid glories when false glitter all around at once 
 deludes and fatigues the sight. "With appropriate magnili- 
 ceiice it adorns institutions venerable for their long antiquity, 
 while with equal fitness it inaugurates the unprecedented 
 novelties of darmg epochs, as calndy as if it had been used 
 to them for centuries. In the desert of the Thebais and 
 amidst the temples of Athens, in the white squares of 
 Iconium and by the thousand runlets of Damascus, amidst 
 the swamps of Bulgaria and the mosques of Granada, iu 
 the oak sanctuaries of Scandinavia or the colleges of Paris, 
 in the market-places of the Flemish towns or by the mis-
 
 i6o THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 sionary rivers of La Plata, it is at once the light of tho 
 supernatural ennobling nature, and at the same time a 
 beauty ■which seems as natural as the grey ruin which an 
 aged wood so well knows how to incorporate with its quiet 
 self. We have seen all this ; for the light of history falls 
 clearly upon it. But we trace the Procession far onward 
 toiling over the unborn ages, where the starry indistinctness 
 of prophecy reveals it to our eyes. There are times to come, 
 which shall be very different both from the times that have 
 been, and from the times tliat are. The latter ages of the 
 Clmrch will be portentous epochs. The times of Antichrist 
 will never have been paralleled, although they may have been 
 foreshadowed, and foreshadowed chiefly by the primeval 
 centuries of scripture history. But even amid those mon- 
 strous novelties the Procession of the Precious Blood, with 
 its miraculously preserved Sacraments, will move on with 
 the same ready gracefulness, the same instinctive pliability, 
 Ihe same tranquil consciousness of its mission, which have 
 distinguished it since Pentecost. Oh happy we, who shall 
 see that marvellous future in peaceful admiration from out 
 the Bosom of our Heavenly Father, and may have to help it 
 with our prayers ! 
 
 But this Procession is not to be always a splendour of the 
 earth. Its eternal sanctuary is heaven. It will pass from 
 oarth to heaven through the dark portal of the Valley of 
 Josaphat, the Valley of the Universal Doom. That will be 
 tlie day of its earthly triumph, the crown of that other day 
 of shame and outpouring upon Calvary. The lone trumpet 
 of the archangel, which shall wake the dead, is part of the 
 pageantry of the Precious Blood. Tlie union of tho souls 
 and bodies of the just is its work. Tho transfiguring of all 
 glorified bodies into the likeness of the Body of Jesus is due 
 alos to the energy of its merits. Out of the Human Life, 
 wliich is in that Blood, all judgment will proceed. The
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. i6i 
 
 Blood itself will be the measure of justice, and the immeasur- 
 ableness of mercy. All that will be magnificent in the 
 vindictive sanctity of God that day will be a glory of the 
 Precious Blood. In all that will be sweet, and gentle, and 
 compassionate, it will seem as if the Precious Blood led the 
 very love of God captive through its own greater capacities 
 of love. Then too will all its difficult secrets be told, and 
 its honour gloriously restored. Its mysteries of election, 
 its seeming inequalities of grace, the irregularities of its 
 patience, its varying prodigality, the apparent caprices of 
 its impetuosity, its predilection for particular races and 
 climates, its choice of favourite epochs, its look of wayward- 
 ness with each individual soul, the amazing revelation of 
 the saving grandeur of the Seven Sacraments, — all these 
 things will then be m.ade plain, all will magnify its justice 
 and its lovingness, all will illustrate the Godlike equality of 
 its beneficence, and all will redound to its eternal praise. 
 The Universal Doom will be nothing else than a grand 
 Feast of the Precious Blood, a Feast solemnised by the most 
 marvellous functions, ushered in by the archangel's trumpet 
 at the dead of night. The rendering of their dead by land 
 and sea, the jubilee of countless resurrections, the leading 
 in chains of Satan and the rebel populace of hell, the 
 superb gathering of the angels, the radiant Advent of the 
 Judge and His JMother from heaven, the silent pomp of the 
 all-lioly judgment, the ascent at eventide back to the palaces 
 of heaven with very worlds of material beauty won to God by 
 the resurrection of the just, — these are the sacred pageants of 
 that supreme Feast of the Precious Blood. 
 
 After this, what shall we dream of the history of the 
 Precious Blood in heaven ? "Will it still be like a Proces- 
 sion, though gathered round the High Altar of creation ? 
 Will it still have new works to do, new glories to contribute 
 to the Uncreated ^lajesty 1 "What means that mysterious
 
 i62 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 laying down of the kingdom by the Sacred Humanity, of 
 wliich the apostle speaks to the Corinthians ? What side 
 are we to take in that thrilling controversy of theologians 
 about the eternity of the priesthood of our Lord 1 Will not 
 the repose of heaven be more energetic than the activity of 
 earth, and be the more energetic because its peace is so pro- 
 found? At least we may say so much as this: — 'Ho work 
 of God is a work done : but rather it is eternally a grand 
 work, being grandly, and always more and more grandly, 
 done. It seems to my ignorance, that, with God, all His 
 works will be, now that they have once begun, like the 
 Generation of His Word and the Procession of His Spirit ; 
 they will not be done, but will be being done for ever. So 
 perchance there will be in the Precious Blood eternal novel- 
 ties eternally to magnify the glory of the Uncreated Trinity. 
 All Avorks of God are completed as soon as they are begun ; 
 and yet they are also endless in the unity of their accomplish- 
 ment : and which of His works is invested Avith such royal 
 rights as is the Precious Blood 1 
 
 Our object in this chapter was to get a clear idea of the 
 history of the Precious Blood. There are some subjects in 
 which clearness is everything. If we can make a definite 
 picture in our minds, we have done everything. This is the 
 case with the history of the Precious Blood. The price of our 
 redemption is full of unfathomable mysteries. We cannot 
 liope to understand them all, or indeed any of them fully. 
 That single divine law, that without shedding of blood there 
 is no remission of sin, is beyond our grasp. It only clothes 
 for us with dim magnificence that gift of God, which of all 
 His natural gifts we lca.st understand, the gift of life. What 
 we want is to understand so far as to be able to worship and 
 to love. Our best understanding of the Precious Blood is 
 the sight of what it has done, the enumeration of its deeds, 
 the narration of its history. So fur we have endeavoured to
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 163 
 
 get a clear idea of its history under the figure of a procession. 
 Most divine works liken themselves better to processions 
 than anything else. Any one, who has tried to make theo- 
 logy clear to those who are not theologians, must have dis- 
 covered this ; and a great deal that is very remarkable is 
 implied in the fact. All that is outside of God has an in- 
 veterate likeness to that which is within. It is the genius 
 of creative acts to put on the semblance of processions. At 
 the same time we look upon a procession from without. 
 Things seen from without are seen more definitely. Their 
 form and figure are more palpable. Hence we gain in clear- 
 ness. But the outside is never more than a partial manifesta- 
 tion. Besides this, it is liable to erroneous impressions 
 Avhich can only be corrected by some knowledge of what is 
 within. Having asked you, then, to look at the history of 
 the Precious Blood as a Procession, I must now, at the risk 
 of some repetition, ask you to look at it as a Life, or as a 
 series of lives. We shall thus complete our study of this 
 marvellous history, and do our best to guard against any such 
 misapprehensions as might interfere with our devotion. 
 
 All God's works are in a certain sense part of the life of 
 God. It is this which gives to creation its interest as well 
 as its significance. It is in this way that time participates 
 in eternity. The life of the Precious Blood may be divided 
 into seven epochs : or, it would be more true to call them 
 seven lives, both because they do not follow each other in 
 order of time, and also because they are not all actual periods 
 of its existence. The seven lives are as follows : the life of 
 the Precious Blood in the Mind of God before creation ; its 
 life of efforts in tlie world from creation to the Incarnation ; 
 its life upon earth during the Thirty-Three Years ; its life of 
 energy in the Church afterwards up to the day of Doom ; 
 its contemporaneous life all that time in heaven ; its con- 
 temporaneous life on earth in the Blessed Sacrament during
 
 1 64 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 tliat same time : and finally its eternal life in heaven, when 
 the Doom is past. In all these lives of the Precious Blood 
 there is a hidden life which we cannot reach, and whose 
 mysteries are not only above our comprehension but beyond 
 our imagination. Its union Avith the Divinity is inexplic- 
 able. Its peculiar redeeming value, in that it is blood, is 
 also a secret hidden from our intelligence. It represents 
 abysses of the divine wisdom, which are not only unfathom- 
 able but nameless. It bears upon itself the imprint of 
 unsuspected perfections in the broad majesty of God. The 
 jubilee of its life is a height of creation lost to our eyes in 
 the burning vicinity of the uncreated. To this innermost 
 iuward life we cannot penetrate ; but we can see, and under- 
 stand, and love much of an inward, though less secret, life, 
 which we could not see wlien we regarded the Precious 
 ]Uood under the figure of a Procession. It is of this inward 
 life we must now endeavour to get some idea. 
 
 The life of the Precious Blood in the Mind of God from 
 all eternity is in one sense a real life, and in another sense 
 an unreal one. It was not an actual life. It was a life of 
 predestination, of foreseen beauty, of multiplied divine in- 
 tentions. It was a specially divine invention, if we may 
 use such a word. It was an idea which could not have 
 come to any mind but that of God, and therefore the com- 
 ])lacency which it caused in the Divine Mind was immense. 
 It was a sort of second Word to God, a created expression 
 of His uncreated perfection. It was part of the most grand 
 and glorious thought of God, the Incarnation. It was a 
 most important part of it. It was also a specially chosen 
 part, selected for the accomplishment of our redemption, and 
 f(jr tlie restoring of a revolted creation to the dominion of 
 its Maker, In the most dear and dread Mind of God it 
 was a fountain always flowing. The beauty of its flowing 
 luid been one of His unbeginning gladnesses. It was the
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 165 
 
 fountain which gave forth, multitudinous and beautiful as 
 the creation of the radiant angels, the countless predesti- 
 nations of the infinitely varying souls of men. The mystery 
 of all election was from the first glassed in its beaming depths. 
 It was its spray, which caught the golden light of eternal 
 things, and fell down before the throne, even as it is still 
 falling now, in starry showers of splendour. It was a mirror 
 too in which the manifold countenances of the divine per- 
 fections looked always, and loved to make their beauty 
 bearable to mortal eye. It is there to this day, that the 
 oppositions in God are seen to be harmonies most simple and 
 most worshipful. All parts of creation give us double views 
 of God, simultaneous views of His seemingly opposite per- 
 fections, just as on the Mount of Olives the eye may rest 
 at will either on the Dead Sea or on the Holy City. But 
 of no part of creation is this so true, or true in so high a 
 sense, as of the Precious Blood. Redeeming grace tells the 
 whole history of God, so far as it can be told, unfolds His 
 character in all of its breadth M-hich is comprehensible, and 
 as it were recites and magnifies each separate perfection ; 
 and redeeming grace is the specialty of the Precious Blood. 
 Moreover the Precious Blood dwelt also in the Mind of God 
 as the type and model of all creation, Avhether fallen or un- 
 fallen. In its unity lay the germs of all created loveliness 
 and of all created variety. Mary was its first shadow, its 
 first reflection, the freshest copy of the original. Ko wonder 
 then that it was an infinite delight to the Three Divine 
 Persons. To Them it was none the less real, because it was 
 not yet actually created ; for to God the solidest created 
 substance is but as shadow compared with the reality of 
 His ideas. Thus from all eternity did the Precious Blood 
 reign like a sovereign thing in the adorable complacency of 
 God. 
 
 As it had lived an eternal life in the Mind of God before
 
 i66 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 creation, so also did it live a life of visible effects and real 
 jurisdiction from the beginning of the world, before it had 
 become itself an actual created thing in the mystery of the 
 Incarnation. It was the Precious Blood which hindered 
 the fall of man from being as irretrievable as the fall of 
 the angels had been. It did real work in every single soul 
 which was created in those four thousand years. It altered 
 their position in the world. It made the eye of God look 
 differently on them. I trained supernatural graces upon their 
 hearts. It diminished temporal chastisements. Neither 
 was it less influential in the counsels of God than in the 
 souls of men. It caused His compassion to overspread the 
 whole earth. It turned the chronicles of the world into a 
 succession of types, and shadows, and predictions of itself. 
 While it was itself preparing all things for its own coming 
 and shedding, it so controlled all things that they rather 
 seemed to be a preparation for itself. It sounded in every- 
 thing that God said. It impressed its character upon every- 
 thing that God did. It underlay all heathen life, and all 
 Hebrew life. It was the significance of the most significant, 
 and also of the most insignificant, events. It moulded all 
 sanctity into an oiilooking for itself. It beautified the hearts 
 of men for God with supernatural desires. For all those 
 forty ages it was the secret meaning and the hiddcni agent 
 of the world. All that blossomed upon earth blossomed 
 only because the Precious Blood watered the soil under- 
 ground. Who would not long to see it, as it would one 
 day be, in the actual Human Heart which was to be its 
 living chalice ? Even the patience of the long-waiting God 
 might vouchsafe to yearn for the actual creation of the 
 Precious Blood. How sweet then to Him must have been 
 that dear sanctity of ^lary, whose beautiful compulsion 
 caused the Word to anticipate His time. 
 
 But the hour arrived, and the Creator became a part of
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 167 
 
 His own creation. The Precious Blood was actually created, 
 and rose and fell in pulses of true human life, and filled 
 with joj'ous being the sanctuary of the Sacred Heart, and 
 lived its life of Three-and-Thiity Years among men. These 
 Three-and-Thirty Years formed in all true senses the longest 
 and most important epoch of the history of creation. They 
 were filled with countless actions, the value of each one of 
 which was infinite. The vocations stamped upon millions 
 of souls came from those actions of God made man. Their 
 energies are vigorously ruling the world at this hour. They 
 have moulded age after age since then. All holiness has 
 been but an infinitely diversified copy of them. Out of 
 their merits the attributes of God daily drink their fill, and 
 yet those merits still abound and overflow. Out of their 
 merits the Sacraments are drawing incalculable exuberances 
 of grace all day and night ; and they are still full to the 
 very brim, and capable of saving unnumbered new creations. 
 Out of the satisfactions of those years the jurisdiction of 
 the Church has drawn almost unlimited indulgences ; yet 
 no visible impression has been made on their abundance. 
 Poetry and art go to those years as to a school of heavenliest 
 beauty ; and all times and all minds find the lessons fresh 
 and new. Theology sits by them as by abysses of divine 
 wisdom, and one while is actively weaving her wondrous 
 science out of them, and another while, captivated by their 
 Ijeauty, forgets to weave, is rapt in contemplation, and 
 becomes devotion. As to devotion, those years are its very 
 cloister and its garden. That life is God made visible to 
 His creatures as the rule of life. It lays bare the very 
 foundations of morals. It reveals the possibilities of human 
 actions, while it also paints as in a picture the indefinable 
 operations of the Holy Ghost. It is a freshness and a joy 
 to think, that, at this hour of the peaceful dawn, thousands 
 of suuls are silent before God, caught in the sweet snares
 
 iC8 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 of the beauty of these earthly years of Jesus. Our Lord 
 revealed to the Blessed Michael of Florence, the Camaldolese, 
 how He longed that those who loved Him should honour 
 the Thirty-Three Years with affectionate minuteness. It 
 lias been the characteristic devotion of all the saints. The 
 souls, that have been most drawn to meditate upon the 
 attributes of God, have learned their science in that other 
 science of the Three-and-Thirty Years. Sometimes this 
 devotion takes special possession of a religious order for 
 some length of time. Sometimes it fastens upon a single 
 religious house, and develops itself with marvellous fertility. 
 This appears to have been the case with the Carmelite 
 convent at Dole in the seventeenth century. To Sister 
 Anne of the Cross, a lay-sister, it was the form and type of 
 her whole life. It came natural to her to do even her 
 ordinary actions in thirty-threes. Still more did her penances 
 and devotions take that shape. When she was asked if she 
 did not weary of such a reiterated devotion, she replied, that, 
 so far from it, it always came to her as new. The devotion 
 of Mother Louisa of Jesus was even yet more remarkable. 
 She could hardly occupy her soul with anything but the 
 Thirty-Three Years ; and the abundant lights slie received 
 from God in prayer had chiefly reference to this devotion. 
 The first years of the Sacred Infancy were "delicious" to 
 her soul. She had an especial attraction to contemplate the 
 first time our Lord bent His knees, and clasped Ilis hands, 
 in prayer to the Father. Her holiness seemed always to be 
 a participation in some of the interior dispositions of Jesus 
 upon earth ; and the characteristics of her spiritual life, con- 
 sequent upon this devotion, were persevering fervour and 
 extreme joyousness. She imprinted this devotion upon the 
 whole community, and also upon the extcrns who came 
 across her. 
 
 We see remarkable traces of the same devotion in our
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 169 
 
 Lord's answer to tlie prayers of Frances of the Mother of 
 God, Carmelitess at Dieppe, distinguished for her devotion' 
 to the Precious Blood. When she was praying for the soul 
 of Sister Catherine of the Angels, she asked our Lord after 
 Communion to apply to Sister Catherine's soul one drop of 
 His Precious Blood in order to achieve her deliverance. Our 
 Lord answered, " I have given her one of My steps," thus 
 showing the value of His least actions. At another time 
 she made the same prayer for Sister Elizabeth of the Nativity, 
 asking for one drop of the Precious Blood ; and our Lord 
 answered, " I will give her one of My tears, the efficacy of 
 which is so great that it would turn hell into paradise, if 
 it were applied there." These answers seem to imply a 
 special devotion in Frances of the Mother of God to the 
 Thirty-Tliree Years ; and that saintly religious was one of 
 the most remarkable amongst the holy persons of the seven- 
 teenth century. 
 
 We speak very truly Avhen we divide the world into many 
 worlds. We talk of the vegetable world, and the mineral 
 world, and the animal world. We even subdivide these 
 into lesser worlds. We go to the side-real Avorld to learn 
 the immensities of space. Geology opens a world to us, 
 which overshadows us with its distances of time. We call 
 man a little world in himself ; and the microscopic world, 
 while it is so rife with new aspects of God, delights us with 
 all that it insinuates of the possibilities and likelihoods of 
 the invisible world of immaterial and angelic life. We call 
 these by the name of worlds, because they seem like com- 
 plete creations in th-emselves, and are each of them a distinct 
 revelation of God, distinct from all other revelations of 
 Him, and yet harmonising with them all. They are separate 
 shadows of God. They are His wisdom and His beauty, 
 His power, and His love, seen from different points of view. 
 He is many Creators in one Creator. We are very right in
 
 I70 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 making His one world into many worlds. So it is with the 
 Incarnation. The whole material universe is not so vast as 
 that one world of the Incarnation, nor capable of so many 
 or such magnificent subdivisions. Intellectually or spiri- 
 tually, the Thirty-Three Years form a world far vaster than 
 the world of stars. They can even bear to be subdivided 
 into many other worlds, which are still spacious enough for 
 the swift intelligences of angels, as well as the rapidity of 
 glorified human minds, to traverse for eternity, finding fresh 
 wonders evermore. The Precious Blood has one biography 
 in Mary's Womb, where it issued from the lone sanctities of 
 her immaculate heart. It has another in Bethlehem, and 
 another in Egypt, and another in Nazareth, and another on 
 the shores of Gennesareth, and another in Jerusalem, and 
 another in Galilee. Each of these is a world beyond the 
 measures of our science, a cloister for devotion, and yet a 
 cloister in which eternity has ample room. God's vastness 
 is a living vastness. It carries itself everywhere, and every- 
 where is entire, and transcends the necessities of space. 
 Each of these separate worlds of the life of Jesus upon earth 
 is tied by some occult sympathy to some particular attribute, 
 or group of attributes, in God. Thus we learn in the life of 
 Mother IVIargaret of the Blessed Sacrament, Carmelitess at 
 Dijon, that the souls, which are called to a special devotion 
 to our Lord's Resurrection, have always a peculiar attraction 
 to worship the divine sanctity. These are glimpses of that 
 glad science of the Three-and-Thirty Years, which will be 
 part of our unutterable bliss beyond the grave. Surely it 
 makes the world seem wearier than ever, to think of the 
 unsuspected grandeurs which the mysteries of our sweet 
 Jesus are waiting to pour out into our souls, when He has 
 received us into His kingdom. 
 
 It is plain from what has been said, that our knowledge of 
 the inward life of the Precious Blood during the Thirty-
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. \ji 
 
 Three Years must be very superficial. Nevertheless we must 
 put it before ourselves as clearly as we can. Its first begin- 
 ning was in the thrills of beatific joy. "We shall see reasons 
 afterwards for carefully noting this. The beginning of the 
 Human Life of Jesus was not gradual. It had no dawn. 
 Its very union with the Divinity rendered this impossible. 
 It broke out of nothingness into the blaze of conscious and 
 blessed ecstacj'. It saw God as not even Mary sees Him 
 now. It saw Him, went out of sight of all creation towards 
 comprehending Him, enjoyed Him as not all heaven after 
 the Doom will enjoy Him, and adored Him as no fabulous 
 number of possible worlds could ever have adored Him. This 
 was the first pulse of the Precious Blood. The very first 
 throb had in it an incalculable immensity of gladness. Out 
 of its first moment all worlds might be gladdened beyond 
 their power of bearing gladness. Save the Uncreated 
 Jubilee, the sweet Spirit of the Father and the Son, never 
 was there jubilee like that of the Precious Blood in its be- 
 ginning. Yet from that hour the jubilee has never ceased; 
 it has never lessened ; it has never changed. Its pulses are 
 not tides. They imply no vicissitudes. They betoken only 
 an equable impetuosity of immutable delight. The gladness, 
 which flashed like lightning out of the eyes of the Infant 
 into the heart of IMary, was unabated when the same eyes 
 drooped languidly towards her upon Calvary. The Blessed- 
 ness, which broke forth like a creation of light in the glory 
 of the Resurrection, had never left the Sacred Heart even 
 during the "Way of the Cross. But, with the beatific joy, 
 the Precious Blood had all other joys as well. That Human 
 Life was a joy in itself, a joy in its divine union, independ- 
 dently of its vision of God. It was a joy in tlio love and 
 possession of so sweet a Mother. It was a joy in the un- 
 earthly tranquillity of Joseph's deep, loving, adoring heart. 
 It was a joy in the jubilee of the worshipping angels. It
 
 172 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 ■was a joy in the very bitterness of its redeeming woes, and 
 it was a joy in the intensity of its own loves of God and 
 men. 
 
 But it was a life also of colossal sorrows, even though they 
 abated not the joy. Never did blood of man throb with sucli 
 excesses of anguish as the Precious Blood of our most dear 
 Redeemer. Its sorrows were lifelong. Their excesses ex- 
 ceeded all the tortures of the martyrs. Tliere Mas never a 
 moment which was not occupied with sorrow. The jubilee 
 never commingled with the Avoe, nor tempered it, nor com- 
 pensated for it. Nay rather, all joys intensified the sorrows. 
 Joy surely is in itself a diviner thing than sorrow ; for there 
 can be no sorrow in the Ever-blessed. But sorrow was more 
 human ; and therefore it was chosen as the instrument of 
 man's redemption ; and thus to us it becomes more divine, 
 because it brings God to us and raises us up to God. Thus 
 sorrow was more natural to the Precious Blood. It was a 
 life more congenial to its nature. IMoreover it was its official 
 life. For by sorrow it was to accomplish its redeeming 
 work. Its shedding was to be, not only the consummation 
 of our Lord's suffering but tlie chosen suffering, in which 
 precisely the work of redemption was to lie. Jesus, thrice 
 blessed be His most dear Name ! is all our own, neither can 
 we spare anything of Him. Yet it was not precisely His 
 .Soul which was to redeem us, nor the Passion of His Body 
 which was to be exactly our expiation. It was the shed- 
 din" of His Blood which was to cleanse us from our sins. 
 The remedy of the Fall was precisely in the Saviour's Blood. 
 All the sorrows of His life grew up to the shedding of His 
 Blood, and were crowned by it : and His shedding the last 
 few drops of it after He was dead was significant of the work 
 it had to do. The Soul, and the Body, and the Blood lay 
 separate; and the sacrifice was thus complete. 
 
 The life of the Precious Blood was also a life of great
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 173 
 
 secrecy. This is the invariable characteristic of all divine 
 things. The more they have been the objects of God's 
 eternal complacency in His ever-blessed Mind, the more in- 
 stinctively do they affect secrecy. God is a God who hides 
 Himself, and who even manifests Himself by means of new 
 concealments. All holiness has the same love of secrecy im- 
 l)riuted on it as the seal of God. "We should have imagined 
 that the gladness of the Precious Blood would have made 
 it prone to manifest itself, and to be for ever manifesting 
 itself out of its exuberant love of souls. "VVe might have 
 supposed that its intense desire to shed itself would have 
 given it a character of publicity. Yet, as God is so secret 
 that St. Austin ventured to name Him " the most secret 
 Being," and at the same time is also unspeakably communi- 
 cative, so is it with the Precious Blood. It hid itself all 
 through the Thirty-Three Years, and it hid itself most effect- 
 ually at the moment it was being shed. It hid itself on the 
 roots of the olive trees of Gethsemane, only making the 
 brown wood a little ruddier. It sank into the thirsty ground 
 of Calvary. It hastened to mingle with the street dust of 
 Jerusalem. It clung to the soles of men's shoes, so that they 
 might not notice it. In like manner it works behind a veil 
 at this hour. It works in Sacraments, in invisible com- 
 munications of grace, in viewless contacts of divine things 
 with the souL It is only when God opens the eyes of 
 favoured souls, that it is seen working as tnily the Blood 
 of Jesus. Such a favoured soul was Frances of the Mother 
 of God, Carmelitess of Dieppe. When she held her chapters 
 of faults, and the nuns accused themselves of their short- 
 comings of observance, she saw Jesus by her side, toucliing 
 tliose, who accused themselves with simplicity and frankness, 
 with a drop of His Blood, and leaving untouched those who 
 accused themselves unsimply and without any interior self- 
 condemnation. On Palm Sunday, during a jubilee, she saw
 
 174 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 our Lord apply to the souls of the nuns at Communion the 
 grace of the jubilee by means of His Blood ; and He said to 
 her, " To persons in the world I give My blood by drops, 
 but here I give it in profusion." One year, on the feast of 
 the Circumcision, our Lord showed Himself to her lying in 
 the manger bathed in blood, and the blood dropping from Him 
 into a vessel. Her soul became " deliciously occupied " with 
 the dignity and price of that adorable Blood, and she cried 
 out in a transport of rapture, "Ah, my Lord! that was 
 enough to redeem the Avorld, without so much suffering." 
 He then vouchsafed to reveal to her that He had offered the 
 Blood of the Circumcision to the Father for two objects 
 especially. The first was to satisfy for the sins which had 
 been committed since creation and before the Incarnation ; 
 and the second was to obtain for souls the grace of makinsr 
 a right use of His mysteries. Thus it has been in number- 
 less revelations, that, when the realities of grace have been 
 shown to favoured soul?, they have been shown as actual 
 contacts of the Precious Blood, just as supernatural favours 
 at Communion have so often taken the form of fillincr the 
 mouths of the saints with blood, which had a sweetness 
 beyond all known earthly tastes ; and the way in which it 
 veils its operations is but a continuance of the secrecy of the 
 Three-and-Thirty Years. 
 
 The life of the Precious Blood on earth was also, and 
 eminently, a life of love, or, as we may rather call it, a life 
 of many loves. It was such a human love of God as im- 
 measurably surpassed the collective love of Mary, angels, and 
 men. It was a joyous, and yet a reverential love of Mary, 
 such as far outdid all the united devotion and enthusiastic 
 affection of the angels and the saints for their mother and 
 their queen. It was such a love of men, and particularly of 
 men's souls, as the hearts of all mankind could not hold, if 
 it were divided amongst them, and their hearts were enlarged
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 175 
 
 to the magnificent capacities of apostles' hearts. Souls were 
 its attraction, its passion. Its genius fastened upon them as' 
 its portion and its prey. Its choice, its work, its food, its 
 rest, its joy, all were in human souls. The thought of it 
 had won grace for souls, before it was actually created. The 
 figures of it cleansed souls. The shedding of it was the life 
 of souls. It became almost omnipresent, that it might 
 embrace all souls. It cast itself into Sacraments that it 
 might reach souls by a quicker road, in more diversified 
 ways, with the more infallible operation, and with a more 
 abundant success. Then, as if discontented even with the 
 magnificence of the Sacraments, it threw itself into Indul- 
 gences and Jubilees. It made men after its own likeness, 
 and called them Apostles. An apostolic call is a vocation 
 of the Precious Blood. The mild judgments of moral theo- 
 logy are but the casuistry of the Precious Blood. Who can 
 think unmoved of the tenderness and of the impetuosity of 
 this soul-loving Blood 1 All sweet eloquent patience in the 
 Confessional is only the impassioned self-control of the Pre- 
 cious Blood. All true, simple, evangelical preaching is only 
 the uplifted voice of the Precious Blood. Let me tell you 
 again that old story of the Blessed Angela of Poligno. She 
 saw our Lord in vision embracing some Franciscan Friars, 
 and pressing them with a yearning fondness to His wounded 
 side. He pressed them so closely to Him that their lips 
 were tinged with His Blood, some slightly, some very much ; 
 and some had their mouths all ruddy with it, so tightly had 
 He pressed them against the wound. He told her that these 
 were His preachers, and that the word of the Gospel only 
 went with power to the soul Avlien it passed over lips that 
 were stained with His Precious Blood. Ah we poor preachers ! 
 we have need to hang our heads at this tale ; and yet it is 
 one full of good cheer to our humility, if only our humility 
 be generous and brave.
 
 176 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Finally, the life of the Precious Blood on earth was a 
 life of incomparable sanctity. It was made up of the most 
 gigantic operations of grace. "We cannot approach to them 
 even in thought. Let it suffice to say that they were multi- 
 tudinous and manifold all day, and that sleep by night never 
 interrupted them ; and yet that the least of them transcended 
 in spiritual beauty and dignity the gorgeous mystery of 
 the Immaculate Conception. It was a life made up also 
 of interior dispositions of such vast heroism, of such fiery 
 love, of such majestic intensity, of such delicate complica- 
 tions, as have no parallel in any other created holiness. 
 What can we imagine of them, when it is sober to say of 
 them that the least and most transient of them surpassed all 
 the dispositions of Mary's Dolours ; and, after the virtues of 
 Jesus, are not tliose the most colossal sanctities that were 
 ever known on earth, or ever crowned in heaven? In all 
 these operations of grace, in all these inward dispositions, in 
 all the glorious heroisms of the Sacred Humanity, the Pre- 
 cious Blood was ever ministering, with most special intention, 
 to those two kindred Attributes of God, His Dominion and 
 His Magnificence. Did I not speak truly when I .said tliat 
 the Three-and-Thirty Years were an epoch of secular dura- 
 tion, a kind of eternity of time ? 
 
 The life of the Precions Blood upon earth after the Ascen- 
 sion was, as we have seen, in one sense an actual life, and 
 in another sense not an actual life. We have lessons also 
 to learn from this, or at least, fresh proofs of the character 
 and disposition of the Precious Blood. Its life upon earth 
 may be divided into natural and supernatural, or into direct 
 and indirect, or into religious and secular, according to the 
 point of view from which we may regard it. For our pur- 
 pose no strict division is neccs.sary. It is enough for us to 
 .«peak of it as it concerns the world, and as it concern.** the 
 Ciiurcli. On the first head we need not say much, as wo
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 177 
 
 have already seen in the second chapter what the world 
 would have been without the Precious Blood. Nevertheless 
 there is still something to be said. There is not, and has not 
 been since Christianity was preached, a state or government 
 which has not been materially influenced by the Precious 
 r>lood. History shows us that there is an obvious unity of 
 life in states, of which they themselves are scarcely ever 
 conscious, or at least conscious only during transient inter- 
 vals. They do God's work without knowing it. They serve 
 the Church at the moment they think they are thwarting 
 it. After centuries of self-praise and pride they lose their 
 positions, and sink into something narrower and smaller, 
 and find that they have all along been the unintelligent 
 and unintentional servants of the Holy See. Sometimes 
 individual statesmen make an impression on their age and 
 country ; and it is curiously borne out by history that in 
 this case the impression is for the most part adverse to re- 
 ligion at the time, but turns out to be for its advantage in 
 tlie end. More often the state makes the statesman, wlio 
 follows rather than leads, while the state itself is filled with 
 a life it does not understand, and, like a tree growing in 
 a particular position, works out its instincts unconsciously. 
 In both cases it is the interests of the Precious Blood, which 
 are found at last to have presided over the revolutions of 
 states. 
 
 Civilisations and customs are also modified and controlled 
 by its genius, character, and influence. Its work in indi- 
 vidual souls is in the aggregate such an enormous power, 
 that it cannot help making itself felt in all social movements. 
 To literature it has contributed fresh forms and new ideas. 
 In art it has been a fountain of beauty and inspiration fur 
 surpassing any other both in the quantity and the excellence 
 of its production. Philanthropy owes more to it than it will 
 acknowledge, and morality has hardly any independent 
 
 M
 
 178 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 practical life without it. Tn what is called the progress of 
 hun-anity it has been at once a curb to restrain, and a rudder 
 to guide, a light to see by, and a compensation enabling us 
 to endure. 
 
 But, while we must never forget that the outer world is 
 always owing all that is good in it to the influence of the 
 Precious Blood, we are rather concerned with its life in the 
 Church. "We have already seen that the laboratories of its 
 life are in the Avonderful Sacraments, which are the living 
 present actions of Christ, the actual going on of the Thirty- 
 Three Years on earth. We have seen that all processes of 
 justification and of sanctification are in reality operations of 
 the Precious Blood. "We have remembered its ubiquitous 
 activity in those veiled triumphs of death-bed graces, which 
 will rank among the sweetest astonishments of heaven. But 
 its principal and most characteristic occupation upon earth 
 is Conversion ; and, as its energy in the Church is so broad 
 and so incessant that it is difficult to comprehend it in one 
 view without becoming vague, we may select this particular 
 occupation to which it is so specially addicted, as a favour- 
 able illustration of its spirit and method, and as conveying 
 to us by a single instance the most faithful idea of its life 
 upon earth since the Ascension. But, while we put forward 
 the phenomenon of Conversion as the best exponent of the 
 normal life of the Precious Blood, we must not forget that 
 it is only one out of many specimens of its fertility. Let 
 us then think of what is implied in the Conversion of a 
 soul, and what that agent must be like, whose main and 
 favourite occupation is Conversion. 
 
 It is not possible to exaggerate tlie importance of the 
 Conversion of a single soul. As single souls, we feel lost in 
 an overwhelming multitude. We are nobodies in the great 
 grand world, and in the luigc overmastering progress of 
 human destinies. If we died, we might leave a temporary
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 179 
 
 ache in some few hearts, and that would be all. But we 
 are never lost, we are never nobodies in the dear world of 
 God's all-seeing love and all-loving providence. According 
 to His standards an empire is a less thing than a single soul. 
 The empire will not last so long, nor can it effect so much. 
 Even upon earth the divine importance of its history lies 
 simply in the amount and kind of its influence upon single 
 souls. In the next world, the truer world, it has no 
 representative. Is is as though it had never been, or at 
 least it is a mere item in the sanctification of the saved. 
 The fortunes of earth's most gorgeous empire cast no shadow 
 upon heaven. God appears to make fewer arrangements for 
 empires than for souls ; and, when He occupies Himself 
 with nations, it is for the sake of souls. The degree and 
 manner of divine interference are less for an empire than 
 for a soul. Heaven's interest in an empire is less than its 
 interest in a soul. The consequences of an empire are less 
 than the consequences of a soul. This is the estimate which 
 the Precious Blood takes of a single soul. 
 
 Xow let us look at the machinery o-f Conversion. What 
 is wanted, what is actually put forth, to convert a man in 
 mortal sin 1 The Three Divine Persons work as one in aH 
 external works. Yet the Father represents in our imperfect 
 views the power of the Godhead ; and this power is wanted 
 to convert a soul. jS^othing short of omnipotence can do it. 
 Mary's sceptre only reaches so far through the omnipotence 
 of prayer. When I think of enormous power, I tliink of 
 St. Michael ; but he is too weak to convert a sinner ; or of 
 the choir of Thrones ; but the magnificence of their repose 
 cannot cleanse from sin, or infuse peace into a sinful s(jul : 
 Secondly, it needs the wisdom of the Son. The Cherubim 
 are very wise, and our dearest mother JNIary is a very abyss 
 of science. But they could not have invented the needful 
 ingenuities for the Conversion of a sinner. Indeed they ai>©
 
 I So THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 so far from being able to devise them, that they find it hard 
 to understand them, and they are adoring them to this hour 
 with unabated astonisliment. Then, also, it needs the love 
 of the Holy Ghost. The magnificent Seraphim live in the 
 divine fires, and are themselves vast and huge abysses of 
 burning love. Yet they are but sparks from the furnace of 
 the Holy Ghost. His love is simply incomprehensible. 
 They can but fall down and tremble before the unutterable 
 conflagrations of His uncreated fires. Many things are hard 
 to understand in God, bat most of all, the excesses of His 
 love. Yet this power of the Father, this wisdom of the 
 Son, and this love of the Holy Ghost, this threefold com- 
 passion of the Most Holy Trinity, have been engaged for 
 the Conversion of souls through the exquisite pleadings and 
 beautiful constraints of the Precious Blood. 
 
 It is part of the ordinance of our Blessed Lord, that the 
 prayers and dolours of His Mother should also go to the 
 Conversion of a soul. But the power of those prayers and 
 the merit of those dolours come from the Precious Blood. 
 The whole of Mary, and all the benignity of her queendom, 
 and all the glory of her exaltation, and all the splendour 
 of her graces, and all the mystery of her motherhood, are 
 because of the Precious Blood. No part of creation has 
 been made so white by its redness as her unspotted heart. 
 She is the creature of the Precious Blood, its daughter, its 
 mother, its servant, and its queen. The angels of heaven 
 must be stirred for the Conversion of, a soul. Numberless 
 ministries, each one of which is a heavenly wonder, are put 
 forth by them. They plead in heaven. Tliey visit earth. 
 They do Mary's l)idding. They conspire with the saints. 
 Tliey procure the Sacraments. They prepare. They co- 
 operate. They confirm. They warn. They defend. Tliey 
 cross each other betwixt earth and heaven, like royal 
 messengers on the highways in time of war. It is the
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. iSi 
 
 Precious Blood wliicli has merited these ministries for the 
 soul. It is devotion to the Precious Blood which fills the 
 angelic realms with jubilee when a sinner is converted. Our 
 Lord loved to think of that jubilee, and spoke of it with 
 pleased affirmation and tenderest delight. 
 
 The Conversion of a soul requires that a multitude of 
 circumstances should be providentially ordered, and times, 
 persons, and places made to fit each other in some one 
 peculiar way. This harmony of circumstances is providence 
 doing honour to the Precious Blood. There must be, ordi- 
 narily speaking, the knowledge of the Gospel ; and the 
 bringing of this to the neighbourhood of each soul is a 
 distinct act of love on the part of the Precious Blood. 
 Much has to be merited for the soul by the good works of 
 others ; and no works merit except through the Precious 
 Blood. The goodness of others has to influence the soul ; 
 and goodness only influences because the Precious Blood 
 makes it so attractive. The moment of contrition is the 
 moment of revolution in the soul ; it was a moment foreseen 
 and fore-ordained from all eternity in view of the Precious 
 Blood. It is part of God's eternal complacency in that 
 redeeming Blood. The Sacraments, which are the resplen- 
 dent instruments of Conversion, are the application of the 
 Precious Blood to the soul, in a manner which seems to 
 intensify that which is already infinite. The actual shedding 
 of the Blood on Calvary was the far-off preparation for this 
 individual Conversion. The revival of old merits, and the 
 restoration of forfeited rights to reward, are only instances 
 of the energy of the Precious Blood, and of the completeness 
 with which it does its work. This vitality of merits, this 
 power of a resurrection in them when mortal sin has killed 
 them, is only because it was the Precious Blood which made 
 them merits at the first. Indulgences are the loving mini- 
 sters of the Precious Blood, which understand its ways and
 
 1 82 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 enter into its spirit, and so go about picking np the frag- 
 ments that remain after the Sacraments have had their fill. 
 The joy of God, of Mary, of the angels, of the saints, of the 
 holy souls in purgatory, and of God's priests and servants 
 upon earth, is only an emanation of that joy of which the 
 Precious Blood is the universal and incessant fountain. 
 Moreover all through this process of Conversion there is a 
 marvellous hiding, a divine extenuation, of sin's affront 
 against God, which can only be because it is inundated by 
 the Precious Blood, while at the same time there is such a 
 revelation of the sinfulness of sin as can only be made by 
 that same Blood, which is the beautiful reparation of God's 
 sanctity. 
 
 By night and by day all over the earth is the Precious 
 Blood engaged in this occupation of Conversion. It is going 
 on in thousands of souls at once. In all of them is all this 
 ^;upernatural machinery at work, and at work all at once. 
 In each case there is the same apparently exclusive concen- 
 tration of divine love upon the single soul, Avhich makes all 
 God's dealings with us seem so inexpressibly tender. This 
 has been going on for centuries. It will go on still for many 
 centuries : for the end of the world does not yet seem near, 
 unless its not seeming so be indeed a sign that it is so. 
 "Who can mistake the character and office of the Precious 
 Blood, when he studies this work of Conversion which is 
 its work of predilection ? It is the one question of life and 
 death with each one of us, whether this change has been 
 wrought in us, either at our baptism or since. Who then 
 can calculate the debt lie owes to the Precious Blood 1 Is 
 there a joy in life more invigorating than an overwhelming 
 sense of our obligations to the Blood of Jesus 1 Who does 
 not long to pay Ilim back in love, and long all the more 
 nrdently the more he sees how the greatness of his debt 
 makes the payment of it impossible 1 To be in debt to God
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 183 
 
 is the lightheartedness of life. The grace He gives us is 
 even sweeter to us as an obhgation than as a gift. The 
 ■weight of our obligations is the delightful pressure of His 
 love, and the sweet feeling of it is in proportion to the 
 weight. 
 
 This leads me to another matter, on which, for the sake 
 of our dearest Lord, I would that I could speak with more 
 than usual persuasion. We are considering the life of the 
 Precious Blood in the Church. Its supernatural works of 
 benignity are wrought in the Church and through the 
 Church. The Church is in an especial manner, and in strict 
 scriptural phraseology, the creation of the Precious Blood. 
 It is its visible edifice, the house it has built for itself, the 
 home Avhere it hides itself, the bride it has espoused and 
 then dowered with its Sacraments, the mother of its chil- 
 dren, the monument it has erected and hung round with 
 trophies of its victories. It is the living palace of the 
 Precious Blood, built -with the Blood itself as with cement, 
 and beautified by it as by the brightness of very heaven. 
 It is the life and the love of the Precious Blood, made 
 visible to men by an institution invented by God Himself, 
 and which copies upon earth the order and the hierarchies 
 of heaven. Hence it follows that all true devotion to the 
 Precious Blood must be accompanied by a hearty devotion 
 to the Church. Heresies, which have done despite to the 
 Precious Blood by narrowing its sphere or by limiting its 
 prodigality, have also been distinguished by a want of loyalty 
 to the Church. In all times we have seen, tliat those, who 
 take a rigid view about the easiness of salvation, also take a 
 lax view about the exclusive privileges of communion witl 
 the Cliurch; while, on the other hand, those, who dwell 
 more strongly on the doctrine of exclusive salvation in the 
 true Church, are also most given to magnify the abundance 
 of redeeming grace within its pale. At first sight it seems a 
 
 1
 
 iS4 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 strange inconsistency that those, who make it hard to be 
 saved iu the Church, should make it comparatively easy to 
 be saved out of it. It is indeed curious that such men 
 should regard what they must at the least admit to be one 
 of Goel's chief means of grace, namely, tlie Church, as adding 
 very little to the chances of a man's salvation. If two men, 
 born in one country, the one in the Church with all the 
 Sacraments, the other not in the Church at all, have, as some 
 say, nearly the same chances of salvation, it must follow, 
 either that God has one standard for the forgiveness of sin 
 in the one case, and another in the other, which is surely an 
 impiety, or that the Sacraments are of very little consequence 
 or efficacy, whicli would be hardly a less impiety. That 
 Jesus, God and Man, should be truly received in the Blessed 
 Sacrament, and yet that this should not make simply an incal- 
 culable difference between the religious state of those who 
 enjoy this privilege and of those who do not, is a supposition 
 highly dishonourable to our Blessed Lord. Yet so it is that 
 a light esteem of the overwhelming advantages of the Church, 
 and a want of appreciation of the Sacraments, go along Avith 
 the most rigid and harsh views regarding the easiness of 
 salvation and the number of the saved : and these errors go 
 together for want of a trun and tender devotion to the 
 Precious Blood. Tlie doctrine of the Sacraments is the 
 touchstone of all the theology of the day. He, who con- 
 stantly and devoutly adores the Precious Blood of Jesus, 
 will not think liglitly of the Sacraments which are the vases 
 to hold it and the channels to convey it. He, who mag- 
 nifies the glory of the Sacraments, will make much of the 
 Church, whoso especial possession and characteristic thoy 
 are. It is thus, tlirough tlie doctrine of the Sacraments, 
 that the apparent contradiction of making salvation very 
 didicult in tlie Church, and yet holding that the being out 
 of the Ciiurch docs not put a man at such a great disadvan-
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 185 
 
 taf^e as recfxrds salvation, comes from a want of devotion to 
 the Precious Blood. 
 
 Hence it follows that all lovers of the Precious Blood 
 should have a cordial devotion to the Church, and should 
 immensely honour, revere, and prize the Sacraments. Scrip- 
 ture calls the Church the Body of Christ ; and the chief of 
 the Sacraments is precisely the Body of Christ; and St. 
 Paul speaks wonderful things of the mysterious union 
 between Christ and the Church. It is one of our greatest 
 dangers in the present day, to think lightly of the Church. 
 Now that the world is over-run with heresy, and that in 
 social life almost all distinctions between the faithful and 
 others are obliterated, it is convenient to men's ease and 
 acceptable to their cowardice to regard the faith as one of 
 many saving opinions, and the Church as one of many saving 
 institutions. Men will make light of the enormous privi- 
 leges, and of the exclusive rights of the Church, either out 
 of human respect, or as an easy way of diminishing the diffi- 
 culties of a problem, which they are unable to solve and do 
 not like to face. A disesteem of the Sacraments follows 
 upon this with a very speedy and disastrous logic. The 
 practical consequences soon work themselves out. Such men 
 destroy the souls of others by discouraging their frequentation 
 of the Sacraments, and they destroy their own by that laxity 
 of worldly, comfort-loving lives, which in almost all cases are 
 found in conjunction witli very rigorous views. Such men 
 either rest in the very rigour of their view, as if its rigorous- 
 ness were meritorious enough of itself to save them, or they 
 put feelings and sensii)le devotions in the place of mortifica- 
 tions, and so make their whole spirituality a delusion. They 
 will be found restive and uneasy under the praise of the 
 great Sacraments ; and this shows how far they have drifted 
 from the instincts of the Church, They will bo found to 
 consider the chances of salvation for the poor as almost
 
 l86 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 less, even in. the point of unworldliness, than those of the 
 rich ; and this shows how far they have drifted from the 
 mind of our Lord, who blessed the poor precisely as enter- 
 ing the kingdom of heaven more easily than the rich. A 
 man who thinks lightly of the really inestimable privileges 
 of the Church, lets go of everything, and must ultimately 
 either end in active heresy, or settle down into a wearied 
 irreligiousness. The Church is a kingdom, not a literature, 
 — a life, not a congeries of doctrines ; it is a rule and a 
 sovereignty, a royalty which belongs to the royalty of the 
 Precious lUood. 
 
 Let us then cultivate with the most jealous care a fervent 
 devotion to the Church. Love of the Church was part, and 
 a great part of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Jansenists, 
 who made so light of the maternal authority of the Church, 
 turned away with instinctive displeasure from the devotion 
 to the Sacred Heart. We must look at the Church habi- 
 tually as the sole ark in the deluge of the world, the sole 
 mistress of salvation. We do not bind God further than He 
 lias been pleased to bind Himself. "We do not limit the far- 
 reaching excesses of His mercy. But we remember that His 
 ordinary law is, that there is no salvation whatever outside 
 the Roman Church. It is His ordinary institution that no 
 accurate beliefs, no right sympathies, no generous views, no 
 near approaches, no sensible devotions, no felt actual graces, 
 will make a man a living member of Jesus Christ, without 
 communion with the Holy See. AVe must be jealous of the 
 uncompromising simplicity of this old fashioned doctrine. 
 We must be suspicious of all the fine words, and specious 
 theories, and ingenious abatements, which the spirit of the 
 day would suggest. We must be misled by no circumstances 
 of time or place, by no prevalence of heresy, by no ar"U- 
 ments drawn from consequences, which are the affair cf 
 God's government of the world, not ours. The sins of men
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 1S7 
 
 cannot change the truth of God. They are at His mercy, 
 not He at theirs. In the days of antichrist, when two-thirds 
 even of the faithful shall fall away from the Church, their 
 apostasy will not make it less the exclusive mistrass of 
 salvation. 
 
 "We must be loj'al to the Church in our least thoughts of 
 it, nor even talk lightly of its majesty. "We must put faith in 
 it in all its contacts and concussions with the world, and in all 
 its contradictions of the assumed grandeur of this nineteenth 
 century, which is more than halfspent, and has done nothing 
 yet to justify its boasting. AVe must not measure the Church 
 by unsupernatural standards, which it is the world's great 
 object to persuade us to do. "We must not be asliamed of 
 it, because it holds back when it seems grander to go for- 
 ward. "We must not be discontented with it, when its action 
 intersects son^e little favourite anticipations of our own. "We 
 must merge our own selves and our own views in its con- 
 sciously or unconsciously Spirit-guided policy. AVhen we 
 are perplexed, we must stand still, and believe. Silence 
 makes us great-hearted, and judging makes us little-minded. 
 "We must do all we can to get ourselves infected with the 
 instincts of the Church. "We must like its ways, as well as 
 obey its precepts and believe its doctrines. We must not 
 theorise : for, if we once begin to theorise, we shall soon 
 come to sneer. A mind not under authority always lies 
 under a necessity of being pert. "We must esteem all tliat 
 the Church blesses, all that the Church affects. "When the 
 Church suffers, or souls suffer, we must not be content with 
 the selfish consolation, that, after all, the Church is eternal, 
 and must conquer in the long run ; but we must have an 
 active sympathy witli all its present vicissitudes, and an un- 
 iiring zeal and an unquenchable thirst for souls ; and the 
 salvation of souls is a matter of the present ; it cannot wait 
 for a future, because men are dying daily.
 
 i88 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 "We must even fear the Churcli, with a filial reverence. If 
 we are converts, we must never cease to dread the under- 
 ground action of heretical habits of mind and heretical methods 
 of controversy in ourselves. There is a leaven of inherent 
 lawlessness in every man who has once been a heretic. AVe 
 must be as afraid of these things, as Scripture tells us to be 
 afraid of forgiven sins. In some cases we should abstain 
 from using all the liberty of speculation which the Church 
 allows us, because we humbly distrust the strength or the 
 genuineness of the principle of obedience within us, to stop 
 us before we go too far. Is'either must we allow ourselves 
 to be discontented with the state of things anywhere or at 
 any time. Discontent breeds in us the base and sour spirit 
 of reformers. Tlie chief discontent of the saints was with 
 themselves. So should ours be. We read of saints beincj 
 downcast and discontented about the sin that is in the world. 
 "We even read of their being discontented with political 
 matters, when they concerned the free action and unhindered 
 sovereignty of the Holy See. But I never read of any saint 
 being discontented with the intellectual, or philosophical, or 
 literary state of things in the Church. I doubt if such dis- 
 content is compatible with true loyalty to the Church. 
 
 Our attitude must be always one of submission, not of 
 criticism. He, who is disappointed with the Church, must 
 be losing his faith, even though ho dues not know it. I hear 
 of some foreign countries where the precepts of the Church 
 are now thought lightly of, and a marked distinction made 
 between them and other obligations : and I feel sure that 
 the faith of those countries is failing although there may be 
 a show to the contrary. "When I meet with new Catholics 
 careless about these same precepts, careless of the Masses and 
 abstinences of obligation, I see in this, not so much a negli- 
 gent spirit, as a downriglit want of faith. 
 
 A man's love of the Church is the surest test of his love
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 189 
 
 of God. He knows that the whole Church is informed 
 with the Holy Ghost. The divine life of the Paraclete,. 
 His counsels, His inspirations, His workings. His sym- 
 pathies, His attractions, are in it everywhere. There is 
 nothing in the Church or about it, however seemingly 
 trivial, transient, temporal, or indirect, which is not more 
 likely than not to contain some of the fire of the Holy 
 Ghost ; and this likelihood is the cause of a perpetual and 
 universal reverence for the Church to the good Catholic. 
 The gift of infallibility is but a concentration, the culminat- 
 ing point, the solemn official out-speaking, of the indwelling 
 of the Holy Ghost in the Church, While it calls, like 
 revelation, for absolute submission of heart and soul, all the 
 minor arrangements and ways and dispositions of the Church 
 call for general submission, docility, and reverence, because 
 of the whole Church being a shrine fulfilled with the life of 
 the Holy Ghost. St. Philip Neri's special devotion to the 
 Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity was part of that 
 intense loyalty to the Church, which raised him to the rank 
 and title of an apostle, and the apostle of the Holy City. 
 In a word, our feeling towards the Church should be a 
 devotion. A grandeur faded from the page of history, when 
 the loyalty to the old monarchies went out : but even that 
 loyalty was not enough for our feelings towards the Church. 
 The Church is full of God, haunted by spiritual presences, 
 informed with a supernatural life, instinct with Jesus. Our 
 love of the Church is one form of our love of Jesus, the 
 form on which the saints were moulded. It is our love of 
 our Lord's love of us. It is the enthusiasm of our devotion 
 to His Precious Blood. Surely it were a shame, if we did 
 not love the Church more than the Jews of old loved their 
 dear Jerusalem ! 
 
 From this cultivation of a great devotion to the Church 
 we should gain many of those graces of which we stand in
 
 igo THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 especial need. It would bring with it tlie grace of simplicity, 
 because it would be founded on the virtue of obedience, and 
 because it would foster the gift of faith. In these days it 
 is a huge evil to be inconsistent ; and we are inconsistent as 
 much from want of simplicity as want of courage. Sim- 
 plicity makes a quiet spirit ; and a quiet spirit is the 
 true home of heavenly love. But times, when we want 
 simplicity, are also times when we especially require pru- 
 dence ; and prudence is another grace which will come out 
 of devotion to the Church. They, who have the habit of 
 leaning upon authority, distrust themselves, and they dis- 
 trust themselves, not timidly, but bravely. They are not 
 precipitate. There is a maturity about their promptitude, 
 and a security about their speed, and a vigorousness even in 
 their delays, which are caught from the spirit and conduct 
 of the Church itself. Moreover devotion to the Church is 
 a loyalty, and, further, it is a supernatural loyalty. But 
 loyalty makes a man generous. It causes him to dare great 
 things, to be forgetful of himself, to be disinterested, to love 
 hard work, to delight in sacrifices, and always to be aspiring 
 to something higher and more arduous. It makes a man 
 genial; and it is only a genial mind which is creative, 
 fertile, or successful. IIow many hearts arc daily telling 
 God that their want of wants is generosity 1 They will find 
 it through devotion to the Church. Stability is another 
 grace which the men of our day have need to covet. J\[ulti- 
 plicity makes mun vacillating. Those, who are alwaj's 
 catcliing at things, grasp nothing. To be really earnest we 
 must be constant. But the earnest man is the man who 
 takes everytliing in earnest. He is not merely the persistent 
 man. True staljility must be elastic while it is constant ; 
 or rather it will be constant precisely because it is elastic. 
 This is an exact description of that changeful uniformity, of 
 which the whole hiblory of the Church is an example.
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 191 
 
 Lastly, a certain grace comes from secret union ^vith the 
 Church, just as unction comes from union with God. This- 
 grace of union with the Church gives us a winningness in 
 the eyes of others, a sort of inward equable sweetness, which 
 first fills our own souls with light and gladness, and then 
 draws the souls of others into the light and gladness which 
 are within ourselves. Each man knows how far he needs 
 these things as helps to him in his spiritual life. To many 
 of us in these days they are special needs. 
 
 There are still three lives of the Precious Blood remaining 
 to be treated of : but we may in reality consider them as 
 one. There is the actual life in heaven, which is contempo- 
 raneous with that life in the Church from the Ascension to 
 the Doom, which we have just been contemplating. There 
 is the life of the Precious Blood in the Blessed Sacrament, 
 the heavenly life miraculously dowered with an earthly 
 locality, and with innumerous localities at once. There is, 
 lastly, the eternal life of the Precious Blood in heaven after 
 the Doom for all eternity, when Jesus has laid down His 
 kingdom and changed the offices of His priesthood. These 
 are certainly in many deep senses, and with regard to many 
 curiox;s yet edifying questions, different lives. Yet, for our 
 present practical purpose, they may be regarded as one. 
 The life of the glorified Blood is a life of beatitude. It is 
 glad in itself, and ministers gladness to others, even to the 
 boundless uncreated jubilee of God. The Precious Blood is 
 the Human Life of the Word. Beatitude is the natural life 
 of God ; and so joy is the natural life of the Precious Blood. 
 In truth, is not joy the nearest definition of life that we can 
 have : for is it not God's first intention in the gift of lifel 
 
 In heaven and in the Blessed Sacrament the Precious 
 Blood dwells, incomparably glorified, in the veins of Jesus. 
 Its beauty there is wonderful to see, wonderful to think of, 
 The sight of it in our Lord's translucent Body is an immense
 
 192 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 gladness to the Blessed. Earth has no beauty to which we 
 can compare it ; yet earth is not therefore poorer than 
 heaven ; for it has this very beauty in the adorable Sacra- 
 ment. But it is not only a joy to others. Its own life is 
 an unbroken jubilee. As it goes and returns to and from 
 the Sacred Heart it is filled with pulses of the most abound- 
 ing gladness. It thrills with the exquisite delight of created 
 life carried to its utmost ecstatic possibility. But, over and 
 above this, there is the indefinable, unimaginable ecstasy of 
 the Hypostatic Union, which is felt in every particle of that 
 Precious Blood. It throbs with such pacific tumult of im- 
 mortal love, as no created life could bear without some 
 miraculous union with the Godhead. It thrills with sacred 
 fear, with transports of intensest adoration, before the un- 
 created majesty of God. It is penetrated through and 
 tlirough with the excesses of this holy fear. That, which 
 itself is worshipped by the hierarchies of heaven, trembles 
 with a very jubilee of worship before the throne of the 
 Eternal. Possessed with such extremity of rapturous fear, 
 how could the Precious Blood so tremble, and so exult, and 
 yet live on, if it were not that it rested for its dear support 
 upon the uncreated Person of the "Word 1 It seems to stop 
 the beating of one's heart to think of this unutterable repose 
 of that created nature, that Sacred Humanity, that person- 
 less life, on the Person of the Eternal Word ! The strange 
 beauty of such a God-invented union, the delight of the 
 Divine Person in the touch of a created nature which yet 
 is no touch at all, for tlie Divine Person can suffer none, the 
 ecstasies of the Sacred Humanity as the unction of the Word 
 with soft sweet fire penetrates its secret sanctuaries of life, 
 the comprehension of that huml)le, airectionate, pathetic, 
 material nature within the enfoldings of the Incomprehen- 
 sible, which embrace it with such forbearing gentleness of 
 omnipotence, and yet with such a riveted closeness of inviu-
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 193 
 
 cible union, — to what heart, sweetly smitten with love of 
 Jesus, are not these things the unfading joys of prayer, the 
 unfailincj wells of tears 1 What a life is the life of that 
 Precious Blood 1 Yet amid the untold magnificences of the 
 Divine Union it feels its kindred to Mary, as a special joy 
 of its abounding life. Its original fountains are still flowing 
 in their sinless purity, beautified now with the gifts of glory, 
 in the Mother's Immaculate Heart ; and the fountain in the 
 Sacred Heart beats in mysterious sympathy with the source 
 from which it came itself. Singular in all its wonderful 
 prerogatives, it yet intertwines the life of Mary with its 
 own. 
 
 Look at the Precious Blood for a moment as it lies 
 within the Sacred Heart with a living peace, like the rest- 
 less tranquillity of ocean. It is itself the ocean of joy from 
 which all other joys in creation come. It is through it that 
 the immensity of God's gladness pours itself into all the 
 universe, and at the same time lets itself also be mysteriously 
 gladdened by the Precious Blood. All the joys, and they 
 are numberless, which are still left in the fallen M'orld, 
 whether they be natural or supernatural, are in substance 
 Indulgences, Indulgences which are granted because of the 
 Precious Blood. Sinners upon earth still have joys : they 
 come from the Precious Blood. Saints on earth are the 
 gladdest of God's creatures. Their lives are all flight and 
 song, like the hot-blooded lives of the birds of the air. All 
 this gladness is from the Precious Blood. The saints in 
 heaven are spirits overflowed with joy, spirits whose quiet- 
 ness ist ransport and whose soberness is ecstas)'. It is the 
 Precious Blood which flows over them for ever. The wide, 
 outspread vastness of angelic jubilee, the thing likest to 
 immensity of all created things, created to mirror the im- 
 mensity of God, is all an emanation from the Precious Blood. 
 
 Kay, it is a changeful, changlcss sea, with tides ; for there 
 
 N
 
 194 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 are daily, hourly increases of new joys in the angels from 
 the conversion of sinners ; and these conversions are precisely 
 the operations of the Precious Blood. Yet that ocean of 
 angelic jubilee washes but the base of Mary's throne. Her 
 joy is like the fringe of the blessedness of God. It is all the 
 multitudinous joys of creatures made one joy by her Divine 
 Maternity, and multiplied, as well as intensified, by being one. 
 Yet the bliss of Mary is all from the Precious Blood, the 
 nearest gladness to the gladness of the Sacred Humanit)', the 
 first heart filled from the Sacred Heart. But who shall tell 
 the nameless, immeasurable joys, with Avhich the Precious 
 Blood fills the Sacred Heart itself ? It cannot contain its 
 own jubilee. It multiplies itself in order to relieve its 
 exultation. It has inundated heaven ; but the vast shores 
 of the Empyrean confine it and restrain its floods. By the 
 help of its omnipotence, behold ! it escapes as if by miracle, 
 sparkles in countless daily chalices upon earth, and within 
 the cup of each chalice it peacefully outstretches itself, 
 unhindered in its infinity, with its grandeur enfranchised, 
 and its love set free from all material laws. But the jubilee 
 of the Precious Blood lies onward still and onward, whither 
 we cannot explore it. "NVe listen to hear its breakers sound- 
 ing on the misty shore. But there comes no sound. The 
 shores are too far off ; or are there shores at all ? The Word 
 delights eternally in His Human Blood. Its golden glow 
 beautifies the fires of the Holy Ghost. Its ministries beget 
 inexplicable joys in the Unbegotten Father. 
 
 I was upon the seashore ; and my heart filled with love 
 it knew not why. Its happiness went out over the wide 
 waters and upon the unfettered wind, and swelled up into 
 tlie free dome of blue sky until it filled it. The dawn 
 liglited up the faces of the ivory cliffs, which the sun and 
 sea had been blanching for centuries of God's unchanging 
 love. The miles of noiseless sands seemed vast, as if they
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 195 
 
 were the floor of eternity. Somehow the daybreak was like 
 eternity. The idea came over me of that feeling of accept- 
 ance, which so entrances the soul just judged and just 
 admitted into heaven. To be saved/ I said to myself, To 
 be saved/ Then tlie thoughts of all the things implied in 
 salvation came in one thought upon me ; and I said, This is 
 the one grand joy of life ; and I clapped my hands like a 
 child, and spoke to God aloud. But then there came man}'' 
 thoughts all in one thought, about the nature and manner 
 of our salvation. To be saved with such a salvation/ This 
 was a grander joy, the second grand joy of life : and I tried 
 to say some lines of a hymn ; but the words were choked in 
 my throat. The ebb was sucking the sea down over the 
 sand quite silently ; and the cliffs were whiter, and more 
 daylike. Then there came many more tlioughts all in one 
 thought ; and I stood still without intending it. To be saved 
 by such a Saviour / Tliis Avas the grandest joy of all, the 
 third grand joy of life ; and it swallowed up the other joys ; 
 and after it there could be on earth no higher joy. I said 
 nothing ; but I looked at the sinking sea as it reddened in 
 the morning. Its great heart was throbbing in the calm ; 
 and methought I saw the Precious Blood of Jesus in heaven, 
 throbbing that hour with real human love of me. 
 
 \^
 
 ( 196 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE V. . 
 THE PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Let us kneel down before the magnificence of God. It is 
 outstretched as an ocean of manifold Being and yet of indi- 
 visible, uncreated Life, intolerable in its splendour, uncir- 
 cumscribed in its simplicity. His magnificence is the vast- 
 ness of His beauty, the multitude of His perfections, the 
 coruscations of His sanctity, the impetuosity of His com- 
 municativeness, the minuteness of His government, the 
 strange celestial sweetness of His gifts, the prodigality of 
 His tenderness, the abysses of His incredible condescensions, 
 and the exuberance of His simplicity. These are many 
 words ; but the idea is one. Our thought of God's magnifi- 
 cence is as a sea. It changes not ; but it changes us while 
 we look upon it. "We see the calm of eternity upon its 
 waters, peaceful as an endless evening. Airs from a far 
 country come quivering over its shining tracts, freighted with 
 aromatic odour.-, which are diffused around and sensibly 
 deepen the tranquillit}'. Then again the freshness of morn- 
 ing is upon its swaying fields ; and a thousand waves crest 
 themselves with foam, and fling up star-showers into the sun- 
 light ; and it booms upon the shore ; and it makes us feel 
 the gentleness of power which knows how to become terrible ; 
 and the visible uncxerted omnipotence is an admonition to 
 prayer. Then it clothes itself witli the plumage of darkness, 
 and murmurs in the midnight as if it were gone down to a
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. U)-j 
 
 great distance ; in order that we may know how different it 
 is when it is felt from what it is when it is seen. Another 
 while it lies grey-green beneath a sunless sky, with snow- 
 capped cliffs around, sovereign when all else is subject, free 
 when all else has lost its liberty, immutable when all else 
 has suffered winter's change. It has also its tempests, more 
 beautiful and more terrible than the glorious storms of earth. 
 Its lightnings make the darkness round it palpable and 
 solid. Its thunders command a universal silence. Its decrees 
 rush after each other in mighty waves of orderly confusion, 
 menacing the land like falling towers, and breaking in dull 
 inarticulate shocks against the precipices of the divine justice. 
 Yet evermore, in storm or calm, there lies upon the ocean the 
 light of the Precious Blood of Jesus, restful as the golden 
 red of evening, hopeful as the rosy flush of dawn. This is 
 the figure of the magnificence of God. 
 
 There is nothing more glorious upon earth than magnifi- 
 cence, nothing which more delights the mind or expands 
 the soul, while it gratifies the senses at the same time that 
 it ennobles their pleasure. But, among creatures, magnifi- 
 cence is always a revelation of defects. Indeed it not only 
 discloses imperfections, but causes them. It is too great an 
 effort. It calls for sacrifices which had better not be made. 
 It is often obliged to be regardless of justice. It is made up 
 uf imprudences. There is for the most part a tyranny about 
 it. Much suffering has generally to be contributed to it ; 
 and the suffering falls mostly on those who have not the 
 glory of the magnificence. Moreover, it is debased by osten- 
 tation, and disfigured by pretence. Nevertheless it wins the 
 applause of men, and even lives in history. The nations will 
 jiardon almost anything to magnilicence. It seems to satisfy 
 a want of the soul which is rarely satisfied. It refreshes the 
 littleness of the creature ; and, even when it is the glory of one 
 man, it is felt as if it were that one man's gift to all mankind.
 
 198 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 "What then must be the beauty and the delight of magnificence, 
 Avhen it is supremely holy ? What must be its grandeur where 
 it is natural ? How great must be its splendour when it is the 
 normal expression and the simple exercise of innumerable per- 
 fections ? There is no effort in the magnificence of God, and no 
 display. It is not a higher height rising above the lowlands. 
 It is not a transient demonstration. It is the refulgence of 
 His eternal quietude. It is the brightness of His infinite 
 justice. It is the unchanging aspect of His glorious sanctity. 
 It is the inevitable light of the riches of the Godhead. It is 
 the self-possessed enjoyment of His beatitude. To us all 
 holiness is a form of restraint. We can hardly form to our- 
 selves any other conception of it. If we try to do so, we 
 shall be surprised to find how difficult it is. Think then 
 what holiness must be, where it is a form of largeness, of 
 prodigality, of boundless freedom ! Yet this is the magnifi- 
 cence of God. 
 
 Roses grow on briars, say the wise men of the world, with 
 that sententious morality which tliinks to make virtue truth- 
 ful by making it dismal. Yes ! but as the very different 
 spirit of piety would say, it is a truer truth that briars bloom 
 with roses. If roses have thorns, thorns also have roses. This 
 is the rule of life. Yet everybody tells us one side of this 
 truth, and nobody tells us the other. A kind-hearted man 
 finds life full of joys, for he makes joys of things which else 
 were not joys ; and a simple-hearted man can be very joyous 
 on a little joy ; and to the pure-hearted man all things are 
 joys. How can the world be an unhappy world, which has 
 80 magnificent a God 1 His magnificence is the fountain of 
 all our joys ; for it is the fountain of salvation. Here lies 
 the secret of the inveterate happiness of tlie world. Even in 
 its fall, it is so implicated in the blessedness of God that it 
 has not a darkness anywhere without its light, nor a bitter 
 without its sweet. God's simple presence is an overflowing
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 199 
 
 of delight. His inanimate creatures have a changeless joy 
 stamped upon their mute features. The multitudinous species 
 of unreasoning creatures, whether they belong to the earth, 
 to the air, or to the waters, plainly revel in life as a joy 
 which fills their natures to the brim. "We ourselves have a 
 hundred happinesses, even when we fancy ourselves quite 
 desolate. There is no real desolation except mortal sin. 
 There is too much of God everywhere to allow either of per- 
 manent or general unhappines-^. He, who can find his joy 
 in God, is in heaven already ; only it is a heaven which is not 
 secured to him, unless he perseveres to the end. Yet is it hard 
 to find our joy in God 1 Rather, is it not hard to find our joy 
 in anything else 1 The magnificence of God is the abound- 
 ing joy of life. It is an immense joy to belong to God. It 
 is an immense joy to have such a God belonging to us. Like 
 the joys of heaven, it is a joy new every morning when we 
 wake, as new as if we had never tasted it before. Like the 
 joys of eartli, it is a joy every evening resting and pacifying 
 the soul. Lut it has a gift of its own besides. For its 
 novelty grows fresher and more striking daily, and its repose 
 more satisfying and more complete. The joy of God's 
 magnificence more than counterbalances all mortal griefs. 
 When I think of His magnificence, of all that His magnifi- 
 cence implies, of its intimate concernment with myself, and 
 of the way in which I am always sinking more and more 
 irretrievably into the abysses of His sovereignty, I often 
 wonder how we can contain ourselves with joy at having 
 such a God. 
 
 In treating of the prodigality of the Precious Elood, it is 
 necessary that we should have clear ideas of the magnificence 
 of God : for the one is a part of the other. No one, of 
 course, doubts the magnificence of God. Our loftiest con- 
 ceptions must fall infinitely below the gorgeousness of the 
 reality. No accumulation of beautiful ideas can reach the
 
 200 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 incredible glory of the truth. An immensity of omnipotent 
 beauty is a thing which it bcAvilders us to think of. We 
 should suppose that a single glimpse of the magnificence of 
 God Avould annihilate us by its excess of impetuous light. 
 Yet, notwithstanding all this, the character of God is never 
 revealed to us more inlimately or more clearly than when 
 He is disclosed to us as the God who "orders all things in 
 measure, in number, and weight." * He does everything by 
 measure. The Immeasurable decrees by measure, Avorks by 
 measure, rewards by measure, punishes by measure, delights 
 in measure. The Eternal, of uncounted ages, of uncounted 
 spaces, loves to count by numbers. He counts all things, 
 and calls them by their names. He surrounds each unit 
 Avith His whole Self, with His entire justice, with His com- 
 plete love. He leaves out nothing. He overlooks nobody. 
 It belongs to Him as Creator to be accurate, to be methodical, 
 to be infallible in His minuteness. The Illimitable weighs 
 all things, as if their weight were an object even to His 
 unsearchaljle riches. His magnificence delights in nothinji 
 
 o o o 
 
 more than in the strictness of proportions. His justice 
 weighs out glory with the most unblemished accuracy. Even 
 His measure that is pressed down, and shaken together, and 
 running over, has all its merciful superfluity weighed out 
 with minutest carefulness. The very orbs that roll in heaven 
 keep up the universal harmony by the exceeding nicety and 
 adjustment of their weights. So is it in the wurld of grace. 
 So is it in the world of glory. Our God is an accurate God ; 
 and in nothing is He more adorable than in His accuracy. 
 
 ^Magnificence, in our idea of it, is above law. Kow, to 
 our eyes, the divinest of all God's propensities is His love of 
 law. The grandeur of His liberty is, that it is an uncircum- 
 tcribed law. Within His own infinite life all things are 
 absolutely necessary, all things nre, in the most transcen- 
 
 • Wisdom xi. 2i.
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 201 
 
 dental sense of the word, laws. His knowledge of Himself 
 is not the Holy Ghost ; but it is tlie AVord. His love of 
 Himself is not the Word ; but it is the Holy Ghost. Much 
 more is this magnificent attribute of law-luvingness shown 
 forth in His external works, wherein there is no necessity. 
 He is Himself a sufficient living law to His creation. Yet 
 everywhere in the universe He is at once multiplying and 
 simplifying laws. Everything is done by law, the least no 
 less than the greatest of things. He almost hides Himself 
 behind an impenetrable screen of laws. It is as if He wished 
 to fetter His infinite freedom with an infinity of finite laws. 
 He seems to make Himself the captive of His own punc- 
 tuality. Every time and place have their laws. There is 
 not a corner of creation where there is not a whole code of 
 laws. His omnipresence is an omnipresence of law. Everj'- 
 thing wears the chains of order, of sequence, of repetition. 
 From this adorable love of law comes the unutterable tran- 
 quillity of all the divine operations in the world. It is this 
 tranquillity which makes the earth so like a sanctuary, it is 
 so manifestly the covering under which God hides Himself. 
 The silent calm of so much onward overwhelming power, 
 the gentleness of such a gigantic pressure, the graceful unsus- 
 pecting liberty amidst such a complication of restraints, the 
 unhindered exuberance of such multitudinous and seemingly 
 eccentric life, the unending soundless conflict of opposing 
 forces which ends in such unhindered amplitude of repose 
 and harmony, — all these things are from that gracious pro- 
 pensity to law which belongs to the sweet majesty of God. 
 It is His way to love uniformity ; and the Creator's uni- 
 formity is tlie creature's liberty. It is His uniformity and 
 His slowness which at once represent His eternity, and yet 
 hinder it from oppressing time. 
 
 The magnificence of God, then, is no waste of splendour. 
 It is no lavish prodigality of glory. It is not a mere pageant
 
 202 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 of His royal state. It is, if we may use the word, a neces- 
 sity to God. He cannot be otherwise. He is magnificent, 
 simply because He is God. He cannot lay down His 
 grandeur, or be less grand, or be grander at one time than at 
 another. IMagnificence is His divine life. It does not cling 
 to His perfections like a robe. It is inseparable from Him. 
 It is the outward operation of His wonderful attributes. It 
 is the inward tranquillity of His incomprehensible life. His 
 accuracy, His punctuality, His love of law. His propensity 
 to number, measure, and weight. His fashion of uniformity, 
 His ways of order and sequence, — all these things are part 
 of the magnificence of God ; and they are the ways by Avhich 
 His magnificence is imparted to His creatures. This is very 
 different from our human ideas of magnificence, and must be 
 borne in mind. The truth is, that God is so high that we 
 can only approach to truth in speaking of Him by speaking 
 in superlatives. Thus we often speak of His love and His 
 compassion as if He did more for us than He need do, as if 
 less would be sufficient, as if He wasted grace with a kind 
 of spendthrift generosity, as if His magnificence were always 
 in excess. All this expresses a most holy truth, so far as 
 the inconceivable magnificence of His goodness towards us 
 is concerned. Yet it is not true, so far as regards the awful 
 magnificence of God Himself. In like manner we some- 
 times speak of the Incarnation and of tlie Atonement, as if 
 they had persuaded God to be less God than He really is, as 
 if they had given mercy some sort of advantage against 
 justice, as if God would overlook now what He would not 
 overlook before, as if the terms of forgiveness of sin had 
 become easier because God's sanctity Avas content Avith less. 
 This also expresses a kind of truth. I am not quarrelling 
 with the language. Holy Scripture sometimes uses it, in 
 order to make things plain to us. All language al)out God 
 labours under the necessity of being inaccurate. It cannot
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 203 
 
 oven escape by being merely short of truth. Eut, when it 
 becomes of importance to us to obtain a somewhat clearer 
 view of any particular attribute of God, then we must do 
 our best to correct this otherwise harmless error in our 
 minds. It is necessary now, in order to understand what 
 we popularly term the prodigality of the Precious Blood, to 
 understand also that God's magnihcence does not overwhelm, 
 as with an inundation of glorious light, His love of law, 
 repetition, order, and accuracy, or His methodical uniformity, 
 or His punctual strictness, or His undistracted attention to 
 details : but rather it brincrs out all these characteristics 
 
 O 
 
 still more strongly, because it shows Him to be magnificent 
 precisely in these things, and because of them. 
 
 Thus the divine magnificence is a divine method of order 
 and measure. So far from being above the restraints of 
 law, its grandest developments of itself are by means of 
 laws. So far from being oblivious of petty details, its 
 infinity confounds the distinction between great and small, 
 and makes all things equal in its sight May I not almost 
 say, that in some mysteries and from some human points 
 of view, there is even an appearance of parsimony in the 
 magnificence of God 1 Is there not, to our ignorance, this 
 semblance about the fall of the aniiels, and about the Ion? 
 delay of the Incarnation, and about the low tides of grace 
 which are known to the experience of most men in their 
 own lives ^ It is not so, but it seems so. God is never 
 parsimonious : but He is sou'ctinies sparing. He propor- 
 tions graces to temptations, in a way which disquiets us, 
 because it makes our risks plainer. His very lihorality is 
 adorably just. His gifts are given under laws. They are 
 the administration of His laws. Thus it comes to pass that 
 His magnificence partakes of the severity of His holiness. 
 What looks to us like economy is, in fact, the operation uf 
 His exceeding sanctity.
 
 204 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Nevertheless, when all this order, and sequence, and law, 
 and proportion, and number, and weight, and measure, and 
 accuracy are upon a scale which is infinite, when they are 
 all clothed in immensity, when they are the vast sweeping 
 circuits of everlasting decrees, when they hold a love which 
 is inexhaustible, and a compassion which is unwearied, and 
 a tenderness which has no likeness to itself outside of God, 
 they have all that exuberance, lavishness, and prodigality 
 which are the characteristics of magnificence. Only they 
 have these things without the corresponding imperfections 
 which are inseparable from them in the case of creatures. 
 Prodigality in this higher sense is a characteristic of all the 
 divine works. Finite and limited as they are, nothingness 
 and the children of nothingness, yet in that they are also 
 the creations of God, they wonderfully shadow forth the 
 munificence of His immensity. "We have already seen this 
 in the number of the angels. "We cani;ot meditate upon 
 their countless multitudes without astonishment. So vast 
 a populace, of such surpassing beauty, of such gigantic 
 intelligence, of such diversified nature, is simply overwhelm- 
 ing to our most ambitious tlioughts. A locust-swarm, and 
 each locust an archangel, the myriads of points of life dis- 
 jlosed to us by the microscope, and each point a grand spirit, 
 the sands of tlie seas and the waters of the ocean, and each 
 grain and each drop a beautiful being, the briglitness of 
 whose substance we could not see and live : — this is but an 
 approximation to the reality. So theologians teach us. Or, 
 again let us think of the multitudinousness of the starry 
 skies. Astronomers tell us that our i\Iill<y Way is but one 
 of hundreds, perliaps of thousands of nebula?, to which our 
 instruments may hope to reacli. Yet our one Milky Way, 
 in which we ourselves are dwellers, is reported to contain 
 thirty millions of suns; and we are but a little planet of 
 one of the lesser suns. Moreover, it is probable that the
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 205 
 
 Jeptli m space, to wliich our instruments can reach, is but 
 as the ankle-deep water on the shore, through which the 
 fearless child can Avade in sport, compared with the yet 
 imfathomed depths of the mid-ocean. Figures are hardly a 
 help to us in estimating the probable number of God's 
 worlds. St. John speaks with rapture of the multitude of 
 the saved as of a number that no man can count. The 
 same magnificence of numbers reigns in the laws and the 
 lives of the material world ; and who can doubt but that 
 the spiritual far outstrips the material world in its prolific 
 exuberance of graces and inspirations? We are speaking 
 only of numbers ; and yet see the magnificence of God ? 
 For the vastness of the numbers is but a lesser development 
 of the boundless love from which creation springs. It is 
 the royalty of His love, which the blameless custom of the 
 faithful has named His prodigality. 
 
 Now let us apply all this to the prodigality of the 
 Precious Blood. In nothing was He more likely to be 
 prodigal than in this work, which was especially to minister 
 to His Dominion and His Magnificence. In nothing M-as 
 He more likely to be prodigal tlian in that which repre- 
 sented in itself the whole series of His divine decrees. In 
 nothing is it of so much importance to us that He should 
 be magnificent, as in the shedding of His Blood. It would 
 be part of His Dominion, part of His ]\[agnificence, to be 
 accurately prodigal of that which made His Dominion more 
 dear to Him, and His Magnificence more magnificent. Yet 
 I would fain keep before you, what I hinted at in the 
 Second Chapter, — that the prodigality of the Precious Blood 
 is simply necessary for our wretchedness, that we could not 
 do with less of it, that, if so infinite a price were to be paid 
 for our redemption, it must be infinitely paid. I said a 
 while ago that magnificence was a kind of necessity to God. 
 He could not help being magnificent, precisely because He ia
 
 2o6 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 God. Now I want to say, that, in a sense which is full of 
 devotional reality, the magnificence of the Creator is the 
 creature's necessity. We could not do without it. We 
 could not live, still less rejoice, if God were less magnificent. 
 It is true we cannot comprehend God. But we can possess 
 Him, we can enjoy Him ; nay, we must possess Him, we 
 must enjoy Him, in His whole Self. We must do so, or 
 fall into the abyss of eternal death. Unless His infinity 
 thus supports, sustains, fulfils our finiteness, we are but ruin 
 and desolation. It is His infinity thus compassionately and 
 delightedly acting upon our finiteness, which we call His 
 magnificence. It is an attribute which ought to be most 
 dear to us, and which we should honour with a special 
 devotion. He Himself told Paola Maria di Gesii that the 
 immensity of the Creator's love was the necessity of the crea- 
 ture.* If the tranquillity of holiness comes of our loving to 
 be overwhelmed by the sovereignty of God, we come to love 
 His sovereignty by delighting in His magnificence. 
 
 What we have said amounts to this. The magnificence 
 of God was nowhere more needed than in the Precious 
 lUood ; and, as a matter of fact, it has been nowhere more 
 shown. It was of surpassing importance to us that it should 
 be so. Moreover we have seen all along, that the magnifi- 
 cence of God is tbe attribute to which the Precious Blood 
 is very specially addicted, and that the attribute of dominion 
 is never separated from that of magnificence. The Precious 
 Blood conquered creation back for the Creator, and recon- 
 quered the lordship of creation for the Sacred Humanity of 
 Jesus. It is a magnificent price for sin, because it is infinite ; 
 and sin is only infinite by a figure of speech or an invention 
 of mind. We did not th(,'refure require an infinite redemp- 
 tion : though on the side of God's sanctity there may have 
 been a propriety, looking to us like a necessity, for an 
 
 • Vitii, p. 497.
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 207 
 
 infinite expiation. Furthermore, one drop of the Precious 
 Blood would suffice to redeem all possible woiids ; so we 
 did not require more than our share of that drop. We did 
 not require, of absolute necessity, that it should be so often 
 shed ; or that it should be shed under such a variety of 
 pathetic circumstances, every one of which is a beautiful 
 allurement of love ; or that it should be all shed, shed even 
 by a miracle of jealous prodigality after death. In all this, 
 the magnificence of God goes beyond our necessities, and 
 envelops us in its own immensity. But those other wonders 
 of His magnificence, that we should have unrestricted, re- 
 peated, incessant access to the Precious Blood, that it should 
 be to us more copious, more prompt, more at hand, more 
 abundant than the water of our wells and streams, that at 
 every turn of life it should be conveyed to our souls by 
 glorious aqueducts of divine invention, namely, the Sacra- 
 ments, that it should be as common and as convenient to 
 the life of our souls as the air is to the life of our bodies, — 
 all these wonders are simply necessities to a Avretchedness 
 and a feebleness so utter and prostrate as ours. The sin- 
 fulness of sin causes us to require nothing short of this. 
 Thus there are two prodigalities of the Precious Blood, both 
 belonging to the adorable magnificence of God ; but one of 
 which is a simple necessity to us ; while the other is a 
 liberality of His magnificence, befitting His love, in keeping 
 with His perfections, but not a necessity to us. 
 
 I have laid some stress upon this for the following reason- 
 There is often a good deal of exaggeration in devotional 
 books ; and it is for the most part practically harmless. Yet 
 there are cases in which it may come at last to be mischie- 
 vous ; and these are generally cases where the exaggeration 
 in question tends to give an erroneous idea of God, and 
 especially of His strictness and sanctity. Thus writers, as 
 I have said before, sometimes speak of the Incarnation, a.-!
 
 2o8 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 if God were less strict and jealous in consequence of it; and 
 this leads men not to think sufficiently of mortification and 
 good works. So, if we dwell onesidedly upon the goodness 
 of God in giving us such abundant access to the Precious 
 Blood, we may easily fall into an unreality. Of course it 
 would have been a wonderful disclosure of God's magnifi- 
 cence, if He had justified us once for all in Baptism through 
 the Precious Blood. It would have been worthy to have 
 sustained the wonder of the angels through eternity. "What 
 then are we to say to the bewildering varieties, facilities, 
 repetitions, and exuberances of the Precious Blood 1 Plainly, 
 no language that we can use can really exaggerate the mag- 
 nificence of God's goodness in this respect. But we may 
 come to think that we wanted less than God has given us, 
 that His magnificence was not a necessity to us, but that 
 the very meaning of His magnificence is excess, is His doing 
 more than we require. Thus we become less careful about 
 corresponding to grace and about fidelity to inspirations. 
 "We imagine ourselves in a great wasteful sea of grace, which 
 we may move about in, as a fish moves about in the waters 
 of the ocean, drinking when it will, but not requiring for its 
 whole life more than a few sips of the unfathomable depths. 
 "Whereas the truth is, that not a single grace comes to earth 
 which does not come addressed to some individual soul, and 
 is not noted by God, and has not to be given account for at 
 the last. There is not one least grace, not one most tran- 
 sient inspiration, Avhich is not part of God's accurate and 
 orderly providence over each one of us for the salvation of 
 our souls. Consequently there is not one which can safely 
 be neglected. We have no more grace than we require. 
 St. Teresa tells us, that, even where the grace of perfection 
 is given, it is often necessary for mere salvation. As a 
 theological speculation, we could bo saved with less; but, 
 in practice, we should be lost if we had less.
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 209 
 
 Thus, while, on the one hand, the masters of the spiritual 
 life warn us not to attempt to go beyond our grace, they 
 teach us still more emphatically that we must be faithful to 
 the grace we have. "We read that one Communion is enough 
 to make a saint. So it is in itself ; and it is important that 
 we should know this, as it brings home to us the value of 
 Communion. Yet, in fact, hundreds of Communions may 
 in our case be practically necessary, not to make us saints, 
 but just to save our souls. The grand practical mischief to 
 men's souls is the neglect of the Sacraments. The grand 
 practical mistake of pious people is the neglect of fidelity to 
 grace. I believe that unintentionally spiritual Avriters are 
 somewhat to blame for both these unfortunate delusions. 
 They cannot magnify too much the magnificence of God. 
 They cannot magnify too much the redeeming grace of our 
 Blessed Lord. But they may magnify both one and the 
 other without making proper distinctions. What I have 
 wanted to dwell upon, and experience has shown me the 
 utility of it, is that, while God's magnificence gives us a 
 superabundance of grace, that superabundance is not in 
 reality a superfluity. We have not a grace which we can 
 aff"ord to spare. Our frequent absolutions are not too fre- 
 quent for us ; nor our many Communions, if under obedience, 
 too many. One grace may be enough in itself to save a 
 soul ; but it will not save it, if it was not precisely meant 
 to do so. It does not derogate from God's magnificence, 
 that we should stand absolutely in need of its grand large- 
 ness. But the knowledge of this necessity gives us a truer 
 view of our wretchedness, and fosters our humilitv. So also 
 God's magnificence is not a perfection wliich rough-rides His 
 exactness. His accuracy. His punctuality. His methodical 
 minuteness, His jealousy of law, and His scrupulous distri- 
 butions and proportions. Yet we often speak as if it did 
 
 do so ; and hence we come to think, not to put into words, 
 
 o
 
 210 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 but practically to think, that God in Jesus Christ is God 
 ■with one half of His ever-blessed perfections dispensing 
 themselves from the other half. This lowers our standard 
 of His sanctity ; and whatever lowers that, lowers also our 
 estimate of the sinfulness of sin and our carefulness in avoid- 
 ing little sins. May I consider that I have proved, that 
 God's magnificence is sometimes a necessity to us, and that 
 it is not on that account less magnificent ? 
 
 There are then two prodigalities of the Precious Blood, 
 both belonging to the magnificence of God ; and one of the 
 two belonging also to our necessities. We must examine 
 both of them. As I said before, the very choice of the Pre- 
 cious Blood, as tlie instrument of our redemption, is part of 
 God's magnificence. There Avere merit and satisfaction 
 enough in a single tear of the Infant Jesus to have redeemed 
 us all. Nothing in the external works of God is necessary ; 
 and therefore the Precious Blood .is not necessary. God 
 was free to have chosen some other expiation, or He was 
 free to have pardoned us without any expiation at all. Yet 
 nothing is merely gratuitous with God ; nothing is unneces- 
 sary, even though it be not necessary. There was doubtless 
 on the side of the divine perfections such a propriety and 
 fitness in the choice of an infinite sacrifice for sin, that it 
 was in one sense necessary to have one. There were doubt- 
 less, in the depths of the same perfections, reasons and fit- 
 nesses for the Precious Blood of the Incarnate Word beinjr 
 chosen for that sacrifice, which may form part of the blessed 
 science of anotlier life. Divine love, divine justice, and 
 divine sanctity, have necessities of their own, which do not 
 interfere with their freedom. All this, then, belongs to the 
 magnificence of God without belonging to our necessity ; and 
 may be considered truly as a prodigality of the divine com- 
 'passion. But I will illustrate what I may now venture, 
 without fear of being misunderstood, to call the unnecessary
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD, 211 
 
 prodigality of tlie Precious Elood by the manner and circum- 
 stances, in and under which it was shed during the Three- 
 and-Thirty Years ; and Ave shall be most closely following 
 the mind of tlie Church, if we select, as our examples, the 
 Seven Bloodsheddings, which are put before us as the objects 
 of indulgenced devotions. 
 
 There has been some variety in the enumeration of the 
 Seven Llood.-heddings by different holy persons, though the 
 "difference has been little more than one of division. The 
 enumeration which Ave shall follow is the one approved and 
 indulgenced by Pius the Seventh. The Seven are the Circum- 
 cision, the Agony, the Scourging, the CroAvning Avith Thorns, 
 the Way of the Cross, the Crucifixion, and the Piercing of 
 the Sacred Heart. There is no doubt a divine intention in 
 these particular seven mysteries. AVe shall find that they 
 illustrate in a most complete and touching manner the spirit 
 of the Precious Elood. "While they are like each other, they 
 are also different. They have that mixture of likeness and 
 of difference, Avhich so often makes up the beauty of divine 
 Avorks. One of them belongs to Infancy, and the other six to 
 the Passion. Six of them Avere sufferings of Jesus, and one 
 Avas that mute preaching of His love Avhich took place after 
 He Avas dead. The first and the last had nothing to do Avith 
 the redemption of the Avorld ; the first because it had no con- 
 nection Avith His death, and the last becaTase it only took 
 place after He Avas already dead. Of some of the others also, 
 but less certainly, Ave may say that they did not belong to 
 our redemption. At all of them our Blessed Lady Avas pre- 
 sent, in spirit, if not in body, and all of tliem Avere sorroAvs 
 to her immaculate heart. In the number of times that the 
 lUood Avas shed, in the quantity shed, and in the mysterious 
 manners of its shedding, it is the magnificence of God Avhich 
 is revealing the excesses of His love. Each Bloodshedding 
 has its own Avay of touching our hearts,, and its own attrac-
 
 212 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 tion for our devotion. The whole Seven together have also 
 a distinctive unity, and form a complete picture and a definite 
 spirit in our souls. 
 
 The first Bloodshedding was the Circumcision. To the 
 Heart of Jesus, already enamoured of sorrow and suffering, 
 seven days were enough for the tranquil joys of Bethlehem, 
 joys over whose tranquillity the shadow of Calvary was 
 already cast. The stainless Mother had only one short 
 octave of the Precious Blood for her own delight. She 
 knew its mission and its mystery. She saw it in the almost 
 transparent vase of the Infant Body. She saw the pulses 
 of its life beat with all the natural rapidity of childhood. 
 Through the veil of snowy skin she saw its purple streams. 
 From time to time she saw it mantle in His face, and flush 
 His little cheek. She saw its coral upon those tiny lips, 
 over which were to flow the words of everlasting life, and 
 also the awful judgments of uncounted millions of human 
 souls. In the still night she heard its throbbing, and adored 
 the mysteries of that busy sleep, the secrets of that silent 
 Heart. When she clasped Him to her breast, she felt the 
 beatings of the Precious Blood, and knew that it was the 
 harmless force of the vast omnipotence, Avhich had with such 
 sweet craft imprisoned itself in the frailty and the littleness 
 of a new-born Babe. Slie knew it was that Blood, which the 
 justice of the Father sought after. She knew how lovingly 
 and how severely His sanctity thirsted for its shedding. 
 She was awe-struck with the thouglits which crowded upon 
 her ; and yet, those amazing thouglits ! liow full of joyous- 
 ness they were ! She knew the temper of that dear blood, 
 and bore witli its impatience, an impatience which love 
 might have deemed unreasonable ; only that the love of 
 Jesus is the adoration of Him also. He had hastened the 
 time of His coming, because of the loveliness of IMary. He 
 ^ had been impatient even in heaven. Now He had come
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 213 
 into her arms. He had looked in her eyes hut seven short 
 
 j days. How much the two silences of the Mother and the 
 
 
 / Son had to say to each other ! Could He not rest a while 1 
 Need He begin redeeming all at once 1 ISTay, He cannot 
 redeem yet. There are Three-and-Thirty Years to be spent 
 before that, crowded with the fulfilment of numerous eternal 
 purposes. No ! He cannot rest. He could not rest in His 
 Father's Bosom. He cannot rest in His Mother's arms. His 
 rest is in the shedding of His blood. Let the Child shed His 
 ]>lood, and then He will be content to rest ; and so He shed 
 it in the Circumc ision, Jjeing yet but eight days old. 
 
 Strange thought ! but there were seven days during which 
 our Blessed Lord was nameless. How did Joseph name 
 Him ; if indeed, in the fulness of his joy, that peaceful 
 saint needed to speak at all ? Now with the Blood comes 
 the sweet Name of Jesus, as if He had no right to it, until 
 He shed His Blood. Impatient Blood ! Yet its first act is 
 to put itself beneath the law ! It will begin by obeying, 
 though it is in no wise bound to such obedience. It will 
 let itself be taken captive by a ritual, as soon as it is born. 
 See how full it is, from the first, of the law-loving instincts 
 of God's magnificence. But of what use were those first 
 drops of that Precious Blood ? They had no redeeming 
 power in them, because they were disconnected from His 
 Death. They were not a part of the Blood shed for the 
 sins of the world. Doubtless they had special purposes and 
 did secret wonders, as we have already seen in the revelation 
 to Frances of the Mother of God.* All the things of God are 
 pregnant with undisclosed mysteries, are endowed with un- 
 suspected powers, and have eternally foreseen destinations. 
 For us it is enough to see in this dear impatience, in this 
 sweet child-like waste, if we may dare thus to speak, most 
 touching revelations of our Saviour's love. The days of type 
 
 * See pages 173, 174.
 
 214 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 and figure had not yet gone by ; and He gave us this mystery 
 as a type and figure of His future life and work. He taught 
 us doctrine by it also, the doctrine that, now that man had 
 fallen. He had only assumed His Blood in order that He 
 might shed it. It was so completely for us, that it was more 
 ours than His. By needing redemption, we made His Blood 
 more utterly and more intimately ours, than if we had never 
 sinned. All things turn to love, all things turn to our profit, 
 when they belong to Jesus. Perhaps, too, this mystery was 
 also very specially for St. Joseph. It was his Calvary. He 
 saw no more of the Passion, except that it was shown him 
 mystically, and that, after the fashion of the saints, he was 
 perhaps made partaker of its mysteries and inward stigmata. 
 Otherwise he saw the Precious Blood no more, until the 
 morning of Easter. Joseph counted for much in the plans 
 of God. He shared all, or most, of those Mary-haunting 
 years at Nazareth, when the whole wide world without had 
 but a three years' Ministry bestowed upon it. Doubtless 
 many mysteries of the early years of Jesus were meant singu- 
 larly for St. Joseph. This Circumcision was his one mystery 
 of the Precious Blood. It begins each year for us. It is 
 our New Years' Day. It braids upon the front of every 
 coming year of life the Name of Jesus, our life's dear Lord, 
 and it braids it in those red snowdrops of His Infancy, the 
 first blossoms of His Precious Blood. 
 
 But who shall tell the share of Mary in this mystery 1 
 It was an exceeding joy to her; for to what holy heart 
 would not the sight of the Precious Blood be jubilee? 
 It had been a wondrous joy to her, after her months of 
 expectation, to see the Face of Jesus in the cave of Beth- 
 lehem. It was a beauty, the thought of which had fed 
 her desires, but the reality of which was bliss unsj)eak- 
 able. So now it was a joy, in which was mingled perhaps 
 btill more of wonder, to see the Precious Blood, which had
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 215 
 
 purchased her own Immaculate Conception, and the redemp- 
 tion of all mankind. It was a joy to her also to read in our 
 Lord's translucent Heart the inward dispositions in which 
 He first shed His Blood. His abounding gladness, His 
 inexpressible adoration of God, His intense love of souls, 
 the unsearchable riches which His own Blood was to Him- 
 self, as enabling Him to satisfy so many loves and so many 
 worships, — all these things she saw, and rejoicing she 
 adored. Doubtless also many hidden meanings of the 
 mystery were visible to the clear eye of her sinless soul. 
 At the same time it was a bitter grief as well. It was a 
 public beginning of sorrows, as the marriage at Cana was 
 the public beginning of miracles. As her dolours at the foot 
 of the Cross made her one of His executioners, so His little 
 Passion now was her own ministry. If, as some think, and 
 it seeems by far the truest thought, it was her own hand 
 which shed the Blood, who does not see how fitting it was 
 that she first should shed that Blood, which, before all others 
 and above all others, was to be shed for her ? 
 
 Long years have passed since that cruel New Year's Day 
 of the guiltless Babe of Bethlehem ; and now another scene 
 opens to our view. It is the Agony in the Garden. Tlie 
 spot looks tranquil, innocent, and unconscious now, when 
 the crisp foliage of the olives turns its silver lining to the 
 wind, and, within the latticed fence of the Franciscan friars, 
 the tall sceptres of the golden-rod rise up from amongst the 
 trailing gourds, and the roses bloom among the yellow 
 flowers, and all is gay and garden-like. But it was once the 
 scene of a fearful mystery, the mystery of the second Blood- 
 shedding. Jesus kneels there. He is now a grown-up man. 
 Three-and-Thirty Years have passed over Him. They have 
 been the longest, because the fullest, years that earth has 
 ever known. His weary Ministry of tliree years has drawn 
 to its close. He has often been weary. He was weary
 
 2i6 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 when He sat by Jacob's well, and asked the Samaritan 
 woman for an alms of the cold fresh water, which He Him- 
 self had created. He has been weary on the mountain 
 sides, when He prayed instead of sleeping, while the moon 
 shone tremulously on the limestone rocks, as if it hardly 
 dared to light up the furtive figure of its Creator keeping 
 watch among the crags. But His love of souls has never 
 yet been tired. His weariness has never reached the yearn- 
 ings of His Sacred Heart. This Thursday night amidst the 
 olives we find Him still unchanged. "We ventured to charge 
 His dear love with impatience three-and-thirty years ago. 
 We charge it with impatience now. Why will not the 
 Precious Blood keep back until its time 1 Can it not wait 
 now some twelve or fifteen hours more for Calvary 1 It is 
 the Avay of human desire to grow more impatient, as it 
 draws nearer to its object. See what a true human heart 
 this Heart of Jesus is ! We dare to love it move, when it 
 looks so very human. To-morrow men will crucify His 
 blessed Body, and pour out His Blood like water. But to- 
 morrow is not soon enough. To-ni;:[ht His adorable Soul, 
 that King among creatures, that royallest of all the works of 
 God, will itself crucify His Body. He will suffer a martyr- 
 dom to-night even more mysterious than that martyrdom on 
 Calvary. What impatience ! What precipitation ! He 
 began His ministry by an act of precipitation, by working a 
 miracle before His time, because His Mother asked Him, 
 He ends it with anotlier act of precipitation : He anticipates 
 His Passion. But what is it about Him, which is so 
 impatient? It is His Blood. It is burning to be shed. It 
 longs to leave its sanctuary in the Sacred Heart, as if it 
 were wearied with so much wailing. He Himself had 
 waited four thousand years before He came. There was 
 delay enougli then. Kow all things are quickened, are even 
 antici[)ated. It is the pukes of the Precious Blood which
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 217 
 
 are liurrviii" all thini:r3 forward. See now what that Soul is 
 doing. It gathers round it all the sins of men, manifold, 
 multitudinous, jionderous. Over its beautiful sanctity it 
 puts on all this hideous apparel, which burns like poison 
 and like fire. It clothes itself thus, with the most awful 
 human shudderings. He only preserves His life by an 
 energetic miracle. K^ever on earth was there such mortal 
 heaviness, such aching sadness, such a drying up of life's 
 fountains, such a tormenting languor, such an exceeding 
 sickening of soul. Then it lifts up its hands, that mighty 
 Soul, as if with more than Samson's strength it were about 
 to pull down the big heavens upon itself ; and it draws 
 down upon itself the huge storm of God"s eternal justice and 
 overwhelming Avrath, and then lies crushed beneath it, a 
 plaintive Human Life almost extinguished, and only not 
 extinguished because it is a Divine Life as well. Such 
 Manhood ! Such Godhead ! "Who is equal to so terrible a 
 mystery? Ah Jesus! how dreadful is this solitude, which 
 is even deepened by the presence of that one trenihling 
 angel, whom Thy cries have drawn from heaven ! The 
 Sacred Heart can bear no more. It gives out its red life, as 
 in a winepress. Drop by drop, unnaturally, through the 
 burning pores of the skin, the beads of Blood ooze out. 
 They stand upon His brow, and then roll down His face. 
 They clog His hair. They blind His eyes. They fill His 
 mouth, otherwise than as the chalice of His Blood filled it 
 three hours ago. They mat His beard. They wet His 
 hands. They suffuse every limb as in a universal Sweat of 
 Blood. They stain His garments. They ruddy the olive 
 roots. They spot the white dust with black. Truly, if ever 
 suffering was beautiful, — and how little suffering there has 
 been on earth that was not beautiful ! — it was the woe which 
 the paschal moon beheld beneath the olive trees that night. 
 "Who can tell the mysteries of this Second Bloodshedding 1
 
 2i8 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Yet here again we have the same feature of prodigality. 
 This Blood shed itself through the desire of redeeming the 
 world ; yet it did irot itself redeem it, because it was not 
 the Blood of His death. It was His own act, not the 
 appointed sacrificial act of others. But Avhat a vast signifi- 
 cancy of love there was in this miraculous portent of the 
 Bloody Sweat? He was straitened, it was His own word, 
 with eagerness for His Passion. He had desired with desire 
 — it is His own expletive — to drink His own Blood with 
 His disciples. So had He desired with desire to shed it, 
 and thus He had anticipated noonday at midnight, and had 
 made a Calvary of Olivet. Mary was present in the garden, 
 though she was also in the house of John. All men were 
 asleep. Alas ! even the three Apostles close at hand M'ere 
 sleeping. Only Judas was awake, and the handful of the 
 servitors of tyranny that were with him. Yet even for them 
 Jesus would not wait. His Blood so burned with love of 
 souls, that it could not contain any longer its impetuous 
 instinct to be shed. He could get no man to wound Him 
 in that lonely garden, which had been to Him so often a 
 sweet haunt for prayer. So He let His Heart wound Him 
 from within. Observe also that the very pressure of His 
 Passion in thought could only translate itself into the 
 language of a Bloodshedding. When the vehement, pon- 
 derous justice of God crushed Him to the earth, the mark 
 that it left upon the earth, as afterwards on the napkin of 
 Veronica, was an impression traced in Blood. The sin He 
 had assumed was within Him ; it had sunk into Him ; the 
 anger of the Father was upon Him. Thus the inward and 
 the outward of His Passion met, and they were one — in 
 Blood. 
 
 The sun in the heavens and the shadows in the streets 
 of Jerusalem mark it to be about nine in the morning. It 
 is the hour of the Third Bloodshedding, the Scourging.
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 219 
 
 This is the most intolerable of all the mysteries of our 
 Blessed Saviour's Passion. It is the one which is the • 
 hardest to contemplate in the quietness of prayer. There 
 is something revolting in the anguish of sheer bodily pain. 
 There is something degrading in the intentional infliction of 
 shame. Yet these two horrors are combined in the mystery 
 of the Scourging. Our Lord is left in the hands of the vilest 
 satellites of criminal justice. Tliere is neither the pomp of 
 a court, nor the pageant of an execution. He is at the 
 mercy of the vilest and most abhorred of men. The punish- 
 ment is one, in His case, without check, without measure, 
 and without ordt^r. When we think of the contact of their 
 loathsome hands, and their abominable sacrilege in stripping 
 His Sacred Body, a shudder of anguish passes all through 
 us, as though some secret sanctuary of God were being 
 violated. The shame of it seems to gather round ourselves, 
 and we are hardly able to hold up our heads. We pray 
 about it with our eyes shut as if by instinct. The shape, 
 the gaze, the variety, of the instruments of torture are alike 
 horrible. The muscular violence and brutal gestures of the 
 executioners offend our very thought. Then the sounds ! 
 the dull sounds of the scourges as they fall upon the living 
 Holy of Holies, monotonous yet various, changing as the 
 whips are changed, and then the wet sound as the thongs 
 become soaked with Blood, — who can bear them 1 Tlie 
 echoes from the houses in the place, and the spiritual echoes 
 from out the indignant meek heart of the outraged Mother, 
 — are they not fearful also 1 The sound, hardly perceptible 
 till the ear becomes unnaturally quickened by excitement, 
 Qs of light-falling rain, which we know to be the Precious 
 Blood, mingles with that still fainter sound, as of the almost 
 inaudible bleating of a dying lamb, which we know to be 
 the Voice of God, complaining with that inextinguishable 
 human tenderness. Though our eyes are closed, we see the
 
 220 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 stnring looks, the compressed lips, tlie ferocious countenances, 
 tlie knotted arms, the rude swarthy chests, of the myrmidons 
 of cruelty, denaturalised hy the brutality of their task. 
 We see them sprinkled with Precious Blood, which mixes 
 with their sweat, and rolls down their limbs in discoloured 
 stains. Him we do not see, even wilh the eyes of our souls; 
 for we have thrown ourselves on the pavement in His 
 Blood, and are holding His feet, and are devouring them 
 with kisses. It is an intolerable mystery ; yet, if we luve 
 Him, we must endure it. We must not be fastidious. He 
 M-as not. We sent Him to this. It was suffered for us. 
 We must not turn away. It is an intolerable mystery : but 
 it has a sweet gift. There is no mystery of the Passion 
 which so uncovers His Divinity to us. It is almost like a 
 vision of the Godhead. There is no mystery which fills 
 our souls so full of so deep an adoration. 
 
 But in this Third Bloodshedding there is the same char- 
 acter of prodigality. It was shed in an excess of pain and 
 an excess of shame ; and it was shed in an excess of wasteful 
 copiousness. It was as if it foresaw how on the Cross it 
 would have but five local vents, five wells distilling salvation 
 for the world, and it could not boar to be thus restricted. 
 Ho now it presents the whole surface of the Body, that it 
 may be able to gush forth in unrestrained abundance, as 
 from one vast wound. A thousand channels, all gifted with 
 ex(juisite sensation, and now burning with insufferable fire, 
 are torn up and lacerated with the scourges. Streams of 
 Precious Blood, infinite in ])rice, each of tliem laden with 
 the magnificence of God, broke forlli in hundreds of places. 
 Yet the Blood of the Column was not the Blood shed upon 
 the Cross. It did not redeem the world, nor was it necessary 
 to its redemption. It was simply one of the mysterious 
 magnificences of the Precious JJlood. Moreover the Blood 
 of the Scourging was sprinkled as it were at random over
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 221 
 
 careless multitudes, as if it were in type or prophecy of its 
 future sacramental prodigality. Our Llessed Lord Himself- 
 appeared in strange symbolical guise in this Third Blood- 
 shedding. In tlie Agony He had been seen by the Father 
 clad in all tlie darkness of human sin. No human eye saw 
 Him in the sluulowy moonliglit, nor could have discerned 
 His fearful transfiguration, even if it could have seen Him. 
 But now He was an open symbol to the city and the people. 
 He was bathed in His own Blood. He was clad in a living 
 robe of royal purple. He, the Redeemer, put on llie image 
 of the redeemed. As His Church was always to be, so was 
 He then, all red with Precicms Blood. As He was in the 
 open place of Jerusalem, so are wo in our Father's eyes at 
 this hour, so shall we be in our happiness through all 
 eternity, red, anel red all over, with the glorious dye, better 
 than tliat old imperial dye of Tyre, of His Tuost Precious 
 Blood. As He was in His shame and misery, so shall we 
 be in our glory and our joy, all beautified with Blood, that 
 self-same Blood wherewith they clothed Him when they 
 had stripped Him of His garments. 
 
 But now the Precious Blood has swiftly formed a habit 
 of being shed; and who shall stay it? It was with no 
 bitterness, but with trutli fullest love, that Jesus named that 
 Friday the Day of his Espousals. But we read that His 
 Jewish mother crowned Him with a diadem in the day of 
 His espousals. Whose heart does not leap up at the thought 
 of such a mystery, — the Coronation of the Creator by His 
 creatures? Crowned as is each man's life with a beautiful 
 coronal wreathed for him by divine love out of all God's 
 jterfections, what grateful crown shall they set upon His 
 Head, who has set them free by reigning over them as King? 
 Alas ! it is another Bloodshedding, the Fourth Bloodshed- 
 ding, the Crowning of Thorns. It is His dear dominion 
 which is distasteful to their hearts. They cannot bear that
 
 C22 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 He should call Himself a King. They ■would fain deride 
 His kingship ; but they feel and fear it all the while. If 
 He had never been a King before, had He not become one 
 now through the very royalty of His gentleness under the 
 ignominies of the past night and the outrages of that morn- 
 ing? Only a king's face could look so venerable through 
 such disfigurement. But His sweetness embittered them. 
 It sank them in their own estimation. It taunted them by 
 the mildness of its silence. There was something so wor- 
 .shipful in His woe that it uncrowned their vulgar bravery. 
 His look humbled them, because it was so beautiful. So in 
 the blindness of their malice they wrouglit a divine mystery. 
 They crowned Him King. The oppressed are given to be 
 oppressors, and the violent to be brutal. If there be no 
 other use of the Eternal God for Roman Soldiers, at least 
 He shall relieve the tedium of a Syrian guard-room. They 
 have trouble enouj^li with these Jewish criminals ; they shall 
 have sport out of them also. Sun and rain had come alter- 
 nately on the green briars, which the unsuspecting earth had 
 grown for the Creator. They had trailed over the sward. 
 They had tangled themselves with many a juicy shoot. 
 They had grown up into matted bushes, and the sun of 
 autumn had hardened their soft spikes into strong tough 
 barbs. I'erhaps the honey bees had come to their flowers 
 to extract sweetness, and the restless butterflies had been 
 attracted for a moment by their aromatic fragrance, or the 
 birds had rifled their golden berries with their beaks. But 
 who would liave dreamed that they were yet to be gilded 
 with the Blood of their Creator? Protecting their hard- 
 skinned hands with their leatliern gauntlets, the soldiers 
 weave a crown of these sharp and obstinate thorns. Wliat 
 matter if it be not exactly round ! "What matter if it be not 
 made to fit the head of their mock Caisar ! "With jest, and 
 yibe, and heathen oath, the rough work is speedily accom-
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 223 
 
 plished. Then they rise and come near their King. It is not 
 as we draw near to the Blessed Sacrament, or the angels to ■ 
 the Throne. Jesus is sitting on a bench. We hardly dare 
 to look at Him, He is so god-like in His abjection. How 
 love constrains our hearts to worship, and then how wor- 
 ship encourages our hearts to love ! How patiently He 
 sits, bloodstained, dishonoured, wan and pale, yet strangely 
 pleasant to look on, and exceeding gracious ! They come 
 nigh to the Eternal. They are reeking with sin and swagger- 
 ing in their recklessness. The guard-room is silently filling 
 with the splendour of His Godhead. Do they not see it? 
 :No ! Fearless and peremptory and loud, they lay hands on 
 His long hair. If they only waited a moment, they might 
 feel the pulses of that blessed life beating in His Head. 
 They swear by their gods, and make vulgar pleasantries in 
 their Eoman tongue, as if before a foreigner. But they see, 
 by the Hebrew's face, that He knows Latin. It is but an 
 amusement the more. They thrust the crown upon His 
 Head with rude vehemenca It is not rountl. It will not 
 fit. They force the spikes into His skin ; and the Blood 
 comes, blackly and slowly, and with excruciating pain. The 
 Jews cheer these Romans in their barbarity ; and one of 
 them, not without loud jocose applause, takes a heavy reed, 
 and beats the crown into the Sufferer's Head. Long spikes 
 go under the skin of the forehead, and come out above the 
 eyes. Others pierce His ears. Others fret against the 
 nerves of His neck. Others penetrate the skull, and burn 
 like prickles of fire. He trembles from head to foot with 
 the intolerable agony. His beautiful eyes are clouded with 
 pain. His lips are bloodless with the extremity of endur- 
 ance. But the face of a sleeping child is not more sweet 
 than His, nor its heart more calm. Ho has grown more 
 beautiful, now that He is crowned. Precious Blood ! 
 Lover of God's Dominion I Thou hast thirsted for Thy
 
 224 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 kingdom long ; but with what strange and startling ritual 
 liast Thou ordained Thy Coronation ! 
 
 In this Fourth Bloodshedding there was not much Blood. 
 Yet it was not without its note of prodigality. If it was 
 little, it was very precious ; for it was the Blood of His 
 Head. It was the Blood which had just been feeding His 
 brain, the Blood by the help of which He had been thinking 
 unutterable thoughts. Each of those thoughts had been 
 broader and deeper than an angel's science. They had been 
 sweeter and gentler than a mother's love. They had all 
 been tinctured with that passionate love of souls, Avhich was 
 the spirit of the Precious Blood. The Blood shed was little : 
 but why was it shed at all 1 Our Lord's Head had envied 
 His Body. His whole Body had been ploughed and seamed 
 by the scourges. Each limb had made its offering of Blood. 
 But tliey were not to slay Him ; and so they had not 
 scourged His Head, though doubtless in their careless fury 
 chance bruises were made upon it. Xow the Head will take 
 its turn. Indeed it will do more than take its turn. It will 
 have a whole Bloodshedding to itself. If the Heart loves, 
 is it not the Head which rules ? Moreover, is not the 
 Precious Blood in a special way the minister of His royalty, 
 and of His headship ? The Head then must shed its Blood, 
 and shed it in a mystery apart. 
 
 Sweet Blood of Jesus I longing to be shed and loving to 
 be shed, impatient and yet so patient too, prodigal yet count- 
 ing itself out drop by drop with a kind of avaricious pleasure, 
 tliou, like all other loves, wert driven to be inconsistent in 
 Older to preserve consistency ! But a while ago it was 
 hurrying on and would brook no delay. It was anticipating 
 time, and jirocipitating mysteries. Now it is all for delay. 
 Now, in the Fifth Bloodshedding, it enters upon a mystery 
 of slowness. But there are still the same instincts, still the 
 same ends. It contrives to be prodigal by being tardy.
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 225 
 
 This BloodshedJing is the Way of the Cross, that singuhu- 
 mystery of the Passion in which the Hearts of ]\Iother and 
 Son, hitherto to outward eye divided, meet in one current, 
 and flow together till the end. The two victims of the 
 Scourging, the Son's Body and the Mother's Soul, come 
 forth into the streets. The King and the queen both wear 
 their Crowns of Thorns, the King wears His upon His Head, 
 while the queen wears hers upon her heart ; for the queen- 
 dom of i\Iary is in her heart. AVe spoke, in the last chapter, 
 of the procession of the Precious Blood, out of an unbegin- 
 ning eternity over long epochs and ages, until it re enters the 
 portals of its second eternity. This Fifth Bloodshedding is 
 a veritable procession of the Precious Blood. Slowly wind- 
 ing and unwinding itself out of the streets of Salem up the 
 ascent of Calvary, it had not far to go ; but it was long in 
 slowness, long in suffering, long in the manifold mysteries 
 which were densely compressed within it. Every wound 
 was bleeding. The drops from the Crown trickled slowly 
 down, or gathered and curdled upon the Face of Jesus. The 
 hundred fontinels of the Scourging oozed out into His gar- 
 ments, as the wet rocks on the mountains ooze through their 
 robes of moss. The wounds of the night's arrest, and of the 
 indignities before the High Priests, and in the yard of 
 Herod, flow silently with Blood. The weight of the Cross 
 opens the wounds wider still, and increases the Bloodshed- 
 ding. It also disturbs the Crown, and keeps it freshly bleed- 
 ing ; while it makes another wound of its own upon the 
 shoulder, and is the cause of new wounds in the knees 
 through the cruel falls which it occasions. Tlie sight of 
 Mary's face quickens the beating of His Heart, and makes 
 the Blood flow more freely. He leaves His footprints in 
 the way ; and they are of Blood. He imprints the likeness 
 of His features on the napkin of Veronica ; and the impres- 
 sion is in Blood. They that brush against Him are stained 
 
 p
 
 226 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 with P.lood. Tliey that walk after Him dye their sandils 
 in His Blood. His march to Calvary is a perfect triumph 
 of the Precious Blood. It covers everything. It clings to 
 the meanest objects. It seems to multiply itself. Its old 
 fountains in Mary's heart break up in sympathy with it ; 
 and she sheds tears of blood. The ^Vay of the Cross is a 
 mystery of many objects, of constant movement, a transition 
 from one mystery to another. What is its unity'? It is in 
 its prodigality, in its endless, manifold Bloodshedding. It 
 seems a time, an interval, a journey, contrived for the very 
 purpose of letting the Blood flow, and flow in the most 
 indiscriminate way, and in the most promiscuous places. 
 For the most part it flowed from old wounds. It was the 
 going on of the Scourging and the Crowning. It was as if 
 when those mysteries ceased, the Blood loved still to flow, 
 and therefore took a mystery to itself, which was to be 
 engrossed simply with its flowing. 
 
 But there are also other peculiarities in this Fifth Blood- 
 shedding which should not be overlooked. It was a mystery 
 of unions, of meetings, of harmonies. We have already 
 .seen, that it was the mystery of the Passion in which tlie 
 Mother and Son came together again. In the Agony, and 
 the Scourging, and the Crowning, tliey had been visibly 
 separate, though closely and miraculously united in a mys- 
 tical way. Slie had seen in spirit, and suffered in soul, all 
 that lie had endured. Her body also had mysteriously 
 sympathised with each changing state of His. But now 
 tliey come visibly together again, and aie not disunited until 
 the tomb is closed. Then also the Cross and the Precious 
 Blood are now for the first time united. Hitlierto the .saving 
 Blood has flowed apart from tlie saving Cross. It is the 
 union of the two in which the secret virtue of redeeming 
 grace resides. Now the weight of the Cross, as wo have 
 seen, opens old wounds and causes new ones. The Blood
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 227 
 
 and the Cross are together now. This is the Betrothing; 
 and the Marriage will be on Calvary, Here is the actual 
 prelude of redemption. Moreover the Way of the Cross is 
 a great mystery of prophecy and figure. It is a prophecy of 
 the history of the Church ; it is a prefiguring of the fortunes 
 of the Holy See; it is a type of our Lord's own life in the 
 Church through all the ages of unjudged time,— a Blood- 
 dropping life, wearily up to the Doom. This is the meaning 
 of its indiscriminate profusion. Good and evil alike are 
 stained with it. It flows to save souls ; but it will flow over 
 souls who will not let it save them. It has but one law : it 
 must flow. Anywhere, everywhere, always, it must flow. 
 It is the one mission of the Precious Blood, — to be shed. 
 Then see how the "Way of the Cross ends ! It finishes in 
 another shame, another stripping, another tearing open of 
 the wounds of the Scourging. It looks as if, to the Precious 
 Blood, the Scourging were its mystery of predilection. It 
 returns to it again now ; and, as nearly as possible, repeats 
 it over again. The Bloodshedding of the Scourging was the 
 most exuberant, the most vehement, the most penal, the 
 most universal. Thus it coincides most with the genius of 
 its love. Hence it will have it reiterated, so far at least as 
 Bloodshedding is concerned, at the foot of the Cross. Now 
 that it is going to begin the strictly needful Avork of our 
 redemption, it seems to hanker after the freedom of its 
 unnecessary sheddings. There is a great deal to think of 
 here. In this Fifth Bloodshedding the Precious Blood 
 begins to be unlike itself, in order that it may be more like 
 itself than ever, A Avhile ago it was impatiently looking 
 onward ; now it is looking half regretfully backward ; yet it 
 is the same spirit which rules it in both these dispositions, 
 its love of being shed. 
 
 Men can lie for hours, and look upon a running stream. 
 It seems to afford them at once occupation and repose. Its,
 
 228 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 uninterrupted sameness fills them with tranquillity, while its 
 tinintormitting lapse gratifies their sense of life. They feel 
 that they are thinking ; yet they are hardly conscious of 
 their thoughts. Their eye is fixed with a sort of fascination 
 on the noiseless gliding waters, and they are soothed, rested, 
 and engaged. This is a faint picture of what often happens to 
 us in our prayers, especially with regard to certain mysteries, 
 such as the Crucifixion, which is the Sixth Bloodsheddin" 
 It is so familiar to us that, like the river, we understand it 
 ail at sight. "We cannot reason about it. It is too much 
 part of our daily lives for that. AYe do not need to elicit 
 the right afifections ; for they come unbidden, and flow in an 
 order of their own. The significance of the mystery is at 
 once too deep and too plain for words. It is so vast an 
 object of faith, that simply to gaze upon it seems to be the 
 broadest study of it. Moreover, like all large objects, it is 
 one of those mysteries which are best seen at some distance. 
 We see the whole of it then. We comprehend its size, its 
 shape, its fashion, and the disposition of the groups round 
 about it. Who does not know the strange, vivid, palpable 
 peace which distance gives to sunlit vistas in a forest? 
 There is something of this kind about mmlitation on the 
 Crucifixion. How almost visionary looks the bone-strewn 
 sward and the tufted grass of that green hill-top, with its 
 crosses standing against the dark sky, and a kind of wan 
 sunshine creeping up the mound, as if it came rather from 
 the white roofs of the city than from the sun in heaven ! 
 The Precious Blood has been out in the vast calms and 
 ocean solitudes of the mind of God. It has voyaged through 
 the beautiful tranquillities of the creations of spirit, matter, 
 and men. Its lanterns have gleamed like red beacons in 
 the unspeakable tempests of the divine anger, in falls of 
 angels and of men, in floods and fires, in judgments and 
 captivities, in discordant panics of Babel and bituminous
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 229 
 
 upheaving.? of Gomorrah. It has kept its course over thou- 
 sands of years of the uneasy currents of liuman history ; and 
 lo ! that hill-top was all the while its haven ! The Cross 
 was its predestinated anchor, holding it to earth. How 
 marvellous a harbour ! How like one of those plans of God, 
 M'hich are so little like any plan of ours ! 
 
 The Precious Blood has found at last a home, which is 
 seemingly dearer to it than the Sacred Heart. It is the wood 
 of the Cross. It has been so impetuous, that it has shed 
 most of itself before it reached the Cross. It flows very 
 slowly now. Those wounds in the Hands and Feet are too 
 parsimonious ; and, besides that, they are almost obstructed 
 by the nails themselves. But the discomfort of the Cross 
 makes the Sacred Body hang downward and outward, and so 
 re-opens the almost exhausted wounds of the previous Blood- 
 sheddings. The Blood flows very slowly. In some places 
 it still trickles over the pale limbs. In others it only 
 blackens round the wounds. Here we may see just a visible 
 oozing, while there it barely keeps itself red and blood-like. 
 It flows very slowly, as if it would prolong its delight in 
 flowing. It looks as if it were conscious of the grandeur of 
 its work. This is redemption ; this is the world-saving flow ; 
 this is the crown of all its flowings ; this is the enduring 
 and omnipotent shedding of itself, the end of the battle it 
 has won for God, the final and total accomplishment of that 
 array of eternal decrees which all along have clothed it like 
 royal robes. Hoav slowly it flows, wiih a fascinating slow- 
 ness, and so silently ! Yet the scarcely moving streams 
 blend with each other in many places, and steal down upon 
 the Feet. Tlie Cross is wetted by it, and the wood is 
 darkened. Mary's hands are red. The dear Magdalen has 
 an unconscious consciousness that the Blood of her Love is 
 upon her hair ; and the innermost wells of the Sacred Heart 
 drop and drop as if with pulses upon the disciple, who had
 
 230 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 pillowed himself upon that Heart the night before. Here 
 and there a blade of grass is ruddy. There are spots on the 
 skulls of the dead ; for the dead also have their interest in 
 the Precious Blood. The torturers and soldiers have gone 
 down the hill with their garments and their accoutrements 
 discoloured ; for the Precious Blood shrinks not from the 
 vilest resting places. How slowly it flows, as if the very 
 grandeur of redemption made it cautious, or caused some 
 difficulty ! The slowness fascinates us more and more. But 
 it is a relief to have the silence broken. There is no look 
 of life but in the Blood. Nothing is moving but the Blood, 
 Blood is life. It was within Him. Xow it is almost all 
 outside Him. Those seven words are the voices of His 
 Blood. "With what a clear ringing sweetness they come 
 forth, and the darkness round the mount murmurs with 
 them as if it were tingling with delight. How beautiful 
 are His thoughts upon the Cross, beautiful like the beauty 
 of God ! How beautiful are the seven words, with their 
 revelations of the beauty of God ! Each word is a ravishing 
 melody, in which the Eternal "Word utters Himself with 
 liuman utterance. Then what a perfect abyss of rest is the 
 interval between each word, silences like the silences which 
 the angels keep in heaven. The soul flutters over them as 
 over hollow seas, and well nigh faints with love. But in 
 the silence the Blood creeps slowly, outward, onward, earth- 
 wanL Still it flows, but so industriously, so carefully, so 
 methodically, and yet so secretly, so noiselessly, so myste- 
 riously. It not oidy evades the ear by its soundless foot- 
 falls : but now it almost evades the eye. Its movement is 
 scarcely visible over the pale Form, like the hands of a 
 timepiece. It seems as if we sliould never see that dear 
 impetuous Blood precipitate again. But do not old habits 
 come back at last in all created thing.^, and youth rise again 
 to imprint its character on death 1 Tlio Precious Blood haa
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 231 
 
 come Avitliin reach of its end, so near it as to be impatient. 
 It abandons the slowness of its oozing; it will be precipitate 
 once more ; and, as if to show that all shedding of itself, all 
 surrendering of its precious life, was voluntary, it bids one 
 cell of tlie Heart to keep what it contains, dislodges all the 
 rest of itself Avith a loud cry of miraculous strength, and 
 leaps forth at once from every cavern of the Body ; and 
 death accomplishes itself, so far as it was a natural death, 
 by the shedding of the Blood. 
 
 Is there to be more Bloodshedding still ? Why, like a 
 miser on his deathbed, had the Precious Blood hidden that 
 little treasure 1 Why did it die, hoarding itself ? It was 
 that the Dead Body might shed Blood. It was to deride 
 death, to survive death, to proclaim love's victory over death, 
 to show that its own propensity to shed itself had not been 
 killed by death. Hence the Seventh Bloodshedding, the 
 Piercing of the Sacred Heart. "We often know men best by 
 what they do when they come to die. So it is with the 
 Precious Blood ; or ratlier we know it best by what it did 
 when it was dead. It was so liquefied by love that death 
 could not curdle it ; and still it flowed as if floAving were 
 the unchangeable feature of its character. Death contents 
 men. Hearts ask no further proof of love. Monarchs con- 
 sider it the extremity of loyalty. Death contents God. He 
 asks no more than martyrdom ; and He cherishes the martyr- 
 doms of His Saints as the inestimable rubies of His creation. 
 But death does not content the Precious Blood. That 
 Sixth Bloodshedding was necessary. In many ways it was 
 prodigal ; but it was also necessary. Redemption was a 
 needful task, a task of love, but still a task. The Precious 
 Blood, as I have said, hankered after the days of its un- 
 necessary sheddings, the days when its love wantoned in the 
 pure prodigality of its royal riches. As it shed itself before 
 the work of redeeming the world, and without redeeming
 
 232 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 it, so will it shed itself agaiu now that the work of redemp- 
 tion is accomplished. Once more it will reveal its character 
 in that wastefulness which is a secret of divine economy. O 
 Divine Love ! there is no more inveterate prodigal than 
 thou ! 
 
 Moreover the work must be a complete work. All the 
 Blood must be separated from the Body, and enjoy, by itself 
 and in its separation, its union with the Person of the Word. 
 It must be a total outpouring. Divine things are never 
 done by halves ; and mercies above all insist upon complete- 
 ness. The Heart had been bidden to keep some of the 
 Blood within itself, and had obeyed. It was undecided 
 whether to obey reluctantly or gladly. On the one hand, it 
 was the home of the Precious Blood, and loved it with tlio 
 fondest love. To be untenanted by the Precious Blood 
 would be its uttermost desolation. Yet, on the other hand, 
 that Heart had learned the instincts of its inhabitant. 
 Mothers have sent forth their own sons to martyrdom with 
 a strange covetous love, which had more of heaven in it 
 than of eartli. So would the Sacred Heart fain send fortli 
 that lingering Blood to the cruel glory of its shedding. As 
 the Head in the Crowning had been jealous of the Body in 
 the Scourging, and so had claimed the joy and dignity of a 
 Bloodshedding to itself, so now the Heart was jealous of the 
 Hands and Feet. It envied them their dripping wells of 
 life. It grudged them the beauty of their eternal stigmata. 
 Even when dead, the Sacred Heart has irresistible attrac- 
 tions. The Soul of Jesus beneath the earth felt the dear 
 familiar constraints of that grand Heart ; and so the Heart 
 wooed the latice of the centurion, and the hidden Blood 
 sprang forth, baptized as if in gratitude its lieathen liberator 
 with all the cleansing graces of conversion, and stole gently 
 down the Side of Jesus, kissing the Flesh which it had ani- 
 Diutcd so long.
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 233 
 
 The time wns to come when llie liody was to reassuine 
 the Blood. AVhile the Sacred Humanity had been as it 
 were unloosed and dispersed for the salvation of mankind, 
 the Soul busied in brightening limbus, the Body reposing 
 in the borrowed grave of the Arimathean, and the Blood 
 scattered with a sort of wasteful ubiquity all over the 
 vicinage of Jerusalem, the Hypostatic Union of the Divine 
 and Human Katures had never been broken, nor even 
 impaired, for one moment. The separate Soul was to be 
 worshipped with divine worship stiil. The Body lay peace- 
 fully among the rocks, always and absolutely to be adored. 
 Tlie Blood, vagrant, outlying, parcelled, indistinct, appiarently 
 commingled with or adhering to other substances, was also 
 in each drop, in each stain, in each coloured impression, in 
 each voluntary burial-place of its own, to be adored with 
 absolute adoration, in virtue of its unbroken and unstrained 
 union with the Godhead in the Divine Person of the Word. 
 But these worshipful Three, the Soul, the Body, and the 
 Blood, were to come together again in one of the holiest of 
 all mysteries, the Resurrection. It was to be the grandeur 
 of this mystery that it should as it were open to us the 
 magnificent abysses of the Hypostatic Union, and show us 
 the glorious strength and the invincible bond of the Incar- 
 nation, while it should also seem to be like a new Incarnation 
 in itself. But even amidst the repairing and beautifying 
 force of the Resurrection, it was the will of our dearest 
 Lord, one of the most affectionate and characteristic of all 
 His wills, that some marks at least of the old Bloodshed- 
 dings should be retained. Ten thousand times a day should 
 His whole Blood be poured forth from heaven into the 
 Chalices of the Mass. But this was not enough. He clung 
 to the memory of those old Bloodsheddings. He would 
 have us cling to the memory of them also. It should be a 
 new joy to tlie angels for ever to see His stigmata. They
 
 234 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 should fill the souls of His elect with fresh jubilee for all 
 eternity, and keep their angelic glory tempered with the 
 human tenderness He loves so dearly. So He bade the 
 glory of the Resurrection, as it beautified Him by its 
 immortalising fires, not only to respect and to retain the 
 Five "Wounds of His Sacred Body, but to beautify them 
 with a ten-fold beauty. They were to be roseate luminous 
 suns to gladden the palaces of the Heavenly Jerusalem, 
 which the cruel artificers of earth's Jerusalem had wroucrht 
 upon Him with such unintending skill. He keeps His 
 stigmata for the love of lis. He keeps His stigmata for the 
 love of His Precious Blood. Many single mysteries seem to 
 tell me the whole of Jesus ; yet I find I cannot spare the 
 rest ; for each had its needful revelation of His sweetness. 
 But, if I were compelled to choose one thing only as being 
 all memorials of my Saviour in one, I would choose this 
 keeping of His stigmata. It signifies so many things, and 
 it signifies them all so tenderly. When one we love does 
 something more than usually like himself, our love leaps up 
 with joy ; and when he does it unexpectedly, our hearts 
 burn hotter for being taken unawares. Jesus has described 
 His whole Self, as in a concise Gospel, in this one act of 
 keeping the stigmata of His blessed Wounds. I seem to 
 know Him better, and to be more sure I know Him rightly, 
 because of this clear pathos which abides unconsumed amidst 
 the burnings of that Easter glory, this lingering of the 
 Passion amongst the splendours of the Kcsurrection. 
 
 Let us now turn from all this prodigality of the Precious 
 Blood, which was unnecessary for us, but necessarily befitting 
 the magnificence of God ; and let us turn to that other pro- 
 digality which is so needful for us, that we could not afford 
 to spare one out of the numberless reiterations of its exuber- 
 ance. Wliat an incredible history it is ; and yet of su.?h 
 daily occurrence, of such commonplace api)earance, of such
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 235 
 
 matter-of-fact practice, that it is difficult to steady our minds 
 to the right understanding of it. We grow confused with 
 numbers, or teased with the childishness of imaginary calcu- 
 lations, when we come to think of the sacramental applica- 
 tions of the Precious Blood, which the souls of the living 
 and the dead are receiving daily. The bounty of redeeming 
 grace, state it as soberly as we please, has all the unnatural 
 unpersuasive dazzle of an Arabian tale. It is all gold and 
 precious stones in impossible profusion. It seems like a fairy- 
 land vision rather than a human reality. The ungenuine- 
 ness of devotional exaggerations makes us angry and in- 
 credulous. But divine love has a marvellous sobriety ; ant] 
 imder its restraints let us speak of this matter more coldly 
 than we feel. 
 
 If we Cfo round the world, there can hardly ever be an 
 hour in Avliich some children are not being baptized. Baptism 
 is the application of the Precious Blood to their souls. No 
 act in life can surpass it in importance. It effects a most 
 complete spiritual revolution even in the unconscious child. 
 It effects it in a most Avonderful way, and by means of 
 mysterious infusions, and in consequence of a mysterious 
 Incarnation, and through the virtue of mysterious Blood- 
 sheddings ; and these things take their effect through the 
 pouring of water simultaneously with the pronunciation of 
 the grand Names of the Divine Persons, accompanied by an 
 intention on the part of the person baptizing, priest or lay, 
 man or woman or even child. Theology composes volumes 
 in order to elucidate scientifically the group of mysteries 
 which lie compressed in the Sacrament of Baptism. It is 
 enough for us to remember that it is the difference between 
 heaven and hell. Each Baptism is a greater, a diviner, a 
 more magnificem; work than the creation of the material 
 world. Yet, in sober truth, the waters of Baptism are flow- 
 ing perennially, so that if they could run together they
 
 23^ PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 would form a flowing rivulet, undried tliroughout the year. 
 The creation of a new star every second of time would be 
 but a little thing by the side of this. Even in heathen lands 
 this amazing stream is flowing. Amid the dense populations 
 of China it moves visibly to God's eye like a sweet silver 
 brooklet. It has made the national atrocity of child-murder 
 the channel in which its beautifying love might ingeniously 
 run. Children in fair France, and in green England, and in 
 German towns, and over the Atlantic, contribute to keep up 
 this strangely characteristic work of Christianity. European 
 and American children send their baptismal missionaries to 
 take up the exposed and dying children from the fields and 
 from the dungheaps, and to baptize them, in thank-oifering to 
 God for the grace of Baptism to which they themselves have 
 reached. European and American mothers send to purchase 
 of Chinese parents the children they would slay, or at least 
 to purchase permission to baptize the doomed innocents, in 
 thank-ofi'ering for their own children having attained to the 
 grace of Baptism. If we put all this continuity of Baptism 
 into numbers, and remember meanwhile the spiritual magni- 
 ficence of Baptism, we shall be able to form some idea of the 
 prodigality of the Precious Blood hidden in those waters of 
 salvation. 
 
 "What is Absolution It is the authentic dripjiing of the 
 Precious Blood upon the head of tlie repentant sinner. It 
 is God's patience grown so patient as to be magnificent. It 
 is, almost but not quite, the limit of the outstretching of 
 the eternal arms of mercy. In it human acts reach to one 
 of their highest heights. They are liftud up to merit salva- 
 tion by the merits of the Precious Blood. Human sorrow 
 is consecrated and made divine by the touch and the anoint- 
 ing of the sorrow of Jesus ; and tliat unction was only to 
 reach us with the flowing of Ilis Bloud from His gracious 
 Wounds. Without shedding of Blood there was to be no
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 237 
 
 remission. Millions of souls are at larp;e in heaven this day, 
 who without Absolution would have been in hell. Yet it 
 were better a whole solar system should be shattered to 
 pieces than a single soul lost. If there is something very 
 divine in the facility of Baptism, reminding us of creation 
 when the word was spoken and forthwith the work was 
 done, tliere is also something very divine in the difficulty 
 and effort of Absolution, reminding us of redemption which 
 was only accomplished by a Passion and with Blood. Hearts 
 have to be softened, habits weakened, dispositions changed, 
 occasions deserted, new tastes infused, entanglements untied. 
 The Precious Blood has to put forth more of its strength 
 here than in Baptism ; because it has to overcome more 
 inveteracy and resistance. It has also to venture its sacred 
 riches more prodigally here than in other Sacraments. In 
 all Sacraments it runs two generous risks, the risk of inva- 
 lidity, and the risk of sacrilege. Both these risks are more 
 especially run in the Sacrament of Penance. Yet what 
 numberless confessions are daily heard ! What hundreds, 
 or thousands, of Absolutions are daily given, the greater 
 portion of which I am undoubtingly certain, from the char- 
 acter of God and the experience of the confessional, are 
 valid ! How many Absolutions have we ourselves received 
 in our lives, and hope still to receive ! Surely, if we could 
 see as God sees, and as perchance the angels are allowed to 
 sec, we should behold innumerable streams of Blood, inter- 
 secting the crowded souls of men, as a vast river-sj'stem sliows 
 like a network on a map ; and this would be a vision of the 
 prodigality of Absolution. 
 
 How beautiful are the graces of the Sacrament of Mai- 
 riage ! Full of human tenderness, yet so softly insinuating 
 the sovereign love of God; teeming Avith habitual self- 
 sacrifice, yet filling the sacrifice with such sweetness that 
 it becomes, not painless only, but a joy; breeding in young
 
 238 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 hearts siicli a gravity of new heavenly duties, and yet flinging 
 over life the lustre of an additional light ; hardening the 
 changeful heart with a supernatural preparation of perse- 
 verance, and yet softening every harshness and making every 
 sensitiveness more exquisitely keen ; fortifying the soul with 
 boldness to do right, at the very moment it is gracing it 
 with all the bashful timidities of love ; elevating affection 
 into devotedness, and giving therewith a beautifulness of 
 purity which is akin to tlie white innocence of virginity — 
 these are the graces of the Sacrament of Marriage ; and they 
 are all creations of the Precious Blood. They are all of 
 them working daily in millions of hearts, hearts in sorrow 
 and hearts in joy ; and their life is in the throbbing and 
 pulsation of the Precious Blood. This time it is not a stream 
 of Blood we see, but a wide-stretching inundation. 
 
 Of all the Sacraments Ordination is the most like marriage. 
 It weds hearts to Jesus. It makes those hearts His homes. 
 The priesthood is His domestic life in the Church. It is 
 replete with images of Mary and of Joseph. It repeats 
 Nazareth. But what a complication of graces is implied in 
 Ordination, and then also wliat a magnificence of powers ! 
 Moreover it is a manifold Sacrament. Its unity is a three- 
 fold unity in Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, a shadow of 
 unutterable divine grandeurs. Furthermore it is as it were 
 the sacred vessel in which the other six Sacraments are kept, 
 and out of which they radiate their glory and their life. 
 This grand Sacrament is the earthly heart of the Precious 
 Blood. It is to it on earth what the Sacred Heart is to it 
 in heaven. It gives the movement to its life. It takes it 
 back and gives it forth. It regulates its energy, and makes 
 its beatings equable as well as forcible. It concentrates tlie 
 Precious Blood in itself, and then vehemently diiTuses it all 
 over the earth through every remotest vent of missionary 
 fervour. The graces of this Sacrament are like the graces
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 2^,9 
 
 of angels ; and yet they are of all graces the most human ; 
 for they impart the likeness of the Sacred Humanity as no, 
 other graces can impart it. Each grace of Ordination is a 
 characteristic of Jesus. Its gift is to make the clear heart 
 of the i^riest a mirror into ■which the Saviour is for ever 
 looking down, and His Countenance is marvellously glassed 
 therein. Yet, fer all this, men must be partially changed 
 into angels by the operation of these intensely human graces, 
 in truth, Ordination is specially a Sacrament of the Precious 
 Blood. Jesus became a priest by the shedding of His Llood, 
 by the offering of His Bloody Sacrifice. His Blood is the 
 virtue of His priesthood. Yet Avhen it lay separate from the 
 Soul and from the Body, it was angels Avho kept it, and not 
 men. This is the figure of the strange mixture of the human 
 and angelic in the graces of the priesthood. But how many 
 are the anointed of the Lord, how multiplied are their work?, 
 how manifold their vocations, how vast their missions, how 
 continuous their recruits ! All this implies so much prodi- 
 gality of the Precious Blood. 
 
 Jesus once looked into a young man's face, and loved him. 
 He has perpetuated this incident in His Church. It is per- 
 petuated in the Sacrament of Confirmation. "When Jesus 
 went, and the Holy Ghost came to take His place, and to 
 administer the Church, He also was for ever looking into 
 the faces of the young ; and His look was a gift, a mngni- 
 ficent substantial love, an imparting of that fortitude whicii 
 youth so much requires, and the want of which made tlio 
 young man of the Gospel turn away in the cowardice of an 
 earthly sorrow. But the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost were 
 only purchased for us by the Precious Blood. The very 
 title, which the Gospel gives to the times before the sacri- 
 ficial shedding of our Redeemer's Blood, was "the times 
 when the Holy Ghost was not yet given." !Now look at the 
 nmltitude of Chrit^tian youth. If there is much to sadden.
 
 240 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 how niucli also is there to cheer ! How much generous piety 
 do we beliold, how many early breakings with the world, 
 how many works of mercy, how many edifying confrater- 
 nities, how many levites in the seminaries, how many 
 beautiful vocations in the cloisters ! What is all this but 
 Confirmation's gift of fortitude, made fertile by the Precious 
 Blood 1 
 
 "We have seen that the Precious Blood shed itself chiefly 
 round about the death of Jesus ; and that His Death was in 
 reality a death by bleeding. Hence the hour of death is 
 the chosen hour of the Precious Blood. It is the favourite 
 season of its ingenuities. Thus it makes a Sacrament for 
 itself at that precise time, the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, 
 the last of its anointings, the anointing reserved for the 
 supreme contest of the soul, the last of its sacramental visita- 
 tions to the elect. This wonderful Sacrament shrouds its 
 graces in mystery, a mystery congenial to the darkness which 
 belongs to its dread hour. But the very fact of its being a 
 Sacrament at all, and the season of its administration, suffi- 
 ciently testify to the grandeur of the graces which it must 
 convey. God is eminently a God of time and place, as we 
 have seen ; and His places and times are the measures of 
 His gifts. Extreme Unction, like the oil of the Grecian 
 wrestler.*, anoints us for our mortal struggle. Whatever 
 relics of sin there may be in us, the powers of darkness will 
 fasten upon them. But the grace of this Sacrament searches 
 them out with a mysterious penetration, and puts them to a 
 supernatural death. The best name for its grace is the grace 
 of health : and so, if God does not will that it should impart 
 health to our bodies, it turns its exotic medicinal virtues 
 upon the soul. Other Sacraments liken our lives to the life 
 of Jesus. This likens our deaths to. the death of Jesus. It 
 diffuses itself over our souls, strewn with the work of a 
 whole life, and gathers up the fragments which other Sacra-
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 241 
 
 ments have left untouched. It cleanses them with a last 
 cleansing. It arranges them with neatness and order foe 
 the coming of our Lord. It puts them in their right posture 
 and attitude for being most safely judged. Must not its 
 graces be very peculiar, and yet also very magnificent ? 
 Throughout the world there is a whole population dying 
 daily. A section of the world is always on its deathbed and 
 in its agony. How prodigal then must the Precious Blood be 
 of its magnificent peculiarities in this pathetic Sacrament ! 
 
 But what shall we say of that twofold wonder, the Sacri- 
 fice of the Mass and the Sacrament of Communion ? There 
 the Precious Blood puts on the vesture of omnipresence, 
 and it becomes it well. Multiplied by how many hundreds 
 of thousands of times is it not dwelling, whole, living, and 
 glorified, in the Hosts reserved within the tabernacles of the 
 world 1 Into how many thousand human hearts does it not 
 descend daily, whole, living, and glorified, in the glory of 
 the dread reality of Communion ? Into how many thousand 
 chalices does it not empty itself from out the Sacred Heart 
 in heaven every day ? The very whirling of the earth, as 
 it makes day and night by turning to or from the sun, mini- 
 sters to the longings of the Precious Blood. It is bewilder- 
 ing to think of the countless graces of expiation which flow 
 daily from the Sacrifice, or the countless graces of union 
 which flow daily from the Sacrament. This is the great 
 laboratory in which the Precious Blood makes holiness. In 
 the heart of the Andes, vast, interwoven, and mutually 
 enfolding mountains cover themselves with gigantic forests. 
 The condor, as he wheels above, looks down upon an ocean 
 of impenetrable foliage, without a rent, or break, or insight 
 into the green abyss. So does the Precious Blood, in Mass 
 and Communion, mantle the whole Church with tropical 
 exuberances of grace, as they appear, hiding the natural 
 features of the ground with tlie ample folds of their verdant 
 
 a
 
 242 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 overgrowth. The tinkliiigs of tlie mass-bell, like new crea- 
 tive words, change the whole aspect of the unconscious 
 Avorld. Unknown and unsuspected temporal calamities are 
 daily driven away, like clouds before the Avind, by the obla- 
 tions of the Precious Blood. Nay, through the crust of the 
 earth the superincumbent weight of that Blood presses its 
 way, and reaches to the sinless caves of Purgatory. Conso- 
 lations of all shapes and patterns come there, and are the 
 cooling rains of the Precious Blood. Who can class them 1 
 They are like the monotonous diversities of crystals, beautiful 
 for their variety, yet beautiful also for their sameness. The 
 angels, who had the Precious Blood in their keeping during 
 the Triduo of the Passion, have also the administration of 
 it in Purgatory, and are well pleased with this labour of 
 congenial love. But the arithmetic of all this prodigality 
 • if the Precious Blood, is it not impossible to the imagina- 
 tion, and distracting to the heart? It disquiets our love. 
 Let us leave off the calculation, and contemplate in quietude 
 the ocean of painstaking graces, of vast satisfactions, and of 
 kingly expiations, into which the daily Masses of the Church 
 outpour themselves, lighting the patient darkness under- 
 ground, flashing up to the skies as so much additional light 
 and song, and beautifying the poor exiled earth in the eye 
 of the all-holy heavens. 
 
 In closest propinquity with the Sacraments we should 
 make mention of the Holy See, wherein dwells the paternity 
 of all the Sacraments, and in which resides with incredible 
 jilenitude the jurisdiction of the Precious Blood, the regalia 
 of the kingdom of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, At no 
 ])oint of history can we look at the Sovereign Pontiff with- 
 out seeing as it Avere before us, in most vivid type, tlie 
 I'ourth Bloodshedding, tlie Crowning of Thorns. The pon- 
 tifical monarchs of the ^Middle Ages, no less than the luartyr- 
 pontiffs Avho haunted the Catacombs, or the modern popes
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 243 
 
 who toil, like patient heroes, through the pusillanimous 
 hostilities of diplomacj'^, equally bear upon them this pecu- 
 liar image of our Lord. They administrate His Headship. 
 They are His Head made visible to us. The tiara is the 
 most veritable crown of thorns, and the pontificate the most 
 literal of martyrdoms. It is the Head ever bleeding, bleeding 
 slowly. Tliere is the old suffering patience in its majesty. 
 It is a true royalty ; but men mock it because its kingly 
 mantle is soiled with all eartli's poverty. It is a hidden 
 kingliness, like the kingship of the guard-room at Jerusalem. 
 It is a sort of sacrament of the Sacraments, the sacrament 
 of the royalty of the Precious Blood. The papacy is tlie 
 Fourth Bloodshedding continued till the Doom. 
 
 This is one department of the prodigality of the Precious 
 Blood, its sacramental prodigality. But, besides this, there 
 is a Avhole world of extra-sacramental prodigality. At least 
 we may, for distinction's sake, call it so. But in reality all 
 holiness is tied to the Sacraments by innumerous, indirect, 
 and hidden fastenings. Good works come out of tlie 
 Sacraments, or come out of other works which have done, 
 so, or they go into the Sacraments, or are the accidents and 
 superfluities of Sacraments, or minister to the Sacraments, 
 or are, we know not why, contemporaneous with them. 
 Even the grandeur of perfect contrition is tied to the 
 Sacraments by desire. The martyrdom of the catechumen is 
 riveted to Baptism by secret desire, desire which may even 
 be unconscious as well as secret, yet must infallibly bo 
 there. The whole system of redemption is interpenetrated 
 with Sacraments. The sacramental tendency in it is in- 
 eradicable. It coheres by Sacraments. Sacraments arc the 
 tissue of its life ; and its life is the Precious Blood. There- 
 fore when we come to consider tlic daily penances and 
 supernatural actions wliich are consecrated by the Precious 
 Blood in the Church, although we may fairly call them
 
 244 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 extra-sacramental, we must at the same time bear in raiml, 
 that there is probably not one which has not some relation, 
 open or occult, with a Sacrament, and that the genius of 
 them all is an affinity to the Sacraments and an instinctive 
 sympathy with them. They dart into the Sacraments, and 
 blend with them, and lose themselves in them, with a 
 swiftness and volatility which remind us of things in 
 chemistry. 
 
 If we are devout to the Church, if we have keen svm- 
 pathies with the Holy See, and if we are interested in 
 missionary enterprise, we can rapidly make for ourselves a 
 geographical picture of the Church. We know what coun- 
 tries belong to her, and where her missions are growing, 
 and where they are receding. We can pass in swift thoughts 
 from one pole to the equator and from the equator to the 
 other pole. We know how much life goes on in a little 
 space, especially spiritual life. The religious actions, inward 
 and outward, of one rural parish are multitudinous and 
 rapid, a dense world of thoughts, motives, words and works. 
 How innumerable then must be the daily supernatural 
 actions of the wide Church ! Yet wherever grace is, there 
 is the Precious Blood. Whatever may merit can only 
 merit by coming in spiritual contact with the Precious 
 Blood. In all this seething mass of actions, it is the 
 Precious Blood which is causing all tlie movement and all 
 the fermentation. Wheresoever nature is raised above itself, 
 and lifted into the supernatural, there we discern infallibly 
 the agency of the Precious Blood. But what a ubiquitous 
 life, what a universal energy, what rapidity and what per- 
 sistence of operation ! Then look at the other side of the 
 question. Who could number the sins in the world at any 
 one given moment ? Is not evil always like the sea which 
 is with difficulty banked out from low-lying lands? It is 
 bursting the banks, tearing away the gates, flooding the
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 245 
 
 sluices perpetually. The thouglit of the number of sins at 
 any given time is at once distracting and oppressive. Yet 
 I believe that always in some way or other, proximately or 
 remotely, the Precious Blood is trying to hinder each one of 
 these sins. The number of sins makes us wonder how the 
 Precious Blood can divide itself into such numberless acti- 
 vities, -while the gravity of the sins show us how prodigal it 
 is, not only of its presence, but of its strength. The life of 
 the Precious Blood in the religious houses of the Church is 
 amazing. The crowds of daily heroic actions Avhich are 
 sustained by it, each of which seems to draw it up from its 
 clioicest depths, and then the plentiful harvest of more ordi- 
 nary merits, the quantity of sanctified suffering, the amount 
 of supernatural obedience, — how immense is all this, and 
 yet it is but one department of the sleepless business of the 
 Precious Blood ! Another and a vaster world is to be found 
 in its favourite sphere of deathbeds. All that activity, all 
 those inventions, all that concentration of converting love, 
 all that precipitate accumulation of sanctifying grace, all that 
 liditning-like formation of habits which are to be eternal, 
 all those strange heroisms of death, those resurrections of old 
 selves, those creations of new selves, those almost ovei- 
 wheluiing embraces of nature by grace, must all go to the 
 account and enter into tlie calculation. Kay, look at the 
 multitudes who wander outside the Church ; even those 
 desolate tracts of the world, those unwatered regions, are yet 
 beautified in some degree by the overflowings of the Church, 
 tlie prodigal outgoings of the Precious Blood. 
 
 All this prodigality of the Precious Blood, whether in the 
 Sacraments or alongside of them, I call necessary, as dis- 
 tinguished from the prodigality of the Thirty-Three Years, 
 which was not necessary to us, but belongs to the magni- 
 ficence of God's love. The other prodigality is necessary 
 to us, because without it we should not be saved. Our
 
 246 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 corruption is so active, our weakness is so lamentable, our 
 vileness is so great, our dangers are so terrible, our careless- 
 ness is so incredible, that we could not for the most part 
 work out our salvation with any access to the Precious 
 Blood less free, less easy, less common, less abundant, than 
 that which God's magnificence has opened to us. Still if 
 we consider the grandeur of the Sacraments in themselves, 
 or the immense capabilities of grace, or the intrinsic glory 
 of the mysteries so reiterated, and if we look at all these 
 things from a theological rather than a practical point of 
 view, we must acknowledge that they betoken an amazing 
 prodigality on the part of God, even though our necessities 
 be so hungry that they consume it all. We must be con- 
 tinually replenishing the shallowness of our finite lives, and 
 we can only replenish them out of the divine infinity. We 
 cannot satisfy our thirst at any fountain less magnificent. 
 It is another joy which God's love added to His beatitude, 
 that we should drink of those wells for evermore, and drink 
 of them with liberty and gladness. 
 
 Xow let us come out under the starry sky, and think of 
 this prodigality of the Precious Blood. The great tent of 
 heaven above us seems to waver, and the stars to swing like 
 lamps from its purple roof. But the desert could not be 
 more silent than this outspread scene. If the uninstructed 
 man looks at the starry skies, he either feels no mystery in 
 them, or feels that it is a mystery which he cannot under- 
 stand. Some feeling, which if it is not poetry is akin to 
 poetry, and which if it is not religion is akin to religion, 
 would surely be awakened within liim. But all would be 
 vague, restless, and uncertain ; and therefore would soon 
 weary him, and so be transient, and speedily forgotten. The 
 astronomer would look on the loveliness of this spangled 
 niglit with far other eyes. Ilis knowledge would disentangle 
 the constellations for his eyes. The orbs would be indi-
 
 PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 247 
 
 riduals to him, with names, known points, and some pecu- 
 liarities. The purple concave would at once inscribe itself 
 for him with glittering lines and orbits, better than the 
 grooved spheres of Ptolemy. It would be a joy to him to 
 inform so much seeming confusion with so much real order. 
 He might think little of the beauty of night, and still less 
 of the beauty of the God of night. But the scene would 
 speak in grand sonorous language to his understanding. 
 Then let us bring a poet to the place. He might know as 
 little of the mechanism of the heavens as the uninstructed 
 man. But he would understand the scene by feeling it. 
 He would feel that the starry heavens outside corresponded 
 marvellously with the starry heavens within him. Beholil 
 him. His soul is taken captive with the beauty of night. 
 He looks. He grows calm with a sweet calmness. Chafings 
 cease. Breathings as of far-off music rise up from some deep 
 sanctuary within his soul. The beauty melts him ; the glory 
 masters him ; and he sings the infinity of God. Both the 
 astronomer and the poet have their truth. But the poet's 
 truth is a truer truth than that of the astronomer. 
 
 So it is in looking at the world redeemed. The unin- 
 structed man sees nothing in it but puzzle and contradiction. 
 His faith is vague; and where faith is not clear, there is 
 seldom earnestness. There is truly a look of God about the 
 world, and a wandering fragrance of Jesus. But it breeds 
 little more in him than a kind of incredulous superstition. 
 To the instructed believer, who is without the poetry of 
 religion, whose head errs because his heart does not help it, 
 whose thoughts go wrong because they are speculations in- 
 stead of prayers — to him the aspect of redemption is what 
 the starry skies are to the astronomer. He admires ; he is 
 amazed ; he praises. Yet adoration is so little to his taste, 
 and worship so uncongenial to his disposition, that the 
 demand for it at once awakens a kind of scepticism even in
 
 24« PRODIGALITY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 his faith. He doubts whether so much be done, because he 
 sees so little come of it. He judcjes by what he sees with 
 the eye. He does not know how to divine with his heart. 
 He does not perceive that the world he sees is nearly as far 
 beyond his understanding as the God who is invisible. Sight 
 does not help us to understand men. Their actions are not 
 their hearts. Still less does it help us to understand grace, 
 which, when it supernaturalises nature, lies undermost, not 
 uppermost. To understand God and God's world we must 
 look at Him and it from the Precious Blood point of .view. 
 The saints of the Church are tlie poets of redemption. It is 
 from this point of view that they always see tlie world. It 
 Avas thus that Mary saw the world at all times, a vision, 
 most awful, yet most touching and most dear. It is the way 
 in which God sees it at this instant. All things to Him, 
 good or evil, are tinged with the Precious Blood, He beholds 
 them all in His own repetition of Josue's miracle, in that 
 unsinking crimson sunset of the Precious Blood, which He 
 has bidden to hang in all its beauty on the horizon of 
 creation for ever.
 
 ( 249 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Most men live in an imaginary world ; and yet their ima- 
 ginary world is a real one. They make a beauty for them- 
 selves, and throw their heart into it. Some men live among 
 the stars, either as observers or as astronomers. It becomes 
 the passion of their lives to do so. The movements of the 
 heavenly bodies are to them as the activities of practical life. 
 To watch, to discover, to verify, up in the heavens, is their 
 vocation. It is the way in which tliey will enjoy themselves, 
 and the way also in which they will benefit their kind. 
 Others spend their lives with equal devotion among the 
 strata of the earth and the long interesting epochs of geology. 
 Others give themselves up to dAvell with patient vigilance 
 among the secret laboratories of matter, where its separations, 
 combinations, and transmutations are discovered, and whose 
 mysteries are yearly spreading themselves more and more 
 over daily life in the shape of most important practical 
 utilities. Another becomes the companion of animals, and 
 reigns like a natural king, as he is, among his beasts and 
 birds and fishes and reptiles. Another is the doctor and 
 prophet of plants, and another of minerals. !Men can make 
 fascinating scientific worlds for themselves out of the flooring 
 of tlie sea, out of the stormy circles of the air, out of tlie 
 rushing threadlike arteries of electric force, and out of many 
 other subprefectures of nature. These worlds are imaginary,
 
 250 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 and yet real : real because of the substantial truth and prac- 
 tical utility of them : imaginary because of the exclusive 
 enthusiasm with which they are dwelt upon, and the breadth 
 of responsible life which is consumed in them. Xevertlieless 
 tlie world is not only or altogether a celestial globe or a 
 geological map, or an arithmetic of chemistry, or a hierarchy 
 of animal life. 
 
 Neither again, indeed much less, is the length and breadth 
 of human life contained in the straits of politics, the shallows 
 of diplomacy, the quaking mosses of balances of power, or 
 the frail clockwork of constitutions. I can understand 
 better than most of these idolatries a passionate occupation 
 of tlie mind with statistics, out of which time will evolve 
 revelations of the nature of man and of the laws and storms 
 ami methodical fluctuations of human actions, which cannot 
 fail to illuminate in some wonderful way and with unexpected 
 light the adorable character of God. But statistics are not 
 commensuiablc with life. Men may easily live in an epic 
 of metaphysics and psychology, and neglect all else ; but 
 they can establish no right to such a concentration of 
 themselves, any more than the physiologist with the patient 
 slowness of his singularly attractive pursuit. Life is broader 
 than any science of life ; for it is a law, a duty, a responsi- 
 bility, an affection, a religion. Yet all natures have their 
 poetries. IMost men must have their ideal, or one of these 
 imaginary real worlds which subserve all the better purposes 
 f)f an ideal. These are tlie devotions of the intellect, whicli 
 absorb within themselves tlie interests of the heart. We 
 are placed in creation as kings ; and, often quite uncon- 
 sciously, our kingly instincts work in our .souls ; and we take 
 creation to pieces, and choose the provinces over which wo 
 intend to rule. But we are quarrelsome kings. "VVe do not 
 like neighbouring rulers. The proverbial jealousies of scien- 
 tific men are like the peevish diplomacies of fretful politicians.
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 251 
 
 Now what astronomy, and geology, and chemistry, and 
 other cognate sciences, and what pohtics, statistics, meta- 
 physics, and their congenial sciences, are to many men and 
 to most men, the Church is to us. It is our devotion, our 
 pursuit, our passion. It is our favourite science, our chosen 
 study, our life's enthusiasm. As a matter of taste no one 
 can blame us ; for tastes are facts, and facts which are mostly 
 inculpable, and hardly admit of criticism. One man has as 
 much right to be immensely interested in a Sacrament, as 
 another in a curious dip of strata, or the varying magnitude 
 of a perplexing star, or in some new property of a metalloid, 
 or in the dethroning of an old element by dividing it. If 
 one man mav without blame make all other sciences, litera- 
 tures, and pursuits subordinate to his one science, literature, 
 and pursuit, another may make all sciences, literatures, and 
 pursuits, subordinate to his exclusive devotion to the Church. 
 This is putting devotion to the Church upon its lowest 
 uround. It is well sometimes to remember lowest grounds 
 for things. Important rights are often founded in them. 
 Not unfrequently the essences of things lie hidden in them. 
 They ought not therefore to be abandoned or despised. To 
 me, then, the Church is what the starry skies are to the 
 astronomer. I know there are other things in creation 
 besides the Church ; but I am only very partially interesteil 
 in them. Practically to me the world means the Church, 
 For the only interest I can take in the world outside the 
 Church arises from the fact that the Church must be affected 
 by its movements. I delight in all progresses of science, 
 because they are an addition to the science of theology. I 
 sympathise ardently Avith all social progresses, because they 
 Rre at once, whether as difficulties or as facilities, questions 
 of soul-saving. The revelations of statistics form a sort of 
 handbook for Catholic charity. Psychology illustrates the 
 Sacraments, Political changes interest me ; for they all act
 
 253 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 upon the wonderful fortunes of the Holy See, and are mostly 
 for its ultimate advancement. All real widening of men's 
 minds by education, or literature, or art, is an effacing of 
 prejudices against the Church, and facilitates conversion. 
 In almost every department of knowledge, the world, as it 
 advances, keeps answering its own objections to religion ; 
 and this is both grateful and interesting. All that is wide, 
 deep, forward, active, trustful, is most congenial with the 
 spirit of the Church. Even the grand old science of history 
 has taken to discovery ; and its discoveries, one after the 
 other, are so many reparations to the Church. The Church 
 is my centre. I look at all things as revolving round it ; 
 and my interest in them is proportioned to their action upon 
 it. The Church is my science, my taste, my interest, and 
 my attraction. I do not sneer at the devotion of the astro- 
 nomer, and he must not sneer at mine. I tolerate the meta- 
 physician and he must tolerate me. I have neitlier fears, 
 suspicions, nor jealousies of his pliilosophy ; he must have 
 none of my tlicology. 
 
 But, in reality, devotion to the Cluirch may rest upon 
 higher grounds than these. In my own mind it rests upon 
 this, — and I say it witli all reverence — that it is God's own 
 devotion. It is God's creation within His own creation, a 
 creation called into being with a speciality of love, created 
 M'ith the miraculous toil and human Bloodshedding of the 
 (Jmnipotent. It is Ilis own life, His own created life, in 
 creation. Its history is His biography upon earth. Its 
 form is the abiding of His Incarnation amongst men. It is 
 thus for ever repeating His Tliree-aml-Tliirty Years. It is 
 not that He does not lovo the whole world, and the most 
 outlying souls in the world, with a strange surpassing love. 
 On the contrary, it is for the very sake of the world that He 
 loves the Church with a better love. If His almiglity wisdom 
 saw fit to overwhelm our liberty with its constraints, its first
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 253 
 
 act would be to turn the whole world into the Church, 
 making the Church and the world one and the same thing. 
 The world is His creation as Creator : and our wretchedness 
 did not find its prodigality of love sufficient. The Church 
 is His creation as Redeemer ; and it lies in furnaces of 
 divine love heated seven times hotter than the furnaces of 
 creation. Thus the Church is His devotion, His com- 
 placency. He loves it with a special, an electing love. This 
 is the true ground of our devotion to the Church. It is 
 God's own devotion. It is His choicest way of loving us. 
 It is our choicest way of loving Him. 
 
 But let us think of this, both more in detail and more at 
 large. As a place the Church is a creation within creation, 
 the royal residence of the Creator-King. To its privileged 
 jurisdiction is granted the full royalty of the whole world. 
 Its laws are holiness. Its atmosphere is grace. Its forms 
 are copies of divine things. Its nature is transfigured with 
 supernatural energies. Its solemnities are celestial mysteries. 
 It is a life, and a giving of life. But it is not only a divine 
 copy of divine things. It contains divine things, and lives 
 by them. In peculiar ways of its own, it contains the 
 Divine Persons. Thus its life is not a mere likeness of God, 
 though it is a likeness of Him. But, when faith looks upon 
 His likeness, it sees a further vision. Tlie tabernacles of 
 the Church blossom as with li"ht ; the lineaments of the 
 Church fade as in a glorious conflagration, obliterated by 
 the intensity of splendour ; and behold ! it is Jesus Himself, 
 God and man, within whose life we have been living ; and 
 the glory had been so gentle that we perished not ! The 
 mystery of the Blessed Sacrament is the truth of the life of 
 the Church. "We can see and revere the magnificence of the 
 Church. But we shall know the Church better, and appre- 
 ciate it more truly, when we have seen God. We shall per- 
 ceive then, that the Church was even more full of divine
 
 254 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 mysteries tlian we supposed it was. This is the case with 
 all created things. We must see tlie Creator, in order to 
 understand the plenitude of their beauty. But it will be 
 more especially so with the Church, because of its special 
 dignity in creation. We see the mountains mirrored in the 
 lake with exquisite distinctness. But when we have looked 
 up to the mountains themselves, and learned them in them- 
 selves, the images in the lake are more charming, more dis- 
 tinct, more evidently like, more fascinatingly like, than they 
 seemed to be before. To the eye of God the Church must 
 look most wonderful. It is the work of art on which all the 
 adorable incredibilities of redemption have been expended. 
 Every attribute has tried its handicraft upon it. It expresses 
 the secrets of the Incomprehensible, the yearnings of the 
 Ever-blessed, the desires of the Eternal. It is draped witli 
 the golden magnificence of everlasting decrees. The beauty 
 of the Divine mind is suffused around it like an impalpable 
 atmosphere of loveliness. Once He saw the woods, and the 
 mountains, and the lakes, and the foaming rivers, and the 
 flowery plains, which He had made, and He remained out- 
 side them, and gave them His paternal benediction. But, 
 when He had created the Church, not of earth and of His 
 Word, but of His Blood and Breath, its fair beauty so won 
 upon Him, that He came into it, and multiplied Himself, 
 and hid Himself in her tabernacles, as the birds hide them- 
 selves within the mighty woods. 
 
 This is the simple account of the Church, the chief thing 
 to be said of it, but not the only thing. It mirrors the 
 hierarchies of the aufrels as well as the magnificence of God. 
 
 o o 
 
 It not only imitates their orders and operations, but it 
 supplies them with new ministries, and is every day enliven- 
 ing them with fresh joys. Its life is bound up with theirs, 
 and its children mingle with them, and become members of 
 their choirs. As to men, it imitates them into a divine
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 255 
 
 citizenship. It explains their destinies. It ennoble? their 
 disabilities. It anticipates their glory. It gives a value to 
 their sorrows, and a significance to their joys. It emanci- 
 pates them from their own littleness, and it conveys to them 
 God's forgiveness of their sins. It puts them to dwell iii 
 the suburbs of heaven, even while they are still being tried 
 on earth. As a power the Church has been the most un- 
 earthly, the most remarkable, the most successful upon 
 earth. It has no parallel, and no analogy. It is a problem 
 which neither historical, nor political, nor philosophical solu- 
 tions satisfy. It has a history of peculiar interest, and of 
 the most extraordinary variety. In duration its chronicles 
 surpass those of the most ancient monarchy. Tlie records 
 of revolutions are less various, while the history of a single 
 town is less consistent. In the romance of vicissitudes and 
 in dramatic changes no history is to be compared to it. In 
 our own times it is leading a very peculiar life under entirely 
 novel circumstances ; and in the midst of universal fluctua- 
 tion and distrust it is a monument of self-confident tran- 
 quillity. It is certain of ultimate conquest, and equally 
 certain of present suffering. Its power and its spirit are 
 felt in the most retired sanctuaries of the private life of a 
 hundred bloods and nations. Yet all this is without sound 
 and without effort. While it is as solid as adamant, it is 
 as pervasive as the air. "Who ever saw anything earthly 
 like iti Moreover it is the only institution of time which 
 will be prolonged into eternity. The grandest monarchies 
 of earth will cast no sliadow in heaven. Dumbness and 
 oblivion will pass upon all philosophies. Not a single litera- 
 ture has any eternal meaning. The most magnificent civilisa- 
 tion represents nothing on the other side of the grave. The 
 most glorious revolutions have only a temporal significance. 
 Tlie fortunes of the whole earth will leave no impression^ 
 will transfer no lines, upon eternity, furtlier than as they
 
 2 56 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 may have helped or hindered the salvation of this or that 
 individual soul: whereas the grandeur of the Church on 
 earth is but a prelude to its grandeur up in heaven. 
 
 It is no wonder then that the Church should lay such a 
 singular grasp on our affections and our loyalty. On the 
 lowest grounds it may rank with astronomy, or psychology, 
 or politics, as the devotion of a life : only that the ex- 
 clusiveness of the devotion, which in the case of those 
 sectional sciences is a narrowness and a defect, is here a 
 devotedness rather than an exclusiveness ; because that 
 which is universal cannot be exclusive. Devotion to the 
 Church combines all interests. It takes in every duty. It 
 provides for every responsibility. It intensifies every love. 
 It embraces all social life, and ennobles it by its embrace. 
 It penetrates all private life, and sanctifies it by its pene- 
 tration. It is the unity of all knowledge, and the harmony 
 of all philosophy. It is interested in al| diplomacies, and it 
 survives them all. Its minuteness allows nothing to be 
 overlooked, while its comprehensiveness includes everything 
 within its influence. In a word, the Church is that part of 
 everytliing, that side of everything, that view of everything, 
 that interference with everything, which represents the 
 double sovereignty and jurisdiction of the Creator and the 
 Redeemer. 
 
 All this, as we shall see shortly, is part of the devotion 
 to the Precious Blood. Eut we must pass on at present to 
 look at the Church from one particular point of view, — its 
 life of devotions. In nothing is the beauty of the Church 
 more ravishing, or its disclosures more intimately divine. 
 Full of divine instincts, its worship grows with all the 
 exuberance of a tropical forest, covering itself with verdure 
 and with blossoms. It puts forth its devotions with all the 
 freedom of a tree whicli lias liberty to spread on all sides. 
 Kverywhere it is free of the sun and air. There is nothing
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 257 
 
 to hinder its development, nothing to hamper its genius, 
 nothing to disfigure its natural forms and amplitudes of 
 beauty. The diversity of its blossoms is astonishing. It 
 makes devotions out of joys, out of sorrows, and out of 
 glories. It has a treasury of innumerable mysteries; and 
 out of every mystery it can unfold many devotions. Ages 
 roll on. None of the old blossoms wither or fall off. Yet 
 new varieties are added. Its colours grow more beautiful 
 than ever, and its fragrances are multiplied. This is the 
 way in which the age of the Church is for ever clothing 
 itself with the loveliness of a new youth. It is more 
 beautiful now than it was three centuries ago ; and three 
 centuries hence we shall almost envy out of our calm in 
 heaven the fortune of those who come after us, and are 
 sanctified by the novelties of glory in the Church. Taken 
 with all its array of manifold devotions, the Church worships 
 the Holy Trinity with such magnificently expansive freedom 
 and such large variety, that we can hardly, even in our 
 imagination, embrace it in one view. Yet there is a deep- 
 seated unity in this diversity of worship. When we see a 
 tree in a favourable soil and position as it were wantoning 
 in its robust vigour, flinging out its year's growth on this 
 side and on that, here filling itself in with close pendent 
 foliage in curves which might have been drawn with instru- 
 ments, there presenting an indented outline with inlets of 
 blue sky among its branches, it seems hard to believe that 
 there is a law under all this irregular exuberance ; and yet 
 so it is. In like manner dogmatic theology is the hidden 
 law, the infallible unity of all this multiform devotion of 
 the Church. It is a law Avhose control is unerrini:' and 
 never relaxed, and yet whose pressure in no way checks 
 exuberance. Indeed it Avould be more true to say, that the 
 very law itself is the prolific fountain of tliese varieties. 
 The science of theology is for ever passing into love ; and.
 
 258 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 as love receives it, it transmutes it into devotion. These 
 devotions of the Church are the giving forth of its private 
 affections and secret inner life. By them we know tlie 
 Church better than by anything else. They are the action 
 of the Holy Ghost upon her heart, made visible by this 
 perennial springtide of heavenly flowers. We may say, that 
 we come to know that Ever-blessed Spirit better by these 
 devotions than by anything else. They are a revelation of 
 Himself. 
 
 If we examine this seemingly confused multitude of devo- 
 tions, we shall find that they may be parted off into two 
 spheres, forming indeed but one world, and the one sphere 
 for the most part lying within the other. Nevertheless, 
 we shall attain clearness by so regarding it; and in fact 
 the division is a real one. One sphere of devotions is based 
 upon the Incarnation. It glasses the Thirty-Three Years, 
 and continually lives them over again in devotions. The 
 Soul of Jesus, His Body, His Blood, and the Divinity as 
 united to the Sacred Humanity, are abysses which seem to 
 give forth devotions inexhaustibly. In reading the lives of 
 saints and holy persons, Ave are constantly coming across 
 devotions, which we never heard of before. The seventeenth 
 century alone gave birth to some hundreds. Among the 
 Carmelites they have gone on blooming as in a garden, 
 ever since the days of St. Teresa. Sometimes a holy man 
 has looked at the Incarnation under a new aspect, due partly 
 to the peculiarity of his own genius, and partly to the 
 characteristics of his times, not of course without God 
 impressing a direction upon these things; and then his 
 influence or his writings have given birth to manifold devo- 
 tions. This is the case with Cardinal Bcrullo, with Father 
 Condren, Father Eudes, and also with Olier, in France. 
 Tlie same may be .«aid of !Maria Tommasi, Isabella Farnese, 
 Domenica del Taradiso, St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi,
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 259 
 
 and Clierubina dell' Agnus Dei, among the Italians. St. 
 Gertrude, St. Mechtildis, and Elizabeth of Schaunberg have 
 done the same in Germany ; and Marina d'Escobar, Mary 
 of Agreda, Mary of Antigua, and Isabella of Eeniganira, 
 for the Spanish peninsula. While one set of devotions 
 have followed the division of the Soul, the Body, the Blood, 
 and the Divinity of Jesus, another set have gone by times 
 and places. Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth, Galilee, and 
 Jerusalem, have each their constellations of devotions proper 
 to them. Then, again, devotions follow the diiferent lives 
 of our Blessed Lord, His Life in the Womb, His Infant 
 I Life, His Hidden Life, His Public Life, His Suffering Life, 
 His Risen Life, His Ascended Life, and His Sacramental 
 Life. Or they follow His offices, or His Names, or His joys, 
 or His sorrows, or His glories, or His journeys, or His words, 
 or His apostles, or classes of His actions. Again, His 
 Mother is a perfect world of devotions, with her various 
 mysteries, and ministries, and offices, and graces, and endur- 
 ances, and identifications with Himself. The apostolate of 
 Grignon de Montfort, and his remarkable book, promises to 
 be the authentic opening of that peculiar devotion to Mary 
 which is to be the characteristic grandeur of the later 
 ages of the Church. For eighteen hundred years Catholic 
 devotions have come forth from the Incarnation, as from 
 an inward world of spiritual beauty, in magnificent proces- 
 sion. There is no sign of their ending. Each new devotion 
 seems to make more devotions possible. They multiply by 
 the very outpouring of them. Each devotion becomes the 
 head of a family of devotions. It seizes upon some saint, 
 or upon some religious congregation, and perpetuates itself, 
 and multiplies itself, and is a fresh visible adornment to 
 the Church. Nothing gives us sucli a vivid idea of the 
 inexhaustible treasures of the Thirty-Tliree Years as this 
 multiplicity of devotions. We see how the eternal con-
 
 26o THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 teraplation of the Blessed may feed itself upon those years, 
 and they shall yet remain unfathomed, and by created 
 intellect unfathomable. 
 
 These devotions are like particular revelations. They 
 are constantly telling us either what we did not know before 
 about our dearest Lord, or what had never struck us before. 
 It is the Holy Ghost adding to our knowledge of Jesus, or 
 bringuig to our minds His sayings. His doings, and His 
 ways. The theology of these devotions, and the way in 
 which they are started and propagated by the private revela- 
 tions of the saints, by visions, voices, and apparitions, make 
 them to be a sort of complement to the Four Gospels. This, 
 then, is one view which the Church presents to us in her 
 devotions. If we could see her iu her whole extent, we 
 should see this Bride of Christ living over again, in all its 
 breadth, if not in all its depth, the earthly life of Jesus : or 
 to speak more accurately. He is living it endlessly over again 
 iu her. There are a thousand Bethlehems, a thousand 
 Nazareths, and a thousand Calvaries, scattered through the 
 Church. There are visible similitudes of His outward 
 actions. There are ascetical reiterations of His inward dis- 
 positions. There are mystical continuances of His various 
 lives. The whole earth has come to be a Holy Land. 
 Palestine has swelled out into a world. Every Christian 
 family is a Bethlehem. Every Catholic village is a Nazareth, 
 every city a Jerusalem. All shrines of human sorrow are 
 Gethsemanes. There are Calvaries everywhere. Tiiere are 
 countless cloisters, nay, countless single hearts, which are in 
 themselves Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Calvary at once. Look 
 over the Church with this light upon it; and then look 
 upwards to the Face of Jesus bending over it in tenderness 
 and joyous love, and think how holy and how zealous and 
 liow ardent must be our devotion to the Churchy if it is to 
 resemble His complacency.
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 261 
 
 The other sphere of tlie devotions of the Church is based 
 upon the Attributes of God. What the various mysteries of 
 Jesus are in one sphere of devotions, the various Attributes 
 of God are in the other. The Church receives from heaven 
 upon its placid bosom the image of Jesus ; it receives also 
 the image of the Uncreated. We can worship God in His 
 simplicity. We can also have a special devotion to His 
 simplicity. But in this latter case we are regarding His 
 simplicity as one of His Attributes. We cannot have a 
 devotion to God as God. We simply worship the Majesty 
 of the Godhead with trembling adoration. The feeling and 
 the act are distinct from devotion. But we can be said 
 to have a devotion to the various Attributes into which 
 we divide His simplicity and by which we conceive His 
 perfection. In strict truth, as I have Avarned you before, 
 He is all His Attributes, and all His Attributes are Himself. 
 But, in our language and in our conceptions. His Attributes 
 are not Himself : they are less than Himself ; they are parts, 
 for so our ignorance necessitates us to depict them, of Him 
 who is indivisible. Thus they stand in the same relation to 
 God, that the mysteries of the Incarnation stand in to 
 our Lord. When we have a devotion to one of our Lord's 
 joys, we know that there is something which it does not 
 include, either other joys, or His sorrows, or His glories. 
 So when we have a devotion to God's justice, we know that 
 we are for the present leaving out of direct view His mercy. 
 The finite may worship the Infinite as infinite, and in His 
 unity. It can only stud;/ the Infinite in detail; and these 
 details are the creations and conveniences of its own limited 
 mind, not substantive external truths. Thus there is no 
 such thing as omnipotence : but there is a Being who is 
 omnipotent, or (if tlie idiom of our language would have 
 permitted me so to express myself), who is omnipotence. 
 There is no sucli iJdng as omnipresence : but there is a Being
 
 262 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 who is omnipresent. I say this for the sake of accuracy, 
 and to anticipate misunderstanding. But the devotion to 
 the Attributes of God is practically a very simple matter 
 to the most ordinarily pious believer. 
 
 Among the children of the Church, chiefly but not exclu- 
 sively those who are aiming at perfection, there exists this 
 devotion to tlie Attributes of God. It is less universal, as a 
 special devotion, than devotions to the Incarnation ; and it 
 has also this peculiarity, that, whereas devotion to the 
 mysteries of the Sacred Humanity can exist without any 
 special or pronounced devotion to the Attributes of God, 
 this last devotion is always accompanied by some special 
 devotions founded on the Incarnation. It is one of the 
 common marks of a spiritual delusion, when men are without 
 some special devotion to the mysteries of Jesus, and affect 
 to meditate or contemplate the divine perfections instead. 
 Some holy persons have a peculiar devotion to the Attributes 
 (if God in general : and in their prayers change from one to 
 another ; and this change is very often influenced by the 
 feasts and seasons of the year, in consequence of the connec- 
 tion and sympathy which appear to exist between particular 
 Attributes of God and particular mysteries of the Incarnation. 
 Others, again, devote themselves to honour some one Attri- 
 Imte, and to make it the main, if not the sole, subject of 
 their meditations. There are examples of this devotion, 
 which carry with them great authority. Some have always 
 had this attraction to the Attributes of God; and it has even 
 given a peculiar shape to their devotion to the mysteries 
 of Jesus, especially the Passion. Some have arrived at it 
 through long meditation on tlio Sacred Humanity, as if 
 they had been raised by the contemplation of the Sficred 
 Humanity to that of the Divinity. But even in this case 
 the devotion to Ihe Sacred Humanity is rather heightened 
 than abandoned. These positive devotions to the divine
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 263 
 
 Attributes arise very often from the characteristics of the 
 mind and disposition, not of course without the concurrence 
 of grace, and even some special leadings of the Holy Ghost. 
 Sometimes the attraction seems to be entirely supernatural, 
 and not unfrequently distinct and sudden like a vocation. 
 
 But these attractions to the Divine Attributes, like those 
 of the mysteries of the Incarnation, do not always rest 
 in devotion. They assign vocations and pursuits. They 
 cast a man's external actions into some peculiar mould. 
 The whole life becomes shaped on the Attribute, to which 
 the soul is specially devoted. This is more particularly 
 the case with the two Attributes of Justice and Sanctity. 
 Some saintly persons, devoted to tliese Attributes, have 
 been bidden to lead lives of marvellous expiations or re- 
 parations. The instincts of the Holy Ghost have urged 
 them into terrible novelties of penance, or strange depths 
 of inward self-abasement. Their lives have been admirable 
 rather than imitable. Instances of this might be given 
 from the Chronicles of Eeligious Orders, especially those 
 of Carmel and the Visitation, and also from the lives of 
 many of those who have had the stigmata. If devotion 
 to the Attributes of God proceeds to the extremity of mould- 
 ing the outward life, much more may we expect to find 
 it shaping inward holiness, and stamping a peculiar char- 
 acter upon our spirituality. Even the Eternity of God, 
 seemingly the least likely of His Attributes for such a 
 purpose, has been made to be the form of the holiness 
 of some very interior and elevated souls.* 
 
 I believe the agency of the Attributes of God in the 
 spiritual life to be much more extensive than is commonly 
 (Supposed. In other words, the Church is a truer image 
 of the invisible majesty of God than our faith is ordinarily 
 allowed to perceive. His perfections impress themselvea 
 
 * See the instance of Anne Serapliine Boulier, quoted in chapter L
 
 264 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 upon His creatures, very deeply, even Avhen invisil)ly. 
 There are certain phenomena in the spiritual life, very 
 delicate and very volatile, which lead to the supposition 
 that the action of some one Attribute lies at the bottom 
 of each man's vocation, as well as of eacli devotion in 
 the Church. If this be so, and if we consider it in con- 
 nection with the affinity between nature and grace, we 
 shall sometimes wonder whether each soul that is created 
 is not created in the special likeness of some one Attri- 
 bute of God, ranged as it were under the banners of that 
 one Attribute, and called by a very sweet vocation to 
 form its life upon it. 
 
 But these are speculations. Certain it is, that the 
 Church worships God in all His breadth, so far as crea- 
 tures can do so, and produces a unity of worship through 
 this multiplicity of devotions to His perfections. One 
 Boul, one saint, one order, cannot do the whole work by 
 itself ; but the whole work is done, and it is done by 
 the harmony and conjunction of them all. It is the affec- 
 tionate conspiracy of all created beauty to make a worthy 
 offering to the Uncreated Loveliness. It is difficult to 
 make pictures of spiritual things. But it brings wonder- 
 ful thoughts into our minds, and vast indescribable images, 
 if we try to picture the Church to ourselves as thus out- 
 stretching itself to enclose all the Attributes of the Most 
 High, one while rising to each of them, like the arms of 
 the great sea flung upward to the moon, and offering to 
 each the incense of a peculiar devotion, — and then another 
 while lying passive while they descend upon it, and leave 
 upon it nameless signs of tlieir mysterious contact. The 
 depths of the Church, like the depths of ocean, are fields 
 of wild flowery loveliness, strangely lighted by the sun 
 through the translucent waters ; and thither the glory of 
 God descends, at twilight as He came to Adam, or at
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 265 
 
 midniglit as He came to Mary, or in the morning as He 
 came to Israel in the wilderness, to pasture the beautiful 
 flock of His perfections. The Church — it is the fairest of her 
 splendours — is the mother of her Maker's glory. 
 
 It is natural, almost necessary, when we are speaking of 
 the devotions of the Church, to speak also, and once again, 
 of devotion to the Church ; but it is still more necessary to 
 do so, when we have to speak of the devotion to the Pre- 
 cious Blood. The Church, as we have already said, is the 
 creation of the Precious Blood, the institution which it has 
 founded, and wherein its virtue continues to reside. It is 
 impossible to study the grandeurs of the Precious Blood 
 without being led at almost every step into the magnifi- 
 cences of the Sacraments ; and then again the Sacraments 
 are the structure of the Church. The theology of the Sacra- 
 ments and the theology of the Church are but one. "We 
 cannot separate them without making both of them unintel- 
 ligible. "With these theologies, the theology of the Precious 
 Blood is also inextricably interwined. This will strike any 
 thoughtful student of theology. Moreover, as we have seen, 
 the Precious Blood ministers especially to the Dominion and 
 Magnificence of God ; and the Church is the living vice- 
 gerent of God's Dominion, and the Sacraments are a peculiar 
 and unparalleled emanation of His magnificence ; and thus 
 from another point of view the Precious Blood is bound up 
 with the Church and the Sacraments. The instincts of the 
 saints have united the two devotions. Tliose, whose lives 
 strike us because of the active interest they took in the 
 outward politics and destinies of tlie Church, an interest 
 often at seeming variance with their manifest call to con- 
 templation, are almost always found to have had a peculiar 
 devotion to the Precious Blood. The Precious Blood mag- 
 nifies the Church, and the Church magnifies the Precious 
 Blood. There was once a narrow-minded heresy which
 
 266 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 denied that the Precious Blood was shed for all, main- 
 taining that it was shed only for a chosen few. Like 
 all heresies which depreciate the grandeurs of Jesus, it 
 was an especially soul-destroying heresy ; and like all soul- 
 destroying heresies, it clothed itself in the garb of harsh- 
 ness, as if the pomp of rigour was to give it the venerable 
 dignity of holiness. "We shall avoid falling into cognate 
 errors about the Church, if we remember its connection with 
 the Precious Blood. The object of the Church, like the 
 object of the Precious Blood, is universality. It is not a 
 snare of God to overwhelm poor souls with the insupportable 
 responsibilities of terrible privileges. It is an institution 
 for the express purpose of making salvation easier, shorter, 
 safer, more various, and more universal. Its exclusiveness is 
 concentration rather than exclusiveness. It is its surest and 
 its swiftest road to being universal. If tlie responsibilities 
 of grace were actually difficulties in the way of salvation, it 
 is plain that heathenism would be the best religion, because 
 it would be the least perilous. If the prodigality of God's 
 love be only a burden made the more crushing by its beauti- 
 ful excess, then God's gifts are snares to entrap Ilis creatures, 
 for the future purpose of justifying His vengeance. If men 
 are less likely to be saved, because they have more to answer 
 for, it it cruel to preach the Gospel, barbarous to invite them 
 into the Church, treacherous to allure them to the Sacra- 
 ments. On tliis theory, the Church is part of the machinery 
 of God's vindictive justice; ami it is not life, as the Bible 
 calls it, but a greater likelihood of death '• to know God and 
 Jesus Christ whom He has sent." This unfdial depreciation 
 of the Chuch is also a depreciation of the grandeurs of Jesus, 
 similar to that of Jansenism, though coming by a different 
 road and from an opposite quarter. It will be found to be 
 a'jconipanied with the same disesteem of the Sacraments, 
 and to delight in the same parade of rigour. But it is a
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 267 
 
 theory which cannot consist with a life of prayer, and which 
 will wither before a growing devotion to the Precious Blood. ■ 
 We must learn the theology of the Church and of the Sacra- 
 ments in its union with the tlieology of the Precious Blood. 
 Theology will make our devotion more devout ; and devotion 
 will make our theology more true. 
 
 In treating of the devotion to the Precious Blood we 
 naturally begin with its history. In one sense, and a very 
 notable sense, the whole history of the Church is a history 
 of the devotion to the Precious Blood ; for it is a history of 
 the preaching of the Gospel, and of the administration of 
 the Sacraments. It is the prominent devotion of dogmatic 
 theology ; for it is that upon which the doctrine of redemp- 
 tion lays the greatest tress. But we are speaking of it rather 
 as a special and separate devotion. It certainly seems to 
 have existed as such in the mind and heart of St. Paul, if 
 we may judge from the evident fondness with which he 
 dwells upon it in his epistles, with reiterations made on 
 purpose, as if they were grateful to his love. We may call 
 him the doctor of the Precious Blood, and the author of the 
 special devotion to it. It was in this devotion that the 
 strength of his apostolic instinct lay. It was the natural 
 fruit of the peculiar magnificence of his conversion and voca- 
 tion. Among the Fathers we have St. Chrysostom in the 
 East and St. Austin in the West, who may be regarded as 
 striking examples of a special devotion to the Precious Blood. 
 The zeal for souls, which burned in St. Chrysostom, and the 
 enthusiasm for the liberalities of redeeming grace, which was 
 quite a passion with St. Austin, explain the prominence of 
 this devotion in their writings. Among the saints, St. Ger- 
 trude's revelations are full of the sweetest and deepest things 
 about the Precious Blood. But the devotion seems to take 
 its modem form and consistence chiefly in St. Catherine of 
 Siena, whom we may justly term the Prophetess of the Pre-
 
 268 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 cious Blood.* She has shigled out this devotion with a 
 more obvious predilection ; and she has singled it out as a 
 remedy needful for her times, and one upon which, in her 
 judgment, sufficient stress had not been laid. "We read of 
 Osanna of Mantua, that, so vehement was her devotion to 
 the Precious Blood, she could never see any human blood 
 without at once going into an ecstasy. Coupled with her 
 singular devotion to the Person of the Eternal Word, St. 
 ]\Iary Magdalene of Pazzi had also a special devotion to the 
 Precious Blood. 
 
 The lives of the saints are of course replete with instances 
 of devotion to the Precious Blood ; and it would be impos- 
 sible to enumerate them all. Let it suffice to give some 
 specimens. The Venerable Maria Francesca of the Five 
 Wounds, an Alcantarine nun at Naples, was communicated 
 by St. Raphael out of the chalice, the priest missing it at 
 the time of mass, and, observing a diminution in the Sacre^l 
 Blood. We can hardly doubt that this grace was an answer 
 to an intense desire, and a reward for a special devotion to 
 the Precious Blood, f In that amazing and delightful reper- 
 tory of spiritual science, the Chronicles of the French Car- 
 melites, we read of Frances of the Mother of God, tliat one 
 day before Communion those words of the Apocalypse were 
 deeply imprinted on her mind. He hath loved us and washed 
 away our sins in His Blood. Presently our Lord said to her 
 interiorly, I have shed My Blood for your sins, and now I 
 come in Holy Communion to wash away the stains which 
 remain. When she had received our Lord, she saw her soul 
 all covered with Blood.;}: Jn the life of tlie Venerable Anne 
 
 * It should be reinonihcred now tliat it onco pleased God to save Italy 
 l>y means of St. ditlici iiio of Sienn, and to restore the Pope to Kome. 
 l»y an iticreased devotion to the great I^oniiiiicanes.s may we not help the 
 Holy See, and the jifior land whicli docs not know its own blessedness iu 
 possessing the Chair of I'eter and the Holy City ? 
 
 t Vita. p. 155. :J: Chroniqucs ii. 595, 596.
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 269 
 
 of Jesus, the Companion of St. Teresa, we read that once in 
 communicating she had her mouth sensibly filled with very, 
 sweet Blood, which flowed from the Host ; and another time 
 she had a vision of the joy which an infinite number of 
 blessed souls have in that Blood in heaven.* St. Clare of 
 Eimini's mysterious thirst satisfied only, and for twelve whole 
 years, by the Blood in the Host, is a yet more wonderful 
 case.t Marcello Benci often, when he served St. Philip's 
 mass, saw after consecration the Chalice full of Blood. J 
 Marjjaret of Beaune, the Carmelitess, is well known in the 
 Church for the new devotions to the Infant Jesus with 
 which she enriched it. Patrignani, in his edition of her 
 life, tells us that she so habitually saw the Blood of Jesus in 
 the souls of men, and saw them so beautified by it, that she 
 could not hear to hear any one blamed, however justly ; 
 because of the reverence she felt even for wicked souls 
 tlirough the Blood of Jesus which she beheld in them.§ 
 When Margaret of the Passion, Carmelitess at Kouen, was 
 on her deathbed, she said that the Blood of Jesus had been 
 applied to her, and that it had caused her a light and brief 
 pain, while it had filled her soul with God, and infused into 
 licr a profound peace, and had pardoned all her sins. || Sister 
 r>enodict of Egersheim after Communion used to feel sensibly 
 our Lord's Blood flowing, as a torrent, down into the bottom 
 of her soul, and burning away all the " scoria " of sin, leav- 
 ing hor a most pure vessel of sanctity. ^ But it is useless to 
 multiply instances. 
 
 Another development of the devotion to the Precious 
 ])lootl has arisen from the possession of relics, whether of 
 what was once Precious Blood or of miraculous Blood. 
 
 * Vie. p. 512, 513. + See Gnrainpi's Leggenilii. 
 
 X Biicci. Vita di St. Filippo Neri, p. 82. 
 
 § Vitii. p. 99. II Clironiques ii. 417 
 
 U I'etz. Bibliotbeca Asceticu. torn. 8, p. 75.
 
 270 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 These have been the ol-ject, not only of a local worship, but 
 of devout pilgrimages, which have often led to signal con- 
 versions of sinners, lieyrout, Bruges, Saintes, Mantua, the 
 imperial monastery of Weingarten, which claimed to possess 
 the portion of tlie Blood of Mantua which had been given 
 to the Emperor Henry the Third, and the English monas- 
 teries of Ashridge and Hailes, may be quoted as instances of 
 this kind of devotion.* In 1247 Henry the Third carried a 
 particle of the Precious Blood in procession on St. Edward's 
 Day from St. Paul's to Westminster Abbey. f 
 
 There is no surer sign of the growth of a special devotion 
 in the Church than the erection of a Confraternity, repre- 
 senting and embodying it. There was an ancient confra- 
 ternity of the Precious Blood at Ravenna. Another was 
 erected in Rome in the pontificate of Gregory XIII. which 
 was confirmed by Sixtus V. It was afterwards merged in 
 the confraternity of the Gonfalone. Its members were 
 priests, and took upon themselves the obligation of preach- 
 ing missions. But the Pontificate of Pius VII. was the 
 great epoch in the history of this devotion. An arch-con- 
 fraternity of the Precious Blood was set up at Rome in the 
 Church of San Nicola in Carcere by Albertini, Bishop of 
 Terracina, Bonanni, Bishop of Norcia, and Gaspare del 
 Ijufalo, Canon of San Marco. The Pope enriched this 
 confraternity, and also the devotion independently of the 
 confraternity, with great indulgences. He also granted 
 indulirences to the Passionists and to the Missionaries of the 
 Precious Blood, in favour of this devotion. The Congrega- 
 tion of the missioners of the Precious Blood was founded in 
 the same pontificate by Gaspare del Bufalo, who was like- 
 wise the founder of a congregation of religious women 
 devoted to the worship of the Precious Blood. He died at 
 
 • See Haag. Sangiiia Christi in terra viiidicatus, 1758. 
 t llariisfield gives an account of the ceremony, p. 457.
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 271 
 
 Rome ill the odour of sanctity on the 2 8tli of December, 
 1837. It was in the church of his Missionaries of the 
 Precious Blood at Eimini, that the miraculous appearances 
 took place a few years ago, in connection with a picture of 
 our Lady ; and this fact is probably not without some 
 supernatural significance regarding the devotion to the 
 Precious Blood, 
 
 I have not been able to trace satisfactorily the rise of 
 confraternities of the Precious Blood. But their existence 
 in Spain seems to betoken some special devotion to the 
 Precious Blood in that country, which has been the nursery 
 of so many grandeurs of the faith, and which the super- 
 natural has so often chosen with a sort of predilection as the 
 theatre of its manifestations, as if it were a kind of Western 
 Palestine, shutting up the end of the Mediterranean, to pass 
 the faith across the broad Atlantic, In the life of Anne of 
 St. Augustine, the Carmelitess, it is said that she always 
 received with hospitality those wlio went about collecting 
 alms for the confraternities of the Precious Blood, which 
 are spoken of as having been "erected in many places." 
 She died in 1624.* In the life of Brother Francis of the 
 Infant Jesus, a Carmelite lay-brother, mention is made of a 
 confraternity of the Precious Blood in the street of St. Vin- 
 cent at Valentia in i6oi.t But I have not been able to find 
 any account of these confraternities. These scattered notices 
 suffice to show that it was a popular Spanish devotion. 
 
 The Venerable Buonsignore Cacciaguerra, the friend and 
 companion of St. Philip Neri, had a most enthusiastic 
 devotion to the Precious Blood. One day when he was 
 complaining that the heathen, the Jews, and the Mahome- 
 tans profited so little by our Saviour's Blood, our Lord 
 appeared to him, with the Blood flowing impetuously from 
 His side, and said, " It is for all and for any who wish for 
 • Vita. p. 146. t Vita. p. 326.
 
 272 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 it." So St. Philip himself, when he instituted the visits to 
 the Seven Churches, intended it as a devotion to the Seven 
 Bloodshedding, and fixed a separate Bloodshedding for each 
 Church, with a vice to pray against, and a special virtue 
 and also a gift of the Holy Ghost to ask for. 
 
 Among the reforms of the Cistercianesses, there arose a 
 Congregation of Divine Providence, with which St. Francis 
 of Sales had to do, as it was founded with his assistance, 
 and by the Mother de Lallon, a near relation of his. Out 
 of this Congregation, and under the auspices of the Mother 
 de Pon^onas, sprang another Congregation entitled Bernar- 
 dines of the Precious Blood, which reached its full develop- 
 ment in Paris in 1654. The strife between the Mothers de 
 IJallon and de Pongonas occupies perhaps the least edifying 
 chapter of monastic history, and it is only alluded to here 
 because of its connection with the history of the devotion 
 to the Precious Blood. At the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century Vincent of Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, founded a 
 military order of Kedemptorists of the Precious Blood in 
 order to guard the relic of the Precious Blood in the 
 cathedral of St Andrew at Mantua, Our own England was 
 not without its place in the history of this devotion. 
 Richard of Cornwall, brother of Henry the Third, brought 
 from Germany a large relic of the Precious Blood, and 
 founded a Congregation entitled the Congregation of Good- 
 Men (Bonhommes) in order to keep, to watch, and to 
 lionour this relic. He placed two-thirds of it in a monastery 
 which he built at Ashridge near Berkhampstead in Bucking- 
 liamshirc, and the other third in a similar monastery at 
 Hailes in Gloucestershire. The ]>onhommea hud the reputa- 
 tion of being great mystics. They lived under the rule of 
 St. Augustin.* 
 
 • See Ilelyot, Hist. <les Onlrea Relig. under the words Divine Provi- 
 dence, Frecieux Sung, aud liedempteura : Morigia, Istoria di tutte le
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 273 
 
 Leo XII. enriched this devotion with indulgences. But 
 the present pontificate of Pius IX. has been another grand 
 epoch in the history of this devotion, similar to that of Pius 
 VII. In this pontificate the red scapular of the Vincentians 
 has been instituted, in consequence, it is said, of some 
 private revelation ; and it has been indulgenced by the 
 Sovereign Pontiff. The confraternity of the Precious Blood 
 has been enriched with still further indulgences ; and similar 
 confraternities have been multiplied. One, it is believed 
 the first in England since those of Eichard of Cornwall in 
 the middle of the thirteenth century, was established in the 
 Church of St. Wilfrid among the Staffordshire hills in 1847, 
 with the approval of the bishop, and had a great success. It 
 was afterwards transferred to the Church of the London 
 Oratory, and was re-erected by a papal rescript, August 12th, 
 1850. In this confraternity more than thirty-eight thousand 
 members have been enrolled, and one hundred and four 
 religious communities ; and the numbers are increasing daily. 
 Besides this, there are several other local confraternities 
 affiliated with it ; and others which have been independently 
 erected at a subsequent date, both in England and Ireland. 
 
 There was already a commemorative feast of the Precious 
 Blood in Lent. But when Pius IX. returned to the Holy 
 City from his exile at Gaeta, he issued a decree to the whole 
 world, instituting a new feast of the Precious Blood on the 
 first Sunday in July. There is surely a great significance in 
 this decree. The Holy See has taken the lead in this special 
 devotion, and has thereby immensely increased its popularity, 
 
 Religioni. lib. i, cap. Ix. : and Dugdale's Monasticon, under Asbridge. 
 Morigia gives the date of Richard of Cornwall's foundation as 1257 : 
 Tanner dates it in 1283 : Mr. Todd, who wrote the privately printed 
 history of Asbridge for Lord Bridgewater, dates Richard the first rector 
 from 1276. Thomas Waterliouse the last rector surrendered the house 
 to Hem y the Eighth. The seal represented the Agnus Dei wiih the Earl 
 of Cornwall's lion beneath it. 
 
 S
 
 274 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 the usual result of authority. Moreover, the selection of the 
 devotion is of still greater significance. The latest new devo- 
 tion of tlie Church was the devotion to the Sacred Heart 
 The choice has fallen next upon the Precious Blood, which 
 is as it were a development of the devotion to the Sacred 
 Heart. So that there is a sort of historical or chronological 
 fitness in it. It seems part of Catholic piety to believe, that 
 while these things are by no means supposed to lie within 
 the gift of infallibility, there is a peculiar guidance of the 
 Holy Spirit in them. It is He who as it were writes the 
 history of the Church, It is to His instincts that we re- 
 verently refer all movements which have to do with the 
 spiritual life and devotion of the faithful, and also the choice 
 of the times at which these movements are made. Such 
 movements are parts of a whole, steps towards an end ; but 
 the whole and the end only become visible to us when they 
 have grown a portion of past history. They mean much 
 more than we see, or than can be comprehended by one 
 generation. The circumstances, under which this decree of 
 a new feast of the Precious Blood was issued, stamp upon 
 the feast the same character of thanksgiving which belongs 
 to the feast of the Help of Christians. It is an historical 
 monument of a vicissitude of the Holy See, a perpetual Te 
 Deum for a deliverance of the Vicar of Christ. 
 
 All devotions have their characteristics ; all of them have 
 their own theological meanings. We must say something 
 therefore upon the characteristics of the devotion to the 
 Precious Blood. In reality the whole Treatise has more or 
 less illustrated this matter. But something still remains to 
 be said, and something will bear to be repeated. "We will 
 take the last first. Devotion to the Precious P>lood is the 
 devotional expression of the prominent and characteristic 
 teaching of St. Paul. St. Paul is the apostle of redeeming 
 grace. A devout study of his epistles would be our deliver-
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 275 
 
 ance from most of the errors of the day. He is truly tlie 
 apostle of all ages. To each age doubtless he seems to have 
 a special mission. Certainly his mission to ours is very 
 special. The very air we breatlie is Pelagian. Our heresies 
 are only novel shapes of an old Pelagianism. The spirit of 
 the world is eminently Pelagian, Hence it comes to pass 
 that wrong theories amongst us are always constructed round 
 a nucleus of Pelagianism ; and Pelagianism is just the heresy 
 Avhich is least able to breathe in the atmosphere of St. Paul. 
 It is the age of the natural as opposed to the supernatural, 
 of the acquired as opposed to the infused, of the active as 
 opposed to the passive. This is what I said in an earlier 
 chapter, and here repeat. Isow this exclusive fondness for 
 the natural is on the whole very captivating. It takes with 
 the young, because it saves thought. It does not explain 
 difficulties ; but it lessens the number of difficulties to be 
 explained It takes with the idle ; for it dispenses from 
 slowness and research. It takes with tho unimaginative, 
 because it withdraws just the very element in religion whicli 
 teases them. It takes with the worldly, because it subtracts 
 the enthusiasm from piety and the sacrifice from spirituality. 
 It takes with the controversial, because it is a short road 
 and a shallow ford. It forms a school of thought, Avhich, 
 while it admits that we have abundance of grace, intimates 
 that we are not much the better for it. It merges privileges 
 in responsibilities, and makes the sovereignty of God odious 
 by representing it as insidious. All this whole spirit, witli 
 all its ramifications, perishes in the sweet fires of devotion 
 to the Precious Blood. 
 
 The time is also one of libertinage ; and a time of libertin- 
 age is always, with a kind of practical logic, one of infidelity. 
 Whatever brings out God's side in creation, and magnifies 
 His incessant supernatural operation in it, is the controver.-y 
 which infidelity can least withstand. 2s'o\v the devotion to
 
 2-ie THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 the Precious Clood does this in a very remarkable way. It 
 shows that the true significance of everything is to be found 
 in the scheme of redemption, apart from Avhich it is useless 
 to discuss the problems of creation. It is a revelation to us 
 of the character of God as well as of the work of Jesus. By 
 bringing out the wonders of the Church and the energies of 
 the Sacraments, it insinuates into our hearts the love of the 
 sovereignty of God, together with a sense of perfect freedom 
 and enlargement. By drawing out into strong lights the 
 most intimate human realities of the Incarnation, it meets 
 the false spirituality, which sometimes run into heresy, about 
 the Sacred Humanity. More especially does it war against 
 that danrjerous fastidiousness which even believers some- 
 times feel, through want of reverential discipline of mind, 
 about the physical mysteries of Jesus, especially those of 
 His Passion, Tliis fastidiousness is a deep source of widely 
 spreading evil. It makes us ungenuine and profane. Re- 
 verence contemplates divine things, and does not divert its 
 thoughts from the physical horrors in which because of our 
 sins those divine things have deigned to manifest themselves. 
 Magdalen holds Jesus by His Feet, while the Gerasens en- 
 treat Him to depart from their vicinity. We lose much 
 which we cannot afTord to lose, by anything which makes our 
 devotion to the Passion less faithful and less real. 
 
 Another characteristic of the devotion to tlie Precious 
 Blood is the way in which it brings out and keeps before 
 us the principle of sacrifice. Sacrifice is peculiarly the 
 Christian element of holiness ; and it is precisely the ele- 
 ment which corrupt nature dislikes and resists. There io 
 no end to the delusions, which our self-love is fertile enough 
 to bring forth, in order to evade the obligation of sacri- 
 fice, or to narrow its practical application. If it were 
 enough to have correct views, or high feelings, or devout 
 aspirations, it would be easy to be spiritual. The touch-
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 277 
 
 Btone is mortification. Worldly amusements, domestic com- 
 forts, nice food, and a daily doing our own will in the 
 lesser details of life, are all incompatible with sanctity, 
 when they are habitual and form the ordinary normal cur- 
 rent of our lives. Pain is necessary to holiness. SufFeriiig 
 is essential to the Icilling of self-love. Habits of virtue 
 cannot by any possibility be formed without voluntary 
 mortification. Sorrow is needful for the fertility of grace. 
 If a man is not making constant sacrifices, he is deceiving 
 himself, and is not advancing in spirituality. If a man 
 is not denying himself daily, he is not carrying the cross. 
 These are axioms which at all times offend our weakness 
 and self-indulgence. But they are of peculiar importance 
 in times like these, when comforts and even luxuries are 
 almost universal. It is comfort which is the ruin of holi- 
 ness. Gaiety, fashion, ostentation, expensiveness, dissipa- 
 tion, frivolity, and the other things which make up a 
 London season, are undoubtedly not the component parts 
 of sanctity. But in my estimation they are far less worldly, 
 have far less of the poison of worldliness in them, than 
 the daily worship of comfort which distinguishes the great 
 bulk of quiet people in these days. Many are not attracted 
 by balls, parties, and similar fashions of amusement, and 
 therefore have no merit in keeping away from them. But 
 these same persons may set a great value upon the unin- 
 terrupted course of their daily comforts. They rise when 
 they will, and gather every convenience round their rising. 
 Their meals must be elegant, and pleasant, and faultless. 
 Their servant-machinery must go smoothly, anticipating 
 wants and keeping out of sight annoyances. Their time 
 must bo for the most part at their own disposal. They 
 must have the pastime of amusing conversation and of social 
 intercourse ; and tliey must be able to satisfy their rest- 
 lessness when they please, by change of air and scene and
 
 278 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 company. There is generally a far greater intensity of 
 worldliness in all this, than in the pleasuie-hunting riot 
 of a London season. Thus we often find, in connection 
 with this last, great graces, generous sacrifices, unexpected 
 mortifications, and unkilled heavenly longings. But these 
 are hardly ever found in the quiet, unobtrusive worship 
 of domestic comfort. Yearly out of the dissipations of 
 the great Avorld come grand vocations. Every London 
 season inscribes against its will some few glorious conver- 
 sions in the annals of grace, conversions whose peculiar 
 glory is the frankness of their generosity. Nothing grand 
 ever comes out of the daily round of comfort. The heroic 
 things of Christian attainment have less chance in quiet 
 gardens and by pleasant river sides than in the ball-room 
 or the court. There is a smoothness in the mere lapse 
 of a comfortable life, which is fatal to holiness, Now 
 all the forms, and images, and associations, and pictures, 
 and ideas, of the devotion to the Precious Blood breathe 
 sacrifice. Their fragrance is the odour of sacrifice. Their 
 beauty is the austerity of sacrifice. They tease the soul 
 with a constant sense of dissatisfaction and distrust Avith 
 whatsoever is not sacrifice ; and this teasing is the solici- 
 tation of grace. In time they infect us with a love of 
 sacrifice ; and to gain this love of sacrifice is to have sur- 
 mounted the first ascent of holiness, and to be breathing 
 the pure air and yet treading the more level road of the 
 upper table-land of the mountains of perfection. It is 
 tlie very mission of the devotion of the Precious Blood 
 to preach a crusade against quiet sinless comforts. The 
 !Mass is the compendium of the Gospel. It is a heresy in 
 <loctrine to acknowk-dge the Sacrament and to deny the 
 Sacrifice. AVorldliness is guilty of a similar practical heresy 
 with regard to holiness. It admits the claims of all its obli- 
 gations but one, and that is the obligation of sacrifice.
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 279 
 
 It is another characteristic of the devotion to the Precious 
 Blood that it does not usurp the place of other devotions > 
 but by its own growth makes more room for them. We 
 cannot have an equal devotion for all the things to which 
 we ought to be devout. We have not breadth enough 
 for it. We are obliged to take things in detail. Calvary 
 on the whole turns our thoughts from Bethlehem, and 
 Bethlehem on the whole turns our thoughts from Calvary. 
 One mystery comes in the way of another. Devotions 
 stand in each other's light. There is no harm in this. It 
 is a blameless imperfection. But it is a peculiarity of the 
 devotion to the Precious Blood that it does not interfere 
 with other devotions. On the contrary, it rather fosters 
 them. For it is not only a devotion by itself, separate 
 from other devotions, and with a spirit of its own, but 
 it is also a part of other devotions, a particular form of 
 other devotions, a shape which many other devotions may 
 assume. It mingles in the most natural way with devo- 
 tion to our Blessed Lady. It is an additional splendour 
 to every one of her mysteries. It throws light upon them. 
 It brings her into the mysteries of Jesus. It has, as we 
 shall see afterwards, a peculiar connection with the Imma- 
 culate Conception. It forms in itself a separate devotion to 
 our dearest ]\Iother, as the fountain of the Precious Blood, 
 a devotion of the most inexpressible tenderness, a devotion 
 to her immaculate heart and sinless blood. 
 
 It is also a variety of devotion to the Passion. It 
 furnishes a point of view from which we may regard each 
 separate mystery, while it is also a mould in which we 
 can fuse all the mysteries of the Passion into one. It is 
 thus a unity of the devotion to the Passion as well as 
 a variety of it, besides being in itself an additional devo- 
 tion to the Passion. When we wish to range the whole 
 Passion into one view, we find that simply to look upoji
 
 28o THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 it as the single mystery of tlie Passion, it is too largo 
 for us, and becomes vague. ]^o\v vagueness is precisely 
 what we must try to avoid in devotion to the Passion. 
 Its virtue resides in its vividness. Unless it be vivid, it 
 will not be true ; and unless it be true, it will not be 
 reverent. Thus we have various devices by which we 
 make the Passion into one mystery, and yet preserve its 
 details. We take the five trials of our Lord, or the seven 
 journeys, or the seven words, or the five wounds. All 
 these are excellent contrivances of love. But the Precious 
 Blood supplies us with a more natural unity, and also with 
 a more vivid detail. 
 
 We may say the same of devotion to Jesus Eisen. It is a 
 devotion which we cultivate by separate meditation on the 
 beautiful apparitions of those Forty Days. It is a devotion 
 out of which we draw bright thoughts of God, the sunniest 
 views of His adorable sovereignty, heavenly yearnings, a 
 more reverential and amazed devotion to our Lady, an 
 increased zeal for souls, and all that ministers to the alacrity 
 of holiness. Alacrity is the characteristic of this devotion. 
 But, when we desire to make a unity of this devotion to 
 Jesus Risen, we find it either in devotion to the Soul of our 
 Blessed Saviour, or to Ilis Precious Blood. 
 
 Devotion to the Precious Blood also supplies us with an 
 additional form of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. The 
 devotion to the Precious Blood in the chalice may be con- 
 sidered, not merely as an additional form of devotion, but as 
 an additional devotion, to the ]>lessed Sacrament ; while the 
 .«;pecial adoration of the Precious Blood, when we are kneel- 
 ing before the tabernacle, is a form of devotion, bringing 
 much doctrine before us, and enabling us better to compre- 
 hend the august realities of that tremendous Sacrament. 
 
 But the closest alliance of the devotion to the Precious 
 Blood is with the devotion to the Sacred Heart. The
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 281 
 
 Precious Blood is the wealth of the Sacred Heart. The 
 Sacred Heart is the symbol of the Precious Blood ; yet not ■ 
 its symbol only, but its palace, its home, its fountain. It is 
 to the Sacred Heart that it owes the joy of its restlessness 
 and the glory of its impetuosity. It is to the Sacred Heart 
 that it returns with momentary swiftness, and assails it, as a 
 child assails his mother, for fresh powers, for new vigour, and 
 for the continuance of its unwearied impulses. The devo- 
 tion to the Precious Blood is the devotion which unveils 
 the physical realities of the Sacred Heart. The devotion to 
 the Sacred Heart is the figurative expression of the qualities, 
 dispositions, and genius of the Precious Blood, only that the 
 figure is itself a living and adorable reality. The Sacred 
 Heart is the Heart of our Eedeemer : yet it was not the 
 Sacred Heart which redeemed us. It was precisely the 
 Precious Blood, and nothing but the Precious Blood, which 
 was the chosen instrument of our redemption. It is this 
 singular reality, this unmated office, this unshared privilege, 
 in which the grandeur of the Precious Blood resides, a 
 grandeur which is also communicated to the devotion. If it 
 were not for this, the devotion to the Precious Blood and 
 the devotion to the Sacred Heart would be but one devotion, 
 two aspects of the same devotion. The one would honour 
 the actual workings of the Human Nature of our dearest 
 Lord, Avhile the other would magnify its inward dispositions, 
 its hidden sweetnesses, its tender characteristics, its profuse 
 liberalities, and its magnificent affections. One would have 
 to do with operations, the other with significances. One 
 would be occupied with processes, the other with conse- 
 quences. The one would be the meaning of the other, and 
 a commentary upon the other. So close is their alliance. 
 But the mysterious fact that the Blood, and only the Blood 
 of Jesus, was th(> chosen price of man's redemption, and tliat 
 it was only the Blood, and the Blood shed to death, which
 
 282 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 did actually redeem us, confers a distinctive majesty upon 
 the Precious Blood, in which our Lord's Body and His Soul 
 only participate concomitantly. Hence, while we commonly 
 see that a devotion to the Precious Blood and a devotion to 
 the Sacred Heart go together, we also see occasionally, and 
 it is an exception to the rule given above, that the one does 
 stand in way of the other, as if it were only a different 
 aspect of the other, more congenial to the spiritual taste of 
 the worshipper. But in reality this seeming opposition is 
 only an evidence of the closeness of their alliance. 
 
 In connection with this harmony of the devotion to 
 the Precious Blood with other devotions, we should men- 
 tion another of its characteristics, which is of much interest 
 in a devotional point of view. This is the way in which 
 it links all the lives of Jesus into one. It does in devo- 
 tion what it does also in reality. As it pervades the 
 whole Body of our Lord, and is its life, so does it mould 
 into one all those lives, into which we are accustomed to 
 divide our Lord's n:iost blessed life for the purposes of 
 devotion. Everything about our dearest Lord is so ador- 
 able, and at the same time so full of manifold attractions, 
 that love is compelled to feed itself upon all the details 
 which it can understand. Thus the divisions, and sub- 
 divisions, and the divisions of the subdivisions, which 
 give the theology of devotion so technical an appearance, 
 are in reality so far from being evidences of dryness that 
 they are the very work of the assiduity and faithfulness 
 of love. Jesus in the Womb, and an Infant, and a Bo}', 
 Jesus in His ^linistry, in Ilis Passion, and Ilis Risen 
 Life, and in His Ascended Life, and Jesus in His Sacra- 
 mental Concealment, are all different lives, and yet the 
 same. His Nino Months in the "Womb are an epoch of 
 the most amazing mysteries, the pleasant food of deep 
 and contemplative worship. His Infancy is not Ilio Boy-
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 283 
 
 hood, nor His Boyhood His Infancy. The Preacher in 
 the green fields is not the Sufferer upon Calvary, — is not, 
 and yet also is. The Risen Jesus haunting the seclusions 
 of His dear Galilee is not the Ascended Jesus, whom the 
 angels are welcoming with triumphal pomp in heaven upon 
 His Session at the Father's Right Hand. He is not the 
 same, and yet He is the same. Jesus in the miraculous 
 coverts of the deep-enfolding Sacrament, hiding in the 
 profound recesses of the light thinness of the Host, is 
 another Jesus from any of the other seven ; and yet it is 
 the same dear Lord, so wondrously like Himself in all the 
 transmutations of His love. "What interminable regionr- 
 of delight are there not to traverse in these eight lives 
 of our Blessed Lord ! His Sacred Humanity seems to 
 grow to the dimensions of His divine immensity. Any 
 one of these lives is too big a world for the mightiest 
 scholar to fill M'ith his intelligence. What could St. 
 ^Michael himself do with the very shortest of them ? Even 
 Mary does not fully comprehend the beauty of her Son, 
 nor has she ever come to the last depth of His sweet- 
 ness. Yet we shall understand nothing of these lives 
 separately, unless we also realize them as one. This is 
 the secret charm of the Rosary. It simplifies while it 
 divides. It is a unity, while it is a variety as well. It 
 parts our Lord into the Joys, the Sorrows, and the Glories 
 of His Mother, and five times subdivides each of those 
 three divisions ; and yet it is all the one Jesus as Mary 
 saw Him, Mary's Jesus, Mary's view of Him, love of Him, 
 and worship of Him, which the complete Rosary brings 
 before us. Tlie devotion to the Precious Blood performs 
 the same office differently to those eight lives ; and in this 
 function lies that affinity to the Rosary which those who 
 practise it are not slow to discover. The Precious Blood 
 runs through all those lives, and is the one human life
 
 2^4 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 of all of them. Yet it is not a mere fanciful string upon 
 which our devotion may hang them for convenience' sake, 
 as if they were so many beads. It is a living unity. It 
 runs them into one, and gives a special meaning, and im- 
 parts a special light, to eacL It is the one devotion to 
 the Precious Blood eight times multiplied by the thought- 
 fulness of love. 
 
 Its use as a power of intercession is another character- 
 istic of the devotion to the Precious Blood. It is a special 
 office of our Saviour's Blood to plead. Its very existence 
 is the mightiest of prayers. Its i)resence in heaven is a 
 power which notliing but omnipotence exceeds. It was 
 the power by which God redeemed man. It is the power 
 by which man prevails with God. It was the oblation 
 which, when actually offered, reconciled the offended 
 Creator to His sinful creatures. It was the oblation, the 
 mere foresight of which made God overflow tlie world 
 with mercies, and the imitation of which, in the blood 
 of animals, was once the acceptable religion of the earth. 
 It is the oblation, in spiritual union with which all Chris- 
 tian oblations are efficacious now. It is the oblation, the 
 real repetition of which upon the altar is the continuance 
 of the world's right to its Maker's forbearance. In this 
 respect, also, the devotion to the Precious Blood has a 
 more lively and intimate reality than other devotions. 
 We shall speak hereafter of the spirit of tliis devotion, 
 which we shall see to be a spirit of intercession. AVe 
 are speaking of it here as a power, or instrument, of in- 
 tercession. Many revelations from the other world testify 
 to the peculiar devotion of the Deatl to the Precious Blood. 
 Souls in Purgatory have been allowed to appear, and to 
 tell how, in their patient land of woe, it is Blood, and 
 only Blood, the Blood of the Adorable Mass, which can 
 quench the flames. The pictures, which represent the
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 2S5 
 
 angels liolJing chalices to tlie "Wounded Side of Jesus, 
 while Mary prays beneath, and then pouring those chalices 
 into the fires of Purgatory, simply represent this catholic 
 truth as it exists in the sense of the faithful. Prayers 
 for the conversion of sinners naturally seek their efficacy 
 in the oblation of the Precious Blood. The Precious Blood 
 shed itself for their conversion. Conversion is its prin- 
 cipal occupation upon earth. It is its own work more than 
 it is ours. Used for this purpose, it is something more 
 than intercession ; it is the doing of the work, at once 
 the prayer and the answer to the prayer. Prayer for the 
 exaltation of the Church spontaneously flies to the Precious 
 Blood ; for the Church is the peculiar creation of that 
 Blood. Its own devotion is devotion to the Church. It 
 hastens therefore with promptitude to overwhelm our peti- 
 tions with an unexpected magnificence of fulfilment. If 
 we pray for the extirpation of heresies, it is the glory of 
 the Church which we are seeking. If we pray agaiust 
 schisms, if is for the peace of the Church that we are 
 pleading. If we pray for Christian Kings, it is the free- 
 dom of the Church for which we are interceding. If we 
 pray for the missions, it is the fertility of the Church upon 
 which we ask a blessing. If we pray for the intentions 
 of the Sovereign Pontiff, it is the sweet Spirit-guided will 
 of the Church, which we are assisting to its accomplish- 
 ment. In all these things we are exercising devotion to 
 the Church, in which devotion the Precious Blood only 
 waits our invitation in order to join us with impatient 
 love. Hence we may name the devotion to the Precious 
 Blood the Apostolic Devotion. 
 
 There is yet another characteristic, which the history of 
 this devotion suggests to us, but which by no means depends 
 only upon the circumstances of its history, — its peculiar 
 alliance with the Immaculate Conception. It is curious tliat
 
 286 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 both tliese devotions have received great contemporary de- 
 velopments during the present pontificate. After centuries 
 of growth, first in popular piety and then in the schools of 
 theology, the Immaculate Conception has received its crown 
 in the glorious definition of the dogma. This is the grandest 
 event of the nineteenth century. The devotion to the Pre- 
 cious Blood has also had its indulgences and privileges aug- 
 mented, and a new memorial feast instituted in its honour. 
 The Pope's exile at Gaeta was sweetened by his Encyclical 
 in favour of the Immaculate Conception, His return to 
 Rome was celebrated by the institution of the new feast 
 of the Precious Blood. The chief functions of both these 
 mysteries is to illustrate redeeming grace. They both preach 
 redemption. The Precious Blood was the very instrument 
 which redeemed the world. The Immaculate Conception 
 was the first, as it is the grandest, victory of redemption. 
 Thus the Immaculate Conception is the highest and the 
 eldest work of the Precious Blood, But there is more than 
 this in the matter. There is a sweet circle of cause and 
 effect ; now the cause is effect, and now the effect is cause. 
 For in the Immaculate Conception, which was its choicest 
 work, the Precious Blood first took its rise. The Immaculate 
 Conception was for the sake of the Precious Blood. It was 
 for the ensuring of its purity, and the protecting of its 
 lionour. The Precious Blood raised up the mountains of 
 the Immaculate Conception by the subterraneous heavings 
 of its fiery love, and then flowed down from the summits as 
 a sweet fountain for the gladdening of the nations. The 
 Immaculate Conception is therefore actually part of the 
 devotion to the Precious Blood, It is creation's richest 
 offering, made by the queen of creatures, who thus in tha 
 jubilee of lier sinless dawn crowned the Precious Blood by 
 being crowned herself with its choicest crown. 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that we find in tiie two devotions,
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 287 
 
 the devotion to the Precious Blood and the devotion to the 
 Immaculate Conception, a similarity of spirit, a similarity of 
 gifts, a similarity of graces. But what is the unshared dis- 
 tinction of the devotion to the Precious Blood 1 Has it no 
 solitary grandeur of its own'? It has one, which is not 
 solitary, but which it shares only with devotion to the 
 Blessed Sacrament. The distinctive privilege of the devo- 
 tion to the Precious Blood is that it has the peculiar union 
 of adoration and devotion, which is the spirituality of heaven. 
 But let us look more minutely into the spirit of this devo- 
 tion, as witnessed by the fruits which it produces in the 
 soul. 
 
 Pirst of all, it breeds in us an unexhausted loving wonder 
 of the common things of the faith. The supernatural is not 
 necessarily the same thing as the wonderful. A love of the 
 supernatural is a higher thing than an appetite for the won- 
 derful. It is a great grace, a mother-grace containing many 
 graces. There are few graces more to be coveted ; for many 
 reasons, but for this reason especially, that it gives such 
 fertility to the three theological virtues. People are attracted 
 by miracles, by prophecies, by apparitions, by visions, and 
 by strange heroisms of an inimitable sanctity. We ought 
 to be attracted by them. God puts them out as attractions. 
 He meant them to attract us. But to the thouglitful and to 
 the loving, the common things of the faith are a hundred 
 times more attractive ; and for the most part they are in 
 themselves more wonderful. Graces and inspirations, ser- 
 vices and functions, beads and scapulars, jubilees and indul- 
 gences, the common marvels of prayer, and the commonplace 
 blessings of the Church, — these are what we ought most to 
 wonder at, most to prize, and most to love. "Wliat is shared 
 by the greatest number of the faithful ought to be more dear 
 to us than what is shared by few, or is singular to ourselves. 
 Surely it is a higher thing to be a priest and to participate
 
 238 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 in tlie grand universal priesthood of the Church, than to be 
 a canon of a chapter which may wear a bishop's mitre or a 
 cardinal's red. In relisrion what is common is better than 
 what is uncommon, because the common is universal ; and 
 it is His highest gifts which God gives to all men, and His 
 peculiar gifts which He gives to the few. This is one of 
 God's waj's, to be observed and made much of ; — His choicest 
 things are the most universal. Kow the Precious Blood is 
 the commonest of all supernatural things, the most accessible, 
 and the most universal. It enters into all the commonest 
 things of religion with an unfastidious ubiquity ; and the 
 devotion to it partakes of the universality which belongs to 
 itself. In spirituality, wise men value more and more each 
 passing year this esteem and love of the common things 
 of faith. 
 
 Here is another fruit of the spirit of this devotion to the 
 Precious Blood. It is easier to love God than to trust in 
 Him. In human things it is not easy to doubt and yet to 
 love : but in divine things it is not uncommon. The greatest 
 defect in our worship of God is want of confidence in Him. 
 Confidence is the genuineness of worship, and the tranquil 
 plenitude of love. "What can give us more confidence in 
 God than the study of the Precious Blood ? Who can doubt 
 Jesus, when He bleeds ? Whether we look at the grandeurs 
 of the Precious Blood, or its liberalities, or its tendernesses, 
 or its peculiarities, the result of our contemplation is a stead- 
 fast childlike confidence in God. Out of this comes gene- 
 rosity with God, that other of our great wants, which we 
 are always mourning over, and never taking tlie pains to 
 supply. It is more easy to be generous, when we have come 
 thoroughly to trust the object of our love. Moreover we 
 catch generosity, by a kind of infection, from the prodigality 
 of tlie Precious Blood. We can hardly live in fire, and not 
 grow hot ourselves. The excess of love betrays itself in
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 289 
 
 unconscious imitation. "We shall do great things for God, 
 if we are conversant all day with the great things which God 
 has done for us. 
 
 Another gift of this devotion is a vehement and intelligent 
 hatred of sin. It is useless for the hatred to be intelligent 
 unless it be also vehement, and worse than useless for it to 
 be vehement, unless it be intelligent as well. In these days 
 what our loyalty to God most needs is sternness to the dis- 
 loyal. This should be shown first and foremost to ourselves. 
 Whom do we know to be so disloyal as ourselves ? What 
 resistance to grace, what contempt of warnings, what licglect 
 of inspirations, what slovenliness of performance, make up 
 our lives ! If we hated sin as we ought to hate it, purely, 
 keenly, manfully, we should do more penance, we should 
 inflict more self-punishment, Ave should sorrow for our sins 
 more abidingly. Then, again, the crowning disloyalty to 
 God is heresy. It is the sin of sins, the very loathsomest of 
 things which God looks down upon in this malignant world. 
 Yet how little do we understand of its excessive hatefulness ! 
 It is the polluting of God's truth, which is the worst of all 
 impurities. Yet how light we make of it ! We look at it, 
 and are calm. We touch it and do not shudder. We mix 
 with it, and have no fear. We see it touch holy things, and 
 we have no sense of sacrilege. We breathe its odour, and 
 show no signs of detestation or disgust. Some of us affect 
 its friendship ; and some even extenuate its guilt. We do 
 not love God enough to be angry for His glory. We do not 
 love men enough to be charitably truthful for their souls. 
 Having lost the touch, the taste, the sight, and all the senses 
 of heavenly-mindedness, we can dwell amidst this odious 
 plague, in imperturbable tranquillity, reconciled to its foul- 
 ness, not without some boastful professions of liberal ad- 
 miration, perhaps even with a solicitous show of tolerant 
 sympathies. Why are we so far below the old saints, and
 
 290 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 even the modern apostles of these latter times, in the abund- 
 ance of our conversions ? Because we have not the antique 
 sternness ! We want the old Church-spirit, the old ecclesi- 
 astical genius. Our charity is untruthful, because it is not 
 severe ; and it is unpersuasive, because it is untruthful. We 
 lack devotion to truth as truth, as God's truth. Our zeal 
 for souls is puny, because we have no zeal for God's honour. 
 We act as if God were complimented by conversions, instead 
 of trembling souls rescued by a stretch of mercy. We tell 
 men half the truth, the half that best suits our own pusil- 
 lanimity and their conceit ; and then we wonder that so few 
 are converted, and that of those few so many apostatise. 
 We are so weak as to be surprised that our half-truth has 
 not succeeded so well as God's whole truth. Where there 
 is no hatred of heresy, there is no holiness. A man, who 
 might be an apostle, becomes a fester in the Church for the 
 want of this righteous abomination. We need St. Michael 
 to put new hearts into us in these days of universal heresy. 
 But devotion to the Precious Blood, with its hymning of 
 the Church and its blazoning of the Sacraments will give us 
 ]\Iichaers heart and the craft to use IMichael's sword. Who 
 ever drew his sword with nobler haste, or used his victory 
 more tenderly, than that brave archangel, whose war-cry 
 was. All for God ? 
 
 The Precious Blood is Ilis Blood, who is especially Un- 
 created Truth. It is His Blood who came with His truth 
 to redeem souls. Hence love of souls is another grace, 
 which comes from the spirit of this devotion. I wish " the 
 love of souls " were words that were not so shortly said. 
 They mean so much that we should linger over them, in 
 order to imbibe their sweetness, perhaps also their medicinal 
 bitterness as well. A volume would hardly say all that 
 Avants saying upon this matter. In all ages of the Church a 
 zeal for souls is a most necessary grace ; and this is hardly
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 291 
 
 an age in which it is less necessary than usual Alas ! it is 
 a rare gift, incredibly rare, rare even among us priests, and 
 a gift unfortunately dishonoured more tlian most gifts by 
 base counterfeits and discreditable impostures. Of all things 
 that can be named, the love of souls is perhaps the most 
 distinctively Catholic. It seems to be a supernatural sense, 
 belonging only to the Churcli. There are several classes of 
 saints, classes divided from each other by wide discrepancies 
 of grace, and a dissimilitude, almost an incompatibility, of 
 gifts. Yet the love of souls is an instinct common to all 
 saints of whatever class. It is a grace, which implies the 
 accompaniment of the greatest number of graces and the 
 exercise of tlie greatest number of virtues. It is the grace 
 which irreligious people most dislike; for even sin has its 
 instinct of self-preservation ; and it is a grace which is 
 peculiarly obnoxious to the worldly. It is a gift also, which 
 requires an unusually fine spiritual discernment ; for it is 
 always and everywhere the harmony of enthusiasm and 
 discretion. Natural activity, vulgar emulation, the bustle 
 of benevolence, the love of praise, the habit of meddling, 
 the over-estimate of our own abilities, the hot-headedness of 
 unripe fervour, the obstinacy of peculiar views, the endless 
 foolishnesses of indocile originality, — all these things pre- 
 pare so many delusions for the soul, and so multiply them 
 by combining in varieties, that the gift of counsel and the 
 virtue of prudence, as well as the cool audacity of an apostle, 
 are needed for the exercise of this love of souls. It is also 
 a very laborious grace, wearing the spirit, fatiguing the mind, 
 disappointing the heart. This is the reason why in so many 
 persons it is a short-lived grace. It is a part of almost 
 everybody's fervour, while it is part of the perseverance of 
 very few. It is a grace which never grows old, never has 
 the feelings of age, or the repose of age, or the slowness of 
 age. Hence many men cast it aside as a thing which
 
 292 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 belongs to youth, as if it were a process to be gone through, 
 and then there was an end of it. The soul of an apostle is 
 always youthful. It was mature in its young prudence ; and 
 it is impetuous in its grey-haired zeal. 
 
 But, if it is a grace hard to persevere in, it is one which 
 gives marvellous unity and consistency to a man's life, and 
 ultimately crowns it with inevitable and enviable success. 
 If there is nothing in which work is harder, there is nothing 
 in which success is more certain, than the love of souls. It 
 is a perfect combination of spiritual nobilities. Of all single 
 expressions of the Sacred Heart it is the broadest. It 
 unites, as nothing else does, charity to God and man. On 
 the one hand, it seems intuitively to understand God ; and on 
 the other hand, to have a supernatural attractiveness about 
 it, which crowns it a king of men. It is a grace which 
 makes a man surprisingly genial and inveterately happy. It 
 delivers the heart from jealousy, rivalry, and all littleness ; 
 and by this especially do we know it from its counterfeits. 
 [Moreover it works little miracles of its own ; for it increases 
 a man's intellectual power, at least in its own direction. 
 This is a beautiful sight, and one of those palpable things of 
 grace, which seem to supersede faith by sight — the behold- 
 ing of the grand things accomplished, and the broad regions 
 covered, by mediocrity of talent when raised above itself by 
 zeal for souls. It lives equally in action and contemplation, 
 and thereby supplies for a number of omissions in the 
 spiritual life. It imports a delightful simplicity to the 
 character, sobering all gaiety, and enlivening all seriousness. 
 It is an emanation of apostolic grandeur, a touch of the 
 vocation of the Apostles whose calling was above all others 
 in the Avorld, as their sanctity was special among other 
 sanctities. It impregnates the soul with a strong personal 
 love of Jesus, and is a participation in the adorable com- 
 municativeness of God. Wliat a grace is this to possess I
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 293 
 
 It is the grace, vliich perliaps of all others is the most 
 direct, natural, and inevitable grace of the Devotion to the 
 Precious Blood, 
 
 In close connection with this grace we should name, as 
 another fruit of the spirit of this devotion, a great devotion 
 to the Sacraments. But this has been sufficiently dwelt 
 upon in the course of the Treatise. A zeal for souls is 
 naturally given to magnify the Sacraments. An apostolic 
 man knows of them by experience. He has seen the magic 
 of their operations. He has seen how they can lie in the 
 bosom of corruption, like God's amulets, and charm away 
 the vicinity, the relics, the associations, the roots, the 
 attractions of sin. He has handled their divine realities, 
 and worships rather what he sees than what he knows of 
 by the hearing of faith. But a great devotion to the 
 sacraments is not only an inseparable accompaniment of 
 zeal for souls : it is also an antidote against all that is 
 worldly, material, and anti-supernatural in the tendencies 
 of the present day. It will increase in us, in proportion 
 as we grow in devotion to the Precious Blood. 
 
 The effect of this devotion upon our devotion to our 
 Blessed Lady may well be named as one of its graces, one 
 of the revelations of its spirit. It makes our devotion to 
 her an integral part of our devotion to Jesus. It makes the 
 two devotions one. It draws her into the scheme of redemp- 
 tion so intimately, and at the same time with such splendours 
 of separate exaltation, that the very highest language of 
 the saints about her becomes easy to us, and is the only 
 natural expression of our inward love. To be enthusiastic 
 our love of Mary only needs to be theological. The devo- 
 tion to the Precious Blood clothes her with a new glory. 
 It makes Mary magnify Jesus, and Jesus magnify Mary. 
 It causes her individual mysteries to shine forth like stars, 
 the Precious Blood forming the clearness of the purple night
 
 294 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 in which their peculiar brightness is more visible and more 
 distinctive. He that can find another point of view, from 
 which our dear Lady seems greater than before, has got a 
 new means of sanctification ; for he has acquired a new 
 power of loving God : and the devotion to the Precious 
 Elood is full of such points of view.* 
 
 The devotion to the Precious Blood must also obviously 
 impart to us a special love of the Sacred Humanity. It 
 admits us into the most secret recesses of our Lord's Human 
 Life, like its own reiterated pulsations, each one of its 
 mysteries urges upon our faith and love the dreadest realities 
 of His Created JS^ature, while at the same time it seems to 
 lay open before us the Hypostatic Union, and to illustrate its 
 strength. Our Lord is God ; and Ave all worship Him as 
 such. But there is a peculiar adoration of His Divinity, 
 which comes from a special love of His Humanity. "We 
 would fain love God as He loves us. But there is a tender- 
 ness in His love of us, which we dare not return because of 
 His infinite majesty. Yet somehow there is something in 
 the particular adoration of our Lord's Godhead arising from 
 special devotion to His Humanity, Avhich insinuates this 
 element of tenderness into our adoration, witliout diminishing 
 the sacred terror of our self-abasement. This element is one 
 of the peculiar gifts of the devotion to the Precious Blood. 
 
 Who does not long, and in these days more than ever, 
 for that special devotion to the Holy Ghost, which was the 
 great characteristic of those three Saints, so like each other, 
 St. Pliilip Neri and tlie Venerable Grignon de Montfort, and 
 in our own days John Baptist Vianncy, Curd d'Ars 1 It 
 is particularly a devotion for the later ages of the Church, 
 and will grow with that sublime augmentation of devotion to 
 
 * See particularly Grignon de Montfort's True Devotion to our Lady, on 
 which in tliese tiine» too much stress cannot bo l.iid. He was a new 
 uiiostle of Jlury.
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 293 
 
 our Blessed Lady, -which the prophecies and revelations of 
 holy men and women liave announced as the characteristic of • 
 the last Saints, who shall precede the Doom, and be to the 
 end of the Church what the Apostles were to the beginning. 
 But it is devotion to the Precious Blood through which lies 
 the road to devotion to the Holy Ghost. It was He especi- 
 ally who made the Precious Blood, He who used it as His 
 instrument of redemption and sanctification, He who has 
 always dispensed it in the Church. It has sweet and beauti- 
 ful and surprising connections with His Person and His 
 Office, which it is for ever disclosing to the meek insight of 
 loving prayer ; but which we hope to treat of in another 
 book on the Person, Gifts, and Office of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 One thing more. Where Jesus is, all honours and all 
 glories and all loves gather round the Father. "Who can 
 doubt, then, but that the devotion to the Precious Blood 
 is also a devotion to the Eternal Father? Think of the 
 immensity of the Father's love for that redeeming Blood. 
 Out of all possible creations He chose it alone for the price of 
 our redemption. Only its value could enrich the glory of the 
 Creator, which the creature's sin had striven to impoverish. 
 Only from its victory would He condescend to receive back 
 the dominion of which He had been despoiled. Only its 
 fulness could satisfy the claims of all His outraged perfec- 
 tions. Only its sweetness could make universal peace in 
 heaven and on earth. It was to the Person of the Father, by 
 appropriation, that this dear price of our souls was paid. 
 Nay, our devotion to the Blood of His Son is only an imita- 
 tion of the Father's complacency therein. It is His joj', and 
 His devotion. To join Him in this devotion to the Blood of 
 His Son is in truth to practise a distinct devotion to Himself. 
 Devotion to the Eternal Father ! this is the sweet grace to 
 covet. Show us the Father, said Philip to his Lord, and it 
 is enough for us.
 
 296 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 Xow, reader, our task is done, and yet we would fain linger 
 over the subject. It so fascinates us that any conclusion we 
 can make seems to Le abrupt. The more we say, the more 
 appears to remain unsaid. New glories of the Precious 
 Elood are constantly coming into view, and new abysses 
 opening to our contemplation. So it is with all divine things. 
 They clothe themselves in the changefulness of divine love. 
 They shine with a divine light upon them, and therefore 
 their briglitness is always new. They borrow the beauty of 
 God, and so they satisfy our love by making it still more 
 insatiable. We feel that all that has been said has been un- 
 worthy of the Precious Blood. Indeed it has been unworthy 
 even of our own conceptions of it. Lut what love has taught 
 to one soul may waken the chords of love in others. What 
 has been a light to one mind, and a joy to one heart, may 
 carry light to other minds and joy to other hearts. May 
 it be so, and Jesus more loved, and God more glorified ! 
 
 Let us recapitulate. We began with reflecting on the 
 mystery of the Precious Blood, because all devotion starts 
 best with doctrine. The incredibilities of divine love become 
 more credible when we have learned them first as dogmas. 
 It was also the more necessary to begin with doctrine in the 
 case of a devotion, which claims to be an adoration also. 
 We tlien turned from God to man, and strove to form a 
 right estimate of the Precious Blood by studying from various 
 points of view our extreme need of it, and our immeasurable 
 wretchedness without it. We then traversed its empire, 
 learned its cliaracter by studying the method of its govern- 
 ment, and judged of its magnificence by the splendour of its 
 domiriion. Our next step was to unfold its chronicles. AVe 
 found there a whole revelation of God, and much of the 
 secret history of His eternit}'. We discovered there our own 
 place in creation by discovering our place in the procession 
 cif the Precious Blood. From its history we passed to its
 
 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 297 
 
 biography, to that notable characteristic of it which especially 
 reveals its spirit, — its prodigality. AVe saw then how God's 
 prodigalities are not excesses, but most orderly magnificences ; 
 and also how our poverty is so extreme that we can only live 
 on from day to day by being economical of God's most 
 exuberant liberalities. As we had begun with doctrine and 
 adoration, we have had to end with practice and devotion. 
 The history, the characteristics, and the spirit of the devotion 
 to the Precious Blood have been the concludmg subjects of 
 our reflections. We have thus considered the Precious 
 Blood as a Doctrine, a Necessit}', an Empire, a History, a 
 Divine Prodigality, and a Devotion. In all these six aspects 
 of it we have found it continually disclosing certain affinities, 
 running into certain subjects, illuminating certain depths, 
 and connecting itself with certaiir mysteries, and all this 
 with so much repetition and so much constancy, that we 
 cannot believe its sympathy with them to be accidental. It 
 bespeaks rather a divine law, and is a disclosure of the 
 Divine mind. These cognate subjects with the Precious 
 Blood are three in number. Thoy are first the Magnificence 
 of God's dominion, secondly the Church, and thirdly the 
 Sacraments. As we grow in devotion to the Precious Blood, 
 the sovereignty of God will become more dear to us, and 
 clearer as it grows more dear. Our loyalty to the Church 
 will become more and more a part of our spiritual life, and 
 inore and more a sanctifying exercise of the special virtue 
 of religion. Our faith and joy in the Sacraments will be 
 continually increasing, and our devotion to them will be at 
 once our shelter and our shield from the dangers which at 
 this day threaten both the minds and hearts of the faithful, 
 while our more reverent frequentation of tliem will augment 
 our union Avith God and make us saints. Such is devotion 
 to the Precious Blood. It is a glory and an ornament to the 
 Church. It is the life of the living, and the thirst of the
 
 298 THE DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 holy dead. It is the song of angels. It was the light of 
 all Mary's darkness, and the jubilee of all her woes. It was 
 the device of the Holy Ghost, and the devotion of His love. 
 It was the devotion and singular possession of Jesus Himself. 
 It was the devotion, the choice, and the complacency of the 
 Eternal Father. 
 
 What more can we say ?_5weet worship of the Blood of 
 God ! a worship with so many of man's peculiar rights in it, 
 embracing all theology in itself, and then turning all its vast 
 theology into tenderly triumphant song ! Dear Fountain, 
 that rises in the heart of God's human Mother, and flows 
 down over the glorified souls of men into the Bosom of the 
 Eternal Father, while those countless souls, like the pebbles 
 of the stream, make everlasting music as it flows ! It is 
 earth's beatitude to feel, that the Precious Blood is bearing 
 us onward into that adorable Abyss of Love. It is heaven's 
 jubilee to be sinking evermore through that same Blood in 
 the unfathomable depths of the Uncreated Bosom of the 
 Father. All glory and all worship be to that mysterious 
 Eiver of the City of God, whose Spirit-fashioned streams 
 are carrying us this hour with such breathless swiftness to 
 our home, our home with the Mortal Mother and the Un- 
 bef'inning Father of the Eternal Son !
 
 I NDEX.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abel, 144 
 Absolutiiiii, 236 
 
 Actions, outward, liable to mis- 
 apprehension, 17 ; supernatural, 
 of the Church, 244 
 Adoration of the three kings, 150 
 Age, spirit of the, evil influence of, 
 
 122 
 Ages of the world, iS 
 Agony, the, 215 
 Alacrity, 2tJo 
 
 Almsgiving, whence it comes, 49 ; 
 what it would be without faith, 
 52 ; of obligation, 53 
 Angela, B. of Foligno, 175 
 Angels, creation of the, 8, 140 ; 
 graces of, 14 ; their worship of 
 the Precious Blood, 22 ; created 
 in a state of grace, 78 ; multi- 
 tude of, 91, 204 ; glory of, 128 ; 
 fall of, 140 ; guardians of the 
 Precious Blood, during the three 
 days, 154, 242; ministers of it 
 in purgatory, 242 ; mirrored in 
 the Church, 254 
 Anne of the Cross, 16S 
 Anne of Jesus, 268, 269 
 Anne of St. Augustine, 271 
 Antichrist, times of, 160, 1S6 
 Apostates, what makes them, 105 
 Apostasy, the general, 186 
 Ars, Curd de, 294 
 Ascension, the, 156 
 Ashridge, monastery of, 270, 272 
 Attributes of God, 73 ; devotion to 
 them, 261 ; fruits of devotion to, 
 263 ; mystery of, 264 
 
 Attritifjn, 66 
 
 Authority of the Church, by whom 
 hated, 123 
 
 Ballon, Mother de, 272 
 Barbarians, le>s wicked than the 
 
 civilised, 46 
 Baptism, 65, 106, 107 ; character 
 of, 117 ; the application of the 
 Precious Blood, 235 
 Beatitude, natural, 65 
 Beauty of the Church, 256 
 Benci, Marcello, 269 
 Benedict of Egersheim, 269 
 Blessed, the, rejoice in the vision of 
 
 the Precious Blood, 191, 192 
 Blood-sheddings, the seven, 2 1 1 
 Blood, the precious, 2; the source of 
 salvation, 6, 281 ; Eternal, 8, 9 ; 
 ii;fluences of, 13, 15 ; worship of, 
 19, 20; during the Passion, 21, 
 94, 232, 233 ; in the chalice, 23, 
 280 ; infinity of its worth, 24, 
 81 ; the shedding of it free, 25, 
 196 ; is invisible, 25 ; how as- 
 sumed, 26 ; God's daily gift, 30 ; 
 reveals the character of God, 31, 
 76, 77 ; prodigality of its shed- 
 ding, 33, 64 ; a voice which God 
 hears, 35 ; necessity of, 37 ; 
 hinders millions of sins, 45 ; the 
 protection of the poor, 50 ; the 
 cause ofall temporal blessings, 5 1 ; 
 everywhere accessible, 67 ; opera- 
 tionsof, infallible, 69 ; unmerited, 
 71 ; unimaginable, 71 ; destiny
 
 INDEX. 
 
 v{, clumged by sin, 76, 84 ; in- 
 separable from the life of God, 
 76 ; empire of, 77 ; glories of, 
 82 ; relations of, to Creation, 
 79 ; and to the Incarnation, 83 ; 
 reinstated the dominion of God, 
 78, 85 ; how spoken of in the 
 holy Scriptures, 86,90 ; converts, 
 94 ; work, of incessant, 98 ; 
 builds up the Church, loi, 102 ; 
 instruments of, 105 ; flows 
 through the Sacraments, 112, 
 124 ; effect of on hell, 125, 126; 
 on purgatory, 125, 242, 284, 
 285 ; sung by the angels, 128 ; 
 flowed from the heart of Mary, 
 129 ; appeases the anger of God, 
 129 ; in the Unity of God, 130 ; 
 an unbeginning procession of 
 created things, 139 ; in the be- 
 ginning of creation, 140, 141 ; 
 in the fall, 143 ; in the flood, 
 145 ; among the patriarchs, 146 ; 
 in tlie immaculate Conception, 
 147; in Bethlehem, 148, 149; 
 in the desert, 150 ; in Nazareth, 
 150; in Caua, 151 ; in tlie Holy 
 Land, 152 ; on Olivet and Cal- 
 vary, 153 ; in the charge of the 
 angels, 154, 239 ; on Ascension 
 day, 156 ; on the day of Pente- 
 cost, 158; in Rome, 158; 
 through the world, 160; at the 
 last day, 16 1 ; in the mind of 
 (jod, 164 ; before the Incarna- 
 tion, 165 ; in adoration, 17 1 ; 
 life of, a great sucx-ecy, 1 73; 
 life of, on earth, 174 ; in conver- 
 sion, 178, 182; life of, in the 
 Church, 183 ; joy of the lilesscd, 
 192 ; in the Sacred Heart, 200, 
 281 ; in the chalice, 194; con- 
 quers back creation, 206 ; ex- 
 uberance of, 208 ; in the cir- 
 ciuncision, 213 ; in the Agony, 
 216 ; in the Scourging, 219, 220 ; 
 in the Crowning, 223; on the 
 way of the Cross, 225 ; in the 
 Crucifixion, 228: in the piercing 
 of the Sacred Heart, 2 52 ; in 
 
 Baptism, 235 ; in absolution, 
 237 ; in the Sacraments of Mar- 
 riage, 237 ; of orders, 238 ; of 
 confirmation, 238 ; of Extreme 
 Unction, 240 ; of the Eucharist, 
 241 ; in the Papacy, 242 ; 
 Extra - sacramental effects of, 
 244 ; History of, 267 ; Relics 
 of, 269, 270; the most commou, 
 of all supernatural things, 288 
 
 Bonhommes, 272 
 
 Books of devotion, occasionally 
 exaggerated, 207 
 
 Boulier, Mother Anne Seraphim, 
 8 
 
 Bufalo, Gaspare del, 270 
 
 Cacciagukrra, Ven. Buonsignore, 
 
 271 
 Cain, 43, 67 
 
 Cana, the marriage feast of, 152 
 Captiousness, 104 
 Catherine, St., of Siena, 268 
 Centurion, the, lance of, 232 
 Change, none in God, 75, 85 
 Character, Sacramental, 1 10, I17 ; 
 
 Eternal, 118 
 Charity, Christian, 53 ; more than 
 
 philanthropy, 61 
 Child murder, 236 
 Choice reveals ciiaracter, 80 
 Church, relation of, to the world, 
 19 ; blessL-dness of being in the, 
 43 ; the work of the Precious 
 Blood, 103, 105, 265, 266 ; power 
 of, in relati<in to the Sacraments, 
 115; j)alace of the Precious 
 lilood, 183; not to Ije criticised, 
 I.S7 ; to be feared, 188; devo- 
 tion to the, 252 ; a special crea- 
 tion, 253 ; how she appears to 
 God, 254 ; grandeur of, 256 ; 
 vice-gerent of God's dominion, 
 265 
 Circuuicision, the, 212 ; what it 
 was to St. Joseph, 213; to our 
 Lady, 214 
 Cities, types of heaven, 144 
 Civilization increases sins, 46 ;
 
 INDEX. 
 
 303 
 
 becomes a tyranny, 52 ; perishes 
 
 with the world, 255 
 Clare of Rimini, 269 
 Column of the Scourging, 220, 
 
 221 
 Comfort of good people, 277 
 Communion, grace of, 115, 209 
 Conception, the immaculate, 27, 
 
 97, 147; definition of, 2S6 
 Confidence in God, 288 
 Confirmation not prefigured in the 
 
 old law, 106: character of, 1 17; 
 
 effects of, 239 
 Confraternity of the Precious 
 
 Blood, 270, 271 ; in England, 
 
 273 
 
 Congregation of the Missioners of 
 the Precious Blood, 270, 271 
 
 Consolations of philanthropy, 56 
 
 Controversy, 19 
 
 Conversion of St. Paul, 95 
 
 Conversion, 90 ; resembles crea- 
 tion, 92, 97 ; operation of the 
 Precious Blood, 1 78 ; agencies 
 of, 180 
 
 Corruption of men, 145 
 
 Sreative love, expression of, 17 
 
 Creation, 7, 8 ; in what sense 
 eternal, 8 ; how to be viewed, 
 13, 64 ; free, 75, 93, 96 ; in- 
 stantaneous, 91, 92 
 
 Crown of thorns, 221 
 
 Cross, the, 226 
 
 Crucifixion, the, 220 
 
 Days, the Six, 141 
 
 Dead, devotion of the, to the Pre- 
 cious Blood, 2S4 
 
 Decrees, the divine, 137 
 
 Deliverance from sin, when it 
 conies, 2 
 
 Delusion, sign of, 262 
 
 Depreciation of the Church, 266 
 
 Destitution of the world without 
 grace, 40 
 
 Devotion to the Sacraments neces- 
 sary, 112; why, 122; perils it 
 wards off, 123 ; to the Church, 
 I S3, 1 84, 251 ; combines all 
 
 interests, 256 ; to the attributes 
 of God, 26 1 
 
 Devotions, 258, 274 
 
 Devotion to the Precious Blood, 
 267, 274 ; destroys pelagianism, 
 275; and libertinage, 276; brings 
 out the principle of sacrifice, 277 ; 
 does not usurp the place of other 
 devotions, 279 ; is a variety of 
 devotion to the Passion, 279 ; 
 an additional form of devotion 
 to the Blessed Sacrament, 280 ; 
 unveils the physical realities of 
 the Sacred Heart, 281 ; compre- 
 hends the life of our Lord, 282 ; 
 has an affinity with that of the 
 Kosary, 283 ; has a power of 
 intercession, 2S4 ; its peculiar 
 alliance with the Immaculate 
 Conception, 285 ; begets love of 
 the common things of faith, 286 ; 
 begets confidence, 287 ; creates 
 a hatred for sin, 2S9 ; begets a 
 love of souls, 290, 291 ; a great 
 devotion to the Sacraments, 293 ; 
 effect of, on devotion to our 
 Lady, 293 ; imparts a special 
 love of the Sacred Humanits, 
 294 ; is a devotion to the 
 Eternal Father, 295 
 
 Diplomacy, 103 
 
 Discontent, 1S8 
 
 Doctrine of the Sacraments, the 
 touchstone of all the theology 
 of the day, 184, 1S5 
 
 Dole, Carmelite convent at, 168 
 
 Dominion of God, 78 ; reinstated 
 by the Precious Blood, 85, 206 ; 
 ministered to by the Precious 
 Blood, 265 
 
 Dying without religion, 57 
 
 ICarnestness, 190 ; dependent on 
 faith, 247 
 
 Earth, creation of, 11 ; special 
 glory of, II ; changes of, 101, 
 102 ; special station of the Pre- 
 cious Blood, 141 
 
 Eden, 143
 
 304 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Education helps men to sin, 46 
 
 Elevability of the creature, loS 
 
 Emery of St. Sulpice on the doe- 
 trine of hell, 125 
 
 Empire of our Lord established by 
 the Precious Blood, 90 
 
 Empires, liuman, of less importance 
 than one soul, 179 
 
 Epochs of Life, 16 
 
 Espousals, the divine, 148 ; day of, 
 221 
 
 Eternity, 7 ; hard to realize, 36 
 
 Eucharist, sacrament of the, might 
 have been instituted if Adam 
 had not sinned, 84 ; what it is, 
 106, 107 ; the great laboratory 
 of tlie Precious Blood, 241 
 
 Exclusiveness »i the Church, 265, 
 266 
 
 Extra-sacramental effects of the 
 Precious Blood, 243 
 
 Face, the, of Jesus, 153 
 
 Failure, the most universal un- 
 happiness, 56 
 
 Fall, the, 64 ; consequences of, 
 64, 65 ; effects of, on creation, 
 143 ; where the remedy of pre- 
 cisely consists, 172, 173 
 
 Fastidiousness, 276 
 
 Father Eternal, devotion to the, 295 
 
 Fear of the Church, 188 
 
 First fruits of creation, 124 
 
 Flight, the, into Egypt, 150 
 
 Flood, the, 145 
 
 Forms of the Sacraments, no, in, 
 
 "4, "5 
 Frances of the Mother of God, 
 
 169, 174, 268 
 Francis of the Infant Jesus, 271 
 Francis, St., of Sales, 272 
 Fruits of devotion to the Precious 
 
 Blood, 289 
 
 Garden of the Agony, 215 
 (Jertrude, St., 267 
 Ghost, the Holy, 99 ; fertility of, 
 100 
 
 Gladness of salvation, 3 
 
 Glories of the Precious Blood, 73 
 
 God, presence of, 22, 37 ; life of, 
 73 ; simplicity of, 74 ; dominion 
 of. 78 ; magnificence of, in tiie 
 S:icraments, 116; revealed more 
 intimately in the Sacraments, 
 122; vastness of, 170 ; secrecy 
 of, 173 ; magnificence of, 196, 
 200, 20I, 202 ; infinity of, 204 
 
 Grace of the Sacraments, no; 
 never exhausted, 1 17 
 
 Grace, all to be accounted for, 208 
 
 Greek civilization, 52 
 
 Grignon de Montfort, 259, 294 
 
 Ground, lowest, 251 
 
 Hailes, monastery of, 270, 272 
 Happiness of sinners, 4 ; whence 
 
 it comes, 6r, 62 
 Heart, the Sacred, 20; emptied of 
 
 the Precious Blood, 154, 155 ; 
 
 filled with it, 193 ; in the Agony, 
 
 217; piercing of, 23 1 ; symbol 
 
 of the Precious Blood, 280, 
 
 281 
 Heathen, state of the, 41, 42 ; in- 
 fluenced by the Precious Blood, 
 
 100 
 Hell, fires of, no; doctrine of, 
 
 124, 125 ; the descent into, 154 
 Heresy of society of, 192, 193 ; 
 
 effects of on converts, 188 ; the 
 
 sin of sins, 289 
 Heretics, misery of, 43, 70 
 Hierarchy, the, 159 
 Holiness, a restraint, 198 ; cannot 
 
 exist where there is no hatred of 
 
 heresy, 290 
 Horrors of unrestrained sin, 47 
 Host, bleeding of the, 29 
 Humanity, exaltation of the Sacred, 
 
 156 
 Hypostatic Union, 26, 192; never 
 interrupted, 233 
 
 Ideas of God, 16 
 Ignatius, St., 27
 
 INDEX. 
 
 305 
 
 Images in the mind, use and abuse 
 
 of, 134 
 Immutability of God, 85, 86 
 Incarnation, mystery of, 8 ; how 
 
 affected by sin, 13 ; affects all 
 
 things, 51 ; unmerited, 72 ; not 
 
 the consequence of sin, 79, 80 ; 
 
 part of the idea of creation, 83 
 Indulgences, whence they come, 
 
 167 ; ministers of the Precious 
 
 Blood, 181, 182 
 Infallibility, gift of, 189 
 Infancy of Jesus, 16S 
 Infinity of God, 206 
 Influence of the Precious Blood on 
 
 states and policies, 177 
 Innocents, the Holy, 124 
 Intention, doctrine of, 118 
 Invalidity of Sacraments, 237 
 
 Jacob's well, 215, 21b 
 Jansenism, 186, 265. 266 
 Jealousies of scientific men, 251 
 Jesus Risen, devotion to, 280 
 Joseph, St., greatness of his sanc- 
 tity, 80 ; silence of, 149 ; at the 
 circumcision, 213, 214 
 Joy, all, comes from the Precious 
 
 Blood, 193 
 Joy, human, purified by the Sacra- 
 ments, 120 
 Judgment, day of, 38, 160, 161 
 Jurisdiction, in the Sacraments, 
 114 ; of the Church, the law of 
 the Precious Blood, 126, 242 
 Judging the Church, 187 
 Justification, operation of the Pre- 
 cious Blood, 1 78 
 
 KiSGLiNESs of the Papacy, 242, 243 
 
 Kings of creation, 250 
 
 Kiss of the Father and the Son, 
 
 lOI 
 
 Laxity and rigour, 185 
 
 Law in God, 200 
 
 Liberty of the creature, 78, 79 
 
 Liberty of God. 200, 20: 
 
 Libertinage, 276 
 
 Life of the Precious Blood, 164 ; 
 
 one of joy, 171 ; of sorrow, 172 
 Literature, helpless, 2 ; influenced 
 
 by the Precious Blood, 177 ; 
 
 perishes with the world, 255, 
 
 256 
 Lombard, Peter, on the doctrine 
 
 of hell, 125 
 Loss, the three days, 151 
 Louisa, of Jesus, 16S 
 Love of the Church, necessan^, 189 
 Love of Jesus, must grow, 38 
 Loveliness of Jesus, 5 
 Love of souls, 290, 292, 293 
 Loyalty to the Church, 190 
 Luxury, 277 
 
 Magnificence, 197 
 xMagnificence of God represented 
 
 in the Sacraments, 116; in the 
 
 Precious Blood, 196 ; the foun- 
 tain of salvation, 199 
 Malcontents, what makes them, 
 
 104 
 Man, degeneracy of, 143 
 Manna, 16 
 Mantua, relics of the Precious 
 
 Blood at, 270, 272 
 Margaret of Beaune, 269 
 Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament, 
 
 170 
 Margaret of the Passion, 269 
 ^laria Francesca, Ven., of the Five 
 
 Wounds, 268 
 Marriage, Sacrament of, 237 
 Martyrdom, 116 
 Mary, her blood, 27; her grandeur, 
 
 80, 81 ; holds sway over the 
 
 Precious Blood, 1 28 
 Mary of Agreda, 32 
 Mary Magdalen, St., of Pazzi, 268 
 Mass, 24 ; daily effects of, 242 
 Maternity, the divine, merited by 
 
 the Precious Blood, 1 29 
 Matrimony, the sacrament of, 106 
 Matter, creation of, 141 
 Meditation on the crucifixion, 22S 
 U
 
 3o6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Merits, vitality of, iSl 
 
 Michael, B., of Florence, i68 
 
 Middle age, the time of deceptions, 
 104 
 
 Mind of God, 137 
 
 Miracle, the first, 151 
 
 Miracles compared with the Sacra- 
 ments, 1 14 
 
 Miraculous Blood, 29 
 
 Missionaries, 236 
 
 Misery of life without God, 52, 53 
 
 Mortification, 277 
 
 Mysteries in God, 138 
 
 Mystery of the Precious Blood, 7 
 
 Napkin of Veronica, 218, 225 
 Nations, diversities of, 17 
 Nativity of our Lady, 147 
 Natural goodness too much thought 
 
 of, 51. 52 
 Naturalism, 275 
 Nature and grace, 51 
 Nature, created, 77, 78 
 Necessity of God's magnificence, 
 
 205, 206, 209 
 Numerousness of sin, 244, 245 
 
 Oblations of the Precious Blood, 
 
 242, 284 
 Orbs of heaven, 10, 200 ; numbers 
 
 of, 204 ; order of, 246, 247 
 Order, sacrament of, I06, 107 ; 
 
 character of, 117, 118; earthly 
 
 heart of the Precious Blood, 23S 
 Order of all things, 107 
 Oratory, London, 273 
 Original sin, possible fruits of, 50 
 Osanna of Mantua, 268 
 
 Pain, 40 ; physical, 55 ; varieties 
 
 of, 55 
 Paola Maria di Gcsh, 206 
 Parsimoniousness, apparent, in God, 
 
 203 
 Passion, severities of the, 9 ; two- 
 fold aspect of, 153 ; devotion to 
 the, 279 
 
 Paul, St. , the preacher of the Pre- 
 cious Blood, 6, 267 ; conversion 
 
 of, 95 . 
 Pelagianism, 275 
 Penance, absorbs temporal evil. 
 
 58 ; sacrament of, 106, 107 
 Pentecost, 158 
 Perfection, grace of, sometimes 
 
 necessary for salvation, 209 
 Perfections, the divine, and the 
 
 Precious Blood, 129 
 Peter, St., 16 ; author of the title 
 
 of Precious, as applied to his 
 
 Master's Blood, 90 
 Philantliropy, 52 ; helpless, 54 ; 
 
 cannot reach mortal pain, 55 ; 
 
 hollowness of, 59, 60 
 Philip Neri, St., 189, 269, 271, 294 
 Philosophy, helpless, 2 
 Piercing of the Sacred Heart, 231 
 Pius IX. instituted a new feast of 
 
 tiie Precious Blood, 273 
 Poor, the, what they might be with- 
 out the Precious ]51ood, 49, 50 
 Popes, the, represent the crown of 
 
 thorns, 243 
 Potentia obedientialis, 108 note 
 Poverty, beautiful, 53 
 Prayer, difficulty of, 133 ; for the 
 
 Church, 285 
 Precepts of the Church, 189 
 Predestination, 69 ; of our Lord, 
 
 Preparation of the Incarnation, I47 
 Presence of God, 22 
 Priestiiood of our Lord, 162 
 Principle, the sacramental, by 
 
 whom hated, 122 
 Procession of the Holy Ghost, 96, 
 
 99, loi 
 Procession of the Precious Blood, 
 
 139 ; visible in Betiilehem, 149 ; 
 
 in tlie Desert, 150 ; in the Holy 
 
 Land, 152 ; in heaven and earth, 
 
 157 
 Prodigality, extra-sacramental, of 
 
 tlie Pri'cious Blood, 243 
 I'rodigality of (joii, 204 
 Progress, 51 ; influenced by the 
 
 Precious Blood, 277
 
 INDEX. 
 
 307 
 
 Prophetess of the Precious Blood, 
 
 267 
 Proselytism, 61 
 Purgatory, fires of, 108 ; how 
 
 affected by the Precious Blood, 
 
 125, 285 
 
 Qdeen of Creation, 2 
 Queendom of our Lady, 180 ; in 
 her heart, 225 
 
 Raphael. St., gave communion to 
 
 Maria Francesca of the Five 
 
 Wounds, 26S 
 Redemption through the Precious 
 
 Blood, 2, 281 ; might have been 
 
 otherwise, 25 ; interwoven with 
 
 the Sacraments, 244 
 Refinement makes sin more malis:- 
 
 nant, 46 
 Reformers, what makes them, 104 ; 
 
 s]iirit of, 1 88 
 Relics of the Precious Blood, 2^9 ; 
 
 at iSIantna, 270 ; at Ashridge 
 
 and Hailes, 272 
 Religion, terrors of a false, 41 
 Religious men alone successful, 57 
 Resurrection, the, 155 ; effect of 
 
 devotion to the, 170 
 Revelations and devotions, 259 
 Reverence, 276 
 Richard of Cornwall, 272 
 Rigorousness, 185, 266 
 Rimini, miraculous apparition, 271 
 Roman civilisation, 51 
 Rome, seat of the Precious Blood, 
 
 158 ; salvation only in the 
 
 Church of, 186 
 Rosary, the, 283 
 
 Sabbath, the, 75, 98 
 
 Sacraments, the, communications 
 of the Precious Blood, 15, 34 ; 
 the nearest approach to an as- 
 surance of salvation, 71 ; de- 
 scription of, 106 ; causes of 
 grace, loS ; replicate the grace 
 
 of Jesus in us, 1 1 1 ; vases of the 
 Precious Blood, 112 ; inventions 
 of God, 113; are not properly 
 miracles, 114; special grace of 
 each, 108, 115; have laws of 
 their own, 1 14, 115; supply 
 each other, 116; sensitiveness 
 of, 118 ; influence of, 1 1 9 ; create 
 joy, 120; number of, 121 ; con- 
 duits of the Precious Blood, 124 ; 
 dowry of the Church, 183 ; aque- 
 ducts of the Precious Blood, 207 ; 
 grandeur of, 246 ; power of, 292 
 Sacrifice, the principle of, 276 
 Sacrilege — Sacraments exposed to 
 
 the risk of, 237 
 Saints, intercession of the, 127 : 
 vision of, 148; the most joyful 
 
 on earth, 18" 
 
 194 
 
 Salvation, i ; through the Precious 
 Blood, 6 ; of those out of the 
 Church, how difficult, 70 ; de- 
 pendent on the Church, 102 ; 
 none outside the Roman Church, 
 189 ; blessedness of, 194, 195 
 
 Sanctification, 98, 100 
 
 Satan's power over us, source of, 134 
 
 Scapular, the red, 273 
 
 Science, helpless, 2 ; varieties of, 
 249 
 
 Scourging, the, 218 
 
 Secrecy, characteristic of divine 
 things, 172, 173 
 
 See, the Holy, fount of the Precious 
 Blood, 102 ; has the jurisdiction 
 of it, 242 
 
 Silence, the respectful, of Jansen- 
 ism, 123 
 
 Silence, effect of, 187, 1S8 
 
 Simplicity, 190 
 
 Sin, horrors of, i, 2 ; why per- 
 mitted, 1 1 ; consequences of, 
 12 ; importance of realising what 
 it is, 31 ; before the flood, 45 ; 
 always growing, 45 ; made more 
 malignant by civilisation, 46, 5 1, 
 52 ; effects of, on creation, S3 
 
 Sinner, the habitual, 4 ; in the 
 Cluirch, 43 ; the educated, 46 
 
 Sleep, artificially induced, 134
 
 3o8 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Solitude of Jesus in His Agony, 217 
 
 Sorrow, without Christ, 40 ; puri- 
 fied by the Sacraments, 1 19; 
 instrument of redemption, 172 
 
 Soul, innermost sanctuary of the, 
 127 
 
 Souls, creation of, 75, 91, 98 ; love 
 of, 290 
 
 Spirit of the age, 103, 104 
 
 Spiritual and tenip(jral, unwisely 
 distinguished, 50, 51 
 
 Stability, I go 
 
 Stars, their number, 1 1 
 
 Statistics, 250 
 
 Stephen, St., 145 
 
 Stigmata, the, 233, 234 
 
 Suffering of lost souls, 41 
 
 Sweating of the Blood of Jesus, 
 2S, 217 
 
 Temple, the, 146 ; the disputation 
 
 in, 150, 151 
 Theology, connection of, with sanc- 
 tity, 7, 8 ; changes of, 19 ; scho- 
 lastic, 30 ; the fuel of devotion, 
 82 ; the law of, 257 
 Theories about heretics, 70; danger 
 
 of, 187 
 Thorns, the crown of, 222, 223 ; 
 how worn by the Popes, 242, 243 
 Tiara, the crown of thorns, 243 
 Time, beginning of, 139 
 Tongues, confusion of, 145 
 Trantiuillity of God, 137, 138, 201 
 Trinity, the Holy, how worshipijud 
 
 in the Church, 257 
 Triumphs of the Holy See, 103 
 Truth, danger of betraying, 290 
 
 Unbaptized, the, 40 
 Unchangeableness, the, of God, 86 
 Unction, ExtroiDe, not prefigured 
 
 in the old law, 106 ; effects of, 
 
 119, 240 
 
 Vastness of God, 170 
 Veronica, St., napkin of, 218, 225 
 Vianney, John Baptist, 294 
 Vicar, the, of Christ, 103 ; comes 
 
 to Rome, 158 
 Views, worldly, the danger of, 104 ; 
 
 rigorous, 185 
 Vincent of Gonzaga, 272 
 Vincentians, red scapular of, 273 
 Virtue of the Precious Blood, where 
 
 it resides, 265 
 Virtue, habits of, impossible with- 
 out mortification, 277 
 Vocations, 15, 49, 278 
 
 Water, running, 227 
 Way, the Milky, 204 
 Way of the Cross, 225 
 Wickedness of the world before the 
 
 flood, 44 
 Words, divine, 93 ; power of, 115; 
 
 the seven, 230 
 Works of God, 162 ; none of His 
 
 external works necessary, 210 
 World, scientitic divisions of the, 
 
 169 
 World, the, without the Precious 
 
 Blood, 45 
 Worldliness, 277 
 Worship of the Precious Blood, 
 
 19 
 Wounds, the Five, 39, 234 
 
 Yearning of our Lord for His 
 Passion, 32 ; of His Sacred 
 Heart, 216 
 
 Years, the thirty-three, 148, 167 ; 
 effects of meditating on, 186 ; 
 ever repeated in the Church, 252, 
 260 ; soiu-ce of manifold devo- 
 tions, 259 
 
 Youth, how it errs, 104 ; tempta- 
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 Life of St. Francis di Geronimo, S.J. By A. M. Clarke. 076 
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 C^ TALOGUE OF PUBLIC A TIOiVS. 15 
 
 QUARTERLY ^T.'KTL^— [selection) continued. 
 
 Volumes on the Life of Our Lord. 
 The Holy Infancy. 
 The Preparation of the Incarnation . . . 
 
 The Nine Months. The Life of our Lord in the Womb. 
 The Thirty Years. Our Lord's Infancy and Early Life. 
 
 The Public Life of Our I^ord. 
 The Ministry of St. John Baptist 
 
 The Preaching of the Beatitudes .... 
 
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 each 
 
 The Preaching of the Cross. Part I. . . . 
 
 The Preaching of the Cross. Parts II., III. each 
 Passiontide. Parts I. II. and III., each . 
 Chapters on the Parables of Our Lord 
 
 Introductory Volumes. 
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