Divine intention or our own great mercies, the conclusion will be just the same. Whether most disposed to listen to the voice of duty or of gratitude, the stern voice of the one, or the gentle accents of the other; in either case let us act as members of a Catholic Church. GOD wills that "the earth should be full of the knowledge of the LORD;" and surely we regard His will but lightly, if we never make an effort to extend it. He has blessed us with redemption in CHRIST JESUS, the Lamb of GOD Who takes away not only our sins but the sins of the whole world. Surely we love but little where He has loved much, if we are contented that, so far as concerns ourselves, the fruit of His Death should be withheld. Even for the vine which the LORD hath already planted, all our care is needed. The hills of our country should be covered with the shadow of it; she should send out her branches unto the sea, and her boughs unto the river. But now her hedge is broken down, that all they that go by pluck off her grapes. The wild boar out of the wood doth root it up, and the wild beasts of the field devour it. So it is at home, while boundless regions abroad, and untold multitudes, are still lying in the shadow of death. Can none of us help in anything to make our home's wilderness more like Eden, and the world's desert more like the garden of the LORD? Do we not shrink from saying that we cannot? Are we not afraid, when we look at the moral necessities of our race, when we remember God has promised that His Church shall supply them, when we call to mind that we are that Church, and then recollect how little we are doing, or perhaps that we are literally doing nothing? Or, think

1 Isa. xi. 9.

3 Ps. lxxx. 8, &c.

21 St. John. ii. 2.

✦ Isa. li. 3.

of all that again, and of what we ourselves enjoy, and then consider whether gratitude is not calling us to exertion, even though duty did not speak to our fears. Yes, by the fact that we are members of a Missionary Church, we are Missionaries every one of us, born to a Missionary's zeal by the new birth unto righteousness of our Baptism. We are CHRIST's soldiers, and must be always fighting, for every error in opinion or in practice is His enemy. We are "a royal priesthood,” and must be always ministering; for, while sinners and infidels remain, CHRIST looks to us for the offering of them up.2

What can we do, then? We can all do much. We can all do something towards restoring the disjointed fabric of the Church at home. We can feel and act as members of a Body, whose divinely imprinted nature it is to spread itself. We can bear in mind that a society can only increase by maintaining its principles, not by yielding them; and we can believe that discord and schism, and the tempers from which they spring, are sin. We can also remember to pray regularly, say two or three times a week or oftener, but at any rate regularly, for the Church's unity and extension. What we pray for we shall certainly attempt to realize. If this is all that some can do, some can do more. They can contribute to the funds of societies that have been established for the very purpose of supplying the wants of man's spiritual nature. Nor ought they to wait to be asked for this. They should give because GOD asks, not because man asks, and therefore before man asks. Nor is it difficult to find a channel through which to do so. It may be found at once in the Ministers of CHRIST. And if it should be asked, who they 1 1 Pet. ii. 9. 2 Rom. xv. 16.

are that ought to give for such purposes, it is easier to show that very many should, than to say positively that any need not. But certainly all except the poorest ought to give. And if they, the poorest, give, they give to One Who values the poor man's mite more than He does the rich man's largest bounty. Shrink not, my poorer Brethren, from accepting this encouragement. CHRIST HIMSELF has said it, "Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all.""

1 St. Luke xxi. 3.

G. E. D.

THE UNCEASING OFFICE OF THE SPIRIT, CONVINCING THE WORLD OF SIN, OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND OF JUDGMENT.

Fourth Sunday after Easter.

ST. JOHN XVI. 8, 9, 10, 11.

AND WHEN HE IS COME, HE WILL REPROVE THE WOrld of SIN, AND OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND OF JUDGMENT: OF SIN, BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE NOT ON ME; OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, BECAUSE I GO TO MY FATHER, AND YE SEE ME NO MORE; OF JUDGMENT, BECAUSE THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD IS

JUDGED.

UPON the simple reading or hearing of this passage it must be admitted, that certain difficulties exist in detecting either its fulness of meaning, or force of truth. The Divine Person, Whose acts, or offices, we find thus plainly predicted, is revealed to us in the context as "the COMFORTER "; but on the one hand there is no obvious connection between the acts or offices which are thus specified, and those which might properly be expected from the Advent of a COMFORTER; and on the other hand, however apposite the term be to sin, it is not easy to understand how the world could be

reproved of Righteousness, or of Judgment. There are, therefore, a few preliminary considerations, necessary to a correct understanding of our LORD's merciful Promise. Attention to these will relieve the text of its confessed difficulties; and we may afterwards proceed to enter more fully and regularly, upon the doctrines which it successively developes.

You will observe, then, in regard to the first difficulty, that the force of the original term, Paraclete, would have been more fully and intelligibly conveyed, had our translators rendered it as we subsequently find it expressed in St. John's Epistle-"ADVOCATE," rather than, as we find in the present instance, "CoMFORTER. The HOLY GHOST is spoken of as the Paraclete four times in the New Testament; but by no other Evangelist than St. John. The term occurs also, though applied to the Second PERSON in the TRINITY, in that well-known passage of his First Epistle: "If any man sin, we have an ADVOCATE with the FATHER." Now as it would be manifestly incorrect to adopt, in this latter example, the translation, "COMFORTER,"—as it would involve an absurdity to say that the Sinner, craving pardon, and obnoxious to wrath, had a Comforter with the offended Majesty of Heaven, there can no valid reason be assigned, why the same translation of the same original term should not be followed in our text. We shall, therefore, throughout the investigation of the whole passage, consider this as the promised office of the HOLY GHOST,-that He should be the perpetual ADVOCATE of the Ascended SAVIOUR against the world.

But now a second difficulty presents itself. Admitting that the HOLY SPIRIT, in regard to the things of this life, is the SON'S ADVOCATE,-admitting that part