L

ET me now reply to some of your ques

tions. You ask me, does not the existence of purgatory imply a contradiction? for either God forgives entirely our sins or not at all. If the former, surely he does not punish in purgatory sins already forgiven; if the latter, there is no occasion for purgatory, as all admit that a sinner who dies unpardoned is lost forever. Again, you ask : "Is not the doctrine of purgatory, even according to many Catholic writers, an invention of the middle or dark ages?" And thirdly, "Even though we admit this doctrine, what connection exists between the existence of purgatory and praying for the dead?" To each of these questions, I propose to give you at least a brief and candid reply.

And first I will add, that you seem to have understood rightly what was said before concerning those who, according to the Catholic doctrine, are consigned to the temporary punishment of purgatory. It is the fate of those who, after the guilt or eternal punishment due to mortal sin has been remitted, die before the temporal punishment has been endured-or they who at the moment of death have not satisfied for lesser sins which are called venial. Your first question supposes that God, in forgiving the sins of an offender, remits at the same time all punishment due to his sins. Whereas the Catholic Church teaches that the Almighty God may remit the sin and its consequent eternal punishment, and still enjoin a temporal punishment to be undergone either in this life or in that to come. Here then is the point on which we are at issue. Which of us is right? I shall not here attempt an examination of your point, for circumstances will not allow; but I will briefly vindicate the Catholic doctrine on this subject, holding it as a necessary maxim that two contradictions cannot be true. If one be proved, the other must ne

cessarily be false. This I hold no less true in morals than in mathematics. To prove my position, turn, I pray you, to the history of the Jews, the chosen people of God, and first to Numbers xiv, and read the prayers of Moses for his people, commencing at the thirteenth verse. Reflect attentively upon verses 20, 21, 22, 23. Do we not here find that God, who had been roused to anger by the ungrateful conduct of the Jews, was on the point of hurling against them the bolts of his indignation, of "smiting them with pestilence," and disinheriting them from his favor? When lo! Moses, like a tender father, suppliantly implores for the pardon of his people. His voice is raised in prayer, and the leader of the hosts of Israel stands between an offended Deity and his guilty, ungrateful people. The anger of God is appeased. His arm, even then uplifted to deal the deadly blow, falls harmlessly, or is extended to receive his misguided children; with mercy he replies to the prayers of Moses: "I have pardoned," (20-23.) In fact read attentively the remaining part of the whole chapter, and you will find that God after forgiving the sins of his ungrateful people, and remitting the eternal punishment which these sins deserved, still afflicted them with a temporary punishment, a series of afflictions, a constant wandering up and down in the wilderness, and in the end, refused to all in punishment of their sins (which he had expressly forgiven, as we read in verse 20), admission into the promised land, except to Caleb and Joshua. Even Moses, in punishment for his want of confidence, was debarred from that long expected happiness. Does not this prove that God may sometimes forgive the sin, and yet enjoin a satisfaction, a temporary punishment. And if this punishment be not undergone here, must it not still be undergone? It cannot be endured in heaven. Not in hell,-(for "out of hell

there is no redemption.") Where then, let me ask you, is it to be endured?

But I need simply ask you whence the various, ten thousand evils which afflict the human family. Was man originally thus? Was he created in his primeval state to suffer, to toil, to languish, and to die? Was the fair garden of Paradise intended to be desolated by the angry storms of life? its beauty doomed to fade-its sweets and joys to be imbittered by all the woes which now afflict the world? Was man, that noble being, man, who bore upon his majestic brow the impress of reason-whose soul was stamped with the image of his maker, God, doomed to fall from his high estate, and wander o'er the world, friendless, accursed and subjected to death? No, assuredly not. And yet, man fell, and by his fall, involved the human family in sorrows, in sufferings, and in death. Did not the tender mercies of God prompt him, when stern justice demanded vengeance, to pardon and forgive our unfortunate progenitors, and promise them as a future Saviour, even though justice bade him drive them from their forfeited paradise? Can we doubt that our first parents "wept and were forgiven?" Can we for a moment entertain the idea that they are eternally excluded from the beatific vision of their Creator? Surely not; and yet, though God in his infinite mercy pardoned their transgressions, how did they suffer for their fault. How deeply did they drink the bitter cup of sorrow, how bitterly did they deplore their disobedience! The evils of life, the sufferings, the afflictions to which we are even yet subjected; sickness, want, and death; behold the sad consequence entailed upon children by the fall of our first parents! Is there not here, my friend, a proof that God may and does pardon the sin, and yet enjoin, nay imperatively demand a temporal punishment in satisfaction for that sin?

You have no doubt often read and reflected upon the trials and persecutions endured by the holy servant of God, David. Although prostrate in sackcloth and ashes, he had long propitiated the mercies of heaven, although, when conscience-stricken

he exclaimed in anguish; "I have sinned against the Lord," he was cheered by the consoling assurance of the prophet Nathan: "The Lord hath also taken away thy sin; thou shalt not die ;" yet the inexorable justice of an offended God commanded the prophet to declare unto him, "Nevertheless because thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, for this thing the child that is born to thee shall surely die." (2 Samuel xii, 14.) And that little child around which were entwined the dearest affections of his heart, died in satisfaction to heaven for the sins of its adulterous progenitors. Nor did the anger of heaven rest here; but as long as David lived, so long was he forced to feel the sad effects of his unfortunate transgression. Behold the prophet of the Lord declaring with the voice of inspiration, that God had "removed his sin from him, as far as the east is from the west." Still in atonement for that sin, David was doomed to see the bosom of his family torn with dissension; Ammon blasting the fair fame of his sister Thamar; (2 Samuel xiii.) The fratricidal hands of one of his sons stained with the blood of an incestuous brother! (2 Samuel xiii.) Still was he forced, in the feebleness of old age, to flee before the conquering arms of an ungrateful son, who had risen in rebellion against his grey-haired father, (2 Samuel xv.) And who can read unmoved the plaintive cries of this anguished parent, as he mourned for the hopeless fate of his misguided Absalom! (2 Samuel xviii.)

For a single act of vanity, the guilt of which had been remitted by the Almighty, (for it had been bitterly deplored) David was forced to behold the destroying angel dealing death and pestilence throughout the extent of his dominions. Eternal God, how stern is thy justice, how tremendous thy anger! Do we not here find a sufficient proof that God oftentimes pardons sins, and yet enjoins a temporal punishment in satisfaction for those sins? What if David had expired ere yet he had endured the appointed punishment? If in the court of heaven it was decreed that this temporal punishment was to be endured,

could death oppose a barrier to the views and decrees of God?

David was forgiven. The Jews were forgiven; consequently they would not have been consigned to endless torments. Now there is no punishment in heaven, therefore they could not have endured or undergone this their temporal punishment there. Where then? Reason replies, in some third place. Faith replies, in purgatory.

In answering your second question, I shall necessarily be compelled to detain you for some moments. So deeply interesting is the subject, and so entwined around the antiquity of our holy faith, that it would be to do an injury to the subject to pass lightly over it; and indeed I thank you for having given me an opportunity to dwell on this important point. You ask me is not purgatory a late invention, tracing back its origin to the dark ages? Alas! those poor "dark ages" are much abused; and I shall here endeavor to show that they are not to be blamed for the invention of a purgatory. Indeed, in my last letter you have a tolerable proof in favor of the antiquity of this doctrine. I shall use freely, in reply to this question, the very conclusive arguments of a reverend and esteemed friend of your city, to prove that the Christian Church has always admitted the existence of purgatory. I will here mention a fact on which you have perhaps seldom reflected, and which is so strictly entitled to historical credit, that it will be denied by none, save a theoretical sceptic. At the period when Luther began to inveigh against the Catholic doctrine on sin, justification, indulgences, &c. and was led by a series of false conclusions to deny the existence of purgatory, he was in opposition to every Christian Church then existing, and, as he boasted, was "standing alone" against all the bishops, priests, and faithful of the eastern as well as of the western Church. So general was the indignation roused against his new doctrines, that from every side decrees of condemnation were directed against him, and he was then led to take the final step which consummated the separation between the body of the Church and his followers, a separation which unfortunately lasts yet after

several hundred years; this is a fact stamped on the page of history, and which cannot be called in question.

If we pass now to the eastern church, composed of the Greeks, the Eutychians. (called also Jacobites from one of their principal men), and of the Nestorians, we will find the same unanimity of belief concerning the existence of purgatory, and the necessity of praying for the dead. True it is that the disciples of Luther, availing themselves at first of the distance of places, the difference of languages, the difficulty of communication, boasted that although the western church was against them, the eastern church, which had been fertilized by the blood of Jesus Christ and the apostles, was for them. But this bold assertion soon turned to their confusion, and brought over positive declarations from those churches, by which it appears that the belief of purgatory was as unanimous amongst them as amongst the faithful in the west.

The belief of the Greeks is manifest from a number of facts; but I will quote only the words of a council held at Cyprus, where several bishops had met: "Let him be considered as a heretic who says that there exists not an unbloody sacrifice, truly propitiatory for the sins of the living and the dead." In this declaration the synod condemns principally the assertion of the reformers who deny the existence of a true sacrifice among Christians. But leaving aside this question of sacrifice, which it is not our intention now to prove, it is manifest that the Greeks consider it a heresy to assert that the sacrifice of mass is not propitiatory for the dead. Hence they hold that the dead may be assisted by the oblation of the holy mysteries, and, by a necessary consequence, that there is a purgatory. Now the same council declares, at the end of its decrees, that this is the faith of the four patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem; of the Muscovites, of Bulgaria, of Servia, of Myrrhia (both upper and lower), of Epirus, of the Arabians, and of the Egyptians.

Shall we find the same belief among the Eutychians, who form a distinct church, spread to a considerable extent in Assyria,

Armenia, Ethiopia, and Egypt? We have from their patriarchates an authentic declaration, in which they state: "We offer the holy sacrifice of mass in behalf of the sins of the living and of the dead; the same body which was crucified for us, and the same blood which was shed for us on Calvary. Let him who maintains the contrary be anathema."

We have another declaration from the other Christian society in the east, the Nestorians: "We have heard with great surprise that some have calumniated the eastern churches, by falsely asserting that they reject the most adorable mystery of the eucharist. . . . . We offer the sacred body of Jesus Christ, which was crucified for all, and the precious blood which was shed for us, in behalf of the living and of the dead, for the remission of their sins, and the punishment they have deserved."

Now, for the full elucidation of the inference which I intend to draw from these facts, I must remind you of a fact known to all who are even slightly acquainted with ecclesiastical history. The Greeks have been separated from the western Church from the year 890, when disputes (apparently relating to the necessity of using leavened or unleavened bread in the sacrifice of the mass, but in reality the boundless ambition of the patriarchs of Constantinople), led them to the final separation which has since baffled several attempts to restore union between the two churches. It is also known that the Eutychians form a distinct society which separated from the body of the Church at a time when the Greeks and Latins were united in the same belief, and were under the same authority (in 451), when Dioscorus, then patriarch of Constantinople, was condemned by the general council of Chalcedon, held in the same year. Hence they are enemies to the Greeks, and their bitter animosity against them has been increasing for the last fourteen centuries, as several facts prove. In fine, the Nestorians are enemies to the Greeks and the Eutychians, for they broke asunder the bonds of unity in 431, when the Latins, the Greeks, and the Eutychians, were yet united in the same belief. And between

the Eutychians and Nestorians there must exist an antipathy so much the greater as they were cut off from the Church at that time, because they fell into heresies diametrically opposed to each other. After this short digression, which will not be found useless, I can with confidence say that the existence of purgatory was universally admitted by all Christians throughout the globe at the time of Luther; and I conclude from this incontestible fact, that such has been the belief of the Church in all ages, from the apostles down to our own days. For it must be granted at first sight, that probability and appearance of reason are on our side; for we did not innovate; we keep the traditions which we received from our fathers. If, then, it be said that purgatory is the offspring of human invention, those who make the wild assertion must prove that a change has taken place in the Christian world since the time of the apostles, and that for their doctrine has been substituted a superstitious dogma. If it be alleged that a change has been made, let solid proofs be given to substantiate the assertion. You must then point out to us clearly the time when the idea of purgatory was introduced into the Church, and by whom it was introduced, and where it originated and thus spread itself to the confines of the earth. You must be able to show the first writings in which mention is made of the place for the expiation of souls after death. Can our opponents solve any of these questions? Can they with all their erudition, give a correct, a satisfactory answer to one of these queries? No, my dear friend.

But I mistake. They say in vague terms that purgatory is a "monkish institution ;” and in support of this assertion they add that it savors of the "dark ages!" Shall we believe them on their word? This, my friend, is the general reason of those who have no better reason to oppose; but I am confident that there is no one who cannot easily see that to throw on the "monks," or on the "dark ages," the explanation of a puzzling fact, shows more embarrassment and distrust of their cause, than candor, ingenuity, or honor. But although I might