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if there were not a higher will above to control its action. Over the will of man is the will of God. "The Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things. The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together against the Lord and against His Christ."* But there is a will above them all, prescribing their path. They cannot swerve to the right hand or to the left. God is above them all. His predestinations are eternal, and the time will come when He will accomplish them. This is our confidence, a confidence in truths and in principles which are immutable by virtue of their own intrinsic certainty; they must be when the time is come. They cannot fail, for they are divine. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass away."t

* Ps. ii. 1, 2.

+ St. Mark xiii. 31.

LECTURE III.

"Therefore, receiving an immovable kingdom, we have grace: by which let us serve, pleasing God, with fear and reverence."HEBREWS xii. 28.

ONE point still remains to complete the subject we have in hand.

I have hitherto endeavoured to show that the glories of the Holy See have continually waxed greater and greater, and shall grow still more resplendent even to the end.

We have already traced this law of increase through the great epochs of its history; and I broke off in speaking of the present times in which we live. It was too large a subject to speak of by the way, and demands a separate treatment. This I will endeavour now to give. But, as I have said before, I am conscious how difficult it is to estimate the times in which we are. All that I can do, therefore, will be to point out some of the signs already visible, and some of the truths and principles already in operation, which give promise of the greater glory yet to come.

We have also seen, that the kingdom of God on earth, being divinely founded, built up, compacted together, and invested with supernatural prerogatives, has a coherence and an indissoluble constitution which

no powers of man shall ever destroy. God alone, who created it, has control over its destinies. Wherefore that of which we have heard so much of late from the proud or timid voices of men-the dissolution of the temporal power of the Sovereign Pontiff-is to man an impossibility. God has knit the two persons in a sacred union; and what God has joined together, no man shall put asunder.

We have seen that it is a law of the very being of the Church never to recede from its perfection, but always to press onward, amplifying, unfolding, expanding, filling up, and perfecting that which was before in germ. We have seen that the glories of the Church of God accumulate one upon another. As the splendours of the morning continually increase until they reach their fulness in the noonday; so are the glories of the Church. They do not rise and pass away as the stars of night, but gather, and stand still in multitude and brightness for ever.

And, lastly, we have seen that the glories, prerogatives, and powers of the Church have not only gone on increasing from age to age, but that they have risen by a continual ascent and culmination towards some point not yet attained. What that zenith shall be, God alone, who has predestinated the perfection of the Church, can reveal.

Now what I wish further to point out is, how this law of increase, accumulation, and ascent is

to be verified in what is before our eyes at this day.

First of all, there never was an age when the Church was so widely spread over the whole face of the earth. There never was a time when the holy Catholic and Roman Church had so nearly attained the whole circumference of the families of mankind. In the early ages it was an isolated body in the great empire of Rome. Later, it seemed to be shut up in Europe, for the East had fallen into schism and heresy. Then again it pushed out its missions. The sons of St. Dominic and St. Francis penetrated into Palestine and Arabia, and laid the foundations of new churches in the solitudes of the East. Later again, the sons of St. Ignatius penetrated into the West, when a New World was opened to the Old, and there laid the foundations of the Christian order, which endures to this day. But all this was partial, compared with the extension of the Church at this hour. The whole of the vast continent of America, from north to south, is now overspread by the episcopate. The Church possesses the New World for its inheritance, and both worlds for its possession. It has returned again into the East. It is spreading throughout India. It has now once more entered into China; a host of martyrdoms illustrate its advent.*

* See the New Glories of the Catholic Church, published at Rome by command of the Holy Father.

So that at this moment, both in the East and in the West, the Holy See is spreading forth its sway beyond all former expansion. Nay, more than this,

it has passed over into the Southern Archipelago, In islands, of which the very names were unknown in ages past, the holy Catholic Church has now its episcopal sees. In one of them alone there is a region as vast as the whole of Europe; and there was a time when the Church in Europe was as infant and narrow in its spread as the Church in Australia now. Who can foretell its future? Who can foresee the order and majesty of the Christendom of the Southern world, which may be now rising to renew and to multiply the glories of the kingdom and the Vicar of Jesus Christ? There was never, therefore, a time when the Church of God had amplified its boundaries, stretched forth its prerogatives, and lifted up its staff of pontifical rule over the face of the earth with so wide-spreading an empire as at this moment. Nay, more; the great empire of Britain, which is more like the ancient Roman than any other, save only that it greatly exceeds it in extent, is, as it were, the beast of burden on which the Church of God has traversed the world. Just as the empire of Rome, in ancient times, fought against the Church, and yet served it, strove to extinguish it, and yet gave it facilities for conquering the world, so the great empire of Britain, with all its power and civil order

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