in fourthly, that most gracious Sacrament of Penance, by which, in virtue of the high commission given by Christ to His priests, provided they have received due jurisdiction, the contrite sinner is absolved upon confession, and receives grace proportionate to his needs. This, too, is a gift, unknown, ignored, nay, to a great extent, even unimagined among the Protestant sects. Ah! do I myself turn it to sufficient account? Am I solicitous enough in my preparation for confession? Are my contrition and resolutions sufficiently sincere? Above all, am I careful when I go to confession, to make earnest acts of the love of God, since, without this love, at least in its rudiments, absolution will not profit me.

Then, for the hour of sickness, for the dread approach of death, that inevitable termination of my present earthly state, there awaits me, fifthly, Extreme Unction; to wipe out the remains of sin, and to fortify me with grace to make a good end; or, it may be, if better for my salvation, to restore me again to health. And since, without priests, all this gracious sacramental system would be impossible; since Thou hast so given Thy holy Sacraments, O my God, that no man can administer them to himself, any more than he can be his own origin, but must needs go to another for them; hence, sixthly, we find in Thy Church the Sacrament of Holy Orders, by which a sacred Hierarchy is maintained, as we have seen in a former meditation, in direct succession from the Apostles, and endowed with all their authority, and with all grace for its exercise. Thanks be to

Thee for this excellent gift. Finally, we have Matrimony, that sacred sign of the indissoluble union between Christ and His Church, joining the married persons in one till death separates them, and imparting to them all the virtues necessary for their holy state.

Oh how can I sufficiently repeat to myself that all these divine Sacraments instituted by our Lord Himself, all these potent instruments of grace and life, come to me through the Holy Catholic Church; that to her, under Providence, I am indebted for them, and that without her they would not even exist!

Then, too, there is that other transcendent power which has been delivered down to us through the same instrumentality,-the power of Sacrifice! Sacrifice has in all ages been the principal and sovereign mode of approaching God, as being in its nature something far higher than even prayer itself. In the earliest books of the Old Testament we find repeated mention of it. God Himself ordained its rites and ceremonies under the ancient covenant, and set apart an Altar and a Priesthood for its solemn and continual ministration. In the New Law the same God, in the gracious form of man, ordained the Great Sacrifice of the Mass, in memory of His Passion, Death, and Resurrection; and as an efficacious means of propitiating the heavenly majesty, by the offering of a Victim no less than divine! In this Holy Sacrifice Christ Himself, the veritable Lamb of God, is immolated on our altars to the eternal Trinity in Unity, being Himself both Priest and Victim;

and the Bloody Sacrifice of the Cross is thereby perpetually renewed and pleaded again. Instituted by our dearest Lord the night before He suffered, predicted and typified in the Old Testament, observed incessantly in the Church from the Day of Pentecost to the present hour, the Sacrifice of the Mass is the principal worship of Christians; and has in a super-eminent degree all the effects that have been ascribed to Sacrifice from the beginning of the world. It is the highest act of homage that can be rendered to Almighty God; it is a thank-offering truly divine; it propitiates for sin; it impetrates countless blessings. Oh how unhappy are those, how deeply to be pitied, who, blinded by the tradition of their fathers, refuse themselves the benefit of this inestimable influence with God; who live from day to day, like the rejected Jews, without an Altar, without a Priesthood, without a Sacrifice! and even make it their boast to do so! How can I be thankful enough for this priceless means of drawing near to God, and to whom do I owe it, under Providence, but to that Church which has transmitted it intact down to these times; when in the hands of heretics, it would have failed away and perished long since, leaving not ever the very idea of itself behind, as we find to be the case at present in the Protestant communities.

Most sweet and comforting thought! as a Catholic, thanks to Holy Church, it is not simply my own weak thoughts and feeble prayers that I have it in my power to offer the Most High. I

have something far better. Mine it is, by the great goodness of God, to offer Him, through the hands of His priest, a Sacrifice--and one which infinitely excels all that have gone beforeunited with which my imperfect petitions have a force not their own, and mount upon wings of light to the eternal throne!

SECOND MEDITATION.

The Church as preserving to us the writings of the Holy Fathers.

I know, O my God, that we are saved by faith in Thy divine word; and this, through the Church. On her testimony it is that we believe the word which Thou who canst not deceive hast revealed; and at her hands again it is that we have received it. But in what form does this august word come to us? It comes to us in various forms, but all admitting of arrangement under two heads-Holy Scripture and Tradition.

A volume might be occupied in showing with what care, under what variety of difficulties, Holy Church has preserved the Scriptures to us. To her "were entrusted the oracles of God,"* and most faithfully has she fulfilled her charge. Of her

Rom. iii. 2.

vast Tradition transmitted to us through numerous channels, it would be equally vain, in a little work like the present, to attempt an account. Yet I would fain dwell here, briefly though it be, on one not inconsiderable portion of it, the writings of the holy Fathers.

Well has Holy Church comprehended the importance which must necessarily attach to these precious heir-looms. And the contrast is truly wonderful between her reverential esteem of them and the treatment which they have experienced from those outside her fold.

An affectation of contempt for the works of the Fathers is one of the marks which has ever distinguished the offspring of heresy. Under the pretext of shrinking from placing them on a level with Holy Scripture, the authority of which, is by none better understood and maintained than by Catholics; their real aim has ever been to lower them in public estimation. And with this view they have exhausted upon them all the efforts of an unfair criticism, not reflecting that the infidel is encouraged by their arguments to extend a similar contempt to Scripture itself, as all experience testifies, and more particularly that of our own day.

The true reason of this dislike is apparent enough. Protestants endeavour to undermine patristic authority, because its testimony is diametrically opposed to their own opinions, and must therefore be got rid of if they would feel at ease. Predetermined to reject the Church, never will they consent to admit that where all the