appetites which too often sink him beneath the brute. Do not expect that heaven will ever open its gates to this degraded being, nor that the Most High will seat him upon his throne. Has he, then, who so passionately clings to earth, the least thought of heaven? Certainly not; flesh and blood can never possess the kingdom of God.* Divine justice required the death of man. Mercy pleaded for his pardon. The Word reconciles these opposite claims. With a devotion which captivates the adoration and love of angels and of men, He who by his divine nature is equal to the Father, condescends to take upon himself the human nature, the degraded nature of Adam, without the sin which is humanly inseparable from it. We have seen how the whole force of divine justice fell upon the soul and body of the great Victim. He was bruised for our sins, according to the expression of the prophet, and the body which the God-Man held from Adam by his mother, nailed to the infamous wood, shed from its veins the last drop of a blood, pure, it is true, but proscribed by love, and abandoned to the celestial vengeance. Humanity, purified and renewed by this blood, comes forth triumphant from the tomb, where it must descend in order to fulfil the divine decree: Thou shalt die, and return to the dust ; and soon it will go to seat itself at the right hand of the Father. Humanity is saved! But, how are men to be saved? A question which will seem minute to our pantheistic thinkers, who are occupied very much with the general, and not at all with the particular. Of what importance is it to them if we all should disappear under the bloody car of humanitary revolutions, provided that humanity advances? This question, however, has pre-occupied the mind of Christ; for he became man, and delivered himself up to death, only to save every individual of the human family.§ *I. Cor. xv. 50. f Isa. liii. 5. † See 1st Problem, ch. xxx. § Rom. viii. 32.-Ephes. v. 2. How can man, then, participate here below in the justice and sanctity of Jesus Christ, an indispensable condition for sharing, at a future time, his glory? It is by reproducing in himself the life of Jesus Christ; that is to say, by putting aside the old man, and his corrupt inclinations; by the crucifixion of the flesh and its appetites; and incorporating himself with the new man, by a life of holiness and justice.† It is in this moral transubstantiation, which transforms the corrupt child of Adam into a member of the body of Christ, living by his spirit, that the work of the regeneration and sanctification of man consists; the united work of divine activity operating through grace, and of human activity, which excited and strengthened by grace, freely co-operates with the divine action. It is to effect, maintain, and perfect this intimate union of man with Jesus Christ, that the evangelical ministry exclusively conspires, that all the powers concur, and all the institutions bequeathed by the Savior to his Church, but, above all, the sacraments. Let us cast a rapid glance over what I shall call the dynamics of Catholicism, and admire the efficacy of its means for uniting souls to their divine Head, and lifting them to heaven. CHAPTER XXXVI. A GLANCE AT THE SACRAMENTS.-PURGATORY.-PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD.-WORSHIP OF SAINTS. To regenerate man, it is necessary, in the first place, to efface the odious character of a rebellious child, the slave of Rom. viii. 17. Deponere. . . veterem hominem qui corrumpitur secundùm desideria erroris et induite novum hominem, &c. (Ephes. iv. 22, 24.) Qui autem Christi sunt, carnem suam crucifixerunt cum vitiis et concupiscentiis. (Galat. v. 24.) * Satan, and impress upon him the divine traits of him who has saved us by obedience. As we bring into being the image of the terrestrial man, we must, as the apostle says, take at the new birth the resemblance of the celestial man. Such is the effect of baptism, in which the soul casts off the sullied image of Adam, and clothes itself with Jesus Christ.† If it is an adult, before the baptism he must be instructed, open his mind to the light of the Gospel, and unite his thought to that of Jesus Christ by the tie of faith. He must open his heart to penitence, detest his sins, and renounce them for ever. By this breaking of the heart, which is called contrition, the catechumen is united to Jesus crucified; he dies afterwards with him, and descends into the tomb, which was typified by the immersion formerly employed in baptism. The Holy Spirit, hovering over the baptismal waters, as in the first days of creation over the waters of chaos,§ to impregnate them, completes the destruction of the old man, and communicates to this mystic dead body the life of the new Adam, bathing the soul in the blood of Jesus Christ, at the same time that the body is baptized with it. The neophyte comes forth from the sacred font, radiant in innocence; heaven opens over his head, and his heavenly Father says to the angels: "Here is my child, the living image of my well * Sicut portavimus imaginem terreni, portemus et imaginem cœlestis. (I. Cor. xv. 49.) † Quicumque enim in christo baptizati, estis, christum induisti. (Galat. iii. 27.) The regeneration of the child presented at the sacred font is the exclusive operation of the Holy Spirit and the Church. Lost by an act independent of his will, why should he not be saved in the same inanner? § Spiritus dei ferebatur super aquas. (Genes. i. 1.) || St. Paul often reveals in his Epistles the deep significance of the baptismal rite. An ignoratis quia quicumque baptizati sumus in Christo-Jesu in Morte ipsius baptizati sumus? Consepulti enim sumus eum illo per baptismum in mortem, &c. (Rom. vi. 3 et seq.) beloved Son! Watch over him with love along the road that leads him to his destined throne."* The new-born soul enters upon the arena of the world, where it must choose between the arduous victories which heaven crowns, and the cowardly defeats which lead to eternal servitude. Feeble as we always are at the entrance upon life, surrounded by the thousand dangers which besiege infancy and make so many their victims, the principle of divine life, which he has received in baptism, must be unfolded, expanded, and strengthened. This vital principle is the spirit of Jesus Christ, communicated more abundantly by the imposition of hands of the priest, and the unction of the holy chrism. That spirit, according to the promise of Jesus Christ, guards the spirit of the young christian from all error, by teaching him all truth,† and strengthens his heart against the assaults of vice by unfolding in it the germ of all the virtues. Such is the Sacrament of Confirmation, the effect of which is to strengthen in the faith, and to make the perfect christian —a sacrament which realizes the promise of Jesus Christ, to give his disciples the Spirit, the Comforter-a promise which St. Peter understands as extended to all christians -a sacrament which we find the Apostles administering after baptism, and which St. Paul very distinctly mentions.S The permanent union of the Christian with Jesus Christ is especially cemented and elevated to its highest perfection, by the eucharistic bread, that centre of spiritual light and heat. There the Author of life himself, entering in person into our souls, unites himself as closely to them by love, as he is united by nature to the divine persons. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. live by the Father, so he that eateth me lives by me.|| * Matth. iii. ult.-Ps. xc. 11. ↑ John xvi. 13. § Ibid. viii. 17.-xix. 6.-II. Cor. i. 21. As I Act. Ap. ii. 38. || John vi. 57. Are these various ties which connect the christian soul with God, destroyed by the slow or sudden eruption of the never wholly extinguished fires of concupiscence? and does the soldier of Christ, invulnerable while united to his Chief, receive a mortal wound from the assaults of his passions? See him pierced with grief and shame at the feet of the spiri tual physician, to whom Christ has given the power to cure all the infirmities, and heal all the wounds of the soul. The lying gladiator, re-animated by divine strength, rises at these consoling words: "Go, my brother, in peace, and repair this defeat by new triumphs." This is the Sacrament of Penance, instituted for the remission of sins committed after baptism ; a difficult baptism, according to the Holy Fathers; a plank of safety offered to the shipwrecked, a very necessary plank; for who has been able to traverse the sea of the world without suffering shipwreck from the sudden whirlwind of the passions! Our Christian arrives at an age when he is to choose the companion of his life, the angel to whom he will offer his hand for the journey towards the eternal country at the head of a more or less numerous family. Religion presides with maternal solicitude, over this act, so often decisive for the temporal and eternal life. It is in his Heavenly Father's house that it is celebrated, far from those passions which would not fail to break the tie which they themselves had formed.—This is the sacrament of marriage destined to sanctify the legiti mate union of man and woman; a sacrament truly great in Christ and in the Church, as St. Paul expresses it.* Does the young Christian, instead of dividing his heart by uniting himself to a wife, feel moved to consecrate it entire to the Lord and to the spiritual good of his brethren; does e hear a celestial voice which says to him: Leave all and follow after me; I will make thee a fisher of men? After * * Ephes. v. 32. † I. Cor. vii. 33. Matth. iv. 19. |