The chain of our ignorance is far reaching. He who would believe only what he can comprehend, will believe nothing; for everywhere there is mystery. It is the part of fools to find incomprehensible things only in religion.

Doubtless it will be said, that the Holy Fathers were liberal in their transactions with God and that not knowing as we do the inviolable limit which Divine power encounters in the essence of matter, they dealt freely in physical impossibili ties. I should be very desirous to know what modern science has taught us really new concerning the essence of bodies and their immutable relations with space. Show me the limit where matter can say to the Creator: Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther.*

He who has long sought to comprehend what is really primitive and incomprehensible in matter will find the circle of physical impossibilities singularly contracted, while that of ignorance becomes immeasurably expanded.

With regard to acquired science and philosophical penetration, I do not imagine that even among our adversaries many pretend to be superior to their fellow believer Leibnitz; and yet this great man has told us that after four years of profound meditation on the subject which occupies us, he has been brought to acknowledge that "God can cause the substance of the same body to be at the same time in many separate places or what amounts to the same thing exist under many species."†

Let those who find so much difficulty in the idea that the smallest visible portion of a wafer contains the body of Christ, explain to us how God has inclosed in a small black grain, ten thousand of which would not fill your hand, a gigantic tree, or rather an innumerable quantity of those

* Job xxxviii. 11.

† Système Théolog., art. Euchar.-Pensées de Leibnitz. Lettres à Arnaud.

trees; for there is not a pine of our forest which could not in time cover the globe with its kind.

Let those who do not comprehend how the uncreated sun which enlightens every man who comes into the world, can re-produce the material being which is united to it, in a hundred millions of persons at the same time, without injury to its numerical unity, explain to us how the same luminous rays which proceed from the sun or are put in motion by that planet, can simultaneously re-produce its image in innumera ble reflectors and yet the integrity and identity of the image remain unbroken by their number? These things are very different, it will be said. Yes, they are different; but whoever has studied the laws of reflection without being dazzled by its technology will find that the only sensible difference between these two phenomena is that we believe the second on the testimony of the eyes without comprehending it, whilst we admit the first on the word of God without comprehending or seeing it.

It will be asked again, how the Eternal Word of God, clothed with a human body and elevated by the resurrection to its lignest power, can communicate itself really, totally and simultaneously to two hundred millions of men. Let it be explained to us how the human word, being also complex, since it strikes the ear and enlightens the understanding, coming forth as it does from one mouth, can reach at the same time in its intellectual and physical identity the ear and the soul of ten thousand auditors.*

Finally, the atheist can make this objection against the multilocation of the body of Christ, with as much reason against the existence of God, who, because he is infinite is. necessarily omnipresent without ceasing to be one. The spirituality of the Divine Being has nothing to do with the subject.

* Doubtless the youth who has learned his acoustics by heart, will laugh at the simplicity of this problem; but I propose it to those who have renewed their studies.

God is a substance, and the question is precisely whether a substance can exist simultaneously in different places.

It is evident, then, that all the objections against the real presence proves but one thing, our ignorance of the means by which it is effected. Is this surprising? The Eucharist is, like the Incarnation of which it is the complement, the highest act of omnipotence inspired by Divine love.

CHAPTER XLI.

FUNCTIONS OF JESUS CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST.-FUNDAMENTAL IDEA OF SACRIFICE.-ITS UNIVERSALITY.-EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE.-EFFECT OF ITS ABOLITION IN PROTESTANT WORSHIP.

THE real presence of Jesus Christ on the altar once admitted, one question arises in all minds: What does Jesus Christ in the midst of us? What can he do but continue his part of Mediator between God and man! An eternal priest according to the order of Melchisedech,* always interceding for us, in the bosom even of the repose and glory which he enjoys at the right hand of the Father,† can he be present on our altars, without fulfilling towards God, as Head of the Church, the duty of perfect adorer, and without fulfilling towards man, still stained by sin, the functions of Sanctifier and Savior?

The consequence is so plain, that the most enlightened Protestants have been obliged to admit, with Bossuet, that the whole question of sacrifice must really be reduced to that of the real presence.‡

Here let us raise our thoughts, and endeavor to form to † Rom. viii. 34.-Heb, vii. 25. Exposition de la Doctrine, &c. § xv.

* Pt. cix. 4.

ourselves a just idea of Sacrifice, that common foundation of all the religions of the world.

Man, the workmanship of God, is devoted and consecrated to his Author, by virtue even of his existence. The first law

offer himself

of his being is to adore his Creator; that is, to to him in testimony of his total dependence, and say to him: "It is through Thee, Great God, that I am all that I am; accept the offering that I make of myself, and if it please Thee to endow me with thy gifts, let me use them only for thy glory!" It is in this oblation, which refers to God the glory of his works, that the essence of religion consists, and every religious act which is not in some way connected with it, is without value before God.

This act, man in his innocence performed in his heart, and outwardly produced, without doubt, by some symbol. God, who beheld in man only the image of his own perfections, and the yet unsullied work of his own hand, accepted this offering, and corresponded to it by an increase of grace.

Man became degraded by sin. Oblation is impossible. What has he to offer to God, but a corrupted nature, the object of contempt and anger? How is this nature to be so purified as to find favor in the eye of God? By blood; for in that is concealed an expiating virtue. Indeed, the life is in the blood, and the loss of blood or of life is the just satisfaction which God demands from him who dares to rebel against him.‡

But what blood can cleanse the deep corruption of the soul, and the horrible injury inflicted upon the divine Majesty? That of man is too vile and impure, and, if it flowed eternally under the hand of the executioner of divine justice, he could

Sanguis pro animæ piaculo sit. (Levit. xvii. 11.) Sine sanguini effusione non fit remissio. (Hebr. ix. 22.)

† Anima carnis in sanguine est.

Stipendia enim peccati, mors.

(Levit. xvii. 11—alibi.)

(Rom. vi. 23.)

never exclaim: It is enough! I pardon man; he can re-appear before me without fear.

The Word offers the blood which he has resolved to receive from a woman. The sacrifice is accepted, and is already realised in the divine intention from the beginning of the world. Infinite compassion is waiting to apply the fruits of it to sinful man, who is instructed in the remedy which divine love is preparing for him; and the attempt of the Divine Restorer, who alone is able, by his sacrifice, to reconcile humanity with God, becomes the basis of religion among all people.†

To unite oneself to the great victim, and participate in his merits, is the rite universally practised. As man is to be rescued, it is the creature nearest to man, and the purest, who must represent the agent for humanity. All the sins of the people will be called down on his devoted head, the decree of death, which is pronounced on sin, must afterwards be executed on him. Purified by blood, the victim will appear on the altar, and will find only sweetness in the countenance of his God. The people, then, will communicate, will unite themselves to the victim by his blood, with which they are sprinkled, by his flesh, which they will incorporate with themselves, and they will be pardoned and sanctified.‡

Immolation, oblation, communion, are the three fundamental ideas which appear in the profound mystery of sacrifice.

It must be observed, that real immolation does not enter into the absolute and primitive notion of sacrifice. It supposes the unrepaired guilt of man. The blood of the victim

* Agni qui occisus est ab origine mundi. (Apoc. xiii. 8.)

† See De Maistre, Eclaircissements sur les Sacrifices. Schmitt, Redemption du genre humain, annoncés par les traditions, et figurée par les sacrifices de tous les peuples.

Leviticus attests the existence of these practices among the Jews, and MM. de Maistre and Schmitt prove, in the works above quoted, that they have been in use among all nations.