And when the world and, with the world, time shall cease to exist, when hours, days, weeks, months, years, and centuries shall have passed away forever, God will be the same as He is to-day. For not only God Himself is immutable, all His attributes are immutable also. Eternal is the will of God; hence His commandments endure to-day as when He gave them forth on Mount Sinai. Eternal are the decrees of God; hence for men, throughout all eternity, there can be no other destiny than to love God and to be happy in His service. Eternal is God's goodness, but only for them who love and fear Him. Eternal is God's mercy hence no human soul can say that it was never received by God unto grace and pardon. But eternal, too, is the anger of God, if not softened by a penitential conversion on the part of man. Eternal are the judgments of God, and eternally they crush the sinner if he do not prevent God's anger by penance. with God it is not yea and nay, but only yea. He is to-day as yesterday, and before a thousand years. Hence St. James calls God "the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration (James i. 17); that is to say, God is immutable.

God is Omnipresent.

For

The omnipresence of God is that attribute of His, by virtue of which He is at the same time everywhere present and undivided. Hence, in regard to God, there can be no question of far and near. This is only for material bodies, whereas God is a pure Spirit; and in this spirit-nature of God rest the power and possibility of His omnipresence. God is omnipresent, not in the sense that all things lie open before His spirit, in the way in which a wide landscape lies open to our view when we stand on a high mountain.

His omnipresence is actual. Go, therefore, where you will, God is with you and beside you. If you are sad He is present to comfort you; if you do evil He is present to punish you. If you are good and pious He is present to reward you. If you are in need He is present to help you. Wherever you are, you are with God and remain with Him.

You can not flee the presence of God by going to the uttermost bounds of the earth, nor need you go one step to find Him. Whenever you incur the anger of God He is with you, and will find you even if you travel to another continent. You will find Him in the deepest recesses of barbarism and heathenism, however benighted these may be. In the wilds of Africa you can pray to Him, as if you were in your own parish-church.

God is Omniscient.

God is everywhere, therefore He knows all things. He is omniscient. And, as He is eternal, He knows the past, for He was there; and the present, for He is now with us; and the future, for it is foreseen and foreknown in His decrees and is effected by Him. He knows our most secret thoughts, for "the eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the ways of men . . . and looking into the hearts of men, into the most secret parts" (Ecclesiasticus, xxiii. 28).

In the heart of man nothing good, nothing bad, can even slumber that God does not know. And, as the Father knows it, so know it likewise the Son and the Holy Ghost. God reads our hearts as we would read a book, and neither falsehood nor concealment can deceive Him nor save us.

God is All-Wise.

God knows not only all that is, was, and will be, but He knows also how all things ought to be in order to be right; and, indeed, so right that they can not be made better, nor even conceived to be better. This knowledge-power of God we call wisdom: therefore we say that God is all-wise and that He knows how to direct all things to the most perfect degree.

This wisdom we can discover in the smallest insect as well as in the sun, in the dewdrop no less than in the ocean. Let the reader but consider his own body. How wonderfully artistic it is in all its parts! Man stands erect and looks toward heaven, whither his soul is tending, while the animal, coming as it does exclusively from the earth, to which it is soon to return, looks toward the ground. This upright figure of man consists of a harmonious collection of bones, sinews, tendons, nerves, and veins, all lending their aid to the maintenance of animal life, and so necessary, one to another, that the loss or injury to any one part brings suffering to the body. In the interior of the system are the wonderful vital organs. All the limbs are flexible and work together in perfect harmony. Indeed, each limb is a work of art. The human eye forms a piece of mechanical ingenuity that could come from no other hand than that of an all-wise Creator.

As God, in His wisdom, knows thus how to direct all material things wisely, He knows also how to guide the destinies of men. He directs them in accordance with His own wisdom, and not with regard to our whims and notions. Hence we are often dissatisfied, because, in our imperfect knowledge and limited understanding, we would have things otherwise to please ourselves. For instance, when we are sick we fancy

that if we were only once more restored to health we would never again yield to temptations, that we would even do great works for the honor and glory of God. But God knows that if we were strong and vigorous we would become forgetful of Him and run the risk of losing our souls. Hence, in His wisdom, He sometimes leaves us in bodily suffering in order that we may remember our dependence on Him and be restrained from evil-doing.

Knowing that if we were rich we would become slothful, He leaves us poor, so that we have to work and thus preserve our health and strength. He sends us want that we may be provident. Happiness makes us proud and thoughtless and leads us away from salvation. Where would God's wisdom be if all were wealthy, or if all were equally poor? In the first instance, everybody having enough, who would work to make our clothes, to prepare our food, or to discharge other duties of life toward their fellow-men? Yes, we all have need of one another's services. If all were equally poor who could give employment, or help of any kind, to another?

Sickness makes us humble, privation makes us inventive, poverty makes us patient, necessity compels us to use our hands and heads, and thus arises in the world that wonderful multiplicity and variety in trade and manufactures, arts and sciences, in all which we can not but discern the guidance of divine wisdom. Again, this difference between rich and poor fosters and brings into play the fairest virtues of neighborly love and of charity, all of which will one day meet with a suitable reward. Sometimes it is made quite apparent how God directs the destinies of individuals to a wise purpose. Who has not often pitied Joseph, the Egyptian, when sold into bondage by his unnatural brethren?

But had it not been for this he would never have come into Egypt to be, as he afterward was, the saviour of his people.

Who has not felt compassion for Moses when he was placed, a mere infant, in a basket among the bulrushes on the banks of the Nile ? Yet such abandonment prepared the way for him to become a famous liberator of his people. Aman, who would fain destroy the Jewish people, contributed largely to their prosperity. At the proper time Mardochai was raised to Aman's forfeited position, while the latter was condemned to die on the scaffold intended for Mardochai. True, we seldom discover at first sight the wisdom of God in things happening around us. But that is not necessary, for the faith and confidence with which we throw ourselves into the arms of God are of far greater benefit to us than if we saw and understood all things.

God is Omnipotent.

He

The power of God is no less than His wisdom. can do all things whatsoever He will. And when He wills to do something He needs no time for it, He needs no tools or instruments, He needs no help, He needs no material to make it from. He can create out of nothing, as He has made the world out of nothing.

But out of what would God make the world? Out of something? But from what would that something come? The first something that would be created would certainly come from nothing.

That to God all things are possible was affirmed by the angel Gabriel to the Mother of God when she wondered how she was to become a mother, since she knew not man. "No word shall be impossible with God" (Luke i. 37). But we ourselves see this from