no one knows it and he has no reward, that same voice of conscience fills his heart with peace and satisfaction and bids him hope in a just rewarder of good, in God Himself, who can and will reward all things. Thus conscience is a guide for all men, and hence we can understand how it is that men who are without the influence of Christianity have some notion of the difference between good and bad and act accordingly. Hence St. Paul says, "When the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law, these having not the law are a law to themselves; who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing, or also defending, one another " (Romans ii. 14, 15). In vain and falsely do men pretend to say that this interior voice of conscience is a mere prejudice. A man may be able to overcome prejudices when he once knows the truth. Fear and hesitancy disappear when one has become habituated to a thing. But conscience will not suffer itself to be overcome. Although a man, by a false reasoning with himself, and by plunging into the distractions and pleasures of the world, may succeed in stifling and silencing its voice for a time, it will awake and speak in loud tones during the silent hours of the night. While on his death-bed it will insist on sending its sharp and penetrating tones to the very depths of his troubled heart. Nor is this any prejudice in man, it belongs to his nature, for it is the internal revelation and manifestation of his Creator.

3. Moreover, in order that there might be no room left for the slightest doubt, God was pleased to confirm by His own powerful and explicit word all that the visible world proclaims and teaches, and also the

promptings of our conscience. Hence He taught us to know Himself chiefly by a revelation which He hath sent to us, first by His own prophets and afterwards by His own divine Son. From Adam, to whom God first revealed Himself, down to the time of Christ, was a succession of supernaturally enlightened men to whose souls God was pleased to speak either personally or by means of His Holy Spirit. Thus the knowledge of the true God could never be extinguished among men as long as it was preserved by one single nation, the Jews.

But these prophets were merely signals, all pointing to Christ, the Son of the living God, to the Messias who alone knows God, because He is from Him for all eternity and is God Himself. Although God spoke to Moses He appeared to him under a form that could be seen by his corporal eyes, so that it is ever true no man hath ever seen God" as He really is, but "the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father hath revealed it to us." Thus the revelation through Christ is the revelation of all revelations, the revelation from God and through God Himself.

There is but one God.

Before

We believe in God, and only in one God. Christ, Our Lord, the Redeemer of the world, all men, with the exception of the Jews to whom truth had been revealed by the prophets, believed in many gods. They worshiped not only the sun, moon, and stars, but also their fellow-beings, animals, plants, and lifeless figures of gold, silver, brass, wood, and stone. Men feared these gods and brought offerings to them. The whole earth was filled with an idolatry at once horrible and ridiculous.

There is but one God, for He Himself so taught

the Israelites by the mouth of His prophet, Isaias, "I am the first, and I am the last, and beside Me there is no God; who is like to Me?" (Isaias xliv. 6-7.) Our own intuition teaches us the same truth. For if God created all things, who could have created Him? Of course it would have to be some still greater God. Thus we ever arrive at the same conclusion that there is some one who, though giving existence to everything else, must himself have been ever uncreated.

Again, from the purposes, order, and harmony in the world we can infer that there is but one God. If there were two rulers one would run counter to the other. Each would have his own individual will, and there would be disorder, for there would be difference of purpose. If it is not true that there is but one God then there is no God, for in all creation we see the working of but one God. Hence, also, we do not say, "I believe God," but "I believe in God," for we believe no other being as we believe in this one only God. In the expression, "I believe in God," there is implied, beside belief, a surrender to Him of our feelings. Having already contemplated the infinite perfections of the Deity we have learned not only to believe, but also to give ourselves up to Him with unlimited love and confidence. Without this confidence our belief would not be the belief of the children of God. Even the devils believe, but they tremble. Not so with the children of God; they believe, but they also love Him and hope in Him.

To you, dear Christian, this God now says, " Son, give Me thy heart" (Proverbs xxiii. 26). Even if God did not ask your heart, to whom else would you give it but to Him? What would you love more than God? Cry out with St. Augustine, "O my God! grant me the grace to know and to love Thee."

IV. "I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER."THE THREE DIVINE PERSONS.

In the first article of the Apostles' Creed the Catholic Christian professes his faith in the Deity as God the Father. We style God our Father because we hold the same relation to Him that the child does to its earthly father. Yes, He is indeed our Father; parents are only His representatives. From God comes all that we possess, from Him comes "every perfect gift" (James i. 17), although conferred apparently by human hands. To Him do we pray confidingly, "Abba, Father" (Mark xiv. 36). But there is still another mysterious divine fatherhood. For God is not only one person, but three persons, the first of whom we call Father, the second the Son, and the third the Holy Ghost. Nor are these three names chosen without design and meaning, for they signify the relations the three persons bear toward one another, and in which, too, they have been revealed to us; for did not Our Saviour tell His apostles to baptize all in the name of the triune God, using the words, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew xxviii. 19)? There is no contradiction here, for we do not say that the three persons are three Gods, or one person is three persons, but we say that "three persons are one God," and they are one God for the reason that they have one and the same being and one and the same nature.

These three persons are all from eternity, all three are equally powerful, equally good, equally perfect. They all three possess the same attributes in the same degree, distinct only in the fact that there are three sons, each of them subsisting in and of Himself,

three persons in one Being. True, we call them the first, second, and third, but we do not call them such because one existed before another, or one is mightier than another, but because in sacred history they appear in that order, and because the work begun by them, namely, the creation, redemption, and sanctification, was begun, continued, and completed in this order of succession.

Yet, in order to distinguish the difference of persons, we say that the Father is from all eternity, the Son proceeds from the Father, the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. But on this account no one is older than another, but all three persons are equally eternal. Yet we are not to believe that the Father does anything without the Son and the Holy Ghost. All that is done by God is done by the Father through the Son and the Holy Ghost. Hence, when we say, Who made you? God the Father. Who redeemed you? God the Son. Who sanctified you? God the Holy Ghost-we must understand that all three of the divine persons began and accomplished this work together. It is only in point of time that these three persons have come to us in revelation. Of course we can not comprehend this, for in order to comprehend God we would have to be more than God. As one circle can be encompassed and encircled only by a circle greater than itself, so God's nature or being could be comprehended only by a nature exceeding the divine nature. Hence the prophet Jeremias says, "Great art Thou, O Lord, and incomprehensible in thought." It is no disgrace for the human intellect to bow down in faith before Him who, though He made that intellect, has set limits to it-"Thus far shalt thou go and no farther."

Let us not forget that we are indebted to the three