nal, or the Pope himself. No Catholic, as Catholic, owes obedience to any other authority than the authority of God. Let any one venture to claim any other authority, or present any thing contrary to the divinely received dogmas and doctrines of the Church, and the whole Catholic world would be up in arms in an instant. The Pope is equally subject to the doctrine of the Church as the poorest and humblest Catholic in the United States, and the conditions of salvation are the same for him as for any other Catholic. His obedience is just as great. It would not be a thing unheard of, for a Pope to be refused absolution by a simple priest, his confessor. From this point of view, there reigns a most perfect equality in the Catholic Church. And while all obey, none feel degraded; on the contrary, the authority being divine, obedience, while it gives security, repose, and peace to the heart, elevates, ennobles, and gives freedom to the mind. Only a Catholic in truth can say: "From youth I have been tutor❜d to obey And thus obeying, ever hath my soul If it is asked upon what grounds the Catholic Church claims this divine authority. They are at hand in Christ's own words: "Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." † "Feed my sheep, feed my lambs." heareth you, heareth me."§ 66 "He that Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." || A Catholic can say boldly, and yet without rashness: "If I am deceived, it is Christ who has deceived me." What is more, the Catholic Church is alive, and conscious that "The Eternal Son, Her true Shekinah, unrevealed to sight, For ever one." T And it is this consciousness, that gives to her alone, the boldness to claim to be the representative and organ of Christ's authority upon earth; * Goethe. + Matt. xvi. | Matt. xx. + John xxi. § Luke x. The Cathedral. an authority, which, because it is divine, can alone satisfy all the wants of the heart, at the same time that it meets all the demands of man's intellect. "Ancient of mothers, in thy barriers old, With those that love Thee, is true liberty. Then where flee we for refuge but to Thee, And thine obedience?" XVIII. Childhood. "Sweet childhood, shadow of celestial Love, And ever lift the eyes to One above; Which knows not yet, while it obeys, command, BAPTISTRY. W1 HAT says Rome to childhood ? Rome says every thing. The Church of Rome is the church of childhood. Lead children into her precincts, and you will soon discover that she pours through every avenue of the mind of childhood treasures of wisdom. The altar, the crucifix, the robed priests, the surpliced acolytes, the pictures and the statues of holy saints, the stained windows, the organ, the bells,—all combine together to give to the child's picturesque-loving mind, a better and more sublime idea of religion than years of reading and preaching can do. "These methinks Touch children as akin to the unseen, The infinite and wild that speak of heaven, Thus the Catholic Church, like her divine Master, draws from the mouth of babes and sucklings her most perfect praise. "From the embraces of the Catholic Church," says an eloquent writer, "the true mother august, even in her most sorrowful moments dropping a tender tear, no child left to its own sweet nature has ever yet been seen to recoil; for not only the spirit of those who represent her, like genius, loves to caress little things, and sing the songs of children, to talk not always of kings and magnates,-'arma virumque cano,'-but * Baptistry. |