to the archetype of man, existing in the Divine Mind. For Jesus Christ did not come down from heaven to contradict or destroy man's nature, but to rectify and restore it, and to give to man a new, superior, divine mode of life and activity. Jesus Christ became man in order to enrich men with the gift of his own Divinity.

This was our change, and it was one of the happiest moments of our life, when we discovered for the first time, that it was not required of us, either to abandon our reason, or drown it in a false excitement of feeling, to be a religious man. That to become Catholic, so far from being contrary to reason, was a supreme act of reason. It was a joy to us, to find that instead of being required to play the whining hypocrite, or the blind fanatic, and thus renounce our manhood in order to become a Christian, we were called upon to make an act which all the faculties of our being spontaneously united in making. That after having made this act, we could look up and the heavens appeared to smile upon us more cheerfully, the stars to shine more brightly, and the earth seemed clothed with greater beauty. That instead of our sympathies being

cut off from our fellow-men, and our willingness to make sacrifices for their well-being diminished, we found ourselves prepared to put into execution what before was only upon our lips, and ready to make sacrifices which before we had scarcely imagined. This, we repeat, was our change. But alas, our companions remain the same!

They are still in the self-same place where at the setting out they were. They are still seeking for life, still looking for peace, and vainly striving to realize their truer destiny.

They cry for strength, remaining weak,
And seem to find, but still to seek."*

They are conscious of energies which were never brought into action; they have capacities, the objects of which they scarcely have even dreamt of; and in their souls lie buried sources of life that till now remain unsealed.

Oh, could we but give them a glimpse of the soul under the immediate influence of divine grace, could we give to their hearts, only for a

* Tennyson.

moment, a taste of the divine love which Jesus Christ came to enkindle upon earth, could we get them to understand the possibility of the soul being filled with a pure, divine, and inexhaustible energy; then we should have given them some conception of the meaning and necessity of the Church, and accomplished the wish nearest to our heart.

But our brightest hopes regard the youth of our country, who have no instilled misconceptions of the truth, and who, when it is seen, have the loyalty to acknowledge, and the courage to embrace it. These have only to see the Catholic Church as she is, and they will exclaim: "Is this Catholicity, the Catholic Church! This is the realization of the silent hope, which we in solitude so fondly cherished, the bright dream that breaks upon our midnight slumbers, the object of all our striving, and the yearnings of our heart! We are Catholic; and at heart never were aught else. The truths we hold are but grains of sand from her temple; the impulses of our hearts are but drops of love from this boundless ocean spread before us."

All men, so far as their nature is not perverted,

are Catholics; and if they but knew their real wants, they would have to do violence to themselves not to enter the Catholic Church.

"For truth hath such a face and such a mien,
As to be loved, need only to be seen.'

For what else is the Church, but God made manifest to the hearts and minds of men ;-his Body. To see the Catholic Church, therefore, is to have the brightest and fullest vision of the First-True, the First-Good, and the First-Beautiful; it is to have the brightest vision of Heaven that man can have upon earth,-it is to see God!

* Dryden.

13

XXX.

Conclusion.

"Am I not brave and strong? Am I not here
To fight and conquer? Have I not around
A world of comrades, bound to the same cause,
All brave as I-all led by the same chief,
All pledged to victory?"

MILNES.

AN has a destiny, his end is God,—his

MA

life is divine. Jesus Christ is the complement of man,-the restorer of the race.

The

Catholic Church is the manifestation of Jesus Christ, the organ by which Jesus Christ perpetuates his life upon earth, and the organ of man's restoration, and nature's restoration through man.