among the nations that shall greet him in that hour, a sceptred monarch and crowned king, a ruler temporal, and, far more, a spiritual father, the mighty, the young, the glorious, and the free America will present herself. When this land, so mighty in its extent and the limits of its power that it cannot afford to be anything else than Catholic,-for no other faith can be commensurate with so mighty a nation-when this land, this glorious America, developing her resources, rising into that awful majesty of power, will shake the world and shape its destinies, will find every other religious garb too small and too miserable to cover her stately form, save the garb of the Catholic faith, and the Christian garment in which the Church of God will envelop her. And she, strong in her material power, strong in her mighty intelligence, strong in that might that will place her at the front of the nations, shall be the first to hail her pontiff, her father, and her king, and to establish him upon his mighty throne as the emblem and the centre of the faith and the glorious religion of a united people, whose strength-the strength of intellect, the strength of faith, the strength of material power -will raise up, before the eyes of a wondering and united world, a new vision of the recuperative power and majesty and greatness of the Almighty God, as reflected in his Church.

[Delivered at the Advent Conferences in the Catholic University, Dublin.] "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

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E are come together to consider the things that regard our eternal interests to consider what we owe to God, to our neighbor, and to ourselves. We meet to reflect on the Divine law, the reasons and the extent of its obligations, and our own fulfilment of them.

Catholics.

In all this we have not to seek for the truth, but Blessing of being only to reflect upon it, and apply it to ourselves. We have an infallible guide in truth-the Church -the pillar and the ground of truth. We are not forced, thank God, to fall back upon our own judgment, like those of whom St. Peter speaks, "blind and groping." But to you I say, in the words of the same Apostle, "I will begin to put you in remembrance of these things, though indeed you know' them and are confirmed in the present truth; but I think it meet to stir you up by putting you in remembrance.”

Not so with others, to whom an entrance has not been ministered into "the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ." They are obliged to inquire into everything, to attempt to prove everything, even first principles and the mysteries of revelation, and they are tempted to reject even the holiest truths of God, which are discussed before that most fallible tribunal-the reason of man. Of such, a great man formerly intimately connected with your university, complains, whilst yet a Protestant, in the introduction to one of his works. "Unhappy is it," he says, "that we should be obliged to discuss and defend what a Christian people were intended to

enjoy; to appeal to their intellects instead of 'stirring up their pure mind, by way of admonition;' to direct them towards articles of faith which should be their place of starting, and to treat as mere conclusions, what in other ages have been assumed as first principles.' "Surely life is not long enough to prove everything which may be made the subject of proof; and though inquiry is left partly open, in order to try our earnestness, yet it is in a great measure, and in the most important points, superseded by revelation, which discloses things which reason could not reach-saves us the labor of using it when it might avail, and sanctions thereby the principle of dispensing it;", but he adds, "We have succeeded in raising clouds which effectually hide the sun from us; we have nothing left but to grope our way by reason as we best can-our necessary, because now our only guide. We have asserted our right sacred, however protected accounted that belief alone.

of debating every truth, however from scrutiny heretofore; we have to be manly which commenced in doubt, that inquiry alone philosophical which assumed no first principles, that religion alone rational which we have created for ourselves;" and the end, my brethren, "loss of labor, division, and error have been the threefold gain of our self-will, as evidently visited in this world—not to follow it into the next." Such was the testimony of a singularly deep and candid mind, even before it was yet enlightened by the pure rays of divine truth. But for us, we seek not to find out what is the truth. That we have already found. Our great Mother holds it, and propounds it, and we say to her in the words of the Apostle, "I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that she is able to keep that which hath been committed unto her," (Scio cui credidi et certus sum quia potens est depositum meum servare.) the sacred deposit of all truth. But we inquire, "that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth of that divine truth." To know also, "the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge," i. e., to pursue the truth into all the details of its practical teaching in the moral law, where our faith reveals itself in charity all the fulness of God." This is the great object of the Catholic preacher, after the example of our Divine Lord himself; for it is worthy of remark, that His first Sermon on the Mount, in

"unto

which we might naturally expect an exposition of Christian dogma, was a moral sermon, sketching out the great features of the Christian character, by which His followers should be individually known amongst men to the end of time. Let us consider them:

First " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

The first word spoken by our Lord was, "Blessed." "Much people followed Him," says the Evangelist, "from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from beyond the Jordan, and seeing the multitude, He went up into a mountain;" this was His pulpit-befitting the preacher and His message. He was "the desired, of the everlasting hills," and it was written, "Get Thee up into a high mountain; Thou that bringest good tidings to Sion; lift up Thy voice, Thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Juda, behold your God," and opening His mouth, He taught them. The mouth of God, closed for four thousand years, and when last it spoke, it was to curse the first sinner and the earth in his work, "Cursed is the earth in thy work;' "the earth is infected;" (Isaias) "for the Lord hath spoken this word, therefore shall a curse devour the earth.” Now, it was fitting that Christ's first word should be a revoking of this curse, for, as St. Paul loves to bring out, He was the antithesis of Adam. "As by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners; so also, by the obedience of one man, many shall be made just, therefore, as by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation; so also, by the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life." And yet, if we look into the blessing, we shall find that the curse pronounced upon the world is rather confirmed than revoked by it, for it says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," i. e., Blessed are they who in some sense or other are alienated and separated from the world.

Christ, the Antithesis of Adam.

Why Christ begins with the Spirit.

Mark that Christ begins with the spirit. First, because "God is a spirit, and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth." Hence, the Apostle says: "God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit." And secondly, because the spirit or seat of the affections is that portion of man's soul which guides and

influences all the action of his life. There are two great portions-divisions-powers-faculties in the soul of man: first, the apprehensive or intellectual; and second, the affective or appetitive. To the first belongs the memory; and the office of this first great portion of the soul is to apprehend and preserve ideas, and from them to form knowledge. The second great division of the soul, which we have called the spirit (for the very word suspirare signifies desire), contains the intellectual appetite or will, the affections and desires; and as this will of man, which is led not only by the intellect but still more forcibly by the passions or desires, according to the saying of the poet, "trahit sua quemque voluptas," determines his every act, for that act alone is human which proceeds from it, it follows that the portion of the soul which holds this will and these affections and desires is the source and spring of all moral life in man. Christ our Lord, therefore, began with the spirit, because He wished to change the face of the earth. "Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth." The Spirit of God was to go forth and to take the place of the human spirit, and Christianity was to effect this, that men should no longer be led by their own spirit-i. e., their own natural affections and desires-but by the Spirit of God. According to the word of the Apostle, "Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God," and thus they should "put on the Lord Jesus Christ; for if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." But to Christians he says, "Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?". Blessed, then says the Saviour, are the poor in spirit. Some commentators apply this word to those who are really poor, either by privation in the world or by the high voluntary poverty of holy religion which we find in the cloister. That the text bears such an application is abundantly proved from St. Luke, who adds in the context, "Woe to you who are rich, for you have your consolation." Still, the text bears a much more extended application, and, therefore, others interpret poverty of spirit to mean humility, the foundation, and, at the same time, the crown of all virtues. This interpretation is also true, and the most adopted by the holy fathers. But we can find even more in this beatitude than the canonization of humility. As it was the first feature of the Christian character

But to Christians he