things of the earth, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him Arise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said: Far be it from me; for I never did eat anything that is common and unclean. And the voice spoke to him again the second time: That which God hath cleansed, do not thou call common. And this was done thrice; and presently the vessel was taken up into heaven.

As Peter was doubting what this vision might mean, the messengers from Cornelius arrived. Peter received them, and on hearing their message consented to accompany them to the house of Cornelius. On his arrival, Peter finding himself publicly called upon by Cornelius, in the name of all who were present, to declare the will of God to them, spoke as follows:

SPEECH OF ST. PETER AT THE BAPTISM OF THE FIRST GENTILE CONVERT. In very deed I perceive that God is not a respecter of persons.

But in every nation, he that feareth Him, and worketh justice, is acceptable to Him.

God sent the word to the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all).

You know the word which hath been published through all Judea for it began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached.

Jesus of Nazareth: how God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost, and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

And we are witnesses of all things that He did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed, hanging Him upon a tree.

Him God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be made manifest,

Not to all the people, but to witnesses preordained by God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He arose again from the dead.

And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was appointed by God to be judge of the living and of the dead.

To Him all the prophets give testimony, that by His name all receive remission of sins who believe in Him.

While Peter was yet speaking these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word. And the faithful of the circumcision, who came with Peter, were astonished, for that the grace of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the Gentiles also. For they heard them speaking with tongues, and magnifying God. Then Peter answered: Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptised, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then they desired him to tarry with them some days.

§ 48. The missionary work of the Church is commenced. St. Paul and St. Barnabas are the first who are sent out as missionaries.

St. Peter had now come to reside at Antioch, and St. Luke's narrative relates, that the Holy Ghost signified to the rulers of the Church at Antioch, saying: 'Separate Me Saul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have taken them. Then they, fasting and praying, and imposing hands upon them, sent them away.'

Here we are presented with a most interesting glimpse into the won

derful mysteries of Divine foresight, by means of which handfuls of Jews had long ago been scattered up and down in all the cities of the Roman empire. Lodged in the hands of these Jews were the writings of Moses and the prophets, which foretold the coming of Jesus Christ, His Sacrifice on the Cross, and the establishment of His Church among all the nations of the world. As the Christian missionaries invariably made their first appeal to these writings, and proved out of the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ, it was essential to their cause that they should be able to point to a certain guarantee that the Scriptures were not a Christian forgery. This guarantee was given, in a manner secure against any possible cavil, by the fact of the Scriptures being already long before in the hands of the Jews. Accordingly, the missionaries, as we shall see, always begin to address themselves first to the Jews, who had the Scriptures in their possession; and after having, as was the fitting and natural thing to do, first made the offer of their doctrines to the Jews, then they turn to the heathens.

To use St. Luke's own words: They came to Antioch in Pisidia, and entering the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, according to their custom, they sat down. After the reading of the law and the prophets, the chief men of the synagogue sent to them, saying: 'Ye men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation to make to the people, speak.' Then Paul, rising up, and with his hand beckoning for silence, said:

MISSIONARY SERMON OF ST. PAUL IN THE SYNAGOGUE OF ANTIOCH.

Ye men of Israel, and you that fear | His promise, hath raised up to Israel a God, give ear. Saviour, Jesus.

The God of the people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they were sojourners in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought them out from thence.

And for the space of forty years endured their manners in the desert.

And destroying seven nations in the land of Chanaan, divided their land among them, by lot.

As it were after four hundred and fifty years and after these things He gave unto them judges, until Samuel the prophet.

And after that they desired a king: and God gave them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, forty years.

And when He had removed him, He raised them up David to be king: to whom giving testimony, He said: I have found David the son of Jesse, a man according to My own heart, who shall do all My will.

John first preaching before His coming the baptism of penance to all the people of Israel.

And when John was fulfilling his course, he said: I am not He whom you think me to be: but behold there cometh One after me, whose shoes of His feet I am not worthy to loose.

Men, brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you fear God, to you the word of this salvation is sent.

For they that inhabited Jerusalem, and the rulers thereof, not knowing Him, nor the voices of the prophets, which are read every sabbath, judging Him have fulfilled them.

And finding no cause of death in Him, they desired of Pilate that they might kill Him.

And when they had fulfilled all things that were written of Him, taking Him down from the tree they laid Him in a sepulchre.

But God raised Him up from the dead Of this man's seed God, according to the third day:

Who was seen for many days, by them who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who to this present are His witnesses to the people.

And we declare unto you that the promise which was made to our fathers,

This same God hath fulfilled to our children, raising up Jesus, as in the second Psalm also is written: Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.

And to show that He raised Him up from the dead, not to return now any more to corruption, He said thus: I will give you the holy things of faithful David.

And therefore in another place also He saith: Thou shalt not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption.

For David, when he had served in his generation according to the will of God, slept; and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption.

But He whom God hath raised from the dead saw no corruption.

Be it known therefore to you, men, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is preached to you: and from all the things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

In Him every one that believeth is justified.

Beware therefore lest that come upon you which is spoken in the prophets:

Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which you will not believe, if any man shall tell it you.

The effect of this discourse was such, that St. Paul was unanimously requested to speak again on the next Sabbath-day. In the mean time, many flocked to the house of the missionaries; and when the Sabbathday came, almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. The Jews, on seeing the multitudes of the Gentiles, were filled with envy, and contradicted those things which were said by Paul, blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas said: 'To you it behoved us first to speak the word of God; but because you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord hath commanded us, saying, I have set Thee to be the light of the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be for My salvation unto the utmost parts of the earth' (Isaias xlix. 6). The Gentiles, hearing these words, were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord. The spite and envy of the Jews, however, was such that they stirred up religious and honourable women, and the chief rulers of the city, and raised such a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, that they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and went on to Iconium.

In Iconium, a great number of both the Jews and Greeks listened to the preaching of the missionaries and were converted; but here again the unbelieving Jews stirred up a party among the Gentiles against them, and having laid their plot to stone them, their design was told to the missionaries, who departed, and removed to Lystra. And there sat a certain man at Lystra impotent in his feet, a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked. This same heard Paul speaking. Who looking upon him, and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice: Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped up and walked. And when the multitudes had seen what Paul had done, they lifted up their voice in the Lycaonian tongue, saying: The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men; and they called Barnabas, Jupiter; but Paul, Mercury, because he was chief speaker. The priest also of Jupi

ter that was before the city, bringing oxen and garlands before the gate, would have offered sacrifice with the people. Which, when the Apostles Barnabas and Paul had heard, rending their clothes, they leaped out among the people crying, and saying:

MISSIONARY SERMON OF ST. PAUL TO THE HEATHENS OF LYSTRA. Ye men, why do ye these things? We also are mortals, men like unto you, preaching unto you to be converted from these vain things to the living God, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them:

Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways..

Nevertheless He left not Himself without testimony, doing good from heaven, giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.

And speaking these things, they scarce restrained the people from sacrificing to them.

The Jews from Antioch and Iconium, disappointed by the flight of the missionaries, followed them to Lystra; and there, persuading the multitude, they stoned Paul, and drew him out of the city, thinking him to be dead.

ST. PAUL IS STONED BY THE JEWS IN LYSTRA.

But as the disciples stood round about him, St. Paul rose up and entered into the city. The next day the missionaries departed to Derbe, from whence they returned through Lystra and Iconium to Antioch, having ordained priests in all the cities, and having taught their con

verts that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.'

From thence they continued their labours, and passing through the cities of Pisidia, Pamphylia, and Attalia, they returned to Antioch in Syria, where they related to the Church what great things God had done by them, and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. § 49. Brief reflections on the apostolic work of preaching to the nations.

The door of faith having been now opened to the Gentiles, as we have seen from what has been above related of St. Paul's labours, it will greatly conduce to give additional interest to our history, if we pause for a moment for the purpose of casting a passing glance upon the vast and gigantic fabric of mingled truth and superstition that existed in the heathen religions, to the correction and even overthrow of which the Apostles had now put their hands in serious earnest, by the work of preaching the truths of faith.

The reader who refers back to the chapter on the Rise and Growth of Idolatry (§ 10, p. 10), will there find some brief illustration of the truth of St. Paul's words, where he says, with reference to the nations, that when they knew God they did not like to retain Him in their knowledge, but corrupted their ways, and changed their knowledge of Him to the likeness of birds, and beasts, and creeping things.'

The nations whom God began to abandon to their own ways at the time when He called Abraham to be the patriarch of His chosen Hebrew people it is true greatly corrupted their knowledge of God; but they never became complete atheists and unbelievers, like the impious children of Cain before the Deluge. The religion which they had learned from their patriarch and high-priest Noe came from God, and was the true religion; for Noe, St. Peter says, was a preacher of justice. It was from Noe that the nations of the world learned to institute temples and priesthoods, altars and sacrifices, which would have remained equally acceptable to God with the sacrifices of the tabernacle of Moses, had the nations not corrupted their religion and brought in idol worship.

Hence when the Book of Wisdom declares 'the worship of abominable idols to be the cause, the beginning, and the end of all evil' (Wisd. xiv. 27), this worship, it must be remembered, is pronounced thus abominable precisely because it drew with it the perversion and dishonour of that which was originally good. The sacred character of the sacerdotal orders, the piety and devotion of the people, their just sense of the necessity of offering sacrifice, and their respect for the sanctity of the temple and its altar-all these things were originally good, as being derived from a Divine revelation, through the patriarch Noe, the priest and prophet of the Deluge. And if they became afterwards desecrated, this was from their being turned aside to the worship of these abominable idols. Hence, in the time of the Apostles, nothing remained for