great and numerous obstacles which are everywh thrown in her way. This is peculiarly striking North America, where, in the United States alo sixty-seven dioceses, with seminaries, monasteri convents, colleges, and other pious institutions, ha been founded within less than seventy years. Amo some nations of Asia, the blood of martyrs has come the seed of new Christians. In England, Catholic churches, monasteries, convents, and scho are visibly multiplying, owing to the continual crease of the number of those who re-enter into t pale of the true Church. In Germany, monasteri convents, and charitable institutions have been retablished for nursing the sick, for instructing you for educating poor children, for opening asylums penitents of both sexes, and for promoting the pro gation of Faith. Literary pursuits have become m Christian, a new zeal has been revived, and it is ing more and more understood that unity, peace, a eternal salvation are only to be found in the Catl lic Church. If, on the other hand, many Christia enslaved to the love of earthly things, have beco indifferent towards God and His Holy Religion, the Church is still continually oppressed and per cuted, this ought not to shake our faith, but rath confirm us in it; for even in this we see the acco plishment of the Prophecies recorded in the Gosp and of the prediction that one day a great rev shall take place from God and Christ, the Saviour the world (2 Thess. ii. 3, 4; Luke xviii. 8). Ev one, therefore, must take heed that he be not astray, but remain faithful until death, that he ceive the crown of life (Apoc. ii. 10).

appear in North America, especially in the United Stat How in Asia? How in England? What change has tal place in Germany? Where can one be sure to find un peace, and eternal salvation? What should we think of indifferentism of some Christians, and of the continual perse tion of the Church? What, therefore, should every one of do?

CONCLUDING REMARKS

ON THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF THE TRUTH OF OUR DIVINE RELIGION.

We have now, in a small compass, surveyed the history of our Holy Religion, and considered the blessings it has conferred upon mankind from Adam, our first parent, to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and from Him, the Divine Head and Founder of our Church, to His present Vicegerent, Pius IX. How sublime and beautiful is the Religion we profess! Everything connected with it calls out to us: God alone could have given such a Religion to mankind.

1. Man has not invented it; God Himself has taught it to us, and has commanded us to observe it. He revealed it by holy men in the Old Testament (§§ 6, 11, 7); and in the New, precisely as the Prophecies of the Old Testament had foretold.

His Only-Begotten, Eternal Son appeared on earth, and most convincingly confirmed His Divine Doctrine by numerous miracles, especially by His Resurrection from the dead (§§ 21, 22, 23, 26, 27). God has spoken, and no one has a right to be indifferent to His word; to despise or reject it would be to condemn one's self to everlasting hell fire.

2. The Religion to which we belong did not take rise only a few centuries ago; properly speaking, it dates from the beginning of the world. For its first seeds were laid in Paradise when God promised a Redeemer to our First Parents after their fall; and the whole of the Old Law, with its sacrifices and wonderful events, was but a figure of the New Law, which

What have we now surveyed? What have we chiefly consid ered in the history of our Religion?

1. Whence does our Religion come? By whom has God revealed it to us? How did Jesus Christ confirm His Divine Doctrine? Is it indifferent which religion we profess?

2. How old is our Religion? How do you explain and prove its great age?

contains the fulfilment and accomplishment of the Old (§§ 2, 7, 9, 12, and others). The Old Law believed in the Redeemer to come, and the New believes in Him already come. But it is the same belief in the same Redeemer, and therefore it is essentially the same Religion.

3. Although our Holy Religion is coeval with the beginning of mankind, and its history embraces about six thousand years, yet its beginning is not lost in obscure fables of ancient times; on the contrary, its truth is evident and obvious to all. For it exhibits, from the remotest antiquity down to the present time, an uninterrupted series, as it were, of public and universally known facts and events, which perfectly agree with one another, and with all the monuments of past ages, as also with the annals of the various nations of the world, and with the discoveries made by natural philosophers. They have been so manifoldly and irrefragably attested that he who would not believe them might just as well deny any other historical truth. We count, and can even name, the generations exactly as they succeeded one another from Adam to Christ (Luke iii.; Matt. i.), and all the Supreme Pastors or Popes from St. Peter to our Holy Father, Leo XIII., who is now gloriously governing the Church established by the Son of God (§ 47 at the end; and pp. 61-66). What a wonderful concatenation, and what an unparalleled succession!

4. Even the Jews, the most obstinate adversaries of our faith, bear witness to its truth. For they carefully keep upon record, in their Holy Books, the whole history and all the Prophecies of the Old Testament, to which we appeal in order to prove the Divine Origin of Christianity; insomuch that no one can for a moment suppose that the Christians have

3. Is the history of our Religion perhaps uncertain, because it dates from the origin of the world, and embraces so long a period? Why not?

4. What evidence do even the Jews give to the truth of our Religion? What does this prove ?

perverted or invented such passages in the Old Testa ment as refer to our Saviour (§ 17).

5. Nor can it be denied that it is entirely through the mighty help of God that the Christian Religion has spread over the whole earth. The Apostles who first preached it were from the lowest class of the people, poor, unknown, even without eloquence or learning. Their doctrine of the Cross, which contains the inscrutable mysteries of penance, humility, and mortification, was not likely to please the proud and licentious pagans, who found in their abominable mythology (i.e., fabulous history of their gods), not only an excuse, but even a justification, for all their vices. The rich and the great looked with disdain upon the poor fishermen; the witty and the learned derided them; and the mighty rulers of the earth, as even pagan writers testify, took all possible pains to destroy them with fire and sword. During three centuries, persecution and martyrdom were the common lot of the Christians. Nevertheless, the doctrine of the poor fishermen, as we have seen, triumphed over all its enemies, and thus proved to be the Doctrine of God (§§ 29-35). It spread so rapidly that, soon after the death of the Apostles, St. Justin ventured to affirm before the whole world: There is no people, neither among the Barbarians, nor among the Greeks, nor in any other known nation, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered up to the Father and Creator of the Universe in the name of Christ Crucified.' Who else but the Almighty could have performed such an inexplicable wonder? St. Augustine, the celebrated Father of the Church, makes a striking observation upon this: If the miracles,' he says,wrought by the Apostles could be denied, this would be the greatest miracle: that the world believed without miracles.'

5. How do you prove that the Christian Religion was spread through the help of God? About what time did St. Justin live? What does he testify of the propagation of Christianity? What observation does St. Augustine make?

6. But the Christian Church is not only fou on miracles; her duration itself is a continual perpetual miracle. Kingdoms and empires, in of their power, perish in the course of time Kingdom of Christ alone outlasts them all, a constantly increasing. If it decreases in one pa the world, it spreads so much the more in an (8 45). From the time of its foundation, it has assailed by innumerable enemies from within from without; their power is terrible, their h implacable. The Church of Christ, on her part no army to repulse their assaults, no sword to op their rude violence. Had not the arm of God tected her, she would long since have been over by the force and fraud of her enemies (§§ 32, 36 39, 42, 43, 47, 48).

I

7. The Christian Church appears still more ous, if we consider the benefits and blessings w she has at all times conferred on mankind. she that subdued the brutality of the barbarians, abolished slavery and human sacrifices, and prom public and domestic happiness. It was she that fo ed charitable institutions and innumerable hos for the reception of the sick and distressed; i she that amended the existing laws or made new o it was she that taught concord and charity, and fused learning and true enlightenment (§§ 30, 38 45, 46). She can truly be called the Tree of which God has planted, that all men should peac ly rest under its shade, and refresh themselves wi fruit. Never has a nation abandoned this Tree of without plunging itself into indescribable mi We know very well what has become of the natio Asia and Africa who were formerly so happy,

6. How do you prove that the duration or permanent co ance of the Christian Church is a miracle ?

7. What fruits did the Christian Faith produce for man What, on the contrary, were the fruits which heresy and delity brought forth? What conclusion must we draw these different fruits?