ples, and the Side, and the Feet of God Himself which the frenzied multitude then gazed upon." Such is the great fact on the truth of which our salvation depends. Its reality is the certainty of our redemption.

Now, with this great fact Catholic teaching exactly corresponds the Catholic Christ is really God made man. Hence come those peculiar practices and devotions, which to Protestants look so fantastic and sometimes even idolatrous. I can mention only a few out of many. When Jesus died on the cross, His Soul was separated from His Body; but neither His Soul nor His Body were separated from His Divinity. Therefore, when He "descended into hell," and the saints of the Old Testament beheld His Soul appear among them, they adored Him as their God; and therefore, also, had one of His disciples met His Sacred Body being carried to the tomb, He would have adored It even as Himself. Hence, in the Creed we say, not only that He "descended into hell," but that He was "buried." He whose Soul descended into the place of the departed was also buried in the tomb. His Body which was buried was as much Himself as His Soul which descended; for both, though separated from each other, were united to His Divine Person, so that where either was, there He was. Nay, every separate drop of Ilis precious Blood, wherever shed whether in the garden, or in Pilate's hall, or in the way to Calvary, or on the Cross itself-remained united with His Godhead, and demanded no less than an act of adoration. Hence it is that Catholics worship Him in the Blessed Sacrament, worship His Body and His Blood each as Himself; because they are severally in personal union with Him, and are inseparable from Him. And here, too, you may see a justification of the Catholic practice of communion in one kind. Christ is one with His Body as with His Blood; and they who receive Him in either kind receive Him whole and entire, His Body and His Blood with His Soul and His Divinity. It is their intense belief in this truth, that "the Word was made flesh," which makes devout Catholics seek Jesus in the tabernacle where He resides under the sacramental species; which brings them so constantly to Mass, wherein the God-Man offers Himself to His Eternal Father for the living and the dead; and which, above all, leads

them so frequently to holy Communion, that they may feed on that Flesh which, never separated from His Spirit, giveth life to the world. Hence also it is that they address Jesus in litanies and other forms of prayer, which call to mind every detail of His infant state, and every circumstance of His Life and Passion. Hence, also, their devotion to His precious Blood, which still runs through the veins of His glorified Body, and to the Five Wounds with which He pleads for us before the mercy-seat in heaven. In heaven Jesus is still, as when on earth, God made man ; not more God, and not less man. His human nature is His for all eternity: He has still and for ever a man's body, and a man's soul, and a man's heart; a human heart and yet divine, for it is the heart of God. This Heart beats with most fervent love for men; therefore, also, we Catholics make It the object of our worship, direct to it acts of love and homage, and labour to make It some little return for all It suffered and all It still feels for us. Hence, again, it is that we delight in representing the Person of Jesus to our minds, and before our very eyes, not only by meditating upon Him, but by making images and pictures of Him, and honouring Him in them, and especially in the holy Crucifix. Hence-need it be said?-the love and honour which we pay to Mary, with all those accompanying peculiarities at which Protestants are shocked, because they do not believe, or, at least, do not grasp the idea that she is indeed the Mother of God. They shrink from giving her the title, and think it safer and more natural to call her only the Mother of Jesus. Hence, in fine, the veneration which we pay to holy Joseph, and the confidence we feel in his prayers for us, because he lived so near to Jesus, and was brought into such familiar contact with Him, and thereby must have received into his soul lights and graces which it is impossible to measure.

All hang together as parts of one harmonious whole, one thing following from another, and all having their root in this, that Jesus, though truly man, is not a man like one of us: He is not an individual human being; He has no human personality; His Person is a Divine Person; He is not a man and God, nor a man made God, but God made

man.

How Antichrist keeps Christmas.

In the early days of England's Protestantism, a nobleman being asked by the king what there was in the city of Rome which made him desirous to visit it, answered, that he had a great curiosity to hear "Antichrist say his creed."

And it is much to be wished that Protestants generally shared this curiosity; for if they really would put Antichrist through his catechism, I think they would be somewhat surprised at his answers; so much so indeed, that (it seems to me) the more candid among them might even be led to doubt whether the party so answering had any reasonable title to such a name. Surely, it is a thing scarcely natural, or to be expected, that Antichrist should adore Christ; no one, reading the prophetical notices of that fearful being, few and dark as they are, could come to such a conclusion concerning him; rather his characteristic would seem to be that he worships none, but sets himself up in the Temple of God to be himself worshipped as God.

And yet none can visit Catholic countries, nor be in the slightest degree familiar with Catholic customs in this, without seeing, not only that the Catholic Church adores Christ, but that her whole life is, in fact, nothing else but one continued and intense act of adoration. Christ is the Sun round which she moves through her yearly circle of fast and festival; from the cradle to the tomb, she watches Him in breathless love; never for a single instant is her eye turned away from Him; like His Virgin Mother, she receives Him in her arms at His birth, she stands by His cross, she weeps over His tomb, she rejoices in His resurrection, and watches Him as He ascends into heaven. And our enemies know this of us; they know that we love and