consummated. Whilst the senses are detained in the visible order, the soul feels the presence of the invisible; it enters into it; it partakes of its substance, like a man placed at the limits of this present material system, who, stretching forth his hand, grasps the boundaries of a higher world. There then passes within the soul what human language would fear to profane by expressing. To that confused murmur of the passions, which as yet agitates the faithful soul, like the last struggle of life, succeeds a profound peace. Shortly after, a commotion sweet as it is powerful, announces the presence of the Deity, and immediately holy desires, prayer, patience, and the spirit of sacrifice, often languid, are again revived. All that is divine within her kindles at the moment: the mental eye becomes purified and receives some rays of that light which is reflected from a brighter world. Emotions, which combine all that is touching in sentiment with all that is calm in reflection, attest the renewed harmony of the spirit and the senses. We may frequently feel on other occasions the joys of virtue; here alone we are inebriated with all its delights. You would fondly wish to retain these

exquisite sensations, but your efforts are vain. They have been shed on the soul, but to imbue her with the sense of that word of happiness, the name of which belongs to a lost language, whose idiom spoken by the children of Adam contains but the wreck. But the more clearly the soul comprehends that word, the more deeply does she feel that it is not of this world. Until she shall have deposited at the portals of Heaven the burthen of terrestrial virtues, until the moment shall have arrived when she will be freed ever from hope, the joys of the captive soul will be marked by suffering. The pleasure of this world becomes insipid, its happiness a burthen, and, whoever is deeply versed in life must acknowledge, that the greatest miracle of communion is to render it tolerable. These raptures of love mingled with sorrow impart, at that solemn moment, a sublime expression to the countenance. That of joy is rarely so because joy is so fugitive and false that it appears to give to the human figure a sensless and undignified expression. Sorrow, on the contrary, almost always ennobles the countenance. But the instinct of our primeval destiny, alarmed by the

contrast, seeks another dignity than that of sorrow. The true condition of man is the reparation of his misery, and his countenance never exhibits a nobler terrestrial aspect, than when he embodies the expression of that mystery of sorrow and grace, on receiving the impress of a divine joy in the abyss of his sufferings. Mark that christian who adores his Saviour within his soul: would you not say that if that mouth, closed by recollection, were to open, a voice would come forth, attempting, though in a plaintive tone the canticles of Heaven? It would blend the sighs of man with the rapture of an angelic spirit.

CHAPTER IX.

The connexion of all the errors that destroy faith in Divine Love.

The order of the physical shadows forth the unity of the spiritual world. Each particular phenomenon is interwoven with more general phenomena, those with others, and thus till we arrive at the universal phenomenon which is the harmony of all particular facts. What we denominate particular truths are, in like manner, only glances more or less limited of the eternal and infinite truth. He who contemplates the material universe as the expression of a single law, can easily understand how the sole violation of that law in any given instance would include in principle

the destruction of the entire, and draw after it the total ruin of the system. In the same way, truth being essentially one, all negations finally tend to resolve themselves into one great negation, and there is no error that does not assail the substantial truth or God himself. Thus viewed every culpable error is a deicide. The rejection of the catholic doctrine respecting the Eucharist furnishes an example the more remarkable as it strikingly presents the close union of those consoling dogmas that vivify the human soul by the revelation of boundless love.

The first protestant controvertists who argued against this mystery of love unconsciously mooted a question of vast importance. Freed from scholastic subtilities on the essence of matter and spirit, now exploded from all great systems of philosophy, whether ideal or material, their difficulties arose from the impossibility of conceiving an union of the Infinite with man the finite being, according to the mode of communication which the Catholic dogma supposes. Let us attend to the consequence: the chain of error is about to unfold itself.

It is evident to all that the Deists only applied