this kind justify us in believing, that there are no valid clerical orders among Protestants properly so-called, except in some rare instances; the Protestant, then, even though he be validly baptized, has no access to the Sacrament of Penance; and indeed few Protestants make any endeavor to avail themselves of it. If then, after once receiving the grace of God he should be so unfortunate, as is only too probable, to fall into mortal sin, it must be forgiven him without this great help; this is indeed possible, but it is comparatively difficult, as will be seen more clearly later. Then there is for him no Real Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist to strengthen him and give renewed life to his soul. "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you," says our Lord (John vi. 54); and though no one can well hold that salvation is impossible without the actual reception of Holy Communion, still no doubt it is for Catholics practically necessary for the nourishment of the soul, for the extirption of vicious habits and the formation of solid virtue, and for perseverance to the end, on which everything depends. And if it is so for Catholics, why not for others as well?

Again, the Protestant has no Sacrament of Confirmation by which to receive the permanent grace of the Holy Ghost, to make his faith solid

and firm against the assaults of the enemy; no Sacrament of Extreme Unction, to prepare him for his last combat. He has to leave the world, as our great poet says, "unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled"; how many chances are against him, even though he be in perfectly good faith about his religion, and trying to do his very best!

These difficulties of which I have spoken do not exist to the same extent in those churches which, like the Greek and other Oriental ones, have retained valid orders, and have, except in what would now be considered by people in general as matters of small consequence, the same doctrine as the Catholic Church. What separates them from us is principally what we call schism, for which their individual members can hardly, as a rule, be to blame, and which moreover has not deprived them of the means of grace established in the Church. Russian soldiers, for instance, were attended by French priests in the Crimean war; they had always been accustomed to receive the sacraments, and expected them at the hour of death as they had during life.

You see now, I think, what is meant by our saying that no one can be saved without the faith which the Catholic Church teaches. Principally that no one can be saved by some so-called faith or opinion which he selects for

himself, knowing or suspecting that the Church established by Christ proposes something else to him; secondarily, that without the means of salvation placed in the Church by Christ, salvation is extremely difficult. And it would be even more difficult probably than it actually is, were it not that to those who are without any fault of their own deprived of these means of salvation, God in His mercy makes the combat somewhat easier, as it would seem; taking away from such, perhaps, some of the temptations to which they might otherwise be exposed, or, as we may say, " tempering the wind to the shorn lamb." For He "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (I. Tim. ii. 4), at least so far as it is morally possible for them.

There is another article in this preamble which is likely to give difficulty; that in which it is said, "I am ready to observe all she commands me." To the consideration of this we will devote a separate chapter.

As

CHAPTER XVII.

THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH.

S you read the words just mentioned, "I am ready to observe all she commands me," I should not be at all surprised if they suggested most unpleasant ideas. They really must seem, to one having the usual prejudices against the Church, to mean that every Catholic must be ready to undertake any duty which it may please the Pope, or the bishop, or any one else who is his lord and master, to assign him to. He might be required, for instance, to blow up the Capitol or the White House, or to poison his own father or mother; very well, if the Church commands this, these words would seem to settle the question. He would have, if we take them in the sense in which they might easily be taken by Protestants, to go right to work and do what he was told, without any fuss or scruple.

But though this idea may seem natural enough, in reality it is nothing but a monstrous bugbear. Catholics would be amused at any such sense being taken from the declaration or promise of which we are speaking. For every Catholic man knows that there is no such

personal authority which issues special commands to him. The priest of his own parish is the nearest approach to such an authority; but whatever commands he has to give are given out in public in the church, and are simply instructions or requests to join in some good work which is on foot, in which every one should help according to his opportunities.

You will, however, say that at least the priest gives injunctions of a personal character in the confessional. This is true, of course. But the commands or directions there given have reference only to the good of the soul of · the penitent; they are either to the effect that he must give up his sins, or the occasions of sin-that is to say, the places, persons, or occupations which are causes of sin to him; or they are the prescribing to him of certain prayers or pious works by way of what we call penance, to be offered up in atonement or satisfaction for sins, according to what has been said in the previous chapter on purgatory.

Now, I know all this may be very different from your idea of the relation between priest and people. You are accustomed to regard the people as being what Protestants call “priestridden." The fact is that it is really the other way.

The people are not priest-ridden, but the priest is people-ridden. He is, if he have any relations with the people at all, pretty much at