that we must be saved by Christ's sufferings and death.

You have been perhaps accustomed to believe, you have been told, it may be, from your childhood, that we Catholics, or "Romanists as they sometimes call us, believe that it is our own good works that win heaven for us; that we put the merits of Christ quite into the background. But you see this is a great mistake. Christ is our Saviour, and there is no other which can take His place; this is nothing new which Martin Luther or any other Protestant brought to light; it has been the Catholic teaching from the beginning.

Next we have mention of the Resurrection of Christ. We perhaps need not say much about this, for though it is a miraculous event, in which we believe by faith, and not a simple matter of ordinary history, still the whole Christian world accepts it as a certainty. No Christian believes that Christ's body decayed like others in the tomb to which it was consigned, or even that it was stolen away to follow the laws of nature in any other place, or to be otherwise disposed of by His disciples. The practically universal belief of all who call themselves Christians is that, as recorded in all the gospels, Christ arose from the tomb in which His really dead body lay, on the Sunday morning following His crucifixion; and that he

arose to die no more, but to live in the flesh a glorious and immortal life.

They believe also that His risen body was not, as before, subject to pain, fatigue, or any of the ills of this life, and that it had qualities of a supernatural character, evident from the gospel narratives, which will be more fully explained when we come to speak of the resurrection of the dead. Here, then, the Catholic Church has no issue or trouble with any other Christian denominations, except with such who, while calling themselves Christians, reject the supernatural altogether from the life of Christ. We may, therefore, pass on, since, as has been said from the outset, we are not undertaking a formal defence of the Christian faith against other quite different religions, nor against infidelity and rationalism.

What have we next? "The personal union of the two Natures, the divine and the human."

This concerns a point of what may be called accurate theology, about which in these days people do not generally trouble themselves much. And it is not a point of real controversy at present among those who believe in the Divinity of Christ, though many have no doubt quite loose and unsettled notions on the subject.

In the early days of the Church, however, there was a good deal of dispute about this matter.

Some held that there was a double personality in Christ; two really distinct persons, one Divine, the other human, under the same bodily form.

These were called Nestorians, from their leader, Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople. Their doctrine was condemned as false and heretical at the General Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, and it disappeared for the most part from the Church, though there are some who profess it even to this day among the Christians of the far East. You may have seen the name in the papers; their reunion with the Catholic Church was spoken of some time ago.

This doctrine having been condemned, some went too far in the other direction, and maintained that there was no human nature in Christ; that there was only one nature, as there was only one person. These were called Eutychians, from their leader Eutyches, a monk of Constantinople; or more significantly Monophysites, a Greek word signifying one nature (monos, one or single, and physis, nature). This belief was also declared to be contrary to the true faith in the General Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, and it never prevailed to any great extent subsequently; but as there are still some Nestorians, so also there are still some Monophysites. The Copts of Egypt are such.

But neither of these doctrines is formally

maintained by Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, in Europe or America. All among us who believe in Christ's Godhead or Divinity, whether they be Catholic or Protestant, believe that Christ was both God and man, in one single personality.

And indeed it is clear that, were it otherwise, His sufferings and death would not avail for our redemption, in the view of those who believe that redemption or atonement for our sins was needed. A merely human person could not suffice to make this atonement; on the other hand, a human nature was needed in order that suffering and death might be possible.

I think, then, that there are few so-called orthodox Protestants who will have any fault to find with the Catholic Church here; though such Protestants do not all see the consequences which naturally follow from this doctrine, as will be evident a little farther on.

The next article is: "the divine Maternity of the most holy Mary, together with her most spotless Virginity." Here we come to what seems to be a point at issue; and we will give to it, and to the general teaching of the Church about the Blessed Virgin, a separate chapter.

CHAPTER VII.

THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.

WHAT, then, is meant by these words

Mary"?

the divine Maternity of the most holy

It is meant that she is truly and properly called, as the Catholic Church calls her, the Mother of God. This title was definitely given to her by the Council of Ephesus, of which I have just spoken, and is given to her by all Catholics in the prayer which we call the "Hail Mary." We say in that prayer: "Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."

It is quite likely that you may object to this title, and be scandalized by it. But that is because you do not rightly understand what it

means.

I remember seeing mention of it made in a Protestant catechism which I was once teaching in a Sunday-school. It spoke of this title as being a wrong one given by Romanists, and remarked that the Virgin Mary was "Christ's mother only as to His human nature."

This, of course, implied that "Romanists," or Catholics, regarded her as the mother of the