vours of the Church. But since, according to your own acknowledgment, the former is become absolutely impracticable, it is madness to cut off the resources which the Church substitutes for it; it is folly, it is even a kind of suicide.

To me it appears impossible to desire heaven, without loving and reverencing the Church who opens us an easy way to it,-without wishing to procure a portion of the riches which she pours forth. Give me a man decided on quitting his disorderly life to return to God with his whole heart; a man sensible of the fatal condition in which he has been living, of the infinite Majesty whom he has so much offended, of the greatness of the satisfaction which he owes to him, and lamenting his inability to render it, either from having spent his strength in iniquity, or from being too far advanced in life to hope for time to execute his wishes ;-with what holy eagerness will such a man comply with the invitation of the Church! With what avidity will he lay hold of the resources which she presents to him! What ardour will he shew to render himself worthy of them, and to reap ample benefit from them! What fear lest he should let slip the precious opportunity! For we know how to value remedies, when we have once felt the danger of the evils from which they relieve us. But it is not necessary to recur to such examples of striking or late conversions; souls the most devoted to penance cannot be ignorant that the satisfactory works of our days, are far behind those which the canons prescribed: they ought to apprehend remaining still deeply indebted to God's justice, and feel in consequence the want of extraordinary helps, which will be productive of more fruit in them, as they are better dis

posed by their penance to receive them. Thus indulgences ought to be equally desirable to the strong and to the weak; to the latter, as a supplementary aid to their extreme inability; to the former, as the completion of their well supported exertions: and there can never be room to fear that the grants of the Church will be injurious to the spirit of penance, since they mutually assist and animate each other; penance being the true disposition to obtain indulgences, as it is said by a celebrated author, while indulgences are, in their turn, the accomplishment of penance.

Purgatory-Praying for the Dead.

After all, our faults are so heavy and multiplied, penance is so rare among us, and generally so trifling; our dispositions to profit by indulgences are so defective and uncertain, that after having been absolved and forgiven, there must remain but too often, much for us to expiate in the other world. But where? In what place, and in what manner? Had it been necessary for us to be instructed on these questions, Jesus Christ would doubtless have revealed the knowledge of them. He has not done it: therefore we can only form conjectures more or less probable; I shall not trouble you with a detail of them, having only undertaken to elucidate dogmas and not human opinions.' Of whatever

1 Were I to ask you the situation of limbo, the place which contained the souls of the just departed before Jesus Christ, you would have nothing but conjectures to give mein reply you admit the existence of limbo, because its existence is proved to you,

kind it may be, the place of these painful and tem porary expiations has been appropriately called purgatory, by the councils of Florence and Trent: ' and whatever may be the kind of torments with which souls are there afflicted, we know, and it ought to satisfy us to know, that they are in a statė of suffering, unhappy and unable to help themselves. For them, the time of probation is past, It was confined to the few days which were measured out to them upon earth; and with those days it expired. No more good works can they pursue, there are no more alms to be distributed, no more satisfaction to be offered to heaven: one only method remains of making satisfaction,-that of suffering.

If this be the case, you reply, why can I not now stretch out a saving hand to all these souls? particularly to those who were dear to me here on earth, to that gentle and affectionate soul who perhaps is at this moment suffering in those darksome abodes for faults, which but for me, she would never

although its local position remains unknown. Let it equally suffice for us to be assured of the existence of purgatory, without troubling ourselves about its locality, without enquiring how souls can be confined in a place, since they were so in that which we call limbo, or Abraham's bosom.

All antiquity speaks of some intermediate place, where souls, previously to entering heaven, must be purified from their lesser stains. St. Cyprian, Ep. 2.-Origen Hom. 6 upon Exod.St. Greg, of Nyssa. Disc. on the dead, passim.—St. Greg. Great, B. 4, Dialog. ch. 39 and on the 3rd penl. psm.-St. Aug. City of God, B. 21, ch. 16 and 24, Hom. 16 and often elsewhere.-St. Jerome at the end of his Com. on Isaias.-Theodoret on 1 Cor. ch. 3.-St. Isidore Lib. de offic. divin. ch. 18.-Boetius, B. 4, ps. 4. Ven Bede on Ps. 37.-St. Peter Damian Serm. 2 on St. Andrew. St. Anslem on 1 Cor. ch. 3, &c. &c.

have committed! O why is it not granted me to be able to alleviate her pain, and abridge its duration! You can do it, Sir, it is in your own power. Do not believe Do not believe your unhappy Reformation: it would bitterly separate you from those whom. you have lost it allows you to give them nothing but useless tears and lamentations. Take up other ideas: I love to believe that you have not proceeded thus far in our discussion, without having felt more than once the necessity of being again united to the Catholic Church. Listen then to what that tender. and venerable mother tells you, who reckoned your forefathers among her children for so many centuries. She teaches us, that we can, by our prayers and good works render service to our brethren beyond the tomb; that we can alleviate their pains, and accelerate their deliverance; that our connexion with them is not broken, because it is changed; that new relations have replaced the old; that if we no longer live together, we are still brethren and friends; and that if we can no longer, as heretofore, hear them, and converse with them, we can at least still: cherish them, and find consolation in the relief which we procure them, for whatever pain or trouble it may cause to ourselves. I am aware that this doctrine is by your reformed system, rejected with ignominy as an illusion pleasant and vain, flattering and deceitful. Were it nothing more,' why deprive us of it? Were it only an error, why' snatch it from us, if it be wholly innocent in itself, and if nothing can better encourage us when we survive our friends, than the thought that we may be every day of our lives useful to those who can no longer be so to themselves? But, no Sir, the consolation of this doctrine is neither vain, nor deceitful;

this intercourse between earth and purgatory is not an illusion; and God himself has formed the bond which unites them both, for the consolation of those who remain, and the relief of those who are gone before. But this you will say, is no more than empty assertion. You shall see it proved; I submit it to your judgment, and to that of your doctors; let it be as rigorous as they please, provided it be impartial and equitable. 1°. This doctrine though confirmed by it, is more ancient than Christianity. In the time of the synagogue, the scripture informs us that sacrifices were offered for the dead. In the army of Judas Machabeus, several soldiers had taken away from the temples of Jamnia, contrary to the command of God, certain things consecrated to the idols, and had concealed them under their garments in the moment of the battle, in which all these soldiers perished. Their fault, which was considered the cause of their death, was discovered when they came to be buried. Judas Machabeus thinking that there was room to believe, either that they were not sufficiently aware of the law to ununderstand the heinousness of their transgression, or that they had repented before God before they expired, caused a collection to be made, and the money to be sent to Jerusalem, that sacrifices might be there offered for their sins: "because he con"sidered," says the scripture, "that they who had "fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up "for them. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be "loosed from sins.""

1 2 Machabees XII. v. 45-46.