there not been triumphs in our day, and not far from us, which might remind us well enough of that last miserable triumph of Voltaire ?-triumphs, in which men of blood and crime and the most barefaced villainy, men who have hardly condescended to veil their rapine and violence under the cloak of some colourable pretext, have been made the heroes of a cultivated and refined society that calls itself Christian, while their chief claim on the homage of their worshippers has really been this-that they have been great enemies and injurers of the Church and of the Holy See? What wonder then if we are led to think that Antichrist will be the idol of his day, when to the charm of being a great denier and assailant of the checks and restraints which God has placed upon the unbridled indulgence of natural appetites, he will add the fascination of success such as the world has never before seen, and when he will enforce his claims by the aid of lying wonders, and when-to add that last sad element of all the men of his time, because they have resisted and hated the truth, will be handed over by the just judgment of God to a spirit of blindness and delusion, so as to believe a lie!

IV.

Yes, my brethren, the world is always ready for its Antichrist. Its principles and motives and manners of judging, its aims and desires and longings, are all such as will find themselves satisfied, encouraged, answered to in him. On the other hand, there is this consolation for the children of

the Church, for those who form their thoughts and minds, who regulate their judgments and their lives on the pattern of Jesus Christ and of His saints, that they have in their own hearts and consciences a light and an unction of the Holy Ghost which will enable them to withstand all the wiles and seductions of the evil one, to see through all his false wonders and lying miracles, and to baffle his power, if it be so, even by death. Only, my brethren, let us not deceive ourselves by thinking that all this that we have been speaking of is a thing of the future, a matter of merely historical interest and excitement to ourselves. No, my brethren, whether the latter days fall now, or centuries hence, Antichrist, as we have already seen, is in the world at present. We recognize the workings of Divine Providence in the events of our time, and we should think ourselves faithless if we did not see the finger of God both in what befalls the Church and in what befalls ourselves. But we must recognize also the working of the enemies of God. There is another hand continually active all around us; and it behoves us very much not to mistake it or to ignore it. We need that holy simplicity of the saints, which always saw Satan behind the forms of his instruments, and called by their right name the machinations of the evil one. In the day of St. Catharine of Siena, there was a war against the Church's own princes, and she, humble, meek, and charitable as she was, did not speak of these tools of evil as a party, or as representing an idea, or as advocating a policy or a mistaken principle, but in

the plainest language she called them devils.1 Well, my brethren, the hand that is to guide Antichrist is always plotting against the Church and against society. Satan is always, generation after generation, preparing men to be his instruments in the final conflict, he is always undermining our holy faith, always blinding and misleading the world, ever and anon setting forth his chosen instruments and servants in the work of impiety, and teaching them to clothe and bear themselves in such guise as to attract the attention, the interest, the influence, the popularity, which will at last centre around Antichrist himself.

Let us then, dear brethren in Jesus Christ, take care, in the first place, never to bow down or do homage to the world's idols-to intellect, to power, to success, to wealth, to the achievements of dishonest policy, to the prosperous lying, the unblushing wickedness, the boastful injustice of our time. Let us stand on the old paths, and give honour where alone honour is due, to humility, and purity, and meekness, and self-sacrifice, and charity, and zeal for the glory of God. Let us shrine in our heart of hearts, as the measure of all good, the object and centre of all love, Jesus Christ our Lord, Who has come to us in the name of his Father. And in the second place, let us be like men looking forwards rather than backwards, men waiting for and looking out for their Lord—not so much counting up what those before us have done and suffered for the cause

1 Demoni incarnati. S. Catar. Epist. xviii. t. 1. Edit. Burclamacchi. Lucca, 1772.

of God, as if, forsooth, the days of persecution and conflict were gone, never to return; as if henceforth we were to lead quiet and unruffled lives, enjoying our truce with the world, making the most of our position in society, eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage, as in the days of Noe-like men who have hung up their fathers' armour in their halls, and sit round the fire telling tales of their prowess, and yet know not and think not themselves how to lift a hand in the fight in which their fathers bled. No, my brethren; the Church of God is now preparing herself for her last persecution, and she is preparing herself by nothing so much as by waging vigorous warfare now in our own days against the evil influences of the world, and in repelling its assaults upon her outworks, such as marriage and education, as well as upon her doctrines and upon her unity. The last persecution may come in your days, or in the days of your children, or the days of your children's children; but your children, and your children's children will be what you are, what your example and your teaching make them. If you are soldiers, watchful, self-denying, eager to beat back and advance upon the enemies of your souls and of the Church—then, my brethren, you will have done a two-fold good. You will have served the Church and God in your own day, and so have weakened the power of evil in all days, and you will have left behind you and handed on to your little ones the traditions of faithfulness, warfare, toil, and sacrifice for God. If you are soft, self-indulgent, worldly, indolent,

careless of the dangers and at peace with the evils of our time, then, though Antichrist come not yet, you will have done a two-fold evil which will descend in misery upon those who come after you. You will have weakened the cause of God in your own day, and so you will have made the future triumph of evil more easy and more complete; and you will have bequeathed to your children the traditions and the training which will but ill fit them to withstand, in their own generation, the wiles, the seductions, and the cruelties of the great enemy of Jesus Christ.