nothingness as from its principle, but from its own nothingness, that is to say, from its nonexistence, that it may begin to exist by the omnipotence of Him Who has given not only the form but the substance to all created beings? What do we see at the bottom of the scale of creatures, at the lowest extremity of this hierarchy which ascends towards God?

Inert matter, matter without any kind of life.

In this inert matter God deposited the germ of life in its most imperfect form-vegetable life. But if a plant has not its root in the ground, it will not vegetate; though superior to the earth, it yet stands in

need of it.

Now let us look at a creature, superior to the plants and to the earth. Here we discern inert matter and vegetable life also: but here God has deposited the germ of a life which does not depend so passively or so continually on what is exterior,-as the sap of a plant depends upon the earth into which it strikes its roots. Sensible and animal life finds its nourishment where it chooses to seek it; it moves itself by an interior principle, by instinct, and it goes whither its instinct leads it. Nevertheless, this animal life, though superior to vegetable life, cannot subsist without it.

Let us now behold creation ascending still higher in the scale. God stoops to His work to attach it more closely to Himself by the bond of resemblance. To the animal life, the principle of which is indeliberate instinct, He adds a life immeasurably superior, though dependent, at least in a certain degree, upon the first,-intellectual and moral life,-the principle of which is reason and liberty, and man becomes the living and immortal link which unites the material to the spiritual world, sensible creatures to pure spirits, and which completes the hierarchy we have just surveyed.

Is this all? No; God wills to unite created with uncreated life; he wills that a free and intelligent creature should live by His own Divine life: Ut efficiamini

divinæ consortes naturæ ("That you may be made partakers of the Divine Nature").1

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By what means will God unite the moral to the Divine life, the natural life to the supernatural life of grace? "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. The Word,—that is to say, the substantial, living, eternal Idea of God, the infinitely perfect knowledge which He has of Himself and of all things, the uncreated Wisdom, without which nothing was created, the ineffable prototype of all which is and of all which can be,-united Himself immediately with the work of His hands, and chose for this personal union the creature which contains in itself all creation, both bodily and spiritual: man, His image and His child; and it was in anticipation of the Incarnation of the Word that the divine life of grace was communicated to the pure spirits themselves, for Jesus Christ is the head of Angels as of men. Thus all created life, in all its forms, returns to its source to Him who is the Fountain of life: In ipso vita erat ("In Him was life").

We have already seen that the Incarnation of the Word, ordained by the Creator from the beginning of time, has been to all generations of men the principle of that life of which the Incarnate Word, God made man, the Head of a supernatural humanity, Himself has said: "I am the Vine, you are the branches. If you abide not in Me, you have no life." It is by taking upon Himself our nature and our life that He has rendered us capable of partaking His life: Unius quippe naturæ sunt vitis et palmites. Propter quod cum esset Deus, cujus natura non sumus, factus est homo, ut in illo esset vitis humana natura, cujus et nos homines palmites esse possemus3 ("For the vine and the branches are of the same nature; therefore, being God, of Whose nature we are not, He became man, that so He might be the Vine of which we men might be the branches"). He willed thus to make the communication of the Divine life to us de1 2 Peter i. 4. 2 John i. 14. 3 S. Aug. in Joan, Tr. 80.

pendent on the Incarnation, or personal union with human nature, with an inferior life which He had raised to an infinite life.

Is the humanity of Jesus Christ, then, the last link of the chain of creatures which immediately unites the whole creation to God?

In Jesus Christ the Humanity is not the Divinity, nor the Divinity the Humanity,-the two Natures, Divine and Human, being distinct; but these are inseparably united in One single Person, the Person of the "Only Son, eternally begotten in the bosom of the Father," so that in Him Man is truly God, and God truly Man. We must not say, then, of the Humanity of Jesus Christ, that it is the last link of the chain of mere creatures by which God unites the whole creation to Himself, since in Jesus Christ the Human Nature, without being confounded with the Divine, yet subsists only in the Person of the Word, and is, therefore, in this sense deified: Non confusione substantiæ, sed unitate persona ("Not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person").1

The last link, then, of this chain is that creature, blessed above all others, in whose womb the Word became Incarnate, and to whom He has vouchsafed to owe that sacred Humanity which He took upon Himself for us: Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto, ex Maria Virgine ("And was Incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary").

Prayer.

Lord, I thank Thee that Thou hast given a place apart to Mary in creation, and hast raised her to such dignity that all other creatures are below her, and none above her but Thyself alone. In presence of this Thy greatest work, how blind do those appear who fear to say too much of Thy Mother! And how truly, Lord, hast Thou enlightened those who know and confess their inability to speak worthily of her, for the "great things"

1 Symb. S. Athan.

which Thou hast done in her are truly beyond expression. But I thank Thee, not only for having made Mary so great, by choosing her for Thy Mother, and uniting her to Thyself by the closest bonds, I thank Thee also, my God, for having made her so good, by making her our Mother also, and uniting her so closely to us by laying upon her the motherly care of our souls. Ah, yes, this I understand and see, and I shall never forget it, that Thy Mother is also mine; and if a Mother's heart cannot refuse to compassionate my miseries, and to hear me when I call upon her, neither can the Heart of her Son refuse to hearken to her and to grant her requests when she prays for me. Almighty God, only and eternal Son of the Father, Thou hast willed to become our Brother by becoming the Son of Mary! Grant, then, what she asks from Thee for us; grant what she asks from Thee for me; and I will live in penitence, and die in hope: In pace in idipsum, dormiam et requiescam, quoniam tu, Domine, singulariter in spe constituisti me ("In peace in the self-same, I will sleep and take my rest; for Thou only, O Lord, hast established me in hope").

CHAPTER V.

THE GRACE OF MARY, OR MARY FULL OF GRACE.

The grace bestowed on Mary is immeasurably superior to all the graces which have ever been granted to Angels or to

men.

WE have now surveyed the scale of various lives, or rather of life in its different degrees,1 and we have seen it coming forth from God and returning again to Him; becoming more perfect in proportion as He draws it closer to Himself, that He may unite it finally to His own life, to the Uncreated Life, by virtue of His union with our human nature, in which He had already combined the three degrees of created life.

1 Vide pp. 24-27, supra.

But what shall we call that divine life in which it has pleased God to give His creatures a participation? It is called grace in time, and glory in eternity. Grace is the seed of glory, which God implants in us in this world, in order that with our coöperation it may bud and unfold here below to flourish eternally with Him in heaven.

What difference is there between the intellectual and moral life of human nature, and that divine life in which this nature participates by grace here on earth, and by glory in the bosom of God? There is this difference, that the intellectual and moral life is like that of God, whereas by the life of grace and glory we participate, in different degrees, in the Divine Life itself. By the first we are the image of God in intelligence and love; but we know and love Him only with a natural knowledge and love; we know Him by His works, and we love Him as the Author of nature and of all blessings; we know Him by the light of reason, and we love Him with the affections of the will, which follow from the intellectual light; or rather, we should thus naturally know and love Him, if the light of our understanding were not obscured by the darkness of ignorance and the force of our will weakened by concupiscence, because our nature, though still itself, is now but a ruin of what it was. But by the second life, i.e. the life of faith and grace which leads us to glory, we begin to know God by a light superior to that of reason,-a light which dispels the darkness of our ignorance, elevates our understanding, takes possession of our soul, and fills it with unction: Diligendo itaque nos Deus, ad imaginem suam nos reparat: et ut in nobis formam suæ bonitatis inveniat; dat unde ipsi quoque quod operatur, operemur, accendens scilicet mentium nostrorum lucernos, et igne nos suæ charitatis inflamens, ut non solum ipsum, sed etiam quidquid diligit, diligamus.1

of

Give me a true Christian, and he will understand 1 S. Leon., Serm. i., De Jejunio.

1