averse.

virtue, and sacraments regarded as powers of the world to come, and holding within them something of that mystery which surrounds man on every hand. And it is the more important to begin at that starting-point, because of the intense aversion of the popular mind to the thing which makes the Sacramental System a reality and a truth. For we may at once admit, and frankly, that to the conception of the system as it has been presented to you, the spirit of the age is decidedly and strongly Men will take anything from us so long as we make no draft on their faith; but as soon as it comes to marvels and miracles, and results transcending the natural powers of the understanding, there is an end of their respect for our intelligence or their confidence in us as guides. There would be no objection to sacraments considered as outward forms, pictorial representations, or symbolic acts; just as there is no objection to a creed if every man is permitted to put on it what sense he pleases, or to ritual so long as it means nothing; but when we speak of sacraments as channels of grace, and supernatural agencies in the process of man's salvation, good-by at once to trust, to respect, and even to the use of polite language. Sacraments, if that is what they mean, are mum

mery and magic; soul-destroying, Christ-concealing inventions; a snare, a delusion, an offence to the simple; and the teachers of sacramental religion are mediæval formalists, deceived and being deceived. Baptism, for example, is well enough as a ceremony of initiation, or a sign of profession and mark of difference; nay, as such, and as performed in a particular manner, it is the badge of a sect numbering in these United States some three millions of adherents; but it cannot be an instrument of regeneration, seeing that-as the objector states it-regeneration may take place before or after the reception of baptism, but cannot by any possibility occur at the moment of the administration; while in the case of the Lord's Supper the only thing to be strenuously asserted is that "this is not His Body," and that "this is not His Blood."

An opposition so widespread and so inveterate cannot be successfully dealt with as a mere prejudice, which in time may pass away; it is the result of fundamental error on the subject of the sacraments. In such cases nothing comes of playing about the edges of the question; we must go to the root of the matter. The intense hostility to sacramental doctrine which characterizes the

Protestant mind appears to be the result of long and persistent inculcation of the principles of philosophic idealism and exaggerated spiritualism, by teachers misinformed on the origin, constitution, and destiny of man, and his relations to the universe; and until people are set right on those points they cannot see, and ought not to be expected to see, what the doctrine of the Church. means and how vitally it touches us. Wherever the constitution of man, his place in the material universe, and his future destiny, bodily and spiritually, are not rightly understood; wherever he is regarded as an intelligence temporarily served by a material organism which is an encumbrance, and of which it were advantageous to be rid forever; wherever the permanence of the body in spiritual and glorified conditions is denied; where God is regarded as cutting Himself off from the universe and looking on, indifferent and isolated, while things grind along machine-like, without oversight or interference on His part; where it is forgotten that God is still a creator, and ever working as such within the world, in operations personally directed by Himself; wherever mind is exalted above heart, and man is lauded as all but a deity, and regarded as sufficient to himself without the need of outside aid; wher

ever it is taught that purity in religion depends on detaching one's self from the visible and palpable, and trusting to inner light, intuitions, rational processes, and subjective impressions-there, of course, man must reject the Catholic teaching on the sacraments, for it flatly contradicts every one of those cherished ideas of the natural heart. It needs no other schooling than that received from this ideal philosophy to lead a man to reject the visible and institutional in religion; to affect severe simplicity in worship; to make him suspicious of form, symbolism, and whatever addresses the senses and the imagination; to look askance and with unfriendly eye on liturgical order, exterior magnificence in worship, the visible beauty of color, ceremonial, sight, and sound, as belonging to a rudimental and unspiritual religion, and deserving no consideration from one who, as he boasts, has outgrown babyhood and come to the full stature of the intelligent and rational man. That these and the like are the serious convictions of the impugners of the teaching of the Church on the sacraments of the Gospel cannot be doubted, when we consider with what supercilious confidence they conduct themselves towards us, and how high an estimate they set on their alleged emancipation from superstition. It is

a race which worldly philosophy has engendered in its womb, and nurtures at its cold, unsympathetic breast.

What can be done for men thus wandering afar from the things belonging to their peace, under the control of prejudices such as have been described, it is hard to say: but as the trouble lies at the base of all their thoughts, it seemed necessary, in treating of the sacraments of the Gospel, to begin at the beginning. For that reason I spoke to you of nature, as the handiwork of God; of creation, as originally very good; of the place of man in nature, and his intimate relations to "the creature," as St. Paul, in our version, calls it; of the develop. ment and future of man and nature, on lines trending in the same direction; of the summing up of all things in the Incarnate Word, who is called "the first-born of every creature.” * And having thus reminded you that “all things are ours, and that we are Christ's, and that Christ is God's," + it was suggested as natural and reasonable to suppose that indications of the relationship between man and nature may be traceable; that practical purposes may be served, by the ministration of nat

* Col. i. 15.

+1 Cor. iii. 23.