Chapter IX (1)

I must now describe a portion of the garden which stretched out from the back of old Ned Cavana's premises. A large well-enclosed farmyard, almost immediately at the rear of the house, gave evidence of the comfort and plenty belonging not only to the old man himself, but to everything living and dead about the place; and as we shall be obliged to pass through this farm-yard to get into the garden, we may as well describe it first. Stacks of corn, wheat, oats, and barley, in great variety of size, pointed the pinnacles of their finishing touch to the sky. Sticking up from some of these were sham weather-cocks, made of straw, in the shape of fish, fowl, dogs, and cats, the handiwork of Jamesy Doyle, the servant boy,--the same black-headed urchin who lifted the tenpenny-bit out of the tub at old Murdock's party. They were fastened upon sticks, which did not turn round, and were therefore put up more to frighten away the sparrows than for the purpose of indicating which way the wind blew, or, more likely still, as mere specimens of Jamesy Doyle's ingenuity. The whole yard was covered a foot deep with loose straw, for the double purpose of giving comfort to two or three litters of young pigs, and that of being used up, by the constant tramping, into manure for the farm; for cows, heifers, and calves strayed about it without interruption. A grand flock of geese, as white as snow and as large nearly as swans, marched in from the fields, headed by their gander, every evening about the same hour, to spend their night gaggling and watching and sleeping by turns under the stacks of corn, which were raised upon stone pillars with mushroom metal-caps, to keep out the rats and mice. A big black cock, with a hanging red comb and white jowls, and innumerable hens belonging to him, something on the Brigham Young system, marched triumphantly about, calling his favorites {663} every now and then with a quick melancholy little chuckle as often as he found a tit-bit amongst the straw. Ducks, half as large as the geese, coming home without a feather raffled, in a mottled string of all colors, from the stream below the hill, diving, for variety, into the clean straw, emerging now and then, and smattering with their flat bills in any little puddle of water that lay between the pavement in the bare part of the yard. "Bullydhu," the watch-dog, as evening closed, taking possession of a small wooden house upon wheels,--Jamesy Doyle's handiwork too,--that it might be turned to the shelter, whichever way the wind blew. It was a miracle to see Bully getting into it, the door was so low; another piece of consideration of Jamesy's for the dog's comfort. You could only know when he was in it by seeing his large soft paws under the arch of the low door.

Beyond this farm-yard--farm in all its appearance and realities--was the garden. A thick, high, furze hedge, about sixty yards long, ran down one side of it, from the corner of the farmyard wall; and at the further end of this hedge, which was the square of the garden, and facing the sun, was certainly the most complete and beautiful summer-house in the parish of Rathcash, or Jamesy Doyle was very much mistaken. It also was his handiwork. In fact, there was nothing Jamesy could not turn his hands to, and his heart was as ready as his hands, so that he was always successful, but here he had outstripped all his former ingenuity. The bower was now of four years' standing, and every summer Jamesy was proud to see that nature had approved of his plan by endorsing it with a hundred different signatures. With the other portions of the garden or its several crops, we have nothing to do; we will therefore linger for a while about the furze hedge and in "Jamesy's bower" to see what may turn up. But I must describe another item in the locality.

Immediately outside the hedge there was a lane, common to a certain extent to both farms. It might be said to divide them. It lay quite close to the furze hedge, which ran in a straight line a long distance beyond where "Jamesy's bower" formed one of the angles of the garden. There was a gate across the lane precisely outside the corner where the bower had been made, and this was the extent of Murdock's right or title to the commonalty of the lane. Passing through this gate, Murdock branched off to the left with the produce of his farm. It is a long lane, they say, that has no turning, and although the portion of this one with which we are concerned was only sixty yards long, I have not, perhaps, brought the reader to the spot so quickly as I might. I certainly could have brought him through the yard without putting even the word "farm" before it, or without saying a word about the stacks of corn and the weather-cocks, the pigs, cows, heifers, and calves, the geese, ducks, cock, and hens, "Bullydhu" and his house, etc., and with a hop, step, and a leap I might have placed him in "Jamesy's bower" if he had been the person to occupy it--but he was not. With every twig, however, of the hedge and the bower it is necessary that my readers should be well acquainted; and I hope I have succeeded in making them so.

Winny Cavana was a thoughtful, thrifty girl, an experienced housekeeper, never allowing one job to overtake another where it could be avoided. Of course incidental difficulties would sometimes arise; but in general she managed everything so nicely and systematically that matters fell into their own time and place as regularly as possible.

When Winny got the invitation for Mick Murdock's party, which was only in the forenoon of the day before it came off, her first thought was, that she would be very tired and ill-fitted for business the day after it was over. She therefore called Jamesy Doyle to her assistance, and on that day and {664} the next, she got through whatever household jobs would bear performance in advance, and instructed Jamesy as to some little matters which she used to oversee herself, but which on this occasion she would entrust solely to his own intelligence and judgment for the day after the party. She could not have committed them to a more competent or conscientious lad. Anything Jamesy undertook to do, he did it well, as we have already seen both in the haggard, the garden, and the tub--for it was he who brought up the fippenny-bit at Murdock's, and he would lay down his life to serve or even to oblige Winny Cavana.

Having thus purchased an idle day after the party, Winny was determined to enjoy it, and after a very late breakfast, for her father, poor soul, was dead tired, she called Jamesy, and examined him as to what he had done or left undone. Finding that, notwithstanding he had been up as late as she had been herself the night before, he had been faithful to the trust reposed in him, and that everything was in trim order, she then complimented him upon his snapping and diving abilities.

"How much did you take up out of the tub, Jamesy?" she asked.

"Be gorra, Miss Winny, I took up two tenpenny-bits an' a fippenny."

"And what will you do with all that money, Jamesy? it is nearly a month's wages."

"Be gorra, my mother has it afore this, Miss Winny."

"That is a good boy, Jamesy, but you shouldn't curse."

"Be gorra, I won't, miss; but I didn't think that was cursing, at all, at all."

"Well, it is swearing, Jamesy, and that is just as bad."

"Well, Miss Winny, you'll never hear me say it agen."

"That's right, James. Is the garden open?

"It is, miss; I'm afther bringing out an armful of leaves to bile for the pigs."

Winny passed on through the yard into the garden. It was a fine, mild day for the time of year, and she was soon sitting in the bower with an unopened story-book in her lap. It was a piece of idle folly her bringing the book there at all. In the first place, she had it by heart--for books were scarce in that locality, and were often read--and in the next, she was more in a humor to think than to read. It was no strange thing, under the circumstances, if, like some heroines of a higher stamp, "she fell into a reverie." "How long she remained thus," to use the patent phrase in such a case, must be a mere matter of surmise; but a step at the gate outside the hedge, and her own name distinctly pronounced, caused her to start. Eaves-dropping has been universally condemned, and "listeners," they say, "never hear good of themselves." But where is the young girl, or indeed any person, hearing their own name pronounced, and being in a position to listen unobserved, who would not do so? Our heroine, at all events, was not "above that sort of thing," and instead of hemming, or coughing, or shuffling her feet in the gravel, she cocked her ears and held her breath. We would be a little indulgent to a person so sorely tempted, whatever our readers may think.

"If Winny Cavana," she heard, "was twice as proud, an' twice as great a lady, you may believe me, Tom, she wouldn't refuse you. She'll have six hundred pounds as round as the crown of your hat; an' that fine farm we're afther walkin' over; like her, or not like her, take my advice an' don't lose the fortune an' the farm."

"Not if I can help it, father. There's more reason than you know of why I should secure the ready money of her fortune at any rate; as to herself, if it wasn't for that, she might marry Tom Naddy _th' aumadhawn_ if she had a mind."

"Had you any chat with her last night, Tom? Oh then, wasn't she lookin' elegant!"

{665}

"As elegant as you please, father, but as proud as a peacock. No, I had no chat with her, except what the whole room could hear; she was determined on that, and I'm still of opinion that you did more harm than good."

"Not if you were worth a _thrawncen_, Tom. Arrah avic machree, you don't undherstand her; that was all put on, man alive. I'm afeerd she'll think you haven't the pluck in you; she's a sperited girl herself, and depend upon it she expects you to spake, an' its what she's vexed at, your dilly-dallyin'. Why did you let that fellow take her out for the first dance? I heerd Mrs. Moran remark it to Kitty Mulvey's mother."

"That was a mistake, father; he had her out before I got in from the kitchen."

"They don't like them mistakes, Tom, an' that's the very thing I blame you for; you should have stuck to her like a leech the whole night; they like a man that's in earnest. Take my advice, Tom avic, an put the question plump to her at wanst fore Shraftide. Tell her I'll lay down a pound for you for every pound her father gives her, and I'll make over this place to you out an out. Old Ned an I will live together while we last, an that can't be long, Tom avic. I know he'll settle Rathcash upon Winny, and he'll have the interest of her fortune beside--"

"Interest be d--d!" interrupted Tom; "won't he pay the money down?"

"He might do that same, but I think not; he's afeerd it might be dribbled away, but with Rathcash, an Rathcashmore joined, the devil's in it and she can't live like a lady; at all events, Tom, you can live like a gentleman; ould Ned's for you entirely, Tom, I can tell you that."

"That is all very well, father, and I wish that you could make me think that your words would come true, but I'm not come to four-and-twenty years of age without knowing something of the way girls get on; and if that one is not set on young Lennon, my name is not Tom Murdock; and I'll tell you what's more, that if it wasn't for her fortune and that farm, he might have her and welcome. There are many girls in the parish as handsome, and handsomer for that matter, than what she is, that would just jump at me."

"I know that, Tom agra, but maybe it's what you'll only fix her on that whelp, as you call him, the stronger, if you be houldin' back the way you do. They like pluck, Tom; they like pluck, I tell you, and in my opinion she's only makin' b'lief, to dhraw you out. Try her, Tom, try her."

"I will, father, and if I fail, and I find that that spalpeen Lennon is at the bottom of it, let them both look out, that's all. For his part, I have a way of dealing with him that he knows nothing about, and as for her--"

Here Jamesy Doyle came out into the lane from the farm-yard, and father and son immediately branched off in the direction of their own house, leaving Tom Murdock's second part of the threat unfinished.

But Winny had heard enough. Her heart, which had been beating with indignation the whole time, had nearly betrayed itself when she heard Emon-a-knock called a spalpeen.

One thing she was now certain of, and the certainty gave her whole soul relief,--that if ever Tom Murdock could have had any chance of success through her father's influence, and her love for him, it was now entirely at an end for ever. Should her father urge the match upon her, she had, as a last remedy, but to reveal this conversation, to gain him over indignantly to her side.

{666}

Winny was seldom very wrong in her likings or dislikings, although perhaps both were formed in some instances rather hastily, and she often knew not why. In Tom Murdock's case, she was glad, and now rather "proud out of herself," that she had never liked him.

"I knew the dirt was in him," she said to herself as she returned to the house. "I wish he did not live so near us, for I foresee nothing but trouble and vexation before me on his account. I'm sorry Jamesy Doyle came out so soon. I'd like to have heard what he was going to say of myself, but sure he said enough. Em-on-a-knock may despise himself and his threat." And she went into the house to prepare the dinner.

Tom Murdock, notwithstanding his shortcomings, and they were neither few nor far between, was a shrewd, clever fellow in most matters. It was owing to this shrewdness that he resolved to watch for some favorable opportunity, rather than seek a formal meeting with Winny Cavana "_at wanst_" as had been 'advised by his father.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

------

From Once a Week.

SAINT DOROTHEA.

The sun blazed fiercely out of cloudless blue,
And the deep sea flung back the glare again,
As though there were indeed another sun
Within the mimic sky reflected there;
Not steadily and straight, as from above,
But all athwart the little rippling waves
The broken daybeams sparkling leapt aloft
In glittering ruin; scarce a breath of air
To stir the waters or to wave the trees;
The flowers hung drooping, and the leaves lay close
Against their branches, as if sick and faint
With the dull heat and needing strong support.
The city walls, the stones of every street,
The houses glow'd, you would have thought that none
Would venture forth, till that the gracious night
Should come with sable robe and wrap the earth
In softest folds, and shade men from the day.
But see, from every street the seething crowds
Pour out, and all along the way they stand,
And ribald jest and song resound aloud,
And light accost and careless revelry:
What means this, wherefore flock the people forth?
Ceases the hum, a sudden silence falls
On all around, the tramp of armed men
Rings through the air; and hark, what further sound?
A girl's fresh voice, a sad sweet song is heard
Above the clank of arms, men hold their breath;
Yet not all sadness is that wondrous chant,
That hushes the wild crowd with sudden awe.
As when the nightingale's mellifluous tones
Rise in the woodland, ere the other birds {667}
Have ceased their vesper hymn, that moment drops
Each fluttering songster's wild thanksgiving lay,
So for awhile did silence fall on all
Within the seething crowd at that sweet voice.
She comes, they bring her forth to die, for she
This day must win the martyr's palm, this day
Must witness for her faith, this day must reap
The fruit of all her pains, long rest in heaven!
Long had they spared her, for the governor
Was loth that she should suffer, and her race
Was noble, so they hoped to make her yield,
And waited still and waited; but at length
They grew enraged at her calm steadfastness,
They knew not whence a resolution such
As made a young maid baffle aged men,
So she must die.

Now as she went along
'Midst all her guards, again burst forth the mob
Into such bitter taunts, such foul wild words,
As sent the hot blood mantling to her cheek
For shame that she, a maid, must hear such things;
And yet was no remorse within their hearts,
No light of pity in their savage eyes,
Like hungry wolves that scent the blood from far
They howled with joy, expectant of their prey.
There was one there, he in old days had loved
Her fair young face, but he too now, with scorn
Written in his dark eyes and on his brow,
And in the curl of his short lip, stood by;
It 'seemed not such a face, that bitter smile,
For he was passing fair, in youth's heyday;
But if contemptuous was his mien, his words
Were worse for her to bear, for he cried out--
He, whom her heart yet own'd its only love!
He, whom she held first of all living men!
He, whom she honor'd yet, though left by him
In her distress and danger!--this man cried,
"Ho, Dorothea! doth the bridegroom wait?
And goest thou to his arms? Joy go with thee!
But yet when in his palace courts above,
Whereof thou tellest, fair one, think on us
Who toil in this sad world below; on me
Think thou before all others, thine old love,
And send me somewhat for a token, send
Of that same heavenly fruit and of those flowers
That fade not!"

Then she turn'd and answer'd him,
"As thou hast said, so be it, thy request
Is granted!" and she pass'd on to her death.
She died: her soul was rapt into the skies.
The vulgar horde who watch'd her torture, knew
Nought of the great unfathomable bliss {668}
Which waited her, and when her spirit fled
None saw the angel bands receive her, none
Heard the long jubilant sweet sound that burst
Through heaven's high gates, swept from ten thousand harps
By seraph choirs, for she had died on earth
Only to enter on the life above.
Night fell upon the earth, the city lay
Slumb'ring in cool repose, the restless sea,
Weary with dancing all day 'neath the sun,
Was hushed to sleep by the faint whisp'ring breeze
That, wanting force to sport, but rose and fell
With soothing murmur, like to pine boughs stirr'd
By the north wind: sleep held men's eyelids close.
And he, that youth, slept, aye, slept peacefully,
Nor reck'd of the vile insult he had pour'd
Upon the head of one whom once he swore
To love beyond all others. As he lay,
Wrapt in the dreamless slumber of young health,
Sudden a light unearthly clear hath fill'd
The chamber, and he starts up from his couch,
Gazing in troubled wonder: by his side
What sees he?

A young boy he deems him first,
But when had mortal such a calm pure smile
Since our first father lost his purity?
A radiant angel, rather, should he be,
Who stands all glorious, bearing in his hands
Such fruit and flowers as surely never grew
On this dull earth; their fragrance fill'd the air,
And smote the senses of Theophilus,
That a sad yearning rose within his heart,
Such as at times a strain of song will raise,
Or some chance word will bring (we know not why),
Flooding the inmost soul with that strange sense,
Half pain, half pleasure, of some bygone time--
Some far off and forgotten happiness,
We know not where nor what.

The stranger spoke,
And thus he said, "Rise up, Theophilus!
And take these gifts which I from heaven bring.
Fair Dorothea, mindful of her words,
Hath sent thee these, and bids thee that henceforth
Thou scoff not, but believe!"

With those same words
Vanish'd the cherub, and the room was dark,
Save where the moonbeams made uncertain light,
And where remain'd those blossoms and that fruit,
For from each leaf and stem there stream'd a ray
As of the morning.

Down upon his couch
Theophilus sank prone, with awe oppress'd; {669}
But for a moment. Starting wildly up,
He cried, "My love, my Dorothea, list!
If thou canst hear me in those starry halls
Where now thou dwellest, I accept thy gift.
Do thou take mine, for I do give myself
Up to the service of thy Lord; thy faith
Shall from this hour be mine, for I believe!"

------

Translated from Der Katholik.

THE TWO SIDES OF CATHOLICISM.

[Second Article.]

I. THE PROBLEM.

"Neither," says Jesus Christ, "do they put new wine into old bottles; otherwise the bottles break, and the wine runneth out." The parable teaches that the new spirit of Christianity requires a new form, corresponding to its essence. The essence and the form of Christianity are, therefore, intimately connected.

What is thus generally enunciated in regard to the essential connection of the spirit of Christianity with the forms of its expression, is equally true of the mutual relations subsisting between the substance and the manifestation of the Church. Christianity and the Church are virtually identical. The former, considered as a source of union and brotherhood, constitutes the Church, In a former article we have recognized Catholicism as the type of the Church Founded by Christ. Hence the interdependence of the essence with the form of Christianity in general is not more thorough than that of the spirit of the Church with the historical development of Catholicism.

These remarks will be found to designate the object of the present essay. An inquiry into the fundamental principle of Catholicism must address itself to the elucidation of the cause of the necessary connection between the spirit and the outer shape of the Church just mentioned. The direction in which the light is to be sought appears by the parable cited above.

The new wine requires new bottles, because they only correspond with its nature. By the same induction it is affirmed that if the true Church is realized only in the form of Catholicism, the reason is to be found in the inmost nature of the Church, in the catholicity of her spirit.

This idea of the inherent catholicity of the Church, as well as the foregoing assertion of a necessary inter-dependence of the essence with the image of Catholicism, is to be established on scriptural authority by the following disquisition.

II. THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH.

The shape and form in which Catholicism appears in history has its root in the papacy. It is certainly deserving of attention, that precisely in the institution of the papacy the Church is designated by a name which affords an insight into her inmost nature.

On that occasion the Church--meaning the Church as apparent in history--is called the kingdom of heaven. [Footnote 146] The Lord says to Peter, "I will give {670} unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven;" a promise substantially the same with that given in the same breath to the same apostle, though under a different metaphor, when Jesus calls him the rock upon which he will build his Church. The primate is the subject of both predictions. The apostle Peter is to be the foundation of the Church, and he is to receive the keys of the same edifice, that is to say, he is to be the master of the house.

[Footnote 146: Matt. xvi. 18, 19. ]

That the epithet of "kingdom of heaven" expresses the essential character of the Church, is easily shown by a glance at the passages of Scripture in which the Church is mentioned. Such is always the case where the kingdom of God or of heaven is represented as in course of realization on earth. In this respect the parables of Jesus are especially significant. They address themselves principally to the spirit, the organization, and the most essential peculiarities of the new order of things which Jesus Christ had come into the world to establish. In these discourses the new foundation is constantly brought forward as the kingdom of God or of heaven. Thus we cannot but recognize in this expression a designation of the inner essence of the institution of Jesus.

At a time when his destined kingdom had not yet become historically manifest, Jesus might still say, in the same acceptation of the term, that it was already present, and palpable to all who sought to grasp it. This actual presence of the kingdom is deduced by the Lord from the efficacy of his miracles. In them the vital principle of Catholicism was already at work. It had entered the world at the same instant with the person of the Son of Man. But not until after Christ was exalted did it assume a historical palpability. No less does the declaration of Jesus, that from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, display Catholicism as a power even before it came to figure in history. For this very forwardness with which even then the violent took it by force, was a product of the Christ-like power which had entered humanity simultaneously with the person of the Messiah. And where the Jews are called sons of the kingdom, it is likewise in reference to this elementary principle of Catholicism. It had been planted in the first instance on the historical soil of Judaism, thence, of course, to spread its benign influence over the earth, and thus to make historically manifest the vital substance of the Church in its only adequate expression. "Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom." On the other hand, the kingdom shall be taken from the Jews, because they have made it unfruitful.

No Christian sermon should omit to give this inner view of Catholicism, or of the advent of the kingdom. Therein lies its peculiar force. The preacher of the gospel has no more effective word of consolation for the pious souls who give him a ready hearing, than the assurance that the kingdom of God has come nigh unto them. In this word, also, the apostle of Christ has his most potent weapon against the assailants of the Church. If they receive you not, says the Lord unto his disciples, go your ways out into the streets of the same city, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you; yet know this, that the kingdom of God is at hand. The invincibility of Catholicism grows out of the power of its principle. As of old in enabling the apostles to heal the sick, so at the present day in her varied fortunes the Church approves herself the kingdom of God.

But how is the interior of the Church related to the exterior? The word of the kingdom is the seed of Catholicism. According to the quality of the hearers of the word, the growing grain is fruitful or empty, the members genuine or spurious. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like to a net, cast into the sea, and gathering together all kind of fishes. The kingdom of the Son of Man is not without scandals, and them that work {671} iniquity. [Footnote 147] Hence the kingdom of God on earth embraces the entire Church in her temporal existence. The latter is shown to be a kingdom of long-suffering, in preserving her connection even with ingredients estranged from her in spirit, leaving the ultimate separation of the false members to the final judgment. Even these erring ones carry on their souls the impress of the kingdom, the signature of baptism. Nevertheless their adhesion to the kingdom is external and objective merely. In the more accurate sense of the word, the idea of the kingdom applies only to the marrow, the soul of the Church. The good seed only are the real children of the kingdom.

[Footnote 147: Matt. xiii. 41.]

This account of the formation of the kingdom of God explains how the essence of the true Church becomes a historical reality in the actual condition of Catholicism, notwithstanding its imperfections. The position, therefore, that the spirit of the Church is inseparable from her temporal existence by no means denies that this historical exterior of Catholicism may be infected with elements having nothing in common with, and even hostile to, the character of the true Church. This results from the fact that the true Church, though always preserving a unitary organization, realizes herself by degrees only. The form of Catholicism is gradually purified and disclosed by the sanctifying virtue of its inner life. Thus it is that parasites take root in the soil of the Church.

It is therefore a shifting of the real issue when Mr. Hase defines the Catholic antagonism to the ideal Church of Protestantism as consisting in a notion of Catholicism that in all essential attributes there is a perfect congruity between the idea of the Church and the concrete Church of Rome; or in other words, that the latter Church is at all tunes the perfect type of Christianity. Two distinct things are here confounded. The position of Catholicism--that the essence of the true Church, so far as realized at all, exists only within the Catholic Church, where alone, therefore, a further development of this essence can be accomplished or the ideal of the Church attained--is by no means equivalent to the pretension, attributed to Catholicism by Hase, that Catholicism has already attained the ideal, or that it is at all times the most perfect representation of Christianity. After this misrepresentation of the position of Catholicism, Hase has no difficulty in distorting the well-known Catholic doctrine that sinners also belong to the Church into an unconscious acknowledgment of the ideal Church of Protestantism.

While the toleration of spurious members is a mandate of the educational mission of the Church, it involves, moreover, a special dispensation of Divine Providence. Like her divine principle, the Church appears as a servant among men. The beauty of her inner life is veiled beneath an exterior covered with manifold imperfections. This serves as a constant admonition to the Church not to rely upon externals. Yet even these shadows on the image of the Church are evidences of her vitality. How superhuman must be an organization which outlasts all enemies in spite of many deficiencies! It is error, therefore, to infer from the undeniable, practical incongruity between the essence of the Church and her outward form that there cannot be an exclusive, concrete realization of the true Church in history.

To make the growth of Catholicism intelligible to his hearers, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven with a grain of mustard, which unfolds the least of all seeds to a stately tree. Immediately thereafter it is said that the kingdom of heaven penetrates the mass of humanity like leaven. The law of development of Catholicism is further illustrated by the following parable: The earth, says Jesus, bringeth forth fruit; first the blade, then the ear, afterward the full corn in the ear; man has but to cast the seed into the earth; then he may sleep, and the seed shall {672} spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. Even so is the kingdom of God. The Church therefore carries the germs of her growth in her inmost nature. Catholicism is gradually developed out of itself, from within. Thanks to the energy of her own principle, the Church with her arms encircles nation after nation. The faculty of being all things unto all men she owes to her being the kingdom of God. Here is the root of Catholicism. As the kingdom of God, the Church is fraught with a wealth adequate to the mental requirements of all individuals and all nations. As the kingdom of God, the Church is adapted to every age and clime.

The word "Church" is used by Jesus Christ far more rarely than that of the "kingdom of heaven;" indeed but twice, and on each occasion in direct reference to the external form of the Church.

That this historical exterior of Catholicism, designated the Church, is the manifestation of the kingdom of God, We have already deduced from Matt. xvi. 18, 19, and xiii. 41. The same truth is expressed in the parable of the treasure hid in the field. He who would possess the treasure, that is to say, the kingdom of heaven, or the vital principle of Catholicism, must buy the field in which the gem is concealed. The field, the Catholic exterior of the Church, is not the inner life; but the latter is realized only in the historical form of Catholicism.

It now behooves us to more precisely expound this relation between the spirit and the outer form of the Church from the words of Jesus. The way to do this is indicated by our Lord himself. It consists in an extended analysis of the biblical idea of the kingdom of God. In it is disclosed the inmost nature of the Church and thereby the ultimate origin of her historical figure as instituted by Christ, or the principle of Catholicism, which is the object of our search.

My kingdom, says the Lord, is not of this world; that is to say, its origin is not here, and it is not established by the exercise of worldly power. _Regnum meum non est hinc_. True, the kingdom of Christ is established in the midst of the world, but it was not generated there: from above, from heaven, it was planted in the world as a supernatural _realm of grace_. Therefore its existence and its extension is in no wise dependent on worldly power; its foundations lie deeper, in the principle of truth which has entered the world with Christ. For this cause came he into the world, that he should bear witness unto the truth. All they that are of the truth, do him homage as their king, and hear his kingly voice. The same principle works in them as that of a new worship; they worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

But this elevated sense of truth in individual souls is the fruit of a higher form of being. He that is of God heareth the words of God; but they hear them not who are not of God. The entrance into the kingdom of God therefore necessarily presupposes a new beginning of man's life, a new birth of water and of the Spirit. Wherever the kingdom of God obtains a foothold, it assumes the form of an entirely new state of things, of a new creation, of the principle of a new mental activity, a new _nature_ of the spirit.

A transmutation of our souls, such as just described, necessarily involves a rupture with the natural man, a discarding of the original individuality. Without this alteration we are impervious to the new light which is to enter our souls together with the kingdom of God. This indispensable self-denial is accomplished by a two-fold instrumentality--by the love of God, which is the first commandment, and by the love of our neighbor as ourselves. Whoever is in this frame of mind is pronounced by Jesus to be not far from the kingdom of God.

What has been said reveals another peculiarity of the kingdom of God on earth. It is a _supernatural_ kingdom. At this point only do we fully comprehend the title of the Church to {673} the designation of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of God historically manifested in the Church is intimately connected with the intro-divine relations or the inmost life of the Deity. By admission into the Church God the Father translates us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. This is not merely an exercise of the creative love common to the three persons of the Trinity. On the contrary, it is an evidence what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Precisely in this is the peculiar supernatural character of this dispensation made manifest. It is this supernatural characteristic of the Church which accounts for the bestowal upon the Church of the name of the coming realm of glory. The germ of the latter is already contained in the existing Church. While, for this reason, the Church visible is called the kingdom of heaven, so the latter continues to bear the name of the Church even in the splendor of its eternal glory. This circumstance warrants the bold utterance of the apostle that our conversation is in heaven. In the same sense it is laid down in the catechism of the council of Trent that the Church militant and the Church triumphant are but two parts of the one Church, not two churches; and with entire consistency the same authority speaks of the Church militant as synonymous with the kingdom of heaven.

It is but another expression for the supernatural character of the Church if she is called the Jerusalem which is above, even in her historical form and figure. And precisely because this epithet applies to her, she is free and is our mother. The catholicity of the Church, her faculty of enfolding all mankind, of being the spiritual mother of us all, is owing to her supernatural character.

This doctrine of the supernaturalness of the Church is the connecting link between the essence and the form of Catholicism. As the latter is supernatural in its character, so must the form of its establishment bear a supernatural impress. How can anything utterly supernatural attain an adequate form of expression by mere natural development? It assumes a historical reality in so far only as it assumes simultaneously with its supernatural essence a corresponding supernatural image. The form as well as the substance of the Church must needs be the fruit of an immediate interposition of God, because the substance must needs exercise its supernatural functions.

The idea just expressed may have been dimly present to the mind of Moehler when he wrote: "But it is the conviction of Catholics that this purpose of the divine revelation in Christ Jesus would not have been attained at all, or at least would have been attained but very imperfectly, if this embodiment of the truth had been but momentary, and if the personal manifestation of the Word had not been sufficiently powerful to give its tones the highest degree of intensified animation, and the most perfect conceivable efficacy, that is to say, to breathe into it the breath of life, and to create a union once more setting forth the truth in its vitality, and remaining emblematically the conclusive authority for all time, or, in other words, representing Christ himself."

Viewed in this light, the historical manifestation of the Church, instituted Matt. xvi. 18, 19, presents itself as a postulate of her essence. Because the Church was essentially destined historically to manifest the kingdom of God, the Lord built her upon Peter, the rock. A temporal establishment of the kingdom of heaven in the midst of this world required the divine installation of an individual keeper of the keys. Thus the idea of the papacy flows from that of a kingdom of God on earth.

If, then, this explanation presents Catholicism as a supernatural kingdom, and if this very attribute constitutes the characteristic feature of its being, its inmost life and fundamental {674} principle, it is manifestly inadmissible to place the kingdom of God as established in the Church on the same footing with the works of creation. A juxtaposition like this would entirely ignore the vital essence of the Church, that is to say, her superiority to nature.

The same distinction is overlooked by those who regard Church and state as simply two manifestations of the same kingdom of God. Such is the point of view of a system of moral theology, the influence of which upon the opinions prevailing among a considerable fraction of the present generation of theologians is not to be mistaken. In the eye of that doctrine "Mosaism and Christianism--state and Church--both externally represent the kingdom, and both represent one and the same kingdom; the former [the state] rather in its negative, the latter [the Church] rather in its positive aspect. And thus we have two great formations in which the kingdom on earth is made manifest, Church and state." Could Hirscher have reached any other conclusion? He regards it as his task "to dispose of the question whether the germs of the divine kingdom, like seeds, are implanted in the character of man as in a fruitful soil, and whether they can spring forth from it [_i.e._, from the character or nature of man himself] and blossom as the kingdom of God."

Although it is here said that "God abode in man with his Holy Spirit and with its sanctifying grace," yet the Holy Spirit or his grace is not made the foundation upon which the kingdom is erected; that foundation is sought, on the contrary, in the "divine powers" infused into man at his creation. God only assists at the upraising of the kingdom through them by "dwelling in them for ever as the principle of divine guidance."

The logical inference from these premises, which seek the germs of the kingdom of God as established on earth in human nature itself, that is to say, in the "heavenly faculties" inherent in man, is well disclosed in the definition of the kingdom of God on earth given by Petersen, a theologian reared in the school of Schleiermacher. "The kingdom of God on earth," says he, "is at once Church, state, and civilization, _i.e._, it is an organism of community in religion, morals, and society, and by these three special organisms it essentially approaches, develops, and perfects its organic unity, in organizing its religious principle in the Church, its moral framework in the state, and its natural base in civilization, thus in the unity of all three rounding its proportions as a universal organism of genuine humanity." If "the germs of the divine kingdom, like seeds, are implanted in the character of man as in a fruitful soil," it is entirely consistent to regard the kingdom of God on earth as "substantially identical with the idea of the human race," as "the realization of that idea."

It gives us pleasure to state that the notion of the kingdom of God on earth just alluded to has been declared unscriptural even in a Protestant exegesis of greater thoroughness. [Footnote 148]

[Footnote 148: Hofman, _Schriftbeweis_, 1855. ]

III. THE BODY OF CHRIST.

Next to the idea of the kingdom of God, the most significant expression for the inner essence of Catholicism is found in the scriptural conception of the body of Christ. As his body, the Church is intimately connected with him. Christ and the Church belong together as the head and the body; both constitute a single whole. This intimate relation between Christ and the Church is described by the Scriptures in animated terms. The Church, it says, is for Christ what our own body is for us; as members of the Church we are members of the body of Christ, of his flesh, and of his bones. On one occasion, indeed, the apostle uses the word Christ as synonymous with the Church, so intimate is their relation.

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And it is the Son of Man, or Christ in his human capacity, as whose body the Church is regarded. For as the head thereof the apostle designates him who was raised from the dead. The Church here enters into a profoundly intimate relation to the sacred humanity of Christ. We shall seek further profit from this idea in the sequel.

Immediately after having called the Church the body of Christ, he calls her the [Greek text]. This epithet results from the foregoing. It is because she is the body of Christ that the Church is the [Greek text]. I translate these difficult words, the fulness of him who filleth all in all. God who filleth all things with his essential presence, in whom we live, and move, and have our being, hath his fulness in the Church. The Church is entirely filled with God. But how? Is not God, in his very nature, present everywhere? How then can the Church be filled with God in a greater degree than the world without? As the body of Christ, she has this capacity. For if the Church, as Christ's body, assumes a special relation, peculiar to herself, to his sacred humanity, then, by that very assumption, she acquires a share in the [Greek text] of the Deity which dwells bodily in that sacred humanity. She thereby becomes the spot where God is especially revealed and glorified. For while God, in the fulness of his nature, is present over all the world, nevertheless this presence is more largely apparent in the Church than elsewhere. By the Church alone the manifold wisdom of God is known unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places. In him is glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Thus she stands approved as his pleroma, as entirely filled with God.

But how are we to understand this repletion of the Church with God? It is well known that Moehler sees in the visible Church the "Son of God continually appearing among men in human form, constantly re-creating, eternally rejuvenating himself, his perpetual incarnation." In this sense he apprehends the scriptural conception of the body of Christ, the "interpretation of the divine and the human in the Church." This proposition, which has become celebrated, was intended, in the first instance, to afford a more profound insight into the visibility of the Church, in addition to which it is inseparable from Moehler's views on the subject of the means of grace. In this twofold light we must make it the subject of examination.

Moehler goes on to argue that, if the Church is a continuance of the incarnation, she must be, like the latter, a visible one. This can mean no more than that even as the Son of God during his stay upon earth wrought visibly for mankind in the flesh, so also the saving efficacy of Christ, abiding after his departure from the earth, requires a visible medium. Such a point, however, Protestantism is far from disputing. In the separate congregations, in their visible means of grace, and in the audible exposition of the word of God, even Protestants admit that the efficacy of Christ is visibly perpetuated, and the idea of Christianity and the Church gradually realized. Every Protestant denomination aspires to be the palpable image, the living presentment, of the Christian religion. Moehler's conception of the Son of God continually appearing among men in human form has even become a favorite theme of modern Protestant theology. This will appear from the mere perusal of the disquisitions on this head of the so-called Christological school. The advantage gained for the Catholic interpretation amounts to nothing. For the point is not that the efficacy of Christ is perpetually exercised among men in a visible manner, but it is in question whether this continued exercise ensues only in the fold of a particular institution, and by particular means of grace.

Moehler arrived at his doctrine in {676} reference to the Church through the medium of his views regarding the means of grace. In his opinion "the Eucharistic descent of the Son of God" (and the same must be inferred to apply to all the means of grace which it is the function of the Church to administer [Footnote 149]) "is a part of the totality of his merit, wherewith we are redeemed." The sacramental offering of Christ is "the conclusion of his great sacrifice for us," and in it "all the other parts of the same sacrifice are to be bestowed upon us; in this final portion of the objective offering, the whole is to become subjective, a part of our individual being." But the incarnation of God, or, in other words, the work of our salvation accomplished by Christ during his walk upon earth, stands in need of no continuation or completion by a posthumous labor of Christ, constituting "a part of the totality of his merit, wherewith we are redeemed." The perpetual condescension of Christ, administered by the Church, to our helplessness, does not form a complement to the objective work of salvation; it is not an integral part of it, but only its continued application. "_Christus_" says Suarez, "_jam vero nos non redimit, sed applicat nobis redemptionem suam_" [Footnote 150] If this work of redemption were even now in progress--that is to say, if "the Eucharistic descent of the Son of God" were "a part of the totality of his merits, wherewith we are redeemed," then Christ would not have fully taken away the sin of the world once for all on Golgotha. Who would maintain such a proposition? Moehler would be the last man to do so. He would therefore undoubtedly have renounced the opinion in question if these, its logical results, had presented themselves to his mind. The sacramental offering of Christ, as indeed the whole of his perennial saving efficacy in the sacraments of the Church, wherewith we are saved, is only the _means_ by which it is applied to our salvation. The _ground_ of salvation for all mankind was perfected in the sufferings and death of Christ. The _realization_ of salvation for individuals is accomplished by their appropriating to themselves the salvation purchased or achieved for all mankind by the precious blood of Jesus Christ; a work in which, undoubtedly, Christ himself co-operates as the head of the Church.

[Footnote 149: For, according to St. Thomas, "the Eucharist is the
_perfectio omnis sacramenti, habens quasi in capitulo et summo
omnia, quae alia sacramenta continent singillatim;_ the perfection
of the whole sacrament, having as it were in an epitome and a
summary all the virtues which, other sacraments contain
singly."--IV. Sent. a. 8. q. 1, a. 2, _solut_. 2 _ad_. 4.]

[Footnote 150: At present Christ does not redeem us, but applies
to us his redemption. _De Incarnat., Par. I., Disp_. 39, _Sec_. 3.]

In this sense the apostle says that he fills up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in his flesh. By faithfully following Christ, we partake more and more of the fruits of redemption. Thus is Christ likewise gradually fulfilled in the individual Christians--that is to say, he finds in them a more and more ample expression. And in the same degree in which Christ stamps himself upon the single members of the Church, the latter also is more and more filled with him.

Scarce has the apostle declared of Christ, in Col. ii. 9, that in him dwelleth all the [Greek text] of the Godhead corporally, when he turns to the Colossians with the words, "And you are filled in"--God that is to say, "in him," _i.e._ in Christ, in so far as ye stand in communion with him, "which is the head of all principality and power." This communion of individuals with Christ, and their attendant participation in the fulness of the Godhead which dwelleth in him, is accomplished by the instrumentality of the Church, particularly by the sacrament of baptism, which incorporates the individual with the Church. Verse 10-12: "_Et estis in illo repleti. In quo et circumcisi estis, circumcisione non manu facta, sed in circumcisione Christi, consepulti ei in baptismo._"

Thus the Church is seen to be the pleroma of the Godhead in a twofold {677} point of view. First, in her members, which, being gradually filled with God, become partakers of the divine nature. In the second place, in the active cooperation of the Church herself in the performance of this work.