I have endeavored to-day, my brethren, to speak for the dead. They cannot speak for themselves, but they live, and feel, and think. And sure I am that, if they could speak, their words would not be in substance very different from what I have spoken. They would say: "I want no costly monument. I want no splendid funeral. Still less do I wish that God should be offended on my account. I ask a remembrance mingled with affection and resignation, the rites of the Holy Church, a quiet grave, and now and then a fervent, earnest prayer. And I will not forget you in my prison of hope. I will pray for you, and oh! when the morning comes, and my happy soul is called to Heaven, my first intercession at the throne of God shall be for you, whom I loved so well in life, and who hast not left off thy kindness to the dead.
"What things a man shall sow,
them also shall he reap."
—Gal. VI. 8.
To judge by the complaints which we hear continually around us, we might conclude that the commonest thing in the world is for men to fail in their undertakings. Now, I admit that it is a very common thing indeed for men to fail in obtaining what they desire. There are many men who have some darling object of ambition which they cannot reach. But I do not think it is a very frequent thing for men to fail in attaining an end which they steadily aim at, and which they take the proper means to attain. I believe the rule is the other way. I believe success is the ordinary result of well-directed endeavor. I know indeed that the Holy Scriptures tell us that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favor to the skilful: but time and chance is all." [Footnote 224]
[Footnote 224: Eccles. ix. 11.]
But surely all that this means is that the providence of God, for its own purposes, sometimes interferes to thwart the best-concerted measures, and to crown feeble attempts with unexpected success. The race is not always to the swift, but ordinarily it is. The battle is not always to the strong, but when it is not, it is an exception to the rule. The rule is, that success commonly attends the employment of proper and judicious means. The experience of life proves that this is true. Let us look around and see if it is not so.
We will look first at the business world. Here at first sight a succession of the most surprising changes meets our eye. Men that were rich a few years ago are now poor. Men that then were poor are now rich. The servant and his master have changed places. If you return to the city after a few years' absence you will find the same handsome houses lining our avenues, but the occupants of many of them will be changed. The same gay carriages roll along the street, but there is always a new set of people riding in them, and they that used to ride now go afoot. What wonder is it that men have imagined Fortune to be blindfold[ed], and the ups and downs of life the chance revolutions of her wheel? But when we look closer, we see this is not the case. For the most part each fall and each success has had an adequate history. There has been a rigid bond of cause and effect. It is only a metaphor when we say that riches have wings. Gold and silver, and real estate, and most kinds of personal property, are solid and substantial, and do not melt away in a night. So, on the other hand, fortunes are not made by accident. The rich man becomes rich by aiming at it and striving for it. He does not need any extraordinary genius perhaps, but he bends his talents, such as they are, to the task. He rises early, he is constantly at his place of business, he keeps himself informed of all its details, he thinks about it. When a favorable opening comes, he takes advantage of it. When a reverse comes, he is not discouraged by it. Other men would be discouraged, but he is not. Perhaps he is in middle life, perhaps he has a growing family, but he looks out for a fresh field of enterprise, and begins anew to battle with the world, and he becomes rich again. His success is owing in part, if you will, to favorable circumstances, but largely to his own energy and industry. These were the conditions, without which no amount of mere external advantages would have insured success.
Again, if we look to the world of Literature and Art, we find the same thing. Disappointed authors and artists often talk as if they were the victims of the world's stupidity or malice; as if men were unable or unwilling to appreciate them. Now, I know it is said that such things have been. There have been men of rare promise, but of a sensitive nature, who have been crushed by coldness and neglect, or by the hard and unfair criticism with which their first attempts were met. But this is far from being a common thing. The world likes to be amused and pleased. It is really interested in having something to praise. This being so, how is it possible for a man of real merit to remain long unrecognized? Who can imagine that the great masterpieces of painting, or the great poems that have come down to us from the past, could have failed to excite the admiration of men? In fact, human judgment, when you take its suffrages over wide tracts and through the lapse of ages, is all but infallible. In a particular place it may be warped by passion; in a particular time it may conform to an artificial standard; but give it time and room, and it is sure with unerring accuracy to detect the beautiful and true. It is as far as possible, then, from being the case that celebrated authors or celebrated artists have become great by accident. There may have been favorable circumstances. There were undoubtedly great gifts of nature; but there was also deep study and painful, persevering toil. I have been told that the manuscripts of a distinguished English poet show so many erasures that hardly a line remains unaltered. The great cathedrals of Europe were the fruit of life-long labor. And these are but instances of a general rule. When we go into the workshops in which some of the beautiful articles of merchandise are manufactured, we see a great fire and hear the clank of machinery, and men are hurrying to and fro, stained with dust and sweat. Now, something like this has been going on to give birth to these beautiful creations in Letters and Arts which have delighted the world. There has been a great fire in the furnace of the brain, and each faculty of the mind has toiled to do its part, and there have been many blows with the pen, the pencil, or the chisel, until the beautiful conception is complete. Such men were successful because they deserved it. The approbation of the world did not create their success, it only recognized it.
I will take one more example of the rule I am illustrating—personal character, reputation. I believe, as a general rule, it is pretty nearly what we deserve. We reap what we sow. People think of us pretty much as we really are. I am not unmindful of the occasional success of hypocrites, nor of the instances, happily not very frequent, of innocent persons overwhelmed by a load of unjust accusation and calumny. Again, I know that when people are angry with us they sometimes say spiteful things which they do not mean, and when they wish to flatter us they say things more complimentary, but just as false. But notwithstanding all this, I affirm that the judgments which people who know us form of us are very nearly correct. Indeed it must be so, for we cannot disguise ourselves altogether, or for a long time. We cannot always wear a mask. An ignorant, ill-bred man may go to a tailor's and dress himself out in fashionable clothes, but the first word he speaks, and the first movement he makes will betray his want of education. So, while we are trying to pass ourselves off for something else than what we are, to a keen observer our habitual thoughts and character will pierce through and discover our true selves. Even what our enemies say about us, when they say what they think, is very likely to be true. Men have no need to invent bad things about us. We have all got faults enough. They have only to seize these, exaggerate them a little, caricature them, separate them from what is good in us, and they will make a picture bad enough, but not too bad to be recognized as ours. Their description of us is like a photographic likeness. It takes away the bloom from the cheek, and the brightness from the eye, and the rich tints from the hair. It notes down each imperfection, each frown and wrinkle and crookedness of feature, and there it is, a hard, severe, but not an untrue likeness. In fact, my brethren, one of the last things I would advise any man to attempt would be to try to seem something he is not. He is almost sure to be unsuccessful. There is a law in the world too strong for him—the law of justice and truth, the law that binds together actions and their consequences, the law that attaches honor to what is good and right, and contempt to what is base and false.
Thus we see on every side illustrations of the rule that our success is in proportion to our merit. We sow what we reap. Much more is this true in regard to religion. You have observed that hitherto I have been obliged to make some qualifications, to make some exceptions in each of the instances I have brought forward. God may prevent our becoming rich, however legitimately we may labor for it, because He sees that riches would not be good for us. Or He may allow our talents to remain unappreciated, and our name to be covered with obloquy, in order to drive us to seek His Eternal Praise. But in religion our labors are sure to meet with success. There is absolutely no exception. Our success will be infallibly in proportion to our endeavors, neither more or less. You know, my brethren, that a doctrine may be familiar to us, but may not always make the same impression on us. We may hear it many times and assent to it, but on some special occasion, it may enter our mind with such force, take such a lively hold of our imagination and heart that it seems new to us. This is what we call coming home to us. Now, I remember an occasion when the doctrine I have just stated thus came home to me. It was on hearing the words of St. Alphonsus: "With that degree of love to God that we possess when we leave this world, and no more, will we pass our eternity." Any thing more startling and awakening I do not remember ever to have heard. Not the thought of the pains of hell, or the horrors of sin, or the bliss of paradise, ever seemed to me so loud a call for action. All of heaven that we shall ever see, we acquire here. Perhaps you too, my brethren, have not realized this sufficiently. The truth is, I think many men act in regard to religion as children and weak-minded persons do in regard to the things of this world—they build "castles in the air." This is a very favorite occupation with some people. They spend hours and even days in it. It is a cheap amusement, and they who follow it do not usually stint themselves in the warmth and color of their pictures. The only difficulty is, to fix a limit to their imaginary splendors. They imagine themselves very rich, worth, say fifty thousand, or a hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand dollars, with beautiful houses and furniture, and all the elegancies of life. Or they imagine themselves very famous, with a reputation as wide as the world, and admiring crowds shouting their praises wherever they go. Now something like this, equally silly and unsubstantial, passes in the minds of many Christians in regard to their hereafter. They imagine that, somehow, one of these days, they will find themselves caught up to the third heaven, borne by angels to the throne of God, crowned with a jewelled crown, seated on a golden throne, with palms in their hands, to sing forever the song of the redeemed. They may be now in mortal sin, they may be in the habit of mortal sin; they may be the slaves of passion, drunkards, impure, dishonest; they may be unwilling to renounce the dangerous occasions of sin; or they may not be so bad as this: they may belong to that class who have their periodic spells of sin and devotion, and are saints or sinners according to the time of the year you take them; or they may belong to a still milder type of ungodliness, those who are negligent and cold-hearted, with a host of venial sins about them, and at intervals, now and then, a mortal sin—no matter: somehow or other, by some kind of a contrivance, all—the relapsed sinner and the habitual sinner, the drunkard, the impure, the dishonest and the profane, the worldly and tepid, the prayerless and presumptuous—all are going to heaven. O miserable delusion! Does the Bible teach us this? When it speaks of a "way" to heaven, does it not mean that all must walk in that way to reach there? When it tells us that "the Judge standeth at the door," does it not mean, to judge us by our actions! Which of the saints was ever wafted to heaven in this passive way? Ah! the apostle tells us, "they were valiant in fight," they fought with the wild beasts of their passions, and put to flight the armies of hell. No: it is an enemy that hath sown among you this Calvinistic poison—yes, this worse than Calvinistic poison, for the Calvinists did but assert that a few elect were saved by a foregone decree, while this practically extends it to every one. Do not believe it. "What a man soweth that shall he reap." "He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, and, he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." [Footnote 225]
[Footnote 225: Gal. vi. 8.]
Our days are like a weaver's shuttle, and, as they quickly come and go, they weave the web of our destiny. Each step we take is a step in one of the two paths that fill up the whole field of human probation. Ask the Psalmist who of us shall see heaven, and he will answer you, "Lord, who shall dwell in Thy tabernacle, or who shall rest on Thy holy hill? he that has clean hands and a pure heart." [Footnote 226]
[Footnote 226: Ps. xiv. 1; xxiii. 4.]
Ask the Gospel, Who is that servant whom his Lord at His coming will approve? and it answers: "Even he whose loins are girt about, and whose lights are burning, as a man that waits for his Lord." [Footnote 227]
[Footnote 227: St. Luke xii. 35, 36.]
Would you know who, at the end of the world, shall reap a rich harvest? "They that sow in tears"—in the holy tears of compunction, of the love of God, and of the desire of heaven— "shall reap in joy. And he that now goeth on his way weeping and bearing good seed, shall come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him." [Footnote 228]
[Footnote 228: Ps. cxxv. 5, 6, 7.]
Let us pause a moment before we conclude to try ourselves by this doctrine. "All the rivers run into the sea;" so all our lives are carrying us on to eternity. Should our lives be cut off at this moment, of what kind of texture would they be found? "In those days," says the prophet, "Israel shall come, they shall make haste and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Sion, their faces thitherward." [Footnote 229]
[Footnote 229: Jer. i. 4, 5.]
Are our faces, my brethren, turned toward the heavenly city? Are we hastening thither, acknowledging ourselves strangers and pilgrims on the earth? These careless confessions, these heartless prayers, these darling sins, these aimless lives, this tepidity, this indifference and procrastination in spiritual things, what do they indicate? We look at the sky to judge of the weather. We read the newspapers to find out the condition of the country. We watch our symptoms to ascertain the state of our health. Ah! there are indications far more important, to which we ought to take heed. Indications of salvation or reprobation, symptoms of spiritual health or decay, earnests of heaven or hell, marks of Christ or Satan. You remember the story of the old monk who was observed to weep as he sat watching the people going into church, and, being asked the reason, said he saw a man enter, followed by a black demon, who seemed to claim him as his own. So, if we could look into the spiritual world, we should see some men attended by angels who have come to "minister to them as heirs of salvation," while others are surrounded by evil spirits, "come to torment them before their time." Yes, eternity does not wait for the last day. It presses upon us now and here. Each day is a Judgment Day. Each evening, as it falls, finds us gathered at Christ's right hand, driven to His left, or wavering between the two. Why do we not take our place at once, where we shall wish to be found at our Saviour's coming? It is not very long since death took from among us a convert to our holy faith, [Footnote 230] whose life had been rich in good works, who had been a mother to the orphan, and a sister to the outcast and abandoned; and a priest, who visited her on her last illness, told me that he had said to her: "If God were now to raise you up and restore you to health, I would not know how to give you any other advice, than to resume your good works at that point where sickness compelled you to leave them off." Beautiful testimony to a holy life! Cut the thread wherever you will, it is all gold. Stop the Christian where you will, he is on his way to heaven. Be such a life ours. I have said each day is a Judgment Day: let each day merit the approval of Christ. Let our life be a constant preparation for Eternity, remembering that the only heaven the Christian religion offers us, is a heaven that is won by our labors here.
[Footnote 230: Mrs. Geo. Ripley.]
"What shall I offer to the Lord that is worthy?
Wherewith shall I kneel before the High God?"
—Mich. VI.6.
Such is the question which mankind have been asking from the creation of the world. God is so high, so great, so good, so beautiful. He made us. He created us by His Word, and we hang upon His Breath. How shall we worship Him? How shall we express the thoughts of Him that fill our souls? Alas! the words of the lips, the postures of the body, are all inadequate. What shall we do? Shall we, like Cain, gather the fairest fruits and flowers, and bring the basket before the Lord? Or, like Abel, shall we take the firstlings of our flocks, and slay them in His honor? Shall we dress an altar, and pile upon it the smoking victims? Shall we make our children pass through the fire in His Name? Or, like the Indian devotee, shall we throw ourselves under the wheels of the car that carries the image of the Divinity? Such have been the ways in which men have tried to express their devotion to God, but all have been either insufficient or vain. Man's thoughts about God have found no fitting expression. A fire has burned in his heart which no words can utter. Now here, as in so many other ways, Christianity comes to our aid, and places within our reach a perfect and all-sufficient mode of expressing our devotion, a perfect worship. Do you ask me to what I allude? I answer, to the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Let me remind you what the Sacrifice of the Mass is. We Catholics believe that in the Mass Jesus Christ offers His real Body and Blood, under the species of bread and wine, to His Eternal Father, in remembrance of His Death on the Cross. Our Lord's Death on the Cross was in itself complete, and all-sufficient for the purpose for which it was undergone, and need not, indeed could not, be repeated; but His Priestly Office was not exhausted by that offering. In the language of Scripture: "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." [Footnote 231] And, "He is a Priest forever." [Footnote 232]
[Footnote 231: Heb. vii. 25.]
[Footnote 232: Ps. cix. 4.]
In what, then, does our Lord's Priesthood since His Crucifixion consist? In heaven, it consists in presenting Himself to His Father directly and immediately, to plead the merits of His Death and Passion in our behalf; but on earth it consists in representing that Death and Passion in the mystical action which we call the Eucharistic Sacrifice or the Mass; thus fulfilling the words of the prophet in reference to our Lord: "Thou art a Priest forever, after the order of Melchisedec." [Footnote 233:]
[Footnote 233: Ibid.]
The offering, then, which takes place in the Mass is the very same that was made on Calvary, only it is made in a different manner. On the Cross, that offering was made in a direct and absolute manner, it was a bloody Sacrifice; in the Mass, it is made in a mystical and commemorative way, without blood, without suffering, without death. Therefore, in order to understand what takes place in the Mass, we must go back to the Cross. What was it that took place on the Cross? You answer, perhaps, Christ shed His Blood there for the remission of sins. True: the Blood of Christ was the material cause of our Redemption, but that which gave the Blood of Christ its value, that, indeed, which made it a Sacrifice, was the interior dispositions of the Soul of Christ. The Blood of Christ, taken as a mere material thing, could never have effected our reconciliation. What does the Scripture say? "Sacrifice and oblation Thou didst not desire. Burnt-offerings and sin-offerings Thou didst not require. Then I said: Lo, I come to do Thy will O God!" [Footnote 234]
[Footnote 234: Ps. xxxix. 7, 8.]
It was by the obedience of Christ, an obedience practised through His whole life, but of which His Death and Passion were the fullest expression, that Christ, as our elder brother, repaired our disobedience. While our Lord was hanging on the Cross, He exercised every Divine virtue which the soul of man can exercise. He loved. He prayed. He praised. He gave thanks. He supplicated. He made acts of adoration and resignation. In one word, He performed the most perfect act of worship.
Well, it is just the same in the Mass. It would be the greatest mistake to think of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass as a sort of dead offering. It is living, and offered by the living Christ. Christ is the Priest of the Mass as well as the victim. It is Christ who celebrates the Mass, and He celebrates it with a warm and living Heart, the same Heart with which He worshipped the Father on Mount Calvary. It is this that makes the Mass what it is. If it were not for this, the Mass would be a carnal sacrifice, infinitely superior, indeed, to those of the Old Law, but of the same order. It is this which makes the Sacrifice of the Mass a reasonable service, a Spiritual Sacrifice.
And now you are prepared to understand my assertion that the Mass supplies the want of the human soul for an adequate mode of approaching God. As a creature before its Creator, you are oppressed with your own inability to worship Him worthily. Do you want a better worship than that which His Eternal Son offers? In the Mass, the Son of God in His Human Nature worships the Father for us. He prays for us; asks pardon for us; gives thanks for us; adores for us. As He is perfect man, He expresses every human feeling; as He is perfect God, His utterances have a complete perfection, an infinite acceptableness. Thus, when we offer Mass, we worship the Father with Christ's worship. It seems to me that the Catholic can have a certain kind of pride in this. He may say, "I know I am weak and as nothing before God, yet I possess a treasure that is worthy to offer Him, I have a prayer to present to Him all-perfect and all-powerful, the prayer of His Only-Begotten Son in whom He is well pleased."
Nor is this all. Christ worships the Father for us in the Mass, not to excuse us from worshipping, but to help us to worship. You remember how, the night before our Saviour died, He took with Him Peter and James and John, and going into the garden of Gethsemane, He said to them, "Tarry ye here, while I go and pray yonder." And how, being removed from them about a stone's cast, He began to pray very earnestly, so that He was in an agony, and the drops of blood fell from His body to the ground; and how He went to them from time to time to urge them to watch and pray along with Him. The weight of all human sorrows was then upon His soul. He was presenting the necessities of the whole human race to His Father, but He would have the apostles, weary as they were, borne down by suffering and fatigue, to join their feeble prayers with His. So, in the Holy Mass, He is withdrawn from us a little distance, making intercessions for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, and He would have us kneel about the temple aisles, adding our poor prayers to His. Our prayers, by being united to His, obtain not only a higher acceptance, but a higher significance. Our obscure aspirations He interprets. What we know not how to ask for, or even to think of, He supplies. What we ask for in broken accents, He puts into glowing words. What we ask for in error and ignorance, He deciphers in wisdom and love. And thus our prayers, as they pass through His Heart, become transfigured and divine.
Oh, what a gift is the Holy Mass! How full an utterance has Humanity found therein for all its woes, its aspirations, its hopes, its affections! How completely is the distance bridged over that separated the creature and the Creator! It was to the Mass that our Lord alluded in His conversation with the woman of Samaria. You remember the incident. The Samaritans were a schismatical sect. They had separated from the Jews, had built a temple on Mount Gerazin, in opposition to the temple of the Jews at Jerusalem, and there they offered sacrifices. Now, this Samaritan woman, when our Lord had entered into conversation with her, put to Him the question which was then in controversy. Which was the right temple? Which was the acceptable sacrifice? Which was the place where men ought to worship—Mount Gerazin; or Mount Sion? And how does our Lord answer her? "Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem adore the Father. The hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipper shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth." [Footnote 235]
[Footnote 235: St. John iv. 22, 23.]
The time is coming when a new Sacrifice, a new worship, shall be established, a worship of Spirit and Truth, a worship that shall put to rest the controversy between Samaria and Jerusalem, for it shall be offered in every place. What is that sacrifice? What is that worship? The prophet had foretold it long before: "From the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof, My Name is great among the Gentiles, and IN EVERY PLACE THERE IS SACRIFICE, and there is offered to My Name A CLEAN OBLATION." [Footnote 236]
[Footnote 236: Mal. ii. 11.]
And the whole tradition of the Christian Church, from the very first, tells us that this clean oblation is no other than the Eucharistic Sacrifice, a worship of "Truth," if the presence of Christ can make it true; and of "Spirit," if the Heart of Christ can make it spiritual; a worship that meets all man's wants and befits all God's attributes.
With this conception of the Mass in your minds, you see at once the explanation of some of the ceremonies attending its celebration which seem to Protestants strange and senseless. A Protestant enters a Catholic Church during the time of Mass. The Priest is at the Altar. You cannot hear what he says, he speaks so low and rapidly; and perhaps it would do you no good if you could, for he speaks in Latin; and you say: "What mummery!" "What superstition!" "What an unmeaning service!" But stop awhile. Take our view of the Mass, and see if our custom is so strange. We believe that there is an invisible Priest at the Mass, Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who offers Himself to His Father for us. You know it is related in the Old Testament, that on one day in the year the Jewish High-Priest used to enter into the Holy of Holies, which was separated from the temple by a veil, and there in secrecy perform the rites of expiation, while the people prayed in silence without. So it is at the Mass. You see the Priest lift up the Host before the people. Well, that is the white veil that hides the Holy of Holies from our eyes. Within, our Lord and Saviour mediates with the Father in our behalf. Oh, be still! Speak low! Let not the priest at the altar raise his voice, lest he drown the whispers from that inner shrine. What need for me to know the very words the priest is using? I know what he is doing. I know that this is the hour of grace. Earth has disappeared from me. Heaven is open before me. I am in the presence of God, and I am praying to Him in my own words, and after my own fashion. I am pouring out my joys before Him, or opening to Him the plague of my own heart.
Yes, the Catholic Church has solved the problem of worship. She has a service which unites all the necessary conditions for the public worship of God—a common service, in which all can join; an external service, which takes place before our eyes, which is celebrated with offerings which we ourselves supply, and by a Priest taken from among ourselves; an attractive service; and yet a service perfectly spiritual. The Catholic does not come to church to hear a man pour forth an extempore prayer, and be forced to follow him through all the moods and feelings of his own mind; nor to join in a set form of prayer, which, however beautiful and well arranged, must, from the very nature of the case, fail to express the varying wants and feelings of the different members of the congregation; but he comes to join, after his own fashion, in Christ's own prayer. At the Catholic Altar there is the most complete liberty, the greatest variety, combined with the most perfect unity.
Come, then, children, come to Mass, and bring your merry hearts with you. Come, you that are young and happy, and rejoice before the Lord. Come, you that are old and weary, and tell your loneliness to God. Come, you that are sorely tempted, and ask the help of Heaven. Come, you that have sinned, and weep between the porch and the altar. Come, you that are bereaved, and pour out here your tears. Come, you that are sick, or anxious, or unhappy, and complain to God. Come, you that are prosperous and successful, and give thanks. Christ will sympathize with you. He will rejoice with you, and He will mourn with you. He will gather up your prayers. He will join to them His own Almighty supplications, and that concert of prayer shall enter heaven, louder than the music of angelic choirs, sweeter than the voice of those who sing the song of Moses and the Lamb, more piercing than the cry of the living creatures who rest not day or night, and more powerful and prevailing than the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and all the saints of Paradise together. The Mass a formalism! The Mass an unmeaning service! Why, it is the most beautiful, the most spiritual, the most sublime, the most satisfying worship which the heart of man can even conceive.
And here, too, in this idea of the Mass, we have the answer to another perplexity of Protestants. They cannot understand why we make such a point of attending Mass. They see us go to Mass in all weathers. They see us so particular not to be late at Mass. They see us on Sunday, not sauntering leisurely, as if we were going to a lecture-room, but pressing on with a certain eagerness, as if we had some great business in hand; and they ask what it all means. Is it not superstition? Do we not, like the Pharisees, give an undue value to outward observances? May we not worship God at home just as well? Ah! if it were really only an outward observance. But there is just the difference. There stands one among us whom you know not. We believe that the Saviour is with us, and you do not. We believe this with a certain, simple faith. Come to our churches, and look at our people, the poorest and most ignorant, and see if we do not. It is written on their faces. They may not know how to express themselves, but this is in their hearts. You think we come to Mass because the Church is so strict in requiring us to do so; but the true state of the case is that the law of the Church is so strict because Christ is present in the Mass. You think it is the pomp and glitter of our altars that draws the crowd. Little you know of human nature if you think it can long be held by such things alone. No, we adorn our altars because we believe Christ is present. This is our faith. It is no new thing with us. It is as old as Christianity. It was the comfort of the Christians in the catacombs. It was the glory of St. Basil and St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. It was the meaning of all the glory and magnificence of the Middle Ages. And it is our stay and support in this nineteenth century of knowledge, labor, and disquiet. Yes, strip our altars, leave us only the Corn and the Vine, and a Rock for our altar, and we will worship with posture as lowly and hearts as loving as in the grandest cathedral. Let persecution rise; let us be driven from our churches; we will say Mass in the woods and caverns, as the early Christians did. We know that God is everywhere. We know that Nature is His Temple, wherein pure hearts can find Him and adore Him; but we know that it is in the Holy Mass alone that He offers Himself to His Father as "the Lamb that was slain." How can we forego that sweet and solemn action? How can we deprive ourselves of that heavenly consolation! The sparrow hath found her an house and the turtle a nest where she may lay her young, even thy altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God! Man's heart has found a home and resting-place in this vale of tears. To us the altar is the vestibule of heaven, and the Host its open door.
Yes, and to us the words of the prophet, when he calls the reign of Antichrist "the abomination of desolation," because the Daily Sacrifice shall then be taken away, has a peculiar fitness. It is our delight now to think that, as the sun in its course brings daylight to each successive spot on earth, it ever finds some priest girding himself to go up to the Holy Altar; that thus the earth is belted, from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, with a chain of Masses; that as the din of the world commences each day, the groan of the oppressed, the cry of the fearful and troubled, the boast of sin and pride, the wail of sorrow—the voice of Christ ascends at the same time to heaven, supplicating for pardon and peace. But oh! when there shall be no Mass any more, when the sun shall rise only to show that the altar has been torn down, the priests banished, the lights put out; that will be a day of calamity, of darkness and sorrow. Then the beasts will groan, and the cattle low. Then will men's hearts wither for fear. Then will the heavens overhead be brass, and the earth under foot iron, because the corn has languished, the vine no longer yields its fruit. The tie between earth and heaven is broken; sacrifice and libation are cut off from the House of God.
Such be our thoughts, my dear brethren, about the Holy Mass. I have alluded to the efforts which mankind have made to offer a worthy offering to God, sometimes to the extent, even, of sacrificing their own lives and their children. While we abhor these excesses, let us not forget the earnestness which inspired their misguided devotion. And we, to whom God has given a perfect worship, a worship not cruel, but beautiful, inviting, consoling, satisfying, shall we be less devout in offering it? No! come to Mass, and come to pray. When the Lord drew near to Elias on the mount, the prophet wrapped his face in his mantle; so when we come to Mass, let us wrap our souls in a holy recollection of spirit. Remember what is going on. Now pray; now praise; now ask forgiveness; now rest before God in quiet love. So will the Mass be a marvellous comfort and refreshment to you. You know the smell of the incense lingers about the sacred vestments worn at the altar long after the service is over; so your souls shall carry away with them as you leave the church a celestial fragrance, a breath of the odors of Paradise, the token that you have received a blessing from Him whose "fingers drop with sweet-smelling myrrh."
"All flesh is grass,
and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field.
The grass is withered and the flower is fallen."
—Isaias XL. 6, 7.
It is but a few weeks since you were told that the natural world has lessons of deep spiritual importance to teach us. Our Lord, as we see in the Gospel, sometimes drew the text of His discourse from the flowers of the field, sometimes from the birds of the air; and it must be evident to any reflecting mind that this was not done as a mere exercise of fancy on His part, but was the Divine Interpretation of these messages of love which from the beginning He had commissioned Nature to tell us. Nature, then, is really intended by God to be our Teacher. It is my purpose this morning, to direct your thoughts to one part of its teaching—that is, the spiritual instruction suggested to us by the season of Autumn.
Here, in the Church, where we have always the same doctrines, and the same worship, we might forget how all things without are full of change and decay, were it not that the Church uses Nature as a handmaid, and calls her within the sanctuary to adorn the Altar with her gifts. We miss today the flowers that have been so plentiful all summer, and this tells us what is going on without. The crown of flowers which the Spring brought forth to grace our Easter festival, and which were the truest type of the Resurrection, which made that feast so joyful, have all perished. The rose of Whitsuntide, the floral wealth of Corpus Christi, the white lily of midsummer, have all gone their way. "The glory of Lebanon is departed; the beauty of Carmel and Sharon." In the garden and the field, where so lately there was every kind of fruit and flower that is pleasant to the eye and sweet to the smell or taste—there are now but a few dried leaves, and the skeletons of trees and shrubs shaking and rattling in the wind. Nothing green is left except "the fir-tree and the box-tree and the pine-tree together," patiently enduring cold and snow so as to be on hand when the Holy Night comes round, and the Heavenly Babe is born, to make his humble home glad and beautiful with their green wreaths and branches. The birds that peopled the woods and made them merry with their music have gone south, leaving their summer home silent and desolate. The days are short. Clouds flit across the sky. The air is strong and keen, and men shut it out and make all warm and snug within. Yes, the little time that has elapsed, since we began to number our Sundays from Easter, has been a full cycle of being in the vegetable world. Spring has given place to summer, and summer to autumn. Seed-time and harvest have followed each other, and now the dreary winter has commenced. "The grass is withered and the flower is fallen.
And what does all this mean to us? I am sure all of you understand it well. This season speaks to us in tones that reach every human heart. It tells us that we are dying. It is strange how slow we are to realize this. I look around this church, and I see many dressed in the dark garments that tell they are mourning for the dead. In what house, indeed, is the family unbroken? Where is there not a vacant seat at the table? Who of us has not lost a friend? And yet we rarely think that we too are soon to follow them. Now, God wishes us to think of this. He tells us of it by our reason, He tells us of it by our vacant hearths and homes; He tells us of it by sermons, and by His word, but, not content with this, He makes the natural world, heir with us of the sentence of mortality, a monitor to us of this great truth. "Day unto day uttereth speech if it, and night unto night sheweth knowledge of it." [Footnote 237]
[Footnote 237: Ps xviii. 3.]
But at certain seasons He tells us of it more distinctly and in a greater variety of ways. Would you know what the Autumn teaches? Hear the Holy Ghost, Himself interpret it: "The voice said, cry; and I said, what shall I cry? All Flesh is grass and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field: the grass is withered and the flower is fallen." [Footnote 238] "In the morning man shall grow up like the grass; in the evening he shall fall, grow dry and wither." [Footnote 239] "Man born of a woman, liveth for a short time, and is filled with many miseries. He cometh forth as a flower and is destroyed; he fleeth as a shadow and never continueth in the same state." [Footnote 240]
[Footnote 238: Isaias xl. 6, 7.]
[Footnote 239: Ps. lxxxix. 6.]
[Footnote 240: Job xiv. 1, 2.]
Oh, do not require God always to speak to you in a voice of thunder: listen to Him when He speaks gently. Open your eyes and ears, and receive instruction from the sights and sounds of Nature. We are dying: the sighing winds tell us so. We are dying: the falling leaf tells us how Death will soon have power over us as a leaf carried away by the wind, and pursue us as a dry straw." [Footnote 241] We are dying: the harvest-man is discharged, so "our days are like the days of an hireling, and the end of labor draweth nigh." [Footnote 242] We are dying: the short days tell us that to us "the sun and the light and the moon and the stars will soon be darkened."[Footnote 243]
[Footnote 241: Job xiii. 25.]
[Footnote 242: Job vii. 1.]
[Footnote 243: Eccles. xii. 2.]
We are dying: the earth hath already wrapped itself in its winding-sheet of snow, to foretell to us the time when, stiff and cold, we shall be dressed for the grave. We are all dying. Are you young? Well, the young are dying. Life is but a lingering death. As soon as we are born, we began to draw to our end. Every path in life leads straight to the grave. Are you old? are you sick? Ah! then, there is a voice within you which repeats the warning from without. You are not as strong and well as you once were. Time was you felt within you a fount of health and strength that defied danger and despised precaution. What a strange, fierce joy it was for you to struggle with the buffetings of the wintry blast! But, somehow, you know not how, either it was an accident or an imprudence, there came over you now and then a pain, a cough, a strange weariness, and the raw wind steals away from your cheek the bloom which once it imparted, and sends a chill to your heart. What does it mean? I will tell you. It is the shadow of mortality. You are dying. Men do not realize this. They do not realize it of themselves, and they do not realize it of others. Death is always a surprise and an accident. It is one of the things in the world on which men do not count.
It is something which has nothing to do with us until the doctor stands over us, and says we have but a few days or a few hours to live. We speak of the dead with pity, as if they were the victims of some unlucky chance which we had escaped. This ought not to be so. "It is appointed for man once to die." [Footnote 244]
[Footnote 244: Heb. ix. 27.]