It aims at creating in nature a higher life than that of the body, or even that of the mind. It desires to keep constantly kindled our enthusiasm for all that is good, laudable, and generous. Its prosperity, then, consists in living, acting, and even in fighting.

Christ is still here below. Christ is still contained in mortal flesh, his glorious resurrection has snatched him from the power of the grave, his glorious ascension from the gaze of earth,-all is accomplished, for the work done by him is sufficient for all. But Christ succeeds to himself in the person of the Church. The Church is a body whose head is in heaven. The Church militant has inherited the condition of the humbled and suffering Christ. Here below it represents its divine head as the Son of Man, and will so represent him till the end of time. Doubtless it is to Jesus Christ only what the body is to the head, which last communicates movement to it and determines all its actions; but it is not less narrowly united to Jesus Christ than the head is to the body; it does nothing of itself indeed, but it does through him all that he has done upon earth; it carries on his work, but only by him and for him ; it is the whole body, but it is not the head. And while the Master, Jesus Christ, reigns as head in the peace and glory of heaven, the body, which is the Church, remaining on earth, suffers there all that Jesus Christ would suffer were he on earth still; for having the same spirit, invoking his name, waging the same war with error and with sin, it must needs

have the same enemies, meet the same obstacles, excite the same enmities, and undergo the same passion. It must do all this, else it is not the Church. The agony of Jesus Christ must continue in the person of the Church, or there is no Church; the head being living, the body must live; and living upon earth live a terrestrial life,-in other words, suffer. This is what still remains behind of the afflictions of Christ; this is the sign that his work is being carried on upon earth; this is the burning but glorious seal that the Master impresses on those who are his; this is the method by which the Church may correspond with its head; and we may here observe that the term which St. Paul employs does not simply signify to fill up, but also to correspond; it is in continuing the work of Jesus Christ to ren der back to him what we have received from him. Christ is the victim of the Church, and the Church is the victim of Jesus Christ. The Church, moreover, is the servant of Jesus Christ; if she did not suffer, neither would she act, for she cannot act without suffering; and if she did not act she would not correspond with her Head, she would not serve her Master, who, on his side, would seem to forget or to disavow her. Under all these heads there remains, and till the end of time will remain, something to be filled up of the afflictions of Jesus Christ; not, doubtless, of those personal afflictions which are complete in every respect, but those that he has resolved, if we may so speak, to bear till the end of time in the

person of believers. Do not attribute to the body anything that exclusively belongs to the head; do not impute to the afflictions of the body the redeeming merit and virtue which belong only to the sufferings of the head; you are right in this; but let the body which is the Church enter into a community of love and sufferings with the head, which is Jesus Christ.

The Church is the continual revealer of truth: it can add nothing to the principle; but in the sense of development, of application, of result, it has ever to act, to advance. If the gospel had said all that could be said, there would be no need of preaching.

The Christian Church is the true society of peace; and with the efforts of this divine institution, Providence has, in our opinion, made concur a science, the principles of which, once adopted, will be of incalculable importance to the peace of the world; it will be seen at once that I am speaking of political economy.

If there be a general providence for the governments of the world, there is a special providence over the destinies of the Church. Object of the eternal complacency of him who has

saved her, he keeps

her as "the apple of his eye;" defends her against enemies from without and within; protects her even where he seems to yield her to the fury of her adversaries. Physician equally enlightened and loving, he applies painful remedies according as they are needed; but it is then that the re-animated Church

witnesses with most lustre to the force and life that are in her; and the groans that she utters upon earth re-echo as songs of triumph in heaven. While dynasties and empires melt and flow away like torrents, alone amid their foaming waves the rock of the Church stands firm; a powerful hand, which disdains to save human things from their doom of mortality, lovingly sustains the Church of the Crucified, and the catastrophes which most profoundly convulse the soil of society respect that eternal religion, which has nothing to fear from the inconstancy of opinions and the course of centuries. Nay, this is not enough. Such is the love with which she is loved, that all things in the world are subordinated to her interests, to her final triumph; it is for her that the world still subsists; it is by her that it is preserved from the ever imminent wrath of the just Judge. A world in which there was no longer a Church, no longer any friends of God, no more souls to win over to the Lord, would be an objectless creation, which could not subsist for an instant, and that nothingness would eagerly devour. With what love then is the Church loved, since, once effaced from earth, earth would be effaced from the universe, and since present in the world it preserves and sustains that world.

The misfortune of Christianity and of the Church is that hypocrisy should receive a sanction from a crowd of respectable people, according to the standard of the world, who, unbelieving or indifferent in

heart, perform acts that should only belong to piety and devotion-acts regarding the value of which there is scarcely any mistake-but which, tolerated as they are, passed into usage, fused into manners and customs, inflict in all spheres whatever, mortal injury on public morality.

II. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH.

1. Its Constitution.

An ecclesiastical body without doctrine is in most cases an illegal thing; for if it remount to the origin of its powers, it finds a doctrine there. It is for this, and by this, that it was instituted; and whatever the advance of public opinion may have subsequently been, it has had no power to make any changes in the condition under which this body exists; doctrine is still its title, and its only title to existence.

An ecclesiastical body without doctrine is an imaginary entity, a pure chimera. Always this body will divide, will fall into fractions through theological opinions. Always in discussions apparently the most unconnected with dogma, dogma will be found; and a purely administrative affair will be a controversy in disguise.

Let it be asserted, in any circle whatever, whether ignorant or learned, believing or sceptical, that there is an ecclesiastical body which on principle is neither Arian nor orthodox, rationalist nor supernaturalist, Pelagian nor Calvinist, Catholic nor Protestant, but