Chapter 9. The Gift of Piety

We have received the spirit of eons, whereby we cry Abba, Pathei

ROMANS viii. 15.

I HAVE explained before, and I need hardly remind yon again, that a gift of the Holy Ghost differs from a grace of the Holy Ghost in this: the graces of the Holy Ghost in the soul are to the gifts what the faculties of sight and hearing are to their special and disciplined perfection. The gifts of the Holy Ghost, therefore, are certain powers by which these graces are brought to maturity. But the gifts become active in proportion to our fidelity in corresponding with the graces of the Holy Spirit. And, therefore, though there are fear and piety in every one who is born again, however low we may be in the spiritual life, if only we are in a state of grace, nevertheless the gift of holy fear and the gift of piety are the ripe fruit, the blossom, the perfection, and the beauty of the spiritual graces.

We have seen that holy fear consists chiefly in the filial fear of those who, loving God, are afraid of losing Him, and therefore are afraid of offending Him, le*t they should lose God in eternity.

But the gift of piety springs in part from holy fear. It is a ripe fruit, which grows out of charity, or the love of God and our neighbor.¹ We commonly understand piety to be our personal religion towards God. This is indeed one sense, but it is only a very narrow sense otf the word. The word piety, in its original moaning, signifies the natural affection which parents have for their children, and children for their parents. Even in the lower animals, there is a certain love, and care, and nurture in the parent towards its offspring. There is also a certain confidence — and I may say affection — in the offspring towards the parent. This, in the rational natures, in the higher creation, becomes an instinct of love with a government of the intelligence, and is what we call natural affection. The natural love of parents for their children, and of children for their parents, is the basis or ground of piety. Now, inasmuch as the gift of the love of God and our neighbor is infused into us by the Hol# Spirit of God when we are born again in the supernatural order, so piety, which we have in the order of nature, is elevated, purified, and perfected into the love of God aiwi man. This, then, is the first sense and the outline of piety; but we must go further.

We have already seen how the gift of holy fear is exemplified in the Incarnate Son of God; how in our Divine Lord this gift of holy fear — that is, the filial subjection, dependence, and submission to His Heavenly Father — was in its perfection; and how, even in the blessed in eternity, there will be for ever this gift of holy fear in the reverence, adoration, and worship of the Heavenly Court. In like manner, we shall best understand what is the gift of piety in the example of the Incarnate Son. First of all, love, together with worship, produces adoration, praise, and thanksgiving. And the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was a human heart like ours, deified by union in His person with the Godhead, had in itself love, worship, adoration, praise, and thanksgiving in the highest and the most perfect measure. God was never worshiped and adored by any human heart from the creation of the world as He was from the first instant of the Incarnation, when the Sacred Heart of Jesus, full and perfect in the first moment of its existence, adored our Heavenly Father. So, again, the Sacred Heart of our Divine Lord, in its relation to His Blessed and Immaculate Mother, had love, reverence, and filial obedience in the utmost perfection. Once more, the Sacred Heart of our Divine Lord, in His sympathy with mankind, surrounded as He was by sin, and the sinful, and the miserable, and the widows, and the orphans, and the lepers, and the olind, and the deaf, and the maimed, all the day long, poured out an infinite pity upon them, exhibiting this gift of piety, which means love and pity, love and compassion towards all the creatures of God. In this was the fulfillment of the prophecy in the book of the Prophet Isaias, where, speaking of the Incarnation, he says u There shall come up a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall spring out of this root."* Now, whc * Isaias xi. 1.

is that rod bat the Son of David, Jesus Christ Himself! And what is this flower but the tenderness and the beauty of the Divine and human character of the Incarnate Son of God? We have here, then, the full and perfect idea of what piety is.

I will now go on to trace out what are the objects to which this gift of piety addresses itself; and, perhaps, it is in this way we shall be able to make what I have to say most intelligible and practical.

1. To begin, then, let us take the first and highest object of piety. It is God Himself. We see this gift oi piety manifested in its greatest breadth and fullness throughout the history of Israel. The books of the Old Testament tell us how the patriarchs, and prophets, and saints of old walked with God. There may be seen, in the most luminous forms, this gift of piety. Take the prayer of Solomon when he dedicated the Temple; or take the whole Book of Psalms, and you will see, from beginning to end, this gift of piety, inspiring, enlarging, and elevating. In the Theism and the Theocracy of Israel we see the gift of piety in its fullest exercise. And that which we see under the veils of the Old Testament we see also in the noonday light of the New. God, Who was known of old as One Who was inscrutable and incomprehensible, Whom no man had seen or could see, is made known to us by visible manifestations in our humanity, and has revealed to us the glory of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The highest object of piety, therefore, is the ever-blessed Trinity. The relation of sons to our Heavenly Father, the relation of brethren to our Lord Jesus Christ, the relation of disciples to the Holy Ghost — all this is coo tained in the gift of piety. And this supreme adoration of the glory of God in three Persons fills the whole world, as Malachias prophesied: " From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, My name shall be great among the Gentiles, and an oblation and in cense of pure offering shall be offered in My name."* And where i? the fulfillment of this prophecy to be found? It is the worship of the world- wide Church of God — the supreme and united adoration of the sons of God gathered into the one family of their Heavenly Father — which is the one and only Church of Jesus Christ, our elder brother, Who was made man for us, Who has made us sons of God through His Incarnation. This world- wide adoration of the Church of God glorifies the ever-blessed Trinity through all the hours of the day and through all the watches of the night. When our morning sacrifice is being offered here at the sunrise, the evening sacrifice is being offered in those regions of the world where the sun is setting. The sunrise and the sunset both alike look down upon the lights, and the incense, and the beauty of the Holy Sacrament. Throughout all lands, and people, and tongues, there is a perpetual chain of worship, an unceasing service of God, an endless glorifying of the ever-blessed Trinity, in the oblation of Jesus, the Lamb of God, in the voices of praise and thanksgiving which the priests of the Church are offering all the clay long in the unseen worship of those in whom the spirit of piety breathes in secret, in the love of these who come ap one by one to the House of the Lord and worship Him in spirit and in truth. All this is a perpetuaJ * Mai i. li.

sacrifice, always ascending from the heart of the Church throughout the world, uniting itself with the adoration of the Heavenly Court, and going up before the Throne with the worship of the saints and the piety of the Immaculate Mother of God. Such, then, is the gift of piety in the Catholic Church; and everything relating to the worship of God, therefore, becomes an object of piety to us. We consecrate the place where we worship God; we consecrate the altar, and the chalice, and the paten, whereby the sacrifice is offered. The very books that are used in the worship of God are sacred. The man who steals them is guilty of sacrilege; the man who dishonors them is guilty of impiety. There is a mark upon them all. They belong to the service of God: holiness to the Lord is graven upon them. All the order, and precepts, and prescriptions of worship lay us under obedience. They are the laws and tests of our piety. Therefore this gift of piety pervades the whole Ritual of the Church, and terminates, first and above all, upon the ever-blessed Trinity, Three Persona in One God. Next after God Himself, piety loves and venerates His Word. And the Word of God is twofold— the unwritten and the written, the Faith and the Scriptures. The unwritten Word of God is the perfect revelation of God in Jesus Christ which was given partly by the Son in the days of His humility, and partly by the Holy Ghost upon the day of Pentecost. It was preached by the Apostles in all the world before ar yet any word of it was written. There was no New Tcst&nient — no written Word of God — when the whole Christian faith vras declared and believed throughout the

The voice of the Holy Ghost, speaking by the Apostles, filled the whole world; and all the nations were illuminated with the knowledge of the ever-blessed Trinity, and of the mysteries of the Incarnation, and of the Redemption of Jesus Christ This is the tradition of divine faith written in the world-wide intelligence of the Church by the Spirit of God. And therefore it is that every one who has in him the gift of piety has also an instinctive hatred of heresy. The instinct which detests and recoils from heresy is part of the gift of piety, because piety loves the revealed truth of Jesus Christ. We are thought to 'be intolerant and bigoted, because we will keep no peace with heresy. But how can any man love Jesus Christ, and not love every jot and tittle of His truth? And if we love Hi> truth, that which contradicts it must be hateful, for it contradicts Himself. And therefore, though we are to be tolerant towards the persons of heretics, we are intolerant of the heresies themselves. There is no degree of aversion with which we may not lawfully look upon conscious contradiction of any divine truth. There is this distinction between the heretic and the heresy. The heresy we may deal with at once, with all peremptory severity; the heretic we leave to the judgment of God and of the Church. We are not the judges of his guilt, because we cannot read the heart.

Then for the written Word of God. The Catholic Church has, from the beginning, cherished and preserved the Holy Scriptures with the most vigilant and jealous care. It is not permitted to man to alter a jot or a tittle of the Word of G^d. That written Word ia ft record of the inspired caching of the Holy Ghost. And the Catholic Church, therefore, has preserved it as the greatest treasure committed to its charge next aftei the living tradition of divine faith. Tho saints of God have manifested their love for it with every token of veneration. Saint Charles never read it except with his head bare, and upon his knees; Saint Edmund of Canterbury kissed the page whensoever hf, opened the book, and kissed it again when he closed it. In this way the saints of the Catholic Church have re «rered the Holy Scriptures. And yet we are told that the Catholic Church £oes not honor the Holy Scripture, <md does not give it to its people. This is a superstition, and contrary to the truth. The page of Holy Scripture is open to all those who can read and understand it. If the Catholic Church warns those who can neither understand it nor read it that they need the guidance of others, it is out of piety and out of love both for the truth and for souls. It is also because hereticp have perverted the meaning of Holy Scripture, and have perverted the version of the text. They have perverted even the writing itself. Therefore the Catholic Church is jealous over the Scriptures; and that for amos4 evident reason. Holy Scripture is Holy Scripture only in the right sense of Holy Scripture. Just as a man's will is a man's will no longer if it be misinterpreted by those who come after him. If those who survive him misinterpret the disposition of his property, they defeat his will, they defraud him of his intentions. So it is with the Holy Scriptures when they are misinterpreted — God is defrauded of His Will and Testament, and His people are robbed.

THE GIFT OF PIETY. 18t

Therefore, the first and highest object of piety ii God, His worship and His Word.

2. The next is the same, but in another way. It ii still God, but God in another form; it is God Incarnate, Jesus Christ our Lord, God manifest among men, and dwelling among men, visible to faith. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has been, is, and ever will be the object of our most tender, of our most fervent piety. Just as those who were with Him upon earth intensely loved Him, observed His every motion, every expression of His countenance, were guided by His eye, and listened with eagerness to every word He spoke, so it is now. And the Person of Jesus Christ is the loving meditation of the Church. We set before us the life, and the example, and the character, and th« Passion of our Divine Lord "as the chief objects of our piety. Every state He passed through — His infancy, His childhood, His youth, His manhood — all these are objects of our mental prayer. But more than this: His life of sorrows, in every part of it — the Agony in the Garden, the Five Sacred Wounds, the instruments of His Passion, the effusions of His Precious Blood, and, above all, His Sacred Heart, the sanctuary of all love divine and human, the ineffable expression of the tenderness and piety of God towards us, the object of our love and piety towards Him. And this, not only as He is at the right hand of God, not only as He is in His glory, but as He is in the Blessed Sacrament, ful filling His words: " Behold, I am 'with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."* Jesus dwelling on the altar always in the midst of us, ir • St. Matt, xxvlii. 20.

lSf> THE GIFT OF PIETY.

Godhead and manhood, in His divine and perfect per Bonality, is the object of our piety, as truly and aa really as He was when the Apostles were round about Rim in the guest-chamber at Jerusalem. Jesus always ready to receive us there, offering Himself daily in the Holy Mass, as He offered Himself at His last Paschal Feast; giving Himself to us in the Holy Communion, as He gave His body and His blood to the Apostles on that night before He was betrayed; always there lifting up His hands over us in benediction; ever ready to receive our prayers; listening in silence to all the unuttered confession of our sins and of our sorrows: the same Jesus, God and man, is to us now as He was then, the object of the piety of His disciples, and will be for ever.

And, once more, He is not only with UB upon earth and in a visible way in His sacramental presence, but He is present upon earth and in a visible way in His mystical body, which is the Church. The Church of Jesus Christ, Head and members, is the mystical person of Jesus Christ. Therefore Saint Augustine says: " The head in heaven and the body upon earth make up one person; so that the voice of the Church is the voice of its Head." The promise, " He that heareth you heareth Me,"* is verified whensoever we hear the living voice of the Church of God; and therefore it is that the Church and its divine voice are alike an object of our piety. This is a thing unintelligible except to those who have the light of the Catholic faith. In England, the greater part of our fellow-countrymen §eem to have lost from their intelligence the idea of a * 8. Luke x. 16.

THE GIFT OF PIETY. 1ST

Church upon earth. They tell us that it ia something invisible, something not in this but in the unseen world, something not tangible, something with which we can have no contact. To them, therefore, it is an idea, it is a notion, it is an abstraction — I might therefore say a non-existence. But that which does not exist cannot be an object of piety. Not so the Catholic Church. It is next after God the greatest of all realities. Besides it all other things are light and fleeting as the dust. It is a reality full of life and of intelligence. It is the object of love, fidelity, and service to all its members. When the Church suffers anywhere it is felt everywhere. Every persecution wounds the whole body; every benediction is a common joy. And in this the words of Saint Paul are fulfilled: that " we rejoice with those that rejoice, and weep with those that weep."* Because we are members one of another, there is a perfect sympathy binding the whole Church together. And for this cause it is that the indignities heaped upon the Yicar of Jesus Christ day by day excite a sense of indignation and call forth a sorrow and a lamentation throughout the whole Catholic world. We feel that in the person of His Yicar the Son of God Himself is insulted. The gift of piety which worships the Master envelopes also His sen ant. Therefore also it is that when we see the pastors of the Church slandered, fined, and imprisoned, exiled and cast out of home and country, we feel that these outrages are done to our Divine Master, for Whose sake they are suffered. We have with those who suffer these things a living sympathy; the sym •Rom.xii. 16.

pa thy of piety, that is, of love and reference. The outrages against their person and their office art committed against us also. Now this is what no man can feel who does not believe that the Church of God is a divine creation. If he believes that the Church is created by a human will or by human legislation, or that it is something which men have put together of themselves by voluntary association, he may call it the Church of God, but it can never be an object of piety to him. He may have a great self-interest in it, but an object of reverence it cannot be. But they who believe that the Church visible on earth is the mystical body of Christ, ever united by a living union with its Divine Head in heaven, love it for His sake. The Divine Head in heaven is so united to the mystical body upon earth, that He is persecuted when it is persecuted, and He is glorified when it is glorified. Therefore they venerate the body because of the divine glory of its Head.

3. And there is yet another object of this filial piety, namely, His Blessed and Immaculate Mother. Nothing more clearly shows how low the faith of England in the Incarnation has declined than the extinction of the loving veneration which is due to the Mother of Jesus. Is it possible that any man can believe that the Eternal Son of God, co-equal to the Father and the Holy Ghost, assumed our manhood of the substance of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in assuming it made that manhood to be the humanity of God, so that she bore into this world an infant whose personality is divine — is it possible, I ask, that any man can really believe this, and not see at once that she is thereby Mother of God, for at

&BA much as her child JL God? If any man does not believe or does not see this, does he not at once convict himself of either not believing or of not understanding the Incarnation of the Son of God? The one or the other of these things is inevitable. If he believe the Incarnation truly, and as it is revealed, then to him Mary is the Mother of God. If he does not give her that title, then I ask how does he believe that her Son is God? But if he believes this, then next after her Divine Son, is there any object of piety, that is, of love and veneration, higher than she? Let such a man lay these things to heart. She is the Mother of the Divine Redeemer of the world; she is the Mother of his Divine Lord and Master; she is the Mother of his Divine and perfect Friend; she is the Mother of the Saviour Who shed His Precious Blood for him on Calvary — is it possible, I ask, for any man to believe these things, and not at once to regard her, next after her Divine Son, Who is God, with all the piety of his heart? Let him look at the example of Jesus Himself. Next after His Heavenly Father there was no one whom He venerated and loved as He loved and venerated His Blessed Mother. But the example of Jesus Christ is the law of our lif e. We are bound to imitate it; we are bound to be like Him. But love and veneration to her are a part of the perfection of Jesus Christ. We cannot be like Him if we are unlike Him in this. He who has not love and veneration to the Blessed Mother of Jesus is unlike our Divine Saviour in that particular perfection of His character which comes next after His filial piety toward* God. But, besides all this, love and veneration are due to her for her own sake • because she is the Mother of the Redeemer of mankind; because, above all other creatures, she has been sanctified by the Holy Ghost; and because, in being made the Mother of the Incarnate Son, she is made the Mother of us all. For how are we the sons of God, how is the " spirit of adoption of sons whereby we cry Abba, Father;"* sent forth into our hearts, except through the Incarnation of the Eternal Son? And if His Father becomes our Father, through His Incarnation, Kow does not His Mother become our Mother too? If by His taking our humanity He makes men to be sons of God, how is it that in taking that humanity He does not likewise make His Mother to be our Mother in grace? Surely it is the incoherence of mind which follows on the loss of the light of faith that makes it possible for men to say and unsay these divine truths in the same breath. As soon as a man receives into his heart the full light of the Incarnation, two self-evident truths arise upon his reason: the one, the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament; the other, the love and veneration of His Blessed Mother. They follow by the necessity of consequence. How can any man fail to see these things? And, what is more, every man that has the love of the Incarnation in him will rejoice to see them.

4:. Fourthly, there is another object of piety which must be taken as one though it is multitudinous, that is, the Communion of Saints. All the friends of God are the objects of piety to those who have piety towards God, by Whom they were made perfect. First, there are the saints of God in the Heavenly Court around His Throne — the multitude that no man can number * Rom vUi 16.

of all nations, races, and tongues, in white raiment, washed in the blood of the Lamb. All these are reigning with Christ, and intercede for us, and knjw our needs: not because they can hear, nor because they are omnipresent — for these things are the stupidities of heresj — but because they know, and they know because they are in union with God, and He makes known to them what He wills they should know. Our Lord has said: " There shall be joy among the angels of God over one sinner doing penance."* How can there be joy if there be not knowledge? He declares that there is knowledge among the angels of God: because He declares that there is joy; and joy over one sinner doing penance. But penance is a silent change of the heart — the secret whispers of sorrow for sin committed, which may never be uttered in articulate and audible words; and these secret and inaudible whispers of the heart are known before the Throne of God. How and why? All things are known to God, and they are known to all to whom God reveals them. It is so that the friends of God round about His Throne know oui prayers, and continually pray in our behalf. Whosoever has not piety towards the saints of God; whosoever does not love His guardian angel; whosoever says, " What need have I of patron saints?" — such a man has little of the gift of piety. Where there is the spirit of piety, everything which unites us with God will bo an object of our love. The saints, by their intercession and their patronage, unite us with God. They watch over us, they pray for us, they obtain graces for us. Our guardian angels are round about us: they watch over and * S. Lulce xv. 7.

protect us. The man who has not piety enough to ask their prayers must have a heart but little like to the love and veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But there are other friends of God to whom we owe a debt of piety. They are those who are suffering beyond tht) grave, in the silent kingdom of pain and expiation, in the dark and yet blessed realm of purification, that is to say, the multitudes who pass out of this world, washed in the Precious Blood, perfectly absolved of all guilt of sin, children and friends of God, blessed souls, heirs of the kingdom of heaven, all but saints, nevertheless they are not yet altogether purified for His kingdom. They are there detained — kept back from His presence — until their expiation is accomplished. You and I, and every one of us, will pass through that place of expiation. Neither you nor I are saints, nor upon earth ever will be; therefore before we can see God we must be purified by pain in that silent realm. But those blessed souls are friends of God next after His saints, and in the same order they ought to be an object of our piety, that is, of our love and compassion, of our sympathy and our prayers. They can do nothing now for themselves: they have no longer any sacraments; they do not even pray for themselves. They are so conformed to the will of God, that they suffer there in submission and in silence. They desire nothing except that Hip will should be accomplished. Therefore it is our duty co help them — to help them by our prayers, our penances, our mortifications, our alms, by the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar. There may be father and mother, brothei and sister, friend and child, whom you have loved a/ your own life — they may uow be there. Have you for gotten them? Have you no pity for them now, no natural piety, no spirit of love for them? Do you forget them all the day long? Dear brethren, those who made your home in your early childhood, the light of Those faces you can still see shining in your memories, and the sweetness of whose voice is still in your ears — do you forget them because they are no longer seen? Is it indeed " out of sight out of mind?" What an impiety of heart is this.

The Catholic Church, the true mother of souls, cherishes with loving memory all her departed. Nevei does a day pass but she prays for them at the altar; never does a day go by that there is not a special commemoration of her children departed on one solemn day, which is neither feast nor fast, but a day of the prof oundest piety and of the deepest compassion. Surely, then, if we have the spirit of piety in our hearts, the holy souls will be a special object of our remembrance and our prayers. How many now are there whom we have known in life. There are those who have beer grievously afflicted, and those who have been very sinful, but, through the Precious Blood and a death-bed repentance, have been saved at last. Have you forgotten them? Are you doing nothing for them? There may also be souls there for whom there is no one to pray on earth; there may be souls who are utterly forgotten by their own kindred, outcast from all remembrance, and yet the Precious Blood was shed for their sakes. If no one remembers them now, you, at least, if you have in four hearts the gift of piety, will pray for them.

5. And lastly — for time would fail ine if I were to 50 on — every creature of God ought to be an object of loving piety. Do not imagine, as aouie do, that when the love of God enters into a man his perfection consists in the hardening of natural affections. Whensoever the spirit of devotion or piety narrows or contracts the heart, and makes our home to be less bright and happy, when it makes parents imperious to children or children undutiful to parents, or lessens the sympathy of brothers and sisters, or chills the warmth of friendship,— whensoever the plea of religion, of greater fervor, of more exact piety, has the effect of lessening the natural affections, be sure that such piety is either perverted or not true. The best son will make the best riest, and the best daughter will make the best nun; fliat is to say, the best training for the most perfect character as a disciple or a handmaid of- Jesus Christ IP to be found in the natural affections of home. And therefore, if you find any faults or defects in your natural affections towards those whom you ought to love, do not make excuses for yourselves, as if the love of God were- any palliation or defence. Love to kindred and friends, with all the tenderness due to them, and not only to friends but to your enemies, to those who are displeasing to you, to those who offend you and treat you spitefully — this is the fruit and the proof of true and loving piety.

The theologians of the Church teach that there is no object of our natural affection which is not elevated and perfected by the gift of supernatural piety. They tell us that the two great objects of natural piety upon eartt are our kindred and our country. I mention this expressly, because if there be anything with which the world rings all day long it is the foolish imputation that

Catholics cannot love their country. It is a part of oin Catholic theology that a man is bound by the gift of piety to love his country. And for what reason? Because next after the father and mother that bore him. the land and the people among whom his birth is cast are the objects of his charity. We call ehe land of our birth our mother country or our fatherland. Our countrymen are our kindred. Their welfare, their peace, their defence, their prosperity, ought to be an object of our most hearty, resolute, self-denying, and self-sacrificing devotion. We are like men on board ship — all that are together have one common interest, they are all alike in peril or in safety. And therefore our fatherland or our mother country is an object of piety to us. We invest them with the dearest names which are borrowed from the sanctity of domestic life. Do not, therefore, let anybody imagine that as Ca,tholic§ you are not loyal, that you are not lovers of your country. Shall I tell you what the secret is? We are not, indeed, such lovers of our country that if an Apostle came to us from Judea, we should stone him with stones, or stop our ears or harden our hearts against him. We do not believe that every teacher sent from God ought to be an Englishman. We do not believe that all matters of spiritual judgment and doctrine are to b« decided within the four seas of England. No, because that would be an impiety — an impiety against God, an impiety against Jesus Christ, an impiety against Hia Church, an impiety against the Holy Ghost, an impiety against the whole revelation of faith, an impiety against the whole Christian world. We know that when the Arvvstleg were sent out with a divine commission ta make disciples of all nations, the nations listened, u them, all Jews as they were. They subdued the cultivated Greeks, and the imperial Romans, and our barbarian forefathers into one family. And within the circle of revealed truth, all these national distinctions were abol ished. In Christ Jesus there is " neither Jew nor barbarian, nor bond nor free."* We are all one in Him. There is one Head and one pastor over all, to whom our Lord said in Peter, " Feed My sheep, feed My lambs;vf and there is one Holy Catholic Church having one faith, one jurisdiction, one power of legislation and of judgment, ruling all the people of God upon earth. To every attempt to set up national authorities and nation al teachers where the Incarnate Son of God has planted His kingdom, the gift of piety makes us say, " Take my life if you will, but these human authorities and human teachers I will never obey/' This refusal to obey is founded upo „ * revealed law. I have told you that father and mother are the object of piety to sons. Love, obedience, and submission are due from the son to his parents, and yet our Divine Lord has said, " He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.":): Therefore he that loves his country, or the laws or the traditions of his people, more than the Church oi God, or the laws of Jesus Christ, is not worthy of Him. ITo, the best subjects are those who are first and above all loyal to their Heavenly Master, and to His heavenly kingdom. They will best keep the laws of the land who do it for conscience' sake. Loyalty is a part of our religion; and that not because it is our interest, nor because it chimes in with our opinion. T1 e * Col. iii. 11. f S. John xxi. 15, $ S. Matt. r. 87..

days in which we live are days of lawlessness and di§.oyalty; the time is coming when true fealty and true loyalty will be found only in those who are loyal and true, first to a heavenly King, and after this to the representatives of His authority upon earth.

I have now, as far as I could, drawn out before you what is this gift of piety, and what are its objects. You will remember that they are, first, God our Father; next Jesus, our Incarnate Lord, in His Person, in the most Holy Sacrament, and in His Church; then His Blessed and Immaculate Mother; then all His friends reigning with Him, or suffering on their way to His kingdom; lastly, parents, kinsmen, friends and enemies, and our own country — subject always to the law of God.

Now there are two short questions to be asked, and then I have done.

What is it that destroys the piety of men? You answer at once, it is impiety. Just as unbelief destroys faith, and as despair destroys hope, impiety destroys piety. This is plain. But what is impiety? It is a want of faith to believe and a want of love 'o venerate. How shall a man have piety towards God if he doea not believe in Him? How shall a man love God if he does not venerate Him? And how is it that men grow up without believing in God? There are, I believe, a reat many men who are without faith in God; not BO much through their own fault as through the sin of their parents. I believe that in this country of ours millions and millions are growing up without the knowledge and the love of God. Why? Because three hundred years ago this land was disinherited and robbed by th« wickedness of men; the light of the Cathol c faith was extinguished. A fragmentary Christianity indeed remained; but the altars were pulled down, and the name of our Blessed Mother was taken away out of the uouths, and at last out of the hearts, of her children. TKot so in a country close by us. A narrow channel of sea divides us from a people who speak the same tongue, who are of the same family with us, who are our fellowcountrymen, who are our brothers. There, since Saint Patrick preac-hed, the light of faith has never been extinguished. Belief in Jesns and the Sacrament of the Altar, love of the Holy Mass, have never failed; love and piety towards His Blessed and Immaculate Mother have never been chilled. Up on the mountains, out in the morasses, in the cold of winter, in all manner of suffering, the faithful people of Ireland have preserved the tradition of piety, which among us is grown so cold and dim. We can easily understand that millions among us have not the knowledge or the love of God, not so much through their own fault as through the fault of those who have gone before them. And yet there are also multitudes who have it not through their own fault, through their own grievous fault. There are men among us who profess to be infidels, and who glory in their unbelief, who have no shame to say, u I do not believe in God or in Jesus Christ." There are men whose intellectual pride cavils and perverts, criticises and distorts, every truth of the revelation of God. What shall we say of them? That they are impious, and that it is the want of the love of truth which causes this aberration of the huma;i mind when it is once giown to maturity. In childhocd the privation o1 which 1 spoke will account for much. But when men 3ome to maturity, do you think that God has left the evidence of His revelation so obscure that it cannot be seem? This is to throw the sin of their unbelief on God, and to accuse Him of injustice. The fault by which they do not see Him in the light of His truth is not on God's part, but on theirs. No, dear brethren, there is another reason. One of the chief causes of unbelief in matters of faith is sin, secret and sensual; the sins of the heart, if not of the life. In many a soul impurity is the cause of impiety.

Once more, there is another very dangerous cause of impiety and unbelief: the gross heavy material love of the world, of getting and hoarding, of growing rich, of drowning the soul in things of this world. And there is still another, the direct opposite of this. It ia a levity of mind, which is to be found more often among educated than among uneducated people. I thank God that the spirit of mockery which desolated France iu the last century, and ran like a wildfire all through the upper classes of that cultivated people, has found no borne in England. There were a few, here and there, in the beginning of the last century, who attempted to imitate it, but it soon went out; and it went out just as an evil thing which cannot bear the light of the sun or the pure air of heaven. Thank God that this evil spirit of levity and mockery is not to be found widespread among us; it ma}7 indeed be found in individuals, but Englishmen are a graver race. Anybody who makes jokes on religion, or who ridicules the faith, or who allots himself to speak with irreverence of God> or of His Blessed Mother, or of the Saints, or of the

Holy Catholic Church, thereby blinds his own eyes, and if there be anybody who from levity will not heed, will not inquire into the truths of faith, will not read, will not examine, will not listen, such a man condemns himself to ignorance, and therefore to unbelief.

I know that worldly and passionate minds, which live in pleasure, become at last so shallow that the thought of God can find no soil in which to root itself. They become utterly light, like the thistledown which is carried to and fro by the faintest breath. The opinions of men, and the fashion of the day, and the pesti • lence of bad literature which lies on the tables of the educated, are quite enough to keep the revelation of Jesus Christ out of their hearts. They read nothing but fictions and levities, till their very minds become light and false.

How, then, is the spirit of piety to be matured and sustained? In the outset of this subject, we went back to the Old Testament, and to the examples of the patriai chs, and the prophets, and the saints of the old law. They were profound believers in God. They were men who lived in the midst of the divine attributes. They were men who walked to and fro among the perfections of God; of His sanctity, of His justice, of His mercy, of His truth, of His purity, like as men walk to and fro upon the high mountains, and in the midst of the splendors of the noonday sun. And this is the meaning of the counsel which God gave to Abraham: " Walk before Me, and be perfect; "* walk before Me; live m My presence, in the vision of My perfections, and thou ahalt be perfect. If only you will try and impress * Gen xvii. 1.

npcn yourselves in the morning, and keep continually alive all the day long, the recollection of the Divine Presence; if only you will pray with your heart when you are not able to pray with your lips, — then the spirit oi piety which is in you will be perpetually increasing in brightness and in ardor, as the lamp that hangs before the Altar is perpetually replenished with oil by a vigilant hand.

And therefore, to make an end and to sum up what 1 have said, this gift of piety is a gift which cornea from the Holy Ghost. We ought to ask for it day by day. " Ask, and you shall receive."* The promise never fails. And this gift of piety will make the service of God sweet to you, prayer will be sweet to you, the Holy Sacraments will be sweet to you, and the Holy Mass, and visits to our Divine Lord in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar; all these things, of which the world is weary, to you will be a sweetness from the presence of God. You will then understand the Psalmist's words: " One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek for, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to visit His temple; for in the time ol trouble He shall hide me in His tabernacle, He shall hide me in the secret of His tabernacle, and shall set me upon the rock."f If this be the reward of piety here, while we are wayfarers on earth, what will be iti reward when we shall see God face to face? * S. Matt vii 7. f Ps. xxvi 44.

Footnotes

1. " Pietas est benipnae mentis dulcedo grata omnibus auxiliatrix infusa affoctio divinique cultus reliffiosa devotio." Dionys. Carthusian. de donis Spir Sanct tract, iii. art. 34. Oper. minor, torn < Cologne, 1533 ↩