the beasts, and the whole earth. And God created man to his own image; to the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." SEVENTH DAY.-" And on the seventh day God ended the work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. And he blessed the seventh day and sanctified it" (Gen. i., ii.). Q. Had God any beginning? A. No; God had no beginning; he always was, he is, and he always will be. God alone had no beginning, my dear children; he always was, he is, and he always will be. From all eternity he existed, and he will continue to exist for ever. We also shall exist for ever, for he has made us in this to his own likeness. Our souls, as you have seen, are immortal, and can never die; and when our bodies rise again at the last day, they will be immortal too, and will go with our souls to eternal happiness or eternal misery. But God is more than immortal; he is Eternal. Not only will he exist for ever, but he has existed for ever. He had no beginning, and he will have no end. All other things had a beginning. There was a time when neither this earth, nor the sun, moon, or stars, nor angels, nor men, existed; but there never was a time when God did not exist. From all eternity he existed alone in the universe. At length, in his Goodness, he began to create, and made first the angels, and then the world, and man. Before God began to create, time was not counted; nor will it be counted after the day of judgment. And even now there is no time in regard to God himself; everything past, present, and to come, is equally present to him. How thankful ought we to be to our good God who has created us, not for the few miserable years that we shall spend in this life, but for eternity, which will be an eternity of happiness for us, if we love him now, and keep his commandments! Q. Where is God? A. God is everywhere. Yes; Almighty God is everywhere present, and he is He is not more present in saints see, love, and enjoy everywhere equally present. heaven, where the angels and him, than he is in this room; only he is visible to them and invisible to us. We cannot see him, because God is a Spirit, and a spirit cannot be seen with bodily eyes; but he is no less truly present wherever we are, and indeed it is to the presence of God that we owe our being and preservation. For nothing can exist out of God; it is God who upholds and supports all his creatures by his Presence and Power. Wherefore the Holy Scripture says that it is “in him we live, and move, and be" (Acts xvii. 28). If, then, my dear children, you were to take a ship and cross the sea, or mount a camel and pass over the desert, or even if you could take wings and fly to the very end of the world, Almighty God would be with you wherever you went, and wherever you came to, you would find yourself in the presence of God. Nay, if you could mount to the moon, to the sun, or to the stars, whose distance is so great that it cannot be calculated, still you could not go out of the presence of God, but everywhere would you find Almighty God filling all space, and yet present equally in every portion of it, with all his Divine Perfections. Wherefore holy David says beautifully, in one of the Psalms: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy face? "If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; "If I descend into hell, thou art present; "If I take my wings early in the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me" (Ps. cxxxviii. 7-10). See, then, how much reason the good have to rejoice, since they have him always with them who is their Friend and their Father; and how much cause the wicked have to tremble, since they are ever in the presence of an Almighty and infinitely Just God, whom they have disobeyed and insulted! WHERE GOD IS, AND WHERE HE IS NOT. A priest was one day catechising a number of children, and among other things he asked a little boy the question I have just asked you, Where is God? "Come, my child," said the priest, "tell me where God is, and I will give you an orange.' "Father," replied the boy, "I will give any one two oranges who will tell me where he is not."-Anecdotes Chrétiennes. Q. Does God know and see all things? A. Yes; God knows and sees all things, even our most secret thoughts. Almighty God, being everywhere present, and being a God of Infinite Wisdom and Knowledge, it follows that there is nothing of which he can be ignorant, or which can be hidden from his sight. Not only does he know and see outward things, such as our words and actions, but even the most secret thoughts of our hearts. Hence, the Holy Scripture says that "the eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the ways of men, and looking into the hearts of men, into the most hidden parts" (Eccles. xxiii. 28). It matters not, therefore, whether you be alone or with your companions, at home or in the streets, in the daylight or in the darkness, God sees you everywhere, and beholds all your thoughts, words, and actions. Since, then, my dear children, you are ever living under the Eye of God, how careful should you be not to do anything that you would not wish God to behold! How thoughtful and attentive should this make you at your prayers! how kind and good-natured with your companions! how modest and well-behaved when alone or with others! how careful to put away any temptation that presents itself! These few words, God sees me, should sink deep into your hearts, and you should call them to mind whenever you are tempted to sin, according to the example of holy David. Listen to his words: "And I said, 'Perhaps darkness shall cover me, and night shall be my light in my pleasures ;' "But darkness shall not be dark to thee, and night shall be light as the day. The darkness thereof and the light thereof are alike to thee" (Ps. cxxxviii. 11, 12). ST. THAIS THE PENITENT. St. Thais, who, like St. Mary of Egypt, from a sinner became a saint through the perfect practice of penance, had the misfortune, in her youth, to be led away into a criminal and abandoned life. The holy abbot Paphnucius, hearing of her sad condition, and of the scandal given to others by her wicked conduct, was inspired by God to undertake her conversion. He accordingly visited her in disguise, and asked to speak to her privately. She showed him into a room where she said they would meet with no interruption. Paphnucius, however, asked if she had not a more retired apartment. She conducted him to one, but he expressed himself still dissatisfied, asking if there was not a room where they would be out of sight and hearing of every one. "I assure you," replied Thais, no room can be more retired; no man can possibly see or hear us." "And what of God?" said Paphnucius. "Is there no place where we can escape altogether from his All-Seeing Eye?" "Alas! no," replied Thais, casting herself at the feet of Paphnucius, whom she now perceived to be a servant of God. The holy man hereupon spoke to her so forcibly on the presence of God and the terrors of the Divine judgment, that Thais, detesting her wicked life, made a bonfire of all her worldly ornaments, and retiring into the desert, spent the rest of her life in the practice of the most austere penance.-Lives of the Fathers of the Desert. 66 Q. Has God any body? A. No; God has no body: he is a pure spirit. Almighty God has no body, for he is a pure spirit; that is to say, he is a spirit only, and not partly a spirit and partly a body, as we are. You see, then, that the word pure, in this place, does not mean clean or white, as it often does; but it means, "not mixed with anything else," as we say of water when it is not mixed with wine or any other liquid, that it is pure water; but when it is mixed, we say that it is no longer pure. Now, our souls are not pure spirits, in this sense, because they are mixed up, as it were, with our bodies; but the angels are, because they have no bodies. As Almighty God, then, is a pure spirit, it follows that we cannot have any true picture of God, because he has no form or body to be painted; but we may have a picture of God made man, because then he had the form and body of man. And whenever God is painted in any form, or spoken of as having one, it is either because he has sometime taken that form to show himself to man, a VOL. L for example, the form of a dove, or it is to make us understand better something about God. Thus, when God is represented by an eye looking down on the earth, it is to remind us that he knows and sees everything that passes in the world. FOURTH INSTRUCTION. First Article concluded—The Unity and Trinity of God. Q. Is there more than one God? This is the first and most It There is only one God. necessary truth for a Christian to be instructed in. is one of those four truths, without the knowledge and belief of which, it is probable that no one can be saved. In like manner, it is necessary to know and believeThat there are three Persons in this one God; That God the Son became man and died to redeem us; and That God will one day reward the good and punish the wicked. As the knowledge of these truths is so strictly necessary, it is a great charity, my dear children, to teach them to any one who does not know them. You perhaps think that there is no one so ignorant as not to know this much; but, alas! there are many, even at the present day, who are ignorant of some one or other of these truths. There is, then, one God, and only one God, who made us and all things. This truth Almighty God made known, first of all, to Adam and Eve. But soon after the fall of our first parents, when men began to increase and multiply, and at the same time to commit all kinds of wickedness, they forgot what God had taught them about himself, and began to adore a number of false gods, whom they made or fancied for themselves. Thus they had Jupiter, whom they called god of heaven, Neptune, god of the sea, Pluto, god of the infernal regions, and many others. Then they |