of his own lowness, compared to majesty supreme.

The more the soul fathoms this thought, the more the distance between herself and the Creator makes her feel the want of supernatural aid to approach him, and the necessity of continual prayer to obtain it. Thus she acknowledges and adores the incomprehensible goodness of the Supreme Being, who bends down to listen to the prayers of his creatures, to receive their vows, to love those who love him, to crown those who honour him. This sentiment is the source which gave birth to religious worship and to the important acts of which it is composed; a sentiment unchangeable in all nations, and which flesh and blood have never been able to destroy; a sentiment, whose permanence deposes in favour of its truth, just as the imperfections of the different nations attest the inconstancy of human nature and the weakness of our reason, when abandoned to itself and obscured by the passions.

pass the level of equality, for the purpose of domineering over others. Examine, my brethren, which is the sacrifice to which your heart attaches the most value: be assured that in renouncing all for the love of God, he will abundantly indemnify you with those favours which conduct to peace, to a glory without end.

But after the duties towards God, there are subaltern obligations which man has to fulfil towards himself: the principles of pure reason, his physical constitution, his irresistible tendency towards happiness, command him to watch for his own preservation, to labour for his own amendment and felicity. When on his being he casts a looks disengaged from prejudice, athwart the ray of greatness which seems to cousole him, he discovers the miseries which tend to his debasement: if the passions have been the springs of the great events in the history of man, they have also been the fatal source, of the most deplorable consequences. Oman! O man! when wilt thou learn, in the school of Jesus Christ, the means of preserving thy greatness, of achieving thy true liberty, and of bursting thy chains. The true philosopher, formed by Jesus Christ, makes his most pleasing occupation to consist in regulating his actions, in mastering his passions, in putting the inferior powers in harmony with the superior, in subjecting the flesh to the spirit, in

Most holy Catholic Religion! my tongue is incapable of tracing worthily the grandeurs with which you encompass so noble a subject; but let me at least on all occasions, and with all my might, celebrate your excellence, your unbending firmness and your triumphs, as an irrefutable proof of the Divine Omnipotence which shines forth in you. Instructed by this great master and directed by his precepts, let us, my breth-repelling those pleasures which sound ren, abjure the ephemeral vanities, that we may make ourselves worthy of the eternal grandeurs. Let us learn that the more we abase our selves in our own eyes and in those of men, the more are we elevated in the eyes of God. That man is no disciple of Jesus Christ, he has not learned his duties in the school of the Divine Master, who, inflated with a deceitful knowledge, and greedy of a fugit.ve glory, seeks to

morality condemns; in a word, in directing incessantly the exercise of his faculties towards the centre and end to which God has destined him. The sentiments of virtue with which he nourishes his heart,, while they perfect the individual, concur equally to the perfection of society.

A traveller here below, man finds that his body combats, against his soul; that the flesh at war with the spirit, the inferior forces against the

Who

Happy, my brethren, if, knowing the use of liberty, you make it serve to the glory of God, to regulate your own conduct, to render yourselves useful to mankind; more lappy still, when you shall appreciate another kind of liberty of which our Saviour speaks, when he says: * [f the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed,” (John viii. 86.); for there is a carnal liberty which conducts to sin, it is that to which the apostle St. Peter alludes in these words: "As free, and not as

superior, drag him towards the cap-ties of Providence; then such montivity of sin and of death. strous conduct is odious alike to the shall deliver him from this humiliat eyes of God and of men. ing struggle, and from this body. of death? You, Jesus Saviour, you, our Master, under the swaddling clothes and silence of the manger, you teach to man the way to come forth from, this coutest with glory, and with christian triumph; let him take his up cross.... His cross! that is to say, the mortification of the flesh, which, in repelling inordinate pleasures, does not anhilate the passions, but subdues them, or rather chains them, that they may not revolt against the laws of heaven and of earth. Such are the infalli-making liberty a cloak for naughtible means of retaining man in the path of his duties towards himself. My dearest brethren, do not conceive any alarm at the exposition of a morality, the apparent severity of which might induce you to think that it tends to destroy liberty; no, my well-beloved, never was presented to you, in a manner more positive, the idea of true liberty.

ness." (1 Peter ii. 16.) Miserable the man who abandons himself to this disorder; miserable the man who makes of it his pride; while he exalts bis liberty he is in irons; white he chaunts his triumph he is the slave of sin.

Strange liberty! the true is that of the spirit, that of grace, by which the christian is unloosed from the captivity of the demon and of crime; liberty imperfect in this world, but perfect in that eternal country where unknown are the names of slavery, debasement and sin.

Adorable Cross! on which, at the price of his blood, the Redeemer has achieved our liberty! At sight of thee, penetrated with gratitude towards our Divine Repairer, fortified and healed by his grace, may we detest sin, acquire on earth this precious liberty, and enjoy the plenitude thereof, in the bosom of eternal repose and indefectible glory!

The acceptation of this word, whether in the language of philosophy, or in that of the Catholic Religion, excludes the idea of that deviation from rule, and of that unbridled lis centiousness, which confounds good and evil, virtue and vice. Far be from you so gross an interpretation, which, infringing every precept, would strip of their very natures humanity, reason, and all the bounties of the Creator! LIBERTY, this gift of God so dear to men, is the faculty of acting or acting not, but still in subordination to the After having pondered these relaws, divine and human. Libertylations with the first cause and with ceases to be reasonable, when, revolt ing against the law, it opposes the will of God and that of the temporal sovereignty. When yielding to their perverse propensities, and repelling the notions of wisdom and of virtue, men, instead of using, abuse the boun

himself, man ought still to scrutinize those which unite him to his fellows. He does not exist in a state of pure nature. Member of society, in the advantages of which he participates, reason wills that he in return shall communicate to it those which are

thoughts and our recollections go back with more propriety to the ancient Roman republic. Consider, my brethren, the illustrious citizens who adorned her, and the means by which they established their rights to ad

in his power, aud that, by this reciprocal exchange of services, he shall concur to the public felicity: the words of peace and happiness are so deeply engraven in the heart of man, that he cannot either mistake their value, or reject their attain-miration. Shall I rehearse the cou- › ment; but, peace is the daughter rage of Mutius Scevola, of Curtius,' of good order, and order cannot ex- of the two Scipios, of Torquatus, ist, if their exist not authorities to of Camillus, and of so many others whom obedience is due. This obe- who flourished at those memorable dience, inspired by the law of nature, epochs? Their eulogiums, traced is recommended by the catholic re- by a crowd of writers, are still the ligion to resist the temporal pow. instruction of posterity. Cato of ers, is to resist God. (Rom. viii. 2.) Utica, of whom it was said that glory The form of democratical govern- pursued him in proportion to the ment, adopted amongst us, my dear-obstinacy with which be filed from est brethren, is not in opposition to the maxims which I have been expounding; it is not repugnant to the gospel, it exacts, on the contrary, those sublime virtues which are acquired but in the school of Jesus Christ. If you practice them religiously, they will prove the pledge of your happiness, of your glory, and of the splendour of our republic. Renounce, I conjure you, party-spirit, passions, private interest, ambition and all the unclean desires which, equally unworthy of the man and of the christain, far from contributing to your happiness, would lead you to your ruin by the seductions of a fantastic glory. Virtue, whose duties are indicated to us by the lights of nature, and completely manifested by the teaching of the gospel; virtue, which alone is capable of perfecting man and of conducting him to happiness supreme, alone ought to be the unshaken foundation of our democracy. With the moral virtues we shall be but imperfect beings; the theological, which have God alone for their object, will ren. der our perfection complete.

it, Cato will inform you how Rome
extended her renown and enlarged
the boundaries of her republic. "Do
not imagine," said he to his fellow-
citizens, "that our ancestors aggran-
dized the empire by their arms; were
it by such means, it would be now-
a-days more vast and flourishing
still, since we are their superiors
in point of population, and in the
multitude of our armies.
But they
possessed a mode of viewing things,
and a species of valour, with which
their descendants are unfortunately
little acquainted. Industry at home,
just and provident government a-
broad, undebased by passions and
by vice."-(Sallust. in Catil. 4.) —
This discourse of a distinguished
philosopher, worthy to be engraved
in letters of gold, shews to what
a pitch ancient Rome carried those
moral virtues, which proved thre
foundation of her greatness and made
her the admiration and terror of the
universe. While the Greeks and
other nations, more civilized in ap-
pearance, were learnedly descanting
upon philosophy in their schools, the
Romans practised virtue without dis-

I will speak to you neither of Spar-puting on its nature, without the ta nor of Athens; I will be silent on the famous legislations of Lycurgus and of Solon, and even on that Carthage, the rival of Rome. Our

intervention of schools, and without haughtily folding it in the philososophical cloak. The simplicity of their manners rejected that studied elo

quence and that dialectic which bu sied itself in subtilizing upon principles, instead of reducing them to practice.

own duties. Thus will be consolidated EQUALITY, which, in its just acceptation, exhibits the law hovering over all the members of the social body, to direct, protect and punish; which, in conformance with the disposition of the divine and human laws, preserves to each man the faculties necessary for the accomplishment of his duties, and which, guaranteeing the welfare of individuals, and the welfare of all, points out to every member of the democratic state the just measure of what he owes to God, to himself, and to his equals. Civil equality, derived from the natural law, and embellished by morality, harmonizes the body politic, when each one co-operates to the good of all, in proportion to to the extent of his faculties, physical and moral; and when in return he reaps from the social protection all the advantages which he has a right to expect. An absolute equality, of natural and intellectual force, of wealth, property, virtue, never did and never will exist. Unroll all the treatises of the most profound philosophers, interrogate common sense, bid nature in her simplicity speak; all proclaim the truth which

Here we have a short exposé of the Roman virtues in the renowned times of the republic; virtues panegyrised even by the Fathers of the church; among the rest, by that sublime philosopher St. Augustin, who draws a picture worthy of his talents. (V. City of God, b. 3.) The greatness and renown of those republicans were, according to this illustrious doctor, the reward which a just God thought fit to grant to their labours and virtues; for among that people the inspiration of natural reason, though degraded by the insatiable thirst of glory, stimulated them powerfully to the practice of morality. If in this they surpassed the very nations who were their elders in the order of ages and in the progress of civilization; if, according to the opinion of Cato, and the doctrine of the Fathers of the church, their laudable qualities en hanced the splendour of Roman liberty, and merited for that people temporal favours, with how much greater reason ought we to recognise the necessity of virtue in our democratical state, we, who do not profane our homages at the feet of lying divinities; we, to whom the Divine Goodness has manifested itself by prophecies and prodigies undeniable; we, who to the infidel nations still point out the places sanctified by the birth of the Word made man, by his preachings, by his death and by the miracle of his resurrection! The moral virtues, The gospel which Jesus Christ which consist in the love of order, has given us, is the only code of will make us good democrats; but laws capable of perfecting men even democrats of that pure democracy, in the social order, and of regulating which labours without relaxation for the exercise of that equality, which, the common welfare, and which, ab- securing our happiness in this mortal juring enmity, perfidy, and ambi-life, promises to us a happiness stil tion, is us solicitous to respect the greater in that eternity towards rights of others as to accomplish its 1 which we sigh. The history of ph

I

announce. This strange, and if may say it, arithmetical equality, would overthrow the whole physical and moral order of things.

But the moral virtues do not suffice for the complete performance of our duties; that equality which regulates the order, while it works. the happiness of society, demands other supports for its own maintenance and perfection.

many of her emperors. The projects of apotheosis, meditated by Tiberius, Adrian, and Alexander Severus, are well known. The christian heroes gave themselves entirely to

ed with charity for their brethren, all were subject to the supreme anthority. To attribute to themselves no good act, as the work of frail

losophy shew's the void it leaves in this regard. The history of the gospel shews that it bas filled up this void. However estimable the virtues of the pagans, whatever praise may be accorded to the precepts of the philoso-God and to their Saviour. All burnphers, it must be acknowledged that their discourses, their actions, bear the stamp of imperfection. It is clear, that in seeking after a happiness, the very nature of which was un-humanity; in all advantages, wheknown to them, the greater part confounded it with those transitory goods, which bring inevitable misery in their train. Glory was sometimes the only aim of those celebrated republicans of Rome; glory is a good, but it is not the perfect good; it is incapable of satisfying the heart; and true glory can only be the fruit of that true virtue, which aspires to a happiness capable of exhausting all desire. Now, the best of all possible goods is God alone. While these conquering Romans subdued nations and countries the most remote, they were themselves tyrranized by pride, revenge and inordinate ambition, Thus is deluded whosoever seeks greatness of soul in the effects, without ascending to the first cause.

After having contemplated this sketch of pagan virtues, turn your eyes, my dearest brethren, on those prodigies of rectitude, of moral and social integrity, which adorn the children of the catholic religion, before whom shines the humble standard of the cross. Cast a rapid look over the happy ages of the church. See the blood of so many martyrs, the purity of so many virgins, the sublime talents and the profound learning of the fathers of the faith in all the branches of human science. Is there age, sex, or condition, that does not reckon christain heroes? The regions of Africk and of Asia resounded their glory, Palestine admired them, and the lustre of their virtues struck with astonishment even great Rome herself and

ther natural or supernatural, to acknowledge but the gift of grace; to renounce their temporal goods, or use them only in quality of dehtors to the poor; to look upon themselves as the last among their bre thren; at the expense of their own reputation to exalt the merits of others; far from injuring any one, to suffer injuries with patience and even with joy; to sacrifice their existence for God and for their fellow creatures; to annihilate themselves, as it were, for the divine glory, for the prosperity of society and of the church; such were the traits which characterized the christians of the first centuries; such was the end to which they directed their thoughts, their actions, their lives.

My dearly beloved, compare these morals with those of the pagans; compare these practical virtues

with the theories of the philosophers, this use of liberty with the abuses of licentiousness; weigh the advantages of this equality, attached in every thing to the glory of the republic, of society, of religion, and of the Being of Beings; compare and judge

Judge and see that the examples of Jesus Christ and of the humble adorers of the cross, contribute powerfully to the happiness of the repob lic; see the ascendant exercised by the precepts of the gospel, the tra. ditions of the apostles, and of those christian philosophers, whom call fathers and doctors; see how they tend to preserve peace, to shed lustre and grandeur round the demo

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