PAGE
I.The Earnest Man[9]
II.Unworthy Communion[26]
III.Christ's Resurrection
The Foundation of Our Faith		[40]
IV.Giving Testimony[63]
V.Spiritual Death[76]
VI.The Love Of God[93]
VII.Keeping The Law Not Impossible[107]
VIII.The Two Standards [124]
IX.The Epiphany[143]
X.Renunciation[158]
XI.The Afflictions Of The Just[176]
XII.False Maxims[190]
XIII.Mary's Destiny A Type Of Ours[205]
XIV.Mortal Sin Exemplified In The History Of Judas[221]
XV.Interior Life[234]
XVI.True Christian Humility [254]
XVII.What The Desire To Love God Can Do[270]
XVIII.The Worth Of The Soul[293]
XIX.Merit The Measure Of Reward[310]
XX.Self-denial[330]

SERMON I.
The Earnest Man.

A Sermon For The Commemoration Of St. Paul, Apostle.
(From the Epistle, Gal. i., 11-23.)

I have read the Epistle for the day, rather than the Gospel, because it contains a brief but characteristic sketch of the great Apostle, drawn by his own hand. How strange is the history of this man! We have here the Church's most bitter persecutor converted into the most zealous and successful of all the Apostles. At first we discover a careful and devoted student of the Jewish law; afterward he stands forth the most learned and eloquent expounder of the Christian Gospel. We see him in his youth a witness of St. Stephen's martyrdom, standing by to hold the garments of those who stoned him to death, sternly and pitilessly looking on; and again in his old age we find him lying lifeless on the Ostian road, outside the walls of Rome, a headless trunk, a martyr in the same cause for which St. Stephen died. We see him at first "ravaging the Church, entering into houses, and hauling away men and women, and committing them to prison," and shortly afterward we hear the wondering Christians whisper to each other: "He that persecuted us in times past now preaches the faith." In the beginning, foremost of all the Jews was he in that terrible energy which they put forth to destroy the Church; and afterward foremost among the Apostles, he was able to say with truth: "I have labored more abundantly than they all." In fine, one trait of character distinguished this great Apostle at all times, both before and after his conversion. He was always an earnest man. It is worth our while this morning to study his character well, for—from the bottom of my soul I do believe it—a few such earnest Christians in our day would be enough to move the world.

Let us look at him first during the early part of his career, and see how this earnestness of character displays itself in one whose mind is misguided, by religious error. In the first place, then, St. Paul before his conversion was distinguished by an earnest and ardent love of truth, and consequently, a strong attachment to what he deemed to be the truth. I have already read to you in the Epistle what he says of his own early life: "I made progress in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in my own nation, being more abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers." This earnestness of his sprang from a deep love of truth, and it made him what he afterward became, the foremost champion of the true faith. The human mind is created for truth, is naturally attracted to the truth when fairly presented, and if not led away by a corrupted heart, embraces it with joy. Truth comes readily to those that love it, and therefore there is, after all, nothing unnatural in this conversion of a Hebrew zealot into a Christian evangelist; for if he loved error at first, it was only because in good faith he mistook it for the truth, and if he hated the truth, it was only because he did not see it in its true colors, but misrepresented and perverted. These men who are zealous, honestly zealous, in error, are the very men to embrace the truth; and, on the contrary, they who stand perfectly indifferent between contradictory creeds, are the least open to conviction. Both reason and experience teach this. Nothing is more common in our day than a class of men who look with perfect[ly] good nature upon every form of religious doctrine, except perhaps that particular one in which they themselves were reared, and which is supposed therefore to have some practical claim upon them. Did you ever know one of these "liberal fellows," so called, to be come Catholic? I mean these men who, having no religious faith to love, can have no error to hate. I mean, for example, these nominal Protestants who, when in your presence, turn into ridicule every Protestant form of religion, without believing a word of yours; one of these good-natured fellows that think the Catholic religion is quite as good as any, in some respects the best of any, since it is the farthest out of their way. Take, for instance, one of these liberal politicians that you always see at the public dinner on Patrick's day; that will subscribe cordially to a Catholic charity, if you ask him, but comes back to remind you of it on election day. Did you ever know a man of this stamp to become Catholic? No, indeed; divine truth has attractions only for earnest souls. A hickory Protestant is as poor a thing as a hickory Catholic. Such a man has two fundamental axioms to get by heart, before religious truth can take possession of his soul; first, that there is such a thing as truth, and next, that his mind was made for it, and needs it. Oh! it is sad to see a man in ignorance of the way of salvation,—sadder still to see him blindly prejudiced against it; but the saddest, most ignoble, and most hopeless of all conditions, is to be indifferent to it.

St. Paul was another type of man. He was an earnest one. He believed the Jewish religion to be the true and only true one, and therefore he loved it with all his soul, and was zealous for it. When the scales fell from his eyes, and the Christian faith was revealed to him in all its truth and beauty, he embraced it, and clung to it, and abandoned himself to it, with all the energies of that same earnest soul. Had he been a "liberal" Jew, we should have far more reason to wonder at his conversion; it is still less probable that God would have selected him for the Apostle of the Gentiles.

An earnest lover of truth, even before his conversion, it followed as a natural consequence, that St. Paul hated error; and for this reason he opposed the Christian religion with all his might, and with his whole soul, because he believed it to be false and dangerous. "You have heard," said he, writing to the Christians of Galatia, "of my conversation in time past in the Jews religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and laid it waste." But he tells us elsewhere: "I obtained mercy of God, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief." In the same proportion that the earnest man loves what is good and true, he hates what is false and evil, or what he thinks so, and opposes it too. St. Paul opposed the Christian faith with all his power, because he believed it to be false. He was wrong there: it was an error of judgment. He persecuted it too violently, "beyond measure," forgetting the rules of charity. There he was wrong again; it was an error of the heart. But in all this he was in earnest, hating false doctrine; and there he was right. I do not sympathize with his delusion, but I love him for his earnestness.

Oh! how many such men may there not be in this country of ours, that we rank among our bitterest foes!—men who honestly oppose our holy religion, not for what it really is, but what they think it to be. Could we open that sealed and sacred register of the divine counsels, wherein the fortunes of mankind are written, with what delight should we read there the names of many of our bitterest opponents who are destined to kneel and worship with us yet, as others, thank God, have done already! Why not? I do from my heart believe that many of these make war upon us only from mistake of judgment. They know our doctrines only by false report. They judge of our morals only by such Catholics as are either the most ignorant of their own religion, or else entirely false to the teachings of their Church, and strangers to her sacraments, although some of these may be loud enough at times in proclaiming a faith they have not, to further some political pretension, or sanctify some ungodly trade. Under such circumstances it is not strange that many earnest men should set their faces against us. Could they cease to hate our religion, while they believe it to be false? Can they sympathize with us, while they believe us to be corrupted by it? Oh! God, send these men into thy fold! Take off the scales from their eyes, and send them to us. We need earnest men amongst us. The half-hearted, indifferent Protestant who calls himself a liberal, we do not hope for. We have too many such already; we could spare them by the thousand, for they neither save their own souls, nor bring credit to thy cause. But send us earnest men like St. Paul, who know how to hate error, because they love the truth!