Let them hear a Catholic philosopher of the middle ages upon the subject. After having demonstrated that whatever is real in the creature is to be found in God as the infinite and most perfect, he proposes the other question, How can all these perfections be found in God? and he answers, that they are necessarily to be found in God, but in a most simple manner, as one and single perfection. We subjoin his words:
"From what we have said, it evidently follows that the perfections of creatures are essentially unified in God. For we have shown that God is simple. Now, where there is simplicity there cannot be found diversity in the interior of the being. If, then, all the perfections of creatures are to be found in the infinite, it is impossible that they could be there with their differences. It follows, then, that they must be in him as ONE.
"This becomes evident, if we reflect upon what takes place in the faculties of comprehension. For a superior power grasps, by one and the same act of comprehension, all those things known, under different points of view, by inferior powers. In fact, the intelligence judges, by a unique and simple act, all the perceptions of sight, of hearing, and of the other senses. The same occurs in sciences: although inferior sciences are various in virtue of their different objects, there is, however, in them all a superior science which embraces all, and which is called transcendental philosophy. The same thing happens with relation to authority. For in the royal authority, which is one, are included all the other subordinate authorities, which are divided for the government of the kingdom. It is thus necessary that the perfections of inferior creatures, which are multiplied according to the difference of beings, be found together as one, in the principle of all things—God!" [Footnote 132]
[Footnote 132: St Thomas's Compendium Theologiae, cap. 22.]
The Right Path found through the Great Snow.
The drifting, wide-spread snowstorm of January 17th, 1867, will live in the memory of the "oldest inhabitant" among the strange things of that eventful year. It confirmed in its depth and fulness the weird stories of our grandsires, which our later years had come to look upon as myths; of benighted travellers buried in drifts that covered houses; of common roads only made passable by archways cut through the white heaps; of houses where the only egress was by the upper windows, or perhaps the chimneys. Among the multitudes who found themselves snow-bound on that memorable Thursday aforesaid, I was shut up to the cold comfort of a country inn, in a bleak, mountainous district, where I had arrived the previous evening with the intention of spending only a night and day; less, if the business that brought me could be transacted in a shorter time. I had engaged the parlor and bed-room adjoining, that I might occupy myself with necessary writing uninterrupted by any chance arrival. The dimensions of my suite of apartments were small, and the furniture of the plainest kind; a dingy carpet covered the floor, and green and yellow paper adorned the walls. The brilliancy of the tout ensemble was heightened by a series of coarse, highly-colored plates, representing the life of the prodigal son in all its phases, and an equally radiant "family tree," laden with what was intended to represent tropical fruits, in red and yellow, the oranges bearing the names and dates of the female members of the family, and the lemons those of the males; a very suggestive picture certainly, and one that told some queer tales of my landlord's family, Fox's Book of Martyrs and an almanac for '66 were the only books the room furnished. The chairs were of the stiffest pattern, arranged in funereal order around the sides of the apartment, with a notable exception in a large stuffed arm-chair, of the olden times, which I drew before the open grate piled with blazing peat.
That fire was a comfort indeed. A sight almost lost in these days in New England; it helped me to forget, in its beautiful variations, the dashing appearance of the youth pictured on the walls, and the cruel plates and malicious lies of the "English martyrologist."
Little did I dream, as I arranged my plans for the next day, of the change that would come over the outer world while I slept, although there were already signs of a coming storm. I looked from my windows in the morning, through the large elms, heavy with the accumulating weight, across the road and opposite fields which the snow had swept into one broad expanse of whiteness, obscuring landmarks and obliterating fences, and which the furious wind was now lashing into billows, all dead white, save where