If we have in any degree succeeded in establishing this to our satisfaction, it will become easier for us to estimate the acts of God as they come to us through the pulsations of Time; because we shall be able to bear in mind that they must be in a measure interpreted to us by the time through which they reach us. They were modified by the time in which they were revealed, much as the ray is modified by the substance through which it forces its way to us.
Now, we arrive at the causes of the different impressions we receive of the nature and characteristics of the divine Being. They are a consequence of the different epochs in which we contemplate him. They are the pulsations appropriate to that epoch. Other pulsations belong to our portion of time, and to our consequent view of the divine Being; and so on and on, till time shall be swallowed up in Eternity, and the Beatific Vision burst upon us.
TO BE CONTINUED.
MISSIONS IN MAINE FROM 1613 TO 1854.
“THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS IS THE SEED OF THE CHURCH.”
To the historical student the following paper can have but trifling value, as the writer makes no pretension to originality of matter, and seeks but to bring within the grasp of the general reader, in a condensed form, the gist of many books, a large number of which are rare, and almost inaccessible.
It is hoped, however, that there are many persons who will read with interest a paper thus compiled from undoubted authorities, who have neither the time nor the inclination to consult these authorities for themselves. These persons will learn with wonder of the self-abnegation of the French priests who went forth among the savages with their lives in their hands, with but one thought in their brains, one wish in their hearts, one prayer on their lips—the evangelization of the Indians.
As Shea says: “The word Christianity was, in those days, identical with Catholicity. The religion to be offered to the New World was that of the Church of Rome, which church was free from any distinct national feeling, and in extending her boundaries carried her own language and rites, not those of any particular state.”