[154] With ever-yearning love he calls us in the dear Sacrament of the Altar and before the doors of his tabernacle that we may touch not only his sacred feet as Mary Magdalene pressed them to her lips, but his whole self, his humanity and his divinity in one.
[155] In other words, there is a more imperfect being than ours. Though whether its imperfection is to exclude all idea of their having a future fuller development, whereby and in which they will be indemnified for their sinless share in guilty man’s punishment, is still an open question.
[156] Time is the measure of successive existence in created and finite beings. As a finite spirit cannot escape from this limit of successive existence, any more than a body can escape from the limit of locality and finite movement in space, it is evident that this statement is not correct in a literal and strictly metaphysical sense. Eternal existence is the entire possession of life which is illimitable in such a perfect manner that all succession in duration is excluded. It is possible only in God, who is alone most pure and perfect act, and therefore is at once all he can be, without change or movement. The created spirit must ever live by a perpetual movement or increase in its duration, because it is on every side finite. It is impossible, therefore, that time should cease while creatures continue to exist.—Ed. C. W.
[157] Matt. xi. 19.
[158] 1 Cor. xv.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
The Glories of the Sacred Heart. By Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1876. [Republished by special permission of his Eminence.]
There are many excellent works on the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The new one whose title is given above is not a mere repetition in a new form of the substance of any of these preceding treatises. It is different from all of them, and quite peculiar in its scope, as well as in its style, as might be expected from its eminent author. Its basis is strictly theological. With his usual and characteristic accuracy of doctrine and lucidity of style, the cardinal makes an exposition of the mystery of the Incarnation and its consequences, especially in respect to the deification and adoration of the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ. The special cultus of the Sacred Heart is explained in its relation to the deified humanity, to the Blessed Sacrament, to the sanctification of men, and to the eternal glory of the elect. This is a book to enlighten the mind of a sincere and devout reader, and, through the illumination of the understanding, to awaken a solid, rational, and ardent devotion.