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tion, from the Psalms downward, abundantly shows. My God, my God, look upon me; why hast thou forsaken me and art so far from my health, and from the words of my complaint? O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not: and in the night-season also I take no rest.”

Thomas à Kempis denies that the truly contrite sinner has any ground even to hope for consolation. "Lord, I am not worthy of thy consolation, nor of any spiritual visitation; and therefore thou dealest justly with me when thou leavest me poor and desolate. For if I could shed tears as the sea, yet should I not be worthy of thy consolation. Wherefore I am worthy only to be scourged and punished, because I have grievously and often offended thee, and in many things greatly sinned. So then, on a true account, I have not deserved even the smallest consolation."*

Cardinal Wiseman, in his preface to the English translation of the works of St. John of the Cross, has the following remarkable passage: "It may be considered a rule in this highest spiritual life that, before it is attained, there must be a period of severe probation, lasting often many years, and separating it from the previous state, which may have been one of most exalted virtue. Probably, many whom the Catholic Church honours as saints have never

* " "Imitation," iii. 52.

received this singular gift. But in reading the biography of such as have been favoured with it, we shall invariably find that the possession of it has been preceded, not only by a voluntary course of mortification of sense, fervent devotion, constant meditation, and separation from the world; but also by a trying course of dryness, weariness of spirit, insipidity of devotional duties, and, what is infinitely worse, dejection, despondency, temptation to give up all in disgust, and almost despair. During this tremendous probation, the soul is dark, parched, and wayless, as earth without water, as one staggering across a desert, or, to rise to a nobler illustration, like Him remotely who lay on the ground on Olivet, loathing the cup which He had longed for, beyond the sweet chalice which He had drunk with His apostles just before." A prince of the Church may, no doubt, be trusted to speak correctly on this matter.

In order to show that these afflictions are not peculiar to Catholics, a few sentences may with advantage be quoted from that strange book of Bunyan's, "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners : "And now was I both a burden and terror to myself; nor did I ever so know as now what it was to be weary of my life and yet afraid to die. Oh, how gladly now would I have been anybody but myself, anything but a man, and in any condition but my

own; for there was nothing did pass more frequently over my mind than that it was impossible for me to be forgiven my transgression and to be saved from wrath to come. . I found it hard work now to pray to God, because despair was swallowing me up. I thought I was, as with a tempest, driven away from God, for always when I cried to God for mercy this would come in, 'Tis too late; I am lost: God has let me fall, not to my correction, but to my condemnation.' About this time I did light on that dreadful story of that miserable mortal, Francis Spira -a book that was to my troubled spirit as salt when rubbed into a fresh wound. Every sentence in that book, every groan of that man, with all the rest of his actions in his griefs; as his tears, his prayers, his gnashing of teeth, his wringing of hands, his twisting and languishing and pining away under that mighty hand of God that was upon him, were as knives and daggers in my soul. Especially that sentence of his was frightful to me: 'Man knows the beginning of sin, but who bounds the issues thereof?' Then would the former sentence as the conclusion of all fall like an hot thunderbolt against my conscience; for you know how that afterwards, when he would. have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

"Then should I be struck into a very great trembling, insomuch that at sometimes I could for whole days together feel my very body as well as my mind to shake and totter under the sense of this dreadful judgment of God that should fall on those that have sinned that most fearful and unpardonable sin. I felt also such a clogging and heat at my stomach, by reason of this my terror, that I was especially at sometimes as if my breast-bone would split asunder: then I thought concerning that of Judas, who, by his falling headlong, burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out."

If we admit that such periods of depression are at last more than compensated by the ecstasy which may follow them, yet it is obvious that the religious life, in its highest forms, is very far from uniformly leading through paths of pleasantness and peace, as is sometimes assumed. A state bordering on despair, which lasts for years, is no light matter; and it would be no conclusive proof of a carnal mind to hesitate before encountering such anguish, even with the ultimate certainty of its transmutation into ineffable joy. But, as Cardinal Wiseman tells us, there is no certainty of such in this life: only in heaven can the Christian hope for an adequate return for his spiritual trials in this world. "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miser

able," said St. Paul of himself and fellow Christians; and it follows that neither in the design nor in the result is Christianity adapted to confer the highest earthly happiness: it is not a present solace, but the promise of one hereafter. A future life, however, is one of the most enormous assumptions, without proof, ever made; and yet, on this immense postulate, all the alleged consolations of religion of necessity hang. By considering the case of the truly religious, we have discussed the question, on the most favourable terms to Christianity, as a source of happiness. The profoundly pious are at times refreshed with the "beatific vision" in the course of their pilgrimage. But there are numbers of the half-converted, the worldly, the openly wicked, who believe enough to be full of anxiety and fear, and yet never attain to assurance of complete peace with God; and perhaps these constitute the majority of professing Christians. If you obtain access to their inmost thoughts you will rarely find that religion has been a consolation to them, but a perpetual source of inward unrest and alarm, though they never have had the strength or the grace to turn finally to God. These pains of the spirit are by no means the only trials which the Christian has to encounter. The prevalence of heresy and schism has ever afflicted devout men in proportion to their devoutness. One of the pecu

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