PROFESSION OF A NUN.

"For they are virgins: these follow the Lamb wherever He goeth.APOC. xiv. 4.

AMIDST the group of varied and magnificent visions that rose and passed in rapid succession before the prophetic eye of St. John in the island of Patmos, there is none which exhibits the beautiful features of the Catholic Church more strikingly than the one I have just selected. In glancing at the other parts of this mysterious picture we feel we cannot remove the obscurity in which they are shrouded, or relieve our minds from the terror in which they are invested. But no sooner do we contemplate this peaceful and hallowed scene of thousands of virgins of either sex, forming the nearest and most effulgent circle of the sainted spirits by which the throne of the Lamb is surrounded, and filling the soul with the harmony of their heavenly canticles, than our fears give way to the joy which such a scene inspires. This is a scene of which, before the coming of our Divine Redeemer, the world could not form the faintest idea. Far from aspiring to the practice of this pure virtue, the world was steeped in the indulgence of sensuality; and though some were not insensible to the charms of virginity, it was deemed a state of perfection almost beyond mortal attainment. Even among the Jewish people, though held in estimation, it was in a degree far inferior to that in which it ranks among Christians, and a portion of the veil which was spread over the entire law hung over this virtue in like manner, hiding from the view the splendour of those attributes belonging to this

divine virtue, which it was the prerogative of the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church alone, to unfold. Yes, every cause must be productive of corresponding effects, and though human nature, laden with its primitive corruption, could never exhibit the heroic virtue to which I propose to point your attention, the descent of the Spirit of God purified the entire mass; and from the time that a Virgin Mother gave to the world the mysterious birth of her Virgin Son, the same Divine Spirit has marked its peculiar complacency for this virtue by enduing thousands with constancy and courage to consecrate to God the virtue of their virginity. In union with this, and as handmaids of purity, are seen the kindred virtues of poverty and obedience, to which those young females are now to devote themselves; and it is on the subject of this sacrifice of themselves I propose to address you, in order to give instruction to some of my hearers on duties from which these have already drawn the sweetest consolation.

In the sacrifice which is made by the religious are comprehended the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Disobedience was the bitter source from which sprung all the disorders that dispeopled heaven of its first inhabitants, and that has entailed upon the earth the countless evils by which it continues to be afflicted. The virtue of obedience, therefore, is the first and most important of all the obligations contracted by religious, and the very foundation by which every religious community is sustained. It repairs the frightful breach caused by the turbulence of self-will, and restores that order and symmetry and peace that mark the movements of bodies that are guided and controlled by a wise intelligence. Had not man's will, in the perverse exercise of its freedom, violently forced itself from the path of obedience, the moral world would have exhi

bited the same silent harmony which we admire throughout all nature, when all the heavenly bodies in their respective orbits obey with wonderful harmony the first law imposed on them by their Maker. It is no wonder that perfect obedience, or the utter annihilation of individual will, which caused man's misery, should be made the first step in leading him back to the happiness from which he strayed. Hence St. Jerome remarks that selfwill and Christian virtue are like numerical quantities, so placed in relation with each other that, in proportion as you subtract from your own will, you add to the stock of human perfection; and St. Bernard, who, like the holy Father just mentioned, was the oracle of the Christian world in his day, and who illustrated in his own person the precept of obedience, of which he eulogised the value, following up the same thought of St. Jerome, breaks forth into this strange language: destroy the perverseness of self-will and hell itself is annihilated. Deeply had those holy men sounded the bottom of the human heart, and seriously did they meditate those inspired writings from which they drew their wisdom, and which tell us "obedience is better than sacrifice. because it is like the sin of witchcraft, to rebel, and to refuse to obey, like the crime of idolatry." And why the grievous crime of idolatry? Because, says St. Gregory, such self-willed subjects make an idol of their own presumption, to which they offer worship. And, therefore, St. Basil, who is justly reputed one of the fathers of monastic life, ordains that all religious guilty of disobedience should be separated from the body, like persons covered with a leprosy, lest they should spread over the community the contagion of their disorders. You may confound this obedience,

'I Kings, xv. 23.

says St. Gregory, with a degenerate spirit; if you do, you must labour under the most melancholy error, since it is this virtue that enables those who practise it, to become the greatest of all conquerors in triumphing over those lofty spirits, who may have owed to their disobedience all the horrors of their fall.

The total abandonment of worldly wealth and the adoption of rigid poverty might appear to the world a severe sacrifice; not so, however, to those who laid, in the vow of obedience, the foundation of Christian perfection, since it is much easier to renounce our possessions than to renounce ourselves; and he, that resigns by obedience his own will, lays the axe to the root of numberless vain and noxious deceits. As the Catholic Church proposes as a model the obedience of our Redeemer, who was obedient even unto the death of the cross, she proposes to us likewise Him who when He was rich became poor for our sakes, that through His poverty we might become rich in spiritual grace. Witnessing the passionate eagerness which the children of the world pant for the acquisition of wealth, and weeping over the sad disorders of which it is the source, she draws around the inmates of religion the secure fence of voluntary poverty. Impressed with the truth of the words of St. Paul, "for they that will become rich, fall into temptation, and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men into destruction and perdition: For the desire of money is the root of all evils, which some coveting have erred from the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows."1 Stripped of all heavy and unnecessary incumbrances, and girt for the journey, they meet with less impediments in their passage; and as poverty is

1 Tim. vi. 9.

one of the surest titles to the kingdom of heaven, according to the language of St. James, who says that God has selected the poor for His sacred inheritance, the religious are placed in that position that they may say with St. Paul: "I esteem all things as nought, that I may gain Christ."

In fine, to complete the sacrifice of themselves, they dedicate their virginity to God, in order that henceforth, freed from earth and its temptations, they may, in the language of St. Paul, "think on the things of the Lord, and be holy in body and in spirit." By this religious immolation they literally enter into espousals with their Divine Lord, as is beautifully expressed in the language of their dedication; they thus put the last crown on their consecration by a virtue, which is deservedly called by St. Cyprian the queen of all the virtues. Such is a simple summary of the obligations contracted by those holy females on this solemn occasion, and such is the heroic sacrifice, they lay on the altar, of all that the world most values and adores.

What folly, exclaims the votary of pride, of wealth, of sensuality, thus to resign all the fascinating prospects of youth and fortune! No doubt it is egregious folly in their eyes, and so was a God, incarnate and crucified, to the proud understanding and corrupt hearts of the Gentiles, as it is still to practical unbelievers. Believe the one; is not the other a natural and obvious consequence? And if the Son of God, in the intensity of that charity with which He sought to restore fallen man, was content to hide the splendour of His glory under the lowly vesture of our nature for more than an average of the life of man, is it to be wondered that for a similar