Catholic Church on the protection of the Blessed Virgin, and ordered public prayers and processions in her honour, in order that the pure worship of her Divine Son should not be supplanted by the blasphemies of an impostor, who impiously profaned the sacred character of prophet by assuming so holy and incongruous a name. The prayers of the Church were crowned with signal success; and it is recorded that at the very time in which victory declared in favour of the Christians the Pope was favoured with a miraculous revelation of the event, who imparted, at the same time, to others, the joyous communication. From that period the first Sunday in October is consecrated to a grateful commemoration of this event, and his successor ordained, that on every recurring anniversary, should be celebrated the Festival of the Rosary.

It is, then, an auspicious day, and besides your own pious prayers and those of this vast congregation here assembled, you will doubtless share in the treasures of grace which the accumulated supplications of the faithful all over the earth will not fail to bring down on this holy festival. She will be your help and succour in all your sorrows and necessities. If you are in trouble, invoke her aid; if overspread with sorrow, invoke her light, which, like the morning star, diffusing calm over the deep, will dissipate every darkness and restore a heavenly light to your minds. She is not only your patron, but also your model, held up by the Church, as St. Ambrose says, as a mirror to all virgins through which they may contemplate the virtues they are to practise. Hence appropriately is she represented in the inspired writings under the figures of a fenced garden, a sealed fountain, and after her the Church itself is likened with the same images, adorned with virgins whose virtues, like the sweetest flowers, spread their

fragrance throughout the entire atmosphere. Yes, it is only within the garden of the Catholic Church, fenced by its discipline, and watered by the untainted fountain of its pure doctrine, and warmed by the genial heat of the grace with which it abounds, have sprung up in every age, and will still spring up, those choicest flowers, fairer than the lily, and more fragrant than the most exquisite spices that bloom under an eastern sun. And of this fair garden there is not a fairer portion than our own sainted island, which appears to be so congenial to the growth of those virtues, that even among the ruins of their habitations, though their inmates are so long gone, there still lingers the odours of their sanctity. Yes, the soil of Ireland is peculiarly favourable to the growth of those virtues, and the very atmosphere is redolent of their sweetness and purity. They may be trodden under foot, as they have been trodden when the fences were broken, and the beasts of the forest have been let in to rifle them; but with the return of the spring and the repair of the enclosures, and the cultivation of the husbandman, the lily will again display its beauty and give forth its fragrance. The discipline by which it is guarded may appear sharp and repulsive; but let it be recollected that the most fragrant of flowers grow amidst the thorns, or in the solitude where they are not sullied by the noisome breath of society.

What a heroic mission do those young females undertake! It may be said that they have no distant countries now to traverse, no tyranny to endure, and no captives to redeem, as had some of their predecessors in similar monasteries. They have the same painful and perilous functions to discharge. How often are they obliged to go and bring the light of religion to a poor soul that, until the moment of sickness, sat in the darkness of wilful ignorance, notwithstanding the frequent opportunities of instruction? How often will they be

obliged to seek them in the far countries of sin and sorrow into which they had wandered, striving to touch them, in the accents of mercy, with a sense of the happiness which they had forfeited, and of the misery into which they had fallen, and to strengthen their tottering steps with courage, and fill their desponding souls with consolation, as they rise to come back to the house of their Father? How often will they be obliged to weep over the chains in which the captives of sin are bound, imploring Him, who restored to his disconsolate mother her young child who was stretched upon the bier, to restore to the life of grace some young and thoughtless sinners over whose spiritual death the Church, their tender mother, had been shedding tears of compassion? These are the holy objects of the mission which those pious Sisters have to discharge. They are to realise the parable of the Gospel, carrying, like the wise virgins, their lamps copiously furnished with oil, diffusing along their path its heat and lustre. Such continual diffusing of light requires fresh and continuous supplies of the unction of grace that it may not be exhausted. Offer, then, my dear Christians, your united prayers that they may persevere to the end, fulfilling the high and holy duties which they have been called to perform : solicitous in prayer, fervent in watching, with loins girt and the lamps in their hands trimmed, furnished, and burning with the oil of charity and good works, that when the Bridegroom knocks they may receive Him, not only without terror, but with joy, and be admitted to share with Him the wedding feast, and sing canticles in heaven with those countless virgins that are privileged to follow the Lamb wherever He goeth, for ever and ever. Amen.

THE SYNOD OF THURLES.

"And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son and thou shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David, His father : and He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end."-LUKE, i. 30-33.

OF this magnificent and merciful prophecy, which the angel of the Lord announced to Mary, the humble Virgin, she beheld the completion of a considerable part before her triumphant assumption into heaven; and the rest has been, and ever shall be, further developed in the extension and stability of Christ's kingdom of the Catholic Church, until its term on earth shall expire with the world itself, thenceforward to continue in heaven its eternal duration. Of this great kingdom of the Church, which was thus heralded by one of those pure spirits that minister around the throne of the Most High, our nation and people have, from their first annexation to its dominion, formed a goodly and a faithful portion; and in this episcopal senate, assembled under the auspices and control of the successor of St. Patrick, clothed with the delegated dignity of the Holy See, you have a fair sample of those grave legislative assemblies by which the permanent government of this spiritual kingdom is secured. This kingdom of Christ's Church, planted on earth for the restoration of fallen man to the divine inheritance which he had forfeited, and destined to sustain a perpetual conflict with the old enemy, stung with rage and envy that his spoil should be wrested from him, has not been unprovided with the means necessary for a warfare so holy and so arduous; nor have its chief

watchmen been left without sufficient aid to secure the protection of their respective wards against the untiring assaults of their sleepless and treacherous enemy, by which it shall not cease to be assailed. What, then, is the nature of the government of this kingdom; who are the chief legislators on whom its administration devolved; and what is the source and sanction of the laws by which the evils of disorder and confusion are avoided, and the blessings of union and strength are secured? Those appear to me the appropriate topics on which to dwell during the auspicious continuance of this national council.

Scarce did our Divine Redeemer come forth from the seclusion of His private life when He called His Apostles, and sent them forth with the commission: "And going, preach, saying: The kingdom of heaven is at hand." How analogous the words of this His first commission to His Apostles with the language in which the angel shadowed forth to the Blessed Virgin the nature of His spiritual kingdom! In whatever form, then, the Church's authority is exercised, its pastors are entitled to the respect and obedience of the faithful, when bound in communion with the chief pastor, to whom, in the person of Peter, He confided the care, and solicitude, and government of His entire fold. But it is through the medium of its congregated councils, through those acts that embody the varied wisdom, and that reflect the condensed authority of its bishops under its venerable head, the majesty of this kingdom is particularly displayed. Although the Apostles were endowed with individual infallibility, being under the immediate inspiration of heaven, yet, when a great controversy arose regarding the retention or abolition of some of the ritual observances of the Old Law, they adopted the

'S. Matt. x. 7.