Abbate de Luca, now Cardinal Bishop of Paiestrina, as well as in other discourses, the Archbishop vigorously combats the folly of those persons who, while they love religion in its barren form, abhor its practical effects; who, pretending to be followers of a crucified Saviour, ridicule the austerity and mortification inculcated by His religion; and while they glory in manifesting their belief in the principles of a religion inculcating the abandonment of the pleasures of the world, and the mortification of the unruly passions, fail not to represent as superstitious the laws of fasting, abstinence, and self-abnegation.

In the nineteenth discourse the Archbishop, considering the varied and conflicting fortunes of the "Eternal City," and taking a comprehensive view of the designs of the Almighty with respect to the Church of Rome, the parent and teacher of all other churches, conclusively establishes the necessity of a divinely ordained bond of Catholic union in the person of the Sovereign Pontiff, on which is founded the uniform, mutual, and universal communion of the members of the Church of Christ, and from which may legitimately be deduced the doctrine that the Roman Pontiffs, like the Catholic Church, are the unerring expounders of the dogmatical and moral truths of divine revelation.

In the following interesting passage, extracted from an unpublished discourse, delivered on the occasion of announcing the great jubilee granted

by Pope Leo XII., in the year 1826, to the universal Church, we find the prerogatives of the successors of St. Peter urged by the Archbishop with his accustomed vigour: "Is this the voice of Peter which has just reached our ears? Has the supreme Pastor, to whom Christ committed the care of His fold, condescended to speak to this little and distant portion of his flock? Yes, Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo, and it is to us a consolation that, after the lapse of fourteen hundred years, we can still repeat the language of the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon, who, on hearing the letter that was addressed to them by the first and greatest of the Leos, unanimously exclaimed: 'Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo, and his authority still lives in the person of his successor.' It is to us a consolation that notwithstanding the number of the flock of Peter which the wolf has snatched or scattered, we still recognise and hear the voice of the good shepherd, who, in the language of the Redeemer, 'knoweth His own sheep, and inviteth the rest to place themselves in the unity of the same fold under the guidance of one Pastor.' What a source of joy and triumph that we constitute a portion of that sacred edifice whose foundation was laid by divine Wisdom on a rock, which has neither yielded to the decay of time nor the violence of the tempest, but has stood a striking attestation of the truth of Christ's promises, equally unshaken by the waves that are beating against its foundation

and the winds that are rushing against its summit, mocking the successive tides of error that are breaking in from around its base, and standing a majestic monument of the Omnipotence that has sustained it. Bound, as many of us have been, in the chains of sin, and excluded from the favour of the Almighty, how ought we not to rejoice that Peter, to whom Christ gave the power of loosing sins, as well as the keys of the kingdom of heaven, when in the person of his successor He offers to strike off the fetters in which we have been bound, and to unlock the portals of heaven for our admission. Do I dwell on the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff for the purpose of controversy? If by controversy is meant the desire of irritating, far be from me the unhallowed wish. No; from the chair of truth no sound but that of genuine charity should go forth; and the Church is a place in which a truce ought to be given to the passions of mankind. No; but I mention them, rather for the purpose of healing than of fomenting irritation, and of removing that ignorance under which many, and some of them Catholics, have laboured. Often have I preached here, and I have not obtruded the subject of controversy. But being about to commence a series of instructions on the recommendation of this letter, and to set on foot a practice which derives its sanction from Rome, what is more natural, and perhaps for some more necessary, than that I should explore the purity of that channel through which Christ's doctrine is

transmitted, and show that it is immediately connected with that divine source which pours forth the living waters. This is the reason why I dwell upon this topic. To answer the secret interrogatories of those who may ask : Who is this Leo, or for what purpose does he address his instructions to this distant country? He is the living representative of him whom Christ thus addressed after the glorious confession of His Divinity: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' He is the successor of him to whom Christ the Sovereign Truth thus solemnly declared: 'And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.' 2 He is the successor of him, the ardour of whose love Christ, having tried by the repeated interrogatory of Peter, 'Dost thou love me?' rewarded by the ample commission of feeding His whole flock: 'Feed my lambs, feed my sheep:' words which embrace the entire of His fold within his jurisdiction. Had these texts not been clearly recorded in the divine Scriptures, I must confess that I should not feel surprised that those who pretend to follow its exclusive guidance 2 S. Matt. ibid.

1 S. Matt. xvi.

should controvert the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff. But that those, who read this language in the Bible, should persist in rejecting such evidence speaks a humiliating, and, I will add, an instructive lesson of the strong force of early prejudice. To illustrate this observation, let anyone forget for a moment the bias of his youth, and take up the book in which he finds the same individual uniformly preferred to the rest of the Apostles. One time called the rock on which the Church was to be erected, another time invested with the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and again appointed to feed not only the lambs but the sheep, would it not be his natural conclusion that either there was no significancy in language or that Peter was constituted the chief Pastor of the Church? The more the meaning of those texts is unfolded the more the first impression which they convey is confirmed. In one place the Church is characterised as an edifice which the powers of hell cannot shake, because St. Peter is its solid and immovable foundation. To him are

also given the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and are you ignorant that in the customs of every country the delivery of the keys is the emblem of the amplest authority? The keys were formerly a part of the marriage ceremony to denote that the husband, by giving the keys to his bride, shared with her the dominion of his household. When a city is surrendered to a conqueror, the most significant symbol by which his power is recognised is to de