always primarily the desire for the holiness he seeks? And yet the saved of the Savior as He is borne onward into His salvation never can lose the sense of the great deep below him, into which he must fall if he lets the Savior go. But that sense only tightens more closely the grasp of the hands which have first seized the hope that was set before them out of ardent desire. This, I am sure, is always the proportion of the Gospel. "Flee from the wrath to come" is always an ally and humble servant of the great "Come unto me." "Come unto me" might stand alone, even if there were no "Flee from the wrath to come." But what would "Flee from the wrath to come" be without "Come unto me"? One is almost ready to say: Better lose sight of the mysterious capacity of life altogether, than to see only one side of it, Hide your eyes. Forget that you are a sinner; never dare look down and see what a sinner you may be, if there is no Savior from your sin. But if there is, and if you see Him, then feel the depth below you and let it make · you cling to Him more closely; realize the power of sinfulness, which has in it the cruelty and falseness and impurity of the worst men that have lived, that you may realize also the power of holiness which has in it the truth and bravery and gentleness of all the saints; let the gulf under your feet measure for you the sky overhead. Know what a sinner you might have been only that you may know more deeply and gratefully the salvation which has saved you.

I suggested just now the analogy between our physical and moral consciousness, between our consciousness of the power to be sick and the consciousness of the power to sin. It is an analogy which illustrates what I have just been saying. There is a nervousness about health which is all morbid. It is full of imaginations. There are people who can never hear a disease described without thinking that they have it. They never hear a sick man talk without feeling all his symptoms repeated in themselves. You think of such a person and realize his wretchedness. Then you look away from him to a perfectly healthy man who seldom thinks about being sick at all. But yet he is something different from what he would be if there were no power of sickness in him. Unconscious for the most part, but now and then coming forth. into consciousness, there is always present with him a sense of his humanity with all the liabilities which that involves. He does not do what a man would do who had literally a frame of iron. And that is just the condition of the man with the healthy soul. He does not nervously believe, when he hears of any flagrant crime, that he is just upon the brink of that crime himself. He lives in doing righteousness, but all the time he keeps the consciousness that sin, even out to its worst possibilities, sin even to the cruelty of Cain, the lust of David, the treachery

of Judas, is open to him. This consciousness surrounds all his duty. His righteousness is not an angel's righteousness. It is always a man's righteousness, always pervaded, solemnized, strengthened, aye, sweetened to him by the knowledge that there is a bad corresponding to every good. and that he might do one instead of the other just because he is a man. I do not care to go one step into the theological mysteries of compelling grace and final perseverance. I do not care to ask whether it is possible for man, still being man, to come to such a point that this of which I have spoken to-day, this possibility of flagrant and terrible sin, should utterly and absolutely be left behind and pass away. I think that what I have been saying lately shows us that a man, as the power of the hope of holiness takes stronger and stronger hold upon him, does pass more and more out of the fear of sin. And since his hope of holiness always comes to him as the gift of God, and depends on his dependence on God. we can see that as man by experience grows sure of God, and morally certain that he never can be separated from Him, he passes to a profound belief that he will not fall into the flagrant sin, which yet, because he is a man, remains possible for him. This moral certainty of his comes from his confidence in God. It is not confidence in himself. Here it seems to me is the true escape from whatever has seemed harsh or hopeless in the truth which I have preached to you to-day. The disciples heard Jesus tell of the coming treason, and each of them thought with horror that he might be the traitor. "Lord, is it I?" and "Is it I?" they cried. They knew that they loved their Lord, but they dared not be sure that they would not desert Him. Sufficient spiritual light had come to them to make them see the mystery of their own hearts. Once. before they had this spiritual light, they would have cast aside such a suspicion as an insult. "Am I not an honorable man?" "Is not such a mean act impossible for me?" Now Christ in showing them their higher chance has shown them their lower chance, their danger too, and each wonders whether it can be he who is to do this dreadful thing. Now open a later page of the apostolic history and hear St. Paul writing to his Romans: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." See what a change. Here is confidence! Here is a moral certainty! Whoever else may turn traitor, Paul is sure that it will not be he. But it is confidence-not in himself nor in his manliness or honor-only in Christ and in the power of His grace and love. "More than conqueror, but "more than conqueror through Him who loved us." Is there not here the beautiful progress of a moral nature as regards the whole matter of confidence? At the first a pure

blank self-reliance, the solid and unbroken self-content of a man who thinks himself able to meet and conquer all temptations. Then an insight into the mysterious capacity of sinning, which breaks and scatters the confidence in self, and leaves the poor soul full of fears and doubts. Then an entrance into Christ and His love and power, where the soul, given to Him, finds a new confidence in His strength, and is sure with. a sureness which has no warrant but its trust in Him. Have you ever watched one of the waterfalls that come over the perpendicular side of a steep mountain? Do you remember how it changes from the top to the bottom of its fall? At first where it comes over the brink it is one solid mass of dark-green water, compact and all sure of itself. Then half-way down the perpendicular face over which it descends, see what a change has come. Its solidness has gone. It is all mist and vapor. You can hardly find it. Only like a thin haze it hangs in front of the dark rock behind it. But once more, as it gets farther down, see how it gathers again. The mist collects, and is once more a stream; a new solidity appears; and at the mountain's foot the brook, restored out of its distraction, starts singing on its way down the bright valley, white still with the memory of the confusion into which it has been thrown. So is it with the confidence of man. It begins full of self-trust. It scatters and seems lost as his experience deepens and he learns his own possibility of sin. It is gathered anew and goes out in happiness and helpfulness when he finds Christ and gives his poor bewildered and endangered soul into His love for keeping.

This is the Bible picture of human life. Where shall we look for any other that is as reasonable or as complete? The fearless truster of himself; the distressed doubter of himself; the faithful truster of Christ! They are all here. We lay the Bible picture down beside our human life and it explains everything. In life, too, there is the stout believer in himself, the frightened disbeliever in himself, and the sure believer in God. As a man comes into Christ, that experience deepens itself around him till he has fulfiled it all. First, a stripping away of his own righteousness, and then a clothing with the righteousness which is in Jesus. First, a light thrown upon himself, till it seems as if there were no wickedness he might not do, and then a drawing of his self into Christ's self till he sees there is no holiness which he may not attain. First, the weakness which comes of self-knowledge, and then the strength. which is "strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." First, the fear which cries, "Is it I?" as it hears the announcement of some dreadful sin; and then the wondering faith which cries, "Is it I?" as the doors are opened and they who are Christ's are called to enter in to His everlasting life.

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"THE THINGS THAT ARE CÆSAR'S"

By James J. Dean

(Sermon delivered at a solemn military mass in Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Philadelphia, Pa.)

"Render to Casar the things that are Casar's, and to God the things that are God's."

The occasion which brought forth the words we have chosen for our text, my dear friends, occurred during the closing days of our Savior's public career. The high-priests had already decided upon His death and only awaited a favorable opportunity to put their designs into execution. They dared not lay violent hands upon Him because they feared the anger of the people who, a few days before, had received Him with acclamation and had greeted Him as their king. Their only hope lay in compromising Him before the Roman authorities. If they could make Him appear in the light of a dangerous agitator, the governor would be obliged to put an end to His preaching and they themselves would be spared the odium and the responsibility. The intrigue was cleverly planned. The leaders of the movement chose representatives from two powerful and opposite sects and sent them to our Lord with orders to entrap Him. The Pharisees were the strongest supporters of national independence; the Herodians were staunch upholders of the Roman power. Yet, these two parties, always bitter enemies, united their forces to oppose and, if possible, to destroy the popular Galilean. After agreeing upon their plan of campaign, the emissaries came to Jesus and, with affected scruples of conscience and a pretense of justice, began their attack with flattery. "Master, we know that Thou art a true speaker and teachest the way of God, neither carest Thou for any man; for Thou dost not regard the person of men. Tell us, therefore, what dost Thou think: Is it lawful to pay tribute to Cæsar or not?" No more insidious question could have been asked. This matter of the Roman tribute was a thing which excited violent feelings and gave rise to bitter dissensions. The people paid it only under protest, yielding to superior force until the promised Messiah should relieve them of

their yoke. The Galileans above all were fierce opponents of the tax. Surely, they thought, this new Prophet in his character as a Galilean, with his Messianic pretensions and his popular sympathies, will condemn the symbol of his country's servitude. This was the chance for which they had long waited; but Jesus, knowing their hypocrisy, unmasked them with a single word. "Why do you tempt me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin of the tribute." And they brought Him a penny. "Whose image and inscription are these?" He asked. They say to Him, "Cæsar's." "Render, then, to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," He replies, "and to God the things that are God's."

There was a proverb in the schools of those days that in whatever place the money of a king was current, the inhabitants of that place. thereby acknowledged him their ruler. Now, there were two kinds. of coin then current among the Jews; the one sacred, the other profane; the one for the service of the Temple, the other for the Roman tribute and for the ordinary business of the day. Our Lord availed Himself of this distinction to formulate anew an almost forgotten truth-the difference between the two societies to which man belongs and the two most essential duties which devolve upon him. Materially, by his physical and political life, man belongs to human society, to his people and to his country; spiritually, by reason of soul and conscience, he belongs to religious society and to God.

"Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's; and to God the things that are God's." This simple formulary is the basic principle of all law and order, the perfection of which is only possible through a right understanding between liberty and authority. Whenever popular feeling, always chafing under restraint, allows itself to be carried away by the spirit of rebellion, it is held in check by the duty of rendering to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's. And whenever political authority, naturally inclined toward despotism, would force itself into the domain of conscience, it is met by the counter obligation of rendering to God the things that are God's.

The policy of the Catholic Church, based upon the teachings of her Divine Founder, remains the same throughout all ages. She requires of her children no allegiance to a foreign power, but an unstinted devotion and a self-sacrificing love for their own country. "My kingdom," says Christ Himself, "is not of this world." So we, too, have a kingdom over which the government has no control, but it is not of this world. We render to God the things that are God's; at the same time we render to the civil authority all that even Cæsar could demand. In spiritualities, the Church; in temporalities, the State. Such is our motto, and the illustrious Leo XIII. has well said that "Between the duties which they