In a word, as the Old Testament gave testimony of Christ, the New Testament gives testimony of the Catholic Church which Christ established. Christ established the Church. The work was continued by the action of the apostles, who received the charge from Christ. The apostles chose others, to whom they conveyed the message which they originally received. Thus the chain of tradition is continued in the Church, which, guided by the Divine Spirit, is the "pillar and the ground of truth." So that the great St. Augustine says: “I would not accept the Bible if the Church did not bind me to do so."

FAITH, REVELATION, AND THE CHURCH

THREE DISCOURSES TO NON-CATHOLIC AUDIENCES

BY THE REV. NICHOLAS REAGAN, O.F.M.

I. FAITH

"By grace you are saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God." - Eph. ii, 8.

WHY is it that there are so many men to-day who are clever and acute thinkers and so well informed in regard to matters of the world, but who are so ignorant of and so frequently and sadly err in their opinions on spiritual things? They are farsighted in affairs of politics, their vision is keen in scientific experiments, but when they raise their eyes towards heavenly things, they behold nothing at all or nothing but mysterious confusion. Why is this? I will tell you with one little word. They have no light. Not the keenest eyes can see in the dark, and heavenly things are in the dark to those who have not the light of faith. The light of faith is as necessary for those who would look into the other world as the light of the sun is for those who would look into this world.

It cannot be denied that many of the men we fall in with in the course of our daily dealings, business and social, are honest, dutiful, sincere, conscientious, and fair-"men of good-will," who are, so to say, on the lookout for some definite knowledge of and more intimate relation with Him who speaks to them through conscience; men who would readily embrace the truth of Christ could they but see their way, but they cannot see because they lack the light of faith. And there are others,

especially in our blessed land, who have been blinded by a brilliant display of rhetoric and reason and led away from the path of truth into error and heresy, or have found themselves amid such error and have been prevented from finding the right way again. I do not mean to say that the many good people who are not of the Catholic fold have no faith far from it. I know that the blessed lamp burns still brightly in the home of many a devout Protestant family. I know that when the day of toil is spent, the father and mother and children gather around the family altar of the Protestant home for their Scripture reading and evening prayer. And I know how gladly they welcome the return of the "Sweet Hour of Prayer." I know, too, the innocence of many a Protestant's private life, the unfailingness of his trust in God, and the ardor of his devotion. And I would rather my tongue should cleave to the roof of my mouth than that one word should escape my lips which might be occasion of offence to those sincere souls who may attend our services. Yet I trust that every American is courageous enough to look at the plain truth and thankful for plain, frank direction. And who is not capable of learning more of God than he knows? We are all children of the same heavenly Father, and all want to learn of Him and serve Him. But it is impossible

to know God as we ought, without faith.

Faith is the founda

tion of our knowledge of Him and of our duties towards Him.

And yet we know so little about faith.

How few of us

Even those who

could even give a definition of the word! would wish to know more of it lose heart and turn back and leave off seeking for this precious knowledge because on every side they are confronted by a labyrinth of conflicting opinions. It will therefore be well worth our time to dwell for a few minutes on what faith is in the Christian meaning.

I. But Let us First See what Faith Means in the World at Large

In general faith means to accept a statement as true on the truthfulness of the speaker. When a mother tells her child that the world is round, and the child accepts the statement as true because he trusts in his mother's truthfulness, he has faith, natural faith. We use this kind of faith every day. We could not transact business, we could not carry on a conversation, we could scarcely live in this world without such faith in one another. But when the mother tells her child that there is a God and that He will reward the good and punish the wicked in the next world, the child accepts the statement not only on the truthfulness of his mother, but because his own conscience, with the help of God's grace, affirms the truth of it, and he believes with supernatural faith.

Thus we see that faith is a natural act of the mind, and a legitimate means of getting knowledge even of natural things, and the only means of getting knowledge of supernatural things. But some hundreds of years ago men got tired of believing; they wanted to know everything. The Church taught them of God, of their souls, of virtue and sin, of the judgment and life to come, but in their proud hearts they thought it a degradation of the noble reason of man to acknowledge its inability to understand the mysteries of faith, believing them unquestioningly on the word of bishops and priests, who were often, like St. Paul, "mean of appearance and of speech contemptible," who spoke "not in the persuasive words of human wisdom" but the simple words of truth and soberness. To be sure some few still, as in the days of St. Paul, accepted the teaching of the Church, "not as the word of man, but [as it is indeed] the word of God." Yet for the worldly wise

the old traditions to be believed on faith lost their savor and became too tasteless to feed upon. They were cast away and reason was hailed as the only means of getting knowledge of all things knowable.

But now came the difficulty. Reason must have experience through the senses before it knows anything. And how were the senses to get at the soul? And if we know nothing of the soul, religion will have no meaning. Still, being too humanitarian to rob the simple minded of the consolation religion affords, they reasoned themselves into the marvellous conclusion that a man can believe that there is a God and at the same time know that there is not. They made of religion a dreamy sentimentality. They love still to read their Bible and to go to church, but they rise from the reading and return from the meeting as if awakening out of a pleasant dream a dream which carried them back over life long past, making them live again the garish years of youth and first love, making them move again in the cherished scenes of long ago, ravishing their hearts with the presence of sweet faces and gentle voices of loved ones now no more; a dream from which they awake with a sigh of regret that it is but a dream, and yet, despite bitter disappointment, the heart is lightened and cheered by the delightful reverie of fond recollections. Such is faith in the world at large. Let us pass on to the consideration of what it is in the Church of God. But perhaps we may, each of us, hold opinions differing one from another, and it were better to dwell for a moment on

II. What Faith Meant in the Beginning of Christianity for what it then meant it must still mean, since faith does not change its meaning.

When our Saviour "came preaching the kingdom of God,"