Part 7

Moreover, his cause is a desperate one. A certain and ignominious defeat, from which he will never more arise, awaits him. He has already been conquered. Jesus Christ met him once in single combat in the desert, and put him to an ignominious flight. Afterwards, on the cross, He gained a still more signal and decisive victory over him, and made him serve by his own plan for our Lord's destruction, as an instrument for accomplishing our salvation. The Blessed Virgin has trampled on the head of this malicious serpent. All the saints and martyrs have triumphed over him, and the weakest Christian child can put him to flight, by resisting his temptations--by breathing a little prayer, or by making the sign of the cross. He is a weak and miserable coward. His cause is already desperate and lost. And although God allows him a certain liberty to tempt and trouble the world for a short time, the day of judgment is fast approaching, in which Jesus Christ will put him to shame before the whole universe, and cast him, together with all those who follow his standard, into the burning abyss of hell.

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Such is a true picture of Lucifer, of his services, and of the reward which awaits his followers. Are you not ashamed, then, O false Christian! to have renounced your allegiance to your rightful Lord, for the service of such a master, who trembles at the very name of Jesus Christ?

In the churches of the middle ages the statue of the martyr St. Christopher was frequently sculptured, carrying, in accordance with his name which signifies Christ-bearer, the infant Jesus on his shoulder. As his real history was unknown, the poetic fancy of that period invented several beautiful legends about it, of which the following is one:

"A heathen youth of gigantic size and strength determined to seek out the strongest man in the world, and serve him. After many inquiries, he engaged himself to a Christian prince, who was famous for prowess and warlike achievements. {132} He served him contentedly for a while, but at length, observing that he often made the sign of the cross, he asked him the meaning of his doing so. The prince told him it was to keep off the devil. The youth asked him who the devil was, and if he was afraid of him. He told him that the devil was a wicked being, more powerful than any man, and that he feared him greatly. If that is the case, said the youth, I will serve you no longer, but I will serve the devil, because he is the strongest. Immediately he set out to seek for him, and passing through a forest was accosted by a dark-looking personage who asked him what he was looking for, and on receiving his his answer, replied: I am the devil you are seeking, follow me if you wish to enter my service. So saying, he went on, followed by the youth, toward a certain city. As they drew near the city, the devil turned aside from the highway, and took a bye-road which was much more circuitous. The youth asked him why he did not keep the high-road. Do you not see, said the devil, that crucifix? I do not wish to pass it. 'What is a crucifix?' said the youth. 'The image of my greatest enemy, who once conquered me' replied the devil. {133} Farewell, said the youth; if you are afraid of Him who hangs on that cross, I shall leave you, and serve Him, because he is stronger than you. So saying, he went in search of Jesus Christ, and having stopped at a monastery, and asked the way to find Him, was instructed, baptized by the name of Christopher, and became a martyr."

Now, dear Christian, you are a Christopher, a Christ-bearer, for you have the image of Christ stamped in your soul in baptism. You are bound to serve the most powerful, and not only the most powerful, but the best master; the one who has the best right to your services, whose service is the most honorable, whose rewards are the greatest, and whose final victory is certain. Listen to me now, and I will show you that this Prince is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is our lawful King.

I. By hereditary right. He is the Son of God. In his divine nature He is equal to his Father, and equally with Him the Creator of all things, and therefore our sovereign Lord. In his human nature, He is the first begotten Son of his Father, the heir of all things, in a special sense, the chief of the human race.

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II. By purchase. By Adam's sin, the special gifts which God had given to him and his posterity--integrity of nature, sanctifying grace, paradise and the title to heaven--were forfeited. Mankind fell from a free to a servile condition. Jesus Christ, by a compact with the eternal Father, and by pledging His life for us, has purchased his right over us.

III. By redemption. He has redeemed us by his blood, from exile and slavery, and restored to us our forfeited inheritance of grace and eternal life.

IV. By conquest. When the whole world was subject to the usurped tyranny of Satan, He made war on him, conquered him, and wrested our souls from his possession. As subjects of a conquered empire, we are therefore subject to the dominion of our conqueror.

V. By our own election. We have freely chosen his service, when we were confirmed and ratified our baptismal vows, and a thousand times we have offered ourselves to his service, and sworn allegiance to Him.

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His service is glorious. Because He is the greatest and wisest of all princes; because angels and saints are our companions; because his service consists in performing great and heroic actions, warring against vice, overcoming self, practising virtue, doing good, and conquering the world, the flesh and the devil. It is happy and delightful, because of peace of conscience, the friendship of God, and the consolations of divine grace. These are a sort of bounty or earnest-money given now; but the real reward is eternal life, to be given hereafter.

Jesus Christ is certain to obtain the victory and to triumph gloriously over all his enemies--over treacherous and cowardly followers within his own camp, that is, bad Christians who preserve the faith but live and die in sin; over all those who are nominally his followers, but who really are fighting under the devil's standard, that is heretics, and schismatics; over infidels, his open enemies among men; over Satan and hell.

Here now are the two chiefs. There are the two standards. This is the war in which every one of you is engaged, on one side or the other? Which side is it? Under what banner have you till now been ranged? Do you belong to the party of Jesus Christ or that of the devil? {136} Do you reply, I am a baptized Christian, marked with the sign of the cross, and a member of the Catholic Church, and therefore a servant of Jesus Christ? It is true you are a soldier regularly enlisted and sworn into Christ's army, and wearing his uniform. But the question is, are you a true-hearted, obedient and brave soldier of Jesus Christ, or are you a traitor in the camp, a servant of the devil in the guise of a Christian? Let us see. You call yourself a soldier of Jesus Christ. What are you doing then with the devil's bounty? The devil's bounty is a license to steal, cheat and swindle. What is that pile of bank-notes pilfered from your employer, you dishonest clerk? What is that heap of gold, you bribed judge, you corrupt legislator, you dishonest official, you swindling speculator in government contracts, in public distresses and private miseries? Jesus Christ will tolerate no thieves in his camp. If you are one of these unjust, dishonest, avaricious, overreaching robbers of your neighbors goods, standing ready to sell your voice, your pen, your vote, your oath, your conscience, your country, your faith, your soul, your God Himself, for gold, then you have touched the devil's bounty, you are his servant, and a traitor to your colors.

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You are a soldier of Jesus Christ, are you? But you have been caught drinking the devil's treat. There, where his sergeants recruit for hell, in those grog-shops whose flaming signs and glaring windows tempt the fool and the unwary; where misery, beggary, despair and death are dealt out to wretched fathers, brutal husbands, ragged, bloated women who are wives and mothers; there you have drained the cup of drunkenness, the pledge of friendship with Satan and all the company of hell.

You are a Christian soldier, are you? But I hear on your lips the devil's passwords, those curses and oaths, those obscene words and profane jests which show that you belong to the devil's camp. Your cursing tongue has betrayed you, false deserter, your speech is the speech of hell, and your presence among the faithful soldiers of Jesus Christ is an offence and a scandal not to be borne by those who have any zeal for the honor of their Lord.

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You a Christian soldier?--and flaunting on the devil's parade-ground, the theatre, the ballroom where the lascivious waltz goes on, the midnight revel of thoughtless and giddy young people, flushed with wine, intoxicated with excitment, whirled away by the tide of passion, where they know not and care not, until at length remorse, disgrace and ruin tell them where, but too late to save them. These are the pomps of the devil which you renounced and foreswore at your baptism. If you take them up again, you are an outcast from Jesus Christ, and a servant of the devil.

You dare to call yourself a Christian, and all the while you are living on the devil's pay, feeding on sensuality, plunged overhead in impurity, the miserable, beastly reward that the devil gives to his followers. By the law of Moses, those who committed such crimes were to be stoned to death without the camp. Is the camp of Jesus Christ less holy, think you, that an impure man or woman can be tolerated within its sacred precincts?

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You pretend to wear the livery of Jesus Christ. What, then, is that badge, what are those insignia you are wearing? They tell that you belong to some secret society, that you have defied the law of the Church, and braved her excommunication. You are then shut out from the sacraments, and not only are you no soldier of Jesus Christ, but you belong to the devil's own body-guard.

Tell me, you pretended soldier of Jesus Christ, where are you on your King's parade days, his Sundays and Festivals, when he requires his servants on earth and his angels in heaven to present themselves in review before him? Where are you during the holy solemnity of the Mass? Absent; your place vacant, and you asleep, or lounging, or doing the devil's work. At the Easter Communion, where are you? You are not to be found, or still worse, you present yourself without that rich and ornamental dress of sanctifying grace, which your king requires, under pain of death. Blush to call yourself a soldier of Jesus Christ, for if you are one, you are a delinquent and a faithless one.

You profess yourself so loudly a Christian soldier, what then are you straggling for, behind your column? Jesus Christ allows no stragglers in his army, and the enemy has ambuscades everywhere to cut them off. {140} These are those heretical churches into which you stray, in ignorance or neglect of Catholic order and discipline. Hasten out of these ambuscades of error, delusion and eternal death. Rejoin your column quickly, and keep within the serried ranks of the Catholic host, or you are lost.

My brave and vaunting Christian warrior, how do your professions of fidelity and courage comport with your conduct when put on guard at night? How have you conducted yourself in temptation? Have you not committed mortal sin, and then given as an excuse that you were tempted by the devil, or overcome by your passions? Have you not said that you could not help cursing when you were angry, drinking when you were urged, giving way to impure inclinations when you were assaulted by them, that you could not keep from mortal sin, because you are so weak? These excuses make you more guilty. They show that you have slept on your post, or kept a careless watch on the enemy, or yielded yourself a prisoner, when you should have fought manfully. It is your very profession as a soldier of Jesus Christ to fight with the world, the flesh and the devil, and you cannot be surprised or vanquished without your own fault. {141} To say that you must sin because the devil tempts you, or that you cannot resist your evil inclinations, is to confess your own shame, and to make it plain, that you are a coward, unworthy of the glorious name of a soldier of Jesus Christ.

I call upon you, then, unworthy and unfaithful followers of Jesus Christ, to renounce your secret and treasonable dealings with the enemy, to cease to act like traitors or poltroons, and to rally again around the standard of salvation. No matter what mortal sin you have on your soul, it is a bond which links you with the devil, with his desperate cause and his eternal ruin. In spite of your name of Christian, your badge of soldier, and your military oath, you are a servant of Satan, and the Lord will one day cast you out among his open enemies. In God's name, then, no more double dealing. Choose your side! If you wish for despair, and have chosen eternal perdition, then Satan is your master, and you can follow him if you choose. But if Jesus Christ is your king, his service your choice, and his rewards your desire, come to his standard, and flinch no more. {142} See! the war is raging all around you, in which you must take part, on one side or the other. The banners are flying, the trumpets are sounding, the soldiers of Christ are winning eternal renown and pressing on to battle. Our glorious King is at the head of his chosen band leading the way to victory, which is already waving its wings above the unconquerable standard of salvation. The shouts of conquest are heard in the distance, and the foremost ranks are pressing in as victors through the gates of heaven. Shall we stand here like cowards, hugging the ignominious chains of mortal sin? Far be the thought from every Christian breast! The voice of our Leader is calling us. Forward! then. Onward! let us share in the glorious conflict, that we may share in the triumph, and partake in the everlasting peace that is to follow.

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Sermon IX.

The Epiphany.

"They found the Child with Mary his mother." St. Matt, ii., 2.

(From the Gospel for the Day).

The Feast of the Epiphany, my dear brethren, is as it were a second Christmas. Christmas Day is a feast which all Christians hold in common, whether of Jewish or Gentile blood. If either had more claim than the other, it would seem to belong rather to those who are of Jewish origin; for, "_to you is born this day a Saviour in the City of David_" was the announcement made by the angels to the Jewish shepherds. But this feast of to-day is peculiarly ours. This is the great Gentile-Christian feast. {144} The motto which we put up over our altar on Christmas eve, and which still hangs there, "_Christus natus est nobis_," "Christ is born for us," is especially appropriate to-day.

There is, however, still another distinct class of persons to whom this day ought to be especially dear. You, my dear brethren, who had not the greater privilege of belonging to the Holy Catholic Church from your infancy, but whom God in his mercy brought into it in after years, this is your feast. You have an interest in these Gentile converts, your ancestors in the faith, whom the Church commemorates to-day, which they have not who never knew any other creed. What I propose this morning, is,

1. To give you a sketch of the history of today's feast; and

2. To show you how these Gentile converts are models of men truly converted to God.

I. History Of The Feast.

Whilst angels were telling to the shepherds of Judea, as they kept watch over their flocks on Christmas eve, of the glad tidings of the birth of the Redeemer of the world in Bethlehem, a strange apparition aroused the inhabitants of a great city in the far distant east. {145} They were awakened from their sleep, and the windows, doors, and streets were thronged to look at a bright star, which hung in the sky, just over the city.

You remember, I dare say, what a stir was made in this country and elsewhere, a few years since, by the unexpected appearance of that beautiful comet. How groups were to be seen standing about every evening, both in and out of doors, with telescope or the naked eye, gazing at it, and expressing to one another their wonder and delight. Well, some such feeling as this, mingled with a certain religious awe, must have taken hold of this people of the east on that night. How brilliant! what can it be? what can it mean? how close to us! who will tell us something about it? Exclamations such as these, were heard on all sides, from the lips of rich and poor alike. Now there were men in that kingdom who might naturally be supposed to know something about it, for they had made the science of the stars, in their supposed connection with human action, or astrology, a special branch of study. {146} They were men of education. They were high in civil station too, and filled such offices as magistrate, and governor, and even that of a sort of petty sovereign. They were called Magi. They were in their own country what the Mandarin is in China; what the Brahmin is in India. But how can they know any thing of a star so unusual in its appearance as this? There were two sources through which a certain prophecy connected with the appearance of a star might have reached them.

1. Fifteen hundred years before, a prophet or diviner, whatever his office may have been, whose name was Balaam, had uttered a most remarkable prophecy. It was as follows: "_I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not near. A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall spring up from Israel_." If Balaam was a fellow-countryman of these Magi, as some learned writers have supposed, then they could hardly have been ignorant of this prophecy.

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2. One thousand years after that again, the Jews were carried away in captivity to the city of Babylon, and dispersed themselves through that region of country. It is natural to suppose that in this way their traditions and sacred writings became publicly known. In that case, these men of science could hardly have failed to notice the fact of Balaam's prophecy being found in the Jewish book of Numbers. They would moreover find, in the course of that familiar intercourse which was now established between the people of both nations, that the Jews had always considered this prophecy as having reference to the promised Messias, or future Ruler of their people.

Whatever may be the fact as to their having any information at all, or the particular sources through which it came, or whether their wills were moved directly by inspiration from God, certain it is that these holy kings did recognize in that star their guide to the newly-born king of the Jews. Among the historical records of God's dealing with the Jewish people, they perhaps remembered how He had led them through the wilderness under the guidance of a pillar of fire, and consequently were more willing to trust themselves to a guide of a similar kind.

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Difficulties now sprang up on every side. It was no easy thing to make up their minds to leave their kingdoms (or whatever was the peculiar nature of their charge), in the hands of others, who might usurp their authority in their absence. Travelling over the deserts to the westward was most tedious, and attended with much danger. And after all might not this vision be a delusion? Such were some of the trials their faith had to surmount, and it did surmount them. I will not say more of their journey, than that they were faithful to their guide. They halted when it stood still, they continued their march when it led the way. Here are they now within a short march of the city of Jerusalem. The morning light is breaking, and word is passed to harness the camels, and to fold up the tents. The encampment is alive with joy, at the prospect of the speedy and successful termination of their undertaking, when a cry of distress is heard; "the star!--where is the star? it is gone! what shall we do?" Let us try to conceive what their distress must have been.

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You know that in some parts of our country there are great caves underground, into which one can penetrate bypaths winding hither and thither to the distance of twenty, thirty, or even forty miles from the entrance; as for example, the great Mammoth cave of Kentucky. Of course, the darkness there is absolute. Perhaps you may remember having seen an account given by one of a party of persons whose only light had gone out on an excursion of this kind. He tried to describe the horror that he and his companions felt when they found themselves in such total darkness, and, unless relieved by persons outside, in the face of certain death. To move, even for a few feet, might, for all they knew, be sudden destruction. To remain where they were was certain death by starvation. Now some such feelings as these must have overwhelmed our travellers from the east when they lost the star. Their guide was gone; they were in a strange and, it might prove, an enemy's land, especially as they had come in search of a rival to him who was sitting on the throne of Judea. What should they do? They determined to enter the city, to go to the king himself and fearlessly demand to know from him "_where is he who is born king of the Jews; for we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him?_" {150} King Herod called in the priests from the temple; the Scriptures were brought, the prophecies were examined; and Bethlehem was found to be the favored spot. "_Thou Bethlehem, the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda for out of thee shall come the ruler who shall rule my people Israel_." They do not stay to be entertained with banquetings, or with what is curious or interesting in this great city, but they resume their journey, when lo! their beautiful guide appears before them once more. Oh! what joy it must have been to them to see it again. I dare say they thought it a hundredfold brighter than before, as they gazed up at it with their cheerful faces. ... At last it stops just over a poor shed on a hillside. This the birth-place of the king of the Jews!! Impossible. They look up at the star. There it stands motionless. They dismount with their presents, and pass through the rude entrance. A wonderful light fills the lowly place, and they see a young woman sitting upon some straw on the ground, a beautiful infant on her lap, and one who seems to be her husband, at her side. That same faith which had led them so far, made them bend the knee in adoration. "_They had found the child with Mary his mother_."

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Such, my dear brethren, is the sketch I promised you of this most interesting history of today's feast. To me, I must confess it has a peculiar charm and beauty. Now, what holy lesson shall we try to learn from it?

II. These Magi Are Models To Us Of Men Truly Converted To God.