leisurely life, and a country house at Avignon. It is an easy task for comfortable middle-class experts like Mill, Darwin, or Huxley, to mine away the faith of millions; we have subsequently found that it is not so easy to replace it. Towards the end of their lives Spencer and Mill began to realize, like Sidgwick, that rationalism is impotent to construct an alternative to Christianity

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So conspicuous are the proofs [wrote Spencer1 at the age of seventythree], that among unallied races in different parts of the globe progress in civilization has gone along with development of a religious system... that there seems no escape from the inference that the maintenance of social subordination has peremptorily required the aid of some such agency.

And Mill, in a posthumous essay, which shocked rationalists like Bain, declared that :

The indulgence of hope with regard to the government of the universe and the destiny of man after death-while we recognize as a clear truth that we have no ground for more than hope-is legitimate and philosophically defensible. The beneficial effect of such a hope is far from trifling.3

Mill went even further, and in some of the last pages which he wrote he spoke of Christ in language savouring more of new-found faith than of the dreary rationalist dogmatism of his earlier years :

Whatever else may be taken away from us by rational criticism [he wrote], Christ is still left-a unique figure, not more unlike all his precursors than all his followers. .. Religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on this man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity. Nor even now would it be easy even for an unbeliever to find a better translation of the rule of virtue, from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life.3

This very phrase, phrase, 'translation 'translation of virtue from the abstract into the concrete,' confesses the social inadequacy of natural reason and the world's debt to Christ. It is

1 Autobiography, ii. 467.

2 Three Essays on Religion, p. 249.

3 Ibid. p. 255. Mill's craving for religion was partly satisfied by his illogical but pathetic cult of his deceased wife. I endeavour to make the best of what

life I have left,' he wrote in his Autobiography (pop. ed., p. 138), and to work on for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be derived from thoughts of her and communion with her memory.' 'Her memory,' he continues (p. 144), 'is to me a religion, and her approbation the standard by which, summing up as it does all worthiness, I endeavour to regulate my life.' What a testimony to the hollowness of rationalism is Mill's attempt to take refuge therefrom in the companionship, not of Christ, but of his dead wife!

not merely that natural reason is largely analytic and individual, and is unable to cope adequately with social ideals, though this is true. It is more important to realize that, especially at the present stage of man's personal self-consciousness and individual development, the only social ideal which will work, which will be concretely effective, is the Christian ideal. Where else shall we secure a principle capable of conferring on life a value commensurate with its suffering? How, except in Christianity, can we reconcile society and the individual? Where else is there any sure grasp of social ethics? Family life, the rights of the unborn, the claims of the weakly, the regeneration of the sinner-their only champion is Christ. Abstract theism and abstract ethics may work very well on paper, but they are powerless to cope with the prejudices and passions of flesh and blood. We shall never have a social millennium, a perfect Utopia, wherein individual claims are accurately adjusted. There is no mechanism whereby sin and suffering can be eliminated. Whatever social and economic transformations are to be introduced, we shall still need high motives, self-sacrifice, good will. How are we to generate this spiritual power? How is the coming democracy to create a clean heart and a right spirit in men and women? Not by laws or leagues, not by resolutions or constitutions, but by Christ.

ALFRED O'RAHILLY.

PREACH THE GOSPEL

BY REV. MATTHEW KEATING, M.SS.

I

MONDAY, February 11, 1918, was an epoch-making day in the history of the Catholic pulpit. On that day our Holy Father, Benedict XV, delivered a most important allocution to the Lenten preachers of the Eternal City. He reminded them of his letter on preaching, addressed a few months previously to the sacred orators of the Universal Church, and expressed the hope that they would show that they understood and appreciated better than others the importance of the instructions of their common Father.

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The excellence of the ministry entrusted to sacred orators follows from its being a continuation of the work of Jesus Christ; since He told His Apostles, and in their person, all His future ministers, As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you' (John xx. 21). Christ's mission was to bear testimony to the truth, For this I was born and for this came I into the world: that I should give testimony to the truth' (John xviii. 37). Accordingly, the mission of the ministers of Christ is to give testimony to the truth, to preach the Gospel, which is the word of God. As the word of God is perfect, the good preacher is he only who announces in a suitable manner, the Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel. Since the Gospel contains both dogma and moral, the preacher must explain to the faithful what they must believe, and what they must do to save their souls. According to Benedict XV, sacred orators of recent years, while generally observing the obligation of preaching the whole Gospel, have frequently ignored the obligation of confining themselves to the Gospel, and consequently have neglected a most important duty. For the sacred orator should confine himself absolutely to the Gospel, and preach nothing else. An ambassador who lays before the court he is sent to what is not contained in his sovereign's mandate, forfeits belief

in every part of it; as no one can determine when his words are his own, or when they are the words of his sovereign. But preachers are ambassadors of God sent to the Christian people, and therefore should deliver only the word of God. Should they do otherwise, they deserve to be disowned by their Sovereign.

No one can measure the extent of the harm done by preachers who add their own word to God's word. They tempt even those who are slowly and painfully advancing on the strait way of salvation, viz., the way of penance and mortification, to abandon this difficult way, and choose one wider, easier and more inviting than that pointed out by the faithful observer of this rigid precept, preach the Gospel-but a way which does not lead to the gcal, a way which ends in a precipice, and is truly disastrous. The official guide who directs a traveller to take such a road cannot be condemned too severely.

The Pope has insisted, again and again, on the characteristic of the good preacher, viz., the preaching of the Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel. The more fully the preacher attains the end or object of preaching, the better he is. Now, the object of preaching is to continue the work of the Redemption of Christ, so beautifully expressed by the prophet: That sin may have an end, and everlasting justice may be brought' (Daniel ix. 24). Hence, the test of the preacher is the moral state of his people.

The Gospel not only gives all Christ did to complete the work of Redemption, but also all He laid down for His ministers to do, to secure for the faithful the fullest participation of the fruits of the Redemption. The preacher who does not preach the whole Gospel teaches (at least implicitly) that a part of it can be dispensed with, that a part of what Christ taught to be indispensable in order to put an end to sin and bring everlasting justice is not at all indispensable. In like manner, he who does not confine himself to the Gospel, teaches (at least implicitly) the insufficiency of the Gospel-teaches that what Christ taught to be sufficient, in order to apply the fruits of His Redemption to the souls of men, is not at all sufficient.

The whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel, the preacher must preach. To preach the whole Gospel he must expound to the faithful the dogmas which flood the soul with delight, as well as those which pierce it with

salutary fear. He must teach them to admire the mercy of God, but he must also prudently steady them with the remembrance of God's justice. He does not merit to be called a good preacher, who, in order to flatter his hearers, dces not show sin in its true aspects, or omits to announce (when in duty bound) the malice and the temporal and eternal punishments of sin. Such a preacher does not announce the whole Gospel, but shows he has forgotten the command of Christ, binding him to teach the observance of all His precepts-teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you' (Matt. xxviii. 20) no motive of praiseworthy prudence could suggest or justify such an omission. On the other hand, in the exposition of Catholic truth, falsehood should never be introduced. However, the omission of a part of the truth may be tolerated when there is no obligation to speak of it in defence of the faith, and such an omission is even necessary, when, in place of a good result, a bad one would be produced, e.g., the exasperation of minds badly disposed towards the Church.

II

From the dawn of Christianity, the ministry of the Word and the ministry of the breaking of the Bread have gone hand in hand. As Pius X aimed at the bringing back of the faithful to the practice of the early Christians, viz., the practice of daily Communion, so Benedict XV aims at the bringing back of preachers to the practice of the preachers of the early Church, viz., the preaching of the Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel. There is nothing new or novel in his idea of preaching: it is the idea of the ancient Fathers, and of the Apostles themselves. Let St. Paul speak for all his fellow-Apostles, 'Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God, which things also we speak, not in the learned words of human wisdom, but in doctrine of the spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual (1 Cor. ii. 12, 13). St. Paul preached the Gospel, the things given us from God, revealed truths, not in words taught by orators, philosophers or scientists; but comparing spiritual things with spiritual, taught revealed truths from Scriptures and other Spiritual sources, and did not base them on historical, scientific, philosophical, rhetorical, or