the pleasures of life within his
reach. Each one may endeavor to imagine his feelings, joy, and
happiness. We can only say that all this taken together is a beatific
vision for him--in the natural order.

Here we find the three acts already explained. The first is the sight
of the good king in all his glory and magnificence; the second is the
intense love which this sight produces; and the third is the
enjoyment of the king's society, and all the happiness wherewith his
adoption has surrounded him.

The application of the parable is obvious. God is the great and
mighty King who finds your soul in the wilderness of this world. To
use the forcible words of Scripture, He found you "wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."* Moved with compassion,
He brought you into His holy Church. There, He washed you with his
own precious blood, clotured you with the spotless robe of
innocence, adorned you with the gifts of grace, and adopted you as
his own child. Then He commanded his ministers and others to educate
you for heaven. By His grace, and your own co-operation, your soul is
being gradually developed into a more perfect resemblance to Jesus
Christ, who, in His human nature, is the standard of all created
perfection. But you are blind yet, and must remain so until your
Heavenly Father calls you home. When that happy day dawns, you will
leave this world; your eyes will be opened by the light of glory, and
you will see God as He is, in all his glory and magnificence. You
will also see yourself as you are, adorned with the jewels of the
many graces He has bestowed upon you. You will also see the beautiful
angels and saints, clothed with the beauty of God himself, standing
around his throne to hear the sentence that is to admit you into
their society. This sight of the Living God, and of all the
magnificence which surrounds Him, will fill your soul with a perfect
knowledge of him; and this knowledge will produce a most ardent and
perfect love; and when he presses you to his bosom, proclaims you one
of his children, and commands all to honor and love you as such, your
joy will be full. This will be emphatically a Beatific Vision for
you. you will then enter into the possession and enjoyment of God,
who alone can fill the soul with pure and permanent happiness.

* Apoc. iii. 17.

We shall now close this chapter with a beautiful extract from the
great theologian Lessius. Speaking of the three acts which constitut