witness, or like the Jews who sought to kill
Lazarus, lest his resurrection should be a testimony in favor of Christ,
and pretended that the two books of Machabees were apocryphal. And yet
they have precisely the same authority as the Gospel of St. Matthew or any
other portion of the Bible, for the canonicity of the Holy Scriptures
rests solely on the authority of the Catholic Church, which proclaimed
them inspired.

But even admitting, for the sake of argument, that the Books of Machabees
were not entitled to be ranked among the canonical Books of Holy
Scripture, no one, at least, has ever denied that they are truthful
historical monuments, and as such that they serve to demonstrate that it
was a prevailing practice among the Hebrew people, as it is with us, to
offer up prayers and sacrifices for the dead.

Second--When our Savior, the Founder of the New Law, appeared on earth, He
came to lop off those excrescences which had grown on the body of the
Jewish ecclesiastical code, and to purify the Jewish Church from those
human traditions which, in the course of time, became like tares mixed
with the wheat of sound doctrine. For instance, He condemns the Pharisees
for prohibiting the performance of works of charity on the Sabbath day,
and in the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew He cites against them a
long catalogue of innovations in doctrine and discipline.

But did our Lord, at any time, reprove the Jews for their belief in a
middle state, or for praying for the dead, a practice which, to His
knowledge, prevailed among the people? Never. On the contrary, more than
once both He and the Apostle of the Gentiles insinuate the doctrine of
purgatory.

Our Savior says: "Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man it
shall be forgiven him. But he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost it
shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to
come."(283) When our Savior declares that a sin against the Holy Ghost
shall not be forgiven in the next life, He evidently leaves us to infer
that there are some sins which will be pardoned in the life to come. Now
in the next life, sins cannot be forgiven in heaven, for, nothing defiled
can enter there; nor can they be forgiven in hell, for, out of hell there
is no redemption. They must, therefore, be pardoned in the intermediate
state of Purgatory.

St. Paul tells us that "every man's work shall be manifest" on the Lord's
day. "The fire shall try every man'