eir
sun-burnt cheeks, "How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! My
soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my
flesh have rejoiced in the living God."(69) They saw around them the
paintings of familiar Saints whom they had been accustomed to reverence
from their youth. They saw the baptismal font and the confessionals. They
beheld the altar and the altar-rails where they received their Maker. They
observed the Priest at the altar in his sacred vestments. They saw a
multitude of worshipers kneeling around them, and they felt in their heart
of hearts that they were once more among brothers and sisters, with whom
they had "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all."

Everywhere a Catholic is at home. Secret societies, of whatever name, form
but a weak and counterfeit bond of union compared with the genuine
fellowship created by Catholic faith, hope and charity.

The Roman Catholic Church, then, exclusively merits the title of Catholic,
because her children abound in every part of the globe and comprise the
vast majority of the Christian family.

God forbid that I should write these lines, or that my Catholic readers
should peruse them in a boasting and vaunting spirit. God estimates men
not by their numbers, but by their intrinsic worth. It is no credit to us
to belong to the body of the Church Catholic if we are not united to the
soul of the Church by a life of faith, hope and charity. It will avail us
nothing to be citizens of that Kingdom of Christ which encircles the
globe, unless the Kingdom of God is within us by the reign of the Holy
Spirit in our hearts.

One righteous soul that reflects the beauty and perfections of the Lord,
is more precious in His sight than the mass of humanity that has no
spiritual life, and is dead to the inspirations of grace.

The Patriarch Abraham was dearer to Jehovah than all the inhabitants of
the corrupt city of Sodom.

Elias was of greater worth before the Almighty than the four hundred
prophets of Baal who ate at the table of Jezabel.

The Apostles with the little band of disciples that were assembled in
Jerusalem after our Lord's ascension, were more esteemed by Him than the
great Roman Empire, which was seated in darkness and the shadow of death.

While we rejoice, then, in the inestimable blessing of being incorporated
in the visible body of the Catholic Church, whose spiritual treasures are
inexhaustible, let us rejoice