igures, its symbols, its "phantasms." Says St. Thomas: "From
material things we can rise to some kind of knowledge of immaterial
things, but not to the perfect knowledge thereof." The way of life
therefore, is the incessant endeavour of man sacramentally to approach
the Absolute through the leading of the Holy Spirit, so running parallel
to the slow perfecting of matter which is being effected by the same
operation. So matter itself takes on a certain sanctity, not only as
something susceptible, and in process, of perfection, but as the vehicle
of spirit and its tabernacle, since in matter spirit is actually
incarnate.

From this process follows of necessity the whole sacramental system, in
theology, philosophy and operation, of Christianity. It is of its
_esse;_ its great original, revolutionary and final contribution to the
wisdom that man may have for his own, and it follows inevitably from the
basic facts of the Incarnation and Redemption, which are also its
perfect showing forth.

Philosophically this is the great contribution of Christianity and for
fifteen centuries it was held implicitly by Christendom, yet it was
rejected, either wholly or in part, by the Protestant organizations that
came out of the Reformation, and it fell into such oblivion that outside
the Catholic Church it was not so much ignored or rejected as totally
forgotten. Recently a series of lectures were delivered at King's
College, London, by various carefully chosen authorities, all
specialists in their own fields, under the general title "Mediaeval
Contributions to Modern Civilization," and neither the pious author of
the address on "The Religious Contribution of the Middle Ages," nor the
learned author of that on "Mediaeval Philosophy," gave evidence of ever
having heard of sacramental philosophy. It may be that I do them an
injustice, and that they would offer as excuse the incontestible fact
that Mediaevalism contributed nothing to "modern civilization," either
in religion or philosophy, that it was willing to accept.

The peril of all philosophies, outside that of Christianity as it was
developed under the Catholic dispensation, is dualism, and many have
fallen into this grave error. Now dualism is not only the reversal of
truth, it is also the destroyer of righteousness.

Sacramentalism is the anthithesis of dualism. The sanctity of matter as
the potential of spirit and its dwelling-place on earth; the humanizing
of spirit through