its condescension to man through the making of his
body and all created things its earthly tabernacle, give, when carried
out into logical development, a meaning to life, a glory to the world,
an elucidation of otherwise unsolvable mysteries, and an impulse toward
noble living no other system can afford. It is a real philosophy of
life, a standard of values, a criterion of all possible postulates, and
as its loss meant the world's peril, so its recovery may mean its
salvation.

Now as the philosophy of Christianity is purely and essentially
sacramental, so must be the operation of God through the Church. This
"Body of Christ" on earth is indeed a fellowship, a veritable communion
of the faithful, whether living or dead, but it is also a divine
organism which lives, and in which each member lives, not by the
preaching of the Word, not even by and through the fellowship in living
and worship, but through the ordained channels of grace known as the
Sacraments. In accordance with the sacramental system, every material
thing is proclaimed as possessing in varying degree sacramental
potentiality, while seven great Sacraments were instituted to be, each
after its own fashion, a special channel for the inflowing of the power
of the Divine Actuality. Each is a symbol, just as so many other created
things are, or may become, symbols, but they are also _realities,_
veritable media for the veritable communications of veritable divine
grace. Here is the best definition I know, that of Hugh of St. Victor.
"A sacrament is the corporeal or material element set out sensibly,
representing from its similitude, signifying from its institution, and
containing from its sanctification, some invisible and spiritual grace."
This is the unvarying and invariable doctrine of historic Christianity,
and the reason for the existence of the Church as a living and
functioning organism. The whole sacramental system is in a sense an
extension, in time, of the Redemption, just as one particular Sacrament,
the Holy Eucharist, is also in a sense an extension of the Incarnation,
as it is also an extension, in time, of the Atonement, the Sacrifice of
Calvary.

The Incarnation and the Redemption are not accomplished facts, completed
nineteen centuries ago; they are processes that still continue, and
their term is fixed only by the total regeneration and perfecting of
matter, while the Seven Sacraments are the chiefest amongst an infinity
of sacramental proce