SUNDAY READING.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3954, 22 March 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

SERMON BY THE REV. FATHER CASSIDY. " I am the way, the truth, and the Life."— St. John, 14c. 6v. Everything around us in life is changing from day to |day. The flowers, the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the valleys, the ocean, the lakes, the plains, tho forests change. There is a transformation going on in every direction, on tho right and on the left, to tho cast and to the west, under and over tho earth. There is a transformation running down into tho very centre of Creation, and working its mysterious way high up into the farthest heaven, affecting, moving, changing everything in its onward narch. There is a change in heaven, there is a change on earth. Man, too, is changing ; man, too, is changed. God alone is immovable, God alone unchanged. He is changeless since ho is tho great centre round which everything moves, to whom everything turns, on whom everything depends and rests, He by whom everything was made, for whom everything was destined, to whom evorything in creation, everything in heaven and earth, seems eager to return. As tho bird seeks its nest, as tho patriot his nativo land, as the wanderer turns his eye to his home beyond the ocean, as tho river hurries down the mountain side to lose itself amid tho waters of tho deep, so the human soul is restless till it rests with God. Everything seeks its destiny, everything struggles to reach its appointed end. So it is with the human soul. As its destiny, as its final end is the perfect omjoyment of tho perfect good or God, and so it can never rest until it rests with Him. And as everything in creation is regulated by certain laws to roach its end, so the human soul, in its course through life, must necessarily be guidod by a fixed determined- law also. Thus tho morul law, by which tho human soul reaches its finul end, exists as necessarily as tho law of gravitation, as the law of attraction and repulsion. God himsolf is oircumscribed by the moral or rational law, and ao must the whole family of God, tho whole human race, bo likewise bound by it. This law is tho necessary outcome of tho nature of God and the nature of man ; it is the necessary outcomo of the relationship that should exist botweon them ; it is a law that never changes, that never permits a change And as G-od is changeless, soshculd thohuman soul, his image, be changeless too, and when it changes, when it ceases to be a perfect reflection, a perfect photograph of God, when it ceases to resemble G-od, it sins, it violates the law, it becomes unliko God it becomes unlike Him in its intellect, in its will, or in its love, and consequently it must be separated from Him. For where there is no resemblance there can be no perfect union. Now tbi3 is tho work of tho first sin ; this is the outcomo of all sin—that is separation from God. The first man was the livingimago of God; like Him in his intellect, like Him in will, liko Him in love. But ho voluntarily changed, and so ho voluntarily soparated himself from God. Had he clung steadfastly on to God, as he was in duty bound, had he kept that necessary law, no change would have come over the spirit of his dreams ; ho would be as changeless as God himself; his mind would be filled with the light of heaven, and at rest; his will would be regulated, his heart would ever throb with angelic love. But he broke away from God, and in breaking away from him he fell away from the "way, the truth, and tho life." Just as the vessel that breaks away from her anchor when the storm is raging fiercely over the ocean goes to destruction with all her ere »v along the rock-bound shore, or goes down amid the roar of the tempest to an unknown grave, so it was with Adam when he abandoned God, when he put hismind- in opposition to the mind of God, when|he put his will in opposition to the will of God,, when ho put his heart in opposition to the heart of G0d.... Ho came to destruction, he became a wreck when he fell away from God. Man could never bo again united to God, for he could never repair that ruin, that disaater ; ho could never make himself again the image of God, unless God should again exert his. limitless mercy and love on his behalf, unless he should remodel him and giyo him everything ho had rttined, everything he had faresaken and lost. Thus God had to ropair the

ruins of that first great fall, of that first great change, of that first great sin, so mysterious, so great, so dreadful that, only wben face to face with God, wheu ages have rolled away, win-.. we shall bo almost weary of heayon, we will not even then faintly understand. Human reason cannot grasp tho weight of this mystery, sinco it is crushed by the very influence, and consequences of that fall. But everything around us, in heaven and earth, seems to tell 113 of it—the winds, the storms, the ocean, the thunder, the fulling leaves, the passing clouds, our thoughts, our wishes, our aspirations, our love, all these rise up as one great monument to record that fall for ever and ever. By this sin tho greatness of Q-od was despised, hie glory outraged, his justico offended, impiety had prevailed. What will God do ? Will Ho exterminate this miserable wretch who has dared to raise a rebellious hand against him ? Will He cut off for ever from his glory and love this child of outrage and crime ? Will He let him run on in his sinful, unnatural career in life, and sink into the eternity he deserved ? No! Instead of hurling the rebel for ever from His presence, this outraged and offended God goes and seeks the traitor. Ho considers him still His child. At the height of his mysery the Father's heart is touched. Ho consults His lovo alone, and His Eternal Son volunteers to make the necessary reparation. To repair this fault, to lift up prostrate human nature, to raise man again to tho height of his holiness and glory lie had forsaken and lost, to mako man a"am tho Hying imago of Q-od, tho second person of the Blessed Trinity became man. Ho came as the source of all good, the builder up of every ruiu, the remedy of ovory evil. Ho came to remove what lie had destroyed, to raise up what ho had trampled down into the dust. Ho came to broatho, as it were, the Divine lifo into the human race again, to raise humanity to its first eminence, and even higher | still. He was God, and He became man, that men might find in him a brother, a physician, a friend, having a heart and soul like our 3, so that he might model our hearts and souls after His. He was born of a virgin ; he lived poor, unknown, and humblo: He was the most amiable of all men; Ho felt tho misfortune of life as we so often do ; He is sometimes heard to sigh, ho is sometimes seen to weep. When lie began his public mission all his days wcro spent in attending to the sick, tho comfortless, and the poor.- The day finds him teaching in the Temple, and the moonlight bathos his countenance,as in the lonely caverns of tho mountains he is buried in meditation and prayer. "When the time appointed for Him to offer up tho sacrifice of his life arrived, He dies nailed to tho cross. Ho dies as man, but as God 110 is still alive, for His last breath has changed all creation and shook the world to its very centre. Ye 3 that man whoso tears and blood you see trickling down that cross is God. Ask everything in heaven and earth, and they will tell you that Ho is moro than man. Ask tho Sun that covers his faco in tears, ask the dead from their graves, ask tho centurion terror-stricken as ho listens to the cry of anguish bursting from those dying lips, and bursting too from creation, echoing back their peal of sorrow, their mourning for their outraged God—ask tho soldiers at tho grave, ask tho sick Ho has cured, ask tho dead Ho has raised to life, ask tho darkness that swept over the world, ask the prophets, ask the world of the first century, ask the martyrs, ask the millions of Christendom, ask tho silent altars, the mighty tomples of tho world, and thoy will tell you that He is God. And it was necessary that He ehould be God. Infinity alone can correspond to all tho necessities of human nature. An expiation of infinite value was required to make roparation for infinite malice. Infinite light was required to dispel the darkness growing moro and more intense. Infinite holiness was required to purify the moral atmosphere corrupted by sin. His coming was necessary, His coming was expocted, His coming actually did como- He came to bring us back to heaven, and to prepare us for it by making us tho living image of God again, and to make that imago as bright, as radiant, as glorious as when it oamo fresh from tho Creator's hand. Ho came to give us what wo had lost by sin that is Faith, Hope, and Charity. Ho gave these thrco matchless gifts to His. Apostles first, and through them Tic intended them to bo communicated to all men. For tho fruits of the Incarnation, the merits of his passion and death, the truth ho came to teaeb, tho hope He catno to inspire, the charity Ho came to give, wero intended to be given to all men in all their strength, in all their purity, in all their totality, even to tho consummation of the world. Hence he left some way of perpetuating this faith, this hope, and charity, just as He gave it even to the end of time. This was the work, this was tho mission of tho Church Ho then established. Christ is then tho author of our Faith, Ho is the advocate of our Hope, Ho is the giver of our Charity. Thus He is the Way, tho Truth, and the Lifo. For all our Faith, our Hope, and Charity come from Him. He gives us Faith, that is the shadow of God's mind reflected on creation. By it our minds, arc filled with the thoughts and truths of God ; they become photographs of his own limitless mind. Faith is then tho railway to Heaven; Hope is tho locomotive, and Charity is the f]ro that drives us on to our deatiny, Take away Faith and there is no connection with God ; take away Hope and the desire of enjoying him is at an end ; take away Charity and there is no possibility of union with him. As there is no resemblance, and as fire and water will not unite, as light and darkness can never unite, so the soul unlike God being stripped of Faith, Hope, and Charity can never blend with Him in heaven. And as Faith is the road to Heaven, Hope the beacon that lights up tho way. It is as necessary aa the way itself. Hope is to tho soul what tho light is to tho eye. Take away that light and all creation is a dosort waste, no trees, no ocean, no sunriso, no sunsets, no human beauty, nothing discernible, all is a groat blank, so take Hope away and life is a vast wildernoss, a land of weoping and gnashing of toeth. Hope is tho only Paradise out of whloh wo cannot be driven—our first parents wore not deprived of it. Hope cheers us all along through life. Wo hopo to see tho old sconces of childhood when wo leave thorn for tho first time, tvg hope to sco our native land once again before wo die, wo hope to eeo our friends when they go away from us, wo hope to sco their beloved faces again, we hopo to hear their word of comfort, or to press them to our hearts with enthusiastic lovo, and when the grave covers over them we hope to see their faces in heavon. Thus wo hope all along, we hope for God. But as we wero cut off from Him by sin, so all hope was over to eeo him in all his glory, until that sin -would bo wiped away. There was no hope left till Christ look away that sin, and co gave us again our greatest hope. Heaven gave us our Charity—that is tho outcome of faith; and hope, the fusion of our hearts with tho broken heart upon the cross, the filling up o£ the infinite hollow in our breasts, filling, that dead and lifoless ruined soul with Messed lifo again. For lifo is only tho outcome of lovo. Lovo is tho .mother of life. In every order of life this is true —in the vegetable, the animnl, the rational, the supernatural, ,all life comes from love—-lovo so strong, co powerful, so pervading everything, that it is the beginning, tho end of all things; so mighty in its influence that one drop of that vital fluid weighed against creation would sweep it away as tho tempest whirls away the leaves of autumn. There is life in everything around, because there is love in everything. There is life deep down in tho bowels of the earth, lifo in the rivers and lakes, lifo in tho eeas and oceans, life in tho hills and valleys,, life in the grass and flowers, life in heaven, life on earth, life in the body, life in the soul, And that lifo of the human soul comes from tbo lovo of God ; it comes from tho broken heart upon ; the cross. There is the life blood breaking away over the human race, filling the dead and ruined souls with lifo and lovo once more. There is Faith, Hope, and Charity. There is the cross with the Savour's glory upon it. Thoro is the Way, thero is the Truth, there is the Life. Let us. then fall down and adore that brother, that physician,'that matchless friend who has raised us up from the dust, who has given again the title to the_ nameless crown, who has stamped.the image of God again upon it. And lot that imago bo changeless as thq very cause it came from, liko Him in life, like Him in Death, like Him after it in Heaven. Carry that image on through the storm of life, on through, tho tempest of temptation, on .through the Calvary of the world, on till the dying sigh rings out it ' \% CQttswnmafed,'