SERMON BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF CASHEL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 27, 24 October 1884, Page 25

SERMON BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF CASHEL.

On Sunday, August 10, the grand and imposing ceremony of the consecration of tbe new church of the Trappist Brothers at Mount St. Joseph, near Roscrea, took place under the moat favourable circumstances. At the conclusion of the First Gospel, His Grace the Archbishop of Oashel ascended the pulpit. His Grace took for his text :— '* The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which is the least of all seeds j but when it is grown up it is greater than all herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air, come aDd dwell in the branches thereof."— Words taken from the xiii chapter, 81st and 32nd verses of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. He said :— My lords and brethren, the Holy Boman Catholic and Apostolic Church is, as we may fairly assume, the kingdom of heaven referred to in the text just quoted. Like creation, it may be, said to have begun out of nothing. Still, as did the mustard seed, it grew mighty great, by degrees, and assumed at last such glorious and gigantic proportions that it literally covered the whole face of the earth, and brought all manner of men under its salutary influence. It is my desire and design, then, to trace rapidly for you to-day, in this hallowed epot, the birth, the gradual development, the miraculous progress of the Church ; to glance at its present position, especially in the great centres of civilisation ; to satisfy, bb I hope to do, the fears entertained by certain timid souls least an evil world may possibly prevail, somehow, over it ; and, finally, to set forth a few solid reasons why, notably in holy Ireland, the further progress of the Church may be looked upon as assured, as its final triumph is absolutely certain. This lofty theme has been suggested to me by the exceptional ceremony and surroundings of to-day ; and though I cannot hope toiise to the full level of this great argument, still it •may be that I will say some things not wholly unworthy of it, and suited, withal, to the circumstances under which we are assembled here. Our Divine Lord came upon earth, as you know, for a twofold purpose. He came to redeem the world, and, with that view, to preach in it a new Gospel. He was the Heaven-sent bearer of a message of peace, and goodwill, and benediction. They who having heard this message, accepted it, were to be saved ; and they who heard it not, or, rather who having heard believed it not, were to be condemned. For thirty years He led a hidden life of poverty and humiliation, the reputed son of a working carpenter ; and tbe last three years He passed on earth were mainly spent in preaching: to the people amongst whom He lived. It was not for those then living, nor for Judas alone, that He came to teach and preach. He left the bosom of His Eternal Father out of love for all, and for the benefit of all. Being truly man, He p.is9ed away in due time like other men ; but He left representatives after Him to carry on tbe work of His mission, and to perpetuate it. With this view, He organised His followers into a visible association. " Ye are the light of the world," said He to them. "A city cannot be hid situated on a mountain." To this association of men He committed the care of His Gospel and the publicatiou of His law. He taught it to them by word of mouth, and He b >lemnly charged them to teach it to others, in like manner. " All things," sai«l H», " whatsoever I have heard of the Father I hnve make known to you. Go, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son. and the Holy Ghost." He committed nothing to writing ; neither did He express a wish, much less a command, that His law should be written, o? read by those who succeeded Him. The Old Law, a* we call it, was emphatically a written law ; and it- was solemnly ordained that it | should be read for the people, at least once every seven years. - And Moses commanded them saying, " After seven years, when all Israel come together, thoa shalt read the words of this law before them and in their hearing." Now, in striking contrast with this well-known ordinance of the Old Testament, we find that oqr Divine Lord wrote uo portion of Hid holy law himself,; nor did He instruct any of is followers to do so. Some six of the Apostle*, it is true, namely, Matthew, Jehn, Peter, Panl, James, and Jude, did, in the course of time, commit their inspired thoughts to writing, but the others wrote absolutely nothing ; and even the apostol'c works which we actually possess were composed for special purpose*, and, as it were, by accident ; were addressed eith t to a single Church or to a private individual, ani were published after a considerable timi had elapsed the Ascension of the Lord Je-ws. St. Matthew wrote his Gospel Ax years after that event, and St. John did not finish the Apocalypse until sixty-four years after the establishment of the Christian Church. The charge, then, given to the Apostles by our Divino Lord was simply to preach and to teach ; aud so the Divine Commissioners went their way to do the work confided to them, and preached the Gospel of the new Law to all men and natiom. Peter went, first to Antiocb, and came afterwards to Rome ; James went to Jerusalem, Mark to Alexandria, and so on with the other Apostles. They preache 1 the Word of God to Jew and Gentile, aud teaching men to observe all things whatsoever were commande ', they baptized them in the name of the Father, and of tbe Sun, and of the Holy Ghost. Such thi n, brethren, aa we gather from the New Testament, was the simple m timer in which Christ's commission t> His Apostles was originally executed. As He was sent by His Father to preach and teach, so He sent His Apostles to preach and tea^h like. visa. He propounded bat one law ; He revealed but one form of faith, one code of morals ; He established but one constitution, and selected but one set of commissioneifl to reside over and protect it — that is to say, He founded a Church, anrt but one Church, which we call the Catholic or Christian Church, and in that Chuivb, as being an organised body, He established a certain form of government. To whom did He confide the power of governing the Church thus constituted ? Wan it to one man, or to a select body of men, or to the people at large 1 If to a select body of men, what were to be the terms of this important commission ? Were all the depositaries of His power to be co-ordinate in rank and jurisdiction, ami if not, what was to be tbe degree of their subordination to

each other? Ho did not give the power of governing His Church equally to all ; for an association in which all would be rulers with equal rights could have no stability, whereas the Church of Christ is to last for ever. Neither did He entrust it to one individual alone, to the utter exclusion of all others, for one solitary officer, or office-holder would be obviously inadequate to the vast and multifarious requirements of an universal Church. It follows, then, that the society, or kingdom, established on earth by Christ 1800 years ago was originally governed by a select body of men, expressly set apart for that purpose, whose respective grades were distinctly marked out, and the measure of whose delegated power was fully and accurately ascortainsd. " I have manifested Thy name," said our Divine Lord, addressing His Heaven?y Father, "to the men whom Thou hast given Me." The power then directly conferred on the Apostles by their Divine Master they, in tarn, communicated to others. When Stephen, the first martyr, and his six companions were selected for the sacred ministry, the disciples brought him (Stephen), though already full of the Holy Ghost, and set him with tbe rest before the Apostles, and they, praying, " imposed hands on them, and the Word of the Lord increased, and the disciples were multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly." And, as it was in tbe beginning so precisely has it been during all the ages that have flown ever since the Apostles and their immediate successors passed away to their reward, Priests and bishops have been ordained and consecrated ; and through this agency, and this alone, by preaching and teaching the Gospel of Christ, the Lord has been spoken of and spread over all the nations of the earth. How marvellous, brethren, must have been the success of the first Christian missionaries. " I give thanks to God, through Jesu9 Christ," writes St. Paul to the Romans, " because your faith is spoken of in the whole world." "We are but of yesterday," argues Tertullian in the third century, against the authorities of Papan Rome, " and we have overspread your empire, and left nothing bnt your temples to yourself." St. Justin testifies to the same—" There is no race of men," be says, "whether Greeks or batbarian9, amongst whom prayers and Eucharists are not offered up to the Father and maker of all things in the name of Jesus crucified." And St. Irenseus, the first aud perhaps the greatest ornament of the French Church', speaking of the missionaries of his own time, tells us that " the light of their preaching was shining everywhere." They went on advancing year after year, and age after age, did those early Christian missionaries, until at length, like mighty conquerors, they boldly outstripped the boundaries of the Roman world, evangelised the rudest tribes as well as the most polished peoples, and triumphantly planted the Cros3 amongst nations over which the eagles of the empire had never floated. The proud but effete philosophy of the day, -just as now, sought to check their progress and trample under foot the hallowed emblem which, as their standard, they so proudly bore. But it was in vain. A Roman Emperor was miraculously converted, and soon afterwards the Christian religion was firmly established in the fairest provinces and amongst tbe most civilised portions of the .human race. The Cross itself, so long despised, was now lifted up fearlessly in the light of day. It was raised high in the battlemented tower and sacred steeple ; became a symbol of honour instead of ignominy, and the chief ornament in the diadem of Queens, and Kings, and Emperors. From the sth to the 11th century no age passed by without some new nation being born and baptised into the Christian name. Our own St. Patrick, sent by Pope Celestina in the sth century, came hither and preached. There was a poetic grandeur, we are told, about the religion of the ancient Irish that made it singularly interesting and attractive. The roar o( the tempest was the anger of their gods, the soft zephyrs were their breath ; and the lakes, and streams, and crystal springs were but bo many mirrors that reflected their face and figure. The disembodied spirits of persons who had fought well and fallen in battle were reputed famous and immortal and supposed to pass into higher orders of existence ; but the coward's boul, like his body, was held in dishonour, and his life and death were deemed equally inglorious. What a hold such a system, mystic but manly and impressive, must have had on. a warlike and imaginative people. Yot when P itrick preached to them the strange doctrine he brought with him from Borne they quickly renounced the fables and fancies of the creed in which they were brought up, and thenceforth became a faithful and saintly people. St. Augustine and his forty followers, ■oom missioned by the first and greatest of tbe namo of Gregory preached and taught Christianity in Britain in the 6th century, and as justly styled in cjnsequence the Apostle of England. St. Kilda converted the Francoaiaus, St. Rupert the Bohemians in the seventh •century, St. Bjniface, blessed beforehand by Gregory 11., preached the Gospel to the Germanß ; St. Virgilius, "later on, converted the Bavarians, Sc. Gallus the Swiss, St. Adalbert tbe Prussians, and St. Außcarius, after having preached, and prayed, and wrought many miracles in Denmark, entered (Sweden in the eleventh century, and planted the Cross of the Redeemer amidst the frozen fastnesses of tbe north. The great religious bodies which came into existence in succeeding ages— the Franciscans, tbe Dominicans', the Fathers of the Society of J?bus, and others consolidated ani enlarged tho spiritual Kingdom of which the early missionaries had 60 securely laid the foundation. And so, my* brethren, it appears clearly in this way, that the divine commission to ■' teach all nations," given in the beginning by our Divine Lord, has baen practically carried out through the exclusive agency of the Catholic Church, which, even on that account, lias a right to be accepted as the only true fold of Christ. Such, brethren, have been the. birtb, tbe gradual development, and triumphant progress of the Catholic Church. But now a cry comes to me almost daily, and from divers quarters, that the Church is in danger. Let us hear what this cry has to say for itself. Vice and infidelity, it says, prevail now almost everywhere, and with most men ; and that sacred code of virtue, and that body of revealed truth which our Divine Master taugut, and put in practice, and of which our Apostolic missionaries were at once the preachers and the living patterns, are held just now in utter disrepute, and laughed at as the very synonyms of imbecility. The atmosphere around us is charged with all the possible elements of social ruin and dissolution. This is pre-eminently an age of thought and of aivanced thinker?. Rivalling the folly and fanaticism of certain fabled monsters of old, the so-called philosophers

ot to-day literally make war upon God hinuelf, seek to discredit Heaven in older to prove its unreality, and preach the impunity of crime and wickedness in order that evil-doers may work iniqnity and be at rest. What do I say? Why, they actually glory in the degradation of their species, and labour to demonstrate the baseness of their own origin. Man. the acknowledged masterpiece of creation, and the reflected image in many respects o£ his Almighty Maker, is now publicly proclaimed to be a soulless, hopeless, irresponsible thing, not unlike the lifeless clod he tramples on ; and in either hemisphere, away under the shadowß of the Southern Cross, as well as in these more peopled, if not more favoured, latitudes, good and holy men are daily put to shame, and the creed of the early martyrs and apologists, if not actually proscribed, is certainly unpopular. Many of the great powers of earth appear to be arrayed "against it. Wicked laws are being framed in high and strong places ; wicked men mostly hold away ; the light of faith is sought to be extinguished beside the cradle of the rising generation; and the Chief Pastor of Christeadom, despoiled of his patrimony and his palaces, is a prisoner in the hands of Italian brigands and unbelievers. Such, brethren, I regret to say, seems to be a pretty correct view of the actual condition of the Church. Beit so; but what then? This then, that we fear not for the Church, we gladly accept the gauge of battle given to us by the world, and declare ourselves ready for the fray. I for one am not disposed to whine over troubles or even persecutions. Naturally hopeful in all things, when there is question of the Church, lam not rimply hopeful, bnt absolutely secure. To the timid and thoughtless I Bay, in the langnage of the Scriptures, •' Why are you fearful, oh ye of little faith ?" " And the rains fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat against that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock." Besides, this is what we have a right to expect, and nothing else. Our Divine Lord, a short time before his Passion, prepared his followers for this very state of things, so much so that I conld hardly bring myself to believe in the Catholic Church if I did not see that she was persecuted. "If you had been of this world," He said, " The world would love its own ; but, because you are not of this world, therefore the world hateth you." •* They will put you out of the synagogue; yea, the time will come that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth a service to God." Add to this that it is not so clear but a fair share of persecution does good to the Church. After the grace of God, anyhow, I believe that persecution helped to preserve the faith in Ireland; and I notice that in the history of other National Churches, when they were most at their ease they were also the mo<at sluggish, and that purity in belief and reasonable progress in other respects are still the characteristics of those portions of the vineyard where sharp conflicts of the secular power, and watchful competition even in religious matters, are well known almost incessantly to prevail. But, brethren, for the rest, what can befall the Church in the future that has not come up in, and tested her, in the past, ana yet the trials and sufferings of the past, have done her no enduring damage. After persecution had tried the Church, there sprang up heresies innumerable, so that to-day, I believe, there is absolutely no room for a new heresy, and the old one 3 are fast dying out. Prom the fifth to the seventh century, the barbarians of the North, and elsewhere, the Goths, and Huns, and Vandals, and others, dashed in upon Europe, and thundered at the doors and palaces of Rome ; all traces of the high civilisation of the past had well nigh perished in their track, the empire of the West ceased to be; and yet the Church, far for sharing its fate, as it should have done wer« it a purely human institution, was actually elevated by its downfall, and attained to increased splendour and stability on its Tuins. Mabomet came nexr. His fiery followers overran the Further India, coasted round Syria and Palestine, occupiei Egypt, and passed thence into Spafn, but having dared to set foot on the Christian sr.il of France, they were met by Chailes Martel near the city of Tours, and being ignominionsly defeated, were driven back, a broken host, across the Pyrenees. Thft Church again was saved. Photius brought trouble to the Church in the ninth, and one of his successors still greater trouble in a later century. Dirkness was spread over the land like a pall. The Turks threatened Europe once mure. Constantinople fell into their hande ; bnt, by God's blessing, they were finally vanquished both by sea and land in the waters of Lepanto and under the walls of Vienna. You know, brethren, what else befel the Church in the sixteenth an«l succeeding centuries. Whole nations fell away from the faith. Fren ;h philosophy polluted the atmosphere of Europe. Pius the Sixth died in exile. The last Pope, it was fondly predicted, had reigned in Rome. But, praised be i God, in due time, early in 1800, Pius the Seven was elected in the X city of Venice, and after many painful vicissitudes lired to see the triumph of the Church and the downfall of his persecutor. Finally brethren, I am not disposed to grumble or be dispirited, because, as the historian, Lord Macaulay, very justly remarks, " the acquisition of the Church in the New WorM more than compensate for her losses in the old." Away beyond the billows of the wild Atlantic a misrhty Republic has risen and been built up. Its counsels are controlled and its liberties guarded by a young and enterprising people many of them the children of our own race and kindred, and who are determined. I reckon at no distant day to exert a weighty, if not commanding influence on the direction of human affairs. All the religious denominations in that great confederation stand oa the same platform of independence and equality. The Catholic Church, consequently, being tree and unfettered in the United States, is powerful progressive, and respected. In Canada, also, the Church is flouribhing ; while in Australia, and many islands in the South Seas, the progress of Catholicity is strikingly remarkable. At the other side of the waters which separate us from the soil of Britain, the " second spring" of Catholicity has plainly set in. Fifty years ago who would have dared to think that the Catholic Church in England would be what -we know her to be now ? There cannot, it is thought, be less that three millions of Catholics in Eugland to-day. The prejudices of three, centuries ago, like the centuries themselves, are lone since dead and Buried. The history of the old Church is reverently •ad and pondered* on by thoughtful men ; her claims to respectful

gratitude are being gradually recognised ; converts of longest lineage and proudest name are daily coming to her fold ; the pilgrim's prayer and the friar's office are once more recited within her consecrated shrines, and the fallen temple of her hierarchy has been again gloriously built up. But, brethren, why travel beyond the seas, search the wide worli. for examples to show what progress the Catholic Church has made, or is making, within the mennry of living man, when we have the amplest evidence of it here at homa ? Consider what has taken place in Ireland generally for even the last) quarter of a century in all that reflects credit oa our National Caurch, cathedrals, colleges, schools, hospitals, convents, and all manner ot religious institution} springing up, as if by migic, around us j our educational establishments improved in tone, as well a* increased in numbers, and the miserable Mass houses of the pist replaced by structures of exquisite design and imposing dimensions. Whence have come the funds for this mo3t striking of mo [era traasforantiom. this marvellous and multiform ecclesiastical revival? They have come from the hands as weH as from the hearts of a giod aud grateful people. A vicious generation is invariably a selfish on-?. The truly good are'always generous Herein, I verily balieire, is to bi foaud the real secret of Ireland's munificence. We an a biUe/in* people, and, therefore, we are a grateful ani a generous people. We are gratefal to God, in the first place, for all that He his doua for us. He has not, it is true, enriched us with the wealth of this world, that quickly perisheth ; nor has He vouchsafed to maintain v? in tint independent estate which was once our pride and glory, bat of which an unscrupulous stranger was permitted to deprive us ; bat He has sustained us withal, through seven centuries of cruellest wrong and persecution, has endowed us, as a people with marvellous hopefulness and vitality, and enabled us, undar trials and temptations almost without a parallel to keep our feet at all times oa the path of religion and righteousness, and to serve unto this day as a model of probity and high principle to all the nations of the earth. We thank God unsparingly that we have never faltered ia the faith, much less abjured it ; that we are not laden with the maledictions of any race of men under the sun ; that we have perpetrated no glaring injustices ; that have we sever paid sycophantic court to the stroag and oppressed the weak ; that we have never played the part of a tyrant on the land or a pirate on the sea ; that our hands were never reddened with the blood of persecution ; and that there is no stain whatever in tbose respects oa onr national escutcheon. We thank God for all this and much more, and are grateful to Him. We are grateful, moreover, to all those who have at any time befriended us. No one ever lifted a hand or uttered a word in our defence who may not reckon oa our warmest sympathies. Gratitude runs in the blooi of oar race ; and we belong to a stock that never abandoned a friend or forgot a favour. Descendants, then, brethren, as you undoubtedly are, of saints and martyrs, and other righteous men — of those who first planted here the Faith or afterwards watered it with their blood, of the men who built up the many famous shrines and temples which cover the face of our country to-day with their magnificent but mouldering rains — good and faithful and generous people of this and the surrounding districts, there is no need to remind you of the blessings which the monks and monastery of St. Joseph have brought to your very doors The fallen and afflicted shall henceforth find here a home. To every tempest-toased soul it will be a harbour of refuge, to all a home of prayer, aad an ever-flowing fountain of grace and benediction. When sickness visits the child, the wife, or husband of your heart, come hither to supplicate and ask for prayer* o j their behalf ; when bounteous Nature pours her storejof wealth ints your lap, come hither, also, to make thanksgiving; when poverty crosses your threshold, sullenly settling down upon your floor, think of the pale-faced monks of St. Joseph who pray and labour from early morning until sundown, content with one rude and scanty meal aad a brief period of repose. There are lessons for us all here. And now there U one favour, and one favour only, which I venture to solicit from you for this holy bouse. It is your practical sympathy. See that tbose self-denying men shall never be in need. Be kind as well as reverent towards them. Give to-day, and ever afterwards, in token of your goodwill, all that you c*n conveniently afford, to help them out of their immediate difficulties. Thus you will prove yourselves worthy of thore who have preceded yon in the Faith ; thus you will reflect credit on that Church — one, holy, and Apostolio — whose birth and development I have thus far attempted to pourtray ; and thus you will have the credit of contributiag to the revival of those monastic institutions, those houses of peace and prayer, aud graceful knowledge, which in other days abounded here, and formed the chief glory and greatness of this ancient island. I bless you earnestly beforehand, for this your anticipated good work, and I pray the great God of love and mercy to have you always in His boly keeping Amen.