Catholic society during ages of faith, militant, not triumphant, in communion with God suffering on earth, afflicted, therefore, in great labours, in perils amidst false brethren, infirm on beholding infirmity, burning at the scandal daily witnessed, having to endure many things, to deplore many things, but notwithstanding all disorders, and all the vicissitudes and calamities incident to its mighty struggle so glorious and so just.

In this argument we have only followed the course adopted by philosophers in their study of the sciences, who, from a multitude of observations made at different intervals, arrive at their conclusion respecting the general laws of all physical phenomena. If single observations should give a result slightly different from that to which the generality lead, they conclude, without hesitation, that the fault is theirs, the error in their observation, and that the even line is the general law; so have we determined the direct movement of the middle ages in relation to the sun of justice, from a series of observations, the inequality and errors of which, taken separately, are compensated by their accumulation.

In conclusion, it falls not to the historian's office to show how the third object of the hunger after justice, which is that of glory, which the blessed suffer in celestial glory, in whom is always the desire, not penal of what is absent, but beatifie of what is present, was fulfilled to the generations past, for that would lead him beyond the limits of earth and time, to speak of things heavenly and eternal. It will be sufficient to hear a Bernardine of Sienna, briefly declare what hunger and fulness must have been theirs, when he says, that, "in the intelligence there will be a thirst after the divine vision, which will be satiated by seeing God; in the memory a thirst after divine security, satisfied by the promise of possessing God, and all things in God for ever, according to the words of Christ, 'et gaudium vestrum nemo tollet a vobis;' and in the will a thirst after divine love, which will be satiated in beholding the end of all consummation in the act of the will, to which as nobler than that of the intelligence, is annexed the joy of inebriation from the fulness of his house and from the torrent of

his pleasure. Thus are we to understand the last sounds-'non esurient neque sitient amplius.""

As swimmers are often carried down with the stream a long way before they can reach the shore, so have I suffered myself to be borne along by this discourse. Yet I have not indulged in any wanton digressions, but the force of the subject itself carried me away; and if I should have returned to things that had been before considered in relation to the meek, their no less intimate connection with justice compelled me to do so. It was one on which it was difficult to speak passably well; for he that had acquaintance with it will think that I have not said enough, and he who has no knowledge of it will suppose that I have been guilty of exaggeration. Moreover, the knowledge of such histories and monuments as have been cited here, belongs not to all men alike, for as Clemens Alexandrinus says, "Some men only see the body of the writing, the letters, and names, as it were, the body of Moses, but others discern the mind and thoughts which are conveyed under these names. They see, as it were, the angels that co-operated with Moses." But, for the sixth vision hasteneth to an end, here break we off, content with the general impressions which must have been produced by this vast spectacle, without seeking at the end to present any other recapitulation but what may be gathered from the indistinct, blissful sounds-the short transcendent fragments proclaiming an eternal victory, that seem to float around us. How could we coolly return to review and analyse with the art of a cautious and ambitious rhetorician, the pageantry of heaven's grace which we have in a manner partially beheld! 'Domine, domine noster: quam admirable est nomen tuum in universa terra!" Reader, you have in these words the recapitulation, the best epitome of the whole argument. The vision dies as it were away, and yet the sense of sweet that sprang from it still remaineth in the heart. As we close this book, which tells of the long thirst appeased, methinks a song angelical is heard, and holy, holy, holy, accordant with the just triumphant, a renovated world sings.

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Stromat. Lib. VI. c. 15.