conclusions of Aristotle were accepted and explained by
theology. Already, in the popular histories, those who were infected by
disease were said to be bound by Satan; madness was a 'possession' by
the Evil Spirit; and the whole creation, from Adam till Christ, groaned
and travailed under Satan's power. The nobler nature in man still made
itself felt; but it was a slave when it ought to command. It might will
to obey the higher law, but the law in the members was over-strong for
it and bore it down. This was the body of death which philosophy
detected but could not explain, and from which Catholicism now came
forward with its magnificent promise of deliverance.

The carnal doctrine of the sacraments, which Protestants are compelled
to acknowledge to have been taught as fully in the early Church as it is
now taught by the Roman Catholics, has long been the stumbling-block to
modern thought. It was the very essence of the original creed. Unless
the body could be purified, the soul could not be saved; because from
the beginning, soul and flesh were one man and inseparable. Without his
flesh, man was not, or would cease to be. But the natural organisation
of the flesh was infected with evil, and unless organisation could begin
again from a new original, no pure material substance could exist at
all. He, therefore, by whom God had first made the world, entered into
the womb of the Virgin in the form (if I may with reverence say so) of a
new organic cell; and around it, through the virtue of his creative
energy, a material body grew again of the substance of his mother, pure
of taint and clean as the first body of the first man was clean when it
passed out under his hand in the beginning of all things. In Him thus
wonderfully born was the virtue which was to restore the lost power of
mankind. He came to redeem man; and, therefore, He took a human body,
and He kept it pure through a human life, till the time came when it
could be applied to its marvellous purpose. He died, and then appeared
what was the nature of a material human body when freed from the
limitations of sin. The grave could not hold it, neither was it possible
that it should see corruption. It was real, for the disciples were
allowed to feel and handle it. He ate and drank with them to assure
their senses. But space had no power over it, nor any of the material
obstacles which limit an ordinary power. He willed, and his body obeyed.
He was here, He was there. H