almost as well as if he read it in a book. He sees the saint dressed in
a cassock, and that tells him St. Vincent was a priest. He sees him
surrounded by little ragged children and holding some of them in his
arms; that tells him the saint took care of poor children and orphans,
and founded homes and asylums for them. He sees on the saint's table a
human skull, and that tells him St. Vincent frequently meditated upon
death and what follows it. He sees beside the skull a little lash or
whip, and that tells him the saint was a man who practiced penance and
mortification. Thus you have another reason why the true Church is very
properly called Catholic; because its teaching suits all classes of
persons. The ignorant can know what it teaches as well as the learned;
for if they cannot read they can listen to its priests, watch its
ceremonies, and study its pictures, by all of which it teaches. The
Protestant religion, on the contrary, is not adapted to the needs of
every class, for it teaches that all must find their doctrines in the
Bible, and understand them according to their lights, giving their own
interpretation to the passages of the sacred text; and thus we come to
have a variety of Protestant denominations, all claiming the Bible for
their guide, though following different paths. If every Protestant has
the right to take his own meaning out of the Holy Scripture, what right
have Protestant ministers to preach the meaning they have found, and
compel others to accept it? The Bible alone is not sufficient. It must
be explained by the Church that teaches us also the traditions that have
come down to us from the Apostles. If the Bible alone were the rule of
our faith, what would become of all those who could not read the Bible?
What would become of those who lived before the Apostles wrote the New
Testament? for they did not write in the first years of their ministry,
neither did they commit to writing all the truths they taught, because
Our Lord did not command them to write, but to preach; and He Himself
never wrote any of His doctrines. Again Catholics are accused of
superstition for keeping the relics of saints. Yet when General Grant
died and was buried in New York, many citizens of every denomination,
anxious to have a relic of the great man they loved and admired,
secured, even at a cost, small pieces of wood from his house, of cloth
from his funeral car, a few leaves or a little sand from his tomb. Now,
if it was