old man, I believe in it. Do you hear? I believe in it absolutely. But
Catholic doctrine, which is the sum of humanity's knowledge of God and
than which nothing more can be known of God until we see Him face to
face, insists upon good works, demanding as it were a practical
demonstration to the rest of the world of the grace of God within you.
You remember St. Paul? _Faith, Hope, and Love. But the greatest of these
is Love._ The greatest because the least individual. Faith will move
mountains, but so will Love. That's the trouble with so many godly
Protestants. They are inclined to stay satisfied with their own
godliness, although the best of them like the Quakers are examples that
ought to make most of us Catholics ashamed of ourselves. And one thing
more, old man, before we get off this subject, don't forget that your
experience is a mercy accorded to you by the death of our Lord Jesus
Christ. You owe to His infinite Love your new life. What was granted to
you was the visible apprehension of the fact of Holy Baptism, and don't
forget St. John the Baptist's words: _I indeed baptize you with water
unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I. He
shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: whose fan is in
his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat
into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire._
Those are great words for you to think of now, and during this long
Trinitytide which is symbolical of what one might call the humdrum of
religious life, the day in day out sticking to it, make a resolution
never to say mechanically _The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the
love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all
evermore. Amen._ If you always remember to say those wonderful words
from the heart and not merely with the lips, you will each time you say
them marvel more and more at the great condescension of Almighty God in
favouring you, as He has favoured you, by teaching you the meaning of
these words Himself in a way that no poor mortal priest, however
eloquent, could teach you it. On that night when you watched beside the
glow-worm at the sea's edge the grace of our Lord gave you an
apprehension, child as you were, of the love of God, and now once more
the grace of our Lord gives you the realization of the fellowship of the
Holy Ghost. I don't want to spoil your wonderful experience with my
parsonic discoursing; but, Mar