lsams of alms."(290)

St. Chrysostom writes: "It was not without good reason _ordained by the
Apostles_ that mention should be made of the dead in the tremendous
mysteries, because they knew well that they would receive great benefit
from it."(291)

St. Augustine, who lived in the beginning of the fifth century, relates
that when his mother was at the point of death she made this last request
of him: "Lay this body anywhere; let not the care of it in anyway disturb
you. This only I request of you, that you would remember me at the altar
of the Lord, wherever you be."

And that pious son prays for his mother's soul in the most impassioned
language: "I therefore," he says, "O God of my heart, do now beseech Thee
for the sins of my mother. Hear me through the medicine of the wounds that
hung upon the wood.... May she, then, be in peace with her husband.... And
inspire, my Lord, ... Thy servants, my brethren, whom with voice and heart
and pen I serve, that as many as shall read these words may remember at
Thy altar, Monica, Thy servant...."(292)

These are but a few specimens of the unanimous voice of the Fathers
regarding the salutary practice of praying for the dead.

You now perceive that this devotion is not an invention of modern times,
but a doctrine universally enforced in the first and purest ages of the
Church.

You see that praying for the dead was not a devotion cautiously
recommended by some obscure or visionary writer, but an act of religion
preached and inculcated by all the great Doctors and Fathers of the
Church, who are the recognized expounders of the Christian religion.

You see them, too, inculcating this doctrine not as a cold and abstract
principle, but as an imperative act of daily piety, and embodying it in
their ordinary exercises of devotion.

They prayed for the dead in their morning and evening devotions. They
prayed for them in their daily office, and in the Sacrifice of the Mass.
They asked the prayers of the congregation for the souls of the deceased
in the public services of Sunday. On the monuments which were erected to
the dead, some of which are preserved even to this day, epitaphs were
inscribed, earnestly invoking for their souls the prayers of the living.
How gratifying it is to our Catholic hearts that a devotion so soothing to
afflicted spirits is at the same time so firmly grounded on the tradition
of ages!

Fourth--That the practice of praying for the dead has descended fr