it by the door,[5] and with the
undoubted marks of his vocation. Judas's misfortune filled St. Matthias
with the greater humility and fervor, lest he also should fall. We
Gentiles are called upon the disinherison of the Jews, and are ingrafted
on their stock.[6] We ought therefore to learn to stand always in
watchfulness and fear, or we shall be also cut off ourselves, to give
place to others whom God will call in our room, and even compel to
enter, rather than spare us. The number of his elect depends not on us.
His infinite mercy has invited us without any merit on our side; but if
we are ungrateful, he can complete his heavenly city without us, and
will certainly make our reprobation the most dreadful example of his
justice, to all eternity. The greater the excess of his goodness and
clemency has been towards us, the more dreadful will be the effects of
his vengeance. _Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall
sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God; but the
sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth_.[7]

St. Matthias received the Holy Ghost with the rest soon after his
election; and after the dispersion of the disciples, applied himself
with zeal to the functions of his apostleship, in converting nations to
the faith. He is recorded by St. Clement of Alexandria,[8] to have been
remarkable for inculcating the necessity of the mortification of the
flesh with regard to all {455} its sensual and irregular desires, an
important lesson he had received from Christ, and which he practised
assiduously on his own flesh. The tradition of the Greeks in their
menologies tells us that St: Matthias planted the faith about Cappadocia
and on the coasts of the Caspian sea, residing chiefly near the port
Issus. He must have undergone great hardships and labors amidst so
savage a people. The same authors add that he received the crown of
martyrdom in Colchis, which they call AEthiopia. The Latins keep his
festival on the 24th of February. Some portions of his relics are shown
in the abbatical church of Triers, and in that of St. Mary Major in
Rome, unless these latter belong to another Matthias, who was one of the
first bishops of Jerusalem: on which see the Bollandists.

As the call of St. Matthias, so is ours purely the work of God, and his
most gratuitous favor and mercy. What thanks, what fidelity and love do
we not owe him for this inestimable grace! When he decreed to call us to
his holy faith, c