ural
mental conception. Such, over and above natural pity, is the superadded
weight which fixes the unstable will and maintains the soul permanently
in a state of abnegation.--At Paris, in the two halls of the Prefecture
of Police, where prostitutes and female thieves remain for a day or two
in provisional confinement, the "Sisters" of "Marie-Joseph," obliged by
their vows to live constantly in this sewer always full of human dregs,
sometimes feel their heart failing them; fortunately, a little chapel is
arranged for them in one corner where they retire to pray, and in a few
minutes they return with their store of courage and gentleness again
revived.--Father Etienne, superior of the "Lazarists" and of the
"Filles de Saint-Vincent de Paule," with the authority of long
experience, very justly observed to some foreign visitors,[5315] "I have
given you the details of our life, but I have not told you the secret
of it. This secret, here it is--it is Jesus Christ, known, loved, and
served in the Eucharist."

II. Evolution of the Catholic Church.

The mystic faculty.--Its sources and works.--Evangelical
Christianity.--Its moral object and social effect.--Roman
Christianity.--Development of the Christian idea in the
West.--Influence of the Roman language and law.--Roman
conception of the State.--Roman conception of the Church.

In the thirteenth century, to the communicant on his knees about
to receive the sacrament, the Host often faded out of sight; it
disappeared, and, in its place, appeared an infant or the radiant
features of the Savior and, according to the Church doctors, this was
not an illusion but an illumination.[5316] The veil had lifted, and the
soul found itself face to face with its object, Jesus Christ present in
Eucharist. This was second sight, infinitely superior in certainty and
reach to the former, a direct, full view granted by grace from above,
a supernatural view.--By this example, which is an extreme case, we
comprehend in what faith consists. It is an extraordinary faculty
operating alongside of and often in conjunction with our natural
faculties; over and above things as our observation naturally presents
them to us, it reveals to us a beyond, a majestic, grandiose world, the
only one truly real and of which ours is but the temporary veil. In the
depths of the soul, much below the superficial crust of which we have
any conscience,[5317] impressions have accumulated l