ments in bringing many great nations to the profession of Christianity.

Let but the same principle, which they bore with them to the task, return again, as a general blessing to our country; let the mantle of the Bonifaces and Willibrords, with their twofold spirit of Catholic faith and Catholic love, be caught up by this nation, and it shall divide the rivers, and open the seas before its missionaries, and shall make them the inheritors of their grace, and render this island once more, what formerly it was, a gushing well-spring of Christianity and salvation to the nations of the earth.

LECTURE THE SEVENTH.

ON THE PRACTICAL SUCCESS OF THE CATHOLIC RULE

OF FAITH IN CONVERTING HEATHEN NATIONS.

LUKE xi. 20.

"But if I, in the finger of God, cast out devils, undoubtedly the kingdom of God is come upon you."

In the Gospel which the Church has selected for your edification in the service of this day, it is related how our Blessed Saviour cast out the devil from one that was blind, and deaf, and dumb. In the words of my text, he concludes, from this circumstance, that, seeing how this wonderful power could not be attributed to any human or earthly agency, but must have come from God, his hearers were bound to acknowledge, that the kingdom of God was really, in his person, brought among them. Now, as the venerable Bede observes, in his commentary on this passage, what, on this occasion, was done in the body, is daily performed in spirit, in the Church of God, by the conversion of men unto the faith; inasmuch as, the devil being thence expelled, their eyes are first opened to see the light of God's truth, and afterwards, their tongues being loosed, they are allowed to join in his praise. And as this efficacy and power was assumed by our blessed Saviour, for a proof that the kingdom of God was indeed with him, and through him was presented to the acceptance of the Jews; so may we say, that in the parallel power of the Church is to be found a similar demonstration, that where it at present exists, there also is the kingdom of Christ.

Such, my brethren, is the topic on which I wish to occupy your attention this evening; it is but a completion of the task which I commenced at our last meeting; when, having laid before you the touchstone of the rule of faith, which exists in the

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power of effecting conversion among such as know not Christ, I entered upon the application of this proof to that principle of religion, to that ground-work of faith, which is held to be essential by those who differ from us on this head. Exclusively making use, with the exception of one or two immaterial confirmatory instances, of documents put forth by persons who have a natural interest in their respective establishments for propagating Christianity among the heathen, I showed you how it was acknowledged, that hitherto no success had attended their labours; but that, in every country, in the east and the west, the preaching of Christianity, with that sanction, and upon that basis, which their religion required, had proved abortive. I then promised to go into the other side of the question; and, from the progress and the actual state of similar efforts made, and daily making, by Catholic missionaries, to prove that the divine blessing does appear to rest on their labours, and that they have succeeded in the very field where the others acknowledge themselves to have failed; yea, and that they have succeeded, according to the confession of their very rivals.

This, then, is the task on which I am now about to enter. It was originally my intention, as I believe I hinted in the first instance, to begin my narrative from rather a remote period; I wished to commence the history of Catholic conversion from those centuries in which it is universally acknowledged that the peculiar doctrines of the Church of Rome, as they are called, were sufficiently established, to prove the identity of that Church which then sent forth missionaries with the present Roman Catholic Church. I should have commenced probably from the seventh or eighth century; but I soon found that it was quite impossible to condense even into a lengthened discourse, the facts which this plan would oblige me to bring before your consideration; and besides, however my case may in some respects appear to suffer by laying aside what I consider a very powerful support, I think that you will * See p. 147.