that I might be able to see, even from afar, the Face of Him on whose heart thou didst merit to rest so sweetly in thy mystic sleep!"

Again, since that time until this time countless souls have fed upon the Living Bread which came down from Heaven; countless souls have all but seen the Beatific Vision, all but looked upon the face of God, in Holy Communion. Since that time until this time myriads of souls have gained strength, and comfort, and perseverance, and confidence in God, from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Tens of myriads of souls have seen the Sacrifice of Calvary continued and drawn out in the Sacrifice of the Altar. And from the Altar to Purgatory there has been a ceaseless stream of the Precious Blood, bringing rest and refreshment to the holy Souls, and taking them from the waterless prison to the City that stands on the River of the water of life. The Incarnate Love of God was instituting this ever-blessed Mystery of the Altar when St John was lying on His heart.

I feel what I ought to say about this, but I cannot say it. The mystery is altogether too deep for me, and too high. The Seraphim, or

the Cherubim, or the Thrones, or St Michael, or St Gabriel, could tell you something about it, but I cannot. I only can say this: at that Paschal Supper, amidst such mysteries as these, when the Incarnate Word of God was going down into the darkness of His agony, "there was leaning on the breast of Jesus the Disciple whom Jesus loved."

CHAPTER III.

ST JOHN, APostle and EVANGELIST.

Now I will go back in the order of time to the vocation of St John as an Apostle. He was a disciple of St John the Baptist, and was that other disciple who was with St Andrew when our Lord called him. "The next day again John stood, and two of his disciples. And, seeing Jesus walking, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus." "Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who had heard from John and followed Him." The other, no doubt, was St John the Evangelist himself. But this was only the first call for St Andrew, and also for St John. They had a second and final call with their brothers, thus spoken of in the Gospel: "Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And He saith to

them, Come ye after Me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they immediately, leaving their nets, followed Him. And going on from thence He saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them. And they forthwith left their nets and father, and followed Him." This was their calling; and then He named them: "To Simon He gave the name of Peter; and James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, He named Boanerges, which is, the sons of thunder.” This name was meant to express the sublimity of their doctrine, and their zeal for the kingdom of God. We know how they preached, and laboured, and suffered, and died. But we have no writings of St James in the Sacred Scriptures, though there is an Epistle written by his namesake, the first Bishop of Jerusalem. As to St John, never has there been anything more like the divine thundering from the midst of the living creatures and ancients, and from the midst of the throne, than the beginning of his Gospel : "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things

B

were made by Him: and without Him was made nothing that was made. In Him was life." As an Apostle he wrote his three Epistles, and as an Evangelist he wrote his Gospel, just after he had come back from his exile in Patmos, where, as the great Prophet of the New Creation, he had written his Apocalypse. Let us hear what Saints and Doctors have said of the writings of this beloved Apostle. St Jerome says: "St John was the last Apostle and the last Evangelist, but Jesus loved him most of all; he it was who lay on the breast of the Lord, drinking in the purest streams of doctrine, and who alone of all the world merited to hear from the Cross the words, 'Behold thy Mother.' He was living in Asia when the heresies of Cerinthus, Ebion, and others, who denied that Christ had come in the flesh, were gaining ground. These are they whom he denounces as Antichrists in his Epistle, and whom the Apostle Paul so often and so vehemently assails. At the request of nearly all the Bishops of Asia, and because of similar messages from many Churches, he was, as it were, compelled to write more deeply about the divinity of our Saviour, and to approach the very Word of God