made us realise more intensely and understand more largely the great love of Christ in thus becoming our food; while the earnestness with which the Church has insisted on the fact that He is present not only in usu but, caeteris paribus, permanently, after the words of consecration have been said, has called forth in the breasts of the truly pious a devotion to the Blessed Sacrament of a kind quite other than that necessary for the proper reception of it. A compassion for Christ in this sacramental state of humiliation, increased as it is by the recollection of the insults He has, in that very state, received from the unbeliever, is bound to burst forth into a flame of love, which, in its turn, will quickly be changed into adoring actions paid directly to the Object Whom love for man has prompted first so wonderfully to lower Himself, and then to submit to additional injury. Those words of Sacred Scripture, "Haec omnia operatur unus atque idem Spiritus, dividens singulis prout vult," must be applied to ages and generations as well as to individuals. The faith of Christ is meant for all times. But the ever-changing age cannot produce in man bodily wants and desires without, at the same time, affecting the soul, which will call out for new spiritual helps and comforts; and one generation will therefore lay hold upon an aspect of a doctrine, not much considered, if at all, by preceding generations, finding in it the greatest help for the present need, the surest means of exciting pious aspirations, and an unfailing source of consolation.* But that peculiar aspect is not something in

* The following words on development might not be without interest when we remember that they were written by one of the most learned Protestants of the present time:-"We believe in development and progress rightly understood. Divine truth and revelation are, indeed, always the same: one, full, and final; and nothing can be added thereto. But with the development of our wants and with our progress its meaning unfolds, and it receives ever new applications. We understand things more fully-if you like, differently-from our fathers, not because they are different, but because we are different; because questions have arisen to us which had not come to them because mental and moral wants press upon us which had not presented themselves to them. And what is this but to assert the constant teaching of God?" Prophecy and History, p. 112. Edersheim.

As Cardinal Manning tersely said:-"The Faith and its traditions are immutable; but the world is not immutable, and it is the changes of the world that constitute our trials and conflicts.' Life, vol. ii., p. 575.

itself entirely new; what is new is the fact that it is seen, either because it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit to reveal it at that particular time, or because some entirely human circumstance has rendered the spiritual eye of the soul of a man more acute and penetrating. Special circumstances have, as we have said, made us realise the great importance of the Blessed Sacrament as being something in addition to our "supersubstantial bread"; other special circumstances may arise, the effect of which may be the full acknowledgment that the adorable Presence there is the restoration of that Sheckinah which of old time dwelt among men, and which the Messiah is to bring back. Indeed, the discipline of the Church with regard to the place in which the Holy Eucharist is reserved, far from arousing the suspicion that, highly as she prizes the Real Presence of our Lord on earth, yet she does not consider it to be the Sheckinah, in reality begets rather a very strong presentiment than she does. That discipline has been so changeful, so inconstant; and, nevertheless, in all those changes there is evidence unmistakable of a design. The change has been one of progress, and the progress has been all in one direction, and towards one point. Step by step the Blessed Sacrament has journeyed in its residences. In the early ages of the Church it was kept in the houses of the Faithful. The incongruity of this was seen by a later age, and the secretarium, or sacristy, came to be regarded as its proper place of abode. But the sacristy, near to the House of God as it is, is yet not a part of it-it is not consecrated; the secretarium, therefore, seemed to a yet later age to be a place not holy enough for that which is holiness itself. It took up its residence in the Church. But how different were its surroundings from those with which it is at the present moment accompanied! Its home was in some stone column built for the express purpose, examples of which can still be seen in some German churches, or in some little niche hollowed in the wall, some of which can be noticed in a few old buildings in England. It came very near to that which now all will acknowledge to be its proper place, the altar, when, towards the end of the

middle ages, it was suspended from the roof reserved in a silver dove. In these days it is universally admitted that without an altar it is impossible to keep the Blessed Sacrament with anything like the reverence which is its due. In the smallest oratory or private chapel as well as in the largest cathedral, howsoever great may be the other differences which will strike the eye, one feature at least is the same where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved we may be quite certain that an altar will be so closely placed in juxtaposition with the tabernacle that the two things are practically one and the same, although ecclesiastically the one is not the other, nor is the other supported by the one. Why should this be our idea of what is fit and proper for the real and abiding Presence of our Lord? Were a priest at the present time to reserve it, even in his own house, he would have to give some very grave reason for the action. No one would hear of its being kept in the room of a layman were the reason never so urgent without experiencing a sentiment of vivid and very real regret. No pillar or column in the most beautiful church would seem to-day a proper home for that which is our Lord Himself; and were any ecclesiastic, with a love for the middle ages, to carry out his enthusiastic admiration of those days into a practical imitation of their actions in this regard, he would promptly be suspended. The altar is the proper place to the exclusion of all others for the dwelling place of the Most High, and for the permanent residence of His glory. For what reason? Not, surely, because of the sacrificial aspect presented to us in the Blessed Sacrament, for from the time when it was first reserved it lost its meaning of sacrifice, that action having passed away, perhaps, some days before. It is there as the object of devotion and supreme worship, an aspect which the presence of an altar can no more improve than can the absence of it detract from. One only reason could have been guiding the Catholic mind, and that quite unknown to itself the Christian Real Presence is the restoration of that which God, in His goodness, deigned to give to His chosen people; and as the proper place for that of old was over or near to the Altar of Atonement, so now its

residence must most fittingly be where the great Victim of our redemption is offered up. Imperceptively have we been led by the Holy Spirit in this progress during these nineteen centuries, and imperceptively shall we be led on until we have left this precious gift in that very spot in the Christian temple which most nearly answers to the place in the Jewish one which it held so long, and where with such reverence it was kept. Its home is in the Holy of Holies, and in no other part. For no other reason, as it seems to me, has so much care, decoration and adornment been centred in and around the High Altar except to remind us that it stands as a bride adorned to receive her spouse -and that that spouse is the Sheckinah.

The time has

not, as yet, arrived when the Lamb of God will permanently take up His abode thereon; but we cannot think that that propensity which we have had ever since our religion came out from its retirement in the catacombs, which has stayed with it through all the many changes which have been wrought in the form of religious worship, which is stronger to-day than it ever was-the propensity of making the principal altar in the Holy of Holies the most beautiful portion of God's house-will fail eventually to make us see that the proper dwelling place of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is the Sanctuary, where God will again reside in loco sancto suo. The splendour of the High Altar is an admonition surely that it expects an abiding guest; and the fact that it has expected in vain for nearly two thousand years can prove nothing more than that we are slow of apprehension, or that God enlightens us for his own wise ends but very gradually; or, on the other hand, that the Divine faith of our Lord is but in its infancy, two thousand years being but a speck of time in that long and wonderful career which it has to run.

JOHN FREELAND.

Roman Decrees.

Sacred Congregation of Indulgences.

Indulgenced Devotions to the Sacred Heart during the Month of June. Decretum Urbis et Orbis, 30 Maii 1902.

Quo cultus ergo Sacratissimum Cor Jesu per Catholicam Ecclesiam tam late diffusus adhuc majora incrementa susciperat f. r. Pius IX. per decretum S. Congr. Indulgentiarum d. d. 8 Maii 1873, nec non SS.mus D.nus Nr. Leo PP XIII. per literas E.mi S. Rituum Congregationis Praefecti sub die 21 Julii 1899 ad Universos Episcopos transmissas, eum morem in pluribus Ecclesiis jam obtinentem, ut per integrum mensem Junium varia pietatis obsequia divino Cordi praestarentur quam maxime commendarunt, eique Indulgentias adnexuerunt.

Quoniam vero de eisdem Indulgentiis ab utroque Pontifice concessis, pro memoratis piis exercitiis mense Junio peragendis aliquod dubium obortum fuerit, ad illud removendum, immo ut Fideles amplioribus etiam collatis gratiis spiritualibus ad cultum ejusdem SS. Cordis validius excitentur, Sacra Congregatio Indulgentiis sacrisque Reliquiis praeposita, utendo facultatibus a SS.mo D.no N.ro specialiter tributis ea decernit quae sequuntur. Omnes Christifideles, qui sive publice, sive privatim peculiaribus precibus devotique animi obsequiis in honorem SS. Cordi Jesu mense Junio corde saltem contrito vacaverint, Indulgentiam septem annorum totidemque quadragenarum semel singulis dicti mensis diebus lucrentur.

Qui vero Christifideles privatim tantum singulis dicti mensis diebus praefata obsequia praestiterint simulque uno die vel intra memoratum mensem vel ex octo prioribus mensis Julii vere poenitentes, confessi ac S. Synaxi refecti, aliquam Ecclesiam vel publicum Oratorium visitaverint, ibique ad mentem Summi Pontificis pias preces effunderint Plenariam Indulgentiam consequentur.