You PREACHING THE CRUSADE (From Michaud's History of the Crusades') ou cannot but know that we live in a period of chastisement and ruin; the enemy of mankind has caused the breath of corruption to fly over all regions; we behold nothing but unpunished wickedness. The laws of men or the laws of religion have no longer sufficient power to check depravity of manners and the triumph of the wicked. The demon of heresy has taken possession of the chair of truth, and God has sent forth his malediction upon his sanctuary. Oh, ye who listen to me, hasten then to appease the anger of heaven, but no longer implore his goodness by vain complaints; clothe not yourselves in sackcloth, but cover yourselves with your impenetrable bucklers; the din of arms, the dangers, the labors, the fatigues of war are the penances that God now imposes upon you. Hasten then to expiate your sins by victories over the infidels, and let the deliverance of holy places be the reward of your repentance. If it were announced to you that the enemy had invaded your cities, your castles, your lands; had ravished your wives and your daughters, and profaned your temples, which among you would not fly to arms? Well, then, all these calamities, and calamities still greater, have fallen upon your brethren, upon the family of Jesus Christ, which is yours. Why do you hesitate to repair so many evils-to revenge so many outrages? Will you allow the infidels to contemplate in peace the ravages they have committed on Christian people? Remember that their triumph will be a subject for grief to all ages, and an eternal opprobrium upon the generation that has endured it. Yes, the living God has charged me to announce to you that he will punish them who shall not have defended him against his enemies. Fly then to arms; let a holy rage animate you in the fight, and let the Christian world resound with these words of the prophet, "Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood!" If the Lord calls you to the defense of his heritage, think not that his hand has lost its power. Could he not send twelve legions of angels, or breathe one word, and all his enemies would crumble away into dust? But God has considered the sons of men, to open for them the road to his mercy. His goodness has caused to dawn for you a day of safety, by calling on you to avenge his glory and his name. Christian warriors, he who gave his life for you, to-day demands yours in return. These are combats worthy of you, combats in which it is glorious to conquer and advantageous to die. Illustrious knights, generous defenders of the cross, remember the example of your fathers who conquered Jerusalem, and whose names are inscribed in heaven; abandon then the things that perish to gather unfading palms, and conquer a kingdom which has no end. D° ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN O NOT put forward the empty excuse of your rawness or want of experience; for barren modesty is not pleasing, nor is that humility praiseworthy that passes the bounds of moderation. Attend to your work; drive out bashfulness by a sense of duty, and act as like master. You are young, yet you are a debtor; you must know that you were a debtor from the day you were born. Will youth be an excuse to a creditor for the loss of his profits? Does the usurer expect no interest at the beginning of his loan? "But," you say, "I am not sufficient for these things.' As if your offering were not accepted from what you have, and not from what you have not! Be prepared to answer for the single talent committed to your charge, and take no thought for the rest. "If thou hast much, give plenteously; if thou hast little, do thy diligence gladly to give of that little." For he that is unjust in the least is also unjust in much. Give all, as assuredly you shall pay to the uttermost farthing; but, of a truth, out of what you possess, not out of what you possess not. Take heed to give to your words the voice of power. You ask, What is that? It is that your words harmonize with your works, that you be careful to do before you teach. It is a most beautiful and salutary order of things that you should first bear the burden you place on others, and learn from yourself how men should be ruled. Otherwise the wise man will mock you, as that lazy one to whom it is labor to lift his hand to his mouth. The Apostle also will reprove you, saying: "Thou who teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?" That speech, also, which is full of life and power is an example of work, as it 434 makes easy what it speaks persuasively, while it shows that can be done which it advises. Understand, therefore, to the quieting of your conscience, that in these two commandments,-of precept and example, the whole of your duty resides. You, however, if you be wise, will add a third, namely, a zeal for prayer, to complete that treble repetition of the Gospel in reference to feeding the sheep." You will know that no sacrament of that Trinity is in any wise broken by you, if you feed them by word, by example, and by the fruit of holy prayers. Now abideth speech, example, prayer, these three; but the greatest of these is prayer. For although, as has been said, the strength of speech is work, yet prayer wins grace and efficacy for both work and speech. I AGAINST LUXURY IN THE CHURCH AM astonished to see among churchmen such excess in eating, in drinking, in clothes, in bed-covering, in horse-trappings, in buildings. Economy is now stigmatized as avarice, soberness as austerity, silence as sullenness. On the other hand, laxity is called discretion, extravagance liberality, talkativeness affability, silly laughter a happy wit, pomp and luxury in horses and clothing, respectability; superfluous attention to the building is called cleanliness; and when you countenance one another in these trifles, that forsooth is charity. So ingeniously do ye lay out your money, that it returns with a manifold increase. It is spent that it may be doubled, and plenty is born of profusion. By the exhibition of wonderful and costly vanities, men are excited to give rather than to pray. Some beautiful picture of a saint is shown, and the brighter its coloring the greater is the holiness attributed to it; men run eager to kiss; they are invited to give, and the beautiful is more admired than the sacred is revered. In the churches are placed, not coronæ, but wheels studded with gems and surrounded by lights, which are not less glittering than the precious stones inserted among them. Instead of candlesticks, we see great and heavy trees of brass, wonderfully fashioned by the skill of the artificer, and radiant as much through their jewels as through their own lights. What do you imagine to be the object of all this? The repentance of the contrite, or the admiration of the spectators? O vanity of vanities! But not greater vanity than folly. R ON THE CANTICLES EMEMBER that no spirit can by itself reach unto our mindsthat is, supposing it to have no assistance from our body or its own. No spirit can so mingle with us, and be poured into us, that we become in consequence either good or learned. No angel, no spirit can comprehend me; none can I comprehend in this manner. Even angels themselves cannot seize each others' thoughts without bodily organs. This prerogative is reserved for the highest, the unbounded spirit, who alone, when he imparts knowledge either to angel or to man, needs not that we should have ears to hear, or that we should have a mouth to speak. By himself he is poured in; by himself he is made manifest. Pure himself, he is understood by the pure. He alone needs nothing; alone is sufficient to himself and to all by his sole omnipotent will. I could not pass over in silence those spiritual feet of God, which, in the first place, it behooves the penitent to kiss in a spiritual manner. I well know your curiosity, which does not willingly allow anything obscure to pass by it; nor indeed is it a contemptible thing to know what are those feet which the Scripture so frequently mentions in connection with God. Sometimes he is spoken of as standing on them, as "We will worship in the place where thy feet have stood." Sometimes as walking, as "I will dwell in them and will walk in them." Sometimes even as running, as "He rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race." If it appear right to the Apostle to call the head of Christ God it appears to me as not unnatural to consider his feet as representing man; one of which I shall name mercy and the other judgment. Those two words are known to you, and the Scripture repeats them in many places. On those feet, fitly moving under one divine head, Christ, born of a woman, he who was invisible under the law, then made Emmanuel ("God with us "), was seen on the earth, and conversed with men. As regards creatures devoid of sense and reason, who can doubt that God needs them much less? but when they concur in the performance of a good work, then it appears how all things serve him who can justly say: "The world is mine, and the full. ness thereof." Assuredly, seeing that he knows the means best adapted to ends, he does not in the service of his creatures seek efficacy, but suitability. JOHN M. BERRIEN (1781-1856) OHN M. BERRIEN was Attorney-General in Andrew Jackson's the country during three of the most important decades of its history. His public service began with his appointment as Judge of the Eastern District of Georgia. He served in the Georgia legislature and was elected to the United States Senate from that State. After his retirement from the cabinet, he was again elected to the United States Senate and in 1846 was re-elected. He was born in New Jersey in 1781 and died in 1856. His speeches still extant contain passages of great, if not of sustained force. He was much admired in his own State and in the South at large, and his utterances will always have a historical interest as reflexes of the feelings of his time. CONQUEST AND TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION (United States Senate, 1850) respect to the war-making power, unquestionably terri. tory might be acquired by conquest, not conveyed by treaty. There may be a continued hostile occupation unsupported by a treaty of cession, which may, by lapse of time, destroy the right of the conquered party, the right of postliminium, and therefore the fruits of the conquest may be enjoyed without treaty. In that state of things, unquestionably, as to territory acquired by the exercise of the war-making power, the power to govern that territory would be deduced from the same source. But, sir, speaking generally, almost universally, wars are terminated by treaty, and the conquests are transferred to the acquiring power by cession. The real source and origin of this power, therefore, are to be found in the treaty-making power, and its derivatives. It might be implied as a necessary incident to the power to make treaties, but it is more generally the result |