will accept their state and become submissive to the will of God. This again is where Mr. Emmet would seem to miss the point. Speaking of the sin against the Holy Ghost he says: "If, as is probable, blasphemy against the Holy Ghost means an obstinate refusal to recognize the good, this refusal, if persisted in, must at last destroy the power of doing so. Such a state would be hopeless; the soul could only cease to be." (195.)

But why could the soul "only cease to be"? Why should we assume that the blasphemy should last as long as the soul lasts? These alternatives do not seem to me the only ones. Why is it not more in accord with what we know of God and man to assume that the revelation of the world after death will bring the blasphemer to his senses and convict him of folly? The revelation of the future world we may believe will be so clear that the sinfulness of sin will be undeniable by the sinner himself. Now we walk by faith; but there surely even the lost will have the sight of what they have lost!

But in that case, does not restoration follow? I think not. The essayists of Immortality seem to me to fail to grasp all that is implied in Eternal Life. Canon Streeter makes the distinction clearly enough between immortality which is the natural state of the human soul and Eternal Life which is an acquired quality of it. "Eternal Life is something of which we can already experience a foretaste in this world; it is a life to which death is not an interruption but rather the removal of restrictions and impediments; it is a life of which the important characteristic is, not the place where it is lived, but the quality of the life itself." This is very well; but what is missed is that Eternal Life may be lost and immortality remain. This loss of Eternal Life is hell, for it is the loss of the quality which makes the Vision of God possible. That quality being destroyed, the soul has lost a spiritual capacity which cannot be renewed. As long as it was not utterly destroyed repentance was possible, but there is a point at which the possibility of renewal ceases. Beyond that is the state of loss. It does not however follow that it is a state of pain in any other sense than that stated above.

There is no place for any theory of repentance after death other than this repentance which is the submission to God's will which must be possible for all. But this does not at all imply a second probation. That there is no ground in the Bible for a belief in second probation Mr. Emmet sees: "It is, however, very difficult to find in the New Testament any real indications of further opportunities after this life, and this applies just as strongly to the heathen who have never heard the message as to those who have heard and refused. If we do believe in repentance after death, we must frankly base our belief on something other than isolated texts." (201-2.) There can be no second probation because the souls who have rejected God have in so doing, destroyed their capacity for Eternal Life. A second probation would involve the recreation of this faculty of the spiritual nature.

Annihilation has always seemed to me a quite futile theory. It is not, in relation to the lost, a punishment, but a relief. A good part of the human race would be quite content to live as they choose here, and then cease to live at all. The theory serves as a device, on the part of those whose conception of the future leaves them with lost souls whom they cannot think of as restored to Eternal Life, and whom they cannot bear to think of as suffering the "pains of the damned"-to rid the universe of rubbish. I prefer to think that there will be no rubbish in the universe; and that there will be a place for the lost, if not in the full light of the Beatific Vision, at least in some part of God's kingdom where whatever capacities remain to them will be fully occupied.

I have no space left for more than a word on the contribution of the Author of Pro Christo et Ecclesia to this book. Her chapters deal very interestingly and convincingly with the question of reincarnation. I would strongly recommend anyone who is taken by that theory to read what is here said. There is also a discussion of attempts to communicate with the dead, which modern publications have kept very much to the fore during the last few years. Miss Dougall thinks all alleged communication from the other side of death sufficiently accounted for by tele

pathy. It may be so; but one has a feeling that the constantly accumulating facts are stretching telepathy pretty far as an explanation, unless we are prepared to admit telepathy from the dead. One awaits further evidence and also further explanation. In the meantime, as Catholic Christians, we have our own means of communicating with the "other world." It cannot be said that Immortality helps us much to a realization of the Communion of Saints though that was one of the objects it set itself to accomplish. In fact the authors seem a little shy of the subject. It is a big subject, and I cannot go into it here. But in it lies the key to much of the difficulty our authors feel about the life after death, and not in speculations intended to relieve the Modern Mind from its troubles about the doctrine of hell. It must be said, I am afraid, that Canon Streeter and his friends fail on precisely the ground where, if they had kept the Catholic Faith, success awaited them.

P

The Unity of Prayer

BY THE VERY REV. FRANK L. VERNON, D.D.

RAYER is the motion of the will of Our Lord moving the

wills of the members of His mystical Body. It is not the motion of the member to attract the attention of the Head. It is the motion of the Head attracting the members. Its end is not to unify the will of the Head with the will of the member, but to unify the wills of the members with the will of the Head.

The Body is one. The members are many. The motions of the Head direct the Body and move the members: each for all, all for each, and each and all with the Head. Prayer is therefore not the protest of isolation but the affirmation of unity. "Not my will, but Thine." Thy will is more than mine, it is ours, ours in the holy Church throughout the world, together with angels and archangels and all the whole company of heaven, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, unto the Father Almighty.

When a man is born into the world, he is brought immediately to Baptism in order that he may be made a member of Christ. He is brought to Confirmation in order that he may receive the Holy Ghost who is the Unifier from whom he receives his Christian and his Catholic consciousness. When post-baptismal sin interrupts that unity, the Christian goes to Penance, that his sin may be taken away. In Holy Communion he is made one body with Christ, that Christ may dwell in him and he in Christ. Our Lord's energy in and through the sacraments gives and increases and recovers and restores and preserves that unity with the Head and the members in the mystical Body, which makes possible a full and a free circulation of the Life.

In order that the Life may find articulate expression in the Christian, the Christian must be taught to speak the language of the Body. There is no confusion of tongues, there is but the one utterance which the Spirit gives. The language of Catholic prayer is not the language of isolated individuals of separated communities, in dislocated ages; it is the language of all men, always and everywhere, the divinely given expression of the Communion of Saints. To speak a language without foreign accent one must live in the mother country. To speak the language of the Kingdom of Heaven, one must live and grow up in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The first step in acquiring the art of prayer, is therefore to seek union with our Lord. We go to Him, not to persuade Him but to receive Him. "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." "To forsake all and follow" is the first experiment in the service of Prayer. We are to be "crucified with Christ," to "suffer with Him," to be "dead," until one can say, "I live, yet not I." It will mean a Bethlehem of poverty, a Nazareth of subjection, a desert of temptation, a Gethsemane of agony, a Calvary of sacrifice; but it will be union. An honest Christian will neither seek nor desire another way to climb up. Passions, appetites, desires, hopes, ambitions must all starve silently and die lingeringly but surely. "I die daily." The Christian must develop a passion for the Passion. A cheerless life? Millions of boys are doing

this with a smile, for the Flag. Millions of saints have done it for the Cross, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, bearing in their bodies "the marks of the Lord Jesus." The way of the Cross is the way of light. In that light the Christian interprets every change and chance of his mortal life. He classifies his experiences and recognizes his Bethlehem, his Nazareth, his Desert, his Calvary; and he finds his peace not in escape but in patience.

Christ in the Christian is the Christian's hope of glory. Grafted into the Body of Christ in Baptism he is nourished, knit, compacted and sustained in Communion. The Christ life fills and possesses the tabernacle where formerly self ruled. "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." "Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger." Christ in the Christian makes the Christian one with Christ. Christ in Christians makes Christians one with each other. All are one in Him for all are His, "that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." Christ lives in the Christian. Christ prays in the Christian. The prayer of the Head throbs its way down through the Body and moves each member. The Body is one, the prayer is one. The Christian's prayer is the Christian's response. Prayer therefore begins with Christ and gathers Christians into union with the prayer of Christ. The beginning of prayer and the end of prayer is union with Christ.

But how shall we know the way to this union with Christ? Where are we to begin? One word contains the whole message of preparation for the Christian Religion: "Repent," The Greek word means literally, "Change your attitude of mind." Change from self as the centre to Christ as the centre. "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus': the mind which knows. the eternal purpose of the Father for His child; the mind which