of Saint Thomas Aquinas, minus many inconveniences and plus many further advantages. Is unity required? It is found in individualness. Is identity required? It is found in substantialness. Is conation or development or transcendence or ideality or liberty required? They are all implied in rationality. And more: the whole of the beauty of personality, even according to the highest and latest canons of taste, is found there also. According to St. Thomas, the will is found there also. According to St. Thomas, the will, when exercising its highest office, when occupied with matters of faith, is the noblest faculty of man, nobler than the intellect itself. And this will is not merely a hard force enlightened by a cold intellect, but it is warmed and inflamed by affection and passion. By the doctrine of simplicity of soul it is the same soul in man which feels, thinks and wills. And the mind and will, although fed by the feelings and inflamed by the passions, are not controlled by them. The will under the guidance of reason controls the feelings and the passions, and by constant exercise improves the quality both of itself and them.

Best of all-and this is where modern philosophy hopelessly breaks down St. Thomas shows us that these tender feelings and loving affections are realised in God. God has no body and no passions. He has in Him though something corresponding to them, He has the same perfections but in a more eminent way. God is at. the same time all names, nameless and above all names. All the notes whether of the essence of a person or of the perfection of a person's nature; everything which goes to make up what we understand by an attractive personality; everything which renders it possible and desirable to deal with a human being as with a person; everything which marks him off from the lower creation everything which distinguishes the better from the good and the best from the better; all these are found in God because God is their exemplar, their root, their source, their creation and their preservation.

Our vision of them is dark and dull. That is because we are in a sinful world and are not holy. In proportion as we grow in holiness so will the outlines of God's personality become to us more and more clear. He that doth the truth cometh to the light. Then when we shall have sufficiently developed our spiritual sense the veil shall be removed from our eyes and a flood of supernatural light shall reveal to us the three Divine Persons as they are. Meanwhile we must be satisfied with that partial vision given to us in the person

of Jesus Christ. In Him were focused and expressed all the beauties of divine personality which sinful eyes could behold. In Him were gathered up and developed all the charms of human personality to the highest perfection possible in a human nature. "And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men." Through His substantial union with the Godhead He possessed a purity of mind which enabled Him to understand the incomprehensible riches of the Blessed Trinity in so far as they were comprehensible. Through the same substantial union too He possessed a purity of Heart which enabled Him to speak those riches to the world of men. Human personality had cried out for a Divine Personality, and Divine Personality had answered with a personality that was at once human and divine. Deep had called unto deep at the noise of His flood-gates and all His heights and His billows passed over us. "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporally: and you are filled in Him Who is the head of all principality and power."

New Hall, Chelmsford.

THOMAS J. Gerrard.

THE TRUE FUNCTION OF EXPERIENCE

IN BELIEF

David Barry

The extravagances to which the Modernists have committed themselves in repudiating miracles and prophecy-the hallowed signmanuals of Revelation,—and in trying to find a sufficient warrant for our belief in the experience and necessities of each one, have occasioned a revulsion against them, not only in those who owe loyalty and submission to the recent encyclical, but in those who are in any way devoted to the traditional method of apologetics. And there is a danger for those who do not realize that as a rule error is merely an exaggeration of the truth, that they would disclaim the aid of our individual experience, not only as an exclusive basis of faith, but even as a valuable auxiliary in confirming us in its profession when we have obtained it through external revelation.

Hence it may be well to consider some cases where it is specially manifest that the firmness and vividness of our belief, though not its actual inception in us, are due to our experience of the pleasure and benefit of living the supernatural life. Without Revelation, human reason and experience could never excogitate even a passable system of religion. As a preliminary to faith certain truths and convictions acquired by God's grace are absolutely essential, but once we accept the faith, we find that these truths are corroborated, and our loyalty and co-operation with them are rewarded by the working of the Holy Spirit in our souls, who disposes all things sweetly for those who love Him. His yoke is sweet and His burden light, and our individual experience and consciousness of this truth is of the first importance in the economy of our spiritual life.

And the first case I would call attention to in illustration of this fact is the loyalty and devotion that even the ordinary uneducated faithful have to their religion, not only in times of tranquility when there is no special temptation to recreancy but also when the fires of persecution are glowing fiercely. The Irish for instance, bereft of their pastors and of every kind of organization, adhered to the Catholic creed, "through joy and through sorrow, through glory and shame." Now the question arises how people in such

circumstances remain true to their faith amidst unexampled temptations to perversion. What is the bond, fine as silk, true as steel, and as enduring as human life itself, that binds them to it?

Such a bond may conceivably be sought for in four directions. In the authority of God-the motive of belief; in the principle of belief—the habit of faith in the soul; in cur experience of the transient visitations of the Holy Ghost to the scul-the illustrations and inspirations of actual grace; or, abstracting from the cperation of grace, our attachment to certain truths may be empirical-the result of cur experience of their beneficial effect on cur spiritual life.

Now, speaking theoretically, the first reason is unquestionably adequate to explain the firmness and stability of faith. For the authority of God is sufficient to make us do and suffer everything, rather than compromise one tittle or iota of the truth it guarantees. But in practice, we have to consider how the divine authority is linked with the particular dogma that may be called in question. And of course the link is supplied by a certain process of reasoning, having at one end an investigation into the existence of miracles. or prophecy, in the case of the educated, and an acquiescence in the teaching of parents or priests, in the case of the unlearned, and having at the other end actual assent to the dogma on the authority of God. Whether this process is logical and continuous throughout, or whether, as others suppose, the mind in virtue, as it were, of a kind of impulse it has gained in its assent to the præambula fidei is enabled to project itself on to quite a different plane when it gives its actual adherence to the dogma, it is not my purpose to enquire. Now, there can be no doubt that it is in some way as this we all first receive the faith, and in after life too, the memory of what we have been taught about God at a mother's knee will often keep us in the straight path in the midst of allurements into the by-ways of sin.

But nevertheless, I believe that the authority of God brought to bear on the truths of religion in this somewhat obscure and circuitous way is not an adequate explanation of all the phenomena of religious life, and in particular, of the unswerving assent of faith. Such a delicate bond, connecting us with the Divine authority, may indeed keep us in our religion when there is no inducement to give it up, when our affairs are prosperous, when we do not feel the chastening hand of God, and when we have only to go with the current. But in times of danger and doubt and difficulty, when the horizon of our lives all round is dark and lowering, and the hour of the prince

of darkness has come, we require something of much less tenuity, something that will appeal much more to our composite nature. When the frail vessel in which our eternal fortunes are embarked has to weather the storm against every buffet of adversity, rather than strike its colours to the powers of evil, it must be anchored to the faith by something much more tangible than any reasoning process or the word of priest or teacher; though these are sufficient at ordinary times to generate certainty in our creed, and secure a practical observance of its precepts. No doubt, many say that in every supernatural act the authority of God revealing must somehow be contained, but I believe that nothing but the most minute introspective analysis will reveal its influence in the ordinary exercise of the virtues.

Generally speaking then, it would seem that the divine authority for religious teaching is not brought home to our minds with that urgency that would explain our unswerving assent to it.

And I think an appeal to the infused habit of Faith-the second possible explanation-will be equally unsatisfactory notwithstanding the opinion to the contrary of many distinguished theologians'. For the infused virtues do not of themselves import any strengthening or satisfying of our mental faculties. Though of course there is a certain proportion between them, for God no doubt chooses for the higher supernatural life those natures that are most refined, most sensitive, and most spiritual, still these virtues are in no sense the supplements or correlatives of our faculties; nor do the latter experience any pleasurable excitation by their exercises. Just as the supernatural habits do not check the passions or exclude vicious propensities, so they do not confirm us in our religion or facilitate us in observing its precepts, for unlike actual grace they are in no sense medicinal.

But I believe it is otherwise in the case of the reason I proposed viz:-the operation of actual grac

in times of doubt or difficulty. For

of the Holy Ghost which constit

1v. g. Lugo, de Fide d. I N. 105 the unwavering assent of Faith to 2Lugo, de Euch. d. 14 n. 46

This seems to be the vic

of faith to the action of the virtue of Faith which is in

will, he can only refer Traditione, p. 635.