To-day I will recall to your recollection what religion teaches on the subject of the Creation and the sad fall of the first man.

On the sixth day of Creation, every thing in nature was ready; but the world was like a state without a king, like a temple without a priest, and all creatures, insensible and inanimate themselves, demanded an interpreter, who could give glory for them to the Lord. Then it was that God said: "Let us make man to our image and likeness." He took a little of the slime of the earth, a little clay, and from it formed the body of man; He breathed upon this body, that is to say, He created a soul which He placed in this body, and to His work He gave the name of Adam, which signifies man of earth, or red earth.

If Adam had to remain the only one of his kind, or if he were to have for his companions only the irrational animals, there would have been no one with whom he could converse on the advantages of his happy state, and the blessings of his bountiful Creator. God therefore said: "It is not good that man be alone; let us make for him a companion like to himself." And at the same instant Adam fell into a profound sleep; the Lord took from his side a rib, with which He formed the body of woman; infused into her, as into Adam, a spiritual and immortal soul, and gave to this woman the name of Eve, which signifies mother of the living. Such is the history of the Creation of our first parents, as the Holy Spirit has preserved it for us in the books of Moses.

You see, my Brethren, man is a being composed of two parts, which are essentially different. He is composed of a body formed from the slime of the earth, and of a spiritual, rational, immortal soul, which is most certainly, the noblest portion of our being; or rather our being is essentially the soul, and our body is but the clothing. It is by our soul and by it alone, that we take our place in the ranks of intelligent and rational beings. It is by our soul. and by it alone, that we are made the images of God. It is by our soul and by it alone, that we are elevated even to the knowledge of our God, adore, love and serve Him. It is by our soul and by it alone, that we are enabled to see God in heaven, to contemplate Him, and, in this ineffable contemplation, to taste the supreme happiness. And what is our body? A little slimy earth. It, therefore, is nothing; in the soul behold our real treasure, behold our true

glory. It was not drawn from matter, the earth was not the place of its origin; it came from God, pure, spiritual and immortal. Alas! How little do we comprehend our dignity! We carry in our breasts a soul on which God has engraved His own likeness, an immortal soul, and we carry it as heedless of the fact as the mountain is insensible to the treasure concealed beneath its surface. St. Bernard reproaches our folly, when he said, that it seems there is nothing more vile to our eyes than our soul. We see only our body, we love only our body, we do nothing good except for the body; but our body comes from the earth, and it will return to the earth, while our soul comes from God, and it ought to return to God. Take care then that you do not dishonor, and that you do not lose this heaven-born soul; take care that you do not descend even to the ranks of the brutes by making yourselves slaves of vile and shameful passions. O! such is not the destiny of man, no,—man is made for heaven.

Man, so signally favored above all visible creatures, was placed in a garden of delights. It was his duty to love his God; to serve Him by his love; to bless that beneficent hand which heaped upon him so many favors, and to look for eternal glory as the recompense of his fidelity. Had he remained faithful, death would not have come to separate his soul from his body; but, without undergoing the agony of death, after a certain time spent on earth, he would have been borne by the hand of God into heaven, there to enjoy eternal happiness. Such was the noble destiny of man, and to attain it, every means was given him. In fact, he went forth perfect from the hands of God: "God made man right;"* "He was created not to die," says St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans. No darkness obscured his mind; no dangerous ignorance, no defect of judgment and reason tarnished the beauty of his soul. He possessed all the natural and supernatural lights of which he was capable, and which were suitable to him. He was free, but his will was upright and inclined to good, with no leaning toward evil. In the heart of our first father, there was none of that concupiscence which disorders our inclinations, there were none of those passions which disturb the serenity of our souls and the peace

of our hearts. In Adam, the flesh was subject to the spirit, and the spirit might have been easily made subject to God. For so many great favors what did the Creator require from man? That man should abstain from eating the fruit of a certain tree, which was pointed out to him, a token of his gratitude that he should have given with as much joy as fidelity. But behold, the devil enters into the serpent, presents the fatal fruit to Eve, addresses her with flattering words, and inspires her with a deadly pride. Eve eats of this fruit, Adam eats of it, and both are plunged into the lowest depths of misery. Awful will be the punishment, for great has been the crime which they have committed.

The sin of Adam was a sin which included in itself a vast number of others; it was a sin of pride and of the most insolent pride, by which man, not content with the degree of honor to which God had elevated him, wished even to make himself equal to God; it was a sin of revolt, by which the creature sought to usurp that independence which belongs only to God; it was a sin of criminal curiosity, of base sensuality, of black ingratitude toward a sovereign benefactor; it was an impious disobedience, by which man, despising the express prohibition of the Creator, refused to acknowledge him as his master; it was a crime which embraced in itself every crime, since it reduced the human race to the slavery of ignorance and concupisence, from which all crimes proceed; a crime by which the first man entailed death on all his posterity to the end of ages. Adam was the murderer of himself and of all his descendants, whom he deprived of the life of innocence, on the instant of their conception in their mother's womb. The sin of Adam was a sin unutterable in its enormity, an incomprehensible misfortune! says St. Augustine. And this sin is also ours, it carries ruin to our souls, it sullies all the descendants of these first sinners: Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death; so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned."* "And we were by nature children of wrath."†

Adam sinned, he committed a great crime, and punishment fell upon the guilty. The change which was wrought in Adam and in all nature, was frightful; the flesh rebelled against the spirit, disorder

settled in the heart and in the body of man, thick darkness obscured his soul, his will became unruly, his passions usurped the place of reason and justice, and his propensities became corrupt, and inclining him to evil. He is driven from the earthly paradise by the angel of the Lord; he must suffer, groan, and eat his bread in the sweat of his brow. He lost the life of the soul, when he lost justice, and when he separated himself from God: he may be justly regarded as dead, since for him death is inevitable, and the infirmities and calamities to which he is henceforth subject, are the preparation and forerunner of his painful death. Man committed a crime which should have caused his irreparable ruin, but Thou, O my God, hast cast upon him a look of mercy. Oh! how immense is the mercy which the Lord has displayed toward prevaricating man! Learn, O my Brethren, how grateful you ought to be to the paternal bounty of your God. The angels, it is true, sinned in heaven, but this sin defiled only those angels who were guilty, it matters not, for them there is no hope of pardon, and the justice of God, swifter than the lightning's flash, overtakes them, and precipitates them from heaven into the eternal torments of hell. Man also became guilty; did God reject him forever? O boundless mercy! God gave man time to enter into himself, to acknowledge his fault, to weep over his crime, to do penance, and to recover the heaven which he had lost. O divine bounty!, man commits a crime unutterable in its malice, an incomprehensible crime, and on the very instant God comes to him, seeks him, calls him, and promises to him a Saviour who would die for man's sins. This Saviour will be the only Son of that great offended God,-Jesus Christ,-who, eighteen hundred and fifty-nine years ago, descended from the highest heavens into the virginal womb of Mary, clothed himself with our nature, and became man without ceasing to be God; who took upon himself all our iniquities, and died on the cross to redeem us from hell. It is this divine Jesus who opened heaven for us, and who invites us to follow him in the pathway of virtue, which leads to supreme happiness.-AMEN.

"And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord."-APOSTLES' CREED,

MAN, created to the image of God in sanctity and justice, placed in the terrestrial paradise, and loaded with graces and with favors, had the audacity to transgress the law of his Creator; defiled with the stain of sin, he became unfortunate himself, and made all his posterity sharers in his misfortune. Such is the teaching of faith. But it would avail us little to know the origin and cause of our evils, if we did not also know their remedy. Now this so necessary remedy, religion teaches us, is to be found in the sacred mystery of the Incarnation, that is to say, in the mystery of the Son of God made man, a mystery which we profess to believe every time we recite the Creed, wherein we say; "I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." It is this adorable mystery which will make the subject of our present instruction. Listen then to me, I pray you, with attention.

That we may conceive a just`idea of the great mystery of the Incarnation, let us first give ear to the Apostle St. John. "In the beginning," he says, "was the Word," that is to say, the Son of God, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made. ... He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

* St. John, i.