The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-05 00:00:00

of the spirit.

charity.

powerful, and fruitful ; and all the affections of

he soul are harmonised and sustained in unity by

charity, which is for that reason the vinculum
perfectionis, the bond of perfection, the cincture

... ~
and the clasp by which all gifts, powers, and
graces are held together in supernatural order and

•
completeness.
Again : love is the fulfilling of the law, because
charity and sanctity are inseparably united. With
faith, hope, and charity, the grace of sanctity is
infused into the soul in baptism. One mortal sin

extinguishes sanctity and charity alike ; only faith
and hope remain. Charity and sanctity come and
go together. But sanctity is the fulfilling of the
law. And it is by charity that sanctity fulfils it.
"The law is not made for the just man," as the

Apostle says, " but for the unjust and disobedient."
The grace of sanctity has higher promptings, in-
stincts, aspirations of its own, and the heart
informed by charity and conformed to the will of
God becomes a law to itself. Such is St. John's

meaning where he says, " Every one that is of God
doth not commit sin ; for his seed remaineth in
him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."
That is, the grace of his regeneration and of
sanctity abides in him, and he obeys it. A higher
law is laid upon him. His second nature is nobler,
and more constraining than the first ; and he can-
not sin, it would be a moral contradiction, a
violation of his new and superior nature, and a
separation from the power and will of God. Such
is the effect of charity in the soul ; it is the per-
fection of sanctity ; that is, it is the grace which

distinguishes Saints from ordinary Christians. As
sanctity distinguishes true Christians from spe-
cious Christians, so charity distinguishes Saints
from others who, nevertheless, are holy. The
heroic death of martyrs, and the heroic life of
those who give themselves to the spiritual and
corporal works of mercy, derive their perfection
from charity. It is the love of God, working by
the love of their neighbour, which elevates them
to heroism. St. Camillus of Lellis, St. Vincent of

Paul, St. Joseph Calasanetius, St. Peter Claver,

. _
laying down their lives daily for the sick, for pri-
soners, for little children, or for negro slaves, are
proofs, and they are examples to us. This
_ _ .

is the service our Divine Lord is askin
of us at this time and in this land. He
died for the body and for the soul: and
around us, in body and soul, His members are
perishing. Poverty, disease, misery, and sin, are
devouring both old and young. He is calling you
to this service, each one in your place, and ac-
cording to the measure of your power—and this
Lent calls you once again with a more emphatic
and articulate voice.
The love of the soul to God is known to God
alone. Only He that seeth in secret can tell who
they are who are united with Him by a direct per-
ception of this interior union of the heart with
Him. We can only know it by its fruits, and its
chief fruit is love to our neighbour. Our Divine
Lord has made this love the sign of His advent
and of His true Church. "That they also may be
one in us : that the world may believe that thou
hast sent me." Again : " By this shall all men know
that you are my Disciples, if you have love one for
one another." The brotherly love of Christians
was this bond of their visible unity ; a supernatural
fact among men and nations always in division
and in conflict. And this brotherly love is the
source of all mutual sympathy, kindness, merciful-
ness, forbearance, generosity, forgiveness, meek-
ness, joy in each other's works, desire for each
other's success, jealousy for each other's welfare,
happiness, good name. It casts out contention,
strife, bitterness, suspicions, rash judgments, de-
tractions, with all resentments, estrangements,
enmities, jealousies, personal dislikes, whether in-
dulged only in thought or uttered by whisperings
or by audible words.
Search yourselves well this Lent, dear Children
in Jesus Christ, and see if there be upon you or
within you any of these plague-spots, against
brotherly love, and the charity you owe to your
neighbour. The outward schisms which wound
charity all men can see, but the inward schisms
which are also mortal to the soul God alone can
see. They are often secret and undetected by
ourselves. Weigh well your words, and examine
your thoughts and hearts. Let nothing contrary
to charity take root in them. This is the " root
of bitterness," which if it spring up will trouble
you, and " many be defiled." It is certain that in
the latter days faith will be low and charity will
grow cold ; and the chill of charity is the sign of
the diminution of faith. " When the Son of man
cometh shall he find, think you, faith on the
earth?" "And because iniquity hath abounded,
the charity of many will grow cold." If there be
divisions of heart and coldness among brethren,
this prophecy will be fulfilled in us. The token
Of the Disciples of Jesus will be darkened, and our
works will wither from the root. Love ," one
another with the charity of brotherhood." "Walk
in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath
delivered Himself for us." If Christians do not
love one another how can they endure these words of
the Apostle : " We ought to lay down our lives for
the brethren?" The precept of the Sacred Heart
would be our sentence of death.
At the beginning of Lent, our offerings are
yearly made for the maintenance of the two
orphanages of North Hyde and Norwood ; and this
beautiful and vital work of charity appeals to you
this year with a far more persuasive and constrain-
ing power. Its claims on your compassion are re-
doubled. The sheltering and training of innocent,
outcast, helpless, fatherless, motherless children is
among the highest works of Christian love, and
the service dearest to the Sacred Heart of our
Divine Redeemer. He has said, by the Prophet,
" Leave thy fatherless children : I will make them
live ;" that is, I will provide. He can provide, by
direct miracle of power, if so He wills ; but mira-
cles are not the ordinary course of His providence.
The course of the world is in His guidance. Your
hearts are under the sway of His grace, and your
hands minister in His stead. He has bestowed on
you the dignity to be His almoners to the poor,
and the foster-fathers and foster-mothers of His
little ones. And a great reward will be upon those
who save one of these little ones. Your angel
guardians will watch with a more tender care Oyer

you and your children, in the measure in which
you watch over the baptismal innocence, and the
Christian training of these poor desolate children.
This work is indeed necessary at all times ; for
every year the number of children left orphans is
great. It is far beyond our means of support. The
necessity of finding the means to provide shelter and
Christian education for these destitute children, is

one of our most embarrassing and painful duties. By
the private charity of individuals many are either
wholly or in part supported. Many still are left
for want of means in the hands of those who

cannot or will not bring them up in their own re-
ligion. But this, which is always a heavy task, is

made far more heavy now by two causes. First,
the cholera of last year has left some hundreds of
Catholic children without father or without

mother, and some without either. We have
laboured to the utmost to provide for them. A

fixed proportion out of the Diocesan Fund raised
last year has been given, in a large number of

cases, towards their maintenance. We appealed
in the beginning of Advent to your charity, ear-

nestly inviting you, as many as were able, to un-
dertake the support of a child. If each one of you
to whom God has given a sufficiency of means

would undertake the maintenance of a child for

three or five years ; or if each household or
family would unite together to give or to gather,

in the course of the year, the amount necessary
for the support of an orphan, our needs would to

a great extent be met. - In answer to the last
appeal many were moved to offer each to maintain

a child ; and we have confidence that many more
will hereafter undertake the same work of mercy.
The other cause which has increased the num-
ber of destitute children upon our hands is a
happier one. The Guardians of the Poor have

begun to yield to the just and Christian claims of
Catholic parents, that their children shall be

transferred from the Workhouse Schools, where
the education must of necessity be Protestant, to
certified Catholic Schools of our own.
The Guardians of the Strand Union were the
first to fulfil this act of equity and charity. They
resolved almost unanimously to transfer all chil-
dren who should be applied for to our Schools at
North Hyde and Norwood. They have faithfully
fulfilled their promise ; and we are bound to
render to them a public acknowledgment of their
just and equitable conduct. A considerable num-
ber both of boys and of girls have been removed
from this one Union School ; of which, in passing,

it is right to say, that it is a well-provided and
well-conducted Institution, carefully and kindly

managed ; and wanting only in that which it is
not in the power of its Managers to provide, a
Catholic education for Catholic children. Many

very touching evidences were shewn by these poor

children of the joy with which they found them•
selves among companions and under the care (:)J

those of their own faith.

The Board of Guardians, St. Luke's, Chelsea,
has also manifested the same kindly and just dis-
position. Other Boards, again, have consented to
transfer particular children on the application of
parents or kinsmen ; others are deliberating on
the course they will pursue ; and some, of whom

we refrain from speaking till a future and more
fitting time, have not as yet learned the meaning
of the words, " Whatsoever you would that men
should do to you, do you also so to them." The
irresistible advance of a more equitable public
opinion, and the certain course of legislation here-
after, will before long put an end to a grievance
and an injustice under which we have so long
suffered, and appealed in vain. The day will
come, and that soon, when those who have refused
to transfer Catholic children to Catholic schools,
and have mis-used the power which the law per-
mits, to bring up Catholic children as Protestants,
will desire that their past conduct may be for-

gotten by all men, and that they may be able to
forget it themselves.
The number then of orphan and destitute chil-

dren has been much increased by both these
causes : by cholera, and by the liberation of many
from workhouse schools. For the former, little is
ever to be obtained except from voluntary charity:
for the latter, as yet, the allowance for each child
is not sufficient to cover its support. A large sum
is therefore required to meet the entire cost of
maintenance in the former case, and the partial
cost in the latter. The Diocesan Fund formed last

June has enabled us to make a small grant for each
child; but for the full amount required we must
still appeal to your generosity and self-denial.
S. Helen's Orphanages at Brentwood and Turn-
'ham Green have been most generously founded in
this year.: the former to contain about 50 boys,
and the latter 20 or 30 girls.

The Orphanages at North Hyde and at Nor-
wood have already with great promptness re-
ceived many of these poor children. We need
not speak of the efficiency of these our two chief
institutions for boys and for girls. They were
never more efficient, as we are glad to attest from
personal inspection. But they are not adequate to
receive the number of children who will be thrown
upon our charity. In the course of the last year
or two the school at North Hyde has been en-
larged ; and in the course of this year a further
enlargement will be made by the outlay of a
thousand pounds from the Diocesan Fund.
For the reception of girls, S. Mary's House at
Walthamstow has been opened, under the Sisters
of Penance of the Order of S. Dominic, from Stone.
The house is large enough to hold from fifty to a
hundred children. Another house has been opened
at Hampstead, under the Sisters of Providence of
the Immaculate Conception, who at this time con-
duct so efficiently the prisons for women in Belgium
and in Rome.
For boys, the Industrial School at Walthamstow
being insufficient, a treaty has been entered into
for a capacious and adequate house; but for two
months those who have the disposal of it have per-
petually delayed to complete the agreement, and
now have finally refused. We trust, however, that
another house will be found within the next few

weeks.
To those who so generously made their offerings
to the Diocesan Fund last June, it will be accept-
able to know that, in addition to what has been
above stated, grants for three years have been made
to ten of the most populous districts of the Diocese,
by which ten additional Schools will, without delay,
be opened.
Such then, dear children in Jesus Christ, is the
work of charity to which we call you for this Lent.
It is -a work of true, compassionate, Christian love
to the least and the weakest of the members of
Jesus Christ. And yet, though they be little and
weak in the sight of men, in the sight of the Angels
of God they are the children of Him whose face
they always behold. You will be " fufilling the
law " purely and acceptably in his sight, and con-
forming your will to His will, to the perfection and
santification of your own hearts, by working to-
gether with Him for their salvation. Every act of
charity will have a double effect upon yourselves.
It will expiate the temporal pains due to your sins
after the absolution of the most Precious Blood ; it
will measure the reward which is laid up for you
in the Kingdom of God.
All works of penance expiate in this world the
temporal pain still due both to mortal and to
venial sins. Fasting, self-denial, austerities, self-
chastisement, the severity to self which the Apostle
calls " indignation " an@ " revenge ;" all secret
mortification of the body, with its senses, and of
the soul, with its disorderly affections ; the little
unknown privations by which the heart, and mind,
and will are subdued and chastened—all anticipate
and cancel somewhat of our inevitable debt. The
gaining of indulgences obtains direct remission.
But the gaining them to give away in spiritual
alms gains more, both by the act of piety and the
act of charity. It is charity towards God which
prompts us to gain them, and charity towards our
neighbour which prompts us to give them away.
So every act of charity both sanctifies and expiates.
And your compassion on these little ones, and
your self-denial for their sakes, will go up with
your works of penance, and prevail with especial
power for the remission of what is still due to the
just Judge of all.
The other effect of every alms you give to these
poor children is the enlargement of /our capacity