exaggeration of a few imagined facts would assume uniformly this very peculiar shape? In truth there are only two sufficient explanations of the phenomenon, which can even be imagined. One of these is, that the four narratives were invented by persons endowed with an exquisite sense of artistic fitness; the other is, that the narratives were not invented at all, but are a report of divers events which actually took place. Now the former supposition under circumstances is unspeakably absurd.

However (as we have said more than once) the direct historical proof of the Resurrection is to occupy us on a future occasion. And the thesis, which we shall then maintain, may be thus stated. Those historical facts, which are regarded by all the world as absolutely certain, may be divided nevertheless into two classes: they are either public and patent facts, or facts which cannot in the same sense be so called. Of the former class (to make a very miscellaneous selection) are the condemnation of Socrates; the deposition of our Richard II.; the Battle of Waterloo. Of the latter class are certain other facts, more or less connected with the former: such as Socrates's swallowing hemlock in prison; or Richard II.'s murder in Pomfret Castle; or Napoleon's death at St. Helena. The Crucifixion belongs to the former of these classes, the Resurrection (we admit) only to the latter. But what we shall maintain is, that (regarded in the mere light of historical evidence) it is a fact absolutely and entirely certain as certain as those three facts in secular history, which we have mentioned as of the second class. Its truth-we shall contend-cannot be consistently called into question by any one, who is not prepared to reconstruct, on revolutionized principles, the whole past history of the world.

ART. III.-F. BAKER'S "SANCTA SOPHIA."

Sancta Sophia; or, Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation, &c. By the Ven. Father AUGUSTIN BAKER. Edited by the Very Rev. Dom. NORBERT SWEENEY, D.D. London: Burns & Oates. 1876.

Sanctæ Gertrudis Magna "Legatus Divina Pietatis"; accedunt ejusdem "Exercitia." Curâ et operâ Solesmensium O. S. B. Monachorum. Pictavii: H. Oudin. 1875.

N our last number we gave a short notice of these two We now return to them, and principally to "Sancta Sophia," in order to make a few remarks which are suggested by their reappearance at the moment. It is with a sense of extreme difficulty that any one can venture in a review to speak on the subjects on which they treat. "Sancta Sophia" has for its second title "Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation." The "Legatus" of S. Gertrude is the very practice and experience of which Father Baker propounds the theory. Each book is full of wise advice on nearly every subject of Christian ethics and of supernatural asceticism; but the great word "contemplation" dominates the pages of both, adding a sublime purpose to every detail, and ranging the well-known topics of the spiritual life as troops and ministers are ranged to await their sovereign, all of them goodly and brilliant to look upon, yet clearly meant to greet the queen who is coming, and to hold themselves altogether at her word and service. Contemplation is the queen and sovereign act among all the acts of the heart of man. For the perfect flower of the heart is the act of charity; and contemplation is charity or love when it is actual, constant, pure, and flowing under the pressure of the Holy Spirit as the blood flows from the trodden grape. Contemplation is not ordinary prayer. Yet it is not one of those extraordinary gifts which humble souls may not aspire to. It is the very aim of the teaching of Father Baker and of his school, that "extraordinary" prayer should be an ordinary state for Christian souls; for priests, for religious, for devout seculars, and for the poor and unlearned who love God with all their heart. It is true that few arrive at the true "interior" prayer until after many years of patient exercise. But still, in the sense that, with due perseverance and by God's help, it will come at last, we may say that it is "ordinary." It is thus that it differs from ecstasy,

rapture, visions, and other miraculous supernatural favours. These no one has a right to aspire to or expect.

If there is a subject in which it is difficult to draw a line between the ordinary and the extraordinary, that subject is prayer. Prayer, in one sense, is the most ordinary of human impulses. Given a human understanding, and the knowledge of a Supreme Being, and prayer seems to follow like a conclusion follows its premises. Yet prayer, which shall be meritorious unto life everlasting, or which shall be even the beginning of sanctification, is so completely beyond the power of unassisted nature that the Pillar of Fire in the Desert, as it watched over the tents of Israel, was not so high a work of God as one little prayer. But again, prayer, like the whole kingdom of states and operations which come under the name of grace, is not extraordinary, but ordinary. It is wonderful and supernatural, but ordinary. Grace does not necessarily imply miracle. Yet the operations of grace are sometimes miraculous; and there are miraculous states of prayer. But what is miraculous or extraordinary prayer? Prayer is intercourse with God; and when we consider the means and instruments of intercourse with which our souls are furnished-the Three Theological Virtues and the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit-it seems difficult to say where our "ordinary" intercourse stops and the "extraordinary" comes in. Whatever a man can note by his eyes, his ears, or his other senses, is said to be known to him in a natural and ordinary manner; and the powers and gifts which accompany the indwelling of the Holy Ghost within us are as much as a new set of spiritual and supernatural faculties-eyes to see God, ears to hear His voice, perception to thrill at His Presence. The unimpeded play of the infused "habits" and virtues of the soul must necessarily lead to very high results. The mastership and guidance of the indwelling Spirit, if it be active, and not stifled, or obstructed by clinging affections and unworthy laxity, must necessarily set scholars to sublime lessons. Yet the teaching of the Great Master of the heart follows in a remarkable manner ascertained psychological laws. It is true that we must never forget that, as the briefest sigh of a sinner for forgiveness is supernatural, so the whole progress of the "art" of prayer is supernatural, and depends on the ever-present help of God. Yet because this help, or grace, is always ready, and (up to a certain, not easily determined, point) a matter upon which man may calculate with practical certainty, we may proceed in our speculation concerning prayer almost as if it were a natural art, depending for its perfection upon the energy of the human will in asceticism

and concentration. Not that any one can ever advance in prayer unless, amongst other things, he is fully impressed that God alone can give him the gift of prayer. But the laws of God's gifts and of His grace have become, as a fact, not as a right, the laws of the human soul, when the soul is regenerate. We are a "new creation," by no merit of ours; but being a new creation, we live under new and higher law.

But the "art" of prayer differs in a very important way from all other intellectual arts. A thinker reaches novel and lofty results by "speculation," that is, in-looking. He either concentrates himself in analysis, and, by stripping off attribute after attribute, comes upon primitive ideas and discovers the well-springs of rivers of thought, or he glances round the field of phenomena, and by a kind of intuition, which is the effect of a quick and trained imagination inspired by intellectual force, he lights upon a brilliant synthesis and formulates a law where other minds have seen only facts. His work ends with seeing and knowing. There is a sense in which he "loves" the truth which it is given him to see. But his cold respect for law or fact is no more real "love" than is his attachment to his money or his property. It is only speculation on persons which draws the heart to love or hate. And speculation on persons, in their individual capacity, is not art, though it is a frequent impulse. But there is one Personal Being whom to know and to love is the highest and the absolute art. It is called in technical language, Religion. It supposes an intellectual training, and passes on to be an attitude of the heart. Prayer is the act of religion, as every art has its proper activity. The ancient and accepted definition of prayer, gathered by S. John Damascene from S. Gregory the theologian, is "the lifting up of the mind to God." This lifting up signifies an operation in which the whole mind takes part. God is a truth and a fact, and He is the supreme God of our hearts. Therefore, He must be not merely known but loved with all the force our souls have in them.

Like every art, or virtue (for virtue is, psychologically, a sacred art, or habitual endowment), prayer, or more properly, religion, of which prayer is the act, grows by being exercised. A single prayer does not make a man of prayer, any more than the picking out of a single tune makes a musician. The ease, rapidity, and consummate perfection of operation which are the direct consequences of the possession of an art or a

The principal interior "acts" of the virtue of religion are considered by S. Thomas Aquinas to be devotion and prayer (2, 2, q. lxxxii). In the text the word "prayer" includes what is scholastically termed "devotion."

virtue are only attained by long practice-except where a virtue is infused from on high. Thus the power of seeing God and of clinging to Him by the heart is one which, whether it be strong or weak when it first begins as an impulse, may grow and strengthen indefinitely as it passes into an art. This is a trite truth; but most men have no consciousness of it. Even good men, who advert to the presence of God, do so for the most part spasmodically and by flashes. They see Him for the moment, and elevate their heart to Him with greater or less intensity; but what they do not comprehend is that a steady and methodical " spiritual discipline" (as Cassian calls it) might raise their brief, evanescent activity to a sustained prayer as much higher and more worthy, as the Transfiguration of Raffaelle is greater than his first attempts at drawing. They see, perhaps, that they might pray oftener, but they do not see that their prayer might be lifted into a higher sphere.

For there is no doubt that prayer is a spiritual discipline. Its highest state is when the soul is fully intent on God, gazing and loving. And to attain this perfect state, four things are chiefly requisite. We must rid ourselves of the importunate intrusion of other sights and thoughts; we must have our spiritual activity stirred by a sensitive appreciation of the value of the world out of sight; we must be familiar with the infinite richness of the many-sided idea which is God; and we must love God. Each member of this analysis is an art in itself, and has to be learnt as an art. The first suggests voluminous treatises and much up-hill work. It brings up the hard words mortification, detachment, solitude, and silence, and puts us in mind of many stern practices and much unpleasant self-discipline. The teaching of the desert used to be, that a man, in order to pray, in the highest sense of that word, must be purged from all vice and sober from all passion. It was not enough to keep the Ten Commandments, and to avoid the seven deadly sins. If a man took more thought for this life than was necessary to keep him alive, he was not pure enough for the highest prayer. If he scraped together two coins when one would have kept him, if he hoarded a third tunic when two were enough, if, having buried himself in the desert, he troubled himself too anxiously about the poor hut that was to keep the sun from his head, he was not detached enough for the highest prayer; and to a spiritual eye, the demon himself, in the shape of an Ethiopian or otherwise, was at his elbow to suggest these things, and so keep down his heart to the earth. This was that watch and ward over the heart which the old writers taught Father Baker. The following eloquent passage is interesting :