at the same time, the glorious doctrine of Transubstantiation; and, when I open the pages of the said Bible, I find it most luminously staring me in the face, so as not by any possibility to be mistaken in its meaning. No; Christ, our blessed Saviour, was not such an idle squanderer of words, as Protestants would make him!

than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers." Now, with. out the least dread of such a denun ciation, or the least pause to consider its force and validity, I have said over and over again, that the fathers are all unanimous on Transubstantiation; that all, without one single exception, all unite, all vie with one another in expressing in the most On the other hand, had the sacred clear, forcible, emphatic, energetic, evangelist occupied a whole chapter unambiguous language, the grand in repeating "I am the door," "I tenet of Catholicity for which I am am the vine," and so on, in repeat- contending; and among these, none ing it, I say, over and over again, more powerfully, none more signifiwith ever-increasing force, and ear-cantly, than the great St. Augustine, nestness of inculcation, so as to two extracts from whom my learned induce me to think for a moment friend has read to you; and though, that Christ meant not to allegorize, from his knowledge of the classics, I candidly confess my senses would he understands the words thobe bewildered; I should not know roughly, he does not seem to have the meaning of his words: I should penetrated into the meaning, the be totally at a loss to conjecture idea, to be conveyed by them. Intheir possible application to any deed, I will venture to assert, and I thing within the grasp of human hope to do it without giving offence, intelligence. When our blessed that my rev. opponent is not deeply Saviour says, "I am the door,” “I conversant with the works of St. am the vine," I understand the Austin. I beg the gentleman's meaning now as I understood when pardon, but I cannot but suspect, I read it in my childhood; it is that he has not read him deeply, so still at one glance, as it was then-as to be able to explain particular too obvious to cause the hesitation passages, by conferring them with of a moment as to its reference and innumerable others clearly explica. intended analogy. To be short, it is tive of their meaning. a trivial argument pompously and verbosely insisted on by my learned antagonist, but by no means worthy of a grave and serious answer.

Let me, therefore, proceed to matter, in my humble opinion, much more worthy of our consideration. I shall first, however, before I come to enter upon it, endeavour to do away with the force of an objection urged against me by my learned friend as to my mode of interpreting Scripture, which, as he contends, is not to be allowed me, at least according to the creed of Pope Pius. I am not permitted, says my rev. antagonist," to interpret otherwise

Rev. J.CUMMING.-I am quite satisfied with the passages I have read.

Mr. FRENCH.-Now all those passages I read to him, are perfectly authentic, and perfectly reconcileable with those passages quoted by my rev. opponent, so as to enable them conjointly to uphold our tenet; but the learned gentleman cannot twist and distort my passages by any ingenuity so as to render them assistant to his purpose. What St. Augustine constantly and repeatedly inculcates is, "that we ought not to eat the sacrament after the manner of the Caphernaites." His words I have already quoted, but he ever main

tains, unbendingly, that it is "the real body and blood of our Lord." Listen to his words :-"As we receive, with a faithful heart and mouth, the Mediator of God and man, Christ Jesus, who tells us that his body is to be eaten, and his blood to be drunk: although it may appear more horrible to eat the flesh of man than to destroy it, and to drink human blood than to shed it." -St. Aug. contr. Advert. Legis et Proph. lib. ii. cap. 9, vol. viii. p. 599. For he spoke to us of his body and his blood: his body, he said, was food; his blood drink."-Vol. v. p. 640.

and to cut up my limbs, and to give them to you."-St. Aug. tom. v. in Joann. c. 6, p. 642.

In such sense only, and with reference to such distorters of the sacrament, would St. Augustine have Christ's words to be deemed figurative, alluding to the same Caphernaites, whom St. Cyril designates when he says-"They surmised that they were urged after the manner of wild beasts to eat man's raw flesh, and drink his gore blood."-St. Cyril, 4, in Joann. 322. Whereas, our blessed Saviour intended it far otherwise, viz. that he would be eaten in the likeness of bread and wine, which were figures of his operations in our souls. But to contend that his substantial and real presence should be excluded is most remote from St. Augustine's intention, and from the whole tenor of his writings. What more palpable and infallible proof can be given of St. Augustine's meaning, than in the citation which I have above presented to Listen again to his words:- you from his works? where he "What, therefore, means that phrase, says, We receive with faithful the flesh profiteth nothing? It pro- heart and mouth, Jesus Christ, fiteth nothing, in the manner in Man-Mediator between God and which they understood it; for they man, giving his flesh to eat, and his understood it to mean flesh as it is blood to drink, although it seems mangled in a dead body, or as it is more horrible to eat the flesh of man sold in shambles, not as it is quick-than to kill, and to drink the blood ened by the animating spirit of life; of man than to shed it." non quo modo spiritu vegetatur."Tract 27, vol. iii. p. 403.

"Since they eat his very flesh, and drink his very blood."-Vol. v. p. 391. When, therefore, St. Augustine alludes to figure in eating, he argues not against our belief, but against the Caphernaites; of whom he says, "As they understood flesh, not so do I give my flesh to eat."-Tom. ix. Tract 27.

But how," continues he, "did they understand flesh ?"

These are the words of St. Augustine. But now, my friends, I leave for a while the 6th John, which, in my humble conception, proves most clearly that he intended to give us

his body and his blood;" and I would ask my rev. friend whether our Saviour-supposing, for a moment, if my friend will concede the supposition-that our blessed Saviour meant in reality to give us "his body and his blood,"-will my learned friend have the candour to tell me, could he possibly have used

stronger words than those we find | upon the stupendous mystery of the noted down by the evangelist, "this Eucharist he was reserved to be is my body, this is my blood?" Rev. J. CUMMING.-Do you wish

an answer now?

instructed by the Lord Jesus Christ himself; although my rev. friend, I dare to say, will tell you, that after his ascension to heaven Christ never appeared upon the earth.

Now listen to the words of St. Paul:-" For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. That the Lord Jesus Christ, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and, when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you; this do

Mr. FRENCH.-Why really, gentlemen, I have but little time; I speak so slow, and my friend so rapidly, both in his expressions and quotations, that I must be very niggardly as to the abandonment of my time. [Laughter, and cries of "Order!"] But, my friends, leave we for awhile the 6th of John, to which I intend to return this evening, if I have time-that chapter in which the evangelist declares perpe-in remembrance of me. After the tually, in words, whose strength and significance increase in every sentence which he utters, that he meant to give us "his flesh to eat and his blood drink." Let us now listen to the language of one who came after him, and who is denominated by the evangelist-" the vessel of election," or, as the Protestant version has it, "the chosen vessel." What, then, says St. Paul," the vessel of election," in elucidation of our subject? Before I cite his words, I think it proper to direct your attention to Acts ix. 6. It is in the relation of St. Paul's journey to Damascus, where, in ver. 4, it is said, " And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"

same manner, also, he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood; this do ye, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death until he come."

Now, gentlemen, what I would ask is simply this: namely, what necessity was there of the least enlightenment from his divine Master, on a subject so plain, so simple, so totally unmysterious, as that of the Lord's supper in the acceptation of Protestants? Could not Ananias have been sufficient to teach him this? On the other hand, suppose it to be the Catholic sacrament, we can easily conceive, in that case, that our Saviour might have intended to announce and to enforce still more indissolubly, and to ratify still more solemnly the grand dogma, by communicating it by his own peculiar "vessel of election," who not only tells us that Christ did so, -mark, gentlemen, who not only Paul goes to Ananias, and, I sup- tells us that Christ did so, but pose, learned from him the main declares with an awful warning body of the Christian tenets: but voice-that "whosoever shall eat it is here most extraordinarily ob- this bread, and drink this cup of servable, that, although he had been the Lord, unworthily, shall be thus instructed by Ananias, yet guilty of the body and blood of

"6. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? and the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do."

Accordingly, as you all know, Paul repaired to Ananias.

the Lord;" and again, in another therefore, our Saviour, and his part, "for he that eateth or drink- evangelists, and apostles, and saints, eth unworthily eateth and drinketh whom he sent to convert all nations, damnation to himself, not discerning teach me, with one unanimous and the Lord's body." And here, ex- according voice, that the flesh and claimed my rev. friend, in his con- blood of our Saviour are veritably cluding speech of the last evening, received in the sacrament of the who discerns the Lord's body? Eucharist, who shall convince me, Can the Papist discern it? can the and my friends here present, that Catholic discern it? I was asto- the whole of this ineffable mystery nished to hear this, because I gave consists in eating and drinking a the earned gentleman great credit little bread and wine, reverentially for insight into the Greek and Latin in remembrance of his death and of languages. God forbid that I should his passion? If St. Paul meant be so envious as to detract from to teach me, as my learned friend, a fellow scholar! He is a man, forsooth, would teach me this evenpolished in all the learning of anti-ing, that it is but " bread and wine," quity, and you are witnesses how by what invigoration of my faculbeautiful a displayer he is of all the ties am I to discern" the body of elegances of his own language; the Lord, where it neither exists but I was literally astonished that nor is supposed to exist? But if I he should say, who can discern the am to speak as a Catholic, looking at body of our Lord; can the Papist, it steadfastly with the eye of celescan the Catholic do it ?-applying, tial faith, not with that of mere as he did, the word "discern" to terrestrial reason, I can just as the eye, whereas we know in the easily believe in Transubstantiation original that it refers to the judg- as I can believe in the incarnation ment of the mind, not to the corpo- of Christ in the womb of the Virgin! real eye; diakpivov is the word, Each of these two immortal tenets, 1 Cor. xi. 29:-"For he that viewed by the narrowness of human eateth and drinketh unworthily, conception, staggers and confounds eateth and drinketh damnation to me; viewed by the calm, celestial himself, not discerning the Lord's eye of pondering faith, each of them body." Not having sufficient dis- commands most irresistibly my uncrimination of mind to apprehend qualified assent. I will not exclaim the mystery; not having the sense, with the murmuring Jew, on the the discrimination to see, as I have one hand, nor with the murmuring told you over and over again, and as Protestant on the other, "How can the evangelist has told you over and this man give us his flesh to eat, over again, that it is actually "the and his blood to drink ?" "this is body of the Lord"-" not discern- a hard saying, who can hear it?" ing," "non dijudicans corpus Domini." but I will simply ask, does this Now, I would ask, how are we man, or rather, does this Man-God, guilty of eating and drinking the say-repeating it over and over body and blood of the Lord," if again-that he will give his body they be not there? Why this to eat, and his blood to drink? and dreadful denunciation against the I believe that he will give them. desecrators of mere bread and wine, His solemn and emphatic words in which there is not the remotest can no more deceive me than his similitude to the body and blood of power can deceive him by disapour Lord Jesus Christ? When, pointing the fiat of his divinity.

just as readily believe "the body and blood," that is, Christ, whole and entire, to be on the altar after the words of consecration, as I can believe that the water was turned into wine at the marriagefeast of Cana. He who said, "Let light be," and "there was light," said also, "this is my body, this is my blood," and I maintain that it became his body and his blood instantaneously; and I maintain, moreover, that it will become so, so often as the words of consecration are pronounced by duly consecrated ordained priests in apostolical succession, until the end of time.

The reality, therefore, of the of "orientalism," into which my body and blood of Christ in the learned friend this evening would Eucharist is most solidly esta- willingly conduct us; here I see blished by the word of Christ an indissoluble tie to bind me to himself; it is with equal solidity the literality of the text; here I see established by St. Paul, his "vessel an explicit, a direct injunction to of election;" it is with equal soli- proceed in interpreting his words dity established by the authoritative by a straightforward way, not by testimony of the Catholic church-remote and wandering circumvoluthe Catholic church, I say-that tion. The light which illuminates church which Christ has com- this mysterious dogma is the allmanded all nations to obey, under luminous word of Him who taught pain of being considered as heathen- it; and, as to its credibility, I can men or publicans, that is, destitute of eternal life, should they refuse obedience, and presume, in the pride of intellect, to instruct themselves. Yes, my friends, the dogma of Transubstantiation has been proclaimed aloud by this ever-speaking, never-changing, Catholic church, in every age and in every clime, from the days of the apostles down to the times in which we live; aye, my friends, in every country and in every clime, and in none more conspicuously than in the land we live in; and where the magnificent edifices of our Catholic ancestors still attest, by a sublimity and adaptation of things not to be misinterpreted, the sublime purposes for which they were originally destined. If I am asked, why attach a literal and not a figurative meaning to these words? my prompt answer is, because to interpret them figuratively would be acting in express contrariety to my blessed Saviour, who prohibits me so to do. Yes, our Saviour warns us by his answer to the Jews, not to entertain the least doubt on the subject. They (the Jews) asked, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" He said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you."

Here, then, in these plain words, 1 see an eternal veto upon all those fanciful excursions into the realms

And here, my friends, having mentioned the necessity of regular apostolic succession in the priesthood, in order to be able to consecrate, permit me to remind you that there is in this country but one universally acknowledged priest, and that is the Catholic one. Reflect, my friends, if a Catholic priest turns Protestant, he is immediately admitted into your pulpitshis ordination is all right! On the other hand, should a Protestant clergyman turn Catholic even should it be the Archbishop of Canterbury himself-we say to him, No, no, you are no priest. Before you officiate at our altars you must come and be ordained. Now I have only one word to observe in conclusion of this subject. I wish I were