from the conversation which is recorded in the life of the poet Torquato Tasso. Charles IX. king of France, once asked him, whom he considered the most happy? Tasso did not long consider, but answered, God! 'We know this,' said the king; and the question could not, therefore, have referred to God. Who, then, out of God, and after God, is the most happy?' 'He,' answered Tasso, 'who is the most like to God.' For, as there can exist no absolute being and life, and no beatitude, which is not in God and from God, a participation of this beatitude necessarily constitutes a likeness to God. But only those creatures on whom this likeness has been impressed are capable of this participation, and to these only is God, in the real signification of the word, truly a Father. Have stones, trees, animals, the planets, has the sun, any pretensions to this relation with God? Or, what is the same thing, can we call God the Father of these things? Or, as the modern phrase will have it, can we call Him the Father of nature?

Many a pious mind indeed has endeavoured to trace in the forms and movements of nature the seal of the Trinity, and the impression of the Master and Lord of all things in the number three. These endeavours may, perhaps, be well intended, but can never lead to the light of true knowledge. Thus, some two hundred years ago, there lived at Rome a man named Francesco Foliano, who dedicated his entire life to the adoration of this high mystery, and endeavoured to direct all his actions and omissions symbolically to it. The room in which he dwelt was built of three walls, in the form of a triangle, his bed was composed of three boards, and

his table rested on three legs. When he read in a book, he paused after every third page; when he ate, he divided his bread into three parts; and when walking, he described triangles with his steps. This triangular mode of thinking is neither to be proposed or imitated. We must, nevertheless, if we wish truly to estimate the signification of the Divine paternity towards us, and of our relation to it, endeavour to understand the three lines of a great immeasurable triangle, without which. knowledge we shall never be able to comprehend our own self in its essence and personality, and consequently in its relation to God: If I may know myself,' exclaims St. Austin, ‘I shall know Thee, O Lord.'

But what are the three sides, to a knowledge of which it is fitting that we arrive? They are the three orders or principal classes of things in the creation, the free spirit, the material substance, and, finally, the compound resulting from the union of both-human nature. For let us again descend into the depths of our selfconsciousness, and ask, 'Who am I?' We shall receive for answer: 'In me there is a twofold substance, and I am myself a third, the result of the union of the two. If I consider myself in regard to my body, I am like the plants and beasts of the field, unfree, and subjected, even against my own will, to the laws of nature. For this corporeal being is not my entire self, for this self is also spiritual and free. I can elect and act, or, at least, can wish as I will. I am, therefore, on one side an organic being, living, increasing, feeling, like the trees and the beasts; but I am, at the same time, a spiritual being, infinitely different, by my inward freedom, from mere nature, and raised high above it. There is, therefore, in me a two

fold being and life—a life of nature, and a spiritual life, and yet there is but one entire self, which is, at the same time, corporeal and spiritual, free and unfree, which thinks and feels, but so that in this personality the life of the spirit predominates.' But who is He who has united in us two substances so distinct? Certainly He who created the world of nature and the spiritual world, and who placed man as a harmony and union of the two, in order that in him the life of nature might enter into a spiritual consciousness, and might attain the object of all creation, which is beatitude. This is, therefore, the impression of the Divine paternity in us, that we should represent the fulness and the perfection of the collected world of creation, and the perfect external revelation of God; that in us spirit and nature, by their living union, might be made capable of the beatitude of God.

But since man (as will be shewn in the course of these considerations under different petitions of the Lord's prayer) forfeited, by the abuse of his freedom, his claim to this participation, this impression of the Divine paternity, if not destroyed, was made less perceptible. In his fallen state, opposed as he was to the Divine love, he saw, in terror, the omnipotence and the justice of God; and hence in the writings of the Old Testament, God is named less frequently, Father, but generally, Lord, Omnipotent, Sovereign, King, patient yet terrible in His chastisements. For in this fallen state all men, as the Apostle says, were slaves; subject to the elements of this world, to temptations, to the inclinations of passion, to half-consciousness, and to the natural life. But He who is our Father, and who had decreed from

eternity to be so, sent a remedy to this misery of the human race. "As a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear Him. For according to the height of the heavens above the earth, He hath strengthened His mercy towards them that fear Him." (Psalm cii.)

For, as the Apostle teaches, "When the fulness of time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son in your hearts, crying, Abba, Father; we are not any more servants but sons." This is the great mystery which we proclaim and confess, when we say to God, "Our Father." For with these words we call to mind the incarnation of His only-begotten eternal Son, who, by this assumption of human nature, raised us to the dignity of children of His Father, "who gave to all who received Him power to be made the sons of God, who were born not of the flesh, but of God." To pass now in review all that we have hitherto said, what do we say, what do we confess, as often as we repeat these words, "Our Father who art?" We confess, first, the mystery of the Trinity, which, to the thinking mind illumined by faith, so truly and essentially displays itself, that it cannot possibly think of any but a Triune God. We confess also the love of God to us, and our similitude to Him, which is the seal of this love. But in what does this similitude consist? That in God there is an uncreated absolute self-consciousness, but in us a consciousness created and conditional, in which the world of nature and of spirit are united; so that man

stands in contrast with his Creator, as an integrating number of the university of creation. For in God, as He exists by Himself, one inseparable essence developes itself in three persons; but in man a twofold life converges into one point of personality, that in him and by him creation might be perfected and glorified in the Divine love.

But man, in the great moment of his self-perfection, turned away from this love by his own free-will; he frustrated the designs of this love in his regard, and, inasmuch as in him lay, he renounced his dignity. He did not, however, frustrate for ever the work of the Divine love, which revealed again all its splendour. When, therefore, we call God "Our Father," what do we thereby confess? We confess, in the third place, that this Father, who is rich in love, sent His onlybegotten Son to restore again the bond of union; and how was this effected? The divine Logos united, by His incarnation, a twofold essence in one person-the divine and human; or rather a threefold essence- -the divine, the corporeal, and the spiritual; for the eternal Word espoused the created life of nature and of spirit, that He might become the new and celestial Adam, the first-born amongst His brethren. "Behold!" exclaims St. John, "what love the Father has shewn us, that we should be called, and should be the sons of God,” that God should not only be called, but should in reality be our Father! But, as St. Ambrose says, God is our Father if we do well, our Judge if we commit sin! Ah, what anxiety fills my soul,' exclaims St. Augustin, 'lest while I call Him Father, I should do any thing unworthy of such a parent.' Well have we reason