PROFESSION OF THE CATIKjLIC FAITH. 127 



there is the action of the sui)eriuituriil grace received 

 ill baptism, and of that mysterious influence of which 

 Saint Paul speaks when he says, " Wc have the mind of 

 Christ,''* and of which Saint John said, " Ye liave an 

 unction from tlie Holy One, and ye know all things/'f 

 When we read over again together that Gospel which 

 separated our ancestors, I was pleasantly surprised, at 

 every page, to find that we understood it in the same 

 sense, and that, consequently, when you read it outside 

 of the Church, you did not read it without the spirit 

 of the Church. 



Finally, my child, besides Baptism and the Holy 

 Scriptures, the sacrament and the book, you had Prayer ; 

 an inward thing, invisible, unspeakable, and yet real 

 above all things besides ; and pre-eminently the language 

 of the soul to God, and of God to the soul, the direct 

 and personal communion of the humblest Christian 

 with his Pathcr in heaven. 



What was it, then, that you lacked? I remember 

 "what you once said to me, when you were still a Pro- 

 testant : " You, a monk, and I, a Puritan, are yet of the 

 same blood royal !" You spoke truly. Xot because you 

 were a Puritan, but because, although a Puritan, you 

 were a Christian, were w^e two of the same divine and 

 royal stock. Y^ou were, like me, a child of the family, 

 but, one stormy night, imprudent hands had carried 

 your cradle far away from your Father's home: that 

 home, although its form had faded from your vision, 

 and your lips had forgotten how to speak its name, you 

 have nevertheless been yearning after with tears and 

 cries, and with every impulse of your soul. What you 

 needed, my daughter, was to find it again, to weep upon 



♦ a Corinthians, xi. 2. 1 1 John, ii. 20. 



