St. Epiphanius quotes Acts of the Apostles, believed to have been composed by those Christians called Ebionites, or poor, and which were rejected by the church-acts very ancient, it is true, but full of abuse of St. Paul

Acts of the Apostles, which were inspired by the Holy Ghost, and therefore outweigh the testimony of St. Jerome, learned as he might be.

Every particular relative to St. Peter and St. Paul is interesting. If NiceIn them it is said that St. Paul was phorus has given us a portrait of the one, born at Tarsus of idolatrous parents- the Acts of St. Thecla, which, though utroque parente gentili procreatus-that, not canonical, are of the first century, having come to Jerusalem, where he re-have furnished us with a portrait of the mained some time, he wished to marry other. He was, say these Acts, short in the daughter of Gamaliel; that, with this stature, his head was bald, his thighs were design he became a Jewish proselyte, and crooked, his legs thick, his nose aquiline, got himself circumcised; but that, not his eyebrows joined, and he was full of obtaining this virgin (or not finding her a the grace of God.-Staturà brevi, &c. virgin) his vexation made him write against circumcision, against the sabbath, and against the whole law.―

"Quùmque Hierosolymam accessisset, et ibidem aliquandiù mansisset, pontificis filiam ducere in animum induxisse, et eam ob rem proselytum factum, atque circumcisum esse; postea quòd virginem eam non accepisset, succensuisse, et adversús circumcisionem, ac sabbathum, totamque legem scripsisse."

These injurious words show, that these primitive Christians, under the name of the poor, were still attached to the sabbath and to circumcision, resting this attachment on the circumcision of Jesus Christ and his observance of the sabbath; and that they were enemies to St. Paul, regarding him as an intruder who sought to overturn everything. In short, they were heretics: consequently, they strove to defame their enemies, an excess of which party spirit and superstition are too often guilty.

These Acts of St. Paul and St. Thecla were, according to Tertullian, composed by an Asiatic, one of Paul's own disciples, who at first put them forth under the Apostle's name; for which he was called to account and displaced,— that is, excluded from the assembly; for the hierarchy, not being then established, no one could, properly speaking, be displaced.

IV.

Under what Discipline did the Apostles

and Primitive Disciples live? It appears that they were all equal. Equality was the great principle of the Essenians, the Rechabites, the Theraputæ, the disciples of John, and especially those of Jesus Christ, who inculcated it more than ouce.

St. Barnabas, who was not one of the Twelve Apostles, gave his voice along with theirs. St. Paul, who was still less a chosen apostle during the life of Jesus, not only was equal to them, but had a sort of ascendancy; he rudely rebukes Peter.

St. Paul, too, calls them "false apostles, deceitful workers," and loads them with abuse. In his Letter to the Philip-St. pians, he calls them dogs.

St. Jerome asserts that he was born at Gisceala, a town of Galilee, and not at Tarsus. Others dispute his having been a Roman citizen: because at that time there were no Roman citizens at Tarsus, nor at Galgala, and Tarsus was not a Roman colony until about a hundred years after. But we must believe the

St.

When they are assembled together, we find among them no superior. There was no presiding, not even in turn. They did not at first call themselves bishops. Peter gives the name of bishop, or the equivalent epithet, only to Jesus Christ, whom he calls the inspector of souls. This name of inspector or bishop was afterwards given to the ancients, whom we

call priests; but with no ceremony, no dignity, no distinctive mark of pre-emi

nence.

It was the office of the ancients or elders to distribute the alms. The younger of them were chosen by a plurality of voices, to serve the tables, and were seven in number; all which clearly verifies the reports in common.

Of jurisdiction, of power, of command, not the least trace is to be found. It is true that Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for not giving all their money to St. Peter, but retaining a small part for their own immediate wants, without confessing it for corrupting, by a trifling falsehood, the sanctity of their gifts; but it is not St. Peter who condemns them. It is true that he divines Ananias's fault; he reproaches him with it, and tells him that he has lied to the Holy Ghost; after which Ananias falls down dead. Then comes Sapphira; and Peter, instead of warning, interrogates her, which seems to be the action of a judge. He makes her fall into the snare by saying, "Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much." The wife made the same answer as her husband. It is astonishing that she did not, on reaching the place, learn her husband's death-that no one had informed her of it-that she did not observe the terror and tumult which such a death must have occasioned, and, above all, the mortal fear lest the officers of justice should take cognizance of it as of a murder. It is strange that this woman should not have filled the house with her cries, but have been quietly interrogated, as in a court of justice, where silence is rigidly enforced. It is still more extraordinary that Peter should have said to her," Behold the feet of them which have carried thy husband out at the door, and shall carry thee out-on which the sentence was instantly executed. Nothing can more resemble a criminal hearing before a despotic judge.

Christ and the Holy Ghost; that it is to them that Ananias and his wife have lied, and it is they who punish them with sudden death;-that, indeed, this miracle was worked for the purpose of terrifying all such as, while giving their goods to the Church, and saying that they have given all, keep something back for profane uses. The judicious Calmet shows

us how the fathers and the commentators differ about the salvation of these two

primitive Christians, whose sin consisted in simple though culpable reticence.

Be this as it may, it is certain that the apostles had no jurisdiction, no power, no authority, but that of persuasion, which is the first of all, and upon which every other is founded.

Besides, it appears from this very story that the Christians lived in common.

When two or three of them were gathered together, Jesus Christ was in the midst of them. They could all alike receive the Spirit. Jesus was their true, their only superior; he had said to them

"Be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon earth; for one is your father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, even Christ."

In the time of the apostles, there was no ritual, no liturgy, no fixed hours for assembling, no ceremonies. The disciples baptised the catechumens, and breathed the Holy Ghost into their mouths, as Jesus Christ had breathed upon the apostles; and as, in many churches, it is still the custom to breathe into the mouth of a child when administering baptism. Such were the beginnings of Christianity. All was done by inspiration-by enthusiasm, as among the Therapeuta and the Judaïtes, if we may for a moment be permitted to compare Jewish societies, now become reprobate, with societies conducted by Jesus Christ But it must be considered that St. himself from the highest heaven, where Peter is here only the organ of Jesus he sat at the right hand of his Father.

Time brought necessary changes: the Church being extended, strengthened, and enriched, had occasion for new laws.

APPARITION.

deigned to employ these apparitions— these visions, in favour of the Jews, who were then its cherished people.

It may be that, in the course of time, some really pious souls, deceived by their enthusiasm, have believed that they had received from an intimate communication with God that which they owed only to their inflamed imaginations. In such cases, there is need of the advice of an honest man, and especially of a good

It is not at all uncommon for a person under strong emotion to see that which is not. In 1726, a woman in London, accused of being an accomplice in her husband's murder, denied the fact; the dead man's coat was held up and shaken before her, her terrified imagination pre-physician. sented the husband himself to her view; she fell at his feet, and would have em-rable. It is said to have been in consebraced him. She told the jury that she had seen her husband.

The stories of apparitions are innume

quence of an apparition that St. Theodore, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, went and set fire to the temple of Amasia, and reduced it to ashes. It is very likely that God did not command this action, in itself so criminal, by which

posed all the Christians to a just revenge.

It is not wonderful that Theodoric saw in the head of a fish, which was served up to him, that of Symmachus, whom he had assassinated-or unjustly executed; for it is precisely the same thing.several citizens perished, and which exCharles IX., after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, saw dead bodies and blood, not in his dreams, but in the convulsions of a troubled mind seeking for sleep in vain. His physician and his nurse bore witness to it. Fantastic visions are very frequent in hot fevers. This is not seeing in imagination; it is seeing in reality. The phantom exists to him who has the perception of it. If the gift of reason, vouchsafed to the human machine, were not at hand to correct these illusions, all heated imaginations would be in an almost continual transport, and it would be impossible to cure them.

It is especially in that middle state, betwixt sleeping and waking, that an inflamed brain sees imaginary objects, and hears sounds which nobody utters. Fear, love, grief, remorse, are the painters who trace the pictures before unsettled imaginations. The eye which sees sparks in the night, when accidentally pressed in a certain direction, is but a faint image of the disorders of the brain.

No theologian doubts, that with these natural causes that Master of nature has sometimes united his divine influence. { To this the Old and the New Testament bear ample testimony. Providence has

God might permit St. Potamienne to appear to St. Basilides; for there resulted no disturbance to the state. We will not deny that Jesus Christ might appear to St. Victor. But, that St. Benedict saw the soul of St. Germanus of Capua carried up to heaven by angels; and that two monks afterwards saw the soul of St. Benedict walking on a carpet extended from heaven to Mount Cassino;-this is not quite so easy to believe.

It may likewise, without any offence to our august religion, be doubted, whether St. Eucherius was conducted by an angel into hell, where he saw Charles Martel's soul; and whether a holy hermit of Italy saw the soul of Dagobert chained in a boat by devils, who were flogging it without mercy; for, after all, it is rather difficult to explain satisfactorily how a soul can walk upon a carpet, how it can be chained in a boat, or how it can be flogged.

But, it may very well be, that heated brains have had such visions; from age to age we have a thousand instances of them. One must be very enlightened to distinguish, in this prodigious number of visions, those which came from God

himself, from those which were purely the offspring of imagination.

the order of the divine warnings, and the conduct of divine grace."

The reader, then, must peruse this story with the same reverence with which its hearers listened to it. These extraordinary workings of Providence are like the

The illustrious Bossuet relates, in his funeral oration over the Princess Palatine, two visions which acted powerfully on that princess, and determined the whole conduct of her latter years. These hea-miracles of canonised saints, which must venly visions must be believed, since they be attested by irreproachable witnesses. are regarded as such by the discreet and And what more lawful deponent can we learned Bishop of Meaux, who pene- have, to the apparitions and visions of the trated into all the depths of theology, and Princess Palatine, than the man who emeven undertook to lift the veil which co-ployed his life in distinguishing truth from vers the Apocalypse. appearance?-who combated vigorously

He says, then, that the Princess Pala- against the nuns of Port-Royal on the une, having lent a hundred thousand formulary-against Paul Ferri on the cafrancs to her sister the Queen of Poland,techism-against the minister Claude on sold the duchy of Rételois for a million, the variations of the Church -against and married her daughters advantageously. Happy according to the world, but unfortunately doubting the truths of the Christian religion, she was brought back to her conviction, and to the love of these ineffable truths, by two visions. The first was a dream, in which a man born blind, told her that he had no idea of light, and that we must believe the word of others in things of which we cannot ourselves conceive. The second arose from a violent shock of the membranes and fibres of the brain in an access of fever. She saw a hen running after one of her chickens, which a dog held in his mouth. The Princess Palatine snatched the chick from the dog; on which, a voice cried out, "Give him back his chicken; if you deprive him of his food, he will not watch as he ought." But the princess exclaimed, "No, I will never give it back."

Doctor Dupin on China-against Father Simon on the understanding of the sacred text-against Cardinal Sfondrate on predestination-against the Pope on the rights of the Gallican church-against the Archbishop of Cambray on pure and disinterested love. He was not to be seduced by the names, nor the titles, nor the reputation, nor the dialectics of his adversaries. He related this fact; therefore he believed it. Let us join him in his belief, in spite of the raillery which it has occasioned. Let us adore the secrets of Providence: but let us distrust the wanderings of the imagination, which Mallebranche called la folle du logis. For these two visions, accorded to the Princess Palatine, are not vouchsafed to every one.

Jesus Christ appeared to St. Catharine of Sienna; he espoused her, and gave her a ring. This mystical apparition is to be The chicken was the soul of Anne of venerated, for it is attested by Raymond Gonzaga, Princess Palatine; the hen was of Capua, general of the Dominicans, the Church; and the dog was the Devil. who confessed her, as also by Pope UrAnne of Gonzaga, who was never to give ban VI. But it is rejected by the learned back the chicken to the dog, was effica-Fleuir, author of the Ecclesiastical Hiscious grace.

Bossuet preached this funeral oration to the Carmelite nuns of the faubourg St. Jacques, at Paris, before the whole house of Condé; he used these remarkable words" Hearken; and be especally careful not to hear with contempt

tory. And a young woman, who should now boast of having contracted such a marriage, might receive as a nuptial present a place in a lunatic asylum.

The appearance of Mother Angelica, abbess of Port-Royal, to Sister Dorothy, is related by a man of very great weight

among the Jansenists, the Sieur Dufossé, phant very small; and what we call small, author of the Memoirs de Pontis. Mo-is to insects a world.

The same motion which would be rapid

ther Angelica, long after her death, came and seated herself in the Church of Port-to a snail, would be very slow in the eye Royal, in her old place, with her crosier of an eagle. This rock, which is impein her hand. She commanded that Sister netrable by steel, is a sieve consisting of Dorothy should be sent for, and to her more pores than matter, and containing a she told terrible secrets. But the testi-thousand avenues of prodigious width mony of this Dufossé is of less weight than that of Raymond of Capua, and Pope Urban VI., which, however, have not been formally received.

The writer of the above paragraphs has since read the Abbé Langlet's four volumes on Apparitions, and thinks he ought not to take anything from them. He is convinced of all the apparitions verified by the church; but he has some doubts about the others, until they are authentically recognized. The Cordeliers and the Jacobins, the Jansenists and the Molinists, have all had their apparitions and their miracles. "Iliacos inter muros peccatur et extrá."

APPEARANCE.

ARE all appearances deceitful? Have our senses been given us only to keep us in continual delusion? Is everything error? Do we live in a dream, surrounded by shadowy chimeras? We see the sun setting, when he is already below the horizon: before he has yet risen, we see him appear. A square tower seems to be round. A straight stick, thrust into the water, seems to be bent.

leading to its centre, in which are lodged multitudes of animals, which may, for aught we know, think themselves the masters of the universe.

Nothing is either as it appears to be, or in the place where we believe it to be. Several philosophers, tired of being constantly deceived by bodies, have in their spleen pronounced that bodies do not exist, and that there is nothing real but our minds. As well might they have concluded that, all appearances being false, and the nature of the soul being as little known as that of the matter, there is no reality in either body or soul.

Perhaps it is this despair of knowing anything which has caused some Chinese philosophers to say, that Nothing is the beginning and the end of all things.

This philosophy, so destructive to being, was well known in Molière's time. Doctor Macphurius represents the school; when teaching Sganarelle, he says, “You must not say, 'I am come,' but it seems to me that I am cone; for it may seem to you, without such being really the case.'

But at the present day, a comic scene is not an argument, though it is sometimes better than an argument; and there is often as much pleasure in seeking after truth as in laughing at philosophy.

You do not see the net-work, the ca

You see your face in a mirror, and the image appears to be behind the glass: it is, however, neither behind nor before it. This glass, which to the sight and the touch is so smooth and even, is no other than an unequal congregation of pro-vities, the threads, the inequalities, the jections and cavities. The finest and exhalations of that white and delicate fairest skin is a kind of bristled net-work, skin which you idolize. Animals a thouthe openings of which are incomparably sand times less than a mite discern all larger than the threads, and enclose an these objects which escape your vision; infinite number of minute hairs. Under they lodge, feed, and travel about in this net-work there are liquors incessantly them, as in an extensive country, and passing, and from it there issue continual those on the right arm are perfectly ignoexhalations which cover the whole sur-rant that there are creatures of their own face. What we call large is to an ele-species on the left. If you were so un