WHAT WILL THE END BE?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 175, 4 August 1876, Page 13

WHAT WILL THE END BE?

You will ask me what will the end be ? What it has always been. The enemiei of the Catholic Church will be baffled as usual, and the temporal power will be restored. But you will say — " Have you a friend on earth ? " — Not a friend. " Hare you a hope on earth ?" — Not a hope. "On what, then, do you build your hopes ? " — On God, who has promised never to forsake us, and who has keDt His word up to the present. We have not a friend, we have not a hope on earth ; yet our hopss rise from earth to Heaven, and twine themselves around the feet of God. It has never been defined, as an article of faith, that the temporal power is necessary ; but in the present economy of God's Church it is indispensable ; and we believe that God will rather confound the wicked than change the economy He established ; that He will again (and again, as often as necessary), " show might in His own, and scatter the proud in the conceit of their heart, and that He will put down the mighty from their seat, and exalt the humble." (St. Luke i. 51, 52). If you think this belief fanatical and illusive, recall to mind that it is now only six years since he actually did " put down from his seat," a mighty one, who had betrayed His Vicar ; and that this unhappy prince was actually the second of the name punished in the same way for the same crime — for having assailed the Vicar of Christ. If this does not convince you, at least reflect on the singular firmness of our hopes, and when they are realised do not imagine their realization was merely an accident, but recognise the fulGlment of what had beet foretold, when there was not a human hone of its accomplishment. And recognise in its fulfilment the hand of S God. The European powers count their soldiers by hundreds of thousands and even by millions, yet no one would venture ] to affirm that the very strongest of them might not be swept away in ian hour. The Pope has not got a soldier or a gun, and yet Catholics I look upon it at quite a matter of course that he will not be swept i away, even though all the other " kings of the earth should stand up, and the princes meet together against the Lord and against His Christ."

I conclude with the words so full of a noble faith, of the illustrious Cardinal Manning : —

1 " Do not think me fanatical, or blind, or senseless, if I affirm that the temporal is not ended yet ; but the Roman question is now only once more begun. We have had to repeat even to weariness, that I some five and forty Popes before now, have either never set foot in ' Rome, or have been driren out of it. Nine times they have been driven out by Roman factions ; times without number by invaders. Why not, then, a forty sixth time ? Pius VI, Pius VII were prisoners, why not Pius IX ? Pius IX has been already once in exile, why not , a second time ? Nine times has Rome been held by usurpers, why I not a tenth ? Seven times has Rome been besieged, why not an 1 eighth ? Twice has it been nearly destroyed, and once so utterly desolate was it,|that for forty days, we are told, nothing human breathed in it, and no cry was heard but of the foxes on the Aventine. Warfare, suffering, "wandering, weakness, with imperishable vitality and niTincible power, is the lot and history of the Pontiffs, and Rome shares their destiny. There has happened nothing now that has not happened, and that often, before. The end which has been often prel dieted has not come ; why should it now s Men are always saying — 'Now, at lust, is the end.' But the end is not yet." — Rev. Father O'Malley, fI.J.