watch to harm us, both in body and soul; but to bring ruin on the soul by luring it into sin-this is the one grand object to which their whole energies are unceasingly directed. It is true that, as regards the infliction of bodily injury, they require a special permission of God, and are rarely permitted to use their direct power. Their direct power-for alas we know by an experience too wide and too constant, how heavily the human race is scourged by temporal evils through their indirect influence; by private wrongs, inflicted everywhere every day; by the public calamities of revolutions and unjust wars, which they produce by inflaming the worst passions of bad men-their pride, their ambition, their envy, their avarice, their lust. It is also true that, whilst bodily evils-disease, poverty, death-may be inflicted not only against the will but against the wisest precautions of him who suffers them; not all the devils in hell can force a man to sin. They may try the arts of seduction or the arms of terror against him; but before he commits the least deliberate sin, he must first give his own deliberate consent. God has so walled round our freewill, that all "the fiery darts of the most wicked one" cannot reach it until it first surrenders itself. The only death the soul can suffer is the death of mortal sin; and that she must inflict on herself. Sin is essentially suicide. This is true; but it is also true that the war which the demons wage against our souls is incessant, and sometimes terrific; and that many weak ones who through grace could be strong, if they willed -fall under these assaults, and that the strong often tremble under them, aye, and sometimes fall too.

While it is our duty simply to adore the "incomprehensible judgments" and "unsearchable ways" of God, it is at the same time permitted to collect, chiefly from the analogy of the faith, those views and considerations through which our feeble reason will apprehend, more or less clearly, that divine wisdom which, blending justice and mercy together, "reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly." Hence our theologians have speculated at some length and with much felicity of conception on the reasons for which God permitted this order of things; just as they have speculated on the causes of permitting the fall of the rebel angels and the fall of the human race in Adam. These speculations, given in the compressed form in which they are found in the scholastic writers, would not be sufficiently intelligible except to professed theologians, who already know them, and for whom we are not writing; given in a more expanded form, they would occupy a disproportionate space.

But whatever may have been the reasons existing in the

divine mind for permitting this war of "the spirits of wickedness" against the human race, there can be no doubt as to the fact that he has done so. It is the opinion of several Fathers and Theologians that men never suffer, at least a grievous and pressing temptation to sin, without the devil having some share in it, by kindling the flame, or fanning it, or by both together.* It is also a very common opinion among theologians that as God has appointed a particular guardian angel for each individual, so the prince of hell has appointed a particular evil spirit for each. But, before proceeding from these less certain propositions to those of which there can be no reasonable doubt, we would premise a few brief remarks. In the first place, the chief and proper ministry of our good angels is to preserve us from bodily and spiritual harm, to pray for us, to offer our prayers to God, to suggest holy thoughts and affections to us, to combat the evil spirits and restrain their power. In the second place, the devils can use against us only their natural power, and, as has been already observed, within the limits permitted to them. The good angels are endowed with supernatural power, which far more than compensates the lack of natural power in the inferior orders. So that if you suppose a just man using

* Αρχηγος μεν ουν ἁμαρτιας ὁ διάβολος, και γεννητωρ των κακών τουτου μοιχεία, πορνεία,και παν ει τι κακον.

S. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 2, n. 4. "Non ergo dubites quando aliqui tibi molesti sunt volenti servare justitiam, ministros esse illius nequissimi peccatoris, qui omnium auctor est flagitiorum."-S. Ambrose, in Psalm. 38, n. 6.

Scit enim auctorem esse principem mundi omnium delictorum. Ipse individuos proximorum stimulis excitatos scindit affectus ipse flammam accendit libidinis ipse adolet avaritiæ cupiditates;" &c. Idem, in Psalm. 118, Sermo 16, n. 12 (in vers. 121).

"Quidquid ergo peccamus, quidquid die et nocte facimus, et malorum operum perpetramus, imperium est dæmonum, qui nunquam nobis dant requiem, sed semper impellunt delictis augere delicta, et cumulum facere peccatorum."-S. Jerome, in Jeremiam, xvi. 13.

+ Suarez leans very decidedly to the two opinions mentioned above; and the reasoning by which he supports the second appears to us very strong in favour of both (1. 8, c. 21, n. 31):-" Estque hæc assertio valde credibilis ex dictis: nam Lucifer æmulatur divinitatem, et cum Deo super salutem hominum apertum bellum profitetur. . . . . Nec est ulla ratio dubitandi de voluntate, si potestas illi non desit duo autem requiruntur ad potestatem: unum est, quod numerus militum suppetat; aliud, quod Deus permittat. De hoc posteriori non est quod dubitemus," &c.

Justly does Billuart, after enumerating the offices of the guardian angels, exclaim, "Et cum tot ac tanta beneficia ab angelis custodibus continuo recipiamus, eo usque ingrati sumus, ut tam insignium benefactorum, quod speciali cultu et honore prosequi deceret, vix memoriam recolamus."

balance of that dialogue between the serpent and the woman, between the woman and the man-the triumph or the fall, the eternal glory or the eternal ruin of so many millions of human beings! Then, such happiness so quickly followed by such a doom! Our first parents were created in a state of unspeakable perfection, both in soul and body; exempt from sickness, from all pain whatever, from decay and deathexempt from all involuntary emotion, with every appetite absolutely subject to the dominion of reason; with ample and unclouded knowledge; and, greatest gift of all, clothed in spotless innocence and grace. The arch-fiend, burning with envy, hatred, revenge, pride, prepared the trial of his skill against the happy pair; and so great was that skill, so deep that infernal craft, so keen that infernal sagacity, that he succeeded at once in fully accomplishing his design. He conquered, and Adam and all Adam's posterity fell under his power. Then commenced that deadly war carried on incessantly to the end of time.

By the victory of the second Adam the power of the evil spirits is in many ways greatly restrained, especially among the faithful. From the daily sacrifice; from the constant use of the sacraments; from the exercise of the spiritual powers confided to the Church, in teaching, governing, binding and loosing, blessing and exorcising; from the prayers and merits of the departed saints; from the prayers and merits of living saints, with which the Church militant always abounds, and which make her always an image of the Church triumphant; from the special protection of the guardian angels and especially of the Queen of all the angels; from the outpourings of the Holy Spirit, who always abides in her, never for one moment deserting her-from all these sources is the Church flooded with perennial streams of grace, imparting to her beauty and strength, and thereby enfeebling the energies of her invisible foes. Still these energies are very great.

They are very great. We learn this from clear and decisive testimonies of Scripture. We find, after the Ascension of our Lord and the descent of the Holy Ghost, numerous cases of persons possessed, or otherwise tortured, by devils. S. Peter cures persons troubled with unclean spirits: S. Philip does the same. S. Paul exorcises a girl possessed with a devil, and "who brought her masters much gain by divining." On one occasion a demoniac nearly killed two men, who attempted to exorcise her without having authority.* One of the most dangerous of all temptations-in one sense, we should say,