and pointed to the sky, a sign which they acknowledged to be void of meaning to them: but it is necessary to be conscious of having a soul, and that the curtain which conceals it from itself should be drawn, before it can discover the indelible seal of the Divinity imprinted on it by nature. Now, indeed, they comprehend that adoration and thanksgiving are due to him. What is performed in our churches is no more a mere spectacle in their eyes, as it used to be; they comprehend that we there ask, and they join with us in asking, whatever is most necessary for the good of our bodies and our souls.

CHAP. XIII.

Method of initiating the Deaf and Dumb even in the Mysteries of our Religion.

By the method we are about to lay down, it is practicable to teach the deaf and dumb even the mysteries of our religion.

You exist, we say to them, you think and love. Your existence is not your you

thought: brutes exist, and do not think. Neither is it your love.

Nor yet is your thought your love, because you sometimes think of things which you do not love; neither is it your existence. In fine, your love is neither your existence nor your thought.

Here then are three things in you, distinct from each other, that is, the one is not the other. You can think of one without thinking of the others; yet these three things are

inseparable; and constitute oneself which exists, thinks, and loves; it is a kind of image or semblance of what is in God: it is what the great Bishop Bossuet termed a created Trinity.

In God there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father is not the Son, neither is he the Holy Ghost.

The Son is not the Father; neither is he the Holy Ghost.

Lastly, the Holy Ghost is not the Father; nor yet the Son.

These three persons are distinct from each other, that is to say, the one is not the other. You can think of one without thinking of the others; yet they are inseparable, and make but one God, a single Spirit eternal, independent, immoveable, &c. This is what we are to believe, because it is what our faith teaches us; and after showing this doctrine in the Scriptures, to such of the

deaf and dumb as are past their childhood, they begin to comprehend the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

The comparison of the soul and the body, which is one man, as it is said in the creed, serves to make them understand how God and man is only one Jesus Christ; and throws a light upon the sacred truths which necessarily result from this ineffable union. We eat, we drink, we sleep, we move by our body; we think, we judge, we reason by our soul. Jesus Christ, as God, is eternal, independent, immoveable, &c. Jesus Christ, as man, was conceived, was born, has suffered, and has died.

The deaf and dumb see with their eyes, that five or six drops of water, poured into a liquor of vivid red, turn it instantly to milk white. We remind them of what they have read in the Old Testament, of the rod of Moses being changed into a serpent, and the waters of a large river into

blood; also of what they have read in the Gospel, of Jesus Christ, by his power, changing the water into wine at the Marriage of Canaan.

From the example furnished by this chapter, the possibility of making deaf and dumb persons comprehend the mysteries of our religion, will, I presume, be admitted; and even the likelihood of their understanding them better than such as have learned them out of their Catechism only.