and all matters of controversy were solved at once by the sole authority of Pythagoras; if it could be affirmed with certainty that he had said anything, that was enough to confirm it as an indisputable fact. Ah, Christians! why should it not suffice for us in all our doubts about the ordinations of Providence in this world to think: God has decreed it; it is His will; it is He who guides every one on the ocean of life; it is He who has pronounced sentence in this case; therefore everything cannot be otherwise than right and just; for He is an infinitely wise Teacher and Master; He is the most experienced Guide, the most just Judge?
And He tells us too that His works are good and just. And for a still stronger reason should we form that judgment of Him since He tells us Himself in Holy Writ that He is just in all His decrees and works, and has, as it were, boastingly promised us that on that day when all His works shall be fully completed we shall praise and approve of them. Again, therefore, this one fact should suffice for us, although we see before our eyes things that to our weak understanding appear unjust and inconsistent; this one fact should be enough to convince us even against our reason and the testimony of our senses that all He does is right and just, and could not be done better. In the very same way, although in the Blessed Sacrament of the Alter, I imagine that I see and smell and feel and touch nothing but bread, yet I believe firmly the contrary, and say without the least hesitation: no, it is not bread; it is the body and blood of rny Lord and Saviour. I do not understand this mystery, but I believe it; it is true. Why? Because He has said it.
We believe many incomprehensible things, because God has said them.
And how many things has not God created in the world that seem incomprehensible, nay, incredible to us? and still we must acknowledge them to be true. Who would believe, if God had not revealed it, that the whole vast mass of the universe was created and furnished by a single word! Who would believe that the sovereign, infinite God became man, was born a little child, grew up to manhood, suffered hunger and thirst, was nailed to a cross, and died? Who would believe that the bodies that we now have, which shall decay in the earth, or be reduced to ashes, or devoured by wild beasts—who would believe that they shall be restored again to the form they now have, and be again endowed with life? Any one would say of these and similar mysteries before they actually occur, or are revealed by God, that they are simply impossible, they cannot be; and yet we now say and acknowledge that they have happened and shall