In the first place we may consider how much and how well faith is exercised in the intelligent use of indulgences. This is a point of great practical importance, a point perhaps too little remarked. For think, my brethren, what belief there is, belief, too, of the highest and most delicate kind in the appreciation of these supernatural privileges. When you set about gaining an indulgence, you implicitly say: I believe that satisfaction has to be made for sin even when its guilt is already forgiven, as Holy Scripture indicates and Christian sense suggests; I believe God demands that satisfaction, and so will require it hereafter if it be not made here; I believe He has given His Church power to satisfy, on certain conditions, for individual sinners by offering other satisfactions in place of theirs; I believe she has in the merits of her divine Spouse, and of His saints, an inexhaustible treasury from which to draw these vicarious satisfactions. Good reason, then, has a great living theologian to affirm that the Catholic doctrine of indulgences is a kind of compendium of many most consoling doctrines; and for its effect on the Christian mind and temper, he adds: "It shows forth the immensity and the foulness of sin; it illustrates the infinity and the efficacy of Christ's merits; it manifests God's most tender mercy and His generosity; it shows how acceptable with Him are the just and how powerful; it commends union among the faithful and mutual charity; it excites the desire and the disposition to do penance; it promotes hatred of offenses and the conversion of offenders; it inflames zeal for souls and for the divine glory" (Lehmkuhl ii. 371.)

Now the frame of mind in which these beliefs and promptings put us, is a very desirable frame of mind, because a very Catholic one. We are turned to our mother, the Church, are looking into her face and listening to her. Her kind solicitude for us becomes better known and more esteemed; we are glad to be in her hands, as should her trusting children. And notice, my brethren, how simply, how truly supernatural are such dispositions. The Catholic seeking to gain indulgences is confidently dealing in things invisible, in things altogether unworldly, altogether spiritual. He works and gets no earthly wages; he pays and is given no human receipt. He is authoritatively told that he will find a rich equivalent, a superabundantly surpassing value for his money, in the life to come, in heaven; and he is satisfied, he accepts the bargain. The gradual influence on his character and life of these soul transactions is truly, though hiddenly, wonderful; for his faith acquires a most practical fulness, even in details, and his sense of what appeareth not is strengthened and refined.

The immediate value of indulgences, in themselves, ought to be evident to an instructed believer. Faith, certainly, is required in order to realize their value, as they are of things invisible; but that, of course, makes their substance not less but more real. Being of the soul and of God, of its more perfect relations with Him, they could not fail to have a most sacred reality. They are defined as remissions of the temporal punishment due to sin of which the guilt has been forgiven. As they are granted by ecclesiastical authority, they constitute no Sacrament, though they are very closely connected with several of the Sacraments, especially with the Sacrament of Penance. The immensity of the field which they cover may be estimated by the amount and the frequency of the sins of Christians, and by the magnitude of the penalties that those sins deserve. For every offense satisfaction is due, and has some time to be made. The Scripture exacting of the last farthing is an expression of God's justice, and of the rightful balancing of works and rewards. With the forgiveness of guilt goes necessarily the remission of eternal punishment; for divine friendship, which is restored in that forgiveness, claims the forgiven one for heaven. But temporal punishments in satisfaction for sin's outrages, and in repair of its damages, are still matter of course and order. Reasoning on the nature of wilful offenses, and on their treatment as between man and man, may well convince us that pains are due even when faults are forgiven. But we have a better way of arriving at a correct conclusion: we have the history of heaven's merciful dealings with mankind.

God, as you may recall, my brethren, forgave and punished, forgave and punished, all down through the ages. He continues to do so at the present day; and He has explicitly revealed that the pains not borne by His wayward children in this life await them in the next. The straw and chaff and dross must meet the fire before the good grain is garnered and the pure gold is approved.

Now forgiveness of guilt is itself so great an acquisition that some penitents may think of it alone, overlooking completely their many incurred and unpaid debts. In this they are not wise, nor very spiritual minded; nor is it likely they fully appreciate their past guilt. It is noticeable how the convert--saints of all degrees of conversion and of sanctity--turned and rushed to severely penitential practices. They seemed never satisfied with making satisfaction. They had sinned--what could they do to repair the damage! What could they do to forestall the inevitable accounting? Surely there must be some mistake in common sinners taking things so easy. It may even be questioned whether their concerning themselves so exclusively about pardon may not come from its comparative ease in the bountiful dispensation under which we live; whilst penance is put off, because of its real or imagined difficulty. But such shirking would be useless, as payment would finally have to be made, and made, perhaps, with added interest because of the negligent delay.

By these considerations we may, my brethren, begin to comprehend what rich resources indulgences can prove to us. The effort to gain them is little, if at all, painful; and they, when gained, are satisfactory to an unlimited degree. True satisfaction they are also--a fact to be much insisted on--satisfactions to the justice and holiness of God. For they are no mere commutation of the Church's imposed penances; they are rather a rich appropriation of works and merits from her treasury to our poor but divinely accepted credit. The value of this appropriation is to us incalculable. Our heavy debts are admirably paid, and our friendship with our all holy Lord has, then, the fulness of there being nothing to stand between us. That we do not oftener think of this latter effect of gained indulgences is surprising, considering that we do really love God. For to leave penalties due, when we might entirely erase them, is foolishly unfilial. Indulgences clear accounts and leave us due from our heavenly Father but caresses and new favors.

Then, for others, for our departed brethren, how immediately valuable are not our applied indulgences! Holy Church empowers us to offer nearly all the remissions we gain, by way of suffrage, for the suffering souls in purgatory. They cannot now help themselves; but by our help they attain to the immediate possession of God, to the sight and enjoyment of Him. Such a fruit of our endeavors can be fairly appreciated by those alone who have experienced some longing for the sovereign good, or have gone deeply into the revealed wretchedness of waiting and expiating in the prison of the imperfect. Detention there is necessary, till satisfaction is fully made; but each moment's retarded vision is like a lost world of bliss.

Another loss may escape the attention of some of us, though it would enkindle the zeal of us all if we realized its regrettableness. It is the loss of glory to God by the delay of those holy souls' entrance into heaven. They undoubtedly glorify Him by their patient process of purification, but not as they would by their songs of beatified praise. So our leaving them long in purgatory, when by applied indulgences we could send them home at once to heaven, is neglecting to procure God's greater glory. What they in return would do for us if their earlier possession of beatitude were gained through our efforts, should also be included in our estimate of the immediate value of indulgences.

In the third place, some indirect results of indulgences claim our most attentive consideration. They are of really precious consequence. Whoever profits by an indulgence must be in the state of grace; and see, my brethren, what that implies. The state of grace is the highest quality any created being can possess. It is it that gives supernatural value to every just soul of man and every blissful spirit of angel. It is it that makes creatures fit for heaven, for it is it that makes them capable of friendship with their Creator. And this supreme quality and state is had and maintained by every simplest Catholic who really gains an indulgence at least for himself. Why so? Because it is the most essential of all the conditions. If the works prescribed were not finished in the state of grace, there would be no remission; as the Church's satisfactions are offered explicitly for the penalties due to forgiven sin. It is only God's friends who are indulged. Not that we pretend to know, more than did St. Paul, that we are worthy of love instead of hatred; but we confide in the ordinary means, taken prudently and in all good will. It is part of the business in hand to be free from mortal sin; and that Catholics commonly are so when they strive to gain an indulgence, we have strong assurance in their matter of fact sincerity. Here, then, is a necessary and an absolutely inestimable benefit resulting from so ordinary an act of piety.

Notice further, my brethren, that you are not kept at a distance merely from mortal sin by the sensible pursuit of indulgences: you are also more and more disentangled from venial failings. You want to gain plenary indulgences, to gain them completely, and you keep in mind that you must repent of a sin before the pains due to it can be effaced. Hence you try to repent of all your sins howsoever venial. Disliking to have the penalty over you, you much more dislike to have the fault on you; and thus you advance in the tender purity of conscience that spreads the glow of heaven over a lowly Christian life. Indeed, many of the common faithful, by a thrifty attention to indulgences, are drawn to higher paths of perfection than they at all suspect. So are men still happily taken in the nets that hang from the fisherman's boat.

Another solid advantage which invariably results from the indulgence-seeking habit, must be patent to everyone. It is that the Sacraments are thereby more frequented. This result holy Church keeps plainly in view, since she so usually makes Confession and Communion a principal condition; and were there no other result this one alone would suffice to render the practice of indulgences valuable beyond expression. Of course, it may be said that Sacraments should be received for their own sake, for the grace of God which they contain and impart, and not for the accompanying remission of temporal punishments. Excellently true though this is, it is still but a partial truth. For one object does not exclude the other, rather is its attractive and most potent occasion. Nor is it anything either unusual or defective in Catholic practice to be drawn to great things by minor circumstances. The "cords of Adam" are various and variously blessed.

I wish I could say confidently to you, in conclusion, my brethren, what great preachers of Catholic devotion formerly said to the people. You want to be saints, they said, then gain all the indulgences you can. To both St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Leonard of Port Maurice is this advice attributed. That wisely zealous guides of souls should indicate this simple course, need not surprise us. Even the few considerations we have been making on the utility of indulgences would lead us to the conclusion that they are exceedingly to be sought.

See well, then, my brethren, what assets you draw from these Church treasures. Let no part of the Power of the Keys be unexercised in your behalf as it was all given for your need and for your more abundant salvation. You are never more sensible that the Church is your mother than when you are profiting of her compassion; nor can you much need reminding that having her in practice as your mother is an unfailing way of having God as your Father. All virtues accompany the devotion of indulgences, beginning with divine ones, as we have seen concerning faith. Good works, too, are both their means and their effect, they themselves often constituting a work of mercy of unsurpassed excellence. Meantime they keep souls engaged with what is best and highest in devotion: with the mysteries of our Lord and His mother; with Masses, Sacraments and crosses; with rosaries, scapulars, shrines; with alms, fastings, prayers; with all, in a word, that the Spirit-led Church most fondly proposes and most ardently recommends. In fact, of indulgences, as of heavenly wisdom, may it be said that they are an infinite treasure to men, by which they that use them become the friends of God.

The best index to a man's mind is his conduct; actions speak louder than words. Watch the behavior of your friend when at work; watch him in his leisure hours; watch him when he is crossed, or tempted, or tired, or defeated, or triumphant; and you will learn more about the excellences and the defects of his character, the trend of his thoughts, the nature of his ambitions, his chances of success, than could be gathered from his sincerest attempt to analyze for you his mental and moral disposition.

So it is with an organization of men. And so it is with the Church formed to conserve and to declare and to apply the truth delivered by Christ. Watch her conduct; mark the purpose of her feasts, and the manner in which she celebrates them: note her ways of developing spiritual life in the soul; observe her practical bearing toward the great haunting facts of human experience--growth, responsibility, temptation, sin, death--and you will learn much more about her real self than you could hope to obtain from the most minute study of her definitions and professions of faith.

Now, at this present moment, on the second day of November, the Catholic Church makes a rather extraordinary manifestation of her mind; she calls upon the faithful with very unusual insistence to remember and to assist her children who are dead. This day is unique in office and in Mass: it is the day when we commemorate the souls of all the faithful departed. On our imaginations the liturgy imprints the pictures of those who, going before us into the valley of the shadow, have passed away in the friendship of Christ. There is general mourning. The wide world over one great universal funeral service takes place. The chant is the solemn dirge; the prayer is that which begs the gift of eternal rest and perpetual light for the souls of the blessed dead; the Mass is the Mass of Requiem. Though not a day when attendance at Church is an obligation, it is a day of universal devotion. Everywhere there is quick acknowledgment and ready acceptance of the Church's invitation; on all sides there is hearty response to her appeal for remembrance of the departed. No where within the far stretching borders of her domain will living man be utterly forgetful of the dead today; among all nations and in every place there will be offered the sacrifice of propitiation for the past sins and frailties of those who have died in the Lord. Graves will be visited. You will see a tear of remembrance on the mother's cheek. The father will kneel down to pray again at the grave of his son. The widow of twenty years ago will visit the tomb of her husband and murmur the prayer of a love not yet grown cold. All this implies that a bond wonderfully firm and wonderfully lasting knits together the souls of those that have gone and those that still remain; that there is a union between souls which the power of death is really helpless to destroy. We perceive how truly it is "a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead."

That there is a purgation after death, that souls passing out of this life with even the slightest moral taint must suffer an experience of purifying pain--this is the first point of belief implied in the Catholic observance of All Souls' Day.

How reasonable this appears to the Christian sense. The best of us are but imperfect, and the purest somewhat stained. Those we love best and revere most, those we deem worthy of the highest gifts of earth, the men and the women who shine out as leaders of the strong and savers of the weak, even they do not seem to us to be holy as God is holy. Some lurking flaw, some almost invisible defect, some lingering imperfection clings to each of them. One alone is good--God! And even though we are lying stunned under the shock of a dear one's death, even though we are crying out in wild protest against the decree which has snatched away a life totally and unreservedly heavenly in its influence on our own--even then we have but to gaze for an instant toward the all-perfect God, and at once we realize that our purest and our noblest and our best beloved are weak and faulty in His sight, and that all humankind needs mercy and pardon and the grace of divine forgiveness. And oh, how consoling is the doctrine which enables us to reconcile our keen appreciation of God's ineffable sanctity with the conviction that those we love shall yet enter into His presence and be made one with Him. How uplifting is the faith which gives us reason to believe that some mysterious process purges and refines the souls of the beloved dead until they become fit even to repose in the bosom of the All Holy, where defilement and imperfection are inconceivable.

And, again, what a blessed thing it is when we who remain behind are told that we are able to help those who are gone before. Is there any deeper instinct than that to which this doctrine affords satisfaction? When they have passed out of our sight no visible bond unites us. The purity of our affection is actually an aggravation of our pain. We are well-nigh crazed at being so distant and so helpless, and sometimes even self-destruction would seem inviting to us in the madness of our grief. But who shall describe our happiness if there come to us a divine messenger to whisper of the dear one dead, to assure us he is within the shadow of the throne of God, to tell us of the blessed privilege that makes it possible for us to help him, at the mention of whose name our heart throbs so wildly. And this is the second point of doctrine implied in the commemoration of All Soul's--that we who still abide in the flesh may, by our prayers and good deeds, aid those who have gone before.

When all has been said, was there ever a generation more irrepressibly human than our own? Men were sterner in the days of old, and more brave, perhaps. They bore pain better, and they faced death with greater readiness, and they shuddered less at torture and at blood. But one cannot believe that they loved more deeply or that they felt the shock of separation more keenly than we. Women clung round their dead, it is true, in the days gone by; and strong men often wept over the graves of children hurried to an untimely end. On each generation, as it passed away, there was laid the fragrant tokens of lasting remembrance and imperishable affection. But out of the very strength our ancestors possessed, it would seem, there must have sprung a greater power of resistance than that which nature gives to us. Whether that be so or not, this at least is clear that we are incapable of bearing death's cruel blows without the assistance of religion. Our dead are our very own; and the heart within us refuses to believe that we have been forever separated or that we are left entirely alone. And almost as if in reply to an imperious demand of ours, the Church's voice declares "the prayers of the living avail to aid the souls of them that are dead."

It is wide in its sweep, this principle of Catholic teaching; it proclaims that there are no walls of partition between the souls of the just either this side of the tomb or beyond. There is one limitless kingdom, one wonderful body, one kingdom of God. Through every province of it, triumphant, militant and suffering, course life-giving currents of divine grace and of human sympathy. Part is close bound to part; and neither sorrow, nor pain, nor death can dissolve the strong bond of fellowship which unites member with member. The Christian can neither rejoice nor can he ever suffer entirely alone. Whether he lives or whether he dies, he is part of Christ's body, so to remain throughout eternity.

This Catholic conception of human solidarity is immeasurably beyond the highest hope of humanitarianism. In contrast with forgetfulness and selfishness, it sets up the divinely beautiful ideal of charity; it reveals in the soul of the Christian a depth and a constancy of affection such as reason of itself could neither anticipate nor comprehend; it preaches the interdependence of man with man so impressively that the poorest cannot excuse himself by pleading inability to aid, nor can the strong soul say to the weak, "I have no need of thee." When the hand of the Lord has touched us, then we are glad to call any man a friend; we beseech each passer-by to have pity on us; and we no longer feel it beneath our dignity to beg for a drop of cooling water from the beggar who once lay at our gates.

Looking forward to such a condition of things as the inevitable--even though temporary--lot of all who finally enter the approaches of eternal life, the Catholic cannot but learn valuable lessons about human equality. He perceives how literally and how strikingly God puts down the mighty and exalts the humble; he understands how intimate a sympathy pervades the human members of Christ's body. And though we dare not say that I always and in all circumstances this lesson is assimilated by the individual Catholic, we can say, without fear of challenge or denial, that the teaching in question is a mighty influence for good in the lives of those who appreciate its implications and follow the impulses it gives rise to.

We who believe this teaching of the Church, then, can say, without a shadow of insincerity:

"Those we love truly never die."

In reinforcement of our nature's aspiration there comes the solemn pronouncement of the denning Church, purifying and ennobling our purest and noblest loves, until the sacred influence of a union transcending time and space and the things of the flesh brings into our lives something of the peace and holiness of heaven. Amid cries of lamentation there resounds again an echo of the promise, "He shall not taste death forever." Supported on the broad bosom of the Church, which defies the power of death, we feel comforted and consoled amid the heaviest of human afflictions. Penetrated with a sense of those wholesome teachings which are held up for our careful study today, we are able to shape our souls into at least a rough conformity with the spirit of Christ and to bow resignedly to God's judgments.

Although the effect of the Church's teaching in this matter be not plain in the life of each one of her children; yet, on the whole, the general consequences of her influence are easily discernible. Who else is so brave as the Catholic at the approach of death, so reverent at the awful moment when the soul departs, so tender and so constant in the care of the mortal frame which has been the dwelling place of a still living soul? Who else remembers the dead as the Catholic does ? What other mourner possesses ties so consoling and so intimate as the Catholic praying for his beloved? And how easy to trace a connection between these facts and those points of doctrinal teaching of which we are reminded so forcibly on each second of November.

And here again we have an instance of what the Church does for her children so many times and in such various ways--she realizes the ideal, she makes concrete and tangible and attainable what mystic and poet have dreamed and sung about for ages. That quenchless desire of noblest natures to commune with and to assist the departed is not only recognized by the Church, but met and satisfied. Look around, and on every hand you will see men and women whose aspirations have been guided, as they have been ennobled, by this teaching of the Catholic religion; and the result of a generous response to the Church's suggestion has ever been a practical and definite moral benefit. Often our eyes are lifted from the trying scenes of earth to that province of Christ's kingdom which lies beyond; often the music of invisible choirs imparts to us a thrill of inspiration; often we are strengthened and saved by the conviction that the thoughts we conceive and the deeds we do will affect not only our own private destiny, but the happiness of those who are gone before.