19 Tales for the Million, No. J. First Series. (ISSUED FOR THE GUILD OF ST. JOSEPH'S INVITATION TO BETHLEHEM.) BY T. H. SHAW. Author of "Holy Church, the Centre of Unity: or, Ritualism Compared with LONDON: BURNS AND OATES, PORTMAN STREET; STREET. PRICE ONE SHILLING. 1302.6.21. "The Catholic Church is as a city to which avenues lead from every side, towards which men may travel from any quarter, by the most diversified roads,-by the thorny and rugged ways of strict investigation-by the most flowery paths of sentiment and feeling; but arrived at its precincts, all find that there is but one gate whereby they may enter, but one door to the sheepfold, narrow and low, perhaps, and causing flesh and blood to stoop as it passes in. They may wander about its outskirts; they may admire the goodliness of its edifices and of its bulwarks, but they cannot be its denizens and children, if they enter not by that one gate, of absolute, unconditional submission to the teaching of the Church."-Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures. If in the different persuasions the members would only be honest with themselves, and read these Lectures, they could not but see the true light. The reason of the faith that is in man, is here so philosophically, so rationally, so logically, so calmly, and so scripturally delineated, that to unbiassed minds there could be but one result-light and truth! The many conversions of late years have been, in many cases, great miracles of Divine revelation. How many thousands of others might also be annually brought into the Fold if only LAY Catholics would do their duty by lending such works to their Protestant acquaintances; yet apathy and indifference too often prevail among us, where zeal and energy ought to be most active. Reader, how must such thoughts as these, on a death-bed, rack the souls of such on leaving the harvest-field, to render an account of their stewardship? Remember the ten lepers, how only one returned thanks! WHICH IS IT? OR WAR IN THE HEAVENS. Introduction. THE following Tale suggested itself from the fact of a Catholic having overheard part of the catechising in a Ritualist church, where the clergyman was forcibly insisting that they were the true successors to the Apostles. Had he, instead, insisted that they were the true successors to the Babylonians, I should have felt no inclination to comment on the assertion. Gladly would charity have led me to exclaim, "Ignorance is bliss when 'tis folly to be wise." Yet there may be such a thing as fighting against conviction. Alas! those who do so little dream at what a terrible cost to themselves they are so acting. Those who trust in their own eloquence-their natural or acquired abilities-in drawing crowded congregations (being in themselves special targets of assault for the enemy of souls), would do well to study Dr. Faber's "All for Jesus;" as they would there see how futile are such powers, while running in channels through which unction from above flows not. As tides increase and swell their boundaries, needing new walls to protect their ever-increasing lines of demarcation, so does the Catholic Church which has been entrusted with the Divine Creed; not to add to, but to define any dogmas or denounce any heresy in dispute, as the progress of civilisation and culture increase the knowledge of mankind, thus preparing the way, and calling for such elucidation. As the Apostles were in culture uneducated men, though afterwards endued with Divine light, so the sea of to-day was once comparatively a rivulet. Time had a beginning, |