Looking across all those centuries, my brethren, and contemplating the martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, our hearts should be strengthened. What are the trials of the church now compared to those at the very beginning? {318} We lament, indeed, that St. Peter's successor is a captive in his own house, and also that in many regions of the world the true faith of the Apostles has to struggle for its very life. Yet the struggles of the church are now those of a giant, are against a world in great part doubtful of its own cause; struggles which make us only the more evidently pleasing to God, as they are gradually forcing us to strip ourselves of every human help and practise the Apostolic virtue of trust in God alone. "Some upon horses and some upon chariots, but we call upon the name of the Lord." Oh! when we come to realize that the welfare of the church is not in numbers, or in fine buildings, or in the wealth and power of Catholics, but only and entirely in the practice of the virtues of our religion, we shall not have long to wait for the triumph of the truth. When the vast world-power that we call the Catholic religion was (seemingly) but the frantic experiment of a handful of men, just then it won its noblest victories. Heathenism could not be voted down nor fought down; nor did God send earthquakes and floods to cleanse the earth of its foulness. The men who founded our faith won the victory because they were penetrated with the conviction that the Maker and Governor of mankind was their Lord, and that Jesus Christ, his Son, would never swerve from his plighted word. Such, then, brethren, is the virtue I bid you learn from the example of SS. Peter and Paul: confidence in God. Learn that and it will teach you all. How the value of prayer is shown forth by this virtue; how the practice of patience is commended; how the purely spiritual side of religion is brought forward by trust in God! {319} And to you of this church it is especially proposed to cultivate this Apostolic virtue. For is not your church named for St. Paul? And is he not associated every way, historically and in the devotions of our religion, with the prince of the Apostles, St. Peter? They are our first fruits; they are most closely joined to Christ, the root of the spiritual tree of life. St. Paul says: "For if the first fruit be holy, so is the mass also; and if the root be holy, so are the branches." ------------------- {320} _Sixth Sunday after Pentecost._ Epistle. _Romans vi._ 3-11.