With regard to the doctrine of purgatory the apostles taught as their divine Master did. St. Paul says: “For other foundation no man can lay but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man’s work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire, and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide, which he hath built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work burn he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved, but so as by fire.”—1 Cor. iii. 12. He who appears before the Judgment Seat of God with works still stained and imperfect, will reach indeed his happy end, but not before those stains and imperfections have been cleared away by a process which is like unto the crucible of fire. The fire which the Apostle speaks of cannot be the fire of tribulation, or the sufferings of this life; for he speaks of a fire which burns on the Judgment Day; that is, after this life. Again, it cannot mean the mere ordeal of the Judgment, because here the soul is not only tried, but also burns and suffers from the burning. Nor can it mean the fire of hell, because he who burns in the fire will come out of it and be saved, which cannot be said of those in hell. The Apostle could only have had the fire of purgatory in view—that fire which burns for the purification of souls not quite spotless, and which will continue until the Day of General Judgment. Prayer. Release, O Lord, etc., etc. Twelfth Day. Tradition excludes every doubt, even the least shadow of doubt, as to the existence of purgatory. We have testimony from a whole army of renowned writers of the Church: Sts. Augustine, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Jerome, Cyril, Gregory, up to Tertullian who lived in the second century. The tradition is contained not only in the writings of the Holy Fathers, but also in the practice of the Church reaching down to the apostolic age, according to which prayers and sacrifices were at all times offered up to God for the souls of the departed. Tertullian speaks of the sacrifices for the dead as of an apostolic tradition, and St. John Damascene says, in his sermon on the dead: “The apostles and disciples of our divine Saviour, who had seen the eternal Word with their own eyes, and had converted the multitudes of the living world, taught that in the awful, immaculate and life‐giving mysteries of the Eucharist, remembrance should be made of those who died in the Lord.” In confirmation of it he alleges the testimony of St. John Chrysostom in these words: “That John, who on account of his eloquence was called the golden‐mouthed, teaches that not inconsiderately or accidentally was it ordained by those wise disciples of God and transmitted to the Church, that the priest should offer prayers for the dead in the celebration of the awful divine mysteries.” Prayer.