to the afflicted survivors the thought, that instead of unavailing tears they possess more powerful means of actively relieving their friend, and testifying their affectionate regret, by prayer and supplication. In the first moments of grief, this sentiment will often overpower religious prejudice, cast down the unbeliever on his knees beside the remains of his friend, and snatch from him an unconscious prayer for rest; it is an impulse of nature, which for the moment, aided by the analogies of revealed truth, seizes at once upon this consoling belief. But it is only like the flitting and melancholy light which sometimes plays as a meteor over the corpses of the dead; while the Catholic feeling, cheering, though with solemn dimness, resembles the unfailing lamp which the piety of the ancients is said to have hung before the sepulchres of their dead. It prolongs the tenderest affections beyond the gloom of the grave, and it infuses the inspiring hope that the assistance which we on earth can afford to our suffering brethren, will be amply repaid when they have reached their place of rest, and make of them friends, who, when _we_ in our turns fail, shall receive us into everlasting mansions. [1] [Footnote 1: "Lectures on the Catholic Church," often called the "Moorfield Lectures," from being delivered in St. Mary's Moorfields, in the Lent of 1836. Vol. I., Lecture xi, pp 65,68. This lecture upon Purgatory is an admirable exposition of the Catholic doctrine, supported by numberless testimonies from the Fathers.] REPLY TO SOME MISSTATEMENTS ABOUT PURGATORY. ARCHBISHOP SPALDING, OF BALTIMORE. "The Synod of Florence," says this writer, [1] "was the first which taught the doctrine of Purgatory, as an article of faith. It had, indeed, been held by the Pope and by many writers, and it became the popular doctrine during the period under review; but it was not decreed by any authority of the universal, or even the whole Latin Church. In the Eastern Church it was always rejected." [Footnote 1: Rev. Wm. A. Palmer of Worcester College, Oxford, in his "Compendium of Ecclesiastical History."]