uncertain tone echoes the same doctrine, making no exception to the rule that some corporeal stains and traces of ill follow all beyond the grave; _and therefore do they suffer punishment and pay the penalty of old wrongs._ [4] What antiquity has handed down, and reason has found to be just and proper, the Church has defined and decreed. She has gone further. She has supplemented and completed the pagan conception of expiation by that of intercession; and she has added thereto, for the comfort and consolation of the living and the dead, that the souls so suffering "may be helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable Sacrifice of the Altar." [5] And in her prayers for deceased friends, relatives and benefactors, she is mindful of Mary's sweet influence with her Son, and asks their deliverance through her intercession. [6] [Footnote 1: Kai enthude kai en Aidou] [Footnote 2: There is a passage in Clement of Alexandria, not unlike this in statement of the same doctrine ("Stromaton" 1. vi. m. 14, p. 794 Ed. Potter). The passage is quoted in "Faith of Catholics." Vol. Ill p. 142.] [Footnote 3: Gorgias, cap. lxxx, lxxxi.] [Footnote 4: Æneid, lib. vi. 735, 740.] [Footnote 5: Council of Trent, Sess. xxv. Decret. de Purgatorio, p. 204.] [Footnote 6: Beata Maria semper virgine intercedente.] The tendency to commune with the dead, and to pray for them, is strong and universal. It survives whatever systems or whatever creeds men may invent for its suppression. Samuel Johnson is professedly a staunch Protestant, bristling with prejudices, but a delicate moral sense enters the rugged manhood of his nature. Instinctively he seeks to commune with his departed wife, after the manner dear to the Catholic heart, but forbidden to the Protestant. He keeps the anniversary of her death. He composes a prayer for the repose of her soul, beseeching God "to grant her whatever is best in her present state, and finally to receive her to eternal happiness." [1] [Footnote 1: Boswell's Johnson, vol. 1, p. 100. Croker's Ed. There is pathos in this entry, remembering the man: "Mar. 28, 1753. I kept this day as the anniversary of my Tetty's death, with prayer and tears in the morning. In the evening I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful." _Ibid._ p. 97.] IV