Oh! it is this thought that robs death of its sting and makes the separation of friends endurable. And if your departed friend needs not your prayers, they are not lost, but, like the rain absorbed by the sun, and descending again in fruitful showers on our fields, they will be gathered by the Sun of Justice, and they will come down in refreshing showers of grace upon your head. "Cast thy bread upon the running waters; for, after a long time, thou shalt find it again." [1] [Footnote 1: Faith of our Fathers, chap. xvi.] THE DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY. ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. [1] [Footnote 1: Answer to nine objections made.] The Catholic Church does not believe that God created any to be damned absolutely, notwithstanding their co-operation with the means of salvation which were secured to them by the death of Jesus Christ; nor any to be saved absolutely, unless they co-operate with those means. Hence she has ever taught the doctrine which is inculcated in Scripture, that heaven may be obtained by all who shall apply the means which the Saviour of the World has left in His Church for that end: in a word, that every man shall be judged according to his works. This doctrine is consonant with the justice which must belong to the Deity. She knows God is too pure to admit anything defiled into His heavenly abode (Apoc. xxi. 27); and yet too just and merciful to punish a slight transgression with the same severity as is due to an enormous crime. Now, suppose two men to sin against God at the same time, the one by the deliberate murder of his father--for the case is possible--and the other, by a slight, almost inadvertent, falsehood; and suppose, further, that they are both to appear before God the next moment to answer for the deeds done in the flesh, I ask whether it is consistent with the idea we have of divine justice to think that both will be condemned to the same everlasting punishment? If it be, then there is no more moral turpitude in parricide than in telling a trivial falsehood, which injures no one, but still is offensive and displeasing to God. But if it be not consistent with divine justice, then you must admit the distinction of guilt, and consequently of punishment. Now, that God exacts a temporary punishment for sin, after the guilt and eternal punishment are remitted, appears from the testimony of His Sacred Word. St. Paul teaches that the death of the body is a punishment which the sin of our first parent entailed on his progeny; and yet many who have been regenerated by baptism from that original guilt, nevertheless die before they have committed any actual sin whatever. The children of Israel had to leave their bones in the wilderness, after the forty years' sojournment, as a punishment, inflicted by the Almighty Himself, for sins which He had expressly forgiven them. Num. xiv. 20, 22. David was forgiven his sin--and yet he was punished for it, by the death of his child, whom he loved most tenderly.