I think we Catholics, when we lay claim to the possession of the whole truth--the entire revelation imparted to the world from Christ through the apostles--sometimes forget how small a share of that truth each one of us possesses in particular. It is the Church that the Holy Ghost leads into all truth, not individuals. Each Catholic, who is sufficiently instructed, knows some truth; he knows what is necessary to salvation; but there are many things which he is totally ignorant of, many things concerning which his conceptions are inadequate or distorted. Now if this be so, it cannot but be useful to remember it, and I will, therefore, this morning, show you how it must be so, and some of the consequences which flow from it. {264} Each one's knowledge of truth must be more or less partial and incomplete, because it varies with each one's capacity for receiving truth. When God gave man reason, He conferred on him the faculty of receiving truth; but the degree in which this or that man is capable of receiving truth, depends upon the strength and cultivation of his particular reason. The eye is the organ of sight, but one man's eye is stronger and truer than another's. Slight variations of color or form, wholly indistinguishable by one man, are detected in a moment by another. So, one man's reason is stronger than another's. What makes the difference, is, of course, in part the diversity in natural endowments, but it is not altogether due to this cause; it is due in great measure also to cultivation. Moral dispositions, too, have a great deal to do with it; and in the case of Christian truth, the grace of God also exerts a special influence. The degrees in which these various elements are found in particular cases, are so different, that there is an almost infinite gradation in the measure in which men are capable of receiving truth. No two men can receive it in exactly the same degree. In all this congregation, where we recite the same Creed and use the same prayers, there are, perhaps, no two of us who mean by them precisely the same thing. The intelligence of each one, his past history, his moral dispositions, will determine how far the faith that is in him corresponds to the faith that is without him--the faith as it is in itself, the object of faith as it is in God. I can make what I mean plain to you by an illustration. Let us suppose a beautiful picture of the crucifixion, for instance, [is] put up in a public gallery. Men of every kind enter and pass before it. There comes a man who has never heard of Christ; he is ignorant and uneducated. He looks up and sees the representation of extremest human agony, mingled with superhuman dignity and patience. Some ray enters his mind; he pauses, is startled then passes on. Now there comes another, who is an anatomist, and he is arrested by the skill with which the body is proportioned, and the play of the muscles and nerves is exhibited. Every line is a study to