This infinite beatitude consisting in the contemplation and love of his own essence which is actuated in the Trinity, presents the idea of a beatitude infinitely superior to and distinct from any felicity to which we have any natural aptitude or impulse. Its cause and object is the divine essence, directly and immediately beheld by an intellectual vision, of which our corporeal vision of material objects is but a faint shadow. The Catholic doctrine teaches that human nature must be elevated by a supernatural gratuitous grace in order to attain to this vision of God; that in Christ it is so elevated, even to a hypostatic union with the second person of the Trinity; that in Adam it was elevated to a lesser or adoptive filiation; that the angelic nature is also elevated to a similar state; and that men, under the present dispensation; are subjects of the same grace. The church teaches, moreover, that this grace is granted to men, since the fall, only through the merits of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross; that without divine grace they cannot even begin a supernatural life; that no merely natural virtue deserves this grace; and that it is by faith, which is the gift of God; by the sacraments, and by good works done in the state of grace, in the communion of the Catholic Church, that we can alone obtain everlasting life with Christ. There is as much difference between this doctrine and any form of Unitarianism as there is between the sun and the earth; the star-studded sky and a neat, well-kept flower-garden. Catholics may differ from each other in regard to certain questions concerning the state of human nature when destitute of grace; but we are all agreed in regard to the need of grace for attaining the end we are bound to strive after, the conditions of obtaining this grace, and the obligation of complying with them, as well as in regard to the insufficiency of all media for bringing the human race even to its acme of temporal progress and felicity, except the institutions and teaching of the Catholic Church. ------- {188} Heremore-Brandon; Or, The Fortunes Of A Newsboy. CHAPTER IX. When they arrived at the Wiltshire depot, Dick and Mary were still undecided what step to take next; for neither of them favored the idea of asking at once for Dr. Heremore, feeling certain that the probabilities of his being alive would vanish the moment that such an inquiry was proposed. It was a nice enough town, with fine breezes from the sea blowing through its streets, and a quaint look about the houses that made Dick, at least, feel as if they were in a foreign land. Dick and Mary stood on the depot platform together, undecided still. "Let us walk a little way up and see what we can see," Mary proposed.