[Footnote 86: "God our Saviour", says S. Paul (1 Tim. II, 4) "wishes all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth". The Catholic church is animated by the same spirit of charity, as the admirable prayers of this day might alone prove. If she teaches exclusive salvation. Christ taught the same "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved: he that believeth not shall be condemned" Mark XVI, 26. We cannot therefore consistently accuse the church of want of charity, when she proclaims the general conditions of salvation, without at the same time charging Christ himself, who first taught them, with the same fault. True charity desires the salvation of all but she warns others of their danger; and does not cruelly conceal it from them till it is too late.] [Footnote 87: After these prayers the faithful used anciently to leave the church, and the Priests to go to their own churches, to perform the ceremonies till the evening-service: so that what follows was then a totally distinct service. See Sacram S. Gregorii, ant. Ord. Roman, etc. ap. Martene lib. IV, c. 23.] [Footnote 88: It would appear, that, before Costantine abolished the punishment of malefactors on the cross, the Christians, who well knew with S. Paul that Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the gentiles foolishness', prudently abstained from representing our Saviour nailed to the cross, and used rather to depict a lamb with a cross near it, of which instances may he seen in Rork's Hierurgia p. 520. The first mention of the _crucifix_ in the church is believed to occur in the poem titled _De Passione Domini_ referred to the fourth century. That the use of the sign and the image of the _cross_ was much more ancient and very prevalent among Christians will appear from the following facts. "At every step and movement" says Tertullian (in the early part of the third century) "whenever we come in or go out, when we dress and wash ourselves, at table, when lights are brought in, whether we are lying or sitting down; whatever we are doing, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross". Eusebius mentions that Constantine placed a magnificent cross De Vit. Const. I. 3. In the fourth century in his palace S. John Chrysostom in one of his eloquent homilies observes "Every where the symbol of the cross is present to us. We inscribe it very diligently on our houses, and walls, and doors, and brows, and thoughts". S. Basil (De Spirit. S. ad Amphilochium c. 27.) derives the sign of the cross from Apostolic tradition. That this custom universally prevailed among Christians might be proved from S. Jerome, from the historian Socrates and others, and from monuments of the early Christians still preserved in Egypt: but why travel so far? we have only lo look around us in the catacombs, or in the Vatican Museum and Library. The cross is the chosen, the beloved sign of Christians; they repeated it a