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naturally closes one of his most touching poems, written because of the office he holds, with a prayer for the dead, thus additionally testifying to our belief and practice from the sixteenth century to the present time.

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-Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, by Alfred Tennyson. p. 16, London, 1852.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CHRISTIAN DUTY OF PRAYING FOR THE DEPARTED.

F the

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the general necessity of earnest, systematic,

constant, and devout prayer to God, no Christian can doubt. Prayer has been concisely and clearly defined by St. Thomas Aquinas to be an act of the reasoning powers of man making manifest the desire of his will, in which he asks God either to remove some evil or to bestow some good.* Such prayer, then, is most needful for us all. It is the channel through which the rivers of divine grace flow into the soul of the believer. No Christian can become utterly vicious and callous to his eternal interests, nor fall absolutely into scepticism and unbelief, unless he first relinquishes the great duty of prayer. And no Christian is worthy of the name who does not, like David of old, pray at least three times a-day, who declared, "In the evening, and morning, and at

In Sec. Secund. Quæst. Ixxxiii. i.

noonday will I pray, and that instantly, and He shall hear my voice." Prayer to become efficacious, however, and to bring down the abiding blessings of the Most High, must be made with a firm faith and confidence in God, with humility of heart and purity of intention. The Apostle St. Paul sets forth what kind of prayers should be used in the following passage: "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks [eixapiorias] be made for all men."* Bishop Hammond, in his "Practical Catechism," following the order of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, thus divides the subject-matter of prayer:

(a) "Supplications." The acknowledging of sin and asking pardon; or the removal of temporal and spiritual evil.

(B) "Prayers."

The asking for those things

which are needful both for our souls and bodies,

especially for the bestowal of such gifts as may ensure

our growth in grace.

(7) "Intercessions."

The prayers or requests

which are made for others, whether friends or

enemies, for the averting of evil from them, or the bestowal of gifts.

* 1 Tim. ii. 1.)

() "The giving of thanks." Acknowledging both God's temporal and His spiritual mercies to ourselves as well as to others.

With the third of these divisions, "intercessions," are we now specially concerned.

Theologians teach that we are without any doubt bound to intercede for all men, but especially for those who are of the household of faith. All, therefore, are to be included in our general acts of intercession, without the exception either of enemy, nation, or religion. For every person, be he foe, alien, or unbeliever, is our neighbour, whom by God's express commands we are enjoined to love, and for whom consequently we should continually offer up our prayers—a primary duty of love. Of course in these intercessions those things which pertain to the salvation of the soul should occupy the first place; things temporal the second.

We should pray, then, for all who are set over us in the Lord, and for all who have in times past occupied that position, whether they be still in the flesh, or have passed away to the unseen world. We should intercede for those without the pale of the visible Church, that is, for the idolaters, unbelievers, Jews, Moslems, heretics, and schismatics, that faith

may be given to infidels, that idolaters and worshippers of false gods may be freed from the error of impiety, that Mahometans may be converted, that Jews may receive the light of Christian truth, that heretics, returning to soundness of doctrine, may be built up in the true teaching of the Church Universal, and that schismatics, inflamed once again by divine and not by false charity, may be re-united to the One Church of God. And particularly we should constantly, earnestly, and devoutly intercede for the departed, for father, mother, brother, sister, friend, relative; for all the dead who may have wronged us, and for all whom we have wronged. We should do so, as has been already set forth, on the following and on other grounds:

1. The dead need our prayers, eventual final state is not yet settled.

because their

They are still "The souls of the

in the keeping of the Most High. righteous are in the hands of God," but not yet in His presence.

2. Even those who are saints will have an additional happiness bestowed upon them in the future, when all the ransomed in Christ are joined with them at the last; as St. Paul declares, "God having provided some better thing for us, that

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