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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Sued , the soul could not be saved ; or , rather , as from the beginning , soul and flesh , were one man'and inseparable , without his flesh , man was lost , or would cease to be . But the natural organization of the flesh was infected , and unless organization could begin ag . n from . a new original , no pure material substance could exist at all . He , therefore , by whom God had first made the world , entered into the womb of the Virgin in the form ( so to speak ) , of a new organic cell , and around it , through the virtue of His creative energy , a material body grew again of the substance of his mother , pure of taint and clean as the first body of the
first man when it passed out under His hand in the beginning of all things . In Him thus wonderfully born was the virtue which was to restore the lost power of mankind . He came to redeem man ; and , therefore , he took a human body , and he kept it pure through a human life , till the time came when it could be applied to its marvellous purpose . He died , and then appeared what was the nature of a material human body when freed from the limitations of sin . The grave could not hold it , neither was it possible that it should eee corruption . It was real , for the disciples were allowed to feel and handle it . He ate and drank with them to assure their senses . But
space had no power over it , nor any of the material obstacles which limit our ordinary power . He willed and his body obeyed . He was here , He was there . He was visible , He was invisible . He was in the midst of his disciples and they saw ] Him , and then He was gone , whither who could tell ? At last He passed away to heaven ; but while in heaven , He was still on earth . His body became the body of His Church on earth , not in metaphor , but in fact . His very material body , in which and by which the faithful would be saved , His flesh and blood were thenceforth to be
their food . They were to eat it as they would eat ordinary meat . They were to take it into their system , a pure material substance , to leaven the old natural substance and assimilate it to itself . As they fed upon it it would grow into them , and it would become their own real body . Flesh grown in the old way was the body of death , but the flesh of Christ was the life of the world , over which death had no power . Circumcision availed nothing , nor uncircumcision—but a neio creature—this new creature , which the child first put on in baptism , being
born again into Christ of water and the spirit . In the Eucharist he was fed and sustained , and going on from strength to strength , and ever as the nature of his body changed , being able to render a more complete obedience , he would at last pass away to God through the gate of the grave , and stand holy and perfect in the presence of Christ . Christ . had indeed been ever present with him ; but because while life lasted some particles of the old Adam would necessarily cling to him , the Christian ' s mortal eye on earth * . W ¥ . W I - M - 1 ta .. ^ 1-h . wv m % l ~ h *¦ rf ~ w ^^ 11 j \ r l nip "W ? s ~ tii 4 * 'vv % r * j ^ cannot HimHed in b his muddvesture
*— ^ * see . ged y " y of decay , " his eyes , like the eyes of the disciples of Emmaus , are holden , and only in faith he feels Him . But death , which till Christ had died had been the last victory of evil , in virtue of His submission to it , became its own destroyer , for it had power only over the tainted particles of the old substance , and there was nothing needed but that these should be washed away and the elect would stand out at once pure and holy , clothed in immortal bodies , like reiincd gold , the redeemed of God .
The being who accomplished a work so vast , a work compared to which the first creation appears but a trifling difficulty , what could He he but ( Jod ? God Himself ! Who but God could have wrested His prize from a power which half the thinking world believed to be His coequal and eoeternal adversary , lie was God . lit : was man uIko , for lie was the second Adam—the second starting point of human growth . He was virgin horn , that no original impurity might infect the substance which He assumed ; and being Himself Hinle . su , He showed in the nature of His person , after His resurrection , what
the material body would have been in all of uh except for sin , and whut it will be when , after feeding on it in itH purity , tho bodies of each of us are transfigured after itH likeness . Here wan the secret of the spirit which set St . Simeon on his pillnr and neiit St . Anthony to the tombs —of the night watches , the weary fatits , the penitential aeourgingH , and lifelong austerities which have been alternately the glory and the reproach of the modiaival saints . They would overcome ; their animal bodies , and anticipate in life the work of death in uniting themselves more completely to Christ l » y the destruction of the nenh
which lay as a veil between themselves and Him . And such , I believe , to have been the central idea of the beautiful creed which , for 1800 years , has turned the heart and formed the mind of the noblest of mankind . From this centre it radiated out and spread , as time went on , into the full circle of human activity , flinging its own philosophy and its own peculiar grace over the common detail of the common life of all of us . Like the seven lamps before the Throne of God , the seven mighty angels , and th * seven stars , the seven sacraments shed over us a never ceasing stream of blesaed influence . First there are the priests , a holy order set apart and
endowed with mysterious power , representing Christ and administering his gilts . Christ , in his twelfth year , was presented in the temple , and first entered on Hi » father ' s business ; and the baptised child , when it has grown to an age to become conscious of its vow and of its privilege , again renews it in full knowledge of what it undertakes , and receives again sacramentally a fresh gift of grace to assist it forward on its way . In maturity it seeks a companion to share it * pains and pleasures ? and , again , Christ is present to consecrate the union . Marriage , which outside the churrh only serves to perpetuate the curse and bring fresh inheritors of misery into the world , He made holy by His presence at Cana , and chose it as the symbol to represent His own mystic union with His church .
Even saints cannot live without at times some spot adhering to them . The atmosphere in which we breathe and move is soiled , and Christ has anticipated our want * . Christ did penance forty days in the wilderness , not to subdue His own flesh , for that which was already perfect did not need subduing , but to give to penance a cleansing virtue to serve for our daily or our hourly ablution . Christ consecrates our birth ; Christ throws over us our baptismal robe of pure unsullied innocence . He strengthens us as we go forward . He raises us when we fall . He feeds us with the substance of His
own most precious body . In the person of His minister he does all this for us , in virtue of that which in His own person he actually performed when a man living on this earth . La 9 t of all , when all ia drawing to its close with us , when life is past , when the work i » done , and the dark gate is near , beyond which the garden of our eternal home is waiting to receive us , His tender care has not forsaken us . He has taken away the sting of death , but its appearance is still terrible ; -and He will not leave us without special help at our last need . He tried the agony of the moment ; and He sweetens the cup for us before we drink it . We are dismissed to the grave with our bodies anointed with oil , which He made holy in His
last anointing before his passion , and then all is over . We lie down and seem to decay—to decay—but not all . Our natural bod y decays , the last remains of which we have inherited from Adam , but the spiritual body , that glorified substance which has made our life , and is our real body as we are in Christ , that can never decay , but passes off into the kingdom which is prepared for it ; that other world where there is no sin , and God is all and in all ! Such is the Philosophy of Christianity . It was worn and old when Luther found it . Our posterity will care less to respect ^ Luther for rending it in pieces , when it has learnt to despise the miserable fabric which he stitched together out of its tatters . P .
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THE BANISHED STUDENT'S LAMENT . The earth is gay with leaves and flowers , The skylark soars and sings above , The sunlight gleama between the showers Deep ' ning the shadows of the grove . The waggoner upon his way Sings out in rude and joyous glee ; I mourn upon this mirthful day , L'or thou , dear love , art far from me . Mftlunks thine aerial beauty bends , Sometimes above the waving woods ; Or , like a ray of moonlight , lends A passing brightness to the floods ; Or glides along the glistening gruas , Or laughs with children on the lea ; — 1 dream- -to lind how hard , alaa ! It is to live apart from thee ! Yet sometimes , from the woodbine wreath , And sometimes , from the lily meek , Or from the rose , I feel thy breath In fru » ranee , on my cheek ; And sometimes , in the pansy ' s eye , I see thy smile and smile to see ;••—Then stifle in my heart a nigh To think thou urt bo far from me . The wind blows over Held and stream , Th « train , wiih whistle clear and shrill , And snow-white flag of curling steuin , Swocpn swiftly past the wooded hill . 1 heur the brawling of the brooks , The loving birds in couples not- . And turn , to neck that peace in Books , 1 nuYr shall find—away from thee ! Gi ' . onoi ' . Ilooritu
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DON GIOVANNI . By Ms performance of Ottavio , Tamberiik has taken such a stride in public favour that Mario ' s superiority has become more and more questionable . Certainly Mario never sang in the mask trio with more exquisite expression ; and as for the famous il mio tesoro , therein Tamberiik surpasses all tenors in my catalogue . The tenderness and delicacy with which the opening phrases are given are only eclipsed by thai marvellous passage
ctreate di asciugar , with its swelling Htsiainment of the F passing on to B fiat—a passage that thrilled the audience to ecstaey . Tamberiik sings this as Mozart wrote it . Rubini was the first to take the shake upon the A from the accompaniment , and though by so doing orchestra and voice are in unison , yet the effect was so striking that other tenors have copied it ; but Tamberiik proved thatwith his voice at any late—what Mozart wrote was the finest after all .
While recording this triumph of a singer whom from the first I have battled for , let me also add that bat for him Covent Garden would have been in a terrible plight , Mario having so frequently been disabled . There is danger , however , of their overworking TamberJik : he has scarcely any respite . Tamburini reappeared as Don Giovanni , and sang without voice , but with infinite spirit , and acted without the grace and daring of Don Juan , but with a certain dash which pleased the audience . It was like anything you please , but only not like Don Juan ! As for Madame Castellan ' s Zerlina , I
must say of it as of all her performances : she is a pretty woman with a charming voice , but has no more perception of the part than if she actually did not understand the language she sings . "Batti Batti " was cruelly distorted : she dragged the time as if it were a dirge , and threw in ornaments for which she ought to have been hissed . ( N . B . The same remark applies to Tamburini . I am no rigorist . I do not object to singers embroidering Mozart ; but I do object—vociferously—to singers dragging vulgar commonplaces worn out in the service of Donizetti and Verdi into the music of the divine
Mozart !) Yet " Batti Batti" gained its encore , as well as " Vedrai Carino , " also taken too slow ! What a contrast was Grisi ' s impassioned Donna Anna ! and Formes's admirably original picture of Leporello ! Grisi , —who , like an insulted empress hearing of a pretender , had snatched up the sacred reaping hook of Norm a to quell the sediziose voce which dared insinuate that Norma had a rival , and once more reasserted her empire over all
hearts , even of those who for a moment doubted whether the youth , daah , fire , and intelligence of Cruvelli were not a match for the great Norma herself— Grisi , I say , fresh from her triumphant reassertion of being the incomparable Priestess supreme over Druids and Fops' Alley , appeared as Donna Anna , juat to prove how far below her all younger Annas are ! I wonder whether any one fancies that Cruvelli will scream till she is past forty , and still be an enchantress 1
The marvellous grace and meaning of the accompaniments to Don Giovanni were not slurred over by M . Costa and his band : had the singers been aw naught , the accompaniments would have carried off the opera triumphantly . On Thursday , l , a Favorita , no long promised , wan produced ; but 1 was forced to be « laewhere , and must report next week , aa on Thursday I went to her Majesty ' s Theatre to hoc 1 L T MODI G O . An a superb spectacle 11 Prodigo is an unequivocal MiicccsH . JNo pains have been spared , and the management huu been lavish as well as erudite . But Azael , at Drury I > ane , has robbed it of its novelty uau spectacle ; and as an opera , I huve considerable misgivings . Not that it is possible to judge of an opera from one hearing , especially when your eyes arc dazzled by such splendour , and your cars assailed by such a tumultuous orchestra ; but this much ono hearing cuuhlcH me to say : that , the music is gay , coloured , piq uant , and that the instrumentation , in its piquancy ami mastery , reveals the hand of one who has written much and Buccesnfully—it is very sparkling , if not
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664 fflfte % t&tttt * [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), June 14, 1851, page 564, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1887/page/16/
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