‘Grace and peace … from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of earth. To him who loves us and has loosed us from our sins in his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests to God and his Father—to him be the glory and the might for ever and ever: amen!’ (Apoc. i, 4-6.) This text from the last book of the Scriptures serves to recall a large and important aspect of the apostolic witness to the doctrine of the King and his Kingdom. The Apocalypse is full of the Kingdom in all its phases: as it now is, even now triumphant, and yet to be perfected, consummated in a hereafter. It is a sustained vision of Jesus Christ gloried fied as also of the Bride of Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem glorified.

The unequivocal command to continual prayer so clearly expressed by Christ in the Gospels is by no means so clearly understood by the average christian of today. That everybody should pray the sincere Christian will readily admit, but it is the element of eternity that is either glossed over or assumed to refer only to those who have received a special call to a life of contemplation in the cloister. The fact plainly is that it is a call to all who Pretend to follow Christ, and we are bound to pray always. There is no doubt an unconscious prejudice based on a misconception of the meaning of prayer. The reasons for this Prejudice may be said to be two which are very closely allied, one being in a sense the cause of the other.

It is truly meet and just, right and availing unto salvation that we should at all time and in all places, give thanks unto thee, Holy Lord, Father Almighty, everlasting God, gracious dweller in chaste bodies and divme lover of undefined souls.

For in that Word of thine by whom all things were made, thou dost renew man's nature corrupted in. the first of our race by the malice of the devil. And this in such wise as rtf only to recall it to the innocence of its first beginnings, bu even to bring it to a knowledge of those everlasting good things attainable in the life to come. Indeed, thou dost even now uplift unto the likeness of angels those who are still bound by the condition of this mortal life

Religious obedience differs from ordinary obedience by being vowed. The vow is an act of worship of God, and dedicates the controlling faculty in man to him, and so the whole of the future life is under the vow. The power to choose is subjected and consecrated to God and his ministers, so that everything done thereafter in execution of the vow has the value and merit of the virtue of religion as well as of obedience.

As in the case of the virtue, there is a difference between the subjective and the objective extension of the vow. It is generally agreed among theologians, and is usually expressed in the constitutions of religious institutes, that there is only objective obligation under the vow when a proper precept binding under sin is given, and commonly only when the Vow is expressly invoked in the precept, in a more or less fixed formula.

Venerable Fathers, dearest sons and daughters, it is asource of great consolation and joy to Us to see before this impressive gathering of representatives from every continent and from every part of the world, met together here at the very centre of Christianity to celebrate this world Congross on the Lay Apostolate. You have been studying the nature and purpose of this work, you have given much thought to the present state of the world and you are acutely aware of the grave respon sibilities which are upon us of this generation to look to the future. These have been for you days of ceaseless prayer, a time for a searching examination of conscience and, withal, an opportunity to exchange views and experiences.