gathered an assembly of clerics and doctors, and asked them whether they

regarded the baptism as valid.
"It is void," said St. Patrick.

"Why is it void?" asked St. Gal, who had evangelized the people of Cornwall
and had trained the holy Mael for his apostolical labours.

"The sacrament of baptism," answered St. Patrick, "is void when it is given to
birds, just as the sacrament of marriage is void when it is given to a

eunuch."
But St. Gal replied:

"What relation do you claim to establish between the baptism of a bird and the
marriage of a eunuch? There is none at all. Marriage is, if I may say so, a

conditional, a contingent sacrament. The priest blesses an event beforehand;
it is evident that if the act is not consummated the benediction remains

without effect. That is obvious. I have known on earth, in the town of Antrim,
a rich man named Sadoc, who, living in concubinage with a woman, caused her to

be the mother of nine children. In his old age, yielding to my reproofs, he
consented to marry her, and I blessed their union. Unfortunately Sadoc's great

age prevented him from consummating the marriage. A short time afterwards he
lost all his property, and Germaine (that was the name of the woman), not

feeling herself able to endurepoverty, asked for the annulment of a marriage
which was no reality. The Pope granted her request, for it was just. So much

for marriage. But baptism is conferred without restrictions or reserves of any
kind. There is no doubt about it, what the penguins have received is a

sacrament."
Called to give his opinion, Pope St. Damascus expressed himself in these

terms:
"In order to know if a baptism is valid and will produce its result, that is

to say, sanctification, it is necessary to consider who gives it and not who
receives it. In truth, the sanctifying virtue of this sacrament results from

the exterior act by which it is conferred, without the baptized person
cooperating in his own sanctification by any personal act; if it were

otherwise it would not be administered to the newly born. And there is no
need, in order to baptize, to fulfil any special condition; it is not

necessary to be in a state of grace; it is sufficient to have the intention of
doing what the Church does, to pronounce the consecrated words and to observe

the prescribed forms. Now we cannot doubt that the venerable Mael has observed
these conditions. Therefore the penguins are baptized."

"Do you think so?" asked St. Guenole. "And what then do you believe that
baptism really is? Baptism is the process of regeneration by which man is born

of water and of the spirit, for having entered the water covered with crimes,
he goes out of it a neophyte, a new creature, abounding in the fruits of

righteousness; baptism is the seed of immortality" target="_blank" title="n.不死，不朽，永生，来生">immortality; baptism is the pledge of
the resurrection; baptism is the burying with Christ in His death and

participation in His departure from the sepulchre. That is not a gift to
bestow upon birds. Reverend Fathers, let us consider. Baptism washes away

original sin; now the penguins were not conceived in sin. It removes the
penalty of sin; now the penguins have not sinned. It produces grace and the

gift of virtues, uniting Christians to Jesus Christ, as the members to the
body, and it is obvious to the senses that penguins cannot acquire the virtues

of confessors, of virgins, and of widows, or receive grace and be united to--"
St. Damascus did not allow him to finish.

"That proves," said he warmly, "that the baptism was useless; it does not
prove that it was not effective."

"But by this reasoning," said St. Guenole, "one might baptize in the name of
the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by aspersion or immersion, not

only a bird or a quadruped, but also an inanimate object, a statue, a table, a
chair, etc. That animal would be Christian, that idol, that table would be

Christian! It is absurd!"
St. Augustine began to speak. There was a great silence.

"I am going," said the ardentbishop of Hippo, "to show you, by an example,
the power of formulas. It deals, it is true, with a diabolical operation. But

if it be established that formulas taught by the Devil have effect upon
unintelligent animals or even on inanimate objects, how can we longer doubt

that the effect of the sacramental formulas extends to the minds of beasts and
even to inert matter?

"This is the example. There was during my lifetime in the town of Madaura, the
birthplace of the philosopher Apuleius, a witch who was able to attract men to

her chamber by burning a few of their hairs along with certain herbs upon her
tripod, pronouncing at the same time certain words. Now one day when she

wished by this means to gain the, love of a young man, she was deceived by her
maid, and instead of the young man's hairs, she burned some hairs pulled from

a leather bottle, made out of a goatskin that hung in a tavern. During the
night the leather bottle, full of wine, capered through the town up to the

witch's door. This fact is undoubted. And in sacraments as in enchantments it
is the form which operates. The effect of a divineformula cannot be less in

power and extent than the effect of an infernalformula."
Having spoken in this fashion the great St. Augustine sat down amidst

applause.
One of the blessed, of an advanced age and having a melancholy appearance,

asked permission to speak. No one knew him. His name was Probus, and he was
not enrolled in the canon of the saints.

"I beg the company's pardon," said he, "I have no halo, and I gained eternal
blessedness without any eminentdistinction. But after what the great St.

Augustine has just told you I believe it right to impart a cruel experience,
which I had, relative to the conditions necessary for the validity of a

sacrament. The bishop of Hippo is indeed right in what he said. A sacrament
depends on the form; its virtue is in its form; its vice is in its form.

Listen, confessors and pontiffs, to my woeful story. I was a priest in Rome
under the rule of the Emperor Gordianus. Without desiring to recommend myself

to you for any special merit, I may say that I exercised my priesthood with
piety and zeal. For forty years I served the church of St.

Modestus-beyond-the-Walls. My habits were regular. Every Saturday I went to a
tavern-keeper called Barjas, who dwelt with his wine-jars under the Porta

Capena, and from him I bought the wine that I consecrated daily throughout the
week. During that.long space of time I never failed for a single morning to

consecrate the holy sacrifice of the mass. However, I had no joy, and it was
with a heart oppressed by sorrow that, on the steps of the altar I used to

ask, 'Why art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted within
me?' The faithful whom I invited to the holy table gave me cause for

affliction, for having, so to speak, the Host that I administered still upon
their tongues, they fell again into sin just as if the sacrament had been

without power or efficacy. At last I reached the end of my earthly trials, and
failing asleep in the Lord, I awoke in this abode of the elect. I learned then

from the mouth of the angel who brought me here, that Barjas, the
tavern-keeper of the Porta Capena, had sold for wine a decoction of roots and

barks in which there was not a single drop of the juice of the grape. I had
been unable to transmute this vile brew into blood, for it was not wine, and

wine alone is changed into the blood of Jesus Christ. Therefore all my
consecrations were invalid, and unknown to us, my faithful and myself had for

forty years been deprived of the sacrament and were in fact in a state of
excommunication. This revelation threw me into a stupor which overwhelms me

even to-day in this abode of bliss. I go all through Paradise without ever
meeting a single one of those Christians whom formerly I admitted to the holy

table in the basilica of the blessed Modestus. Deprived of the bread of
angels, they easily gave way to the most abominable vices, and they have all

gone to hell. It gives me some satisfaction to think that Barjas, the
tavern-keeper, is damned. There is in these things a logic worthy of the

author of all logic. Nevertheless my unhappy example proves that it is
sometimes inconvenient that form should prevail over essence in the

sacraments, and I humbly ask, Could not, eternalwisdomremedy this?"
"No," answered the Lord. "The remedy would be worse than the disease. It would

be the ruin of the priesthood if essenceprevailed over form in the laws of
salvation."

"Alas! Lord," sighed the humble Probus. "Be persuaded by my humble experience;
as long as you reduce your sacraments to formulas your justice will meet with

terrible obstacles."
"I know that better than you do," replied the Lord. "I see in a single glance

both the actual problems which are difficult, and the future problems which
will not be less difficult. Thus I can foretell that when the sun will have

turned round the earth two hundred and forty times more.
"Sublime language," exclaimed the angels.

"And worthy of the creator of the world," answered the pontiffs.
"It is," resumed the Lord, "a manner of speaking in accordance with my old

cosmogony and one which I cannot give up without losing my immutability. . . .
"After the sun, then, will have turned another two hundred and forty times