The Blessed Virgin's Root traced in the Tribe of Ephraim.
By the Rev. F. H. Laing, D.D. (Washbourne.)-0an any one imagine why the
supremacy of the Pope should follow as a consequence from the fact—
could it be made out to be a fact—of the Virgin's descent from Ephraim ? We say "could it be made out ?" for all that we know about her family is that she was cousin to Elizabeth, and that Elizabeth was "a daughter of Aaron." Well, the argument is this, —Ephraim had the real birthright of the house of Israel as representing Joseph, the older son of Rachel, Rachel being by right the first wife of Jacob. And by this descent, 'in conjunction with his descent from the sceptre-bearing tribe of Judah," our Lord "is completely the native Firstborn Prince of men, with inde- feasibly sovereign jurisdiction over the whole world, as his own rightful
territory." Now, this right immediately renders his appointed Vice- gerent—the successor of Peter—the legitimate ruler by delegated
authority of the same unlimited territory of the world which his lord possessed in his own right as master of heaven and earth." Let heretics mark what follows. "If this grand truth were held by all Catholics, ass it is indeed sincerely by the staunch ones, we should not have to wit-
ness the cowardly apostaclea which only too frequently take place in the various countries of Christendom, caused by the malevolent canting
which instinct for sedition makes the anti-Christian hypocrites of the press to deal forth about the majesty of States and of civil order, which would then be regarded in Its due light contemptuously as the impotent gibbering of apes from the wilderness of their native Babel." Dr. Laing,. we see, dates his preface from Rat:well.
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