had He granted a sign to that perverse people would their faith have become perfect? Alas! no. Look at Capharnaum. Its faith, founded on material signs and wonders, was itself material and unenduring. I see the Christ, on His last journey to Jerusalem and death, turn like an avenging angel to Capharnaum and pronounce a woe upon it. "Woe to thee, Capharnaum.,, You believe, yes, but your faith began not as true faith should, in submission of will and mind and heart, to My words. If in pagan Tyre and Sidon had been wrought such mighty works, they had long since done penance in sackcloth and ashes. But thou, Capharnaum, art exalted unto heaven with worldly pride and local vanity. Your faith was born of material signs and wonders, and without them it cannot endure; whence you shall be cast down again into the hell of unbelief. Ah, how true a prophecy was that! When Christ multiplied before their eyes the loaves and fishes they would fain have taken Him by force and made Him king; but when Christ ceased His miracles, when He had utterly surrendered Himself into the hands of His enemies, when Pilate brought Him forth scourged and thorn-crowned and said: " Behold the man, behold your King," many a Capharnaum tongue shouted back: "Away with Him; we have no king but Caesar."
Brethren, it is a fearful thought for us Christians and Catholics that from Jerusalem to Capharnaum the only persons who turned with perfect faith to Christ were a heathen, outside the circle of God's
