of their own true immortality. It is one of the saddest thoughts, that some of the greatest men of the world, as lawgivers, orators, leaders, statesmen, have lived and died, if not in open breach of the Divine laws, at least in an utter insensibility to their own spiritual being, its probation, and its destiny.

3. And lastly, this self-neglect leads directly to an entire forgetfulness of God. Indeed, it includes it. The two go together and involve each other. People, by losing sight of their own hidden life, soon lose also all perception of things unseen, and of the Divine presence as manifested in this world. It is this that makes the whole doctrine, ritual, and discipline of the Catholic Church, the whole mystery of sacraments and of the communion of saints, seem not only a perplexed and untenable theory, but to be a mere dream or vision of superstitious minds. To minds that live for this world, and for what may be seen, touched, and handled, there must be a provoking unreality about the whole theory of the Church. The very word

mystical' is a word of reproach in the mouth of the world. All hidden agencies which are not calculable by science, all preternatural causes which cannot be reduced to a formula, or explained by processes of reason, all precepts and rules of which the direct bearing and consequence is not percep tible, are, to men trained in the service of the

world, an imagination and a delusion. Now this does of course destroy all habits of devotion. There can be no life of prayer and communion with the unseen Presence, where the very Presence itself, if not doubted, is clouded and banished from our habitual consciousness. If the unseen world withdraw itself, and all its glorious realities become pale and dubious, how can our hearts open and yearn towards it? And such is the state to which the business, traffic, and work of this world may bring us.

But if there be any truth in what has been said before, the blame of this must be wholly our own. We can never come to this state, unless we allow the world to sap and to seduce our hearts away from us. What should have been the token of our humiliation, the chastisement of our spirits, and the discipline of our life, we have converted into a temptation and a snare; a burden to oppress our conscience, and a stimulus to excite our fallen nature. We have merged our Christianity in the world, and taken its maxims and rules to be the laws of our regenerate life.

Most true it is, that a life in the midst of the world is a life of peculiar danger. Employments, offices, charges, professions, bring great entanglements, doubts, and absorbing occupations. It needs a strong spirit to stem them in safety. To with

draw from the world is a sign not only of a desire for greater perfection, but of a consciousness of our own weakness. Let these, then, be our safeguards; first, to be thoroughly aware that, in a busy life, there must be manifold temptations; and next, that so far from being a dispensation from higher rules of devotion, we do indeed more truly need them. We need all the retirement we can get from the world to recollect ourselves, and to measure the deviations of our minds from the law of our Lord's example. We ought thankfully to take all the helps the Church provides for us. It was for the world, and for those who are forced to dwell in it, that the visible Church was set up. Without it, this noisy, importunate, besieging world would soon obliterate from our minds the traces of our unseen home. We ought to mould all our plans and habits of daily work upon the order of the Church, and make secular engagements bend and subject themselves to its sacred order of offices and hours. Daily prayers, the continual admonition of visible rites and tokens of faith, frequent receiving of the holy communion, days of festival, seasons of fasting, necessary as they are for pastors and retired Christians, are still more urgently needed by those whose habitual work brings on daily decays of fervour. They have to strengthen themselves against a multiplied action of the world, in

depressing and deteriorating the standard of their inner life. For through our own imperfection, the most lawful and innocent callings become occasions of our own hurt. But this we may entirely believe, that, if we will seek God in all our employments, He will convert them into a discipline of perfection; they will help us onward in our course; in the work of the world we shall be sanctified. Even in the unlikeliest duties and seasons, the most secular and remote from a devout life, when all seems dry, parched, and earthly, He will make us to understand that His grace is sufficient for us. He will fulfil His promise, "When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water."

1 Isaiah xli. 17, 18.

SERMON XVII.

PRAYER A MARK OF TRUE HOLINESS.

ST. MARK i. 35.

"And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed."

THE Evangelists seem especially guided to record, for our instruction, the private devotions of our Lord they speak of them with a frequency and a particularity which shews how large a portion of His life was spent in prayer to God. We read in one place, "When He had sent the multitudes away, He went up into a mountain apart to pray and when evening was come, He was there alone." Again: "And He withdrew Himself into the wilderness, and prayed." Again: "And it came to pass in those days, that He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." And again: "And it came to pass about 2 St. Luke v. 16; vi. 12.

1 St. Matt. xiv. 23.