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to the time and hour,-since this, recalled to the memory day by day, will relish more and more, will comfort and inflame thee as thou meditatest. For therein are all spiritual advancement and perfection; but these good things are tasted only by those who love it, and desire to emulate it. To the carnal and worldly it seems bitter and severe; but to the pious and devout it is sweet and comfortable. For they who seek after honours, or the acquisition of worldly goods, seeking everywhere their own advantage; these are not conformed to My Passion, nor can they attain unto its internal sweetness. But whoso seeks to despise the world, and to crucify his flesh with its vices and lusts, will find the greatest consolation, and experience especial devotion in My Passion. For to such a soul I say: O, My dove, thou art in the cleft of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs. (Cant. ii. 14.) For her also do I keep those words, which I spake to a certain beloved disciple: Reach hither thy hands, and observe the prints of the nails (S. John xx. 27); and be not cowardly and timid, but bold and valiant-hearted in imitating My sufferings. Whoso endeavours to deny himself, and to strip himself of all affection for the creatures, shall have an especial refuge in the open wound of My right side. He will also be more at liberty to visit Me in the deep wound of love, since now he careth not for creature comforts; for I draw all his inward thoughts to Myself: so that he feels not himself who feels My wounded heart. Make thyself, then, a stranger to all earthly occupation; despise all empty cares; withdraw thyself from friends and acquaintances, that thou mayest enter to the Beloved through the door of the wound in His side. Put on such affections as the holy women had who beheld Me hanging on the Cross, and most bitterly bewailed Me as for an only son; for then thou wilt truly

know and taste how much power My Passion has in the heart of a lover, if thou put on the bowels of My beloved mother; if thou thinkest with thy whole heart nothing so much to be loved as I; because the greatness of compassion is drawn from the greatness of love.

6. Well, yea very well, do Thy words please me, O LORD JESUS CHRIST. Whence I entreat Thee, although I cannot perfectly imitate Thee in all things, yet grant me to suffer in some sort with Thee. I will therefore lift up the eyes of my heart to my LORD, hanging naked on the Cross. I will well consider each stripe and puncture of Thy body, and with especial devotion embrace and kiss Thy wounded hands and pierced feet, even with the very nails. Then I will enter into the open wound of Thy side, as into the chamber where my beloved sleepeth; where I may live in secret, and be protected from all harm, and rest in happy confidence in peace divine. I will fear no evil, whatever may be brought upon me, nor whatever may be said or thought contemptuously of me, if only Thou art, and remainest with me. I will trust in Thee, and will remain day and night in Thy side. Thou art a more faithful friend than all this world. Thou art a stronger wall of defence than all the army of angels, and therefore I ought never to be forgetful of Thee; but, as far as my ability and weakness permit, should I sorrowfully remember Thy most bitter Passion. And yet no creature can think, speak, or write fully of this, and as it deserves, though all were intent upon nothing else; because it surpasseth all comprehension of the creature that Thou, O GOD, the Creator of all things, didst deign to be made man, and die for men.

7. Therefore, I humbly beseech Thee, O LORD, to look in mercy on me, a sinner; and to enlighten me within by Thy unspeakable grace, often to visit me, to bedew me with tears, to break and heal me with compunction, that

Thou mayst renew and inflame, by fervent meditation on Thy Passion, him whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious Blood. Grant me to advance devoutly therein, and thence always to derive the saving remedies of my own sufferings. Would that it would enter more deeply into my heart than it hath heretofore done, and so affect and inform me, as it has affected and moved to sorrow holy men and women; to the end that, even in my lifetime, there may be a likeness to Thy death, by the operation of the Spirit and the mortification of the flesh; and I may use those memorable words of the Apostle-“ I am crucified with CHRIST," (Gal. ii. 20); and to use that equally most joyous saying, against all the carnal and vain-glorious wise men--" From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the LORD JESUS." (Gal. vi. 17.) The blessed Apostle Paul bore Thy glorious and, precious marks in his body; since, besides the daily remembrance of Thy Passion, he rejoiced with all his heart to be outwardly afflicted, and to be despised for Thy Name. Whatever bodily pain or mental anguish he felt, he regarded it as all light, and very easy to be borne, from the loving consideration of Thy wounds; and therefore he exhorted all Thy faithful lovers, saying: Let us always bear about in our body the dying of the LORD JESUS, that the life also of JESUS may be made manifest in our bodies. Strive thou also, O my soul, to do the same, especially on those days on which the adorable memory of the LORD's Passion is kept in the Church, and with sorrowful mind and devout attention direct thither the eye of thy thoughts, where thou knowest that JESUS was most grievously afflicted for thee. Say affectionately with the bride, mindful always of thy Bridegroom, from love of the Crucified, I to my Beloved, and His turning is towards me.

W. B. F.

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THE EMPIRE OF THE SEA.

"This sceptred isle,

This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war;
This little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands;
England."

Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 1.

WHO can forget his overpowering emotions at the first sight of the mighty ocean, ever the same, yet never alike? its broad expanse, chameleon-like, flushed with varying dyes, a summer sea; or rolling in white billows far beyond the ken of eye, and bursting in fury on rock or sand in tempest or sunshine, so apt a type of troublous human life, with change and chance; and the visible symbol of the eternal power, beauty and immortality of Him, Whose footsteps are in the deep. To the man of thought its waves say another story, speaking like the voices of liberty, telling of lands brighter and richer than our own, to which the great waters are the highway, of wrecked argosy and gold-laden galleys, far down in the abysses and caves beneath gems of price; and of more worth than all those treasures, loving woman and brave men who have gone down to an unseen grave in peace and war, in tempest and fire, and reminding us that sceptres have changed masters, and monarchies been lost and won, empires decided, and dominion arrested by the issues of the fights upon that flood, which is the dowry of England.

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It is a magnificent sight-a fleet of men-of-war getting under weigh-nothing so grand or interesting. Ship after ship, a minute since lying motionless and apparently without men, with yards crossed and tapering spars, lying still on her own rippling shadow, suddenly swarms aloft and below; the canvass unfurled in flashing folds like sheets of snow swiftly falls, and clothes the dark masts; the sails swell with the wind that whistles cheerily through the net-work of cordage, and like a thing of life the giant first-rate and the graceful frigate move along the waters, cleaving the spray that melts away beneath the bows, while over their swift pathway a line of white foam bubbles as if in play.

Among these colossal leviathans, these sea-castles, lie now-a-days others as immoveable; huge tiers of batteries, which it would seem must require the strong gale and all the strength of the broadest sails to move the rocklike frame in which they are imbedded. Yet but for the merry fife, the measured tread, the joyous chorus of the sailors, as they tramp cheerily round the capstan, and lift the anchor with the massive cable that slowly coils in its place, there is on board of each perfect repose. When softly from the low funnel, almost hidden by mast and rigging, shoots a little cloud of smoke, and the good ship moves as if urged by unseen hands instinct with animation.

Such was the spectacle our Queen went down to see, on Saturday March 13, 1854; it was a right royal show, to be beheld but once in a reign. The sea all calm, the sky without a cloud, bright and clear, and the west wind fair, and prosperous as omen of good, rolling away the yery smoke of the guns, that would have concealed the stout ships from view. Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury haranguing her troops was never received with such pride,

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