the more will we exalt Him. If there was no room for Him in the inn, then let us build beautiful temples; if He had but the straw for His bed, let us clothe His altar in costly stuffs, let us pour out our wealth before Him, because He for our sake became poor. Let Him be lifted on high, because He abased Himself, let men fall on their knees and bow low to the earth, because He subjected Himself to the derision of the multitude. Let us tell the world that if our God seems to be a prisoner, He is a "prisoner of love," and that even in His prisonhouse He is the sovereign of our hearts; that the more He humbled Himself for our sake, the more should we delight to honour Him. Was not this the thought of the wise men of the east when they found Him in the crib of Bethlehem? Because He seemed meek and lowly, they prostrated themselves at His feet; because He seemed so poor they opened their treasures and offered their gifts.

Let us then in every possible manner make reparation to Jesus for all the sufferings and insults He has undergone by great devotion, by selfsacrifice, by passionate love, by bodily reverence, and by the offering to Him of all the faculties of our body and soul. If others despise Him let us exalt Him. If others disbelieve in His presence, let us quicken our faith. If others hate Him, let us love Him more fervently.*

*See "In Spirit and in Truth," Longmans, 1869.

5. CONSOLATION.

Christ is present in the Eucharist as our Friend. This is His visit to every little village as well as every large town to meet His subjects, to hear their prayers and to give them abundance of good gifts.

Let us seek Him in the blessed Sacrament in all our griefs and troubles, and pour out the tale of our sorrows into His ear. He is there ready to hear and to comfort. Where He is, there is bliss; the love of Him is solace in every pain. If we are in joy, we visit Him in His house, and tell Him of our happiness; He rejoices with those who laugh, as well as mourns with those who weep.

"My Beloved," says the soul in the Song of Solomon (ii. 9), "standeth behind our wall, He looketh forth at the lattices." The soul likens Christ to a lover or friend hiding from his beloved who wanders in search of him. She says "I will rise, and go about the city; in the streets, and in the broad ways." But it is not there that she will find Him. He is in the garden of His Church, hidden behind the wall of the sacramental species; we do not see Him, but He sees us. In vain shall we seek Him in the broad way that leadeth to destruction, in the streets of the city, that is in the traffic of worldly affairs. We must find Him in His Church, whence He watches us, expecting the

time when all the number of the elect will be made up, when He may shew Himself at the lattice, when Heaven shall open, and we shall see Him as He is, no more as through a glass darkly under sacramental veils, but face to face.

Let us then strive to realise His presence, and realising it, to address ourselves to Him in all our joys and in all our sorrows as the true friend giving comfort in sorrow and sanctifying joy.

The most striking difference between the Saints and the great multitude of us common professing Christians, is briefly this-they believed and acted on the belief, that holy living was to be learned like a trade. The Saint declares that a holy life is a trade by which men come to be like Christ, through daily self-denials, and daily measuring themselves by the rule of Christ's law given in the sermon on the mount, and the pattern of Christ's life.

When we come to read the lives and stud they experiences of the Saints, we find that self-examination was one of the chief ways in which they learned the trade.

Painstaking examination of conscience lets us know whereabout we are in the religious life. It shows us what enemies we have to overcome, where we have failed, what are the weak points in our

character, what are the graces we most especially need.

By self-examination we learn how far conceit, impurity, falsehood, quick temper, gloomy temper, discontent, are rooted out, how to progress from virtue to virtue, first sticking to one and then to another, all orderly, leisurely, and on a system; by looking at a faithfully kept conscience we spur ourselves onward, seeing now what a little advance has been made, then how much we have retrogressed, what temptations are most pressing, what duties are most needful. And especially is self-examination necessary before Holy Communion, that we may not approach the altar with an unrepented sin in our hearts, which would act as a bar preventing God's grace from operating for our good. Every sin is an impediment, and it must be removed by repentance before the Holy Eucharist can act beneficially upon our spiritual nature. Again, it is desirable that we should never approach the altar without some clearly understood and definitely formed design or intention. If we know our own state, we know exactly what we must need, and feeling this need with intensity it becomes the purpose of our Communion. When we assist without communicating we may let that sacrifice ascend with some intention for another, as an intercession, but when we communicate it is well to seek some special grace for ourselves.

7. THE EFFECTS.

Let us consider the wonderful effects produced by the devout reception of the Body and Blood of Jesus. As meat uniting itself with the body imparts to it its proper qualities, even so Christ entering into us and uniting Himself with our souls, communicates to us His qualities and virtues, so as to renew us after His own image, and make us "bear the image of the heavenly;" for "as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." Such as Christ is, such will they become who with right dispositions unite with Him in the holy SacraAnd although He communicates all virtues, yet especially does he give to everyone that virtue of which he stands most in need, and desires most, just as manna, which containing all sweetness, yet adapted itself to each man's taste (Wisdom xvi. 21).

ment.

Again, our Lord calls Himself the vine and us the branches; "he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit" (John xv. 5). To accomplish this, He enters into us, and like sap, places Himself in our hearts, uniting to Himself the branch of our souls with all its powers, and gives them virtue that they may bud forth most sweet fruits of Christian graces. Nor is He alone the vine, He is also the husbandman who prunes off the superfluous tendrils that more fruit may be pro