evidently not of those whose way through life is to be always smooth and calm. The smooth times don't last very long with you-do they? I am just preparing a sermon for this afternoon on 'Your sorrow shall be turned into joy,' and the thought I want to bring out is that Religion is not meant to point us to Heaven as a place where the trials of earth will find their compensation, but it is meant to be a power by which we can force the hand of sorrow and trouble to bless us a power that enables us by the use of it to turn the sorrow into joy, to make the material that works us ill bring us joy. It's easy to see that it ought and can, but it's not so easy to practise it.

The thought in the next letter of convalescence as the 'Amen' to an illness must, one feels, have won a smile and been a real help to dwell on at that weary time.

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January 6, 1894.

I do hope, please God, you are beginning to mend a little by this time, you have had such a long and such a trying time; but it is almost more difficult to be patient and loving when convalescent than when one is ill. The returning power of life and everything in life looks bright and hopeful-but our part is to wait upon God. The end of illness you might call its Amen, and wait till the Amen is well said, so as not to spoil the prayer! I have so often seen people putting on their gloves and looking about while saying the last Amen, and so spoiling it all; but you will finish up your illness well and get all its blessing. It must be a great blessing that God has in store for so long and so trying a time. I remember you very often in my prayers, and I hope

you will sometimes remember me. The prayers of the sick are like the prayers of Our Lord on the Cross, and have a special blessing.

The four following letters were written to a friend who was a teacher. They dwell on the value of acts of the will-done independently of and in spite of the feelings. In the second letter Father Maturin analyses the meaning of Our Lord's temptations, and in them all he applies the principles of Our Lord's victory to the facts of his correspondent's own life.

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February 23, 1891.

You may be quite sure, I think, that God does not reject an offering because it has taken you some time to make up your mind to make it, and whatever the cause of your feeling it does not come from your offering being rejected.

It is, I think, quite natural that when one has made, or is trying to make, an offering that costs one a good deal, one should feel very cold and loveless, for two reasons:

(1) The reaction after a struggle of the kind often leaves one spiritually numbed and powerless to feel.

(2) The testing of the will, by the withdrawal of all those aids to choice that come through feeling and emotion and love. Some of the greatest acts of life have to be done simply with the reason telling one it's necessary, or conscience with its unimpassioned voice bidding us do what costs us all we love. And then if the will unaided obeys, it's like a lever lifting the whole weight of our being to a higher moral standard.

But at such times there's no emotion, no sense of exultation or of triumph, the nature is left, as it were, to recover its footing and to regain breath; the sense of peace comes later. When our Lord did the greatest act of honour and the most acceptable ever performed, He cried out, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.'

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March 19, 1892.

I do not know that any explanation of the Temptation of our Lord is quite satisfactory. Two things are of faith:

(1) Jesus Christ was God, therefore He could not have sinned.

(2) His temptation was a very real one.

Two things constitute a temptation-a desire, which is opposed to a command of God; if there's no desire it's not a temptation at all. I could not say I am tempted to murder, for I have no such desire. And if there's no command of God forbidding it's no temptation, for there would be no harm in yielding. It's not a temptation to eat when the time for food comes, as there is nothing to forbid one to eat. These two things our Lord must have experienced—a desire to do a thing which was against the command of God.

Our Lord couldn't have been tempted to a breach of the moral law-that would have been no temptation to Him. Such a temptation could only be possible to a fallen creature, because to break the moral law is to hurt one's own nature. But if God forbid a thing not in itself wrong, there would be the possibility of a temptation. For instance, in itself there would have been nothing wrong in Adam eating the

forbidden tree; it was wrong only because God forbade it. Many things a child may be forbidden to do, not wrong in themselves, only because they are forbidden.

Now, the substance of all our Lord's temptations in the wilderness was to save the world without His Passion-that's what underlay it all; and our Lord in His human nature shrank from such pain. We know it cost Him the Agony as it drew near. We know He prayed if it were possible He might escapeHe wanted then to escape; but He couldn't without sin; therefore He absolutely couldn't, and He knew it was impossible. But the bringing His will into entire acceptance surely was meritorious. Take one instance. I may be paralysed for the rest of my life. I know there's no escape; but I may long to escape and give in to that longing, or I may bring my will into entire acceptance of the will of God-that would be meritorious. I know that our Lord underwent a fearful conflict which caused His Agony, and that He asked if it were possible to escape, and then I see Him calm and strong. He has wholly accepted God's will. Surely there is merit, though He couldn't have sinned. We must not think of the first temptation as a temptation merely to satisfy His hunger. It was to use His divine power to help human nature against the sufferings of the fall-to use miracles in a way forbidden.

I am afraid I am not very clear. I think one must look upon His human nature as being, as it were, left to itself. He speaks throughout as man. He may have shut out from His human nature the conscious supports of His divine, and it had to accept that will. Besides, the being willing to enter into such a position, through the Incarnation, was meritorious. He might have entered life and lived as

Adam before the Fall, but His being content to endure all except the defilement of sin was an act of merit. The real test is the keeping on all the interest in your work whatever its results. Remember when you say' There's not much love in the surrender,' you mean, not much feeling of love. You wouldn't do it unless you loved. You wouldn't make such an offering for a person you didn't care for. The test of the reality of one's love is, what will you bear for God, and, too, in a matter such as you speak of there may be times when you will have no realisation of making any offering at all-the wish to have all as you want will come back again and again, but that doesn't mean you have withdrawn the offering-renew it till it becomes a habit of your mind; fight your way to the peace that lies beyond, and it will come when least you expect it.

You know I am always glad to help you any time and any way in my power.

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To the Same

June 29, 1894.

I know how difficult it is to keep up to the mark when one is deprived of the helps one is used to, and it must be difficult for you with comparatively few celebrations. I always feel there is much comfort to be got out of our Lord's message in the Apocalypse to the Church of Pergamum, 'I know thy works and where thou dwellest.' The difficulties of our position and surroundings are not forgotten in the judgment which our Lord passes upon our life, but of course all depends upon whether we fall under or rise through