as she ought, will be long obstinate in error or in vice. Do you wish to have an evidence of this truth?

In the fourth century lived Mary, surnamed of Egypt. She was a sinner of the blackest dye. At the tender age of twelve, old in iniquity, not pressed by want, but driven by the most shameful desires of unbridled infamy, she left her parents' comfortable roof, and, for the course of seventeen years, defiled the streets of Alexandria with all that is most shocking in the crimes of public, promiscuous vice. Strolling one day on the neighbouring shore, she spied a multitude of persons going on board a ship ready for sea. Finding, upon enquiry, that they were bound for Palestine, whither thousands from every part of Christendom were flocking, to assist at the great festival of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross-in hopes that this immense concourse of people, from all the nations of the then known world, would afford her more than ordinary opportunities of practising and extending her abandoned disorders, she embarked-and both on the passage and after her arrival at Jerusalem, mixing with the dissolute, and corrupting the innocent, she plunged to a greater depth than ever in her long-rooted infamous courses. On the day of the great solemnity, going in the croud to the Church of the Holy Cross, out of mere curiosity, or perhaps with the worst views, and arriving at the grand entrance, she felt herself suddenly and violently plucked back. Looking round to see who had

seized her, she makes a second attempt to advance, but is again restrained. Perceiving that no person had meddled with her, she is somewhat at a loss; but recovering from her surprize, pushes forward the third time, and the same invisible hand a third time stops her. She was then in the twenty-ninth year of her age. Retiring from the multitude into a corner of the court in front of the Church, to consider what this might mean-happening to lift her eyes, she observes an image of the Mother of God, that hung over her head. She instantly conceived that her abominable crimes had rendered her unworthy to join the faithful in their veneration of the sacred wood of their redemption, and that her Saviour had graciously notified to her his displeasure in this extraordinary way.-Bursting into tears, she falls upon her knees, and, by the purity and prayers of his Virgin Mother, begs pardon of her detestable wickedness; takes her for her Patroness; resolves upon a life of penance; enters the church; prostrates herself before the sign of her salvation; and, buying a little bread, proceeds forthwith to the country, where, being reconciled, by contrition and the holy sacraments, to her offended God, she flies into the desert beyond the Jordan; and during the space of seven and forty years -in cold, in heat, in hunger and in nakedness-she expiates her former sins; ing on herbs and the leaves of trees; without beholding, in all that length of time, the face of human being, till she was met, some months before her death, by the holy priest and her

mit Zosimus, who had her history from her own lips, and for the edification of after ages, has transmitted it down to us. This Magdalene of Egypt told him amongst other things, that for seventeen years-to punish her as it were, for the equal part of her life she had spent in wickedness-both day and night, she had been assaulted with the most violent temptations to quit her horrid solitude, and return to her evil courses; and that when all the sufferings of her state, and beating her breast to blood, for hours together, with the sharp stones of the wilderness, had often failed-the Blessed Virgin ever received her with the tenderness of a mother, and freed and consoled ber. Mary of Egypt spent her last thirty years in heavenly delights; and, at the age of seventy-six, blessed, by the ministry of Zosimus, with the viatic of the sacred body of her Jesus-died the death of the saints! Christians, who shall now neglect to pray to the Mother of God?

Oh! my brethren, sinners as we are, we beg each others' prayers. I beg yours.-Think you they will serve me? Why not? But, if your prayers serve me, what will not Mary's do for you and for me? Is she less powerful, is she less bountiful in heaven, than even sinners are on earth? Oh irreligion! which, trampling not only on piety and reason, but on nature itself, blasphemously thinkest to honor the Son by insulting the Mother! But I will not degrade the glorious Assumption of of Mary by noticing her foes. Forgive them,

blessed Mother of Jesus, "forgive them, for they know not what they do." Pray to that Saviour, whom in thee they outrage, to dispel their errors and convert their hearts. Pray for this pious congregation, who pour out their souls before thee. Signalize thy glorious triumph of to-day, by exerting all that power of intercession, which thy Jesus has bestowed on thy virtues, thy sufferings, thy love, thy glory. He will refuse nothing to thee, whom he has preserved from even the stain of thy nativity. He will hear his Mother praying for sinners; he will hear his Mother petitioning for penitents; he will hear his Mother imploring perseverance for saints. Let every sinner, then, who raises here his eye to thee, obtain a change of heart; let every penitent escape relapse, and every pious soul encrease in fervor, that imitating thy virtues, and confiding in thy prayers, we may at length congratulate thee in person, and in raptures of eternal joy, adore, with all the heavenly host, what neither we, nor heavenly host, nor thou thyself, O Mother of our God, shall ever be able fully to comprehend-the infinite love of Jesus, born of Mary!

A blessing, &c.

The Twenty-third Sermon will be-AGAINST DRUNKENNESS. Text-" Wo to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at drunkenness." Isaias, v, 22.

SERMON XXIIL

OF

THE REV. RICHARD HAYES.

AGAINST DRUNKENNESS.

"Wo to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at drunkenness." Isaias, c. v, v. 22.

THERE is not a subject, my good people, so loudly calls for the animadversion of preachers; or has, I am bold to say, so exercised the zeal of the clergy of this kingdom, in public as well as in private, as the detestable vice of drinking to excess. They have, on all occasions, reprobated, and continue daily to exclaim against this brutal custom. Armed with the piercing and convincing arguments of common sense; and brandishing the twoedged sword of reason and religion, they lay before the eyes of those committed to their charge; the unspeakable evils, both temporal and eternal, which this horrid habit causes to all such as are addicted thereto. Yet, notwithstanding their exhortations; notwithstanding the severity, which they are often obliged to use, in refusing to admit to the participation of the sacraments the unhappy transgressors; notwithstanding the innumerable and heart-scalding woes, which attend this abominable practice, both in time and eter