grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field.*

O holy Spirit, may my voice be as the rushing sound which once preceded thy descent! Thou source of uncreated light, descend pregnant of wisdom and effusive of grace! Thaw down the frozen hardness of our bosoms, into floods of compunction for our manifold transgressions; and teach us so to speak to thee, O divine Spirit, in the solitude of our hearts, that we may practise the virtues of thy elect! Holy Mother of God! it is under thy auspices that this faithful Virgin consecrates herself this day, to thy adorable Son; obtain for her, through thy intercession, the grace of final perseverance, and for my hearers, the grace of imitating, as far as it is to them possible, the virtues of a truly Christian life!

Nothing is more consoling to a soul, which the mercy of God has separated from the world, than that at the first glance he discovers to her its errors and false maxims. If we compare together the maxims of the world, and those of Jesus Christ, we shall find the one to be the very contrast of the other. The world applauds, pursues, and endeavours to inspire all with an esteem of earthly grandeur, honours, riches, vain amusements, and delights: these are its beatitudes. Christ, whom you are to take this day for your spouse, my dear sister, teaches to banish the foolish joys of the world, and the pleasures of the senses; to love humility and compunction, to be patient and humble, to imitate an infant's simplicity, to hate hypocrisy and dissimulation, to mortify the flesh, and avoid every thing that is apt to inflame concupiscence. He preaches to his followers the happiness of the Cross, beatifies

* Isaias, xl. 6.

meekness and poverty of spirit. Many Christians, alas, make a medley of the maxims of God and the world, and, whilst they would fain reconcile them both together, create to themselves a spirit of their own choosing, according to their fancy, which they flatter themselves not to be contrary to that of the gospel. They pray and detract with the same tongue; they frequent the house of God in the morning, and at night the house of sin; they give a few shillings in alms, and squander away pounds in vanities. Such a contradiction in manners shews they are strangers to the true spirit of Christ, which continually cries out, "Love not the world, nor those things which are in the world, for all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world.”* These are the three sources of sin, the pleasures of the senses, covetousness and pride of life, love of honour and applauses, all which you renounce this day by your three religious vows, the advantages of which are as singular as glorious. St. Bernard describes them as follows.

By these vows we live more purely, and are raised more readily; we walk more cautiously, and are more frequently refreshed by divine grace; we repose with more security, and die with less fear; we are sooner purged in the next life, and are more abundantly recompensed inHeaven. O spouse of Jesus Christ! would you exchange these advantages for all that this transitory world can afford? But these are not the advantages that constitute the happiness of the generality of Christians; it is the world. And what is the world even to its warmest votaries, to

those who love it most, who seem intoxicated with its pleasures, and cannot subsist without them? It is a state of continual servitude, in which, to be happy, the wretched captive must have learned to hug his chains, and be in love with his slavery. It is a theatre of perpetual vicissitudes, where new scenes and new characters present themselves in continual rotation. It is a region in which complete happiness is no where to be found; where even the pleasures, which spring up under the feet of the traveller, have their thorns that tear, their briars that embarrass, and their bitterness which disgusts him; where whatever pleases, pleases not long, and where lassitude, in fine, is the easiest and most supportable destiny of its admirers."

Such is the world viewed in the light of religion, of calm reflection and sound philosophy; yet such is the place where the sinner seeks his felicity it is his country, it is his rest, there is his consolation, there he would for ever dwell. Such is the world which he prefers to the joys of eternity, to all the promises of faith, promises inestimably precious, joys unspeakable, and full of glory. Such is the world that fascinates his eyes, a world that must end, and all that must end is far inferior to an immortal soul. Since then this is the condition of all created things, immortal man! infinite spirit! eternal soul! will you fasten yourself to vanity, will you not seek for a good more suitable to your nature and duration !

Two things, according to St. Thomas, of Aquin, are essentially requisite to make a true Christian grace or vocation on the part of God, and a faithful correspondence with this grace or vocation on the part of man. Now both the one and the other, considered attentively, have no characteristic more suitable and proper than

retirement from the world; so that to be effectually separated from the world, is to be effectually a Christian. Would you wish to know, says St. Austin, who are the elect, called like the apostle according to the favourable decree of Almighty God? Those whom he has distinguished, whom he has withdrawn from the corrupt mass of the world, by the virtue and grace of their vocation. Hence, St. Paul, to express the gift of grace which had been conferred on him in the miraculous vocation which followed his conversion, a vocation pregnant with the greatest prodigies, made use of no other terms than these: "Who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace;"* that is, according to the explication of St. Ambrose, by calling me to live separate from the corruption of the world. Hence, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, when the spirit of God diffused his visible and abundant graces among Christ's disciples, graces that raised them to the most sacred ministrations, it was always by ordering, that those whom he had chosen for that purpose, should be separated from the rest; nay, from the rest of the faithful. "Separate from me Saul and Barnabas."+

Hence it arises, that the Saviour of the world, to signify that he was come to call the sons of men to evangelical perfection, loudly declared that he was come to separate a man from his father, and the daughter from her mother; reducing the whole grace of that perfection to this spirit only, of separation from the world. Hence the apostle, when he would make us comprehend the transcendent and infinite grace arising from the sanctity of Christ Jesus, comprised the whole mystery of it in these few words, "Separated + Acts, xiii. 2.

*Gal. i

Mat. x. 34.

from sinners.”* In consequence of which, the Lord say to you this day, as he said to the Israelites, "You are my select people, because I have separated you from all other people who inhabit the globe." People bewildered by the false pleasures, the prophane joys, the fruitless intrigues, the luxury, the pastimes, the folly, the customs, or rather the evil practices; in a word, all that forms, all that foments and nourishes the corrup tion and dissoluteness of the world; that world which, Jesus Christ declares, "Is set in wicked

It is a remark of the holy bishop of Geneva, St. Francis de Sales, that, when heretofore the grace of Christianity was observed to operate with all its virtue, force and fulness on the minds of men, its influence was such as to cause separations, which, in the opinion of the world itself, amounted to heroism. Aranius is honoured and esteemed at court; this grace withdrew him, and transports him to the wilderness. Melinia enjoys all the delights and pomp of affluence at Rome; this grace disengages her, and makes her seek the delights of retirement at Bethnal. Never were there so many anachorets, that is, so many illustriously severed from the world, as in those first ages of the Church of Christ; because there were never so many fervent Christtians. And why do we suppose that monasteries at all times were a refuge for sanctity, but because she dwells in them, quite sequestered from the noise of the world: and all agree that, in the most barbarous ages, monasteries were the principal depositaries of whatever piety or learning, or humanity, there remained in Christendom. And even the very first, the most zea

Heb. vii. 26.