the affection with which He was to be honoured and received. Feeling every day the confidence that the care and tenderness of parents inspire, they know that in becoming a little child for our sake our Dearest Lord accepted their own age, and, with it, confidence in the guardianship of St. Joseph. They understand how faithful he was to his trust, and how anxious he was to discharge it in such a way as to remain himself unseen and unnoticed. He was the type of those earnest souls, who are described by his devout client St. Francis of Sales, and thus St. Joseph sought the God of consolations rather than the consolations of God. Eager to hail the coming of the desired of the eternal hills, he waited in silence until the bridegroom knocked in the deep midnight. But in that silence he had fed his lamp with the oil of charity and prayer, and had been praised by the Holy Ghost as the just man. Truly solicitous to love and adore our Lord, he began by loving and honouring her who was best qualified to teach creatures how to magnify Him and how to exult in His salvation. When he saw her hastening to the mountains to visit St. Elizabeth, he prepared to admire the charity of Him, whose humility would lead Him to the cottages of the poor, and to the cheerless homes of the sick and the sorrowing. When he could find no better resting place than the stable, he anticipated the deeper and more heroic poverty of Him who was to sleep in the manger, and was afterwards to have not where to lay His head. As grief is the portion of His favourite friends, the prophecy of Holy Simeon wounded the devoted heart of St. Joseph, and disposed him for the bitterness of their hurried flight into Egypt, and for the lingering suffering of years spent in that land of idols and superstition, where the psalms were hushed that spoke of the Messiah, of His perfections and His glory, and where the sacrifices were not offered, that prefigured the only clean and spotless sacrifice of the New Law. That pro

phecy must have recurred to his mind, when he went with Mary from place to place, weeping during the three days of their Son's absence from them. He may have weighed its import when he saw the tears coming many and many a time to her eyes, as she looked upon her Son and thought of the ingratitude that was to repay His mercy and His redemption. He may have marked the sadness that passed over that Divine face, on which the Angels desired to look, when during their yearly pilgrimage to the Temple, Jesus accompanied them to the scenes that His passion was afterwards to render memorable. With that sublime conformity to His Will, and that entire submission to His wisdom, that had made him mute when the Angel gave him mysterious and obscure messages from above, St. Joseph did not ask wherefore Jesus walked amongst the olive trees, and stooped to taste the water of Cedron. He may have wondered why He stood over the city, and after contemplating its holy places, turned His eyes towards the steep and rugged hill that was not named by the prophets who had sung of Horeb, Sinai and Carmel. If Christians are holy in our days only in proportion to their union with Our Saviour crucified, the grace of meditating on His death and passion as they were revealed to the patriarchs, and were manifested by the actions of Jesus and the corresponding anguish of His Immaculate Mother, was abundantly granted to Joseph. Next to Mary, no one received so much glory through Our Lord's Incarnation, Infancy and Hidden Life as St. Joseph received. Spiritual glory depends upon a love of suffering, and therefore St. Joseph must, like Her, have honoured the Incarnation by adoring the majesty of Our Lord, seeking humiliation and shedding His Blood, in order that he might be ransomed and saved. We cannot tell how far the details of the passion were explained to St. Joseph, but as St. Theresa and all the Saints who have

most cherished devotion to him, have been most affected by thinking of the Crucifixion, the Cross must have been unveiled to St. Joseph when he considered their daily life and the mysteries to which it was so clearly the prelude. When we remember the sweetness with which Our Lord spoke of the flowers and of the trees, of the flocks that are led to fresh and wholesome pastures, we might be surprised that he should have forsaken the green fields and should have chosen the state and condition of a carpenter, if we did not recollect that it was the very life that would most constantly remind him of the Cross. St. Joseph did not witness the splendour of the Transfiguration or the triumph of Our Lord's miracles, and did not hear the surpassing eloquence of His discourses; but he watched with ever increasing emotion, the childlike simplicity and willingness with which He, whose hands had created the universe, worked at his side, year after year, so humbly and so faithfully, that when He began to teach, the Jews exclaimed, "How came this man by his wisdom and miracles? Is not this the Carpenter's Son ?" (S. Matt. xiii. 55.)

It is recorded that St. John was beloved by Our Lord because of his innocence, and that therefore he was allowed to rest his head on the Sacred Heart during the Last Supper. But in His infancy, when they went to Egypt, our dear Lord often rested His head upon St. Joseph, and could not have chosen him as His guardian and as the Spouse of His Immaculate Mother, if the lily of purity had not been fresh and fragrant in His hand. When you of our flock who are parents, see the love of St. Joseph opening in the souls of your children, foster and cherish it, and accustom them to hear his sweet name, and to rejoice in his intercession, in order that he may keep the white robe of their baptism spotless, and may never allow its burning light to disappear.

Rachel lamented her children because they were not, and many parents must weep because through their neglect or ambition, or disregard of the advice and entreaties of the Church, their children are no longer worthy to have Jesus as their elder brother and Mary as their mother. But let those who are zealous for the tender flowers that are in their keeping, commend them to St. Joseph, and entreat him to protect them. When their days of Confession and Communion are returning, teach them to value his intercession, and to claim the powerful help which is never sought in vain by those who sincerely desire to offer the affection and homage of their repentance to Our Heavenly Father.

Most of those who hear these words earn their bread by their toil. They must gather around St. Joseph, and ask him to obtain for them patience, uprightness, piety, and care of every word that they hear or utter, in the hope that he may consecrate and hallow their labour by uniting their daily life with the daily life of Jesus, and make Him willing to invite them to work in His own vineyard.

Some, whose number is, through the Divine Goodness, increasing, of those whom we address, have forsaken friends and home, and have consecrated their hearts to their Heavenly Spouse in the religious state. In the stillness of their cloisters they have often sought for their Community, their sick, the poor whom they lodge, and the children whom they instruct, the favour of St. Joseph. To him, they have offered their aspirations for the conversion of souls, and he has gained mercy for them; to him, they have presented their desire of perfection, and he has gained for them the wish to imitate Mary; to him, they have appealed when temporal troubles seemed to threaten their peace, nay, the very existence of their undertakings, and in this very year we have had the clearest proofs of this gentle and fatherly solicitude for the

convents and schools of our diocese. It is time that our religious should preach on the house-tops the blessings and graces which St. Joseph has gained for them in secret. It is just that they should communicate to all the faithful their gratitude to St. Joseph and their reliance upon his intercession. It is right that they should endeavour to convey to a hard and unbelieving world the fervour and the faith that the imitation of St. Joseph, will secure for them. "It is not in vain," said His Holiness on a late occasion, "that God spreads over the Church ever more and more abundantly the Christians pray more and pray better; the supporters of the early Church, Mary and Joseph, are taking again in the hearts of men the place of which they ought never to have been deprived. The world will be again saved."

spirit of prayer.

shall need the

We are all hastening towards the end of life, and must find ourselves on our death-bed sooner than we are willing to expect. Amidst the struggles of that final battle, when our dearest friends will be our most cruel enemies, and will deceive us by concealing our real danger, we strength that human power cannot bestow. When we are weary, the image of St. Joseph, dying in the presence of Jesus and Mary, will give us hope and courage. When we are faint and weak, may he who carried Our Lord in His infancy, bring Him again to our hearts. Through his kindness, may a priest be at hand to bind up the wounds of our soul before we depart alone on our last journey, and find the enemy again ready to renew his attack. In our first lisping accents, we were taught to ask for the grace of final perseverance, and if we have prayed in earnest, Mary Immaculate will pray for us sinners at the hour of our death by coming with St. Joseph to cheer and help us.

But even if we did not need the mighty and soothing

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