This plainly shews how necessary it is to guard the outward senses, particularly the eyes and the ears; for, as these are, as it were, the windows of the soul, and the doors and avenues through which the death of sin usually enters and makes its way to the mind, if they be neglected and left open to every object and every indelicate discourse that invites and allures to sin, the heart will be exposed to the evident danger of being enslaved by its irregular inclinations, as a city is exposed to the danger of being easily subdued and compelled to surrender when the outworks are left unguarded, and the gates lie open at all hours for the enemy to enter in whenever he pleases. Our life here on earth, is called by holy Job, a warfare, c. vii. and we are stationed in this world as in a state of probation and a field of battle, environed on every side with enemies within and without, visible and invisible, always vigilant and never at rest. It is impossible to shun them all, and it would be rash to face and combat them all; so that, to fly the danger with prudence whenever we can, and to combat with courage whenever we can save ourselves by flight, is the great art of the spiritual warfare wherein we are engaged. Let a man be ever so just, he is still liable to fall during the course of his mortal life. Even the most virtuous are not entirely exempted from sensible impressions, as long as their souls are united to mortal bodies, and act by the ministry of the senses; for, as they are children of Adam, they must expect, more or less, to feel the sad effects of the deep wounds which his disobedience has inflicted on his offspring. This is what caused the great St. Paul to long to be disengaged from the prison of his body, and cry out, in his Epistle to the Romans, c. vii. Unhappy man that I am! who will deliver me from the body of this death? that is, from this mortal flesh with its sinful lusts. He perceived in himself, as he tells us, a kind of law, or impulse of depraved nature, fighting against the law of his mind, and he wished to be totally divested of it; but the Lord, who knows how to make our very infirmities contribute to our advantage, gave him to understand, that divine grace was sufficient to protect him from danger, and that virtue increases and is perfected in weakness.

Christians, indeed, are delivered at their baptism from the guilt of original sin and from the punishment due to it, by the. sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ; but to be entirely delivered from all temptation to sin, is a privilege reserved for the life to come, when the happy change of our state will not only free us from sin, but likewise from every incentive and temptation to it. Until then concupiscence, which St. Augustine calls an incentive to sin, fomes peccati, as it inclines man to fix his heart on carnal pleasures, and to seek his happiness in the gratification of his senses, and in the enjoyment of riches, honours and dignities, is permitted to remain even in the just and the elect, for a trial of their fidelity, ad agonem. We may

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fly from the devil and from the world, but we cannot fly from this domestic enemy, it being so closely interwoven with corrupt nature that nothing but death can totally destroy it. Like a weight, it presses mortals down towards the earth, and like a sickness it disturbs and agitates them, and puts them in danger of forfeiting life everlasting if they yield to its suggestions, and suffer their hearts to be seduced by its illusions. However, we have it in our power, with the assistance of God's grace, to weaken its influence, and to restrain it from doing us any mischief by resisting it properly, and putting an immediate stop to its very first motions. It is on the resistance and defence that we make, and the victory which we gain, that our salvation depends. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life, Apoc. c. ii. v. 10. And again, Blessed is the man who suffers temptation, because when he shall be tried he shall receive a crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him, James, c. i. v. 12. Above all things, we must watch and guard our heart, according to the following advice of the wise man, Prov. c. iv. v. 23. My son, guard thy heart with all care and diligence; for as all sin begins with a bad thought, and is bred in the heart before it breaks out into action, the most effectual way to overcome it is to suppress it in its very root, and to prevent the temptation from reaching the heart. If the heart once consents and yields to it, though it be but for a short time, the soul is defiled with sin, James, c. i. v. 15, but if the heart and the will make a vigorous resistance, and repel the evil suggestion the instant it presents itself to the imagination, the temptation, instead of being hurtful, becomes an occasion of merit, and affords a Christian an opportunity to entitle himself to a reward for having gained a victory over it. To insure success in this spiritual warfare, he is to reject the slightest idea and the least evil thought, with as much speed as he would throw off a burning coal; for otherwise, like unto a little fire or small spark that is not immediately extinguished in time, it may cause a great conflagration and blaze that will not be easily quenched, as St. Gregory observes. Resist the devil, says St. James, and he will fly from you, c. iv. v. 7. The monster must be stifled at his very birth, and smothered in the cradle, says St. Jerom; he must be attacked, combated and repelled in the beginning, whilst he is weak, and before he gets any footing, gains any ground, or has time to make himself master of the soul.

Fasting is another powerful remedy and sovereign preservative. This is the preservative that St. Jerom made use of in the desert, and recommended to others. We must,' says he, quench the fiery darts of the devil by temperance and rigorous fasts, and herein fear not to prejudice your health, for it is better to have the body sick than the soul distempered. The heat of concupiscence is to be allayed by abstinence, and the fire of lust must be quenched by withdrawing whatever serves

like fuel to feed and foment the passions. Flesh and blood are prone to rebellion, though tamed by abstinence and restrained by necessity, but they are much more mutinous when pampered with ease and fed with delicacies. It is to surfeiting, idleness and drunkenness, that the Prophet Ezechiel attributes all the criminal practices of the Sodomites, c. xvi. and that the Prophet Jeremy ascribes the adulteries of the Israelites, c. lvii. Drunkenness, says St. Ambrose, is the mother of all crimes and the shipwreck of chastity. Christ therefore cautions us, Luke, c. xxi. v. 34, to take heed to ourselves, lest at any time our hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness. He tells us also, Mat. c. xvii. v. 20, that the impure and unclean spirit is one of that kind of devils which is not to be cast out but by prayer and fasting. It was by fasting that the Pauls, the Antonies, the Hilarions, and numberless other saints, armed themselves against all the assaults and temptations of the devil, the world and the flesh. It was, in fine, by fasting that Christ our Lord prepared himself for combating against the devil in the desert. He had no occasion to fear the infection of the world, or the contagion of bad example. He neither had faults to expiate, nor passions to suppress, nor evil inclinations to destroy, nor even virtues to acquire. He was holiness itself. His godhead placed him in a region above sin, and impeccability was as inseparably annexed to his person as the divinity. But he was willing to give us his life as a model, as well as his blood for a ransome, and to leave us an example of every virtue we stood in need of. O merciful Lord, be thou our guide, our protector and safeguard, amidst all the snares and tempting allurements of this life. If thou be for us we have nothing to dread; what can our enemies do against us? And if thou ceasest to support us, we fall into our original nothing. All our hope for mercy, grace and salvation, is in thee alone. We are the work of thy hands and the price of thy blood, O Jesus. Our souls and bodies are both thy creatures. Grant that nothing but sanctity and purity may dwell in them. Make us sensible that we have been made and redeemed for better things than to feed on the husks of swine, or wallow in the mire of unclean and brutal pleasures. Create, in us a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within our bowels. Thou knowest the many dangers to which our weakness is exposed on every side. We can scarce advance a step without meeting objects to dissipate us, vanities to blind us, perishable goods to seduce us, and emissaries of Satan to lead us astray. In the midst of so many dangers, what can we do but raise our feeble voice to the throne of thy grace, and say with thy Prophet, Save us, O Lord, because we have no inheritance but misery and sin. We are nothing but frail and brittle vessels of clay, which are easily shattered to pieces. Grant that, according to the advice of thy Apostle, we may be sober and watchful against the assaults of the enemy, and offer our bodies to thee as Ll

VOL. II.

an holy and immaculate host. O may the fire of thy divine love ever burn in our hearts, make us run with cheerfulness in the way of thy precepts, and dispose our souls for the inheritance of thy heavenly kingdom; which, my brethren, I sincerely wish you all, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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SIXTH DAY OF DECEMBER.

On the Festival of St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra.

Lex Dei ejus in corde ipsius.-Psal. xxxvi. v. 33.

The Law of God was in his heart.-Psal. xxxvi. v. 33.

MEN, weak in their conceptions, and limited in their knowledge, cannot pretend to set forth the praises of the saints with that justice that is due to their merit, or to fathom the depth of the wonderful gifts and graces which the Almighty has been pleased to confer upon them. They often spend their breath in empty words, and hide the matter under borrowed ornaments, giving way more to the vanity of their own thoughts than to the dignity of the subject. It is not so when the Spirit of God bestows any encomium in the sacred Scriptures; he sees things as they are in themselves, expresses them as he sees them, and says a great deal in a little. And as he knows the point of glory upon which an illustrious life is founded, he places it as a principle from whence an instructive sketch of each particular consequence may be drawn. This is what I have remarked in the above-mentioned text, wherein the Word of God, after pointing out the several good qualities of a just man, sums up his whole character in an expression the most energetic, and an eulogium the most sublime: The Law of God was in his heart. Such was the spirit and character of St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, whose glorious memory we solemnize on this day. The Law of God was in his heart, and it sprouted up into all the different branches of the most exalted virtues; he took it for his guide, and made it the invariable rule of his conduct; it served him as a strong fence and security against all the snares of the devil, and the incentives of vice; it enlightened and directed his understanding and purified his heart; by it he discovered the infinite mercies and goodness of his Divine Redeemer, and was taught to endure with meekness the trials and contradictions he met with, and to con

quer them by a Christian patience. He knew the Commandments of God and fulfilled them with pleasure. His faith, ac tuated by charity and a tender obedience, made the precepts easy; and as his love animated him to act and suffer all for God, so it imprinted in his soul the most profound sentiments of humility to attribute all honour and glory to him alone. In short, he was possessed of the virtue of charity in its perfection, and, of course, he was possessed of every other virtue, and fulfilled the whole Law and the Prophets; for charity, according to the Apostle, is the plenitude and the end of the Law, and the observance of every other duty and precept of the Law is annexed to and comprehended in it, the whole train of Christian virtues being so closely linked together, that they always go hand in hand, and accompany charity as their queen, their life and their soul, as the four doctors of the Church unanimously teach us. This was the characteristical virtue of St. Nicholas of Myra. He loved God and his neighbour in an eminent degree, and thus he accomplished the Law and com. plied with every Christian duty. His love for God was without. measure. This shall be the subject of the first point. His love for his neighbour was unlimited. This shall be the subject of the second point, and the whole plan and division of the following discourse. Let us previously implore the divine assistance, through the intercession of the blessed Mother of Jesus, greeting her for this end with the words of the Archangel Gabriel. Ave Maria.

The Almighty God, who is the Father of all mankind, seems to adopt, after a particular manner, those whom he is pleased to elevate to an eminent degree of sanctity, and to place in the firmament of his Church as so many bright luminaries and models of Christian perfection, to enlighten the world by the lustre of their shining virtues, and to guide mankind by their word and example through the tempestuous ocean of this life into the haven of everlasting bliss. He renders himself for a long time, as it were, deaf to the vows and supplications of their parents, that those rich presents, wherewith he vouchsafes in the abundance of his mercy to favour the world, may appear to be rather the effects of his bounty than the fruits of nature. This special honour was the portion of St. Nicholas of Myra, and the presage of that admirable holiness for which the whole course of his life was remarkably conspicuous. Like unto the Prophet Samuel, he was a child of prayers, devoted to the love and service of his Creator from his infancy. The use of reason and the practice of piety, self-denial, fasting and mortification, with him, were of the same date. His parents, noble by birth, but more noble by their virtues, gave him an early tincture of the knowledge of God's Law, and implanted it deeply in his heart, which rectified his understanding, inflamed his will, and increased his ardour. He knew the power of the Lord, and it made him fear; he knew his mercy, and it