only that they may rise the higher. If we are better spoken of than we deserve, that circumstance augments our pride we are pleased with the praises which our hearts and consciences disavow we pride ourselves on the mistaken judgment of others, and are more flattered by the error which ascribes to us only an imaginary importance, than humbled by the sense we have of our own real unworthiness. If we conceal ourselves, it is only in hopes that we shall be discovered: if we shun applause, it is only that applause might follow us if we ean but perform extraordinary works. of penance, almsdeeds, or prayer, we are solicitous that they should be publicly known; and if we pretend to conceal them, we take precautions that they should be discovered by other means.-Pride has numberless ways of attaining its ends; and no virtue is more uncommon than voluntary humility exercised with the

sole view of appearing little and contemptible in the eyes of men.

Our divine Redeemer, on the contrary, cloaths himself with the appearances of sin on purpose to endure its reproach. He takes on himself our iniquities, merely to become the victim. He refuses to be made king, only that he might die like a slave. The most disgraceful outrages are the recompense of his humiliations: man disowns him to the end; and he expires in the very arms of ignominy and shame.

Let us, my beloved, frequently cast our eyes on this divine model, and contemplate the humiliations of the Word Incarnate. Let us reflect, that pride is the parent of almost all our crimes, and that the eradication of the greater number of our failings depends. on the destruction of this vice. us incessantly upbraid ourselves for this incongruous alliance of weakness. with vanity; of the humbling law of.

Let

the flesh, with the exalted pretensions of pride; of what we wish to appear, with what we really are in the sight of God. Then, after being convinced that we ought not to be exalted in the presence of an humbled God, let us reflect that the disciples of a Saviour, who became a man of sorrows for their redemption and example, cannot in justice pretend to a life of ease and enjoyment.

2. Had man continued in the state cf original justice, he might have claimed the right to a life of uninterrupted happiness and peace: but having fallen from that happy state, he is entitled only to sufferings and misery. The man who is unworthy of life, has no right to enjoyments: pleasure is a fruit to which he has no claim, and labour and toil are his only due.-In order that this unwelcome truth might be deeply fixed in our minds, in order that we might be induced to love that,

He

which, since the fall, is become indis pensable, our Lord himself endured ignominy and pain: he suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should walk in his footsteps, and learn to suffer for ourselves. For this reason, the ministry of the Word Incarnate was a ministry of tribulations. bequeathed his cross to his disciples: he calls those only happy, whose days are embittered by sufferings; and lest any favourable interpretations might be put on his maxims, he voluntarily expires in the most excruciating tortures. Since, therefore, the Word. Eternal, whose every word and action was intended to promote our instruction in the ways of life, led a painful and sorrowful existence during the days of his mortality, the Christian cannot arrive at the happy term of salvation by the paths of ease and pleasure. God-man is the head of the christian body, and we are the mem

bers. As members, we must partake in the sufferings of the head, and our lot in this world must be similar to his.

With this great example before our eyes, can we, with any appearance of reason, entertain the idea, that the man who leads an indolent and sensual life, who is conformed in every thing to the world, and to his own will, al though perhaps it tends not to the violation of an express command, that such a man, I say, is sufficiently animated with the spirit of God, and complies with the laws of the gospel as far as is sufficient to ensure his salvation? We cannot say it. It was not thus that the apostles announced the gospel to our ancestors. The spirit of the gospel is a holy eagerness of suffering, an incessant attention to mortify self love, to do violence to the will, to restrain the desires, to deprive the senses of useless gratifications: this is