archs our fathers. Why should we not hasten homewards to salute our parents? There the mighty multitude of dear ones awaits us,-the crowd of parents, brothers, sons, longs for us, already secure of their own safety, and now solicitous about ours. How great the joy to us and to them, of beholding and embracing each other! What the blessedness of these celestial realms; without fear of death, and possessed of an eternity of life, how supreme and abiding the felicity! There the glorious choir of apostles; there the crowd of exulting prophets; there the innumerable throng of martyrs crowned because of victory in conflict and suffering; there the triumphant virgins. who subdued the desires of the flesh; the compassionate rewarded, who, obeying their Lord's command, transferred their earthly patrimony to a heavenly treasure-house. To these, brethren most beloved, with eager desire let us hasten, longing to be speedily with them and with Christ. These our desires and purposes, let our God, and our Lord Christ, behold, who will give the larger reward of His glory to those who after Him have had larger desires.

ATHANASIUS.

BORN 296-DIED 373.

1. Miserable are those who measure the authority of a doctrine by the numbers receiving it. Truth always overcomes, though for a time it is found among the few. He who, for proof, betakes himself to numbers, confesses himself conquered. Let me see the beauty of truth, and immediately I am persuaded. A multitude may overawe, but cannot persuade. How many myriads could persuade me to believe that day is night, that poison is food? In determining earthly things we do not regard numbers, shall we do so in heavenly things? I reverence numbers; but only when they produce proof, not when they shun inquiry. Can you confirm a lie by numbers?

2. He strips us of the raiment of skin which we put on in Adam, that, in its place, we might be clothed with Christ. He allows his garments to be divided, that we may have the undivided Word of the Father.

3. The Saviour is delivered up, and being so, He shrinks not from death, but hastens to meet it, pursuing the flying serpent.

4. It will matter little to the faithful what their sorrows may have been in this vain world, since no trace of them will remain when they enter on that ineffable peace which is in store for them in the life to come.

5. I can do nothing without the help of God, and that

from moment to moment; for when, so long as we are on the earth, is there a single instant in which we can say we are safe from temptation or secure from sin?

6. We need grace alike to keep us from breaking the weightiest commandment of the law, and from falling into the most trifling vanity of the age.

7. The truly humblé Christian does not inquire into his neighbour's faults; he takes no pleasure in judging them; he is occupied wholly with his own.

8. True religion abhors all violence; she owns no arguments but those of persuasion.

9. The will of Jesus Christ is, that those who belong to Him should walk exactly in his footsteps; that they should be, as He was, full of mercy and love; that they should render to no one evil for evil, but endure, for His sake, injuries, calumnies, and every outrage. To them all anger and resentment should be unknown.

10. I would not have you ignorant that there is a second epiphany, illustrious and divine; not in lowliness, but in His own glory; not in poverty, but in His own majesty; not to suffer, but to bestow the fruits of His cross, that is, resurrection and immortality; not to be judged, but to judge according to the things done in the body; to give the kingdom of the heavens to the righteous, but the everlasting fire and the outer darkness to the evildoers.

B

MACARIUS (THE EGYPTIAN).

BORN 301-DIED 391.

1. He who thinks favourably of himself, or highly of his own soul, because he has partaken of grace, has not yet begun to lay his foundation right. Consider Jesus: from what height did He, the Son of God, Himself God, descend! and to what sufferings! even to the death of the cross; for which humiliation He was exalted to sit at the right hand of the Father.

2. The lowly man never falls; for whither should he fall who is already below all men? Wherefore, pride is, indeed, great lowness; but humility, great exaltation, dignity, and honour.

3. Every soul that is without concern for itself, proves itself to be held by unbelief; through which it suffers day after day to pass by, without receiving the word. Oftentimes it buoys itself up with empty dreams, not sensible of the inward conflict, which is hidden from it by its own conceit; for conceit is the blindness of the soul, which will not suffer it to perceive its own infirmity.

4. Every one is willingly captivated by the object which he loves, because he will not give up the whole of his love to God. Thus, one man loves his estates; another, his money; another, eating, or some other bodily indulgence; another, skill in speech, for the sake of a fugitive glory; another loves command; another, honour

and applause from men; another, anger and revenge, deeming it something noble to devote himself for his friends; another, idle companies; another, merely to be singular in conversation, or to propound doctrines to attract the admiration of men. One man yields himself up to indolence and unconcern; another to the ornaments of dress; this one to sleep; that one to jests and witticisms; and another to some other great or trifling object of this world, which holds and chains him down, and will not suffer him to raise himself up.

5. Purity of heart cannot otherwise be effected than through Jesus; for He alone is the substantial and very Truth, and without that Truth it is impossible to come to the knowledge of truth, or to obtain salvation.

6. If at any time, when we have received the word of the kingdom, we find ourselves moved thereby to tears, let us not derive confidence from those tears, nor cherish any complacency in ourselves, as if we ourselves had sufficiently well employed our ears for hearing, or our eyes for reading; for there are other ears, other eyes, other tears, and another intelligence and soul, namely, those of the divine and heavenly Spirit, which must hear, and weep, and pray, and understand, and perform the will of God in us in truth.

7. Woe to the soul that can receive no convincing sense of its wounds, and that thinks itself free from evil, only through the magnitude and excess of its evil! Such an one the Good Physician neither visits nor heals; forasmuch as it cares not for its own wounds, but esteems itself to be healthful and sound. For 'they that are whole