First Friday.

Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?

We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter.

JEREMIAH speaks literally, in his own person as an individual, of the persecutions he endured; but, as a prophet, he speaks of Jesus Christ, who is that Lamb sacrificed in types, from the beginning of the world, in innocent Abel, and afterward in the Paschal Lamb, and in all the sacrifices of lambs which were commanded by the Law; but the real Lamb is the Lamb pointed out by John Baptist to his disciples, when he said: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

Behold, then, this mild and patient Lamb about to be led to death because He so loved us as to take our sins on Himself that He might bear the

punishment of them. That Lamb, who is God, is going to make on the Cross a wonderful union of two qualities, hitherto separate; that is to say, He will be both the priest and the victim. As a victim, He will pay our debts; as a priest, He will offer the one great and only sacrifice of our religion. The Cross will be the altar and the bloody cradle in which all the faithful will be born, and the firm foundation which will support the whole edifice of Christianity. Thence it comes that this Christianity has only been established in the world by sufferings, and it can only be established and supported in our souls by them; and it is for us, says St. Paul, to see how we shall build on this foundation by following the bleeding steps of the suffering Jesus. If you have ever seriously reflected on God's conduct toward you, you will see that, when you have strayed from the right path, it was by suffering that God brought you back again to the religion which prosperity had made you forget. In short, we then feel constrained to raise our eyes to heaven, we call upon the Lord; grace acts on our souls; we begin to feel that these sufferings were necessary to retrace in our hearts the almost effaced characters of the divine image. We see the ex

treme weakness of the creature, to whom we had recourse in the beginning of our troubles, and, convinced of the weakness of this resource, which at the most has only given us some fruitless consolation which did not free us from suffering, we turn to God, and, invoking Him with all our heart, we find in Him all that we desired, and we feel constrained to say, with the prophet: "Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept Thy Word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Thy statutes."

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Our faith would lay its hand

On that dear head of Thine.

O Lamb of God, we stand

And there confess our sin.

Oft look we back to see

The burdens Thou didst bear

When hanging on the cruel Tree,

And trust our guilt was there.

ALMIGHTY Lord, hear our prayers, grant our petitions

in this time of grace and penitence; enable us to perform our religious duties with all the exactitude and reverence of which we are capable, and grant that the fasts consecrated by the example and precepts of Thy adorable Son may be pleasing in Thy sight, and may we finally obtain glory everlasting. And this we beg through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord. Amen.

First Saturday.

Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.

Or the whole Christian year, let me say that to live in it, and by it, is the best way of serving the Lord. Keep these days. If you cannot leave off your work on all of them, never mind, so you hallow them at least in your heart. O children of the Church! live in the Church, love her holy ways, walk in her paths of peace, look not beyond. You have naught to do with those who are without, but to treat them kindly, do good to them, and pray for them. In the Holy Catholic Church you have your portion; be content; give God thanks; be at rest. Live by the Bible and the Prayer Book. Begin each day with prayer; go forth to your work and to your labor until the evening; lie

down with the eye of Jesus looking upon you, and the holy angels watching around. Do good in your time. Be sober, industrious, true, honest, kind. Fulfil your course. Lay hold on all the helps which the Lord puts within your reach to bring you to heaven. So shall your walk be close with God; so shall you at length rest in Him with the blessing of the Holy Church upon your grave; so shall you wake in the last great morning, to rise and go to your Father's House; to be brought close to that Lord of whose body you are a member, and from whose side you will never be parted; to inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.

Thus everywhere we find our suffering God,

And where He trod

May set our steps: the Cross an Calvary
Uplifted high

Beams on the martyr host, a beacon light
In open fight.

To the still wrestlings of the lonely heart
He doth impart

The virtue of His midnight agony

When none was nigh,

Save God and one good angel, to assuage
The tempter's rage.