corruption and depravity of his heart. Josue and Saul were both guilty of disobedience to the commands of God; the one spared the Gabaonites, the other, the Amalecites; but as Josue sinned only through surprise, his offence was venial; whereas Saul was actuated by pride and obstinacy; he rebelled against the command of God with full deliberation; and, therefore, his sin was so enormous in the sight of God, as to draw down upon him the sentence of reprobation.

Now, my beloved, if this truth be incontestable, what reason have you to suppose that your infidelities are only venial sins? Are you acquainted with the corruption of your own heart to its full extent? The Lord alone, who is its searcher and its judge, is fully acquainted with it; and his eyes are very different from those of men. But if it be allowable to form a judgment beforehand, tell me, whether that fund of ha

bitual indolence and tepidity; that voluntary perseverance in a state which is displeasing to God; that deliberate contempt of duties, merely because they are not considered as essential; that resolution of doing nothing more for God, than what is merely requisite to avoid his severest judgments; tell me, whether this can be considered in his sight as the proper state of a Christian? and whether the faults proceeding from such a corrupted source can with justice be called trivial, and deserving of indulgence? My God! what secrets. wilt Thou disclose when Thou comest to judge justice, and to expose the interior recesses of our hearts!

Fifthly, true charity cannot reside in the soul without manifesting itself exteriorly. It has been likened to a tree growing within us, the roots of which lie concealed in our hearts, while its branches are visible to all, and its goodness can only be known by its

fruits. Now the first characteristic of this charity is a propensity to exaggerate every fault, and to attach a degree of criminality even to those actions, which, in the sight of God, are the mere effects of human weakness. The saints were animated by it; they treated themselves as sinners unworthy of the mercies of the Lord, and placed themselves, in their own estimation, below the last of their fellow-creatures; and can the same divine charity, with which you suppose that you are animated even in the midst of your tepidity and languor, prompt you to think so very differently of your failings, and diminish their enormity in your eyes? No, my beloved, charity is not so inconsistent with itself.

The second characteristic of divine charity is humility, joined with diffidence and timidity. It causes the soul to work out her salvation with fear and trembling; it causes her to

endure a martyrdom of love, through the anxiety and dread which are continually upon her from the uncertainty of the state in which she now is in the sight of God. This has always been the charity of the saints.-Now, the charity on which you rely, when you make little account of venial sins, is tranquil, indolent, and presumptuous: it excludes almost every symptom of fear from your hearts; it places you in a state of unsuspecting security and peace: it induces you to believe that you are rich, and stand in need of nothing. -But, my beloved, can the same charity produce such opposite effects? No, to a certainty, it cannot : either your charity, or the charity of the saints must be counterfeit. Which of the two is most deserving of such a censure, must be left to your own' judgment to determine.

Lastly, charity is always in motion: it cannot remain idle in the soul: it is a

heavenly fire, which is never altogether

inactive. It may not always, indeed, burn with so bright a flame, and may possibly appear to be, for a time, overpowered by involuntary failings: but these will not extinguish it: in time it will be sure to burst forth again; prayer and the sacraments will restore it to its former vigour, and pious reading and meditation will not fail to rekindle its ardour, and fan it into as bright a flame as ever. It is written in the second book of Machabees, that the sacred fire, which had been buried by the Jews in the earth during their captivity, was found at their return, covered over with a thick moss, and seemingly extinct; but that it was no sooner exposed to the rays of the sun, than it burst into a flame, to the great astonishment of the whole multitude of the Israelites who were present. The same effect is witnessed after the temporary lukewarmness of the just

man.

When the sacred fire of charity