thou bestowest on me, often become for me a source of bad judgments. For I sometimes judge, in consideration of thy mercy, that I may abandon myself to sin; in consideration of thy patience, that I may persevere in it; and in consideration of thy goodness, that I may be saved, and satisfy thee, though I gratify my sinful appetites at the same time. Thus I am wicked, because thou art good; and slow in being converted, because thou art patient in bearing with me. I judge that I may reconcile the divine nourishment which thou givest me, with the grievous faults into which I fall; that thy justice will spare me; and that I shall be justified without amending my faults. In fine, I find nothing in me but false judgments. What shall become of me, O Lord! if the goodness with which thou sufferest my evils, does not also extend itself so far as to heal them.

V. Thou seest, O my God! that sick as I am, I feel not my disorder; and that I glory in the little good I do, or desire, though that action and desire proceed from thee. I would pass among men for another person than I am, and I cannot suffer them to pass any disadvantageous judgment upon me, though they can never believe me so wicked as thou seest I am. Heal, O Lord! by thy power, those such dangerous wounds; grant that I may lift up my eyes to thee; illuminate them with thy light, that they may behold in thee the blessings I find in thee, and in myself the evils which displease thee.

Permit me not to be deceived, for the future, in my judgments; grant that I may see worldly things in their true light, that I may judge myself to be such as I am, in order to despise, condemn, and hate myself; and, that I may Judge of thee, O my God! as I ought; that I may esteem, fear, desire, and love thee, as my Lord, my judge, my father, and my sovereign good. Reform the powers of my soul, since thou hast created them for thee; purify my heart, since thou wilt have me give it to thee; make this den of thieves a house of prayer; and this abyss of miseries the abode of thy divine spirit.

VI. One of the most dangerous illusions of my pride, is to set too great a value upon the opinion of men. Thou seest, O Lord! how far this vanity extends, and how hurtful it is to me. What good, or what ill, can human judgments do me? I am truly such as thou judgest me, and I neither become better by men's esteem, nor worse by their contempt. There are none of them so wicked as to believe so much ill of me as I am capable of doing. Though all creatures should join together in condemning me, for the sins I have committed against thee, they could not do me strict justice— because my sins are greater, and more in number than can ever be thought of.

What do I then complain of, O ever equitable Judge! I complain

because men censure me; I think in everything I do, what they may think of my actions; I direct my conduct, measure my motions, and weigh my words, that I may please them; and I would willingly unite in my favour all their affections and commendations. But how vain is that pretension, and how far does it separate me from thee, O my God! It weakens in my soul the spirit of prayer, possesses me with unprofitable cares, gives me a thousand displeasures, and fills me with an infinite number of thoughts displeasing to thee. There is still greater vanity in the complacency I feel, when I think I have done or said anything well; when I am informed that people are satisfied with me and my conversation; when I desire with so much earnestness, to know what is thought of me; not with the intention of amending any fault that I have committed; but for my worldly gratification. Happy is the soul that is so pure and disengaged, as to neglect all these considerations.

VII. Draw unto thee, O Saviour of my soul! all my thoughts, sentiments, and intentions; have mercy on this distracted heart. It is not difficult to please thee because thou art satisfied with a little, and thy goodness accommodates itself to my weakness. Thou hast made known thy will to me in those things which regard my salvation, lest I should go astray: but in those which are of less importance, and wherein it is not necessary that thy will should be clearly shown to me, thou art satisfied with the sincerity of my intentions, though they should not be entirely conformable to thine.

When thou seest me ready to fall, thou supportest me: when I do fall, thou helpest me up again: and how wicked soever I be, thy mercy still finds some reason for aiding me. I am always sure of satisfying thee, O my God! when I am willing to do it. But how can I satisfy men, who see not the dispositions of my heart; very frequently judge of me by themselves; and, without examining anything, condemn or approve what pleases them? One would have me to suffer, another would have me to be revenged; this thinks me humble, and that a hypocrite; I pass in the midst of some for a coward, and in the midst of others for a prudent man; but though I should satisfy them all, what advantage should I reap from thence for the salvation of my soul?

VIII. Infinite thanks be given to thee, O my Creator and divine Master! for having been pleased to deliver me from all these cares, and reducing all my thoughts and obligations to one only, which is to love and serve thee with all my heart. If thou hadst obliged me not offend any person, and to satisfy every one, it would have been impossible for me to have obeyed thee. Gather together the dispersed of Israel (Ps. cxlvi. 2), re-unite in thyself alone the multiplicity of my desires, and pluck from my heart the esteem of

human judgments, whether they be good or bad. Permit me not to desire to satisfy the world which thou didst not satisfy, nor to listen to its judgments which judged so ill of thee. I desire only to satisfy thee alone, O my God! I offer thee all that I am; establish thy divine presence in my heart, elevate my mind to thee, that, disengaged from everything that cannot fill me with thy love, I may live for thee, speak of thee, think of thee, sigh after thee, and repose in thee, O my Jesus! my just judge, my faithful friend, and my amiable Saviour!

O Mother of God! full of grace, and full of our Lord, who is always with you; how rich were you in the eyes of him who did such great things in you! but how unknown were you to the world! I conjure you, by those chains of pure love, which so closely united you to your God, your Lord, your spouse, your Son, and your treasure, to obtain for me the favour I beg of you, that my heart may remain fixed to him, with an upright intention and a pure love; and that no creature may ever separate me from him. O heavenly court! so agreeable to your king and your judge, who was formerly condemned by, or not known to the world; forget not, among the blessings ye possess in that happy country, him that desires them in his exile; that being possessed with the thoughts. of your happiness, he may never be drawn away by the false pleasures of this life. Amen.

TWENTY-FIRST SUFFERING OF CHRIST.-Men's Murmurings against him.

I. From bad judgments commonly arise murmurings, which to good people are a pain so much the greater, as they are not accustomed thereto: whereas others are softened by time and habit. Murmuring is, as it were, the executioner of bad judgment: for a wicked heart cannot do much hurt, if it does not entrust the tongue with the execution of its bad designs, which it afterwards accomplishes, not only in discovering what was hidden, but also by colouring it in such a manner, that there seems to be justice in it. As almost all men are subject to this vice, some more, and others less, we ought not to flatter ourselves with being able to avoid murmurings, since Christ himself did not avoid them; and since all the sanctity of his person, and all the innocence of his life, did not preserve him from them.

He suffered that persecution with the same patience as he did all others. They murmured against him without any restraint, in the streets, in public places, in houses, in the synagogues, in the councils of the Jews, among the doctors of the law, and the chief persons of the nation; and there were few entertainments, companies or assemblies, wherein they did not speak ill of him and of

his followers. If any one presumed to defend him, he did but provoke others; and their hatred was exasperated, in proportion to the opposition it met with.

They said a sinner could not work miracles; and that he was truly a sinner, who observed not the Sabbath-day. The priests affirmed that he was despised by the most considerable, and followed only by the populace. The doctors murmured, because he called himself the Son of God. The Pharisees, who thought themselves saints, made him pass for an impostor, that had correspondence with devils; they could not even suffer him to have any with sinners. They made a jest of his disciples, because they were almost all poor, and of mean birth. They rallied those in a thousand ways who heard his doctrine; and all those affronts returned upon Christ. The malice of the Jews, joined to an infinite number of false circumstances, was the cause of so many murmurings, and a pain so sensible to our Saviour, that we owe him no less acknowledgment for not allowing himself to be withdrawn by these cruel tongues from his design of redeeming us, than for the very work of our redemption.

II. We cannot comprehend, without having experienced it, what force this sort of contradiction has for shaking the will, for taking away the inclination of bestowing favours on those that murmur, and for making us abandon the good which we have begun. Though God, always faithful in his promises, had exactly fulfilled that which he had made to Abraham, of giving to his posterity a land abounding in all sorts of good things, yet he was pleased to punish the murmurings of his people, so that of that innumerable multitude of men, whom he had delivered from the captivity of Egypt, but two entered into the Land of Promise.

The Son of God having become man, suffered all murmurings without ceasing to do good, even to those that murmured; he commanded his apostles to behave after the same manner, in the conversion of the world; and advised them to place themselves above murmurings, by telling them: that it is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?-Matt. x. 25.

It is a great comfort to the servants of God, when they suffer calumny, to know, that thereby they become the servants of him who suffered it before them. But in order to preserve that honour, and that inestimable privilege, they ought to be faithful in imitating their master in this point, by bearing, as he did, the murmurs of men. For the world being a place of miseries and troubles, there is no person but what is exposed to these as well as to others; and patience alone distinguishes the servants of God from the men of the world; these suffer only against their wills, and with a heart

so full of bitterness and impatience, that they often render themselves more guilty than those that make them suffer: but the servants of God humbly receive the punishment which they think they deserve for the expiation of their sins; or, if they have not deserved them, they bear them joyfully because they are judged worthy of resembling Christ, who has no less offered his blessings to those who would not receive them, than to those who have received them with thanksgiving.

III. The most Christian and efficacious means of confounding slanderers, is to instruct them in virtue, by patience, meekness, and good offices. There is no time less profitably employed than that which is spent in hindering men from speaking. He that loves to murmur, seeks not to have reason in what he says, but to have always what to say; and he never has a greater inclination to speak than when the greatest reasons are brought for his being silent. He murmured before only against thy actions, but at present he will attack thy reasons: he will soon pass on to thy intentions; and whatever thou shalt say to him, will only serve to furnish new matter for his murmurings.

Silence, meekness, perseverance in good, and a holy and prudent dissimulation, are the strongest arms that can be made use of against slander, for it proceeds from malice; it is sufficiently punished by the displeasure of not being able to satisfy itself against an enemy that does not defend himself. If it proceeds from ignorance or a bad custom, it is presently put a stop to by silence. If there be any remedy for the evil that is said of us, it is, not to regulate our conduct by the discourses of men, but rather to give them no just gronnd to blame it. If we regulate the intentions of our heart, and the actions of our life, according to the holy maxims of the gospel, we should give ourselves no trouble about what men say of us. Experience teaches us, that there is no rock more dangerous in the way of virtue than to study what people will say; and that a man so doing will not long remain faithful to God.

Wherefore Christ often foretels his servants, that they shall not be free from the reproach of unjust tongues; but, that in order to please him they ought to shut their ears, and attend to their duties, without considering what is said of them.

IV. Christ said, by the mouth of David (Ps. cxix. 1, 2), In my trouble I cried to the Lord, and he heard me. O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips, and a deceitful tongue. He gives thanks for having heard him against those that murmured; not by shutting their mouths, but by giving him strength to suffer their murmurings. For that complete victory of the just, which consists in confounding injustice, is reserved to the last judgment; when the impious, who have torn them here by their slander, seeing them elevated