that he has done for me?"* He has not only af forded you the most effectual means of saving your own soul, but he has made you the happy instrument of saving the souls of hundreds. In this house of your God, you join the active to the contemplative life; you are engaged by your institute in the most glorious of all employments, the education of the youthful poor: you teach the infant lips to lisp the praises of their CreaYou rescue the poor, the unprotected female orphan, from these temptations which beset them on all sides, from that infamy which marks them for its owır. You rescue them from that irreligion, desirous to consign them to eternal misery.

tor.

In these alarming times, when the apostles of infidelity are endeavouring to overturn every institution that promotes Christianity; when Hell seems to have let loose upon earth her most active agents, to blast every thing that is dear to the friends of social order and religion; God, who watches over his Church, who has declared "that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her;"+ at the very moment, that through his indignation he has suffered the light of faith to be extinguished in many parts of Christendom for their crimes and abominations, has raised up in this country this heavenly order for the propagation of religious instruction, among the children of the poor. May it be spread far and wide, and we shall soon behold the blessed effects of its influence. May its members be every day more sensible of the high vocation, by which they 'assimilate themselves to God, bringing so many of his children to a participation of his glory!'

For once, let fancy, with prophetic eye, be allowed to look into future scenes. Let her * Psalm cxv. 12. + Mat. xvi. 18.

paint the children whom you have instructed rising to respectable stations in life, and discharg ing religiously and faithfully the duties of them. Let her view them, preserving, amidst vice and corruption, that sense of female honour and virtue, and, after having adorned and blessed society, rising with triumph to the tribunal of their God. When such fair spirits shall meet you in Heaven, how will it increase your ecstacies, to behold that you have been under God, the instrument of lifting them to that immortal emi

nence!

Such, dear sister, is the recompense you will receive for the sacrifice you are about to offer this day. From the abundance of your heart, say to your God with the same spirit as St. Peter: Behold, O God, for your sake, I forsake mother, sisters, brothers, relatives, riches and pleasures! For you, my God, I forget from this day the world, and desire to be forgotten by it! For you, I die to the world, and rejoice that the world dies to me! I shall be amply recompensed, my God, if you never forget me! No, daughter of Sion, says the Lord, I will never forget thee. Rejoice and extol the wonders of my mercies, because I am going to take possession of thee, to deliver thee from the tyranny of the world, and to establish for ever in thy heart, a permanent peace, that peace which the world cannot give.

Yes, dear sister, the Lord will grant you this day, that peace which the world and its enjoyments can never give. Ask those followers of the world, whom the solemnity of your profession assembles here this day, and they will tell you, that in the moments of reflection they envy your happy lot. They will tell you that they bewail, in the anguish of their soul, their misfortune in carrying the yoke of the world. They

will tell you that they have long sought after pleasures, and never found but bitterness. They will tell you that they have amassed riches, and found not in them the source of their enjoyments, but the source of care and anxiety. In a word, they will tell you, that they never found true peace in any thing, but in the fear of the Lord, and the observance of his holy law. Many, perhaps, this day, will shed tears of sensibility, at beholding you with a holy joy and religious courage, bid an eternal farewell to the world and its enjoyments. But these tears should he tears of compunction, shed for themselves, for having devoted the whole of their own lives to the world and its vanities, which are anathematized, and pronounced accursed by Christ Jesus. Instead of shedding tears of unavailing sensibility, when they behold you die to the world by your religious profession, they should recollect with horror, that awful day, which must separate them for ever from it!

I said, my brethren, at the beginning of this discourse, that it is delivered for your instruction. Hear it then, as the admonition of the Lord; and remember that the season of age and caducity will betray you. When you are arrived within a few steps of the grave, you will find neither time nor disposition to perform the solemn task you have so long delayed, and about which this virgin is so much in earnest. You will be alarmed, but not converted. Your souls will be encumbered with a train of confused comfortless thoughts. Your cold lips will utter a few imperfect prayers, that will not reach the heart, any more than water, gliding over a marble stone, will penetrate the substance. Undoubtedly, you may live in the world, and comply with the deinds of virtue. You will inevitably meet with VÒL I. G

many disappointments, mortifying incidents and calamities, all which, if you bear with a patient and submissive heart, you perform your task, and virtue asks no more. The perfidy of friendship, the inconstancy of favour, the torture of neglect, the loss of children, sickness, dejection, and merited pain; these are the austerities the world imposes on its followers, which transcend the vo luntary austerities, that form the habitual employment of this mansion.

As for you, my dear sister, nothing more remains than to complete your sacrifice. Go, then, and receive from that venerable prelate the mysterious veil; envelope yourself in its sacred folds; and, concealed from the world, enjoy that peace which the world cannot give. But before this, prostrate before the Lord, we shall offer for you the same prayer, that the priests and citizens of Bethulia offered for Judith, when she appeared in the midst of that holy assembly, on the point of executing the great design, with which the Lord inspired her. May the God of your fathers, who has protected you from your infancy, spread on you abundantly the succours of his grace! May he bless the purity of your intentions; may he support you by his all powerful strength, and may he not permit you to fail in the generous design, which you have undertaken to please him! Amen.

This Sermon was preached at the Presentation Convent, George's-hill, Dublin.

SERMON XI.

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY.

On the wonderful propagation of the Christian Religion.

The kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown up, it is greater than any herbs, and becometh a tree; so that the birds of the air come and dwell in the branches thereof. Mat. xiii. 31, 32.

JESUS CHRIST, in the course of his mission, often spoke of the kingdom of Heaven; and this expression presents to us, according to the circumstances of his discourse, divers significations. Oftentimes (and this is the most natural sense) it signifies the church triumphant, which reigns with him in Heaven. But we are not to understand it thus on this occasion. Sometimes it signifies the church militant, which is the kingdom of God on earth; and at others it signifies the interior reign of God in the faithful soul, by grace and charity. The holy fathers have understood, and interpreted in the two latter significations, the parable of this day's Gospel. The least of all seeds becometh in time the greatest of all