thee, thou takest fire at the sight of gain, and art taken by the bait of this corrupt food. But if he find no covetousness in thee, the trap remains spread in vain.

Or should the tempter set before thee some woman of surpassing beauty; if chastity be within, iniquity from without is overcome. Therefore, that he may not take thee with the bait of a strange woman's beauty, fight with thine own lust within; thou hast no sensible perception of thine enemy, but of thine own concupiscence thou hast. Thou dost not see the devil, but the object that engageth thee thou dost see. Get the mastery, then, over that of which thou art sensible within. Fight valiantly, for he who hath regenerated thee is thy Judge; he hath arranged the lists, he is making ready the crown. But because thou wilt without doubt be conquered if thou have not him to aid thee, if he abandon thee: therefore dost thou say in the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." The Judge's wrath hath given over some to their own lusts; and the Apostle says, "God gave them over to the lusts of their hearts." How did he give them up? Not by forcing, but by forsaking them.

"Deliver us from evil" may belong to the same sentence. Therefore, that thou mayst understand it to be all one sentence, it runs thus, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Therefore he added "but," to show that all this belongs to one sentence, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." How is this? I will propose them singly. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” By delivering us from evil he leadeth us not into temptation; by not leading us into temptation he delivereth us from evil.

And truly it is a great temptation, dearly beloved, it is

a great temptation in this life, when that in us is the subject of temptation whereby we attain pardon if, in any of our temptations, we have fallen. It is a frightful temptation when that is taken from us whereby we may be healed from the wounds of other temptations. I know that ye have not yet understood me. Give me your attention, that ye may understand. Suppose avarice tempts a man, and he is conquered in any single temptation (for sometimes even a good wrestler and fighter may get roughly handled): avarice, then, has got the better of a man, good wrestler though he be, and he has done some avaricious act. Or there has been a passing lust; it has not brought the man to fornication, nor reached unto adultery - for when this does takes place, the man must at all events be kept back from the criminal act. But he "hath seen a woman to lust after her: " he has let his thoughts dwell on her with more pleasure than was right; he has admitted the attack, excellent combatant though he be, he has been wounded, but he has not consented to it; he has beaten back the motion of his lust, has chastised it with the bitterness of grief, he has beaten it back, and has prevailed. Still, in the very fact that he had slipped has he ground for saying "Forgive us our debts." And so of all other temptations, it is a hard matter that in them all there should not be occasion for saying, "Forgive us our debts." What, then, is that frightful temptation which I have mentioned, that grievous, that tremendous temptation, which must be avoided with all our strength, with all our resolution; what is it? When we go about to avenge ourselves. Anger is kindled, and the man burns to be avenged. O frightful temptation! Thou art losing that whereby thou hadst to attain pardon for other faults. If thou hadst committed any sin as to other senses and other lusts, hence

mightst thou have had thy cure in that thou mightst say "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." But whoso instigateth thee to take vengeance will lose for thee the power thou hadst to say "As we also forgive our debtors." When that power is lost, all sins will be retained; nothing at all is remitted.

Our Lord and Master and Saviour, knowing this dangerous temptation in this life when he taught us six or seven petitions in this prayer, took none of them for himself to treat of and to commend to us with greater earnestness than this one. Have we not said, "Our Father which art in heaven" and the rest which follows? Why, after the conclusion of the prayer, did he not enlarge upon it to us, either as to what he had laid down in the beginning, or concluded with at the end, or placed in the middle? For why said he not, If the name of God be not hallowed in you, or if ye have no part in the kingdom of God, or if the will of God be not done in you, as in heaven, or if God guard you not, that ye enter not into temptation; why none of all these? but what saith he? "Verily I say unto you, that if ye forgive men their trespasses," in reference to that petition, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." Having passed over all the other petitions which he taught us, this he taught us with an especial force. There was no need of insisting so much upon those sins in which, if a man offend, he may know the means whereby he may be cured: need of it there was with regard to that sin in which, if thou sin, there is no means whereby the rest can be cured. For this thou oughtst to be ever saying, Forgive us our debts." What debts? There is no lack of them; for we are but men; I have talked somewhat more than I ought, have said something I ought not, have laughed more than I ought, have eaten more than I ought, have listened

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with pleasure to what I ought not, have drunk more than I ought, have seen with pleasure what I ought not, have thought with pleasure on what I ought not; "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." This if thou hast lost, thou art lost thyself.

Take heed, my brethren, my sons, sons of God, take heed, I beseech you, in that I am saying to you. Fight to the uttermost of your powers with your own hearts. And if ye shall see your anger making a stand against you, pray to God against it, that God may make thee conqueror of thyself, that God may make thee conqueror, I say, not of thine enemy without, but of thine own soul within. For he will give thee his present help and will do it. He would rather that we ask this of him than rain. For ye see, beloved, how many petitions the Lord Christ hath taught us; and there is scarce found among them one which speaks of daily bread, that all our thoughts may be moulded after the life to come. For what can we fear that he will not give us who hath promised and said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you; for your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things before ye ask him." "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." For many have been tried even with hunger, and have been found gold, and have not been forsaken by God. They would have perished with hunger if the daily inward bread were to leave their heart. After this let us chiefly hunger. For, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." But he can in mercy look upon our infirmity, and see us, as it is said, "Remember that we are dust." He who from the dust made and quickened man, for that his work of clay's sake, gave his only Son to death. Who can explain, who can worthily so much as conceive, how much he loveth us?

SAINT CYRIL

AINT CYRIL, or Cyrillus, one of the most famous of the Fathers of

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the Greek Church, was born at Alexandria, in Egypt, and succeeded his uncle Theophilus as archbishop of Alexandria in 412 A.D. He was a man of violent temper, which continually involved him in disputes and controversies. At the outset of his episcopal career he instituted a persecution of the sect of Novations, and deprived their bishop of all his property. He next expelled the Jews from Alexandria, and if not with his sanction, at least as a result of his harangues, the famous pagan lecturer Hypatia was murdered by a mob of so-called Christians in the great Cæsarean church of Alexandria in Lent, 415. In 429 he became entangled in a controversy with Nestorius, archbishop of Constantinople, and in 431 he presided over the Council of Ephesus, which deposed Nestorius. He died in Alexandria in June, 444. Cyril was intensely dogmatic and undeniably cruel, but it must be borne in mind that in his view the very existence of Christianity was menaced by the various schisms of the time. His writings, consisting of homilies, treatises, etc., are very voluminous; among them is a confutation, in ten books, of Julian the Apostate. In 1859 an English translation of Cyril's Commentary on Saint Luke" was published by Dr. Payne Smith, and Dr. Pusey issued later a translation of the "Commentary on the Minor Prophets."

ON THE MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH

"Who is this that hideth counsel from me, and keepeth words in his heart, and thinketh to hide them from me?" Job xxxviii, 2, 3.

O look upon God with eyes of flesh is impossible: for the incorporeal cannot be subject to bodily sight: and

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the only begotten Son of God himself hath testified, saying, "No man hath seen God at any time." For if, according to that which is written in Ezekiel, any one should understand that Ezekiel saw him, yet what saith the Scripture? "He saw the likeness of the glory of the Lord; " not the Lord himself, but the likeness of his glory, not the glory itself as it really is. And when he saw merely the likeness of the glory, and not the glory itself, he fell to the earth from fear.

Now if the sight of the likeness of the glory brought fear

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