dross, slake your feverishness, chase away foul thoughts, re-create your decay, drive off Satan, gather you up into Himself. He will strengthen you against temptation, lift you up above those miserable, maddening, seducing pleasures of sense, and give you a foretaste of heavenly sweetness, of blissful calm, of spiritual joy, of transporting love, of unearthly delight, in His own ever-Blessed, ever blessing Presence. Martyrs of old went to their last conflict, "fortified," S. Cyprian says, "with the protection of the Body and Blood of Christ." By His Body and Blood will Christ prepare you for your conflict.

Since you desire that your Lord should "dwell in your heart," forget Him not, when you have received Him. Collect yourself from time to time during the day in His Presence; commune with Him. Pray Him, "Abide with me, Lord." Pray Him, to guard thee, within and without, against all which may offend Him, to deepen in thee whatever grace thou hast asked for. Watch jealously over every thought and member. Remember that your Lord dwelleth in you, and speak, act, and think, as in His Presence. Watch over all the inlets of your senses. Let not the eyes, which He has enlightened, wander after sights of vanity; nor the ears, which He has unstopped, be filled with sounds of this world, so that they hear not His still Voice; nor

the taste, which has tasted heavenly Food, be overanxious about "the things which perish in the using"; nor the tongue which (as was said of old) has been "reddened with the Blood of the Lord," speak idle, vain, or detracting, or unloving words; nor the mind, which has been gathered in one in Him, be scattered amid the distractions of this world.

We have offered up "ourselves, our souls and bodies" on the Altar of His Cross, as "a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto God, to be united with His Atoning Sacrifice, and consumed by the fire of His Love; see we that a subtle love of the world awake not again in us.

In all we say, think, do, fear, hope, enjoy, let us say, "Abide with us, Lord." We fear our own unsteadfastness; "Lord, abide with us!" The foe is strong, and we, through our sins, weak; "Lord, abide with us," and be our Strength. We are ever subject to change and ebb and flow; "Abide with us, Lord," with Whom "is no change." The pleasures of the world would lead us from Thee; "Abide with us, Lord," and be Thou our Joy. The troubles of the world would shake our endurance; “Abide with us, Lord," and bear them in us, as Thou didst bear them for us. Refreshment in weariness, Thou our Comfort in trouble, Thou our Refuge in temptation, Thou in

Thou art our

death our Life, Thou in Judgment our Redeemer. "Abide with me, O Lord."

66 Abide with us, Lord." "Why shouldest Thou be as a stranger, and as a wayfaring man, that turneth aside to tarry for the night?" "Abide

with me, Lord," in the Love and Grace I prayed for, that I "may bring forth fruit, and my fruit may remain," and the glowing Breath of Thy Spirit may "blow upon our garden, that the spices thereof may flow out" in the fragrance of love, and deeds of love, to the praise of Him who gave them. "Abide with us," that we may abide in Thee, O good Jesus, "Thou God of our Salvation!"

Oh, what will that blessed Morn be, when, if "found in Him," we shall not behold Him, as now, afar off, but "face to Face," "in His Beauty"; when He Who has tended us all our lives long, "called us to His Feet," made us members of His Body; He Who bore our sins upon the Cross, bore so long time with our frailties, and wilfulness, and sins, interceded for us, fed us with His own Body, washed us with His own Blood, was Himself our hidden Life, He, our Redeemer, Mediator, Who wept for our sins and gave us tears to weep our own, Who became Man for our salvation, that He might make us gods,-shall appear to us openly, and call to His Side those who would at last be kept by Him and whom He has kept! Oh! how,

in the dawn of that ineffable Brightness, shall we rejoice, if, when in this life He called us to a nearer communion with Him, and a more devoted service and stricter trying of our ways, and more exact obedience, we hearkened to His call! And yet that dawn shall be but the opening of an endless bliss, which we then shall not yet know,-bliss which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man"; "the joy of our Lord," the joy which our Redeeming Lord and God hath in the Unity of the Eternal Godhead, and into which, the joy of our own Lord, His redeemed shall

enter.

Make us to be numbered with Thy Saints in glory everlasting.

O Almighty God, Who hast knit together Thine Elect in one Communion and fellowship, in the mystical Body of Thy Son Christ our Lord: Grant us grace so to follow Thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which Thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

DEVOTIONS IN PREPARATION

FOR HOLY COMMUNION.

Christ is my Food.—S. Ambrose.

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"He realizes what Holy Communion is, who meditates upon the greatness of God's Gift beforehand, prepares his soul for It, prays his Lord to come under his roof, and lives afterwards as knowing Whereof he has been a partaker."

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