condescension which God could bestow on his faithful ones. Won over by his infinite love in the ineffable union of the sacred Mysteries, his people desire nothing, and ask for nothing, but that they may be permitted to fix their eternal abode in the house of the Lord.

COMMUNION.

Unam petii a Domino, hanc requiram : ut inhabitem in domo Domini omnibus diebus vitæ meæ.

One thing I have asked of the Lord; this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life.

The effects of the sacred Mysteries are manifold : they cleanse the deepest recesses of our soul, and protect us externally, by enabling us to shun the snares laid for us along the path of life.

POSTCOMMUNION.

Quos cœlesti, Domine,dono satiasti, præsta quæsumus: ut a nostris mundemur occultis, et ab hostium liberemur insidiis. Per Dominum.

Grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, that we whom thou hast fed with this heavenly gift, may be cleansed from our hidden sins, and delivered from the snares of our enemies. Through, etc.

The other Postcommunions as in page 137.

VESPERS.

The Psalms, Capitulum, Hymn and Versicle, as in pages 74-84.

ANTIPHON OF THE MAGNIFICAT.

Si offers munus tuum ad altare, et recordatus fueris quia frater tuus habet ali

If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and shalt remember that thy brother hath anything

THE SIXTH SUNDAY

AFTER PENTECOST.

THE Office for the sixth Sunday after Pentecost, which began yesterday evening, reminded us, in its Magnificat Antiphon, of a repentance which has never had an equal. David, the royal prophet, the conqueror of Goliath, himself conquered by sensuality, and from adulterer become a murderer, at last felt the crushing weight of his double crime, and exclaimed: I do beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done foolishly! "I "have acted as a fool!"

Sin is always a folly, and a weakness, no matter of what kind it may be, or who he be that commits it. The rebel angel, or fallen man, may, in their pride, make efforts to persuade themselves that, when they sinned, they did not act as fools, and were not weak; but all their efforts are vain; sin must ever have this disgrace upon it, that it is folly and weakness, for it is a revolt against God, a contempt for his law, a mad act of the creature, who, being made by his Creator to attain infinite happiness and glory, prefers to debase himself by turning towards nothingness, and then falls even lower than the nothingness from which he was taken. It is, however, a folly that is voluntary, and a weakness that has no excuse; for, although the creature have nothing of his own but darkness and misery, yet his infinitely merciful

1 Paralip. xxi. 8.

Creator, by means of his grace, which is never wanting, puts, within that creature's reach, divine strength and light.

It is so with even the sinner that has been the least liberally gifted, he has no reason that can justify his offences: but when he that sins, is a creature who has been laden with God's gifts, and, by his divine generosity, raised higher than others in the order of grace,-oh! then, the offence he commits against his benefactor is an injury that has no name. Let this be remembered by those who, like David, could say, that their God has multiplied his magnificence over them. They may, perhaps, have been led by him into high paths which are reserved for the favoured few, and may, perhaps, have reached the heights of divine union: yet must they be on their guard; no one who has still to carry with him the burden of a mortal body of flesh, is safe, unless by exercising a ceaseless vigilance. On the mountains, as on the plains and the valleys, at all times and in all places, a fall is possible; but when it is on those lofty peaks which, in this land of exile, seem bordering on heaven, and but one step from the entrance into the powers of the Lord,-what a terrific fall, when the foot slips there! The yawning precipices, which that soul had avoided on her ascent now are all open to ingulf her; abyss after abyss of crime, she rushes into them, and with a violence of passion that terrifies even them that have long been nothing but wickedness.

Poor fallen soul! pride, like that of Satan, will now try to keep her obstinately fixed in her crimes: but, from the depths into which she has fallen, let her, like David, send forth the cry of humility; let her lament her abominations; let her not be afraid

to look up, through her tears, at those glorious heights which were once her abode,-an anticipated heaven. Without further delay, let her imitate the royal penitent, and say with him: I have sinned against the Lord! and she will hear the same answer that he did: The Lord hath taken away thy sin; thou shalt not die; and as with David, so also with her, God may still do grand things in her. David, when innocent, was a faithful image of Christ, who was the object of the love of both heaven and earth; David, sinner, but penitent, was still the figure of the Man-God, as laden with the sins of the whole world, and bearing on his single self the merciful and just vengeance of his offended Father.

In the Mass of this Sunday, which they call the sixth of Saint Matthew, the Greeks read the account of the cure of the paralytic, which is related in the 9th Chapter of that Evangelist. The preceding chapter, with its episode of the centurion and the two possessed, had furnished them with the Gospels for their fourth and fifth Sundays.

MASS.

It is difficult to see what connection there is between the Mass and the Office of this Sunday, at least such as we now have them. Honorius of Autun and Durandus applied the Introit, and the other sung portions which follow, to the inauguration of Solomon's reign. At the period when those two writers lived, the Scripture Lessons for this Sunday were taken from the first pages of the second book of Paralipomenon, where we have the account of the glorious early days of David's son. But, since that time, it has been the Church's practice to continue

12 Kings, xii. 13.

2 The 12th and 13th Centuries.