But we must permit the poet to correct himself: and no mortal pen can do it more happily than he does in Psalm 73. God, my Supporter, and my Hope, My Help forever near; Thine arm of mercy held me up, When sinking in despair. Thy counsels, Lord, shall guide my feet, Thine hand conduct me near thy seat, To dwell before thy face. Or in Psalm 71. My God, my everlasting hope. I live upon thy truth; Thy hands have held my childhood up, Still has my life new wonders seen, Repeated every year; Behold my days that yet remain, 1 trust them to thy care. Cast me not off when strength declines, When hoary hairs arise; And round me let thy glory shine, Whene'er thy servant dies. Then in the history of my age, When men review my days, They'll read thy love in every page, In every line thy praise. The lesson beside the common path of life, thus devoutly acknowledged, has peculiar importance in an age of propagation. Our Catholic predecessors in the work of spreading the gospel, failed, not for the want of zeal, or money, or men, but for lack of an earth-made piety. Such holy men as Xavier, could but conduct the issues from the corrupted fountain. The college de propaganda fide, have but left their sluggish streams, and stagnant pools, noisome and pestiferous, where should now be flowing the pure waters of life. Romish missions have accomplished little more than to introduce Christian asceticism, indulgence and idolatry, side by side, with a like triple paganism. It is a most encouraging feature of modern missions, that more than any other since the days of the Apostles, they are woven in with the common web of life — are carried on, on principles, and with the spirit which Christianity claims of all her disciples, are exposed to the ills and eligible to the blessings of life, in common with all lawful employments and conditions of men. They have been instituted with families, are burdened with domestic cares, cheered with domestic blessings, and urged to forethought as to domestic contingencies; not to the hindrance but to the furtherance of the gospel. Nothing would have been more fatal to modern missions than to have valued useless self-denials and austerities as tokens of Apostolic devotedness. The consequence must have been a less pure and simple piety at the fountain head in Christian lands; and abroad, a religion of asceticism and indulgence, little better than the grossest paganism. Let religion have place, its entrance and discipline amidst our common affairs; and the fountain will be pure and full, and the streams abnndant for the life of the world! SERMON I. THE FOWLS OF THE AIR. MATTHEW, 6: 25–33. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you? ye of little faith! Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek ;) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. THE command of our Lord is given in view of a double danger, to which the condition of the present life renders us liable. The uncertainty of a provision for our wants exposes us to fear, anxiety, despair; while the connection of their supply with our own skill and strength, exposes us on the other hand to an absorbing and self-confident diligence. Thus are we liable to incessant fluctuations-to a divided, changing mind, to the alternations of presumption and despondency; the folly of man, and the very "taking thought" forbidden by our Lord.* It is against this double danger, that our Lord would secure us, by calling us to behold and consider the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, that without hindrance and with all advantage, we may "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." The condition of the present life, I say, renders us liable to this double danger. If any part of our raiment be lacking: if the feet or the limbs, or the body be exposed to the scorching sun, or to the chills of even a summer evening, or to the piercing cold of winter, we are proportionately distressed, and our sufferings need but small increase and short continuance in order to be fatal. If food be lacking only in part, and for a brief season, we suffer intensely: and a few days of fasting destroys the life, and sends the body back to its original dust. Amidst necessities so great exposing us to sufferings so intense and fatal, what uncertainty of supply! The materials of our food and raiment depend upon natural agents, varying and uncertain, over which we have no control. The sun and the rain by whose influence the flax and the cotton, and the food of the sheep and the silk-worm and of man grow, are entirely without the reach of our feeble powers. If heat and moisture be defective, we cannot increase them, *The context both in Matthew and Luke, requires this strict adherence to the true import of Μεριμνάω. nor lessen them if they be excessive. We cannot turn back the overwhelming flood when the bottles of heaven are kept open, nor soften the parched earth with refreshing showers, when "the heavens are brass over our heads." Nor can we hinder the frost which, in a night, may destroy the hopes of the summer; nor the hail nor the lightning, which may cut off the waving or the gathered crops. Nay: we cannot secure to ourselves a supply, even amidst a general abundance. We have no control over the great store-houses of food and raiment which God in mercy may have filled, nor over the channels by which they are conducted to each man's door. Here again, all is uncertainty: the poor, depending upon a daily renewal of the means of life, are uncertain of employment, or payment, or continued health and strength, and have constant occasion for anxiety. And the rich: - there are none so rich in farms, or goods, or money, as to be absolutely sure of food to eat, and raiment to put on, occasion of anxiety in view of the daily wants of their bodies. Men engaged in lucrative and extensive business, even while growing richer and richer, are exposed to the hazards of fire, and wind, and water-to lightning and tempests to the changes in the policy of communities and nations; to dishonesty and fraud, and to ignorance, weakness and folly, their own and other men's. Even capitalists, who seem seated quietly in the enjoyment of wealth, have no security against the hazards of unemployed, depreciated, or sunken capital; - cannot prevent their riches from or above the |