very long train came by. The engine-driver, finding that he could not escape, put on all the force of the engine, and cut the log in pieces: and no one was hurt.

Well, the boy who put the log there, was had up before the magistrates. "Why did he do this? Did he not know the harm he might do? Did he not know how hundreds of people might have perished through his carelessness ?"

"He never thought of that. He wanted to see what would happen to the wood; how it would fly in pieces; and therefore he did it." Was that an excuse? No: he was sent to prison for six years.

Now, my children: about the mischief you tried to do, you will never hear another word from me. I am most thankful that the older ones had nothing to do with it. For those that had, I forgive them, and I know the Sisters will, only too easily.

But oh, my children! I only wish I could teach you how much depends on you: how much you have to bear out: how little you are like those children of whom our dear LORD said: "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye can in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!”

And now, &c.

READING XVIII.1

"She, supposing Him to be the gardener."
S. JOHN XX. 15.

TRY to imagine what that Garden was, in which was the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea. A spring garden; but not at all like the spring gardens which you are used to here in England: none of the flowers to which we are accustomed, no lawns such as we have here, for the grass would soon be parched up. But perhaps a palm-tree or two, throwing their heads high into the air, and making sweet music far above the earth: the tree called the datura, with its broad green leaves, and its flowers like silver trumpets; fig-trees also, with the fruit half ripe, and beginning to turn a glossy brown; and above all, the cactus, that strange plant which none of our English flowers at all resemble, with its clumsy, huge leaves, an inch thick, carved out as it were in green wood, covered with prickles, and sending forth lovely red flowers on a stalk three or four feet long. These were the kind of flowers which grew round the place where the SAVIOUR of the world had lain.

And as I have often told you, the LORD's tomb was not like one of our graves dug out of the earth, but scooped sideways out of a rock, like those rocks 1 Easter Day, 1859.

which you have often seen in Ashurst Wood: a great rock, rising up out of the ground, such as Isaiah had in his mind, when he spake of the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. To the mouth of this hollow recess the stone had been rolled, which now was taken away: and there stood Mary Magdalene, wondering where the LORD'S Body could be taken.

And then comes the text: when she saw our LORD, she supposed Him to be the Gardener. Now, my children, was that a mistake or not? When Mary Magdalene, who loved our LORD JESUS CHRIST more than any other loved Him, excepting His own blessed Mother, imagined Him to be the Gardener, was she right, or was she wrong? Wrong, you will say, quite wrong. The KING of kings and LORD of lords,—He That was no longer the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but the victorious Monarch Who had conquered death and hell, how could He be a poor Gardener? And I say that when we come to think, this saying of S. Mary Magdalene, if it be a mistake in one sense, may nevertheless teach us a great truth: how our dear LORD is the Gardener. For notice, it does not say, she supposing Him to have been a gardener, but the Gardener; and the Gardener He is; and the Gardens over which He watches are our souls and the different flowers which spring up in them are the different graces which He has planted there, and from which He expects good fruit.

And you remember that in one of His parables, He calls Himself by almost the same name. He calls Himself the Dresser of the vineyard, Who interceded for the barren fig-tree: "LORD, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that Thou shalt cut it down."

So that this mistake of S. Mary's, was only as it were another kind of parable. Do you remember, my children, my telling you, some time ago, of the lilies which were brought to a number of children by their guardian Angels, and for the welldoing of each of which, each child had to answer? All that comes to the same thing. Every one of your hearts is a Garden belonging to GOD, in which, as I said, He has planted His graces, and He now waits to see what they will bring forth. What graces? And what ought they to bring forth? Love, for example, is one grace; faith is another; hope, humility, patience, cheerfulness, truth, and so on. And what are they to bring forth? Why, if He has planted love there, He waits to see whether you will be ready to do any kind action to those who need it; whether you are forbearing and gentle with those who are younger or weaker than yourselves, kind to any one who is sick; above all things, not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing. This is the kind of fruit which love ought to bear. You know that if I set a rose or a lily in an earthly garden, I can

tell you what sort of flower it ought to bear when the time shall come: and so I know that when GOD has put into your hearts, such and such graces, they ought to produce such and such effects in due season. If I set a lily in the garden now, I know that by and bye there will come up a flower with snow-white leaves, rising high above the ground, and with golden-coloured anthers in the middle. So I know that because GOD at your Baptism gave you the grace of purity, therefore you ought to avoid and to abhor everything impure, every word or sight or action, as you would the fang of a poisonous serpent; and thus become the true lilies of our dear LORD. Again, if I set a rose in an earthly garden, I know that by and bye that beautiful flower will come up with leaves within leaves of its own lovely colour, and its own delightful smell. So if GOD gave each of you, as He certainly did, the grace of faith at your Baptism, I know also what that ought to bring forth. I know that whenever you are in any kind of trouble or sorrow or vexation, you ought still to believe that it is only a proof of God's love: that you are bound to put all your trust in Him nevertheless : that you are to be sure that He would no more send you this sorrow, unless it were necessary for you, than an earthly parent would give you bitter medicine unless you required it.

Now then, my Children, the question is, whether our LORD, the true Gardener, does see the graces