difficult temptations to overcome, could not have the same need for watchfulness, the same necessity for prayer; that the doing right, came, so to speak, more naturally to them. I know that you think the very same thing now; but if it please GOD to spare you to become women, you will find out for yourselves what a mistake it is. Ask your dear Mother, ask any of the Sisters, ask me, if you like, whether we do not find it very hard work to take up our cross daily and to follow our LORD; whether it is not very disagreeable to have to leave undone so many things that we should like to do, and to do so many things which we had much rather not do; and I am sure that we should all give you the same answer. This is a battle which grown-up people have to fight, just as much as children: which the greatest Saint now alive has to carry on exactly as much as those who are only just beginning to serve GOD. Now then, dear children, this being so, let us see what it is that we really have to do this Lent.. You know what it is that we all want to be, if GOD shall be pleased to spare us till Easter: we want to be holier, at the end of Lent, than we were at the beginning. And this we must remember, that if we are not better we shall be worse; because if we do not try when GOD tells us that this is our time for trying, and when He especially promises to help us, we are sinning against Him; and if we da try, and suffer ourselves to be beaten, we are surely sinning against Him, too. children, you have begun very well, and shall all begin in the same manner. Now, my I hope we You have each of you taken, and I hope we all have taken, the sin which you know gives you the greatest trouble, and costs you most to get rid off, and have determined to try what you can do against it, before Easter comes. Only remember this: there is nothing easier in the world than to begin well. The proverb, you know, says, "Well begun, half done;" but it is not at all so in the service of GOD. I remember that when I was a child, I used to make up my mind every Saturday evening that I would try and pass through the next week without committing one sin; and sometimes I used to try very hard, yes, and to pray very earnestly, too, that I might succeed. But then I always made this sad mistake, (and I had no one, my children, to tell me of my mistakes, as you have of yours), as soon as ever in the week that was to have been so good I did anything that was wrong, I used to think, Well, this week is spoilt now, and so it is no use to try any more; I will begin again next week. Now I should be very sorry if any of you were to act in the same way about this Lent. Besetting sins are not to be overcome all at once. I know that before many days, perhaps before many hours have passed, you will have given way again to what you had so thoroughly determined to conquer. Yes, my children, and I should not at all wonder, if I could look into your hearts, to find that some one of you, perhaps more, have this very day yielded to the temptation. And what then? Why, then you are not to be in the least, no, not the least little bit in the world, discouraged. You must begin patiently all over again; it is what we all have to do; I myself just as often as any of you; and what we shall have to do. I daresay you have heard the story of the King of Scotland and the spider. This King of Scotland had been attacked by his enemies; had been beaten in several battles, was forsaken by nearly all his friends, and knew that if he were taken he would at once be put to death. He was hiding in a cottage, and as he was walking in its garden, very sad, as you may well think, he noticed a spider that was trying to get to the top of the garden wall. Just as it had almost reached the summit, it fell to the ground. Immediately it set about the work again, ran up the wall as before, and when it was all but at the top, fell the second time. The King got interested in the poor insect, and watched it on. A third time it tried with just the same success; and so time after time, till the eighth. The eighth time it also fell in the same manner, but not a whit discouraged, it set about the business once more, and this ninth time it succeeded and got to the top of the wall. "Now," said the King, "I believe that I shall be beaten eight times, but that I shall conquer the ninth." And so it fell out. He did conquer his enemies in the ninth battle, and reigned long and gloriously afterwards. Now, dear children, I want you to be like that spider. Not that I promise you that you will completely conquer your besetting sin the ninth time you try; no, nor yet, perhaps, the ninety-ninth time: but you will do it at last, as surely as God's promises are true. He says, "Ask, and it shall be given you, knock, and it shall be opened." But He does not say how many times you will have to ask, nor how often you will have to knock. However, begin at once; and when unhappily you do give way to a temptation, do not lose a moment in beginning again. You know it says in the Prayer-Book that, "through the weakness of our nature, we cannot always stand upright." But if you are sometimes thrown down, that is no reason why you should lie on the ground when you are thrown down. Yes; ask God's grace, in the first place that you may not fall, but in the next, that, if you do, when you fall you may also rise. And to you, dearest Sisters, I could say nothing in itself different, however different the words might be, from that which I have now told our children. GOD give you all grace, them no less than you, so to pass with your dear LORD through this valley of humiliation, that we may be counted worthy to see the King in His beauty in the joy of our Easter. READING XII.1 "And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch." I WILL tell you a story, my children, to begin with; and it shall be a true one. About a hundred years ago, when the English and French were fighting in North America, both of them wickedly used to hire the savage Indian tribes to help themselves in the war. The English army was encamped on a certain plain; it was autumn, and the nights were long. The sentinels were set all round the camp, with their watch-fires as usual, to give alarm in case of any attack. One morning, the sentinel at a particular post was found dead and cold, stabbed with an Indian knife in the back. It was thought he must have fallen asleep, and his comrades said that he was justly punished: for, as you know, it is death for a soldier to sleep at his post. And very justly too; because the carelessness of one sentinel may destroy a whole army. But the next morning, the sentinel was again found dead at that same post, and in that same manner, stabbed in the back. It seemed impossible that two soldiers should have slept on two following nights, especially when the second one had such a fearful warning before him. But it 1 Preached the Second Sunday in Lent. |