gives us strength for our journey at its most difficult part in our Confirmation. She constantly renews that strength, and gives us fresh provision in our Communions; from beginning to end she keeps JESUS before our eyes as the Light of the World, as a Beacon to guide us to the Haven where we would be.

This is in some degree true also of the very fabric of the Church. Everything that meets our eye in a well-ordered Church tells the same silent tale: the Font, the Pulpit, the Lectern, the Chancel, the Cross, the Lighted Candles, all are but to tell us of JESUS, if we will but learn, all are but to prepare the Way of the LORD, and to prepare our hearts, and to teach us to walk in His Way.

The Prayer.

O LORD JESU CHRIST, Who by Thy Holy Church hast made this day a day of rejoicing, and memorable to us in the Nativity of S. John Baptist, grant unto us, and all Thy people, the grace of spiritual joy and gladness, and dispose the

minds of all the faithful unto the way of everlasting Salvation: enlighten our souls: inform our minds: order our thoughts; direct our senses, our words, and our actions: subdue our passions, that we may walk in Thy Way, and keep Thy Holy Will and Commandments all the days of our life; Who livest and reignest with the FATHER and the HOLY SPIRIT, one GOD, world without end. Amen.

FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF S. JOHN BAPTIST.

XXV. On preparing the Way of the Lord (2). MALACHI iii. I.—“ Behold, I will send My messen ger, and he shall prepare the way before Me."

To prepare the way of the LORD ought to be the lesson of every-day life whether on Festival or Fast. And unless the way of the LORD is being prepared in us and by us, our religion is in vain and objectless. This is not a gloomy thought for a festival, as it would not be an unsuitable thought for a fast. The way of the LORD can be as well in one sense prepared in rejoicing as in mourning. Of all light

hearted rejoicing in the world religious rejoicing is the most real. But it can only be really light-hearted if our hearts are light, that is, free from the burden of sin. Our great danger in the present day is however to shut our eyes to the selfdenying part of religion. We are all apt to like bright and cheerful services on our festival days, and forget the other side of the question. We should enter into the spirit of these services none the less heartily, or rather all the more really, if we bore in mind a little more the example of S. John Baptist. We may not be all, or any of us, called to follow exactly in his footsteps, but at least we need not side with the world, the flesh, and the Devil in running down ascetic, self-denying lives such as his, because we do not choose to lead them ourselves, or because they are too striking a contrast to our own lives. Every man has his proper gift of GOD. One thing at least we are all bound to do, namely, each of us so to live, as by some kind of daily taking up of the Cross, to prepare the way of the LORD.

This should not come to us then as an unseasonable question on any day, or on such a day as this, if we were asked : “How are you preparing the way of the LORD? If you lose sight of it on your days of rejoicing whenever they occur, they are no true days of rejoicing, no true festivals. They may be days of mere idleness, or revelry, or excitement, but not days of religious rejoicing." Or we may have the question put to us in this way, "How are you letting GOD prepare His way in you? How are you letting GOD prepare you for His way? Do ? Do you oppose your will to His will? When you know a thing is right do you do it? Do you cling to those obstacles which you love, but which GOD hates, and would have removed in you in order that His way may be made plain and straight? Is the mere concourse of people, is the mere habit of going to Church on Sundays or Saints' Days, the thing that takes you there ?"

Alas, how sadly we have as a nation lost sight of the true meaning of the

IV.

2 C

word holy-day, when Good Friday is made a day of amusement, and Christmas Day a time for gluttony or drunkenness, and Ascension Day and the Commemoration of Saints' Days are more or less ignored and neglected. But, as individuals, there is much that GOD has put it into our power to do. "Prepare ye the way." Even this preparation however is all GOD's work, but He in His love calls it ours. Yes, GOD is love. GOD is lovingkindness itself: His Will is omnipotent, and yet He asks us to yield our wills to Him. Wayward, wandering, weak as we naturally are, yet He is ever willing and ready to keep us from straying, to strengthen us when we do stand, to keep us from falling, to raise us when we fall, to feed us and carry us in His Bosom, as the Good Shepherd, to lead us gently and tenderly, to drive us when we want driving, but yet to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Prepare ye the way of the LORD! Beset as we are with temptations, there is always help at hand if only we ask for