pulchral rites, by embalmings, and the like, to express this strong sense implanted in us of incorruption even in corruption, of immortality in the very moment of mortality, of re-union even in dissolution."

PASSAGES FROM THE LIVES AND DEATHS OF HOLY PERSONS.

Life of St. Francis Borgia.

"The true greatness of this man appeared not in the honours and applause which he so often received, but in the sincere humility with which he took care constantly to nourish and improve in his heart. In these dispositions he looked upon humility as his greatest gain and honour; from the time that he began to give himself totally to the divine service, he learned the infinite importance and difficulty of attaining to perfect humility. The most profound exterior exercise of that virtue was the constant employment of his soul. At all times he studied most diligently to humble himself in the divine presence; beneath all creatures and within himself; amidst the greatest honours and respect that were shewn to him, his companion took notice that he was not only mortified and afflicted, but more than ordinarily confounded, of which he asked the reason. 'I considered,' said he, 'in my morning meditation, that hell is my due; and I think that all men, even children, and all dumb creatures, ought to cry out to me, Away! hell is thy place; or thou art one whose soul ought to be in hell.' From this reflection he humbled his soul,

and raised himself to the most ardent love of God, and tender affection towards the divine mercy. He one day said, that in meditating on the actions of Christ, he had for six years always placed himself in spirit at the feet of Judas; but that, considering that Christ had washed the feet of the traitor, durst not approach, and from that time looked upon himself as excluded from all places, and unworthy to hold any in the world; and looked upon all other creatures with a degree of respect, and at a distance. When the mules and equipages preceded him to shew him honour in the entry he made at Rome, in 1550, before he had laid aside his titles and rank in the world, he said, 'Nothing is more just than that brute beasts should be the companions of one who resembled them.' At all commendations and applause he always shuddered, calling to mind the dreadful account he must one day give to God; how far he was from the least degree of virtue, and how base and execrable hypocrisy will appear at the last. Upon his renouncing the world, in his letters he subscribes himself Francis the Sinner, calling this his only title, till St. Ignatius ordered him to omit it, as a singularity. In this exterior spirit of humility he laid hold of every opportunity of practising exterior humiliations, as the means perfectly to extinguish all pride in his heart, and to ground himself in the most sincere contempt of himself. He pressed with the utmost importunity Don Philip, while he was regent of Spain, for his father to extort from him a promise never to make him a bishop, or any other ecclesiastical dignity. Others,' he said, 'could live humble in spirit amidst honours, and in high posts, which the established subordination

of the world makes necessary; for his part, it was his earnest desire and ambition to leave the world in embracing the state of a poor, religious man."

Third Friday in Lent.

THE STATE OF MAN.

PASSAGE FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE EXPRESSING OUR

DEPRESSED ESTATE.

"THOU turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yes. terday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. "Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.

:

"In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

"For we are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled.

"Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance.

"For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath : we spend our years as a tale that is told.

"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Who knoweth the power of Thine anger ? even according to Thy fear, so is Thy wrath.

"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."

ANOTHER EXPRESSING OUR HONOURED ESTATE.

"When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?

"For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

"Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

"O Lord our God, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth.”

REFLECTIONS ON THE STATE OF MAN.

"The short time that any pleasure stays with us, it is not to be enjoyed wholly, and all at once, but tasted by parts; so as, when the second part comes, we feel not the pleasure of the first, lessening itself every moment, and we ourselves still dying with it; there being no instant of life wherein death gains not

ground of us: the motion of the heavens is but the swift turn of the spindle which rolls up the thread of our lives; and a most fleet horse, upon which death runs past after us. There is no moment of life wherein death hath not equal jurisdiction; and there is no point of life which we divide not by death; so as, if well considered, we live but only one point, and have not life but for the present instant. Our years past are now vanished, and we enjoy no more of them than if we were already dead; the years to come we live not, and possess no more of them than if we were not yet born; yesterday is gone, to-morrow we know not what shall be; of to-day many hours are past, and we live them not; others are to come, and whether we shall live them or no is uncertain; so that, all counts cast up, we live but this present moment; and in this also we are dying; so that we cannot say that life is anything but the half of an instant, an indivisible point, divided betwixt it and death.

"With reason may this life be called the shadow of death, since under the shadow of life death steals upon us; and as at every step the body takes, the shadow takes another, so at every pace our lives move forward, death equally advances with it; and as eternity is ever in beginning, and is, therefore, a perpetual beginning; so life is ever ending and concluding, and may therefore be called a perpetual end, and a continual death. O miserable condition of human nature! vain is all that we live without Christ; 'all flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of the field.' Where is now that comely visage? Where is now the dignity of the whole body, with which, as with a fair garment, the beauty of the soul was clothed? Ah!

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