LAUDATE DOMINUM

Let them praise the name of the Lord:
For he commanded and they were created.
He hath also stablished them for ever and ever:
He hath made a decree which shall not pass.
Praise the Lord from the earth,
Ye dragons and all deeps:

Fire and hail; snow and vapours;
Stormy wind, fulfilling his word:
Mountains, and all hills;

Fruitful trees, and all cedars

Beasts, and all cattle;

;

Creeping things, and flying fowl;
Kings of the earth, and all people :
Princes, and all judges of the earth;
Both young men and maidens;
Old men and children;

Let them praise the name of the Lord:
For his name alone is excellent;

His glory is above the earth and heaven.
He also exalteth the horn of his people,
The praise of all his saints;

Even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him.
Praise ye the Lord.

Psalm cxlviii

CHARITY

JUSTICE and Charity are the one surest sign of the true Catholic faith, the one surest fruit of the Holy Spirit. Wheresoever these are found, there in very truth Christ is, and wheresoever they are not, Christ is not. For by the Spirit of Christ alone can we be led into the love of justice and charity.

SPINOZA

AND indeed Charity itself, which is the vertical top of all Religion, is nothing else but a union of joys concentrated in the heart and reflected from all the angles of our life and intercourse.

JEREMY TAYLOR

CHARITY suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. And now

abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is Charity.

SAINT PAUL

Against Bitterness of Zeal

ANY zeal is proper for religion, but the zeal of

the sword and the zeal of anger; this is the bitterness of zeal, and it is a certain temptation to every man against his duty; for if the sword turns preacher, and dictates propositions by empire instead of arguments, and engraves them in men's hearts with a poignard, that it shall be death to believe what I innocently and ignorantly am persuaded of, it must needs be unsafe to try the spirits, to try all things, to make inquiry; and yet, without this liberty, no man can justify himself before God or man, nor confidently say that his religion is best. This is inordination of zeal; for Christ, by reproving St. Peter drawing his sword even in the cause of Christ, for his sacred and yet injured person, teaches us not to use the sword, though in the cause of God or for God himself.

When Abraham sat at his tent door, according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man, stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travail, coming towards him; who was a hundred years of age. He received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit down; but observing that the old man prayed not nor begged a blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not worship the God of heaven. The old man told him that he worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged no other God. At which answer Abraham grew so

HOW CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME'

zealously angry that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to Abraham and asked him where the stranger was? He replied, I thrust him away because he did not worship thee. God answered him, I have suffered him these hundred years, although he dishonoured me: and couldst not thou endure him one night?' JEREMY TAYLOR

How Charity Begins at Home' PEOPLE who love themselves but in charity, even

as they love their neighbour, bear with themselves charitably (though without flattery) even as one bears with the faults of his neighbour. Such a man knows what needs correction in himself as well as in another; he strives loyally and vigorously to correct it; but he does it for himself as for a neighbour whom he would fain lead to God. He is patient too; he exacts, not from himself any more than from a neighbour, more than under the circumstances he is capable of bearing; he does not lose heart because baffled in his desire to be perfect in a day. He judges his lightest faults without glosing them; he sees them in their true deformity; he endures all the humiliation, all the mortification they bring. He neglects no means of correcting them, but he will not suffer them to fret his temper. He ignores the carping criticisms of vanity and self-esteem, nor suffers them to infect the calm resolution which grace inspires for the correction of