terms, a reconciliation with his God. "Unheard of process of judgment!" exclaims a holy man, "in which the criminal is condemned if he conceals, and absolved if he confesses his delinquency." It is an unheard of process; since in human tribunals the judges punish what is discovered, and here the Almighty only punishes the guilt that is concealed, while He extends mercy to that which is openly and humbly unfolded. How applicable are the words of Scripture: "He that hideth his sins shall not prosper; but he that shall confess and forsake them shall obtain mercy."!

If you then wish to obtain mercy, come and confess your sins. Throw yourselves at the feet of the minister of Jesus Christ, who has power to loose them, oppressed with sorrow for having offended the Almighty, and you will obtain mercy from Him "who healeth the broken of heart, and bindeth up their bruises."2 Imitate the prodigal child, saying, like him, with a courageous generosity, "I will rise and go to my father, and I will say, father, I have offended against heaven and before thee." If you do, your Heavenly Father will cast an eye of mercy on you, and assist your resolution. Yes, He will strengthen your feeble steps, nay, will advance to meet you. Forgetful of your past infidelity He will indulge only in the exercise of His mercy, and receiving you again into His household He will diffuse joy among the angels, and clothe you with the robe of justice which you shall wear to all eternity. Amen.

ON PRIDE.

THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.

"I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other, because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."-LUKE xviii. 14,

WHAT an admirable picture of humility does not the Gospel exhibit to our view in this parable of the Pharisee and the Publican-a picture rendered still more engaging by its striking contrast with the deformity of pride. Two men of opposite dispositions and habits of life repair to the temple of the Lord, there to offer the homage of their prayers. The one a Pharisee, the other a publican; the one a doctor of the law, whose sayings were revered for their wisdom, and whose conduct was a pattern of regularity; the other a character whose name was a term of reproach, and whose office was identified with fraud and injustice; the one almost idolised for his virtue, the other equally execrated for his guilt; in fine, the one a reputed saint, the other a notorious sinner. Such are the characters that present themselves in the temple of the Almighty. If,my dear Christians, human views were to be the criterion for forming a judgment of their merits, the balance would probably incline in favour of the Pharisee. But, God! how different are Thy judgments from those of men; the Pharisee is condemned, the publican is justified. And why? Because the Pharisee is proud of his pretended justice, and because the publican is humble and penitent for his crimes. Hence, we are taught to deplore the cruel and melancholy effects of pride in the one, and to appreciate the blessings of humility in the other-two essential and

practical points of Christian morality which I shall attempt to develop in the following discourse :

I cannot more appropriately open this discourse than in the words of St. Gregory, which are most applicable to the subject. "I am generally employed,” says this holy Pontiff, "in cautioning you against evil, but now I must caution you against the pride which may lurk in your good works and infect the purity of your intention." How arduous, then, is the passage of the Christian through life. He must not only not stray into the paths of profligacy and dissipation, but in pursuing the narrow way which Christ has commanded him to tread, he must guard himself against the approaches of any secret complacency that would rob him of the merit of his toils. This pride is the deadliest of all the foes that meditate our ruin; we are on our guard against other vices because then danger is apparent, but pride secretly insinuates itself into our virtuous actions, poisoning their best qualities, and hence its attacks are the more fatal because they are treacherous and unseen. Of an enemy so subtle and designing, it is necessary to point out the danger that you may not be betrayed by its seduction. If we are to estimate the enormity of any sin by the misery which it inflicts, or the punishment that is to await it, the sin of pride will be almost without a parallel. What is it that first dispeopled heaven of its inhabitants and consigned them to the bottomless abyss, there to roll in penal fire, and to sustain the wrath of an angry Deity? Pride. Yes, their arrogant leader, proud of the gifts for which he was indebted to the Almighty, said, in the presumption of his swollen heart, "I shall ascend into the throne of the most High, and I shall be like unto Him." But the vengeance of heaven overtook him in his career of folly and ambition, and hurled him into endless torture. What is it that entailed on the human 1 Isai. xiv. 14.

kind such an endless train of woes and misery? Pride. Yes, it was a perverse and unreasonable curiosity of knowledge that prompted our unhappy parents to hear and to follow the suggestions of the tempter in defiance of God's positive prohibition. Pride is, then, the prolific source of that large and complicated mass of misery, of ignorance, of passion, and of suffering, that are comprised in that word of vast and mysterious importoriginal sin. Waving, then, spiritual evils, what is it that has brought misfortune on families, ruin on cities, and desolation on empires? The whole history of the Old Testament will tell us, it was pride. "Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrha, the dryness of thorns and heaps of salt, and a desert even for ever: the remnant of my people shall make a spoil of them, and the residue of my nation shall possess them. This shall befal them for their pride, because they have blasphemed and have been magnified against the people of the Lord of Hosts."! The prophetic books are full of awful denunciations against those who provoked by their pride the vengeance of the Almighty. Of this vengeance we have a terrible example in Antiochus, King of Syria, who, while he breathed destruction on the religion of the Almighty, was suddenly arrested in his impious career. "Moreover, being filled with pride, breathing out fire in his rage against the Jews, it happened, as he was going with violence, that he fell from his chariot, so that his limbs were much pained by a grievous bruising of the body. Thus, he that seemed to himself to command even the waves of the sea, being proud above the condition of man, and to weigh the heights of the mountains in a

1 Soph. ii. 9, 10.

balance, now being cast down to the ground, was carried in a litter, bearing witness to the manifest power of God in himself. So that worms swarmed out of the body of this man, and whilst he lived in sorrow and pain, his flesh fell off.... And the man that thought a little before he could reach to the stars of heaven, no man could endure to carry. . . . And by this means, being brought from his great pride, he began to come to the knowledge of himself, being admonished by the scourge of God, his pains increasing every moment."! Such is one of the visible monuments by which God has attested to the world His horror of this sin-a monument which ought to guard us against the indulgence of a passion which was punished even in this life with a disease too loathsome for utterance, and which even shut the ears of heaven against the prayers of the unfortunate man's repentance. "Then this wicked man prayed to the Lord, of whom he was not to obtain mercy."

In fine, my dear Christians-and remark that what I am going to observe, is not a forced but a most natural consequence of pride-what is it that has engendered those fantastic errors that have sprung up in every age, disfiguring the purity of the Christian doctrine, rending the seamless garment of Christ, and converting, by the wild variety of their dialects, the temple of God into a theatre of fanaticism and discord? Pride. If I were to exhibit the series of heretics that disturbed the peace of the Church, pride would be the most striking feature in their character. Thus, the Arian heresy, which of all others carried on the most violent warfare against the Catholic Church, sprung from the source of disappointed pride. Its author, a restless, turbulent priest, aspires to the Episcopacy of Alexandria, while the promotion of 1 2 Mach. ix. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

2 Ibid. 13.