world, but sometimes what displeases it; not to fulfil his duties, but to go beyond them; not to reach certain limits, but to surpass all limits.

Perfection in doctrine and morality cannot be the portion of all. Some particular errors, some imperfections in details, do not prevent a man being essentially in the right way. In all things there is a progressive advance, the necessity of which there is no evading; we cannot, in a general way, arrive at once at what is best in theory and practice, and all that man can reasonably exact from man is to follow the road that leads thither.

God has desired to establish in our life a perfect and unalterable unity; out of the two principles of which man is composed to make one single being; not to destroy one activity for the sake of the other, but to give to both one single aim, and to the whole of life one only signification; not, in short, to kill man, but to regenerate him.

If there be a law abundantly confirmed by experience, it is, that the more good we do, the more pleasure we find in doing it. One single spark, if it do not get put out, if it finds anything to fasten on, may kindle the whole of life. There is in every act of beneficence something so conformable to our nature, or so worthy of it; the soul feels so much at case in the atmosphere of charity, that in proportion as it breathes that air it repudiates all others. There is a joy in doing right, a joy keen in proportion as it was unpremeditated, and that in order to

procure it we have overcome the strongest resistance from nature and the senses. . . . This is why the pleasures of charity, if it be permitted to call them such, never wither; one lives in the soul of others, one unites one's-self to all their impressions. The more self-sacrifice this happiness imposes, the dearer it becomes; we love it for its own sake and for what it has cost us. Thus the first of duties becomes the most profound of instincts; it blends with the love we bear ourselves; we no longer distinguish between the two, and our soul in each of its movements tends entirely in one direction, and leaves nothing of itself behind.

Time to do good is never to be merely found; it is charity that must create it: selfishness has no leisure. Time is not composed of hours and minutes alone, but of love and will: we have little time when we have little love.

Must we admit it? There are few even amongst the best who do all they ought, and few, too, who know all they might. We have always at a given moment something that another has not. . . . He whose very existence depends upon the charity of others, may by a fervent prayer pay back to his benefactors far more than he has received.

The most fertile soil is not that which produces most; the men most favoured in regard to intelligence or fortune are not those who do the most good. Whether you look at the quality or the quantity of actions, we must place to the credit of

the poor and the lowly the greatest part of the good which gets done on earth.

One must be without conscience and without compassion not to confess that there is a terrible waste of time in the world, if that be time wasted which, lawfully destined to charity, is voluntarily diverted from so holy a use.

The most occupied man is the one who has most time, and whom we most easily find at our disposal.

In doing good we always do more good than we suppose, and in doing ill more harm.

Woe to him who does not impute to himself all the results his conduct has not, but might have had; and who does not feel, with regard to such results, if less of grief, equal repentance, and even more confusion.

Beneficence, like every other virtue, like conversion itself, must never say to-morrow.

Let us not be deceived by appearances. Circumstances, manners, and customs repress us, but in each one of us there is the germ of a tyrant. In making ourselves the equals of our sovereign we have made ourselves, in as far as we could, the masters of our fellows. How dethrone this tyrant? There is one way it is to constitute ourselves, in a spirit of charity, servants to all our brethren.

People still insist upon confounding charity with almsgiving. It is difficult to believe that such an error can be involuntary. It is really an attack upon charity, because charity is Christianity. The

love of man for the love of God, the love of the soul of man in man; the humble love that willingly makes itself small and annihilates itself; love, in short, springing from the mystery of the cross; love such as this, despite the generally acknowledged sweetness of some of its fruits, has characteristics which suit neither the pride of our hopes nor the loftiness of our schemes, and tend to impede the development of the humanitarian cause. Here lies

the secret of the pertinacious error.

The faculty of loving each man, simply because he is man, is in itself more elevated and excellent than all our special and particular affections.

Without love for man as man, all our individual affections, whether of family, country, or sympathy, would not raise us above animals, and each of these special affections only deserves the holy name of love, when, being perfected by the Spirit of God, it has become charity.

Humanity suffers and groans; we must, at least, groan and suffer with it. We must pray for it; we must share that travailing in birth which convulses and rends it, for it aims at nothing less than the bringing forth a new world to God.

Every Christian belongs to all men. He has not the same duties to all, but he is under obligations to all. He is not a Christian, he has not comprehended Jesus Christ, if this idea be a new one, or rather, if he be not habitually pre-occupied with it. He is not only separately to love each member of the human

race that circumstances may bring into contact with him; he is, like Jesus Christ, to love humanity. This is the work and the glory of the true Christian.

An expanded heart is the one which can hold the most sentiments. When we make use of this image, we mean that there is nothing positive for the heart but love, for it is said that hate contracts it, and yet hate is a sentiment.

3. Moral Studies.

Readiness to Judge; Resignation; Casuistry; Pleasures; Intimacy springing from Christianity; Rational Character of the Christian Life; Sacred and Profane; Glory of God; Purity; Co-operation in undertakings not Christian; Patience, Humility, Fear; Individual and Social Vices.

To condemn our brother without reason, proof, or reflection, is what we each one of us do almost as soon as we are capable of thinking, and almost at every moment of the day. And if this be the case, must we not believe this sin connected with what is most essential in our original corruption, and one of its most direct and close consequences?

A habit of rash and ill-natured judgment shows more than anything else that the soul is not born into the new life, the life of God. It announces that the two principles of life, humility and charity, are still foreign to it.

The coarsest have a very delicate conscience when it comes to judging their neighbours.

In confessing, as we needs must, that unfavourable