lights, from whom comes down every good and perfect gift; who gives to all liberally, and upbraideth not, grudges not, stints not, but gives, and delights in giving,-the same God, in a word, of whom the old Psalmists and prophets spoke, and said, 'Thou openest thine hand, and fillest all things with good.'

And if natural religion tells us thus much, and bears witness of a Father who delights in the happiness of his creatures, what does revealed religion and the Gospel of Jesus Christ tell us?

Oh, my friends, dull indeed must be our hearts if we can feel no love for the God of

whom the Gospel speaks! And perverse

indeed must be our minds if we can twist the good news of Christ's salvation into the bad news of condemnation! What says St. Paul,-That God is against us? No. But'If God be for us, who can be against us?

'Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who 'is he that condemneth? It is Christ that 'died, yea rather, that is risen again, who

is even at the right hand of God, who also 'maketh intercession for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of 'Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or per'secution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 'sword?

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'As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 'powers, nor things present, nor things to 'come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 'creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

What says St. John? St. John? Does he Does he say that God the Father desires to punish or slay us; and that our Lord Jesus Christ, or the Virgin Mary, or the saints, or any other being, loves us better than God, and will deliver us out of the hands of God? God forbid! We have known and

believed,' he says, 'the love that God hath to 'us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love 'dwelleth in God, and God in him.'

My friends, if we could believe those blessed words-I do not say in all their fulness—we shall never do that, I believe, in this mortal life-but if we could only believe them a little, and know and believe even a little of the love that God has to us, then love to him would spring up in our hearts, and we should feel for him all that child ever felt for father. If we really believed that God who made heaven and earth was even now calling to each and every one of us, and beseeching us, by the sacrifice of his well-beloved Son, crucified for us, 'My son, give me thy heart,' we could not help, we could not help giving up our hearts to him.

Provided-and there is that second reason why people do not love God, for which I said there was no excuse-provided only that we wish to be good, and to obey God. If we do not wish to do what God commands, we shall never love God. It must be so. There can be no real love of God which is not

based upon a

love of virtue and goodness, upon what our Lord calls a hunger and thirst after righteousness. 'If ye love me, keep my commandments,' is our Lord's own rule and test. And it is the only one possible. If we habitually disobey any person, we shall cease to love that person. If a child is in the habit of disobeying its parents, dark and angry feelings towards those parents are sure to arise in its heart. The child tries to forget its parents, to keep out of their way. It tries to justify itself, to excuse itself by fancying that its parents are hard upon it, unjust, grudge it pleasure, or what not. If its parents' commandments are grievous to a child, it will try to make out that those commandments are unfair and unkind. And so shall we do by God's commandments. If God's commandments seem too grievous for us to obey, then we shall begin to fancy them unjust and unkind. And then farewell to any real love to God. If we do not openly rebel against God, we shall still try to forget him. The thought of God will seem dark, unpleasant, and forbidding to us; and we shall try in our short

sighted folly to live as far as we can without God in the world, and, like Adam after his fall, hide ourselves from the loving God, just because we know we have disobeyed him.

But if, in spite of many bad habits, we desire to get rid of our bad habits; if, in spite of many faults, we still desire to be faultless and perfect; if, in spite of many weaknesses, we still desire to be strong; if, in one word, we still hunger and thirst after righteousness, and long to be good men: then in due time the love of God will be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

For that will happen to us which happens to all those who have the pure, true, and heroical love. If we really love a person, we shall first desire to please them, and therefore the thought of disobeying and paining them will seem more and more grievous unto us.

But more. We shall soon rise a step higher.

The more we love them, and the more we see in them, in their characters, things worthy to be loved, the more we shall desire to be like them, to copy those parts of their characters