But, you say, it is that you may no longer offend God. This, no doubt, shows great hatred of sin, but the Saints longed for death, more that they might glorify God. Whatever we may pretend, I believe it to be very difficult to have only this one end in view, in our desire to die. Usually it will be found that we are simply discontented with life. To get to heaven we must not only not sin, but we must do good. If we refrain from sin we shall escape punishment, but more is required to deserve heaven.

UPON THE SAME SUBJECT.

There are some who imagine that St. Paul desired to die in order only that he might sin no more when he said that he felt in himself a contradiction between the law of his senses and of his reason; and, feeling this, cried out: Oh! unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?[1] These people, therefore, as though they were so many little Apostles, when they are, by some trifle, goaded to impatience, instantly say that they desire to die, and pretend that their only wish is to be in a condition in which they cannot possibly offend God. This is, indeed, to cover up mere impatience and irritation with a fine cloak! But what is still worse, it is to wrench and distort the words of the Apostle and apply them in a sense of which he never thought. Our Blessed Father, in one of his letters, gives an explanation of this passage which is so clear and so excellent that I am sure if will be useful to you. He speaks thus: "Oh, unhappy man that I am, said the great Apostle, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He felt within himself, as it were, an armed host of ill humours, antipathies, bad habits, and natural inclinations which conspired to bring about his spiritual death; and because he fears them he declares that he hates them, and because he hates them he cannot support them without pain, and his grief makes him burst out into the exclamation which he himself answers in these words: The grace of God by Jesus Christ. This will deliver him not from the death of the body with its terrors, not from the last combat, but from defeat in the struggle, and will preserve him from being overcome.

"You see how far the Apostle is from invoking death, although elsewhere he desires to be set free from the prison of the body that he may be with Jesus Christ. He calls the mass of temptations which urge and incite him to sin a body of death, sin being the true death of the soul. Grace is the death of this death and the devourer of this abortion of hell, for where sin abounded grace superabounds.

"Grace, which has been merited for us by Jesus Christ our Saviour, to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever."

[Footnote 1: Rom. vii. 24.]

UPON THE DESIRE OF HEAVEN.

Here is a little village story to show how often true and solid piety is to be found among the lowly and ignorant, of whom the world thinks not at all. I had it from the lips of our Blessed Father, who loved to tell it.

While visiting his diocese, passing through a little country town, he was told that a well-to-do inhabitant was very ill and desired to see him, and to receive his blessing before he died. Our Blessed Father hastened to his bedside and found him at the point of death, yet in full possession of all his faculties. When he saw the Bishop the good farmer exclaimed: "Oh! my Lord, I thank God for permitting me to receive your blessing before I die."

Then the room being cleared of all his relations and friends, and he being left quite alone with the holy Prelate, he made his confession and received absolution. His next question was, "My Lord, shall I die?" The Bishop, unwilling to alarm him unnecessarily, answered quietly and reassuringly that he had seen people far more ill than he recover, but that he must place all his trust in God, the Master of life and death, who knows the number of our days, which cannot be even one more than he has decreed.