precisely according to the wishes of my heart, and which do not make for thy glory. But awaken within me a sorrow assimilated to thine own. Let my sufferings mollify thine anger. Make them the means of my safety and my conversion. Let me wish no more for health and life, but to employ and expend them for thee, with thee, and in thee. I do not ask of thee health or sickness, life or death; but merely that thou wouldest dispose of my health or sickness, of my life or death, for thy glory, for my salvation, and for the benefit of thy church, and of thy saints, among whom I would hope, by thy grace, to be found. Thou only knowest what is needful for me: thou art the sovereign Lord; do with me what thou wilt. Give or take; only conform my will to thine; and grant, that in humble and entire submission, I may accept the ordinances of thy eternal providence, and that I may regard with equal reverence, whatever comes from thee.

14. Grant, O my God, that in uniform equanimity of mind, I may receive whatever happens; since we know not what we should ask, and since I cannot wish for one thing more than another without presumption and without setting up myself as a judge, and making myself responsible for those consequences which thy wisdom has determined properly to conceal from me. O Lord, I know that I know but one thing; and that is, that it is good to follow thee, and evil to offend thee. After that, I know not what is better or worse in any thing. I know not which is more profitable for me, sickness or health, wealth or poverty, nor any other of the things of this world. This were a discovery beyond the power of men or angels, and which is veiled in the secrets of thy providence which I adore, and which I do not desire to fathom.

15. Grant then, O Lord, that such as I am, I may be conformed to thy will; and that diseased as I am, I may glorify thee in my sufferings. Without these, I cannot reach thy glory; and even thou, my Saviour, wouldst not attain to glory but by this means. It was by the scars of thy sufferings that thy disciples knew thee:

and it is by their sufferings that thou wilt recognize those who are thy disciples. Recognize me, O Lord, amidst the evils that I suffer, both in body and mind, for the sins that I have committed; and because nothing is acceptable to God, that is not offered by thee, unite my will to thine, and my agonies to those which thou hast endured. Let mine become thine. Unite me to thyself; and fill me with thyself, and with thy Holy Spirit. Dwell in my heart and soul, to endure within me my sufferings, and to continue to endure in me,all that remains yet unsuffered of thy passion, which thou completest in all thy members, even to entire perfection of thy mystical body; that being thus at length full of thee, it may be no more I that live and suffer, but that it may be thou who livest and sufferest in me, O my Saviour; and that thus, having some little part in thy sufferings, thou mayest fill me abundantly with the glory which they have purchased; in which thou livest with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A COMPARISON OF ANCIENT AND MODERN CHRISTIANS.

In the infancy of the Christian church, we see no Christians but those who were thoroughly instructed in all matters necessary to salvation; but, in these days, we see on every side an ignorance so gross, that it agonizes all those who have a tender regard for the interests of the church. Then, no one entered the church, but after serious difficulties, and long cherished wishes; now, we find ourselves associated with it, without care or difficulty. Formerly, no one was admitted but after a most rigid examination; now, every one is admitted before he is capable of being examined. Formerly, no one was admitted but after repentance of his former life, and a renunciation of the world, the flesh, and the devil; now, they enter the church before they

are in a state to do any of these things. In fact, formerly it was necessary to come out from the world, in order to be received into the church; whilst, in these days, we enter the church almost at the same time that. we enter the world. Then there was distinctly re'cognized by those earlier proceedings, an essential difference between the world and the church. They were regarded as two things, in direct opposition, as two irreconcilable enemies; of which the one persecutes the other perpetually, and of which, that which seems the weakest, will one day triumph over the strongest; and between these two contending parties, it became necessary to abandon the one, in order to enter the other; to renounce the maxims of the one in order to follow those of the other; each one must disencumber himself of the sentiments of the one, in order to put on the sentiments of the other; and finally must be prepared to quit, to renounce, and to abjure the world where he had his former birth, and to devote himself entirely to the church in which he receives his second birth. And thus a wide distinction was habitually drawn between the one and the other. But now, we find ourselves almost at the same moment introduced into both; and, at the same time, we born into the world, and born anew into the church.* So that, dawning reason now no longer perceives the broad line of distinction between these two opposing worlds, but matures and strengthens, at the same time, under the combined influence of both. The sacraments are partaken of, in conjunction with the pleasures of

are

*It is quite evident by the tenor of the whole passage, that M. Pascal means here only a formal initiation by baptism, and not a spiritual birth—a real regeneration. At the same time, the error which his words appear in some degree to countenance, was held by the unenlightened part of the Romish Church; and it is still held by some members of the Church of England, who do not understand either her doctrines or her services; whilst some men among us, like M. Pascal, give an improper countenance to the error, by the adoption of the inexplicable notion of Baptismal Regeneration.

the world; and hence, instead of there being an essential distinction between the one and the other, they are now so mingled and confounded, that the distinction is almost entirely lost.

Hence it arises, that whilst then Christians were all well instructed; now, there are many in a fearful state of ignorance; then, those who had been initiated into Christianity by baptism, and who had renounced the vices of the world, to embrace the piety of the church, rarely declined again to the world which they had left; whilst now, we commonly see the vices of the world in the hearts of Christians. The church of the saints is all defiled with the intermingling of the wicked; and her children that she has conceived, and borne from their infancy at her sides, are they who carry into her very heart, that is even to the participation of her holiest mysteries,--her deadliest foesthe spirit of the world-the spirit of ambition, of revenge, of impurity, and of lust; and the love which she bears for her children, compels her to admit into her very bowels, the bitterest of her persecutors.

But we must not impute to the church the evils that have followed so fatal a change; for when she saw that the delay of baptism left a large portion of infants still under the curse of original sin, she wished to deliver them from this perdition, by hastening the succor which she can give; and this good mother sees, with bitter regret, that the benefit which she thus holds out to infants, becomes the occasion of the ruin of adults.

The true meaning of the church is, that those whom she thus withdraws at so tender an age, from the contagion of the world, should subsequently become separate from its opinions. She anticipates the agen cy of reason, to prevent those vices into which corrupted reason might entice them; and that, before their natural mind could act, she might fill them with her better spirit, so that they might live in ignorance of the world, and in a state so much further removed from vice, in as much as they have never known it.

This is evident in the baptismal service; for she does not confer baptism till the children have declared, by the lips of their parents, that they desire it—that they believe that they renounce the world and the devil, And as the church wishes them to preserve these dispositions throughout life, she expressly enjoins upon them to keep them inviolate; and by an indispensable command, she requires the parents to instruct their children in all these things; for she does not wish that those, whom from their infancy she has nourished in her bosom, should be less enlightened, and less zealous than those whom she formerly received as her own; she cannot be satisfied with a less degree of perfection in those whom she herself has trained, than in those whom she admits to her communion.

Yet the rule of the church is so perverted from its original intention, that it cannot be thought of without horror. Men think no more of the peculiar blessing which they have received, because they did not themselves ask it, because they do not even remember having received it. But since it is evident, that the church requires no less piety in those who have been brought up from infancy as the servants of faith, than in those who aspire to become such, it becomes such persons to set before them the example of the ancient Catechumens of the early church, to consider their ardor, their devotion, their dread of the world, their noble renunciation of it; and if they were not thought worthy to receive baptism, without these dispositions, those who do not find such dispositions in themselves, should at once submit to receive that instruction which they would have had, if they were now only about to seek an entrance into the communion of the church. It becomes them still further to humble themselves to such a penitence, as they may wish never to throw aside; such that they may henceforth find less of disgust in the austere mortification of the senses than of attraction in the criminal pleasures of sin.

To induce them to seek instruction, they must be