be born in the true faith, and brought you safely to the waters of baptism, in preference to so many others more deserving. Ask yourself, who was it watched over you while you were a weak infant, and inspired others with the tenderness which induced them to do for you what you were unable to do for yourself? Who provided you with tender parents and friends, of which others more deserving are left destitute?—Who gave you the means of attaining religious instruction, as likewise a liberal and Christian education ?-Why were you not born among those savage tribes, who live and die without ever hearing the name of their Creator?-Who gives you, daily and hourly, all the temporal blessings you enjoy, food, clothing, lodging?-Why are you not like thousands who are poor, abandoned, shivering with cold, and deprived of all the common necessaries of life ?-But principally, and particularly, who has so often pardoned you your sins, and waited your repentance until now? Why were you not cut off the first time you were so unfortunate as to sin ?-Why are you not burning this moment with the damned in hell, many of whom offended God less than you have done ?Who is it that inspires you with a desire of returning to God, and provides you with an opportunity of confessing your sins, which any one of the damned would give ten thousand worlds to purchase? These inquiries, which may be considerably lengthened, will prove to you that God has been indeed infinitely good to you. Nevertheless, it is this God of infinite good ness you have outraged by sin; it is this divine and liberal Benefactor, whose benefits you have not only received with indifference, but often perverted into occasions of sin. Ah! would you not blush at such base ingratitude towards a fellow-creature who had served you thus?-Has not gratitude often urged you to exertions for them which you never made for God? -Should not the benefits of your Creator, contrasted with such insensibility and repeated transgressions,

be a powerful motive for contrition during the remain. der of your life?

The fifth motive for detesting sin is, because it offends a God infinitely good in himself. This motive, which is no other than the perfect love of God, produces that pure and disinterested sorrow, which is properly called contrition. Generally speaking, sinners are much less affected by this motive than by all the rest the sorrow it excites may more justly be termed the fruits and recompense of conversion, than its primary cause. Should you feel little impressed with this pure motive, be at least humbled and astonisned at your insensibility. Recollect that nothing is more natural than to admire what is beautiful, and to love what is amiable. The greatest savage would refrain from injuring an innocent, beautiful, engaging child, because there is something in beauty, virtue, and innocence, which engages love and admiration for themselves alone. Why, then, should you feel so insensible to the adorable perfections, sacred attributes, and enchanting beauty of that divine Being, whose most perfect works and greatest saints are but a faint image of himself? This proceeds chiefly from your having formed no conception of what God is in himself. It is true, that a clear view of his divine perfections is reserved for heaven; but there is an inferior knowledge of God, which may be acquired upon earth, chiefly by two means: the first, by endeavouring habitually so to trace all perfection to God, as to admire the beauty of God alone in all that is admirable, and to love the goodness of God in all that is amiable; but the second, and most essential, is to avoid even the least deliberate sin, and thereby merit those pure lights, which discovered to the saints such perfections in God, as caused some of them to weep their whole lives over one venial offence. The day will come when you will think as they did; but, in the mean time, endeavour to animate your faith, and profit of their experience Ask the blessed in heaven,

what it is that constitutes their bliss, and they wil reply, that their paradise is the possession, the view the enjoyment of God. Descend once more into the aby ss of hell, and you will learn from the damned, that their chief punishment is, not the fire that consumes them; not the devils who torment them; nor the eternal darkness which surrounds them; but that their hell is truly the loss of God-the eternal loss of that transporting Beauty, that immense ocean of every perfection, which they see as he is since they quitted this life. What, then, must God be in himself? How transporting must that Beauty be, which enraptures the Saints, and even attracts the very reprobate, in spite of themselves! How inexpressibly amiable must that infinite Goodness be, whom it is sufficient to have seen once, or even imperfectly conceived an idea of, to love without measure! If you could form even a slight conception of that eternal Sun of Justice, how soon would you exclaim, with the model of penitents, St. Augustine: "Too late have I known thee, O infinite Beauty!" Your detestation of sin would be proportioned to your love for God, whom it offends; and though there were no hell to punish your transgressions, nor a heaven to reward your services, you would still flee from the shadow of sin, and bitterly lament having committed a single imperfection, because it offends a God infinitely good in himself.

The sixth and last motive recommended by your Catechism for exciting Contrition, is, to reflect on the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ. You may, whenever you feel inclined, confine yourself to this consideration alone in exciting yourself to sorrow; it is better calculated than any other to touch the heart, and to give weight to all the motives on w h you have already meditated. Place yourself, with he greatest humility and recollection, at the foot of the ross, and consider the torments of mind and body which Jesus endures; consider this adorable Victim

covered with wounds, his sacred head crowned with thorns, his divine eyes closed with agony and streaming in tears; his hands and feet pierced, and his whole body resting on those nails, whereby his wounds are every instant enlarged; his most amiable heart tortured by the ingratitude of those whom he had worked miracles to relieve and convert. This affecting spectacle would no doubt penetrate your soul with horror, compassion, and anguish, if, with a lively faith, you viewed the work of your sins in the sufferings of your Redeemer. Ah! if you beheld a parent, a friend, even an indifferent person, expiring of a broken heart, caused by the pain and misery your faults had occasioned, what would be your feelings? But should that parent or friend unexpectedly recov er from the extremity of death, and again experience from you the same treatment as before, would you not acknowledge yourself, and be looked on by all the world as a monster of the basest ingratitude? This is precisely the light in which you should now view yourself. You have caused the death of your true parent-your sins, mure than his cruel enemies, fastened him to the cross;-your pride covered a God with humiliation; your impatience under the slightest contradictions, exposed this meek Lamb to the most insulting outrages; your vanity and attachment to the vain amusements of the world, crowned his divine head with thorns ;—your ingratitude and insensibility pierced his heart;-your selfish search after every gratification, deprived him even of a cup of cold water in the agonies of death. You know that sin caused his death, and yet you have repeatedly sinned ;— you have crucified again the Son of God; that is, you have, as far as is in your power, renewed the sufferings of Jesus Christ, by renewing their cause. Have you ever considered this truth? Reflect seriously on 't now, and that you may conceive that sincere dotestation of your sins which is the foundation of solid conversion, recall to your mind once more the other

motives of lively sorrow on which you have already reflected. One glance at the Cross of Jesus Christ should suffice to remind you of them all, for it clearly proves the horror and filthiness of sin, since the blood of a God alone could efface its stain. It shows you

the danger of sin, since, notwithstanding the effusion of that blood, sin still condemns millions to hel, rekindles the flames which Jesus died to extinguish, transforms his infinite love into inexorable justice, and despoils so many thousands of that kingdom of glory, so dearly purchased for them. It plainly proves the ingratitude of sin, which does not blush to offend anew a God so good to man, as to die for his redemption; and lastly, it proves the abominable malice of sin, which has urged sinners to offend a God who must be infinitely good in himself to suffer so much for those whose reprobation could not, for an instant, diminish his beatitude. Such reflections as these must make an impression on any heart which is not absolutely hardened.

After you have sincerely weighed these motives for sincere sorrow, you should endeavour to produce acts of lively and sincere contrition. As those should proceed much more from your heart than your lips, they will be best made in your own words. You would do well, however, if leisure permit, to repeat fervently the following acts, because they express the disposiions for justification required by the holy Council of Trent, which says, that "those who would obtain the grace of justification, must, 1st, have faith; 2d, they must fear the justice of God; 3d, must hope for mercy through Jesus Christ; 4th, must begin to love God; 5th, must hate sin; 6th, must sincerely resolve to change their lives, and keep the commandments.”

An Act of Contrition.

O God of infinite holiness! in whose sight sin is always abominable, what an object of horror must I now appear before thee, defiled as I am with innume