a thin soup made of peas, or a dish of beans seasoned with salt, and moistened with water. A pear for each, or a small quantity of some other fruit, forms their dessert. The Trappist knows neither meat, fish, butter, nor eggs. He rises every morning at two o'clock, on Sundays at one, and on great festivals at midnight; prayer and manual labor occupy all his hours until eight o'clock in the evening, the hour of retiring to rest. The Trappist eats less, and labors more, than the workmen of our cities, or the inhabitants of our country districts; and he does this voluntarily, for the love of God and his neighbor. What is this but saying that he is more a man than other men ? "Thus bravely live heroic men, A consecrated band; Life is to them a battle-field, Their hearts a holy land."* By such as these the germ of power was fed and strengthened, which afterwards showed itself in the practice of supernatural virtues, in uninter *Tuckerman. rupted acts of heroism, in splendid miracles, and in a prodigious activity. On reading the lives of the saints, we find that those to whom God has given the greatest and most miraculous gifts, were just those who practised the greatest austerities, and the most perfect poverty, thus giving to their lives the broad seal of his approbation. These are no mere assertions, but facts. Read the lives of St. Bernard, St. Dominic, the three St. Francises of Assisi, De Paul and Xavier; they surpass all imagination; and know it, too, that he who has something to say, or to do, in his age, will be led irresistibly into solitude, and to the practice of self-denial. When the soul feels an intense desire for union with God, not a sentimental and puerile, or merely poetic affection or affectation, it cannot but practise penance; that is, remove the hindrances to its union with God. Divine love, when once it has taken its root in the heart, cannot suffer any obstruction; it consumes all other affections, cuts off all ties, and turns all the currents of our being to God. For with a distracted attention, the soul can never attain a perfect union with God. Hence arises a most perfect asceticism; for no creature, no material thing, no image, no thought, or affection, can give us an adequate idea of God, or be an adequate means of union with God. Nothing created, however good, true or beautiful, can unite the soul to the uncreated good, the true, the beautiful. Before the soul, therefore, can be wholly united to God, it must recall its energies from all created objects to its centre, and there, by an act of perfect love, lose itself in God. This is the secret of the doctrine of self-denial, mortification, abstinence, &c. And it is in these monasteries, under wise and experienced masters of the spiritual life, in silence and solitude, that the discipline of asceticism is practised, and the restoration of man, and his reconciliation and union with God, is effected. Out of these schools of Christian virtue go forth the apostles of nations, the regenerators of society, and the heroes and martyrs of faith and love. "Thrice happy they, who earthly stores have sold, Dearer sublunar joys, domestic ties, And form themselves into one holy fold To imitate on earth the happy skies, With vigil, prayer, and sacred litanies; Their sole employ to purge the evil leaven, And render their cleans'd souls a fit abode for Heaven." * * Baptistry. XXVIII. Nature and the Church. "All natural objects have An echo in the heart. And maintain With the mysterious mind and breathing mould A co-existence and community. This flesh doth thrill, With its original source and kindred substance." A. HUNT. NATURE must also find reunion with God through man; but what is asceticism, say the advocates of these world-schemes of pleasure, but the denial, repudiation, and contempt of nature ? This piece of information is, of course, in keeping with the rest. Uninstructed in the knowledge of the divine order of things, these men see not that the an |