as far from having received Christ into thy soul, as those who have not yet made a profession of the Christian faith. If the Spirit blows where he wills, then believers here become partakers of the work of grace according to their faith, not in consequence of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem."

Thus Augustin endeavoured to turn the thoughts of men from anxiety after the bodily view of the Redeemer, to spiritual communion with him. "We must hear the gospel in such a state of mind, as if we actually heard the voice of the Redeemer, and we must not say, Blessed were they who could see him!' for many among those who saw him, joined in crucifying him. But many among us who never saw him, have believed on him. The Lord is on high, but the Lord is also here with his truth."

Though in the great cities of the Grecian empire many sought to find a religious pretext for the splendour of their dress, and thus fancied they could combine the claims of vanity and of religion, yet Asterius, of Amasea in Pontus, remarked in a sermon: "Those among rich men and women who wish to be pious have chosen the evangelical history itself and given it to the weavers; I mean our Lord Jesus Christ, with all of his disciples, and every one of his miracles as it is narrated. There thou wilt see the marriage at Cana and the water-pots of stone, the paralytic who carried his bed on his shoulders, the blind man restored to sight with clay, the woman with the bloody issue who was cured by touching the hem of Christ's garment, the penitent sinner who fell at his feet, and Lazarus whom he raised from the dead. And when they have done this, they think they are pious and wear a dress acceptable to God. If they would take my counsel, they would part with these clothes, and hold in honour the living images of God. Do not have pictures of Christ on thy garments, but bear his spiritual image in thy soul. Do not have the paralytic painted on thy walls, but find out the sick that are lying on the ground. Do not always have before thy eyes the woman who was cured of the bloody issue, but give relief to suffering widows. Gaze not continually on the penitent woman falling at the Lord's feet, but feel contrition on account of thy own sins."

Against the mechanical use of the sign of the cross,

Augustin says: "Many make the sign of the cross, and are not disposed to understand its meaning. God desires a person who will bring this sign into the life, not one who merely describes it with his finger. If thou bearest on thy forehead the mark of Christ's humility, then bear in thy heart the imitation of Christ's humility." When Augustin missed many of his usual hearers in his church, who had resorted to the public games at the circus, preferring noisy amusements to devotion, he said of them: "If they are alarmed by anything at the circus, they make at once the sign of the cross, and yet they would not stand there if they bore in their hearts what they carry on their foreheads."

Vigilantius attacked, with passionate zeal for the honour of God, that outward direction of the religious spirit which bordered on heathenism; but he was so far carried away by his feelings, as not to observe a tender consideration for the religious sentiment which was at the basis of the error; and without such forbearance no attempt at reformation can succeed. The man whose superstitious feeling is justly opposed, feels himself injured in that which in his mind is associated with the sacred feelings of devotion. That which is despised, as something merely outward and belonging to the senses, becomes partly internal by its relation to his religious feelings; the point to be considered is not what this outward thing is in and for itself, but what it has become by the admixture of religious feeling. Vigilantius justly combated the reverence, bordering on heathenism, which was shown to the relics of men who in their life-time were witnesses of the truth and organs of the Holy Spirit. He justly opposed to this the true nature of religious worship. But he forgot the feeling of love and piety, the due respect and consideration for the memory of the men of God, when he ridiculed persons for adorning ashes and bones with gold and silver, or wrapping them up in costly clothes. Jerome could here justly object to him that the devotion of believers saw something more than this in it; that there was something higher in the feeling; that to believers there was nothing dead, but that they were raised in spirit by the sight of these relics to the saints who were living with God; that God was not the God of the dead but of the living. Yet even this remark could not take from Vigilantius his right to combat superstitious

devotion. Superstition could not be approved of merely, because there was something Christian lying at its basis, nor was it on that account less dangerous. A certain religious feeling is originally at the basis of all idolatry, which only wanders from its proper object and attaches itself to sensible appearances. Zeal for the truth and for the honour of God cannot be without forbearing, recognising love, neither can love exist without holy zeal for the truth.

CHAPTER VII.

ON PRAYER.

"PRAYER," says Ambrose, "is the nourishment of the soul; by it the seat of vice is transformed into a sanctuary of virtue." "The aim of prayer itself," says Augustin, "ennobles and purifies the heart, and makes it receptive of the divine gifts which are imparted by the Spirit. God, indeed, is always ready to impart his spiritual illumination to us, but we are not always capable of receiving it, when we incline to other things and are darkened by desires after worldly objects.* In prayer the heart is turned towards him who is always ready to give if we only receive what he gives; and in this very act of turning there is a purging of the inward eye when temporal objects of desire are excluded, so that the vision of a simple heart is rendered able to receive the simple light." The prayer of the Christian must not exist as an isolated thing, as an act dissevered from the rest of life and self-enclosed; it must proceed from the innermost ground of the whole Christian life, be its animating principle, and react upon it with sanctifying power. "Thou must pray without ceasing," says Basil, "not in words,

* Fit ergo in oratione conversio cordis ad eum, qui semper dare paratus est, si nos capiamus quod dederit; et in ipsa conversione purgatio interioris oculi, cum excluduntur ea quæ temporaliter cupiebantur, ut acies cordis simplicis ferre possit simplicem lucem.-August. de Sermone Domini in Monte 2, § 14.

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but since thou connectest thyself with God through the whole course of life, thy whole life must be one continued prayer." And Augustin says: "Ye notice how the children of God frequently pray to him with sighs, and ye inquire after the cause of the sighing. Men hear the sighing and know not its cause, if, indeed, the sighing reaches the ears of a bystander. For there is a secret sighing of which no human being is cognizant. Yet if a special anxiety has so seized the heart of a man that he expresses in a loud voice the sufferings of the inner man, the cause is inquired into, and the bystanders say, 'Perhaps he sighs on this or that account.' Who can understand it except that Being before whose eyes and ears he sighs? Wherefore it is said in Psa. xxxviii. 9, I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.' For men commonly hear only the sighing of the flesh; but they do not hear him who sighs out of the depths of his heart. A man has been deprived of his property; he laments, but not with the sighing of his heart. Another because he has lost a son, or another because he has lost a wife; a third because his vines have been destroyed by hail-storms, or his wine has turned sour, or he has been robbed of his cattle, or because he dreads his enemy: all these lament, but it is the sighing of the flesh. On the other hand, the child of God who sighs as he meditates on the Sabbath of the kingdom of God, which flesh and blood cannot inherit, says: "I roar for the disquietude of my heart.' And the holy Psalmist adds: 'Lord, all my desire is before thee;' not before men who cannot see into the heart. Let thy desires be before Him, and the Father who seeth in secret will grant what thou desirest; for the desire itself is thy prayers, and if thy desires do not abate, thy prayer is without ceasing; for not in vain the Apostle says (1 Thess. v. 17): 'Pray without ceasing.' Do we bow the knee incessantly; do we prostrate ourselves before him incessantly, or do we incessantly raise our hands to him so that he can say: 'Ye pray without ceasing?' But if we so understand prayer, we cannot do it without ceasing. But there is another internal praying without ceasing, which consists in the desires. Whatever else thou mayest do, if thou longest after that Sabbath, thou prayest without ceasing. Thou wilt be silent when thou ceasest to love. The waxing cold of love is the silence of the heart;

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the flame of love is the call of the heart to God. And, 'I will praise the Lord at all times.' See, my brethren, the sermon is a little longer than usual, and you are exhausted.* Who, then, can hold out to praise God at all times? I will show thee the method of praising God at all times, if thou wilt. What thou doest, do rightly, and thou praisest God. If thou singest a spiritual song, thou praisest God; what does thy tongue do, if thy heart also does not praise God?" It was customary to sing the forty-second Psalm at the baptism of catechumens after they had been duly instructed. As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God!" And Augustin explains the words in this mode of applying them, to mean, "that they cry after the fountain of the forgiveness of sins as the hart pants after the fountain of fresh water. But he adds: Yet, my brethren, even at baptism this longing of believers does not appear to be satisfied, but probably when they know where they are travellers, and whither they are going, their feelings will become still more ardent." Hence, he says: "Oh! if we felt it even in sighs what strangers we are here; if we did not love the world, but continually with pious hearts knocked at the gate of Him who has called us. Desire is the lip of the heart; we shall receive if we expand our desires to the utmost of our power. To effect this is the design of the Holy Scriptures, of public worship, and of the sacraments. The design of singing of God's praises and of our preaching itself is not merely that desire may be sown and spring up, but that it may increase to such a degree that it may receive what the eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive." But this father, who was so profoundly acquainted with the human heart, was also aware of many disturbing influences which in a world full of

* Ecce modo paulo longior sermo factus est fatigamini. Tota die Deum laudare quis durat? Suggero remedium, unde tota dies laudes Deum, si vis. Quidquid egeris, bene age, et laudasti Deum. Quando cantas hymnum, laudas Deum; lingua tua quid agit, nisi laudet et conscientia tua? Cessasti ab hymno cantando, discedis ut reficiaris ; noli inebriari, et laudasti Deum. Discedis ut dormias; noli surgere ad malefaciendum, et laudasti Deum. Negotium agis; noli fraudem facere, et laudasti Deum. Agrum colis; noli litem movere, et laudasti Deum. In innocentia operum tuorum præpara te ad laudandum Deum tota die.August. in Psa. xxxiv. Serm. 2, § 16.