these means we grow more hardened every day, and become familiar with actions the very thoughts of which would make us tremble in the days of our innocence. If you still possess this precious treasure, labour without ceasing to preserve it. If you have had the misfortune to lose it by sin, strive still more to recover it by penance. Banish for ever this sin from your heart.If it happens to take root there how difficult will it not be to destroy it?

FEBRUARY 17.-On the Progress of Habitual Sins.

I. Grievous sins speedily pass into a habit.

It requires no long time for its formation. One gets more easily accustomed to vice than to virtue. The latter combats all the inclinations of nature, whilst the former flatters them. The one meets with nothing but resistance from us; the other experiences all kinds of facility. Should we, then, be astonished at the rapid progress in the career of vice which most men make in a few years? "Alas!" says St. Augustine, "I was yet so young, and notwithstanding was already so great a sinner." Tantillus puer, et taxtus peccator!

II. Force of this habit.

It affords the sinner so great a facility of obeying its impulses that he cannot, without extreme difficulty, resist its impressions; and when it is deeply rooted it becomes a ruling principle which exercises almost absolute power over all his actions: it is in some respect a new nature. It is obeyed without trouble, and almost without reflection. It is a tree which has been so long a time beat that it cannot be brought back to its original position without an extraordinary effort. "Can the Ethiopian," says the Scripture, "change his skin, or the leopard his spots? How, then, can you do good, you who have been accustomed to evil?"

FEBRUARY 18-On the End of Habitual Sins.

I. They lead to hardness of heart.

Conscience is silent-God abandons us-remorses disappear.Forgetfulness of God and of ourselves, usurp the place of reason and shame. We come at length to be hardened in crime, even to love and applaud it in others, and to lose every idea and senument of virtue.

II. This obduracy leads to final impenitence.

And how could it be otherwise, since it makes us break up in some manner, all connexion with God, renders us deaf to the invitations of his grace, in the supposition that he still deigns to bestow on us a look of pity, and that he has not punished this frightfu series of crimes and disorders, without a miracle of grace? The evil should have been arrested in its beginning, and not suffered time to take root. Principiis obsta. The enemy should have been combatted whilst he was still weak, and not allowed to become » strong and so powerful as to seem invincible.

FEBRUARY 19.-On the State of a Soul which still preserves the Grace of Baptism.

I. It should fear to lose this grace.

It requires but a thought, a desire, a look, a word contrary to the law of God, to deprive us of so precious a blessing. We carry it, said St. Paul, in frail vessels. Sin presents itself on all sides to our hearts, and assumes various forms for the purpose of seducing us. You should, therefore, always watch, and always fear. II. It is difficult to repair this loss.

1st, Innocence, once lost, is never perfectly recovered. You may be a penitent, but this quality proves that you have ceased to be just; the wound is healed, but the scar remains. 2d, It rarely happens that a sin once committed is not soon followed by another. It would be an illusion to imagine that we could prescribe to ourselves bounds in evil, and commit sin, if I may use the expression, by weight and measure. What man is master of his passions to such a degree as to be able to say to them: "Thus far shall you go, but no farther?" We become their slave when we yield to them in one point, and the more so because we are no longer in a condition to command them.

FEBRUARY 20.-On the Sin of Scandal.

I. Considered in its own nature.

"It is necessary," says the Saviour, "that there be scandals, but woe to him by whom scandal cometh!" Because, 1st, He commits a sin directly opposed to the redemption of Jesus Christ; because he destroys those souls which God, our Saviour, has redeemed by his blood. 2d, He becomes, in some manner, the supporter, the organ, and the minister of the devil, who has been from the beginning the enemy and the murderer of our souls. Observe that in order to commit this sin it is by no means necessary to have a formal and premeditated design of perverting souls. It is sufficient if we perceive that our words or our actions have a tendency to estrange him from the way of salvation. If you are not prevented by this motive, you are charged before God with all the horror and iniquity of the sin of scandal.

II. Considered in its effects.

It renders you responsible for all the sins of which it is the cause, because they would not have been committed but for the scandal which you have given. Who can conceive the number of such sins? Who can discover all the extent of this fatal propagation of iniquity which is sometimes transmitted to future generations, to the remotest posterity?

FEBRUARY 21.-On the Sin of Scandal in those who are specially bound to edify their Neighbour by Good Example.

I. They sin more grievously than others.

Thus, a public man, placed in a dignified station, and whose

rank and condition continually expose him to the eyes of the world, sins more grievously than a private individual, by his bad conduct, because its impression is more forcible, and its effects more extensive. A father or a mother who inspire their children with a contempt for religion and its holy practices-a master who renders his domestics the accomplices or witnesses of his disorders are more culpable than others, by the scandal of their words and ac tions, because they employ for the destruction of souls a power which God has given them only for their edification.

II. They are obliged to expiate their sin by a more public reparation.

Secret sins may be expiated by secret penance; but when they have been public and scandalous they cannot be repaired except by a public and open repentance. You must teach those whom you have perverted by your bad example, to repent for their sins, as they have learned to commit them from you. Alas! all those who have followed you in your wanderings will not follow you in your repentance. We can find imitators and disciples in vice more easily than in virtue, and you will always have reason to weep bitterly over the scandals whose reparation cannot be entirely perfect

BOOK OF KING HENRY VIII.

THE Book of King Henry VIII. entitled, Assertis Septem Secramentorum adversus Martin Luthera, or "Defence of the Sacraments against Martin Luther," is preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

This copy is said to be the identical one that the royal author presented to Pope Leo X. It was purchased at Rome by Mr. Woodburn, and by him presented to the aforesaid university. It is signed by the royal hand, and marked with the royal arms.

TEMPERANCE. We find, from the registers of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, that, as a consequence of their temperance, one half of those that are born live to the age of forty-seven years, whereas Dr. Price tells us, that of the general population of Le don, half that are born live only two and three-quarters yearsAmong the Quakers, one in ten arrives at eighty years of age; the general population of London, only one in forty, Never dil a more powerful argument support the practice of temperance and virtue.

DUBLIN: Stereotyped, Printed and Published, by T. & J. COLDWELL, 50, Capelettel Sold also by the Catholic Book Society, 5, Essex-bridge; R. Coyne, 4, Capel sind. R. Grace & Son, 45, Capel-street; J. Coyne, 24, Cook-street; D. O'Brien, 2, Aryul WHOLESALE AGENTS in London, Keating and Brown; Liverpool, John Pagen. A marebone; Manchester, Samuel Birchenough, 3, Smithy Door, and R. Lynch, b) King-street; Glasgow, D. Kennedy, &c. &c.

THE

PUBLISHED WEEKLY,

UNDER THE INSPECTION OF CATHOLIC DIVINES.

No. 54. DUBLIN, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1835. Vor. II.

2:22

THE GOSPEL, WITH REFLECTIONS.

seek the truth, either for the modelling of their consciences by: right faith, or their lives by the will of God, oblige them to pat their hearts into a disposition of such sincerity and resolution, that neither carelessness, passion, or any worldly consideration, shall make exceptions, against that way, where the force of truth and justice seems to lead them. Thus, it ought ever to be, otherwise there needs no more to make the ordinary means of grace void; and a Christian that has had the opportunities of receiving light, will, like the Pharisees, die in the dark. Such is the unhappy fate of many, who, notwithstanding the visits of a particular grace, (having heard and read enough for the conversion of a hea then,) stand out against all such attempts of mercy, upon the strength of some impressions which education or fear only had made in them; which putting a strong bias on the judgment, wholly carry it out of the way; and thus that truth, which at first seemed to touch them, becomes fruitless with regard to all the good that was designed them.

But what are the dispositions of the heart to be, that God's word may take root in it? I trust, not to be hardened like the high-way, nor open to every thing that passes; for in such a heart it makes no impression, but will be soon trampled under foot, or carried away by the next impertinence that occurs. It must not be disordered with any violence of passion, which, like stony ground, will not permit the seed to take root. It must not be disturbed with an immoderate solicitude for any thing that is worldly, whether pleasure, riches, or the common concerns of is, because these, like thorns, will choke it, and quite prevent it growth.

These are the cautions given in this gospel: how great the ought to be the Christian's care? He has no hopes of salvation, but from God's word bringing forth fruit in his soul: there can be faith but what is its produce; for without it he certainly abides n error there can be no light nor steadiness for walking in the w of God's commandments, but what must be the fruit of the wa of God; for without it the Christian unavoidably walks in dark, and goes out of the way. What judgment, then, can form of those who have their hearts open to all manner of diss pations, whose thoughts are turned with the tide of good fortu or busied in every kind of amusing follies? What of those, whos passions are so strong, that though they renounce not all exer cises of piety, yet it is ever within such bounds, that they see to compound with heaven, leaving a reserve for such except as their passions make? Or what of those, whose busy souls so overwhelmed with temporal concerns, that though they ba light enough to see, yet have not liberty to reflect, or to be rious on what is eternal; but whenever it begins to press on the mind, there is still some necessary business remaining to defe