of that pure and spotless church which he hath washed in his blood: you insult the piety of the church, who, believing you united in her faith and in her charity, places in your mouth, through the hymns which accompany the holy mysteries, sentiments of religion, of sorrow, and of penitence. Lastly, — you receive the faith and the piety of the righteous there present, and who, considering you as forming with them only one heart, one mind, and one same sacrifice, join themselves with you, and offer to the Lord your faith, your desires, your prayers, as their own. You are there, then, as an anathematized, separated from all the rest of your brethren: an impostor, who secretly disavows what you are publicly professing, and who comes to insult religion, and to reject all share in the redemption and in the sacrifices of Jesus Christ, in the very moment that he is renewing the memory, and offering up the price of it to his Father.
What are we thence to conclude? — that, if a sinner, we are to banish ourselves from our temples, and from the holy mysteries? God forbid! Ah! then it is, that we ought to come to this holy place in search of our deliverance; then it is, that we ought to come to solicit, at the foot of the altar, the tender mercies of the Lord, ever ready in that place to lend a favourable ear to sinners; then it is, that we ought to call in every religious aid held out to faith, to arouse in ourselves, if possible, some sentiments of piety and of repentance. And whither, O my brethren, shall we fly, when unhappily fallen under the displeasure of God? And what other resource could remain for us? It is here alone that sinners can find a refuge: here flow the quickening waters of the sacrament, which alone have the virtue of purifying the conscience: here the sacrifice of propitiation is offered up for them, alone capable of appeasing the justice of God, which their crimes have irritated: here the truths of salvation, enforced upon their heart, inspire them with hatred against sin and love of righteousness: here their ignorance is enlightened, their errors dissipated, their weakness sustained, their good desires strengthened: here, in a word, religion offers remedies for all their ills. It is sinners, therefore, who ought most to frequent these holy temples; and the more their wounds are inveterate and hopeless, the more eagerly ought they to fly here in search of a cure.
Such is the first disposition of innocence and of purity, which the presence here of a holy God requires of us, and of the blessed in heaven: " For they are without fault before the throne of God."
But if the sole state of guilt, without remorse, without any wish for a change, and with an actual intention of preserving in it, be a kind of irreverence, by which the sanctity of our temples and of our mysteries is profaned; what, O my God! shall it be to choose these holy places, and the hour of the awful mysteries, to come to inspire infamous passions, — to permit themselves impure looks, — to form criminal desires, to seek opportunities which decency alone prevents them from seeking elsewhere,- — to meet objects whom the vigilance of those who instruct us keeps at a distance in all
