highway of perdition, and bring them, in spite of themselves, into the hall of thy feast: they delay, as much as possible, this religious duty: the sole thought of it impoisons all their pleasures. Thou seest these unbelieving souls dragging on the load of a wavering conscience; long hesitating between their duties and their passions; softening at last, by the choice of an indulgent confessor, the bitterness of this step; appearing before thee, O God! who becomest their nourishment in this mystery of love, with as much reluctance as if they went to face an enemy; and, perhaps, in the course of a whole year, experiencing no other circumstance to grieve them than that of receiving a God who gives himself to them. Ah! Lord, therefore thou invisibly rejectest these guilty victims who oblige themselves to be dragged by force to the altar, thou who wiliest none but voluntary sacrifices: therefore thou reluctantly givest thyself to these ungrateful hearts who unwillingly receive thee; and, wert thou still capable of being troubled in the spirit, as thou permittedst to be visible over the tomb of Lazarus, ah! we should once more see thee groaning when thou enteredst those profane mouths which, in thy sight, are only open sepulchres, as they have long been troubled before they could prevail upon themselves to appear here to pay thee that homage.
Let us acknowledge, then, my dearest brethren, that the faith which makes us to discern the body of Jesus Christ is very rare. We believe, but with a superficial faith, which only skims the surface, as I may say, without entering into the efficacy and the mysteries of this sacrament: we believe, but with an indolent faith, which grounds its whole merit in submitting without opposition: we believe, but with an inconstant faith, which professes to believe, but denies it in works: we believe, but with a human faith, which is the gift rather of our fathers according to the flesh, than of the Father of Light: we believe, but with a popular faith, which leaves us only weak and puerile ideas: we believe, but with a superstitious faith, which tends to nothing but vain and external homages: we believe, but with a faith merely of custom, which feels nothing: we believe, but with an insipid faith, which no longer discerns: we believe, but with a convenient faith, which is never followed with any effects: we believe, but with an ignorant faith, which fails either in respect through familiarity, or in love through its backwardness: we believe, but with a faith which enchains the mind, and leaves the heart to wander: lastly, we believe, but with a tranquil and vulgar faith, in which there is nothing either animated, grand, sublime, or worthy of the God which it discovers to us. Ah! to discern thy body, Lord, through faith, it is to perfer this heavenly bread to all the luxuries of Egypt; it is to render it the only consolation of our exilement, the tenderest soother of our sufferings, the sacred remedy of all our evils, the continual desires of our souls; it is, through it, to find serenity under all the frowns of fortune, peace in all our troubles, and equanimity under all the stings of adversity; it is to find in it an asylum against our disgraces, a buckler to repel the flaming darts of Satan, a renovated ardour against the unavoidable lukewarm-
