pursued these vain phantoms. I have longed for a higher birth, more fortune, talents, fame, and health. I have lulled myself in these ideas of an imaginary happiness. Fool that I am I as if I were capable of altering at my pleasure the immutable order of thy Providence! As if I had been wiser or more enlightened than thee, O my God, upon my true interests! I have never entered into thine eternal designs upon me. I have never considered the sorrows of my situation as entering into the order of my eternal destination; and, even to this day, my joys and my sorrows have depended upon the created alone; consequently my joys have never been tranquil, and my sorrows have always been without resource. But henceforth, O my God! thou shalt be my only comforter, and I will seek, in the meditation of thy holy law, and in my submission to thine eternal decrees, those solid consolations which I have never found in the world, and which, in softening our afflictions here below, secure to us, at the same time, their immortal reward hereafter.
SERMON XIII.
ON PRAYER.
"Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David." — Matt. xv. 22.
Such is the lamentation of a soul touched with its wretchedness, and which addresses itself to the sovereign Physician, in whose compassion alone it hopes to find relief. This was formerly the prayer of a woman of Canaan, who wished to obtain from the Son of David the recovery of her daughter. Persuaded of his power, and expecting every thing from his usual goodness to the unfortunate, she knew no surer way of rendering him propitious, than the cry of her affliction, and the simple tale of her misfortune. And this is the model which the church now proposes to us, in order to animate and to instruct us how to pray; that is to say, in order to render more pleasing, and more familiar to us, this most essential duty of Christian piety.
For, my brethren, to pray is the condition of man; it is the first duty of man; it is the sole resource of man; it is the whole consolation of man; and, to speak in the language of the Holy Spirit, it is the whole man.
Yes, if the entire world, in the midst of which we live, be but one continued temptation; if all the situations in which we may be, and all the objects which environ us, seem united with our corruption, for the purpose of either weakening or seducing us; if riches corrupt, and poverty exasperate; if prosperity exalt, and affliction depress; if business prey upon, and ease render effeminate; if the sciences inflate, and ignorance lead us into error; if mutual intercourse trivially engage us too much, and solitude leave us
