my worship and honour. But where is that zeal now? that inebriation of the spirit, that peace and joy in the Holy Ghost? Alas, how has the gold become dim, the finest colour changed![1]
O ye sons of men, how long will you he dull of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after lying? Why do you quit the tree of life? Why forsake the fountain of living water, and seek for yourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water? Truly, if you knew the gift of God, and who he is that invites you, and who offers himself to you for food, with great haste you would run to him: and there would be no need to force you to come to this great supper, this marriage-feast. But now are these things hid from the wise and prudent of this world, who relish not the things that are of God. Yet are they known by the few poor in spirit, who in this one heavenly morsel find greater delights than in all the joys of the world.
Man. I blush, O Lord, and am ashamed within myself, whenever I hear and think upon this; when I look upon the ways of the first faithful and our own, alas, how great is the difference! But do not thou despise us, O God our Saviour; make us such as thou wouldst have us to be; quicken the slothful, enlighten the blind, raise up the lame, compel the slow to come in, that thy table may he filled. Teach me to do thy will, for I am thy servant, that I may freely sacrifice to thee, and give praise to thy name, O Lord, that my soul may pant after thee, as the hart after the fountains of water; that my soul may long and faint for thy courts, O Lord. For why should not I come of my own accord, and run to draw water out of the Saviour’s fountains? Why shall I not gladly go in to the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth?
§ 5. The obstacles to frequent Communion.
Christ. Be resolute, therefore, in breaking through with the sword of zeal and of love all obstacles by which thou seest that others are every where held back. But first set bounds to this world’s business and cares, with which, as with thorns, the mind of man is torn, and avoid meddling in many matters![2] For to what purpose wouldst thou so miserably and manifoldly distract thy heart, when life is made far happier by its devotion to one object? Why art thou troubled about many things,[3] and neglectest the one thing that is necessary to thee above all, and that too the most acceptable to me, the
