with its affliction-it is withal a moment of such pure humility, such perception of God's truth, such conformity to his mind-the stroke is almost evaded in the very accomplishment of its purpose, and the spirit hesitates to say that it is wounded. But, alas! this is for the most part the last thing we think of the crown is fallen from our heads, but the sin is forgotten. We say the misfortune was undeserved-or not saying it, we think so or knowing otherwise, we demean ourselves and feel as if we thought so-because in fact the thought, if we think of it at all, which very generally we do not, is the assent of the judgment that God must be just in the general, not the conviction of the heart that in our case he is so. I believe that I have sinned, and I know that I have sinned, are not the same thing-the one will stand out against the corrections of the Almighty as long as it may-the other will go before them to judge itself, and the first cry of its anguish will be "Woe unto me, for I have sinned." Et alors ils jeûneront.-MATT. ix. 15. Ce n'est rien que de jeûner des viandes grossières qui nourrissent le corps, si on ne jeûne aussi de tout ce qui sert d'aliment à l'amour-propre. Mais quoi! faudrat-il que je sois dans une crainte continuelle de rompre ce jeûne intérieur par les consolations que je pourrois goûter au dehors? Non, non, mon Dieu, vous ne voulez point cette gêne et cette inquiétude. Votre esprit est un esprit d'amour et de liberté, et non un esprit de crainte et de servitude. Je renoncerai donc à tout ce qui n'est point de votre ordre pour mon état, à tout ce que j'éprouve qui me dissipe trop, à tout ce que les personnes qui me conduisent à vous, jugent que je dois retrancher; enfin à tout ce que vous retrancherez vousmême par les évènemens de votre providence. Je porterai paisiblement toutes ces privations, et voici ce que j'ajouterai encore; c'est que dans les conversations innocentes et necessaires je retrancherai ce que vous me ferez sentir interieurement n'être qu'une recherche de moi-même. Quand je me sentirai porté à faire làdessus quelque sacrifice, je le ferai gaiement. J'agirai avec confiance comme un enfant qui joue entre les bras de sa mère; je me réjouirai devant le Seigneur; je tacherai de rejouir les autres. Loin de moi donc, O mon Dieu, cette sagesse triste et craintive qui se ronge toujours la balance en main pous peser des atomes, de peur de rompre ce jeûne interieur. Vous voulez qu'on vous aime uniquement; voilà sur quoi tombe votre jalousie mais quand on vous aime, vous laissez agir librement l'amour, et vous voyez bien ce qui vient véritablement de lui. Je jeûnerai donc, O mon Dieu, de toute volonté qui n'est point la vôtre; mais je jeûnerai par amour dans la liberté et dans l'abondance de mon FENELON.. cœur. LECTURES ON OUR SAVIOUR'S SERMON ON THE MOUNT. LECTURE THE SIXTEENTH. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust do corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves trèasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light-but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is within thee be darkness, how great is that dark ness. WE must lay up treasures somewhere-for ill betide the bosom that has nothing to love, nothing to anticipate, nothing to set the eye upon as the material of its happiness. Man, when he came forth from the hands of his Creator, was formed to enjoy-enjoyment was a part of his very nature, and essential, perhaps, to his existence here. If he cannot have it, or cannot hope it, or is not at least within the possible reach of it, he pines away and dies, or, in rank despair, puts an end to an existence he cannot endure without it. Well may that state where enjoyment is not, and cannot come, be termed the region of everlasting death-for without enjoyment there is not life, however there may be existence. The sources of this enjoyment, of whatever kind it may be, are the treasures here spoken of. Some we must have, real or imaginary, possessed or expected-if they are sufficient to our nature's demands, we are happy-from their insufficiency proceeds all that want of happiness so perceptible in the world at large, so deeply felt in the bosom of every individual in it. In Paradise the treasures whence man might draw his happiness, were innocence in himself, favour and communion with God, love to each other, and all the countless sources of enjoyment still so abundant in the created world, without the alloy that sin has intermixed with them. And amply sufficient were they for his spirits' most prodigal expenditure-he could not exhaust them, however much greater his powers of enjoyment may possibly have been than ours. When innocence was lost, and the favour of God was lost, and communion with him was interrupted, man was fain to take up with what remained; and ever since, regenerating grace and celestial hope apart, has laid up his treasures upon earth. Enjoyment is as needful to him as before but the treasury house, alas! is small and ill-secure. It matters little what our portion in life may be; for there seems to be as much diversity in our powers of enjoyment as in our means of gratifying them. The treasures of the uncultured hind are his daily food, freedom, health, and family connexions: could these be secured to him, his nature would be satisfied and he would esteem himself happy. As the scale advances, the demand increasesfeelings, tastes, desires, are multiplied as the mind enlarges-birth, habit, and education, make a thousand things necessary, even to our animal nature, that originally were not so-but we shall measure the moral necessities of an enlarged, and highly-cultured, and immortal spirit, without the gratification of which he neither is, nor can be happy? Treasure, therefore, and good portion of it, we must lay up for ourselves somewhere and till Heaven and eternity be laid open to our view, and we are made capable by anticipation of partaking of their joys, our treasures must be on earth, and must be the things of earth. It is vain to tell us they are insufficient-where can we go?-that they are insecure what can we do? Useless have been and ever will be the fine-wrought orations of the moralist upon the vanity and brevity of life, the unimportance of its vulgar interests, the uncertainty and satiety of its enjoyments-they offer us nothing in the stead of it, and something we must have. How seldom sufficient these earthly treasures are, and when sufficient, how little lasting and how ill-secure, needs not much argument to prove. The poor man, with his simple store of animal enjoyments, little as he wants, may not have it. From poverty he cannot get his food, or from sickness he cannot eat it-oppression lays hands upon his freedom, and death despoils him of his beloved. The possessor of a larger store is even in a worse case still-the moth best likes to feed itself upon the richest stuffs-the thief who goes by the poor man's door, breaks into the rich man's coffers. These may have health, and wealth, and freedom, and family, and yet be miserable-they want things that money cannot purchase, and they have feelings that all these together cannot satisfy-and the more of all these they have, the more in danger are they that on some point they shall be bereaved. The treasure-house may be full of honour, and full of pleasure, and full of hope-but the breath of mischief may attaint the honour, satiety may make the pleasure loathsome, time may change the hope to sickening disappointment: the regrets of yesterday corrupt the pleasures of to-day, the fears of the future consume the possessions of the present: the larger the treasury is, the more difficult it is to fill-and when it is at the fullest, it is the most likely to be robbed. There are some who fancy they can buy up for themselves a substance more enduring, and less exposed to the casualties of life-the treasures of intellectual enjoyment, the independence of an elevated mind, the indifference to little things that may attach to spirits occupied with great ones— these are what philosophy will tell us are the incorruptible treasures of moral existence. But if they have tried them, they should know, that these too are as insufficient as all the rest. The elevation of the mind puts it farther from the reach of happiness, the enlargement of it makes it more impossible to satisfy. Little things will not do, and great things are not to be had-the mind has recovered so much of its godlike nature, it can no longer feed itself on sensual gratifications, but the soil it dwells upon will bear no other harvest. It flutters its wings and feels that it could fly, but finds the atmosphere too light. Disgust, and weariness, and contempt come into the store-house-he cannot escape the sorrows of earth though he may distaste its joys-the greater refinement of the mind makes it but the more susceptible of ill. And the end-it is one to the wise man and the foolthe eagle that soars highest must come down again, and finally lie buried with the worm. • But what does it avail to tell us this? At the beginning of life we may not know it--but at the end of life, when we must know it, it makes no difference; and we see the aged as busy with their residue of treasure, as anxious and as watchful, as if they had not seen for fifty, sixty, seventy years the moth and rust consume it-as if |
