his labors, and his watchings, he believes he accomplishes the designs of God respecting him. He does not even pretend to choose that kind of ministerial labor which is most conformed to his own taste, but gives himself up to that which the great head of the Church assigns to him; he regards neither its advantages nor its inconveniences; for what relates to himself alone is esteemed as nothing in services, which ought to be wholly for the glory of God and the good of mankind. He considers himself as an instrument in the hands of God, ready for any work, to which he may be called, either to lay the foundation, or to erect and adorn the superstructure; in a word, as having no other destination than that assigned him by the call of Providence. Ready to be employed in the most obscure as well as in the most splendid services, his only glory is that God may be honored, and that himself may be forgotten.

Behold, my brethren, the main point and spirit of true zeal; a universal disregard to every thing which relates to ourselves alone; that is to say, not only to our own glory and convenience, but to our taste, our prejudices, and our particular views. We often wish to choose employments for ourselves which God has not destined for us; we consider the inclination which governs us as coming from on high; and the disgust -the repugnance which we feel for other employments appears to us a sufficient reason for declining to engage in them. But we should remember that we do not send forth ourselves; and that the services which are most disagreeable to us, rather than such as are conformed to our taste, may often be those to which God in reality calls us.

Moses felt in himself an extreme reluctance to the service to which God called him, in directing him to lead forth his people from Egypt. His mildness, his timidity, his slowness of speech appeared to him sufficient reasons for excusing himself, from going to deliver to Pharaoh a message from the Lord; and

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to order him in the name of Jehovah, to permit the children of Israel to go out of Egypt; and the reluctance of this servant of God was the stronger, as his reasons for it were founded on a difficulty of speech, and on fears arising from that circumstance. However, at the command of God, he gave up his opposition, and his wonderful success was at once an illustrious proof of his mission, and a recompense for his submission and sacrifice. The history of the saints furnishes us with many similar examples; but it is to be feared that of those who devote themselves to the holy ministry, many require something, relating merely to themselves, to indemnify them for their pains; if it is not glory, or interest, it is taste.

We are not, however, to conclude, that it is necessary for us to interdict ourselves all those employments for which we may feel an inclination; nor is a taste for any particular employment to be considered as a sufficient reason for our not engaging in it; this would be a still more dangerous illusion. Talents for a certain service are often manifested by a taste for that service; but this alone ought not to determine our choice; its decision is always suspicious; and if it would be wrong wholly to disregard our own inclination, it is no less so to listen to that ▲ alone.

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7. The zeal of charity then does not seek its own; it does not propose to itself any worldly consolations; neither is it irritated by opposition, or by any worldly inconvenience and troubles. "Charity is not easi

ly provoked."

The truth of which we are preachers is opposed to the world-to that world which Jesus Christ reproved; and the world is a most implacable enemy to the truth. These are two powers, says St. Austin, which mutually labor to destroy each other; the truth carries on a continual warfare against the world, and the world collects all its most dangerous and

violent shafts against the truth. This is the war which Christ came to send upon the earth. Those, therefore, who are appointed to proclaim the truth, will inevitably find the world armed against them; for, as all its efforts against the truth are in vain, it turns its strength against the ministers of the truth. It calumniates them; it loads them with reproach; it treats them as seducers and hypocrites; it makes them the impious subject of its derision and its censures; it raises continual obstacles and contradictions against them; and sets every engine to work, to the end that the holy ministry may become disgustful to them. Such afflictions and tribulations are often the lot of the wisest and best regulated zeal; but then he who possesses this zeal, always influenced by charity, is not irritated either against the world, which thus loads him with insults, or against the ministry which exposes him to them. On the contrary, as

we have already observed, the more he sees sinners revolting against the truth, the more is his charity for them excited and inflamed; the more rancor and bitterness they manifest towards him, the more mildness and tenderness does he display towards them; the more deplorable their situation is, the more is he exercised with secret grief on their account-with grief like that of a tender mother, when her children are torn from her bosom. He studies only that his zeal may be regulated by discretion, in order that his imprudences may not subject him to the contradiction of sinners ; but when, notwithstanding his prudent management, he experiences these contradictions, his mildness and charity are not abated. This is the first trial of zeal, contradiction and opposition from the world.

Further, the truly zealous minister will experience trials from his brethren in the ministry, and from that diversity of doctrines and opinions of which the adversary takes advantage, but too successfully, to oppose a fatal obstacle to the progress of the gospel. F

But he who is actuated by a pious and charitable zeal will not be provoked against those of his brethren who, by their indiscretion or by their false doctrine, subvert that foundation which he wishes to establish; he only prays that God would manifest the truth to them, and that a divine light may dissipate their errors, and triumph over their prejudices, to the end that unanimity among ministers may give to truth the force and efficacy, of which it is deprived by their divisions. He does not wound the cause of Christ, in the house of his friends, by openly reviling those ministers who are unfaithful; nor does he add to the scandal of their unfaithfulness that of his own anger and hatred. He knows that bitter invectives against ministers are always turned against the ministry; that by condemning each other, we authorize the world to refuse to all of us its respect and attention; and that our object should be to efface the spots with which unfaithful preachers may have disfigured the truth, without blackening and degrading their characters.

Such are the trials which we experience from the world, and such those which originate in the sanctuary, where we look only for succor and consolation. God, in his wisdom, permits these trials, not to distress us, but to prove and crown our zeal; therefore, to be irritated on account of that opposition with which men obstruct the work of God is, in reality, to throw the blame on God himself, who renders the malice of men subservient to ends which to us are unknown. Perhaps he intends that his glory shall be made to appear more illustrious, by the very difficulties which seem to oppose to it an insurmountable obstacle. He has always carried on his designs by methods most suited, in a human view, to defeat them; he ordered the sacrifice of Isaac, though he determined that an innumerable multitude of people should spring from him; he raised the whole world against the Apostles, at a time when he determined to cause the world to submit to the faith, by their ministry. The con

tradictions which his wisdom permits have always been a prelude to success; his works have ever been marked with this divine character; and he designs by this not only to try our faith, but to humble our pride. We wish to be able to attribute the success of our enterprises to the wisdom of our own measures; he disconcerts them; he permits the malice of men to turn them against ourselves; he leaves us to see no hopes of succeeding, to the end that success may be his work alone, and that we may give all the glory to him. If every thing succeeded at first according to our wishes, if our way was always made smooth before us, a success so prompt, so continual, so easy, would lead us to believe, that it was to be ascribed wholly to ourselves; we should secretly do honor to our own talents, and to the wisdom of our own conduct; we should not sufficiently acknowledge the finger of God. But when obstacles themselves facilitate his work; when the good at which we aim seems to arise, even from the very circumstances which appeared calculated to stifle it in the birth; and when every thing is accomplished, at a time when it appeared most desperate, then we cry out with the Prophet, "It is the Lord and not man who has done all these things." We become sensible of our own impotence and unfaithfulness; we no more trust in an arm of flesh-in the feeble talents of man; we no longer consider the opposition of the world as a just cause of chagrin and anger; this opposition consoles instead of irritating; it increases instead of lessening our hope; it animates instead of cooling our zeal; the more it increases, the nigher we conceive ourselves to that moment, when he, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, is about to annihilate opposition, or make it subservient to his own work; we cease to be irritated with men on account of obstacles which seem to defer and suspend that period; or if we find fault with any one, it is with ourselves, for our