sacraments, we can rouse ourselves out of our apathy.

3. By cultivating the devotional life more systematically, we can bring home to ourselves more and more the sense of all the wonderful things our Lord is tirelessly doing on our behalf.

Second Thought.-We need not suppose that our Lord shrank from the bitterness of His passion as men shrink from some terrible ordeal of pain, of which the outcome may be death. His soul was sorrowful unto death, yet not the death of the soul's passing, but of the soul's separation. from God, which He experienced in the hour of great darkness upon the cross. He was in the

garden sore amazed at the revelation of all the hideous impiety and shame of human sin, which He was to assume as though it were His own, making Himself liable for all its guilt, enduring all its penalty. And one may well believe that Satan who knew so well how to paint all the glories of the kingdoms of this world, when he would tempt the Master with them, knew also how to depict to His soul in the blackest colours all the hatefulness of sin in God's sight.

We realize the disgrace of certain kinds of sin: when we have been guilty of such we feel that we should die, were our guilt known to our

fellows. Many feel that they cannot bear the shame of disclosing what they have done even to God's priest in the confessional. Nevertheless we seem to have no consciousness of the utter loathsomeness of our misdeeds in the eyes of the All-holy God. We must be in His sight as some hideous, filthy, poisonous reptile is in our sight, which we stamp upon quickly with a shudder of horror. Yet He is so pitiful that He does not blot us out in His wrath, but continues very patiently to bear with us for Christ's sake. Surely then we ought never to cease in our efforts to bring home to ourselves the consciousness of the exceeding hatefulness and shame of all wilful sin in the divine sight.

Third Thought.-Those of us who have knowledge of the Catholic faith, and full opportunity of practising it, are like the three Apostles whom the Lord led on after Him into the garden, and then called upon them to tarry and watch. They were permitted to witness the Lord's agony. And for us our religion unveils in very wonderful manner the hidden things of His loving work of redemption. The recurring seasons of the Church's year, with their lessons and distinctive observances, reveal to us very solemn things concerning all that He endured for us, if we will have it so. Too often we are

unwilling to tarry-we have not time to observe all the holy days, the festivals and fasts. We are not careful even to profit by the Sunday lessons; we do not take our Sundays seriously; we would enjoy them, as we say, going here and there for brilliant services, or to hear famous preachers. Nor are we willing to watch, striving at each service to enter into its spiritual reality. We are such perfunctory worshippers.

1. Thus we forfeit great opportunities of contrition, yet we need contrition very badly.

2. We forfeit great opportunities of cultivating a love for Christ—we do not get near enough to Him to love Him.

3. We forfeit great helps of grace to resist sin; for there is amazing inspiration to devout effort in the deeper things.

CVII.

"And He went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him. And He said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt."-St. Mark xiv. 35, 36.

Exposition.-Isaac Williams says: "The expression which St. Mark alone introduces, combining the Hebrew Abba with the Greek term of Father, has been supposed to have its peculiar meaning. Perhaps the Lord, says Augustine, hath used both terms on account of some sacramental import; wishing to show that He had taken upon Himself that sorrow in the person of His own Body, that is, of His Church, to which He is made the Corner-Stone, and which Church cometh unto Him partly from the Hebrews, unto whom the word Abba appertains, and partly from the Gentiles, unto whom appertains the word Father. And it may further be observed, that when our Lord in the person of

sinful mankind, complains of utter dereliction upon the cross, He does not use this term, my Father, implying nearness, but that of my God, signifying awe and reverence, as from One Who on the cross was made a curse for us. ... St. Hilary says: 'I ask whether it is consistent with reason to suppose that He should have feared to die, Who, expelling from His disciples all fear of death, exhorted them to the glory of martyrdom; for what sorrow could He Himself be supposed to have felt in the sacrament of death, Who gives life to them who die for Him?" It would seem therefore to be a more worthy mode of explanation, to infer that it was not the natural fear of death with which our Lord was thus overwhelmed, but something more peculiarly connected with His meritorious and expiatory sacrifice, and perhaps the effect of His divine charity. It may have been the sins of us all, the weight and penalty of which was upon His soul, and the foreknowledge and recollection of which weighed Him down to the earth. . . . It was the hour of the powers of darkness, and we know nothing of spiritual agencies. Even of the mental sufferings of each other it is said, The heart knoweth its own bitterness. But thus much we may see, that our Lord's obedience would not have been so perfect if His human soul had not shrunk back from that act by which His obedi