UCSB LiSRAHV ~- 

 
 TOWARDS EVENING
 
 SECOND EDITION
 
 TOWARDS EVENING 
 
 . EXTRACTS FROM THE WRITINGS 
 
 ^ OF 
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO. 
 
 I, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1889
 
 {AU rights rese>~oed.)
 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK OF MAXIMS 
 
 IS DEDICATED 
 
 IN ALL HUMILITY 
 
 TO 
 
 THE ARCHCONFRATERNITY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SERVANTS OF THE HOLY GHOST OF 
 S. MARY OF THE ANGELS, 
 
 BAYSWATER, 
 BY THE COMPILER. 
 
 A. M. W.
 
 The speedy sale of the First Edition ha? 
 induced the Compiler to complete a series 
 of Extracts for every day of the year.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 January i. 
 
 Names are realities ; what they express 
 is no mere sound, but a living truth. The 
 Father is no mere sound, but a living 
 Truth. The Father is the Father, not 
 because He is called so, but He is called 
 so because He is the Father. The Son is 
 the Son, not because He is called the Son, 
 but He is called so because He is the Son. 
 Names stand by persons, and persons are ' 
 living and real. 
 
 January 2. 
 Life is very short, and the world to 
 come already dawns upon us. Choose 
 boldly a life devoted to Christ. Be 
 His above all ; be His only. Hear the 
 Church saying, "My Beloved is mine, 
 and I am His."
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 January 3. 
 Be sure that in God alone can the deep 
 cravings of our immortal being find 
 enough. He has so made man's heart 
 for Himself that it is ever restless until it 
 finds rest in Him. 
 
 January 4. 
 What we are is a revelation of God's 
 Will towards us. Our lot is a reality. 
 The works of our calling, so long as they 
 are done as a service of obedience, are 
 real. Within these bounds there is 
 nothing which does not bear upon eternity.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 January 5. 
 We make our little cares, our common 
 duties, our trade, or our profession a plea 
 for shortening our devotions, or leaving 
 our conscience unexamined, or postponing 
 our confession. S. Charles worked always, 
 and he prayed always ; for his prayer and 
 his work were one. 
 
 January 6. 
 O BLESSED Vision, to see God in Him- 
 self, to see Him in us, and ourselves in 
 Him ; with blissful joy, and joyful bliss, to 
 sit at that feast ineffable, "where Thou, 
 with Thy Son and the Holy Ghost, art 
 unto Thy Saints true light, perfect fulness, 
 everlasting joy " !
 
 lo TOIVARDS EVE XING. 
 
 January 7. 
 
 Every day we might attain we know 
 not what ; every day, it may be, loses or 
 wins something of the brightness of the 
 Resurrection. All we do or leave undone 
 has its counterpart in the unseen world ; 
 and what then is life, and what is the 
 world, to that day, when the Son of man 
 shall sit on the throne of His glory ? 
 Forsake all, rather than forfeit your 
 reward, rather than be set far off from 
 Him when He cometh in to order the 
 guests that are bidden to the marriage 
 supper of the Lamb. 
 
 January 8. 
 Habits form the character, and the 
 character forms the countenance. God 
 made the features, but each man makes 
 his countenance.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. ii 
 
 January 9. 
 The Catholic Church has, from the 
 beginning, cherished and preserved the 
 Holy Scriptures with the most vigilant 
 and jealous care. The Saints of God have 
 manifested their love for it with every 
 token of veneration. S. Charles never 
 read it except with his head bare, and 
 upon his knees. S. Edmund of Canter- 
 bury kissed the page whensoever he 
 opened the book, and kissed it again when 
 he closed it. In this way the Saints of 
 the Church have revered the Holy 
 Scriptures. 
 
 January 10. 
 Remember that you are immortal ; 
 realize your own immortality. Remember 
 it all day long, in all places ; live as men 
 whose every act is ineifaceably recorded, 
 whose every change may be recorded for 
 ever.
 
 12 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 January ii. 
 
 We know that friends who love one 
 another become like to each other ; they 
 catch the very tones of each other's voices ; 
 they exchange the very look of each 
 other's countenances ; features the most 
 dissimilar acquire a strange likeness in 
 expression. So it is with our souls, if 
 we live in the habit of prayer ; that is, of 
 conversing and of speaking with our 
 Divine Friend. They who live a life of 
 prayer are being ever changed into the 
 likeness of their Divine Lord. There is 
 a gentleness, a sweetness, a kindness, a 
 lowliness, an attraction about their life 
 which makes everybody at peace with 
 them.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 13 
 
 January 12. 
 
 There are two things of which the 
 world would fain rid itself: of the Day of 
 Judgment, and the Sacrament of Penance. 
 Of the former, because it is searching and 
 inevitable ; of the latter, because it is the 
 anticipation and the witness of the judg- 
 ment to come. 
 
 January 13. 
 In all that befalls us, we are not our 
 own, but His ; all that we call ours is 
 His ; and when He takes it from us— first 
 one loved treasure, then another, till He 
 makes us poor and naked and solitary — 
 let us not sorrow that we are stripped of 
 all we love, but rather rejoice that God 
 accepts us ; let us not think that we are 
 left here, as it were, unseasonably alone, 
 but remember that, by our bereavements, 
 we are in part translated to the world 
 unseen. He is calling us away, and 
 sending on our treasures.
 
 14 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 January 14. 
 
 Poverty is full of potent virtues. It 
 is a sort of discipline, the ascetic rule of 
 God's providence. They that are poor 
 are already and unconsciously under a 
 discipline of humility and self-denial. 
 
 January 15. 
 As the hammer welds the iron into a 
 closer mass, so the indissoluble unity of 
 the Catholic Church is, by persecution, 
 tested, confirmed, and revealed. For 
 eighteen centuries the mystical vine has 
 stood, a living tree, rising in its stature, 
 spreading in its reach, unfolding its leaves, 
 multiplying its fruits, showing its imperish- 
 able vitality in every branch and in every 
 spray.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. i$ 
 
 January i6. 
 Bear your witness for the sanctity of 
 God in the world which is around you. 
 Fear nothing but to be found on the 
 world's side when He who redeemed us 
 from it shall appear. 
 
 January 17. 
 Onwards and upwards ! Onwards 
 against the resistance, both within and 
 without, which hinders our advance in 
 the life of God ; onwards without fear, or 
 doubt, or wavering. And upwards, aiming 
 as high as we can ; for we have to ascend 
 the mountains of the Lord's House, which 
 are very high.
 
 I6 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 January i8. 
 Peace in God is also a union with God 
 — a consciousness that only God is enough 
 for our happiness, and that God alone is 
 enough without any other ; and in this 
 consciousness of attainment there is great 
 rest. " In this peace I will sleep and take 
 my rest." 
 
 January 19. 
 
 Every trial is sent to teach us some- 
 thing, and all together they have a lesson 
 which is beyond the power of any to teach 
 alone. But if they came together, we 
 should break down, and learn nothing.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 17 
 
 January 20. 
 Wealth ill gotten soon perishes ; 
 goods heaped up by unrighteousness waste 
 away; storehouses filled in forgetfulness 
 of God are soon emptied ; riches not 
 sanctified by alms eat themselves through ; 
 worldly carefulness is a spendthrift, after 
 all. 
 
 January 21. 
 We are not what we seem to others, 
 nor what we think ourselves, but what we 
 are before God ; and neither more nor less.
 
 1 8 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 January 22. 
 The habit of mind, Avhich I will call 
 the Catholic spirit, has five signs or rules, 
 which will be found in a true Catholic 
 student. They are — loving submission to 
 the Church ; devotion to the Saints ; 
 deference to theologians ; fear and sus- 
 picion of novelty ; mistrust of self. 
 
 January 23. 
 The world's kisses are death to the 
 hidden life. 
 
 January 24. 
 
 Let us learn how precious are solitary 
 places, and hours when others are sleeping 
 or away in the night season ; or a great 
 while before day, when the earth and 
 heaven are still, and the busy world has 
 not yet come abroad to trouble the creation 
 of God.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 19 
 
 January 25. 
 
 S. Peter, after he had wept bitterly 
 for his three denials, entered upon a life 
 of reparation to his Divine Master, which 
 had its proportionate end and crown in 
 his inverted cross. Such was the spirit 
 of reparation among the disciples of Jesus 
 — free, spontaneous, unsparing, even unto 
 death. 
 
 January 26. 
 I KNOW there is no one that I know 
 as I know myself, and no man knows me 
 as I know myself, and though I may see 
 other men commit many sins, yet I never 
 see any man commit so many as I can 
 number in myself.
 
 20 TOWARDS EVE XING. 
 
 January 27. 
 Let us learn not to go out of our lot 
 and character in life, but to live above it. 
 What and where we are is God's appoint- 
 ment. It is He Who makes us to joy or 
 weep, to have or to lose. We have a 
 work to do for Him, and it is just that 
 work which lies before us in our daily life. 
 
 January 28. 
 The busiest life may be a life of prayer ; 
 perpetual toil need bring no hindrance to 
 the union of the will with God. 
 
 January 29. 
 Lesser sins against greater light are 
 more formally sinful than greater sins 
 against lesser light.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 January 30. 
 
 Whensoever you have to choose 
 between the maxims of the world and 
 the counsel of your conscience, which 
 comes to you from the Spirit of God, and 
 from the holy faith, and in every doubt 
 dictates to you what to do, choose the 
 safe way of the Cross. 
 
 January 31. 
 Let us beware how we give much care 
 or thought to anything but to the perfect- 
 ing of our hidden life. What else is worth 
 living for? What else shall endure at 
 Christ's coming? Let us live ever waiting 
 for that hour.
 
 22 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 February i. 
 For what else were we born, and for 
 what end came we into the world, but to 
 behold the Face of God ? This is the end 
 for which we were created. To love God 
 and to die — this is the end of man ; or 
 read it in the light of heaven, to love God 
 and to dwell in God for ever — this is our 
 being and our bliss. 
 
 February 2. 
 He who has not love and veneration for 
 the Blessed Mother of Jesus is unlike our 
 Divine Saviour in that particular perfection 
 of His character, which comes next after 
 His filial piety towards God. As soon as 
 a man receives into his heart the full light 
 of the Incarnation, two self-e\ndent truths 
 arise upon his reason — the one, the Pre- 
 sence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament; 
 the other, the love and veneration of His 
 Blessed Mother.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 23 
 
 February 3. 
 We never have more than we can bear. 
 The present hour we are always able to 
 endure. As our day, so is our strength. 
 God sends first one trial, then another ; 
 then removes both, and lays on a third, 
 heavier, perhaps, than either ; but all is 
 so wisely measured to our strength, that 
 the bruised reed is never broken. 
 
 February 4. 
 A WILL elevated and inflamed with the 
 love of God is so conformed to the will of 
 God, that, as the shadow follows the 
 substance, so it follows every motion of 
 God's will in all the manifold wisdom of 
 His ways.
 
 24 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 February 5. 
 Never do we so put off the paint and 
 masquerade of life as when we are alone 
 under the Eye which seeth in secret. 
 
 February 6. 
 
 The Church sits calmly in the see of 
 truth, with a luminous universality and 
 unity of faith confounding the multitu- 
 dinous contradictions of error. It is a 
 witness \'isible to the eye, audible to the 
 ear, authoritative to the intelligence, and, 
 as the Vatican Council says, " the irre- 
 fragable proof of its own Divine legation."
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 25 
 
 February 7. 
 Evil men, evil lives, evil examples, 
 spread a moral pestilence openly and 
 powerfully ; but nothing spreads falsehood 
 and evil more surely and deeply than a 
 bad book. A bad book is falsehood and 
 sin in a permanent and impersonal form ; 
 all the more dangerous because disguised, 
 and tenacious in its action upon the soul. 
 
 February 8. 
 The love of God does not destroy, but 
 elevates and perfects all other love to 
 kindred and to friends. But it subordi- 
 nates every affection to Him. It makes 
 us not indifferent, but independent.
 
 26 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 February 9. 
 Our life is too continually outward and 
 visible, and pent up in the throng of men. 
 We are not enough at large and alone 
 with God. 
 
 February 10. 
 It is confusion to say that in all religions 
 there is truth. Religion is one, not many ; 
 and the one only religion imperishably 
 pervades the darkest aberrations of the 
 human intellect ; it has been, and is 
 universal at all times, and amongst all the 
 races of mankind. 
 
 February 11. 
 If crosses, or contradictions, or troubles 
 come, do not murmur or chafe against 
 ihem ; take them calmly, and accept 
 them thankfully.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 27 
 
 February 12. 
 
 In the measure in which we love God, 
 in that measure we shall have more heart- 
 felt love to all that are about us. A 
 father will be a better father, and a mother 
 a better mother ; son and daughter will be 
 better children ; they will love each other 
 more, and friends will love one another 
 more, in the measure in which they love 
 God more. 
 
 February 13. 
 
 The longest life, how short ! The 
 fairest earthly bliss, how poor ! A few 
 short years, and all will be over. Then 
 there shall be no more sin and jar, no 
 more infirmity and imperfection ; then we 
 shall have the power to taste of bliss, and 
 to endure the taste.
 
 28 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 February 14. 
 No man yet came to beggary by giving 
 alms ; no man was ever yet made poor by 
 a holy prodigality ; for, by the act in 
 which he impoverished himself, he laid 
 God under the pledge, sealed seven times, 
 to restore to him in abundance that which 
 He gave according to His promise. 
 
 February 15. 
 If we were Saints, if we loved God 
 with all our soul and with all our strength, 
 the most blessed day in life would be the 
 last. To go and be with Him Whom our 
 soul loveth, to be for ever with Him, 
 gazing upon His Face of love, ourselves 
 sinless, and living by love alone, — this is 
 heaven.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 29 
 
 February 16. 
 S. Gertrude once heard these words 
 in vision, "My child, there are many 
 more saved than thou thinkest for ; I 
 condemn no one who does not wilfully 
 resist My grace." 
 
 February 17. 
 It is only in Christ that we can find 
 rest. It is only by learning of Him, 
 yielding ourselves up to Him and living 
 for Him, that we can find release from 
 the causes of our disquiets, or rest for the 
 deep cravings of an immortal being.
 
 30 TOWARDS EVE AUNG. 
 
 February i8. 
 
 We see only a part of each other, but 
 God sees all. Our partial view is, if not 
 mingled with untruth, yet misleading, 
 because imperfect ; we know only half the 
 riddle, and we are led astray in guessing 
 at the rest. " But all things are naked and 
 opened unto the eyes of Him with Whom 
 we have to do." 
 
 February 19. 
 The sinfulness of sin consists not only 
 in the specific evil of each particular act, 
 but in the whole of our case before God ; 
 in our relation to Him, His holiness, 
 compassion, and long- suffering ; in His 
 dealings with us, and our ingratitude, 
 coldness, insensibility, in return.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 31 
 
 February 20. 
 
 Our share in the Beatific Vision will be 
 according to our merit, and our merit will 
 be according to our charity. 
 
 February 21. 
 How often have we asked for things 
 which afterwards we see, if they had been 
 given us, would have been our destruction ! 
 Happily for us, there is interposed a wise 
 and loving will between our prayers and 
 their fulfilment. 
 
 February 22. 
 The holiness of children is the very 
 type of saintliness ; and the most perfect 
 conversion is but a hard and distant return 
 to the holiness of a child.
 
 32 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 February 23. 
 Personal service is the best and most 
 pleasing gift we can offer to our Lord in 
 His poor. It is better than gold and 
 silver. To give time, care, and sympathy 
 in the miserable homes of the poor, is the 
 best oblation we can make to Him, Who 
 gave Himself for us. 
 
 February 24. 
 They are oftentimes the little ministries 
 of love that show most devotion, and most 
 intimate resolution of heart. Peter's 
 worldly all was a boat and a net ; and the 
 alabaster box of ointment had a great 
 testimony of acceptance, because "she 
 had done what she could."
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 33 
 
 February 25. 
 A JOY in crosses may be of three kinds. 
 First, those that are deserved for our 
 faults, for our imperfections, and for our 
 past sins. Secondly, those we have not 
 deserved — as false accusations, contempt, 
 and hatred v^^ithout a cause. Thirdly, 
 those that are voluntary ; that is, incurred 
 by any acts or restriction of our liberty, 
 which may offend those who indulge their 
 liberty too much. 
 
 February 26. 
 
 Try everything, measure everything, 
 
 check everything, by the governing law of 
 
 Christ's example. Seek first what is His ; 
 
 and He will lake care for what is your own.
 
 34 TOIVARDS EVENING. 
 
 February 27. 
 You are guilty in the measure in which 
 you have greater light : in that measure 
 in which you have a fuller illumination, in 
 that measure your guilt before God is 
 greater. 
 
 February 28. 
 There is only one person in the world 
 to whom we may be severe. There is one 
 who deserves it ; and we may vent all our 
 severity on that person — and that person 
 is our own self. 
 
 February 29. 
 No ignorance of truth is a personal sin 
 before God, except that ignorance which 
 springs from personal sin.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 35 
 
 March i. 
 
 All works of charity are good, but the 
 surest and best of all are two : the educa- 
 tion of children and of priests. Our 
 Blessed Lord formed twelve men, and they 
 created the Christian world, in all its 
 fertility and multiplication of supernatural 
 fruits. He has bequeathed to us all the 
 continuance of this work. 
 
 March 2. 
 A LAX life has many sorrows, but 
 strict life has many joys.
 
 36 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 March 3. 
 A LOVE of self is, in truth, the very soul 
 of sin. All sins are but as circles issuing 
 out from this one productive centre, ex- 
 panding some more and some less widely, 
 enclosing a narrower or a larger field of 
 our spiritual life. 
 
 March 4. 
 The flattery, the adulation, the syco- 
 phancy with which people will wait upon 
 the world to catch its favour, to be ad- 
 mitted into society, to sit at the tables of 
 rich men, to be known as the acquaintance 
 of those who bear titled names, — where 
 this reigns in a man's heart, he is not the 
 disciple of Jesus Christ.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 37 
 
 March 5. 
 
 Every visitation is a state of advance 
 in your walk of faith. Every chastisement 
 is sent to open a new page in the great 
 Book of Life— to show you things within 
 you which you knew not, and things 
 which hereafter shall be your portion. 
 Welcome sorrow, trial, fear, if only our 
 sin be blotted out, and our lot secure in 
 the lowest room, in the light of His Face, 
 before the throne of His beauty, in our 
 home and in our rest for ever.
 
 38 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 March 6. 
 
 There are three things to avoid in 
 Confession, (i) Multiplicity of subjects. 
 Keep rather to one sin. Confess it well 
 with circumstances. (2) Avoid all irrele- 
 vance, everything that does not belong to 
 the Confessional. (3) Keep from all 
 human thought. 
 
 March 7. 
 Go through the world unnoticed if you 
 can. Secret privations, secret sacrifices 
 of your own will, which will never be 
 known until all things are revealed, are 
 surer instruments of perfection than chains 
 and shirts of hair. The Holy Ghost in 
 this way creates His Saints.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 39 
 
 March 8. 
 Anticipate the Day of Judgment, Be 
 beforehand with it. That day is coming, 
 inevitably coming, as the rising of to- 
 morrow's sun. The day is not far off 
 when the Great White Throne will be set 
 up, and we shall stand before God, and 
 the eyes that are as a flame of fire will 
 search us through and through ; and not 
 His eyes alone, but the eyes of all men 
 will be upon us, and the ears of men will 
 hear that which the accuser will say against 
 us in that day. There will be no secrecy 
 then ; no hiding of our sins ; nothing con- 
 cealed from God, or from that multitude 
 which is around the Great White Throne.
 
 40 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 March 9. 
 Take up your cross boldly ; follow 
 Jesus Christ. Have no compromises, no 
 reserves, and He will do the rest for you. 
 
 March 10. 
 S. Paul of the Cross used to say to 
 those about him, '* Stay at home and keep 
 three lamps always burning before the 
 altar — faith, hope, and charity — before the 
 presence of God in your heart." 
 
 March 11. 
 Christian matrimony is a Sacrament, 
 and creates an indissoluble bond, which 
 death alone can loose. The indissoluble 
 bond of marriage is the fountain of the 
 domestic life of Christendom.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 41 
 
 March 12. 
 Hunt down and slay your little faults. 
 " He that is faithful in that which is the 
 least, is faithful also in that which is 
 greater ;" and they who will hunt down, 
 and slay, and exterminate their little faults, 
 be sure of it, will never willingly commit 
 greater sins. 
 
 March 13. 
 Fastings, disciplines, watchings, and 
 the like, are nothing before God unless 
 there be a true inward denial of self — a 
 mortification of the irttellect and heart and 
 will. You remember the vision of S. 
 Antony. The tempter came to him and 
 said, " Antony, you fast a great deal, but 
 I never eat ; you watch, but I never sleep ; 
 you mortify the body, but I have no body 
 to mortify ; but you do one thing I cannot 
 — I cannot obey."
 
 42 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 March 14. 
 Every single act of resisting temptation 
 obtains merit and reward in the sight of 
 God ; and they who are the most tempted 
 obtain the most merit, if they faithfully 
 resist ; so that the life that is harassed and 
 buffeted with temptations without ceasing, 
 if we persevere, is laying up perpetually 
 more and more of merit before God, and 
 more and more of reward in eternal life. 
 
 March 15. 
 
 We have to learn not only our sins, but 
 our personal sinfulness, our unworthiness, 
 our unprofitableness, our littleness, and 
 our weakness.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 43 
 
 March 16. 
 If you are suffering pains of body, unite 
 them with the sufferings of Jesus Christ 
 upon His Cross. If you have mental 
 pains, sorrows of mind, trials of your 
 family, ingratitude of friends, disobedience 
 of children, the loss of those dear to you, 
 whatsoever it be, unite them with the 
 mental sorrows of Jesus dying upon the 
 Cross. 
 
 March 17. 
 There is many a sorrow fearfully 
 hidden from the world's hard gaze, many 
 an overlooked affliction, many a piercing 
 of heart by the sharpness of our common 
 griefs, which not the less, when borne in 
 silence, make the mourning spirit to par- 
 take of our Lord's mysterious Cross.
 
 44 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 March i8. 
 Every theatre is the centre of a neigh- 
 bourhood abounding in all manner of evil, 
 which lives and thrives upon the theatrical 
 world. There are upon the stage many 
 good men, and many good women ; but 
 also of both, many bad. The spirit and 
 surroundings and tide of the stage are 
 dangerous, and downward. The classes 
 and trades that thrive by it are too well 
 known to need words from me. Why 
 should any one aid, abet, comfort, or share 
 in such a traffic, even by the price of a 
 box, or of a single ticket? I had rather 
 have no liability, however limited, in such 
 a trade. The money liability can be 
 limited, the moral cannot. If all things 
 are lawful, all are not expedient or edify- 
 ing. Use your liberty for our Lord, as 
 He used His liberty for you.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 45 
 
 March 19. 
 
 There are no illusions in the sight of 
 the Cross ; all the colours and shadows, 
 the false play and changeful hues, the 
 gloss and the glitter which we put upon 
 ourselves in the sight of the world, and 
 even in the light of our own conscience, 
 are there overwhelmed by the direct and 
 all-revealing splendour of His presence. 
 
 March 20. 
 The Cross becomes sweet when it is 
 chosen, and light when it is lifted on the 
 shoulder.
 
 46 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 March 21. 
 
 Take the crucifix in your hand, and ask 
 yourselves whether this is the religion of 
 the soft, easy, worldly, luxurious days in 
 which we live ; whether the crucifix does 
 not teach you a lesson of mortification, of 
 self-denial, of crucifixion of the flesh. 
 
 March 22. 
 Cast up how much you spend in need- 
 less things, on things not wisely chosen, 
 on things that perish in the using, on 
 things that are not edifying to others, and 
 not expedient for yourselves. How much 
 is wasted, and worse than wasted, in these 
 soft days of self-indulgence, in baubles, 
 excitement, and ostentation !
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 47 
 
 March 23. 
 There is one sign of a true penitent : 
 a willingness to be humbled, to bear shame 
 before men as well as before God ; to go 
 alone into the presence of men and angels, 
 with no excuses or diminutions, no incul- 
 pations of others, or mitigating pleas. 
 
 March 24. 
 What is a little while ? A little more 
 sickness, sorrow, mourning, and solitude ; 
 a little more of striving and persevering. 
 A little while is soon over ; and then we 
 shall be changed into a changeless joy. 
 Then "we shall see Him as He is." 
 What, then, is "a little while," if in a 
 little while we may see Him for ever ?
 
 48 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 March 25. 
 The Blessed Virgin was exempted from 
 original sin, and prepared to be the sanc- 
 tuary of God in the Incarnation ; and 
 surely the least grace proportionate to the 
 Divine maternity is that she should be 
 without sin. 
 
 March 26. 
 In the heart there are so many windings 
 and doubles, so many masks and disguises, 
 so many false lights, so much paint upon 
 the face, and so many artificial expressions 
 of countenances, that it is certain we deceive 
 ourselves as well as others. We must, 
 therefore, be always pressing onwards in 
 the knowledge of self, with much self- 
 mistrust, and with a sincere desire to know 
 the worst of ourselves.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 49 
 
 March 27. 
 The least things done for the love of 
 our Divine Master may be full in His sight 
 of the richest and sweetest merit, and the 
 greatest things we may do or suffer, if they 
 are not done in charity, are, as the Apostle 
 says, worth nothing. 
 
 March 28. 
 We have to expiate the pains due to 
 a world of sins, surpassing all memory ; 
 and as yet we have but little chastised 
 ourselves. There is no time to lose. " So 
 run, that you may obtain."
 
 so TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 March 29. 
 Our besetting sin is the sin oftenest 
 committed, and with the greatest facility, 
 and the one we forget with the greatest 
 speed — the one from which we turn away 
 our eyes, and for which we try to make 
 excuse before God, and give ourselves 
 Absolution. 
 
 March 30. 
 All our unrest and weariness is in and 
 of ourselves. It is either the slavery of 
 some tyrannous sin, or the indulgence of 
 some fretful, implacable temper, or some 
 repining discontent at what we are, or 
 some impotent straining after what God 
 has not willed us to be, — these, I say, and 
 only these or such-like, make men weary 
 and desolate.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 51 
 
 March 31. 
 
 Beware of money and the desire for 
 it ; of carefulness and mistrust of God. 
 Labour in your lot ; be content with such 
 things as you have, and be careful for 
 nothing. The only sure investment for 
 our worldly goods is in works of mercy to 
 the poor of Christ. 
 
 April I. 
 
 A NECESSITY of my reason constrains 
 me to believe the existence of God, because 
 I can in no other way account for my 
 own existence. I am either uncaused, or 
 self-caused, or caused by a cause.
 
 52 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 April 2. 
 I KNOW that I am ; I know that I have 
 the light of reason, the dictate of con- 
 science, the power of will ; I know that 
 I did not make all things, nor even myself. 
 A necessity of my reason compels me to 
 believe in One higher and greater than I, 
 from Whom I come, and to Whose image 
 I am made. 
 
 April 3. 
 There is no security for perseverance 
 except in always advancing. To stand 
 still is impossible. A boat ascending a 
 running stream falls back as soon as it 
 ceases to advance. To hold its place is 
 impossible, unless it gain upon the stream. 
 So in the spiritual life.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 53 
 
 April 4. 
 
 Be as sharp as you will with yourselves ; 
 do not bear with the least sin in your own 
 temper ; give no impunity to yourselves or 
 to your own faults. 
 
 April 5. 
 
 God is one in Nature, Christ one in 
 Person, the Church one in organization 
 and singularity of subsistence, depending on 
 its Head, Who is One, and animated by the 
 Holy Ghost, Who is likewise One, the 
 principle of union to the members who 
 constitute the one body by the intrinsic 
 unity of its life. 
 
 April 6. 
 
 The handling of holy things without 
 holiness is an awful mystery of condemna- 
 tion.
 
 54 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 April 7. 
 Are there none in the noontide of faith 
 and grace who have the heart to build an 
 altar in the midst of their brethren, the 
 poor of Jesus Christ ? It would bring you 
 untold blessings. To light one more lamp 
 before the Blessed Sacrament, to rear one 
 more roof above the tabernacle, will enrol 
 you as one of the clouds of witnesses who 
 spread the knowledge of the true God, and 
 of Jesus Christ Whom He has sent. 
 
 April 8. 
 Listen to God, and answer promptly ; 
 lay hold of that grace which is offered to 
 you ; keep fast the links of that golden 
 chain ; never let it go, and take heed lest 
 you break a link.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 55 
 
 April 9. 
 
 Do you interpret what befalls you in 
 your life as the overruling, watchful, and 
 loving care of your Divine Friend ? If so, 
 you will never murmur, nor repine, nor 
 rebel ; you will never chafe against God's 
 providence ; you will be content with your 
 lot ; you will be ready to thank Him for 
 everything. 
 
 April 10. 
 
 We are always unconsciously affecting 
 other men with a power which, could we 
 fully know it, would make us tremble. 
 Our thoughtless actions, random words, 
 unguarded hints, our very tones, even our 
 gestures, in our most relaxed hours, leave 
 impressions on other men such as we 
 neither design nor imagine.
 
 56 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 April II. 
 Have a holy fear of consciously doing 
 anything that may grieve the Holy Spirit ; 
 a holy fear of going anywhere, enter- 
 ing into any engagements, amusements, 
 societies, friendships, intimacies, which can 
 come between God and your soul. 
 
 April 12. 
 By prayer is meant not vocal prayer 
 only, but the prayer of the mind, and of 
 the heart sustained habitually by recollec- 
 tion of the presence of God, and articulated 
 often in silence by desires, aspirations, 
 momentary petitions in the actions and 
 trials of the day.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 57 
 
 April 13. 
 A LOT is meted out to every one of us, 
 and God has chosen it. We do not choose 
 our own lot. Some few of its details we 
 may control ; but we no more choose our 
 entire lot than we determine the country 
 or the century in which we are born. It 
 is the providence of God ; and He ordains 
 what we shall have, and shall not have ; 
 and that lot is given to us, to be content 
 with it, to be satisfied with it, to rejoice 
 in it. 
 
 April 14. 
 It is but a little time, and we shall all 
 keep Easter in heaven ; yet a little while — 
 and what matters a little while of sorrow, 
 of care, toil, or weariness, hardness and 
 solitude, repentance and striving, tempta- 
 tions and patience ?
 
 58 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 April 15. 
 
 Around the throne of the kingdom of 
 the Resurrection we may see by faith those 
 whom we shall hereafter see in vision — the 
 Blessed Mother of God, sinless always ; the 
 beloved disciple, who was without spot ; 
 Mary Magdalene, once stained through and 
 through, now white as snow. There they 
 stand, the type of saints and penitents, in 
 the kingdom of God, redeemed by the same 
 Lord and Saviour, washed in the same 
 precious blood, arrayed in light ; the peni- 
 tent white as the sinless, because sinless 
 for ever, for all sins are done away. 
 
 April 16. 
 There are three great depths which no 
 human line can sound — the depth of our 
 own sinfulness, the depth of our unworthi- 
 ness, and the depth of our nothingness.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 59 
 
 April 17. 
 
 The mind and voice of the Church has 
 never changed, never varied, by an accent 
 or by an iota. As every age has had its 
 heresy, so every heresy has been cast out, 
 some sooner, some later, some with ease, 
 some with difficulty, but all alike are cast 
 out by the vigour of health and life. 
 
 April 18. 
 After the fret and fever of a few short 
 years will come the river of the water of 
 life — "the times of refreshment," and the 
 rest of God. Let us remember that He 
 Who is the Resurrection is always with us ; 
 and if we be in Him, all things are ours, 
 all shall be restored to us, all made new, 
 all sinless and deathless, all our own again 
 and for ever.
 
 6d towards evening, 
 
 April 19. 
 In the joy of the Resurrection we shall 
 see the countenance of the Friend Who has 
 loved us, sorrowed for us, died for us ; the 
 countenance of the Son of God fixed upon 
 each one of us ; the eyes of our Redeemer 
 looking upon us personally one by one ; 
 His voice speaking to us as He spoke to 
 Mary at the sepulchre, calling us each one 
 by name. This is the beginning of the joy. 
 
 April 20. 
 The Catholic Church rests not on the 
 judgment of any individual, however holy 
 or wise ; but on the witness of an universal 
 and perpetual body, to which teacher and 
 taught alike are subject ; and because all 
 are in subjection to the Church, all are 
 redeemed from bondage to individual 
 teachers and the authority of men.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 6i 
 
 April 21. 
 
 The happiness of life, the happiness of 
 home, the happiness of your past, where 
 is it ? You have to look back for it ; it is 
 gone, or it is going, transient and fleeting ; 
 and in a little while it will be no longer. 
 But in the kingdom of God, that life, ever 
 new, of body, of mind, of soul, of home, 
 of happiness, of perfect identity, of mutual 
 recognition, of restored bonds, of love per- 
 fected and transfigured in the kingdom of 
 the Resurrection, shall all be changeless 
 and eternal. 
 
 April 22. 
 If you touch the Cross, it will leave its 
 mark upon you. If you bear no print of 
 the Cross, be sure that you have never 
 touched it yet. Sorrow, humility, self- 
 denial, a tender conscience, a spirit of love, 
 — these are the marks of the Lord Jesus, the 
 print of the nails, and the pledges of our 
 pardon.
 
 62 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 April 23. 
 The Church teaches that men may be 
 inculpably out of its pale. Now, they are 
 inculpably out of it who are, and have 
 always been, either physically or morally 
 unable to see their obligation to submit to 
 it. And they only are culpably out of it 
 who are both physically and morally able 
 to know that it is God's Will they should 
 submit to the Church ; and, either knowing 
 it, will not obey that knowledge, or, not 
 knowing it, are culpable for that ignorance. 
 
 April 24. 
 There is a blessed simplicity in charity, 
 which covereth all things, and hopeth all 
 things. Its very blindness to a brother's 
 faults gives to its touch so delicate a keen- 
 ness, as to detect the faintest traces of 
 excuse, and the lightest shadow of a good 
 intention.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 63 
 
 April 25. 
 We may have some years still of tempta- 
 tion, and buffeting, and sorrow, and war- 
 fare, and of the Cross on earth. These 
 things may be. Storms upon the lake, 
 clouds upon the mountain, — they are our 
 earthly lot. What matter ? If we be 
 children of the Resurrection, heaven is ours. 
 And heaven is near ; we know not how 
 long or how soon our day may be. 
 
 April 26. 
 O LET US make up our minds to some- 
 thing ; let us be resolved one way or the 
 other ; let us be either cold or hot ; choose 
 life or death. Choose now and choose 
 wisely, for one false choice may become 
 eternal.
 
 64 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 April 27. 
 Larger measures of knowledge are a 
 grave stewardship. It is an awful mercy 
 to be greatly exalted — to be highly favoured 
 above other men. 
 
 April 28. 
 
 When the Church suffers anywhere, it 
 is felt everywhere. Every persecution 
 wounds the whole body ; every benediction 
 is a common joy. Because we are members 
 one of another, there is a perfect sympathy 
 binding the whole Church together.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 65 
 
 April 29. 
 In proportion as we possess sufficient 
 evidence to know the truth, God will re- 
 quire of us to give an account of that truth 
 at the last day. We must give an account 
 both of what we have known and what 
 we have not known, the reason why we 
 have not known that which we might have 
 known. 
 
 April 30. 
 There is a sanctity pervading the whole 
 Church, and yet how much of sin attaches 
 outwardly to it ; how many sinners are 
 within its unity ! Our Lord has told us to 
 expect both good fish and bad in the one 
 net, and both tares and wheat in the one 
 field. Such is the mixture of good and 
 evil in the visible Church.
 
 66 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 May I. 
 
 The Author and Finisher of the devo- 
 tion which the Church perpetuates to the 
 Blessed Mother of God, was Jesus Himself. 
 He founded it by His own example, and 
 taught it to His disciples by His own words 
 and deeds. They who reproach us for the 
 honour we pay to her, reproach Him ; for 
 we have never honoured her so much as 
 He did.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 67 
 
 May 2. 
 
 The devotion, or worship, as we say in 
 our Old English speech, to the Blessed 
 Virgin which the Catholic Church teaches 
 to her children, may be best defined in 
 these words : it is the love and veneration 
 which was paid to her by her Divine Son 
 and His disciples, and such as we should 
 have borne to her if we had been on earth 
 with them ; and it is also the love and 
 veneration we shall bear to her next after 
 her Divine Son, when through grace we 
 see Him in His kingdom.
 
 68 TO I VA EDS E VEXING. 
 
 May 3. 
 
 The disciples, from the moment of their 
 call to follow Jesus, learned to know, 
 reverence, and love His Mother. She was 
 the Mother of their Master — of Him Who 
 had spoken to them as never had any 
 man spoken before. His words penetrated 
 and fascinated their hearts with a thrill of 
 awe and love such as no human voice had 
 ever caused till then. He had manifested 
 in their presence alone an honour to His 
 Mother such as He showed to no other.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 69 
 
 May 4. 
 In no point do we go beyond the devo- 
 tion of the disciples to Mary ; in no point 
 did the devotion of the disciples fall short 
 of ours. No one, not even the Saints of 
 the Church, not even S. Bernard, S. Bona* 
 venture, S. Alphonsus, loved or venerated 
 the Blessed Virgin with a love so tender, 
 a veneration so profound, as S. Peter, S. 
 James, and S. John. 
 
 May 5. 
 
 If it were true of the poor woman who 
 anointed the head of Jesus, "Wheresoever 
 the Gospel shall be preached that .which 
 this woman hath done shall be told for a 
 memorial of her," how much more of her 
 who ministered to Him the substance of 
 His humanity ! If the name Mary Magda- 
 lene was to be embalmed in the Gospel, 
 how much more the name of His Blessed 
 Mother !
 
 70 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 May 6. 
 From the truth of Mary's divine ma- 
 ternity follows her singular and pre^ 
 eminent glory; pre-eminent, because never 
 Upon any creature was laid a dignity so 
 great as that of bearing the Incarnate God 
 and nurturing Ilim as her Infant ; and 
 singular, because the angels, cherubim and 
 seraphim, are many, and many are the 
 patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and saints ; 
 but there was only one Mother of God, 
 because only one Incarnate Son. 
 
 May 7. 
 Tut "Hail, Mary!" has been the prayer 
 and meditation of saints. All devotion to 
 the Mother of God springs from it, as all 
 harmony springs from the octave. A few 
 notes are the element of all song, as the 
 few words "Hail, full of grace !" are the 
 element of all the love and veneration, 
 the devotion and worship, of the Church 
 for our Blessed Mother.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 71 
 
 May 8. 
 S. Dominic made the " Hail, Mary ! " 
 the measure and the melody of the Rosary 
 of the Incarnation, S. Francis the con- 
 gratulation of her seven earthly joys, S. 
 Thomas of Canterbury of her seven heavenly 
 joys, S. Philip Benitius the condolence in 
 her seven sorrows. All through the eighteen 
 hundred years of the Church, the "Hail, 
 Mary ! " has been pouring forth its sweet- 
 ness and its variety like a long strain of 
 endless harmony. 
 
 May 9. 
 The answers to prayer, through the 
 intercession of Mary, in every age of the 
 Church, and in every state of life, and in 
 all manner of trials, public and private, 
 have taught the faithful that she bears an 
 office of power and patronage over us.
 
 72 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 May 10. 
 
 They who are not of the unity of the 
 Church do not believe in the intercession 
 of Mary, because they have never made 
 trial of it. But the whole Church is per- 
 vaded by a consciousness of her love and 
 power now, as it was in the beginning. 
 
 May II. 
 The Divine Maternity is the highest 
 glory ever laid upon a creature ; the Im- 
 maculate Conception is the grace pro- 
 portioned to the glory. Both in grace and 
 glory she is the first of creatures ; for her 
 Son was not a creature, but the Creator.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 73 
 
 May 12. 
 The dogma of the Immaculate Con- 
 ception is no more than the final analysis, 
 both in conception and in expression, of 
 the pre-eminent and singular sanctification 
 of the Mother of God. 
 
 May 13. 
 
 No language can be conceived more 
 ardent or absolute than that in which 
 the earliest records of Christianity, the 
 liturgies, and the early Fathers speak of 
 the Blessed Mother of our Lord. Spotless, 
 sinless, thrice-holy, holier than the sera- 
 phim, holiest next after God, — these are 
 the familiar descriptions of her sanctity.
 
 74 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 May 14. 
 It is certain that if we love God as we 
 ought ; if we bear to our Divine Redeemer 
 tender and grateful hearts ; if we realize 
 the Communion of Saints, and the loving 
 and living relations which bind them to 
 us, and us to them ; if we be conscious of 
 their love to us and their prayers for us ; 
 if we have childlike hearts, holy, loving, 
 and filial towards our heavenly Father ; 
 then it is certain that, next after Jesus, our 
 veneration and our love will be given to 
 her whom He loves with all the filial 
 reverence and all the tender love of His 
 Sacred Heart.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 75 
 
 May 15. 
 Bear in mind these three things: (i) 
 First, that the Author and Founder of the 
 devotion to the Mother of God is Jesus 
 Himself. (2) Secondly, that the chief pro- 
 moters of it were the apostles and disciples 
 of our Lord. (3) Thirdly, that in nothing 
 do we go beyond them. 
 
 May 16. 
 To put man and woman upon an 
 equality is not to elevate woman, but to 
 degrade her. I trust that the womanhood 
 of England, to say nothing of the Chris- 
 tian conscience which yet remains, will 
 resist by a stern moral refusal the im- 
 modesty which would thrust women from 
 their private life of duty and supremacy 
 into the public conflicts of men.
 
 76 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 May 17. 
 Fashions of dress come from some 
 obscure room, in some luxurious and corrupt 
 city, where, by a sort of secret society of 
 folly, rules are laid down, and decrees 
 come forth year after year, which are 
 followed with a servility and, I may say, 
 with a want of Christian matronly dignity, 
 so that the foolish fashion that some foolish 
 person has foolishly invented is propagated 
 all over the civilized countries of Europe. 
 Our forefathers and the women of another 
 age did not bend and undulate with every 
 wind that is wafted over the sea. 
 
 May 18. 
 If we take all things as from God, and 
 behold all things as in the light of the 
 brightness of His coming, all shall be well.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 77 
 
 May 19. 
 Read the rules of life which S. Paul 
 gave to Bishops, Priests, people, parents, 
 children, servants, and homes. Read also 
 what S. Peter counselled as to dress and 
 ornaments. See what the Saints thought, 
 said, and practised even in their childhood,* 
 before they had ripened beyond our reach, 
 as to amusements, self-indulgence, and the 
 dangers of the world. These are, or ought 
 to be, the standard of our life. 
 
 May 20. 
 Do not fear to be thought over-strict ; 
 do not fear to be reproached as extreme ; 
 do not fear to be in a minority.
 
 78 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 May 21. 
 I HAVE been often asked whether it is 
 lawful to go to a theatre. My answer has 
 been always, " I cannot forbid you. If 
 you ask what I advise, I say without hesi- 
 tation, Do not go. I would to God that 
 those who can refrain from such things, as 
 , an offering to our Divine Redeemer, would 
 refrain for ever." 
 
 May 22. 
 It is more generous, it is more in con- 
 formity with the example set us by our 
 Divine Lord and Master, to deny ourselves 
 in many things that are lawful. Apply 
 this to dress, to pleasures, to amusements, 
 to the expenditure you make on yourself, 
 to your domestic and private life, and you 
 will find a wide field for its application.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 79 
 
 May 23. 
 
 Obedience of domestic life is a great 
 discipline of humility, piety, and self-con- 
 tent. A good son will make a good priest, 
 and a good daughter will make a good nun. 
 A disobedient son will hardly make an 
 obedient priest, and an unloving daughter 
 will hardly make a sister of charity. A 
 good home is a great novitiate. 
 
 May 24. 
 The favour of this world is no sign of 
 the Saints. The Cross is their portion. 
 The voice of the many is no test of truth, 
 nor warrant of right, nor rule of duty. 
 Truth and right, and a pure conscience, 
 have been ever with the few. " Many are 
 called, but few are chosen."
 
 So TOPVARDS EVE XING. 
 
 May 25. 
 Choose your friends from among the 
 friends of God. Be not united with any 
 that are separated from Him ; for they will 
 breathe into your ear, while you are un- 
 conscious, that which will pervade your 
 whole spiritual being. 
 
 May 26. 
 
 The great sin of us all is creature-worship 
 — putting creatures in the place of God ; 
 and this brings us into bondage. But 
 there is one creature in the world which is 
 the most subtle of all ; there is one crea- 
 ture which is the most fascinating, the 
 most deceitful, which brings men into 
 bondage more than anything else, and 
 that creature is self — the love of self.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 8i 
 
 May 27. 
 
 As the only reality in the world is man, 
 so the only reality in man is his spiritual 
 life. We must strive to be more alone. 
 Solitude and silence are full of reality. 
 
 May 28. 
 We think that Saints are like the great 
 mountains, or like the cedars of Lebanon, 
 in the kingdom of God — seldom to be seen, 
 and afar off. There are Saints standing 
 amongst us, and we know them not. They 
 do not know it themselves, for sanctity 
 sees only its own imperfections. 
 
 May 29. 
 Educate your children, and promote 
 by all the power you have the Christian 
 education of the children of the poor. The 
 root of society is in the child. The educa- 
 tion of the child is the first obligation of 
 the law of God on men.
 
 82 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 May 30. 
 Let us bear in mind this truth — that on 
 the bed of death, and in the day of judg- 
 ment, to have saved one soul will be not 
 only better than to have won a kingdom, 
 but will overpay by an exceeding great 
 reward all the pains and toils of the longest 
 and most toilsome life- 
 
 May 31. 
 
 Jesus and Mary will to all eternity be 
 Son and Mother, and this one divine fact 
 reveals to us the eternity of our relations. 
 Andrew and Peter, James and John, will 
 be brothers, Martha and Mary sisters, for 
 ever. Our relations are a part of our con- 
 sciousness ; we could not put them off with- 
 out spoiling ourselves of the greater part of 
 our personal identity.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 83 
 
 June I. 
 
 Learn to know the love of God in the 
 Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is the Book of 
 Life, open to all, easily to be read. Take 
 that Book of Life and read it, every page. 
 It is written within and without with the 
 pledges and the promises of God's personal 
 love for you. 
 
 June 2. 
 If you would find the P'ountain of the 
 Water of Life and the glories of the Eternal 
 Throne, on which the Lord of the Sacred 
 Heart sits and reigns for ever, go into any 
 sanctuary where the light burns silently 
 before the tabernacle. Kneel there and 
 cover your face. Jesus is there, and the 
 Ever-blessed Trinity, and the vision of 
 peace, and the heavenly court, and the 
 kingdom of His glory.
 
 84 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 June 3. 
 
 There is always one Friend in Whom 
 we may find perfect and changeless rest. 
 Other friends often grieve and disappoint 
 us. Our only Divine Friend never fails. 
 We may go to Him at any hour. If He 
 be sOent, we know His meaning and His 
 mind. He always welcomes us when we 
 come to Him. He listens to all we say, 
 and He consoles us by listening to our 
 voice ; for it is a relief to unburden our 
 soul to a friend, though he answers not a 
 word. We know that we have His sym- 
 pathy ; that He feels with us and for us ; 
 that all we say is noted and remembered ; 
 and that, if He be silent now, the day is 
 not far off when we shall hear Him say, 
 *' Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 85 
 
 June 4. 
 Take nothing lower than the Heart of 
 our Divine Lord as the measure and the 
 rule of your own. Do not take any lower 
 standard. Do not take the examples of 
 men. Do not take maxims or motives of 
 your own. Set before you the Sacred 
 Heart in its full and divine perfection. 
 
 June 5. 
 We who murmur, and repine, and chafe, 
 and fret all the day long if anything goes 
 against us, call ourselves disciples of the 
 Sacred Heart ; and yet we have not so 
 much as the will to bear the Cross, much 
 less to love it.
 
 86 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 June 6, 
 A SPIRIT of reparation draws great 
 graces from the Sacred Heart, and engages 
 all its generosity in our salvation. 
 
 June 7. 
 Keep as closely as you can to the Sacred 
 Heart of Jesus. Be faithful to His law. 
 Cherish every particle of His truth, every 
 commandment, every counsel of His will, 
 every inspiration of His grace. 
 
 June 8. 
 
 Through your whole life everything 
 that you do according to the Will of God, 
 being in a state of grace, has in the Book 
 of Remembrance a record, and in the 
 Sacred Heart of our Divine Master a pro- 
 mise of reward, which shall be satisfied at 
 His coming.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 87 
 
 June 9. 
 The throne of God's sovereignty is the 
 Blessed Sacrament upon the Altar. The 
 Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, our Lord and 
 King, is there, always reigning, by the 
 power of His love attracting the human 
 will in all its freedom to Himself. 
 
 June 10. 
 The Holy Ghost reads the heart. Demas 
 *' loved this world ; " therefore, and for no 
 other reason, he forsook the servants of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 June II. 
 What the dove was at Jordan, and the 
 tongues of fire at Pentecost, that the one 
 visible Church is now : the witness of 
 the mission, advent, and perpetual pre- 
 sence of the Spirit of the Father and of the 
 Son.
 
 8S TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 June 12. 
 Make up your mind now that not a day 
 shall pass, from this day to your last, with- 
 out some act of adoration to the Person 
 of the Holy Ghost, without some act of 
 reparation made to Him for your own 
 sins and for the sins of other men. Say 
 day by day the majestic Hymn of the 
 Church, the Veni Creator Spirittis ; or that 
 other equally beautiful, and even more full 
 of tenderness, Vc7ii Sancte Spirihis ; or say 
 every day, seven times, the Gloji Patri in 
 honour of the Holy Ghost, to obtain His 
 seven gifts ; raise up your hearts to God, 
 make each of you some short act of repara- 
 tion and adoration out of the fulness of 
 your soul.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 89 
 
 June 13. 
 We speak with our Blessed Lord as a 
 friend to friend, face to face, opening our 
 hearts to His Sacred Heart, and conversing 
 with God as with One Who knows all we 
 are by personal experience and human 
 sympathy, and is infinitely pitiful and 
 divinely tender in His love. 
 
 June 14. 
 As we know among ourselves, it is love 
 that awakens love, it is friendship that 
 kindles friendship, it is the sensible mani- 
 festation of kindness and of tenderness of 
 heart, of disinterested and self-denying 
 love, — it is this that awakens us to love 
 again ; so is it toward our Lord : He en- 
 dured all things first, to persuade us to 
 trust in His love.
 
 90 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 June 15. 
 
 Our Blessed Lord numbers all the graces 
 you have had, and all the sins you have 
 conamitted ; take care not to overreach 
 the number allotted to you. 
 
 June 16. 
 You who have the whole revelation of 
 God, ought to have the whole charity of 
 God in you. Let your neighbours who are 
 round about, even those who are not of the 
 faith, feel that there is something in you — a 
 warmth, a kindness, a sympathy, and gene- 
 rosity which they find in no other men.
 
 TOIVARDS EVENING. 91 
 
 June 17. 
 Unite your whole heart, with all its love 
 and all its affections, to our Blessed Lord, 
 to His kingdom, to His interests upon 
 earth, to His poverty, to His sufferings, 
 to His contempt, and to His Cross. 
 
 June 18. 
 Just as the Holy Eucharist is always 
 the same in the fulness of its divine 
 sanctity and grace, even though the priest 
 who consecrates and the multitude who 
 receive it be in sacrilege ; and as the light 
 of the sun is always the same, in unchanging 
 splendour, though all men were blind ; so 
 with the truth and sanctity of the Church.
 
 92 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 June 19. 
 Wheresoever the Holy Catholic 
 Church is, there is Jesus, reigning in the 
 mystery of the Blessed Sacrament, always 
 near to us ; and our union with Him is a 
 union so intimate that the mind cannot 
 define it ; the heart alone, illuminated by 
 faith, can know by consciousness that 
 which the intellect cannot comprehend. 
 
 June 20. 
 
 Corpus Christi is a second Feast of 
 the Nativity — a Christmas Festival in the 
 summer-tide, when the snows are gone, and 
 flowers cover the earth. 
 
 June 21. 
 The Blessed Sacrament to sense is bread 
 and wine ; to intellect, a symbol ; to faith, 
 the Body and Blood of Christ.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 93 
 
 June 22. 
 There are only two centres, God and 
 ourselves ; and we must rest on one or on 
 the other. We cannot rest on both. 
 
 June 23. 
 
 Repentance is the threshold of the 
 invisible sanctuary, where the Saints are 
 gathering, and here they must fall down 
 before they think to enter. None but 
 they that have either a pure or a broken 
 heart shall see God. 
 
 June 24. 
 You are all called to be saints ; you 
 are, therefore, bound to be saints. Now 
 or hereafter, if you are saved, saints you 
 must be.
 
 94 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 June 25. 
 Some are scandalized at the mixture 
 of good and evil in the Catholic Church, 
 not knowing the Scriptures, nor believing 
 the Word of God. The mixture of good 
 and evil is permitted in the turbulent sea 
 of this world ; but they shall be separated 
 on the eternal shore. And yet, though 
 there be an evil mixture in the visible 
 Church of Christ — bad Christians, bad 
 Catholics, men whose lives are a scandal 
 and a shame — nevertheless, the sanctity 
 of the Church is never tainted. It de- 
 pends not on men, but on the Sanctifier. 
 
 June 26. 
 As S. Peter went down to our Blessed 
 Lord upon the water, simply trusting in 
 His power, so must we draw near to Him 
 in our sins, simply trusting in His love.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 95 
 
 June 27. 
 The Church is imperishable, because 
 its life is God ; indivisibly one, because 
 He is numerically one ; holy, because He 
 is the Fountain of holiness ; infallible both 
 in believing and in teaching, because His 
 illumination and His voice are immutable. 
 
 June 28. 
 To sense the visible Church is a society 
 of men ; to intellect an organized and 
 historical kingdom ; to faith it is the 
 heavenly court on earth, the beginning of 
 the new creation of God.
 
 96 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 June 29. 
 If there be a visible Church, it is the 
 Church of Rome ; and if there be a dog- 
 matic religious truth, it is the Catholic 
 Faith. 
 
 June 30. 
 Individuals may err, as individuals 
 may die ; but the Church cannot err, as 
 the Church cannot die. Because it is the 
 Body of a Divine Head, and that Divine 
 Head is Truth. It is the dwelling-place 
 of the Spirit of Truth, Who, inhabiting the 
 Body, always sustains it in the knowledge 
 and enunciation of truth.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 97 
 
 July I. 
 We must seek to have the inward mind 
 of the Church in ourselves. It is not by 
 loud profession of the faith, nor by head- 
 long zeal for truth, nor by eager contro- 
 versies against error, nor by excited devo- 
 tions ; but by a silent and even life of 
 faith and purity, by a patient following 
 of Christ's footsteps, by a mastery over 
 temper, by mortifying self, by a steady 
 gaze on His mysterious Passion, by being 
 and praying Him to make us like Himself, 
 that we shall bear within us the kingdom 
 and the presence of God.
 
 98 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 July 2. 
 Next after God in our love is Mary ; 
 infinitely below God, because He alone is 
 the uncreated ; immensely above all other 
 creatures, because she is the Mother of 
 God. Being the Mother of Jesus, our 
 Brother, she is our Mother too. Jesus 
 loved her above all creatures, and we can- 
 not be like Him if we do not love her 
 too. 
 
 July 3. 
 Strive to make your homes to be holy, 
 and your families to be households of 
 saints.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 99 
 
 July 4. 
 It is the consciousness of the Presence 
 of Jesus, God and man, in the Blessed 
 Sacrament of the Altar, which draws all 
 eyes and all hearts round about Him to 
 the point where He is personally present. 
 
 July 5. 
 There are three false lights which make 
 us deceive ourselves. (i) The world. 
 We compare ourselves with other people. 
 (2) Kind friends, who are so ready to flatter 
 us. (3) Love of ourselves. We are so 
 tempted to think lightly of our own faults, 
 whilst we are severe with others.
 
 loo TOIVARDS EVENING. 
 
 July 6. 
 When we go to the Altar, we go to the 
 entrance of the world unseen ; to the spot 
 where the visible and invisible worlds 
 unite. The oftener we draw near, the 
 deeper will be our sense of these eternal 
 realities. 
 
 July 7. 
 Every several Absolution is a royal 
 pardon, freely and abundantly bestowed, 
 not only without money and without any 
 price, but notwithstanding our great un- 
 worthiness.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING, 
 
 July 8. 
 The silver trumpets proclaimed the 
 jubilee once only in every fifty years ; but 
 the Precious Blood cries to us in the 
 Sacrament of Penance at all hours, by day 
 and by night. 
 
 July 9. 
 The Precious Blood of Jesus has brought 
 Absolution upon all men, and for all sins 
 countless as the stars of heaven. There 
 is but one Baptism, but there are many 
 Absolutions ; for the Sacrament of Penance 
 is a fountain ever flow^ing, perennial and 
 inexhaustible.
 
 102 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 July 10. 
 The one only sin which is beyond the 
 reach of Absolution, the one only sin which 
 the Precious Blood cannot absolve, is the 
 sin that is not repented of; that is the sole 
 and only sin that shall not be washed as 
 white as snow. 
 
 July II. 
 What our spirit — that is, our soul — is 
 to our members, that the Holy Ghost is 
 to the members of Christ, to the Body of 
 Christ, which is the Church.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 July 12. 
 If only we can live in an habitual sense 
 of our perfect pardon and Absolution 
 through the most Precious Blood of Jesus, 
 of His friendship for us, of His perpetual 
 presence, love, and care, we shall have 
 the root of perseverance firmly fixed in 
 our will. 
 
 July 13. 
 Happiness is not a thing inherited by 
 the rich alone — the poorest may better have 
 it ; nor is it only for them that have many 
 and dear friends about them — the loneliest 
 may have it in a deeper though a severer 
 measure. For happiness is an inward 
 boon ; it is shed abroad secretly in the heart 
 by the love of Christ.
 
 [04 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 July 14. 
 
 There is no sin of any kind, however 
 deep, dark, black as midnight, and often 
 committed, nothing so inveterate, nothing 
 which in the sight of God is so hateful, 
 nothing which to the soul of man is so 
 deadly, that there cannot be Absolution for 
 it in the Sacrament of Penance. 
 
 July 15. 
 S. Charles was a mixture of gravity 
 and sweetness, of calmness and of intensity, 
 of invincible courage and exquisite com- 
 passion. It was a character high and stern, 
 yet loving and gentle, severe in its reality 
 and in the majesty of truth.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 105 
 
 July 16. 
 The Holy Eucharist is Jesus reigning 
 amongst the just, the Sacrament of Penance 
 is Jesus seeking among sinners for those 
 that are lost ; the former is the Sacrament 
 of Saints, the latter of the sinful. 
 
 July 17. 
 There is but one Absolver, Jesus Christ 
 Himself; but He has ten thousand min- 
 isters on earth, through whom He applies 
 His Precious Blood to souls that are truly 
 penitent.
 
 io6 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 July i8. 
 God alone can absolve, and God alone 
 can give the power of Absolution. When 
 the power of Absolution is exercised by 
 any man, he is but an instrument in the 
 hand of God ; the Absolver is always God 
 Himself. 
 
 July 19. 
 The Sacrament of Penance is loved by 
 Catholics, and hated by the world. Like 
 the pillar which, of old guided the people 
 of God, to us it is all light ; to the world 
 it is all darkness.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 107 
 
 July 20. 
 The fountain opened in the heavenly 
 Jerusalem for the sin of man is open day 
 and night ; always full of power and grace. 
 Jesus Himself is there, the Lord of all 
 power. It is not the first, or one alone, 
 that is healed, but all comers, and all 
 sufferers from all lands, and at all hours ; 
 and no man takes away another's Absolu- 
 tion, nor does any one need another's hand 
 to help him to go down into the pool of 
 the most Precious Blood. 
 
 July 21. 
 There are four things required in Con- 
 fession, (i) That the sick man should 
 come. (2) That we should honestly and 
 truly accuse ourselves. (3) That we should 
 tell the truth with sorrow. (4) That we 
 should resolve in coming to sin no more.
 
 ic8 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 July 22. 
 
 Jesus is the support of your super- 
 natural life, in sacramental communion as 
 often as you may, in spiritual communion 
 as often as you can, in daily visits to the 
 Presence of Jesus, kneeling in prayer, or 
 sitting at His Feet, as often and as long 
 as the works and hindrances of life will 
 permit. 
 
 July 23. 
 What liberty is there so perfect as 
 theirs who, being free from all bondage 
 to creatures, offer their will freely to God, 
 and desire nothing but what He wills for 
 them?
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 109 
 
 July 24. 
 The footprints of God point to a Divine 
 Presence as their only cause. The only 
 Feet which could impress them are those 
 which walked upon the water. For in- 
 stance, the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, 
 of the Communion of Saints, of the Church, 
 one, visible, indivisible with its supernatural 
 light and divine infallibility, — all these 
 point to a cause which transcends our 
 reason, as heaven transcends the earth. 
 
 July 25. 
 
 It is not requiring much of the sinner 
 that he should come and say what is his 
 disease ; that he should show his wounds, 
 and his miseries, and the symptoms of 
 death that are upon him. The physician 
 requires no more for our healing, and he 
 can require no less.
 
 no TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 July 26. 
 Make an offering to our Lord in the 
 Blessed Sacrament ; offer yourselves, your 
 life, your love, your heart, your will, your 
 intellect, your liberty, all your actions, all 
 that you are — offer yourself to Him. 
 
 July 27. 
 Even in a common homely life there 
 are those whom wisdom has made to be 
 the friends of God. ^Yheresoever they be — 
 the poor mother toiling in her home, the 
 carpenter among his tools, S. Philip in 
 the confessional, S. Charles in the plague- 
 stricken homes of Milan — they are all in 
 the folds of the Divine Presence, in the 
 light and the sweetness of His eternal 
 kingdom.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. ui 
 
 July 28. 
 Throughout our whole life our charity 
 ought to be on the increase ; and if in- 
 creased, so will be our bliss in eternity. 
 
 July 29. 
 
 Our tempers, our passions, our inward 
 temptations, our pride and vanity, the 
 self-love and the jealousies and the mul- 
 titude of inward faults of which we are 
 conscious, will master us little by little, 
 unless we master them. 
 
 July 30. 
 
 Frequent Confession and frequent 
 Communion are the two fountains of the 
 knowledge which comes from the ex- 
 perience of the love and tenderness of 
 God in Jesus Christ.
 
 112 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 July 31. 
 We may profess great things cheaply, 
 but it costs dear to do and to suffer them. 
 
 August I. 
 Ritual is seemly and proportionate as 
 the clothing of Truth ; but where the 
 reality is present, we become as uncon- 
 scious of Ritual as of the light of day, or 
 of the circulation of the blood. 
 
 August 2. 
 The Church in the midst of the world 
 is the bush that burned with fire, and was 
 not consumed. The stem of the bush is 
 enveloped in flame ; and the fire which is 
 winding about it spreads through every 
 branch, and reaches to every spray ; but 
 the bush is imperishable because it is of 
 God.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. i 
 
 August 3. 
 Where the Spirit is, there is the soul 
 of the Church ; and where the Church is, 
 there is the body of the Spirit and all grace. 
 
 August 4, 
 There have been in your life times and 
 seasons, sometimes in joy, sometimes in 
 sorrow, sometimes in prayer, sometimes 
 in solitude, sometimes in the midst of the 
 world, when there has come down almost 
 a sensible sweetness to your taste, almost 
 a perceptible fragrance in your thoughts. 
 And what is this sweetness and fragrance ? 
 It is the Divine Presence scattering abroad 
 "the benedictions of sweetness."
 
 114 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 August 5. 
 When you find the world most opposed 
 to you, be of good cheer ; you have a sure 
 token that you are in the right. It has 
 been so always — it always will be. S. 
 Ignatius was never sad except when the 
 world prospered him, and never so glad 
 and buoyant as when he received the 
 promise that his sons should be ever hated 
 for the Name of Jesus. 
 
 August 6. 
 The errors of individuals cannot prevail 
 against the Church. Individuals depend 
 on the Church, not the Church on indi- 
 viduals. The Church depends on its Divine 
 Head, and upon the perpetual presence of 
 the Divine Person, the Holy Ghost, Who 
 inhabits it.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 115 
 
 August 7. 
 Let us offer ourselves up to Christ, to be 
 disposed of as He sees best, whether for 
 joy or sorrow, blessing or chastisement; to 
 be high or low ; to be slighted or esteemed ; 
 to be full, or to suffer need ; to have many 
 friends, or to dwell in a lonely home ; to 
 be passed by, or called to serve Him and 
 His kingdom in our own land or among 
 people of a strange tongue ; to be, to go, 
 to do, to suffer even as He wills, even as 
 He ordains, even as Christ endured. 
 
 August 8. 
 By your Baptism you are pledged to a 
 life of sanctity. The life of Christ is your 
 example. Your calling is to be ever grow- 
 ing in likeness to the Son of God.
 
 ii6 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 August 9. 
 Where there is a calm inward shining 
 of the love of God, there is contentment 
 and a submissive will, and a glad content 
 in our present lot. 
 
 August 10. 
 Every man must bear his own burden 
 when the secrets of all hearts shall be 
 revealed. A humble confession strives to 
 anticipate the hour of isolated trial, and to 
 fall down alone as guilty before the judg- 
 ment-seat of Christ.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 August II. 
 The Saints reflect our Lord each one 
 in his way and measure ; and their con- 
 formity arises from a double power of 
 assimilation— from contemplation and com- 
 munion; contemplation, by which He illu- 
 minates and informs His servants with His 
 own mind and example ; communion, by 
 which He dwells in them, pervades them 
 with His substance, changes them into the 
 likeness of His Sacred Heart. 
 
 August 12. 
 S. Vincent of Paul used to say, "If 
 we had one foot in heaven, yet, if we ceased 
 to mortify ourselves before we could draw 
 the other after it, we should be in danger 
 of losing our soul."
 
 ii8 TOWARDS EVE XING. 
 
 August 13. 
 Individuals and nations may fall from 
 unity as from sanctity ; but unity as a 
 divine institution stands secure. Unity is 
 changeless, whosoever falls ; unity does 
 not admit of degrees. 
 
 August 14. 
 Humility can never be cast down 
 while it has hope, and hope can never be 
 presumptuous while it has humility.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 119 
 
 August 15. 
 
 Mary stands at the right hand of her 
 Son, Who stands at the right hand of His 
 Father ; and the right hand of her Son is 
 almighty. And the prayers of His Blessed 
 Mother never fail. They never fail, because 
 she never asks amiss ; they never fail, 
 because she knows the Will of her Divine 
 Son. The Immaculate Heart of Mary 
 intimately knows the Sacred Heart of 
 Jesus. 
 
 August 16. 
 We cannot be too humble, and we can- 
 not be too hopeful ; and when humility 
 and hope are joined together, hope sustains 
 humility, and humility chastens hope.
 
 120 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 August 17. 
 
 This present hour is all we have. To- 
 morrow must be to-day before we can use 
 it ; and day after day we squander in the 
 hope of a to-morrow ; but to-morrow 
 shall be stolen away too, as to-day and 
 yesterday. It is nrdj we must be penitent, 
 now we must be holy. This hour has its 
 duty, which cannot be done the next. To- 
 morrow may bring its own opportunities, 
 but will not restore to-day's. The convic- 
 tions of this hour, if unheeded, will never 
 come back. God may send others, but 
 these will be gone for ever.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 121 
 
 August 18. 
 It is impossible for us to make the duties 
 of our lot minister to our sanctification 
 without a habit of devout fellowship with 
 God. This is the spring of all our life, and 
 the strength of it. It is prayer, medita- 
 tion, and converse with God that refreshes, 
 restores, and renews the temper of our 
 minds at all times, under all trials, and 
 after all conflicts and contacts with the 
 world. 
 
 August 19. 
 
 Every substance casts its shadow, and 
 every truth leaves its definite impression 
 upon the reason of man ; and the enuncia- 
 tion of that definite impression is dogma.
 
 :22 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 August 20. 
 Judas is an example how a soul once 
 innocent may be slowly changed into the 
 worst sin, and even at last fall, with little 
 intention of committing the whole evil 
 which follows from its act. 
 
 August 21. 
 Let us by prayer and self-chastisement 
 so cross and keep under our likings, pre- 
 ferences, views, opinions, judgment in all 
 things, when the will of the Church is 
 made known, that we may in all things 
 obey ' ' as unto the Lord, and not unto 
 men."
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 123 
 
 August 22. 
 
 The very strength and life of all self- 
 discipline is order, certainty, and decision. 
 Our true safeguard against temptation is 
 to be the same at all times, in all com- 
 panies, in all places ; not to vary and 
 adapt ourselves to the humour of others, 
 thereby adopting their temptations with 
 their habits, but to be always and every- 
 where ourselves, and to oppose to the 
 temptations of the world the consistency 
 of a matured and practised habit of self- 
 control.
 
 124 TO WARDS EVENING. 
 
 August 23. 
 There grew up in the world the true 
 vine and the branches — the one world-wide 
 organization ; the one life-giving society of 
 men, united by baptism, faith, and wor- 
 ship ; by submission to one Authority ; by 
 the recognition of one visible Head — the 
 sole Fountain of supernatural knowledge 
 and supernatural power. 
 
 August 24. 
 
 Ceremonies are a mere mask to the 
 unbelieving and the undevout. They are 
 the folds of the Divine Presence, the coun- 
 tenance of the unseen Majesty to those 
 that believe and love.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 125 
 
 August 25. 
 
 Our everyday life abounds in manifold 
 opportunities of self-discipline ; we shall 
 find them in the hours of prayer, in the 
 practice of charity, in almsdeeds, in fast- 
 ing, in abstinence, in straitening our ease, 
 in abstaining from lawful and, to our- 
 selves, expedient things for others' sakes, in 
 curbing our pleasures, in bearing slander, 
 in forgiving injuries, in obeying our supe- 
 riors, in yielding to our equals, in giving 
 up our liberty for the good of others, in 
 crossing the daily intentions of our will.
 
 126 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 August 26. 
 Whereinsoever you resolve to forsake 
 anything for Christ's sake, bear the trial 
 patiently, and wait for the end. There 
 must be some irksomeness, nay, some 
 galling edge, some burden in our yoke, or 
 we have need to look well lest we be cany- 
 ing a mere mocking shadow of His Cross. 
 
 August 27. 
 Remember God, forget yourselves, and 
 forget yourselves in remembering God. 
 
 August 28. 
 The loving compassion, active emotion 
 of pity, the tears and tenderness with which 
 the holiest men have ever dealt with the 
 sinful, is a proof that, in proportion as sin 
 loses its power over them, their sympathy 
 with those that are afflicted by its oppres- 
 sive yoke becomes more perfect.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 127 
 
 August 29. 
 
 Sinners put the worst construction on 
 each other's words and acts. They have 
 no consideration or forbearance. Their 
 apparent sympathy is but- a fellowship in 
 the same disobedience. And so also the 
 sympathy of the world ; how hollow, formal, 
 and constrained it is ! How little soothing 
 or consoling in our sorrows and trials are 
 worldly friends, even the kindest-hearted 
 of them ! And why, but because it is 
 peculiarly the property of true sanctity to 
 be charitable ? And in the grace of charity 
 is contained gentleness, compassion, tender- 
 ness of hand in touching the wounds of 
 other men, fair interpretations, large allow- 
 ances, ready forgiveness.
 
 128 TOWARDS E VEXING. 
 
 August 30. 
 Our life from first to last teaches us 
 this lesson : it is one continuous whole, 
 gathering up itself through all its course, 
 and perpetuating its earliest features in its 
 latest self; the child is in the boy, the boy 
 is in the man, the man is himself for ever. 
 
 August 31. 
 Count all things loss, that you may win 
 the truth, without which the inheritance of 
 God's kingdom is not ours. Labour for it, 
 and weary yourselves until you find it ; and 
 forget not that if your religion be indefinite, 
 you have no true knowledge of your Saviour; 
 and if your belief be uncertain, it is not the 
 faith by which we can be saved.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 129 
 
 September i. 
 If the first hour of every day were spent 
 in the presence, certain though unseen, of 
 our guardian Angel, or of our patron Saint, 
 our whole day would be restrained and 
 elevated by it. 
 
 September 2. 
 
 Angels' hands have been about you 
 from the waters of Holy Baptism. Their 
 guidance, unseen, unfelt, has drawn you 
 again and again from ills which your hearts 
 had chosen. In seasons of weakness they 
 have stayed you up ; in the hour of waver- 
 ing they have kept you from falling.
 
 I30 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 September 3. 
 
 Satan knows well that if he can separate 
 religion from instruction, he has cut through 
 the roots of the Christian civilization of 
 the world. For that reason all the art, all 
 the wiles, all the frauds, all the false 
 politics of this day, are directed to what 
 is called secular education, national educa- 
 tion, imperial education — anything you 
 like, only not Christian education.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 131 
 
 September 4. 
 
 The widow's cake and the widow's 
 mite, and the cup of cold water, and the 
 spices that were bought, but never needed, 
 for Jesus was already risen ; and every kind 
 word, and gentle tone, and loving watch- 
 fulness in little things, by which the 
 humblest and most homely life is turned 
 to gold, and transfigured in secret before 
 God and the guardian Angels ; — all these 
 shall have a measure of bliss and glory 
 which the world cannot conceive, because 
 it seeth not the Holy Ghost, neither 
 knoweth Him.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 September 5. 
 Whatever else we forego, we may not 
 forego our prayers ; whatever else is at our 
 will to give up, this is not ; however 
 necessary we may think other things, this 
 is the thing needful above all ; our work 
 must be done, and yet our devotions must 
 not be left undone. 
 
 September 6. 
 Perfect beings may be tempted as the 
 Angels ; and sinless beings as Adam in the 
 garden, Christ in the wilderness.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING, 133 
 
 September 7. 
 
 If we love God with a love of apprecia= 
 tion above all persons and things created, 
 nothing will draw us from His will. This 
 effective love may be calm, and with little, 
 if any, sensible emotion ; but it reigns in the 
 soul, and governs the life in deed, word, 
 and thought, restraining from all that God 
 condemns, and prompting to all that God 
 commands or wills.
 
 134 TOIVARDS EVENING, 
 
 September 8. 
 As the worship we pay the Blessed 
 Virgin is infinitely less than the Divine 
 worship which is due to God only, but 
 immensely greater than the worship we 
 pay to all the Saints — for the Saints are in- 
 numerable, but the Mother of God is one — 
 and as the throne on which she sits is lower 
 by infinite space than the throne of God, 
 but higher by an immensity than all the 
 thrones in the heavenly court, so the gift 
 of piety offers to her continually a love and 
 adoration which is beyond all that we pay 
 or is due to all the Saints. 
 
 September 9. 
 All the day long our life and lot are 
 full of opportunities of doing good, and we 
 allow them to pass away. They are golden 
 opportunities, like the seed-time and the 
 harvest, which, with all their treasures, pass 
 with the year and return no more.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 135 
 
 September 10. 
 We receive grace as a hundred, and we 
 correspond as twenty ; or we receive as 
 twenty, and correspond as one. 
 
 September 11. 
 
 God looks in compassion on our heavy 
 hours and mournful days, our secret in- 
 dignation, our shame which burns inwardly, 
 our bruised and trembling hearts. 
 
 Septemiber 12. 
 
 There was never any one whose life 
 was fuller of endless employments, or more 
 broken by countless interruptions, than the 
 life of our Blessed Lord. This may show 
 us that the most laborious may be the 
 holiest of Saints.
 
 136 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 September 13. 
 Though martyrdom by the scaffold or 
 the sword be past, there are other martyr- 
 doms to be suffered. There is the mart)n-- 
 dom of charity in the pestilence, the 
 mart}Tdom of zeal in wearing our life and 
 strength for the souls of men ; there is the 
 martyrdom of a will, prompt and ready for 
 life or for death, in behalf of the truth and 
 the Church. 
 
 September 14. 
 Our character is our will ; for what we 
 -unil we are. 
 
 September 15. 
 
 How many spring-times and seed-times 
 have we lost ! how many a summer is past 
 without a harvest ! how many an autumn 
 without a vintage !
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 137 
 
 September 16. 
 Obedience to the Will of God is a 
 work of direct and simple consciousness. 
 It is to be wrought in us by its own self- 
 confirming power. It is by doing the 
 Will of God ; by recognizing it in all the 
 changes of life ; by reading the expression 
 of the Divine mind in the course of this 
 troubled world ; by bowing ourselves down 
 before it under whatsoever guise it may 
 reveal itself; by yielding ourselves in glad- 
 ness of mind both to do and suffer it ; 
 counting it a holy discipline, and a loving 
 correction of our own wilfulness, by 
 praying Him never to stay His Hand till 
 the power and will of self be abolished 
 from our regenerate being.
 
 138 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 September 17. 
 
 Watch over the changes and inclina- 
 tions of your will, for every one bears upon 
 eternity. Every energy lays in another 
 touch upon your deepening character ; 
 every moment fixes its colours with a 
 greater steadfastness. 
 
 September 18. 
 Do your little duties, which most men 
 make light of, with great exactness ; for 
 if you will faithfully do your lesser duties, 
 your greater duties, I may say, will take 
 care of themselves.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 139 
 
 September 19. 
 
 Do not be out of heart at the ever- 
 present consciousness of the weakness of 
 your mortal nature. It is well known, 
 and better understood, and more closely 
 scanned by Him, to WTiose perfection you 
 are intimately united. Our weakness and 
 our faults are left to abide in us, that we 
 may learn the perfection of hating what 
 God abhors. 
 
 September 20. 
 
 Alas for the man that is too busy to 
 pray, for he is too busy to be saved ! 
 Alas for us ! What would they judge 
 those Saints of old, who wore the very 
 stones with their perpetual kneeling ?
 
 140 TOWARDS EVENIXG. 
 
 September 21. 
 How shall any one who knows himself 
 to be a simple expression of the Will of 
 God, together with a little dust from the 
 earth, have confidence in self? 
 
 September 22. 
 There are two things which are never 
 apart — perfect sanctity and perfect unity ; 
 and these are as the two witnesses of God, 
 which stand beside "the truth as it is in 
 Jesus."
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 141 
 
 September 23. 
 Every man has his own particular 
 character, and every character its own 
 particular cast. We have our character- 
 istic faults, and our characteristic weak- 
 ness. Bev/are of those particular forms of 
 temptation which have already once held 
 you in their power, or sapped your better 
 resolutions. 
 
 September 24. 
 Who knows what graces he has lost, 
 and may be losing at this moment, from 
 want of aspiration ?
 
 142 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 September 25. 
 The most precious thing we have, next 
 to grace, is time ; and we owe an account 
 of our time, as we owe an account of our 
 grace. 
 
 September 26. 
 
 We may learn, from our Blessed Lord's 
 temptation in the wilderness, that it is no 
 sin to be tempted ; nor is our being 
 tempted any proof of our being sinful. 
 This is a most consolatory thought; for, 
 among the afflictions of life, few are so 
 bitter and perpetual as temptation. Sor- 
 rows, pains, disappointments, crosses, 
 oppositions, are not to be compared in 
 suffering to the inward distress of being 
 tempted to evil deeds, words, desires, and 
 thoughts.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 143 
 
 September 27. 
 Remember always that the things of 
 God must be done in God's way. 
 
 September 28. 
 Every duty, even the least duty, in- 
 volves the whole principle of obedience ; 
 and little duties make the will dutiful, that 
 is, supple and prompt to obey. Little 
 obediences lead into great. " He that is 
 faithful in that which is least is faithful 
 also in much."
 
 144 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 September 29. 
 External splendour of worship is good, 
 but internal truth and reality in the worship 
 of God is better. 
 
 September 30. 
 The softness, and the glare, and the 
 temptations, and the licence, and the lax 
 examples that are about us, are more 
 seducing and dangerous than the winter 
 of penal laws. They hardened the man- 
 hood of Catholic parents. The summer 
 sun relaxes many.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 145 
 
 October i. 
 At no time is the protection of Angels 
 and the help of God more near to us than 
 when "the blast of the mighty is like a 
 whirlwind beating against a wall." 
 
 October 2. 
 If we choose God above all things, 
 and break with the world, we shall have 
 our share in the Cross ; but we shall bless 
 God for it in all its forms, knowing it to 
 be the pledge of His love and care.
 
 146 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 October 3. 
 
 A SOUL has an endless capacity : either 
 of bliss, which is the participation of the 
 beatitude of God ; or of an agony which 
 the heart of man cannot conceive. 
 
 October 4. 
 
 Holy fear, filial piety, and fortitude 
 form the perfection of children of the poor, 
 and of the poor in spirit, such as S. 
 Francis, S. Philip, S. Charles.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 147 
 
 October 5. 
 The most perfect prayers are those 
 of Saints and of little children, because 
 in both there is the same freedom from 
 the hard, unconcerned, self-contemplative 
 habit of mind which besets the common 
 sort of Christians, and the same presence 
 of awe, tenderness of conscience, simplicity 
 and truth. 
 
 October 6. 
 
 Be this our one end in life, to cleanse 
 our hearts, that we may behold more and 
 more of the beauty and the splendour of 
 the Divine Presence, that we may see God 
 in all His creatures, in all His providence, 
 in all the events and changes, and the 
 calls and chastisements of life.
 
 148 TOWARDS EVENING, 
 
 October 7. 
 Your place, your crown, your ministry 
 in God's unseen kingdom, are all marked 
 out for you. 
 
 October 8. 
 
 The unity and universality of Chris- 
 tianity and of the Church in which it was 
 divinely incorporated, and of Christendom 
 which the Church has created, exclude and 
 convict, as new, fragmentary, and false, all 
 forms of Christianity which are separate 
 and local.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 149 
 
 October 9. 
 
 We are answerable not only for what 
 we know, but for what we might know. 
 Whensoever the light comes within the 
 reach of our sight, or the voice within the 
 reach of our ear, we are bound to follow 
 it, to inquire and to learn ; for we are 
 answerable not only for what we can do 
 by absolute power now, but for what we 
 might do if we used all the means we have ; 
 and therefore, whensoever the Church of 
 God comes into the midst of us, it lays all 
 men under responsibility. 
 
 October 10. 
 
 Be always beginning ; never think that 
 you can relax, or that you have attained 
 the end.
 
 ISO 70 WARDS EVENING. 
 
 October ii. 
 
 The life of our Lord exhibits to us the 
 most perfect example of constant employ- 
 ments. If anything in it be prominent, 
 it is the multitude of works, the never- 
 ending service of all that came or sent for 
 Him, in sick chambers, in homes of 
 sorrow, in synagogues, in Pharisees' houses, 
 in the temple, in the mid-stream of men. 
 
 October 12. 
 
 There are two lessons taught us by all 
 the Saints of God. The one is, that they 
 and we. Religious and Secular, as our 
 names may be, are bound, by law of our 
 supernatural existence, to love each other's 
 perfection ; the other is, that we rejoice in 
 each other's works.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 151 
 
 October 13. 
 
 Our hidden life with God is the very 
 soul of our spiritual being in our own home, 
 in the Church, and in the world. 
 
 October 14. 
 
 There are few more thrilling words in 
 Holy Scripture than these : '* There are 
 just men and wise men, and their works 
 are in the hand of God, and yet man 
 knoweth not whether he be worthy of love 
 or hatred."
 
 TOIVARDS EVENING. 
 
 October 15. 
 To stand apart from the throng of earthly 
 things, and to let them hurry by as they 
 will, and whither they will, is the only 
 sure way to calmness and clearness in the 
 spiritual life. 
 
 October 16. 
 There can be no real fear, or reverence, 
 or seriousness of heart, until a man has 
 come to understand, at least in some 
 measure, what he is ; that is, to realize his 
 own awful structure and destiny.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 153 
 
 October 17. 
 
 It is by living much alone with God, 
 by casting off the burden of things not 
 needful to our inner life, that we become 
 familiar with the world unseen. 
 
 October 18. 
 One mind and one will fuses and holds 
 in perfect unity the whole multitude of the 
 faithful throughout all ages, and through- 
 out all the world.
 
 154 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 October 19, 
 We are most liable to temptation at 
 times when we think ourselves least likely 
 to be overcome ; when things have been 
 going on smoothly ; when we have been 
 long unmolested by assaults. There are 
 times when we have need to watch with 
 tenfold care, lest, through our slackness 
 of security, peace should be more dangerous 
 to us than temptation. 
 
 October 20. 
 
 The least act of pure love is more pre- 
 cious in God's sight than a whole ocean 
 of charitable works and contributions 
 which are mixed up and debased by worldly 
 fashion, excitement, and self in its thousand 
 forms.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 155 
 
 October 21. 
 
 There are two things which God hates, 
 backsliding and lukewarmness ; and there 
 are two which He will avenge, an alienated 
 heart and a will at war with His. 
 
 October 22. 
 
 If we take all things as from God, and 
 behold all things as in the light of the 
 brightness of His coming, all shall be well.
 
 i:;6 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 October 23. 
 We are sent into this world, that by 
 our own will and choice we should deter- 
 mine our eternal portion. Our eternal 
 state will be no more than the carrying out 
 of what we are now. 
 
 October 24. 
 What a life is ours ! We serve God 
 by fits and by starts ; we have cold fits and 
 hot fits, like men in an ague, like those 
 that are struck by fever ; sometimes we are 
 in earnest, sometimes we give up ; we are 
 carried away by gusts of temptation ; a 
 frown of the world will kill off all our good 
 resolutions. Such is our life ! perpetually 
 tossed to and fro like waves of the sea.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 157 
 
 October 25. 
 Forwardness is a part of the lawless- 
 ness of these days, and shows a decline 
 of the finer instincts of womanhood, and 
 a loss of that decisive Christian conscience 
 which can distinguish not only between 
 what is right and wrong, but between what 
 is dignified and what is undignified both 
 for woman and for man. 
 
 October 26. 
 
 The friends that love you and speak 
 fair and soft things to you are not friends 
 compared to those who look upon you 
 with sharp eyes, and speak with cold 
 voices, and bear unkind hearts. They 
 try what you are ; they try your patience, 
 the spirit of your humility — whether you 
 have a crucified will, which is the sure 
 mark of the true disciple of Jesus Christ.
 
 158 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 October 27. 
 
 The will fell by the unbelief of Eve, the 
 first virgin, and was restored through the 
 faith of Maiy, the second Virgin. The 
 first Eve listened to the tempter, and fell ; 
 the second Eve listened to the angel, and 
 believed. 
 
 October 28. 
 
 God attracts us to Him by instincts, and 
 desires, and aspirations after a happiness 
 higher than sense, and more enduring, 
 more changeless, than this mortal life. God 
 speaks to us articulately in the stirring life 
 of nature, and the silence of our own being.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 159 
 
 October 29. 
 
 To doubt of God's love brings winter 
 into the soul ; to feel it feebly and faintly 
 is as the cloudy and churlish sky, which 
 hinders the ripening influence of the light. 
 
 October 30. 
 Remember that falls are not always by 
 the grosser sins which the world takes 
 count of, but by spiritual sins, subtle and 
 secret, which leave no stain upon the out- 
 ward life.
 
 i6o TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 October 31. 
 Let us read the traces of God's loving 
 Hand in all our ways — in all the events, 
 the changes, the chances of this troubled 
 state. It is God that dispenses all. 
 
 November i. 
 The Saints, by their intercession and 
 their patronage, unite us with God. They 
 watch over us, they pray for us, they 
 obtain graces for us. Our guardian Angels 
 are round about us. The man who has not 
 piety enough to ask their prayers must have 
 a heart but little like to the love and vene- 
 ration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
 
 TOWARDS EVENIXG. i6i 
 
 November 2. 
 
 The Catholic Church, the true Mother 
 of souls, cherishes with loving memory all 
 her departed. Never does a day pass but 
 she prays for them at the altar ; never 
 does a year go by that there is not a special 
 commemoration of her children departed, 
 on one solemn day, which is neither feast 
 nor fast, but a day of the profoundest piety 
 and of the deepest veneration.
 
 1 62 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 November 3. 
 
 How different all will look upon a death- 
 bed ! Then a new and true light will 
 reveal a multitude of secrets, and show 
 much that we never believed pc^ssible. 
 How different all will appear when we 
 look back upon our earthly life from the 
 world beyond the grave in the hour of the 
 particular judgment, and at the moment of 
 entering Purgator}', and at the general 
 judgment of the last day ! Then all masks 
 shall be taken off from all faces, and we 
 shall know as we are known, and see as 
 we are seen. Then many who have seemed 
 to know each other — parents, children, 
 friends, pastors, penitents — shall know 
 each other for the first time, and wonder 
 at the vain show in which they lived and 
 died.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 163 
 
 November 4. 
 S. Charles teaches all men that their 
 work is what they are ; that to do one 
 thing and to be another is impossible ; 
 that if they would teach men to serve God, 
 they must do His Will ; if they would 
 bring souls to contrition, they must live in 
 penance. 
 
 November 5. 
 Shrink from no sorrow, so it be purify- 
 ing. Our evils and our sins lie so deep, 
 they must needs be long in the refiner's 
 fire. Pray rather that, if need be, you 
 may be tried seven times, so that all may 
 be clean purged out.
 
 1 64 TO WARDS EVE XING. 
 
 November 6. 
 As we die so shall we be — our character 
 running on into eternity. The bent, dis- 
 position, inclination of the soul, with all its 
 powers and affections, shall endure, and 
 abide with us for ever ; with this only 
 change — that we shall be either better or 
 worse, for good or for evil, absolute and 
 changeless. 
 
 November 7. 
 O WHAT an hour, when God shall 
 come, and all His holy Angels, and all the 
 children of the kingdom — all who have 
 loved, served, waited, suffered for Him — 
 the first and the last — all in perfect same- 
 ness, recognition, bliss, and splendour ; 
 their raiment white and glistening, and 
 their countenance as the sun shineth in 
 his strenn:th !
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 165 
 
 November 8. 
 That in us which shall never die is 
 changing daily, is being moulded or marred 
 according as we yield to or resist the 
 working of His Word and Spirit — is taking 
 the eternal stamp of good or ill. 
 
 November 9. 
 All depends on perseverance. With* 
 out this nothing avails. The grace and 
 perfection and splendour of the Angels 
 could not save them. The daily fellow- 
 ship with Jesus, His doctrines and miracles, 
 and three years of His presence, did not 
 save Judas. The gift of regeneration, and 
 of the sacraments of grace, were all in 
 vain to Ananias and Sapphira. All ahke 
 lacked one thing, and that one thing lack- 
 ing lost them all things. They had not 
 perseverance ; and though they had every- 
 thing else, nothing without this was of any 
 avail.
 
 i66 rOlVARDS EVENING. 
 
 November lo. 
 How carelessly men treat themselves ! 
 They live as if they had no souls. In their 
 traffic of this life they scheme as if they 
 were to live for ever. In their preparation 
 for death they trifle as if there were no life 
 beyond the grave. 
 
 November ii. 
 Fearful thought! we were born alone, 
 and alone we must die ; and yet through 
 all our life we, as it were, flee from lone- 
 liness, which is alike the beginning and the 
 ending of our earthly transit.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 167 
 
 November 12. 
 God knows from all eternity who will 
 be saved, and how many they will be. He 
 does not diminish the number by refusing 
 salvation to the willing ; and He will not 
 multiply the number by forcing the free 
 will of those who will not believe. 
 
 November 13. 
 Truly, to know what we are before 
 God, we must take our whole life, with 
 its context, and read it in the light of 
 God's love and providential care. Guilt is 
 a complex thing — a balance of many par- 
 ticulars on God's part and on ours. It is 
 our sins multiplied by His mercies ; our 
 transgressions by His gifts of light and 
 grace.
 
 1 68 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 November 14. 
 
 Remember that no penitent soul can 
 perish. And no soul that loves God can 
 be lost. 
 
 November 15. 
 
 We shall be tried by that which we have 
 known and done ; and we shall be com- 
 pelled to lay our hand upon our mouth, 
 and to confess that in all our life we never 
 did evil, in thought, word, or deed, but we 
 might have refrained from doing it, and 
 might have done good instead if we had 
 had the will ; that every act of evil was a 
 free act, and an irrational and immoral 
 abuse of our will.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 169 
 
 November 16. 
 A SIGN of mental obedience is devotion 
 to the Saints. They are our examples. 
 Their counsels, their sayings, their instincts, 
 are our rule and admonition. S. PhiHp bids 
 us read authors who have S. before their 
 name. 
 
 November 17. 
 Many of the Saints, as S. Charles, con- 
 fessed every day. We wonder what they 
 could find to accuse themselves of. It was 
 because they were Saints that they saw so 
 much where we see so little.
 
 70 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 November i8. 
 The fall of Demas is near to us all. He 
 was weary of the Apostolic life, of labours, 
 watchings, and fastings. It was a life of 
 counsels ; the life of the commandments 
 was enough for such as he. How fair and 
 reasonable all this appears ; ho«- like the 
 reasoning and the lives of many at this 
 day ! 
 
 November 19. 
 Every substance in the world has its 
 shadow ; you cannot separate the shadow 
 from the substance. Where the substance 
 moves, the shadow follows. So every sin 
 has its pain ; it matters not whether we 
 think of it or no, whether we believe it 
 or no.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 November 20. 
 We may fast in the midst of the world, 
 in its business and distractions, even when 
 compelled to be present in the midst of its 
 feastings. Let it be a matter between 
 ourselves and God. 
 
 November 21. 
 Live as you would wish to die, because 
 as you die, so you will be to all eternity. 
 Precisely that character which you have 
 woven for yourself through life, by the 
 voluntary acts of free will, be it for good 
 or for evil, that will be your eternal state 
 before God. As the tree falls, so shall it 
 be. Make one mistake, and that mistake 
 is made for ever.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 November 22. 
 Every good action has a merit, that is, 
 a certain conformity to the Will of God ; 
 and every evil action has a merit, that is, 
 a deformity, which will be followed by 
 punishment. 
 
 November 23. 
 As there is a heaven, so there is a hell. 
 As there is eternal life, so there is eternal 
 death. If there be a God Who is holy, 
 just, pure, true, and unchangeable, then, if 
 man is impure, unjust, unholy, and false, 
 and will not change by repentance, God 
 and that soul cannot unite in eternity.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 173 
 
 November 24. 
 There is no sin that has ever been 
 committed that has not been followed by 
 its measure of judicial pain. It must be 
 some day expiated, either by bearing it 
 here or bearing it hereafter ; or by a loving 
 sorrow prevailing with God, through the 
 Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, to wash 
 out from the book of His remembrance 
 that great debt of accumulated sin. 
 
 November 25. 
 It is so easy for men to be lost. Look 
 back only on your own life. It has been 
 perhaps chequered all along alternately 
 with states of sin and states of grace. It 
 may be there have been seasons of mortal 
 sin only for a day, in which, if God had 
 cut us off before the sun went down, salva- 
 tion would have been impossible to all 
 eternity.
 
 174 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 November 26. 
 Every wound borne now will be glorified, 
 every stigma will have its radiance, and 
 every sorrow will be turned into joy, when, 
 through the perseverance of fortitude, all 
 who have suffered with our Lord shall 
 reiarn with Him in His kingdom. 
 
 November 27. 
 Strive to live in a perpetual readiness 
 to die ; and this you will attain, if you 
 learn to love our Lord's Presence now.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 175 
 
 November 28. 
 Better, far better, to wear now "in 
 the body the marks of the Lord Jesus," 
 that we may be arrayed at the last day 
 in white raiment, than to be full of the 
 gifts of this life, to be served and wor- 
 shipped by the world, and at that day to 
 stand before His piercing eyes, naked and 
 defiled, and all men see our shame. 
 
 November 29. 
 It will be a day of reversing many an 
 unequal lot, when Christ shall distribute 
 the rewards of His kingdom, not according 
 to our thoughts and judgments, but accord- 
 ing to the spiritual and universal condition 
 by which He has proved His own elect. 
 "Many that are first shall be last, and the 
 last first."
 
 176 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 November 30. 
 
 Any suffering in this world, rather than 
 to perish in the world to come. Any 
 shame now, rather than shame before 
 Christ at His coming with the Holy 
 Angels. 
 
 December i. 
 
 Theologians teach that many belong 
 to the Church who are out of its visible 
 unity. As a moral truth, to be out of 
 the Church is no personal sin except to 
 those who sin in being out of it. That is, 
 they will be lost, not because they are 
 geographically out of it, but because they 
 are culpably out of it.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 177 
 
 December 2. 
 One of the chief reasons why we find 
 it so hard to pray, one of the chief causes 
 of our distraction, wandering, and all in- 
 devotion, is the infrequency and shortness 
 of our prayers. 
 
 December 3. 
 
 Fortitude has three signs by which 
 it may be known. The first is silence 
 under pain : *' Jesus held His peace." The 
 second is meekness : " He opened not 
 His mouth." The third is gladness under 
 wrongs : Peter and John rejoiced that they 
 were counted worthy to suffer for the Name 
 of Christ.
 
 178 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 December 4. 
 
 They who recognize, by the light of 
 faith, the sovereignty of God in all things, 
 will recognize the sovereignty of God in 
 the daily and hourly details of their own 
 personal life and in the changes of their 
 lot. 
 
 December 5. 
 No sin can be small which is a great 
 offence against a great God — against a 
 great majesty, a great authority, a great 
 purity, a great justice, a great truth. No ; 
 not the least venial sin that was ever com- 
 mitted can be absolved but through the 
 Precious Blood which was shed upon the 
 Cross. Little sins ! God have mercy on 
 those who talk this language !
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 179 
 
 December 6. 
 Steadily live up to the light you possess. 
 The light you already have is great, and 
 great, therefore, must be your obedience. 
 
 December 7. 
 The grace of the Holy Ghost is in you ; 
 and grace is better than life, as the soul 
 is precious above the body, and eternity 
 above time. Grace is the finger of God 
 upon the soul. 
 
 December 8. 
 The first and, till then, the greatest work 
 of the new creation was the singular and 
 pre-eminent sanctification, or immaculate 
 conception, of the Blessed Mother of God. 
 She was the firstfruits of the Holy Ghost ; 
 the only soul, since the innocence of the 
 first Adam and of the first Eve in Paradise, 
 on whom original sin had never cast its 
 shadow.
 
 I So TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 December 9. 
 O WONDER of love, O Friend all gentle, 
 all pure, all wise, in Whose Presence to 
 abide, under Whose loving gaze to dwell, 
 is heaven — shall we indeed see Thy beauty? 
 O Love, greater than love of man, Love 
 of God, Love eternal, which created me, 
 suffered for me, died for me, bare with me 
 in my long, blind, stubborn rebellions, 
 spared, shielded, restrained, converted me 
 by holy inspirations and the pleadings of 
 tender upbraiding — do I now see Thee 
 face to face ? 
 
 December 10. 
 Fervour consists in these three things — 
 regularity, punctuality, and exactness. That 
 is, doing our duty to God by rule ; doing it 
 punctually at the right time j and exactly, 
 that is, as perfectly as we can.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. i8i 
 
 December ii. 
 In the true Paradise there shall be no 
 seasons nor vicissitudes ; no sweat of the 
 face, nor hard toil for bread. An ever- 
 lasting noontide shall be there ; an endless 
 spring in the newness of unfading joy ; a 
 perpetual autumn in the ripeness of its 
 gifts. 
 
 December 12. 
 
 The severest life without a conscious 
 choice is less than the least acts of self- 
 impoverishment with a clear and single 
 aim of foregoing something that we may 
 find it in His kingdom.
 
 1 82 TOWARDS EVEN J AG. 
 
 December 13. 
 
 None have more cause to fear than those 
 
 who are fearless in such a world and in 
 
 such a warfare ; for none are more in 
 
 danger than those who think they are safe. 
 
 December 14. 
 
 If God has given you the perfect illumi- 
 nation of faith, He has laid on you the 
 obligation of having the largest and most 
 perfect charity towards those that are dis- 
 inherited of the great heirloom which you 
 have received.
 
 TVIVARDS EVENING. 183 
 
 December 15. 
 
 The love of God super omnia in that 
 measure detaches the heart from creatures, 
 and they who are detached from creatures 
 are liberated from a manifold bondage. 
 
 December 16. 
 It is by living in our plain path of duty, 
 but with an habitual remembrance of the 
 coming of our Lord ; by using the world as 
 we use our daily food, not so much from 
 choice as from necessity, and yet with no 
 unthankful suUenness, but with gladness, 
 and singleness of heart ; by being ever 
 ready, both for the duties of the day and 
 for the coming hour of judgment ; — by this 
 twofold discipline of self a true Christian 
 is so prepared, that the day of Christ can 
 neither come too late nor too soon for him-
 
 [84 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 December 17. 
 
 The most fearful and wonderful of mys- 
 teries is man. To be ever changing, and yet 
 to be immortal ; that, after this changeful 
 life ended, there should be life everlasting, 
 or the worm that dieth not, bespeaks some 
 deep counsel of God, some high destiny of 
 
 December 18. 
 
 If the heart be right with God, He will 
 weigh the rest in a balance of compassion.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 185 
 
 December 19, 
 When the heart is united with God, all 
 its first acts are benign. A heart full of 
 charity makes a head full of just interpre- 
 tations and of kindly judgments. 
 
 December 20. 
 What is it that keeps us perpetually 
 straining and moiling and wearing our- 
 selves away, but some desire which is not 
 chastened, some thought of the heart which 
 is not dead to this worldly state? What 
 makes us lament the flight of time and the 
 changes of the world, but that we are still a 
 part of it, and share its life ? What makes 
 us die so hard, but that we leave behind 
 us more treasures than we have laid up in 
 heaven ; that our hearts are not there, but 
 here ?
 
 [86 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 December 21. 
 Those that love God can never imagine 
 for Him any perfection of love and tender- 
 ness which goes beyond the truth, or even 
 reaches towards the exceeding depth of 
 His compassion. To those who love Him, 
 God is a perpetual Object of loving con- 
 templation ; and as He is contemplated, 
 He is more and more perfectly known 
 with the knowledge which comes by the 
 heart. 
 
 December 22. 
 As the thermometer tells the measure of 
 heat or cold, so our sanctification goes 
 onward or backward, just in proportion as 
 we mortify ourselves.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 1S7 
 
 December 23. 
 The Council of Trent teaches that God 
 never forsakes any one who does not for- 
 sake Him first ; secondly, that if we for- 
 sake Him it is our own free act ; and 
 thirdly, that our own act is by our own 
 free will, so that if we fail of eternal life it 
 is by our own wilful fault. 
 
 December 24. 
 It would make us all fervent if, when 
 we go to the Altar, we were to say, " This 
 may be my last Communion ; " or, in our 
 Confession, *' This may be my last Absolu- 
 tion."
 
 1 88 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 December 25. 
 
 Sense beheld in Jesus of Nazareth a 
 man ; intellect, a man endowed with super- 
 natural powers ; faith, the Word made 
 flesh. 
 
 December 26. 
 
 A FATHER of the desert was one day 
 asked in vision whether he would desire to 
 see a soul more perfect than himself. He 
 was carried to a poor home, where he saw 
 a mother toiling for her children. It was 
 a humble likeness of the Holy House ; and 
 under that roof were cares, anxieties, 
 weariness, privations, labour, self-denials, 
 glad submission of will, tenderness of 
 affection, pity and service, and filial piety 
 to God. These things are a discipline of 
 perfection, which subdue the heart and 
 keep it humble before God and man.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 189 
 
 December 27. 
 None ever graced a marriage-feast as 
 He Who knew not the very taste of earthly 
 happiness. None was ever so meek, gentle, 
 and benign as He that was alive to God 
 alone. 
 
 December 28. 
 Little children, in their innocence, 
 which is akin to the sanctity of God, are 
 wiser than all their teachers, and have 
 understanding above their elders.
 
 I90 TOWARDS EVENING. 
 
 December 29. 
 Better or worse we must perforce grow 
 to be : nearer to the mind of Christ, or fur- 
 ther from the fellowship of God. 
 
 December 30. 
 O BLESSED hour, after all the sorrows, 
 and wrongs, and falsehoods, and darkness, 
 and burdens of life, to see God face to 
 face ; to be made sinless with an exceeding 
 strength ; to be as the light, in which there 
 *' is no darkness " ! Be this our hope, our 
 chiefest toil, our almost only prayer.
 
 TOWARDS EVENING. 191 
 
 December 31. 
 
 What matter, then, a little pain, a little 
 sorrow, a little penance, a few crosses, if, 
 after a little while, there be an inheritance 
 of eternal joy ?
 
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