instant been hidden from that Eye since we first drew the breath of life. Every beating of our hearts, every passing thought and feeling, has been seen and marked by God. Every one of us can say and could have said at any moment of our past lives: "God is at this moment looking at me as if I were alone in the world." It is a terrible insensibility, want of feeling and want of reason, not to be ashamed and afraid to do in God's presence what we should be ashamed and afraid to do in the presence of our fellowcreatures.

"If you be determined to commit sin," says St. Augustine, "seek first a place where God will not see you and then do what you please." And this saying of St. Augustine the Abbot Paphnutius reduced to action in order to convert a sinner of Alexandria called Thais, who was dragging many souls to hell. He pretended to ask for a very secret chamber where no one could discover them; and she showed him one. "Not secret enough," he said. Then she opened an inner room, and another and another, each more secret than the preceding one and more securely locked and guarded. But, praying as he must have prayed before daring to use such an expedient, God enabled him to make the wretched sinner feel that in the most secret of those secret places God saw her. The divine grace struck her powerfully, and she resolutely tore herself away from her wicked life. For three years Thais fasted on bread and water, praying and weeping; and yet, being forbidden by Paphnutius to pronounce with her polluted lips the sacred name of God, her prayer was only: "O Thou who hast made me, have mercy on me!" After three years of such penance she was found worthy of the sight of God in heaven, the thought of whose unseen presence on earth had startled her out of her sinful life and made her a saint.

Holy as the book is from which this incident is taken, "The Lives of the Saints," it would be better, if proof were needed for this efficacy of the thought of the Presence of God, to seek for proof in the holiest book of all, God's own inspired Word. In the Old and the New Testament the eye of God, the sight of God, are appealed to as an infallible remedy for sin, as the securest safeguard against temptation, as the most potent stimulus to virtue.

For instance, in the 23rd chapter of Ecclesiasticus, the Holy Ghost speaking through the son of Sirach denounces the impious

Priedieu Papers.

folly of "the man who sins in secret, despising his own soul and Darkness compasses me about, saying: who seeth me? and the walls cover me, and no man seeth me-whom do I fear? And he underThe Most High will not remember my sins? standeth not that the Lord seeth all things, and he knoweth not that His eyes are far brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the ways of men and the bottom of the deep, and looking into the hearts of men, into the most hidden parts. For all things were known to the Lord God before they were created; so also, after they were perfected, He beholdeth all things."

The prophet Ezechiel also, when the hand of the Lord God fell upon him, lifted up his eyes towards the way of the north; and God said to him: "Surely thou seest, O son of man, what abominations the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, for they say The Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth.'" And the prophet falls on his face and cries out (ix, 8) "Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God, wilt Thou, then, destroy all the remnant of Israel by pouring out thy fury upon Jerusalem?" And God said once more to the prophet: "The iniquity of the house of Israel and of Juda is exceeding great, and the land is [And filled with blood, and the city is filled with perverseness." why? The self-same reason over again] "For they have said "The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not.""

Yes, the cry of the sinful heart then and now and at all times is, the Lord seeth not; but the cry of the pure heart, and the cry of the sinful heart that wishes to become pure, is, Dominus videt, "The Lord sees." This word, this thought, quells the tumult of passion, breaks the wicked spell of temptation, and makes malignant and persistent sin impossible. Even the vicarious presence of God, as it might be called-the presence of some of His poor creatures, those especially who mirror least dimly for us some of His divine attributes-their presence, nay the mere thought of them, can vanquish the powers of evil and hold the enemy at bay. But none of God's creatures can be near to us in in which God is near. The nearest is far off. We can the way hide from them, but we cannot hide from God. Dio ed io. Should we be willing that those whom we love and revere should read our hearts at all times as God reads them? We bless God for having jealously reserved this to Himself-Deus intuetur cor-but, on this point more than all, the contrast between creed and conduct has often been mean, dastardly, blasphemous.

We must not, however, think of the presence of God as merely a safeguard against evil but also as an incentive to good. We may venture to introduce this branch of the subject by taking an illustration from an incident in the life of the famous actor, Edmund Kean.* At the outset of his career, performing in some country town, the young man was disheartened one evening by perceiving that the audience was miserably scanty—a few people in the pit and only three persons in the boxes. Nevertheless, having the true spirit of his vocation (such as it was), he did his best. And it was well for him that he did so; for one of the three spectators in the boxes was the manager of the principal London Theatre, whose appreciation of the young actor's talent,

*My authority for this anecdote is the following scrap from some old

newspaper:

"When the curtain drew up," Kean began, "I saw a wretched house. A few people in the pit and gallery, and three persons in the boxes, showed the quantity of attraction that we possessed. In the stage-box, however, there was

a gentleman who appeared to understand acting. He was very attentive to the performance. Seeing this, I was determined to play my best. The strange man did not applaud; but his looks told me that he was pleased. After the play I went into the dressing-room [this was under the stage] to change my dress for The Savage, so that I could hear every word that was said overhead. I heard a gentleman (who I suppose was the gentleman of the stage-box) ask Lee the name of the performer who played the principal character. 'Oh,' answered Lee, his name is Kean- -a wonderful clever tellow; a great little man. He's going to London. He has got an engagement from Mr. Whitbread; a great man, sir.' • Indeed!' replied the gentleman, I am glad to hear it. He is certainly very clever; but he is very small.' His mind is large; no matter for his height,' returned Lee to this. By this time I was dressed for The Savage, and I therefore mounted up to the stage. The gentleman bowed to me, and complimented me slightly upon my play, observing, 'your manager says that you are engaged for London?' 'I am offered a trial,' said I, 'and, if I succeed, I understand I am to be engaged.' 'Well,' said the gentleman, will you breakfast with me in the morning? at the Royal Hotel. I shall be glad to speak to you. My name is Arnold; I am theanager of Drury-lane Theatre.' I staggered as if I had been shot. My acting in The Savage was done for. However I stumbled through the part, andhere I am." After finishing his story he could think and talk of nothing but the approaching interview with the London manager. Morning arrived, and Kean, (after dressing himself as respectably as he could,' says our information) repaired to the Hotel for breakfast. He was received graciously, and after some conversation as to his experience on the stage, his cast of characters, &c., (which occupied the intervals of the meal), he was finally engaged by Mr. Arnold on behalf of Drurylane Theatre for a term of three years, at a salary of eight, nine, and ten pounds per week for each successive year, and he was to have 'six trial parts.' In two hours from the time of his leaving home, he returned to his wife with the above information. He seemed half out of his senses with delight."

I am

as displayed in that evening's performance, led at once to a London engagement and raised Edmund Kean soon to fame and fortune.

You see the application, dear reader. How foolish to look for the applause of the ignorant and the vulgar crowd instead of trying to deserve the approval of those who are really competent judges of excellence. So it is in human things; but the folly of follies is not to strive earnestly to please the Supreme Judge whose eye is upon us always. God sees and knows everything we do and think and feel and suffer, and He knows our spirit and our motives; He marks everything and forgets nothing. How is it possible that we should ever lose sight of this? And how is it possible that, remembering this, we should ever deliberately, I will not say commit sin, but even be slothful and careless about doing the things on which God's Eye will rest with pleasure?

This abiding sense of the divine presence was the very recipe for acquiring perfection proposed by God Himself many centuries before the Incarnate Son of God had issued that strange command: "Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect." Two thousand years earlier than that precept of the Redeemer, the Almighty had said to the patriarch Abraham: Ego Deus omnipotens, ambula coram me et esto perfectus. "I am the omnipotent God: walk before Me and be perfect." (Gen. xvii, 1). And if after this divine authority it were lawful to cite a mere creature, we have the last words of a man so holy and so learned as St. Thomas Aquinas. When he was dying at Fossa Nova, one of the monks asked him what was the best means of being always faithful to grace. The departing Saint replied: "Be assured that he who shall always walk faithfully in God's presence, always ready to give to God an account of all his actions, shall never be separated from God by consenting to sin." Long before St. Thomas, St. Ephrem had said: " Always keep God in remembrance, and your soul will become a heaven." For what is Heaven but the house of God, the home of holiness and peace and praise and prayer, where there is neither sin nor sorrow? And all this is in due measure verified in the soul that keeps God in remembrance.

This holy exercise of the presence of God consists chiefly in a simple and loving remembrance of God as present within us— an act of faith and charity without any straining of the mind or

any effort of the imagination. It need not interfere-quite the contrary—with any of the labours or lawful pleasures of ordinary life. The only thing it interferes with is sin. The thought of God's presence must not check the hearty laugh of innocent mirth. The presence of a kind and loving parent does not sadden good children but makes them happier. So must we feel under the watchful but loving eye of our Father who is in Heaven. Even in this vale of tears, we must be the happy children of the one holy Catholic Church, the true Mother of souls, who teaches us that joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Ghost, who bids us delight in the Lord" with the Psalmist, and imitate the Psalmist also when he says (Ps. Lxxvi, 4): "My soul refused to be comforted-I was mindful of God and was delighted." Nay, the union between God's presence and joy of heart is put forth. in the very passage which has set us meditating on the subject; for there St. Paul, while reminding us that the Lord is nigh, cries out in the same breath: "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say to you, rejoice!"

An easy and profitable way of recalling the presence of God is the practice of holy aspirations-to try and sprinkle short and fervent ejaculations over our day, as the asperges sprinkles the drops of holy water over the heads of the congregation kneeling before Mass in some holy country chapel. To raise the soul. quietly, and with or without a motion of the lips to say in our hearts, "O my God!"-it ought not to be very hard for us to do as much as this sometimes during the course of the day; and even this would remind us very effectually of God's holy presence.

Or (better still) we might fix in our minds the favourite ejaculations of some saints, such as that which we heard a few moments ago from the lips of the penitent Thais: "O Thou who hast made me, have mercy on me!"—or else St. Francis of Assisi with his Deus meus et omnia," My God and my all!"-or those humble words which pleased our Lord greatly in the Gospel: "I believe, O Lord!-help my unbelief "-or finally, that other prayer which pleased our Lord still more: "O God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

A gentle turning of the mind and heart to God, even if unaccompanied by any articulate sigh such as one of these ejaculations, will calm us and strengthen us, and enable us to go on more cheerfully and more steadily with any duty that occupies