The heart of St. Augustine was so full of the love of God and the sense of what is his due, that he is always represented holding it all aflame in his hands. Old legends tell us how an angel bore it away to a sanctuary, where it will still tremble in its crystal case if an unbeliever enters the church where it is exposed. So tremulously alive to the honor and glory of God should be the hearts that are gathered together in the cloister. How many souls fly thither to make up, as it were, to God what is wanting on the part of their sinful brethren! _Apropos_, I must tell you about one of our nuns, who is full of holy fervor. In the late retreat, the director asked her the subject of her particular examen. "Self-abnegation," was the reply. "Do you find many occasions for practising it?" inquired the _père_. "Not as many as I could wish." "What is the virtue which you particularly ask of our Lord in your devotions, and by the actions of each day?" "I ask for no virtue, _mon père_." "With what intention, then, do you offer them?" "For the conversion of sinners, and the greater glory of God."
Is not this admirable? I am sure many Protestants could hardly comprehend a piety so disinterested as to lose sight, in a measure, of one's own profit in zeal for God's cause.
The facilities are also great in the cloister for the frequent reception of the sacraments, which quicken the moral circulation. The pulsations of the soul are more healthful after the infusion of divine grace through them. I went to holy communion this morning. The Divine Host seemed to me a burning coal from off the altar of God, and the priest, the angel who placed it on my lips. "Our God is a consuming fire." I prayed that he might consume every affection in my heart that was not centred in him; and, as I felt the torrent of divine flame circulating in my veins, every earthly desire, every human passion, seemed to die away within me. For a moment, at least, I felt the signification of the words of the great apostle of the Gentiles, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who liveth in me." Might such moments be perpetuated! But it is of faith that those who have partaken of Christ's body and blood remain in him, and he in them, as long as they are in a state of grace. It is this interior presence of the divinity which animated the saints to the sacrifice, and made even this world, amid all their privations and austerities, a very foretaste of heaven. What sweet solemnity and thoughtfulness reign in the heart sensible of this divine presence! In its light the soul,