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is the glory of the ever-blessed Three; and in the midst of the throne is the Word made flesh; and round about the throne, saints for whom He died; and round about the saints, angels who never were redeemed. And all that heavenly fellowship is ruled by this same one law: all are united by love to the King of saints, all are united to each other. Their whole being cleaves to Him. Every one loves the other as himself; the outermost in that blessed company loves the innermost with a love more perfect as each is nearer to the uncreated Love, and more beloved by Him.

And this law holds not in heaven alone, but also upon earth; for we "are come," now in this present life, "unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem." What is this but the company of heavenly hosts, at unity in itself? All the faithful upon earth, all believing, hoping, loving, penitent hearts in all lands, are gathered by this one law into the unity of the mystical body, and "grow up into Him... which is the Head." The laws of the city of God run down to us. The unity of the heavenly Jerusalem is the source of the unity of the visible Church. It is one on earth, because it is one in heaven. It is one in heaven and earth, because it is united

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in one law. Love is one of the names of Christ, and of His Church. Its visible body is the earthly clothing, the mystical impersonation of the love of God, in which all, whether visible or invisible, are united to Him as the Father is in the Son. The unity of love is a type of the unity of nature. Our Divine Redeemer prayed "that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given them;"—what glory, but the glory of love and unity?" that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me."

1. Let us learn, then, from this great mystery of life, that a soul without love is dead: for a soul without love is a soul without God; and as God is love, so is He life. By nature we were born dead in sin, because without love to God;

1 c Quæ est civitas Dei, nisi sancta Ecclesia? Homines enim amantes se invicem, et amantes Deum suum, qui in illis habitat, faciunt civitatem Deo. Quia lege quadam civitas continetur, lex ipsa eorum, caritas est, et ipsa caritas, Deus est.”—S. Aug. Enarr. in Psalm. xcviii. 4.

2 St. John xvii. 21-23.

but in baptism God gave us a capacity to love Him, an infused and passive habit, making us capable of love. Fallen spirits have lost this capacity, angels possess it in perfection. The regenerate receive it again in a passive disposition by the gift of the Holy Ghost. But that which is passively received must be actively unfolded. A capacity is not an active habit. The spiritual capacities of our regenerate nature, such as faith, hope, and love, are powers subject to the will, and depending on the will for their development into energy and act. But the soul in which the regenerate life is quenched or stifled has no love, and for lack of love is dead. It is parted from God by all the severance of moral and spiritual contradiction. It is cast out of the kingdom of love. As Adam, when he was driven forth out of Eden, had no more any lot in paradise, so the unloving soul is parted from God and Christ, from holy angels and from all saints, both in heaven and earth. Though all the companies of heaven are about him, he is solitary; for a loveless soul has no fellow. He has no inheritance in the city of God, no sympathy in the fellowship of the redeemed. They are united by love, and in that unity the unloving cannot abide. By love the souls of the faithful hang upon God, as the Psalmist says, "It is good for me to hold me fast by God;"

66 my soul hangeth upon Thee." The soul that does not love looses its hold, and falls from the Divine Presence. As it recedes from God, it loses the light of His countenance. It for ever falls lower and lower; becomes darker and darker; grows colder and colder. First it falls under the dominion of self, next under the power of Satan; then it is bound over into the throng and thraldom of fallen angels. Take any example we will, and we shall find it always true: for instance, pride, anger, sullen jealousy, or a stubborn will; these sins drive the Spirit of God away. So, again, love of the world most surely makes men fall from Him: for "if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Sloth also, and pampering of self, wastes away the soul; it brings on fearful departures, and great losses of God's gifts and presence. What are all the tokens and ministries of grace to slothful hearts? They read holy Scripture, but it is a bare letter; they see the surface of the page, but not the light which lies beneath. Though they are sometimes moved with its sublimity and beauty, its power and pathos, yet it is only in the sensitive will and by the animal emotions. Feeling is not love; and with all this seeming religion, the spiritual life of such souls towards God is cold and dark. The same

1 Ps. lxxiii. 27; lxiii. 9.

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is true of their prayers, which are estranged and formal; and still more of their communions. unloving heart before the altar is a sight of fear. All is empty, without form and void; and darkness is upon the face of it; but the Spirit of God does not move upon the face of those waters. Plain truths of the Spirit to such cold hearts are parables; parables are incomprehensible; mysteries have no significance, sacraments no meaning. All is darkness or formality, a hollow, heartless custom. Such a soul is truly and deeply parted from Christ, and under the apostolic sentence; "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha."

And if such be the state of loveless Christians in this life, what shall it be in the life to come? Shall they be near God there, who are far from Him here? Shall they be united to Him in eternity, who have cut themselves off from Him now in time? The separation which now is, shall then bring the doom of eternal loss. From the coldness and darkness of a loveless life, they fall still further from God into "the outer darkness." As the sight of God to them that love Him is the blessedness of heaven, so the loss of the beatific vision is the nethermost hell. Even in this life it begins to veil itself from unloving souls, but there they must be cast out from before His face for