texts which too often blind us and make us wish to judge, by our own experience, of the value of such an action, towards which we are drawn by a natural inclination, instead of holding exclusively to what the infallible rule pronounces! We are surrounded by "trees of the knowledge of good and evil," objects upon which God has laid the anathema of His law, and which the devices of Satan and the sophistry of our own hearts too often. clothe to our eyes, with an apparent goodness. Now, if encouraged by the voice of error, we stretch forth a presumptuous hand to seize the fruit, what is there that will restrain us upon the verge of the precipice? In such a moment of a powerful and active temptation, what is there that will secure us, if the action towards which we are already irresistibly drawn, appear to us also supported by a thousand plausible and praiseworthy motives? Without any doubt we shall surrender ourselves to that action, or that enjoyment, upon the faith of a lie; and when we come to ourselves we shall be taught, by the bitterness of sin, that we have laid our hand upon an object cursed of God, and that, instead of having tasted a fruit good for food, we have

been drawn into ruin by "the lust of the flesh."

There is something very noble, very worthy of the creature of God, in that love of the beautiful which so powerfully influences man, in that exquisite taste by which he judges of it, and which, before his fall, prepared for him such refined enjoyments. Happy man, had he never separated the beautiful from the good! It is to this love of the beautiful that we owe the sublime productions of genius; happy had they been as pure as they are beautiful! It is to this precious gift that we are indebted also for the sweet admiration with which the works and perfections of God inspire us; happy had that admiration always been a pure homage, like the worship of Eden!

But, alas! here also, mankind have but too faithfully imitated the first woman; they have sought the beautiful out of God, out of the harmony of their will with His will. And since that time, where has been the truly beautiful? There is no beauty, except in the purity of innocence. Eve might have looked a thousand times with a pure admiration on all the trees with which God had adorned

her abode, and even upon that one to which He had attached His command; but now, every glance which she casts upon that object agreeable to the sight, is but an impure desire, as Moses calls it, a lust, as St. John desig-nates it. Such also is our situation among the objects around us, which have been created for our enjoyment. Alas! since we have become sinners, that which to our eyes is clothed with forms and hues of beauty, is often but a curse. Let us be on our guard and watch over ourselves; let us remember that sin does not always present itself to us under its hideous aspect, but more frequently under forms full of beauty, charms, and attractiveness; let us remember that under these captivating flowers are concealed crime and hell; let us remember that the moment that which pleases the eye nourishes lust, there is sin. Eve had fallen before she stretched forth a guilty hand to seize the object of the divine prohibition; she had fallen, for she had opened her heart to lust. Temptation is not sin; the moment the object of the temptation becomes, as to Eve," a desire to the eyes," that desire, before Him who tries the heart, is sin. "He that looketh on a woman to lust after her,

hath already committed adultery with her in his heart," and it is the same with all other sins. Thus the evil which is in man, and which has corrupted all his faculties, converts sight, the most useful and wonderful of all the organs with which God has furnished the human body, that organ by which we are enabled to indulge with enthusiasm in the love of the beautiful, into the most dangerous instrument of seduction; thus sin pollutes the gifts of God, turns them from their original aim, withers all that is beautiful, and transforms our noblest enjoyments into impure lusts of the eyes!

Finally, another element in that perfection, which man was to aim at, was the love of the true, the desire to know; a powerful tendency towards the infinite development of the faculties of the understanding. This gift would have led to the noblest results, the purest enjoyments, and to boundless happiness, had man exercised it in God, and had he made use of it to grow in the knowledge of His works and of His adorable perfections. But, alas! this divine gift becomes, under the influence of the tempter, an element of pride; he attaches to it his fatal and too truly ac

complished promise: "Your eyes shall be opened, ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil;" and with these words insinuate into the heart of the woman, doubt, error, pride, and a guilty ambition, which she proceeds to satisfy by trampling under foot the express command of her God. Yes, it is again out of God, it is at the price of her own ruin and that of her posterity, that she wishes to learn to know good and evil! How have her children followed her footsteps? What use does man make of his noble understanding? What is the object to which the learned man directs the results of his researches, his labours, his lucubrations? To God or to the world, to the glory of God or to the glory which cometh from men? to his own advancement in the knowledge and love of God, or to the satisfying of his pride and vanity? The divine Word hath declared: "There is none that seeketh after God, they are all gone astray." Look at the young man, look at the young woman, in whom the gifts of the understanding are just developed, but to whom every thing in the world and in nature is still new; what is the nourishment with which they feed that understanding? Is it God, His works,