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Show SHORT SERMONS. The real blessing, mercy, satisfaction, satisfac-tion, is not in the having or the lack of merely outward things, but in the consciousness that the true sources of life and happiness are deeper than all these. Hope is the virtue which most glorifies glori-fies God. Hope has its root in faith, its fruit in eharity. Father Dignam, S. J. For those who live with their whole J talents dedicated to God's service, death is only the gate of life, the path from joyous work in this world to greater capacities and opportunities for it in the other. -- You will find the mere resolve not to be useless; and the honest desire to help other people,' will, in the quickest quick-est and most delicate ways, also improve im-prove yourself. 1 Sometimes melancholy is greater than it would otherwise be through selfishnessthrough selfish-nessthrough not rejoicing with them that do rejoice. Charity and "sympathy are the natural outcome of suffering. Afflictions Afflic-tions serve a purpose. According as we bear them, their influence for good or evil will be exerted in our souls. But the woman who gets only bitterness bitter-ness out of her trials loses the chance to appropriate treasures. Real tests of charity lie in trifles. It is not the overwhelming griefs, or the great but rare emtrgencies of life which best unveil the soul and show forth its true stature and proportions. Many a man can rise to the heights of occasion and put forth a marvelous strength of will under excitement, who loses his equilibrium in the most unos-tentations unos-tentations battlefields of daily experiences. exper-iences. He vanquishes the giant, and then surrenders to the dwarf. All sorrow can help to create in us a .clean heart and to renew a right spirit within us. Sorrow born of adversity ad-versity may cleanse the heart from much that mars character, and through it a right spirit of sympathy, love and charity may be reborn within us. The sorrow that tears the heart when loved ones depart oft cleans the heart from worldliness. Our thoughts follow them Godward, and thus within us is reborn re-born a right spirit of faith in him who is with us when we pass through the valley of the shadow of death. Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation con-solation in the things of God or to suffer and keep their ground in dryness dry-ness of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it. The person who is never guilty of follies is less wise than he who some times commits them and then has the courage to laugh at them genially with his neighbor. It is the impeccable man, too, who can make the most conscientious con-scientious rogue. |