Reverence and praise are but cmply formulae unless I go a step farther and vitalize my praise and not saying rd, Lord." that I fulfill reverence by service. I
my daty towards God, I must do what God wants me to do. He has down exactly how that is Divine towards my Creator are to be met. As a Catholic T am bound to serve God in the way the Catholic Church requires and in no other. Now let me ask myself a straight question:
I given God the service which natural gratitude to God demands, or have I simply forgotten and ignored God? _T must not hedge in my answer. Tt may be an unpleasant one, but T might as well be straight, for a time will come when T stand face to face with God, when must be straight. I may as well be straight now.
The modern world is eaten up with ambition. Men and women are striving for place, honours, renown in the eyes of their fellow-men. They give themselves up with whole-hearted generosity to the business in which they are interested. Sometimes the methods used to acquire money, the key to social standing, are not above suspicion, and the whole nim and object teems to be to get on. But "what doth it profit a man if gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul," when the moment comes, as come it will, sooner or later, for each and every tone of us to render an account our praise, reveretice, and service. To say that we have made a great, name, have acquired "great wealth, can count, a host of friends, have placed our children in. the highest grade of society will avail nothing.
have failed in our duty to God. All, our honours, friends, social standing and business successes, we must leave behind us, What. will it profit us if we stand before God empty-handed in the things that really count. We "must render to Cesar the things that are Cesar' and to God the things that are God'
It is only right that we should do the best we can in our worldly affairs, but our duty towards' God must net be forgotten. There are Catholic men and women to-day who Sacrifice everything to worldly. ambition. Not merely do they Jeopardise their own. souls, but they make a really good attempt to damn their children's souls as well, and that just to satisfy their social vanity. They do things they know are wrong; they join societies con~ demned by the Church, alist from fulfilling their duties as. Catholics because it is not "the thing" send their children to non-Catholic' and irreligions schools because they are more fashionable; read books which are immoral and contrary to faith because "the best people read. them." What will they think of it all when they stand face to face with God? To come back to myself. What has my service been like? Have I given to Cwsar not only the things of Cesar, bat the things of God Now, went you to take this thought "with—you to-night, Think over it, repeat it again and again until it comes home. made me and I belong to God. I bound to serve Ged. On that service will depend my eternal salvation." God wants the salvation of every soul, He wants all to be happy, but he will not reward unless the reward be merited and the only way to merit is to acknowledge God's supreme dominion by praise, Feverence, and, above all, by service, along the lines God' has Inid down, in the faithful discharge of the duties of one's state of life, for God, and with God.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.