II. Consider more in particular what it is to deny one's self. Self-denial properly consists in abandoning one's own will, "stripping yourself of the old man, with his deeds." (Colos. iii. 9.) Think how necessary this is, and, on the contrary, how dangerous it is to follow one's own will and judgment. Examine your conscience on this subject, and see how you may improve in this self-abnegation to the greater glory of God. Without self-denial there can be no true religion or virtue on earth, because the human will is naturally prone to evil, and if not denied it will certainly prefer vice to virtue. No one can be religious or virtuous without imitating the suffering Redeemer.
III. The Apostle exhorts us to carry our cross daily in these words: "Always bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus." (2 Cor. iv. 10.) No day, therefore, ought to pass in which the disciple of Christ does not make some progress in mortification. Hence the learned St. Augustine remarks, "The whole life of a Christian, if he lives according to the Gospel, is a cross and a martyrdom." Embrace, therefore, your cross willingly, and whatever is disagreeable to flesh and blood; for the cross will be a passport to an everlasting life of happiness.
SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.
Christ as a Good Tree.
"Let My Beloved come into His garden and eat of the fruit of His apple-trees." (Cant. v. 1.)
I. It is recorded in the Gospel of to-day that "every good tree yieldeth good fruit." (Matt. vii. 17.) Christ above all others is the Good Tree, and is often com-
