my reins and my heart, and see if there is in me the way of iniquity, and lead me in the eternal way .
VII. But deliver us from evil.
From evils of every kind. As the Church prays in the Mass: Deliver us, O Lord, we beseech thee, from all evils, past, present, and to come; that is, temporal and eternal, both of soul and body.
Secondly, from the evil one; that is, the malignant spirit; that he may have no power of exercising his envy and malice upon us.
Not only those things which influence the soul are here reckoned as evils; but those also which so affect the body, the fortune, and the character, that evil and injury may be feared from them also to the soul. Though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Enlighten mine eyes, that I may never sleep in death, lest at any time my enemy say, I have prevailed against him.
VIII. Amen. So be it, so be it.
This should be pronounced with fervent desire. For the Lord hath heard the desire of the poor. Likewise with great confidence, as asking those things which he has enjoined us to pray for. As St. John says: This is our confidence which we have towards God, that, whatsoever we shall ask according to his will, he heareth us, and we know that we have the petitions which we request of him.
CHAPTER III.
CONTAINING SEVERAL LITANIES TO THE MOST HOLY TRINITY, AND TO EACH OF THE DIVINE PERSONS.
Observe, devout reader, that this and the following Litanies which are chiefly gathered from Holy Scripture, embrace the names, titles, attributes, and divine praises, applied to the divine nature, as well as to each separate person. More of the same kind might have been collected, but that the limits of this little book did not allow it. This, too, is to be said, that if any one, more captious than pious, thinks that these epithets should appear in the vocative rather than in the nominative case, he may supply or understand at such places the words, “Thou who art. Let him, however, remember, that the Church also prays thus; as, for instance, Agnus Dei, &c., miserere nobis: “Lamb of God, &c., have mercy upon us.” And again,
