had made a deep impression on our hearts, how differently should we feel disposed in approaching that adorable sacrament, wherein the memory of his passion is renewed! Beg of Jesus himself, with the greatest earnestness, to give you the dispositions he requires. O my crucified Saviour! thou didst suffer such torments for my salvation, as would separately have caused thy death, if a miracle did not preserve thy life to endure still more. Why have I been so ungrateful as to forget all thou hast done for my sinful soul? Vouchsafe, O divine Jesus! to enter my heart, notwithstanding its unworthiness; that I may not only learn to die to myself, by reflecting on thy sufferings, but also live to thee, by the efficacy of thy adorable body.
Second point. — Consider the divine Saviour prostrate on the earth, in the Garden of Gethsemani, fainting with grief, and exhausted with a bloody sweat, occasioned by excessive interior anguish, at the view of the sins of all mankind; particularly the ingratitude of those who are loaded with his mercies — the pride and vanity of those who are early instructed in the divine truths of his holy gospel — the tepidity, sloth, and indifference of those from whom he has a right to expect the most ardent love; — in a word, the foresight he had of the abuse of his graces, and the little fruit that many, even among his most favoured servants, would draw from his sacred passion and death. This was truly the chalice which Jesus dreaded to drink, and which made his sacred heart sorrowful even unto death, as we may easily conceive by our own experience, since we feel that an unkind, ungrateful action of a friend, would grieve us more than many injuries heaped on us by an enemy. Consider now* that among all the benefits Jesus Christ
