through His prophet foretold should be the privilege of the New Law: 'In that day,' says He, 'I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of prayer' (Zach. xii. 10), a spirit of grace that will urge them to pray without ceasing, and a spirit of prayer that will incessantly draw down on them fresh graces; a double spirit that will keep up a constant communication between our heavenly Father and His children. It is this prayer of the heart to which the apostle St. Paul alludes when he exhorts the faithful to 'pray without ceasing' (i Thess. v. 17), and when he assures them that he continually remembered them in his prayers.
"It is just as easy and quite as natural to the heart to pray without ceasing, as to love always. We can always love God, though we are not always thinking of Him nor always telling Him we love Him. It suffices that we should be resolved at all times, not only never to do anything contrary to this love, but ready to give to God, on every occasion, proof of this by actions inspired by grace. Is it not thus that a mother loves her children, a wife her husband, a friend his friend? The cherished object never comes to our mind without calling forth a feeling of love; we
