the sacrifice of a young heart to His will and holy ways. Beautiful above all bright things on earth is a young soul stripping itself of its wild wishes, its over-light spirits, its strong loves, desires, and appetites, and sweetest earthly feelings, and flying heavenwards, to receive for its strength and liberty and youth, which it has sacrificed, the youth and freedom and lustiness of an eagle. The world loves youth, for youth is strong to sin. The world would fain count you among her sons. But be not afraid,in the Name of Christ be not afraid. When you are struggling wearily against the pleasures that are about you, when you faint with keeping impure thoughts down with all your might and main, let the Dead in Christ cheer you. Their very voices call out to you from the earth that thinly veils them. Lift up your hearts Christianly; lift up the knees feeble with being bent in prayer, feeble with prayer and fasting, against the lusts of the flesh and the world's gay pomps. Let the Dead in Christ cheer you. THE END. GILBERT & RIVINGTON, Printers, St. John's Square, London. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. I. I BELIEVE IN ONE CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH. THIRD EDITION. Price 3d. II. THE PRAYER-BOOK: A Safeguard against Religious Excitement. Price 3d. III. THE ANCIENT THINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ENGLAND. SECOND EDITION. Price 4d. IV. THE CHURCH CATECHISM, A MODEL OF CHURCH EDUCATION. Price 4d. V. CONFIRMATION A WITNESS FOR OBEDIENCE AND UNITY. Price 4d. RIVINGTONS, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. OF THE CHURCH. FOR THE FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY. BY THE REV. FREDERICK W. FABER, M.A. FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. I will glorify the house of My glory.—ISAIAH lx. 7. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. 1840. Price Fourpence. THE UNFULFILLED GLORY OF THE CHURCH. WHEN a man is celebrating his birth-day, if he is a religious man, his thoughts run mainly in one direction, upon the trials and blessings he has already received from God, together with an anxious yet not uneasy or fretful looking on into futurity, which he is not able at such seasons altogether to repress. A man's past life does in a measure prophesy of his future life. He cannot indeed see his own immortal soul. He cannot tell where it resides, or how it is gifted, or what shall become of it in the end. He is to a very great degree a mystery to himself. But his own nature, his own powers, and the peculiar bent of his disposition, are disclosed to him in his Where he has failed once, he may fail sins. |