Give me, O Lord, this grace.

None were more welcome to me; neither riches, nor all the good things of this world were to be coveted in comparison of tears:

tears, such as Thou didst give to David of old, or to Jeremiah, to S. Peter, or to Magdalene! At least give me a dropping eye: let me not altogether be a flint.

If I may not water my couch,
nor wash Thy feet;

if I may not weep bitterly as Peter, plentifully as Jeremiah (and yet, O that it might be even thus!)

at least one or two little tears, which Thou mayest put into Thy bottle,

and write in Thy book.

But if I cannot gain this much, woe is me! like a pumice, like very lime, fervent in cold water.

Careless of my state where I least ought to be so; without feeling.

Mourning enough when there is no occasion: cold, dry, dead, where there is the greatest. At least give me of the tears of Thy Christ, which He shed plentifully in the days of His flesh.

Bestow on me from that store:

in Him there is superfluity for my deficiency.

A SHORT PRAYER BEFORE

CONFESSION.

O

GOD, my heart is ready;
so saith the Psalmist :

but I fear, Lord, lest mine should not be ready. I would that it were: I grieve that it is not. Lord, I dispose and prepare myself:

assist my disposal, and supply my preparation. I will set my sins before my sight; that they may not be set before Thine.

than again offend Thee?

Christ my Saviour, O my Saviour!

Lord, let a new manner of life

prove that a new spirit hath descended on me;
for true penitence is new life;
and true praise is unremitted penitence,
and the observation of a perpetual sabbath
from sin,

its occasions, its fuel, and its danger.
For as penitence destroys old sins,
so do new sins destroy penitence.

A CAUTION BEFORE PREACHING,

From S. Fulgentius.

L

ET the preacher labour to be heard intelligently, willingly, obediently. And let him not doubt that he will accomplish this rather by the piety of his prayers, than by the eloquence of his speech. By praying for himself, and those whom he is to address, let him be their beadsman before he becomes their teacher; and approaching God with devotion, let him first raise to Him a thirsting heart before he speaks of Him with his tongue; that he may speak what he hath been taught, and pour out what hath been poured in.

I cease not therefore to ask from our Lord and Master, that He may, either by the utterances of His Scriptures, or the conversations of my brethren, or the internal and sweeter doctrine of His Own inspiration, deign to teach me things so to be set forth and asserted, that

in what is set forth and asserted I may ever hold me fast to the truth: from this very Truth I desire to be taught the many things I know not by Him from whom I have received the few I know.

I beseech this Truth, that mercy preventing and following me, It would teach me the wholesome things that I know not; keep me in the true things I know; correct me, wherein I am (which is human) in error, confirm me wherein I waver; preserve me from false and baneful things, and make that to proceed from my mouth which, as it shall be chiefly pleasing to the Truth itself, so it may be accepted by all the faithful, through

JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD.
AMEN.