Page:Meditations For Every Day In The Year.djvu/359

 II. Consider more  in  particular  what  it  is  to  deny  one's self. Self-denial properly  consists  in  abandoning  one's own  will,  "stripping  yourself  of  the  old  man,  with  his deeds." (Colos. iii.  9.)  Think  how  necessary  this  is, and, on  the  contrary,  how  dangerous  it  is  to  follow  one's own  will  and  judgment. Examine your  conscience  on this  subject,  and  see  how  you  may  improve  in  this  self-abnegation  to  the  greater  glory  of  God. Without self-denial  there  can  be  no  true  religion  or  virtue  on  earth, because the  human  will  is  naturally  prone  to  evil,  and  if not  denied  it  will  certainly  prefer  vice  to  virtue. No one can  be  religious  or  virtuous  without  imitating  the suffering Redeemer.

III. The Apostle  exhorts  us  to  carry  our  cross  daily  in these  words:  "Always  bearing  about  in  our  body  the dying  of  Jesus." (2 Cor.  iv.  10.)  No  day,  therefore, ought to  pass  in  which  the  disciple  of  Christ  does  not make some  progress  in  mortification. Hence the learned St.  Augustine  remarks,  "The  whole  life  of  a Christian,  if  he  lives  according  to  the  Gospel,  is  a  cross and  a  martyrdom." Embrace, therefore,  your  cross willingly, and  whatever  is  disagreeable  to  flesh  and blood; for  the  cross  will  be  a  passport  to  an  everlasting life of  happiness.

I. It  is  recorded  in  the  Gospel  of  to-day  that  "every good  tree  yieldeth  good  fruit." (Matt. vii.  17.)  Christ above all  others  is  the  Good  Tree,  and  is  often  com-