Page:Meditations For Every Day In The Year.djvu/37

 of God:  "Dust  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  thou  shalt  return." (Gen. iii.  19.)  Why  should  dust  and  ashes  be proud?

II. As to  your  soul,  what  are  you? Created of  nothing you  would  return  to  your  original  non-existence,  did not God  preserve  you  every  moment. Without His  cooperation you  could  not  even  move  a  finger. 2. You  were conceived in  sin,  and  born  in  sin,  and  there  is  no  actual crime, however  heinous,  which  you  would  not  commit unless supported  by  divine  grace. 3. In  regard  to  knowledge, how  small  a  portion  do  you  possess! How many objects are  entirely  unknown  to  you! And as  to  power, how little  can  you  do,  and  how  many  things  lie  beyond your reach!

III. What are  you  in  comparison  with  all  mankind? What is  all  the  human  race  in  comparison  with  the angels? And what  are  all  the  angels  when  compared with God? "The whole  world  before  Thee  is  as  the  least grain  of  the  balance,  and  as  a  drop  of  the  morning  dew, that  falleth  down  upon  the  earth." (Wis. xi.  23.)  And yet, vile  and  impotent  as  you  are,  you  have  had  the  effrontery to  rise  up  against  a  God  of  such  majesty  and power, and  to  provoke  Him  to  indignation  against  you. Learn humility,  do  penance,  and  "sin  no  more,  lest  some worse  thing  happen  to  thee." (John v.  14.)

I. To  abandon  or  insult  a  friend  who  deserved  our affections is  an  offence,  but  to  abandon  him  for  some slight or  trifling  matter  would  be  an  aggravation  of  that offence. Now the  whole  world,  as  Isaias  writes,  in  comparison with  God,  is  nothing. "All nations  are  before Him  as  if  they  had  no  being  at  all,  and  are  counted  to