Page:Meditations For Every Day In The Year.djvu/461

 enabled to  distinguish  between  true  and  false,  solid and counterfeit  good. " Many  things  are  represented in  false  colors,  which  stand  in  need  of  being  cleared,  O Lord,  by  Your  divine  light." Christ, lastly,  said  to  the man, " Go  into  thy  house." Our house  and  our  home  is heaven,  for,  as  St.  Paul  says,  "  You  are  fellow-citizens with  the  Saints,  and  the  domestics  of  God." (Ephes. ii. 19.)  Act  therefore  as  a  domestic  of  God  and  a  son of light,  for  fear  "  the  Lord  strike  thee  with  madness and  blindness  and  fury  of  mind,  and  make  thee  grope  at mid-day,  as  the  blind  is  wont  to  grope  in  the  dark,  and not  make  straight  thy  ways." (Deu. xxviii.  28.)

I. Consider  the  great  tyranny,  which  the  Devil  exercises on  the  bodies  of  those  whom  God  permits  him  to possess. In the  case  of  the  lunatic  child,  he  dashed  him against the  ground,  made  him  foam  at  the  mouth,  often cast him  into  the  fire,  and  often  into  the  water. If he be  so  tormenting  in  this  life,  what  must  he  be  in  the next? In this  world  his  hands  are  tied,  but  in  the  next he has  complete  possession  of  the  poor  sinner. Of this horrid empire  in  hell,  the  Prophet  says,  "  The  streams thereof  shall  be  turned  into  pitch,  and  the  ground  thereof into  brimstone,  and  the  land  thereof  shall  become burning  pitch." (Is. xxxiv.  9.)

II. The Devil  exercises  a  similar  power  in  this  world over sinners,  who  are  subject  to  him. He makes  them lunatic; that  is,  inconstant,  like  the  moon,  in  their  resolutions of  reform. He renders  them  deaf  to  the  inspira-