Page:TheYoungMansGuide.djvu/195

 memory. It was  the  death  of  one  of  my former  parishioners,  a  girl  who  had  just  left school. She had  only  been  ill  for  three  days when I  found  it  necessary  to  administer  the last sacraments.

When, three  or  four  hours  later,  I  saw  that the relentless  hand  of  death  was  about  to  cut off her  young  life,  I  knelt  in  prayer  beside the bed  with  all  those  who  were  present,  and I asked  the  dying  sufferer:  "You  will  pray for  us  in  heaven,  my  child,  will  you  not?" "Yes, yes,"  she  exclaimed,  clasping  my  hand with a  gesture  of  entreaty,  "but  you  must first  pray  for  me,  that  I  may  get  to  heaven! " And after  she  had  taken  leave  of  every  one she repeated,  with  her  failing  breath,  "Do pray,  go  on  praying!  Pray,  pray! "

2. And  it  is  these  very  words  of  the  dying girl which  I  repeat  to  you  over  and  over again: "My  dear  young  friend,  do  pray, go  on  praying!  Pray,  pray,  because  it  is indispensably  necessary  to  do  so." Prayer is assuredly the  ladder  to  heaven,  without which it  is  not  possible  to  be  saved.

Scarcely anything  else  in  Holy  Scripture is recommended  to  us  so  frequently  and  with so much  emphasis. Over and  over  again we meet  with  exhortations  to  prayer. " Ask and  it  shall  be  given  you:  seek  and  you  shall find,  knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  to  you" (Matt. vii.  7). "Watch ye  and  pray"  (Matt. xxvi.  41). St. Paul  bids  us:  "Pray  without ceasing"  (1  Thess.  v.  17).