It would seem as if a Christian had not faith in that Real Presence when you see him pretend, as it were, to reverence the altar by a sort of half-genuflection, very quickly made, which looks more like a sign of disrespect than of adoration. What would you think if you should see the priest, when saying Mass, making his genuflections in this way? Well, you ought to do the same as he. Our Lord is as really before you as before him; and you are not more exalted in your station than the priest, that you can afford to treat God more familiarly. Bring the knee to the floor slowly and reverently when you pass the high altar, or any other altar, while the Blessed Sacrament is on it. And when our Lord passes in procession, or in any other way, through the church, kneel down and pray; do not stand or sit and stare about. And remember, too, that he is as really present when he goes outside the church as when he remains in it. The state of things in this country requires us to carry him to the sick without the solemnity which should be observed; but he is as truly in your houses when he comes to give himself to you there as if the priest brought him with lights and sacred vestments, with the sound of the bell, and with a train of attendants to do him honor. {42} Imagine what you would do if he should come visibly at the side of the priest, with that Face with which you are so familiar, with glory shining round him, and with the prints of the nails in his hands and feet; and do the same now. Do not stand around and talk to the priest as if he had come for a social visit; kneel down as soon as he enters the room, if the Blessed Sacrament is with him. And do not kneel leaning on a chair, with your backs to our Lord; that is a strange way to show respect for him. If you will only think who it is that stands in the midst of you, you will find out many other things which I have not time to suggest. It is not really so much want of faith as want of thought that makes people behave to our Lord in the irreverent and almost insulting way that they sometimes do. Think, then, about this matter, and you will need no rubrics to teach you what to do in the presence of Him whom you really know and love. ------------------- Sermon IX. _I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord._ --St. John i. 23. Whenever, my dear brethren, men are going to a place they always ask the way. They also make up their minds as to which is the long way, which the short way, which the most convenient and easiest way. They do this with reference to the places to which they go in this world. Now, we are all going to heaven; at least, each one of us will say, I hope I am going there. We know there are many places to which we can go in this world, and many different ways by which we can get to them. {43} There are also many places in heaven, but there is but one way of getting to any one, even to the least of them.