Lastly, we can sin against justice by injuring property or goods which belong to our neighbor. Now, my friends, if we hire a house or lands, or if we take some official charge of our fellow-Christian's goods, we ought to be as careful of these things as if they were our own. If we, through our carelessness, our neglect, allow another's property to be damaged, lost, lessened in any way in value, we steal from him just that much. Be careful, then, of these sins against justice. Do not rob your fellow-men. Do not retain what is their due; do not injure their goods or property. Remember the great God who sees you. He is not only perfect charity; he is also perfect justice, and with his justice will he one day judge. Rev. Algernon A. Brown. ---------------------------- {436} Sermon CXXXI. _And he sent his servants, to call them that were invited to the marriage: and they would not come._ --St. Matthew xxii. 3. We cannot for a moment hesitate, my dear brethren, as to who is represented, in this parable of our Lord, by the king who made a marriage for his son. It is God the Father; and it is his Divine Son for whom he has made the marriage. And that marriage is the union of our human nature with his divinity; it is what we call the Incarnation. And those who were first invited to this marriage, to partake of its benefits, are the Jews, who were first called to the church, to whom alone our Lord himself preached, and who were the first objects of the labors of his apostles; but who would not answer the invitation, even persecuting and putting to death those who gave it, and thus causing it to be given to others--that is, to ourselves--the city of Jerusalem being at the same time destroyed, together with the national existence of the Jewish people, as a punishment for their rejection of the Gospel invitation. We Gentiles have accepted what they, his chosen people, refused. We have come by faith and holy baptism to this marriage of the King's Son, for we are within the fold of his Holy Catholic Church. But having done so, we are now all invited to sit down at the marriage feast. It does not satisfy his love for us that we should simply be within the four walls of his house; he wishes that we should also partake of the good things which he has prepared in it for the refreshment of our soul--that is to say, the special graces which come to us only by means of the church, and which are not found outside: particularly the sacraments, and, most of all, the great and wonderful Sacrament of the Altar, in which he has given us his Precious Body and Blood for the food of our souls. {437} This, then, is pre-eminently the marriage feast of which he has invited us to partake, now that we are within his house. It is the Holy Communion. One would think we would be only too glad to do so. You would not expect to find wedding guests insulting their host by refusing to taste of the refreshment prepared for them.