But happy are they in whose hearts faith has prepared a dwelling for our Saviour. Our Lord is surely present within us if we are in the state of grace. Hear what he says: "If any one love me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make an abode with him." He comes, indeed, silently; he hushes the festive greetings of the angels who escort him; he hides the dazzling glory of his ascended triumph, for now it is faith and not sight. But there in the heart he none the less dwells. We live with him. The Christian feels his presence. He has an interior life whose very breath is that presence. {234} He is stamped with our Lord's character. Such a soul is truly and literally called _faithful_--faith-full. And once you are intimately acquainted with him you perceive in his ways and actions that our Lord lives with him. Better yet, he perceives it himself. How different he is from one whose knowledge of religion is mere persuasion of the mind and empty talk! With the true Christian knowledge is power. To know the true faith is for him to know how to live: better yet, to know how to suffer, how to wait, how to love, how to die. Brethren, this congregation is divided into two parts--those who are to be saved and those who are not. Those of you who are to be saved are those in whose hearts Jesus Christ actually dwells by faith. Those who are to be lost are those whose faith means that Christ has a claim against them, payment of which they will postpone till it is too late. ------------------- Sermon LXIX. Suffering False Accusations. _He delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly._ --Epistle of the Day. I suppose, my dear brethren, that there is no grievance to which we are subjected more common, and certainly there are few more distressing, than that of being judged unfairly by others. As Catholics we are all specially liable to this; we all know how Protestants, even those who profess to be quite friendly to us personally, and who sometimes will say a good word or two for our religion, still calmly assume, as a matter of course, that we believe and practise many things which we and all intelligent and honest men detest and abhor. {235} They say, for instance, that we worship images; that we pay money not only to have our sins forgiven, but even for permission in advance to commit new ones; that we believe the pope to be Almighty God; that we maintain that the end justifies the means; and so on to any extent. It was only a few days ago that it was unblushingly stated in an assembly of one of their sects that the Catholic Church was more guilty in the matter of permitting divorce than other denominations. There seems hardly to be a falsehood about us so gross or so absurd that some of them will not be found to believe and to assert it.