For my own part, I look upon regular morning prayers as a plain mark of predestination to eternal life. "Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you," is our Lord's promise to those that pray; and the best prayer is the morning prayer. Be ready, therefore, to correct yourself for omitting it. The day you forget it go without something you like to eat, put a nickel in the poor-box, double up your night prayers, make a special request to your guardian angel to get you up in good time for morning prayer the following morning. For the "Our Father," "Hail Mary," "Apostles Creed," "Confiteor," and Acts of Faith, Hope, Sorrow, and Charity, that you say in the morning will in the end give you a happy death and the kingdom of heaven. ------------------- {363} Sermon CX. Feast Of St. Mary Magdalen. _Many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much._ --Gospel of the Day. My dear brethren, no one who has faith can fail to be more or less anxious as to whether he will in the end save his soul. We all know that our faith alone will not save us; that faith, as St. James tells us, without works is dead. And we know that everything depends on the last moment; that as the tree falls, so will it lie for all eternity. So we tremble to think that perhaps that last moment will find us with our sins unforgiven, and all unprepared to meet our Judge; and that, in spite of our having borne the name of Christ, we may be then cast away from his presence into the outer darkness for ever. Some people, I know, have a very simple way of reassuring themselves about this all-important matter. They think that, of course, when they come to die they will send for the priest; then, if he gets there in time, of course there can be no question about their salvation. And even if he does not, perhaps they would not altogether despair; certainly their friends will not despair of them. God, they think, will not utterly cast off those who have always believed in him; their prayers and those of their friends will certainly obtain them a place in purgatory, and at last they will save their souls, at least by fire. {364} But, after all, do not even the most confident of us sometimes have a fear that even the last sacraments may not make our salvation absolutely sure? The last sacraments are not so very different from the others we have received before; and do we always feel fully prepared to die after every Communion which we make? No, there is a haunting fear that something is not right which pursues us even at the altar-rail; we would give much if we could only do something which would take it away altogether.