golden ceilings, but the person of the king sitting on his throne, so in heaven is it the King’s Body. Yet this is what you may now see on earth. I am showing you not angels, nor archangels, nor the heavens, nor the heaven of heavens, but the Lord of all these Himself. Do you understand how it is that you see the most precious thing of all upon earth? And not only do you see it, but you also touch it? And not only touch it, but you eat it, and, receiving it, you take it away with you? Cleanse, therefore, your soul; prepare your mind for the reception of these mysteries. If, now, you were judged worthy to carry a royal child in state, with his kingly robes and his diadem, you would give up everything on earth for it. And, here, receiving not a royal child of man, but the very only begotten Son of God, tell me, do you not tremble, and renounce the love of all earthly things, and adorn yourself only for that world to come, or have you still your eyes fixed on the earth, do you still love money, and anxiously crave for gold? What pardon could you look for, or what excuse would you have? Know you not how Our Lord turns His back upon all worldly luxury? Was not this His reason for being born and laid in a manger, and for choosing a mother who was poor? Was it not for this that He said to the man who looked to worldly traffic: _The Son of man has not whereon to lay His head_? And what of His disciples? Did not they carry out the same law, lodging at the houses of the poor, one going to a tanner’s, another to a tent-maker’s, another to the woman selling purple? They did not seek for illustrious houses, but for upright minds. Let us then emulate their example; looking beyond the beauty of pillars and marbles, seeking only for the mansions above, let us trample under foot all vanities here below, together with the lust for money, and take up a lofty mind. For if we be sober and watchful, the world itself will not be worthy of us, much less the Stoic portico or the Peripatetic walk. Therefore, I repeat, let us adorn our souls, let us prepare this dwelling-place, which we shall take with us when we depart, so that we may possess the eternal tents through the grace and love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Remembrance of the Dead. (_Homilies on Epistle to the Philippians_, iv., vol. v., p. 36.) · · · · · · ·