[Footnote 67: St. Mark iv. 36-38.] And He rebuked them for their want of faith; because, let wind and sea rage as they might, could that vessel have perished with the Lord of the elements on board, though He __was__ "asleep on a pillow"? Now, that ship is a striking figure of the Church, with the Blessed Sacrament reposing on her altars. She has ridden out many a heavy gale as yet, and no matter how many more are in store for her, weather them she __must__ while she carries the Almighty Saviour. Instead of losing heart, then, our aspiration should be that of the sacred poet: "Amid the howling wintry sea, We are in port if we have Thee." {166} And even if there should come a time, as many think, when "the daily sacrifice shall be taken away," when it shall be death to say Mass or to hear it, and the Church has to "fly into the wilderness"--if the final persecution thus exceed even those of the Cæsars, yet Mass __will__ be said and Communion __will__ be given; and still, at the words of the priest, "even as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth unto the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man" to His altar; and still, "wheresoever the Body shall be, there will the eagles be gathered together." [Footnote 68] [Footnote 68: St. Matt. xxiv. 27, 28.] In conclusion, my dear brethren, let me remind you how apt we are--we who are so favored with the faith--to neglect the Blessed Sacrament, to be irreverent in its presence, to show it ingratitude by receiving it too seldom, and to betray our forgetfulness of its presence by never coming to visit it. I would dwell a little on this last point. When we meet with misfortune or trouble of any kind, we often brood over it at home, and get impatient and fretful, and make mischief in consequence to others as well as to ourselves, instead of coming to tell the Sacred Heart all about it, and draw on an ever-ready help. So, again, we are constantly complaining how cold the world is, what a want there is of sympathy, how selfish and thankless people are. {167} And what are we but cold and unsympathizing, selfish and thankless, toward our best Friend? He is here "love's prisoner"--__our__ prisoner; and how few of us take any notice of Him as such! Were an earthly dear one in prison for our sake, we should move heaven and earth to get to him. But here is the Lover of all lovers, the infinite beauty, accessible all day long, and how many come to visit Him of those who are __not__ reasonably prevented? I wonder that more of us are not haunted by those words, "I was in prison, and ye visited Me not." [Footnote 69] [Footnote 69: St. Matt. xxv. 43.]