By a strange perversion of mind, we often seek to unravel the perplexities of life, without recourse to prayer. When involved in business anxieties, men spend days of worry in wrestling with them, without perhaps asking the Father of Lights for guidance. And the young also, who must settle for themselves their future career, frequently strive to do so, without the help of heaven. They perhaps consult human advisers, but fail to consult God, the best of counsellors, Who alone can see behind the veil of the future, and infallibly tell what is best for us. In coming to any important decision, light and strength are needed, light to know the pathway of duty, and strength to follow it. On account of the obscurities and half-lights of our intellect, we perceive but dimly, and often fail to discern the true from the false. The illumination of the white light of Truth is needed to flood the dark recesses of the mind. And even when the truth stands clearly revealed, we are often too indolent or enervated to embrace it; we need the tonic of resolution and courage, which can be infused into us only from on high. The trustful child of God should, day by day, commend his future into the hands of his heavenly Father, praying Him to shape his life and career. Each one has his own talents, one or many, but he cannot hope to trade or barter with them in a fruitful way unless the Giver of them bless his efforts. Our constant prayer, then, should be for the fulfilment of God's will in our regard, with the lively faith that whatever we ask will be granted. And of all prayers and devotions, can any be more efficacious or salutary than the frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist? Our Holy Father, Pius X, desires the boys and girls of the whole world to be nourished daily, from the tenderest years, with the Bread of Life, that they may wax strong in the spiritual life, and grow up virile Christians. One Holy Communion, received fervently, should be sufficient to sanctify a soul and awake in it the desire of closest union with Christ, of self-immolation on the altar of Divine Love. Then what of the soul which is daily nourished with the "Wheat of the Elect and the Wine that springeth forth Virgins?" (Zach. ix: 17.) Holy Communion has been styled the "Marriage Supper of the Lamb," wherein Christ caresses the soul, communicates to it sweetest secrets, and touching it with the ardent flames of His own Heart, purifies it from attachment to creatures, and sets it aglow with the white heat of charity. The frequent communicant, then, is surest of knowing and doing God's will. In conclusion, the writer may be allowed to indulge the hope that more than one reader may be impelled to aspire to the virgin's aureole, the special privilege of joining the one hundred and forty-four thousand, whom St. John, in the vision of the Apocalypse, saw following the Lamb, whithersoever He went, and singing a canticle that none else could sing, "because they were virgins." ---