The Eucharist is a remedy for the debase-
ment of the heart. It also corrects its hard-
ness. The Christian heart should not only
love God above all, but it should also love
everything in reference to God. And this it
is which gives it its incomparable goodness,
its incomparable tenderness, and its incom-
parable attraction. Look at the heart of the
Saints. It is true the Saints are entirely
devoted to God, but at the same time they
are loving to all, and it is for this reason
that they merit the praise of the sacred
writer of being "approved before God and
men," — delectus Deo hominibus.*

Oh ! how large and tender is the heart of
the Saints. The entire human race does not
suflBce for their tenderness, and it suffuses
itself upon the whole of nature. The Saints
see God in the twinkling star, in the verdant
grass, in the rippling brookr They love the

'•' Ecclesiasticus xxv. 1.
IG llie Eucharist and the Christian Li/c.
star, the grass, the brook. Like S. Francis
of Assisi, they call each created thing my
brother or my sister; and think not that
this simple tenderness of theirs is only the
poetry of the heart. No, it is rather the
religion of the heart, which has its source
in God Himself.
So, then, the heart which falls into sin gives
up at once both this religion and this tender-
ness ; it shrinks within itself, it is hardened.
