multiply themselves. Fly ye, then, to Mary, the most gracious mother of you and all penitents. Flee ye gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, covetousness, perjury, deceit, strife, and hatred, which is a sin of the devil's; root ye these utterly out of your hearts. Bodily pleasure is but for a moment; but the fire which followeth thereon will endure for ever. Whence holy Job protesteth, The sweetness of the flesh is a worm. In faith, See Job hope, and love, the saints flourished; and he who is made white by virginity followeth Christ and Mary, and singeth a new canticle, which no one, save a virgin, See Rev. is able to sing. Great is the profit of wedlock, but xiv. 3, 4 chastity excelleth it, and virginity is the most ex

It will be seen that Herbert, with the medieval commentators in general, understands the virgins of verse 4 literally. So does Augustine, who founds an exhortation to virgins on this text, which Bede in loc. quotes with admiration. Modern Commentators more frequently regard the vir ginity as figurative. Thus Bp. Wordsworth; "In verse 4, the apostolic company of the 144,000 on Mount Sion who stand with the Lamb, are described as they which were not defiled with women, that is, they were not corrupted by the spiritual harlotries of Babylon, the false Church who is seated on the Beast, and who lures men with her fascinations, and bewitches them with her charms, and tempts them to drink of the cup of her strange doctrines, and who will be more fully described hereafter (xvii. 1—5). They have not defiled themselves with any spiritual fornications, such as that of the woman Jezebel, the false teacher, already described as deceiving God's servants, and tempting them to commit fornication, and to be false to their plighted troth and allegiance to Him.

"They were not sullied with any such defilements, for 'they are virgins.' Their souls had been espoused to Christ in spiritual wedlock, in Holy Baptism, by an apostolic ministry, as St. Paul says to the Corinthians (2 Cor. xi. 2); ‘I espoused you as a chaste virgin to one husband, Christ.' ‘A pure faith is the virginity of the soul' (S. Aug. See on 2 Cor. xi. 2).

"They have endeavoured to preserve their virgin purity of soul in the true faith, 'whole and undefiled,' and to 'perfect holiness in the fear of God,' in spirit, soul, and body (2 Cor. vii. 1 ; 1 Thess. v. 23), and love the Lord in uncorruptness, तapoía. See on Eph. vi. 24.”

• This is the doctrine of Ambrose and other Fathers (Opp. ed. Bened., tom. ii. p. 966, Ep. 42, ad Syricium); "A good wife is justly praised, but a devout virgin is preferred above her; according to that saying of the Apostle's, He who giveth her in marriage doeth well, but he who giveth her not in marriage doeth better; for the latter careth for the things of God, the former for the things of the world. The former is bound by the

xxiv. 20.

sima est. FRATRES. veneramini castitatem. vestram reformate continentiam. Sancti inquit dominus estote. quia et ego sanctus sum; Vestram fratres conservate mundiciam. mundum famulatum mundus diligit dominus. salvator noster filius dei et filius virginis qui cum patre et spiritu sancto vivit et regnat deus. per omnia sæcula sæculo

rum AMEN.

tie of wedlock, the latter is free from all ties; the former is under the law, the latter under grace. Good is wedlock, which was the way found out to ensure posterity and the succession of the human race; but better is virginity, through which the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven is acquired, and a way found out by which we may succeed to the heavenly virtues of the saints. Through a married woman care entered into the

xix. 2; and

cellent of all virtues. Reverence chastity, my brethren, and be ye renewed in continence. Be ye holy, saith the Lev. xi. Lord, because I am holy. Preserve your purity, brethren. 44, 46, and The pure Lord our Saviour, the Son of God, and the 1 Pet. i. Son of the Virgin, loveth a pure household, Who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth God for ever and ever. Amen.

world, through a virgin salvation made its entrance. Finally, Christ chose for Himself the special gift of virginity, and exhibited and represented in His own person that very virtue of chastity, which in His mother He had already chosen." And again, tom. ii. Liber De Viduis cap. xii. col. 205, where he says, "Integritas non imponitur sed præponitur,"—" Chastity is not imposed, but has preference given it."

16.

XIII.

BEATORUM spirituum solennem fratres dilectisimi (sic) celebrantes diem. diligenter attendere debetis. unde sint gaudia. et que præsentia solennia protulerit ratio; Non enim ortus. aut passio. aut depositio. vel translatio eorum celebratur.

Humana quippe sunt ista. et nulla in

▪ Depositio. This word is used, Ducange tells us, for 1. the death of the faithful; 2. their burial (specially for the burial of St. John the Evangelist, who according to the legend went down alive into a grave which had been dug for him, and having made there a long prayer, and having blessed and bidden adieu to his disciples, laid himself while yet alive in his sepulchre (deposuit se viventem in sepulchro suo), and glorifying the Lord, commanded them to cover him in, and forthwith gave up the ghost; see Fabricius, Codex Apocryphus, Hamburg, 1703, tom. ii. p. 589); 3. the anniversary of their death, their obit.

The writer of one of the Sermons commonly attributed to Ambrose, and contained in the Appendix to the Bened. edition of his Works, thinks that depositio is not a word to apply to the burial of a saint, but to his death. Thus he writes in a Sermon de Depositione Sti. Eusebi, Serm. lvii. tom. ii. App. col. 469; “We to-day celebrate the deposition of St. Eusebius. What is deposition? Not, I trow, that which is brought about by the hands of clerics in burying the remains of the body in the earth, but that process whereby a man, free from the bonds of the flesh, and set at liberty to go to heaven, puts off the earthly body. Evidently that is deposition, in which we cast away concupiscence, cease to transgress, leave off sinning, and, as if we threw away some burdensome load, lay down whatever hinders our salvation.'

b translatio eorum "the removal of their remains." It is singular that Ducange in his Glossary, while noticing under the word translatio the translation of bishops to higher sees, leaves untouched the translation of saints, i.e. the removal of their remains, by way of doing honour to their memory, to a more sumptuous shrine. Our English Calendar retains amongst its Black Letter days five Translations of Saints.

June 20. Edward, king of the West Saxons, assassinated by order of his step-mother at Corfe Castle, translated by Elferius Duke of Mercia to Shaftesbury in A.D. 978. His day (that is, the day of his death) falls on March 18.

XIII.

Neither the In the latter

**This Sermon has no heading in the MS. name of Herbert nor any subject is prefixed to it. feature, it is unique among the Sermons of the series. The former it has in common with all the other Sermons, with the exception of the three first and the last. From the internal evidence of the style, as well as from their occurring in the midst of a series De Tempore, of which the three first and the last are expressly ascribed to him, we make no doubt that all are Herbert's. And the most cursory glance at the Sermon before us shews that its subject is the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels.

IN celebrating the solemn festival of the blessed spirits, dearly beloved brethren, ye ought to give diligent heed to the source from which the [Church's] exultation [of to-day] ariseth, and to the reasons which have brought forth the present solemnity. For it is not their birth, or their passion, or their death, or the removal of their remains" which we celebrate; for [all] these things are human, and no disquieting disturbance

July 4. St. Martin of Tours, translated from Cande to a basilica immediately adjacent to Tours in A.D. 473. His day falls on Nov. II. He died A. D. 397.

July 15. St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester. He died July 2, 862, and was buried at his own request outside the church, where feet might tread, and rain fall, on his grave. In 971, his relics were translated to a rich shrine within the cathedral, on which occasion a pouring rain fell, and continued thirty-nine days.

October 13. King Edward the Confessor. He refounded Westminster Abbey, where (on his death, Jan. 5, 1066) he was in the first instance interred before the high altar. Becket removed the body to a richer shrine, Oct. 13, 1163. It was a second time translated to a still more sumptuous shrine by Hen. III.; but the first translation is that which we commemorate.

October 17. St. Etheldreda, Princess of the East Angles, Abbess of Ely, died June 23, 679. Translated by her sister Sexburga, Oct. 17, 695, which is the translation commemorated. [See the account of a subsequent translation of Etheldreda in our bishop's days, by Richard Abbot of Ely, on which occasion Herbert preached in Ely Cathedral. It will be found in "The Life and Letters," under the date 1106, p. 211, et sequent.]