the agitations of the world and the excitements of business, it is peculiarly necessary, by contemplation and fervent prayer, to restore their souls to that serenity which the dissipations of life and commerce with men have disturbed.  To those who are engaged in business, contemplation and prayer are much more difficult than to those who live in retirement; but it is far more necessary for them to have frequent recourse to God in fervent prayer.  In the most holy occupation a certain degree of precaution is necessary.

Do not devote all your time to action, but reserve a certain portion of it for meditation upon eternity.  We see Jesus Christ inviting His disciples to go apart, in a desert place, and rest awhile, after their return from the cities, where they had been to announce His religion.  How much more necessary is it for us to approach the source of all virtue, that we may revive our declining faith and charity, when we return from the busy scenes of life, where men speak and act as if they had never known that there is a God!  We should look upon prayer as the remedy for our weakness, the rectifier of our own faults.  He who was without sin prayed constantly; how much more ought we, who are sinners, to be faithful in prayer!

Even the exercise of charity is often a snare to us.  It calls us to certain occupations that dissipate the mind, and that may degenerate into mere amusement.  It is for this reason that St. Chrysostom says that nothing is so important as to keep an exact proportion between the interior source of virtue and the external practise of it; else, like the foolish virgins, we shall find that the oil in our lamp is exhausted when the bridegroom comes.

The necessity we feel that God should bless our labors is another powerful motive to prayer.  It often happens that all human help is vain.  It is God alone that can aid us, and it does not require much faith to believe that it is less our exertions, our foresight, and our industry than the blessing of the Almighty that can give success to our wishes.

Thirdly.  Of the manner in which we ought to pray. 1.  We must pray with attention.  God listens to the voice of the heart, not to that of the lips.  Our whole heart must be engaged in prayer.  It must fasten upon what it prays for; and every human object must disappear from our minds.  To whom should we speak with attention if not to God?  Can He demand less of us than that we should think of what we say to Him?  Dare we hope that He will listen to us, and think of us, when we forget ourselves in the midst of our prayers?  This attention to prayer, which it is so just to exact from Christians, may be practised with less difficulty than we imagine.  It is true that the most faithful souls suffer from occasional involuntary distractions.  They can not always control their imaginations, and, in the silence of their spirits, enter into the presence of God.  But these unbidden wanderings of the