the other is love--two
very different things. The one supposes natural motives, the other,
supernatural. Philanthropy looks at the exterior form and discovers a
likeness to self. Charity looks at the soul and therein discovers an
image of God, by which we are not only common children of Adam, but
also children of God and sharers of a common celestial inheritance.
Neither a cup of water nor a fortune given in any other name than that
of God is charity.

There are certain positive works of charity, such as almsgiving and
brotherly correction, etc., that may be obligatory upon us to a degree
of Serious responsibility. We must use prudence and intelligence in
discerning these obligations, but once they clearly stand forth they
are as binding on us as obligations of justice. We are our brothers'
keepers, especially of those whom misfortune oppresses and whose lot is
cast under a less lucky star.

CHAPTER XXIX.
PRAYER.

NO word so common and familiar among Christians as prayer. Religion
itself is nothing more than a vast, mighty, universal, never ceasing
prayer. Our churches are monuments of prayer and houses of prayer. Our
worship, our devotions, our ceremonies are expressions of prayer. Our
sacred music is a prayer. The incense, rising in white clouds before
the altar, is symbolical of prayer. And the one accent that is dinned
into our ears from altar and pulpit is prayer.

Prayer is the life of the Christian as work is the life of the man;
without one and the other we would starve spiritually and physically.
If we live well, it is because we pray; if we lead sinful lives, it is
because we neglect to pray. Where prayer is, there is virtue; where
prayer is unknown, there is sin. The atmosphere of piety, sanctity, and
honesty is the atmosphere of prayer.

Strange that the nature and necessity of prayer are so often
misunderstood! Yet the definition in our Catechism is clear and
precise. There are four kinds of prayer; adoration, thanksgiving,
petition for pardon, and for our needs, spiritual and bodily.

One need be neither a Catholic nor a Christian to see how becoming it
is in us to offer to God our homage of adoration and thanksgiving; it
is necessary only to believe in a God who made us and who is infinitely
perfect. Why, the very heathens made gods to adore, and erected temples
to thank them, so deep was their sense of the devotion they owed the
Deity. They put the early Christians to death because the latter