the bad thoughts always hovering
over them, and settling down on them.

Am I drawing a fanciful picture? Not at all. I know it is so with
many, I do not say all, but with many. They disregard evil thoughts
because they are such trifling things--like flies, so easily brushed
away; like flies, so light and volatile; like flies, so little. And
yet they utterly degrade and corrupt the heart. "The land was
corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies."

II. When Abraham prepared a sacrifice to the Lord, there came down on
it swarms of birds of carrion (Gen. xv.) And when they did so, we are
told that Abraham "drove them away." The chief Baker of Pharaoh had
meats in a basket on his head, and the birds came down on them, and
carried them off. "The birds did eat them out of the basket upon my
head" (Gen. xl.) To Abraham was given a promise of a great blessing
and glorious future. To the Baker was given a warning that he should
be hanged within three days. One drove the birds away, and the other
did not.

Now this applies to evil thoughts. If you will be like Abraham and be
blessed, you will drive the evil thoughts away as fast as they come on.
If you let them come, and make no effort to repel them, they will carry
away from you all the graces wherewith you have been endowed at
baptism, and they will corrupt your heart as well.

LVII.

_THE HEAVENLY BANQUET._

20th Sunday after Trinity.

S. Matt. xxii. 4.

"Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed,
and all things are ready; come unto the marriage."

INTRODUCTION.--The Kingdom of Heaven has two meanings in this parable.
It means in the first place the Catholic Church. Into that the
apostles and pastors of Christ invite men to enter, and many refuse.
In the second place it means the Church Triumphant,--eternal
blessedness, and into that the pastors of Christ's Church invite you
continually, Sunday after Sunday, and many refuse.

SUBJECT.--Our subject to-day shall be the Heavenly Banquet, and the
invitation to it.

I. When God created the world, He did so with a "Let be." He said,
"Let there be light"--and light was. "Let there be a firmament in the
midst of the waters," and it was so, at once. He said, "Let the waters
be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear," and,
immediately, it was so. And it was the same throughout the work of the
Seven Days. He spake the word and the world was made,