munity. Oh! how delightful is it to see in a convent of nuns each praise, assist, and serve the others, and all love the others with a true sisterly affection. Nuns are called sisters, because they are such not by blood, but by charity, which should unite them in love more closely than all the ties of flesh and blood. " The nun who has not charity," says St. Jane Frances de Chantal, "is a religious in name, but not in reality. She is a sister in dress, not in affection." Hence because they knew that where there is no union there is no God, almost all the founders and foundresses of religious Orders have with their last breath recommended the practice of holy charity to their spiritual children.
"When," says St. Augustine, "you see the stones of any fabric well bound to the timber, you enter with security, and apprehend no danger." But were the stones detached from the wood, you should shudder at the very thought of approaching the building. Happy the religious house in which all are united by holy charity; but miserable is the monastery in which disunion and party-spirit prevail. " Yes," says St. Jerome, " such a monastery is not the tabernacle of the Lord, but the abode of Lucifer; it is a house not of salvation, but of perdition." Of what use are riches and magnificence, a splendid church and a beautiful garden, to a monastery from which union and charity are banished? Such a monastery is a hell, where, to prevent the advancement of the rivals, each party decries the other. Suspicions and aversions are always on the increase: they fill the minds, are poured out in conversation, and occupy the thoughts of the religious at mental prayer, at Mass, and at Communion. Hence we may exclaim, O miserable prayers, miserable Masses, miserable Com-
