ST. MATTHEW, CHAP. VI. * VER. 1-4. The connexion of this part of the Sermon, on which we now are entering, with the preceding, Augustine traces thus. Hitherto the Lord has taught his disciples what they were to do; He now proceeds to teach them how they shall do it, with what simplicity and singleness of eye. And this teaching, he observes, is never superfluous; for even after the eye is in great part purged to see God, yet it is ever hard to prevent the creeping in of harmful influences, even where least suspected, and this from the very accompaniments of our good actions :† as, for instance, from the praises of men, which those will *In 1 Ep. Joh. Tract. 8: Videte quanta opera faciat superbia. Ponite in corde, quam similia faciat et quasi paria caritati. Pascit esurientem caritas, pascit et superbia; caritas ut Deus laudetur, superbia ut ipsa laudetur. Vestit nudum caritas, vestit et superbia. Jejunat caritas, jejunat et superbia . . . . Ergo Scriptura divina intro nos revocat, a jactatione hujus faciei forinsecus . . . . Redi ad conscientiam tuam, ipsam interroga. Noli attendere quod floret foris, sed quæ radix est interna. Radicata est cupiditas? species potest esse bonorum factorum: vere opera bona esse non possunt. Radicata est caritas? securus esto, nihil mali procedere potest. Blanditur superbia; sævit amor: accipitur magis plaga caritatis, quam eleëmosyna superbiæ. · ... De Serm. Dom. in Mon. 1. 2. c. 1: Oculo magnâ ex parte mundato difficile est non subrepere sordes aliquas de his rebus, quæ ipsas bonas nostras actiones comitari solent, veluti est laus humana. draw after them. And very usefully he brings out how, quite apart from the mere and utter hypocrite, who has no motive in any thing which he does but his own glory, there are many in whom there is a very great admixture of motives, whose good deeds have two sources, one pure and one sullied; for whom, indeed, God and the pleasing of God is first; yet the intention does not remain altogether in its simplicity; there is also an eye turned aside to some meaner reward.* At the same time it is very important to observe, and he often observes, that the warning is throughout not against having the praise of men, but against the doing aught that we may have their praise, instead of with a single eye to God's glory. It is not, Take heed that ye be not seen in your alms; but "Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them." For in some sort we are bound in charity to desire men's praises; that is, if there be good wrought by us, we are bound in love to desire there may be a recognition of that good on the part of others since their failing to recognize it would mark a wrong condition in them. We are bound to desire that our conversation may be attractive, for we may thus sometimes at the same moment do a double alms, ministering to the rich man the example, to the poor the help, that he needs.† If our conscience tells us *De Serm. Dom. in Mon. 1. 2. c. 2. In 1 Ep. Joh. Tract. 8: Si enim abscondis ab oculis hominis, abscondis ab imitatione hominis. Duo sunt quibus eleëmosynam facis duo esuriunt, unus panem, alter justitiam . . . . Ille enim cr that God's glory, and not pride or ostentation, is the root of our actions, let us be fearless in this matter, and not dread or even shun to be seen, only having a care that this shall not be the final aim of our deeds.* And, here, he says, lies the reconciliation of such declarations as that of St. Paul, "I please all men in all things," (1 Cor. x. 33,) and that other in which he says, "If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." (Gal. i. 10.) I please men as a mean to an end, for the winning of them to the truth: I do not make the pleasing of them itself my end; on the contrary, this is something which I utterly forego whenever higher interests of God's truth are at stake. Yet his affecting words in his Confessions,† concerning the difficulty which he found when praised, in distinguishing whether the pleasure he felt was a pleasure that others should be glorifying God for the good which they saw in him, or a pleasure in being thus himself extolled and glorified, and the deep heart-searchings into which this doubt brought him, will not easily be forgotten by those who once have read them. He notes the peculiar difficulty which besets the faithful man here. In other matters he may avoid that which would prove the occasion of sin in him; he may put the temptation far from him; but he cannot here; for we may not get away quærit quod manducet, ille quærit quod imitetur. præbes te isti: ambobus dedisti eleëmosynam. 1. 5. c. 14; and Serm. 159. c. 10-13. *Enarr. in Ps. LXV. 2. Pascis istum, Cf. De Civ. Dei, + Conf. 1. 10. c. 37. from virtue, so to get away from the praises which follow it, and the temptations which follow those praises. and the good itself, such as He continually finds an illustration of the warning here conveyed, lest snatching at an earthly we forfeit a heavenly reward, in the doom of the foolish virgins. (Matt. xxv.) In them he sees the image of persons, who like those noted here, are working for, and living on, the praises of men. These praises were as the present oil in the virgins' lamps, of which so long as the supply lasted, they were adorned with apparent good works. But when these praises fail, as at the last day they must fail, then for them everything will fail: all wherein they found their impulses to good will cease; it was, will cease likewise. lamps will have gone out. have already received and already exhausted their reward; what they laboured for they got; but now there will remain for them nothing but that sentence, "I know you not," uttered from his lips with whom no work avails which is not wrought out of love to Him.*-In one place he wittily likens these boasters of their good deeds, who are thus losers of all true reward, to the hen, which has no sooner laid its egg, than by its cackling it calls some one to take it away. Their oil has failed, and their And for the past they will * Serm. 93. c. 9: Non sunt fraudati laudibus humanis: quæsierunt laudes humanas, habuerunt. Istæ laudes humanæ in die judicii non eos adjuvant. Enarr. in Ps. cxlvii. 13: Non inveniunt tunc faventes, non inveniunt tunc laudantes, a quibus solebant laudari et quasi excitari ad bona opera, non robore bonæ conscientiæ, sed incitamento linguæ aliena. Augustine has a laborious, and, as I cannot but think, an unnecessary discussion concerning what the "left hand" may mean, which is not to be permitted to know what the " right hand" does." It were better to recognize this as one of those strong popular sayings, which are not to be required to give an account of themselves in detail. They cannot do this, and it is in the very contradictions which would arise, if they were thus pressed, that the chief of their strength lies. Thus it is true, that if knowledge might be attributed to the hands at all, it would be impossible that the left hand should not know what the right hand gave, since both are organs of one and the same will; but this impossibility is not to make us quit the meaning which the words at first obviously suggest. Rather we are to see in this very impossibility, which lies on the surface of the precept, an exhortation involved to the greatest possible secrecy, or rather simplicity, in almsgiving;-for the secrecy is an accident, which in the nature of things must often be wanting, but the simplicity, the absence as far as possible of all reflex consciousness of and dwelling on the work, must always be there. After rejecting many explanations as untenable, he ends by explaining the "left hand" as the carnal desire, manifesting itself in the look turned sideways to the human praise and reward, whereas by the "right hand" is meant the single purpose of fulfilling the divine commands ;* and he makes the entire precept amount to *Serm. 149. c. 14: Sinistra est animi cupiditas carnalis, dextera |