GUY,

The Poor Man of Anderlecht.

ONG ago, somewhere it might be about the year of our LORD 1012,

a stranger visiting the Church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, at Laken, about a mile from the large and flourishing town of Brussels, would have been struck by the cleanliness and order of its interior. No dust was allowed to accumulate, the floor was carefully swept, and the flowers with which it was customary in that Church to dress the altar, were carefully renewed. The fair white linen used for the table of the LORD, and the priestly vestments and surplices of the deacons and choristers showed, by their stainlessness, and the carefulness with which they were folded

up, that the servant of the Church who had the charge of them did his work well and heartily. No droppings from the wax lights, no rents in the tapestries, no spiders' webs among the carved work of wood or stone adorning the house of the LORD, betrayed a careless or unmindful eye, and had the stranger noticed in the first instance the noiseless reverent diligence of the young man, whose place it was to see that decency and order were observed in the arrangements of the Church, he would not have wondered at the traces of his care. He might be seen pacing up and down, as though the shadow of the ALMIGHTY were upon him, intent upon his duty, while in spirit he communed with his GoD, and when his work was done, he would kneel down before the altar, and in silent prayer pour out his heart before the LORD.

All who came to the Church were edified by its neatness and its order, and still more so by the religious silence, the humble and grave recollectedness of him, whose joy it was to be a doorkeeper in the house of his GOD. His whole deportment, we are told,

seemed to say to others, "This is the house of the LORD tremble, you that approach His sanctuary." Doubtless the words of the Psalm, "LORD, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honour dwelleth," told out the truthful aspirations of his heart, and it was from his continual walking as in the presence of the LORD, that a grace and a majesty of holiness were noticed in the lowly sacristan which awed the thoughtless, and rejoiced the lovers of the sanctuary. Guy, for this was the young man's name, was born in the country near Brussels, of poor parents, but they were rich in their poverty, through that godliness with contentment, which is great gain. "We shall be rich enough, if we fear GOD," was their frequent observation to their little boy, and I need not add that with such parents his home was a happy one, happier than a palace could have been in which the love and fear of Almighty GoD were wanting. They brought him up from his cradle to be obedient, gentle, modest, patient and diligent; and though they were unable through their poverty to send him to

school, or themselves to give him much of what is called scholarship, they gave him such an education as only a parent, and a Christian parent can impart; for by example and by precept they trained him up in the way wherein he should go, and he did not depart from it. Having food and raiment, he learned to be therewith content, and to esteem a dinner of herbs, where love is, better than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith. As soon as Guy was able to understand how GOD hath chosen the poor in this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He hath prepared for them that love Him, and how it was the state of our Blessed LORD Himself, when He came to visit us in great humility, he was much delighted with the goodness of GOD in placing him in such a station. If called at any time to suffer want, the parents would rejoice together with their child in the opportunity of being thus the more conformed to the example of our Divine Master, and many times they would gladly abridge their own meals to share their scanty morsel with the poor. Guy's parents rejoiced exceedingly at the

grace of GoD which was so manifest at an early age in their beloved child, and earnestly did they pray that He would preserve and increase in his young heart the fire of holy love which He Himself had kindled, and their prayers were heard, for as he grew in years and stature, he made progress in all goodness. We are told of him, that while he showed to the rich and the great ones of the world all possible respect, he never envied or coveted their fortunes, but remembering those words of JESUS "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of Heaven;" he prayed the more earnestly for such, while it filled him with sorrow to see men in all estates so eagerly wedded to the goods of this present evil world, and so overrating them. When he met with poor persons who lamented over their condition, he would lovingly entreat them not to lose by murmuring, impatience, and unprofitable anxieties, and vain tormenting wishes, the treasure which, in the blessed estate of poverty, GoD had put into their hands. He would remind them how, as a holy Bishop has expressed it, God ranks