TKe GOSPEL of a 
 
 : V ;;vY\W PASTOR 
 
 LELEN 
 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE GOSPEL OF A 
 COUNTRY PASTOR 
 
 Sketches and Sermons 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. J. M. LELEN 
 
 Author of "Towards the Altar," "The Duty of Happiness," 
 "The Gospel of Pain," etc. 
 
 "The new need is the old Gospel." 
 
 B. HERDER BOOK CO. 
 
 17 South Broadway, St. Louis, Mo. 
 
 AND 
 
 68 Great Russell St. London, W. C. 
 1922 
 

 NIHIL OBSTAT 
 Sti Ludovici, die 22. Martii, 1922. 
 
 F. G. Holweck, 
 
 Censor Librorum 
 
 IMPRIMATUR 
 Sti Ludovici, die 22. Martii, 1922. 
 
 *i*Ioannes J. Glennon, 
 Archiepiscopus 
 
 Sti, Ludovici 
 
 Copyright, 1922, 
 
 by 
 
 B. Herder Book Co. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Printed in U. S. A. 
 
 M -5 1922 
 
 ©CI.A677009 
 
To 
 
 THE VERY REV. JOS. A. FLYNN, 
 
 Vicar General of the Covington Diocese, 
 THESE PAGES ARE HUMBLY INSCRIBED 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 Foreword vii 
 
 'Introduction xiii 
 
 I In the Stable i 
 
 II The Shepherds 15 
 
 III In the Village of Nazareth 25 
 
 IV The Lamb of God . . . . 39 
 
 V A Country Wedding 50 
 
 VI On Hills and Mountains 61 
 
 /II Birds of the Air and Lilies of the Field jz 
 
 VIII In the Wilderness 83 
 
 IX Doves and Serpents 90 
 
 X Trees 99 
 
 XI About Animals .111 
 
 XII A Deserter 128 
 
 XIII Jesus, The Good Shepherd 142 
 
 XIV Our Lord with His Harvesters .... 161 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 "Back to Christ !" 
 
 "Back to the farm I" 
 
 I was indulging in a day dream with those two 
 momentous mottoes as a somewhat shadowy subject 
 when one of my oldest parishioners handed me the 
 following sermon on the soil : 
 
 "I was born in the country. God's earth is to me 
 a part and parcel of life. I live to dig. By digging 
 I learn to think ; I unearth strange sleeping silences ; 
 powers of thought fresh from the soil come forth to 
 see God's light and sky. Thoughts, like creatures, 
 prone to rest all day, are made to move when I dig. 
 
 "I like to sow. By sowing I learn to trust; God's 
 promises can never be forgotten when with Him I 
 make things grow. He plants His word as I sow 
 the seed; out of my life He bringeth fruit; weak 
 though my will which makes me believe and pray, 
 and trust and serve. 
 
 "I like to reap. By reaping I bring Joy ; I gather 
 God's promises in my hand, and my heart goes out 
 to Him for His goodness and mercies to all man- 
 kind. He makes His Word fall in due season; 
 golden grain and whitened staple tell of His wealth 
 and purity. I like to live because to me it hath 
 
 been given to dig and sow and reap. 
 
 vii 
 
via FOREWORD 
 
 "My closing days on earth shall be in the country ; 
 digging, sowing, and reaping; then at the close to 
 know that friendly earth is receiving me back and 
 that upon my resting-place God's sun and rain shall 
 ever fall — this is, indeed, to make of that silence a 
 sweet communion with all I have known and loved. 
 In the meanwhile 
 
 "Teach me, my God and King, 
 In all things Thee to see : 
 And what I do in anything 
 To do it as for Thee. 
 
 "A servant with this clause, 
 Makes drudgery divine: 
 Who tills the soil, as for Thy laws 
 Makes that, and the action, fine." 
 
 I read and read again this homely homily, and 
 resolved to expatiate a little on it. This booklet 
 which I hope will be followed by several others, is 
 the result of my decision. I lovingly dedicate it to 
 my faithful farmers of Falmouth with the hope 
 that it may help them to cling to Christ and the 
 farm. 
 
 If city people find that my writing, like the afore- 
 said sermon, is decidedly plain and common-place, I 
 will readily admit that so it is, just as are the making 
 of a fire in the morning, the cooking of food, the 
 baking of bread, the peeling of potatoes, the mending 
 
FOREWORD ix 
 
 of clothes, the milking of cows and many other 
 very useful labors usually done about the farm. 
 
 Take care of truth, and beauty will take care of 
 itself : this has ever been my method and I am now 
 too old to change it. In the hands of a priest the 
 height of art is not to conceal art, but to ignore it. 
 I write to be understood and thereby to do good: 
 I care not whether the reader is pleased or not with 
 my words. 
 
 "When a man is strong and in good spirits/ ' says 
 Liddon, "he likes to toy with style and speculations ; 
 but when he is sick, and suffering, and has another 
 state of existence looming, however indistinctly, be- 
 fore him, he desires truth; — a truth, too, which 
 dares to assert itself as truth, which knows its 
 responsibilities, its frontiers, its premises and its 
 consequences, its foes and its supporters. To talk 
 at the bedside of a dying man as if you were doubt- 
 ful about your words, or afraid of offending literary 
 susceptibilities, would be the acme of ridicule. 
 Religion may have — it has — a literary side; but 
 speaking broadly, literature is one thing, and religion 
 is another and an infinitely higher and more sacred 
 thing than literature. It is because our Lord's 
 words go straight to the heart and soul of man that 
 He shows Himself to be the Master of the absolute 
 Religion; and that he gives us a warrant that what 
 He says will not pass away." 
 
 All must admit that to give a new edge to truths 
 
x FOREWORD 
 
 blunted by use, it is not needful that they should 
 be clothed in language either gorgeous or elegant; 
 but only that their expression should be such as we 
 are not accustomed to ; such as to make us stop and 
 listen. Since, then, each individual has his own 
 individual language and accentuation, it is always 
 helpful to hear from others truths which, formulated 
 in our own way, pass through our ears without 
 friction and therefore escape our attention. For 
 this reason it does not seem altogether presumptuous 
 or unreasonable to flood the market with religious 
 books, provided the author can claim personality of 
 manner and disclaim all pretence at novelty in point 
 of matter. A new gospel is not worth listening to; 
 while to say the old things in the old words is tire- 
 some. 
 
 In his latest book, The Holy Earth, L. H. Bailey, 
 the Nestor of rural writers, has just told us that 
 "a man cannot be a good farmer unless he is a 
 religious man." That this sentence is true no one 
 can deny, for a farmer's life is one of sacrifice and 
 uncertainty; his labor lasts practically all day; few 
 are his diversions and many are the risks he runs; 
 more than any other man he depends upon the good 
 pleasure of God, who sends rain and drought, sun- 
 shine and storm, success and failure. And if a 
 farmer is not in the habit of looking heavenwards, 
 the burden of the day becomes almost unbearable 
 at times on his shoulders. 
 
FOREWORD xi 
 
 Farmers need God in the days of disaster and 
 poverty, that they may be enabled to carry on their 
 work and never be discouraged; they need Him also 
 in the days of prosperity and rich crops, that they 
 may make good use of His gifts for themselves and 
 for humanity. 
 
 May this handbook of spiritual agriculture lead 
 us all to Him, the Friend of the Farmers and Master 
 of the Harvests! 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Before we study the Words and Works of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, it will be good for us to glance 
 for one moment over the land where He lived and 
 loved, — 
 
 "those holy fields 
 Over whose acres walked those blessed feet 
 Which, nineteen hundred years ago, were nailed 
 For our advantage on the bitter Cross." 
 
 Indeed it were useful for us to place the geography 
 of the land in living relation to its Sacred History. 
 For, as Ritter says, "The geography of Palestine, as 
 we find it to-day, is the strongest testimony of the 
 truth of that history which purports to emanate 
 thence. The natural scenery of Palestine speaks in 
 but one voice in favor of the Bible; every word of 
 the sacred narrative receives its best interpretation 
 by being studied in connection with the place where 
 it was recorded. No one can trace without joy and 
 wonder the verification which geography pays to the 
 history of the Holy Land. So strong is the argu- 
 ment drawn thence, that the most subtle dialectician 
 is baffled by it and is entrapped in the net which 
 
 xii 
 
"the fifth gospel" xi " 
 
 !iis own sophistry has spun." We could call Pales- 
 tine "the fifth Gospel." 
 
 That land, that Holy Land, is not, however, pro- 
 portioned in size or physical characteristics to its 
 moral or historical position *as the theatre of the most 
 portentous events in the world's history. The land 
 that contains the birthplace of our Lord and the 
 cradle of divine revelations is only a strip of country 
 about the size of our State of Massachusetts — about 
 the fourth part of the size of Ireland — exactly 
 8,500 square miles in area. From the city of Dan, 
 on the north limit, to Bersabee on the south, is a 
 distance of only 139 miles; and the breadth averages 
 barely 40. 
 
 When it is remembered that America was un- 
 known until 1492, the position of Palestine on the 
 map of the ancient world was remarkable. It 
 seemed the very centre of the earth, and this position 
 accounts for the long prevailing belief that Jerusalem 
 was the precise central point. 
 
 The boundaries of this country were the Med- 
 iterranean sea in the west; the Lebanon mountains 
 on the north ; on the east, the elevated plateau of the 
 Syrian steppe that looked towards the great empires 
 of Assyria and Babylonia; on the south, the 
 mountainous desert of Arabia that shuts it in from 
 Egypt. Truly it was an isolated country, "sep- 
 arated from among the people of the earth." It 
 has a river, the Jordan, which flows from the foot 
 
xiv EAST OF THE JORDAN 
 
 of Mt. Hermon, the highest peak of the Lebanon, 
 and runs in a crooked line from the north to the 
 south, connecting along its way the lake of Galilee 
 with the Dead Sea, and dividing the whole country 
 into two parts, the region west of the Jordan and the 
 region east of it 
 
 The region east of the Jordan extends from the 
 shore of the Dead Sea to Mt. Hermon, and includes 
 Perea, Decapolis, Trachonitis, and Iturea; its 
 population was mainly pagan. Seldom did our Lord 
 visit this part of the country; it is, however, in its 
 northern side, near Cesarea Philippi, that He asked 
 of His first followers that momentous question 
 which for nearly nineteen centuries has riveted the 
 eye of thinking and adoring Christendom : "Whom 
 say ye that I am?" It is there that St. Peter 
 answered Him. "Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
 the living God." It is there that Jesus said to St. 
 Peter: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will 
 build my Church." There, also our Lord per- 
 formed several miracles and preached the doctrine 
 of the heavenly Kingdom. 
 
 The region west of the Jordan stretched from the 
 north to the south in the following order: Galilee, 
 Samaria, Judea. 
 
 The most beautiful part of Galilee was near the 
 lake of Gennesareth or sea of Tiberias. The lake, a 
 pear-shaped sheet of water is fourteen miles long 
 and six broad in its widest part. "In our Lord's 
 
GALILEE xv 
 
 time," a traveller tells us, "it was a scene of wonder- 
 ful beauty. Its deep blue waters were crossed and 
 recrossed by boats of many shapes and sizes. There 
 were heavily laden barges bearing the costly mer- 
 chandise of the East to the custom-house on the 
 shore; there were pleasure-skiffs darting here 
 and there with gay parties bound for one or 
 other of the handsome Roman villas by the lakeside ; 
 and there were fishing smacks in hundreds, some 
 with nets lowered for a draught, others bringing 
 home the fruits of the night's haul. The white 
 beach showed boats being unladen, children looking 
 on as the silvery load was landed and sorted, men 
 and boys mending their nets on the strand or stretch- 
 ing them out to dry. Dotted all about were the 
 cottages of the fishermen, and, coming down almost 
 to the water's edge, glowed rich, waving cornfields 
 and flowers of every hue. In the Jordan valley, 
 where, sheltered from the winds, the vegetation was 
 tropical, the sugar-cane flourished and palm trees 
 with their feathery foliage. Higher up grew figs, 
 almonds, olives. Higher still, walnut, oak, apple 
 trees, each of these needing its own kind of soil and 
 temperature, yet all at home here." Here were the 
 cities whose names are so familiar to Christian ears 
 — Tiberias, Magdala, Bethsaida, Capharnaum, Cana, 
 Nazareth, Corozain. 
 
 To the south of Galilee was the province of Sa- 
 maria. Josephus tells us that that land was of the 
 
xvi JUDEA 
 
 same character as Judea. Its inhabitants were a 
 mixed race, partly Jews, partly Gentiles. Three 
 times did Jesus visit Samaria. 
 
 Judea was the southernmost division of Palestine. 
 Bleak and bare were the fields and hills of this 
 region, but here is Bethlehem and here is Jerusalem, 
 and here is Emmaus and here is Jericho. With 
 Galilea hallowed for ever is this land to Christians, 
 the land where Jesus dwelt among men. 
 
 This geographical sketch is sufficient for the pre- 
 sent. In the course of our work, now and then, we 
 will pen-picture the places where Jesus lived and 
 loved and died. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 IN THE STABLE 
 
 On that wintry night of the twenty-fourth of 
 December, Mary and Joseph neared Bethlehem. 
 The way had been long and weary — a four days' 
 journey, whatever route had been taken frofri Naz- 
 areth. A sense of rest and peace must have crept 
 over them when at last they reached the fields that 
 surrounded the ancient "House of Bread," as "their 
 own city" was oalled. Winter though it was, 
 people of that country tell us that the green and 
 silvery foliage of the olive might, even at that 
 seasoli, mingle with the pale pink of the almond — 
 nature's early waker — and with the darker coloring 
 of the opening peach bud. The trip of the two 
 wayfarers was in obedience to a decree of the 
 Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, who had or- 
 dered a general census of all his subjects; "the 
 whole world shall be enrolled" : such was the im- 
 perial audacity of the phrase. In deference, how- 
 ever, to Jewish prejudices, this enrolment was not 
 
 carried out in the ordinary Roman manner, at each 
 
 1 
 
2 YET A FEW HOURS 
 
 person's place ai residence, but, according to He- 
 brew custom, at the town to which each family 
 originally belonged. 
 
 The lowly carpenter of Nazareth, in Galilee, and 
 his young wife, slowly trod their way, remembering 
 the extraordinary events of the year and pondering 
 over them. It was nine months ago to-day since 
 the Angel Gabriel came to Mary, asking her in 
 God's name whether she would consent to become 
 the mother of the Messiah, and the mystery of In- 
 carnation took place at the word of the Virgin. 
 Afterwards, it was the visit to St. Elizabeth, herself 
 chosen and blessed by the Most High at an age when 
 she had no more hope of becoming a mother, and 
 Mary pouring forth her Magnificat had told her the 
 secret of her vocation. Again, it was the wondrous 
 dream of St. Joseph, freed from fear by an angel 
 about the virtue of his most pure spouse, and hear- 
 ing the great tidings that her unborn Child was of 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 And so their heart holily moved at the remem- 
 brance of those heavenly visions and angelic dis- 
 courses they marched* with confidence towards the 
 joys set in store for them. He was coming at last 
 "the Desired of all nations," the Messiah promised 
 by God and predicted by the prophets. Yet a few 
 hours and Jesus will be in the world. For the full- 
 ness of times has arrived, and the sun going down on 
 
"and thou bethlehem" 3 
 
 that evening under the horizon has saluted the night 
 when the Christ is to be born. 
 
 Serene and tender, a hymn of thanksgiving and 
 praise ascended from the heart to the lips of Mary, 
 while Joseph, witnessing so much faith and humility, 
 could only thank Divine Providence and consider 
 himself unworthy of being so closely associated in 
 the salvation of the world. 
 
 If they had not been folk full of faith, the poor 
 workingman and his sweet companion surely would 
 have found reasons to complain. Why such a long 
 and painful trip when the Child was to come ? Yon- 
 der in Nazareth, modest as was their home, it was a 
 home after all, a home with kind neighbors whose 
 friendly hands would have tended the young mother 
 at the moment of her utmost need — for women are 
 ever merciful to each other, in this one respect at 
 least — but here they were strangers in a strange 
 place. But they knew the prophecy of Michaeas. 
 A thousand years ago the seer had announced the 
 glory which Jesus through His Birth would shed on 
 Bethlehem: "And thou Bethlehem, the land of Juda, 
 art not the least among the princes of Juda: for 
 out of thee shall come the Leader that shall rule my 
 people Israel/ ' They understood, therefore, the 
 import of the strange circumstances which called 
 them away from Nazareth a few days before the 
 greatest hour. They knew it was one of those di- 
 
"there was no room" 
 
 yine incidents in which the great Will rides over 
 little human wills. 
 
 Mary was very tired : it is at least seventy miles 
 from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and think of it as Dec- 
 ember, too, when the weather is chilly and the roads 
 are in bad condition. I spoke of silver leaves of 
 olives along the road, but it is like little steel swords 
 in the wet light that they glance towards the holy 
 Virgin. But the joy of her soul lessened her fa- 
 tigue. Every step of hers, she knew it, made her 
 ever nearer the spot where she would press upon her 
 heart that Son so fervently desired — the God-Child 
 who was to redeem sinful humanity. 
 
 II 
 
 As soon as they reached the end of their journey 
 Joseph went to the inn of the village to find a shelter 
 for the night. But, owing to the great number of 
 newcomers, "there was no room for them." 
 
 Did they try to find another house? I have al- 
 ways been inclined to think that they rather received 
 in their soul a grace of light in which they saw the 
 plans of God concerning the Nativity of His Christ. 
 
 Christ is the Light, the Life and the Weal of the 
 world, the Gift of God to the universe, the Word 
 which will say : "Come to Me all ye that suffer and 
 are heavy laden," it behooved that His birth should 
 take place in the poorest possible manner. Coming 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MYSTERY [5 
 
 down from heaven to bring us the riches of heaven, 
 He had resolved to live and die in such complete 
 poverty that He could say : "The foxes have holes 
 and the birds of the air, nests ; but the Son of Man 
 hath not where to lay His head." This abjection 
 was to end only when bare He would die on the bare 
 Cross ; but it had to be seen at His very birth. Beth- 
 lehem had to resemble Calvary to form with it but 
 one mystery. 
 
 Mary and Joseph saw those lights from above. 
 Wherefore, without delay, we think that, led by 
 them, rather than by sheer necessity, they went to 
 where God had decided that the Divine Child should 
 be born. 
 
 In the heart of a rock, in the outskirts of Bethle- 
 hem there were many natural caves as old as the 
 earth. In one of them Mary and Joseph at last 
 found a place worthy of the Forsaken One. The 
 first prayer that Mary said there remains the secret 
 of God. 
 
 That cave or grotto was at the same time a stable 
 for cattle : therein were a manger, an ox and an ass. 
 Isaias had said : 'The ox knoweth his owner and the 
 ass his master's crib: but Israel hath not known 
 Me." 
 
 And in that cave, at midnight, nine months after 
 having conceived Him in Nazareth, the Immaculate 
 Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Word made 
 flesh. Jesus went forth from His Virgin Mother 
 
"given not lent" 
 
 as the light from the sun, as a perfume from a 
 flower, as a word from our lips. Words do not 
 tear the lips that speak them ; a flower is not altered 
 by the perfume it gives forth, the sun loses nothing 
 by emitting its rays. A Virgin before child-birth, 
 Mary remained a Virgin after child-birth. 
 
 St. Luke calls Jesus "the first born son" of Mary. 
 This, as usual in Hebrew, merely means that till then 
 she had not had any child. As Jesus is the only 
 Son of the Eternal Father, He is also the only Son 
 of Mary. But as "the Father of mercies is pleased 
 to adopt all men;" as "He predestinates Jesus to be 
 the first born among many brethren," Mary is asso- 
 ciated to this extended generation of the Word; and 
 as the numberless brethren of Jesus shall call 
 God their Father, they shall also call Mary their 
 Mother. 
 
 This first born of God "Mary wrapped up in 
 swaddling clothes and laid in the manger." This is 
 all that the Gospel says. And this is enough to feed 
 our faith. God has realized His Promise. Out of 
 the race of Adam is born the Son of the Woman 
 who, through and with the Woman, is to crush the 
 head of the serpent, Satan. God has so loved the 
 world as to give us His only begotten Son : Unto 
 us a Son is given : 
 
 "Given, not lent 
 And not withdrawn — once sent. 
 
THE CRIB LIKE THE CROSS 7 
 
 "Welcome all wonders in one sight ! 
 
 Eternity shut in a span! 
 Summer in Winter, Day in Night! 
 
 Heaven in earth and God in Man!" 
 
 We have our Emmanuel, we have our Savior : ours 
 in all manners, ours in truth, for this God who gives 
 Himself to us is visibly "one of us," the same as we 
 are when we are born, "being made to the likeness of 
 men and in shape found as a man." He lives ac- 
 cording to our ways and begins as we begin. He 
 is weak : — He cannot walk, He cannot stand up, He 
 cannot speak, He needs His mother's help ; He feels 
 cold ; He will have to grow and increase in wisdom 
 and grace with God and men. He is the Son of 
 Man — subject to all our infirmities — as well as the 
 Son of God, — endowed with infinitude. 
 
 Withal, we see already that this new born Child 
 is a Victim, the Lamb of God, the Redeemer of man- 
 kind. His birth in the lowly condition He has 
 chosen is the beginning of an expiatory life, the 
 first act of the Sacrifice which God awaits. The 
 whole Gospel is here as in its germ : the Crib like the 
 Cross cries out the Creed of the Christ. 
 
 Ill 
 
 At times perhaps we feel bewildered when we 
 think of this first church— the Stable — where Jesus 
 
8 THE EMPTINESS OF CHRIST 
 
 vouchsafed to reside and receive the first homage of 
 men. But soon we recover and realize that there 
 never was anywhere in the universe a temple where 
 He was better loved and adored. Mary and Joseph 
 were there, the maiden mother and the man of truth. 
 And since they were there, what did it matter that 
 the walls were bare and dripping and that the ground 
 was littered with straw, hay, and provender ? What 
 did it matter that the place was dark, cold, and si- 
 lent ? Their hearts were warm, their souls luminous 
 and poured forth delightful harmonies. 
 
 But a few miles distant on a hill, towered the 
 palace- fortress of Herod. The magnificent houses 
 of his friends and courtiers crowded around its 
 base. Therein could be heard the hired and vo- 
 luptuous minstrelsy with which feasts were cele- 
 brated, or the shouting of the mercenaries whose 
 arms enforced obedience to its despotic lord. But 
 the true King of the Jews — the rightful Lord of the 
 universe — was not to be found in palace or fortress. 
 They who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. 
 The cattle-stable of the lowly caverns was a more 
 fitting birthplace for Him who came to reveal that 
 the soul of the greatest monarch was no dearer or 
 greater in God's sight than the soul of his meanest 
 slave ; for Him who from His cross of shame was to 
 rule the world. 
 
 Before this emptiness of Christ ungodliness, how- 
 ever, has ever violently protested. Such a birth in 
 
THE BLIND MEN OF THE AGES 9 
 
 such a place cannot be the birth of the Messiah, ex- 
 claim the blind men of the ages. And they refuse 
 to recognize in the Son of Mary Him after whom 
 the people of God longed for so many centuries. 
 But we, His faithful followers, kneel down before 
 His crib; we adore, we admire, and we understand 
 the lessons that flow from the Stable of Bethlehem. 
 With Tertullian we believe that the surroundings of 
 outward poverty and misery, so far from detracting 
 from, seem most congruous to His Divine character. 
 Earthly splendor would here seem like tawdry tinsel, 
 while the utmost simplicity appears like that clothing 
 of the lilies which far surpassed all the glory of 
 Solomon's court. 
 
 Fanciful writers of the dawn of Christianity 
 speak of many prodigies that happened at the Na- 
 tivity. They describe how at the awful moment, 
 "the pole of the heaven stood motionless, and the 
 birds were still, and there were workmen lying on 
 the earth with their hands in a vessel, and those who 
 handled it did not handle it, and those who took did 
 not lift; and I saw the sheep scattered, and the sheep 
 stood, and the shepherd lifted up his hand to strike, 
 and his hand remained up; and I looked at the 
 stream of the river, and the mouth of the kids were 
 down and were not drinking." But of this sudden 
 hush and pause of awe-struck nature, of the parhe- 
 lions and mysterious splendors which blazed in 
 many parts of the world, and of many another won- 
 
IO IN THE MANGER! 
 
 der which rooted itself in earliest tradition there is 
 no trace whatever in the New Testament. The in- 
 ventions of man differ wholly from the dealings of 
 God. 
 
 The Gospels, always truthful, give the facts with- 
 out comment. There is in them nothing of the ex- 
 uberance of marvel and mystery. There is no 
 more decisive criterion of their absolute credibility 
 as simple histories than the marked and violent con- 
 trast which they offer to all the spurious gospels of 
 the early centuries and all the imaginative legends 
 which have clustered around them. 
 
 IV 
 
 Throughout the avenues of the ages, the Gospels 
 in hand, then, who would not fain contemplate the 
 mother of Jesus near the piteous cradle where her 
 Son is resting? Who would not like to see how, 
 feeble as she is, she wraps Him up with baby clothes 
 — yes, St. Luke hints at it, she has brought them 
 with her, those linens and those woolens spun and 
 woven by her in Nazareth. — Who would not like to 
 see how she lays Him in the Manger? In the Man- 
 ger! O, my friends of the farm, how far we are 
 from the coziness and the innocent stylishness of 
 those mothers of ours who for a long, long time 
 dream of the cradle of their first-born child: "It 
 would be of solid gold if I could afford it," one day 
 
CHILDREN 1 1 
 
 I heard a mother say. Nothing seems too dear, 
 neither lace nor ribbons, to enshrine the pink little 
 baby. I do not blame the solicitude of mothers, but 
 still I see and say that Jesus our God took his first 
 rest in a little bit of straw, in that very crib where 
 a few hours before an ox and an ass had found their 
 feed. How such a sight is apt to console the poor 
 and guard them from envy; what a light it could 
 give to the rich who so often rush into stupid ex- 
 penses ! 
 
 Let the example of Mary be of profit to you, O 
 Christian women. In that weak Child, who seems 
 so powerless, the Blessed Virgin sees and adores her 
 God, Him who made the world with its numberless 
 riches, Him who through His Providence rules the 
 great and the lowly, Him who one day at the end of 
 times will judge us all. You also, then, in the wee 
 cradle where your sons slumber, in the envelope of 
 their so frail bodies, contemplate and admire the 
 souls therein nestling, those immortal souls which He 
 has hallowed by baptism, which He wills to embel- 
 lish with graces and virtues, and which He destines 
 — when the struggles and sorrows of this earth are 
 over — to the glorious peace and happiness of His 
 eternal paradise. 
 
 Before the first Christmas, in the pagan lands of 
 antiquity, children were not loved as they are now ; 
 no halo of romance and tenderness encircled them; 
 too often they were subjected to shameful cruelties 
 
12 THREE WORDS 
 
 and hard neglect. But He who came to be the 
 friend and helper of all, came also to be the protector 
 and friend of helpless infancy and innocent child- 
 hood. Three utterances came forth from His 
 Divine lips about them : "Suffer the little children 
 to come unto Me and forbid them not, for of such is 
 the Kingdom of God." "Amen, I say to you unless 
 you be converted and become as little children you 
 shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven." "He 
 that shall receive one such little child in My Name re- 
 ceiveth Me. But he that shall scandalize one of 
 these little ones that believe in Me, it were better for 
 him that a millstone should be hanged around his 
 neck and that he should be drowned in the depth of 
 the sea. See that you despise not one of these little 
 ones for I say to you that their Angels in heaven 
 always see the face of My Father who is in heaven." 
 And ever since humanity heard and pondered these 
 divine sentences, which are the charter of childhood ; 
 childhood has become to Christian generations an 
 object of respect, admiration, and tenderness. It is 
 since then, not before, that lines like these were 
 written : 
 
 "When grace is given us ever to behold 
 
 A child some sweet months old, 
 Love, laying across our lips his finger, saith, 
 
 Smiling, with bated breath, 
 Hush ! for the holiest thing that lives is here 
 
 And heaven's own heart how near! 
 
IN THE HOSTEL OP OUR HEART 1 3 
 
 How dare we, that may gaze not on the sun 
 
 Gaze on this verier one? 
 Heart, hold thy peace ; eyes, be cast down for shame ; 
 
 Lips, breathe not its name. 
 In heaven they know what name to call it : we, 
 
 How should we know ?" 
 
 Verily, childhood has been transfigured by Chris- 
 tianity : of heaven, heavenly, now it is : before Christ, 
 of earth, earthly, it was. 
 
 v; 
 
 Let the thought of the Stable of Bethlehem be 
 sweet to you, O my farmers, too often so uncom- 
 fortably housed and poorly fed and paid. Think of 
 that December Night when Jesus so pitifully came 
 to this world. O, my sons of the soil, what does it 
 matter, after all, where you sleep, since you sleep so 
 well after the hard toil of the day, and since your 
 souls are so well kept in the peace of the Lord. O 
 you who have to work in and around the stables, re- 
 member that it was a sad one, the Stable where the 
 Lamb of God was born; and let a fervent prayer 
 arise from your lips to implore and praise our Di- 
 vine Savior. 
 
 To all I say that we all have to reserve a choice 
 room for Jesus in the hostel of our heart. So often, 
 it happens that we do not let Him come in as He 
 would fain desire. Pleasures, business, worldly 
 
14 THE SKY IS RED 
 
 thoughts, social calls take too large a share of our 
 life and of our heart which He made so great and 
 which we make so small. When He comes to us 
 there is no room for Him. Fools that we are! 
 The name of Jesus is Happiness-that-passes- 
 by, and perhaps He will never return if He has to 
 go without being received. 
 
 O poor, divine Christ of the Crib, have mercy on 
 us, have mercy on this our native land. O Holy 
 Child, bless and safeguard the cradles of our coun- 
 try, for we are in sore need of good Christians and 
 good Americans. To-night the sky is red, but will 
 it be fair to-morrow ? 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SHEPHERDS 
 
 In the field and with their flocks abiding, 
 
 They lay on the dewy ground ; 
 And glimmering under the starlight 
 
 The sheep lay white around. 
 When the Light of the Lord streamed o'er them, 
 
 And lo ! from the heaven above 
 An angel leaned from the glory, 
 
 And sang his song of love : 
 
 "To you, in the City of David, 
 
 A Savior is born to-day!" 
 And sudden a host of the Heavenly ones 
 
 Flashed forth to join the lay! 
 O never hath sweeter message 
 
 Thrilled home to the souls of men, 
 And the heavens themselves had never heard 
 A gladder choir till then. 
 
 F. W. Farrar. 
 
 Yes, that Night, that holy Night, there were shep- 
 herds watching their flocks in the very place conse- 
 crated by tradition as that where the Messiah was to 
 
 15 
 
1 6 GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 
 
 be first revealed. Of a sudden came the long-de- 
 layed, unthought-of announcement. Heaven and 
 earth seemed to mingle, as suddenly an angel stood 
 before their dazzled eyes, while the outstreaming 
 glory of the Lord seemed to enwrap them as in a 
 mantle of light. 
 
 Surprise, awe, fear, were hushed into calm and 
 expectancy, as from the angel they heard, that which 
 they saw boded not judgment, but ushered in to 
 waiting Israel the great joy of those good tidings 
 which he brought: that the long-promised Savior, 
 Messiah, Lord, was born in the city of David, and 
 that they themselves might go and see and recognize 
 Him by the humbleness of the circumstances sur- 
 rounding His Nativity. 
 
 But let us read the very account of the Gospel : 
 "There were shepherds in the country, dwelling 
 out in the fields, and keeping the night-watches over 
 their flock. And lo ! an angel of the Lord stood by 
 them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about 
 them ; and they were sorely afraid. And the angel 
 said to them : 'fear not, for behold, I bring you good 
 tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people; 
 for there is born to you to-day in the city of David 
 a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this is the 
 sign to you ; you will find a babe wrapped in swath- 
 ing-bands, and lying in a manger/ And suddenly 
 there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly 
 host praising God, and saying : 
 
HIS FIRST COURTIERS 1 7 
 
 'Glory to God in the highest 
 And on earth peace to men of good will/ " 
 
 Jesus is born: straightway, although it is the dead 
 of night, must be invited some faithful folks to 
 His Cradle. From the sky that blossoms with their 
 celestial forms and faces, angels come to cry it out 
 and summon His first courtiers. Who will these 
 be ? The rich, the learned, the happy of this world? 
 No. As He will call only poor fishermen to be 
 His first disciples and the doctors of His Church 
 the angels convoke only plain, humble shepherds. 
 
 "In choosing these shepherds of Bethlehem/' says 
 Father Breen, "as witnesses of the authenticity of 
 His birth, Christ adhered to His original design of 
 teaching the world that its valuation of temporal 
 goods and honors is wrong. The world's basis of 
 showing honor is not founded on the intrinsic good- 
 ness of man, but on his possessions or some other 
 extrinsic adjunct. Had Christ chosen the learned 
 doctors, or the men of power and wealth in His 
 nation, it would appear an approbation of the 
 world's line of action in such matters. No one 
 else would be as much at home in the stable as the 
 poor, simple shepherd. It was another act in the 
 condescension of Christ, who came down to the 
 lowest grade of human life that He might the 
 more efficaciously teach men how to live. There is 
 a wondrous majesty in the birth at Bethlehem. It 
 would be obscured and weakened by the changing 
 
1 8 THE NEW HOUR 
 
 of one factor. There is no majesty in selfish ease. 
 Not in attending to personal comforts, but in re- 
 nouncing them, is man great. And so, from His 
 birth in the manger to His death-bed on the hard 
 wood of the Cross, Christ takes the lead in the re- 
 nunciation of selfish interests and comforts. Again, 
 had Christ come among men in a higher social 
 station, the poor and the unhonored might say: 
 'He thinks not of us; every one on earth elbows 
 us aside, and even Christ has confirmed by His 
 course of action that they who have money 
 are the best/ In a word, the equilibrium of 
 human life had been disturbed by man's adora- 
 tion of Mammon. Christ endeavors to recall 
 it to the harmonious order wished by God, by 
 honoring poverty in His birth. Hence the virtuous 
 poor are the nobility of Christ/' 
 
 Wealthy Magi and Kings will be called later on, 
 but they will be ushered in only after our dear 
 country peasants. And this the more deeply moves 
 us when we think how despised were the poor by 
 the pagans. The hour had indeed struck when the 
 first were going to be the last. Henceforth those 
 who never knew or those who- had forgotten 
 it, began to learn that God is in no need of human 
 grandeur and that to Him simplicity and candor 
 of soul are preferable to the tinsel of riches and the 
 flash of titles and dignities. 
 
 Simple and candid they were, these shepherds. 
 
THEY MADE KNOWN THE WORD 1 9 
 
 It is claimed that they may have been members, 
 though poor and humble, of that true Israel which 
 included Mary and Joseph, Zacharias and Elizabeth, 
 Simeon and Anna — the representatives of the saints 
 of their nation in its bright past. They must have 
 been looking out, in their simple way, towards the 
 invisible and eternal, and seeking that kingdom of 
 God for themselves which was one day, as they 
 believed, to be revealed to their nation at large. 
 Only that mind which has sympathy with external 
 nature can receive in their true significance the im- 
 pressions God wants to convey, and only the heart 
 which has sympathy with spiritual things can 
 recognize their full meaning. And such was their 
 mind. The stillness over hill and valley, broken 
 only by the bleating of the sheep; the unclouded 
 brightness of the Syrian sky, with its innumerable 
 stars; and the associations of those mountain 
 pastures, dear to every Jew as the scenes of David's 
 youth, were over and around them. 
 
 But let us return to the beautiful narrative of 
 St. Luke : 
 
 "When the angels departed from them into 
 heaven, the shepherds said to one another: 'Let us 
 go over to Bethlehem, and see the thing that is come 
 to pass, which the Lord has shown us/ And they 
 came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and 
 the Infant lying in the manger. When they saw it, 
 they made known the word which had been spoken 
 
20 THE FIRST WORSHIPPERS 
 
 to them about this little Child. And all who heard 
 marvelled at the things that were told them by the 
 shepherds. But Mary kept all these words, ponder- 
 ing them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, 
 glorifying and praising God for all the things which 
 they had heard and seen, as it was told them." 
 
 Without drawing on our imagination we can 
 represent to our minds the greetings of the shep- 
 herds to the King of glory, who for love of us 
 vouchsafed to make Himself so small; we can also 
 see the blessings which they received from being, 
 with Mary and Joseph, the first worshippers of Jesus. 
 
 Eloquent is the lesson which they give us by their 
 prompt belief in the word of the angel and their 
 quickness in complying with the call from above. 
 Eloquent also is the fact that, when they return to 
 their fields, they glorify and praise God, thereby 
 teaching us the duty of gratitude. 
 
 "The figures of the Shepherds/ ' says Father 
 Faber, "have grown to look so natural to us in our 
 thought-pictures of Bethlehem that it almost seems 
 now as if they were inseparable from it and in- 
 dispensable to the mystery. What a beautiful 
 congruity there is between the part they play, and 
 their pastoral occupation! The very contrasts are 
 congruities. Heaven opens, and reveals itself to 
 earth, making itself but one side of the choir to sing 
 the office of the Nativity, while earth is to 
 be the other; and earth's answer to the open 
 
THEIR AFTER- YEARS 21 
 
 heavens is the pastoral gentleness of those 
 simple-minded watchmen. She sets her Shepherds 
 to match the heavenly singers, and counts their 
 simplicity her most harmonious response to angel- 
 ical intelligence. Truly earth was wise in this 
 her deed, and teaches her sons philosophy. It was 
 congruous, too, that simplicity should be the first 
 worship which the outer world sent into the Stable 
 of Bethlehem. For what is the grace of simplicity 
 but a permanent childhood of the soul, fixed there 
 by a special operation of the Holy Ghost, and there- 
 fore a fitting worship for the Holy Child Himself? 
 Their infant-like heavenly-mindedness suited His 
 infantine condition, as well as it suited the purity 
 of the heavenly hosts that were singing in the upper 
 air. Beautiful figures! on whom God's light rested 
 for a moment and then all was dark again! they 
 were not merely shapes of light, golden imaginings, 
 ideal forms, that filled in the Divine Artist's myste- 
 rious picture. They were living souls, tender yet 
 not faultless men, with inequalities in the monotony 
 of their human lot that often lowered them in 
 temper and in repining to the level of those around 
 them. They were not so unlike ourselves, though 
 they float in the golden haze of a glorious picture. 
 They fell back out of the strong light, without any 
 complaint, to their sheep-flocks and their night 
 watches. Their after-years were hidden in the 
 pathetic obscurity which is common to all blameless 
 
22 UNDER THE SUN AND THE STARS 
 
 poverty; and they are hidden now in the sea of light 
 which lies like a golden veil of mist close round the 
 throne of the Incarnate Word." 
 
 II 
 
 O you country people, who at your every step can 
 hear God and see Him in the flower of the road, 
 in the song of the birds, in the bee-hive's hum, in 
 the wheat that stirs with the sap of the spring, in the 
 drops of rain and in the rays of the sun, in all those 
 harmonies of nature, take care to proclaim like the 
 Shepherds His power and His generosity, that He 
 may safeguard and bless you ! In the cities, believe 
 me, there are too many clamorous jars, and the 
 smoke is too dense : eyes cannot see and ears cannot 
 (hear; and lips are too often impure with blas- 
 phemies. O you, to whom God's Providence speaks 
 every day and displays itself everywhere, under the 
 sun and the stars, openly and fearlessly learn to 
 proclaim how great is the beauty and how merciful 
 the goodness of your Creator. Ever make your 
 intercourse with His works deepen your faith in His 
 Word: 
 
 "The works of God are fair for nought 
 Unless our eyes, in seeing, 
 See hidden in the thing the thought 
 That animates its being. 
 
THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR 2J 
 
 "The outward form is not the whole, 
 But every part is moulded 
 To image forth an inward soul, 
 That dimly is unfolded. 
 
 "The shadow pictured in the lake, 
 
 By every tree that trembles, 
 Is cast for more than just the sake 
 Of that which it resembles. 
 
 "The dew falls lightly, not alone 
 Because the meadows need it ; 
 But hath an errand of its own, 
 To human souls that heed it. 
 
 "The stars are lighted in the skies 
 Not merely for their shining; 
 But like the light of loving eyes, 
 Have meanings worth divining. 
 
 (< 
 
 The waves that moan along the shore, 
 The winds that sigh in blowing, 
 
 Are sent to teach a mystic lore, 
 Which men are wise in knowing. 
 
 "The clouds around the mountain peak, 
 The rivers in their winding, 
 Have secrets which, to all who seek, 
 Are precious in the finding. 
 
24 ALONG THE ROAD 
 
 "Thus nature dwells within our reach; 
 
 But though we stand so near her, 
 We still interpret half her speech 
 With ears too dull to hear her. 
 
 "Whoever at the coarsest sound 
 Still listens for the finest. 
 Shall hear the noisy world go round 
 To music the divinest. 
 
 "Whoever yearns to see aright, 
 Because his heart is tender, 
 Shall catch a glimpse of heavenly light 
 In every earthly splendor. 
 
 "So since the universe began, 
 And till it shall be ended, 
 The soul of nature, soul of man, 
 And soul of God are blended." 
 
 "The wonders of the visible creation," wrote St. 
 Gregory the Great, "are the footprints of our 
 Creator Himself; as yet we cannot see Him, but we 
 are on the road that leads to this vision, when we 
 admire Him in the things that He has made. And 
 so we call created things His footprints, because 
 they are made by Him, and guide us to Himself." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IN THE VILLAGE OF NAZARETH 
 
 At Nazareth when the hours seemed long, 
 Our Lady would keep in her heart a song, 
 As she plied all her tasks in her perfect way ; 
 For she knew quite well that the close of day 
 Would bring Jesus home her cares to allay 
 
 At evening. 
 
 And so when the great red sun would sink 
 Down into the West, and the stars would wink, 
 As they peered one by one through the purple sky, 
 She would stand at her door and with eager eye 
 Expectantly wait as her Jesus drew nigh 
 
 At evening. 
 
 Then quickly across the fields He would come 
 
 Quite wearied with toil and glad to be home: 
 
 And Mother and Son at their humble door 
 
 Would lovingly meet, while the starlight would pour 
 
 A soft reverent light on their cottage-floor, 
 
 At evening. 
 
 Oh, it were hard for mere words to tell 
 
 The joy with which Mary's spirit would swell, 
 
 25 
 
26 THE LAND OF LOVE 
 
 As she pillowed her head upon Jesus' breast. 
 All her cares as He tenderly soothed and caressed 
 Would vanish. Yea, truly Mary was blest 
 
 At evening. 
 
 C. A. Burns, S. J. 
 
 "When Herod died, there appeared an angel of 
 the Lord in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, 
 'Rise, take the Child and His mother and go to the 
 land of Israel, for those who sought the Child's 
 life are dead/ So he rose, and took the Child and 
 His mother and went to the land of Israel; but on 
 hearing that Archelaus reigned over Judea in place 
 of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there and, 
 by a divine injunction in a dream, withdrew to the 
 region of Galilee. He went and settled in a town 
 called Nazareth, so that what had been said by the 
 prophets might be fulfilled: 'He shall be called a 
 Nazarene/ And the Child grew and waxed strong, 
 full of wisdom; and the grace of God was in Him." 
 
 From Bethlehem to Egypt, and now from Egypt 
 to Nazareth, such was the peregrination of Mary 
 and Joseph with the Divine Child. 
 
 In the midst of the ruins everywhere heaped up 
 in the Holy Land, the village of Nazareth is still 
 full of life and inhabitants. Reverently and 
 lovingly pilgrims go there; accurately they tell us 
 of it. 
 
geikie's pen-picture 27 
 
 "The highlands which form the central portion 
 of Palestine/' says Geikie, "are broken by the wide, 
 rich plain of Jezreel, which severs Galilee from the 
 rest of the land. This was always the great battle- 
 field of Israel. Appropriately, it is shut in as 
 between mountain-walls. That along the north of 
 the plain is formed by the mountains of Lower 
 Galilee, cleft about in the middle by a valley that 
 widens, till, after an hour's journey, we stand within 
 an enclosure which seems almost one of nature's 
 own sanctuaries. As in an amphitheatre, fifteen 
 hill tops rise around. That to the west is the 
 highest. On its lower slope nestles a little town, 
 its narrow streets ranged like terraces. This is 
 Nazareth. Climbing this hill, fragrant with 
 aromatic plants, and bright with rich-colored 
 flowers, a view almost unsurpassed opens before us. 
 For the Galilee of the time of Jesus was not only of 
 the richest fertility, cultivated to the utmost, and 
 thickly covered with towns and villages, but the 
 centre of every known industry. Northward the 
 eye would sweep over a rich plain; rest here and 
 there on white towns, glittering in the sunlight ; then 
 quickly travel over hills and glens, till passing be- 
 yond the view is bounded by that giant of the far- 
 off mountain chain, snow-tipped Hermon. West- 
 ward stretched a like scene of beauty and wealth, 
 while on the edge of the horizon, lay purple Carmel; 
 beyond it a fringe of silver sand, and then the daz- 
 
28 TRANQUIL, HOMELY BEAUTY 
 
 zling sheen of the Great Sea. In the farthest 
 distance, white sails, like wings outspread towards 
 the ends of the world; nearer, busy ports, then, 
 centres of industry; and close by, travelled roads, all 
 bright in the pure Eastern air and rich glow of the 
 sun. But if you turned eastwards, the eye would 
 soon be arrested by the wooded height of Tabor, 
 yet not before attention had been riveted by the 
 long, narrow string of caravans, and curiosity 
 roused by the motley figures of all nationalities, 
 busy binding the East to the West by the line of 
 commerce that passed along the route winding 
 around Tabor. And when, weary with the gaze, you 
 looked once more down on little Nazareth nestling on 
 the breast of the mountain, the eye would rest on a 
 scene of tranquil, homely beauty. Just outside the 
 town, to the north-west, bubbled the spring or well, 
 the try sting-spot of townspeople, and welcome rest- 
 ing-place of travellers. Beyond it stretched lines of 
 houses, each with its flat roof standing out distinctly 
 against the clear sky; watered, terraced gardens, 
 gnarled wide-spreading fig-trees, graceful, feathery 
 palms, scented oranges, silvery olive-trees, thick 
 hedges, rich pasture-land, then the bounding hills to 
 the south." 
 
 Such was the country of the Child Jesus, and if 
 we scan the Gospels we get a glimpse of its people 
 and their manners. "Busy labor enlivens the vine- 
 yard, or ploughs the field, or digs the garden. In 
 
"on this little o, the earth." 29 
 
 the towns, building is going on vigorously : the extra 
 millstone lies ready beside the mill: the barns are 
 filled and new ones about to be built: vineyards 
 stretch along the terraced hillsides, and outside 
 the towns are seen the white- washed stones of 
 sepulchres. On the roads, and beside the hedges, 
 the blind and crippled await the gifts of passers 
 by: laborers are being hired in the market places, 
 and the farm servant wends homewards in the 
 evening with his plough: the song and dance of 
 lighthearted youth on the village green, are heard 
 from a distance: the children play in the open 
 places of the towns: and visitors knock at closed 
 doors even in the night. The hum of lusty many- 
 colored life everywhere rises: the busy crowds 
 have no time to think about higher things. One has 
 bought a field and must go to see it, another has to 
 prove a new yoke of oxen, and a third has some 
 other business — a feast, a marriage or a funeral. 
 They eat, they drink, they buy, they sell, they plant, 
 they build, they marry wives and are given in 
 marriage, as full of the world in its ambitions, cares, 
 labors and pleasures, as if the little moment of their 
 lives were to last forever "on this little O, the earth." 
 Among such people and in that country Jesus 
 spent by far the largest part of His life on earth. 
 It was here that "as the flower of roses in the spring 
 of the year and as lily by the waters" He grew up as 
 other children grow, only in a childhood of stainless 
 
30 "they thrust him out" 
 
 and sinless beauty. It is here that He heard the 
 voice of God in every sound of nature, in every 
 occupation of life, in every interstice of solitary 
 thought. It is here that He shared the games of the 
 children, saw the springing of the fountains and the 
 glory of the mountain flowers in their transitory 
 loveliness, heard the hoarse cry in their wind-rocked 
 nest of the raven's callow brood, and watched the 
 habits of the fox in its secret lair. It is here that 
 He drew food for moral illustrations and spiritual 
 thought. In fact this was His home for all but 
 three years of His earthly life. Indeed Nazareth 
 is the village which lent its then ignominious name 
 to the scornful title written upon His cross; the 
 village from which He did not disdain to draw His 
 appellation when He spoke in vision to Saul : "I am 
 Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest. ,, Alas! 
 it is from here also that "they thrust Him out and 
 brought Him to the brow of the hill, wherein the 
 city was built, that they might cast Him down head- 
 long. ,, It is here that He said: "No prophet is 
 accepted in his own country." 
 
 Nor must we lose sight of the fact that it was in 
 these silent years that a great part of His task was 
 done. They were the years of a sinless childhood, 
 a sinless youth, a sinless manhood, — spent in 
 humility, toil, obscurity, submission, contentment, 
 prayer, to make them an eternal example to our 
 race. 
 
THE HIDDEN YEARS 3 1 
 
 We cannot imitate Him in the work of His 
 ministry, nor can we even reproduce in our own 
 experience the external circumstances of His life 
 during the three crowning years. But the vast 
 majority of us are placed by God's own appointment 
 amid those quiet duties of a commonplace and un- 
 eventful routine which most closely resemble the 
 thirty years of His retirement; it was during these 
 years that His life is for us the main example of how 
 we ought to live. "Take notice here/' says St. Bon- 
 aventure, "that His doing nothing wonderful was in 
 itself a kind of wonder. For His whole life is a 
 mystery ; and as there was power in His actions, so 
 was there power in His silence, in His inactivity, 
 and in His retirement. The sovereign Master, who 
 was to teach all virtues, and to point out the way of 
 life, began from His youth up, by sanctifying in 
 His own person the practice of the virtuous life He 
 came to teach, but in a wondrous, unfathomable, 
 and, till then, unheard-of manner.' ' 
 
 II 
 
 "Through the months of the four seasons,'' writes 
 Father Faber, "through the days of the week with 
 their varying occupations, through the hours of the 
 day from the pearly dawn until the starry dusk, 
 through the quiet watches of the nights of sleep 
 and prayer, we must familiarize ourselves with our 
 
32 THE SEEMING GROWTH 
 
 Lord's Hidden Years at Nazareth. His real 
 growth of Body, perceptible from time to time, 
 would seem a worshipful mystery, when we con- 
 sider who He was. Here in autumn He is lifting 
 weights which in spring He could not have lifted. 
 The light is changed in His eye, because the 
 maturity of years is deepening it. The tone of 
 His voice is graver because the power of years is 
 toning it. The voice of the Eternal Word broke, 
 like the voices of other boys. His Mother's ways 
 come up upon the surface of His bodily gestures 
 and surprise us into tears. We cannot watch this 
 common growth of His human Body without 
 adoring. 
 
 "But the seeming growth of His Soul is yet more 
 wonderful. He appears more holy than He was a 
 month ago. Grace looks as if it had developed in 
 Him. It does not seem merely as if circumstances 
 had opened wider fields for His grace, or had con- 
 ferred upon them more advantageous positions. 
 But it seems as if He grew in grace. The very 
 seeming of such a thing is adorable, the more ador- 
 able because we know it is but seeming. His grace 
 never grew from the first moment of His Concep- 
 tion. But greater wisdom gives grace more liberty. 
 Does He then seem more holy simply because He 
 has grown wiser? But He has not grown wiser. 
 This also is but a mysterious semblance; but here 
 again the semblance is of itself adorable. Never- 
 
HE WAS OBEDIENT 33 
 
 theless He makes acquisitions, and this is truly a 
 growth, yet in Him hardly a growth. Rather it is 
 one of His loving condescensions. He gains no 
 new knowledge. He does not grow in science : He 
 only becomes master by acquisition of the same 
 science of which He was master before in higher 
 ways. He knows certain things, such things as 
 life's experience is capable of teaching, in two ways, 
 instead of knowing them in one way. He has now 
 a double knowledge of them, an acquired knowl- 
 edge in addition to the infused knowledge He had 
 before." 
 
 This is exquisitely well said and grandly worth 
 perusing, but let us leave to the theologians the 
 arduous care to establish in learned and long theses 
 what was the progress of the Divine Child; let us 
 rather present Jesus as a Model to all children, 
 young and old. 
 
 He was obedient! What a lesson in these three 
 words to the pitiful creatures that we are! What a 
 curb to our pride so easily in revolt. He who was 
 subject to a poor carpenter and a lowly woman, was 
 He by whom all things were made, and with- 
 out Whom was not made anything that hath been 
 made, He who at this hour guides the march of 
 the sun and the stars and rules the waves of the 
 oceans. 
 
 He was pious! His life, needless to say, was a 
 permanent prayer; a blending of His will with the 
 
34 GOD AND MAN 
 
 will of His Father. It were almost irreverent to 
 expatiate on this. 
 
 He was good! Here as everywhere He went 
 about doing good, but there was nothing sombre or 
 morose around Him. He was the joy of His 
 home; His smile was a sunbeam; He helped His 
 mother when she worked in the kitchen or in the 
 laundry ; He helped St. Joseph in the shop ; He ran 
 errands for both ; with both He prayed and played. 
 He was the human Being as well as the Divine 
 Being. 
 
 God and Man! Here, without ever trying fo 
 explain the union of the Divinity with the Humanity 
 of Jesus — an explanation which is impossible since 
 it involves the comprehending of God — we perhaps 
 ought to emphasize the entireness of both. We 
 never think of Jesus enough as God, never enough 
 as Man; the instinctive habit of our minds being 
 always to miss of the Divinity, and the reasoning 
 and enforced habit to miss of the Humanity. We 
 are afraid to harbor in our hearts, or to utter in the 
 hearing of others, any thought of our Lord, as 
 hungering, tired, sorrowful, having a human soul, 
 a human will, and affected by events of human life 
 as a human creature is; and yet one half of the 
 efficiency of His atonement, and the whole of the 
 efficiency of His examples, depend on His having 
 been this to the full. 
 
FOUND IN THE TEMPLE 35 
 
 But we are in haste to read the episode of His 
 hidden life, the only one related by the Gospels : 
 
 "His parents used to journey every year to Jeru- 
 salem, at the feast of the Passover. When He was 
 twelve years old they went up to Jerusalem accord- 
 ing to the custom of the feast; and when they had 
 completed the days, as they were returning, the boy 
 Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and His parents 
 knew it not; but supposing Him to be in the car- 
 avan, they went a day's journey, and were seeking 
 Him among their relatives and acquaintances; and 
 not finding Him they returned to Jerusalem, look- 
 ing for Him. And after three days they found 
 Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors 
 and asking them questions. All who heard 
 Him were amazed at His understanding and His 
 answers. And when they saw Him, they were 
 astonished ; and His mother said to Him : Son, why 
 hast thou done so to us, see, thy father and I have 
 sought Thee sorrowing. And He said to them: 
 How is it that you sought Me? did you not know 
 that I must be about the things of My Father? 
 And they did not understand the word which He 
 spoke to them. And He went down with them, and 
 came to Nazareth; and He was subject to them. 
 And His mother kept all these things in her heart. 
 And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age, and in 
 grace with God and men." 
 
36 CATECHISM ! 
 
 No need of comment here. Better for us it is 
 to bring this incident into comparison with some 
 episodes of our rural life. 
 
 When our farmers' little boys have grown up, one 
 day comes when they present themselves, not to the 
 doctors of the law, but to the pastor of the parish. 
 They are about seven years old, the age when they 
 must begin or continue their religious instruction and 
 their moral education: the time when they must 
 learn their Catechism. 
 
 Catechism ! How many a remembrance is awak- 
 ened by this word, and how many pages we could 
 transcribe on it ! So many have praised it ! So many 
 of our best people have found there, and nowhere 
 else, a complete food for their soul ! 
 
 With the sacred formulas of that religious 
 manual which they engrave in their memory, chil- 
 dren learn what they must believe, what they must 
 do, and what they must love. Therein they acquire 
 right thoughts about God, right ideas of themselves 
 and of their destiny, right ideas of sin and evil, right 
 thoughts of the four last things ; right thoughts of 
 Jesus and His mother, right thoughts of the faith 
 and practice of Christian life. Therein they learn 
 the three ideals of life : truth, goodness, and beauty: 
 — truth that brings light, goodness that brings 
 honesty, beauty that brings happiness: God's truth, 
 God's goodness, God's beauty. 
 
 Too lofty, too sublime for children, you say. 
 
FIRST COMMUNION 37 
 
 No. Speak to them and see for yourself how this 
 naturally Christian soul enjoys a special grace from 
 God to deal with the things of heaven : 
 
 "Oh! say not, dream not, heavenly notes 
 
 To childish ears are vain, 
 That the young mind at random floats 
 And cannot reach the strain. 
 
 "Dim or unheard, the words may fall, 
 
 And yet the Heaven-taught mind 
 May learn the sacred air, and all 
 The harmony unwind." 
 
 Has not the highest of all authorities told us that 
 "things that are hidden from the wise and prudent 
 are revealed to the little ones"? 
 
 They are soon ready for the Banquet of God, 
 these little ones of God. You tell me that they are 
 not yet worthy of receiving Jesus; I know, but 
 surely Jesus is worthy of being received by them. 
 The priest then opens the door of the tabernacle, he 
 takes into his hands, he places on their tongue, he 
 enshrines in their pure heart the Holy Host of the 
 First Communion. And at the same time he utters 
 the words that shall re-echo in time and in eternity : 
 "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy 
 soul unto everlasting life." And in that morning 
 when our first communicants have received Jesus 
 and have renewed to Him their baptismal vows, 
 
38 ONLY ONE SEED TIME 
 
 small as they are, their real life begins. Hence- 
 forth they have to march in the footsteps of Him 
 who now lives in them. According to His example, 
 and with His help and your help, O Christian 
 parents, may they do their best to progress in 
 wisdom and in grace, before God whom they honor 
 by their faithfulness, before men whom they edify 
 by their virtues. Watch over them, O ye fathers 
 and mothers, for the peace of your conscience and 
 the joy of your old days are at stake. Lovingly 
 and strongly ever watch over them, that you may 
 never have to shed tears over their loss. Yours is 
 a great responsibility. On the day of the final 
 judgment, God, who has entrusted them to you, will 
 ask an account of your stewardship. Blessed will 
 you be if you are in a position to answer: "Lord, I 
 have raised them in thy love." 
 
 There are many harvests in a life time, but there 
 is only one seed time. All depends on the begin- 
 nings. Look to any budding mischief, before it has 
 time to ripen into maturity. Watch your children 
 from their babyhood; let the first word they speak 
 be the Name of Jesus. Give yourselves the joy to 
 be their first catechist. 
 
CHAPTER IV, 
 
 THE LAMB OF GOD 
 
 In those little villages of French Canada whose 
 names sound like a litany of saints, the greatest day 
 of the year is the feast of St. John the Baptist. In 
 fact, it is the national holiday. But when, on the 
 morning of the 24th of June, houses awake em- 
 bowered in the midst of roses, and when at twilight 
 fires are kindled on the hill-tops and on the lea and 
 on the swards, few perhaps are those who remember 
 that they re-echo adown the vista of nineteen 
 hundred years the word of the angel, proclaiming 
 that "many shall rejoice" in honor and in memory 
 of the son of Zachary and Elizabeth. Few they are 
 who know the wondrous circumstances of his birth : 
 the angel Gabriel appearing and standing on the right 
 side of the altar of incense, and announcing to the 
 priest that a son shall comfort his old age and cover 
 his family with unexpected glory ; Zachary stricken 
 with dumbness for having been doubtful, but able to 
 speak again, nine months later, after the delivery of 
 Elizabeth; the astonishment of relatives, neighbors 
 and friends, witnesses of these wonders and, saying: 
 
 39 
 
40 IN CAVES OF WILDERNESS 
 
 "What a one think ye, shall this child be, for the 
 hand of the Lord is with him." 
 
 There are wonders at every step in the childhood 
 of St. John the Baptist, but not less prodigious is 
 his life. As soon as he is of age, he withdraws 
 from his family and mankind, to the caves of the 
 wilderness stretching away from Hebron, his native 
 town, and begins to prepare himself for his sacred 
 mission. 
 
 Travellers who have visited that country tell us 
 that no words can picture the wild grandeur of the 
 desert of Judea. "It is," says Geikie, "a dreary 
 waste of rocky valleys; in some parts stern and 
 terrible — the rocks cleft and shattered by earth- 
 quakes and convulsions, into rifts and gorges some- 
 times a thousand feet in depth, though only thirty 
 or forty in width; in others, stretching out in bare 
 chalk hills full of caves, or in white, flint-bound 
 ridges, and winding, muddy wadys, with an 
 occasional reservoir, hewn in the hard limestone, to 
 supply water in a land destitute of springs. One 
 may travel all day, and see no other life than the 
 desert partridge, and a chance fox or vulture. Only 
 the dry and fleshy plants, which require no water, 
 grow on the hills, and in the valleys the most lux- 
 uriant vegetation is the white broom bushes, which 
 blossom in March. The whole district is, in fact, 
 the slope of the midland chalk and limestone 
 hills, from their highest point of nearly 3,000 
 
HIS APPEARANCE 4 1 
 
 feet, near Hebron, to 1,000 at the valley of the 
 Dead Sea. The Hebrews fitly call it Jeshimon 
 — the appalling horror — for it is not possible to 
 conceive a more desolate region. On the north- 
 ern side, valleys of great depth, sinking towards 
 the Dead Sea, almost preclude travelling except in 
 their troughs, and farther south, the country is 
 absolutely impassable. Huge perpendicular gorges 
 have been hollowed out by the great torrents, rushing 
 in winter over the precipices. The only natural site 
 for a town, in the whole district, is the opening at 
 the foot of the pass of Engaddi, the spring of the 
 wild goats, above the shores of the sea, and this is 
 reached only by a narrow, serpent-like path, down 
 cliffs twelve hundred feet high." 
 
 It is here that is some cave, or in the depth of a 
 narrow gorge John took up his abode, to be alone 
 with God and his own soul. 
 
 The Gospels supply us with glimpses of the Bap- 
 tist's appearance and way of living. His hair hung 
 low about him. His only food was the locusts 
 which he found on the bare hills, and the wild honey 
 which he gathered from the clefts of rock, and his 
 only drink a draught of water from some stony hol- 
 low. His dress was in keeping with the austerity 
 of his life. A burnous of camels' hair, bound 
 round his body by a leathern girdle, was his gar- 
 ment. And then, all in the man was true and real. 
 Not a reed shaken by the wind, but unbendingly 
 
42 "do penance" 
 
 firm in deep and settled conviction; not ambitious 
 nor self-seeking, but most humble in his self -esti- 
 mate, discarding all claim but that of lowliest serv- 
 ice, and pointing away from himself to "Him who 
 was to come," and whom as yet he did not even 
 know. Above all, there was the deepest earnest- 
 ness, the most utter disregard of men, the firmest 
 belief in what he announced. For himself he sought 
 nothing : he was as a voice not to be inquired about, 
 but heard ; for them he had only one absorbing 
 thought: "Do penance; the Kingdom of heaven is 
 at hand: the King is coming !" 
 
 "Thfc Kingdom of heaven is at hand!" Such 
 were the words that he uttered when, being then 
 thirty years old, he left his retreat and appeared on 
 the Lower Jordan. It was the late autumn of the 
 year, of what we number as the year of Rome 779, 
 whicfy it may be noted, was a Sabbatic year, a year 
 of rest. Released from business and agriculture, 
 the multitudes flocked around him as he passed to 
 his mission. Rapidly the tidings spread from town 
 and village to distant homesteads, still swelling the 
 number that hastened to the banks of the sacred 
 river to hear him and receive his baptism, confessing 
 their sins. 
 
 Standing on a sunlit eminence of peace and purity, 
 unblinded by the petty mists that dim their vision, 
 untroubled by the petty influences that disturb their 
 life, the new Elias cried out to all: "Do penance. 
 
"you brood of vipers" 43 
 
 Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight His 
 paths/' To the Pharisees, the hypocrites, and to 
 the Sadducees, the unbelievers of that day, his 
 words were still more fiery: "You brood of vipers, 
 who told you to flee from the coming wrath ? Now 
 produce fruit that answers to repentance. The 
 axe is lying all ready at the root of the tree; any tree 
 that is not producing good fruit will be cut down 
 and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water 
 for repentance, but He who is coming after me is 
 mightier, and I am not fit even to carry His sandals ; 
 He will baptize you with the holy Spirit of fire. 
 His winnowing- fan is in His hand, He will clean out 
 His threshing-floor, His wheat He will gather into 
 the barn, but the straw He will burn with fire un- 
 quenchable." 
 
 To others, no doubt, gentler tones succeeded. 
 There were persuasions to a better life. There were 
 hints and more than hints of better public condi- 
 tions and of brighter personal hopes. The great 
 political yearnings and beliefs of the Jews were 
 gathered into a form vague at first, then clearer, 
 then definite, then positive. The speaker threat- 
 ened, but he promised; he condemned, but he re- 
 assured. He scathed his hearers for their vices, but 
 he flung before them the banner of their great Na- 
 tional Hope, their long-cherished, proud, and splen- 
 did expectation: "Your Deliverer is within reach! 
 He whom ye have trusted and awaited is close at 
 
44 "the coming one has come!" 
 
 hand. Behold, He cometh! Prepare the way for 
 Him." 
 
 II 
 
 But lo! now the Coming One has come, the Un- 
 f alien, Unsinning Man is here ! 
 
 It was in the winter of the year 780, on the 6th or 
 10th of January. 
 
 There was not in the past any personal acquaint- 
 ance between the Christ and the Baptist. But the 
 All-knowing knew John, and John, the pure of 
 heart, felt the awful presence of the Son of God. 
 And the Son of God stepped down into the river. 
 At once John perceived that He was seeking the 
 humiliation of baptism and strove to prevent Him: 
 "I ought to be baptized by Thee, and comest Thou 
 to me ? And Jesus answering said to him : Suffer 
 it to be so now. For so it becometh us to fulfill all 
 justice. Then he suffered Him. And Jesus being 
 baptized, forthwith came out of the water: and lo, 
 the heavens were opened to Him: and He saw the 
 Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming 
 upon Him. And behold a voice from heaven, say- 
 ing : This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well 
 pleased." 
 
 This was the first time that the Holy Trinity, One 
 God in Three Persons, that showed Itself to men — 
 the Father in the Voice from heaven, the Son in the 
 
"behold the lamb of god" 45 
 
 Sacred Human Nature, the Holy Ghost in the form 
 of a Dove. 
 
 A few weeks went by. It was after Christ's 
 fasting in the wilderness. John saw Jesus ap- 
 proaching and he again gave this solemn testimony, 
 that this was indeed the Messiah who had been 
 marked out by the appointed sign: "Behold the 
 Lamb of God," he exclaimed, "Behold Him who 
 taketh away the sin of the world." To the minds of 
 the Baptist's hearers the words must have connoted 
 many intimations, for the term "Lamb" here ad- 
 dressed to our Savior is replete with meaning. It 
 declared the meek, gentle, innocent character of the 
 Messiah, which had been described by the prophets. 
 "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a 
 sheep before his shearers is dumb, so He opened 
 Not His mouth," Isaias had said. "But I was like a 
 lamb that is carried to be a victim," Jeremias had 
 sung. The lamb * is in numberless passages of the 
 Scriptures fitly chosen as the personification of in- 
 nocence and gentleness, the leading characteristics 
 of Christ. In calling Him the Lamb of God, direct 
 testimony is given to His Divine Nature. More- 
 
 1 There is something mystical in the Hebrew word for 
 "lambs." Kebashim is the term used, and it comes from the 
 verb Kabhas, which means to wash. "This," Hillel says, "be- 
 cause the two lambs offered every day in the Temple wash 
 away the sins of Israel." We cannot follow the great rabbi 
 in his deductions, but the remark is worth being noted as 
 applied to "the Lamb of God who has washed us in His blood." 
 
46 A WONDROUS SENTENCE 
 
 over, there is in the appellation a direct allusion to 
 His character as the great Paschal Lamb, who 
 through the shedding of His blood on the Cross, 
 would atone for the world's sin, even as the blood of 
 the lamb long ago had been the sign and symbol of 
 Israel's salvation from Egypt. 
 
 "There is a world of meaning in that wondrous 
 sentence, one of the most wondrous in the Bible," 
 says Dr. Breen. "Mankind had waited for thou- 
 sands of years for these words. A long list of 
 generations had gone down to the grave with their 
 hopes to hear these words. A throb of exaltation 
 must have surged through the Baptist's heart, as he 
 pointed to the fulfillment of the world's hopes. 
 What a decisive event in the history of humanity, 
 when John introduced upon the stage Him who 
 broke the soul's thraldom, and took away the curse 
 of death." 
 
 As for us, who live no more in anxious expecta- 
 tion, but in the beneficent reality of the Redemption, 
 we know that by His candor and kindness Jesus was 
 indeed the Lamb of God to all who saw Him. And 
 although we do not want to anticipate the events 
 which, three years later, so strangely unfolded them- 
 selves on the slopes of Calvary, we cannot forbear 
 reminding ourselves that Jesus let Himself be sold 
 and slain as a Lamb for our salvation. 
 
 A day is to come when the Cross, loaded with its 
 
IN THE APOCALYPSE 47 
 
 precious burden and crimsoned with Divine Blood, 
 will be heavily jerked into the hole ready to receive 
 it. Jesus, whose heart-strings will crack under the 
 sway, will faintly moan a plaintive moan — the bleat- 
 ing of the Lamb — to which will answer, from the 
 Temple on the hill, the blast of the sacred trumpet 
 announcing the slaying of the symbolic Paschal 
 Lamb. Perhaps some of those who will be there 
 will remember the words of John the Baptist. And 
 perhaps tears of regret will well from their eyes. 
 
 Later on, John the Evangelist will see the vision 
 of which he speaks in the Apocalypse. In a mys- 
 tical ecstasy he will behold Jesus as the Lamb that 
 was slain and that purchased souls for God out of 
 all tribes and nations, that washed them clean in His 
 Blood, and thereby made of them a royal priestly 
 people ; as the Lamb that with His Blood strengthens 
 the Church militant, making it victorious in its com- 
 bats with Satan; as the Lamb, that is, the brilliant 
 light of the heavenly Jerusalem, conducting the 
 blessed to the fountains of the waters of life; as the 
 Lamb worthy to receive power and divinity and wis- 
 dom and strength and honor and glory and benedic- 
 tion; as the Lamb to whom all creation and all the 
 choirs of angels present praise and adoration. 
 
 As the lamb in holy Scripture is a standing sym- 
 bol of Christ, and as the citizens of Heaven bless 
 the Lamb without ceasing, so also does the Church 
 
48 IN LITURGY 
 
 love to invoke Jesus Christ in a simple, touching 
 manner as "the Lamb of God." Throughout all 
 ages there continues ever to resound in her liturgy 
 this present supplication to the divine, eternal, sacri- 
 ficial Lamb, who has taken upon Himself the sins of 
 the world and thereby effaced them. As often as 
 she administers Holy Communion to the faithful, 
 she exhorts them in the words of John the Baptist : 
 "Behold the Lamb of God! Behold Him who 
 taketh away the sin of the world !" to realize and 
 value the wealth of grace contained in this heavenly 
 sacrificial food. Almost all her litanies conclude 
 with the solemn invocation to the Lamb of God, 
 "to spare us, to hearms, and to have mercy on us." 
 
 The Church has ever been accustomed to repre- 
 sent the Divine Savior both under the figure of the 
 Good Shepherd and also under the symbol of the 
 Lamb; both images are intimately connected with 
 each other. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who be- 
 came Himself our Sacrificial Lamb on the Cross, 
 and who daily becomes the same again on the altar ; 
 He is the Good Shepherd, who gave His life for us 
 and who, with His living flesh and Heart's blood, 
 nourishes us to an eternal life of blessedness. 
 
 From the Sacrificial Lamb present on the altar 
 there streams forth salvation and redemption, there 
 flows to us all the favor of God, and all the peace of 
 God. This Lamb that was slain from the be- 
 
THE BANQUET OF THE LAMB 49 
 
 ginning of the world and that will be slain unto the 
 end of the world, we should during Mass, filled with 
 humility and fervor, adore and invoke in order that 
 we may obtain the fulness of mercy and peace, 
 whereby we shall be prepared for admittance "to 
 the royal banquet of the Lamb." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A COUNTRY WEDDING 
 
 On the third day after His Baptism on the banks 
 of the Jordan, Jesus went to a little Galilean village, 
 called Cana, that is "the Reedy Place." He was no 
 longer alone; several of the disciples of John the 
 Baptist, leaving their first master, had followed 
 Him; conquered to His cause, they were to be His 
 co-workers — and co-sufferers. 
 
 Here, condescending as indeed He always was, 
 Jesus consented to honor with His presence the mar- 
 riage of a young couple whom perhaps He had 
 known in Nazareth. 
 
 To say it by the way, in those times in the land of 
 Galilee, even as in Greece, nuptial ceremonies began 
 at twilight. 
 
 It was the custom "to bear away the bride from 
 
 home at blushing shut of day," or even later, far on 
 
 into the night, covered from head to foot in her loose 
 
 and flowing veil, garlanded with flowers and dressed 
 
 in her fairest robes. She was heralded by torchlight, 
 
 with songs and dances, and the music of the drum 
 
 and flute, to the bridegroom's home. She was at- 
 
 50 
 
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 5 1 
 
 tended by the maidens of the village, and the bride- 
 groom came to meet her with his youthful friends. 
 The Talmud has preserved a snatch of one of the 
 songs sung by the bridesmaids and girls as they 
 danced before the bride, on the way to the bride- 
 groom's house. In a free translation it runs some- 
 thing like this : 
 
 "Her eyelids are not stained with blue, 
 
 Her red cheeks are her own; 
 Her hair hangs waving as it grew, 
 Her grace were wealth, alone !" 
 
 Now it must be borne in mind that marriage con- 
 veyed to the Jews much higher thoughts than merely 
 those of merriment and gaiety. It was looked upon 
 as a sort of sacrament. The pious fasted and 
 prayed before it, confessing their sins. A bridal 
 pair on their marriage-day symbolized the union of 
 God with Israel. The bold allegory of the times 
 was that God Himself had spoken the words of 
 blessing over the cup at the union of Adam and 
 Eve when Michael and Gabriel acted as groomsmen, 
 and the choir of angels sang the wedding hymn. 
 And a haggadah, or old saying, sets forth that when 
 Jezebel was eaten by dogs, her hands were spared, 
 because amidst all her wickedness, she had been wont 
 to greet every marriage-procession by clapping of 
 hands. A most sacred affair, therefore, was a mar- 
 
52 IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 riage ceremony, not unworthy of the presence of 
 Christ. 
 
 But let us read how St. John in his gospel re- 
 lates the story of this plain country wedding which 
 was destined to be the most famous in history. 
 
 "And the third day, there was a marriage in Cana 
 of Galilee : and the mother of Jesus was there. And 
 Jesus also was invited, and His disciples, to the mar- 
 riage. And the wine running short the mother of 
 Jesus said to Him: They have no wine. And 
 Jesus said to her : Woman, what is that to Me and to 
 thee? My hour is not yet come." (To our ears 
 the expression sounds strange and almost harsh but 
 to Oriental ears they would not. "Woman" was a 
 title of reverence, and "What is it to Me and to 
 thee?" simply meant: "It is no concern of ours;" the 
 literal version of a common Aramaic phrase which is 
 consistent with the most delicate courtesy. And 
 then who knows whether the words were not said 
 with one of those smiles of filial love which can 
 make everything most acceptable to a mother?) 
 "His mother said to the waiters: Whatsoever He 
 shall say to you, do ye. Now six stone water- jars 
 were standing there, for the Jewish rites of puri- 
 fication, each holding about twenty gallons. Jesus 
 said, Fill up the jars with water. So they filled 
 them to the brim. Then He said, Now draw some 
 out, and take it to the manager of the feast. They 
 did so; and when the manager of the feast tasted the 
 
THE SON Of man 53 
 
 water which had become wine, not knowing where it 
 had come from, though the servants who had 
 drawn it knew, he called the bridegroom and said 
 to him, Everybody serves the good wine first, and 
 then the poorer wine after people have well drunk; 
 but thou hast kept the good wine till now. Jesus 
 performed this, the first of His Signs at Cana in 
 Galilee, and His disciples believed in Him." 
 
 Jesus at the very outset of His public ministry 
 desires to point out the spirit of His Mission. His 
 first testimony about Himself was to call Himself 
 "the Son of Man," and this bore reference to the 
 confession of Nathanael : "Thou art the Son of God ; 
 Thou art the King of Israel." He is the Son of 
 Man as well as the Son of God, and so it pleases 
 Him to mingle with humanity, to share its joys and 
 its sorrows in order to sanctify them, to teach that 
 common life in all its phases may be raised to a re- 
 ligious dignity, to teach also that the loving smile 
 of God, like the tender blue above, looks down on 
 the whole round of existence. In the seclusion of 
 the wilderness John has been an ascetic; he has spo- 
 ken only of penance and austerity; he has driven 
 guilty souls to him to sow in them the seeds of dread ; 
 Jesus with the silken cords of love draws them, 
 even in the midst of banquets and festivities, to sow 
 in them the seeds of love; anywhere, anyhow, a 
 Good Shepherd He seeks for the lost sheep of man- 
 kind. He spiritualizes the humblest duties of life 
 
54 IN THE WORLD BUT NOT OF IT 
 
 and sanctifies its simplest incidents, so as to ennoble 
 it as a whole. Human enjoyments He does not dis- 
 approve as unholy; His religion is not to thrive on 
 the repression of every cheerful emotion. He mixes 
 with the crowd of men and affects no singularity; 
 He takes part in the innocent pleasures of life, 
 and interests Himself in all that interests men at 
 large, and yet, amidst all, remains the Conse- 
 crated One and the Sinless One; in the world, by 
 sympathy and active brotherhood, but not of it; 
 human in His outward form, but heavenly in 
 His elevation and spirit. On this pattern also 
 He fashions His Church, our Church, the Cath- 
 olic Church. 
 
 And if at times, His new disciples, accustomed as 
 they were to hear the echo of the wrath of the Lord 
 from the lips of the man of the desert, are sur- 
 prised at or take amiss the humaneness of this new 
 Master — understanding not that the law of fear is 
 dead and the law of love is born — then He is 
 ready to establish by a miracle that although He 
 knows how to be condescending and charitable, He 
 is nevertheless the Divine One having authority 
 over all things, "the fulness of the Godhead dwelling 
 in Him corporally." 
 
 And to-day was His first Miracle, and to-day 
 thus with a symbolic purpose did He manifest His 
 glory : "and His Disciples believed in Him." 
 
r A PASSAGE OF ST. AUGUSTINE 55 
 
 II 
 
 His Disciples believed in Him and in His power 
 of performing miracles. But nowadays, O my sons 
 of the soil, men are found who refuse to give Him 
 such assent. "A miracle is impossible/' they cry 
 out. "Possible it may be," others exclaim, "but 
 it cannot be proved scientifically." And they would 
 fain, if Jesus would come back to earth, summon 
 Him to their laboratories, to test Him and judge 
 whether His principles agree with their theories. 
 Fools! They know not what they prattle about. 
 Their presumption, if not blasphemous, were 
 ludicrous. They talk as though it were God's duty, 
 — the duty of Him to whom the sea and the moun- 
 tains are a very tiny thing, and before whose eyes 
 the starry heaven is but as one white gleam in the 
 sky, — to explain His method of acting. They talk 
 as though the finite could comprehend the infinite. 
 They deny miracles, they deny their possibility. 
 But as Veuillot has well said, after St. Augustine, 
 speaking of this very miracle of the water changed 
 into wine: "What else do we see done here in an 
 hour than nature does more slowly round the year? 
 The wine which the guests had drunk from the bride- 
 groom's bounty, and possibly from the added gifts 
 of friends, had been slowly matured from the vine 
 by mysterious elaboration, from light, and heat, and 
 
56 A FACT EASILY OVERLOOKED 
 
 moisture, and by the salts of the earth, none of which 
 had more apparent affinity to it than the water which 
 Jesus transformed. The miracle in nature is not 
 less real or wonderful than that of the marriage 
 feast, and strikes us less only by its being familiar. 
 At the threshold of Christ's miraculous works it is 
 well to realize a fact so easily overlooked. A miracle 
 is only an exercise, in a new way, of the Almighty 
 power we see daily producing the same results in 
 nature. Infinitely varied forces are at work around 
 us every moment. From the sun to the atom, from 
 the stone to the thinking brain and beating heart, 
 they circulate sleeplessly, through all things, forever. 
 As they act and react on each other, the amazing 
 result is produced which we know as nature, but how 
 many mysterious inter-relations, of which we know 
 nothing, may offer endlessly varied means for pro- 
 ducing specific ends, at the command of God? Nor 
 is there anything more amazing in the works of 
 Christ than in the daily phenomena of nature. The 
 vast universe, embracing heavens above heavens, 
 stretching out into the Infinite — with constellations 
 anchored on the vast expanse like tiny islet clusters 
 on the boundless ocean, is one great miracle. It 
 was wonderful to create, but to sustain creation is, 
 itself, to create anew, each moment. Suns and 
 planets, living creatures in their endless races, all 
 that the round sky of each planet covers — seas, air, 
 sweeping valleys, lofty mountains, and the million 
 
THE GREAT GUEST 57 
 
 wonders of the brain and heart, and life, of their in- 
 numerable populations, have no security, each 
 moment, that they shall commence another, except 
 in the continual expenditure of fresh creative 
 energy. Miracles are only the momentary intercala- 
 tion, or rather, insertion, of unsuspected laws which 
 startle by their novelty, but are no more wonderful 
 than the most common incident of the great mystery 
 of nature." 
 
 Ill 
 
 But beside the remembrance of a miracle, the 
 presence of Jesus at the wedding of Cana brings 
 home to our heart other precious lessons. 
 
 We know nothing of the happy young people who 
 had among their guests the Savior of the world, His 
 first Apostles and His mother, the Virgin Mary ; even 
 their name is unknown, because, no doubt, in the 
 thought of the Master, He was there not to favor a 
 special couple, but to institute, honor and sanctify 
 the very sacrament of matrimony. We know of 
 them only one detail, a very simple one, but sublime 
 in its simplicity: they had invited Jesus to their 
 nuptials. 
 
 May their example be ever followed, may Jesus 
 be the principal Guest at every Christian marriage! 
 Catholic people have ever accompanied with rejoic- 
 ings the solemnizations of the sacrament of matri- 
 
58 INVITE JESUS 
 
 mony. Each State in America has its own customs 
 and traditions, which may vary here and there, but 
 there is one point always the same: style, flowers, 
 music, dances, banquets, profusion of gaiety, 
 promises and hopes: well and good they are, but 
 too often the worldly note is too conspicuous while 
 the religious side is neglected. In our parishes it 
 sometimes happens that dissipation enters and in- 
 vades even the place where the Holy One resides, 
 and then goes on and has full sway during the rest 
 of the day — a day most solemn and sacred, destined 
 to re-echo into the portals of time and eternity. 
 
 That such scandal may not happen on your 
 children's wedding day, O fathers and mothers, 
 invite Jesus at their feast of Cana. He will 
 perhaps not perform a miracle for them, but He 
 will tarry with them and keep intact their undying 
 love in the home of their hearts. He will be to 
 them a Guide and an Advisor, a Moderator in hours 
 of joy and a Comforter in the days of pain, ready 
 to appear at the first call, ready to avert from them 
 the sufferings which torture the body and the 
 mournings which tear and try the soul. Without 
 Him there is no purity nor peace; but with Him 
 less heavy will be the burden of the days, less pain- 
 ful the sacrifices of common life, more gladsome 
 the placing of the new born babe in the cradle of 
 love. His holy and divine presence will avert from 
 them the hideously hellish plague of divorce, which, 
 
EIGHT GOOD RULES 59 
 
 under the mantle of an iniquitous legislation, claims 
 to tear asunder what God hath joined together. 
 
 Under the fallacious pretext of breaking the chains 
 accepted with joy, but now too binding, it not only 
 wrecks the lives of the individuals who are parties 
 to the scandalous proceedings, but threatens the 
 very existence of civilized society by the inevitable 
 destruction of family life, and gives rise to a 
 generation of men and women wholly devoid of the 
 most essential virtues of good citizenship — reverence 
 for parents, love of home, and respect for authority. 
 
 To conclude this chapter I will now quote a few 
 golden rules which I borrow from that widespread, 
 excellent booklet, "How to get married" : 
 
 ( 1 ) Both young and old should look upon mar- 
 riage as a sacred and important state of life. 
 
 (2) Young people should avoid long courtships 
 and late marriages. 
 
 (3) Parents should never permit children 
 whilst still at school or under eighteen to keep 
 company, — or to associate freely with the other sex. 
 
 (4) Courting should not be done in secret, or 
 in the late hours of the night. Well meaning men 
 are not afraid to visit with the whole family or to 
 go home at a seasonable hour. 
 
 (5) Married people should bear in mind that 
 neglect of prayers, of regular attendance at Mass, 
 and of frequent reception of the sacraments almost 
 invariably leads to trouble in the family. 
 
6o SEE YOUR PASTOR 
 
 (6) Misunderstandings should not be aired 
 among relatives, neighbors, or in public. They 
 should be laid before the pastor before they have 
 gone too far. 
 
 (7) Catholics have no right to appeal to the 
 civil courts in any marriage case without getting 
 the previous consent of the Church. 
 
 (8) Catholic lawyers should not accept divorce 
 cases without consulting the pastor or some other 
 priest, and non-Catholic lawyers should be urged to 
 do the same. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ON HILLS AND MOUNTAINS 
 
 We all love the hills and the mountains. If it 
 were required to name the grandest natural objects 
 upon earth, it is possible that their name would rise 
 to the lips of not a few. In sublimity they take 
 rank with the ocean and the clouds. They were 
 chosen by the Psalmist to typify God's power, — 
 "And the strength of the hills is His also." On the 
 one hand, their height, their mass, and the deep 
 planting of their roots in the earth; and on the 
 other, the beauty which rests upon their varied out- 
 lines, which clothes their sides and precipices, and 
 lies among the wide valleys and deep glens, mark 
 them out not only as the most conspicuous, but also 
 as among the most attractive objects in the world. 
 Nor is it without design that these grand features 
 of the earth should twine themselves round the 
 affections. Memory lingers over the dim outline 
 of a mountain long after other scenes grouped 
 round its base have faded away ; and one can easily 
 understand that the eyes which day by day rest on 
 the familiar hills and mountains must ultimately 
 
 open up for them a way to the heart. Poets have 
 
 61 
 
62 WHERE HEAVEN IS NEARER 
 
 always praised their charm and beauty : in magnifi- 
 cent terms, they tell us of the sun sending them at 
 day-break the first kisses of his light, and coming to 
 rest on them as on a throne of glory; they sing of 
 the clouds of heaven lowering themselves to their 
 summits, where lie ice and snow, inexhaustible 
 reservoirs whence will flow, until the end of time, 
 brooks, creeks, and rivers. Scientists tell us their 
 genesis and their intimate history: "the dry land 
 appeared," they say, "not in level sands forsaken 
 by the surges which those surges might again claim 
 for their own; but in range beyond range of swell- 
 ing hill and iron rock, for ever to claim kindred with 
 the firmament and be companioned by the clouds." 
 Theologians unfold with eloquence the lessons that 
 come from the heights, while historians relate the 
 deeds done on them. Souls given to contemplation 
 have ever longed to live on the hills where the air is 
 purer and heaven is nearer, and where it is easier to 
 commune with God. 
 
 It was ever so with Jesus : 
 
 "He always loved the mountain tops, for there 
 Away from earth, He treads the mystic ways, 
 And sees the vision of the Fairest Fair, 
 
 Heaven dawns upon His raptured gaze; 
 The loneliness, the pain, the grief depart; 
 Surpassing gladness fills His Sacred Heart." 
 
 I do not intend to speak of the events which in 
 
r A COMPARISON 63 
 
 the Old Testament had mountains for their theatre, 
 but before we go with Jesus on the Mount of 
 Beatitudes, we cannot forbear glancing on the 
 contrast between the New Law, the law of love as 
 given on Mt. Kurn Hattin, and the Old Law, the law 
 of fear as proclaimed on Mt. Sinai. 
 
 "We think of that," says Farrar, "as a fiery law, 
 whose promulgation is surrounded by the imagery 
 of thunders and lightnings, and the voice of the 
 trumpet sounding long and waxing louder and 
 louder. We think of this as flowing forth in 
 divinest music amid all the calm and loveliness of 
 the clear and quiet dawn. That came dreadfully 
 to the startled conscience from an Unseen Presence, 
 shrouded by wreathing clouds, and destroying fire, 
 and eddying smoke; this was uttered by a sweet 
 human voice that moved the heart most gently in 
 words of peace. That was delivered on the 
 desolate and storm-rent hill which seems with its 
 red granite crags to threaten the scorching wilder- 
 ness; this on the flowery grass of the green hill-side 
 which slopes down to the silver lake. That shook 
 the heart with terror and agitation; this soothed it 
 with peace and love. And yet the New Command- 
 ments of the Mount of Beatitudes were not meant 
 to abrogate, but rather to complete the Law which 
 was spoken from Sinai to them of old. The Law 
 was founded on the eternal distinctions of right and 
 wrong — distinctions strong and irremovable as the 
 
64 OPENING HIS HEART 
 
 granite bases of the world. Easier would it be to 
 sweep away the heaven and the earth, than to destroy 
 the least letter of that code which contains the very 
 principles of all moral life/' 
 
 II 
 
 Hitherto the Master had not found an audience 
 trained enough in the things from above to under- 
 stand Him; later on, surrounded by enemies who 
 will spy out every word and step of His He will not 
 have the same liberty, and will be compelled mostly 
 always when in public to speak in figures or in para- 
 bles. But today His enemies are not yet harassing 
 Him and pursuing Him everywhere. He can, 
 therefore, open His heart and reveal to the enrap- 
 tured multitude the treasures of light, love, and life 
 which He had for them. 
 
 No less than the time was the scenery appropriate 
 to His own method of oratory, simple and sublime — 
 sublime because simple. Lilies stud the meadows, 
 shrubs bristle with thorns, vines reach out their ten- 
 drils to the props, thistles grow at the foot of the 
 fig trees, birds are singing in the air; not very far 
 from here dogs are barking, those dogs to which 
 nothing holy must be given, and swine before which 
 no pearls must be cast are wallowing in the mire; 
 fishermen from the Lake near by are here who will 
 never offer a serpent to their children who want a 
 
"blessed! blessed! blessed!" 65 
 
 fish; yonder is the city built upon the hill, and the 
 mountain-hamlets along whose roads salt that has 
 lost its savor has been thrown away ; and the lowly 
 homes with their one candle lit in the evening and 
 put upon a candlestick near the bushel with which 
 they measure corn. 
 
 And so on such a day and at such a spot, seeing 
 at His feet the numberless multitude drawn by the 
 tenderness of His Majesty and longing to see Him, 
 Jesus opened His divine lips and uttered 
 the heavenly Beatitudes. Solemnly He pro- 
 claimed the code of true worship in spirit and 
 in truth. 
 
 "Blessed! Blessed! Blessed !" Belief in bliss 
 offered to all and accessible to all, became with Jesus 
 an article of divine faith. 
 
 Until this blessed hour moralists and poets had in 
 lengthy and learned lessons and in exquisitely chis- 
 elled lyrics asserted that bliss, human bliss, is found 
 here below only in the midst of honor, riches, and 
 pleasures ; few were those who claimed to see it in 
 the midst of duty. And with such masters and 
 guides, humanity that longed for happiness, had 
 discovered that wealth, glory, and mirth were only 
 other words for weariness, disgust, and misery. 
 
 And lo ! Jesus cried out : 
 
 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the 
 Kingdom of heaven ! 
 
 Blessed the meek, for they shall possess the land ! 
 
66 BLISS OFFERED TO ALL 
 
 Blessed they that mourn, for they shall be com- 
 forted ! 
 
 Blessed they that hunger and thirst after justice, 
 for they shall be filled! 
 
 Blessed the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy! 
 
 Blessed the clean of heart, for they shall see God ! 
 
 Blessed the peace-makers for they shall be called 
 children of God 
 
 Blessed they .that suffer persecution for justice' 
 sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven !" 
 
 Thus spoke the God-Man setting, contrary to 
 the moral ideas of antiquity, relative happiness in 
 the lowliness of the present life, and absolute 
 happiness in the joys of the future life; casting 
 aside glory as vain, riches as deceitful, pleasure as 
 wearisome. 
 
 And His life was in unison with His moral doc- 
 trine: from His birth, through all His acts, con- 
 stantly He proved that He despised the hollow toys 
 to the pursuit of which mankind rushes ; constantly 
 He proved that He had faith in the power of self- 
 sacrifice, poverty and persecutions. Born in a stable 
 He was compelled a few days after the Christmas 
 Night to fly into Egypt to escape Herod's hired 
 murderers. And all along His life, in the midst of 
 misery and opposition He proves by His patience and 
 resignation, and last by His Passion that they alone 
 find happiness here below who unfalteringly do the 
 will of God. 
 
BEATITUDES, ONLY A PROLOGUE 6? 
 
 Those who have believed in the divine word — the 
 martyrs in the arena, the apostles in pagan lands, the 
 hermits in the wilderness, the virgins in the cloister, 
 all the saints of the New Law, kings or slaves, nobles 
 or peasants — all have said after Him: "Blessed are 
 we in the midst of the afflictions of the passing hour, 
 because thereby we acquire endless glory and hap- 
 piness." Indeed, how many of them have felt, to a 
 degree unthought of by those whose heart is cai- 
 tiff or cowardly, what sweetness and what a reward 
 God has in store even here below for those who 
 draw their happiness at the sources shown by Jesus ! 
 And when we think that for nineteen centuries the 
 life of the saints has ever been an illustration of the 
 heavenly Beatitudes, we wonder not that the Church 
 has chosen this fragment of the Gospels as the por- 
 tion to be read on All-Saints Day. 
 
 The Beatitudes are only the prologue. The whole 
 sermon on the Mount we should quote, for it is the 
 code of the new law, the new and last revelation; it 
 is the voice of God, speaking in the utterance of 
 man to one and to all, to the learned and to the un- 
 learned, to the young and to the old ; to borrow the 
 image of St. Augustine: "It is a great sea whose 
 smiling surface breaks into refreshing ripples at the 
 feet of our little ones, but into whose unfathomable 
 depths the wisest may gaze with the shudder of 
 amazement and the thrill of love." Invited is the 
 reader to peruse the whole sermon in the family 
 
68 A FEW OTHER MORSELS 
 
 Bible, for, after all, the actual text is different from 
 everything else in the world, and therefore the work 
 is different from what is done by anything else, 
 however excellent in its kind. Just to whet your 
 appetite I will gather here a few morsels : 
 
 "You are the salt of the earth. But if salt be- 
 comes insipid, what can make it salt again ? After 
 that it is fit for nothing, fit only to be thrown out- 
 side and trodden by the feet of men. 
 
 "You are the light of the world. So is your 
 light to shine before men that they may see the good 
 you do and glorify your Father in heaven. 
 
 "Whoever is angry with his brother will be sen- 
 tenced by God. So if you remember, even when 
 you are offering your gift at the altar, that your 
 brother has any grievance against you, leave your 
 gift at the very altar and go away; first be reconciled 
 to your brother, then come back and offer your gift. 
 
 "Be quick and make terms with your opponent, 
 so long as you and he are on the way to court, in 
 case he hands you over to the judge, and the judge 
 to the jailer, and you are thrown into prison; truly 
 I tell you, you will never get out till you pay the 
 last penny of your debt. 
 
 "Let what you say be simply 'yes' or W ; what- 
 ever exceeds that springs from evil. 
 
 "You have heard the saying, 'You must love 
 your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you 
 love your enemies and pray for those who persecute 
 
GOOD FOR US ALL 69 
 
 you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven : 
 he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and 
 sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you 
 love only those who love you, what reward do you 
 get for that ? 
 
 "Take care not to practice your charity before 
 men in order to be noticed ; otherwise you get no re- 
 ward from your Father in heaven. 
 
 "When you give alms, do not let your left hand 
 know what your right hand is doing, so as to keep 
 your alms secret; then your Father who sees what 
 is secret will reward you. 
 
 "When you fast, do not look gloomy like the 
 hypocrites, for they look woebegone to let men see 
 they are fasting. 
 
 "Store up no treasures for yourselves on earth, 
 where moth and rust corrode, where thieves break 
 in and steal: store up treasures for yourselves in 
 heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrode, where 
 thieves do not break in and steal. 
 
 "No one can serve two masters: either he will 
 hate the one and love the other, or else he will stand 
 by the one and despise the other — yoir cannot serve 
 God and Mammon. 
 
 "Judge not, that you may not be judged your- 
 selves, for as you judge so you will be judged, and 
 the measure you deal out to others will be dealt out 
 to yourselves. 
 
 "Why do you note the splinter in your brother's 
 
70 "as one having power" 
 
 eye and fail to see the beam in your own eye? How 
 can you say to your brother, 'Let me take out the 
 splinter from your eye/ when there lies the beam in 
 your own eye? You hypocrite! take the beam out 
 of your own eye first, and then you will see properly 
 how to take the splinter out of your brother's eye. 
 
 "Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you 
 shall find ; knock and it shall be opened to you ; for 
 every one who asks receives, the seeker finds, the 
 door is opened to anyone who knocks. 
 
 "Whatever you would like men to do for you, do 
 just the same to them. 
 
 "It is not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord !' 
 who will get into the Realm of heaven, but he who 
 does the will of My Father in heaven. 
 
 "Now, everyone who listens to these my words 
 and acts upon them will be like a prudent man who 
 built his house on rock. The rain came down, the 
 floods rose, the winds blew and beat upon that 
 house, but it did not fall, for it was founded on 
 rock. And everyone who listens to these my words 
 and does not act upon them will be like a stupid man 
 who built his house on sand. The rain came down, 
 the floods rose, the winds blew and beat upon that 
 house, and down it fell — with a mighty crash." 
 
 No wonder that, when Jesus had finished his ad- 
 dress, "the multitudes were astonished at His teach- 
 ing : for He taught them as One having power, and 
 not as their Scribes and Pharisees ;" not as the copy- 
 
A WORLD OF THOUGHTS J I 
 
 ists, interpreters and translators of the Old Law but 
 as the Real Author of the New Laws, destined to 
 last forever. 
 
 Verily Jesus has left us not only a life, but a rich 
 world of thoughts, in which all the best inspirations 
 and longings of mankind meet and are reflected. It 
 is the expression of the purest and directest truths 
 which rise in the depth of the soul, and they are made 
 common to all mankind by being uttered in the 
 simplest and most popular form. 
 
it 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BIRDS OF THE AIR AND LILIES OF THE FIELD 
 
 A sparrow lighted chirping on a spray 
 
 Close to my window, as I knelt in prayer, 
 
 Bowed by a heavy load of anxious care. 
 
 The morn was bitter, but the bird was gay, 
 
 And seemed by cheery look and chirp to say, 
 
 'What though the snow conceals my wonted fare, 
 
 Nor I have barn or store-house anywhere, 
 
 Yet I trust heaven on a winter's day ?' 
 
 That little bird came like a winged text 
 
 Fluttering from out God's Ward to sooth my breast. 
 
 What though my life with wintry cares be vexed, 
 
 On a kind Father's watchful love I rest ; 
 
 He meets this moment's need ; I leave the next ; 
 
 And always trusting, shall be always blest?" 
 
 In the previous chapter there is a passage which 
 I have omitted on purpose and to which I want to 
 return, for, short as it is, therein is found a whole 
 treatise on Divine foreknowledge, or rather an hymn 
 in honor of Divine Providence. 
 
 "Be not anxious for your life, what you shall 
 eat, or what you shall drink ; nor yet for your body 
 
 what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the 
 
 72 
 
CONFIDENCE IN GOD 73 
 
 food, and the body than the raiment? Behold the 
 birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do 
 they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly 
 Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more 
 value than they? And which of you by being 
 anxious can add one cubit unto his stature? And 
 why are you anxious concerning raiment? Con- 
 sider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil 
 not, neither do they spin. Yet I say unto you, that 
 even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
 one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass 
 of the field which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast 
 into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, 
 O you of little faith? Be not therefore anxious, 
 saying : what shall we eat ? or, what shall we drink ? 
 or, wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after 
 all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your 
 heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all 
 these things. But seek you first his righteousness, 
 and his Kingdom; and all these things shall be 
 added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for 
 the morrow; for the morrow will be anxious for 
 itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof/' 
 
 What an invincible confidence in God these words 
 should inspire within us, how well they should re- 
 mind us that Our Father who is in heaven keeps us 
 and preserves us with love and care! 
 
 But for the present, since Jesus tells us to behold 
 the birds of the heaven and the lilies of the field, let 
 
74 THROUGH NATURE TO GRACE 
 
 us do so at once : for us country folk it will be an 
 easy and pleasant task thus to go through nature to 
 grace. 
 
 And, first, we notice the birds possess perfect and 
 most admirable adaptations for buoyancy and 
 flight. Their heads are small, and pierce freely 
 through the air; their vision is keen, and discerns 
 their way-marks and destination and food at great 
 distances ; their head and shoulders are gently swell- 
 ing, and cleave the atmosphere with the least 
 possible resistance; their frame is small, light and 
 curved, and suited alike to ascend into the air and to 
 float on the breeze; their interior has air-bags and 
 cavities which make them almost as buoyant as 
 balloons, and at the same time maintain a very 
 extensive respiration for the double purpose of high 
 heat and lofty vigor; their under plumage is strong 
 and imbricated or overlapped, and also in most 
 instances lubricated with an oily secretion which 
 protects them from injury by rain or storm; their 
 wings, which are made of a light material, are 
 worked with muscles of very strong power, ana 
 strike the air with most impulsive force; and their 
 tail has a relative adjustment similar to the rudder 
 of a ship, but with greater activity and incomparably 
 freer command, and steers them like life, steadily 
 and promptly, in the precise line of their wished- for 
 course. Every feather is a wonder, and every wing 
 a museum. 
 
THEIR MELODY 75 
 
 But birds are also surpassingly beautiful and 
 charming. There are thousands and thousands of 
 kinds, and yet all are lovely, all exhibit an endless 
 diversity of grace and gorgeousness and song. 
 They seem to belong to Eden rather than to this sin- 
 defaced earth, and are suggestive to good men of an 
 everlasting paradise in the heavens. How para- 
 mount above all statuary are their forms! How 
 rich above all festoonings and draperies are their 
 waving plumes and feathery ringlets! How 
 glorious above all pictures, how far beyond com- 
 parison with anything except flowers and winged 
 insects, are their tints and burnishings of color! 
 And how immensely superior to the rough measures 
 of human music, how entirely like the faint far 
 away responses of the primal paradise to the hymns 
 of the angels, are the thrillings and warblings of 
 their melody ! 
 
 With Browning, we say : 
 
 "Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 
 Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 
 
 Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge — 
 That's the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice over 
 
 Lest you should think he never could recapture 
 
 The first fine careless rapture!" 
 
 Nor can any strong reason, or scarcely any reason 
 at all, be discovered by physiologists, why birds need 
 such exquisite beauty, or any of their fine hues, or 
 
j6 OUR FATHER 
 
 of their powers of song. They clearly possess all 
 their attractions as a ministry of pleasure to man. 
 They embellish our forests and amuse our walks; 
 and whether we saunter around our home or wander 
 to a distance, some of them always attend us, to 
 please our eyes and ears, and to raise our admiring 
 thoughts to the God of nature and of Providence. 
 
 But there is no need to expatiate any longer on 
 the wonders of the birds, for this is not a manual of 
 ornithology. We all know that all birds enjoy 
 organs and instinct necessary to look for, to find 
 out and to seize upon their food : we all know that 
 the general providence of God provides that they 
 get food. 
 
 "Now," as Doctor Breen says, "the love which 
 God has for the creatures cannot be compared to 
 that which He has for man. He made them and 
 all other things in this world for man. He is only 
 the Creator of these; He is the Father of man. He 
 gave to man His own image and likeness ; He gave 
 him an immortal soul capable of immortality, 
 capable of knowing and loving God Himself. Nay 
 more, the Word became incarnate for man. 
 Certainly therefore that Providence which provides 
 for the birds of the air that have no power to know 
 or love God, that die and are no more, will provide 
 for the being which He has raised to such a dignity, 
 and for whom He has done so much. ,, 
 
 Let us note however with Dr. Martineau, that 
 
NOT TO REIGN BUT TO WRESTLE yy 
 
 "although our Heavenly Father feeds the birds, 
 the birds stay not at home expecting crumbs of 
 manna to drop from rich tables in the skies. They 
 are not found empty of all appetency, regardless of 
 the changing year, and hanging ever upon miracle. 
 On the contrary their whole existence is a con- 
 tinual quest after that physical good which is their 
 true and only end; and to pilfer the garden and the 
 field, to skip and sip the stream, to dress their plu- 
 mage with finer gloss, and sing the song of glad re- 
 pletion, is their work from morn to night. What 
 eager industry flutters in the spring around the 
 skirts of the plantation, gathering the bits and 
 brakes scattered for them by the winter's storm! 
 What busy preparations, at autumn's first chill 
 wind, wheels and musters overhead, for the long 
 flight over Southern seas, the swift cheering on the 
 slow, and the young supporting the old! What 
 studious watch, under the semblance of flashing 
 sport, does the home-loving swallow keep !" 
 
 Like the birds must we act. "That which God 
 giveth us we must gather up." "In due season He 
 openeth His hand and filleth with blessing every 
 living creature, ,, but we must work to get that bless- 
 ing, for we are not here to reign, but to wrestle. 
 God will supply our wants, not without activity of 
 ours, but by means of it; not by casual miracle, but 
 by constant law; by putting His skill within us, as 
 well as spreading His affluence without. 
 
78 THE SMILE OF GOD 
 
 II 
 
 After the birds come the flowers, the flowers 
 which according to poets, were born from the 
 smile of God upon the earth, and show in freckle, 
 streak or stain some touch of His unrivalled pencil. 
 Listen to Christina Rossetti : 
 
 "Flowers preach to us if we will hear: — 
 The rose saith in the dewy morn, 
 I am most fair; 
 Yet all my loveliness is born 
 Upon a thorn. 
 
 The lilies say: Behold how we 
 Preach, without words, of purity. 
 The violets whisper from the shade 
 Which their own leaves have made: 
 Men scent our fragrance in the air, 
 Yet take no •heed 
 Of humble lessons we would read. 
 But not alone the fairest flowers: 
 The merest grass 
 
 Along the roadside where we pass, 
 Lichen and moss and sturdy weed, 
 Tell of His love who sends the dew, 
 The rain and the sunshine too, 
 To nourish one small seed." 
 
 "God clothes the lilies/' Alford says, "as never 
 man in his pomp, as never woman in her beauty, 
 was yet bedecked. One of these wayside flowers, if 
 
WE MUST TRUST HIM 79 
 
 we could see all the secrets and all the blending* of 
 its colors, if we could penetrate all the laws which 
 regulate the symmetry and elegance of its form, if 
 we could appreciate all the care bestowed by the Cre- 
 ator on the delicacy and complexion of its texture, 
 would put all human adornment to shame. If we 
 try one of these with the power of the micro- 
 scope, — the more we magnify it, the more glories of 
 form and color, the more intricate symmetries of 
 texture, astonish the dazzled eye: subject to the 
 same test the most delicately-woven fabric of 
 human skill, the most precise and uniform artifi- 
 cial application of color, and as it expands before 
 the scrutiny, it degenerates into a coarse and un- 
 seemly mass, daubed as if by an unskillful hand. 
 He who has lavished all this exquisite skill on the 
 rank growth of the field, which is flourishing to-day, 
 and cut down and dried up and burnt to-morrow, 
 shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little 
 faith ? Will not He, in His good Providence, bring 
 about for all of us who serve Him and seek to do 
 His will, a sufficient and seemly supply of what is 
 needful and what is becoming for the clothing of 
 the body? We are to trust Him with the suste- 
 nance of our lives, we are to trust Him with shelter- 
 ing and arraying us. We are better employed than 
 that we ought to distrust our thoughts day by day 
 about these matters : we have no time to bestow on 
 them as life's business : they must not eat out the 
 
80 HE CARES FOR US 
 
 spirit of a sound and earnest mind, — they must not 
 unteach us self-denial, they must not be clamoring 
 when we ought to be listening to the whisper of 
 sympathy and God's spirit: they must not ever be 
 rising as drifts of clouds, troubling the clear morn- 
 ing of the day, and blotting the Sun of Right- 
 eousness by whose light we walk and work. This it 
 is, and no impossible, no exaggerated casting away 
 of earthly cares which the Lord requires of us. It 
 is the knowing what we are, and who cares for us, 
 and acting in that knowledge. It is told of Caesar, 
 that being at sea in a storm, and beholding the 
 shipman unmanned with fear, he cried, 'Fear not; 
 thou hast Caesar on board/ This was carrying 
 greatness of soul even to infirmity: it is pre- 
 sumption for a man to put that trust in his fortunes, 
 and to have that confidence in his own work in the 
 world: but it is no undue confidence in us, and it 
 savors of no presumption to say to our anxious 
 souls when the^ distract us with fear for this life's 
 welfare, Tear not: thou earnest a precious spirit 
 bound for the blessed country afar: the Father 
 breathed it into thee, the Son bled for it, the Holy 
 Ghost guideth and sanctifieth it : thou art freighted 
 with covenant promises, and the fruits of a Christian 
 life stored up against the final harvest: be not thou 
 troubled with daily anxieties: only keep thine 
 hands on the helm, and thine eye on the compass, 
 and let the wild waves rage as they will. Seek first 
 
NO CONTRARIETY 8l 
 
 the one great purpose for which thou art, and all 
 things else shall be added unto thee.' " 
 
 III 
 
 It is sometimes asked whether the doctrine of a 
 special Providence does not threaten the moral 
 well-being of man himself with serious dangers. 
 For instance, is it not likely to encourage a dreamy, 
 listless way of waiting upon events, instead of 
 nerving men to active exertion ? Is it not suited to 
 the life of an Oriental mystic rather than, for in- 
 stance, to the busy life of American farmers, who 
 know that they must exert themselves if they would 
 live? No. Like other teaching, no doubt it may 
 be abused; but between honest, and even eager, 
 attention to business and a sincere recognition of 
 God's Providence there is no necessary contrariety. 
 In our own times, as of old, there are many men 
 whose lives show how perfectly compatible is a 
 childlike faith in God's Providence with uninter- 
 rupted exertion; nay, rather how that faith is the 
 very spirit and nerve of this exertion. God does 
 not promise us each and all that if we will lie down 
 by the brook Carith like Elias the Thesbite, the 
 ravens shall come to feed us; as the proverb says, 
 He helps them that help themselves ; but then it is 
 He who does help them, and that so materially that 
 they could not do without Him. He kindles the 
 
&2 HOW WE MUST TRUST HIM 
 
 brain, He nerves the arm, He sustains, through the 
 weary hours of work, the various powers of mind 
 and body; and the product, in one sense due to 
 human exertion, is in a higher and true sense His 
 gift through it. Between our Lord's teaching and 
 such exertion undertaken on the principle of duty, 
 there is no opposition. Our Lord is merely 
 opposing an overanxiety about the results of work, 
 which is often as fatal to successful labor itself as it 
 is to the claims upon the soul's attention of the king- 
 dom of God and His righteousness. 
 
 Let us then ever trust in God and pray to Him as 
 though everything depended on Him; let us work 
 and wrestle as though everything depended on us. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 In the beginning of His public! career, when 
 Jesus had fasted forty days and forty nights in the 
 wilderness, He felt hungry. So the tempter came 
 up and said to Him: "If thou be the Son of God, 
 command that these stones be made bread." But 
 Jesus answered: "It is written, Man is not to live 
 on bread alone, but on every word that issues from 
 the mouth of God." 
 
 We transcribe this episode because of the two- 
 fold lesson therein given us by our Lord. First, 
 from the very words of Jesus we see that, although 
 bread is necessary for the sustenance of our body, 
 it is not sufficient. Our soul also has to be fed: 
 she is hungry for truth, justice, charity, and it is in 
 the granary of the Holy Scriptures and of Tradition 
 as entrusted by God to His Church that she can find 
 such food. The second lesson comes from the very 
 refusal of Jesus to lift up His divine hand for an 
 unnecessary purpose. Christ showered His mira- 
 cles on those who were lowly and righteous, on 
 
 83 
 
84 THE LAW OF HIS WHOLE LIFE 
 
 those who showed their misery to Him and 
 appealed to His All-Goodness and His All-Power. 
 But He never performed one single "sign" to sat- 
 isfy mere curiosity. Nor did Christ ever perform a 
 miracle for His own needs : He who made the 
 water wine, could have made the stones bread; but 
 to that He was solicited by the need of others, to 
 this only by His own. And this abstinence of 
 self-help was the law of His whole life, a life as 
 wonderful in the miracles which it left undone as 
 in those which it wrought. 
 
 II 
 
 In the last year of His public life Jesus went again 
 into the wilderness. He was surrounded by a great 
 multitude of men, who had brought all the sick 
 who could be carried, or who could come; and as 
 He passed through the crowds He healed them by 
 a word or a touch. They had greater wants, how- 
 ever, than bodily healing, and He could not let them 
 go away uncomforted. Ascending the hill-side, 
 and gathering the vast throng before Him, "He 
 spoke to them of the kingdom of God, and taught 
 them many things." 
 
 The day was spent in this arduous labor, but the 
 people still lingered. They had been fed with the 
 bread of truth, and seemed indifferent, for the 
 time, to anything besides. Poor shepherdless sheep ! 
 
THEY MIGHT FAINT BY THE WAY 85 
 
 It was His delight, as the Good Shepherd, to lead 
 them to rich pastures, and as they sat and stood 
 around Him, they forgot their bodily wants in the 
 beauty and power of His words. 
 
 "It was now towards evening and the company 
 showed no signs of dispersing. Food could not be 
 had in that lonely place, and the Twelve, afraid on 
 this and perhaps other grounds, anxiously urged 
 Jesus to send them away, that they might buy bread 
 in the country round. To their astonishment, how- 
 ever, He told them they must themselves supply 
 food, as it would never do to dismiss them hungry : 
 they might faint by the way. No more impos- 
 sible request could have been made. About two 
 hundred dollars worth of bread, at the value of 
 money in those days, would be needed to give each 
 even an insufficient share. They could not under- 
 stand Him. Andrew, perhaps the provider for the 
 band, could only demonstrate their helplessness by 
 saying that the lad in attendance on them had only 
 five loaves of common barley bread — the food of 
 the poor — and two small fishes, but what, he added, 
 were they among so many? 
 
 "Make the men sit down," said Jesus. It was 
 Nisan( April), the month of flowers, and the slopes 
 were rich with the soft green of the spring grass — 
 that simplest and most touching lesson of the care 
 of God for all nature. The Twelve presently di- 
 vided the vast multitude into companies of fifties 
 
86 A MIRACLE 
 
 and hundreds, reminding S. Peter, long after, from 
 the bright color of their Eastern dresses, of the 
 flower-beds of a great garden. 
 
 "This done, like the great Father of the far- 
 stretching household, Jesus took the bread and the 
 fishes, and looking up to Heaven, invoked the bless- 
 ing of God on them, and giving thanks for them, as 
 was customary before all meals, proceeded to hand 
 portions to the disciples, who, in turn, gave them to 
 the crowd. Thus Christ, from three loaves and 
 two small fishes, not only satisfied the hunger of 
 five thousand men, besides women and children, but 
 did it so royally that the fragments that remained 
 were enough to fill twelve of the little baskets in 
 which Passover pilgrims were wont to carry their 
 provisions for the way. More was left than there 
 had been at first. 
 
 w< Jesus had thus supplied the wants of the needy 
 in a way the full significance of which was as yet 
 beyond what the disciples either understood or 
 dreamed, for He had shown how there dwelt in Him 
 a virtue sufficient to meet all higher wants, as well as 
 the lower, so that none who believed in Him would 
 ever have either hunger or thirst of soul any 
 longer, but would find in Him their all. Had they 
 known it, He had shown them that He Himself was 
 the Bread of Life, that came down from Heaven. 
 But they at least knew how much they came short 
 of a lofty faith, which in loving trust, despairs least 
 
SYMBOL OF THE EUCHARIST 87 
 
 when the need is greatest, and in the strength of 
 which all is doubled by joyful imparting, while 
 abundance remains instead of want." 
 
 This miraculous bread, symbol of the Holy 
 Eucharist, recalls an incident in the life of Israel, 
 which it is meet to mention. 
 
 With the help of God the Hebrews had crossed 
 the Red Sea and entered the wilderness of Sur: 
 "Let us sing unto the Lord," they exclaimed, "for He 
 has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider 
 He has thrown into the sea. The depths have 
 covered them: they are sunk to the bottom like a 
 stone." 
 
 But, alas! how quickly do their groans of com- 
 plaint follow their hymn of gratitude! Straight- 
 way we read in the Bible that the children of Israel 
 murmured against Moses and Aaron, their leaders : 
 "Would to God that we had died by the hand of 
 Jehovah," they cried out, "in the land of Egypt, 
 where we sat by the flesh-pots, where we did eat 
 bread to the full: for you have brought us forth 
 into the wilderness to kill the whole assembly with 
 hunger." 
 
 God did not punish them. Once more He for- 
 gave them and had pity on them. He said to them, 
 through Moses, that He would rain bread for them, 
 and they would see the glory of the Lord. "And 
 in the morning the dew lay round about the camp, 
 
88 THE MANNA 
 
 and when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, 
 upon the face of the wilderness a small round thing, 
 small as the hoar-frost on the ground. And when 
 the children saw it, they said one to another, what 
 is it? for they knew not what it was. And Moses 
 said unto them, It is the bread which Jehovah hath 
 given you to eat." 
 
 Strengthened by this food (manna) they went on 
 and on. Every morning they gathered it as a food 
 for the day, until they reached the Promised Land. 
 
 As the Father, so the Son with the Holy Ghost. 
 God has ever pity on humanity. In the heart of 
 God, unweary and unweariable, lies an eternal com- 
 miseration for us. "Come to me all ye who are 
 laboring and burdened, and I will refresh you." 
 Thus has the Divine Spokesman and the Living 
 Word issued His call to us all, because He knew 
 there was in His soul love enough to comfort, light 
 enough to enlighten, strength enough to help all 
 those who are threatened and tormented by doubt, 
 despondence and despair. 
 
 O my farmers, with that childlike confidence 
 which is both the bud and blossom of our belief, let 
 us ever approach Jesus, the Divine Friend who 
 stays with us when all others forsake us, the Friend 
 who has both the desire and the power to help us. 
 Your hunger and thirst of soul and body He will 
 ever satisfy. Your crops He will ever bless. He is 
 
ALL-GOOD AND ALL-MIGHTY 89 
 
 the All-Good as well as the All-Mighty: "even the 
 desert land He will make as a place of pleasure, and 
 as the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall 
 be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of 
 praise." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 DOVES AND SERPENTS 
 
 "Be ye wise as serpents and simple like doves." 
 Such are the words of our Lord which we cull again 
 from that inexhaustible store-house of wisdom and 
 simplicity, the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 Of all the feathery denizens of the mid-air the 
 dove has perhaps been given the best part. Gentle 
 and graceful, with her delicate forms and her pretty 
 plumage, she seems made to be a harbinger between 
 heaven and earth. She cuts speedily through the 
 air, and in those trackless fields of space she knows 
 how to hover as perfectly as an eagle. She can be 
 tamed easily and she then becomes the pet bird of 
 the farm. Children play with her and caress her. 
 Timid however and trembling, she takes flight at the 
 least noise and flying away she goes for calm and 
 peace in higher regions. Soon she comes down 
 again, she stays here a while on the top of a rock 
 or of a tree, or comes to dip her wings in the clear 
 water of a brook or a creek. Her song has nothing 
 of those fanciful melodies which we admire in other 
 
 90 
 
INNOCENCE AND SIMPLICITY 91 
 
 birds and which cheer up the fields of nature, but 
 her cooing, half celestial and half earthly, with its 
 low, long note, is not without a charm of its own, 
 and the nameless things that sigh within us answer 
 to her plaintive and affectionate ring. 
 
 Because of her appealing qualities she has been 
 chosen as the symbol of the spirit of gentleness, 
 innocence, simplicity, candor, holiness that soars 
 above, and charity that labors here below. 
 
 Holy Writ mentions the dove in many a passage. 
 She announces the end of the deluge to Noe when 
 she returns to him in the evening "carrying a bough 
 of an olive tree, with green leaves, in her mouth ;" 
 she is the tiny victim offered in the Temple for their 
 purification by the mothers that are poor; therefore 
 was she the victim offered by the Blessed Virgin 
 Mary; luminous she descends on the head of the 
 baptized Messiah in the holy stream of Jordan. 
 
 What more shall I say or sing of her? She 
 loves the light of day, she flies straight to the object 
 she has in view, she is trustful, she is patient, so 
 patient that I have seen a sparrow pick food from 
 her bill, and there she was, using neither beak nor 
 her claws to avenge herself. She prefers to be the 
 anvil rather than the hammer, the spoiled rather than 
 the robber, the slain rather than the murderer, the 
 martyr rather than the tyrant. Do what you want, 
 she says, but it is better to be good and simple than 
 curious, malicious, and cunning, and there is such 
 
92 A DEFINITION 
 
 a thing as the duty of allowing our goods to be 
 taken from us, rather than defend our rights when 
 evil may result therefrom, knowing that a better 
 inheritance is reserved for us. Verily this dove is 
 an eloquent preacher of Christian simplicity. 
 And no wonder that our Lord tells us to be "simple 
 as doves' ' who also told us that "unless we become as 
 little children we shall not enter the kingdom of 
 heaven." 
 
 But what is Christian simplicity? 
 
 Faber says that it is truthfulness with our- 
 selves, with our neighbor, and with God. St. Fran- 
 cis de Sales calls it sincerity in language and man- 
 ners. Blanlo speaks of it as a holy disposition of 
 the soul tending to unity, and shunning all duplicity 
 in intention, affection, word, and action. Others 
 tell us that it is a freedom from elaborateness, 
 ornaments, formality, artfulness, cunning, affecta- 
 tion or pretension, and ostentation. But the sim- 
 plest definition is that which I heard from a little 
 Kentucky girl: "Simplicity," she said, "is simpli- 
 city," thereby telling me that it is better to practice 
 it than to know its definition. 
 
 The ways of simplicity indeed we may learn from 
 glancing at the souls of small children as we know 
 them. Simple in their beliefs and their judgments, 
 they willingly defer to the opinions of others, and 
 never hotly maintain their own. It is thus that a 
 follower of Christ must prefer the judgment of 
 
SINCERITY 93 
 
 others to his own and ingenuously confess his error 
 as soon as he recognizes it. With still greater 
 reason he adheres simply to the truth of faith : the 
 feeling of his own ignorance disposes him to be- 
 lieve; his is truly the faith of the peasant. Simple 
 in his conduct a child avoids disguise and false- 
 hood ; he does not know what it is to be annoyed at 
 a want of consideration, or to be proud at a proof 
 of attention; he does not occupy himself with what 
 is thought or said of him ; he does not trouble him- 
 self about where his mother places him or carries 
 him, nor about anything she does to him; he only 
 knows how to abandon himself simply to her and to 
 allow her to do with him what she pleases, because he 
 knows she is — his mother. It is thus that the true 
 Christian acts in all things, without dissimulation 
 or concealment, without duplicity or artifice, with- 
 out falsehood or equivocation. He does not try 
 to hide either his ignorance or his faults, or to ex- 
 cuse himself when he has failed in his duty, nor to 
 show himself to be anything but what he is; and, 
 caring little as to what others may say or think of 
 him, he goes straight on his way, doing what he 
 believes to be his duty. In his exterior he is mod- 
 est without being singular; discreet without affec- 
 tation; he knows nothing either of extravagance 
 in dress, or in food, furniture and amusements. In 
 the midst of his social duties, politeness is in his 
 case the true expression of charity. In studying 
 
94 NOT TO APPEAR BUT TO BE 
 
 his way of action, you notice, not only that he wants 
 to please, but you are really dear to him ; not that he 
 aims at others being pleased with him, but that he 
 is pleased with those with whom he comes in 
 contact. Again, in the details of his actions, he 
 does not seek to show or hide himself, nor to appear 
 good, but to be the same in private as in public, at 
 home as in the street, — always himself. He fears 
 nothing with excess, he desires nothing with passion, 
 he is poor without being humiliated, rich or honored 
 without esteeming himself any the more for it; he 
 knows of nothing low in what is good, nothing little, 
 in what is useful, nothing honorable in what is 
 un-Christian. A beautiful character this is, and 
 you will attain to it in willing the will of God and 
 nothing else, in blessing God always for everything 
 and in reposing upon Him in the simplicity of 
 love. 
 
 Simplicity of love! The whole Bible is studded 
 with the proofs of how deeply God loves it. "His 
 will is in them that walk sincerely, ,, is an expres- 
 sion we find so often that we could call it the burden 
 of the divine song. Simplicity in charity, simplicity 
 in obedience, simplicity in the fulfillment of the 
 duties of our state, simplicity in perseverance, 
 simplicity in our relations with one another. 
 
 But now let us consider the serpent. 
 
 Serpents are beasts that have only enemies and 
 therefore everywhere run great danger. So they 
 
PRUDENCE 95 
 
 are very wary, they keep guard over themselves, 
 they avoid making noise, they turn around any 
 obstacle that they find on their way. They never 
 storm a place, they slimily insinuate themselves 
 into it. And in all this, in cases of passive resis- 
 tance as well as active attack, they follow an instinct 
 dictated by prudence. 
 
 In the primeval days of the human race the 
 serpent was cursed by God because of his having 
 deceived Adam and Eve; and our Lord echoed 
 that malediction when He lashed the hypocrite Phar- 
 isees by calling them "serpents and offspring of 
 vipers." 
 
 Indeed everything is deceptive in those reptiles 
 and the very uttering of their name seems to distort 
 our lips. 
 
 Seen from near there is no doubt that in many 
 instances wonderful are their gorgeous colorings 
 and their diversified forms, but they are all in 
 some way or other hideous, they are the ugliest 
 creatures upon the earth, and the beauteous ones 
 look all the more horrible for their very beauty. 
 
 You see them at rest; you would believe them 
 doomed to inertia, those snakes of the swamps; 
 they have no feet, no fins, no wings. They have no 
 exterior members adapted for making progress. 
 How can they move? The fact is that thanks to 
 the suppleness of their spine, by drawing together 
 the ribs on alternate sides, they spring, they leap, 
 
g6 "the virtue of old folks" 
 
 they bound, they climb, they glide, not merely with 
 ease, but with alacrity. 
 
 You see their size, relatively small, and you believe 
 they are frail and harmless. But all are more or 
 less remarkable for strength and noxiousness. 
 Some are sheathed in ball-proof coat of mail 
 covered with imbricated scales; others have offen- 
 sive power of teeth or muscle which can promptly 
 crush a middle-rate beast or man himself to a 
 mummy; others eject acrid humors or fetid odors 
 most disgustingly vile; and others carry stings and 
 poison-bags, and can in a moment inflict on man or 
 on any large animal a dangerous or deadly wound. 
 
 "Flee the serpent as Satan," is consequently an 
 universal adage, but how shall we conciliate it with 
 the saying of Christ: "Be prudent like serpents"? 
 Is there not a flagrant contradiction between them ? 
 — No, there is not, and easily do they justify each 
 other. 
 
 If the serpent is crafty, it behooves us to mis- 
 trust his malice, remembering the word of St. Paul: 
 "I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his 
 subtility, so your minds should be corrupted, and fall 
 from the simplicity which is in Christ. ,, 
 
 But if he is prudent and cautious, why should we 
 not imitate this good point of his? 
 
 Prudence is usually "the virtue of old folks," 
 but it is a moral virtue only inasmuch as it differs 
 from duplicity. It must, therefore, be accompanied 
 
NOT A WORLDLY WISE VIRTURE 97 
 
 with simplicity. In the Catechism its definition is : 
 Prudence is a virtue dictating what, in a particular 
 case, is best to be done, to act according to God's 
 will. 
 
 When I speak of prudence, I do not mean that 
 worldly wise virtue that seems to be at home and 
 do its work best in the things of this world of sense 
 and time; that knows how to invest money advan- 
 tageously, or to make a good match, or to conduct 
 a delicate negotiation, or to smooth down a rising 
 misunderstanding, or to build up the fortune of a 
 family, or to profit adroitly by other men's mistakes. 
 Such prudence deserts a party or abandons an 
 opinion, we are told, when it shows symptoms of 
 becoming unpopular; it makes friends in opposite 
 camps and is prepared for contingencies; it knows 
 how to disown, how to attach itself, at the critical 
 moment; how to take advantage of the tide in 
 human affairs which leads to fortune. 
 
 Such prudence is not necessarily dishonest: God 
 forbid! But it also is not characteristically dis- 
 interested; it is on the look-out for a passing 
 advantage; it has, as we say, a constant eye to the 
 main chance. "And yet," as Liddon says, "this 
 earthly prudence is the degradation and caricature 
 of a great and noble virtue. Prudence is in man 
 what Providence is in Allmighty God. His 'never- 
 failing Providence' as we know, 'ordereth all things 
 both in heaven and earth? Nothing takes Him by 
 
98 DOVE-LIKE AND SERPENT-LIKE 
 
 surprise; nothing places Him at a disadvantage: 
 He has foreseen, or rather, He sees all, and is ready 
 for the possible as well as the actual. Immeasurable, 
 indeed, is the distance between the Infinite Mind and 
 ours: but in such measure as man can anticipate 
 the future accurately and make due provision for 
 it, he reflects in his little sphere the all-embracing 
 Providence of God. Only why should this fore- 
 sight be exerted only among the things of the world, 
 when there is awaiting it so much vaster and 
 nobler a field in which to exercise itself? Why 
 should it be as true as it indisputably is, that 'the 
 children of the world are in their generation more 
 prudent than the children of light' ?" 
 
 The ideal will ever consist in knowing how to 
 blend the sincerity of childhood with the experience 
 of old age, the simplicity of the dove with the 
 prudence of the serpent. Let us be simple enough 
 never to deceive others; prudent enough not to let 
 ourselves be deceived by others, or misled by our 
 own opinions. 
 
 Cowper said it well : 
 
 "That thou mayest injure no man, dove-like be ; 
 And serpent-like, that none may injure thee." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 TREES 
 
 I think that I shall never see 
 A poem lovely as a tree. 
 A tree whose hungry mouth is prest 
 Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; 
 A tree that looks at God all day, 
 And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 
 A tree that may in Summer wear 
 A nest of robins in her hair; 
 Who intimately lives with rain. 
 Upon whose bosom snow has lain; 
 Poems are made by fools like me, 
 But only God can make a tree. 
 
 Joyce Kilmer. 
 
 Several times, the vine, the fig tree, the mustard- 
 shrub, the reed, etc., are mentioned by our Lord. 
 It was His habit, whether speaking intimately with 
 His Disciples, or addressing the crowd, to draw His 
 comparisons from the field of nature. Although 
 He ever had all men in view, it seems that His words 
 were specially for country people, so fond was He 
 in His Divine teaching to use expressions employed 
 
 99 
 
ioo"by their fruits you shall know them" 
 
 by farmers. A sower or a shepherd noticed along 
 the mud road, a herd of cattle thick-nibbling through 
 the clovered vale, a wheat field expanding its use- 
 ful beauty, a bird, a gnat or a chicken suggested 
 to Him images appropriate to engrave lessons into 
 the mind of His hearers. 
 
 St. John the Baptist, when pointing out the 
 necessity of bringing fruits worthy of penance, had 
 spoken of the axe laid to the root of the trees : when 
 He wants to ward off His Apostles from the hypo- 
 crite Pharisees whose heartless religion is but a 
 mask Jesus also says to them: "Beware of false 
 prophets. By their fruits you shall know them. 
 Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? 
 Even so every good tree yieldeth good fruit, and 
 the bad tree yieldeth bad fruit. A good tree can- 
 not yield bad fruit; neither can a bad tree yield 
 good fruit. Every tree that yieldeth not good fruit, 
 shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. 
 Wherefore, by their fruits you shall know them." 
 
 Later on, on the very road to Calvary, a few 
 hours before His death, seeing some women who 
 cried out and Sewailed Him, Jesus said to them: 
 "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me but for 
 yourselves and for your children! For there are 
 days coming when the cry will be 'Blessed are the 
 barren, the wombs that never have borne, and the 
 breasts that never have suckled V Then will people 
 say to the mountains, 'f ajl on us !' and to the hills, 
 
"the bruised reed he never broke" ioi 
 
 'Cover us.' For if this is what they do when the 
 wood is green, what will they do when the wood is 
 dry?" He meant this: if the wood rich with sap 
 and hope is thus pitilessly thrown into the fire, how 
 much more so will they burn the wood which is 
 lifeless and therefore holds no promise of flowers 
 and fruits; if the Son of man sprinkled with waters 
 of grace, nay, more, if the Son of God is thus 
 condemned to death because He has become the 
 ransom of mankind, what will become of the poor 
 Christian who, despising his baptism, through sin 
 gives himself to Satan and rejects the divine life that 
 is in him? Or again: if in the fulfilment of God's 
 purposes the Holy and the Innocent must suffer 
 thus — if the green tree be thus blasted — how shall 
 the dry tree of a wicked life, with its abominable 
 branches, be consumed in the uttermost burning? 
 
 John the Baptist was not "one of those reeds 
 shaken with the wind." He was stabbed with the 
 sword; but on that night of the Herodian revel, 
 standing up for the truth of God, death found him, 
 standing up and crying out: "It is not lawful for 
 thee to have thy brother's wife." 
 
 Jesus not one moment quailed before the menace 
 of men, but Master of Himself and of all elements, 
 with His mission of justice He united a mission of 
 peace and love : ever kind and condescending, tender 
 and patient, ever merciful, "the bruised reed He 
 
102 NEAR THE FIG TREE 
 
 never broke and the smouldering fire He never put 
 out." 
 
 In the red hours of His Passion, His murderers 
 plaiting a crown of thorns will set it upon His head 
 and will put a reed in His right hand and will bow 
 the knee before Him in mockery. The acanthine 
 crown will be His only crown on earth, and the reed 
 His only sceptre. 
 
 But this is not the time to deal with those mourn- 
 ful events. I pass them over and I merely point 
 out the parable of the mustard seed, symbol of the 
 Church Catholic which the Christ was to found: 
 "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard 
 seed which a man takes and sows in his field. It 
 is less than any seed on earth, but when it grows 
 up it is larger than any plant, it becomes a tree, 
 so large that the wild birds come and roost in its 
 branches. ,, 
 
 Near the fig tree and the vine we will tarry a 
 while longer. 
 
 Twice, in a parable and in a miracle Jesus used 
 the fig tree to teach us a divine lesson. 
 
 "A man/' He said, "had a fig tree planted in 
 his vineyard; he came in search of fruit on it but 
 he found none. So he said to the vinedresser 
 'Here have I come for three years in search of fruit 
 on the fig tree without finding any; cut it down, 
 
AN, IMAGE OF MAN IO3 
 
 why should it take up space?' But the man replied : 
 'Leave it for this year, Sir, till I dig round about it 
 and put in manure. Then it may bear fruit next 
 year. If not you can cut it down/ " 
 
 From several viewpoints a fig tree is the image 
 of man. Alone of all fruit trees it never shows its 
 flowers which remain concealed with the succeeding 
 nutlets or seeds in the cavity of hollow stalk. The 
 fig tree therefore is every one of us, since our inten- 
 tions which must blossom and ripen into acts are 
 hidden in the secrecy of our heart, our works only 
 being visible. 
 
 Our Lord said it elsewhere: "I have chosen 
 you that you should bring forth fruits." These 
 fruits are the good deeds which we perform, the 
 virtues we practice, the temptations we reject, the 
 charitable words we utter, the good example we 
 give, the works of spiritual and corporal mercy we 
 accomplish, the fervent prayers which ascend from 
 our heart towards the Heart of God. But how 
 often, alas ! in spite of appealing calls of the Lord we 
 become as fruitless as the fig tree of the Gospel. 
 God has placed us in His own vineyard — the 
 Church; He has flooded us with His love, covered 
 us with His grace, guarded us against the dangers 
 from within and the trials from without. He has 
 indeed the right to expect fruits from us, but when 
 for many weary months and years He has vainly 
 waited for them, how can we be surprised if He 
 
104 HE TARRIES IN HIS PATIENCE 
 
 complains of our carelessness and threatens to 
 punish our sluggishness? Many pagans would 
 have become great saints if they had received even 
 only a small portion of the grace which has come 
 to us from heaven ! Many heretics would work for 
 the glory of God and the uplift of their brethren if 
 they had been enlightened, sustained, encouraged 
 as we were. And, pray, do not say that the means 
 are not always at hand. There is no Christian soul, 
 no matter how lowly, that has not the right, nay, 
 the duty, to beg for God's help and mercy, none 
 that cannot rise again and again through the means 
 of Penance, none that cannot find again and always 
 strength and energy through the means of Holy 
 Communion. No doubt, seeing how worthless and 
 wicked we are, God could condemn us to-day to 
 death. But He tarries in His patience because 
 His Son, the Vinedresser, intercedes for us. 
 Blessed are we if, moved by these new favors and 
 grateful for the granted respite, we resolutely start 
 to work, and make up for the wasted time. 
 
 The Gospel does not say what became of the fig 
 tree when the vinedresser's request having been 
 granted, he dug about it and dung it. But here is 
 what happened on another day, on Monday in Pas- 
 sion week. 
 
 Jesus was going from Bethania to Jerusalem with 
 His Disciples while it was still early; and on the 
 way He felt hungry. It may be that in His com- 
 
HOPELESSLY BARREN T05 
 
 passionate eagerness to teach His people, He had 
 neglected the common wants of life; it may be that 
 there were no means of procuring food in the fields 
 where He had spent the night. But whatever may 
 have been the cause, Jesus hungered, so as to be 
 driven to look for wayside fruit to sustain and 
 refresh Him for the day's work. 
 
 "At a distance in front of Him, Jesus caught 
 sight of a solitary fig tree, and although the ordinary 
 season at which figs ripened had not yet arrived, 
 yet, as it was clad with verdure, and as the fruit of a 
 fig sets before the leaves unfold, this tree looked 
 more than usually promising. Its rich large leaves 
 seemed to show that it was fruitful, and their un- 
 usually early growth that it was not only fruitful 
 but precociously vigorous. But when He came up 
 to it, He was disappointed. The sap was cir- 
 culating; the leaves made a fair show; but of fruit 
 there was none. Fit emblem of a hypocrite whose 
 external semblance is a delusion and sham, — fit 
 emblem of the nation in whom the ostentatious 
 profession of religion brought forth no "fruit of 
 good living'' — the tree was barren. And it was 
 hopelessly barren; for had it been fruitful the 
 previous year, there would still have been some of 
 the autumn figs hidden under those broad leaves; 
 and had it been fruitful this year, the spring figs 
 would have set into green and delicious fragrance 
 before the leaves appeared; but on this fruitless 
 
106 THREE ETERNAL LESSONS 
 
 tree there was neither any promise for the future, 
 nor any gleanings from the past. And therefore 
 since it was but deceptive and useless, a barren 
 cumberer of the ground, He made it the eternal 
 warning against a life of hypocrisy continued until 
 it is too late, and, in the hearing of His Disciples, 
 uttered upon it the solemn fiat, "Never fruit grow 
 upon thee more!" Even at the word, such in- 
 fructuous life as it possessed was arrested, and it 
 began to wither away. 
 
 "At first glance, the severity of Jesus may seem 
 strange — and indeed this is the only occasion when 
 He used His destructive power on earth — but He 
 was the Master, — to Him all the trees of the world 
 would be too little for a burnt-offering — and the 
 reason of His act was that He desired to impress 
 three eternal lessons upon His Disciples and upon 
 us: a symbol of the destruction of impenitence, a 
 warning of the peril of hypocrisy, an illustration 
 of the power of faith. And to say it by the way, 
 even this incident was prophesied through Ezechiel 
 where we read : 'All the trees of the country shall 
 know that I the Lord have brought down the high 
 tree, and exalted the low tree, and have dried up the 
 green tree.' 
 
 "On the following morning Jesus who had spent 
 the night outside Jerusalem, rose with His Apostles 
 to enter for the last time the Courts of the Temple. 
 On their way they passed the solitary fig tree, no 
 
"have the faith of god" 107 
 
 longer gay with its false, leafy garniture, but 
 shrivelled from the root upwards, in every bough. 
 The quick eye of Peter was the first to notice it 
 and he exclaimed, "Master, behold the fig tree 
 which thou didst curse, is withered away." The 
 Disciples stopped to look at it, and to express their 
 astonishment at the rapidity with which the de- 
 nunciation had been fulfilled. Jesus told them that 
 if they would but have faith in God, unwavering, 
 unstaggering faith, they should not only be able to 
 perform such a wonder as done to the fig tree, but 
 even greater than this." 
 
 But since in this one instance the power had been 
 put forth to destroy, He added an important warn- 
 ing. They were not to suppose that this emblematic 
 act gave them any licence to wield the sacred powers 
 which faith and prayer would bestow on them, 
 for purposes of anger or revenge; nay, no power 
 was possible to the heart that knew not how to for- 
 give, and the unforgiving heart could never be for- 
 given. The secret of successful prayer was faith; 
 the road to faith in God lay through pardon of 
 offences. Here are the very words of Jesus as 
 recorded by St. Mark. I re-echo them because they 
 are the charter of faith and forgiveness: "Have 
 the faith of God. Amen, I say to you, that who- 
 soever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed 
 and cast into the sea, and shall not stagger in his 
 heart, but believe that whatsoever he saith shall be 
 
I08 I AM THE TRUE VINE" 
 
 done: it shall be done unto him. Therefore I say 
 unto you, all things whatsoever you ask when ye 
 pray, believe that you shall receive: and they shall 
 come unto you. And when you shall stand to pray : 
 forgive if you have aught against any man, that 
 your Father also who is in heaven, may forgive you 
 your sins. But if you will not forgive, neither will 
 your Father that is in heaven, forgive you your 
 sins." 
 
 'Twas on the night before He died, a few 
 moments after the Last Supper, a few hours before 
 His being betrayed by Judas. 
 
 Jesus went forth to Gethsemani, and crossing 
 the vineyards which He had so often compared to 
 the kingdom of heaven He said to His Disciples: 
 "I am the true Vine and My Father is the Husband- 
 man. Every branch in Me not bearing fruit He 
 will lop it off : and every one bearing fruit He will 
 prune it that it may bear more fruit. Abide in Me, 
 and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of 
 itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, 
 unless you abide in Me. I am the Vine; you the 
 branches : he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the 
 same beareth fruit, for apart from Me you can do 
 nothing. If anyone abide not in Me, he will be 
 lopped off like the branch which withereth, and they 
 will gather it up, and cast it into the fire, and it is 
 burnt up." 
 
OUR WOES ARE WINGS IO9 
 
 How perfectly the Disciples understood these 
 words, and lived and died united to their Lord, we 
 all know. But we must do as they did. We must 
 strive to remain united to Jesus, the head of the 
 mystical body, whose members we are. Without 
 Him, apart from Him, we can acquire no merit for 
 heaven. Let us then keep preciously in our hearts 
 the grace of God that was inserted into us on the 
 day of our baptism which made us the children 
 of the Father, enriched and enlarged on the day of 
 our first Communion which was the day of our fel- 
 lowship with Jesus, enriched and strengthened on 
 the day of our Confirmation which was the day of 
 our Communion with the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Let us meditate also on the helpful role of suffer- 
 ing. Pain is to us the pruning of the vine. No 
 pain, no gain. "They that sow in tears shall reap 
 in joy." "As you are partakers of the sufferings, 
 so shall you be also of the consolation/' Through 
 the cross to the light. Through sorrow to the stars. 
 The tree of the cross is ever redolent with a balm 
 most sweet. Our woes are wings that carry us 
 heavenwards. 
 
 Let us remember that our self-interest demands 
 that we never leave unproductive any of the branches 
 of our vine, — any of our God-given faculties. 
 Even as the vine is not cultivated for the sake of 
 its shade, not for its flowers, nor for its wood, but 
 for its grapes, so are we not placed and planted 
 
110 THE REST IS VANITY 
 
 here below for the purpose of making money and 
 getting honors and pleasures, but merely to bear 
 fruits for eternal life. The rest is vanity. 
 
 The Lord said to Ezechiel : "Son of man, of what 
 use to thee is the wood of the vine tree? Canst 
 thou make any work of it? Shall a pin be made of 
 it to hang any vessel thereon? Behold, it is meet 
 for no work but to be cast into the fire for fuel." 
 O my friends, let us not be the branches of the 
 vine, merely meet for fuel, but let us bear the fruits 
 of living faith, strong hope, and warm love of 
 God and man. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ABOUT ANIMALS 
 
 "I am so glad He loved the common things, 
 The drowsy chicks beneath their mother's wings; 
 
 The sparrows and their brothers of the air, 
 Content to look to heaven for food and care. 
 
 He loved to stray by woods and singing rills, 
 Companion of the stars and solemn hills. 
 
 The. 5 things are written on the sacred page, 
 A star to simple folks from age to age. 
 
 And as the glowing words of love we scan, 
 We feel His kinship to the heart of man." 
 
 When we went to the Stable of Bethlehem to 
 adore our Divine Savior, we saw an ox and an ass 
 near the Crib of the Child. 
 
 During His fast of forty days, Jesus was in the 
 company of wild beasts, while angels ministered 
 to Him. 
 
 During the three years of His public life it hap- 
 pened at times that He was so poor as to have no 
 
 place to lay His head. Reduced to such stern dr- 
 ill 
 
112 AS LAMBS AMONG WOLVES 
 
 cumstances, He likened Himself to the foxes, who 
 at least have their holes. 
 
 In the hour of His transitory triumph on Palm 
 Sunday it -was upon the foal of an ass that He 
 entered Jerusalem in the midst of an enthusiastic 
 crowd. Men and women then spread out their 
 cloaks to tapestry His path, while others cut 
 branches from the trees to scatter them before Him. 
 And the joyous strain of hosannas rose high in the 
 heavens : 
 
 "Hosanna to the Son of David ! 
 Blessed be He who comes in the Name of the Lord ! 
 Hosanna in the Highest !" 
 
 And the Apostles recalled in after days that this 
 fulfilled the prophecy of Zacharias: "Rejoice 
 greatly, O daughter of Sion; shout, O daughter of 
 Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee; He 
 is meek and having salvation ; lowly and riding upon 
 an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." 
 
 Not upon a war-horse did Christ ride, but on 
 that lowly beast which was the symbol of peace. 
 Simplicity is always the key-note of His acts. His 
 Disciples He sometimes compares to defenceless 
 and guileless lambs: "Behold, I send you as lambs 
 among wolves." He tells them, "to beware of 
 false prophets who come to you in the clothing of 
 
UNDER HER WINGS 113 
 
 sheep but inwardly are ravening wolves/ ' He tells 
 Peter "to feed His lambs and feed His sheep." 
 
 As for Him He is "the hen gathering her chickens 
 under her wings." It was only in a cursory way 
 that He used this strange and simple comparison, but 
 as it was during a moment of deepest emotion that 
 He had recourse to this charming image we will 
 tarry a while before it. 
 
 Towards the very end of His life on earth, after 
 having hurled at the Scribes and Pharisees those 
 maledictions which are the woeful counterpart of 
 the heavenly Beatitudes, His thought and His heart 
 turned towards the Holy City so tenderly loved by 
 Him and so soon to be guilty of the greatest of all 
 crimes. And He wept over it! 
 
 "O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!" He cried, in a loud 
 voice trembling with sadness, "thou that killest the 
 prophets and stonest those whom God sends unto 
 thee! Thou art still true to thine evil repute! 
 How often would I have gathered together thy 
 children as the hen doth gather her chickens under 
 her wings. But thou wouldst not!" 
 
 Jesus, stooping to compare His vigilant and de- 
 voted love for us poor sinners, to the touching 
 attention of a hen for her chicks! What an ad- 
 mirable lesson! 
 
 I suppose that all the creatures of God manifest 
 for their offspring a certain tenderness blended with 
 
114 FROM MY WINDOW 
 
 care and anxiety. But is not the hen in the very 
 first rank of them all? While I am writing this 
 page, I can see a hen from my window. Come 
 and hear how her voice is raucous and tremulous, 
 see how her feathers bristle up, see how her wings 
 enfold and extend themselves to offer a ready shel- 
 ter to her chicks : it is going to rain, and she is very 
 uneasy, she is apprehensive of every step — and how 
 she clucks, clucks, clucks to her chicks now that she 
 has found a dainty morsel of cabbage. But listen 
 again, the scene changes : 
 
 "Says the first little chicken, 
 
 With a queer little squirm: 
 'I wish I could find 
 
 A fat little worm!' 
 
 "Says the next little chicken 
 
 With a small sigh of grief: 
 'I wish I could find 
 
 A green little leaf !' 
 
 "Says the third little chicken 
 
 With a faint little moan: 
 'I wish I could find 
 
 A small gravel stone/ 
 
 'Now, see here/ says the mother 
 From the green garden patch ; 
 
 'If you want any breakfast, 
 Just come here and scratch !' M 
 
THAT PATCH OF POTATOES 115 
 
 But no, this is only pseudo-poetry. The truth 
 of the matter is that the hen is going to scratch and 
 to tear up that patch of potatoes; at least I am 
 afraid that she will. At all events you can see that 
 she is a good mother and a good provider. 
 
 And what of her devotion? She forgets her- 
 self, she is willing to sacrifice her whole being for 
 her little ones. Not one moment does she stop 
 "thinking" of their welfare and their safety. Her 
 whole life is wrapped up with them. Let an enemy 
 appear, and she displays such a surprising courage 
 that Lincoln could say: "If you have never seen a 
 hen defend her chicks, then you have no idea of what 
 heroism is." 
 
 While she is not a mother, she is shy and scary, 
 and she is very awkward and unwieldy. But when 
 the hatching is done and the brood is there, see how 
 she is changed. She watches over them with a vig- 
 ilance that nothing can weary and a steadfastness 
 that nothing can disconcert. At the least sign of 
 danger she clucks, clucks, to get them under her 
 wings. For them she is ready to accept the battle 
 with man or beast. Unhesitatingly she stands 
 athwart the path of danger. A man who would 
 display the tenth part of the heroic devotedness the 
 hen has for her progeny should hold a place of 
 honor during life, and have his statue near the 
 court-house of his native county-seat after death. 
 
 Tender love and protecting care, heroic courage ; 
 
Il6 NEAR HIM 
 
 it is enough to read the life of our Divine Savior, or 
 to sum up in our mind all that we owe to Him since 
 our baptism and our first communion, to acknowl- 
 edge that such are always the sentiments of Jesus 
 towards us. 
 
 Let us not act like the unhappy Jews of Jerusa- 
 lem: let us go to Him, in the hour of joy as in 
 that of sadness, when we need light, strength, and 
 consolation. Let us go to Him with confidence 
 and love. It is so good to nestle near His Heart 
 and before His eyes! No enemy will ever dare 
 attack us in that fortress of love. Doubt, temp- 
 tations, anguish will be swept away as soon as we 
 are near Him. 
 
 During the night of the Passion the cock gives us 
 a lesson of self -vigilance. 
 
 "This night," Jesus said to St. Peter, "before 
 the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice." 
 
 Needless to describe the scenes of the Apostle's 
 profession of fidelity, his denial before the break 
 of day, his bitter tears of a whole life-time, but let 
 the song of the cock be a warning that we must 
 not trust ourselves, that we must pray for help, 
 that we must repent for our sins, and that we must 
 be ever on our guard "for the lord of the house 
 cometh whether at even, or at midnight, or at cock- 
 crowing, or in the morning." 
 
STRAINING OUT THE GNAT II7 
 
 In another page of the Scriptures Jesus calls 
 the Pharisees "blind guides who strain out the gnat 
 and swallow the camel." Why such a connection 
 between the smallest of all living things, and the 
 camel, the largest of the animals with which the 
 Hebrew mind was familiar? Well, if we remem- 
 ber that in Palestine, wine, water, milk or any bev- 
 erage was strained or filtered, before drinking it, 
 lest a fly or a gnat might have fallen into it and 
 made it unclean," the language of our Lord be- 
 comes clear, although figurative. The straining 
 out of the gnat is the close attention to the minute 
 details of externalism, such as for instance, the 
 Pharisaic command not to kill a louse on the Sab- 
 bath. The swallowing of the camel is their vio- 
 lation of the great principles of the worship of 
 God in spirit, of justice, of truth and of mercy. 
 
 Some scrupulous people there are who would never 
 dare miss a certain vocal prayer which they are in 
 the habit of saying every day, — and it is very well 
 — but feel no pang of conscience in speaking against 
 their neighbor and even against their pastor — and 
 it is very bad. They will never steal a penny but 
 they do not pay their debts. They will never pluck 
 an ear of corn in the field but they will filch from 
 you your good name. They will never play 
 baseball on Sunday but they will condone divorce 
 and its accessories. They pray to God for tern- 
 
Il8 THE MITE AND THE BEAM 
 
 poral favors but they never ask for the spiritual 
 ones. They seek for the things that should be 
 added unto them, but they seek not the Kingdom 
 of God and His righteousness. They strain out 
 the gnat; they make much of the tiny offence that 
 they have received from others; and they consider 
 as nothing the unkind remarks that they have in- 
 jected against others. They see the mite that is 
 in their brother's eye but consider not the beam in 
 their own eye. They strain out the gnat and swal- 
 low the camel. 
 
 With the rich people who loved their riches — the 
 rich who were not poor in spirit — -Jesus' lan- 
 guage is not less enigmatic than with the Pharisees. 
 He says to them that "it is easier for a camel to pass 
 through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to 
 enter into the Kingdom of God." 
 
 Many explanations have been embroidered on! 
 this text. Long ago Cyril of Alexandria, to solve 
 the difficulty, claimed that the Gree'k word kamelos 
 camel, ought to be changed into kamdlos, rope or 
 cable. But the words of the Lord cannot be mod- 
 ified. "Another opinion," says Dr. Breen, "was 
 advanced by those who understood by the eye of 
 the needle one of the small gates of Jerusalem, 
 through which a loaded camel could not pass. But 
 it has been clearly proved that no such name was 
 ever given to any gate of the Holy City, and the 
 
"all things are possible with him" 119 
 
 idea is incongruous. No reasonable man would 
 thus employ speech. The simile would be clumsy 
 and without point. Now these violent theories are 
 unnecessary. The Lord simply used one of the pro- 
 verbial expressions of His people's language. It is a 
 hyperbole, and its character was intended by Jesus 
 to add emphasis. Sometimes the elephant was used 
 instead of the camel, the shape of the camel's body 
 and the awkwardness of its movements make it a fit 
 subject for the proverb. Comparisons of such nature 
 are not to be taken literally. The intent of the 
 Lord was to fix upon the minds of men the idea of 
 the great difficulty of serving God in wealth, and 
 for this the expression is apt." 
 
 Father Breen may be right, but there are others 
 who think that our Lord goes farther than this, 
 and means nothing less than that those who love 
 their riches and trust exclusively in them cannot 
 enter Heaven. St. Paul seems to be of the same 
 opinion when he says : "They that desire to be rich 
 fall into temptation and a snare, and many foolish 
 and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction 
 and perdition. For the love of money is the root 
 of all evil; which some reaching after have been 
 led astray from the faith, and have pierced them- 
 selves through with many sorrows." Nay, the 
 words of our Lord confirm this, too, for when the 
 Apostles said to Him: "who then can be saved ?" 
 He simply replied ; "With men it is impossible, but 
 
120 "neither beggary nor riches" 
 
 not with God, for all things are possible with Him." 
 Again, according to Him: "No servant can serve 
 two masters; for either he will hate the one and 
 love the other ; or he will hold to the one and despise 
 the other; you cannot serve God and mammon." 
 It is perfectly proper to be rich but let not your 
 riches be your god. Ever apposite will be the 
 prayer we read in Holy Writ: "Give me neither 
 beggary nor riches: give me only the necessaries 
 of life : lest perhaps being filled I should be tempted 
 to deny and say : Who is the Lord ? or being com- 
 pelled to poverty I should steal and forswear the 
 Name 'of my God." 
 
 "Give not that which is holy to the dogs," These 
 words of our Ltfrd need also to be explained. 
 Among the Jews the dog had an evil repute. This 
 may be a surprise to us who look upon him as 
 
 "The joy, the solace and the aid of man, 
 The rich man's guardian and the poor man's friend, 
 The only creature faithful to the end." 
 
 But to the Jews he was "an unclean animal" and 
 had to live on offal and carrion. His very name 
 was a term of reproach. "Begone, you dogs," 
 exclaims St. John in the Apocalypse to those who 
 stand not for the Lamb. 
 
 And still in the jterable of the rich man the dog 
 
THE CRUMBS OF THE CHILDREN 121 
 
 plays a beautiful part. When no human being has 
 pity on Lazarus who is lying at the gate, a mass 
 of ulcers, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs 
 which fall from the rich man's table, the dogs come 
 and lick his sores. 
 
 And what of the meeting between Jesus and the 
 woman of Syro-Phenicia ? "Have mercy on me, 
 O Lord, Thou Son of David; my daughter is 
 grievously troubled by a devil." Such was her 
 prayer. But to try her faith, or to draw it out, our 
 Lord answered not a word. And "His Disciples 
 came and besought Him, saying : Send her away for 
 she cries after us. And He answering, said : I am 
 not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 
 And entering into a house, He would have no one 
 know it: but He could not be hid. She came and 
 adored Him, saying : Lord, help me. Who replied : 
 Let the children first be satisfied ; for it is not good 
 to take the bread of the children, and cast it 
 to the dogs. But she answered and said to Him: 
 Yea, Lord, but even the whelps eat under the table 
 of the crumbs of the children, that fall from the 
 table of their masters. Then Jesus answering said 
 to her: O woman, great is thy faith; be it done 
 to thee as thou wilt. For this saying go thy way; 
 the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when 
 she was come to her house, she found the girl lying 
 upon the bed and the devil was gone out. And 
 her daughter was cured from that hour." 
 
122 A SOURCE OF COMFORT 
 
 The Twelve had learned thereby that even heathen 
 "dogs' ' were not to be sent away unheard. But 
 to us there is in this history even more than the 
 solemn interest of Christ's compassion and mighty 
 Messianic working, or the lessons of His teaching. 
 We view it in its deeper bearing upon, and lessons 
 to all times. To how many, not only of all nations 
 and conditions, but in all states of heart and mind, 
 nay, in the very lowest depths of conscious guilt 
 and alienation from God, must this have brought 
 unspeakable comfort, the comfort of truth and the 
 comfort of His Teaching. Be it so, an outcast, 
 "dog" ; not at the table ; but under the table. Still 
 we are at His feet; it is our Master's Table; He 
 is our Master ; and as He breaks the children's bread, 
 it is of necessity that "the children's crumbs" fall 
 to us — enough, quite enough, and to spare. Never 
 can we be outside His reach, nor of that of His gra- 
 cious care, and of sufficient provision to eternal life. 
 
 But to return to our text. "Give not that which 
 is holy to the dogs; neither cast ye your pearls 
 before swine, lest perhaps they trample them under 
 their feet and turn to gore you." 
 
 Here Jesus meant that the truth of faith must 
 not be indiscriminately offered to men utterly un- 
 godly and hardened who wilfully would reject it 
 with blasphemy and mockery. As said the old 
 Hebrew adage, "Give not wisdom to him who knows 
 not its value, for it is more precious than pearls, 
 
THOSE LIVING PEARLS 1 23 
 
 and he who seeks it not, is worse than a swine that 
 defiles and rolls himself in the mud; so he who 
 knows not the value of wisdom, profanes its glory." 
 Charitable we must be but prudent also, for we must 
 not put it in their power to dishonor the grace of 
 God. Jesus meant also that carefully from those 
 corrupt miscreants must be warded off the souls 
 of our children — those living pearls bought by Him 
 with a great price — lest they get stained at their 
 impure contact and be dragged along the filthy road 
 that leads to perdition. 
 
 Later on we shall meet the prodigal son, the 
 deserter of the farm, reduced to feed swine, who 
 would fain fill his belly with the husks the swine 
 do eat ; and no man gives unto him. 
 
 But let us come immediately to that unforgettable 
 scene where the devil begs from Jesus to be sent 
 into a swine. 
 
 Here is St. Matthew's account of it: "Having 
 reached the country of the Gerasens, Jesus was met 
 by two demoniacs who ran out of the tombs; they 
 were so violent that nobody could pass along the 
 road there. They shrieked, 'Son of God, what 
 have we to do with thee? art thou come hither to 
 torment us before the time?' Now, some distance 
 away, there was a large drove of swine grazing, 
 so the demons begged him saying, 'If thou art to 
 cast us out, send us into that drove of swine/ He 
 said to them: 'Begone!' So out they came and 
 
124 STAY WITH US, O MASTER 
 
 went to the swine, and the entire drove rushed down 
 the steep slope into the sea and perished in the 
 water. The herdsmen fled; they went off to the 
 town and reported the whole affair of the demoniacs. 
 Then all the town came out to meet Jesus, and when 
 they saw Him they begged Him that He would 
 depart from their district." 
 
 May this repulsive symbol of moral ugliness and 
 of vile appetites warn us never to harbor Satan in 
 our hearts! He who took shelter in these animals 
 and caused their death, soils all that he touches and 
 always brings despair and malediction in his wake. 
 And may God guard us from ever uttering the woe- 
 ful request of the Gerasens to Jesus. They did not 
 ask Him to depart from their district out of a feeling 
 of their own unworthiness, as Peter asked Him; but 
 they feared greater losses of their temporal goods, 
 and did not appreciate the benefit Jesus had be- 
 stowed on him from whom He had expelled the de- 
 mon. Unlike them let us ever say with the two 
 Disciples on Easter morning : Stay with us, O Mas- 
 ter, for the day has now declined, and the night of 
 pur life is coming. Stay with us, O Master. 
 
 Let us mention the eagles who, "wheresoever the 
 body shall be, thither will they also be gathered 
 together/' According to some commentators, this 
 means that wheresoever corrupted humanity shall 
 live, there shall the angels of heaven be employed 
 
WHAT WE OWE TO THEM 1 2$ 
 
 in separating the just from the sinners. Others tell 
 us that wheresoever the glorious body of the Son 
 of man shall appear, at His second coming, there 
 shall the eagles, that is, the just souls, gather around 
 Him and cling unto His standard. Others explain 
 that wheresoever the body of the Son of man shall be 
 under the Eucharistic species, there shall the eagles, 
 the holy souls of the Church, gather, to nourish 
 themselves by it. 
 
 Let us also recall the words that encourage us to 
 confidence in prayer: "What man is there among 
 you, of whom if his son ask for bread, will he reach 
 him a stone ? Or ask for a fish, will he reach him 
 a serpent for a fish? Or if he shall ask an egg f will 
 he reach him a scorpion? If you, then, being evil, 
 know how to give good gifts to your children, how 
 much more will your Father from heaven give the 
 good Spirit to them that ask Him?" 
 
 We will not bring this chapter to a close without 
 reminding ourselves of what, speaking after the 
 manner of men, we owe to our cattle and all our 
 live stock. What a lesson of endeavor and activity, 
 kindness, zeal, loyalty, vigilance and faithfulness 
 we receive from them if only we have ears to hear. 
 How serviceable they are and how uncomplaining! 
 Sheep do not refuse to give us their wool, nor 
 cows their milk, Dogs lick the hand that has hurt 
 
126 OUR OLD SERVANTS 
 
 them. Even wild animals teach us to be prudent 
 and drill us to patience. And does not the ox, who 
 knoweth his owner's voice and footstep, condemn 
 us who refuse to hear God speaking to us? 
 
 No doubt, ridiculous exaggeration must be 
 avoided, and distasteful, to say the least, it is to see 
 city women and men centering their affection on a 
 pug dog, a cat or a parrot; we country people do 
 not need to hold membership in the Society for the 
 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ; but neither should 
 we abuse our old servants or mistreat our old 
 friends. 
 
 "We have abused, alas, too often," says Farrar, 
 "to purposes of cruelty and tyranny, the empire 
 which God granted us over the brutes. It is sad 
 that man has thus made even the most beautiful 
 and innocent part of the animal creation shun, and 
 hate, and fear him. It is not naturally so. In the 
 wilderness Jesus was with the wild beasts, and they 
 harmed Him not. The timid things of the wilder- 
 ness learned to trust the ancient hermits. In the 
 desert islands the denizens of the forest and the fell 
 shrink not from man until he has shown them his 
 deadliness and treachery. The birds, it is said, and 
 I can well believe it, fluttered without fear about St. 
 Francis of Assisi." For Jesus' sake we have a 
 plain duty to the dumb animals, to be considerate to 
 them, to be gentle with them, to discourage and to 
 abhor all needless cruelty towards them, to teach our 
 
"be kind to them all" 127 
 
 boys and our ignorant men to be kind to them, to 
 determine never 
 
 "To mix our pleasure or our pride with 
 Sorrow of the meanest thing that f eels." 
 
 "Be kind to dumb creatures, nor grudge them your 
 care, 
 God gave them their life and your love they must 
 
 share ; 
 And He who the sparrow's fall tenderly heeds 
 Will lovingly look on compassionate deeds. 
 
 "The brave are the tender, — then do not refuse 
 To carefully cherish the brutes you must use ; 
 Make their life's labor sweet, not dreary and sad, 
 Their working and serving you, easy and glad. 
 
 "He made them and blessed them, the least are His 
 
 care : 
 The swallow that wings her swift flight through the 
 
 air, 
 The dog on your hearthstone, the horse in your barn, 
 The cow in your pasture, the sheep on your farm." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A DESERTER 
 
 "He left his village and his kin, 
 The holy mound, his mother's grave; 
 Across the mountains and the wave 
 He chose the pagan and his sin. 
 
 "He left the willow and the oak, 
 The silent woods of boyhood's balm; 
 Beneath the bamboos and the palm 
 He chose the jungle and the yoke." 
 
 But let us set poetry aside, for the immortal 
 prose of the Gospel alone can pen-picture the subject 
 at hand wherein Christ seems to have summed up 
 all His words of light, life and love: 
 
 "A man had two sons ; and the younger of them 
 said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of 
 the property that falls to me.' And he divided the 
 estate among them. A few days later the younger 
 son got together all he had and went away into a 
 distant land, where he squandered his means in 
 loose living. After he had spent his all, a severe 
 famine set in throughout that land, and he began to 
 
 128 
 
"your brother has arrived" 129 
 
 be in actual want; so he went and engaged himself 
 to a citizen of that land, who sent him to his fields 
 to feed swine. And he was fain to satisfy his 
 hunger with the pods the swine were eating ; no one 
 gave him anything. But when he came to his senses 
 he said, "How many hired men of my father have 
 more than enough to eat, and here am I perishing 
 of hunger ! I will arise and go to my father, and I 
 will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against 
 heaven and before you ; I do not deserve to be called 
 your son any more; only make me like one of your 
 hired men/ " So he got up and went off to his father. 
 But when he was still far away his father saw him 
 and felt pity for him and ran to fall upon his neck 
 and kiss him. The son said to him, 'Father, I have 
 sinned against heaven and before you; I do not 
 deserve to be called your son any more.' 
 
 "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick, bring 
 the best robe and put it on him, give him a ring 
 for his finger and sandals for his feet, and bring 
 the fatted calf, kill it, and let us eat and be merry, 
 for this son of mine was dead, and is come to life; 
 he was lost and he is found/ 
 
 "So they began to make merry. Now his elder 
 son was out in the field, and as he came near the 
 house, he heard the music and dancing ; so summon- 
 ing one of the servants, he asked what this meant. 
 The servant told him, 'Your brother has arrived, 
 and your father has killed the fatted calf because he 
 
130 "and pity 'tis 'tis true" 
 
 has got him back safe and sound/ This angered 
 him, and he would not go in. His father came out 
 and tried to appease him, but he replied, 'Look at all 
 the years I have been serving you! I have never 
 neglected any of your orders, and yet you have never 
 given me so much as a kid, to let me make merry 
 with my friends : but as soon as this son of yours 
 arrives, after having wasted your means with 
 harlots, you kill the fatted calf for him!' The 
 father said to him, 'My son, you and I are always 
 together, and all I have is yours. We could not but 
 make merry and rejoice, for your brother here was 
 dead and has come to life again, he was lost but he 
 has been found.' " 
 
 Piteous and heart rending is the story of this 
 poor country lad — the prodigal son. " 'Tis true 
 'tis pity and pity 'tis 'tis true," his parting from the 
 old homestead with his dream of dreams ; the follies 
 to which he gives way; the sorrows that stab him; 
 his manly resolution when all seems lost; and his 
 return homewards. All these details could be made 
 to mark the sinful soul's various steps when flying 
 away from God, finding in sin only wormwood and 
 ashes, and at last coming back into the arms of her 
 Father — assuming that He gives her time and grace 
 to do so. No doubt it were profitable for us to 
 develop this simile and expose the eloquent lessons 
 of this parable, but this is not in our program. Our 
 
WORDS OF WARNING I3I 
 
 task is different. For in reading the story of the 
 son who went away, the thought has come to us 
 of that tragic drama unknown to our fathers but 
 so sadly carried out in these our days : we mean, our 
 lads' desertion of the farm, our lads' abandonment 
 of their mother — our unfortunate sons who forsake 
 the home where they were born, the fruitful fields 
 where dwell joy and plenty, and rush into the 
 murderous cities which, vampire-like, suck their 
 blood and sap their life. And I want to write words 
 of warning against such an exodus from the holy 
 earth. 
 
 When was it that this young boy felt in his brain, 
 or in his heart, the germ of that morbid idea that 
 the country was not good enough for him? To 
 some the guilty tempter is the school, the school 
 which is not sufficiently rural, which teaches how to 
 become a salesman in a store or a slave in a shop, but 
 has nothing to say of the soul of the soil which we 
 love. To others the seducer is the army or the navy. 
 I know how necessary to America — and to the whole 
 world — our soldiers and our marines are — God bless 
 them! — but I also know that once ^one to the 
 barracks or to the sea, our boys are usually lost to 
 agriculture. As a rule city boys only should be 
 invited to enlist, for the country boys are here 
 already performing a solemn and urgent patriotic 
 duty. Again to others the prompter comes under 
 
I32 THE SONG OF THE SIREN 
 
 the shape of a distant far-away relative who by his 
 glowing and mendacious accounts of sky-high wages 
 for his eight-hour work sometimes succeeds in 
 snatching and ruining the young tiller of the soil. 
 Whatever be the cause and whoever the agent, 
 once their decision is taken to break away from the 
 village, our sons still hesitate before tearing asunder 
 so many ties that bind them to the home, and before 
 setting aside those many sympathies more soft than 
 silk, more strong than steel, more precious than 
 gold that hang around the hearth-stone. Heart 
 breaking is the travail of their soul, their soul 
 
 "Wandering between two worlds, one dead, 
 The other powerless to be born." 
 
 But at last they speak. And no one can under- 
 stand them. No one can believe that such a thing 
 can be true. 
 
 But the parents soon notice that they are facing 
 an unbreakable will. Besides the known motives 
 admitted by the boy, they have a suspicion that there 
 are unknown and untold others lurking in his breast. 
 And pitifully they look around for advice and for 
 help. 
 
 They go to the pastor and to the mayor and to 
 the neighbors. But it is too late. Once the 
 song of the Siren of the city has bewitched the heart 
 of a boy, only a miracle from God could disenthrall 
 
WHAT USUALLY HAPPENS 1 33 
 
 it from the spell. And the parents at last yield to 
 the boy's request. They give him money and reluc- 
 tantly let him go. Oh ! the money that the mother 
 saved in selling those tomatoes and those pickles 
 last fall — the pin money saved for emergency 
 purposes — goes to him, too. She hides it in the 
 little trunk between two flannel shirts and a woolen 
 sweater she has knitted herself — and says nothing 
 of it. The only words she can cry out, are : "My 
 boy, my boy," when she sees her young bird on the 
 edge of the nest trying his wings to fly into the 
 world. 
 
 He goes away. And the village has lost two 
 good, sinewy arms, and the city once more has 
 gained a prodigal son. 
 
 And that night at supper there is a gap at the 
 table and the mother puts up her apron and weeps : 
 "God, bless him," she whispers, "and bring him 
 to us safely back again." 
 
 What usually happens to the boy who has 
 answered the call of the city? At first the things he 
 sees are fair to the eyes and delightful to behold. 
 "The salary is fine and the grub is good," he writes 
 in his first letter. When a man is young and is 
 thought to have some money, there is not much 
 difficulty in getting on and making acquaintances; 
 he is pretty sure to be in demand, and, with a silver 
 key in his hand, there is not a door but will readily 
 open before him while his money lasts. What a 
 
134 THE DAYS OF SICKNESS 
 
 tingling, novel sensation for this lad in his teens to 
 find himself in surroundings where, instead of being 
 thwarted and blamed, he is flattered and praised 
 and looked upon as a "good fellow"; in place of 
 being pulled back, he is pushed on, being told that 
 he is all right, and not — what he has so often heard 
 — all wrong. "There are always to be found," 
 says Father Vaughan, "those who teach that it can- 
 not be wrong to do what you like, provided you can 
 pay for it." 
 
 But soon he comes to himself; the fumes of the 
 city are not fit for him. Little by little his lungs, 
 made for the labor and life of the fields, do not act 
 with the same regularity now that they do not find in 
 the poisoned atmosphere of the factory the pure air 
 which gives freshness and vitality to the blood. 
 Slowly but surely tuberculosis sets in. 
 
 Come the days of sickness. The co-boarders are 
 now very indifferent indeed about that young fellow 
 who sleeps next room, 1 and who spits blood, and 
 whose disease perhaps is catching. 
 
 x At this writing one of my farmers supplies me with the 
 following pen-picture of one of those furnished rooms in 
 the city: 
 
 "A dimly lighted hallway, and a stair 
 
 Leading to darker recesses above, 
 A furtive glance at those who come and go, 
 No hand held out in friendliness or love. 
 
 "One window in the room, facing a court, 
 A narrow bed, a cartoon on the wall, 
 
THE DAYS OF SIN 1 35 
 
 And he will then think of the devoted folk who 
 are in the village. Over there never any one is 
 abandoned; even strangers are as well taken care 
 of as the members of the family. "That's bread 
 cast upon the waters : it will return to us," they say ; 
 and unstintedly they do their tasks of love. 
 
 But the white plague is not the only evil to which 
 our prodigal son is a possible prey. To us Chris- 
 tians there are greater than this. Far away from 
 known faces and friendly hearts one hesitates less, 
 much less, to walk on the way that leads to sin and 
 to hell. And as, once one is started on that path, the 
 slopes get fast and slippery, one goes down to the 
 bottom almost without knowing it; "one drinketh 
 iniquity like water," says the Book of God. 
 
 "For when lust, 
 By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, 
 But most by lewd and lavish acts of sin, 
 Lets in defilement to the inward parts, 
 The soul grows clotted by contagion, 
 Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose 
 The divine property of her first being." 
 
 One chair, a trunk, a dresser and a rug 
 And that is all. 
 
 "Yet there are those who have a little house, 
 Set on a hill, where gay birds often come. 
 
 While I — have this awaiting me each night, 
 God pity me that I must call it home." 
 
I36 FAITHFUL TO HIS POST 
 
 Speak no more to them of the church where they 
 received their First Communion; speak no more of 
 the Cross of Christ. Faith is dead within them. 
 "They are," as St. Jude says, "clouds without water 
 which are carried about by winds; trees of the 
 autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked out by the 
 roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their 
 own confusion ; wandering stars : to whom the storm 
 of darkness is reserved forever. ,, 
 
 Meanwhile the elder brother, faithful to his post, 
 surveys and strides along each acre of his lands. 
 He depends on nobody but God. His labor, I do 
 not deny it, is hard, but he loves it. 
 
 Hard, I said; yes, it is. Of course to city folk 
 it is very picturesque to see a ploughman at work, 
 for instance, on a soft early spring-day. It is a 
 beautiful contrast, that light brown of the turned- 
 over earth, and the fresh green of the remainder of 
 the field ; and what more pleasing than these furrows 
 so beautifully straight and regular? But go up 
 and walk by the ploughman's side, you man from 
 town, and see how you like it. You will find it 
 hard and dirty work. In a few minutes you will 
 find it difficult to drag along your feet, laden with 
 some pounds weight to each of adherent earth; and 
 you will have formed some idea of the physical 
 exertion, and the constant attention, which the 
 ploughman needs, to keep his furrow straight and 
 
UNDER THE CANOPY OF HEAVEN 1 37 
 
 even, to retain the plough at the right depth in the 
 ground, and to manage his horses. Hard work for 
 him; and ill-paid work. No horse, mule, donkey, 
 camel, or other beast of labor in the world, goes 
 through so much exertion, in proportion to his 
 strength, between sunrise and sunset, as does that 
 rational being, all to earn shelter and fare for him 
 and his family, all to produce food for you, O man 
 from town. 
 
 But hard as is his labor he finds it light because, 
 as I said before, he loves it: quietly he goes to 
 it, quietly he starts it, and at sundown he is happy 
 because he has earned his share of the bread that 
 feeds the world. 
 
 "Though round his breast the rolling clouds are spread 
 Eternal sunshine settles on his head." 
 
 Nature is to him the great book ever wide open, 
 with its peerless beauties and sublime mysteries. 
 He knows its marvellous ever acting energy, and he 
 knows its requirements which he fulfills as best 
 he can. In the midst of the fields, no unsanitary 
 contact has he to fear, no tyrannical authority has 
 he to endure, for he is his own master. Poor as he 
 may be, fresh air and sunshine are his : there are no 
 microbes nor stench in his shop ; for he works under 
 the canopy of heaven, under the lights of God, in 
 the midst of good grass and flowers, in the company 
 
I38 WHEN SUNDAY COMES 
 
 of the birds, whose joyous symphonies are heard 
 from everywhere. And when comes the night he 
 soundly sleeps during the hours that God gave us to 
 sleep, and wakes up brave and happy for the hours 
 that God gave us to work. 
 
 It is true that his salary is not regular; but all 
 things considered, it is better than the city-man's 
 weekly wages. Expenses in the country cannot be 
 compared with those in town. No profiteer's rent 
 to pay on the first of the month; no baker's bill, 
 for the housewife makes bread herself, — and how 
 good it tastes! — out of the flour ground out from 
 her own wheat; no bill at the meat-market either, 
 for the poultry yard is well peopled and the larder 
 is well stocked. The garden yields more vegetables 
 than can be eaten, and I beg leave to tell you, O man 
 from town, that these vegetables are ripe and fresh, 
 like the fruits of the orchard which are so plentiful 
 that even when the canning is done, some have to be 
 sold. 
 
 When Sunday comes, — the dear, delicious, silent 
 Sunday, — it is both the Lord's Day and the day of 
 respite, rest, and recreation. Mr. Churchill has said 
 it well: "Sunday in the farm is a day essentially 
 different from other days. — you can tell it without 
 looking at the calendar. The sun knows it, and 
 changes the quality of his light; the very animals, 
 dogs and cats and horses know it : and most of all 
 the children know it." Sunday is the Day when we 
 
IN SPITE OF HOME-SICKNESS I39 
 
 all go to church to pray to God, who guides, protects 
 and blesses us. 
 
 To be religious is to be honest: one leads to the 
 other. Faithful to the farm, the villager's soul 
 knows of no hatred, no injustice, no envy, no 
 jealousy : these words are not found in the farmer's 
 vocabulary; for he believes in God and observes 
 His commandments. 
 
 If the deserter sometimes thinks of all this, if, 
 closing his eyes for a moment, he sees anew "the 
 orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, 
 
 "And every loved spot which his infancy knew ! 
 The wide-spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it, 
 The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell, 
 The cot of his father, the dairy-house nigh it 
 And even the rude bucket that hung in the well — 
 The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 
 The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well ;" 
 
 (Smile if you like, my dear farmers, in reading 
 this; I know that to him this would bring tears.) 
 If he happens, when the sky is sad, to compare 
 what he lost with what he found, less happy than 
 the prodigal of the parable, he has not always, he 
 has only seldom the courage — the backbone — to 
 come back to the home of his childhood. How 
 many of those poor wanderers, in spite of the ardent 
 desires of their heart, in spite of the home-sickness 
 
I40 THEIR DEATH 
 
 that corrodes their being, never more shall see that 
 home where they were so well loved, those blessed 
 fields where they could have lived such a happy life. 
 
 "Am I mad that I should cherish that which bears but 
 bitter fruit? 
 I will tear it from my bosom, though my heart be at 
 the root." 
 
 Yes, perhaps at times they sigh something like 
 this, and a little grain of conscience makes them sore. 
 But it is too late. To break their fetters the mettle 
 of energy were required; and gone is all energy 
 within them. They like their tyrants, whose siren 
 voices are so bewitching, and whose least call makes 
 them thrill and throb to the core. And so, without 
 even taking the trouble to try to resist, they lay 
 themselves down at the foot of the tree of death. 
 And all the world to them is bitter as a tear. And 
 their heart chokes them till they hear it not. 
 "Some dark night, it may be, they will puke up 
 their sick existence by suicide/' as Carlyle says, 
 graphically. 
 
 At all events, their death usually will be a death 
 without friends, without a priest — without God. 
 And forty-eight hours afterwards, of that beautiful 
 sample of manhood, built like a rock, entitled to a 
 century of country life, capable of all labors and 
 worthy of all true joys, there remains a corpse buried 
 
A SEMI-DIVINE POWER 141 
 
 in that immense cemetery where country people never 
 go because they would run the risk of getting lost, 
 and because their dead sleep their last sleep in their 
 own little acre of God, in the family lot, near the 
 church at the foot of the Cross. 
 
 Christian women, who so often are greatly 
 responsible for the desertion of so many of our lads, 
 remember these words of an old bishop: "If the 
 prodigal son had not been mother-less, he would not 
 have given up his home. ,, Never cease to en- 
 courage your boys to stay with you; make home 
 pleasant for them; use all your influence to keep 
 them on the farm. Do not let them be disassociated 
 from the holy earth. O mothers, when you gave 
 them birth, yours was a semi-divine labor : yours is 
 also a semi-divine power. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 JESUS, THE GOOD SHEPHERD 
 
 "I was a stricken deer that left the herd 
 Long since. With many an arrow deep infixed 
 My panting side was charged, when I withdrew 
 To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. 
 There was I found by One Who had Himself 
 Been hurt by the archers. In His Heart He bore, 
 And in His hands and feet, the cruel scars. 
 With gentle force soliciting the darts, 
 He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live." 
 
 Who among us, at times, has not felt like giving 
 vent to sentiments similar to those expressed in these 
 lines? The purest human heart, when weighed in 
 the scales of the sanctuary, is ever found wanting. 
 "He who thinks to be without sin deceives himself 
 and the truth is not in him." We all need to be 
 shepherded under the guidance of a sweet and strong 
 hand and heart. 
 
 And Jesus is the Good Shepherd of mankind. 
 
 "No earthly images can come up," says Cardinal 
 Newman, "to the awful and gracious truth that God 
 became the Son of Man — that the Word became 
 
 142 
 
HE DELIGHTS IN THIS IMAGE I43 
 
 flesh and was born of a woman. This ineffable 
 mystery surpasses human words. No titles of earth 
 can Christ give to Himself, ever so lowly or mean, 
 which will fitly show us His condescension. His 
 act and deed is too great even for His own lips to 
 utter it. Yet He delights in the image of the Good 
 Shepherd, as conveying to us, in such degree as we 
 can conceive it, some notion of the degradation, 
 hardship and pain which He underwent for our 
 sake." 
 
 Jesus, the Good Shepherd — This word for our 
 Saviour was uttered first by Jacob — himself once 
 a shepherd — as he lay dying in his tent; and with 
 the long thoughts of old age, went back to the 
 scenery of his early life speaking of God as having 
 "Shepherded him all his years." Christ was 
 prophesied under this figure by the prophet Isaias : 
 "Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand 
 and His arm shall rule for Him. He shall feed 
 His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the 
 lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom." 
 And thus again, He announced by the mouth of 
 Ezechiel: "Behold, I, even I, will both search My 
 sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh 
 out His flock in the day that He is among His sheep, 
 and will deliver them out of all places where they 
 have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day." 
 And David addresses Him : "Hear, O Thou Shep- 
 herd of Israel, Thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep, 
 
144 THE GOLDEN THREAD 
 
 show Thyself also, Thou that sittest upon the cheru- 
 bim." And in like manner, St. Peter speaks of our 
 returning "to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls." 
 All through the Holy Scriptures the golden thread 
 runs until in the closing pages of the Apocalypse, 
 we read of "the Lamb Who leads His flocks to the 
 rivers of waters of life." 
 
 Now what is the task and what is the relationship 
 of a shepherd to his sheep? He likes these dumb 
 creatures of his care. In the early morning he leads 
 them from their fold to the pasture lands and to the 
 still waters, that they may eat and drink where none 
 may frighten or harm them. He heals them when 
 they are sick. Should one of them go astray, he 
 searches for it, tracking it by the tufts of wool left 
 in the briars and thorns. Should danger assail, he 
 must be ready to risk and give his life for his sheep. 
 And such has been, and such is the life-work of 
 Jesus for us. 
 
 Jesus loves us; and with what love! "Con- 
 ceive," says Father Faber, "all the love of Peter, 
 Paul and John, of Joseph and of Magdalen, of all 
 the apostles and martys, the confessors and virgins 
 of the Church in all ages, thrown into one heart 
 made, by miracle, strong enough to hold such love; 
 then add to it all the burning love which the nine 
 
YES, EVEN IN THIS WORLD 1 45 
 
 choirs of .multitudinous angels have for God and 
 crown it with the amazing love of the Immaculate 
 Heart of our dear Mother; and still it comes not 
 near to, nay, it is but a poor imitation of the love 
 which Jesus has for each one of us, however lowly 
 and unworthy and sinful we may be!" Jesus loves 
 us beyond the wildest dreams of imagination. He 
 said Himself that He loves us with the very same 
 love wherewith He is loved by His Father: an 
 infinite, an immortal love. He loves us with an 
 everlasting love, therefore has He drawn us, taking 
 pity on us. He has loved us before we began to be. 
 He has loved us in those darksome hours, when, 
 through sin, we were His enemies. He has loved 
 us gratuitously; for what have we done to deserve 
 His love, and such love? What have we done but 
 hurt His Heart by our indifference towards Him? 
 Is it because He sees our weakness and the danger of 
 the many seductions which beset us ? Is it because 
 His own love impels Him to anticipate the times 
 marked by His wisdom? I know not, but verily 
 it seems that He can not restrain the overflowing of 
 His Heart, and from the vast ocean of life, of which 
 eternity is the natural shore, great waves pass be- 
 yond their bounds and flow down to us in streams. 
 Yes, even in this world, where everything wavers, 
 where at every step we may fall into an abyss, 
 amidst our darkness, struggles and sins, Jesus gives 
 us the first fruits of His eternal happiness: He 
 
146 "my child, give me thy heart" 
 
 loves us and saves us, as far as our liberty allows 
 Him to do so, and in truth sows the seed of heaven 
 in our hearts. 
 
 If there were no irreverence in doing so, we would 
 put these lines of a poet on the lips of the Divine 
 Shepherd, for they may give us a faint idea of His 
 love strong as death : 
 
 "Come, rest in this Bosom, my own stricken deer, 
 Tho' the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still 
 
 here, 
 Here still is the smile, that no cloud can o'ercast, 
 And a Heart and a Hand all thy own to the last. 
 I know not, I ask not if guilt is in that heart, 
 I but know that I love thee whatever thou art." 
 
 But, better, gentle reader, listen to His own divine 
 words, for the most burning language of human 
 poetry remains too cold when it strives to tell us of 
 "the breadth, and the length, and the height, and the 
 depth of the surpassing charity of Christ." "My 
 child, give me thy heart." "What is there that I 
 ought to have done for thee that I have not done?" 
 "Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have 
 pity on the son of her womb? and if she should 
 forget, yet still will not I forget thee." "I will have 
 mercy on thee more than a mother." "Even to 
 your old age I am the same, and to your gray hairs 
 I will carry you. I have made you, and I will bear, 
 
"if your sins be as scarlet" 147 
 
 I will save you." "Your whole head is sick and 
 your whole heart is sad. Yet wash yourselves ; take 
 away the evil of your devices from My eyes. Learn 
 to do well; if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be 
 made as white as snow; and if they be red as 
 crimson, they shall be white as wool." 
 
 But true love is never contented with words. It 
 longs to prove itself by deeds. The Good Shep- 
 herd's love manifests itself every day to His sheep 
 in manifold ways. It would be useless to try to 
 enumerate a tithe of them here. 
 
 II 
 
 Jesus, the Good Shepherd, feeds His sheep. He 
 is the bread of life: whosoever eats His flesh has 
 life in him. Jesus lpoked over the universe and 
 He found nothing worthy of our souls; then He 
 constituted Himself our food. This wondrous deed 
 of goodness and love we shall understand only in 
 heaven. In the meantime this divine food we must 
 receive often, for it is the food of those who are 
 well; not the remedy of those who are ill. "It is 
 not offered to a select portion of the flock," says 
 Tesniere, "but to all who have need of His flesh, 
 in order to live of His life and to secure to them- 
 selves its eternal possession. Now, all men belong 
 to this necessitous class. Jesus presents Himself 
 not as a rare aliment to make a holiday feast more 
 
I48 THE DESIRE OF HIS HEART 
 
 sumptuous, but as the daily bread necessary for the 
 support of ordinary life, and which must in con- 
 sequence be eaten every day. This distribution of 
 the Bread of life is as large, abundant and infinite 
 as His love for man. It is the measure of His 
 Heart. The desire of His Heart is to supply the 
 daily needs of all men; needs of restoration, needs 
 of conservation, needs of action, needs of spiritual 
 fecundity and constant progress even to the perfec- 
 tion and plenitude of eternal life.^ To free her 
 from her daily faults the soul needs the daily anti- 
 dote of the Eucharist. The holy Communion being 
 the individual appropriation of the whole work of 
 Christ, he who communicates receives personally 
 the redemption of the whole world. St. Paul says 
 that "he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth 
 and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the 
 Body of the Lord." But then, he who receives the 
 Holy Communion worthily eats and drinks acquittal 
 and salvation. "He that eateth My flesh and drink- 
 eth My blood, abideth in Me and I in him," says our 
 Lord ; both are thereby united, not only in one spirit 
 but in one flesh and one body, the Body of Christ. 
 Speaking of the newly-made Christians, St. Leo 
 teaches that "they are no more the same after their 
 baptism: the flesh of those baptized becomes the 
 flesh of the Crucified." What then shall we say of 
 those coming from the altar-rails, since the sacra- 
 mental communion is the earthly consummation of 
 
INFINITE LOVE 1 49 
 
 the union started at baptism? If the divine Grace 
 and the Sacraments unite us to Jesus in such wise 
 that truly we may draw near God in the self -same 
 manner as Jesus Himself, what can God refuse us? 
 It is not only sympathy with Jesus that causes God 
 to welcome us : it is the respect He owes His eternal 
 Son : it is the infinite love He harbors for Him ; aye, 
 it is the very necessity of His nature and the invin- 
 cible energy of His Divine Fatherhood. "No love 
 less than infinite love, ,, says Bishop Vaughan, "could 
 have devised or contrived half so beauteous or half 
 so sumptuous a banquet for the weary pilgrim, 
 winding his way along the dusty road of life to the 
 great city of God. Further than this we can not 
 go — at least not in this life. There is nothing be- 
 tween this and the Beatific Vision itself. In the 
 adorable Eucharist we have all that we shall ever 
 have in heaven. The differences are only accidental. 
 When the consecrated particle rests upon our 
 tongues, we hold within us all that constitutes the 
 essential bliss of the saints in eternal glory, the 
 difference is merely that we fail to realize it. We 
 possess it, but without being able to estimate what 
 we possess. If, by some stupendous miracle, our 
 eyes were suddenly opened, we should find that 
 we were really in heaven; or rather that heaven 
 itself had come down upon us, and entered into our 
 souls." It is thus that the Good Shepherd feeds 
 His sheep. 
 
150 GODS JUSTICE 
 
 III 
 
 Jesus, the Good Shepherd, goeth after the sheep 
 which is lost, until H£ findeth it. And when He hath 
 found it, He layeth it on His shoulder, rejoicing. 
 When a soul has gone astray from Him, He follows 
 her with His grace and His light. He calls her 
 through those thousand and one events framed by 
 His fatherly providence, and leaves her only when 
 He has exhausted all possible efforts to lead her 
 back to the fold. He alone, who bowed Himself 
 and came down, He alone can do this : He alone can 
 bear the whole world's weight, the load of a sinful 
 world, the burden of man's guilt, the accumulated 
 debt, past, present, and to come; the suffer- 
 ing which we owed but could not pay, the 
 wrath of God on the children of Adam. No 
 doubt, sin injures the heart of Christ in as much 
 as it offends Him, but it does not modify Him. It 
 modifies His acts, but not His essence; it does not 
 change His love which is His natural disposition 
 towards us. As before nothingness His goodness 
 becomes love, so in face of sin, this love melts into 
 mercy on the sole condition that the sinful sheep 
 shall hope in the Shepherd, the Good Shepherd of 
 mankind. And in certain respects, no one has 
 such reason to hope in God, as a sinner has. True, 
 divine Sanctity has such a horror of sin that it 
 obliges divine Justice to punish it with the most 
 frightful penalties, but this is precisely the reason 
 
GODS MERCY 151 
 
 why divine Mercy is incomparably more moved by 
 sin than by all the other misfortunes that can befall 
 us. For, if we regard it on the side of the punish- 
 ment it deserves, sin is the loss of God; it is then 
 the greatest evil and truly the absolute misery. But 
 shall not the greatest misery draw the greatest com- 
 passion? Such is the reason why divine Mercy, in 
 this matter, more than in any other, stirs itself, as 
 it were, that the sinner be led to repentance, and 
 trusting and hoping in God may obtain pardon and 
 be saved. 
 
 Someone whose name is unknown has prettily 
 rendered this aspect of Jesus the Searcher of souls. 
 The edge of the words of the Gospel has been so 
 blurred by use, that it may perhaps help some of us 
 to realize it more vividly if we hear from them now 
 in this poetical form : 
 
 "There were ninety and nine that safely lay 
 In the shelter of the fold, 
 But one was out on the hills away, 
 Far off from the gates of gold ; 
 Away on the mountains wild and bare, 
 Away from the tender Shepherd's care. 
 
 u 'Lord, Thou hast here Thy ninety and nine ; 
 
 Are they not enough for Thee ?' 
 But the Shepherd made answer : This of Mine 
 JJas. wandered away from Me; 
 
152 THE BEST MAY STILL BE THINE 
 
 And although the road be rough and steep, 
 I go to the desert to find My sheep/ 
 
 "But none of the ransomed ever knew 
 How deep were the waters crossed ; 
 Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed 
 
 through 
 Ere He found His sheep that was lost. 
 Out in the desert He heard its cry — 
 Sick and helpless and ready to die. 
 
 " TLord, whence are those blood-drops all the way 
 That mark out the mountain's track?' 
 'They were shed for one who had gone astray 
 
 Ere the Shepherd could bring him back.' 
 'Lord, whence are Thy hands so rent and torn ?' 
 'They are pierced to-night by many a thorn/ 
 
 "And all through the mountains, thunder-riven, 
 
 And up from the rocky steep 
 There rose a cry to the gate of heaven, 
 
 'Rejoice! I have found My sheep!' 
 And the angels echoed around the throne — 
 'Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own 
 
 9 97 
 
 Gentle reader, I tell thee ; be never discouraged by 
 thy past, but know that, whatever it has been, the 
 best may still be thine. 
 
"greater love than this . . • ." 153 
 IV 
 
 Jesus, the Good Shepherd, giveth His life for His 
 sheep. But he that is a hireling and whose own the 
 sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the 
 sheep and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them and 
 scattereth the sheep. "Greater love than this no man 
 hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." 
 
 But what shall we say of the Shepherd laying 
 down His life for His sheep? Our English tongue 
 has golden words, but no words can convey the 
 fathomless mystery of such divine condescension. 
 Even the Prophet stammers and reels when dealing 
 with this abysmal love : "And he says : Ah, ah, ah, 
 Lord God: behold I cannot speak." Paul alone 
 perhaps conveys the complete truth when, set face 
 to face with this proof of boundless love, he dares 
 call it "the folly of the Cross;" a love so profound 
 and so prodigal, so strenuous and so extravagant 
 that it goes beyond all possible limits: not against, 
 but above the powers of human reason. 
 
 And didst thou notice? "The Good Shepherd 
 giveth." There is neither past nor future in His 
 gift: it is the Eternal Present. Yea, it is every day 
 Good Friday; Christ renews His death at every mo- 
 ment of the day on the altar! The Mass is that 
 substantial, universal, incessant irradiation of the 
 sacrifice offered by Jesus on Calvary ; it is that ever 
 living trophy of the Lamb slain for the world; it 
 
154 HOLY MASS 
 
 gives us anew the Divine Lover dead for us; it 
 continues not only His sacred death, but His 
 whole life, His life divine and human; it continues it 
 for God whom it glorifies and gladdens ; it continues 
 it for us to whom it gives the very substance of 
 Redemption. 
 
 St. Teresa oppressed by the weight of God's grace, 
 asked Him one day to tell her how she could pay 
 Him her debt of gratitude. The Holy Ghost told 
 her to hear one Mass; after which her debt would 
 be paid. Ah! were all hell to engulf you as a 
 volcano of despair; were Satan to whisper in your 
 ear, as he did into that of Judas, a thousand reasons 
 for trusting your Shepherd no more, just attend 
 one Mass; think of what one Mass is: the light of 
 love that shall stream forth from the Divine Host 
 will destroy those dark clouds, and silencing the 
 enemy of God, bring back into your heart that holy 
 light which gives peace in giving faith and hope. 
 Alas ! why do we not make the most of every Mass 
 we hear, why do we hear Mass in such a languid, 
 irresponsible fashion, the Mass in which "the Good 
 Shepherd giveth His life for His sheep!" 
 
 We say every day that "we are His people, and 
 the sheep of His pasture," we say that "we have 
 erred and strayed from His ways, like lost sheep." 
 
OUR ADVOCATE WITH THE FATHER 1 55 
 
 Let us never forget these truths ; let us never forget 
 that, on the one hand, we are sinners, but that, on 
 the other hand, Christ is our Guide, our Guardian, 
 our Shepherd. Let us beware of not following 
 when He goes before: "He calleth His own sheep 
 by name and leadeth them out and goeth before, 
 and His sheep follow Him, for they know His 
 voice." As on His resurrection, while Mary Mag- 
 dalen wept, He called her by name; so, too, He 
 calls us by our name. Let us answer to His call. 
 Let us love Him who has first loved us." "Let 
 us endeavor," as says St. Teresa, "not to wander 
 far from our dear Shepherd ; for the sheep that keep 
 near the Shepherd are always the most caressed, 
 the best fed, and they often receive some chosen 
 dainty from the Shepherd's own repast." 
 
 Blessed are they who give the flower of their 
 years, and the vigor of soul and body to Him; 
 blessed are they who in their youth go to Him Who 
 gave His life for them. Blessed are they who de- 
 cide — come happiness, come sorrow, come sunshine, 
 come storm — that He shall be their Lord and Master, 
 their King and Shepherd. 
 
 Even if sinful days should come, let us remember 
 that Jesus the Good Shepherd is "our advocate with 
 the Father, and He is the propitiation for our sins." 
 Let us remember that there is never a situation so 
 strained as to preclude the possibility of pardon. 
 Let us remember that if Judas is lost, it is not for 
 
I56 THE SIN OF JUDAS 
 
 having sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, but for 
 having despaired of the Good Shepherd's divine 
 Mercy. This Good Shepherd is such an inexhaust- 
 ible fountain of mercy and goodness, that the most 
 faithful mother could not snatch from the flames 
 her own beloved child so eagerly as He helps a man 
 of contrite heart; even were it possible that he had 
 committed every day, and a thousand times over, 
 the sins of the world. 
 
 " 'Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, 
 
 Whose sins, once washed by the baptismal wave/ ' } 
 So spoke the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed 
 The Infant Church! of love she felt the tide 
 Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave 
 And then she smiled : and in the Catacombs, 
 With eye suffused but heart inspired true, 
 On those walls subterranean, where she hid 
 Her head, 'mid ignominy, death, and tombs, 
 She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew." 
 
 Love has no diviner emblem than the Good Shep- 
 herd. It seems that it was by an inspiration both of 
 holiness and genius that the Ven. Mother Euphrasia 
 Pelletier of Angers chose Him as the patron and the 
 model of her redeeming Order. It has been said 
 that Mary Magdalen, the repentant, sinful Mary, 
 reigns now in heaven next to the sinless Mary, the 
 Mother of Jesus. But who will say how many 
 Magdalens are marching heavenwards, thanks to 
 
A SERVANT IN THEIR HOUSE 1 57. 
 
 the Sisters of this most noble Order of charity? A 
 servant in their house a few years ago, it was my 
 good fortune to attend the angelic death of one of 
 their "children." Before returning to God, with 
 the sad smile of those whom we are to see never- 
 more, she gave me the following lines, which will 
 close appropriately this little study in honor of Jesus 
 the Good Shepherd: 
 
 "Into a desolate land, 
 
 White with the drifted snow, 
 Into a weary land 
 
 Our truant-footsteps go: 
 Yet doth Thy care, O Father, 
 
 Ever Thy wanderers keep; 
 Still doth Thy love, O Shepherd, 
 
 Follow Thy sheep. 
 
 "Over the pathless wild 
 
 Do I not see Him come? 
 Him Who shall bear me back, 
 
 Him Who shall lead me home? 
 Listen! between the storm-gusts 
 
 Unto the straining ear, 
 Comes not the cheering whisper — 
 
 'Jesus is near?' 
 
 "Over me He is bending! 
 Now I can safely rest 
 
I5& THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE 
 
 Found at last and clinging 
 Close to the Shepherd's breast : 
 
 So let me lie till the fold-bells 
 Sound on the homeward track, 
 
 And the rejoicing angels 
 Welcome us back." 
 
 O Shepherd Eternal, allow us to lie near Thee. 
 We are finite ; but Thine infinitely. We are groping 
 in the dark like sheep that have gone astray: but 
 Thou art the Way. We are bewildered by many 
 winds of error: but Thou art the Truth. We are 
 weak, wan and weary : but Thou art the Life. Jesus 
 our Good Shepherd help the sheep of Thy fold that 
 at least we may be "found at the last." Thou hast 
 said that Thy sheep hear Thy Voice; and Thou 
 knowest them, and they follow Thee. But other 
 sheep Thou hast that are not of this fold; them also 
 Thou must bring, and they shall hear Thy Voice. 
 O Shepherd Immortal, let them hear the whisperings 
 of Thy still, small Voice which it is so easy to hear 
 near Thy Tabernacle. May Thy Kingdom come. 
 
 "Great Shepherd of our souls! O, guide 
 Thy wandering flock to feed 
 In the pastures green, and by the side 
 
 Of stilly waters lead. 
 Do thou our erring footsteps keep, 
 Whose life was given for the sheep. 
 
THE HOLY EUCHARIST 1 59 
 
 "O, let not us, who fain would cleave 
 To thy communion, stray, 
 Nor, tempted into ruin, leave 
 
 The straight and narrow way : 
 Before us thou the path hast trod, 
 And thou canst lead us, Son of God. 
 
 "O, let us hear thy warning voice, 
 
 And see thy arm divine; 
 Thou know'st the people of thy choice, 
 
 And thou art known of thine. 
 Do thou our erring footsteps keep, 
 Whose life was given for the sheep. 
 
 "Then when we pass the vale of death, 
 Though more and more its shade, 
 Around our journey darkeneth, 
 
 We will not be afraid, 
 If thou art with us, and thy rod 
 And staff console us, Son of God." 
 
 It is enlightened by the Light that arises 
 from the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar 
 that the souls that are astray will find the way to 
 the fold. 
 
 The dogma of the Holy Eucharist is not only 
 the most beautiful and consoling dogma: it is the 
 central doctrine of our religion and the very focus of 
 Divine Light and Love. It is the Sun in which 
 
l6o THE TENANT OF THE TABERNACLE 
 
 Jesus has set His Tabernacle. And the Tabernacle 
 is nothing else but the tent pitched on earth till the 
 last evening of time by Jesus the Good Shepherd of 
 mankind. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 OUR LORD WITH HIS HARVESTERS 
 
 One single word seems to sum up all the dealings 
 of our Lord with His Disciples, — a word which has 
 now become well nigh commonplace, because, 
 thanks be to Him, we have used it so often, but a 
 word most majestic and sublime in its origin, since 
 it recalls to our mind the very Being of God. Good- 
 ness is the word, effusive, patient, forgiving, Self- 
 sacrificing goodness. 
 
 The manifestation of this goodness we first notice 
 when He calls them to Him. On the banks of the 
 Jordan, after the testimony of St. John the Baptist, 
 two fishermen of Galilee, John and Andrew, draw 
 near to Him. "What seek you?" He asks them. 
 It was more than the two young men could answer. 
 Yet their reply shows that they are in earnest: 
 "Rabbi, where dwellest thou?" "Come and see," 
 He says to them. They go and stay with Him. 
 
 The day after, Andrew tells his brother Simon: 
 "We have found the Messiah !" And his brother 
 comes to Jesus and surrenders to Him. 
 
 A fourth one, Philip, is found along the road, 
 "Follow me," Jesus says, and he follows Him. 
 
 161 
 
l62 a turning point in history 
 
 A little further on, He sees Nathanael reading 
 under a fig tree. And He culls him as a flower. 
 
 He arrives at Capharnaum and sees a man sitting 
 in the custom house, and He calls Him. — And so of 
 the others. 
 
 Needless to say that these apparently casual calls 
 are the outcome of an infinite wisdom and an al- 
 mighty will. All events are disposed, adapted, fore- 
 thought, and forecast by God, but specially is this 
 true of the events bearing upon the work of Redemp- 
 tion. 
 
 To mark this truth in His own way, Jesus the 
 first time He meets some of His Disciples, gives 
 them new names characteristic of their mission. 
 And such a reading into the far away vistas of their 
 future already empurples these seemingly simple 
 calls with a tinge of eternity. 
 
 The call of the Apostles is undoubtedly one of 
 the turning-points in the history of the universe, but 
 if we look on them after the manner of men, how 
 pitifully insignificant they are, these Apostles! 
 Mostly all are fishermen, and one of them is a 
 publican. But it matters not : dead are their yester- 
 days, they are the men of an ever-living future. 
 
 The future! How did the future appear to 
 them? What an image could they form of it? 
 Very cloudy no doubt it was, and very slowly did 
 they enter into their career of being the co-founders 
 of the Church and co-workers with the God-Man. 
 
SACRED FRUITFULNESS 1 63 
 
 They were not aware of what they were to be, but 
 this they knew that they had "to bear fruits." It 
 was our Lord's favored expression with them. And 
 there is no nobler task than to be fruit-bearing 
 branches on the Divine Tree. 
 
 If the Creator, says St. Thomas, had given us only 
 our being, He would have reserved for Him the 
 better part of life. But He gave to His creatures 
 not only the gift of existence, He gave them also the 
 power of communicating their existence; and this is 
 why, fruitfulness, in any sense, ever involves some- 
 thing of Sacredness and Divineness. Wherefore 
 are they profoundly guilty who profane that gift; 
 who dare use the orchards and nurseries of God 
 merely for selfish and shameful commerce, and con- 
 trive to control the very work of God. Wherefore 
 those must be branded as cowards who could be of 
 service through their brain or through their brawn, 
 be useful to their brethren and yield an uplifting 
 influence over their family, their state and their 
 nation, but abstain from fulfilling their task in the 
 midst of sinful idleness. For, as Shakespeare says : 
 
 "Thyself and thy belongings 
 Are not thine own so proper as to waste 
 Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee 
 Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 
 Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues 
 
164 HIS FELLOWSHIP 
 
 Did not go forth of us 'twere all alike 
 As if we had them not." 
 
 Those, therefore, whom God calls, like His Disciples 
 to spiritual fruitfulness and to the communication 
 and development of divine gifts, never enough shall 
 they wield their energy to make themselves worthy 
 of their vocation. 
 
 This truth Jesus did not fail to instill into them. 
 "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." 
 It was as though He said: "Believe not that in 
 coming to Me you have conferred a benefit on Me; 
 you have but received what I have given. I have 
 chosen you, and you are the greater because of your 
 having been chosen. Election is simply the way in 
 which I use My chosen ones to bless the world — the 
 divine process by which the good seed is sown and 
 scattered far and wide, and the heavenly harvest 
 multiplied a thousandfold." 
 
 The Call to the Disciples was then His first proof 
 of goodness to them, and this goodness not indeed 
 preceded or deserved by any merit on their 
 part, was nevertheless followed by all the conse- 
 quences which it involves, ahead .of them all is 
 fellowship. 
 
 At first glance there is something strange and well 
 nigh shocking in the Master's fellowship with His 
 Disciples. 
 
 Jesus Christ »is the Man for all men : it seems that 
 
"lonely to the lone we go" 165 
 
 He can belong to no particular group, and should 
 stay by Himself to lord it over the work to be done. 
 And then Jesus Christ is God: as such fellowship 
 with men seems impossible and absurd. For fellow- 
 ship means equality; it is the blending of lives; it is 
 the brotherhood of hearts in an assented closeness ; it 
 is the mutual levelling of souls; it involves commun- 
 ion of thoughts, desires, and anxieties ; it is love with 
 its manifold freedom. But, then, what manner of 
 intimacy can there be between Jesus Christ and men? 
 Men are so feeble, so empty of heart and of hands; 
 He is so transcendent, so beyond the limits of the 
 world and of life. 
 
 Is it not the destiny of great men to live alone 
 and to allow none on earth to invade the home of 
 the soul whose name is intimacy? Friendless were 
 Michael Angelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven and Dante ; 
 friendless were Isaiah and Moses. They had con- 
 fidents; they had satellites of their glory; they had 
 servants; standing alone in an immense isolation 
 they had no intimate friends: their soul was too 
 high; their atmosphere no other man could share. 
 They were as though marked with a sign of dread. 
 Theirs was the song of the poet: 
 
 "Yes, in the sea of life enisled, 
 
 With echoing straits between us thrown, 
 Dotting the shoreless watery wild, 
 We mortal millions live alone." 
 
1661 "divine to the divinity" 
 
 How greater than they, the Divine Master! No 
 soul here can enter the lists with Him; no thought 
 can ever even from afar rival or imitate His thought. 
 Whoso would flatter Himself to be even His inferior 
 thereby would give proofs of insane pride. For 
 inferiority implies a comparison, and no comparison 
 is possible with Him. He is infinite, He is immense, 
 He is God. None can stand near Him; none can 
 enter into His heart. 
 
 All this is true, but there is in Him something 
 besides greatness. There is in Him a divine con- 
 descension, which makes Him just one unit in the 
 census of mankind, a condescension which lowers 
 Him to our size, a condescension which leaves Him 
 great, and greatest, and infinitely great, but raises 
 us up to Him. This is Jesus as we see Him in the 
 Gospels. 
 
 Tradition claims that He tempered the bright- 
 ness of His eyes whose power was not adapted to 
 the commerce of our daily life. I know not, but 
 it is sure that He tempered the brightness of His 
 soul, and knew, when such was His will, how to 
 be a Friend, the Friend of men, the Friend that 
 remains when all others leave us. 
 
 Thus was He with His Disciples. He set Him- 
 self to their level; He offered to them Himself as a 
 centre for sympathy, intimate communication, 
 familiar conversation, confidence and even playsome 
 
NOT TOO GREAT FOR HIM 1 67 
 
 but discreet flashes of humor, traces of which 
 appear in the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 When the Divine Master is about to multiply the 
 barley loaves, He sees Philip near Him, and know- 
 ing his artlessness, He says, no doubt with gentle 
 merriment: "Philip, where are we to buy bread 
 for all these people to eat?" This He said to test 
 him, as St. John remarks. But Philip fails to grasp 
 it: "Seven pounds worth of bread would not be 
 enough for them, for everybody to get even a 
 morsel." This trait shows that amenity that 
 reigned in the dealings of Jesus and His Disciples. 
 
 And mark the delicate tinge of it. It is not 
 laughter: laughter is heavy semi-material; therein 
 enters usually a touch of pride and of ill-will. "It 
 has a scornful tickling;" at best it indicates a lack of 
 self-possession, since it is as a rule beyond the 
 control of the will; no, we see no laughter, but we 
 see a smile, a kind, noble, spiritual smile, such as it 
 is to be found in a superior nature as that of the 
 Master. 1 
 
 In His everyday intercourse with His own, the 
 
 1 G. K. Chesterton, in Orthodoxy, p. 299, tells us that 
 "There was some one thing that was too great for God to 
 show us when He walked our earth; and I have sometimes 
 fancied that it was His mirth." But those who have gone 
 into the heart of the Gospels and found out that joy is 
 essentially Christian, will see that we have nothing to detract 
 from what we wrote. 
 
1 68 "as no man ever spoke' ' 
 
 tone of Jesus is gravely sweet and simple. He 
 calls them His friends, His little children, His flock ; 
 He explains to them in private what He has taught 
 the multitude: "To you it is given to know the 
 mystery of the Kingdom of God; but to them that 
 are without, all things are done in parables." He 
 takes them apart to chat with them. Along the 
 roads, from village to village He teaches and 
 comforts them. He takes a motherly care of them, 
 invites them to rest when the journey has been long, 
 and blesses their sleep while He Himself retires to 
 pray to His Father. 
 
 Or again, at the noon hour, when the Oriental 
 heat is extreme — the sun blinding and scorching 
 man and beast — He takes them aside under some 
 palm tree or in one of those numberless grottos of 
 Galilee, and there, in the midst of them, He speaks, 
 "as no man ever spoke." And the flitting time 
 spends itself sweet and fruitful in the preparation 
 for the stern labors, and the Disciples are wooed and 
 won by that love the measure of which is to be 
 measureless : "As the Father hath loved Me, I also 
 have loved you. Abide in My love," He says, 
 "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that 
 despiseth you, despiseth Me; and He that despiseth 
 Me, despiseth Him that sent Me." "He that 
 receiveth you, receiveth Me." "Whosoever shall not 
 receive you, nor hear your words; going forth out of 
 that house or city shake off the dust from your feet; 
 
HIS DIVINE TENDERNESS 169 
 
 amen I say to you it shall be more tolerable for the 
 land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judg- 
 ment, than for that city." 
 
 At times His heart overflows with tenderness, 
 not that soft tenderness that arises out of sensi- 
 tiveness and merely impinges upon the mind, but that 
 virile tenderness as truly great hearts understand it. 
 
 One day He spoke to the multitude in the 
 presence of Pharisees, and vehement were His words, 
 and the Disciples as usual were near Him, and lo! in 
 the midst of His discourse, "His mother and His 
 brothers came," says St. Matthew. And as some 
 one told Him of their arrival, He replied without 
 breaking the thread of His thought: "Who is my 
 mother and who are my brethren?" And stretch- 
 ing His hand towards those around Him, and lov- 
 ingly glancing on them: "Behold," He said, "My 
 mother and My brethren! for whosoever shall do 
 the will of My Father in heaven, the same is My 
 brethren and sister and mother." A sublime grad- 
 ation of tenderness, which of a union of strength 
 passes to one of charm, and blends both in that ocean 
 which is called a mother's heart. 
 
 Such is the Divine Master as we delight to con- 
 template Him. We claim our share of those 
 effusions and of that fellowship with which on 
 earth He blessed His Apostles. Like them we are 
 His friends, His brethren, His little ones. To us 
 also He says : "As the Father hath loved Me, I also 
 
170 HIS PATIENCE 
 
 have loved you." Through His loving grace we 
 belong to His society and family — His Church. 
 We may call Him our Friend, our alter-ego> and in 
 doing so, far from being irreverent we comply with 
 the very desire of His heart. In spirit we may 
 converse with Him, busy ourselves with His 
 interests, inquire into His mysteries, and assume 
 the care of His glory. A place is prepared for us 
 in Heaven which is His Kingdom and through Him 
 is to be our Kingdom. 
 
 I said that the goodness of Jesus for His own 
 manifests itself in the vocation to which He called 
 them and the friendliness with which He tended 
 them. But it manifests itself also in His patience 
 with them. Patience here is the silence of His 
 power. Indeed there was need of patience in dealing 
 with these men "of little understanding," "fearful," 
 "worldly," and "of little faith," — even as we are — 
 full of good will, yes, but how weak and how blind! 
 As soon as the Master begins somewhat to soar in 
 His speeches they fail to follow Him, they forget 
 everything: "If you knew Me, you would know My 
 Father. You know Me now and you have seen 
 Him," He says to them. And Philip replies: 
 "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for 
 
 us." 
 
 He preaches humility; and they crave for "the 
 chief seats" — even at the Last Supper; charity, and 
 
"their eyes were blinded" 171 
 
 they want fire to come down from heaven and con- 
 sume the Samaritan city. He strives to make them 
 understand the spiritual character of His Kingdom, 
 but they cling to the idea of a temporal Kingdom 
 and wish to obtain from Him the promise of pre- 
 eminence in it. He tells them that His Kingdom 
 is not of this world; that the Kingdom of God is 
 within them ; that they must labor not for the food 
 which perisheth but for that lasting food which 
 means eternal life. The words reach their ears, but 
 glide over their souls, as the seed upon a rock. 
 
 When He forecasts the days of the future: the 
 spiritual instead of the carnal empire which they 
 crave for, this time they are crushed ; it is absolutly 
 beyond the ken of their vision. "They understood 
 Him not, and they were afraid to ask Him." 
 "Their eyes were blinded.'' Such expressions often 
 recur in the Gospels. 
 
 Characteristic of the state of their souls is what 
 happened one day at Cesarea Philippi. Jesus re- 
 vealed to them His intended journey to Jerusalem, 
 His rejection by the leaders of His nation, the 
 anguish and insult that awaited Him, His violent 
 death. And Peter rises to his feet and interrupts 
 those solemn utterances. He takes Jesus by the 
 hand, leads Him a step or two aside, and begins to 
 rebuke Him. "God forbid," He says, "this shall 
 certainly not happen to Thee." And Jesus, severe 
 this time, turning away from him, says : "Get thee 
 
172 "a stone of stumbling" 
 
 behind Me, Satan ; thou art a stumbling-block to 
 Me; for thy thoughts are not the thoughts of God, 
 but of men." 
 
 Poor, dear St. Peter! He must have returned 
 somewhat ashamed to his group; but well he knew 
 from what Heart the words had streamed. The 
 comparison, however, must have sunk deeply into 
 his mind, for he too in his Epistle warns his readers 
 against some, to whom, because they believe not, 
 the headstone of the corner became "a stone of 
 stumbling and a rock of offense." 
 
 For all this, the extreme cases of severity on the 
 part of our Lord were rare. As a rule He was 
 graciously forbearing. For all their miseries He 
 has an inexhaustible condescension, — the compas- 
 sion, the gentleness, the kindness of a mother. 
 Their frailties and even their follies in no wise alter 
 His exquisite tenderness for them. 
 
 See this page, which is the necessary corrective 
 of the other, and one of the most delightful in the 
 Gospels. 
 
 Jesus is alone. The Disciples are in a group, 
 some distance from Him. They are discussing 
 among themselves their endless controversy on 
 precedence. It is not an impossible conjecture that 
 the dispute had been stirred up by a claim of Judas, 
 as being the office-bearer. At all events they boldly 
 come to the Master and ask Him which of them 
 shall be the greatest in the Kingdom, 
 
"he waited !" 
 
 173 
 
 Jesus answers not a word, but calling to Him a 
 little boy, and lifting him in His arms and pressing 
 him fondly to His breast, He sets him among them 
 and says : "Verily, I say to you, unless you be con- 
 verted and become as little children, you shall not 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever, 
 therefore, shall humble himself as this little child, 
 he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven." A 
 graceful picture, worthy of the Son of God, full of 
 grace and truth. 
 
 No doubt painful and odious to Him were those 
 continuous claims and clamors of His Disciples. 
 But they were His children, they were the little flock 
 for whom He was to give His life, and He was 
 patient with them and He spared them, "He waited/' 
 as the Scriptures say. 
 
 "He waited !" How many times has not God 
 waited for man! Notwithstanding our sottish 
 pride, our lack of charity, our outrageous selfish- 
 ness — that eagerness with which we grasp every- 
 thing that flatters us, — He waits for us, He forgets 
 Himself. Behold, He standeth behind our wall; 
 He looketh in at the windows ; He glanceth through 
 the lattice. Behold, He standeth at the gate and 
 knocks. He does not mind our delay; He will tell 
 us to-morrow what we refuse to hear to-day; and 
 cold and unyielding though we remain, He continues 
 to irradiate us with His grace, like the sun that 
 
174 IN THE UPPER ROOM 
 
 shines majestic and tranquil above the frozen poles. 
 Thus Jesus proceeds with the Apostles and with us. 
 By persuasion, not by rebuke, does He deal with us. 
 He knows that God has His hours but that man has 
 also his own hours, and, instead of chiding, He 
 bides His time, He teaches, He sows the seed and 
 waits for the growth of His lessons. Stony may be 
 the hearts that gravitate before Him but He strives 
 to find a cleft whereinto He may enter. And some- 
 times He succeeds and sometimes He fails, but He 
 ever goes on loving us as though He were in need of 
 our love. 
 
 Come the red days of the Passion, those darkly 
 red days, when the soul of the Savior is steeped 
 in awful dereliction and desolation. To say it 
 with Bishop Ullathorne, "it is then that He reaches 
 the last degree of spiritual suffering with the last 
 degree of patience." Oh, that evening discourse, on 
 Holy Thursday, in the Upper Room! That 
 Supreme Supper when, "after having loved His own 
 who are in the world He loves them to the end," 
 He loves them to the last limits of love in giving 
 them the Holy Eucharist! . . . One after another 
 all the prophecies are fulfilled ! . . . Listen to those 
 sacred utterances which St. John alone has been bold 
 enough to relate ! . . . And hovering over all this, 
 towering above all this, that feeling, that motherly 
 feeling, His desire to console His own in advance 
 for their cowardly conduct of to-morrow; to excuse 
 
"a new commandment" 175 
 
 them for what they will do against Him ; to assuage 
 the pain of that remorse which heavily will batter 
 their heart ! "Little children, yet a little while I am 
 with you. You shall seek Me, and as I said to the 
 Jews, whither I go you cannot come, so I say to you 
 now. A new commandment I give unto you, that 
 you love one another, as I have loved you, that you 
 also love one another. By this shall all men know 
 that you are My disciples, if you have love one for 
 another." 
 
 "Why cannot I follow Thee now?" exclaims St. 
 Peter, "I will lay down my life for Thee." 
 
 Jesus answers : "Wilt thou lay down thy life for 
 Me? Amen, I say to thee, the cock shall not crow 
 till thou deny Me thrice. ,, And addressing Himself 
 again to the Eleven — for now Judas was gone : "Let 
 not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, 
 believe also in Me." 
 
 And later on, seeing them under the spell of His 
 tenderness, and at last expressing their faith ardent 
 and entire, He says : "So now you believe Me, but 
 behold, the time is coming, it has come already, 
 when you will be scattered to your homes, every one 
 of you, leaving Me alone. But I am not alone, for 
 the Father is with Me. I have said all this to you 
 that in Me you may have peace. In the world you 
 shall have distress : but have confidence, I have over- 
 come the world." A mother sees in her prodigal's 
 departure but her prodigal's danger : so does Jesus. 
 
176 JUDAS, ONE OF THE TWELVE 
 
 The Disciples are not haughty but they are 
 piteously weak. And He thinks of the despondency 
 into which they may fall and He safeguards them 
 against it: "Let not your heart be troubled/' such 
 is the burden of His song. "And I have told you 
 before it has come to pass that when it shall come 
 to pass, you may believe." 
 
 But what shall we say of Judas! Judas one of 
 the Twelve, one of those to whom He said : "I will 
 not now call you servants, but I call you friends/' 
 Judas, the son of perdition. Full well Jesus knew 
 that he was to be His betrayer: and during three 
 years He kept him in His fellowship, treating him 
 like the others, calling him to the same destinies, 
 wrapping him, up in His mantle of love. Not only 
 did He not point out that "He knew whom He had 
 chosen/' but He gave him a mark of special confi- 
 dence: He appointed him treasurer of the small 
 stock of apostolic community. Why? Because 
 perhaps he was best fitted for such task, but also 
 in mercy to him, in view of his character. To 
 engage in that for which a man is naturally fitted is 
 the most likely means of keeping him from brooding. 
 On the other hand, it must be admitted that as most 
 of our life-temptations come to us from that for 
 which we have most aptitude, when Judas was 
 alienated and unfaithful in heart, this very thing 
 became also his greatest temptation, and, indeed, 
 
LENGTHILY AND IN SILENCE 1 77 
 
 hurried him to his ruin. But only after he had first 
 failed inwardly. And so, as ever in like circum- 
 stances, the very things which might have been most 
 of blessing became most of curse, and the judgment 
 of hardening fulfills itself by that which in itself is 
 good. Nor could the purse have been afterwards 
 taken from him without both exposing him to others, 
 and precipitating his moral destruction. And so 
 he had to be left to the process of inward ripening, 
 till all was ready for the sickle. 
 
 Mysterious is the attitude of Jesus before His 
 betrayer. Perhaps, if we could analyze His feelings 
 when in contact with Judas, we thereby would reach 
 and grasp not only the Passion of His Heart, but the 
 very heart of His Passion. As Bishop Ullathorne 
 puts it: "The agony He felt at the gradual falling 
 away of His poor, miserable apostle comes out when 
 He speaks of His coming Passion. He mentions a 
 few only of the sufferings that were in store for 
 Him, the sharpest, and chiefly the pains of the soul 
 — mocking, spitting, betrayal. This last was the 
 worst. He could bear insult, and cruelty from the 
 Gentiles, who knew Him not, but betrayal from one 
 of His own! Oh, the anguish there is in these 
 words at the Last Supper: 'Amen, I say to you, one 
 of you shall betray Me/ " 
 
 Lengthily and in silence He willed to taste that 
 royally bitter sweetness of being betrayed by a 
 
178 A SUPREME CLIMAX 
 
 friend; a friend on whom He had lavished His 
 kindness ; a friend whose feet He had washed, when 
 He knew He was already sold by him; a friend 
 whom He had destined to be one of the twelve 
 judges in heaven; a friend whom He called His 
 friend, even when being betrayed with a kiss, to 
 show thereby that he still was entitled to that name 
 if such were his wish, to show thereby also His su- 
 preme effort of patience. Here as nowhere else 
 are revealed the very summits of the goodness of 
 Jesus, for from the manner He dealt with Judas we 
 may surmise how He must have dealt with His 
 other Apostles. 
 
 And still, as though this was not yet sufficient for 
 His heart, Jesus, after he had left them, willed to 
 give them another token of His goodness. 
 
 He had called them to a sublime vocation; He 
 had admitted them to His most profound fellow- 
 ship ; He had endured every thing on their part with- 
 out ever altering His love. Through the gift of 
 His Spirit He was about to complete and make 
 perfect His unspeakable work in these men. But 
 for His Divine Heart this was not yet enough. To 
 crown it all; to render their life absolutely splendid; 
 to carry on their fellowship into a supreme resem- 
 blance with Him; to take from their mantle the 
 last remnant of human dust; to add another jewel 
 to their garland of glory ; to their happiness another 
 pledge; to His own tenderness another gift; to 
 
TO DIE FOR HIM 1 79 
 
 us another proof of His truth, — He gave them 
 out of His infinite power and love, what God only 
 can offer and can give: He gave them the grace 
 to die for Him. 
 
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