If He is to increase, I _must_ decrease, it is only natural. Yes, it is natural for the saints to reason like this, but what about me? I want to be a saint. I often perhaps ask God to make me one, perhaps I even tell Him to use any means He likes, not to spare me. Does not this solve many a problem? God is only taking me at my word; the beginning, the middle and the end of the process of saint-making is _humility_. "I must decrease," and if I ask to be a saint, He will give me the humiliations and the sufferings which alone can teach me humility and unite me to Himself. What then does it matter, if I have to suffer physically or morally, if a career of usefulness in His service is suddenly cut short, if I have to stand on one side and see the work I love and for which my whole life has been a preparation, being done by another, if those I have taught do not seem to understand, if my life is full of little things I dislike and which seem made to annoy me--all these and everything else that can possibly happen to me are the direct result of my God-given wish to be a saint. Let me ask St. John the Baptist for courage to continue my prayer this Advent and to accept joyfully for Him Who is coming all that it entails, saying, to myself when something seems to happen on purpose to annoy me: "This is to help to make me a saint," and then seeing to it that it does. POINT II. THE END. Vengeance still rankled in the breast of Herodias for John had said to Herod: "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." She laid her plans and awaited her opportunity; it came on Herod's birthday; he gave a supper for the princes and tribunes and chief men of Galilee, and she made her daughter come in and dance till they were all so pleased that Herod swore to the girl: "Whatsoever thou shalt ask I will give thee, though it be the half of my kingdom." Herodias knew Herod and expecting that this would happen had told her daughter to do nothing without consulting her. "What shall I ask?" she said to her mother, who replied without any hesitation: "The head of John the Baptist." Herodias was evidently afraid that the king would change his mind and that her wicked plans would after all fail, for she impressed upon her daughter the necessity of haste. The girl went back _immediately, with haste_ to Herod, and said: "I will that _forthwith_ thou give me in a dish the head of John the Baptist." Herod was very sorry, for he was interested in his prisoner, also he knew him to be "a just and holy man" (St. Mark VI. 20) and he hesitated before such a crime; but he had taken an oath and to break it before his guests would be inconsistent with his dignity, besides "he would not displease" the girl, so he acted at once as Herodias had bidden him: "he sent and beheaded John in the prison, and his head was brought in a dish, and it was given to the damsel, and she brought it to her mother."