And as it was the symbol of His humility, so is it the symbol of our humanity in relation to Him. It suggests to us that uttermost of Christian virtues, the virtue of entire abandonment to the will of God. This is a most difficult virtue to acquire. We cling to self. We are devoted to our own wills. We rely on our own judgment and wisdom. We are impatient of all that gets in the way of our self-determination. We have in these last days made a veritable religion out of devotion to self, a cult of the ego. But he who will enter into the sanctuary of the divine life, he who will seek union with God, he who will be one with the Father in the Son, must abandon self. He must lose his life in order to save it. He must let go the world to cling to the Lord of life. This will of the man which is so insistent, so persistent, so assertive, so tenacious, must be laid aside and the Will of Another adopted in its place. Often this is bitter. Very true of us it is that when we were young we girded ourselves and walked whither we would; but it must be in the end, if we make life a spiritual success, that when we are old another shall gird us and carry us whither we would not. The secret of life is found when the bitterness of myrrh is turned to sweetness in the discovery that the outcome of the sacrificial life is not that it be narrowed but enlarged; and that for the life which we have entrusted to Him God will do more than we ask or think. When our will becomes one with the will of God we are surprised to find that we have ceased to think of what we once called our sacrifices, because life in Christ reveals itself to us as of infinite joy and richness, so that we forget the things that are behind and gladly press on. Queen of heaven, blessed may thou be For Godes Son born He was of thee, For to make us free. Gloria Tibi, Domine. Jesu, Godes Son, born He was In a crib with hay and grass, And died for us upon the cross. Gloria Tibi, Dominie. To our Lady make we our moan, That she may pray to her dear Son, That we may to His bliss come. Gloria Tibi, Dominie. Sixteenth Century. PART TWO CHAPTER IX THE PRESENTATION And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord. S. Luke II. 22. O come let us worship the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,--we the Christian nations, for He is our true God. And we hope in Holy Mary, that God will have mercy upon us through her prayers. Hail to thee, Mary, the fair dove, who hath borne for us God the Word. COPTIC