Let not, then, the mysteries of our holy religion disturb us, my brethren, but rather let them make us rejoice. For what are they but the evidences of the greatness of our religion? They do not repel, they attract us. We believe them on the authority of God, and we esteem it both a duty and a delight to do so. Neither are they all dark in themselves. Nay, they are only dark from excess of light. Each one of them has much that addresses itself to our understanding, much that enlists our affections. The angels in heaven worship the Trinity with devoutest adoration. "_I saw the Seraphim_," says the prophet, "_and they covered their faces and cried: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts!_" [Footnote 151] [Footnote 151: Isai. vi. 3.] Incessantly sings the Church on earth: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." There have been saints who so dwelt upon all that Faith teaches us of God, that they had to go by themselves, in quiet places, for their hearts were all but breaking with the sweet but awful sense of His Majesty. {408} Let us, too, learn to love these mysteries and meditate on them. We live in the midst of great realities. "_You are come to Mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands of angels, and to the Church of the first-born, who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testament_." [Footnote 152] [Footnote 152: Heb. xii. 22, 23, 24.] Day by day, let it be our endeavor to pierce into these holy truths more and more, that at last, like Moses, our countenances may reflect some portion of their beauty and brightness, that continually "_beholding the glory of the Lord we may be transformed into the same image from glory to glory_." [Footnote 153] [Footnote 153: II Cor. iii. 18.] ------------------------------- Sermon XX. The Worth Of The Soul. (Third Sunday After Pentecost.) "There shall be joy before the angels of God over one sinner doing penance." St. Luke xv. 10. This is what theologians call an _accidental_ joy. The essential joy of heaven consists in the perfect knowledge and love of God, and is unchangeable and eternal; but the accidental joy of heaven springs from the knowledge of those events in time which display the goodness and greatness of God. The first of these events was the creation itself, when the hand of God spread the carpet of the earth, and stretched the curtains of the heavens. {409} Then "_the morning stars praised Him together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody_." [Footnote 154] [Footnote 154: Job xxxviii 7.]