Now let me apply what I have been saying to the teaching of the church on the subject of the Blessed Virgin. I have to recur to a subject of so sacred a nature, that, writing as I am for publication, I need the apology of my object for venturing to pursue it. I say then, when once we have mastered the idea that Mary bore, suckled, and handled the Eternal in the form of a child, what limit is conceivable to the rush and flood of thoughts which such a doctrine involves? What awe and surprise must attend upon the knowledge that a creature has been brought so close to the Divine Essence? It was the creation of a new idea and a new sympathy, a new faith and worship, when the holy apostles announced that God bad become incarnate; and a supreme love and devotion to him became possible which seemed hopeless before that revelation. But beside this, a second range of thoughts was opened on mankind, unknown before, and unlike any other, as soon as it was understood that that incarnate God had a mother. The second idea is perfectly distinct from the former, the one does not interfere with the other. He is God made low, she is a woman made high. I scarcely like to use a familiar illustration on such a subject, but it will serve to explain what I mean when I ask you to consider the difference of feeling with which we read the respective histories of Maria Theresa and the Maid of Orleans; or with which the middle and lower classes of a nation regard a first minister of the day who has come of an aristocratic house and one who has risen from the ranks. May God's mercy keep me from the shadow of a thought dimming the light or blunting the keenness of that love of him which is our sole happiness and our sole salvation! But surely, when he became man he brought home to us his incommunicable attributes with a distinctiveness which precludes the possibility of our lowering him by exalting a creature. He alone has an entrance into our soul, reads our secret thoughts, speaks to our heart, applies to us spiritual pardon and strength. On him we solely depend. He alone is our inward life; he not only regenerates us, but (to allude to a higher mystery) _semper gignit;_ he is ever renewing our new birth and our heavenly sonship. In this sense he may be called, as in nature, so in grace, our real father. Mary is only our adopted mother, given us from the cross; her presence is above, not on earth; her office is external, not within us. Her name is not heard in the administration of the sacraments. Her work is not one of ministration toward us; her power is indirect. It is her prayers that avail, and they are effectual by the _fiat_ of him who is our all in all. Nor does she hear us by any innate power, or any personal gift; but by his manifestation to her of the prayers which we make her. When Moses was on the Mount, the Almighty told him of the idolatry of his people at the foot of it, in order that he might