Such thoughts as I have endeavored to suggest will not be vain, if they lead us to recognize the attributes and credentials of the church in her mission to the world, not less in the comparison of part with part among her manifestations, than in the harmony of the whole. She is as divine, as Catholic, as faithful to her trust, and as unerring in her functions, in the subjective character of her devotions, as in the objectivity of her teaching. Nothing surely can be more attractive to the imagination, more winning to the heart, or more persuasive to the will than the condescension and personal care of that which is all the while lofty in its attributes and authoritative in its claims and power. The church is a mother while she is a queen, and we her children no less than her subjects and disciples. She teaches us to pray while she commands us to believe; and gives a personal experience of her science in the one, while affording abundant proof of her embassy and her inerrancy in the other. Thus, while I am enlightened by her truth, I am fostered by her charity. The need of which I am conscious in myself, _das Ich_, for something on which to feed the faculty within me for supernatural love and personal devotion, is as completely met and fulfilled as any craving for a truth above myself, _das nicht Ich_, which comes down to me from heaven that it may raise me thither. "Descendit" says St. Augustine, "_misericordia, ut ascendat miseria._" -------- Imogen. She was all compact of beauty, Like the sunlight and the flowers; One of those radiant beings That prove this world of ours Not utterly forsaken By the angel host of God, Since now and then its valleys By their holy feet are trod. If her hair was black and glossy Or golden-hued and bright, Or if her eyes were azure, Or dark and deep as night, I know not--this truth only Do I know or care to know; Never a lovelier maiden Blest this weary world below. In the castle ruled her father, And his lands stretched miles away _Mine_ toiled down in the hamlet For his daily bread each day; Too far apart were we. Too high wert thou for me, O Lady Imogen! {191}