We are caught as in the meshes of a net, and are hardly allowed time to solve one problem and satisfy ourselves with a conclusion before some new tendril of the ever-growing parasite has flung another flowering coil of verdure around us and arrested our steps once more. We have come upon the time long ago predicted by the Archangel Michael to the prophet Daniel: “_Plurimi transibunt, et multiplex erit scientia_.”[60] We are dazzled and bewildered; and some timid souls are like ostriches, which hide their heads in the sand, preferring not to see and know, and hoping that their ignorance and the ignorance of the multitude generally will serve as a dam to the coming flood, and leave us freed from a torrent of questions which, if once they are there, must be answered. It is to be regretted that these persons cannot learn to possess their souls in patience, and to watch calmly and intelligently the progress of this gigantic growth of science, assured that it will all arrange and classify itself in time, in perfect harmony with what they know to be true and enduring, and which they so dishonor by their apprehensions. However, since this is too much to expect of many, there is nothing for it but to allow such people to keep themselves in peace in the way that suits them best; only not permitting them to discourage others from investigation and reverent inquiry. St. Thomas tells us that the end of all science is contained within the end of all theology and is subservient to it. Theology, therefore, ought to command all other sciences and turn to its use those things of which they treat. But we shall not arrive at this virile steadfastness until the real study of theology has become more general. There is very little in our modern education or habits of thought to teach that calm gaze into the depths of the divine mysteries which imparts such strength of mental vision that the soul ceases to be dazzled by the false light of falling stars. The robust vigor of the studious habits of old has ceased from among us, and the modern mind is attenuated and enfeebled by a vast variety of subjects indifferently explored, many of them received on trust and without inquiry, and all smoothed down to one dead-level of superficial thought and inadequate expression. Not that for a moment we would imply that mere habits of study are all that is needed. These habits may exist, and do exist to a great extent; but the silence and the solitude do not exist, and the studies themselves have long ago ceased to be of a nature to clear the mind for the gradual, patient, interiorly-evolved contemplation of the eternal truths which lie at the bottom of all things. The old scholastic philosophy and theology laid the only real foundation of all speculative knowledge, and built for us, for all future time, that solid fabric of theological truth in the received and authorized teaching of the great doctors of the church which, like a mighty magnet attracting to itself strong bars of