The Prometheus of the rock, the Tantalus of the fable, man, plunged in this world of woe with his lips thirsty for happiness, stretches out his hand to pluck the bitter Dead-Sea fruits of this earth. With his profound instincts of the Infinite, his craving for the Absolute, he seizes madly upon every object which suggests their image to him; the foul fiend, adapting his temptations to the nature of the tempted, still whispers, as into the ear of the mother of mankind: 'Ye shall be as gods;'--but the phenomenal flies before him, and he everywhere falls upon the thorns closely hedging in the narrow circle of the actual. Without Faith, the artist is among the most miserable of men, for through the illimitable horizons of the Infinite, genius catches secrets which it can never fully utter; symbolic signs, whose sense it cannot articulate; while the voice of the invisible Love loads every breeze. What profound and mournful aspirations for that _Unknown_ which the mortal may not see, surge through the soul of the imaginative! 'E'en the flowing azure air Thou hast charmed for his despair.' While the artist strives to incorporate with the works which their presence shall render immortal, suggestions of Infinity, of Unity, let him hopefully turn to the Author of all Beauty for true inspiration and peace. As satisfaction and response to the longings of the spirit, the Gospel has brought Life and Immortality to light. The assurance that 'God is Love' responds to the inmost wish of the soul. The problem of antiquity, the possible Union of the finite with the Infinite, has been solved in the most marvellous manner. No longer are we oppressed with the loss of all personal identity, all moral responsibility, as in pantheism; nor confused by the debasing fractioning of the Divine Unity, as in polytheism; nor bound hand and foot under the crushing despotism of a pitiless Fate;--but in the Glorified Humanity of Christ these perplexing problems of the soul are answered, and the incomprehensible union of the Infinite and finite at last accomplished, He took our nature upon Him that Infinite Love might pass through all degrees of suffering, even to the last dying gasp of agony, to release us from the horrors of the 'second death.' Every human feeling is known to Him, but in infinite purity; the Real and Ideal are in equal perfection. Far higher, indeed, than the most sublime conception that uninspired thought could ever have engendered; human, yet far above humanity; ruling all ages; winning all adoration; sublime in tender simplicity--behold the meek Lamb of God, the Holy Son of the Blessed Virgin!