Herein lies a great element of power and of hope for our country. Our soil is rich, our lakes and rivers are vast, our strength is great, our courage good, our schools are many, our wealth is unexampled. But these are not all--nor are these the elements that are to tame our barbaric borders, and lead to harmony our chaotic and scattered members. The church and home must go together, and unite our nation under the empire of Christ, as under the empire of civil law. The church and home are advancing together from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore. The farmer of Oregon, the miner of California, are not to be beyond the pale of Christian civilization. Even they shall hear the chimes that tell of the nativity of the Saviour--they shall find in their homes, rude cabins though they may be, pleasant faces, whose womanly grace and childish confidence shall reveal a light kindled of old by the Blessed Mother, and nurtured for ever by her Holy Child. Here patriotism and Christianity blend in one. Anathema upon the false speculations and foul vices that assault the family institution. Blessed be the gospel of Him who asserts the uncompromising law of domestic purity, and opens most tenderly the Divine benignity, when most urging the Divine commandment. * * * * * There is a branch of this subject which I cannot treat--one, perhaps, that dwells too much in the region of higher sentiment to be the theme of popular discussion, and which no writer can easily handle, without seeming to be borrowing from the ancient theology its comments on the Song of Songs, or delving in the dark but rich mines of Swedenborg's Arcana. Yet it would be no far-fetched topic, whilst speaking of her who has been called the Queen of Heaven, and regarded by the Fenelons and Catharines of faith, as the type of celestial loveliness, to treat of the ideal of womanhood in the spiritual world. Surely the higher a true culture rises, the more clearly each great family of souls becomes more true to its own genius, and the higher companionship known on earth, in the most refined society, and the worthiest families, illustrates the permanence of those traits that give man and woman their intellectual and moral characteristics. The earthly loves, which Christ came to consecrate, bear the germs of immortal uses, and are like Mary's own emblem the rose, which, though born in the earth, lifts its bloom and wafts its fragrance to the heavens. I know no more elevated illustration of this view than that given by the Milton of Italy, the solemn Dante, who, in his vision of Heaven, wanders through the celestial courts with the spirit that had been the charm of his earthly life, and who, often as he stood confounded before some new mystery, found his perplexities solved by the readier intuition of his sainted companion. The higher companionship in literature, art, society, religion, which we enjoy in this world, and