It is true that there is always something a little terrible about the experiences of the separated saints. They are not quite natural, and therefore not quite spiritual. Where the conversion is not too subjective to last, the New Life often has to grow in an atmosphere of fear—fear of sin and fear of hell, or fear even of the homely shapes of earth, which the separated Saint sees unredeemed, as vessels of wrath. It is for our sins that the Precious Blood does not flow in the veins of Christ’s Body only. As long ago on Calvary, it is still poured upon the ground. The spear of schism pierces his side, and thereout flows blood and water—the sacraments poured out in death. It is through our guilt that men such as James Weller obtain their Particular Mercies. We have pierced his heart, and it is because his heart is broken that there is grace not only for us but for all the children of God that are scattered abroad. August _Month of the Most Pure Heart of Mary_ The sun has set, but there is still colour in the sky and colour on the sea. Pale streaks of rose lie along the horizon, both on cloud and on water. The sea, where it meets the sky is a lightless pink, where it touches the land a lightless blue. It is strange, this lightless colour of the sea. Under all the riches of its summer twilight changes the sea seems lifeless. There is a deadness too in the sky now that the sun has gone. It is all like a painted memory of something once seen, a dream of something once alive. Then a wind goes over the waters, and suddenly a point of living light is kindled, as the first star shines out in the lifeless sky. The planet named long ago after the goddess of beauty is still the star of the sleeping August sea. It shines one tiny brilliant point of light in all that rose-blue lifelessness of sky and sea. Round it and beneath it clouds and water waken into darkness, so that by the time the other stars have kindled, and the moon has risen, the whole dead scene has come to life again in glowing depths of gold and blue. * * * * * The human race flowered in Mary. Sown in the garden of man’s universal dream, tended and watered by the Law of the chosen race, the Rose of Sharon bloomed to be fertilised by Godhead. Mary stands alone as the single perfect flower brought forth by that sad sowing of the human race. Rich was the soil and many were the gardeners, yet only one blossom opened perfectly to the sun.