[88] Spanish, se parte un pelo en el aire; an idiomatic expression (also written cortar or hender un cabello), signifying the possession of great penetration, keenness, dexterity; quick perception, much perspicacity. Cf. the common phrases, "to fish for things in the air," "to catch them while flying," etc. (Dominguez). The saying perhaps originated in the ability of a good swordsman to cut a hair in two instantly with his sword. [89] Spanish, dos palos; meaning the two wooden ships used for the Acapulco trade, which was the sole support of the colony. [90] That is, "mindless, or silly, or without sense;" a neat and keen play on words. The meaning evidently is, that knowledge of law does not consist in mere remembrance of law terms, but in discerning their force and power.--Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A. [91] "They feared to lose temporal goods, and did not reflect on the life eternal; and thus they lost both." [92] This form of bodily mortification can be understood only by those who live in hot countries. In Europa it is no mortification at all, and there is no religious who does not practice it, as being a precept of the rules, which command that neither food nor drink be taken outside of fixed hours. But in intertropical countries, with the suffocating heat and the continual perspiration it is a necessity to drink water and quench one's thirst with great frequency; and on this account the superiors have to grant dispensations from some prescribed usages that are, if not impossible, exceedingly difficult to fulfil in those countries. As a compensation, there are other forms of mortification which in cold countries are difficult to practice, such as sleeping on the ground, which in the regions that are mentioned above do not merit even the name of mortification.--Fray Tirso López. [93] Spanish, cilicios: a term originally derived from the name Cilicia, from which country was brought in ancient times a cloth woven of hair, called therefore cilicium; applied to a belt or girdle of haircloth, or of metallic wires woven together, often with projecting points of metal, worn next to the skin by way of mortifying the flesh. [94] "No one can serve two masters;" in verse 13 of the sixteenth (not seventeenth, as in our text) chapter of Luke's gospel. [95] Although difficulties arise in obeying two superiors, it is not impossible, and much less when the respective jurisdiction of each is over different activities--as occurs in the missions and villages directed by religious, in which the superior of the order is responsible for his subordinates conducting themselves as they should in their private lives, and the vicar or bishop watches to see that they are punctual in the discharge of their ministry as missionaries or parish priests. In such cases the gospel text, which speaks of those who command opposite things, does not properly apply.--Fray Tirso López.