was the filial abnegation of that Boy. For "He was subject to them." That is all. We would question of the ministering spirits something of those precious years, that wonderful childhood, that gracious youth, that benignant early manhood-but all is silence. There we must leave Him in that humble cottage beneath the shadow of the Galilean mountains, with the angels for His playfellows while He grows in grace with God and man.

The mystery of the Baptism opens up the three years; henceforth in all the journeyings by mountain and valley, by lake and river, the angels throng the world's Saviour with adoring love, seeking to compensate His tender heart for the scorn, neglect, and hatred of His best beloved creatures; seeking also to drown the discord of human coarseness, by those entrancing melodies with which the heaven is echoing; now swelling to the full diapason of the angelic choirs, anon whispering low the liquid tones as of trembling flageolets, of one hovering spirit, they would rock His soul in ecstacy. Imagination presents the thought and love dwells on it caressingly that angels, hovering always over Him, held Him in their arms when the Son of man was weary and would rest; that when night fell upon the mountains of Judea, and the stars mirrored themselves in Genesareth, while the owls hooted amid the palm trees of Galilee and all the world of humanity was wrapped in slumber, the heavenly hosts vied with each other in ministering unto Him. Imagination also pictures the multitude who hung above the City of His Tears, and watched shudderingly the horrors of those last hours. The angel of Gethsemane is not named, we know not who it was who with adoring love swept to the solace of that bleeding agony beneath those gnarled and knotted olive trees, while His chosen ones slept. We do not know even whether it were one of the seven, the star upon his brow dimmed in the eclipse shed over all heavenly things by that mighty sorrow. We cannot think it the martial Michael-rather we picture him bending from the crystal battlements with sword half drawn, restrained by the will of Omnipotence and holding back his angelic cohorts by the silence of his own agonized obedience. A moment of expectant doubt pulsates also over the waiting hierarchy when they hear that prayer for the passing of the chalice.

The action of Peter in cutting off the ear of the high priest's servant was witnessed rejoicingly, if we may so speak, and the words of our Saviour's rebuke: "Thinkest thou that I cannot ask my Father and He will give me presently twelve legions of angels?" must have thrilled through the watching hosts as they turned expectantly towards the throne. But what words of human tongue can voice, what reaching of human intelligence can realize the angelic wrath and horror of those onlooking throngs?

The lashes fall upon that tender Flesh while angels' tears fall with them in a helpless pity; the tears fall too upon the thorncrowned head in a loving effort to cool its fever. The rabble rout, soldiers, Levites, lawyers, followed the cross-laden One up the long ascent; so too do the angels-and when the nails were crushed through these nerves more delicately sensitive than any other of woman born, the crystal drops came down in a very torrent, mingling with the Precious Blood. Hardly could the watchers be restrained from sustaining the sacred Form in their tender arms while the cross is dropped into its socket, thus racking with exquisite agony every joint and fibre. But they may not offer one slightest alleviation beyond their tears. Unable to tear themselves away from the scene, they bow their blanched faces, cover them with their trembling wings and so await the end. Is it possible to imagine a silence of agonized sorrow in God's glad heaven?

But the angels of the Resurrection are radiant with recovered joy; their spotless garments are lustrous with the recovered lights of heavenly rejoicings; and their vibrant hallelujahs fill the air about that place of skulls where so late they hung mute over the tragedy the last cry of which yet throbs along the years in echoes that miss, to us, the despairing cadence which echoes have, in the promises of hope and faith. So too, the celestial vicars who replaced Him on the hill of the Ascension. Henceforth naught of earthly woe can cloud the brightness of their natures, dim the glories of their heaven.

But Mary remains upon the earth and angels still watch and guard her life, when, at length she pays the debt of mortality, they bear her in rejoicing to the throne prepared for her. The legend is that after the crucifixion the Mother dwelt with her foster child, St. John, and her time was spent mostly in pilgrimages to one or the other of the scenes of her Son's passion. One day she experienced intense longing to see her son once more, and presently an angel, clothed in light as with a garment, appeared and said:

"Hail, O Mary! blessed by Him who has given salvation to Israel! I bring thee here a branch of palm gathered in Paradise; command that it be carried before thy bier in the day of thy death; for in three days thy soul shall leave thy body and thou shalt enter into Paradise, where thy Son awaits thy coming."

Then Mary asks the angel his name, which he does not willingly tell, but says it is the Great and the Wonderful. She also asks that her soul, when delivered from her body, may not be affrighted by any spirit of darkness, and that no evil angel be allowed to have any power over her. Also, that the Apostles

may be united around her before she dies. The angel accedes to her request; the Apostles are scattered, but, says the angel, "He who transported the prophet Habakuk from Judea to Babylon by the hair of his head, can as easily bring hither the Apostles. And fear not thou the evil spirit, for hast thou not bruised his head and destroyed his kingdom?" Then the angel departed into Heaven and the palm branch which he had left behind him shed light from every leaf and sparkled as the stars. The Mother made her preparations and at the same moment John, who was preaching at Ephesus and Peter at Antioch, and all the other Apostles, dispersed about the world, were suddenly caught up by a miraculous power and found themselves before the door of the habitation of their queen.

She thanked and blessed them and gave the palm into St. John's hands. She prayed and they all wept, and about the third hour of the night, while St. John stood at the foot of the bed and St. Peter at the head, a mighty sound filled the house and a delicious perfume. Our Saviour, accompanied by a countless throng of angels, patriarchs and prophets, appeared and surrounded the bed singing hymns of joy. Then our Saviour said: "Arise, my beloved, mine elect! come with me from Lebanon, my espoused; receive the crown that was destined for thee!" And Mary replied: "My heart is ready; for it is written of me that I should do thy will." Again there was singing by the attendant angels, and Mary's soul, leaving her body, was received into the arms of her Son, and by Him was carried into Heaven. The Apostles looked up, saying: "Oh, most prudent Virgin, remember us when thou comest to glory!" And the angels who received her sang: Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness leaning upon her Beloved? She is fairer than all the daughters of Jerusalem."

The body of the Mother remained on earth, and three among the virgins prepared to wash and clothe it in a shroud. Then the Apostles took her up reverently and placed her on a bier, and John, carrying the celestial palm, went before. Peter intoned the 114th Psalm, "In exitu Israel de Egypto."

On the third day our Saviour said to the angels:

"What honor shall I confer on her who was my Mother according to the flesh?" And they answered: "Lord, suffer not that body which was Thy temple and Thy dwelling-place to see corruption, but place her beside Thee on Thy throne in heaven." And our Saviour consented; and the Archangel Michael brought unto the Lord the glorious soul of our Lady. And the Lord said: "Rise up, my dove, my undefiled, for thou shalt not remain. in the darkness of the grave nor shalt thou see corruption," and immediately the soul of Mary rejoined her body and she rose up

glorious from the tomb and ascended into Heaven surrounded and welcomed by troops of angels blowing their silver trumpets, touching their golden lutes and singing and rejoicing as they sang: "Who is she that riseth as the morning, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, and terrible as an army set in array."

Meantime the Apostle John visits the tomb to find it empty, hears the story of the translation from an angel and relates it to the others. One of the Apostles was absent-the same Thomas who had doubted of the risen Saviour. He would not believe the marvellous story and insisted that the tomb should be opened for his inspection. It was found to be full of lilies and roses fresh with the dews and fragrant with the perfumes of Paradise.

Even the pagan Virgil had endeavored to comprehend the natures of these spirits, for he speaks thus of them: "They boast ethereal vigor and are formed from seeds of heavenly birth."

Dante describes the angelic boatman, "the bird of God," gathering into his boat the souls whom Purgatorial fires are to cleanse. Also he saw "forth issuing descend beneath, two angels, with two flame-illumined swords, broken and mutilated of their points," to guard the entrance of Purgatory against the attempts of Satan to enter there. The gate of Purgatory is opened for Dante and his companion by the angel deputed by St. Peter to keep it, and angels lead them about and explain what they see.

He witnesses, while in Paradise, the assumption of the Blessed Virgin by her Son. In the ninth Heaven he sees the three hierarchies, the nine choirs, classified and named by Dionysius the Areopagite, who, having known St. Paul intimately at Athens, heard from his lips many of the revelations made to him when wrapped into the third Heaven.

The place of these hierarchies is in succession beyond the chosen seven who stand before the Throne. They each comprise three choirs.

The first contains the seraphim. Lost in the contemplation of the perfections of their Creator, they are all on fire from love of Him, and from their numbers arises ever the flame of an adoration most pleasing to Him. The cherubim, wisest of the angelic host, chant ever their hymns of praise to Him who gifted them with a wisdom approaching nearest to His own. The thrones, so called because these resplendent angels are raised above all the inferior hierarchies, to whom they carry the mandates of their King, sharing with the seraphim and cherubim the privilege of seeing the truth clearly in God Himself.

The second hierarchy comprises the dominations, the principalities and the powers.

The dominations rule over all the angelic orders charged with the execution of the commands of God.

The principalities receive their orders from the dominations. and transmit them to the others.

The powers are invested with a special authority. They are commissioned to remove obstacles that interfere with the execution of the Divine commands; they banish the evil spirits who continually besiege kingdoms, in order to turn them from their appointed end.

The third hierarchy comprise virtues, archangels and angels.

The virtues by their name indicate strength. They preside over the material world and the laws that regulate it, maintaining order in each department.

The archangels have in charge the direction of the government of provinces, dioceses, religious bodies; between them and us exists a constant intercourse, as was shadowed forth by the ladder of Jacob.

The last order is that of the angels. The word means messenger, and is common to all the heavenly spirits, since they are all employed to notify of the Divine thoughts. To this office the higher angels add certain prerogatives from which they derive their peculiar names. The angels of the last choir of the last hierarchy, adding nothing to the ordinary occupation of envoys, retain the simple name. They more directly and intimately watch over the two-fold life of man.

Tasso, languishing in his prison, has visions of angels, and Petrarch was not oblivious of their beauty in his dreams of Laura. Goethe sings of them in the second part of Faust.

Spencer sees their "golden pinions cleave the flitting skies like flying pursuivants." He believed in guardian angels:

"They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,

And their bright squadrons round about us plant,
And all for love and nothing for reward."

The iconoclastic spirit of the English reformers wrought destruction not only to many priceless works of human art, but would have made of the mind of man a tabula rasa to receive only the cold, soulless, hopeless, dark and dreary ideas of God and religion which they had formulated out of a fanaticism which eliminated all of spiritual or of supernatural from the Deity, making Him a being to their own image and likeness—at once repulsive and repulsing. Wordsworth realized the debasing effect and thus voiced his protest: