:

the earth"- or according to a marginal reading :—“ which corrupt the earth" :-corrupting, that worst method of destroying; and which sooner or later draws down a righteous retributive destruction penal and purgative, as was foreshown in the days of Noah: "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."

And even as Noah kept himself unsullied by the antediluvian corruption; so by Divine assistance must and can each living soul now in these dangerous days by sanctity of innocence or sanctity of penitence escape the corruption that is in the world through lust, though it dwell all alone without son or daughter, and as holy Job speaking of himself complained: "My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God."

"Whosoever will be saved" must so do: I who would be saved must so do. To which end certain Bible texts admonish me.

The Incarnate Truth Himself has given this Counsel of Prudence: "Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"-and this Instruction of Righteousness: "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit."

And holy men of old moved by the Holy Ghost have taught

us:

Eye servants are men pleasers: "It came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers."

Misbelief breeds misdoing: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good."

Inward defilement exudes: "They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily."

Hold fast integrity: "A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring." Mercy rejoices against judgment: "Ye shall know that I

am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for My Name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings."

Make a covenant with the eyes:

love."

Corrupt in her inordinate

Boast not thyself as if thou hadst not received it: "Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness."

There is an evil diligence: "They rose early, and corrupted all their doings."

Take heed what ye hear: "Evil communications corrupt good manners."

Beware of false teachers: " Many, which corrupt the word of God."

Believe not every spirit: "Lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

What we sow we reap:

"He that soweth to his flesh shall

of the flesh reap corruption."

The time past may suffice us: "Put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts."

Curb the tongue: "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth."

Be not wise above that which is written: "Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth." Walk not in the counsel of the ungodly: "These also resist the truth men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith." "Your

Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness: riches are corrupted."

The folly of presumption: "These 'These . . . speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption."

The besottedness of folly : "What they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves."

"They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters." "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united."

19. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."

From this opening of the celestial Temple (whatever of higher and deeper it may signify) I venture to infer a promise of future insight: so that what I know not now I may, by following on, attain to know hereafter. And because the Ark of the Testament symbolizes the Divine Son's sacred Humanity, I trust that even as now Christ is the central Mystery revealed to man on probation, so the crowning Mystery revealed to man made perfect will still be Christ: Christ in Whom dwelleth all the Fulness of the Godhead bodily; the Son Who reveals to whomsoever He will the Father; the Son Whom to have seen is to have seen the Father; the Incarnate Son in Whom the Spirit dwelleth not by measure.

O Lord God Almighty, Who out of Thy treasure bringest things new and old for man's instruction, let nature become to us a parable of grace. By Thy lightnings enlighten us and consume us not, by Thy thunders awe us without terror, sit we loose to that earth which may quake and must depart, shelter Thou us in a peaceable habitation when it shall hail coming down on the forest, and this world shall be low in a low place. Let voices of the past persuade us to repentance and faith, of the present to amendment and hope, of the revealed future to holiness and charity; yea, let all voices persuade us to charity Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. Grant us grace to hear though both our ears tingle; and to obey, though taking our life in our hand. For His sake, Whose merit exceeds our demerit, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Tempest and terror below: but Christ the Almighty above.

Tho' the depth of the deep overflow, tho' fire run along on the ground, Tho' all billows and flames make a noise,—and where is an Ark for the dove?

Tho' sorrows rejoice against joys, and death and destruction abound: Yet Jesus abolisheth death, and Jesus Who loves us we love;

His dead are renewed with a breath, His lost are the sought and the found.

Thy wanderers call and recall, Thy dead men lift out of the ground:
O Jesus, Who lovest us all, stoop low from Thy Glory above:
Where sin hath abounded make grace to abound and to superabound,
Till we gaze on Thee face unto Face, and respond to Thee love unto
Love.

CHAPTER XII.

1. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars :

The Preacher, the son of David, King in Jerusalem, has left on record: "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it; and God doeth it, that men should fear before Him. That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." Thus the past which we know, presages the future which we know not.

And Greater than that King and Wiser than that Preacher, our Lord Himself said to His disciples: "Have ye understood all these things? They say unto Him, Yea, Lord. Then said He unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." Now as every Christian "is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven," he cannot be destitute of a treasure whence to bring forth somewhat; new it may be, old it cannot but be.

Of this Apocalypse the occult unfulfilled signification will be new; the letter is old. Old, not merely because these eighteen hundred years it has warned us to flee from the wrath to come; but also because each figure appeals to our experience, even when it stands for some object unprecedented or surpassing.

A rose might preach beauty and a lily purity to a receptive mind, although the ear had not yet heard tell of the Rose of Sharon and Lily of the Valleys.

"A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars."-Whatever else may here be hidden, there stands revealed that "great wonder," weakness made strong and shame swallowed up in celestial glory. For thus the figure is set before our eyes.

Through Eve's lapse, weakness and shame devolved on woman as her characteristics, in a manner special to herself and unlike the corresponding heritage of man.

And as instinctively we personify the sun and moon as he and she, I trust there is no harm in my considering that her sun-clothing indicates how in that heaven where St. John in vision beheld her, she will be made equal with men and angels; arrayed in all human virtues, and decked with all communicable Divine graces: whilst the moon under her feet portends that her sometime infirmity of purpose and changeableness of mood have, by preventing, assisting, final grace, become immutable; she has done all and stands; from the lowest place she has gone up higher. As love of his Lord enabled St. Peter to tread the sea, so love of the same Lord sets weak woman immovable on the waves of this troublesome world, triumphantly erect, despite her own frailty, made not "like unto a wheel," amid all the changes and chances of this mortal life.

Eve's temptation and fall suggest the suitableness and safety of much (though by no means of all) ignorance, and the wholesomeness of studying what is open without prying into what is secret. We have no reason to doubt that the forbidden fruitwas genuinely "pleasant to the eyes" as such she might innocently have gazed upon it with delight, and for that delight might profitably have returned thanks to the Author and Giver of all good. Not till she became wise in her own conceit, disregarding the plain obvious meaning of words, and theorizing on her own responsibility as to physical and intellectual results, did she bring sin and death into the world. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was as it were a standing prophet ever reiterating the contingent sentence, Thou shalt surely die. This sentence, plain and unmistakable, she connived at explaining away, and being deceived, was undone.

Eve exhibits one extreme of feminine character, the Blessed Virgin the opposite extreme. Eve parleyed with a devil: holy Mary was troubled" at the salutation of an Angel. Eve sought knowledge: Mary instruction. Eve aimed at self-indulgence Mary at self-oblation. Eve, by disbelief and disobedience, brought sin to the birth: Mary, by faith and submission, Righteousness.

And yet, even as at the foot of the Cross, St. Mary Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, stood beside the "lily among thorns," the Mother of sorrows: so (I humbly hope and trust) amongst all saints of all time will stand before the Throne, Eve the beloved first Mother of us all. Who that