d have an
unperturbed conviction that the Church will have the last word in any
controversy, and that she has nothing to be alarmed at, though all the
battalions of newest thought should be set in array against her; they
should be lovingly proud of the Church, and keep their belief in her
at all times joyous, assured, and unafraid.

Theology is not for them, neither required nor obtainable, though some
have been found enterprising enough to undertake to read the _Summa_,
and naive enough to suppose that they would be theologians at the end
of it, and even at the outset ready to exchange ideas with Doctors of
Divinity on efficacious grace, and to have "views" on the authorship
of the Sacred Writings. Such aspirations either come to an untimely
end by an awakening sense of proportion, or remain as monuments to the
efforts of those "less wise," or in some unfortunate cases the mind
loses its balance and is led into error.

"Thirsting to be more than mortal,
I was even less than clay."

Let us, if we can, keep the bolder spirits on the level of what is
congruous, where the wealth that is within their reach will not be
exhausted in their lifetime, and where they may excel without offence
and without inviting either condemnation or ridicule. The sense of
fitness is a saving instinct in this as in 1 every other department of
life. When it is present, first principles come home like intuitions
to the mind, where it is absent they seem to take no hold at all, and
the understanding that should supply for the right instinct makes slow
and laborious way if it ever enters at all.

To know the relation in which one stands to any department of
knowledge is, in that department, "the beginning of wisdom". The great
Christian Basilicas furnish a parallel in the material order. They are
the house of God and the home and possession of every member of the
Church militant without distinction of age or rank or learning. But
they are not the same to each. Every one brings his own understanding
and faith and insight, and the great Church is to him what he has
capacity to understand and to receive. The great majority of
worshippers could not draw a fine of the plans or expound a law of the
construction, or set a stone in its place, yet the whole of it is
theirs and for them, and their reverent awe, even if they have no
further understanding, adds a spiritual grace and a fuller dignity to
the whole. The child, the beggar, the pilgrim, the pe