ese sparkling
and costly jewels and the shapeless clod or sand which we trample
under foot!

If we now look for a moment into the vegetable kingdom, we see this
glorification of matter still more wonderfully displayed. Of what are
all plants composed? They are all composed of four elements of
matter, which have no remarkable beauty of their own. In scientific
language they are called carbon or charcoal, oxygen, hydrogen, and
nitrogen. By the power and the laws of life these are transformed
into that endless variety of beauty and color, odor and taste, so
striking in the vegetable world. Hence, the most beautiful flowers,
and their exquisite perfumes, as well as the delicious fruits to
which they give birth, are all made of the very same elements of
matter as the bark, the wood, and the root of the tree that bears
them. Yet, what a difference between the coarse tree and the delicate
flower! What a difference, too, between the tasteless bark or the
wood of the tree, and the luscious fruit that hangs in clusters from
its branches!

Now if, in the natural order, God can and does transform coarse and
shapeless matter into forms so beautiful and so glorious, what shall
we say of the beauty and perfection into which He will change our
vile bodies! For all these transformations which we now witness
belong to the natural order, and are the result of the laws which
govern matter in this world of imperfection; whereas our
transformation in the resurrection depends on the immediate act of
God's almighty power. The difference, therefore, between our present
corruptible body and the glorified body, will be greater by far than
the difference we now see between charcoal and the diamond, or
between the exquisitely shaped flower and the coarse shrub that bears
it.

Having said this much to aid us in forming some idea of the glorified
body, we shall now proceed to examine one of its attributes, which
St. Paul mentions, when he says: "It is sown in dishonor, it shall
rise in glory."* Our bodies were indeed sown in dishonor, in the
company of worms, and a prey to corruption. They had been honored by
the presence of an immortal spirit, the very image of the living God.
They had been honored by the Holy Ghost, who made them His temple.
They had been honored, too, by the presence of Jesus Christ, who made
them His tabernacle, every time we received Him in holy communion.
But death has struck them down; the spirit has fled; they lie cold