ed, and to use the
language of the gospel, born again.

In this lies his true beauty. By this, far more than by a vain
conformity, an exterior imitation, he is a Christ.

He also bears the affliction of the world, and if we will look into the
very depths of his soul we must give this word affliction the largest
possible meaning for him as for Jesus. By their pity they bore the
physical sufferings of humanity, but their overwhelming anguish was
something far different from this, it was the birth-throes of the
divine. They suffer, because in them the Word is made flesh, and at
Gethsemane, as under the olive-trees of Greccio, they are in agony
"because their own received them not."

Yes, St. Francis forever felt the travail of the transformation taking
place in the womb of humanity, going forward to its divine destiny, and
he offered himself, a living oblation, that in him might take place the
mysterious palingenesis.

Do we now understand his pain? He was trembling for the mystery of the
gospel. There is in him something which reminds us of the tremor of life
when it stands face to face with death, something by so much the more
painful as we have here to do with moral life.

This explains how the man who would run after ruffians that he might
make disciples of them could be pitiless toward his fellow-laborers who
by an indiscreet, however well-intentioned, zeal forgot their vocation
and would transform their Order into a scientific institute.

Under pretext of putting learning at the service of God and of religion,
the Church had fostered the worst of vices, pride. According to some it
is her title to glory, but it will be her greatest shame.

Must we renounce the use of this weapon against the enemies of the
faith? she asks. But can you imagine Jesus joining the school of the
rabbins under the pretext of learning how to reply to them, enfeebling
his thought by their dialectic subtleties and fantastic exegesis? He
might perhaps have been a great doctor, but would he have become the
Saviour of the world? You feel that he would not.

When we hear preachers going into raptures over the marvellous spread of
the gospel preached by twelve poor fishermen of Galilee, might we not
point out to them that the miracle is at once more and less astounding
than they say? More--for among the twelve several returned to the shores
of their charming lake, and forgetful of the mystic net, thought of the
Crucified One, if they though