keep his place. The child's voice was sweetest music in Katharine's ears and the changing expressions on his face gave her much food for thought. How like his father he was! Every glance of his blue eyes-every bright, merry look brought her husband's image vividly before her. As the boy grew, and the resemblance became stronger, Katharine's thoughts strayed more and more. into the forbidden past. The last few days she had almost lived in a dream.

When it had become known, seven years ago, that Philip Halbrook's wife had left him, there were many who said, "I told you so," for never were two natures more utterly unlike. Many things had influenced Katharine Hyde to marry Philip Halbrook, but love was not the foremost. She was so young, so full of theories, so impressed with her mission-which she had decided was the elevation of her sex to a higher intellectual and spiritual altitude-that love did not enter much into her scheme of life, except when it could be read "char ity." But she felt that a married woman had more weight and greater scope than one who was single. She had a fortune that needed looking after and she was alone in the world. Philip was professor of mathematics in one of the large colleges, and as his wife she would have a position from which she could reach down and out and carry into effect many of her cherished schemes.

Incidentally, she was fond of him; and so she married him. Katharine was a tall, dark girl, given to much thinking and dreaming. She had, after her own fashion, analyzed and dissected life and human nature, and to really vital forces had failed to give their true value. Along certain lines her character was abnormally developed, in other directions starved and stunted. Philip Halbrook did not fully realize this; he saw in her a sweet, grave girl much given to society and women's clubs, but he felt sure that in time he could

balance more truly a nature he knew to be fine. He thought himself to be the equalizing force she needed, for he was a man young in years and eternally young in heart; one who lived much upon the surface of things-ignoring or skimming lightly over life's tragedies.

At first he had laughed at her flights and fancies had treated her as a child, to be petted and humored. But his laughing did no good-in less than a year she went away, leaving no word behind.

For the last two years she and her boy had lived quietly in this little Italian. village, shut out from the world; and here in her solitude and enforced inaction she had thought deeply, had dreamed dreams, and had learned much.

Hercules' labors broke off suddenly in the middle, as did Katharine's thoughts, and the child's vivid face was lifted to hers.

"Mama, that was such a jolly man who played with me this morning," he said. "I've seen him 'round for several days, but he never spoke to me before."

"What kind of man is he-how does he look?" she asked, trying to bring her mind back from the past.

"Oh, I don't know zackly, but he's just the kind I like. He told me to be. sure to come back after lunch; may I?" "Perhaps," she answered, absently. He read aloud another paragraph from his book, then:

"Mama, he asked me my name."
"Yes?"

"And I said Philip Dare Halbrook, and then he kissed me and walked away, and-oh, mama, there he is now, coming up here!"

The boy sprang to his feet and ran down the steps; he met the man half way and clasped his hands.

"I'm so glad you came," he cried in childish delight, "I was just telling my mama how awfully nice you are."

Hand in hand they came up the walk. Katharine's heart contracted with sudden exquisite pain, her straight black brows met above the sombre, tragic eyes.

"How like-how very like they are!" was the only thought that took definite shape in the chaos of her mind. In the excess of her emotion she could scarcely breathe, but she raised herself on her elbow and held out a thin hand that was cold and trembled.

"Philip," she faltered.

He took her hand in both his own but said nothing. The child stood by, regarding them with wondering eyes.

"Run to Lisa, dear," said Katharine, turning to him, "and tell her there will be company to lunch; then go into the garden and get some grapes to put on ice." "Why-why did you never tell me?" Philip demanded as soon as the boy had left them. His deep voice held an undertone of pain and tenderness that brought a faint flush to Katharine's cheek.

"What was the use?" she answered. "His mere existence did not change our natures-that was where lay the trouble. I did not want you to love me again only because of him, I-"

"I mean the accident, Katharine," he interrupted. "I had traced you to Rome and heard of it there. Is there nothing that can be done?"

"Nothing, Philip; the doctors in Vienna pronounced upon me long agothe spine was hopelessly injured."

With a stifled groan he bowed his head on the hand he held. With a sudden lighting of her eyes she felt his tears hot upon it. She laid the other caressingly on the short, thick curls of his hair.

"Don't!" she whispered. "I do not mind so very much. I have learned the service of waiting-I have readjusted myself to life and it isn't so bad now." He did not answer, and for a space there was silence between them.

"Katharine," he said presently, when he could control his voice, "you were wrong-I had never ceased loving you."

"You had begun to; and how can I blame you in the light of these after years? I must have been horrible!"

"And you are wrong about the boy, too," he continued; "his mere existence did make a difference. He was two years old when I first heard of him. Burke wrote me about it after he had met you in Berlin-and the thought that I had a child-a son-has worked like leaven. I have grown to realize that there are heights and depths of which I never dreamed before, and-"

She interrupted him eagerly. "That is it! we were both wrong, you undervaluing and transgressing certain spiritual laws and I making the same mistake in the natural order. But he he is very like you."

"He is like you in depth of feeling," Philip answered.

She held out her hands to him and smiled through her tears.

SECOND PART-FIVE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES-FIRST MYSTERY-THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN-PRAYER AND RESIGNATION TO THE WILL OF GOD.

C

HRIST Himself in this mystery tells us to "Pray, lest ye enter into temptation" (Luke xxii, 40). How often have we been taught by an unfortunate experience the dire consequences attending the neglect of this precept of our Blessed Lord? In times of temptation we depend on our own resources and fall headlong into temptation, whereas, if we had recourse to the means taught us-to prayer-we would have come off victors and not victims.

Christ Himself, being in agony, prays the longer. He prays to His heavenly Father that the chalice of His sufferings may pass from Him; but He prays with absolute resignation to the will of God"not My will but Thine be done" (Luke xxii, 42). Our prayers cannot be as efficacious as Christ's, nor our resignation to the will of God so absolutely complete; but we can follow His example, so far as in us lies. In our tribulations and sufferings does it not too often happen that we neglect prayer altogether, and give ourselves up to murmurings and internal rebellion against the will of God? This is far from the lesson taught us in this mystery of the Rosary. It is far from the example of our Lord, as prophesied by David and fulfilled by Him: "He shall cry to Me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation; I will deliver him and I will glorify him" (Psalm lxxxx, v. 15). It has pleased God to make prayer the ordinary means by which we can gain our eternal salvation.

This salvation is of the utmost importance to us, and the use of prayer is a condition for the obtaining of it. We can scarcely receive the sacraments worthily without it, and hence its great importance for drawing down the grace of God into our souls. Without the grace of God we cannot hope for salvation. By prayer we ordinarily receive the grace of God, each fervent prayer bringing down a new grace. Prayer is thus a golden channel through which the graces and blessings of God flow to our souls. Again, the very knowledge of our own weakness ought to impel us to the practice of prayer. If we look back upon that life of ours, what shall we see but relapse after relapse into sin, commandments transgressed, duties unfulfilled, good resolutions broken, promises of amendment violated, habits of sin contracted? and all this because of the neglect of prayer. Has not the sword of prayer given the saints their victories? "Ask and you shall receive," has been said to us no less than to them; but we ask not, or ask amiss, and hence our failures. Learn this lesson well and put it often into practice-prayer brings victory.

SECOND MYSTERY-THE SCOURGING AT THE PILLAR-MORTIFICATION OF THE SENSES.

It is through the instrumentality of the senses that the soul of man receives its knowledge, and, therefore, if only the knowledge of good were obtained through the senses they would be worthy of the greatest care and most honorable consideration. But unfortunatetly they are not always occupied in the pursuit of good and very frequently they are em

ployed in the pursuit of evil, and this is the reason for their mortification. The senses are called the windows of the soul, and because the death of the soul in the supernatural order of grace has frequently entered through their instrumentality they are deserving of being closed in death-mortification. "Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth," says St. Paul to the Colossians (iii, 5.) And again St. Paul says to the Romans, chapt. viii, 12, 13: "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you shall die; but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live." This mortification of the senses does not mean the sudden and total destruction of the senses, but only such gradual and partial destruction as will bring them into due and proper subjection to the soul. We can mortify the deeds of the flesh by fasting and abstinence, and the wounds in the body of our Blessed Lord, after His scourging at the pillar, call upon us for the practice of this special virtue of abstinence and of fasting which is the act of this special virtue. Abstinence, as the name implies, imports the subtraction of food, and is a virtue only when regulated by reason. "And with knowledge," join "abstinence" (St. Peter 2d Epistle i, 6). It is a special virtue because it withdraws man from the special delight he enjoys in eating good and expensive food. Every moral virtue preserves the good of the reason from the attacks of the passions, and therefore wherever a special influence is found by means of which passion withdraws a man from the good of his reason there is necessity for a special virtue to counteract this special influence. Such an influence is found in the delights of the table; and hence the special virtue of abstinence to operate against this evil influence leading on its victims to their eternal ruin. Moreover, fasting is an act of this special virtue;

for it consists in abstaining from food and everything else unlawful; principally for three reasons: First, for repressing the concupiscences of the flesh; second, for the elevation of the mind above the lower things so that it may the more freely contemplate the higher things; third, for satisfying the divine. justice for our sins, according to the saying of the Prophet Joel: "Now therefore saith the Lord: Be converted to Me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning (ii, 12). The Church recognizes the need on our part of fasting and abstinence, and hence sets apart under precept certain days and seasons for this practice by the faithful. In fine, St. Augustine says of fasting: "It cleanses the soul, elevates the mind, subjects one's flesh to his spirit, makes the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, extinguishes the fires of lust, and enkindles the true light of chastity" (Sermo 220 de Temp).

THIRD MYSTERY-THE CROWNING WITH

THORNS-MEEKNESS.

Nothing in the entire passion of Christ was more calculated to arouse His just anger than the sight of an anarchist soldiery, without orders from any one, but moved by their own innate cruelty and barbarity, platting a crown of sharp thorns, placing it upon His sacred head. and forcing the thorns to pierce into His brain; and instead of just indignation and anger He gives us a most glorious example of meekness, which is nothing else than that virtue which moderates anger within us. It is quite true that in all of His passion and in His death He, to the letter, fulfilled the prophecy of Isaias (liii, 7): "He was offered because it was His own will, and He opened not His mouth; He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as at lamb before His shearer, and shall not open His mouth." His meekness during His life, and especially during the

sufferings of His holy passion, and particularly at the scene of the crowning with thorns, was characteristic of this "Lamb of God, Who taketh away the sins of the world." But it teaches us a lesson in meekness which He strongly recommends for our imitation. "Learn

of Me for I am meek" (Matt. xi, 29). And in Ecclesiasticus (x, 31) we have the command of the Holy Ghost: "My son, keep thy soul in meekness."

Meekness helps us to suppress those feelings of anger within us, caused by the sarcasm, raillery or mockery of others. It helps us to destroy within us that anger which, if permitted to break forth, becomes the fruitful mother of a dangerous progeny. St. Thomas expounds the teaching of St. Gregory regarding the six daughters of anger thus: "I respond that anger is able to be considered in three ways: in one way according as it is in the heart, and thus considered two vices are born of anger. One vice on the part of him against whom the man is angry, whom he reputes unworthy in that he has done any such thing against himself, and thus there is indignation. The second vice. is on his own part, in so far as he excogitates different ways of revenge, and fills his mind with such thoughts, according to the saying of Job (xi, 2): 'Will a wise man answer as if he were speaking in the wind, and fill his stomach with burning heat?' And this is called commotion of the mind.

"In another way, anger is considered as it is in the word; and thus from anger proceeds a twofold deordination: one, in this way, that a man demonstrates his anger by his mode of speech, as has been said of him (Art. v of this question) who calls his brother a 'fool;' and this is called loud-mouthed shouting, by which is understood inordinate and confused speech. There is another deordination, according to which some one breaks out into injurious words, which, indeed if they be uttered against God,

will be blasphemy; but, if against the neighbor, contumely.

"In a third way, anger is considered, according as it proceeds even to some deed, and thus from anger arise quarrels; by which are understood all injuries borne to the neighbor on account of anger" (2nda 2nda Q. clviii, Art. vii).

These, then, are the six uncomely daughters of anger so beautifully accounted for by St. Thomas, as they proceed from the heart, word and deed of the angry man, and against all of which and their unhappy consequences the virtue of meekness would be a sovereign preservative. How many unholy desires of domination, antipathies, petty jealousies, rancors and loud-mouthedness, which now disturb the peace and charity of families and communities would disappear, if this virtue found a responsive home in those hearts that are now the dens of anger and her nefarious offspring?

"Patience," says Prosper, "consists in bearing the evils of others." "Patience," says Cicero, "is a voluntary and lasting endurance of arduous and difficult things for the sake of honor and utility." Let us compare the action of our Blessed Lord, bearing His cross up the hill of Calvary and falling three times under its weight and under His own fatigue and weakness from loss of blood, and see how it accords with these definitions. He most certainly bore in silence the evils heaped upon Him by others. His most certainly was a voluntary and lasting endurance of arduous and most difficult things for the honor of God and the salvation of men. Christ, bearing His cross in His weakness, after the other sufferings of His passion, is patience defined by a living exemplar-patience not personified, but personalized. We must imitate this example of patience. "Then