she will use every earthly
thing to her honour, though she considers no ointment wasted, however
precious, that is spilled by love over her feet, yet her essential glory
does not lie in these things. She is _all glorious within_, whether or
not her _vesture is of gold_, for she is a _King's Daughter_. She is,
essentially, as glorious in the Catacombs as in the Roman basilicas; as
lovely in the barefooted friar as in the robed and sceptred Vicar of
Christ; as majestic in Christ naked on the Cross as in Christ ascended
and enthroned in heaven.

Yet, since she is His Majesty on earth, she has a right to all that
earth can give. All _the beasts of the field are hers, and the cattle on
a thousand hills_, all the stars of heaven and the jewels of earth; all
the things in the world are hers by Divine right.

_All things are hers, for she is Christ's._ Yet, nevertheless, _she will
suffer the loss of all things_ sooner than lose Him.

III

SANCTITY AND SIN

_Holy, Holy, Holy!_--IS. VI. 3.

Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners_. I TIM. I. 15.

A very different pair of charges--and far more vital--than those more or
less economic accusations of worldliness and otherworldliness which we
have just considered, concern the standards of goodness preached by the
Church and her own alleged incapacity to live up to them. These may be
briefly summed up by saying that one-half the world considers the Church
too holy for human life, and the other half, not holy enough. We may
name these critics, respectively, the Pagan and the Puritan.

I. It is the Pagan who charges her with excessive Holiness.

"You Catholics," he tells us, "are far too hard on sin and not nearly
indulgent enough towards poor human nature. Let me take as an instance
the sins of the flesh. Now here is a set of desires implanted by God or
Nature (as you choose to name the Power behind life) for wise and
indeed essential purposes. These desires are probably the very fiercest
known to man and certainly the most alluring; and human nature is, as we
know, an extraordinarily inconsistent and vacillating thing. Now I am
aware that the abuse of these passions leads to disaster and that Nature
has her inexorable laws and penalties; but you Catholics add a new
horror to life by an absurd and irrational insistence on the offence
that this abuse causes before God. For not only do you fiercely denounce
the "acts of sin," as you name them, but you presume