ough
in their Contemplation.

II. Now the Life of our Divine Lord exhibits, of course, both the Active
and the Contemplative elements that have always distinguished the Life
of His Church.

For three years He set Himself to the work of preaching His Revelation
and establishing the Church that was to be its organ through all the
centuries. He went about, therefore, freely and swiftly, now in town,
now in country. He laid down His Divine principles and presented His
Divine credentials, at marriage feasts, in market-places, in country
roads, in crowded streets, and in private houses. He wrought the works
of mercy, spiritual and corporal, that were to be the types of all works
of mercy ever afterwards. He gave spiritual and ascetic teaching on the
Mount of Beatitudes, dogmatic instructions in Capharnaum and the
wilderness to the east of Galilee, and mystical discourses in the Upper
Chamber of Jerusalem and the temple courts. His activities and His
proselytisms were unbounded. He broke up domestic circles and the
routine of offices. He called the young man from his estates and Matthew
from custom-house and James and John from their father's fishing
business. He made a final demonstration of His unlimited claim on
humanity in His Procession on Palm Sunday, and on Ascension Day
ratified and commissioned the proselytizing activities of His Church for
ever in His tremendous charge to the Apostolic band. _Going, therefore,
teach ye all nations ... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you; and behold I am with you all the days, even to the
consummation of the world._

Yet this, it must be remembered, was not only not the whole of His Life
on earth, it was not even a very considerable part of it, if reckoned by
years. For three years He was active, but for thirty He was retired in
the house of Nazareth; and even those three years are again and again
broken by retirement. He is now in the wilderness for forty days, now on
the mountain all night in prayer, now bidding His disciples come apart
and rest themselves. The very climax of His ministry too was wrought in
silence and solitude. He removed Himself _about a stone's throw_ in the
garden of Gethsemane from those who loved Him best; He broke His silence
on the Cross to bid farewell even to His holy Mother herself. Above all,
he explicitly and emphatically commended the Life of Contemplative
Prayer as the highest that can be lived on earth, telling Mart