ure an excuse for not taking action in the present, action which we
know to be obligatory.

And peace is so wonderful a gift! To feel oneself in harmony with God,
to know that one is carefully seeking His will and making it one's first
and highest duty to perform it. To have found the peace of the forgiven
soul as the result of absolution, at the expense of much shame and
repugnance, it may be, but with what marvellous compensations when we go
away with a sense of restored purity and the friendship of God--life
looks so different when we look at it through purified eyes! The old
life has held us so tightly, the old sins have clung so close; and then
there was a day when we gave up self and turned to God and the Gift of
God in Jesus Christ; and then we saw how miserable and vile and naked we
had been all through the time of our boasted freedom; and we came as
children to Mary's Child and offered ourselves to Him for cleansing. We
kneel and offer to Him our wills and ask that they may be made good, and
kept good in union with His most holy will. Then we find how true this
word is: "In Me ye shall have peace: in the world ye shall have
tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." It is
true, is it not? not only as we commonly interpret, that the disciples
of Christ shall have tribulation in this world; but that much that we,
giving ourselves to the world, counted joy, was in reality tribulation,
and we are glad to be rid of it.

A babe is born to bliss us bring.
I heard a maid lulley and sing.
She said: "Dear Son, leave Thy weeping:
Thy, Father is the King of bliss."
Now sing we with Angelis:
Gloria in excelsis.

"Lulley," she said and sung also,
"My own dear Son, why are Thou wo?
Have I not done as I should do?
Now sing we with Angelis:
Gloria in excelsis.

"Nay, dear mother, for thee weep I nought,
But for the woe that shall be wrought
To Me ere I mankind have bought.
Was never sorrow like it i-wis."
Now sing we with Angelis:
Gloria in excelsis.

"Peace, dear Son! Thou grievest me sore:
Thou art my child, I have no more.
Should I see men mine own Son slay?
Alas, my dear Son, what means all this?"
Now sing we with Angelis:
Gloria in excelsis.

"My hands, Mother, that ye now see,
Shall be nailed to a tree;
My feet also fast shall be,