arled clubs, without a sign of life in
the seemingly dead stick. One who sees that sight may find a new beauty
and meaning in the mystic words, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." It
is not merely the connection between branch and stem common to all trees;
not merely the exhilarating and seemingly inspiring properties of the
grape, which made the very heathen look upon it as the sacred and
miraculous fruit, the special gift of God; not merely the pruning out of
the unfruitful branches, to be burned as firewood--not merely these, but
the seeming death of the Vine, shorn of all its beauty, its fruitfulness,
of every branch and twig which it had borne the year before, and left
unsightly and seemingly ruined, to its winter sleep; and then bursting
forth again by an irresistible inward life into fresh branches, spreading
and trailing far and wide, and tossing their golden tendrils to the sky.
This thought surely--the emblem of the living Church, springing from the
corpse of the dead Christ, who yet should rise to be alive for
evermore--enters into, it may be forms an integral part of, the meaning
of that prophecy of all prophecies.

_Prose Idylls_. 1864.

SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.

MAY 1.
St. Philip and St. James, Apostles and Martyrs.

Christ's cross says still, and will say to all Eternity, "Wouldst thou be
good? Wouldst thou be like God? Then work and dare, and if need be,
suffer for thy fellow-men." On the Cross Christ consecrated, and as it
were offered to the Father in His own body, all loving actions, unselfish
actions, merciful actions, heroic actions, which man has done or ever
will do. From Him, from His spirit, their strength came; and therefore
He is not ashamed to call them brethren. He is the King of the noble
army of martyrs; of all who suffer for love and truth and justice' sake;
and to all such He says, thou hast put on My likeness; thou hast suffered
for My sake, and I too have suffered for thy sake, and enabled thee to
suffer likewise, and in Me thou too art a Son of God, in whom the Father
is well pleased.

_Sermons_.

Feast of the Ascension.

"Lo, I am with you always," said the Blessed One before He ascended to
the Father. And this is the Lord who we fancy is gone away far above the
stars till the end of time! Oh, my friends, rather bow your heads before
Him at this moment! For here He is among us now, listening to every
thought of our poor simple hearts. He is