words can we say than, "Who was born of the Virgin
Mary"? For what more beautiful sight on earth than a young mother with
her babe upon her knee? Beautiful in itself; but doubly beautiful to
those who can say, "I believe in Him who was born of the Virgin Mary."

For since He was born of woman, and thereby took the manhood into God,
birth is holy, and childhood holy, and all a mother's joys and a mother's
cares are holy to the Lord; and every Christian mother with her babe in
her arms is a token and a sign from God, a pledge of His good-will
towards men, a type and pattern of her who was highly-favoured and
blessed above all women. Everything has its time, and Lady-Day is the
time for our remembering the Blessed Virgin. For our hearts and reasons
tell us (and have told all Christians in all ages), that she must have
been holier, nobler, fairer in body and soul, than all women upon earth.

_MS. Sermon_.

April.

Wild, wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?
Dark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away?
Cold, cold Church, in thy death sleep lying,
Thy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easter Day.

Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing,
Rest fair corpse, where thy Lord Himself hath lain.
Weep, dear Lord, above Thy bride low lying,
Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health again.

_The Dead Church_.

The Song of Birds. April 1.

St. Francis called the birds his brothers. Perfectly sure that he
himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that the
birds might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate like himself in
mortal flesh, and saw no degradation to the dignity of human nature in
claiming kindred lovingly with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who
(as he fancied in his old-fashioned way) praised God in the forest even
as angels did in heaven.

_Prose Idylls_. 1867.

True Reformers. April 2.

It is not the many who reform the world; but the few who rise superior to
that Public Opinion which crucified our Lord many years ago.

_MS. Lecture at Cambridge_. 1866.

High Ideals. April 3.

What if a man's idea of "The Church" be somewhat too narrow for the year
of grace 18--, is it no honour to him that he has such an idea at all?
that there has risen up before him the vision of a perfect polity, a
"divine and wonderful order," linking earth to heaven, and to the very
throne of Him who died for men; witn