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ing that, being during our earthly life as minors unsound of judgment and feeble of will, we need guidance and instruction, until such time as reason and faith shall have merged into the beatific vision, and our wills become one with the Divine, free with the freedom of the children of God. When impatient of delay and tempted to reason and choose independent of authority, it is well for us to learn of the birds and flowers to await the time appointed by the Father, for the unfledged, if too venturesome, fall to earth, and the too early shoots are nipped by the lingering frost. Many of us accept Christianity, yes, but with reserve, on our own terms, and only in so far as it coincides with our own ideas. Our worship of God, we feel, should be free, spontaneous, in spirit and in truth, untrammelled by rites and ceremonies. Why one form of prayer rather than another? Why worship only in sacred places? Why this bowing and genuflecting and signing with the cross? Why these complicated sacramental ceremonies? Such may have been John's thought when he hesitated to baptize the Messias, but Christ bade him proceed: " For thus," said He, " it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." To say nothing of Christ's words to His Church: " He that heareth you, heareth Me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me and Him that sent Me," her ritual, even in those parts not of divine origin, has been sanctified by the practice of ages. Though divine, the Church is still a society of men for men, and could no more accomplish her earthly mission without external forms than could