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them. In fact to realize ideals is to reduce them to the common. Even the saints of God amid their greatest spiritual triumphs often give way to sadness and self-reproach. They see things through God's eyes. They look over and beyond the little they have done, to the much more that might have been accomplished, or they gaze regretfully, as Jesus did, from their single selves at the Saviour's feet to the thankless nine so far from Him. This is the key to the incomprehensible humility and penances of the saints; it is the secret of Christ's habitual sadness. For the saints are not phenomena; rather theirs should be the normal standard for humanity. The adoring Samaritan is doing no more than was obviously his duty; the ungrateful nine on the other hand typify the great mass of men and women, each of whose lives is but a record of neglected opportunities. Ah! no wonder the Saviour is sad, and the lonely Samaritan ashamed. "Were not God an all-sufficient substitute, the happiness of heaven even would not withstand that regretful query: " Where are the nine? " Where are the nine? He who was not repelled by their previous hideousness now gazes with pity and disappointment on their retreating forms. Indifference and ingratitude are more offensive, more hopeless than even downright sin. While lepers still, how piteously they cried to Him, how eagerly they longed, but dared not, to approach Him, and now, now that their cure is wrought, they turn their backs on Him. But did not He Himself command them to go before the priest and offer sacri-