Page:A Christmas Faggot (1884, Gurney).djvu/96

78 The Catholic Church by her methods, no less than by her Sacraments, her Scriptures, and her Creeds, is ever maintaining her protest against the limitations by which all merely human systems are disfigured. She is ever bearing her impassioned witness to Him Who is 'the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.’ This is the real significance of the solemnities that accompany her Epiphany observance.

The Tree of Life is the real Christmas Tree. Its underwoven roots support the cradle; its branches, overarching with many a blossom and many a cluster, form the canopy of the Heavenly Babe, the Darling of God and of man. 'The fruit thereof is for meat, the leaf thereof for medicine;’ mindful of which the holy Evangelists speak of the crib as a  'manger,’  that is the feeding place. 'Lo! we heard of the same at (Bethlehem) Ephrata, and found it in the Wood.’

The Gospel songs express the joy with which by the humble and simple and pure-hearted this Plant of Renown is discovered;