Page:The Wild Goose.djvu/30

Rh

Over that youth restored to life rejoiced the widowed mother: over men daily raised to spiritual life rejoices Mother Church. He indeed, was bodily dead, but they in mind. His visible death was visibly lamented; their invisible death was neither enquired after, nor was it observed. One sought them out,—One who knew the dead. That One alone Knew the dead, who would make the dead live; for unless He had come to resuscitate the dead, the Apostle would not have said:—"Arise, throw who sleepest, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will enlighten thee."

But we find three dead persons visibly restored to life by our Lord,—thousands invisibly. Who can tell how many dead He restored to life visibly? For not all that He did is written: St. John says so:—"many other things Jesus did, which, if they were written, I do not think the whole world could contain the books."

Without doubt, therefore, many others were restored to life, but it is not in vain that three only are recorded: for our Lord Jesus Christ wished those things which He did exteriorly to be understood also in a spiritual sense, since the miracles which He did He did not do for the sake of miracles, but that what He did would be admirable to those who saw them, and would convey truths to those who understood them.

As he who sees excellent penmanship, but knows not how to read, praises the hand of the antiquary, admiring the beauty of the strokes; but what these strokes mean, or what they indicate, he knows not: and his eye praises, his mind perceives not.

Another both praises the skill of the artist, and takes up the sense: he, namely who can not only see (which is common to all), but can also read, which he can not do who has not learned. This they who saw the miracles of Christ, and understood not what they meant and what they indicated to those who understood them, wondered only that they were done; but others wondered at them when done, and also understood the truths inculcated by them. Such ought we be in the school of Christ. -Beta.

On the following morning our party, mounted on ponies, and furnished with a guide, proceeded to the Gap of Dunlow. The ponies, which are kept for this purpose, are allowed to roam at large on the mountains during winter and spring; thus prepared for their summer and autumn’s work, they are able to climb over rocks and mounds in perfect safety, and with the agility of a mountain goat. They are also well aware of their daily change of riders, and,