to trace, in them a continuity of ideas and to discover their appropriateness for the Sundays to which they have been assigned. The present Sunday affords an excellent example. Epiphany time is devoted to the contemplation of those earlier years of Our Lord's hidden life, whose history the Evangelist summarizes thus: "Jesus went down to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph, and was subject to them." Docility, then, is the season's lesson, and quite appropriately the undercurrent of thought running uninterruptedly through the Epistle and Gospel is the lesson of docility. " Be not wise in your own conceits," says St. Paul to the Romans. " Go," says Christ to the leper just cleansed, " Go, show thyself to the priests, and offer the gift commanded by MQses for a testimony to them." " Lord, I am not worthy," cries the centurion, " not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed."
Brethren, that law of Nature whereby parents cherish so great love for their offspring holds good also in the realm of thought, and explains why the human mind is so vain of its own ideas and the individual so tenacious of his own opinions. How shallow was the philosophy of the so-called reformers is nowhere more clearly evidenced than in the fact that they hoped to hold together a system of religion based on the right of private judgment. But that differences should arise between man and man, were a small matter did not man at times >carry his conceit so far as to oppose his opinions to the decrees of God.
