that her child had scarcely taken his first breath when she breathed her last. So it was with God the Creator and God the Redeemer. When first He created man it was with joy and exultation, but the product of His hands proved a failure, — man abandoned Him so that God remained still practically alone. " Unless the seed die, itself remaineth alone." But man's regeneration was accomplished by the torments and death of the man-God, and the result was that the dead seed brought forth much fruit. For the Church to-day stands like a mighty tree towering above all earthly things, her branches and members spreading everywhere, clothed with the fair foliage of her rites and ceremonies, adorned with the blossoms of innocence and laden with the fruits of sanctity, and men gaze at her and marvel that so great a plant should have sprung from so small a seed, that that limp figure on the cross should be the author of so mighty and such a perfectly organized institution. Such exaltation has Christ achieved that even the instrument of His torture, the cross, previously the object of dread and horror, has become for mankind a ladder of Jacob leading heavenward, a tree of life in the midst of earth, laden with precious fruit, a rock in an arid desert from which, when struck, gush forth sweet waters, an inexhaustible widow's cruse, affording us our daily bread and the wherewithal to satisfy our heavenly creditor. With the sign of the cross temples and altars are consecrated, ministers ordained, and the sacraments administered. We place it on our spires to point us heavenward, on our fore-
