Baltimore who taught our nation that Faith and Learning are twin daughters of the Mother Church. The orator who to-day illuminated that truth leaves us forever his debtors. His understanding of that noble and saintly woman whose zeal created the provinces of the East lent him the right and gave him the power to speak the loyal word which carries gratitude heavenward, and brings Heaven's benediction to earth.
In saluting the Bishop of Montana we are reminded that what is often called a chance event is, in truth, a special Providence. His presence to-day symbolizes the missionary spirit that first impelled this order to seek the New World; nor can we forget that, for the dark children of the Western forest, the first religious of the society came with their first message of zeal! They have sent him here to-day, to represent them, and we welcome him with an especial joy.
It is with cordiality and thanks that we greet, in the name of Eden Hall, those guests who, having been its pupils once, remain its children forever. Its very walls have asked its friends to share in the songs of gladness with which those walls are echoing; and your presence here, responsive to that appeal, is adding joy to joy. This day, already so beautiful in the calendar of the liturgy, has a gracious and peculiar fitness for the commemoration that sends upward, from one hundred and forty altars, a single Te Deum Laudamus. The Presentation of Mary in the Temple. The seed of salvation giving its first bloom from the stem of Jesse! The Church's festivals stamp her traditions with the seal of a sacred scripture, and for a thousand years the eyes of faith have gazed on the little Maid of Israel ascending the steps of the second temple. Her heart pronounced for the first time the "Ecce Ancilla Domini" as the token of her consecration; her lips will proclaim it in Nazareth as the signal for the world's salvation promised; her attitude will repeat it on Calvary as the sign of the world's Redemption accomplished. As the handmaid of the Lord, and nothing more, it is ever from the heart of woman that the first hidden, timid impulse comes, as God's instrument for great things; though it is the hand and the mind of man, the Worker, the Ruler, the Priest, which must accomplish each noble task for God's glory. It was a gentle and
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