a soul accomplish its earthly mission without its body. What reverence for these forms does Christ inculcate in the leper's cure! In the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus are set forth the rites employed in the official cleansing of a leper — washings, ceremonies and sacrifices most complex, lasting no less than eight days. The leper in question (for that he was self-willed is evident from his disobediently blazing abroad the miracle) may have thought: "Why show myself to the priests, or lose time and money in useless forms, now that my cure is beyond all doubt? " But it was not his to question but to obey, even as it was not his to inquire why the Lord, in effecting his cure, preferred to employ the seemingly needless ceremonies of stretching forth His hand and touching him and saying: " I will, be thou made clean." So, too, a penitent duly absolved may think it is useless labor to afterwards confess sins inadvertently omitted, yet such is the Church's law, and as a true Christian and soldier of Jesus Christ he is bound to unquestioningly obey. The bluff soldier of Capharnaum, the centurion, pagan though he was, is a striking example of respect for authority. Verily, h>e was the noblest Roman of them all! He was a commanding officer of the local garrison, a God-fearing man, who, though a Gentile, was so strongly attracted by the religion of Israel that he had built a synagogue for the Jews of Capharnaum. An attendant whom he loved, a Jew probably, grown old in his service, was ill of the palsy, and the centurion, deeming himself unworthy to approach the Christ, sent the elders of the synagogue to beg for a cure. To his amaze-
