he may be, for only sin excludes from happiness, and Christ has said: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he can never enter the kingdom of heaven." The Church attests this fundamental dogma by celebrating the feasts of the saints, not on the day when in sin they came into this world, but on the day of their death, when, sinless, they passed to glory. St. Jerome discourages inquiry as to how original sin is transmitted, saying: " It is as though one fallen overboard were asked ' How came you there? ' and should reply, ' Ask not how I came here, but seek rather how you may get me out.' " Anyhow, our natures were corrupted in Adam and Eve as waters in their source, with this difference, that human nature is not purified in transmission. As the different members of my body may become guilty of crime, though not acting by their own volition but under the influence of my perverse will, so we, as we are of the great body of humanity, contract the guilt of a sin of which the head alone was guilty. Adam and Eve were a representative committee of two, chosen from the myriads of human possibilities. Theirs was a test case; their fate our fate; so that we all share in their sin and punishment as we should have shared in their happiness had they remained faithful to God. One single exception is recorded — the Virgin Mary. Of her alone we can say with the Canticle: "All beautiful art thou and there is no stain in thee." In St. John's vision of her, the moon under her feet denotes the absence in her of all stain or change— denotes her to be as Longfellow styles
