All the more is it necessary that we should lift our eyes to the heavens where humility and meekness, where sacrifice and obdience, are, in the person of Blessed Mary, crowned as the most perfect expression of sanctity, as the qualities that raise man nearest God.  And what consoles us in the present depressing circumstances of the Church is that we are permitted to look through S. John’s eyes into the world of heaven, and there see “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and with palms in their hands.”  Somehow, we feel, under whatever distressing and discouraging circumstances, the work of God in the regeneration of souls goes on.  No doubt it is a work that is largely hidden from our eyes, from those eyes which are blinded to the reality of spiritual things.  Humility and meekness are the qualities of a hidden life; they do not flaunt themselves before men’s eyes.  But in their silence and obscurity great souls are growing up, growing to the spiritual status of the saints of God.  In our estimate of values we shall do well to lay to heart the utterances of WISDOM:  “Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him, and made no account of his labours.  When they see it, they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the strangeness of his salvation, so far beyond all that they had looked for.  And they repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit shall say among themselves, This is he, whom we had sometime in derision, and a proverb of reproach:  we fools accounted his life madness, and his end without honour:  how is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints!  Verily we went astray from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness shined not unto us, and the sun of righteousness rose not upon us.”

When we have attained to the point of view as to life’s value which is expressed in the ideal of sanctity then we shall know how to estimate at their true worth the constant criticisms which are directed against those ideals and those who seek them.  The saints, we are told, were no doubt estimable men and women, but they were weak, and for the purpose of the world’s work, useless.  But is this true, to keep to a specific example, of the Blessed Virgin Mary?  What is there about her life that suggests weakness?  And what can be the meaning of calling such a life useless to the world?  Take but one aspect of it.  It has for centuries furnished an ideal of womanhood.  It is contended that the women who have taken Blessed Mary for their ideal have shown themselves weak and useless?—­that those women are stronger in character and of more value to the world who have thrown over the ideals of sanctity and built their lives upon the social ideals prevalent at present?  I no not care to attempt any characterisation of the feminine ideal which is commended to us at present; it is sufficient to say that it is difficult to understand how it can be considered socially valuable; still less how it can be considered an advance on the character qualities which distinguish the Christian ideal of sanctity.