come from this godless attitude which claims independence of life. It
results in a religion which is willing to pay God tribute, but is not
willing to belong to God. But the humble person has nothing of his own
and moreover wants nothing; he wants simply that God shall use him, that
he shall be found a ready instrument in God's hands.

It is this readiness that we find in Blessed Mary when she answered the
astonishing announcement of the angel with her, "Behold the Handmaid of
the Lord." It is that quality which we find in her here when she
construes God's purpose in terms which go out far beyond her individual
life and sees in her experience but one item in God's dealing with
humanity in His age-long work of "bringing His wanderers home." We
should have far less difficulty and find our lives far more significant
if we could get rid of our wretched egotism and find it possible to lose
ourselves in the work of God. We should then find the work important
because it is God's work and not because we are associated with it. We
should also find it less easy to be discouraged because we should not
understand our failure to be the failure of God. Discouragement is but
one of the aspects of egotism, and not the most attractive.

We cannot rise to anything like a passion of holiness unless we have
found God to be all in all. Only so can we lose ourselves in God. And I
must, at whatever risk of over-dwelling, stress the fact that we can
only attain this point of view by dwelling on God and not on self. Let
God be the foreground of our thought. Let our souls magnify the Lord.
Let us dwell upon the "great things" God has done for us. In every life
there is such a wonderful manifestation of the divine goodness--only we
do not take time to look for it. It is well to take the time: to write
out, if need be, our spiritual history. We shall then find abundant
evidence of the goodness of God. It may be that it is a goodness that is