"Thirsting to be more than mortal,
I was even less than clay."

Let us, if we can, keep the bolder spirits on the level of what is
congruous, where the wealth that is within their reach will not be
exhausted in their lifetime, and where they may excel without offence
and without inviting either condemnation or ridicule. The sense of
fitness is a saving instinct in this as in 1 every other department of
life. When it is present, first principles come home like intuitions
to the mind, where it is absent they seem to take no hold at all, and
the understanding that should supply for the right instinct makes slow
and laborious way if it ever enters at all.

To know the relation in which one stands to any department of
knowledge is, in that department, "the beginning of wisdom". The great
Christian Basilicas furnish a parallel in the material order. They are
the house of God and the home and possession of every member of the
Church militant without distinction of age or rank or learning. But
they are not the same to each. Every one brings his own understanding
and faith and insight, and the great Church is to him what he has
capacity to understand and to receive. The great majority of
worshippers could not draw a fine of the plans or expound a law of the
construction, or set a stone in its place, yet the whole of it is
theirs and for them, and their reverent awe, even if they have no
further understanding, adds a spiritual grace and a fuller dignity to
the whole. The child, the beggar, the pilgrim, the penitent, the lowly
servants and custodians of the temple, the clergy, the venerable
choir, the highest authorities from whom come the order and regulation
of the ceremonies, all have their parts, all stand in their special