October 7
Companions of the Way (Morning)"Figliuol di grazia, questo esser giocondo," Comminciò egli, "non ti sarà noto Tenendo gli occhi pur quaggiuso al fondo."
FROM time to time we should "consider the heavens" and dwarf ourselves and our little earth by comparison with things sublime and immense, lest we should altogether give, instead of merely lending, ourselves to the play of life in which we must bear our part with a certain outward seriousness, if the tragedy is not to be turned into burlesque. Without some such periodic bracing we shall not reach that divine magnanimity, that imperturbable tranquillity of which it is written: "They that trust in the Lord", that believe in Him as the one absolute reality, beside which all others are shadowy; . . . "shall be as Mount Sion that shall never be moved"; they shall share God's own mountain-like immobility as regards events and concerns which, however relatively serious, are ultimately infinitesimal.
Behind all their clouds they will ever be conscious of this clear, untroubled ether; beneath life's surface storms they will be aware of unfathomed depths of stillness. They will weigh mountains in the scales and the hills in a balance, and will take up the islands as a very little thing.
FATHER TYRRELL
STARS AND HILLS