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terrific, and the boats break up as they "cutting the string." touch the cliffs and crags.

Around the points and promontories there are, in many places, strong currents rushing over submerged rocks. These are called "races." When the waves break, they are apt to fill and swamp the boats, which cannot ride over the white water. To calm the surface,

Lerwick, which

was once the headquarters of the old whaling fleets, is now a great rendezvous of the northern herring fleet. There may be seen, in its comparatively safe harbor, almost every type of herringboat used, from Cornwall to Wick. Many of these put their catches on board steamers; but there is also a large cur

ing industry in the Shetlands. Time is of the essence of business, and the fish must come to hand fresh. Consequently only half the price per "cran" is paid for such as are landed after 10 p. m. The herrings are at once taken in hand by the fish-girls who, bare-armed and barelegged, their hands and wrists covered with scales, look like a rather attractive set of Macbeth witches superintending an incantation. They clean the fish, salt them, pack them in barrels, fasten them up, and set them in rows ready to be shipped for the Baltic. The Shetland fish are nearly all consumed in Russia and Sweden.

In one of the photographs is shown a landing-stage on which empty barrels are lying. Sometimes this particular quay is covered by a herd of Shetland ponies awaiting shipment, or by flocks. of little Shetland sheep about to be sent. to the mainland. The hills beyond are those of the Island of Bressay. The herring-gulls on the rocks show the tameness of the birds, which in these islands, as at Scilly, are scarcely ever molested. In the former islands they are protected mainly at the wish of the

proprietor; but around the herring-curing towns the gulls play so useful a part that they are almost indispensable. They act as "beachcombers" and wave-cleaners, picking up from sea and shore the enormous quantity of refuse, amounting to thousands of tons yearly, left after the cleaning of the fish. Here every attitude of flight may be studied at close quarters. The positions of the birds' wings in the landing-stage photograph are most remarkable. for their variety of attitude and truth to nature. The gulls destroy a certain amount of immature fish, and certainly do some mischief among the salmon smolts going down the rivers to the sea; but the harm they do is nothing in comparison with that wrought by other fish. At the mouth of the Tweed, for instance, are thousands of a species of fish called, locally, "podlies." Many of these when caught are found to have from six to ten salmon smolts in their stomachs. The enormous number of cormorants around the Shetland Islands no doubt destroy great quantities of fish; but the resources of the sea are such that the number of the latter is not appreciably affected.

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By VERY REV. ALBERT LEPIDI, O. P. Master of the Sacred Palace

VII.

HE PERFECTS GOD'S GLORY.

T was not, however, fitting that everything about Him should be humble and obscure, lest He could not express, over and above all other creatures, the Divine perfection. Christ was born that He might perfect God's glory. And, in fact, He expresses this glory in the highest degree. He expresses it in His being. He expresses it in His work as man. For although His nature and actions, in regard to His own being, are in every sense human, yet His nature and actions are also those of a Divine Person, because the personality of the nature and works of man in Jesus Christ is the Person of the Word. It is impossible to conceive in a created being anything greater or more wonderful than that man, still remaining man in his essence and in his actions, be, by reason of his personality, Divine or, as a theologian might style Him, THEANDRIKOS, that is, God, yet

man.

He

In the motions of His soul, He is the highest expression of God's glory, as though in a living temple. Never did. spirit, human or angelic, show forth and magnify God's glory so eminently as Jesus Christ, by His knowledge, His love, His words and His works. magnified God in Himself; and that God be glorified and exalted in the world, He extolled Him by His public life and preaching, and He willed to offer Himself to Him by cruel sufferings on the cross, thus to glorify the Lord of life and death.

It must, therefore, be said that He Who perfected the manifestation of God in the midst of creatures, in a manner the most solemn and most glorious, signifying

first of all everything that God is, and our nothingness, is the Infant Jesus. And hence it was that in the last moment of His life, turning to God the Father and calling upon Him, He could truly say: "I have glorified Thee on earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do."

VIII.

HE IS THE CROWN OF THE UNIVERSE.

While Jesus is He Who completes God's glory, that glory under which the Omnipotent lies hidden and by which He manifests Himself in a manner other than as God, that same Jesus is truly the Crown of the Universe. Since God, as we read in Holy Writ, wished to magnify Him in Whom His glory was to be revealed, He exalted Him and placed Him over all the works of His hands; and gave Him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend on earth and in hell, giving all creation to Him for a footstool. From this we gather that Jesus is the first-fruits, the Head, the Crown and final completion of the created order. In fact, when we examine the Scriptures we can distinguish, in the universality of being, three terms: the first, the order of those predestined to eternal life; the second is Jesus, their Head; and the third is God, their Creator and ultimate End.

Now in these three terms there is a most beautiful order. And since all things, God and Jesus excepted, are ways and means for perfecting the order of the elect, that order, therefore, serves to complete the exaltation and glorification of Jesus. Finally, Jesus Christ, together with the elect, by forming, so to speak, one body, augments God's glory. And then each and every

creature, by the being it possesses, by the activity it exhibits, and by its marvelous composition, is, to him who contemplates it, an act manifesting God's glory. Yet God's living glory is as truly reflected in the order of finite things as by the blessed spirits and in them spirits who go to form the mystical body whose Head Jesus is, and their Crown as well. "For all things are yours," says St. Paul, speaking to the faithful at Corinth, "whether it be the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, for all are yours; and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." "To Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus."

History and reason confirm this teaching of the Scriptures. Although during the lapse of centuries He has opposed the furious and unceasing attack of the passions, Jesus, with His Church, is gloriously sustained and made known. by His own innate power. All things, then, here below, be they prosperous or adverse, make for the glory of the Church and of Jesus. And it is a fact, historically undeniable, that Jesus has been a sign both of resurrection and of destruction. Because, as we have said before, no one can approach with a worthy intention to receive of the Saviour's bounty without growing in holiness and truth; and, on the other hand, no one can withdraw from Him without being made poorer thereby. This law binds both nations and individuals.

And, in fact, it could not be otherwise, since, even by the standards of reason, the man never was, nor is, neither will be, in whom is found an example of perfection higher than in Jesus. Jesus, as Renan himself confesses, "will never be surpassed." No, among the names of good men and great, there is none on earth in which mankind can more readily or reasonably confide than in that of Jesus. Finally,

*I Cor. iii, 22, 23. Ephes. iii, 21.

Jesus is the Prince and Head of the created order, the perfection of all things. And it were meet that all things should terminate in Him, that when all things are, as it were, summarized in Him, they may be with Him subjected to God, and God shall be all in all. Then all creation, especially when its mission is fulfilled, or on the way towards fulfillment, will be a sublime hymn, a canticle of glory, a resonance of God's providence, love, and power; and in their universal harmony the dominant‘and final note will be the Christ-Child.

IX.

HE IS THE HIGHEST EXPRESSION OF GOD'S LOVE FOR MAN.

We must now consider the ChristChild as the highest symbol of those things which form the foundation and are, as it were, the very heart of the Christian life. This symbol corresponds to a real need of mankind. For man here below is held a prisoner by the bonds of imagination, and his intellectual activity can not manifest itself except through the imagination and the senses; therefore he knows the invisible only through things visible. Thus we have, in the nativity of the Word Incarnate, a wise purpose; to exemplify under the sensible veil of an assumed humanity, and by His life, those invisible bonds which unite God to the soul and the soul to God in mutual relationship.

Of these bonds the first and greatest is God's love for man; "God so loved the world." Words can not express how necessary it is for man to know that he is surrounded and protected by God's love. Most miserable, indeed, is the state of that soul who does not believe in the existence of God, or, if he admits that He does exist, believes that He is enclosed and concentrated within Himself and cares not for us. A soul in such a state knows neither whence it came

1 Cor. xv, 28.

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