My Prayer Book_LASANCE - the Catholic Kingdom!

"Another example of monkish, Catholic gloom - a
zealot, a fanatic; a man bereft of all sanity or humaneness,
looking at life in wqd, crabbed manner!"
Yet the unbeliever woutd be the fanatia, the narrowminded
man; and Aloysiushthe humorist. For if the
gorge of our spectator friend 1 rose ; if he gave expression
to his scorn in words; if even he spat upon this Jesuit
bigot, Aloysius would have said to himself "Quid hoc ad
cdernilatem?" and would have gone on his way with a
smile, making merry in his heart.
Fancy a man who all day long, in every varying drcumstance,
was askin himself, "Quid hoe ad etenie
m ?IJ What an infnity of laughable things he would
$ee!
What a wide, kindly, smiling view of life he would
acquire ! Think of the countless occurrences that fret
and annoy, that drive a man into himself and shut up
his outlook over the world which the good God has given
him, that make him 'petty and irritable and sour -
how they would go down before such a question, as
rank weeds befvre a scythe; how they wouM be lost
sight of, as a swarm of gnats becomes invisible under
the full light of an unclouded noon !
Whatever be the definition of humor - and it matters
exactly nothing what it be - the essence of it is saneness,
balance, breadth; and complete saneness, undisturbed
balance, infinite breadth, are the gifts of
faith and of faith only: Knowledge stops at the edge
of the earth. Faith goes on beyond thestars, illimitable,
calm, all-comprehending. The wisdom of the world
is a surface wisdom and breeds onky a surface humor.
The wisdom of faith reaches from heaven to hell, into
the heart of all living; and when it smiles the angels of
God smile with it. The humor of men may be on the
lips and in the mind only. The humor of faith must
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