The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

226 THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS.ious to minister to our souls as she ministered tothe corporal wants of her Son. She would be theinstrument of God infeeding us with divine grace,in clothing us with the garments of innocence, insheltering us from the storms of temptation, in wiping away the stains of sin from our soul.If the angels, though of a different nature fromours, have so much sympathy for us as to rejoice1in our conversion, how great must be the interestmanifested towards us by Mary, who is of a commonnature with us, descended from the same primitiveparents, being bone of our bone, and flesh of ourflesh, and who once trod the thorny pathwhich we tread now !of lifeThough not of the household of the faith, EdgarA. Poe did not disdain to invoke our Lady s intercession, and to acknowledge the influence of herpatronage in heaven."At morn at noon at twilight dimMaria! thou hast heard my hymn;In joy and woe in good and illMother of God, be with me still 1When the hours flew brightly by,And not a cloud obscured the sky,My soul, lest it should truant be,Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;Now, when storms of fate o ercastDarkly my present and my past,Let my future radiant shine,With sweet hopes of thee and thine."1Luke xv. 7.