Our Ladys tears
Media
Part of Green and White
- Title
- Our Ladys tears
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1930
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- 178 GREEN AND WHITE tage as clearly as the eye discerns the grain of wheat frOlffi the chaff. In the same way as gy1mnastic exercises render the body more graceful. healthy, and .'.!rect 'by training it to selfdenying labour which drives out the superfluous humours, and thus aids in the correction of bad habits, so, mathematical knowledge subjects the mind to a gymnastic training which makes it more healthy and straightforward. Finally, matb?matics enables a person to form_ a true estimate of practically everything, especially of one's own attai!liments. Take as an example the great Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest mathematician of modern times, a man remarkable both for the urbanity of his manners and the simplicity of his mind. His extensive knowledge tended only to give him a true estimat.e of himself and of his varied attainments. The same may be said of many other great scientists and statesmen. Richard Porson, one of the finest classical scholars that England ever produced, was trained by his father frO'm earliest youth in the rudiments of Arithmetic, and he attributes his classical greatness to the accurate thinking acquired during those early years of patient labour. Lord Bacon, in one of his famous essays lays down the injunction thait if a man's wit be wandering, he should study mathe:matics; for in dem0:nstration, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin the whole discourse over again. Hence we may truly say, with the great Dr. Jones, that Mathematics and the severer sciences, with logic and metaphsics, bestow an acutern~ss and an endurance upon the mind, which serve essentially to call forth and strengthen the abstract reason. ---«»--Our Lady's Tears Bemath the cross Our Lady stood. And down her tear-drops fell like rain; For th.:re, in anguish, Jesus hung, And she so shared His bitter pain. Unseen, there came an angel fair, Who in a chalice wrought of gold. Those tear-drops gathered tenderly, Until the cup no more could_ hold. And since that Crucifixion day, I think, through all the years, The hardest hearts, God melts at last, Most surely in Our Lady's tears. Alberto J. Oben.