Granted the pre-eminence of charity among the virtues, the superiority of the contemplative over the active life, there is still a sense in which we are most. like to God when performing the works of mercy. For the whole order of things, the relations between creatures and the pale semblance of rights which we are permitted to assert in the divine presence, are dependent on the Creator's prerogative of mercy. Whatever is, is the consequence of God's mercy removing the defect that is non-existence; the even more abysmal deficiency that is sin is removed by his greater merey and by that very fact we are brought without merit into a still higher order of justice. This last was effected by a mercy determined to stir our hearts and to show how much God would be like ourselves: because divine beatitude can admit of no defects, God as God cannot suffer with us; but becoming man, he could both remove misery and feel it—he knew compassion.