herself removed to a distance from her Son, she did not return from this most afflicting scene; but with heroic fortitude she patiently though sorrowfully followed him to Calvary. Jesus marks his footsteps with his blood; Mary traces out hers with tears of sorrow. He is bathed in gore, she is plunged in an ocean of grief; and as she follows our Lord in that sad procession, she is witness of all his afflictions; she hears the curses and blasphemies uttered by the brutal executioners; none of their insults and outrages escape her. She beholds the excitement of the rabble; they strike her innocent Son with heavy staves and with their hands. She sees some of these frantic wretches drag Him forward with a rope, and others push Him on behind; she witnesses the jeering, the laughter, the reproach of the infuriated mob. The rabble, like men possessed by evil spirits, run from place to place-now before her Son, now after Him; now they strike Him in the face, now they threaten Him and uplift their clenched

hands, and now they cast large stones against Him. At one time they call Him a seducer of the people, then they declare Him to be a disturber of the public peace, a false prophet, and a blasphemer. Children point at Him with their fingers and revile Him as a fool. In a word, Mary beheld the soldiers and the populace vieing with each other, which could heap upon Jesus the greatest ignominy or cause Him the acutest pain. Surely this scene of cruelty and sin was sufficient to have occasioned her death. And it would have done so, says St. Anselm, had not God preserved her life by a singular miracle; and St. Bernard declares "that her sorrow was so exceedingly great, that were it divided among all men, it would suffice to cause them instant death." But Mary's grief ends not here; for she sees her best Beloved fall under the heavy cross. She runs, no doubt, to his assistance, but she is rudely repulsed. Then at a little distance she views and contemplates his wounds and pains, and hears his

sighs, and from the contracted features of his face she knows that He can scarcely breathe. O God! how does this Virgin's heart bleed!! and yet she cannot assist her Son! Oh that she could relieve Him of that burden! Oh that at least she could lift Him from the ground! But vain are her desires; she is not allowed. Now she hears the wicked soldiers gruffly command Him speedily to arise. "Get up," they yell, "or we will kill thee." And because He could not do as they would have Him, they push Him, they drag Him and beat Him as a slave. Of the Mother of the Machabees, who witnessed the tortures of her seven sons, St. Augustine remarks, that "what they suffered in their bodies she likewise endured in her soul; because she saw them tortured." The same happened to Mary the Mother of Jesus. The kicks-the blows-the cross-the falls which afflicted his tender body, entered her maternal heart and made her suffer. Yes, the scars and wounds scattered over his sacred flesh were

imprinted on her compassionate heart. In the revelations of St. Agnes we read that the Blessed Virgin received as many strokes of the sword, through compassion, as she saw wounds in her crucified Son. Hence St. Laurence Justinian writes that the heart of the Blessed Virgin was a mirror of the sorrows of her Son, in which were fixedly represented the spittle, the buffets, the wounds, and all the torments of Jesus. What our dear Lord suffered in his body, she suffered in her soul, and the grief which was written on his countenance was deeply stamped on her loving heart. Three times does He fall under the cross on his way to Calvary; imagine therefore, my soul, her excessive grief.

But that which greatly increased Mary's sorrow, was the fact, that on none of these occasions was she permitted to comfort Him. She would, no doubt, were she allowed, have wiped the clotted blood from off his sacred face; she would have poured oil into his wounds, have presented water to

his parched lips, and bathed with aromatics his burning brow; but the hard-hearted soldiers kept her far away from Him. O Mary, thou most afflicted of Mothers, how I feel and grieve for thee would that I could comfort thee in thy sorrow! would that I could heal the wounds of thy bleeding Son! Ah! how willingly would I do so; but what can I a wicked sinner do? O my soul, if thou wouldst comfort Mary in er excessive woe, and stop the flowing blood of her Divine Son; if thou wouldst give her joy, help Him on his way to Calvary and lighten the burden which for thee He carries; follow Jesus to the place of crucifixion; in other words, deny thyself, take up thy cross and walk after Him. Yea! go along that path which, with his Precious Blood, He has traced out for thee. Ah! yes, this indeed is the grand lesson taught me by Mary on this occasion. If, therefore, I would relieve her pain and dry away her tears, I must for ever bid farewell to the vain joys, the unlawful pleasures,