all the Angels and Saints of Heaven, with the Divine Mother herself, had been turned into a blade of grass, or into a handful of clay; yes, for grass, clay, princes, Angels, Saints, are all creatures; but between the creature and God there is an infinite difference. Ah, exclaims St. Bernard; the more a God has humbled Himself for us in becoming man, so much the more has He made His goodness known to us: "The smaller He has become by humility, the greater He has made Himself in bounty." But the love which Jesus Christ bears to us, cries out the Apostle, irresistibly urges and impels us to love Him: The charity of Christ presseth us. [2 Cor. 5:14]
O God! did not faith assure us of it, who could ever, believe that a God, for love for such a worm as man is, should Himself become a worm like him? A devout author says, 'Suppose, by chance, that, passing on your way, you should have crushed to death a worm in your path; and then some one, observing your compassion for the poor reptile, should say to you, Well, now, if you would restore that dead worm to life, you must first yourself become a worm like it, and then must shed all your blood, and make a bath of it in which to wash the worm, and so it shall revive; what would you reply? Certainly you would say, And what matters it to me whether the worm be alive or dead, if I should have to purchase its life by my own death? And much more would you say so if it was not an inoffensive worm, but an ungrateful asp, which, in return for all your benefits, had made an attempt upon your life. But even should your love for that reptile reach so far as to induce you to suffer death in order to restore it to life, what would men say then? And what would not that serpent do for you, whose death had saved it, supposing it were capable of reason? But
