by honoring the whole race of womankind in making them His only comforters; by allowing Veronica to wipe the blood and sweat from His sacred face, and stopping to sympathize with the women of Jerusalem. I say, to sympathize with them, for when they would have consoled Him, He, with a sublime forgetfulness of self, said: "Weep not for Me, but for yourselves and for your children." Aye, and He remembered His fond, dead foster-father, St. Joseph, and though no man in all that throng showed Him a single kindness by word or deed, yet did He honor the male sex by allowing Simon of Cyrene to help Him carry His cross. So He moved on to His death, tenderly solicitous about every one but Himself; thinking of, and in His heart weeping for, you and me, His brothers and sisters, and for our sins. On He goes, more dead than alive, stopping now and then from sheer exhaustion; on and on, up to the top of Calvary, where the three holes are already dug. There He throws down His cross and waits while the vast throng struggle for the best positions from which to view the scene.
The three prisoners are left alone with the executioners and a small guard. The condemned are now stripped — a small matter for the two who had not been scourged, but for Our Lord a renewal of all His agony, an opening up of every wound He bears. Then two rough hangmen seize on each arm, and fling) them rudely down upon their crosses and jumping on them with fierce haste, set the enormous nails and ply the ponderous hammers. Oh my poor Lord! my
