tion before crucifixion, by His three hours on the cross, by the gaping wound in His side, by the soldiers who refrained from breaking His limbs because they found Him already dead. And that He rose the third day from the dead, who shall deny? They will tell you those timid Apostles rolled back the stone and stole His body, that the rigid discipline of Rome was relaxed for once and the soldiers slept; but ask them for their proofs and they will bring forward, as did the chief priests, these same sleepy soldiers as witnesses of the theft. Far different the proofs of our belief. We know whom we have believed— we know that our Redeemer liveth. We have met Him newly risen on the way to Emmaus and heard it from His very lips. We have seen in Him evidence of rational life when He expounded the Scriptures and upbraided our incredulity; of sentient life when He heeded our hospitable entreaties; of animal life when He shared our meal. Why, have we not put our finger into the very print of the nails, and our hand into His side? What remains for us to do, in the face of such evidence, but to fall down adoringly and exclaim: " My Lord and my God!"
Brethren, the Ascension which we last Thursday commemorated is still another proof of Christ's divinity. Had He been a mere mortal, He could not have ascended of Himself; there would have been need of Elias's fiery chariot or of some similiar manifestation of almighty power. That is why the Church draws such a sharp distinction between Christ's man-
