sake, cause thy sufferings to be so deeply impressed upon my soul that I may never forget them.
Consider what were the painful objects that, like so many cruel executioners, afflicted the heart of Jesus. The first and most appalling were our sins. The vivid knowledge of all the sins of men, a sight of their enormity, a most intense horror of their malignity, filled his heart, pressed upon it with such piercing intensity, as to produce a sorrow and a sadness that can not be imagined. Jesus knows, and comprehends the entire malice and atrocity of sin, the enormity of the insult thereby offered to his heavenly Father; and loving his Father with a supreme love, he experiences a grief so poignant, a horror so excessive of human wickedness — all portrayed before him in such deformity — that he is ready to expire of intense grief. The sins, then, of all men, past, present, and to come, were the cruel tormentors which rent without pity the sad heart of our agonizing Redeemer. My soul, what share had thy misdeeds in embittering the heart of thy Jesus? Those sins that seemed to thee once so trivial, agonized thy Jesus with unalloyed grief. Those sins thou hast committed for amusement, for nothing, have barbarously rent the heart of Jesus. His sadness, his anguish, his agony, were increased by thy sins, by the malice of thy iniquities. O, how much less would Jesus have suffered, hadst thou but sinned less! Ah! weep bitter tears now for thy crimes, detest thy malice, and resolve never more to offend so loving a Redeemer.
THIRD REFLECTION.
Jesus scourged at the Pillar.
Prepare thyself, my soul, for affliction and tears, as thou comest to contemplate the frightful tortures practised on thy Redeemer. Enter a
