injustice and oppression, without pity for the suffering of the Divine
Being who bore the cross, repulsed him from his dwelling, and bade him:
"Go ON! GO ON! GO ON!" And, from that day, the avenging Deity has in his
turn said to the artisan of Jerusalem: "GO ON! GO ON! GO ON!"

And he has gone on, without end or rest. Nor did the divine vengeance
stop there. From time to time death has followed the steps of the
wanderer, and innumerable graves have been even as mile-stones on his
fatal path. And if ever he found periods of repose in the midst of
his infinite grief, it was when the hand of the Lord led him into deep
solitudes, like that where he now dragged his steps along. In passing
over that dreary plain, or climbing to that rude Calvary, he at least
heard no more the funeral knell, which always, always sounded behind him
in every inhabited region.

All day long, even at this hour, plunged in the black abyss of his
thoughts, following the fatal track--going whither he was guided by the
invisible hand, with head bowed on his breast, and eyes fixed upon
the ground, the wanderer had passed over the plain, and ascended the
mountain, without once looking at the sky--without even perceiving the
Calvary--without seeing the image upon the cross. He thought of the
last descendants of his race. He felt, by the sinking of his heart,
that great perils continued to threaten him. And in the bitterness of
a despair, wild and deep as the ocean, the cobbler of Jerusalem seated
himself at the foot of the cross. At this moment a farewell ray of the
setting sun, piercing the dark mass of clouds, threw a refection upon
the Calvary, vivid as a conflagration's glare. The Jew rested his
forehead upon his hand. His long hair, shaken by the evening breeze,
fell over his pale face--when sweeping it back from his brow, he started
with surprise--he, who had long ceased to wonder at anything. With eager
glance he contemplated the long lock of hair that he held between his
fingers. That hair, until now black as night, had become gray. He also,
like unto Herodias, was growing older.

His progress towards old age, stopped for eighteen hundred years, had
resumed its course. Like the Wandering Jewess, he might henceforth hope
for the rest of the grave. Throwing himself on his knees, he stretched
his hands towards heaven, to ask for the explanation of the mystery
which filled him with hope. Then, for the first time, his eyes rested on
the Crucified O