ticians, unstable and ignorant.
As we look on, we succeed in retaining any shred of respect for
humanity only through the contemplation of the exceptions--of S. John
and the little group of women who are faithful to the end: above all in
the sight of blessed Mary standing by the Cross of her Son.

It is the will of God that our Lord should follow the human lot to the
very depth of its possible sufferings. There are no doubt many
sufferings of humanity that our Lord does not share, they are those
which spring out of personal sin. He in Whom was no sin could not suffer
those things which spring from one's own wrong doing. That is one broad
distinction between the burdens of the crosses on Calvary, a distinction
which the penitent thief caught easily when he said to his reviling
fellow-criminal, "Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our
deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss." And in as much as a great
part of what we suffer is plainly just, the pain we bear is intensified
by the knowledge that what we are is the outcome of what we have been.
But our Lord, while He does not suffer as the result of His own sin,
does suffer as the result of sin in that He wills to bear the result of
men's sin by putting Himself at their mercy. He bears the burden of sin
to the uttermost, looking down from the Cross at the faces of these men
whose salvation He is making possible if in the days to come they will
associate themselves with Him. One wonders how many of those who saw Him
crucified came, before they died, to accept Him as the Saviour and their
God. There must have been many wonderful first Communions in the early
Church when those who had rejected Jesus in His humility came to receive
Him glorified.

But as we look at this scene of the dying we feel that the powers of
evil are working their uttermost, they are driving their slaves to
incredible sins. One feels the tremendous power that evil is as one
looks at these human beings who are body and soul wholly under its
dominion. The Power of Darkness appears utterly in control of the world
of humanity; but we know that this moment in which its triumph seems
most complete is in fact the moment in which its defeat is at hand. The
victory that is being won is the victory of the Vanquished: and the
moment when the victory of evil seems assured by the dying of Jesus, is
in fact the moment when the cha