PRINCES OF THE APOSTLES.

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ing mysteries. All those Angels seemed to unite in this

invitation, calling out: "O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et vidite, si est dolor sicut dolor meus!" "Oh! all you who pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow"-Lamen., i. 12. I accepted of their endearing invitation, and as this is Good Friday, perhaps it may not be unacceptable to present my readers with the sentiments suggested by a and reflection before each one. I shall do so in the following pages, and shall call our passage between those lines of angels across the Bridge of San. Angelo,

pause

THE WAY OF THE DOLOROUS ANGELS.

Recordare pie Jesu,

Quod sum causa tuæ viæ,

Ne me perdas illa die.

The Way of the Dolorous

Angels.

T the entrance to the Bridge of St. Angelo are
erected the two statues of St. Peter and St.
Paul. They were erected in the year 1530 by
Clement VII. There they stand, the two

Princes of the Apostles, between whom we are to pass on entering that avenue of sculptured angels, bearing emblematic carvings of the instruments of the Passion of our blessed Lord! As they were both frail, and yet secured the victory, they encourage us to fight "not as one beating the air”—and to run, not as in an uncertainty, but with a secure hope of winning the prize". Peter, and even Judas, were associated in the

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TWO CEDARS OF LEBANON.

Apostleship: how different their ultimate destinies! They were both cedars of Lebanon, planted in the garden of the Church. One denied his Divine Master, the other betrayed Him. The two trees were cut down: the one withered, and was cast into the fire-the other was planted again-its roots were nourished with the tears of penance-it again bore abundant fruits. Courage then, drooping soul!-penance, the merits of Christ's passion, the cheering hope of a blessed immortality, shall be the staff upon which I shall lean on my pilgrimage through life! If I suffer with them, I shall surely reign with them! Though cut down, I shall be planted again. I shall yet bear abundant fruit of virtue!

"Rescissa vegetior assurgit".

Statue of St. Peter.

"CONVERSUS DOMINUS RESPEXIT PETRUM, ET RECORDATUS EST PETRUS VERBI DOMINI, ET EGRESSUS FORAS FLEVIT AMARE.” Luc. xxii. 61. 62.

"And the Lord turning looked on Peter: and Peter remembered the word of the Lord: and going out wept bitterly".

OW much has been effected for Peter by one compassionate look of Jesus! How much has been effected by one look from Jesus silently censuring the delinquent! How great the conversion effected in Peter by his catching merely one glimpse of Jesus in sufferings !" et egressus foras flevit amare"! "And going out he wept bitterly". Behold the salutary fruit of a truly peniten

HE WEPT BITTERLY.

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tial spirit! He went out and wept bitterly! He abandoned his former associates, his former resorts, and all dangerous occasions, and devoted himself so continuously to penitential exercises, and to such a spirit of charity and compunction, that his eyes became red as glaring coals of fire, and two furrows were worn in his cheeks from the unceasing streamlets of tears which trickled from those fountains. O Jesus, "feed me, too, with the

food of tears, and grant me drink of tears in measure"! "Oh, who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes", that not merely when the cock crows, but that day and night, I too, like Peter, may bewail my denial of Christ! O Jesus, cast one compassionate look on me too, that I may be converted, and go out and weep bitterly!

Ah Christian! see Jesus thy Saviour, this instant silently glances on thy soul laden with sin! The angels on the bridge are showing you the whip, the thorns, the nails, the cross, by which he was tortured for love of you! Seize the opportunity instantly! If Peter had not seized the first opportunity, Jesus might not have cast on him a second look of compassion. Then, my soul, now is the time! See His glance full of affection and solicitude! now is the time! Cry out "nunc cœpi"-Ps., lxxvi. 11. O heart of adamant, will not a mere glimpse nd these instruments of His torture melt thy soul to compunction, to tears, and to divine charity? Hitherto the clouds of sin, as in some uncongenial arctic region, have screened from my soul the genial beamings of the sun of righteousness. The spirit of devotion is changed into gelidity. Charity is frozen; and on my soul, as on Alpine reeks, all is desolation, and covered over with the barren blanched glaring masses of the snowfalls of years of delinquency

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THE SEAL OF THE HEART.

and tepidity in God's service! But O Jesus! cast on me, as thou didst on Peter, one look of compassion, and my soul shall be melted as in a furnace of divine love, and shall be dissolved into torrents of fertilizing tears!

"When snows descend, and robe the fields

In winter's bright array,

Touch'd by the sun, the lustre fades,
And weeps itself away"!

Statue of St. Paul.

"EGO ENIM STIGMATA DOMINI JESU IN CORPORE MEO PORTO". Gal., vi. 17.

"For I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body".

Oh! this

AUL was a persecutor-but he cried, "Lord, what willest thou that I should do?" He became a vessel of election! I too have been a rebel-if I present a penitential spirit, and a willing heart, God's grace is sufficient for me also! But St. Paul not only preached Christ crucified -he not only "gloried in the cross of Christ”—but he "bore the crucifixion of Christ in his flesh". is the seal which stamps the soul with a likeness to Christ, and our actions with conformity to the example of Christ. "Pone me ut signaculum super cor tuum, ut signaculum super brachium tuum”—Cant., viii. "Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm". The spouse in the Canticles thereby instructs the bride in the love of resemblance; that there must not only be affection in the

RAPT TO THE THIRD HEAVEN.

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heart, but execution in the will. Jesus Christ is the seal -my soul is the wax. Oh! this the die whose impression stamps the metal as genuine. The coin in the mint is then only negotiable when it is stamped with the image of the prince. That impression signifies that the metal is pure-that it has passed through the ordeal of the fire, of the crucible, under the anvil, and under the hammer, that it has so triumphantly sustained the tests of integrity, that it has proved to be unalloyed. Thus the stamp of Christ upon my soul proves it to be that genuine coin which is precious in heaven. Thus the soul of Paul was likened to Christ. He was likened to his crucifixion, therefore was he likened to his resurrection"! He loved in order to suffer well-He suffered in order to love well-and behold, he merited to learn secrets not given to ordinary mortals to understand he was rapt up to the third heaven! My soul! be thou too softened in the crucible of divine charity, and stamp on thee the seal of Christ, "super cor tuum, super brachium tuum"-" on thine heart and on thine arm". Be likened to his crucifixion, and thou shalt soar above sublunary things like blessed Paul. As those carrier birds loosed in foreign climes, in their eagerness to reach their homes, rise high above the fogs of a lowly atmosphere, ascend above all obstructions of earth and flit up to a more transparent air, whence they may more clearly discern, and pursue without obstruction, their course to their happy destination, so, by mortification and disengagement, thou wilt obtain the liberty and light of children of grace, to wing your way to the home of your heavenly Jerusalem !

"The bird, let loose in eastern skies,

When hastening fondly home,

Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies

Where idle warblers roam.