harder than the very rocks themselves; he wept over their un fortunate metropolis, which, after murdering so many holy Prophets, was to be in a short time the theatre of his bloody passion. He hastened towards it, indeed, in triumph, to shew how willing he was to lay down his life for the salvation of mankind, and that he was no way terrified at the foresight of the bitter torments and most ignominious death prepared there for him; but as if he forgot himself, and was regardless of his own sufferings, he only fixed his eyes and thoughts on Jerusalem; he considered that that was the last day of mercy and vocation that would be offered to it, and foreseeing the miseries and calamities which its inhabitants were to endure in punishment of their notorious ingratitude and obstinacy, he could not forbear breaking out into sighs and tears. O wonderful charity of our divine Jesus! His compassion for that sinful city was an emblem of his pity on sinners, and demonstrates his sincere desire of the conversion of those, who, like Jerusalem, are insensible of their own sad condition, rebellious to God's grace, and deaf to the fatherly admonitions whereby he calls them to repentance; for, in weeping over Jerusalem, we are not to suppose that it was over the stately palaces and holy buildings, but over the people of Jerusalem that Jesus wept. It was over you he wept, O sinners, who let loose the reigns of your unruly passions, who put off your conversion from day to day, and like Jerusalem, neglect the favourable time and the precious moments of your visitation. He wept over you, O wordlings, who are so strangely infatuated with the deceitful charms and fawning pleasures of life, as not to see your folly, not to think of your future misery, nor guard against your approaching ruin; but be no longer deceived; unless you be converted to the Lord, the day shall come when your enemies will encompass you on every side, as was the case of Jerusalem; the day shall come when God's severe justice will overtake you, and cut you off the face of the earth, perhaps in the midst of your career; the day shall come when legions of infernal spirits will enclose you at the hour of death, in order to hurry you away to endless flames. These were the reflections which made so deep an impression on the tender heart of Jesus, and drew tears from his eyes; and did you but know, even at this day, as the Gospel says, that peace and reconciliation which God offers you, you would also weep and mingle your tears with the tears of Jesus. In effect, to see the Son of God weeping for us sinners, ought to melt our hearts into compunction, and to draw streams of tears from our eyes; for we must be harder than rocks, and insensible to the highest degree, if we can behold him pouring fourth torrents for our sake, and at the same time remain so callous and unconcerned, as not to drop a single penitential tear to lament and wash away our sins, which afflicted him in so sensible a manner, though it was not his interest, but ours that affected him; for whether we be saved or

damned, his happiness will neither admit of increase or decrease; but, alas! if we happen to die impenitent, in our sins, we shall be utterly lost and undone for ever, and justly condemned to be the fuel of unquenchable flames. St. John Chrysostom says, that Jesus wept for nothing but for sin. If he could weep now in Paradise, were he still susceptible of grief, and if sorrow was compatible with the glory he possesses in Heaven, he would shed tears in abundance for the multitude of crying mortal sins that are daily and hourly committed on earth. O mortal sin, thou detestable evil, thou infernal monster and foul progeny of hell! how enormous must thou be, since nothing else was able to force sighs from the heart, sobs from the mouth, and tears from the eyes of our sweet Redeemer! I was already convinced of thy enormity by the eternal pains due to thee in hell's devouring flames; but when I consider the deep impression thou hast made, and the effect thou hast produced in the person of my Saviour, I am more fully convinced of thy baseness, and made more sensible of thy grievousness.

The Gospel informs us, that when Jesus went with Mary and Martha to the monument, in order to raise their brother Lazarus to life, he stood over the grave, he sighed, he moaned, he was greatly troubled and touched with sorrow, he cried out with a loud voice and wept, John, c. xi. v. 35. But what, do you imagine, troubled and afflicted him in so surprising a manner? O Christians, it was for you and for me that Jesus then wept and moaned; it was for your crying sins, your curses and blasphemies, your debaucheries and criminal excesses, that he was sensibly afflicted. In the person of Lazarus, who was four days dead, buried and corrupted, and who had his hands and feet bound with winding bands, and his face tied with a napkin, he lamented the melancholy state of all inveterate and habitual sinners, whereof Lazarus was a striking figure, and whose unhappy souls lie dead, buried, and infected in the grave of mortal sin, not four days only, but several months and years together, without any serious notion of awaking from their lethargic sleep, or of breaking the fetters and chains that hold them in bondage, and keep them under the tyrannical empire of the devil. It was his compassion for such impenitent sinners, and the fore-knowledge he had of their future misery in hell, that drew these tears from the eyes of our loving Jesus, and almost broke his heart. He foresaw that all his labours and fatigues would prove useless to them, on account of their own obstinacy and hardness of heart; he considered that his precious blood was to be spilt in vain for thousands of sinners, who, through their own perverseness would perish eternally, notwithstanding his bitter death and passion. These reflections made our tender-hearted Redeemer weep when he stood over the monument of Lazarus; they made him also weep when he entered Jerusalem; and again,

when the first scene of his passion commenced in the Gardens of Olives. Then, as the Gospel relates, his soul was sorrowful even unto death; then, not content to weep for our sins with the eyes nature had furnished him with, he wept and poured forth tears and streams of blood through every pore of his sacred body. Can we think of this, my brethren, without blushing at our own insensibility? Can we reflect that our sins, our crying sins, overwhelmed our Divine Redeemer with such an heavy load of sorrow and affliction, and refuse to join our tears with his ?

But, O strange hardness of our stony hearts? We lament what we ought not to lament, and we remain unconcerned for what ought to give us the greatest concern; we repine and grieve immoderately at the loss of a law-suit or of the perishable goods of fortune, and we regret not the loss of God's love and friendship, which is the greatest of all losses. The corporal death of a near relation, of a favourite child, or of a bosom friend, is apt to render many persons inconsolable, says St. Cyprian, whilst the spiritual death of their own souls, lying in the grave of mortal sin, makes little or no impression upon their hearts, though the death of the soul is the greatest evil that can befal a Christian in this life. This was the case of St. Augustine before his conversion; he could not forbear weeping when he read the mournful description that Virgil the Poet gives of the death of the famous Queen Dido; and yet, at the same time, the death of his own soul gave him not the least uneasiness. Hear himself, in the first Book of his Confessions, c. 13. bewailing his folly in the following words: I filled my head, says he, with the wanderings of Aneas, whilst I forgot. my own errors, whereby I wandered away from thee, O Lord, like a strayed sheep in the wilderness. I shed many tears for the death of Dido, who killed herself for love, when, in the mean while, wretched creature as I was, I passed by, with dry eyes, my own self-dying from thee, O my God, my life, and the light of my heart. But, alas! what is more miserable than for one who is in misery to have no commisseration for himself, or to weep for the death of others, and not to lament his own spiritual death, or weep for his sins, which rob his soul of the life of grace?

It was for this reason that our Saviour, carrying his cross on his bleeding shoulders towards Mount Calvary, and seeing some pious women in the crowd weeping and bewailing his condition, he turned towards them and said, Luke, c. xxiii. Daughters of Jerusalem weep not over me, but weep over yourselves and over your children; as if he had said, If you have tears to spare, reserve them for another use, shed them for your sins; for if they do these things in green wood, what will be done in the dry? If the just are treated with such se-.. verity, what will become of the wicked, who like unto dry. wood bring forth no fruit, and are only fit to be cast into the.

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fire to burn? Behold the day will come in which it shall be said, Happy they that are barren, and the breasts that have not given suck. The day will come when the Lord shall reduce the earth into a wilderness, and crush the sinners thereof into pieces; then, ready to sink into the ground with shame, and wishing to hide themselves from the face of their angry Judge, they will begin to lament their uphappy fate, but their lamentations and tears will turn to no account; their prayers and entreaties will be of no service; for the reign of mercy will be expired, and justice alone will sit on the bench. Impenitent sinners, who now refuse to lament their sins with penitential tears, will be confounded, then, at the thoughts of their insensibility and fatal blindness; they will be convinced, by woeful experience, of the dangerous and dreadful consequences of procrastinating their conversion, of abusing God's mercy, of rejecting his gracious calls, and neglecting the favourable time and the precious moments of their visitation. Jerusalem, unfortunate Jerusalem, thou art a terrible instance hereof! That unhappy city, which was a figure of a sinful soul, had many signal favours conferred upon it. After several holy Prophets had been sent to it in vain, Jesus Christ himself in person vouchsafed to honour it with his presence, his preaching and his miracles. He was pleased to visit it in the days of mercy, and to invite it to repentance with these most affectionate words: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I been willing to gather thy children together as the hen gathers her chickens under her wings? But Jerusalem repaid all these favours with ingratitude; it murdered the Prophets of the Lord, and stoned those to death who were sent to it by the Father of Mercies; it refused obstinately to correspond with God's graces, slighted his merciful invitations to repentance, and neglected the precious time of its visitation; wherefore, God's justice taking place of his mercy, in punishment of its obstinacy, it was delivered over to the fury of its enemies forty days after the passion of our Saviour; so long a time was given unto Jerusalem to repent; that city was besieged, taken, ransacked, burnt, overthrown and leveled with the ground by the Roman Emperors Titus and Vespasian; the magnificent Temple of Solomon was reduced to an heap of rubbish, and of all the lofty towers and palaces not one stone was left upon another.

Thou didst foresee this, O sweetest Jesus, long before it happened, and therefore thou didst weep over Jerusalem, or rather over all impenitent and obstinate sinners, who were prefigured by it, and who, like Jerusalem, are deaf to God's calls, harden their hearts and resist the inspirations of the Holy Ghost; but the day, alas! will come, when they shall learn to their inexpressible sorrow, that the sad disaster of Jerusalem was but a feeble representation of the punishment prepared for them in the scorching flames of hell. These

things are now hidden from them, as the Gospel says; but then their eyes will be opened, and they shall acknowledge when it will be too late, that the visible judgments and scourges that fell on Jerusalem, were scarce a shadow of the dreadful torments reserved in the next life for those who neglect the favourable opportunities that God's infinite goodness affords them to do penance for their sins in this life. I heartily wish, my brethren, that the Lord may preserve you all from ever having an experimental knowledge hereof, and therefore I conjure you to mingle your penitential tears, this day, with, the tears of your compassionate and tender-hearted Redeemer. It is better for you to weep in time, than to weep in vain for all eternity in hell. Remember, that one single mortal sin is enough to make a sinner weep for an eternity. Remember, that one single tear now will avail you more, than a whole torrent of tears will avail you hereafter. Let the world then rejoice, its joy will terminate in sorrow. Do you grieve and weep for your sins, and your grief will be changed into joy, John, c. xvi. Tears, like the tears of David, says St. John Chrysostom, are able to quench the flames of hell; they are a most powerful means to move the Father of Mercies to wash away, with his divine grace, the blackest stains of your sins, and to render your souls as white as the driven snow. He calls upon you, this day, to return to him without further delay; his arms are open to embrace you; his head is bowed down to give you the kiss of peace; his side is open to give you admittance to his loving heart. Let me then entreat you to harden your hearts no longer, but to seek the Lord while he may be found, and to invoke him while he is near unto you, Isai. c. lv. Perhaps this very time is the precious moment of your visitation; perhaps it is the happy moment that Heaven has destined from all eternity for your conversion, O unfortunate sinners, who for several years past have been entangling yourselves in a labyrinth of criminal disorders; perhaps this is the last call that will be given you, and the last time that an offer of mercy, grace and salvation, will be ever made to you. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem; O sinful soul, be therefore sincerely and speedily converted to the Lord your Be converted, he says, through the mouth of the Prophet Ezechiel, c. xxxi. v. 21. Be converted from your evil ways; and why will you die, O house of Israel? Your conversion will edify the Church militant on earth, and cause joy among the Angels in the Church triumphant in Heaven; for, as the Gospel assures us, there is more joy in Heaven before the Angels of God, over one sinner that does penance, than over ninety-nine just who stand not in need of penance, Luke, c. xv. v. 7. Jesus Christ, your Divine Redeemer, declares, Mat. ix. that he did not come to call the just, but sinners, to repentance; and compares himself to a shepherd, who, having lost one of his sheep went in search of it, and having found it