On the day we sailed
another said a special mass for us, and held the day sacred for prayer,
in the convent where her bruised life had been nursed back to moral
beauty. Love had triumphed in them, and I had brought them that love.
I had lived the life, I had tried to do something that Jesus did, and
behold Jesus had come back to me, and I knew His presence with me even
as Francis knew it when he washed the leper's sores, and Catherine when
she gathered to her bosom the murderer's guilty head, drew from him the
confession of his sin, and whispered to him softly of the Lamb of God.
There is no sense of unreality in religion now for me. There are no
weary uncertainties, no melancholy sense of beating the air in what I
teach. He who will try to live the life of Jesus for a single day, and
in such few particulars as may lie within his scope, will at once
realize the presence of Jesus with him. In the practice of love comes
the manifestation of the Lover, the drawing of the soul into the bosom
of that Christ who was the very love of God, and the exchange of our
poor proud carnal heart for the tender heart that yearned over
Magdalene, was moved with compassion for the people, and broke upon the
Cross.
A LOVER OF MEN
_THE CRADLE CROSS_
_"What shall I ask for Thee, my child?"
Said Mary Mother, stooping dawn
Above the Babe all undefiled.
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