"for, defunctus adhuc loquitur, my crucified Son has still many things to say to you."

This is the hour in which He impresses this truth upon us, My yoke is sweet, and My burden light. "Go ask those. loving men who bear My Body: Have I laid a heavy load upon them? Ask any disciple who loves Me whether My yoke is heavy."

D. The Sepulchre was nigh at hand.

"Hearken, My child," our Lord says, for His silent lips are speaking to you :

"Do not envy these chosen ones". For "who is more privileged, they who carry Me in their hands, or you who have Me as your Food?"

E. The Sepulchre was nigh. "Defunctus adhuc loquitur."

66

From His winding-sheet

our Saviour says to us: Why do you stand gazing on My funeral? Have I not said it: Go treat My little ones as reverently and lovingly as these disciples treat Me, and it shall be as if you did all to Me?"

HOLY OBEDIence.

F. The Sepulchre was nigh.

Defunctus adhuc loquitur." His lifeless lips are speaking to us.

"O all you Christian fathers and mothers who pass by, and still more, you Fathers and Mothers who, in monasteries and convents and religious houses, are in charge over My consecrated ones who for My sake have left father and mother, and hence have a right to their hundred-fold-that is, to a hundred times more charity and tenderness, than they have left behind: oh, stay, not a little while, but tarry long, till you fix deeply on your minds and hearts the care, the tenderness, the reverence, the humility, the charity, with which these disciples carry My Body. For you must do according to this model."

To our Guardian Angels, the Lord hath given a commandment concerning us that they bear us in their hands,

even as mothers carry their infants. What are Christian parents and Christian superiors but the guardian angels of their charge? What is to be their constant solicitude? Surely that Christ's little ones committed to their keeping do not strike their foot against the stone of scandal and fall.

G. The Sepulchre was nigh.

If parents and religious superiors can learn from this scene, so may children, and still more, so may those consecrated by vow to obedience, here contemplate with profit. St. Ignatius of Loyola, a great master of obedience, tells us to be in the hands of God's delegates like the Divine corpse in the hands of the bearers. They may carry it whither they will, and it makes no resistance. The lifeless Body here in the winding-sheet is thus our most holy model. Look, and do according to the pattern.

If we vow obedience, and are faithful to our covenant, God on His side will be infinitely faithful: and with a Providence that never sleeps or slumbers will see that our vowed obedience brings us nothing but good. Alas! what multitudes of men have been crushed and ruined under the unbearable and unblessed yoke of slavish obedience to a tyrant! But nothing on earth is more safe or secure, nowhere a shorter or more blessed path to eternal life, than a wise and loving obedience to our Lord in His delegates.

SCENE XI.

THE TOMB.

STATION I.

Joseph laid it in his own new Tomb, which he had hewed out of a rock (St. Matt. xxvii.).

Joseph laid Him in a Sepulchre that was hewed out of a rock (St. Mark xv.).

This man laid Him in a Sepulchre that was hewed in stone, wherein never yet any man had been laid (St. Luke xxiii.). There was in the place, where He was crucified, a garden, and in the garden a new Sepulchre wherein no man yet had been laid. There, therefore, they laid Jesus, because the Sepulchre was nigh at hand (St. John xix.).

1. The Tomb is situated, as has been said, about forty yards from THE STONE OF UNCTION, and a few yards less from the spot where the crosses stood. It stands about fifteen feet lower than the level of Calvary, to the south. St. John's words support the existing tradition as to the site. According to him, the garden in which the new Tomb stood, is in the place where He was crucified: and the Sepulchre was nigh at hand.

2. St. Luke writes: A Sepulchre that was hewed in stone. Some students have understood these words to mean, "built out of hewn stones". But the words of St. Matthew and St. Mark render this interpretation improbable.

St. Matthew writes: A Sepulchre hewed out in a rock; St. Mark, hewed out of a rock.

The tradition so generally accepted agrees better with these words. According to this tradition the Holy Sepulchre was hewed out in a solid rock.

3. As we have seen in former chapters, the tombs in Judea were sometimes like our graves, hollowed out in the ground and covered with a slab; sometimes hewn out of a projecting rock, and with an upright doorway; sometimes, again, they were built of cut stones.

4. The tomb of our Lord is hewn out of the rock, with an upright doorway between three and four feet high.

At the time of the burial it consisted of two parts: an outward vestibule or ante-chamber, about a yard in depth, and then an inward chamber, entered by the low door mentioned above.

The outward porch, or vestibule, was cut away, it is supposed, in St. Helen's time by those who were building the Basilica.

The inward chamber is about nine feet from east to west, that is, from the entrance doorway to the opposite wall, and about seven feet from south to north. The height of the inner chamber was probably about nine feet. Venerable Bede writes that in his time travellers could scarcely touch the ceiling with their lifted hands. The stone bed on which the Sacred Body was laid, stands on the right hand of the entrance door, from east to west; that is, along the right hand wall of the chamber as you enter.

5. A question is discussed whether the Holy Sepulchre remained united with the rock behind, or was detached from it. Some careful writers think that at the time of the burial it was attached to the rock, but was separated and isolated by the builders who worked for St. Helen's Basilica.

6. Some modern critics who assail the traditions regarding the Holy Sepulchre, adduce the argument, that there is no rock on the ground from which the Tomb could have been hewed. The supporters of the tradition answer, that the rock was neces sarily cleared away when the workmen were levelling the ground for the great Basilica.

7. The opponents of the tradition likewise argue that if the Tomb now venerated be the true one, the foundations of the city wall ought to be found at about two hundred or two hundred and fifty feet to the east.

The answer given by careful explorers is that some portions of those foundations have been discovered; but that as the eastern wall of the Basilica stood on the western wall of the city, some of the foundations of the wall were cleared away, and in other parts, the foundations of the wall and the foundations of the Basilica became confounded together.

A. There, therefore, they laid Jesus.

In front, then, of the Holy Tomb they lower the bier. Students of Jewish antiquities tell us that funeral processions, as soon as the bier was laid down, walked round it reciting the 90th Psalm.

We may contemplate this holy company of mourners observing the prescribed rite. We can listen to the Admirable Mother, worthy to be remembered by good men, saying in most devout sorrow: He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of Jacob. And we can listen to the response from tearful and broken voices: He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my Protector and my Refuge; my God, in Thee will I put my trust.

Most attentively we must give ear, and join our hearts with this holy choir as they continue their song of hope.

He hath delivered Me from the snare of the hunters. He will overshadow Thee with His shoulders, and under His wings Thou shall trust.

Thou shalt not be afraid of the terrors of the night; of the arrow that flieth in the day.

There shall no evil come to Thee (now). Neither shall the scourge (any more) come near Thy dwelling.

He hath given His angels charge over Thee. Because He hoped in Me I will deliver Him. I will protect Him because He hath known My name.

I am with Him in tribulation. I will deliver Him, and will glorify Him.

I will fill Him with length of days, and I will show Him My salvation.

B. Joseph laid it in his own new Tomb.

Joseph, therefore, and Nicodemus, bending down enter through the low door into the Tomb, and then the bier is drawn by the others close to the doorway.

With great care and reverence, those outside, without difficulty, lift the emaciated Body and deliver it into the hands of Joseph and Nicodemus inside, who devoutly lay it on its last resting-place; and at once come out, to make room for the Blessed Mother. Helped by John and Magdalen, she bows herself down and enters with them. There she kneels, as they kneel, to adore the Sacred Body.

"Attendite." We must stay here to form, in our poor way, some conception of her holy thoughts.

Most reverently and lovingly she gazed in days gone by on her Child as He lay in the crib. In after years day by day, and hour by hour, her holy eyes rested on Him as He grew in grace with God and with men; and now she kneels and fixes her motherly eyes on the shroud that contains, what we call, the mortal remains of her Son, the lifeless Body of her God.