sorrow like to my sorrow."1 "I looked for one that would grieve together with Me, but there was none, and for one that would comfort Me, and I found none." " Having reached the hill of Calvary, they suspended Him on the cross, and in their efforts to strain His members to their allotted places, His whole frame was almost disjointed and subjected to the most agonising torture. Here their cruelty was again redoubled, and again they renewed their savage and insulting mockeries, while the Mother of our Redeemer stood at the foot of the cross, witnessing the tragic scene. Oh! how every stroke that was inflicted upon Jesus fell upon the tender heart of His Mother; and if there be here the mother of an only child, she can have still but a faint idea of the sharpness of the sword, which pierced the soul of Mary on witnessing the agonies of her dying Son. At length He thirsts, and His unrelenting executioners fulfil the prophecy of the Psalmist by giving Him for a drink gall mixed with vinegar. While His persecutors were discharging on Him the utmost efforts of their rage, Jesus, as if insensible to His own sufferings, feels only for their blindness, and incapable of harbouring any other feeling but charity, He thus pours forth His last dying supplication: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Such was the mercy He prayed for His enemies, and that mercy He exhibited towards one of the thieves who expired with Him on the cross. Struck with the meekness and dignity with which Christ supported His torments, He confessed the divinity of the Redeemer.

But while we admire the mercy of Jesus to the penitent thief, we must pause to reprobate the presumptuous impiety of those who abuse the example of the penitent thief to expect the grace of a death-bed repentance. I

know not what to wonder at most, the folly or the impiety of those people. If a solitary instance of such a conversion occur in the sacred writings, amidst circumstances without example, what grounds have we to expect a similar mercy? Did the penitent thief abuse the same graces which are daily rejected by Christians? Did he repeatedly relapse into sin after having been favoured with a reconciliation? It is true, however, that the dying thief was converted. Yes; but let it be recollected that it was in the midst of the most awful and unheard of prodigies. Let, then, those, who calculate on the miraculous grace of a death-bed conversion expect that the sun will be again veiled in darkness, that the rocks will be rent asunder, and the earth tremble to its centre, that the dead will awaken, and their frightful apparitions stalk abroad in noonday. Let them, in fine, expect the same prodigies that attested that the Author of nature was expiring, and then may they expect the more supernatural prodigy of a death-bed repentance. . . . The types and figures of the Old Law were now abolished, the ancient prophecies were fulfilled, the expiation of sin was perfected, and in the infinite ransom which was now paid to the Divine Justice, man was finally liberated from the dominion of sin and Satan.

What, now, is the conclusion which we should draw from our Redeemer's passion? While you were pursuing with me the tragic history of His sufferings, what was the train of feeling which it awakened in your minds? Doubtless, your bosoms glowed with a noble resentment against the savage executioners who were insensible to pity, while the sun veiled in darkness, the earth shaken to its centre, rocks rent asunder, and, in fine, the agitation of nature, more feeling than man, seemed to sympathise with the agonies of its God. And

who were those executioners whose cruelty thus excited the revolt of the elements? Your sins; yes, your sins were the executioners; nor is there any among you who could say that he was innocent of His blood. How applicable, then, to you are the words of my text, and howjustly may I tell you, while you weep over the sufferings of Jesus, to weep for yourselves and your children. Do; weep, lest He should have suffered for you in vain, and lest, by an obstinate resistance to His grace, you make void the blood of His covenant. Recollect that though He has paid our ransom, He still expects our co-operation. You are redeemed by a great price, says St Peter; learn, therefore, the importance of your salvation, and from the greatness of the price do not fail to estimate the value of the purchase. If you do, Christ will assist you by His powerful grace. "For if," as the Apostle says, "while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled shall we be saved by His life."1 What grace can He refuse us after having given already the treasure of His blood for our redemption? "Let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of grace," and beseech our High Priest, by His agony in the garden, by the thorns which pierced His temples, and by the spear which opened His sacred side; in short, by the torrents of mercy that flowed from His passion, to make us partakers in His merits and be numbered the last day amongst the trophies of His redemption. Amen.

2

ST. PATRICK'S DAY.

"We are the children of the saints, and look for that life which God will give to those who change not their faith from Him."-TOBIAS, ii. 18.

AMONG the various trials through which Ireland has passed, and may be still fated to endure, it has, in the recollection of the past, and in the hope of the future, one of the richest sources of human enjoyment. The records of an honourable lineage must console the humblest descendant who is conscious of not tarnishing the lustre of his name, and when there is hope it is capable of lighting up the horrors of a dungeon. Between those two lights it was the consolation of Ireland to walk in the darkest days of her adversity. By the past I mean not the glories of a profane and remote antiquity, on which the world dwells with rapture, but I mean the more valuable claims of a sainted heraldry, by which our people have been so signally distinguished. Whilst they contemplated the illustrious models, which their Church in every age held out to them, they were endued with courage to brave every persecution; and when, like the old Tobias, their devotion to their God was made a subject of bitter raillery, their piety rose superior to every provocation, and, like him, they exclaimed, "We are the children of saints, and look for that life which God will give to those who change not their faith from Him." Happy people, who have preserved with such fidelity the precious legacy bequeathed to them by our great national Apostle! I

purpose, then, in this discourse to give a brief outline of his life and labours, and then to take a rapid glance at the various fortunes of the Irish Church, still so steadfast in the faith which he planted.

It has been the fate of St. Patrick, like that of other eminent men, to have rival nations contending for the honour of being the place of his nativity. It is no wonder the steps of boyhood, light and bounding as the spirits that guide them, seldom leave a sufficiently deep impression for the historian to track them by; and few there are, like St. John of God, over whose birth a heavenly light is seen to play, to direct the biographer through the earlier stages of his life. Our best guides in this question are his own confessions, and a metrical life of the Apostle by Fiech, one of his episcopal disciples. He tells us himself, in clear and distinct terms, where he was born; but, to a modern ear, more accustomed to the Saxon tongue than to the venerable language in which those confessions were written, the simple expression of the words would not decide the controversy. Much ingenuity has been resorted to in giving them interpretations of which they are not naturally susceptible, in order to confirm the opinions of the respective advocates of Scotland and of Gaul.

But notwithstanding the process of refinement to which they have been subjected, enough of their ancient form still remains to determine every intelligent and unprejudiced antiquarian in favour of the opinion that assigns the birth of St. Patrick to the northern provinces of France. But why occupy your time or patience upon a point which can have but little influence on the object for which you are assembled? It matters little where the Saint was born, since he is one of those extraordinary individuals that are sent by Providence to bless mankind at distant intervals, and who, on that