he
gutters of Rome? Are the names of any statesmen of, let us say, even a
hundred years ago, reverenced and repeated as is the name of the woman
of Spain called Teresa of Jesus who, four hundred years ago, ruled a few
nuns within the enclosure of a convent? Are any musicians or artists
loved to-day with such rapture as is God's little troubadour, called
Francis, who made music for himself and the angels by rubbing one stick
across another?

Or, again, is any empire that the world has ever seen so great, so
loyally united in itself, so universal and yet so rigorous as is that
spiritual empire whose capital is Rome? Is there any nation with so
fierce a patriotism as she who is Supernational? Earthly kings speak
from their thrones and what happens? And an old man in Rome who wears
three crowns on his head speaks from his prison in the Vatican and all
the earth rings with it.

Has her policy, then, been so suicidal after all? From the world's point
of view it has never been anything else. Her history is but one long
example of the sacrifice of human activities and earthly opportunities;
she has expelled from her pulpits the most brilliant of her children,
she has silenced or alienated the most eloquent of her defenders. She
has cut off from herself all that she should have kept, and hugged to
her arms all that she should have relinquished! She has never done
anything but die! She never does anything but live!

III. Turn, then, to the life of her Lord for the solution of this
riddle. Last week[1] He was going to His Death. He was losing, little by
little, all that bound Him to Life. The multitudes that had followed Him
hitherto were leaving Him by units and groups, they who might have
formed His armies to seat Him on the throne of His father David.
Disloyalty had made its way even among His chosen body-guard, and
already Judas is bargaining for the price of His Master's blood. Even
the most loyal of all are dismayed, and presently will _forsake Him and
flee_ when the swords flash out in the garden of Gethsemane. A few weeks
ago in Galilee thousands were leaving Him for the last time; and when,
once again, a company seemed to rally, He wept! And so at last the
sacrifice was complete and, one by one, He laid down of His own will
every tie that kept Him in life. And then on Good Friday itself He
suffered that beauty of His _Face to be marred_ so that no man would
ever _desire Him_ any more, silenced the melody of the Voice t