ides, and drawing nearer and
nearer, under the forms of frightful figures borne on clouds. Then it
was that he said to the three Apostles: 'Stay you here and watch with me.
Pray, lest ye enter into temptation.' Jesus went a few steps to the left,
down a hill, and concealed himself beneath a rock, in a grotto about
six feet deep, while the Apostles remained in a species of hollow
above. The earth sank gradually the further you entered this grotto,
and the plants which were hanging from the rock screened its interior
like a curtain from persons outside.

When Jesus left his disciples, I saw a number of frightful figures
surrounding him in an ever-narrowing circle.

His sorrow and anguish of soul continued to increase, and he was
trembling all over when he entered the grotto to pray, like a wayworn
traveller hurriedly seeking shelter from a sudden storm, but the awful
visions pursued him even there, and became more and more clear and
distinct. Alas! this small cavern appeared to contain the awful picture
of all the sins which had been or were to be committed from the fall of
Adam to the end of the world, and of the punishment which they
deserved. It was here, on Mount Olivet, that Adam and Eve took refuge
when drive out of Paradise to wander homeless on earth, and they had
wept and bewailed themselves in this very grotto.

I felt that Jesus, in delivering himself up to Divine Justice in
satisfaction for the sins of the world, caused his divinity to return,
in some sort, into the bosom of the Holy Trinity, concentrated himself,
so to speak, in his pure, loving and innocent humanity, and strong only
in his ineffable love, gave it up to anguish and suffering.

He fell on his face, overwhelmed with unspeakable sorrow, and all
the sins of the world displayed themselves before him, under countless
forms and in all their real deformity. He took them all upon himself,
and in his prayer offered his own adorable Person to the justice of his
Heavenly Father, in payment for so awful a debt. But Satan, who was
enthroned amid all these horrors, and even filled with diabolical joy
at the sight of them, let loose his fury against Jesus, and displayed
before the eyes of his soul increasingly awful visions, at the same
time addressing his adorable humanity in words such as these: 'Takest
thou even this sin upon thyself? Art thou willing to bear its penalty?
Art thou prepared to satisfy for all these sins?'

And now a long ray of light,