on the
rock on which he fell, and these impressions were afterwards shown for
the veneration of Christians. These stones were less hard than the
unbelieving hearts of the wicked men who surrounded Jesus, and bore
witness at this terrible moment to the Divine Power which had touched
them.

I had not seen Jesus take anything to quench the thirst which had
consumed him ever since his agony in the garden, but he drank when he
fell into the Cedron, and I heard him repeat these words from the
prophetic Psalm, 'In his thirst he will drink water from the torrent'
(Psalm 108).

The archers still held the ends of the ropes with which Jesus was
bound, but it would have been difficult to drag him out of the water on
that side, on account of a wall which was built on the shore; they
turned back and dragged him quite through the Cedron to the shore, and
then made him cross the bridge a second time, accompanying their every
action with insults, blasphemies, and blows. His long woollen garment,
which was quite soaked through, adhered to his legs, impeded every
movement, and rendered it almost impossible for him to walk, and when
he reached the end of the bridge he fell quite down. They pulled him up
again in the most cruel manner, struck him with cords, and fastened the
ends of his wet garment to the belt, abusing him at the same time in
the most cowardly manner. It was not quite midnight when I saw the four
archers inhumanly dragging Jesus over a narrow path, which was choked
up with stones, garments of rock, thistles, and thorns, on the opposite
shore of the Cedron. The six brutal Pharisees walked as close to our
Lord as they could, struck him constantly with thick pointed sticks,
and seeing that his bare and bleeding feet were torn by the stones and
briars, exclaimed scornfully: 'His precursor, John the Baptist, has
certainly not prepared a good path for him here;' or, 'The words of
Malachy, "Behold, I send my angel before thy face, to prepare the way
before thee," do not exactly apply now.' Every jest uttered by these men
incited the archers to greater cruelty.

The enemies of Jesus remarked that several persons made their
appearance in the distance; they were only disciples who had assembled
when they heard that their Master was arrested, and who were anxious to
discover what the end would be; but the sight of them rendered the
Pharisees uneasy, lest any attempt should be made to rescue Jesus, and
they therefore sent for a re