came to their assistance. It
taught that all men are God's children, that slaves as well as masters
were redeemed by Jesus Christ, and that masters must be kind and just to
their slaves. Many converts from paganism through love for Our Lord and
this teaching of the Church, granted liberty to their slaves; and thus
as civilization spread with the teaching of Christianity, slavery ceased
to exist. It was not in the power of the Church, however, to abolish
slavery everywhere, but she did it as soon as she could. Even at present
she is fighting hard to protect the poor Negroes of Africa against it,
or at least to moderate its cruelty. (3) The third Sorrowful Mystery is
the crowning with thorns. (4) The carriage of the Cross to Calvary. It
was the common practice to make the prisoner at times carry his cross to
the place of execution, and over the cross they printed what he was put
to death for. That is the reason they placed over Our Lord's cross
I.N.R.I., which are the first letters of four Latin words meaning,
"Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." They pretended by this sign that
Our Lord was put to death for calling Himself King of the Jews, and was
thus a disturber of the public peace, and an enemy of the Roman emperor
under whose power they were. Our Lord did say that He was King of the
Jews, but He also said that He was not their earthly but their heavenly
king. The real cause of their putting Our Lord to death was the jealousy
of the Jewish priests and Pharisees. He rebuked them for their faults,
and showed the good, sincere people what hypocrites these men were. (5)
The last of the Sorrowful Mysteries is the Crucifixion. At the foot of
the Cross our blessed Mother stood on the day of Crucifixion, and it
must have been a very sad sight for Our Lord. She was without anyone to
take care of her; for St. Joseph was dead, and her Son was soon to die.
Our Lord asked St. John, one of His Apostles, to take care of her. St.
John was dear to Christ, and on that account is called the beloved
disciple. He is known to us as St. John the Evangelist. He was the last
of the Apostles to die. At one time he was cast into a cauldron of
boiling oil, but was miraculously saved by God (see Butler's Lives of
the Saints, Dec. 27). He lived to be over a hundred years old, and while
on the island of Patmos wrote the Apocalypse or Revelations--the last
book of the New Testament--containing prophecies of what will happen at
the end of the world.