feel that one great heart throbs for us with the unreasoning love of a mother for her scapegrace boy, of a father for his prodigal son; searches after us as perseveringly as the woman after the lost groat, goes after us as the shepherd after the lost sheep, and brings us home exultingly. Christ's charity is the sunlight of the world. It shines impartially on the good and bad; as well as on those who close their eyes to the light as on those awake to grace. The merely human eye is dazzled with it, and appreciates it better from a study of its created reflection. Love alone can enkindle love. There was nothing attractive in Christ's surroundings or history — the manger, the cabin, the cross, persecution, death, and yet humanity answers with St. Peter: " Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee." The Apostles suffered and died for love, love inspired the Crusades, it was the love of Christ that sustained the martyrs amid their torments; it was the battle-cry of the Christian legions in their onset on the hordes of barbarism; it rent the fetters from the limbs of the slaves; it is food and drink for the missionary in the wilds of the wilderness; it is a shield for the gentle nun amid the horrors of the battlefield; it is the secret of every heroic sacrifice, the corner-stone of every institution of Christian charity; it is the love of Christ that with steady hand has built in modern society the noble edifice of fraternal love on the demolished ruins of selfish interest. We can best appreciate the love of the Sacred Heart for men from the love of men for the Sacred Heart. " I came," says Christ, " to cast
