and hand, violently drag him towards the left side, in order to nail that hand also to the place designed for it. Then pulling down his legs, they fastened bis sacred feet in like manner with nails to the wood: and all this with such violent cruelty, that, it is thought, with stretching and pulling they very much strained his whole body, and disjointed it in many parts, according to that of the royal prophet: They have dug my hands and feet; they have numbered all my bones. Ps. xxi. Ah! Christians, if the contracting or piercing of any one nerve or sinew, if the disjointing or displacing of any one bone, ever so small, is so cruel a torture, what must we think of the torments which our Saviour endured in his disjointed body? What must we think of what he suffered, when his hands and feet, where so many sinews, muscles, veins and bones all meet, were violently bored through with gross nails! Oh! let us never cease to admire, adore, and love his mercy.
THE THIRTIETH DAY.
Our Saviour on the cross.
CONSIDER how the bloody executioners, having now nailed our Saviour fast to the cross, begin with ropes to raise him up in the air. O! what shouts did his enemies now make, when he appeared above the people's heads. With what blasphemies did they salute him, whilst his most afflicted mother, and other devout friends are pierced to the heart at the sight! At length they let the foot of the cross fall into the hole prepared for it, with a jolt, by which our Saviour's mangled body was not a little injured, and the wounds of his hands and feet widened, and thus he now hangs, poised in the air, in most dreadful pangs and torments, the whole weight of his body sustained by his pierced hands and feet, by which
