of affection (a stronger than which could not possibly be found) the love of men: "God was made man, that God might be more familiarly loved by man." It seems that our Redeemer wished to signify this very thing to a devout Franciscan called Father Francis of St. James, as is related in the Franciscan Diary for the 15th of December. Jesus frequently appeared to him as a lovely infant: but the holy friar longing in his fervor to hold him in his arms, the sweet child always fled away; wherefore the servant of God lovingly complained of these departures. One day the Divine Child again appeared to him; but how? He came with golden chains in His hands, to give him to understand that now he came make him His prisoner, and to be Himself imprisoned by him, nevermore to be separated. Francis, emboldened at this, fastened the chains to the foot of the Infant, and bound Him round his heart; and, in good truth, from that time forward it seemed to him as if he saw the beloved Child in the prison of his heart made a perpetual prisoner. That which Jesus did with this His servant on this occasion, He really has done with all men when He was made Man; He wished with such a prodigy of love to be, as it were, enchained by us, and at the same time to enchain our hearts by obliging them to love Him, according to the prophecy of Osee: I will draw them with the cords of Adam, with the bands if love.
In divers ways, says St. Leo, had God already benefited man; but in no way has He more clearly exhibited the excess of His bounty than in sending him a Redeemer to teach him the way of salvation, and to procure for him the life of grace. "The goodness of God has imparted gifts to the human race in various ways;
